In March 2011, two weeks before the Western intervention in Libya, a secret message was delivered to the National Security Agency. An intelligence unit within the U.S. military’s Africa Command needed help to hack into Libya’s cellphone networks and monitor text messages.
For the NSA, the task was easy. The agency had already obtained technical information about the cellphone carriers’ internal systems by spying on documents sent among company employees, and these details would provide the perfect blueprint to help the military break into the networks.
The NSA’s assistance in the Libya operation, however, was not an isolated case. It was part of a much larger surveillance program—global in its scope and ramifications—targeted not just at hostile countries.
According to documents contained in the archive of material provided to The Intercept by whistleblower Edward Snowden, the NSA has spied on hundreds of companies and organizations internationally, including in countries closely allied to the United States, in an effort to find security weaknesses in cellphone technology that it can exploit for surveillance.
The documents also reveal how the NSA plans to secretly introduce new flaws into communication systems so that they can be tapped into—a controversial tactic that security experts say could be exposing the general population to criminal hackers.
Codenamed AURORAGOLD, the covert operation has monitored the content of messages sent and received by more than 1,200 email accounts associated with major cellphone network operators, intercepting confidential company planning papers that help the NSA hack into phone networks.
Category: Spying
US and GB Intelligence possibly caught spying on the EU
Complex malware known as Regin is the suspected technology behind sophisticated cyberattacks conducted by U.S. and British intelligence agencies on the European Union and a Belgian telecommunications company, according to security industry sources and technical analysis conducted by The Intercept.
Regin was found on infected internal computer systems and email servers at Belgacom, a partly state-owned Belgian phone and internet provider, following reports last year that the company was targeted in a top-secret surveillance operation carried out by British spy agency Government Communications Headquarters, industry sources told The Intercept.
The malware, which steals data from infected systems and disguises itself as legitimate Microsoft software, has also been identified on the same European Union computer systems that were targeted for surveillance by the National Security Agency.
EFF, Others Launch New Free Security Certificate Authority To ‘Dramatically Increase Encrypted Internet Traffic’
The EFF and Mozilla along with some others, have teamed up to announce “Let’s Encrypt” which is a new, free, certificate authority that is hoping to dramatically increase encrypted internet traffic when it launches next summer. The effort is being overseen by the Internet Security Research Group, which is the non-profit coalition of folks contributing to this effort. Not only is the effort going to offer free certificates, but also make it much easier to enable encryption.
When exposing a crime…
Link (9gag)FISA Judge To Yahoo: If US Citizens Don’t Know They’re Being Surveilled, There’s No Harm
If this order is enforced and it’s secret, how can you be hurt? The people don’t know that — that they’re being monitored in some way. How can you be harmed by it? I mean, what’s –what’s the — what’s your — what’s the damage to your consumer?
By the same logic, all sorts of secret surveillance would be OK — like watching your neighbor’s wife undress through the window, or placing a hidden camera in the restroom — as long as the surveilled party is never made aware of it. If you don’t know it’s happening, then there’s nothing wrong with it. Right?
“For your security”
UK’s Home Secretary Says Terrorists Will Be The Real Winners If Country’s Cell Coverage Dead Zones Are Fixed
So it’s the tired old “because terrorists” excuse again…
The UK’s culture secretary wants to eradicate the nation’s patchy cell phone coverage. UK cell phone users aren’t able to switch towers on the fly — something residents of other EU countries (as well as the US) enjoy — but are forced to connect only with their provider’s towers.
But Home Secretary Theresa May would rather UK citizens suffer through a plethora of dead zones (or “not spots” — the term of choice for these no-service areas) than put her country in harm’s way. According to an internal letter written by May, providing near-seamless coverage for UK phone users will open the door for increased terrorist activity.
An Innocent Man, Tortured by the U.S., Asks the U.N.: Where’s the Accountability?
U.S. officials are in for a serious grilling on Wednesday as they get hauled before the U.N. Committee against Torture and questioned about about a multitude of ways in which the U.S. appears to be failing to comply with the anti-torture treaty it ratified 20 years ago.
As Jamil Dakwar, director of the ACLU Human Rights Program noted on Monday:
This marks the first U.N. review of the United States’ torture record since President Obama took office in 2009, and much is at stake. The review will test the pledges President Obama made to reverse disastrous Bush-era policies that led to gross violations of human rights, like torture, secret and incommunicado detention, “extraordinary renditions,” unfair trials, and more. It is also likely to examine practices that emerged or became entrenched during Obama’s time in office, such as indefinite detention at Guantánamo, immigration detention and deportations, and the militarization of the police, as witnessed by the world during this summer’s events in Ferguson.
BRITISH SPIES ARE FREE TO TARGET LAWYERS AND JOURNALISTS
British spies have been granted the authority to secretly eavesdrop on legally privileged attorney-client communications, according to newly released documents.
On Thursday, a series of previously classified policies confirmed for the first time that the U.K.’s top surveillance agency Government Communications Headquarters (pictured above) has advised its employees: “You may in principle target the communications of lawyers.”
The U.K.’s other major security and intelligence agencies—MI5 and MI6—have adopted similar policies, the documents show. The guidelines also appear to permit surveillance of journalists and others deemed to work in “sensitive professions” handling confidential information.
Ed Snowden Taught Me To Smuggle Secrets Past Incredible Danger. Now I Teach You.
Micah Lee has written a very interesting article over at The Intercept, showing how he and other journalists communicated securely with Edward Snowden,
It’s well worth a read to anyone who cares about privacy and secure communications.