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

mirimir · Oct 27, 2018

Hey, this is between the UK and Belgium. With the US as something like an unindited co-conspirator

guest · Nov 3, 2018

In a court filing, Edward Snowden says a report critical to an NSA lawsuit is authentic
November 3, 2018
https://techcrunch.com/2018/11/03/edward-snowden-nsa-lawsuit-jewel-authentic/

An unexpected declaration by whistleblower Edward Snowden filed in court this week adds a new twist in a long-running lawsuit against the National Security Agency’s surveillance programs.

Snowden’s signed declaration, filed on October 31, confirms that one of the documents he leaked, which the EFF relied heavily on for its case, is an authentic draft document written by the then-NSA inspector general in 2009 [...]

The draft top-secret document was never published, and the NSA had refused to confirm or deny the authenticity of the 2009 inspector general report, ST-09-0002 — despite that it’s been public for many years.

“I read its contents carefully during my employment,” he said in his declaration. “I have a specific and strong recollection of this document because it indicated to me that the government had been conducting illegal surveillance.”
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guest · Nov 3, 2018

“I read its contents carefully during my employment,” “I have a specific and strong recollection of this document because it indicated to me that the government had been conducting illegal surveillance.”
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No!!! Really ?!!! What a bombshell !!!! Omg... Wtf !!! /sarcasm

Pitiful Snowden...

Minimalist · Nov 21, 2018

The Snowden Legacy, part one: What’s changed, really?

Digital privacy has come a long way since June 2013. In the five years since documents provided by Edward Snowden became the basis for a series of revelations that tore away a veil of secrecy around broad surveillance programs run by the National Security Agency, there have been shifts in both technology and policy that have changed the center of gravity for personal electronic privacy in the United States and around the world. Sadly, not all of the changes have been positive. And Snowden's true legacy is a lot more complicated than his admirers (or his critics) will admit.
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https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/11/the-snowden-legacy-part-one-whats-changed-really/

Minimalist · Dec 1, 2018

GCHQ Reveals Why Some Flaws Are Kept Secret

GCHQ has revealed for the first time how it researches vulnerabilities, claiming sometimes not to inform the vendor if a specific flaw could be used to its advantage.

The intelligence agency’s “Equities Process” involves a binary decision: disclose so a patch can be issued to improve the overall security of businesses and consumers, or hang on to it for reasons of national security.
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https://www.infosecurity-magazine.com/news/gchq-reveals-why-some-flaws-are/

guest · Dec 10, 2018

UK Intelligence Agencies Are Planning a Major Increase in 'Large-Scale Data Hacking'
December 9, 2018
https://gizmodo.com/uk-intelligence-agencies-are-planning-a-major-increase-1830973272

Intelligence agencies in the UK are preparing to “significantly increase their use of large-scale data hacking,” the Guardian reported on Saturday, in a move that is already alarming privacy advocates.

[...] independent terrorism legislation reviewer Lord David Anderson asserted that bulk powers are “likely to be only sparingly used.” As the Guardian noted, just two years later, UK intelligence officials are claiming this is no longer the case due to growing use of encryption:

... The intelligence services claim that the widespread use of encryption means that targeted hacking exercises are no longer effective and so more large-scale hacks are becoming necessary.
[...] the top 40 online activities relevant to MI5’s intelligence operations are now encrypted.
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guest · Dec 31, 2018

Suspect’s Twitter messages played role in NSA hacking-tools leak probe
December 31, 2018
https://www.politico.com/story/2018/12/31/nsa-hacking-case-twitter-1077013

Hours before a 2016 leak of some of the National Security Agency’s most closely guarded hacking tools, a former NSA contractor sent a cryptic Twitter message that prompted alarm on the part of federal investigators, a federal judge has revealed.

Messages that the former NSA computer security specialist, Hal Martin, sent via Twitter appear to have led to an FBI raid on his Maryland home and to his arrest on charges of retaining a vast trove of classified information there without permission, according to a newly released court ruling.

[...] search warrants were legally sufficient based on the Twitter messages and Martin’s access to the classified information being posted or offered publicly at the time.
Bennett said the FBI’s failure to read Martin his Miranda rights rendered his statements inadmissible given the circumstances.
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Court ruling (PDF): https://www.politico.com/f/?id=00000168-0033-da94-ad6d-1bfb8aa30000

guest · Jan 9, 2019

Kaspersky Lab Helped US Nab NSA Data Thief: Report
January 9, 2019
https://www.darkreading.com/vulnera...d-us-nab-nsa-data-thief-report/d/d-id/1333619

That's according to Politico, which this week published a report on what it described as Moscow-based Kaspersky Lab's unsung and unknown role in the August 2016 arrest of former NSA contractor Harold Martin.

"It's irony piled on irony that people who worked at Kaspersky, who were already in the sights of the US intelligence community, disclosed to them that they had this problem," Politico quoted former NSA general counsel Stewart Baker as saying.

Martin currently faces 20 counts of willfully retaining information of importance to national security. His trial is set to begin in June. He faces decades in jail if convicted on all counts.
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guest · Mar 5, 2019

Report: The NSA's Domestic Metadata Collection System Is Not Being Used and May Be Discontinued
March 4, 2019
https://gizmodo.com/report-the-nsas-domestic-metadata-collection-system-is-1833053542

The National Security Agency has “quietly shut down” the mass surveillance program it implemented after the September 11, 2001 terror attacks to analyze metadata on domestic calls and text messages, the New York Times reported on Monday, citing an episode of the Lawfare podcast with “senior Republican congressional aide” Luke Murry.

The Wall Street Journal separately reported that Murry stated the program has not been used in at least six months, with both papers writing that it is unclear whether Donald Trump’s administration will ask Congress to renew its legal authority when relevant portions of the Patriot Act expire at the end of 2019.
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guest · Mar 21, 2019

First Look Media Shutting Down Access to Snowden NSA Archives
March 21, 2019
https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2019/03/first_look_medi.html

The Daily Beast is reporting that First Look Media -- home of The Intercept and Glenn Greenwald -- is shutting down access to the Snowden archives.
The Intercept was the home for Greenwald's subset of Snowden's NSA documents since 2014, after he parted ways with the Guardian the year before.

The article doesn't say what "shutting down access" means, but my guess is that it means that First Look Media will no longer make the archive available to outside journalists, and probably not to staff journalists, either. Reading between the lines, I think they will delete what they have.
This doesn't mean that we're done with the documents. Glenn Greenwald tweeted:

Both Laura & I have full copies of the archives, as do others. The Intercept has given full access to multiple media orgs, reporters & researchers. I've been looking for the right partner -- an academic institution or research facility -- that has the funds to robustly publish.
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guest · Mar 28, 2019

mood said: ↑

NSA Data Thief
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Ex-NSA contractor set to plead guilty for theft of top secret information
March 27 , 2019
https://www.cyberscoop.com/harold-martin-guilty-plea-nsa-shadow-brokers/

A former National Security Agency contractor accused of perhaps the largest theft of government secrets in U.S. history is expected to plead guilty Thursday in federal court, according to court records.
Harold T. Martin III has been charged with 20 counts of unauthorized and willful retention of national defense information in 2017.

Investigators found over the course of their investigation that Martin had removed a staggering amount of sensitive material [...] More than 50 terabytes of material, some marked “Top Secret,” were recovered as part of the investigation.
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guest · Apr 25, 2019

NSA Wants To End Mass Phone Data Collection Program
April 25, 2019
https://www.ubergizmo.com/2019/04/nsa-wants-to-end-mass-phone-data-collection-program/

The Wall Street Journal hears from sources that the National Security Agency is now in favor of ending this massive data collection program.
The White House may not have decided as yet what it’s going to do about this program, according to the report, and it has now responded to any reports about the matter as yet.

The NSA’s recommendation follows earlier reports that the agency was considering giving up the program due to technical difficulties. A report also mentioned that the program hadn’t even been used for the past six months.

There have been some efforts from lawmakers as well who would like to see this program put to rest. A group of bipartisan legislators moved a bill which would not only end the program but would also prevent the NSA from starting it back up again.
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guest · May 1, 2019

NSA says warrantless searches of Americans’ data rose in 2018
April 30, 2019
https://techcrunch.com/2019/04/30/nsa-surveillance-spike/

The intelligence community’s annual transparency report revealed a spike in the number of warrantless searches of Americans’ data in 2018.

The data, published Tuesday by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), revealed a 28% rise in the number of targeted search terms used to query massive databases of collected Americans’ communications.
Some 9,637 warrantless search queries of the contents of Americans’ calls, text messages, emails and other communications were conducted by the NSA during 2018, up from 7,512 searches on the year prior, the report said.

The report also noted a 27% increase in the number of foreigners whose communications were targeted by the NSA during the year. In total, an estimated 164,770 foreign individuals or groups were targeted with search terms used by the NSA to monitor their communications, up from 129,080 on the year prior.
It’s the largest year-over-year leap in foreign surveillance to date.
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hawki · May 1, 2019

mood said: ↑

NSA Wants To End Mass Phone Data Collection Program
April 25, 2019
https://www.ubergizmo.com/2019/04/nsa-wants-to-end-mass-phone-data-collection-program/
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"White House has signaled it may seek permanent renewal of controversial surveillance power

The Trump administration has signaled in recent weeks that it may seek the permanent renewal of a surveillance law that has, among other things, enabled the National Security Agency to gather and analyze Americans’ phone records as part of terrorism investigations, according to five U.S. officials familiar with the matter.

The White House, these officials said, was prepared to issue a public statement calling on Congress to reauthorize in full Section 215 of the Patriot Act, which in the past has been the focus of heated debate over the acceptable bounds of government surveillance. The plan to issue a statement was put on hold, officials said, but it illustrates nonetheless where the administration stands on the contested issue of national security authority..."

https://www.washingtonpost.com/worl...cf30147bdca_story.html?utm_term=.5715efe5304a

guest · Jun 2, 2019

Edward Who? The Snowden Affair Ends with a Whimper
May 31, 2019
https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/05/31/edward-who-the-snowden-affair-ends-with-a-whimper/

It’s been more than six years since Edward Snowden went public.
What, pray tell, has come of it?
Ed Snowden, holed up in Russia, has faded into history. At the forefront of the Snowden disclosures, the news outlet known as The Intercept has officially shuttered its archives. They made their moulah and moved on.

[...] American intelligence escaped the Snowden revelations largely unscathed. That, dear reader, ought to tell you something.
But ultimately what matters is concrete institutional change. And there’s been zero of that, as in nada.
Because genuine privacy threatens advertising revenue, quarterly returns, and spy power. And the elites want to keep the money train chugging along.

Short of a massive political upheaval things aren’t going to change.
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Edward Snowden likes to promote strong cryptography. Leaving people with the notion that staying under the radar is a matter of leveraging a technical quick fix.
Achieving higher levels of security requires a disciplined process which is anything but a quick fix and which often entails giving up technology.
Even cartel bosses learn this lesson: security technology fails. Both by design and by accident. Spies win either way.
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hawki · Jun 19, 2019

"House fails to pass amendment curbing government surveillance

The House of Representatives voted on Tuesday against an amendment that would have reigned in some warrantless government surveillance under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act....

[The Amendment] has the backing of a number of internet rights and civil rights groups including Fight for the Future, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), among others...

The House voted 175-253 against it on Tuesday.

The amendment would have amended Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

Section 702 allows the National Security Agency (NSA) to collect information on foreign targets without a warrant. However, Americans’ communications can be part of what is collected when they talk with non-U.S. citizens abroad.

The amendment ... would have withheld funding for Section 702 unless the government commits to not “knowingly collect the data of people communicating from within the U.S. to other U.S. residents, and who are not specifically communicating with a foreign surveillance target,” according to EFF...

...[T]he amendment would block funding for Section 702 where “neither party to a communication is a foreign surveillance target” and “communication is entirely domestic.”..."
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https://www.dailydot.com/layer8/section-702-amendment-vote/

mirimir · Jun 20, 2019

Because if they did, "We're all gonna die!!!"

guest · Jun 26, 2019

NSA improperly collected Americans’ phone records for a second time, documents reveal
June 26, 2019
https://techcrunch.com/2019/06/26/nsa-improper-phone-records-collection/

Newly released documents reveal the National Security Agency improperly collected Americans’ call records for a second time, just months after the agency was forced to purge hundreds of millions of collected calls and text records it unlawfully obtained.

The document, obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union, shows the NSA had collected a “larger than expected” number of call detail records from one of the U.S. phone providers, though the redacted document did not reveal which provider nor how many records were improperly collected.
The ACLU called on lawmakers to investigate the improper collection and to shut down the program altogether.

“These documents further confirm that this surveillance program is beyond redemption and a privacy and civil liberties disaster,” said Patrick Toomey, a staff attorney with the ACLU’s National Security Project.
In an email Wednesday, the NSA spokesperson didn’t comment on the future of the program, saying only that it was “a deliberative interagency process that will be decided by the Administration.”
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guest · Jul 7, 2019

mood said: ↑

Ex-NSA contractor set to plead guilty for theft of top secret information
March 27 , 2019
https://www.cyberscoop.com/harold-martin-guilty-plea-nsa-shadow-brokers/
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Mystery of NSA leak lingers as stolen document case winds up
July 6, 2019
https://apnews.com/f84c3f7f9cb54ef7aaab16acbbc6f61a

The suspect, Harold Martin, was a contractor for the National Security Agency. His arrest followed news of a devastating disclosure of government hacking tools by a mysterious internet group calling itself the Shadow Brokers
“It was extraordinarily damaging, probably more damaging than Snowden,” cybersecurity expert Bruce Schneier said of the Shadow Brokers leaks. “Those tools were a lot of money to design and create.”

Prosecutors allege Martin jeopardized national security by bringing home reams of classified information even as, they say, he once castigated colleagues as “clowns” for lax security measures.
The 50 terabytes of information from 1996 to 2016 included personal details of government employees and “Top Secret” email chains, handwritten notes describing the NSA’s classified computer infrastructure, and descriptions of classified technical operations.

It’s unclear how Martin came to the FBI’s attention, but a redacted court order from a judge suggests agents may have been looking for a Shadow Brokers link when they obtained search warrants for his Twitter account and property before the raid.
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The NSA has since done more to protect its network and security and increased the monitoring of its employees, said security and counterintelligence director Marlisa Smith.

“I won’t tell you we’ve erased the risk of insider threat, it will never be down to zero, but we’ve worked very hard to mitigate and minimize the risk,” Smith said.
As for the mystery of who or what is behind the Shadow Brokers, there’s little certainty that the government will ever publicly resolve that lingering question, especially given the classified nature of the theft and the embarrassment it caused the U.S.
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Minimalist · Aug 1, 2019

Former NSA Contractor Edward Snowden Publishing Memoir

Edward Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor who fled to Russia after leaking information about the US government's mass surveillance program, is publishing a memoir.
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https://www.securityweek.com/former-nsa-contractor-edward-snowden-publishing-memoir

mirimir · Aug 1, 2019

He's awfully young for that, but his situation is precarious.

Minimalist · Aug 12, 2019

Evaluating the NSA's Telephony Metadata Program

Interesting analysis: "Examining the Anomalies, Explaining the Value: Should the USA FREEDOM Act's Metadata Program be Extended?" by Susan Landau and Asaf Lubin.
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https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2019/08/evaluating_the_1.html

mirimir · Aug 12, 2019

Good read

guest · Aug 15, 2019

Trump Administration Asks Congress to Reauthorize N.S.A.’s Deactivated Call Records Program
August 15, 2019
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/15/us/politics/trump-nsa-call-records-program.html

Breaking a long silence about a high-profile National Security Agency program that sifts records of Americans’ telephone calls and text messages in search of terrorists, the Trump administration on Thursday acknowledged for the first time that the system has been indefinitely shut down — but asked Congress to extend its legal basis anyway.

Complicating matters, three other surveillance authorities primarily used by the F.B.I. are also set to expire in mid-December. They include provisions that let investigators get court orders to collect business records relevant to a national security investigation, wiretap “lone wolf” terrorists without links to a foreign power, and keep wiretapping someone suspected of being a spy or a terrorist who switches phone lines in an effort to evade surveillance.

Mr. Coats’s letter said the administration supported making those three provisions permanent as well, rather than merely subjecting them to another extension of several years, as Congress has previously done.
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guest · Aug 15, 2019

The NSA Uses Slack. Why?
The United States' top digital surveillance agency is using an off-the-shelf version of Slack. For what?
August 15, 2019
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/...-nsa-refuses-to-tell-us-the-name-of-its-slack

In response to a Freedom of Information Act request filed by VICE, in which we requested all the Slack domains that NSA staffers are currently using at work, the NSA said that they do have the information we want—in other words, the NSA has a list of its Slack domain(s) because Slack is indeed in use by the agency.

But the agency also refused to tell us what Slacks it's operating because doing so would reveal state secrets.

When we asked the NSA's press department if they could just tell us what their Slacks are, a press liaison responded, "It’s unlikely that Security will agree to providing a clearer insight to our day-to-day workflow due to the nature of the work we do. The more information that is made public benefits our adversaries and we’re just not going to do that."
Why does any of this matter? Well, the NSA has little oversight and plenty of power to monitor and surveil the digital communications of pretty much everyone on Earth.
Given the weekly scandals of the Trump administration, the entire national security apparatus has fallen out of the public's consciousness, but the NSA is still there, and still spying.
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For its part, Slack said that "many local, state and government agencies and legislatures" use the service, but wouldn't tell us how much money it makes from government usage.

It's a frustrating example of how the broad blanket of national security can be used as a cudgel against even the most lighthearted attempts at figuring out what the government is doing, but hey, it's not like the NSA is transparent about anything.
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