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Author Topic: they know what you are doing  (Read 273590 times)

sky otter

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Re: they know what you are doing
« Reply #285 on: August 30, 2013, 09:01:04 pm »


http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/us-spy-agencies-mounted-231-offensive-cyber-operations-in-2011-documents-show/2013/08/30/d090a6ae-119e-11e3-b4cb-fd7ce041d814_story.html?wpisrc=al_excl

U.S. spy agencies mounted 231 offensive cyber-operations in 2011, documents show

By Barton Gellman and Ellen Nakashima, Friday, August 30, 9:00 PM E-mail the writers


go to link to see a the 52.6 billion budget breakdown


U.S. intelligence services carried out 231 offensive cyber-operations in 2011, the leading edge of a clandestine campaign that embraces the Internet as a theater of spying, sabotage and war, according to top-secret documents obtained by The Washington Post.

That disclosure, in a classified intelligence budget provided by NSA leaker Edward Snowden, provides new evidence that the Obama administration’s growing ranks of cyberwarriors infiltrate and disrupt foreign computer networks.

Additionally, under an extensive effort code-named GENIE, U.S. computer specialists break into foreign networks so that they can be put under surreptitious U.S. control. Budget documents say the $652 million project has placed “covert implants,” sophisticated malware transmitted from far away, in computers, routers and firewalls on tens of thousands of machines every year, with plans to expand those numbers into the millions.

The documents provided by Snowden and interviews with former U.S. officials describe a campaign of computer intrusions that is far broader and more aggressive than previously understood. The Obama administration treats all such cyber-operations as clandestine and declines to acknowledge them.

The scope and scale of offensive operations represent an evolution in policy, which in the past sought to preserve an international norm against acts of aggression in cyberspace, in part because U.S. economic and military power depend so heavily on computers.



long and in depth article go to link to finish it..many pages



sky otter

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Re: they know what you are doing
« Reply #286 on: August 31, 2013, 05:42:38 am »


same old..they can watch us but we don't get to watch them..



http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/30/white-house-visitor-list_n_3844819.html

White House Visitor List: Court Rules Against Disclosure Of Records

By PETE YOST 08/30/13 04:29 PM ET EDT 

WASHINGTON — A federal appeals court ruled Friday that White House visitor logs for the president and most of his staff are not public information subject to disclosure requirements of the Freedom of Information Act.

The 3-0 decision would keep the visitor records confidential for up to 12 years after President Barack Obama leaves office.

The appeals court ruling dealt a defeat to a private group that asked the Secret Service for all White House visitor logs from Obama's first seven months in office.

"Congress made clear that it did not want documents like the appointment calendars of the president and his close advisers to be subject to disclosure" under the Freedom of Information Act, wrote Merrick Garland, chief judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

Judicial Watch, a conservative-oriented watchdog group that sued in an effort to get the records, said it is considering an appeal.

"Decisions like this turn the Freedom of Information Act from a transparency law to a secrecy law," said the group's president, Tom Fitton.

Disclosure battles over White House visitor logs have been a staple of both Democratic and Republican administrations.

In May 2006, the White House and the Secret Service asserted that the visitor records were presidential records, as opposed to agency records belonging to the Secret Service. Under federal law, presidential records can remain confidential for up to 12 years. As an executive branch agency, the Secret Service is subject to the Freedom of Information Act, which requires public release of material unless one of nine exemptions applies.

In Friday's ruling, the chief judge said that construing the term "agency records" to extend to White House visitor logs could substantially affect the president's ability to meet confidentially with foreign leaders, agency officials, or members of the public, which could make FOIA a potentially serious congressional intrusion into the conduct of the president's daily operations.

Garland is an appointee of President Bill Clinton. The other two appeals judges on the case were David Sentelle and Stephen Williams, both appointees of President Ronald Reagan.

sky otter

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Re: they know what you are doing
« Reply #287 on: September 03, 2013, 06:39:27 am »

i think they are re inventing the old party line..more people listening thatn you know...


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/02/drug-agents-call-records_n_3857194.html

Drug Agents Plumb Vast Database Of Call Records

 
By GENE JOHNSON and EILEEN SULLIVAN 09/02/13 07:10 PM ET EDT 



SEATTLE — For at least six years, federal drug and other agents have had near-immediate access to billions of phone call records dating back decades in a collaboration with AT&T that officials have taken pains to keep secret, newly released documents show.

The program, previously reported by ABC News and The New York Times, is called the Hemisphere Project. It's paid for by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and the Office of National Drug Control Policy, and it allows investigators armed with subpoenas to quickly mine the company's vast database to help track down drug traffickers or other suspects who switch cellphones to avoid detection.

The details of the Hemisphere Project come amid a national debate about the federal government's access to phone records, particularly the bulk collection of phone records for national security purposes. Hemisphere, however, takes a different approach from that of the National Security Agency, which maintains a database of call records handed over by phone companies as authorized by the USA Patriot Act.

"Subpoenaing drug dealers' phone records is a bread-and-butter tactic in the course of criminal investigations," Justice Department spokesman Brian Fallon said in an email. "The records are maintained at all times by the phone company, not the government. This program simply streamlines the process of serving the subpoena to the phone company so law enforcement can quickly keep up with drug dealers when they switch phone numbers to try to avoid detection."

The Associated Press independently obtained a series of slides detailing Hemisphere. They show the database includes not just records of AT&T customers, but of any call that passes through an AT&T switch.

The federal government pays the salaries of four AT&T employees who work in three federal anti-drug offices around the country to expedite subpoena requests, an Obama administration official told the AP on Monday. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity because he or she was not authorized to discuss the program, and said that two of the AT&T employees are based at the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area office in Atlanta, one at the HIDTA office in Houston, and one at the office in Los Angeles.

The Hemisphere database includes records that date back to 1987, the official said, but typical narcotics investigations focus on records no older than 18 months.

To keep the program secret, investigators who request searches of the database are instructed to "never refer to Hemisphere in any official document," one of the slides noted. Agents are told that when they obtain information through a Hemisphere program subpoena, they should "wall off" the program by filing a duplicative subpoena directly to target's phone company or by simply writing that the information was obtained through an AT&T subpoena.

It wasn't immediately clear what percentage of U.S. calls are routed through AT&T switches and thus have records captured in Hemisphere. One slide says the program includes records "for a tremendous amount of international numbers that place calls through or roam on the AT&T network."

"While we cannot comment on any particular matter, we, like all other companies, must respond to valid subpoenas issued by law enforcement," AT&T spokesman Mark Siegel said in an email.

According to the slides, the program is useful for investigators trying to track down drug traffickers or other criminals who frequently change phones or use multiple phones. If agents become aware of a phone number previously used by a suspect, they can write an administrative subpoena, with no judicial oversight required, for records about that number.

Hemisphere analysts can track the number's call history or other characteristics and compare it to the history and characteristics of phones still in use – thus winnowing down a list of possible current phone numbers for the suspect, along with their location.

"Hemisphere results can be returned via email within an hour of the subpoenaed request and include (call detail records) that are less than one hour old at the time of the search," one slide said.

Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, said the program raises several privacy concerns, including that if a query returns call records that are similar to, but not, those of the suspect, agents could be reviewing call records of people who haven't done anything wrong.

"One of the points that occurred to me immediately is the very strong suspicion that there's been very little judicial oversight of this program," Rotenberg said. "The obvious question is: Who is determining whether these authorities have been properly used?"

A Washington state peace activist named Drew Hendricks provided the slides to the AP on Monday. He said he obtained them in response to a series of public records requests he filed with West Coast police agencies, initially seeking information about a law enforcement conference that had been held in Spokane.

In the Northwest, the DEA and Department of Homeland Security make most of the Hemisphere requests through administrative subpoenas, one slide noted. Since late last year, AT&T has also accepted requests by court orders from local police agencies in Washington state.

As of June, Hemisphere had processed 679 requests from the Northwest High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area. And since 2007, the Los Angeles Hemisphere program had processed more than 4,400 requests.

In connection with the controversy over the NSA's sweeping up of call records, some lawmakers have suggested that phone companies store the records instead, and allow federal agents or analysts to request specific data when necessary.

"This way each query would require a specific government warrant before the FISA Court, and Americans would have more confidence that their privacy is being protected, while achieving the same national security results," Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., said in a July 31 statement.

___

Sullivan reported from Washington, D.C. Johnson can be reached at https://twitter.com/GeneAPseattle

sky otter

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Re: they know what you are doing
« Reply #288 on: September 05, 2013, 05:04:03 pm »


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/05/nsa-internet-security_n_3876309.html

NSA Winning Internet Security War, Reports Show

 By JACK GILLUM 09/05/13 07:43 PM ET EDT 

WASHINGTON — The National Security Agency, working with the British government, has secretly been unraveling encryption technology that billions of Internet users rely upon to keep their electronic messages and confidential data safe from prying eyes, according to published reports Thursday based on internal U.S. government documents.

The NSA has bypassed or altogether cracked much of the digital encryption used by businesses and everyday Web users, according to reports in The New York Times, Britain's Guardian newspaper and the nonprofit news website ProPublica. The reports describe how the NSA invested billions of dollars since 2000 to make nearly everyone's secrets available for government consumption.

In doing so, the NSA built powerful supercomputers to break encryption codes and partnered with unnamed technology companies to insert "back doors" into their software, the reports said. Such a practice would give the government access to users' digital information before it was encrypted and sent over the Internet.

"For the past decade, NSA has led an aggressive, multipronged effort to break widely used Internet encryption technologies," according to a 2010 briefing document about the NSA's accomplishments meant for its UK counterpart, Government Communications Headquarters, or GCHQ. Security experts told the news organizations such a code-breaking practice would ultimately undermine Internet security and leave everyday Web users vulnerable to hackers.

The revelations stem from documents leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, who sought asylum in Russia this summer. His leaks, first published by the Guardian, revealed a massive effort by the U.S. government to collect and analyze all sorts of digital data that Americans send at home and around the world.

Those revelations prompted a renewed debate in the United States about the proper balance between civil liberties and keeping the country safe from terrorists. President Barack Obama said he welcomed the debate and called it "healthy for our democracy" but meanwhile criticized the leaks; the Justice Department charged Snowden under the federal Espionage Act.

Thursday's reports described how some of the NSA's "most intensive efforts" focused on Secure Sockets Layer, a type of encryption widely used on the Web by online retailers and corporate networks to secure their Internet traffic. One document said GCHQ had been trying for years to exploit traffic from popular companies like Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and Facebook.

GCHQ, they said, developed "new access opportunities" into Google's computers by 2012 but said the newly released documents didn't elaborate on how extensive the project was or what kind of data it could access.

Even though the latest document disclosures suggest the NSA is able to compromise many encryption programs, Snowden himself touted using encryption software when he first surfaced with his media revelations in June.

During a Web chat organized by the Guardian on June 17, Snowden told one questioner that "encryption works." Snowden said that "properly implemented strong crypto systems" were reliable, but he then alluded to the NSA's capability to crack tough encryption systems. "Unfortunately, endpoint security is so terrifically weak that NSA can frequently find ways around it," Snowden said.

It was unclear if Snowden drew a distinction between everyday encryption used on the Internet – the kind described in Thursday's reports – versus more-secure encryption algorithms used to store data on hard drives and often requires more processing power to break or decode. Snowden used an encrypted email account from a now-closed private email company, Lavabit, when he sent out invitations to a mid-July meeting at Moscow's Sheremetyevo International Airport.

The operator of Lavabit LLC, Ladar Levison, suspended operations of the encrypted mail service in August, citing a pending "fight in the 4th (U.S.) Circuit Court of Appeals." Levison did not explain the pressures that forced him to shut the firm down but added that "a favorable decision would allow me to resurrect Lavabit as an American company."

The government asked the news organizations not to publish their stories, saying foreign enemies would switch to new forms of communication and make it harder for the NSA to break. The organizations removed some specific details but still published the story, they said, because of the "value of a public debate regarding government actions that weaken the most powerful tools for protecting the privacy of Americans and others."

Such tensions between government officials and journalists, while not new, have become more apparent since Snowden's leaks. Last month, Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger said that British government officials came by his newspaper's London offices to destroy hard drives containing leaked information. "You've had your debate," one UK official told him. "There's no need to write any more."

___

Associated Press writer Stephen Braun contributed to this report.

___

Follow Jack Gillum on Twitter: http://twitter.com/jackgillum

Offline Ellirium113

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Re: they know what you are doing
« Reply #289 on: September 05, 2013, 05:14:12 pm »
Here's a good one...

Court: Federal Law Allows Lying in TSA-Related FOIA Requests


Quote
Jonathan Corbett
TSA Out Of Our Pants
September 4, 2013

Moments ago, the remaining claims in my lawsuit stemming from being illegally detained at FLL airport and then lied to about the existence of CCTV video of the incident, were dismissed.

The questions before the court were as follows:

Can the TSA (or local governments as directed by the TSA) lie in response to a FOIA request?Sure, no problem! Even the NSA responds that they “can’t confirm or deny the existence” of classifiedthings for which admitting or denying existence would (allegedly, of course) damage national security. But the TSA? U.S. District Judge Joan A. Lenard granted the TSA the special privilege of not needing to go that route, rubber-stamping the decision of the TSA and the airport authority to write to me that no CCTV footage of the incident existed when, in fact, it did. This footage is non-classified and its existence is admitted by over a dozen visible camera domes and even signage that the area is being recorded. Beyond that, the TSA regularly releases checkpoint video when it doesn’t show them doing something wrong (for example, here’s CCTV of me beating their body scanners). But if it shows evidence of misconduct? Just go ahead and lie.

Can the TSA hide the names and faces of its public-facing employees (and any local law enforcement coming to their aid) who are accused of misconduct?You bet! Despite the fact that they all wore name tags and I could have legally taken photos of them, Judge Lenard feels that the public servants who illegally searched and detained me deserve “privacy,” and upheld the TSA’s decision to redact their names from every document sent to me and to blur the entirety of every video sent to me. This is the same TSA that cares so much about privacy that they “accidentally” published a copy of my driver’s license in court filings.
 
Can the TSA frustrate court review of whether or not a document is releasable under FOIA simply by “ordering” it secret?Why not?! Judge Lenard ruled that once a document is labeled “Sensitive Security Information” (which the TSA does by merely waiving a magic wand and writing “SSI” on the cover of a document) the U.S. District Court loses its power to review that determination, and the U.S. Court of Appeals is the proper forum. But wait, the Court of Appeals doesn’t evaluate FOIA claims, so now, in order to get a document you want, you must petition 2 courts and pay over $800 in filing fees alone. Yes, clearly this is how Congress intended public records laws — designed to allow transparency in government — to work.

http://www.prisonplanet.com/court-federal-law-allows-lying-in-tsa-related-foia-requests.html

sky otter

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Re: they know what you are doing
« Reply #290 on: September 06, 2013, 09:23:28 am »


ok here’s my little being watched story for today and becoming just another bit in the computer

background
we have a grocery store chain here called giant eagle and they have the usual ‘special’ member card to get their sale prices
and in addition to that  for every 50 bucks in purchases (gift cards to other merchants  are included in this) you get 10 cents
per gallon off on their gas..which is located in the same parking lot as the grocery store (in most cases)
with the fields to mow this works for me..they do have a limit of 30 gallons per redemption

so
they have on record everything you buy cause it obviously goes thur the register computer system
and yes I do know they are keeping track of what I buy and when

the other week I purchased some swanson broth ..
yesterday I got a  dollar coupon..to my name and address...not to occupant
from swanson to buy their broth

I’m pissed that they are making money selling my info ....but not real surprised

and I’m torn in weather it would make any difference at all if I cut their card in half and only paid cash from now on
yeah I know would be cutting off my nose to spite my face sort of thing
the last 30 gallons I bought only cost me 1.26 per.. cause I had bought gift cards for a remodel project
but darn this is just one more way the system gets you

the hook to giving away your info is obvious and  piece by piece any idea of privacy is gone
right now the only non traceable purchase is cash and they are slowly pushing to no cash and all cards

I’m an older age and I can probably live the rest of my life by not complying but soo many aren’t going to have a choice
and i wonder if they even care  :(

goin out to kick the can and think on it
grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

Offline robomont

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Re: they know what you are doing
« Reply #291 on: September 06, 2013, 09:39:54 am »
six months ago when i was searching lasers through google search.every site that i went to that had adds.guess what the adds were for.and when i got dish last month and i was searching.about it.i got like twenty dish adds in the mail.its very pervasive now.
when im in the market for a new set of boots at walmart.i just say outloud in front of the boots i want.my boot size.the next month that size will be there.now thats convenience.i know it sounds crazy but it works.just try it.my guess security picks up my voice and puts in the order.
ive never been much for rules.
being me has its priviledges.

Dumbledore

sky otter

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Re: they know what you are doing
« Reply #292 on: September 06, 2013, 10:32:40 am »

robo..that is funny scary...about the boot request
« Last Edit: September 06, 2013, 11:50:05 am by sky otter »

Offline andolin

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Re: they know what you are doing
« Reply #293 on: September 06, 2013, 11:11:43 am »
Yes, all the Web-Commerce sites are now using Google analytics...Every time I purchase something from a Google linked or embedded site, or from Amazon (which I use a lot), I get emails and adverts in my Firefox browser with "Suggested " items for me to purchase..I gave up trying to stop this crap (Used several Firefox add-ons and cache and cookie cleaners), but they seem to find a way around them..The have even showed up on my Facebook page....If I was younger, I would employ more brainpower to stop this shit..but my GAFF is diminishing with age.

Andy

Offline zorgon

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Re: they know what you are doing
« Reply #294 on: September 06, 2013, 11:55:31 am »
It is actually silly really. If I just bought something at Amazon... sending me repeated ads for that item is a waste of time. I am not likely to buy another one, certainly not from someone else

Showing me related items would make more sense

But its a tool we can use too :D

I sell stuff on Etsy Amazon and Ebay...  by linking my FB account and allowing them to 'post on my behalf"  they automaticaly post random items for sale for me
« Last Edit: September 06, 2013, 11:57:25 am by zorgon »

sky otter

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Re: they know what you are doing
« Reply #295 on: September 07, 2013, 08:28:35 am »



who needs psy-ops when they just track everything you do via electronics and then funnel you into a slot they can manage..eventually everything about you is so well known..you are just a number in a category :(
 


http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/google-encrypts-data-amid-backlash-against-nsa-spying/2013/09/06/9acc3c20-1722-11e3-a2ec-b47e45e6f8ef_story.html?Post+generic=%3Ftid%3Dsm_twitter_washingtonpost

Google encrypts data amid backlash against NSA spying

By Craig Timberg, Published: September 6 E-mail the writers

Google is racing to encrypt the torrents of information that flow among its data centers around the world in a bid to thwart snooping by the NSA and the intelligence agencies of foreign governments, company officials said Friday.

The move by Google is among the most concrete signs yet that recent revelations about the National Security Agency’s sweeping surveillance efforts have provoked significant backlash within an American technology industry that U.S. government officials long courted as a potential partner in spying programs.

Google’s encryption initiative, initially approved last year, was accelerated in June as the tech giant struggled to guard its reputation as a reliable steward of user information amid controversy about the NSA’s PRISM program, first reported in The Washington Post and the Guardian that month. PRISM obtains data from American technology companies, including Google, under various legal authorities.

Encrypting information flowing among data centers will not make it impossible for intelligence agencies to snoop on individual users of Google services, nor will it have any effect on legal requirements that the company comply with court orders or valid national security requests for data. But company officials and independent security experts said that increasingly widespread use of encryption technology makes mass surveillance more difficult — whether conducted by governments or other sophisticated hackers.

“It’s an arms race,” said Eric Grosse, vice president for security engineering at Google, based in Mountain View, Calif. “We see these government agencies as among the most skilled players in this game.”

Experts say that, aside from the U.S. government, sophisticated government hacking efforts emanate from China, Russia, Britain and Israel.

The NSA seeks to defeat encryption through a variety of means, including by obtaining encryption “keys” to decode communications, by using super-computers to break codes, and by influencing encryption standards to make them more vulnerable to outside attack, according to reports Thursday by the New York Times, the Guardian and ProPublica, based on documents provided by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.

But those reports made clear that encryption — essentially converting data into what appears to be gibberish when intercepted by outsiders — complicates government surveillance efforts, requiring that resources be devoted to decoding or otherwise defeating the systems. Among the most common tactics, experts say, is to hack into individual computers or other devices used by people targeted for surveillance, making what amounts to an end run around coded communications.

Security experts say the time and energy required to defeat encryption forces surveillance efforts to be targeted more narrowly on the highest-priority targets — such as terrorism suspects — and limits the ability of governments to simply cast a net into the huge rivers of data flowing across the Internet.

“If the NSA wants to get into your system, they are going to get in .?.?. . Most of the people in my community are realistic about that,” said Christopher Soghoian, a computer security expert at the American Civil Liberties Union. “This is all about making dragnet surveillance impossible.”

The NSA declined to comment for this article. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence issued a statement Thursday saying: “Throughout history, nations have used encryption to protect their secrets, and today terrorists, cybercriminals, human traffickers and others also use code to hide their activities. Our intelligence community would not be doing its job if we did not try to counter that.”

The U.S. intelligence community has been reeling since news reports based on Snowden’s documents began revealing remarkable new detail about how the government collects, analyzes and disseminates information — including, in some circumstances, the e-mails, video chats and phone communications of American citizens.

Many of the documents portray U.S. companies as pliant “Corporate Partners” or “Providers” of information. While telecommunications companies have generally declined to comment on their relationships with government surveillance, some technology companies have reacted with outrage at the depictions in the NSA documents released by Snowden. They have joined civil liberties groups in demanding more transparency and insisting that information is turned over to the government only when required by law, often in the form of a court order.

In June, Google and Microsoft asked the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to allow them greater latitude in reporting how much information they must turn over to the government. On Friday, Yahoo issued its first “government transparency report,” saying it had received 12,444 requests for data from the U.S. government this year, covering the accounts of 40,322 users.

Google has long been more aggressive than its peers within the U.S. technology industry in deploying encryption technology. It turned on encryption in its popular Gmail service in 2010, and since then has added similar protections for Google searches for most users.

Yet even as it encrypted much of the data flowing between Google and its users, the information traveling between its data centers offered rare points of vulnerability to potential intruders, especially government surveillance agencies, security officials said. User information — including copies of e-mails, search queries, videos and Web browsing history — typically is stored in several data centers that transmit information to each other on high-speed fiber-optic lines.

Several other companies, including Microsoft, Apple and Facebook, increasingly have begun using encryption for some of their services, though the quality varies by company. Communications between services — when an e-mail, for example, is sent from a user of Gmail to a user of Microsoft’s Outlook mail — are not generally encrypted, appearing to surveillance systems as what experts call “clear text.”

Google officials declined to provide details on the cost of its new encryption efforts, the numbers of data centers involved, or the exact technology used. Officials did say that it will be what experts call “end-to-end,” meaning that both the servers in the data centers and the information on the fiber-optic lines connecting them will be encrypted using “very strong” technology. The project is expected to be completed soon, months ahead of the original schedule.

Grosse echoed comments from other Google officials, saying that the company resists government surveillance and has never weakened its encryption systems to make snooping easier — as some companies reportedly have, according to the Snowden documents detailed by the Times and the Guardian on Thursday.

“This is a just a point of personal honor,” Grosse said. “It will not happen here.”

Security experts said news reports detailing the extent of NSA efforts to defeat encryption were startling. It was widely presumed that the agency was working to gain access to protected information, but the efforts were far more extensive than understood and reportedly contributed to the creation of vulnerabilities that other hackers, including foreign governments, could exploit.

Matthew Green, a Johns Hopkins cryptography expert, applauded Google’s move to harden its defenses against government surveillance, but said recent revelations make clear the many weaknesses of commonly used encryption technology, much of which dates back to the 1990s or earlier. He called for renewed efforts among companies and independent researchers to update systems — the hardware, the software and the algorithms.

“The idea that humans can communicate safely is something we should fight for,” Green said.

But he said he wasn’t sure that would happen: “A lot of people in the next week are going to say, this is too hard. Let’s forget about the NSA.”


Haylet Tsukayama contributed to this report.

sky otter

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Re: they know what you are doing
« Reply #296 on: September 07, 2013, 06:50:01 pm »
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-23984814
6 September 2013 Last updated at 05:58 ET Share this pageEmail Print Share this page

Cyber-thieves blamed for leap in Tor dark net use

Cyber-thieves are behind a big leap in the number of computers connecting to the Tor anonymous web browsing system, a security company has said.

The number of connections to Tor almost doubled in late August.

Some thought the rise was caused by people in repressive regimes using Tor to escape official scrutiny.

But Dutch security company Fox-IT said it had evidence it had been caused by cybercriminals using Tor to control legions of hijacked home PCs.

Hidden network
 
The sharp leap in Tor numbers began on 19 August.

Before that date about 500,000 connections a day were being made to the network.

Within a week, the number of connections had hit 1.5 million and has continued to grow.

The latest update from Tor suggests about three million connections are now being made on a daily basis.

Tor (The Onion Router) attempts to hide who is using the web by routing their data through a series of computers each one of which encrypts the data passing through it.

It is widely used by people living in nations that monitor what citizens say online, to avoid official attention.

Many people on the Tor admin mailing list suggested the growth in use had been caused by more people turning to the network as many different governments cracked down on what can be said and done online.

But Fox-IT said it had traced the growing number of connections to a botnet - a network of home computers hijacked by malicious computer programs.

Botnets are the favoured tools of cybercriminals, who use them as a resource to plunder for saleable information or as a way to send spam or launch attacks on other sites.

In a blog post Fox-IT said there was growing evidence a group of criminals who ran the Mevade.A or Sefnit botnet had turned to Tor to control their army of hijacked computers.

The geographic spread of compromised computers on Sefnit was very similar to those recently seen to have joined Tor, it said.

And a closer look at the code being run by some individual PCs on Sefnit showed they had the latest version of Tor installed and regularly checked in with a Tor site for instructions about what to do.

So far, said the blog, it was not entirely clear what the botnet was being used for.

"It does however originate from a Russian-spoken region, and is likely motivated by direct or indirect financial-related crime," wrote Fox-IT analysts.

The rise in Tor connections has caused problems for operators of the browsing network.

In a blog post, Tor said it was looking into ways to stop botnet controllers using the network to co-ordinate criminal activity.

In addition, it added, Tor was not a great way to control millions of infected machines.

"If you have a multi-million node botnet, it's silly to try to hide it behind the 4,000-relay Tor network," said the blog.

"These people should be using their botnet as a peer-to-peer anonymity system for itself."

sky otter

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Re: they know what you are doing
« Reply #297 on: September 07, 2013, 06:51:05 pm »


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-23981291


leaks: US and UK 'crack online encryption'



September 2013 Last updated at 07:34 ET
US and UK intelligence have reportedly cracked the encryption codes protecting the emails, banking and medical records of hundreds of millions of people.

Disclosures by leaker Edward Snowden allege the US National Security Agency (NSA) and the UK's GCHQ successfully decoded key online security protocols.

They suggest some internet companies provided the agencies backdoor access to their security systems.

The NSA is said to spend $250m (£160m) a year on the top-secret operation

It is codenamed Bullrun, an American civil-war battle, according to the documents published by the Guardian in conjunction with the New York Times and ProPublica.

The British counterpart scheme run by GCHQ is called Edgehill, after the first major engagement of the English civil war, say the documents.

'Behind-the-scenes persuasion'
 
The reports say the UK and US intelligence agencies are focusing on the encryption used in 4G smartphones, email, online shopping and remote business communication networks.

The encryption techniques are used by internet services such as Google, Facebook and Yahoo.

Under Bullrun, it is said that the NSA has built powerful supercomputers to try to crack the technology that scrambles and encrypts personal information when internet users log on to access various services.

The NSA also collaborated with unnamed technology companies to build so-called back doors into their software - something that would give the government access to information before it is encrypted and sent over the internet, it is reported.

As well as supercomputers, methods used include "technical trickery, court orders and behind-the-scenes persuasion to undermine the major tools protecting the privacy of everyday communications", the New York Times reports.



The US reportedly began investing billions of dollars in the operation in 2000 after its initial efforts to install a "back door" in all encryption systems were thwarted.

'Gobsmacked'
 
During the next decade, it is said the NSA employed code-breaking computers and began collaborating with technology companies at home and abroad to build entry points into their products.

The documents provided to the Guardian by Mr Snowden do not specify which companies participated.

The NSA also hacked into computers to capture messages prior to encryption, and used broad influence to introduce weaknesses into encryption standards followed by software developers the world over, the New York Times reports.

When British analysts were first told of the extent of the scheme they were "gobsmacked", according to one memo among more than 50,000 documents shared by the Guardian.

NSA officials continue to defend the agency's actions, claiming it will put the US at considerable risk if messages from terrorists and spies cannot be deciphered.

But some experts argue that such efforts could actually undermine national security, noting that any back doors inserted into encryption programs can be exploited by those outside the government.

It is the latest in a series of intelligence leaks by Mr Snowden, a former NSA contractor, who began providing caches of sensitive government documents to media outlets three months ago.

In June, the 30-year-old fled his home in Hawaii, where he worked at a small NSA installation, to Hong Kong, and subsequently to Russia after making revelations about a secret US data-gathering programme.

A US federal court has since filed espionage charges against Mr Snowden and is seeking his extradition.

Mr Snowden, however, remains in Russia where he has been granted temporary asylum.

sky otter

  • Guest
Re: they know what you are doing
« Reply #298 on: September 09, 2013, 03:48:03 pm »


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/09/nsa-steve-jobs_n_3895375.html?utm_hp_ref=technology
iPhone Users Are 'Zombies' And Steve Jobs Was 'Big Brother,' According To The NSA: Report
The Huffington Post  |  By Alexis Kleinman
Posted: 09/09/2013 4:30 pm EDT  |  Updated: 09/09/2013 5:33 pm EDT

In a classic case of the pot calling the kettle black, the NSA reportedly called Apple co-founder Steve Jobs "Big Brother," while also describing iPhone users as "zombies."

In documents leaked by the German news magazine Der Spiegel on Sunday, the National Security Agency suggests that Apple and Steve Jobs are controlling and observing the public.

In fact, the NSA has been spying on Americans' email data and phone data for years. In its story Der Spiegel revealed that the NSA accesses data from all major types of smartphones. The NSA also seems to have access to iPhone geolocation tools and other data, Der Spiegel reports.

Der Spiegel obtained slides from what looks to be an internal NSA presentation. One of the slides obtained by Der Spiegel actually uses images from Apple's "1984" commercial, which played during the 1984 Super Bowl. The whole purpose of that commercial, of course, was to show how Apple would help people avoid an oppressive society, not to start an oppressive society.

"Who knew in 1984... that this would be big brother... and the zombies would be paying customers?" the slides ask. On the slide referring to "Big Brother," there's a photo of Steve Jobs, and on the slide about zombies there's photos of over-excited Apple fans with their new iPhones. You can see the slides below:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/09/nsa-steve-jobs_n_3895375.html?utm_hp_ref=technology

sky otter

  • Guest
Re: they know what you are doing
« Reply #299 on: September 10, 2013, 06:25:58 pm »


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/10/nsa-surveillance-documents_n_3902208.html

BUSTED.!!
NSA Surveillance Documents Released By Officials Show Misuse Of Domestic Spying Program


AP  |  Posted: 09/10/2013 4:46 pm EDT  |  Updated: 09/10/2013 5:15 pm EDT
BY PAUL ELIAS, THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

SAN FRANCISCO — Federal officials on Tuesday released previously classified documents showing misuse of a domestic spying program in 2009.

The Obama administration has been facing mounting pressure to reveal more details about the government's domestic surveillance program since a former intelligence contractor released documents showing massive National Security Agency trawling of domestic data.

The information included domestic telephone numbers, calling patterns and the agency's collection of Americans' Internet user names, IP addresses and other metadata swept up in surveillance of foreign terror suspects.

The documents released Tuesday relate to a time in 2009 when U.S. spies went too far in collecting domestic phone data and then mislead a secret spy court about their activities.

The documents came in response to a lawsuit filed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

A federal judge in 2011 said in a declassified order that he was troubled by at least three incidents over three years where government officials admitted to mistaken collection of domestic data.

 


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