NSA Intercepted New Laptops to Install Spy Malware

[mouse]

Reports from Der Spiegel have suggested that the NSA’s elite hacking unit (TAO), has gone to serious lengths to spy on unsuspecting victims. The reports, which are based on internal NSA documents, indicate that shipping deliveries of laptops and other computer accessories, are regularly intercepted and implanted with bugs, all before they reach their intended destination.

http://techbeat.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/laptop.jpg

Der Spiegel claims that the TAO group can divert shipments to “secret workshops”. It is here that the devices are loaded with malware or malicious hardware, which then gives US intelligence agencies remote access. All of this is done in collaboration with the CIA and FBI.

It would seem that to accomplish this invasion, the NSA uses a product codenamed COTTONMOUTH, which is a USB “hardware implant” that is able to give the NSA remote access to the device without anyone knowing. Der Spiegel says that the agency gets this tool from a “mail order spy catalog”, which offers a way into hardware and software belonging to some of the big names in the technology market, including Samsung, Huawei, Dell and Cisco.

The report also suggests that the NSA can intercept Microsoft Windows error reports, determine what the problem is and then attack it with Trojans or some other malware.

US companies have spoken out about the reports of NSA tampering, with Cisco’s senior vice president John Stewart saying “we are deeply concerned with anything that may impact the integrity of our products or our customers’ networks,” and that the company does “not work with any government to weaken our products for exploitation.”

Recently a US federal judge ruled that the NSA’s collection of telephone data was unlawful, which will add to the already growing pressure on the agency from the public, Congress and federal courts.

[boutons_deux]

NSA seizes full control of targeted iPhones via DROPOUTJEEP malware
http://www.slashgear.com/nsa-seizes-full-control-of-targeted-iphones-via-dropoutjeep-malware-30310448/

[boutons_deux]

Glenn Greenwald: The NSA Can 'Literally Watch Every Keystroke You Make'

'TAO is basically a unit that is designed to cultivate the most advanced hacking operations and skills of any unit, any entity on the Earth.'

Glenn Greenwald: Sure. I think everybody knows by now, or at least I hope they do after the last seven months reporting, that the goal of the NSA really is the elimination of privacy worldwide — not hyperbole, not metaphor, that’s literally their goal, is to make sure that all human communications that take place electronically are collected and then stored by the NSA and susceptible to being monitored and analyzed. But the specifics are still really important to illustrate just the scope and invasiveness and the dangers presented by this secret surveillance system.

And what the Der Spiegel article details is that one of the things that the NSA is really adept at doing is implanting in various machines — computers, laptops, even cellphones and the like — malware. And malware is essentially a program that allows the NSA, in the terminology that hackers use, to own the machine.

So, no matter how much encryption you use, no matter how much you safeguard your communication with passwords and other things, this malware allows the NSA to literally watch every keystroke that you make, to get screen captures of what it is that you’re doing, to circumvent all forms of encryption and other barriers to your communications.

And one of the ways that they’re doing it is that they intercept products in transit, such as if you order a laptop or other forms of Internet routers or servers and the like, they intercept it in transit, open the box, implant the malware, factory-seal it and then send it back to the user.

They also exploit weaknesses in Google and YouTube and Yahoo and other services, as well, in order to implant these devices. It’s unclear to what extent, if at all, the companies even know about it, let alone cooperate in it.

But what is clear is that they’ve been able to compromise the physical machines themselves, so that it makes no difference what precautions you take in terms of safeguarding the sanctity of your online activity.

http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/glenn-greenwald-nsa-can-literally-watch-every-keystroke-you-make?akid=11347.187590.QSY4Ty&rd=1&src=newsletter941851&t=9

[TDMVPDPOY]

keyloggers record every keystroke with or without data being sent online...

now with all these private date, im surprise the govt hasnt benefit it at all from a financial pov...insider trading?

[boutons_deux]

keyloggers record every keystroke with or without data being sent online...

now with all these private date, im surprise the govt hasnt benefit it at all from a financial pov...insider trading?

yep, tax evading corps and wealthy, none of them can be caught by the NSA/CIA?

NSA probably knows the UCA/1% have an armies of $1M lawyers.

Also, NSA/CIA don't consider tax evades like Romney, financial fraud, Medicare/Medicaid fraud, commodity speculators, LIBOR cheaters, etc, etc to be threats to national security.

Certainly the CIA/NSA personnel use the financial, security, private info they do collect to advance their own financial gains.

[Winehole23]

Sometimes when I hear public officials speaking out in defense of NSA spying, I can’t help thinking, even if just for a moment, “what if the NSA has something on that person and that’s why he or she is saying this?”

Of course it’s natural, when people disagree with you, to at least briefly think, “they couldn’t possibly really believe that, there must be some outside power forcing them to take that position.” Mostly I do not believe that anything like that is now going on.
But I cannot be 100% sure, and therein lies the problem. The breadth of the NSA’s newly revealed capabilities makes the emergence of such suspicions in our society inevitable. Especially given that we are far, far away from having the kinds of oversight mechanisms in place that would provide ironclad assurance that these vast powers won’t be abused. And that highlights the highly corrosive nature of allowing the NSA such powers. Everyone has dark suspicions about their political opponents from time to time, and Americans are highly distrustful of government in general. When there is any opening at all for members of the public to suspect that officials from the legislative and judicial branches could be vulnerable to leverage from secretive agencies within the executive branch—and when those officials can even suspect they might be subject to leverage—that is a serious problem for our democracy.
There has already been prominent speculation about this threat. David Sirota explicitly mulled the subject in this (paywalled) piece (https://www.nsfwcorp.com/dispatch/saying-boo-to-a-ghost-it-s-no-secret-why-congress/f3cf4b5670fff686e04e6a27898d3230b64b808e/), as have writers at Firedoglake (http://news.firedoglake.com/2013/08/28/nsa-has-been-spying-on-members-of-congress-for-a-long-time/) and TechDirt (http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130912/10014924499/why-nsa-must-be-reined.shtml). Whistleblower Russell Tice has also alleged (http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2013/06/nsa-whistleblower-nsa-spying-on-and-blackmailing-high-level-government-officials-and-military-officers.html) that while at the agency he saw wiretap information for members of Congress and the judiciary firsthand. Such fears explain why it is considered an especially serious matter any time elected or judicial officials are eavesdropped upon. The New York Times reported (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/16/us/16nsa.html?pagewanted=all) in 2009 that some NSA officials had tried to wiretap a member of Congress without a warrant. Members of Congress (and perhaps the judiciary) surely also noted a Washington Post report (http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2013-08-15/world/41431831_1_washington-post-national-security-agency-documents) based on Snowden documents that the NSA had intercepted a “large number” of calls from the Washington DC area code due to a “programming error.”


Dark suspicions about the NSA will also draw powerful support from the historical record. Already a sitting U.S. Senator has invoked (http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/monitor_breakfast/2013/0716/Sen.-Carl-Levin-imagines-NSA-phone-tracking-in-hands-of-J.-Edgar-Hoover) the memory of J. Edgar Hoover as a means of expressing misgivings about NSA spying. It can be useful to recall the history with a little detail. Journalist Ronald Kessler describes (http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/08/02/fbi-director-hoover-s-dirty-files-excerpt-from-ronald-kessler-s-the-secrets-of-the-fbi.html) the former FBI director’s M.O. in his book on Hoover:

“The moment [Hoover] would get something on a senator,” said William Sullivan, who became the number three official in the bureau under Hoover, “he’d send one of the errand boys up and advise the senator that ‘we’re in the course of an investigation, and we by chance happened to come up with this data on your daughter. But we wanted you to know this. We realize you’d want to know it.’ Well, Jesus, what does that tell the senator? From that time on, the senator’s right in his pocket.”

Lawrence J. Heim, who was in the Crime Records Division, confirmed to me that the bureau sent agents to tell members of Congress that Hoover had picked up derogatory information on them.

“He [Hoover] would send someone over on a very confidential basis,” Heim said. As an example, if the Metropolitan Police in Washington had picked up evidence of homosexuality, “he [Hoover] would have him say, ‘This activity is known by the Metropolitan Police Department and some of our informants, and it is in your best interests to know this.’ But nobody has ever claimed to have been blackmailed. You can deduce what you want from that.”
Even in 1945, a month after taking office, President Truman wrote (http://books.google.com/books?id=HpUaYvBsW-MC&pg=PT126&lpg=PT126) of Hoover’s FBI, “We want no Gestapo or Secret Police. FBI is tending in that direction. They are dabbling in sex life scandals and plain blackmail.” Two years later he observed (http://books.google.com/books?id=HpUaYvBsW-MC&lpg=PT126&pg=PT136), “all Congressmen and Senators are afraid of him.”


It wasn’t just the FBI. In the 1970s, for example, the “intelligence” division of the Chicago Police Department similarly engaged in widespread institutionalized blackmail efforts. “A principal tactic of this operation was the dissemination of file material for the purpose of doing damage to targets held in disfavor,” writes Frank Donner in his chronicle of Cold War-era police repression, Protectors of Privilege. To take just one example: the police carried out intensive surveillance of the personal life of the director of the Community Renewal Society (CRS), a do-good religious organization aimed at improving inner-city life—as well as hundreds of others involved with the group. The reason? Because the organization had “views and goals diametrically opposed to those of the administration of this city.” A columnist quoted an unnamed insider as saying about one target, “They wanted to see if they could get something on him that was dirty… something out of his personal life that would be used to discredit him…. There wasn’t a move he made that they didn’t know about.” Documents later revealed that at least some of these investigations were ordered directly by the mayor’s office.


When a coalition of civic, religious, and community groups in Chicago called the AER started a campaign to uncover and litigate against these practices, police fought back. As Donner writes (http://books.google.com/books?id=FR1ogMhofc0C&pg=PA102), Chicago’s police superintendent, testifying in 1978, issued a cry that sounds all-too-familiar to our ears today:

the superintendent charged that the lawsuit had rendered the Chicago Police Department “virtually helpless to protect the city from terrorist activity.” In fact, at the time the charges were made, the [Chicago Police Department’s] generously funded intelligence division was operating eight intelligence squads, including one specializing in terrorism.
Although Chicago under Mayor William Daley was the worst, Donner shows that these kinds of abuses by “intelligence units” were widespread during the Cold War (and before that, during the labor battles of the early 20th century).
If we allow the NSA to retain the powers it wants, it’s not at all crazy to worry about how those powers could be used now or in the future to grab even more frightening power through blackmail of ostensible overseers. And it doesn’t require crude, explicit blackmail to affect behavior and confer power through personal information; even the vaguest threat or intimation of eavesdropping and exposure can introduce substantial chilling effects, even on those who may think they have “nothing to hide (https://www.aclu.org/blog/technology-and-liberty-national-security/plenty-hide).”

https://www.aclu.org/blog/national-security-technology-and-liberty/prospect-blackmail-nsa

[Winehole23]

The NSA responded today to Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders' letter (http://www.sanders.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/is-the-nsa-spying-on-congress) asking if the agency spies on members of the U.S. Congress and other elected officials. Its response says the NSA treats Congress the same as regular citizens. Which seems like a roundabout way of saying "yes."


Here's the exact wording of the statement, courtesy The Guardian (http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jan/04/nsa-spying-bernie-sanders-members-congress):

NSA's authorities to collect signals intelligence data include procedures that protect the privacy of US persons. Such protections are built into and cut across the entire process. Members of Congress have the same privacy protections as all US persons. NSA is fully committed to transparency with Congress.
Emphasis added.


Does this mean that members of Congress might be using hacked iPhones (http://gizmodo.com/the-nsa-has-crazy-good-backdoor-access-to-iphones-1492117035) or other devices with NSA backdoors (http://gizmodo.com/the-nsa-actually-intercepted-packages-to-put-backdoors-1491169592)? The NSA sure isn't going out of its way to say anything to the contrary. Meanwhile, the agency's (most likely illegal (http://gizmodo.com/federal-judge-says-nsa-phone-spying-is-probably-unconst-1484358756)) phone records collection program just got a 90-day extension from James Clapper, director of national intelligence. Knowing that Congress is likely being spied on too is very, very small solace.http://gizmodo.com/at-least-were-not-alone-nsa-spies-on-members-of-congr-1494694757

[Winehole23]

So on a night nearly 43 years ago, while Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier bludgeoned each other over 15 rounds in a televised title bout viewed by millions around the world, burglars took a lock pick and a crowbar and broke into a Federal Bureau of Investigation (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/f/federal_bureau_of_investigation/index.html?inline=nyt-org) office in a suburb of Philadelphia, making off with nearly every document inside.


They were never caught, and the stolen documents that they mailed anonymously to newspaper reporters were the first trickle of what would become a flood of revelations about extensive spying and dirty-tricks operations by the F.B.I. against dissident groups.


The burglary in Media, Pa., on March 8, 1971, is a historical echo today, as disclosures by the former National Security Agency contractor Edward J. Snowden have cast another unflattering light on government spying and opened a national debate about the proper limits of government surveillance. The burglars had, until now, maintained a vow of silence about their roles in the operation. They were content in knowing that their actions had dealt the first significant blow to an institution that had amassed enormous power and prestige during J. Edgar Hoover (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/h/j_edgar_hoover/index.html?inline=nyt-per)’s lengthy tenure as director.


“When you talked to people outside the movement about what the F.B.I. was doing, nobody wanted to believe it,” said one of the burglars, Keith Forsyth, who is finally going public about his involvement. “There was only one way to convince people that it was true, and that was to get it in their handwriting.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/07/us/burglars-who-took-on-fbi-abandon-shadows.html?_r=0

[boutons_deux]

I heard where FBI is making a major change in its mission, from "law enforcement" to "national security".

iow, a much broader mission, switching from catching actual law breakers to, eg, subverting, criminalizing 1st Amendment-protected dissent, criminalizing thought, speech.

J Edgar is thrilled.

[Winehole23]

heard what where, please?

[Leetonidas]

All this shit and they couldn't stop a contractor from exposing their lies :lol

[boutons_deux]

FBI drops ‘law enforcement’ from its mission statement


https://www.msnbc.com/the-last-word/fbis-main-mission-now-not-law-enforcement

America so fucked and unfuckable. Owned and operated by the 1% and UCA, whose powers, privileges, wealth are protected by the NatSec/police state, while UCA media runs non-stop lies, propaganda, disinformation campaigns.

eg, "60 Minutes" hit piece on distributed solar and all renewable energy:

http://cleantechnica.com/2014/01/06/60-minutes-read-write-hit-piece-solar-industry/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+IM-cleantechnica+%28CleanTechnica%29

http://www.nationalmemo.com/60-minutes-attack-on-cleantech-was-terrible-and-thats-a-great-sign-for-renewable-energy/

[LnGrrrR]

Lee, that's because there are still people who work behind the keyboards... any good IT guy will tell you that people are usually the weakest link in the chain.

[Jacob1983]

Fuck the NSA. Not food enough to be in the FBI or CIA so they settle for the NSA. Shit, the NSA is a bigger spare organization than ICE and the ATF.

[boutons_deux]

All this shit and they couldn't stop a contractor from exposing their lies :lol

That's nothing.

NSA/CIA/FBI were WARNED by the Ruskies, but ignored the Boston Marathon Bombers.

[velik_m]

http://www.spacewar.com/reports/France_UAE_satellite_deal_shaky_after_US_spy_tech_ discovered_onboard_999.html

[boutons_deux]

http://www.spacewar.com/reports/France_UAE_satellite_deal_shaky_after_US_spy_tech_ discovered_onboard_999.html

:lol

[boutons_deux]

NSA Insiders Reveal What Went WrongIn a memo to President Obama, former National Security Agency insiders explain how NSA leaders botched intelligence collection and analysis before 9/11, covered up the mistakes, and violated the constitutional rights of the American people, all while wasting billions of dollars and misleading the public.

http://truth-out.org/news/item/21089-nsa-insiders-reveal-what-went-wrong

[Winehole23]

We have no evidence (http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/oct/08/nsa-bulk-metadata-surveillance-intelligence) that any of this surveillance makes us safer. NSA Director General Keith Alexander responded to these stories in June by claiming (http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/06/27/19175466-nsa-chief-says-surveillance-programs-helped-foil-54-plots) that he disrupted 54 terrorist plots. In October, he revised (http://www.salon.com/2013/10/02/nsa_director_admits_to_misleading_public_on_terror _plots/) that number downward to 13, and then to "one or two." At this point (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/23/nsa-attacks-thwarted_n_4148811.html), the only "plot" prevented was that of a San Diego man sending $8,500 to support a Somali militant group. We have been repeatedly (http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2013/10/30/heres-why-nsa-officials-never-seem-to-stop-talking-about-911/) told that these surveillance programs would have been able to stop 9/11, yet the NSA didn't detect the Boston bombings—even though one of the two terrorists was on the watch list (http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/04/24/us-usa-explosions-boston-suspect-idUSBRE93N06720130424) and the other had a sloppy social media trail (http://storify.com/MacleansMag/the-social-media-trail-of-tsarnaev-brothers). Bulk collection of data and metadata is an ineffective counterterrorism tool.

NSA-level surveillance is like the Maginot Line was in the years before World War II: ineffective and wasteful.

Not only is ubiquitous surveillance ineffective (http://www.cnn.com/2013/12/30/opinion/bergen-nsa-surveillance-september-11/index.html), it is extraordinarily costly. I don't mean just the budgets (http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2013-08-29/world/41709796_1_intelligence-community-intelligence-spending-national-intelligence-program), which will continue to skyrocket. Or the diplomatic costs, as country after country learns of our surveillance programs against their citizens. I'm also talking about the cost to our society. It breaks so much of what our society has built. It breaks our political systems, as Congress is unable to provide any meaningful (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JPnfgUkcvOk) oversight (http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/oct/25/nsa-no-congress-oversight) and citizens are kept in the dark about what government does. It breaks our legal systems, as laws are (https://www.aclu.org/national-security/nsa-collating-data-americans-facebook-gps-tax-other-records) ignored (http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/oct/16/nsa-fbi-endrun-weak-oversight) or (http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/356159/sensenbrenner-nsa-surveillance-abuse-patriot-act-john-fund) reinterpreted (http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/07/mission-creep-when-everything-is-terrorism/277844/), and people are unable to challenge government actions in court. It breaks our commercial systems, as U.S. computer products and services are no longer trusted worldwide. It breaks our technical systems, as the very protocols of the Internet become untrusted. And it breaks our social systems; the loss of privacy, freedom, and liberty is much more damaging to our society than the occasional act of random violence.


And finally, these systems are susceptible to abuse. This is not just a hypothetical problem. Recent history illustrates many episodes where this information was, or would have been, abused: Hoover and his FBI spying, McCarthy, Martin Luther King Jr. and the civil rights movement, anti-war Vietnam protesters, and—more recently—the Occupy movement. Outside the U.S., there are even more extreme examples. Building the surveillance state makes it too easy for people and organizations to slip over the line into abuse.


It's not just domestic abuse we have to worry about; it's the rest of the world, too. The more we choose to eavesdrop on the Internet and other communications technologies, the less we are secure from eavesdropping by others. Our choice isn't between a digital world where the NSA can eavesdrop and one where the NSA is prevented from eavesdropping; it's between a digital world that is vulnerable to all attackers, and one that is secure for all users.

http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/01/how-the-nsa-threatens-national-security/282822/

[Winehole23]

At a recent RSA Security Conference, Nico Sell was on stage announcing that her company—Wickr—was making drastic changes to ensure its users' security. She said that the company would switch from RSA encryption to elliptic curve encryption (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elliptic_curve_Diffie%E2%80%93Hellman), and that the service wouldn't have a backdoor for anyone.


As she left the stage, before she'd even had a chance to take her microphone off, a man approached her and introduced himself as an agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation. He then proceeded to "casually" ask if she'd be willing to install a backdoor into Wickr that would allow the FBI to retrieve information.


A Common Practice

This encounter, and the agent's casual demeanor, is apparently business as usual as intelligence and law enforcement agencies seek to gain greater access into protected communication systems. Since her encounter with the agent at RSA, Sell says it's a story she's heard again and again. "It sounds like that's how they do it now," she told SecurityWatch. "Always casual, testing, because most people would say yes."


The FBI's goal is to see into encrypted, secure systems (http://securitywatch.pcmag.com/security/310015-the-real-reason-the-feds-can-t-read-your-imessages) like Wickr and others. Under the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calea)) legislation, law enforcement can tap any phone in the US but they can't read encrypted communications. We've also seen how law enforcement have followed the lead of the NSA, and gathered data en-masse from cellphone towers (http://securitywatch.pcmag.com/mobile-security/318836-warrant-not-required-police-demand-your-cellular-data). With the NSA reportedly installing backdoors onto hardware sitting in UPS facilities (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bg4uoM5zUdM) and allegedly working to undermine cryptographic standards (http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2428642,00.asp), it's not surprising that the FBI would be operating along similar lines.


The Difference

It was clear that the FBI agent didn't know who he was dealing with, because Sell did not back down. Instead, she lectured him on topics ranging from the First and Fourth Amendments to the Constitution, to George Washington's creation of a Post Office in the US. "My ancestor was a drummer boy under Washington," Sell explained. "Washington thought it was very important to have freedom of information and private correspondence without government surveillance."


Her lecture concluded, she proceeded to grill the agent. "I asked if he had official paperwork for me, if this was an official request, who his boss was," said Sell. "He backed down very quickly."


Though she didn't budge for the agent, Sell makes it clear that surveillance and security is a complicated issue. "Ten years ago, I'd have said yes," said Sell. "Because if law enforcement asks you to catch bad guys, who wouldn't want to help?"


The difference now, she explained, was her experiences at BlackHat. Among those, Sell pointed to a BlackHat event where Thomas Cross demonstrated (http://www.blackhat.com/presentations/bh-dc-10/Cross_Tom/BlackHat-DC-2010-Cross-Attacking-LawfulI-Intercept-wp.pdf) how to break into lawful intercept machines—or wiretaps. "It was very clear that a backdoor for the good guys is always a backdoor for the bad guys."

http://securitywatch.pcmag.com/security/319544-what-it-s-like-when-the-fbi-asks-you-to-backdoor-your-software

[Winehole23]

In January 2010, numerous homeowners in San Antonio, Texas, stood baffled in front of their closed garage doors. They wanted to drive to work or head off to do their grocery shopping, but their garage door openers had gone dead, leaving them stranded. No matter how many times they pressed the buttons, the doors didn't budge. The problem primarily affected residents in the western part of the city, around Military Drive and the interstate highway known as Loop 410.



In the United States, a country of cars and commuters, the mysterious garage door problem quickly became an issue for local politicians. Ultimately, the municipal government solved the riddle. Fault for the error lay with the United States' foreign intelligence service, the National Security Agency, which has offices in San Antonio. Officials at the agency were forced to admit that one of the NSA's radio antennas was broadcasting at the same frequency as the garage door openers. Embarrassed officials at the intelligence agency promised to resolve the issue as quickly as possible, and soon the doors began opening again.

It was thanks to the garage door opener episode that Texans learned just how far the NSA's work had encroached upon their daily lives. For quite some time now, the intelligence agency has maintained a branch with around 2,000 employees at Lackland Air Force Base, also in San Antonio. In 2005, the agency took over a former Sony computer chip plant in the western part of the city. A brisk pace of construction commenced inside this enormous compound. The acquisition of the former chip factory at Sony Place was part of a massive expansion the agency began after the events of Sept. 11, 2001.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/the-nsa-uses-powerful-toolbox-in-effort-to-spy-on-global-networks-a-940969.html

[TDMVPDPOY]

NSA Insiders Reveal What Went WrongIn a memo to President Obama, former National Security Agency insiders explain how NSA leaders botched intelligence collection and analysis before 9/11, covered up the mistakes, and violated the constitutional rights of the American people, all while wasting billions of dollars and misleading the public.

http://truth-out.org/news/item/21089-nsa-insiders-reveal-what-went-wrong



i smell bullshit, they allowed it to happen man

at the end of the day they need sacrifices for the greater goal....

just like 9/11, getting rid of 4000 taxpayers that wouldve contributed to society, but instead go waste 16t on someshit they didnt need....govt couldve just paid out compensation to those 4000 victims and it still wouldnt have spiral the NFD to that much...

im certain the US GOVT has a kill switch that could cut of the internet or certain countries access to the lines if they wanted to...

[boutons_deux]

The NSA's Preference for Metadata


the distinction between listening in on conversations and “just” collecting phone numbers called and the duration of the conversations is a red herring. The truth is that persistent, bulk collection of metadata in support of analysis is – not can be – more revealing over time than content, the latter prohibited from collection unless probable cause criteria have been met in the eyes of a court.
Metadata collection can answer all but one of the five “W’s” of journalism: the Who, What, Where and When. Given time, it can even respond to “Why” someone interfaces with digital information systems the way they do. It can do this because it is possible to discern patterns of behavior in metadata.

A very simple example: You go to work via a toll road, taking essentially the same route five days a week, for about 48 weeks a year. A license plate scanner produces information about where your car was when it was scanned – and at what time. Your passive transponder (e.g., E-Z Pass) records your entrance onto the toll road at which ramp, and when you were there. The same transponder reports when and where you got off the toll road.

You stopped to get gas. Your credit card records where you were and when you bought the gas. You arrive at work and turn on your computer. Your Internet service provider (ISP) records when an IP address was given to your computer and what time it was provided. The IP address is associated with a server at a location with a specific address and is associated with your name.

So it is possible to know when you arrived at work. Or perhaps you called your wife to tell her you arrived safely. Your phone has locational information and the time of the call is recorded. Of course, the phone is associated with your account/name.

Similarly, any deviation from these patterns – for whatever reason – would also be apparent. A consistent deviation might reveal a significant change in your personal life (e. g. job trouble, health problems, marital difficulties).

While this ability to construct a mosaic of your life may not be understood by those inclined to believe what they hear on the evening “news” – that the metadata is no real threat to your privacy – this reality is eminently understandable to those familiar with the technological power of the various NSA programs. MIT graduate students, for example, have produced a video (http://www.commondreams.org/view/2014/01/08-3), based largely on personal experience as well as research, that makes it very clear.

http://truth-out.org/news/item/21202-nsas-preference-for-metadata

[boutons_deux]

NSA Goes From Saying Bulk Metadata Collection 'Saves Lives' To 'Prevented 54 Attacks' To 'Well, It's A Nice Insurance Policy'

Want to know why no one trusts anything NSA officials and their defenders have to say any more? When the bulk metadata collection was first revealed, those defenders went on and on about how the program "saved countless lives" and was instrumental in stopping terrorist attacks. Some skeptics then asked what terrorist attacks, and we were told "around 50" (http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130618/10230323518/nsa-claims-surveillance-programs-aided-stopping-50-attacks-details-lacking.shtml) though details weren't forthcoming. Eventually, we were told that the real number was "54 terrorist events" (note: not attacks) and a review of them later revealed that basically none of them (http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20131023/12505124987/claim-54-terrorist-attacks-thwarted-nsa-continues-to-spread-despite-lack-evidence.shtml) were legitimate. There was one "event" prevented via the program on US soil, and it was a taxi driver in San Diego sending some money to a terrorist group in Somalia, rather than an actual terrorist attack.

In fact, both judges and the intelligence task force seemed shocked (https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20131220/11312025653/judge-intelligence-task-force-both-seem-stunned-nsa-couldnt-provide-single-example-data-collection-stopping-terrorism.shtml) at the lack of any actual evidence to support that these programs were useful.

And yet, the NSA and its defenders keep insisting that they're necessary. Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, a few months ago, tried out a new spin, claiming that effectiveness wasn't the right metric, but rather "peace of mind." (https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20131009/02170124809/james-clapper-says-peace-mind-trumps-effectiveness-evaluating-nsa-surveillance.shtml) Of course, the obvious response to that is to point out that spying on everyone makes most of us fairly uneasy, and we'd have a lot more "peace of mind" if they dropped the program.

And, now, the NSA number 2 guy, who's about to retire, John C. "Chris" Inglis, gave a long interview with NPR (http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2014/01/09/261079074/nsa-says-it-would-welcome-public-advocate-at-fisa-court?sc=tw&cc=share), in which he is now claiming that even if the program hasn't been particularly useful in the past, that "it's a good insurance policy." (http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jan/10/nsa-mass-surveillance-powers-john-inglis-npr)


"I'm not going to give that insurance policy up, because it's a necessary component to cover a seam that I can't otherwise cover."

Basically, we want to keep this information because we want that information, even if it's not been shown to be at all useful. Of course, that's the same logic one can use to defend just about any violation of the 4th Amendment. Putting a private drone with a camera and a recording device streaming everything it sees and hears while following around NSA deputy director Chris Inglis may not discover that he's a corrupt bureaucrat willing to lie to the public, but it seems like a reasonable "insurance policy" to make sure he stays honest. After all, without that, the American public can't prove that he's not corrupt -- so it seems like a reasonable "insurance policy to cover a seam we can't otherwise cover." At least, in the logic of Chris Inglis.

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140111/22360125843/nsa-goes-saying-bulk-metadata-collection-saves-lives-to-prevented-54-attacks-to-well-its-nice-insurance-policy.shtml

[TDMVPDPOY]

they wont prevent shit if there is a beneficial gain to them....why arrest the clown if they can make millions from the taxpayer?

[boutons_deux]

NSA Carves Pathway Into International Computers, New York Times Reports

Jan 14 (Reuters) - The U.S. National Security Agency has put software in almost 100,000 computers around the world allowing it to carry out surveillance on those devices and could provide a digital highway for cyberattacks, the New York Times reported on Tuesday.

The NSA has planted most of the software through getting access to computer networks, but has also used a secret technology that allows it entry even to computers not connected to the Internet, the Times said, citing U.S. officials, computer experts and documents leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.

The Times said the technology had been in use since at least 2008 and relied on a covert channel of radio waves transmitted from tiny circuit boards and USB cards secretly inserted in the computers.

"The radio frequency technology has helped solve one of the biggest problems facing American intelligence agencies for years: getting into computers that adversaries, and some American partners, have tried to make impervious to spying or cyberattack," the newspaper said. "In most cases, the radio frequency hardware must be physically inserted by a spy, a manufacturer or an unwitting user."

Frequent targets of the program, code-named Quantum, have included units of the Chinese military, which Washington has accused of conducting digital attacks on U.S. military and industrial targets, the Times said.

The newspaper said the program had also succeeded in planting software in Russian military networks as well as systems used by Mexican police and drug cartels, European Union trade institutions and allies such as Saudi Arabia, India and Pakistan.

The Times said there was no evidence the NSA had implanted software or used the radio technology inside the United States.

"NSA's activities are focused and specifically deployed against - and only against - valid foreign intelligence targets in response to intelligence requirements," the Times quoted an agency spokeswoman as saying.


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/01/14/nsa-international-computers_n_4599030.html

[Winehole23]

the electronic dragnet is a marginal and inefficient tool for stopping terrorism:


However, our review of the government’s claims about the role that NSA “bulk” surveillance of phone and email communications records has had in keeping the United States safe from terrorism shows that these claims are overblown and even misleading. An in-depth analysis of 225 individuals recruited by al-Qaeda or a like-minded group or inspired by al-Qaeda’s ideology, and charged in the United States with an act of terrorism since 9/11, demonstrates that traditional investigative methods, such as the use of informants, tips from local communities, and targeted intelligence operations, provided the initial impetus for investigations in the majority of cases, while the contribution of NSA’s bulk surveillance programs to these cases was minimal. Indeed, the controversial bulk collection of American telephone metadata, which includes the telephone numbers that originate and receive calls, as well as the time and date of those calls but not their content, under Section 215 of the USA PATRIOT Act, appears to have played an identifiable role in initiating, at most, 1.8 percent of these cases. NSA programs involving the surveillance of non-U.S. persons outside of the United States under Section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act played a role in 4.4 percent of the terrorism cases we examined, and NSA surveillance under an unidentified authority played a role in 1.3 percent of the cases we examined. http://newamerica.net/publications/policy/do_nsas_bulk_surveillance_programs_stop_terrorists

[boutons_deux]

NSA is worried about "legality"? G M A F B :lol

NSA Says Checking to See if They Spied on Bernie Sanders Is Illegal

In response to a letter from Senator Bernie Sanders asking if NSA spied on members of the U.S. Congress in the past, NSA chief, General Alexander claimed that the NSA does nothing unlawful but refuses to answer questions about any past abuses.

General Alexander's argument by which he concludes that even to check whether in the past Sanders was spied on in the sense of collecting meta-data from his phone calls would be illegal is the sort of thing that one might expect to come from the satirical site Onion. Any attempt (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/01/14/bernie-sanders-nsa-letter_n_4597978.html?1389736604)to see if such meta-data were collected for any members of Congress violates the privacy rights of members of Congress:"Among those protections is the condition that NSA can query the metadata only based on phone numbers reasonably suspected to be associated with specific foreign terrorist groups, For that reason, NSA cannot lawfully search to determine if any records NSA has received under the program have included metadata of the phone calls of any member of Congress.."The entire letter from the NSA can be read here. (http://www.docstoc.com//docs/166349667/DIRNSA-Response-reSenBernardSanders-ltr-dtd-3Jan20140001)

Sanders (http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/195459-nsa-says-it-cant-determine-if-it-collected-data-on-lawmakers)was not impressed by Alexander's response and said:“In my view, the information collected by the NSA has the potential to give an unscrupulous administration enormous power over elected officials,”

http://www.digitaljournal.com/news/politics/op-ed-nsa-says-checking-to-see-if-they-spied-on-sanders-is-illegal/article/366139#ixzz2qYg4fH2s

[mouse]

they wont prevent shit if there is a beneficial gain to them....why arrest the clown if they can make millions from the taxpayer?

[boutons_deux]

Spy Agencies Probe Angry Birds and Other Apps for Personal Data

When a smartphone user opens Angry Birds, the popular game application, and starts slinging birds at chortling green pigs, spy agencies have plotted how to lurk in the background to snatch data revealing the player’s location, age, sex and other personal information, according to secret British intelligence documents.

In their globe-spanning surveillance for terrorism suspects and other targets, the National Security Agency and its British counterpart have been trying to exploit a basic byproduct of modern telecommunications: With each new generation of mobile phone technology, ever greater amounts of personal data pour onto networks where spies can pick it up.

According to dozens of previously undisclosed classified documents, among the most valuable of those unintended intelligence tools are so-called leaky apps that spew everything from users’ smartphone identification codes to where they have been that day.

The N.S.A. and Britain’s Government Communications Headquarters were working together on how to collect and store data from dozens of smartphone apps by 2007, according to the documents, provided by Edward J. Snowden, the former N.S.A. contractor. Since then, the agencies have traded recipes for grabbing location and planning data when a target uses Google Maps, and for vacuuming up address books, buddy lists, phone logs and the geographic data embedded in photos when someone sends a post to the mobile versions of Facebook, Flickr, LinkedIn, Twitter and other services.

The eavesdroppers’ pursuit of mobile networks has been outlined in earlier reports, but the secret documents, shared by The New York Times, The Guardian and ProPublica, offer far more details of their ambitions for smartphones and the apps that run on them. The efforts were part of an initiative called “the mobile surge,” according to a 2011 British document, an analogy to the troop surges in Iraq and Afghanistan. One N.S.A. analyst’s enthusiasm was evident in the breathless title — “Golden Nugget!” (http://www.propublica.org/documents/item/1009550-converged-analysis-of-smartphone-devices-nsa-may#document/p10) — given to one slide for a top-secret 2010 talk describing iPhones and Android phones as rich resources, one document notes.

http://www.propublica.org/article/spy-agencies-probe-angry-birds-and-other-apps-for-personal-data?utm_source=et&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=dailynewsletter