NSA has direct access to tech giants' systems for user data, secret files reveal

Re: On the NSA breaking most encryption on the Internet

Are these the guys that are helping them "cheat"?

Hacking Team promo ad discussed on The Verge

They seem to promise that they can help law enforcement "stealthily" monitor pretty much any modern off the shelf system with their Da Vinci program.

Is this credible?

 

Hi

Know this soft law enforcement RAT since years...but the NSA does not need it.
Mostly used in the Middle East...for more
http://news.drweb.com/?i=2604&c=5&lng=en
http://www.techweekeurope.co.uk/new...m-surveillance-uae-morocco-tor-project-109101
http://surveillance.rsf.org/en/hacking-team/
https://citizenlab.org/2012/10/backdoors-are-forever-hacking-team-and-the-targeting-of-dissent/
http://securityaffairs.co/wordpress...ance-business-eligibility-investigations.html

More than this policeware, this is mostly the zero day market (black, white or grey Hats) which takes advantage of PRISM
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/14/w...-sell-computer-flaws.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs...of-dollars-worth-of-computer-vulnerabilities/
Especially Kamarades from Vupen
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/09/17/nsa_vupen/

Rgds

 

Apparently Canada, was a big supporter, and also helped develop, and even finance the process...

http://www.thestar.com/business/tec...it_in_undermining_internet_privacy_geist.html

Here is more from the Toronto Star!
http://www.thestar.com/news/world/2...yption_leaving_web_users_open_to_hackers.html

Canada the good no more... sigh!

Educate yourselves - Support the work of https://www.eff.org/
Help protect the Internet from the unscrupulous, hostile businesses lobby, and the control fanatics!

 

This hints at a topic that hasn't received much (if any) attention.

We know that Snowden started with NSA contractors under their "let's hire hackers" program. He ended up collecting all sorts of embarrassing documents, which are being gradually revealed by Greenwald etc.

But what of the many other "hackers" that they hired? What have they learned and appropriated? Maybe they aren't so idealistic as Snowden. For example, what about the malware coders that helped create Stuxnet etc? What were they able to access?

We may never learn the worst NSA leaks until it's far too late

 

Secret court declassifies opinion providing rationale for metadata sharing.

-- Tom

 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs...nt-snowden-will-probably-become-an-alcoholic/

 

The Google monster again

http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/09/why-the-nsa-loves-googles-chromebook/

 

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/sep/18/eric-holder-guarantee-nsa-reporters-rights

 

NSA contracted with notorious French spy-tech company VUPEN.

NSA's contract with VUPEN, 'Darth Vader of Cybersecurity'.

-- Tom

 

http://www.spiegel.de/international...hq-hacked-belgian-telecoms-firm-a-923406.html

 

Stop using NSA-influenced code in our products, RSA tells customers.

The Many Flaws of Dual_EC_DRBG.

-- Tom

 

NSA Leaks Bring the Whole Idea of “Net Neutrality” Into Question.

-- Tom

 

NSA Leaks Could Spur Security Renaissance.

-- Tom

 

Whistleblowers and the Crypto-Anarchist Underground: An Interview with Andy Greenberg.

Note: Andy Greenberg is a Forbes reporter who is interviewed by DJ Pangburn regarding Greenberg's book This Machine Kills Secrets in the above linked article.

-- Tom

 

Report: Justice ethics watchdog didn't look into judges' NSA concerns.

How very unethical of the Justice ethics watchdog!

-- Tom

 

The Effects Of The Snowden Leaks Aren't What He Intended.

-- Tom

 

Paul Syverson said this recently on tor-talk:

https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-talk/2013-September/030097.html

In his reply, Griffin Boyce stated:

https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-talk/2013-September/030099.html

As I understand it, initial Tor developers convinced their Navy funders that, in order for the system to provide anonymity and privacy to US agents etc, they had to create a huge crowd of unrelated Tor users by publishing the design. That must have blown some minds

 

Bruce Scheiner "They have betrayed us"

They have betrayed us, that is all I'll say on this whole mess.

And the British have a monitoring system for TOR called flying pig, what that system does is still up for debate but the best bet's on traffic analysis.

 

These 12 Bills are the NSA's Worst Nightmare.

-- Tom

 

The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act - What’s Working and What Needs Fixing?.

-- Tom

 

Foreign Intelligence Court Releases Controversial Opinion on Domestic Telephone Records Program.

Related: NSA Telephone Records Surveillance.

-- Tom

 

Here are two articles relevant to the discussion of NSA backdoors:

Software Transparency

The Debian OpenSSL Bug: Backdoor or Security Accident?.

The question is when according to Linus’s Law: “given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow.” is it enough to guarantee the absence of security holes where enough means enough qualified experts on the basis of experience to know for what to look when the source code has been verified, but the machine code correspondence to the source code has not?

-- Tom

 

http://mondediplo.com/openpage/destroying-the-right-to-be-left-alone

 

Our job, as I see it, is to simplify and popularize the tools necessary for privacy, work on better tools, and so on. People need to know that there's "hope" -- or rather, that privacy is still possible.

I don't believe that it's "hopeless" -- that there's no possibility. Consider that VPN service usage is growing, perhaps exponentially, in response to increasing efforts to fight "piracy", inhibit free expression and organizing, etc, etc. "Installation of Hotspotshield VPN software experienced 1000% growth over the weekend in Turkey in the wake of anti-government protests." <-http://blog.hotspotshield.com/2013/06/04/hotspot-shield-experiences-tenfold-increase-in-the-wake-of-recent-turkish-unrest/->. More generally, I've read that many established VPN providers are experiencing rapid growth, especially in response to the NSA documents via Snowden. The number of VPN services has also been increasing rapidly, as market growth becomes increasingly obvious.

Privacy advocates have much greater credibility as threats to privacy have become increasingly well known. The iron fist is becomming increasingly clear through its tattered glove

Consider how many major providers (especially Google, and even Microsoft and Apple) are implementing stronger privacy. They must, in order to survive. It's becoming increasingly impossible for global providers to sell out to even global TLAs, given viral information sharing on the Internet.

All considered, I'm optimistic

 

Seriously? You guys view the NSA's snooping on email and collecting phone meta-data as that important?

Personally, I view quotes like the first as referring to situations akin to being a witness to an actual murder or something like that... not to some governmental infringement of the oxymoronic, and so-called right to "Internet Privacy"; and the second quote is highly dubious in its claim of "most important [revelation] in US history". Moreover, such oversight and inspection and is not even unexpected by anyone who has paid attention to technology for the last 20 years. And why the outrage solely at America, when we are by no means the only government participating in these activities. I honestly do not see why someone like Edward Snowden would ruin his life, and exile themselves to some human rights wasteland like Russia, China, or Venezuela in order to supposedly "reveal" what everyone with half a brain already assumed.

And who knew that John Cusack was such a supporter of Internet privacy?!?