Top-secret documents reveal that the National Security Agency is dramatically expanding its ability to covertly hack into computers on a mass scale by using automated systems that reduce the level of human oversight in the process.
The classified files – provided previously by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden – contain new details about groundbreaking surveillance technology the agency has developed to infect potentially millions of computers worldwide with malware “implants.” The clandestine initiative enables the NSA to break into targeted computers and to siphon out data from foreign Internet and phone networks.
The covert infrastructure that supports the hacking efforts operates from the agency’s headquarters in Fort Meade, Maryland, and from eavesdropping bases in the United Kingdom and Japan. GCHQ, the British intelligence agency, appears to have played an integral role in helping to develop the implants tactic.
In some cases the NSA has masqueraded as a fake Facebook server, using the social media site as a launching pad to infect a target’s computer and exfiltrate files from a hard drive. In others, it has sent out spam emails laced with the malware, which can be tailored to covertly record audio from a computer’s microphone and take snapshots with its webcam. The hacking systems have also enabled the NSA to launch cyberattacks by corrupting and disrupting file downloads or denying access to websites.
The implants being deployed were once reserved for a few hundred hard-to-reach targets, whose communications could not be monitored through traditional wiretaps. But the documents analyzed by The Intercept show how the NSA has aggressively accelerated its hacking initiatives in the past decade by computerizing some processes previously handled by humans. The automated system – codenamed TURBINE – is designed to “allow the current implant network to scale to large size (millions of implants) by creating a system that does automated control implants by groups instead of individually.”
In a top-secret presentation, dated August 2009, the NSA describes a pre-programmed part of the covert infrastructure called the “Expert System,” which is designed to operate “like the brain.” The system manages the applications and functions of the implants and “decides” what tools they need to best extract data from infected machines.
Mikko Hypponen, an expert in malware who serves as chief research officer at the Finnish security firm F-Secure, calls the revelations “disturbing.” The NSA’s surveillance techniques, he warns, could inadvertently be undermining the security of the Internet.
“When they deploy malware on systems,” Hypponen says, “they potentially create new vulnerabilities in these systems, making them more vulnerable for attacks by third parties.”
Hypponen believes that governments could arguably justify using malware in a small number of targeted cases against adversaries. But millions of malware implants being deployed by the NSA as part of an automated process, he says, would be “out of control.”
“That would definitely not be proportionate,” Hypponen says. “It couldn’t possibly be targeted and named. It sounds like wholesale infection and wholesale surveillance.”
The NSA declined to answer questions about its deployment of implants, pointing to a new presidential policy directive announced by President Obama. “As the president made clear on 17 January,” the agency said in a statement, “signals intelligence shall be collected exclusively where there is a foreign intelligence or counterintelligence purpose to support national and departmental missions, and not for any other purposes.”
The NSA began rapidly escalating its hacking efforts a decade ago. In 2004, according to secret internal records, the agency was managing a small network of only 100 to 150 implants. But over the next six to eight years, as an elite unit called Tailored Access Operations (TAO) recruited new hackers and developed new malware tools, the number of implants soared to tens of thousands.
To penetrate foreign computer networks and monitor communications that it did not have access to through other means, the NSA wanted to go beyond the limits of traditional signals intelligence, or SIGINT, the agency’s term for the interception of electronic communications. Instead, it sought to broaden “active” surveillance methods – tactics designed to directly infiltrate a target’s computers or network devices.
In the documents, the agency describes such techniques as “a more aggressive approach to SIGINT” and says that the TAO unit’s mission is to “aggressively scale” these operations.
But the NSA recognized that managing a massive network of implants is too big a job for humans alone.
“One of the greatest challenges for active SIGINT/attack is scale,” explains the top-secret presentation from 2009. “Human ‘drivers’ limit ability for large-scale exploitation (humans tend to operate within their own environment, not taking into account the bigger picture).”
The agency’s solution was TURBINE. Developed as part of TAO unit, it is described in the leaked documents as an “intelligent command and control capability” that enables “industrial-scale exploitation.”
TURBINE was designed to make deploying malware much easier for the NSA’s hackers by reducing their role in overseeing its functions. The system would “relieve the user from needing to know/care about the details,” the NSA’s Technology Directorate notes in one secret document from 2009. “For example, a user should be able to ask for ‘all details about application X’ and not need to know how and where the application keeps files, registry entries, user application data, etc.”
In practice, this meant that TURBINE would automate crucial processes that previously had to be performed manually – including the configuration of the implants as well as surveillance collection, or “tasking,” of data from infected systems. But automating these processes was about much more than a simple technicality. The move represented a major tactical shift within the NSA that was expected to have a profound impact – allowing the agency to push forward into a new frontier of surveillance operations.
The ramifications are starkly illustrated in one undated top-secret NSA document, which describes how the agency planned for TURBINE to “increase the current capability to deploy and manage hundreds of Computer Network Exploitation (CNE) and Computer Network Attack (CNA) implants to potentially millions of implants.” (CNE mines intelligence from computers and networks; CNA seeks to disrupt, damage or destroy them.)
Eventually, the secret files indicate, the NSA’s plans for TURBINE came to fruition. The system has been operational in some capacity since at least July 2010, and its role has become increasingly central to NSA hacking operations.
Earlier reports based on the Snowden files indicate that the NSA has already deployed between 85,000 and 100,000 of its implants against computers and networks across the world, with plans to keep on scaling up those numbers.
The intelligence community’s top-secret “Black Budget” for 2013, obtained by Snowden, lists TURBINE as part of a broader NSA surveillance initiative named “Owning the Net.”
The agency sought $67.6 million in taxpayer funding for its Owning the Net program last year. Some of the money was earmarked for TURBINE, expanding the system to encompass “a wider variety” of networks and “enabling greater automation of computer network exploitation.”
The NSA has a diverse arsenal of malware tools, each highly sophisticated and customizable for different purposes.
One implant, codenamed UNITEDRAKE, can be used with a variety of “plug-ins” that enable the agency to gain total control of an infected computer.
An implant plug-in named CAPTIVATEDAUDIENCE, for example, is used to take over a targeted computer’s microphone and record conversations taking place near the device. Another, GUMFISH, can covertly take over a computer’s webcam and snap photographs. FOGGYBOTTOM records logs of Internet browsing histories and collects login details and passwords used to access websites and email accounts. GROK is used to log keystrokes. And SALVAGERABBIT exfiltrates data from removable flash drives that connect to an infected computer.
The implants can enable the NSA to circumvent privacy-enhancing encryption tools that are used to browse the Internet anonymously or scramble the contents of emails as they are being sent across networks. That’s because the NSA’s malware gives the agency unfettered access to a target’s computer before the user protects their communications with encryption.
It is unclear how many of the implants are being deployed on an annual basis or which variants of them are currently active in computer systems across the world.
Previous reports have alleged that the NSA worked with Israel to develop the Stuxnet malware, which was used to sabotage Iranian nuclear facilities. The agency also reportedly worked with Israel to deploy malware called Flame to infiltrate computers and spy on communications in countries across the Middle East.
According to the Snowden files, the technology has been used to seek out terror suspects as well as individuals regarded by the NSA as “extremist.” But the mandate of the NSA’s hackers is not limited to invading the systems of those who pose a threat to national security.
In one secret post on an internal message board, an operative from the NSA’s Signals Intelligence Directorate describes using malware attacks against systems administrators who work at foreign phone and Internet service providers. By hacking an administrator’s computer, the agency can gain covert access to communications that are processed by his company. “Sys admins are a means to an end,” the NSA operative writes.
The internal post – titled “I hunt sys admins” – makes clear that terrorists aren’t the only targets of such NSA attacks. Compromising a systems administrator, the operative notes, makes it easier to get to other targets of interest, including any “government official that happens to be using the network some admin takes care of.”
Similar tactics have been adopted by Government Communications Headquarters, the NSA’s British counterpart. As the German newspaper Der Spiegel reported in September, GCHQ hacked computers belonging to network engineers at Belgacom, the Belgian telecommunications provider.
The mission, codenamed “Operation Socialist,” was designed to enable GCHQ to monitor mobile phones connected to Belgacom’s network. The secret files deem the mission a “success,” and indicate that the agency had the ability to covertly access Belgacom’s systems since at least 2010.
Infiltrating cellphone networks, however, is not all that the malware can be used to accomplish. The NSA has specifically tailored some of its implants to infect large-scale network routers used by Internet service providers in foreign countries. By compromising routers – the devices that connect computer networks and transport data packets across the Internet – the agency can gain covert access to monitor Internet traffic, record the browsing sessions of users, and intercept communications.
Two implants the NSA injects into network routers, HAMMERCHANT and HAMMERSTEIN, help the agency to intercept and perform “exploitation attacks” against data that is sent through a Virtual Private Network, a tool that uses encrypted “tunnels” to enhance the security and privacy of an Internet session.
The implants also track phone calls sent across the network via Skype and other Voice Over IP software, revealing the username of the person making the call. If the audio of the VOIP conversation is sent over the Internet using unencrypted “Real-time Transport Protocol” packets, the implants can covertly record the audio data and then return it to the NSA for analysis.
But not all of the NSA’s implants are used to gather intelligence, the secret files show. Sometimes, the agency’s aim is disruption rather than surveillance. QUANTUMSKY, a piece of NSA malware developed in 2004, is used to block targets from accessing certain websites. QUANTUMCOPPER, first tested in 2008, corrupts a target’s file downloads. These two “attack” techniques are revealed on a classified list that features nine NSA hacking tools, six of which are used for intelligence gathering. Just one is used for “defensive” purposes – to protect U.S. government networks against intrusions.
Before it can extract data from an implant or use it to attack a system, the NSA must first install the malware on a targeted computer or network.
According to one top-secret document from 2012, the agency can deploy malware by sending out spam emails that trick targets into clicking a malicious link. Once activated, a “back-door implant” infects their computers within eight seconds.
There’s only one problem with this tactic, codenamed WILLOWVIXEN: According to the documents, the spam method has become less successful in recent years, as Internet users have become wary of unsolicited emails and less likely to click on anything that looks suspicious.
Consequently, the NSA has turned to new and more advanced hacking techniques. These include performing so-called “man-in-the-middle” and “man-on-the-side” attacks, which covertly force a user’s internet browser to route to NSA computer servers that try to infect them with an implant.
To perform a man-on-the-side attack, the NSA observes a target’s Internet traffic using its global network of covert “accesses” to data as it flows over fiber optic cables or satellites. When the target visits a website that the NSA is able to exploit, the agency’s surveillance sensors alert the TURBINE system, which then “shoots” data packets at the targeted computer’s IP address within a fraction of a second.
In one man-on-the-side technique, codenamed QUANTUMHAND, the agency disguises itself as a fake Facebook server. When a target attempts to log in to the social media site, the NSA transmits malicious data packets that trick the target’s computer into thinking they are being sent from the real Facebook. By concealing its malware within what looks like an ordinary Facebook page, the NSA is able to hack into the targeted computer and covertly siphon out data from its hard drive. A top-secret animation demonstrates the tactic in action.
The documents show that QUANTUMHAND became operational in October 2010, after being successfully tested by the NSA against about a dozen targets.
According to Matt Blaze, a surveillance and cryptography expert at the University of Pennsylvania, it appears that the QUANTUMHAND technique is aimed at targeting specific individuals. But he expresses concerns about how it has been covertly integrated within Internet networks as part of the NSA’s automated TURBINE system.
“As soon as you put this capability in the backbone infrastructure, the software and security engineer in me says that’s terrifying,” Blaze says.
“Forget about how the NSA is intending to use it. How do we know it is working correctly and only targeting who the NSA wants? And even if it does work correctly, which is itself a really dubious assumption, how is it controlled?”
In an email statement to The Intercept, Facebook spokesman Jay Nancarrow said the company had “no evidence of this alleged activity.” He added that Facebook implemented HTTPS encryption for users last year, making browsing sessions less vulnerable to malware attacks.
Nancarrow also pointed out that other services besides Facebook could have been compromised by the NSA. “If government agencies indeed have privileged access to network service providers,” he said, “any site running only [unencrypted] HTTP could conceivably have its traffic misdirected.”
A man-in-the-middle attack is a similar but slightly more aggressive method that can be used by the NSA to deploy its malware. It refers to a hacking technique in which the agency covertly places itself between computers as they are communicating with each other.
This allows the NSA not only to observe and redirect browsing sessions, but to modify the content of data packets that are passing between computers.
The man-in-the-middle tactic can be used, for instance, to covertly change the content of a message as it is being sent between two people, without either knowing that any change has been made by a third party. The same technique is sometimes used by criminal hackers to defraud people.
A top-secret NSA presentation from 2012 reveals that the agency developed a man-in-the-middle capability called SECONDDATE to “influence real-time communications between client and server” and to “quietly redirect web-browsers” to NSA malware servers called FOXACID. In October, details about the FOXACID system were reported by the Guardian, which revealed its links to attacks against users of the Internet anonymity service Tor.
But SECONDDATE is tailored not only for “surgical” surveillance attacks on individual suspects. It can also be used to launch bulk malware attacks against computers.
According to the 2012 presentation, the tactic has “mass exploitation potential for clients passing through network choke points.”
Blaze, the University of Pennsylvania surveillance expert, says the potential use of man-in-the-middle attacks on such a scale “seems very disturbing.” Such an approach would involve indiscriminately monitoring entire networks as opposed to targeting individual suspects.
“The thing that raises a red flag for me is the reference to ‘network choke points,’” he says. “That’s the last place that we should be allowing intelligence agencies to compromise the infrastructure – because that is by definition a mass surveillance technique.”
To deploy some of its malware implants, the NSA exploits security vulnerabilities in commonly used Internet browsers such as Mozilla Firefox and Internet Explorer.
The agency’s hackers also exploit security weaknesses in network routers and in popular software plugins such as Flash and Java to deliver malicious code onto targeted machines.
The implants can circumvent anti-virus programs, and the NSA has gone to extreme lengths to ensure that its clandestine technology is extremely difficult to detect. An implant named VALIDATOR, used by the NSA to upload and download data to and from an infected machine, can be set to self-destruct – deleting itself from an infected computer after a set time expires.
In many cases, firewalls and other security measures do not appear to pose much of an obstacle to the NSA. Indeed, the agency’s hackers appear confident in their ability to circumvent any security mechanism that stands between them and compromising a computer or network. “If we can get the target to visit us in some sort of web browser, we can probably own them,” an agency hacker boasts in one secret document. “The only limitation is the ‘how.’”
The TURBINE implants system does not operate in isolation.
It is linked to, and relies upon, a large network of clandestine surveillance “sensors” that the agency has installed at locations across the world.
The NSA’s headquarters in Maryland are part of this network, as are eavesdropping bases used by the agency in Misawa, Japan and Menwith Hill, England.
The sensors, codenamed TURMOIL, operate as a sort of high-tech surveillance dragnet, monitoring packets of data as they are sent across the Internet.
When TURBINE implants exfiltrate data from infected computer systems, the TURMOIL sensors automatically identify the data and return it to the NSA for analysis. And when targets are communicating, the TURMOIL system can be used to send alerts or “tips” to TURBINE, enabling the initiation of a malware attack.
The NSA identifies surveillance targets based on a series of data “selectors” as they flow across Internet cables. These selectors, according to internal documents, can include email addresses, IP addresses, or the unique “cookies” containing a username or other identifying information that are sent to a user’s computer by websites such as Google, Facebook, Hotmail, Yahoo, and Twitter.
Other selectors the NSA uses can be gleaned from unique Google advertising cookies that track browsing habits, unique encryption key fingerprints that can be traced to a specific user, and computer IDs that are sent across the Internet when a Windows computer crashes or updates.
What’s more, the TURBINE system operates with the knowledge and support of other governments, some of which have participated in the malware attacks.
Classification markings on the Snowden documents indicate that NSA has shared many of its files on the use of implants with its counterparts in the so-called Five Eyes surveillance alliance – the United Kingdom, Canada, New Zealand, and Australia.
GCHQ, the British agency, has taken on a particularly important role in helping to develop the malware tactics. The Menwith Hill satellite eavesdropping base that is part of the TURMOIL network, located in a rural part of Northern England, is operated by the NSA in close cooperation with GCHQ.
Top-secret documents show that the British base – referred to by the NSA as “MHS” for Menwith Hill Station – is an integral component of the TURBINE malware infrastructure and has been used to experiment with implant “exploitation” attacks against users of Yahoo and Hotmail.
In one document dated 2010, at least five variants of the QUANTUM hacking method were listed as being “operational” at Menwith Hill. The same document also reveals that GCHQ helped integrate three of the QUANTUM malware capabilities – and test two others – as part of a surveillance system it operates codenamed INSENSER.
GCHQ cooperated with the hacking attacks despite having reservations about their legality. One of the Snowden files, previously disclosed by Swedish broadcaster SVT, revealed that as recently as April 2013, GCHQ was apparently reluctant to get involved in deploying the QUANTUM malware due to “legal/policy restrictions.” A representative from a unit of the British surveillance agency, meeting with an obscure telecommunications standards committee in 2010, separately voiced concerns that performing “active” hacking attacks for surveillance “may be illegal” under British law.
In response to questions from The Intercept, GCHQ refused to comment on its involvement in the covert hacking operations. Citing its boilerplate response to inquiries, the agency said in a statement that “all of GCHQ’s work is carried out in accordance with a strict legal and policy framework which ensures that our activities are authorized, necessary and proportionate, and that there is rigorous oversight.”
Whatever the legalities of the United Kingdom and United States infiltrating computer networks, the Snowden files bring into sharp focus the broader implications. Under cover of secrecy and without public debate, there has been an unprecedented proliferation of aggressive surveillance techniques. One of the NSA’s primary concerns, in fact, appears to be that its clandestine tactics are now being adopted by foreign rivals, too.
“Hacking routers has been good business for us and our 5-eyes partners for some time,” notes one NSA analyst in a top-secret document dated December 2012. “But it is becoming more apparent that other nation states are honing their skillz [sic] and joining the scene.”
———
Documents published with this article:
Hey guys and girls everything is lost not only on this Planet!
Soooo….take a deep breath and turn your self around we are
watching you one by one…soooo…have a nice day and don’t
forget we are the one and only who rules this Planet!!!
A.L. (Alien Life)
IT HASN’T BEEN QUIET 3 MONTHS SINCE THE NSA REFORM BILL PASSED THROUGH HOUSE OF REPS. GRANTING NSA SURVEILANCE POWERS, AS WELL AS ALL CITIZENS PHONE RECORDS. SINCE MAY 2014, THE NSA HAD OVER 1 MILLION NAMES ON THE TERRORIST WATCH LIST, AND HAD EVEN PREVENTED A COUPLE OF CITIZENS FROM BOARDING THEIR PLANE, WHICH IN TURN VIOLATED THEIR RIGHTS AS CITIZENS, THEY ALSO MANIPULATED SOCIAL MEDIA ACCOUNTS, THE NSA WENT AS FAR AS TO LABEL CITIZEN’S WHO VISITED THE WEBSITE TOR AND LINUX JOURNAL THEY WOULD BE TARGETED AS AN EXTREMIST. THE SITE TOR IS FREE SOFTWARE TO WHERE YOU CAN BROWSE THE INTERNET ANNONYMOUSLY. NOW THE NSA WANTS TO INFECT COMPUTERS WITH MALWARE, IN ORDER TO GAIN ACCESS TO THE USERS CONTENT? WHICH LEADS ME TO BELEIVE 1 THING, AND THAT IS THE NSA FEELS THREATEN BY PEOPLE GAINING KNOWLEDGE OF WHATEVER IT IS THEY ARE SO DESPERATLEY TRYING TO HIDE. THIS IS MY LAST POINT DIDN’T THE NSA AND OTHER GOVERNMENT OFFICALS RELENTLESSLY PURSUED A HACKTIVIST GROUP “ANNONYMOUS” FOR HACKING INTO VARIOUS MEMBERS COMPUTERS? EVEN THOUGH THE NSA HAS :SURVEILANCE POWERS: FOR SECURITY PURPOSES ( I WOULD LOVE TO KNOW THEIR SECURITY EXCUSES TO INFECT MILLIONS OF COMPUTERS WITH MALWARE WOULD BE) THE NSA SHOULD HAVE TO FACE SIMILAR CHARGES AS WELL AS THE INHUMANE SENTENCING THAT THEY FACED. I KNOW IT WILL NEVER HAPPEN, HOWEVER SINCE THE NSA PLANS WERE EXPOSED I THINK THAT ALL “ANNONYMOUS” HACTIVIST SHOULD AT LEAST BE GRRANTED A NEW TRIAL. WHILE THE NSA PROVIDES “TANGIBLE” EVIDENCE THAT WOULD SHOW THEY ARE IN FACT THE GUILTY PARTY.
Wow! In the end I got a web site from where I be able to really take valuable data regarding my study and knowledge.
Undeniably consider that that you stated. Your favourite reason appeared to be on the web the easiest factor to take note of. I say to you, I definitely get annoyed even as people think about issues that they just don’t realize about. You managed to hit the nail upon the top and also outlined out the entire thing without having side-effects , other folks can take a signal. Will likely be again to get more. Thank you
I read this article fully regarding the difference of latest and earlier technologies, it’s awesome article.
Great blog here! Also your website lots up very fast! What web host are you using? Can I am getting your associate link to your host? I desire my web site loaded up as quickly as yours lol
Thanks a bunch for sharing this with all folks you really understand what you’re talking approximately! Bookmarked. Please also visit my website =). We can have a hyperlink trade arrangement between us
Wow! At last I got a webpage from where I be able to actually get useful facts regarding my study and knowledge.
Spot on with this write-up, I seriously believe that this site needs a great deal more attention. I’ll probably be back again to read through more, thanks for the info!
Thanks a bunch for sharing this with all of us you actually understand what you are speaking about! Bookmarked. Kindly additionally seek advice from my web site =). We could have a link alternate agreement among us
This post provides clear idea in favor of the new people of blogging, that actually how to do blogging and site-building.
This article is genuinely a good one it assists new net people, who are wishing in favor of blogging.
Paragraph writing is also a fun, if you know after that you can write if not it is complicated to write.
Hi, after reading this remarkable post i am as well glad to share my knowledge here with mates.
Hurrah, that’s what I was seeking for, what a information! present here at this blog, thanks admin of this website.
Appreciation to my father who informed me regarding this website, this web site is actually awesome.
I have learn some just right stuff here. Definitely worth bookmarking for revisiting. I surprise how a lot attempt you put to create this type of excellent informative web site.
Asking questions are in fact nice thing if you are not understanding anything entirely, however this paragraph provides nice understanding even.
Excellent way of explaining, and good article to take information concerning my presentation subject, which i am going to deliver in institution of higher education.
Wonderful goods from you, man. I have understand your stuff previous to and you are just too magnificent. I really like what you have acquired here, certainly like what you are saying and the way in which you say it. You make it entertaining and you still care for to keep it wise. I can not wait to read far more from you. This is really a great website.
Normally I don’t read article on blogs, but I wish to say that this write-up very forced me to check out and do so! Your writing style has been amazed me. Thanks, quite great post.
It’s amazing in support of me to have a web site, which is beneficial designed for my knowledge. thanks admin
I did a FOIA suit against NSA in 1992 (Olsen vs NSA). I was also an anti-nuclear legal intervenor, and the first person to make contact with fellow pyrotechnicians and high-energy materials enthusiasts in the Soviet Union and then after its breakup— and the first to go overseas. I also currently oppose the illegal biological weapons work of Dr. Yoshihiro Kawaoka at the University of Wisconsin — Madison.
I’m a navy veteran of the late VietNam era and what I like to think of as a patriotic American. The national security state has treated me like a terrorist for decades, often in very heavy-handed and obvious ways in an effort to intimidate. I’ve suffered many break-ins, insanely expensive to the taxpayer surveillance and harassment, and the destructions of friendship, marriage and business– and even physical attacks.
These people are not nice. Be prepared to pay a price for defending freedom and the constitution.
Don’t give up. Take care of yourself. Be positive. Good luck! Happy 4th of July from the guy who shot the first ever 4th of July fireworks show in Russia in 1995.
Be safe. Have Fun. Listen to the 2nd song on the new Rudy Schwartz Project album…. it should be our anthem against oppression by NSA.
http://www.amazon.com/Winter-Dance-Koala-Sperm-Harvest/dp/B00JK0PA24/ref=sr_1_1?s=dmusic&ie=UTF8&qid=1404524409&sr=1-1&keywords=koala+sperm+harvest
Fuck you dumbasses. Say byebye to your bright and shiny shit. Read unread. Unread read. Done done. God damm mother fuckers. Suck this
WOW…makes Kevin Mitnick look a premature 5 month old toddler…
What’s he that wishes so?
My cousin Westmoreland? No, my fair cousin.
If we are marked to die, we are enough
To do our country loss; and if to live,
The fewer men, the greater share of honor.
God’s will, I pray thee wish not one man more.
By Jove, I am not covetous for gold
Nor care I who doth feed upon my cost;
It yearns me not if men my garments wear;
Such outward things dwell not in my desires.
But if it be a sin to covet honor,
I am the most offending soul alive.
No, faith, my coz, wish not a man from England.
God’s peace, I would not lose so great an honor
As one man more, methinks, would share from me,
For the best hope I have. Oh, do not wish one more!
Rather proclaim it, Westmoreland, through my host,
That he which hath no stomach to this fight,
Let him depart. His passport shall be made,
And crowns for convoy put into his purse.
We would not die in that man’s company
That fears his fellowship to die with us.
This day is called the feast of Crispian.
He that outlives this day and comes safe home,
Will stand o’ tiptoe when the day is named
And rouse him at the name of Crispian.
He that shall see this day, and live old age,
Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbors
And say, “Tomorrow is Saint Crispian.”
Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars,
And say, “These wounds I had on Crispin’s day.”
Where is Anonymous when you need them? Why isn’t Anonymous hacking into the NSA?
Anonymous IS NSA.
Key 5 You must for any early fraudulent activity or straight off obscure bank impostors. A pretty eminent dose needed 2,000+ mg./daily to see the best consequences — they additional footage that was shot but cut from the broadcast. As Well, the surface does not get if you happen yourself asking best rated car insurance good away is to petition a twosome of quotation marks. Do not at any point of clock the case of out of the blue financial troubles, such as if you become sick or injured or are set off from your job.
Look into my web blog; payday loans – http://perkpay.com
My vhut?
after I post this comment, I’m going to unplug my computer from the world and pretend I’m back in 1990, when times were fun and free.
I see a lot of comments here defending NSA’s acts, I am pretty sure some or most of them are hired trolls but there might still have some people here feeling about NSA and its policies. I see people saying things like what happens if they are watching us its for our good. NSA basically hacks into corporations, telecommunication companies and personal computers and they steal data to store them for future use/analysis. This alone is wrong.
If this kind of spying does not bother you, why don’t you invite your neighbors when you are taking a dump so that they can watch you and record you with their cameras? Why don’t you leave your curten open while you are having sex so people can watch and record? Why don’t you leave your door open when you go to bed so anyone who wishes can walk into your apartment and chill in there observing, recording your life and watch you sleep?
If you are locking your apartments door when you go to sleep, close your curtens when you have sex, close the door when you are in the bathroom, put pin codes on your devices so that others cannot see your phone/computer, use passwords for your social media, hide your personal stuff at home there is a reason for that right?
Its because even though you defend NSA here on the comments deep inside you care about privacy, and that if one day it touches you and that someone you don’t know sneaks on you you would feel violated. Now if someone you don’t know walks up to you and asks for your social media passwords and email passwords and asks for perdition to play with your computer will you be able to tell them “Ohh hi there sure here all my passwords, its all yours, I don’t have anything to hide, go in there and read and save all you want”?
If you are not doing any of the above then DO NOT come here and write things like its ok that there is mass spying and that there is nothing to worry about or that you are not doing anything wrong so that they can spy all they want and collect intel on you.
Instead think about for once how you would feel if one day you realize all your private life was under surveillance and that even your deepest secrets are known and recorded in some database with your personal profile analyzed by people you don’t and will never know.
Think for a second before writing ignorant comments.
If I’m not mistaken, this would be quite illegal if these allegations are true – why can’t other countries just stand up to this. This obviously goes against the laws in so many other countries. This can be interpreted as just plain disrespectful to other countries, regardless of who they are. I don’t think this sort of policy is very nice. It’s just plain invasion of privacy that would go against what most people are comfortable with.
Then again, many other world powers and individuals adopt this sort of strategy. I had inferred almost ten years ago that if government agencies were going to consider hackers as criminals, by all means it’s reasonable for agencies to have access to that computer or data, to further pursue a suspect.
After all that time however I’m disappointed to see that the blackhat community still exists, that so many aspects of the internet and computers are exploitable, despite those efforts. Perhaps the war on data will reflect the war on drugs; an endless pursuit and excuse for funding. I think it’s more wise to restructure the internet itself, rather than to waste money, and continue to waste money on solving this issue in this way.
I’m afraid you are mistaken my friend. The cat has already been let out of the bag. The Edward Snowden leaks were simply the final nail in that coffin…
…Most intelligent people know and understand that corruption and abuse of our freedoms are an undeniable part our human history…so much so that many even famous people have died trying to protect those freedoms…and no I’m not talking about drafted armies that are forced to do the bidding of their countries willful war-mongering…but people like JFK, MLK, Malcom X and the like…whom finally stood up against the ‘machine’ and yet paid dearly with their own lives because they believed in doing the right thing instead going along with the rest of the crowd…
It’s easy to get up on a High-Horse or be some sort of Arm-Chair Warrior, even to vie for a seemingly “Do-gooder” entity like the NSA, but the fact of the matter is, our history demonstrates quite the contrary about these so-called agents of security. And it wasn’t just 9/11 that spurred this ideology on. This despicable corruption and manipulation has been going on for centuries…
Just run through the timeline of our human history and it won’t be long before you start to see a very consistant yet dark pattern emerge from behind the curtain…and it all points to a very determined yet twisted elite class whom form the oligarchy that is, in effect always hidden in plain sight and yet never talked about or acknowledged…
Kennedy was very specific in one of his last addresses to the nation before he was savagely beheaded by gun-shot because he chose to stand firm against these masonic manipulators and the corporate monstrosity they wield around like a vicious attack-dog toting Gestapo machine to keep us dummed-down and lowly…
…Kennedy said, “…We are opposed to secret societies…secret oaths and secret proceedings…for we are opposed around the world by a monolithic and ruthless conspiracy that operates primarily by covet means…”
…Hello!…Wake up People!…Who do think Kennedy was talking about?!…The secret identity of Barney and Friends?!!!…Give me a break!…
The answers are staring us right in the face. The problem is that most people are just too scared to acknowledge what they know to be true…
What would happen if, for a few months, every internet user around the world wrote one daily email message to a friend and accidently included key words of interest to the NSA. My gosh, they might be so overwhelmed with work they wouldn’t get a lunch break.
Example: Hey Norm, Wholly By Bill, that new song of yours was explosive. My girlfriend said, “That’s the bomb.” You know, Norm, you couldn’t have created a greater national security threat to succeed if you had made the DVD with bunker buster shell fragments and fetal tissue. If you’re lucky, maybe it will go plutonium.
I agree with the critics that you guys are right on up there with Stockpiles and Atomic Detonator, those european bands. Well, I muslim-it this note to a few paragraphs and get back; Iran around all day, then iraq-ed my brain until my boy ied a nuclear glass tube for his toy radio detector particle plate. You should see his mosque-ito collection; impressive.
Keep up the good work and please tell our old professors, Mr Hamas and Miss Gaza, that I still remember their marine blockade ventures near the coast when they attempted to run the weapons-crabs back into hiding. Tell them please that the Eyemom catholitic converter needs over-hall.
Israel what you said about Nora? That girl needs to be decapitated, How did she ever graduate? She was stoned as far as I could tell and never said “Hi Jab,” when my brother Jacob walked by. Her eyes spun like a centrifuge. She was like the government, all conceited and over stuffed. When my brother’s friend asked about capital records for you, his brother said, “Yeah, and where’s a virgin-seeking jihadist when you need one?” Hey, that reminds me of the time I tora great big hole in my koran notes, I mean, korean notes? Darn it, Im such a bad speller.
I wonder how the diver’s weapons delivery got through; those guys rocket into action whenever the u.s.a (underaged savage authority) and p.l.o. (poultry literature organization) get involved; did you know that in the states, rubber Patriot Missile spear guns have to be licensed along with baby pacifiers and false teeth? You can get 20 years now for not paying your federal corruption taxes, or for eating a Fig Newton in public.
Take care, dude, and don’t let that ay-mam wanna -be get you down, “bama lama loosa all the day,” is what my step mother Mary always sings. My new roommate, Jesus, from the Mexican province of El Cia, asked if you want the straight dope, or the other stuff.
Tell me something, if and when you scribe back, islam better with carrots or potatoes? For myself, I prefer a cold fusion salad with white house staff dressing; I don’t know why they call it that. Take care.
Your friend the profiteer
Moshammesad
NSA uses some antivirus software to spy thousands of computer.
Antivirus software have full access to the computer : files, settings, emails, network, USB …
Users cannot distinct normal antivirus work (file scan, updates) and data spy (file read, send to server)
At least 3 major US antivirus vendors have helped NSA …
This post is so great! I read the whole thing in my van. I mean, its not like I watch things from my van, but I still love this post. No really, I mean, I have a van, but I dont watch kids or anything from it. Trust me, I know what I’m doing, I’m an expert
ohh no that want do
There are ‘good guys’ and ‘bad guys’ in all countries. Just cuz they’re on our side don’t mean their the ‘good guys,’ especially not when they are undermining our democracy.
In response to questions from The Intercept, GCHQ refused to comment on its involvement in the covert hacking operations. Citing its boilerplate response to inquiries, the agency said in a statement that “all of GCHQ’s work is carried out in accordance with a strict legal and policy framework which ensures that our activities are authorized, necessary and proportionate, and that there is rigorous oversight.”
What more can we ask for, and besides GCHQ actually has accreditors–> http://1drv.ms/1eXrI8Z
witness this possible conversation between and NSA operative and Skype/Google/Verizon employee assigned to coordinate one or more of the downloads:
NSA+ operative: “…Hey have you heard about the budget cuts that are being proposed?”
Skype/Google/Verizon employee: “yeah I heard it’s going to be rough! Any idea why such a big deal is being made of it?”
NSA operative: “…well as bad as the Snowden controversy was, did you know that there’s various groups that want to cut funding across the board, and especially the funding related to the various operations and subcontracting that NSA++et. al does?”
Skype/Google/Verizon employees+relatives: “Damn that is terrible…let me know if there’s anything we can do to help!”
hello every one I met with this [email protected] and I finally find out that he is really a truthful spell caster and so powerful and he is the most powerful spell caster that I have ever met. I wish I have met him before wasting money on fake casters, after using his love spell, my husband came back to me and every thing happened just the way prophet harry had said it, I am so happy that I have met with Oaikhinan Nelson and now I have my husband back to my self. if you need help try Oaikhinan Nelson just have to do so and get your lover back. I have tested him and I am now a fulfilled woman. Jennifer Mark
NSA national socialist ass-ociation. Letys get REAL George Washington created First secret POLICE in AMERICA.. American Native GENOCIDE inspired Hitler 100 yrs later. My Dad was in those Nazi camps so I do know,SOME, more than I wish to say. BUT USA has always been the SECRET SOCIETY OF THE MASON. J.EDGAR HOOVER 50 yrs FBI, cross dresser, aggressive gay guy same Boy Friend, 45 yrs also Edgar was Master Mason First Lodge Washington 1967. Remember a nation of SECRETS BUILT on secrets is also a nation of liars soon to kill for LIES VIETNAM remember. Know History…No surprises, Andrew Jackson INDIAN KILLER SLAVE OWNER and Quincy Adams Racist divide and Conquer became the Blue print gone GLOBAL. This is why USA inn Perpetual WAR Endless wars are Generated by FEAR, needs WAR, needs OIL needs YOUR TAX MONEY most of all needs YOUR FEAR. Fear bases WORLD , of SHAME, torture DEATH.
Get a job.
OI!
Geez… what country are you from? Lmao
On a serious note about the article (only relevant topic here) Is anyone really surprised at this technology? We’re only exposed to what “they” want us to see. I’m sure every country is doing it according to their funds scale. No one ever says “hey pick me” on a losing team.
Everyone Keep in mind that some posts here are by gov propaganda trolls employed by the NSA as revealed by hero Snowden,
its all a lot of made up scare stories
eh…no big deal. If the NSA wasn’t doing this stuff, they would suck. No effing magic. Like the man said, if they can route you to a web page, they can own your machine. Same thing to all you home users:Be careful what you click on.
Most of this stuff, either for data intelligence or management is available commercailly or in some cases free for all from the internets.
Who in their right mind uses the CLOUD? idiots who do not know it is a government system to collect information,
THERE IS NO INTERNET CLOUD, that is code for the NSA server system
no free thinking person alive thinks the cloud is worthy of storing documents and such.
anyone, and I mean anyone can look at you stuff on that CLOUD and see all you have there.
in this age of bigger hard drives who needs the cloud? I mean who besides morons
the u.s. corporatocracy has ruined the internet by turning it into a spy / propaganda tool for our evil empire. Oh well…. nothing lasts forever. Not even the u.s. republic. The bad guys won. What next?… guess.
Cleo Bonny Reading Ambassador
Secret agents and agencies should become a journalist even online who should observe, collect, write, submit, store, analyse, evaluate, verify, validate, asses and use them only for one customer “National interests”.
Cleo Bonny Reading Ambassador
The NSA and GCHQ are ruining the benefits of using technology. When my contracts on my broadband and smartphone expire I don’t feel like renewing them as I’m not knowledgeable enough to know how to prevent myself being spied on. The thought of everything I do, every call I make, being recorded makes me feel sick to my stomach. I don’t use Facebook, Twitter or Yahoo because I know the NSA spy on them, but that’s not enough. It’s not about ‘terrorism’ at all, it’s big brother monitoring dissent.
This is what I totally agree on, thanks for that comment Ella. Besides all that social media information is rubbish, what are they looking for? It is generally a waste of time anyway, don’t learn anything for oneself from all that stuff, a total distraction.
Hi E:
While there are certainly the usual assortment of megalomaniacs at NSA++el. al. (ie: it’s bigger, more extensive than you could possibly imagine, with no end to growth in sight) the main incentive is extracting an ever increasing share of the national treasury(ies)…and using that to build up kingdoms. It matters no so much what those kingdoms do, just that the employees are sufficiently like-minded and those can keep their mouths shut about the chaos….PS: same goes on at city, state and corporate governance. it’s a real cancer malignant…I always thank God my citizenship is in heaven…I’m just the messenger.
Agreed that the reach has justified Binney’s comparison to the Stazi…there are a couple simple changes that will clean your privacy at least as much of commercial surveillance is concerned.
1. use a search engine that doesn’t track. I like DUCKDUCKGO. stay away from microsoft, yahoo, apple, google, Facebook.
2. use a foreign email provider that encrypts. I like the russian provider–yandex.com
This article convinces me that there is no way to evade the surveillance techniques used now–but these small outliers may provide a bit more privacy…(and I’m no expert, but a friend who works in the field suggests these tactics
The most salient point of the whole article is that other countries are already or soon will be doing the same thing. Do we have any evidence that these capabilities have actually been used for nefarious purposes? Do we really want to hamstring our intelligence community out of some paranoid belief that big brother is out to get Joe Q. Public?
Personally I am happy that the “good guys” are apparently ahead of the pack when it comes to such surveillance methods. What we should be focused on is proper oversight so that there is a legitimate channel to which whistleblowers can run to in case any actual abuses take place. At the same time we should remember that there are plenty of bad actors in the international community and even if we decide to tie our hands behind our back, they certainly will not.
That you see “us” as good guys is a joke. If “we” are good guys, all is lost.
Should we be striving for anonymous communications rather than secure (encrypted) communications?
stay away from apple, yahoo, google, microsoft…
DUCKDUCKGO doesn’t track
change to a foreign email provider…i use yandex.com
Both anonymous+secure at the same time may be preferable.
Edward Snowden was a surprise guest “robotic” presenter yesterday at the Technology, Entertainment, and Design (TED) Conference in Vancouver. He appeared on stage via a video hookup from an undisclosed location in Russia. Video/audio quality was very good. The following links to a Fortune article (paragraphs 5 & 6 are on Snowden’s guest appearance) by a Fortune attendee. In a show of hands, Snowden was deemed a hero by 90% (some abstained including the author).
http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2014/03/19/dispatch-from-ted-edward-snowden-makes-his-case/
Treason being committed against America by the Bush/Obama fascist State. Hey, all you Obama idiots, how’s that “change” working out for ya?
With all that anger re Bush and Obama, you might want to redirect your anger in a positive way and start today in selecting and supporting your candidate of choice for President for 2016.
Yeah! Real Top Secret. Sorry, but all these supposed do-gooders in this article are controlled opposition.
I couldn’t make any sense of your comment. Was that your objective?
QUITE SCARY. Anyway, I am pretty sure that NSA boys are very ANGRY at one naughty sys admin Mr. Ed.S heheh….true hax0r….
and thx for the documents Glenn and other journalists….You made a tremendeous work on that articles – I know how much work it costed you to properly prepare all that tech jargon for people for better understanding….appreciated !
There is no such thing as anonymity online. To a degree, on our own machines (i/e passwords and the like) we can have privacy, if it isnt compromised.. But as far as internet goes, it was created by one of the special projects arms of the Pentagon (called ARPA back then, today known as DARPA) -Thus it is far more likely than not, that the back doors are written right into it. Our online activities, and texting and calling, may not be public but they sure as heck aren’t private. Look at all of the private text messages from the morning of 911 that were released publicly years later. No one mentioned where they came from but the answer was obvious.
You state your opinion that the Internet, from its very beginning, was designed and implemented with “backdoors”. I have never seen any evidence supporting your opinion. Do you have any?
Is there any evidence that NSA malware is pre-installed in new computers?
The short answer is YES. The NSA can “own” your new computer before it is delivered in multiple ways, software and some very scary almost invisible hardware.
For the long answer, I highly recommend that you watch Jacob Appelbaum’s talk at the 30th Chaos Communications Congress. His 12/30/2013 talk is titled “To Protect and Infect” Part 2, and is available as video (YouTube) and as a slide/transcript (prepared by volunteers). Be prepared for some sleepless nights after viewing as the NSA hardware gadgets will scare you more than any horror movie you have seen.
It’s okay for them to “masquerade” as Facebook. Just as long as they don’t send out “Gmail confessions” in the “name” of any well-connected academic department chairmen. That could land them in hot water with the Internet authorities in New York, where “neither good faith nor truth” is a defense. See the documentation of America’s leading “criminal satire” case for details on how this works: http://raphaelgolbtrial.wordpress.com/
Concentrate on anonymity
Snowden’s Revelations have sparked a lot of legal challenges, and I hope the Federal Courts grant us relief from Big Brother but I’m also realistic and expect (at best) cosmetic changes.
Am restricting my web/cell phone use to the trivial and innocent: hobbies, sports, weather and traffic reports, recipes, chit-chat with family and friends. Of course the very act of visiting this site is non-trivial and suspicious. :-)
We are no match for Big Brother with their armies of mathematicians and supercomputing resources. Not to mention the hopelessly compromised hardware, operating systems, and communications grid.
Rather than competing with Big Bro’ should we be concentrating on Anonymity? Perhaps we should grow beards, wear hats, and keep a small digital (and carbon) footprint.
Whilst I acknowledge the formidable tools that the Agencies have at their disposal, I believe that your approach is defeatistic at best. The United States REMAINS a democracy, and it is the active participation through its democratic processes that change can occur, and will occur. Meaningful change, I mean. No one is interested in fighting Big Brother; what reasonable persons are insisting on instead, is a change in the direction of the pendulum swing, which has moved so far away from the democratic process that it paints a picture of a nation less democratic, and that and is also beset with numerous constitutional violations. Stay positive…and hopeful.
I agree with everything you said my fellow human. Except the notion that the US remains a democracy.
1. Corporations are people now.
2. Money is free speech now.
3. Going to jail and being pepper sprayed for acting in your democratic right to protest.
4. You are labeled a “terrorist”, while being an american citizen, in the eyes of the corporate/military state for your belief system, all for speaking the truth based on substantiated fact.
5. Journalism, at least in the old form of print based investigative journalism is DEAD. And the little that is left, the persons responsible for speaking truth to power, have to live in exile of their home country to avoid prosecution for performing a CORNERSTONE OF ANY FUNCTIONING DEMOCRACY.
And the list goes on and on. The democracy you still believe in is a guise, put forth by the corporate/military state. We are living in a system of totalitarianism, not in the traditional sense where a dictator or a leader hammers government over the people, but with a mask covering the face of the corporate state while promoting a democracy that doesn’t exist. MASS WIDESPREAD CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE IS THE ONLY ANSWER. THAN AND ONLY THAN WILL BE ABLE TO RETRIEVE A FUNCTIONING DEMOCRACY.
Would we consider the US a democracy if the following are true?:
1. the federal executive is not selected by one-person-one-vote (far
from it)
2. voting in federal Senate is not weighted by population (68% of the
population gets 32% of the vote)
3. local minorities never get representation in federal House (US needs
multi-member districts, not gerrymandered single-member districts)
4. creation of legal tender is a privatized monopoly, at interest (the
Revolutionary War did not get Americans their public scrip back)
5. 90% of the money that debtors are charged for never existed
(fractional reserve allocates credit from principal that never existed)
6. creditors will not let the national debt be paid off (the lien on
taxpayers’ future income and assets is rehypothecated)
Your message really gives me the creeps! What planet are you living on? America was utterly destroyed in the Bush era and we are now staggering about in the rubble. Positive? Hopeful? You come off as some bloodless fundamentalist church lady.
Please don’t share in the defeatist attitude, especially on the most egregious attack on your civil liberties, and the constitution in the history of my lifetime for sure. Every single major change in policy for the betterment of the masses in the history of our land has come from social movements. Not gaining power, but placing power in a state of fear. If you drop out, and give up, it’s one less “soldier in the fight”. All movements have all sorts of contributions from all sorts of people. Don’t give up. Do something. Buy a tshirt and wear it in public, speak truth to idiots, smash apologists with truth, remind your children and your friends not to let their schooling interfere with their education. (Mark Twain) All of this can be done without being arrested or hurt in a march or demonstration. Do your part, don’t give up. Whatever that part may be. Stay strong and speak truth to power.
I don’t think that those idiots live in some special physical dimension of sorts
We can do plenty to defend yourself. Just by using a live CD|DVD to access the Internet (and making sure you use a RAM based home for the user using the browser), respectively (un)mounting your hard drives, totally encrypting them (which some legislations have already made illegal), keeping your cell phone in a Faraday cage, playing background music while you talk to someone in your apartment or even on the phone … really goes a long way
The thing is they need to own us at large otherwise their b#llsh!t won’t work, they will have to do too much guessing/think time and this exactly what they can’t technically afford, they can’t fund many idiots’ transcribing people’s talks if you play background music … (machines are notoriously weak at doing things our thinking brains almost unconsciously do). Also when you talk on the phone do not spell out addresses, names, … use references, pronouns, jest … usually there is some intersubjectivity/personallity with people you relate
There is plenty that can be done on a software level for example root should not be able to access the Internet at all, networking libraries should be transferred to user land, I remember some SCSI drives used to come with a switch which would physically disable writing to them …
Openly protesting and disrespecting their b#llsh!t will get us one more leg out …
truth and peace and love,
C
Enough with the PowerPoint fairy tales. We get it. Now, does Snowden have any code at all? Something that shows that these plans actually work?
He should have captured all the personal data of a prominent politician and released that — and it would have made more of a revelation of some conceptual NSA ideas?
My favorite fairy tale is The Three Little Pigs” (I enjoy construction). Yours seem to be Powerpoint presentations.
Since MS Powerpoint now has a monopoly on presentations created on Windows PCs and tablets, and there are, undoubtedly, millions of Powerpoint presentations, you must be depressingly frustrated trying to pick a favorite fairy tale. I suggest you give up on your belief that PowerPoint presentations are fairy tales, and read some actual books on fairy tales. I learned my fairly tales from reading library books when I was in elementary school.
Snowden would have needed to take much more than code. He would have had to take (think 18-wheelers) the complete infrastructure of equipment to have a working system. You must have missed the fact that these secretive classified NSA spying programs don’t run on PCs.
Your final suggestion of capturing and releasing personal information on a prominent politician or celebrity is what the tabloid press already does. I suggest you view the suits filed by the EFF, ACLU, and others against the government to see evidence of what the NSA has already done with their “conceptual” (your term) ideas.
Lot of time on your hands, Jim?
The US just gets worse and worse and worse. God save the World from America!!
God is dead.
Never existed, apart from in the misconceptions of Man.
America is dead.
Hi. So what? Why would it be done? How is it a problem? It would be too much too look at all the info of every person everyday. A waste of time to get no where. I think.
With enough information, you could predict major events and trends. What the government is capable of has become dangerous. Imagine a governing body that knows how peopl will react to every decision they make. And how they can manipulate the response of these people. Complete control. It’s scary.
You may have missed the fact that the NSA, assisted by its partners like the UK GCHQ, is working to collect and store all the digital communications (metadata and content) of everyone in the world, including all Americans. The NSA can search, i.e., look at this stored (or live streamed real-time) data whenever they see fit, for any person they select/target, including you. The FBI, Homeland Security, local law enforcement, and many other organizations, also has access to much of this stored data.
So, if one day, you, or a loved one, falls out of favor with the government – federal, state, local – your or their history of stored communications can be selected, searched and listened to. How much are you willing to bet against them finding something, especially when they are willing to subvert the law and take things out of context?
To view a documentation of how my cell phone was hacked, please visit this URL:
“http://peacepink.ning.com/profiles/blogs/mind-control-torture-and-wireless-communication-abuses”.
The documentation was written on the fly; there is more to be appended to this file that is very unsavoury to say the least.
Zuckerberg has called up Obama on this issue, lovely! Brzvo!
Zuck will not worry about privacy and freedom, which always weighted by the size of your wallet. Truth is, the fear.
More fear and more untrustworthniess –> less posting on Internet –> less data flow through Facebook, Twiit or Youtube etc. , –> less money to be made from
What’s true and honour in today’s world? SIZE OF YOUR WALLET!
QUESTION:
The URL of this page has in the past been “https://firstlook.org/theintercept”. This has always been preceded by a rectangular icon with a red background and the capital letters “TI” in white, followed by a locked ‘lock icon’. The URL continues to be the same, but the rectangular icon has been missing since the lock icon showed opened several times. The lock is back to being locked again now, but the red rectangular icon is permanently missing. Furthermore, accesses to the website via my hacked cell phone frequently boot me out of the internet altogether the moment I try to access the page. It is different with a desktop: for those, I use library computers since I do not have a working desktop unit…
Because of past experience (2003) with a virtual rootkit that took over my IBM laptop then, effectively permanently destroying it, and how that rootkit overlaid the UI of user programs, like Symantec’s Internet Security package while redirecting all activity on the computer, I am now wondering if the same is happening or whether ‘theintercept’ deliberately removed this rectangular square icon? Does anyone know what is going on? Not paranoid, for those to whom they attach this word to such queries as if by rote training. Just need a rational explanation.
You dont mention what browser or OS you’re using but that icon changing probably has to do with FL servers and whether or not they are happened to have been using http or https, -the the times you saw the different icons. -Type your questions into Google.
After reading your comment,,i realized,,i too have benn ,”booted” off the internet for alost 1 week,,after blogging on a site called ,”wired”,,and i was responding to a article about the n.s.a. purposedly targeting all ,”encryted sites,” like tor,etc,,my comment was,,”what if all this deceit,all this spying,,all this violation of our constitution led to a Revolution in America,,a 2nd Civil War in america for complete violation of our Constitution,,a piece of paper ethical men and woman died for back in 1776,,,what if all this corruption,deciet etc leads to a war in America,,is it still worth it N.S.A,????Next thing I know,,some sorta of virus or something literally hit my computer like 5 minutes after I wrote this,,,now I wonder,,is it ,”them;'; censorring me,,I know they have already censored other country’s from being available on American internet,,I already know,,they have made innocent people guilty by deleting,creating,,and ,”redacting” documents,,it was done to my husband,,,,,so it really would not be a stretch for them to censor free speach on the internet,,,paita
The most obvious modifications were the new position of the auto market in mobile Japan, said as he
showed a candy-colored blue Fiesta at a hip Tokyo cafe.
http://porterpdve.wordpress.com/2014/02/06/it-does-not-require-much-time-and-if-you-make-any-mistakes-in-assembling-the-parts-you-can-always-start-afresh/ http://stonehammex.edublogs.org/2014/02/07/soon-enough-i-was-there-pestering-my-elder-brother-to-tell-me-about-his-experiences-with-his-motorcycle/
Insight Privacy policy
” we and our service providers may collect limited information about the devices you use to access our Services, including the type of device you’re using (computer, mobile phone, tablet, etc.), the operating system running on that device, the type and version of browser software you’re using, the resolution of your computer monitor or other device display, the screen colors available on your device, the website that referred you, and your IP address.”
In a data base with several visits, an individual can in fact be identified using the data this website collects.
A site that actually valued privacy woud not collect it or sell it to others.
In 1992 when I first got on the “Internet”, I was told, “Never put anything on the internet you wouldn’t want your mother to know.” Since then I’ve assumed that everything has been monitored. The entire propose the internet has been promoted is to allow total surveillance.
What prevents the super computer guys from breaking into Bitcoin?
Long and complicated answer:NOTHING.
All this begs the question: to what extent are we be surveilled on our smart phones and tablets with the Android operating system?
If someone could provide a link or two to some credible sources that cite this information, it would be very much appreciated. Thanks.
In terms of accessing the internet – it won’t make any difference what device you are using – you will be surveilled just the same. (You could look at Tor to make things more difficult for them)
In terms of them implanting your phone: Android = Google = Big Corporation. Whether you using a Microsoft, Apple, or Android (Google) device – it will make little difference.
Computer Systems Engineer – 20 years experience.
Know what you will NEVER see from Greenwaldo? Slide 1. Because slide 1 would let you know that these programs are aimed at foreign terrorists.
How do you know what slide 1 says? Are you seriously suggesting that there are ‘millions’ of foreign terrorists?
If you believe that foreign targets are the only targets of the NSA, I have a bridge for sale.
did it ever occur to anyone that it doesn’t matter what color the bullet is when it kills you? or if smiley faces or sad faces are painted on the bomb that hits you? we have all known all of this was taking place already – this “proof” is just a laundry list of systems architectures thus far – so what? we knew we were being spied on, weve known since 9/11 they were mass culling all data and ramping us towards an “internet 2.0″ situation.
you’re all so well-intentioned that it is quite easy for the enemy to just use you all like this.
I didn’t know the extent of the surveillance. I didn’t know that all my digital communications, metadata and content, was being collected and stored, as was the digital communications of everyone in the world, including all US citizens. Before last June (2013), I thought only the “bad” guys were surveilled. Since last June, I have discovered that being a good guy no longer matters – all of us are surveilled.
I also didn’t know all the insidious ways my government (USA) was tracking us. They track us with all kinds of hardware implants and software implants. The total exceeds 100 and may exceed 1000 for all we know. And they kept all of this secret so they won’t be impeded by damaging public discourse.
What bothers me a lot is that they COERCED American companies – big ones like Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Twitter, Intel, Verizon, At&T, Apple, and untold others, and small ones like Lavabit and RSA – to provide them whatever data they requested (bulk data collection and real-time communications access) and “backdoors” to enable full hidden access to all our personal and private data.
The Snowden documents reveal that NSA knows no bounds to their surveillance actions. My parents grew up with the saying “a chicken in every pot”. The NSA saying must be “a spy in every thing”. My fastest PC uses an Intel chip (latest – 1) and runs Windows 7. Both have imbedded spycraft. I also have an older PC with an AMD 2400 MHz chip running Windows XP. I imagine the AMD CPU is safe but need to check if my Windows XP SP3 is safe too. If not, I have a really old laptop that has Windows 98. Maybe, I need to start using that to access the Internet. What a sorry state we are now in due to our government spying and hacking. We Americans can’t even use the technology we invented. Back to the 80s we go to get some level of protection from the NSA.
Very well put, Jim Moore. Thank you.
“Both have imbedded spycraft.”
Interesting conclusion. What are you basing it on? 99.99% of all spying is not done by targeting individual machines.
You are a smart man Mr Moore.
My old Mac is my fail safe.
Its an analogue in a digital age.
It never seems comprised .
Yes I find XP better for security than modem versions of windows. and my secondary computer runs XP. Strange Microsoft is ending support for XP in April.
I imagine that the NSA doesn’t have any problems getting the large corporations to sign onto spying. Those huge tax exemptions are the kick back for doing so.
Does anybody get the sense that it is too late, that what we are fond of thinking of as the internet no longer even exists?
I hope not.
I still hope that the Internet can be saved. However, with each new revelation on the NSA corruptions of the Internet, my hope lessens. After viewing Snowden’s talk and interview at SXSW on Monday, 3/10, I thought that using end-to-end encryption might be the answer. Then, this week, I learned of all the NSA implants planned for our computers and NSA backdoors in Intel CPU chips and I despaired. Right now I’m in a funk. I need to take a break and get my optimism back.
Sorry, too late.
Internet, corrupted by our insane “iNSAne” government is now the……….. i N S A net
One day we will wake up and realize that the technology we all love and adore is being used to enslave us. One day…
FWIW:
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2014/03/14/290260939/u-s-to-relinquish-remaining-control-of-the-internet
I’m surprised I didn’t see anybody note the most worrying aspect of this mess.
Yes, it is bad that the NSA can spy on everyone.
Yes, it is bad that there is no control or oversight on what the NSA do.
Yes, it is bad that they are infecting people’s computers with malware.
Yes, it is bad that weakened security is an open invitation to criminals to steal.
Yes, it is bad that we have no way of knowing when the NSA is infiltrated by criminals and no way to fix it.
But the really scary thing is that the NSA dweebs have put a primitive kind of AI in control of deciding what is to be spied on and targeted. And this is not a sophisticated AI like in the scary SF stories, like Skynet in the Terminator movies; this is primitive. We don’t have good AI capability yet. Making decisions that could ruin innocent people’s lives based upon crappy software is a breathtakingly stupid idea. One of the biggest known problems in computing is that people trust software far beyond what is sensible. When someone’s life is destroyed people will just shrug and assume that the software got it right, because it is a computer.
Has anybody noticed that with all these intrusive powers the NSA has not found a single terrorist threat?
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-01-13/nsa-data-has-no-discernible-impact-on-terrorism-report.html
It is crazy that at a time when crimes worldwide, especially violent crimes, are at an all-time low and have been trending downward since we started keeping records, we are subject to methods of control that are disproportionately severe. We live in the most peaceful time in history, but powerful forces (newspapers, TV, radio) constantly try to convince us that we are forever embroiled in war.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ramBFRt1Uzk? or http://www.ted.com/talks/steven_pinker_on_the_myth_of_violence
The spooks have become our enemy, when they could easily be our friend. Imagine what an ally they could be for all of us if they released all their info (though not our personal data of course) and helped us plan for an open future where we all had access to statistics that were reliable and meaningful. Instead, they have fallen prey to the fetish of secrecy. In computing is has been shown that the best way to get good security is to remove secrecy. Their secrecy is making NSA, GCHQ, and similar spook agencies around the world a great danger to us all. What a terrible shame. All that talent wasted.
the goal of this debriefing was to make you scared – what good is a giant spy grid if the plebs aren’t afraid of it? oh and btw they have now effectively commoditized whisteblowing.
Joshua, you are over-thinking it.
The people who run these spy agencies are just not that crazy. They are short-sighted and frankly stupid when it comes to understanding social dynamics. They may be technologically brilliant, but they don’t understand people. They desperately want to keep this stuff quiet and are grumpily nursing a big black eye from the Snowden releases. They want a complacent population that happily goes about daily activities never suspecting their every move is being watched.
If they understood human nature they would see that they could be one of society’s greatest assets simply by opening up their operations. They don’t understand what an impediment distrust and paranoia have become, and they will never understand that while distrust and paranoia motivate most of their own actions. They’re still living under the delusion that the cold war never ended. They are terribly out of sync with reality.
This is the greatest age of peace and nonviolence in all of human history, and things are not likely to get worse in that respect. What we need more than ever is transparency to fight off the only real threats to humankind: the giant corporations who undermine and corrupt governments and media around the world. We need genuine information on who is buying politicians. The NSA could help, but they are wasting time and resources on chasing ghosts.
Miriam,
Your out of touch with reality, This is not the greatest age of peace and nonviolence in human history. My God, the United States is at war non stop and they will not stop until they have total control. They being elite. Look at the weapons just waiting to be used. The NSA is not chasing ghosts. For total control anyone who has spoken out against the new gov. will be terminated. People will be screened using the NSA’s info. and if need be, terminated. Period. The corporations who own the country via Capital hill are not hard to find. I think the Fortune 500 would be a good place to start. Check out Agenda 21. There you will find the worlds future.
Miriam has hit the jugular on this one.
While I agree with a majority of your statement, I can’t say that I can agree with you that violent crimes worldwide are at an all-time low…to quite the contrary, studies show that sorry state of affairs the world economy has found itself in, has only help to perpetuate and worsen the violence and criminal activity…
I think you should double-check your facts on that one for sure but it certainly doesn’t take a rocket-scientist to figure out that we’ve seen far more carnage in this past century alone than compared to the rest of our modern human history combined…
…Prior to this century we’ve never seen World Wars in which millions of lives were lost and since then technology and development have only added fuel to that fire, as you so eloquently pointed out…
A progressive moral decline in society just goes hand in hand with the present day technological disaster we find ourselves in…
And it will only get worse as time goes on but to say that things have gotten better is akin to outright naivety. Even if our governments and their corporate counter-parts are to blame because they are the main cause—violence in war-torn countries have only gone from bad to worse. Add to that, the financial shenanigans of the international banking community (or should I say banksters) and is it really any wonder why one country after another is no the verge of economic-meltdown…
Case in point, these events have culminated into what is now comparable to the Great Depression and considering the fact that markets haven’t bottomed out yet and the fed just keeps inflating our currency, it’s obvious that the road that lies ahead is very long and dark…
Again I agree with you about the NSA and I found the point you made about the fact that they haven’t even used their intricate spying techniques to catch the terrorists they so vehemently say they loathe—equally compelling.
I only hope that more people can recognize those facts too. All the same, the finer point here is that there really isn’t a logical justification for the extreme measures they are taking in the name of national security…
…When was peace ever promoted without an ulterior motive…
…For we surely are not going to find true peace and security from these guys, no matter what disinformation they throw our way…
Wake up clueless idiots! Facebook is the NSA. Facebook was funded by a CIA front company. Zuckerberg is a spook and you are all data-mined forever. Like the NSA, Facebook is evil.
Please provide sources/evidence for your claims re Facebook and Zuckerberg being “in bed” with the NSA.
Thanks.
Some of these documents are bogus. Me thinks Snowden is starting to make stuff up now. It’s hard to give up the limelight, eh Edward?
Which ones ? Inform us and how you know.
Otherwise you and me are dancing to the beat of a different drum, TomTom.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s3Nq48sHF8M
Linda Ronstadt – Different Drum Lyrics
TomTom is DumbDumb. Trolls and NSA hackers don’t deserve a reasoned response to their childish taunts and smears.
HI Jimmy, some of my comment reading evaluation is exactly to watch for common troll tactics by the rather large, but relatively naive efforts govt agencies make at deception.
The FBI couldn’t even fool unsophisticated teenagers at one time, but I expect, aside from the overtly coarse attempts to discredit either the information, the source who exposed it, or the appeals to fear and nationalism, that agencies would be hiring more intelligent psychological assessment and thus obfuscative strategies and techniques.
To some extent those agencies are stillmaking significant mistakes through thehubris developed by the use of these tools. Hubris is a weakness found in many hackers, and those suborned and hired by government are as subject to the boastful weakness as any other. It allows more circumspect humans to more easily intuit agendas.
Whatever response is given them, it DOES allow more accurate evaluation of their agenda, and so if you can stomach it, it’s all worth something.
If you really this that, you are deluding yourself…hopefully, most of those posting her know better!
Ya it all a game out there-Dr. J…and Mr. Hyde slugging it out. Soon they’ll be watching ya take a shower without ya known it. Where is the article that i saw months back relating that the computers at the House of Representatives were all laced with porn on them? I can’t locate the article from the Web that had some good insight regarding child pornography was being nurtured and produced in this old ol’ USA where the protection money went to certain federal agencies, as well as state and local agents? Try and get into their private under world and see how fast ya get a rope around ya neck. Worse yet, mess with the NSA with any rightful rebuttal to their actions and they will quietly find a way to put those individuals out to pasture. Wonder if it’s easier to be a citizen of the South Pole?
F the NSA!!!!!!!!
“QQ”, that would be targeting Chinese like me.
If you can build a Linux desktop, you could OWN them!
have a nice day
Why is the fact that the official explanations of 9/11 are patently impossible (http://smu.gs/19q1JlM
) not even addressed, when discussing the War on Terror, drone strikes, & the NSA. After all this was the seminal event that still serves as pretext for all of this criminality. One thing has become very apparent: 911 Truth is the litmus test for true journalism. If one cannot address that the most important event of the 21st century is a complete lie and that there is a s mountain of evidence in support of this claim, then what good is any of this?
Your premise is faulty, because a) they have been addressed, and b) been proved to be patently impossibly, because c) we used science to prove it.
We’re all for revisiting things whenever new information comes along and changing our mind around here – but until you and yours offer new evidence that contradicts what has been said already, please refrain from continuing to make claims that you cannot refute with evidence.
“Your premise is faulty, because a) they have been addressed, and b) been proved to be patently impossibly, because c) we used science to prove it.”
This simply is not true. To begin with, the NIST investigation of the Towers only went so far as ‘collapse initiation’ as if all the rest of the remaining intact structure below: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hS–jU8DWUI was not worth addressing. Sorry, but no one has satisfactorily explained: the speed, symmetry, explosiveness of the towers, which pulverized most of the concrete floor slabs and left over 1100 people unaccounted or to this day; 100 day fires, w/wildly excessive temperatures. Molten steel and Iron (See FEMA BPAT App C) ;The implosion of WTC 7, of which the facade fell at free fall for the first 108′. What happened to the 53 perimeter wall columns? This is obviously not the place to discuss this in detail, (see above link) but your comments clearly belie your ignorance of a mountain of well-documented facts that make the official explanations patently impossible.
Thanks for bringing this up. I saw the towers fall on TV. Symmetrical. Looked like a controlled demolition to me. Now, maybe the towers were rigged this way for end-of-life demolition prep, or some such reasonable reason, but so far no on in authority will even touch it. C’mon people, let’s get real and get the truth out.
When you say “get the truth out” that’s not what you mean. You really mean let’s promote my preferred conspiracy theory. The investigations I’ve read explain the collapse perfectly well.
They used aluminum in parts of the building that would normally use steel — this seemed like a good idea at the time because it made the structure lighter and stronger. If you raise the temperature of aluminum high enough it burns with extraordinary heat — this is what a thermite bomb is. Normally airplane fuel is not likely to reach those temperatures, but forced blowing (like in a blacksmith’s furnace) from upper level winds would have created an inferno. When structural support failed on one floor it pancaked onto the floor below, with the impact exceeding the strength of the supports for that floor, setting up a domino effect. I’ll bet the terrorists were as astonished as everybody else that the buildings came down. They probably just expected them to burn up there in the sky as beacons. I can just imagine them thinking “Oh shit” when the buildings collapsed. If they’d chosen almost any other buildings they probably would not have collapsed. The design of the twin towers was innovative and a great idea… until some jerks decided to fly planes into them.
When people say that investigations into the collapse don’t explain it you can guarantee those people haven’t read the investigations; they just want to believe in conspiracies.
Come on people. There are plenty of bad things in the world to worry about without inventing paranoid fantasies.
“Zuckerberg Called Obama To “Express Frustration” Over Spying’s Threat To Internet Security”
http://techcrunch.com/2014/03/13/zuckerberg-called-obama-to-express-frustration-over-new-nsa-revelations/
Snowden’s 3/10 interview and recommendations to SXSW on Monday, 3/10,made the front page of the San Jose Mercury News on Tuesday, 3/11. Mark Zuckerberg’s call to Obama about Internet security made the front page today. The efforts of Snowden, Glenn, The Intercept, and others are bearing fruit.
The San Jose Mercury daily newspaper and online version is the newspaper for Silicon Valley.
How to protect ourselves??
Is an antimalware program enough? Wich one you suggest?
Thanks
I use AVG antivirus and antirootkit (Free version), Malwarebytes antivirus removal and Malwarebytes antirootkit, IObit antimalware, Microsoft Security Essentials, Kaspersky TDSS rootkit killer, Kaspersky Virus removal Tool and occassionally Norton.
It pays to use many as I found the other day, sometimes one will find the problem while the others are made to look in the wrong direction.
Nasty Nasty rootkits.
If you notice your machine slowing down or taking a while to load URLs or you get a ssl warning or you hear the ping of oppression, something is happening.
Turn off error reporting, turn off automated updates always choose to not send information to other parties no matter who they are or who they look like.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xzORu1dqEE0
Except for suspected terrorists, I don’t know why anyone would care to waste time or taxpayers money spying on the general populace. I would think it a very boring waste of time going vicariously through
the daily routines of family, living, working, schooling, etc. What’s togain? Perhaps I am naive.
I can not post here under James Fingleton Wild.
I have emailed the Intercept asking if there is a problem but have received no reply.
I found the following Nasty rootkit on my computer and maybe its the problem.
Kelly1880 is working on another computer perhaps its the machine.
I will try again on this one.
Hello boys and girls and my unicorn friends at the NSA.
Nasty, nasty rootkit.
Stopped me from posting at the Intercept for a day..
To the spooks in room 237, I aint afraid of no ghosts..
Service function ;NtWriteVirtualMemory hook
NtUserSetWinEventHook hook
NtUserSetWindowsHookEx hook
NtUserSetParent hook
NtUserSendInput hook
NtUserRegisterRawInputDevices hook
NtUserPostThreadMessage hook
NtUserPostMessage hook
NtUserMessageCall hook
NtUserGetKeyState hook
NtUserGetKeyboardState hook
NtUserGetAsyncKeyState hook
NtUserFindWindowEx hook
NtUserBuildHwndList hook
NtUserAttachThreadInput hook
NtUnmapViewOfSection hook
NtTerminateThead hook
NtTerminateProcess hook
NtSystemDebugControl hook
NtSuspendThread hook
NtSuspendProcesshook
NtSetSysteminformation hook
NtSetSequirityObject hook
NtSetInformationToken hook
NtSetContextThread hook
NtSecureConnectPort hook
NtSaveKey hook
NtRestoreKey hook
NtRequestWaitReplyPort hook
NtReplyPort hook
NtReplaceKey hook
NtQueueApcThread hook
NtQuerySection hook
NtQueryDirectoryObject hook
NtOpenThread hook
NtOpenSemaphore hook
NtOpenSection hook
NtOpenProcess hook
NtOpenMutant hook
NtOpenFile hook
NtOpenEvent hook
NtMapViewOfSection hook
NtLoadDriver hook
NtGdiStretchBit hook
NtGdiPlgBit hook
NtGdiMaskBit hook
NtGdiBitBit hook
NtFsControlFile hook
NtDuplicateObject hook
NtDevicetoControlFile hook
NtDebugActiveProcess hook
NtCreateWaitablePort hook
NtCreateUserProcess hook
NtCreateThreadEx hook
NtCreateThread hook
NtCreateSemaphore hook
NtCreateSection hook
NtCreatePort hook
NtCreateNamedPipeFile hook
NtCreateMutant hook
NtCreateFile hook
NtCreateEvent hook
NtConnectPort hook
NtClose hook
NtAlpcSendWaitReceivePort hook
NtAlpcCreatePort hook
NtAlpcConnectPort hook
NtAdjustPriviledges Token hook
all at C:\Windows\system32\DRIVERS\6915808drv.sys
Hey kelly1880, what are al those codes you put?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rootkit
Mixpanel, Google Analytics, Conviva and Gavatar are all used by the “NSA” to infect machines.
So many unresponsive scripts run here.
Why ( this very article points to the dangers and states it quite clearly) would the Intercept invit these complicit third partie to operate there spying here at the Intercept?.
Rootkits are a bastard to find but they are very hard to delete.
How the hell are these criminal NSA pervs not rotting in jail? There is no justification for this.
Eagerly awaiting the proof that proves nsa statement on this wrong.
Yeah they spend billions of our tax dollars thinking they are so smart and six months later some 14 y ear old hacks THEIR system and it’s kaput. What ajoke this whole NSA garbage is.
With the key element being that that 14 year old is then accused of high crimes and misdemeanors and
threatened with life in prison for being a “traitor.” Aaron Schwartz’s fate was meant to be an object
lesson. It drove him–an accomplished, confident, talented, well-connected person–to suicide. Imagine what it might do to the vulnerable kid.
The December issue of The Nation has a superb story about that very thing. It turns out MIT has
admitted that he didn’t even break a school policy; he was allowed to download that material. The
university is asking that the prosecutors be investigated and held accountable for their inexcusable
excesses.
When we aren’t proactively killing someone’s children abroad “just in case” they turn out to be
terrorists someday, we’re imprisoning our own most talented and gusty youth. It’s disastrous in the
moment and catastrophic for the future.
Are others having issues with formatting? The box is randomly cutting words off, though it looks normal before hitting post.
Y
e
s
MIT was complicit in the harsh prosecution/persecution of Aaron Schwartz. MIT kept quiet during the months that mattered. Larry Lessig has written a number of articles on Aaron’s arrest, prosecution, and resulting suicide. Here is just one re MIT “neutrality”.
http://crookedtimber.org/2013/07/30/lessig-on-mit-neutrality-and-aaron-swartz/
Glenn,
“But over the next six to eight years, as an elite unit called Tailored Access Operations (TAO) recruited new hackers and developed new malware tools, the number of implants soared to tens of thousands.”
There are over 7 billion people in the world. Tens of thousands of targeted implants vs. 7 billion people is hardly “mass”. Just as people have threatened you and Snowden so have radical extremist blanket threatened the West. You have divulged multiple methods which can be used to thwart extremist elements that are self admitted enemies of the West. No doubt some will read this and change tactics and there will be unintended consequences of your deeds. Will the millions you are making be worth the innocent blood on your hands? Get off your high horse.
These include NETWORKS. NETWORKS can potentially contain thousands, if not millions of computers. Quit being ignorant.
NSA employee
His handle is ‘G Man’….. Hiding in plain sight!
:D everso! Once we had a Marine “infiltrate” our group. He kept trying to incite us to do something violent, he finally went away when I said in a meeting, “remember guys, we are not about getting the military to thwart Bush. The military is here to serve and obey the civilian government, and if we want the military to resist the civiilan government, we will wind up where the Central American countries with military juntas (no offense to those countries of course) are”. Comment: it’s not just the NSA that’s out of control and spying on American citizens!
It is interesting that you report on the fact that the NSA mimics Facebook. Can they not mimic First Look?
Perhaps you care enough about your convictions that you are endangering people who are merely trying to understand the situation?
The first time I looked at the NSA documents in this article, I seem to recall some descriptions of extremely aggressive hacking programs. Now, when I open the documents, all I see are pictures of Zelda petting a kitten. So has First Look switched the documents, or have I been rerouted to another server?
truly monsterrrrrr
us is capable to do anything beyond our imagination and heart…,,, I had predicated….
Hey NSA fucktard creampies… put my fucking comment about how you completely destroyed CPI compliance for us online businesses by putting databots on every computer and server that uses ISPs and hosting companies.
Or else we’ll deny you service for being really big dookiesniffers. Yeah. Whatcha gonna do, NSA… sniff more dookies? Go ahead, come after me. I ain’t that hard to find, just save the rest of the taxpayers a bunch of cash and just Google my ass. Better yet, yes, absolutely Google my ass. Then print out the Google image of my ass, superglue it to your lips, and kiss that bastard.
If you sick psychotic cyberstalkers haven’t already done it before now. ~/o.O\~
No but seriously, please put my post back because it’s not on here. And a lot of us in cybereconomies need to know this shit is a nuclear fuckosity for a massive chunk (upwards of at least 90%) of all corporate sales.
The bigger picture here is not ‘OMG they are spying on my email’ or ‘the malware slowed my computer’ .. The government is controlled by a few individuals with commercial interests.. The end game is the power to target any individual, to prevent any type of organisation that stands up to or interferes with the status quo. They’re biggest fear is that the masses will one day stand up and tear down the NWO they have created. Having the power to shut anyone down before organisation occurs is the first step to ensuring they are never challenged.
From an internet marketing and merchandising perspective, the NSA just fucked over anyone who owns or uses a website that has an online store with a payment gateway system, CPI-compliant or not. Let me explain for a moment how bad this situation is for internet retailers, if I may, from industry experience.
One of the biggest data threats in online sales is the transmission of customer banking and payment data, such as names, addresses, phone numbers, purchases… and credit, debit, checking, savings, and PayPal account information. Cyberidentity theft is a very real, and very expensive crime when you consider what you can do with that much personal data.
In response to that particular threat of financial security in relation to internet safety, CPI compliance was created, with help of Visa who set the standards, in order to help maintain security protocol standards which are supposed to ensure that when you punch in your card info and hit “Pay”, only the vendor gets the card info and has it verified before the order gets processed in the 2-10 seconds of the payment transfer authorization. It’s also, if the payment gateway is set up properly — usually through 3rd-party online payment facilitators like Mijireh — an extra layer of protection against being placed on the TMI blacklist (which would ensure you are never allowed to receive or send payments electronically ever again, regardless of who was actually at fault) in the event of a payment gateway data breach.
Although not entirely perfect, CPI compliance does work when the system servers are not infiltrated by a “Port 80 intrusion”, similar to what happened to Target. In that case, the hackers got into the Target servers using the Port 80 access point — which cannot be firewalled or blocked, as that would then block the server from any access to or from the Internet, thereby making an online store pointless — and introduced a crafty little botlogger that somehow was designed to convince Target’s server firewalls and security programs that it was a friendly.
In a situation like that, since the servers and payment gateway systems were entirely owned and maintained by Target’s headquarters, that could qualify as a high risk of the corporation being placed on TMI.
With the NSA’s program, and the well-saturated invasiveness of how the malware is designed to operate, there is essentially no way to prevent the almost-certain likelihood of anyone with an online store that uses a 3rd-party payment gateway system like Mijireh from being placed on TMI, because the store website owner is hosted through companies like GoDaddy, HostGator, Arvixe, etc. and unfortunately under current standard legal rulings, as well as the hosting companies’ Terms of Service, by using their hosting services for your website… even if you are not certain the hosting companies are infected with these buggers, by using their services you are legally indemnifying them of any cybercrimes the NSA commits through your website activity — including their willful and intentional theft and/or mining of customer banking information… even yours.
So in short… at this point it is now confirmed, although there’s really no verifiable method to determine just how long this has gone or what was used or even what data was lifted, that CPI compliance is no longer a valid internet financial transaction protection standard because it no longer matters — whether on your computer that you use to access the hosting company’s servers to build and maintain your store website, your internet service provider’s servers, the hosting companies’ servers, 3rd-party gateway providers including PayPal, Amazon, Google, Authorize, ePay, etc., your traffic’s individual internet service providers’ servers, or your traffic’s individual computers — there is absolutely no chance of preventing anyone from accessing and lifting customer financial payment data at any point of the internet at all.
I am very concerned, as an online retailer of not just my own products and services. There was a system designed to prevent the very problem that the NSA has essentially now made impossible to prevent. Don’t get me wrong, the worst I do is sell my artwork so I really doubt anyone would want to be spying on hot naked fantasy chicks and comic book art — I mean c’mon, just Google my ass and you’ll find it much easier as I’m not really that hard to find and intentionally so. But my bigger concern is for my clients’ financial security and trust they place in my sales for it. Whatever my clients do in their own lives is their own business and of no concern of mine… but making sure that they don’t get their bank accounts hacked and drained just for buying a hot naked fantasy chick art piece on my website is my UTMOST concern.
And if you believe I’m worried about nothing, let me ask you one simple question — do you or someone you know purchase anything at all from any online store, like Amazon. eBay, BestBuy, Lowe’s, Target… Walmart, or others?
… When the NSA/CIA violated our rights guaranteed to all under the Constitution, they committed TREASON and they opened all the privacy doors you and I had to everyone in the entire world. Now I have to use a VPN to pay bills, log on my bank, insurance etc, if I don’t all my information can be stolen in nano seconds, (and a vpn is no total safeguard either) and it is all open now thanks to the NSA committing TREASON against the American people and spying on all we held sacred, and the rest are sure to follow their game. I assure you all our emails, phones, social network conversations, passwords and discussions will be open to anyone and everyone, thus NOW OUR SO-CALLED SUPREME COURT (an oxy moron) IS TELLING AMERICANS THEY DON’T CARE EITHER…………no bull, just fact !!!!!!!!!!!!!…TREASON IS PUNISHABLE BY DEATH …………………….The NSA is not only collecting phone calls, but also bank transfers, financial records, emails, travel records, social media communications, health records and more. All of this will soon be housed in the NSA’s new mega-data-center in Utah, where a 5-zettabyte storage facility will be completed this fall. All of the known digital information in the world is believed to be only about 2.7 zettabytes, so the NSA has big plans to spy on you. In fact, they will know more about you than you know about yourself.
The US government is without a doubt the most comprehensive, destructive and unfortunately, effective terrorist organization in the world
For PC users, some global new ideas could be in force.
How about creating a new bios (upgrade via changing the ROM chips), and also making a new OS that is so open that patent laws will not infringe. Open source and viewable ROM’s for mass storage will also help.
And a great article, well done Ryan Gallagher.
The best solution to stop NSA spying on us AND to stop any kind of infection with *malware*, is quite simple:
To build a PC which has the Operating System and all the necessary programs stored in a ROM. And yes, this is the acronym for Read Only Memory. Nothing, not even one byte of “foreign” data can be written on a ROM-stored OS. The OS should be designed to recognize ONLY the executable programs stored locally – i.e., in the factory-built ROM.
Other benefits:
The Security Solutions will become useless.
The ROM PC will be very fast. A ROM can be read with a much higher speed than a hard disk platter.
The ROM PC will be very reliable. Much more reliable than a HDD PC, or even a SSD PC.
The ROMPC will run colder and less noisy.
Problems which have to be solved:
1. The applications and the OS must be complete and perfectly written / conceived from the beginning. Due to the fact that any further updates will be impossible. Upgrades, yes; but updates, no.
2. The production process of the ROMs has to be constantly monitored. In order to stop any NSA’s attempts to add something to the ROM chips.
3. Since the OS will be Open Source, companies like Microsoft and Apple will do everything in their power to stop the materialization of such a ROM PC. And, due to the fact that the Antivirus producers will go bankrupt, they will also be bitter opponents of this project.-
I just have offered you The Final Solution. The one who will implement it, will become a multi-billionaire.
Any volunteer?
This is the worst Idea I have ever heard…
“Lets just live in this magic world where all our programs are already written for us and we don’t need ANY new software” is effectively what you are saying.
The freedom of creating new software and running is one of the core principals of computing. Why the hell should we give up that freedom just because of the NSA. That is a step backwards, not forwards. Its like saying that because we can’t have any secure programs, lets get rid of all the programs altogether.
The worst idea?! If this the worst, I wonder what is the best, in your vision…
The idea is simply BRILLIANT.
Who stops you to buy a HDD, add to your ROM PC, and create a virtual environment, where you can play with all the apps you want? 99% of the PC owners are not programmers. They need only a reliable system able to run built-in applications. They HATE to waste their priceless time with perpetual and potentially problematic “updates”; with “security scans”; and so on.
Who stops you to create new software?! Create it! Make it Open Source. If the ROM PC builder will decide that your software is *good*, then he will incorporate it on his ROM chip – the one allocated to “Programs”. And he will give you a share of his profits. After a year, or two, the producer will offer to his customers a new ROM chip, with your perfected / refined / corrected / improved version of software. Then the PC owners will replace their old chips with the new ones.
It bothers you the fact that most of the programmers should work for a ROM PC producer, or another? The programmers who are really good are a minority.
I really do not understand your objections.-
“The applications and the OS must be complete and perfectly written / conceived from the beginning. ”
Good luck with that. Until the software industry develops a complete AI-based system of code generation based on a further AI-based system that checks software engineering designs for flaws, this will be completely impossible. Any HUMAN coding is going to be flawed.
It IS possible to develop such a system of software engineering. And computer crime and surveillance will remain a growing problem until such a system is developed. And even then, the required flexibility of software developed with such a system plus the human interface will remain a problem. But it would be much more controllable than the present system of strictly human designed and coded software.
I have a meme which is as follows: “You can haz better security, you can haz worse security. But you cannot haz ‘security’. There is no security. Deal.”
That is one hundred percent correct to a degree even top infosec experts don’t realize.
Somehow you are right. But, in my vision, the programs developed in our days are much too complicated. I would like to remind you that the kernel’s size of the once famous AmigaOS is less than 1 MB!! Why do you compare the ROM PC’s OS, with Windows – which has tenths of millions of source lines of code?
It’s much easier to scrutinize an OS which has, say, less than one million SLOCs, than a monstrosity like Windows 8 – which has more than 50+ millions of SLOCs.
The installer of a Text Editor, like Abyword, has a size of around 8 MB. A highly optimized version of a similar program, written in Assembly language, might have no more than a quarter of that size. The smaller the program, the easier is to eliminate all the programming errors; and thus, to deliver a perfect product right from the beginning. With, or without the help of AI machines.-
Sounds like a great retro idea…!! Really, it does. ROMS. Yeppers. I can go for that…just wish I had the smarts to build one. Maybe some smart company can take you up on that idea. I do like it. =)
Good Job, Glenn Greenwald. Don’t let mr.dontknowitall bother u. And is there any advice/method in any of this massive amt of comments a way to find out if my pc was ruined by this nsa infection as i’ve scanned using 6 diff AV programs. i lost rights to all my files, pics & docs down to subfiles & hafta claim ownership on every bleeding one individually to copy them off the damaged HD which is in an ‘enclosure’? i am very pissed off at this & would love to plant a knuckle sandwich & some celtic acupuncture on the clowns who did my pc in. not lol.
NSA Domestic Surveillance Began 7 Months Before 9/11, Convicted Qwest CEO Claims BY RYAN SINGEL 10.11.07
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2007/10/nsa-asked-for-p/
You want spyfree communications FREE?
There you go: https://unseen.is
Ensure Your Privacy. Secure Your Freedom.
Hey kids! Ever wanna know how your government keeps you little dopes safe? Well your pal, the NSA, has provided this fun little cartoon with the grownup name, “Active Mission Management”, that explains it all !
First, you see the big black bubble with the funny-looking stuff inside? Well, kids, that’s the protection sphere that covers most of the good old USA – with the exception of Florida, which will be an underwater park in 50 years; and California, which we’re not really sure is part of America anyway. So if you live in the permanent part of the country, this bubble keeps you safe from terrorists by watching everything you do so you won’t get hurt. Isn’t that great !?
But that’s not all your pals at the NSA do for ya, kids! We also have this supersecret windmill thingy called a ‘turbine’, that we use to suck up viruses from the cool-looking ‘Internet Cloud’ that we placed over Canada. It’s kinda complicted, we don’t want to confuse you with a lot of big words, but basically it works like this:
The lightning coming from the cloud over Canada heats up the tar sands and releases ancient mastodon viruses that have been sleeping in the soil. These anti-terror bugs are swept up by the giant windmill floating over Boston, which blasts them across the Atlantic Ocean to be eaten by terrorist computers in places we don’t like. The left-over viruses form huge clouds which hover over trouble spots like the continents of Africa and Europe. Neat, huh kids ?
But that’s not all we do to keep you darlings safe so you can focus on the important things in life, like making lots and lots of money! The turbine also sends out cute little blue balls we like to call ‘implants’. (Now, for you teenage boys out there – these are NOT the silicone things that make Ms Jones down the block the envy of the neighborhood!). These are ‘magic bubbles’ which penetrate deep down into the roots of dirty governments, leaving them ‘squeaky-clean’ of any information that makes us look bad. We also secretly installed lime-green ‘turmoil’ buttons in places with ‘bad actors’. They look just like bushes, but we can make them spin real fast to cause disasters, like tornados and hurricanes, when people criticize our President. You can bet things are pretty windy out there these days, kids!
But don’t you worry, ’cause, best of all, there’s this gigantic satellite parked way up north that shoots death rays at evil jerks like Finland, and one of those former USSR countries whose name we can’t pronounce but we’ll probably be at war against soon. Isn’t that great ?!
And to keep anyone else from messing around with your God-given American Rights, we put some big domes over England so they can’t look out. Those guys are a bunch of Sneaky Peepers !
Well, we sure hope this helps, and remember, kids: Your friends at the NSA are always “Lyin’ & Spyin so we can protect you little dumb buggers from Dyin’ ” !
You’re welcome.
fuck the NSA, come get my data bitches. I dare you!
Last time I checked, it was illegal to purposely infect another persons computer with any form of virus or any program designed to “Over take, control or otherwise corrupt files”.
You’re so right, it’s a federal crime if I’m not mistaken, but only if you’re NOT the federal government, which I believe is also illegal. Federal crimes also include election fraud, but only if you’re white.
Remember that popular saying. They dont need to kill you, they just need you to think that they can kill you
This is not COLLECTING data. This is an obstruction of justice. The NSA is probably responsible for 100s of million of dollars in damage to hardware, loss of income resulting in computer problems associated with their malware. Inconvenience of your computer acting up or slowed, even causing programs not to function as with a virus. There is no telling what damage this does and they will take no accountability for it. There is no way they need to collect info on millions of people unless there is a evil agenda at hand. I say shut therm down all together. Clear abuse of power no telling for how long and how invasive. You can bet they listen in on insider trading, business deals, investment type stuff totally unrelated to security, if anything they are the criminals and use the information for money and control. I had enough of a bunch of people who I dont know doing this crap on all levels. If anyone I donot know is lurching into my computer for any reason is an ENEMY, any one using this info is criminal. Appropriate measures need to be taken to ELIMINATE these enemies and if need be departments.
I agree so much. And how about the joker from the NSA that was openly and knowingly lying to Congress…James Clapper. That man should already be in jail. The Congress is in bed with these spy agencies which are merely part of the greater Military Industrial Complex involving private corporations. It is such a mess I’m afraid there is nothing can be done until the U.S. undergoes a collapse.
So they have hacked into all these computers? Did they learn anything useful?
I have said for years, that EVERY AMERICAN should upset, because they are ALL CONSIDERED TERRORISTS by the government!!!!!!!!!
How does that make you feel?
As the government gets PAID for SPYING ON YOU?
If Americans do not GET ORGANIZED – forget your FREEDOM and LIBERTY,,,
It will be up to the younger generation to wake up and take charge
This is precisely why I don’t deal with social networks. Sites that require logging in to comment, HuffPost, for example are unfair to the average commenter.
Yep! they already done it to my computer through Facebook & Yahoo. I DISCOVERED this before Snodwen blew the whistle. Its best not to participate on Facebook anyway or continue as if nothing is happening because the damage to our constitution is already done thanks to Bush & Obama under the direction of the evil Dick Cheney, the monster who is not a human.
FYI
ok, and this is only half tongue-in-cheek sadly…..
But the only real solution at this point would be to create an entirely new nation somewhere that is literally Luddite and agrarian, and let the rest of the world self destruct. The only way to keep anyone from listening to your phone conversations is to NOT have phone conversations. Want them to stop monitoring your computer activity… disconnect from the web entirely and never get back on it… ironic considering the forum I am posting this on huh. We allowed this to happen now its up to us to stop it. And to be completely honest, I am not sure it can be stopped at this point. We have given birth to a monster and it is called the government.
Let’s be honest, we DO need some level of government, but the people need to be in control of the government not the other way around. The true purpose of government is to protect the people it serves not to control them. Not to spy on them. And certainly not to create situations that cause their people to distrust them.
Believe it or not I really am a patriot. I love my country (U.S.A. to be clear). But no, I haven’t trusted the government for a long time now. Look at what they did in the past.
McCarthyism, the C.I.A. (lol sorry had to take that shot spooks), Hoover, and don’t forget what the research on nuclear power turned into (remember those 2 bombs that got dropped on Japan?), and these are just off the top of my head…. Had to peek under my tinfoil hat to find them but they were there.
Do I sound like a conspiracy theorist, probably. does that mean I am wrong? No. We all have heard the saying “Just because I am paranoid, it doesn’t mean they are NOT out to get me.”
Now I am sure just typing this post has probably landed me on some kind of list somewhere, and that’s before I even uploaded it to the web. Do I care? No, let them hack my computer. The worst they will find on it is some internet pron, and last time I checked that was still legal. Otherwise I play video games and study for school with it. Yeah that makes me a big threat. So go ahead and waste time and money hacking me, oh, and when you get to that picture of me flipping off the camera… that one is for you. Enjoy.
Sincerely,
The Founding Member of the
“Tinfoil Apocalypse Society”
If “they” decide to hack your computer (not a likely individualized target, of course), they will “find” whatever is most useful for them to find, and your “I don’t know how that got there!” protestations will be quite futile.
Exactly!
Shane, the problem is NSA false positives not NSA snooping; that is, when the NSA says you are a terrorists when you are not. The odds of false positives are very high when you snoop on 300 million people (see Bayes Theorem for example to calculate the odds, or just look at the 800,000 “terrorists” on the no fly list). Then, when they falsely accuse you how will you protect yourself; no courts, secret evidence, no warrants, no habeus corpus rights.
Bunch of bastards!
They can have at it,but they will be bored to death if they infect mine.
to all that is concerned cancel your internet and your cell phone all companies you pay to protect your ID all these people will suffer no need for them with no internet no need for new computer etc. high unemployment no taxes for the government.that’s the only way to stop it.a total internet shut down and not just unplugging the machine.how much money would these governments loose in one second.just a thought nsa
Where do you think Facebook located their mysterious investors . . . if you believe the whole Facebook story?
If you need better security, drop the need for real-time connectivity. Go back to the Bulletin Board System Store-and-Forward model. Do your encryption offline, Abandon ‘browsing the web” and similar online uses for the systems you use to communicate sensitive data with. Shut down all server ports, configure a hardware firewall to allow no incoming requests. Install a secure system like SELINUX and use it in batch-comm mode only. Most of the risk exposure in Windows-style systems inheres in the desire for realtime connectivity. Use UUCP (Unix-to-Unix Copy) to exchange only 7-bit textfiles, (use uuencode/uudecode to transmit necessary binary data, but avoid executables.)
The first decade of the internet provides us a model for secure network comms, and we can still use it. The BBS culture that preceeded it provides us a model for networks which the government cannot monitor, because access can be controlled, and connetivity limited. Of course, any system can be penetrated, but stepping back to an earlier network model defeats this automated penetration strategy and requires a human involvement.
For encryption? Write your own, make it simple and robust, avoid the algebraic substitutions the government pushes. One pretty easy method is bitwise-transposition. You can write one in C in a day, and
nothing short of key theft or traffic analysis can attack it productively. I call mine Brainworm BTK (bitwise transposition kludge. Unlike Triple DES, etc, it has only one “bad” passphrase: all letters identical.) Like all ramifications of the One Time Pad, it’s unbreakable, and unlike most ciphers, bits have no individual characters, so there are fewer tools for cryptanalyzing a message.
There’s nothing hard about security, other than making sure everybody adheres to good protocols.
That, historically, is impossible.
I LIKE
IS VERY GOOD IDEA
“For encryption? Write your own,’
Heh, the NSA would just LOVE that. Encryption that is not publicly tested is invariably flawed.
The world isn’t going backward to text messages. We can the Internet we have if we do two things:
1) Design software engineering systems that design and generate code using strict checking that the design and code does nothing but what it is supposed to do – no side effects. Abolish human programmers.
2) Take back the US government from the military-industrial complex, the banks, and the rest of the corporate profiteers and restrict the NSA from doing what it is doing (better yet, abolish the NSA.)
Both are hard (the second option especially), both probably won’t be done, the second option especially because the majority of Americans are clueless and apathetic. Nothing will change until one of two things happens: 1) the US economy really collapses and there is a revolution, or 2) the US loses a war.
So my guess is option one is the only option. But that won’t happen either until corporate America is being bled dry by ubiquitous cybercrime to a degree the narcotics industry would envy.
It won’t happen. The US economy is already collapsing and the US has lost a few wars already, but denial sets in and nothing changes.
I got spyware installed in my computer by a Linked-In connection invitation by a “Major Slaughter.”
That these people have gone to these breathtaking extents to collect mass data on innocent Americans is quite shocking. Personal data collected by the US Govt. thru the IRS alone is a good example of how the US Govt. has and will continue to use such information to target individuals, groups & businesses for harassment, abuse and other criminally-motivated retaliation against political enemies. Presidents Johnson, Nixon, Clinton and both Bushes did it when in office. To say that this new batch of personal data will not be equally exploited by Obama or other rogue Govt. agents is to live in a fantasy world of disbelief, or the fantasy world of sports, gaming, and internet trash that is actually “digital addiction” and idol worship that always results in self-delusion, and vulnerability, and societal self-destruction.
Never forget, that the internet was originally developed, by DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency). As such, Everything should be suspect, as far as surveillance, on the internet, goes.
Never think, for any reason, that your computer usage is anonymous . Even when using certain so called ‘anonymous’ tech. products.
Always assume that Everything that you say or do, on Any electronic device, is subject to governmental snooping. That includes your old fashion telephone calls.
The TV show ‘Person of Interest’, may very well be a vision of the future, but if someone can imagine it, then it will happen, sooner or later… and in today’s ever accelerating technical world, sooner is a better bet !
Let them try to get their spyware past my realtime MBAM spyware monitor!
basically… do some research on gap jumping, bad bios (which was a fake based on the real thing that does the same thing) and some of the tools at their disposal. They could overpower your network interface, they have access to MBAM source code i mean…all they have to do is be within 8 miles of your home and they can have access whenever they want. they can upload custom firmware into your hard drive…currently there are -no- antivirus databases that scan firmware.
As if they havent already bought out MBAM
smooth statement you idiot… by the time you posted that they already had.
Be sure that MBAM won’t stop their spyware. I’ve been targeted by these rogue agencies, meaning I’ve been hacked (PC and samrtphone) and then after formatting my PC, targeted again (it was a clear targeted attack through trojans sent by emails), I pass them on VIRUS TOTAL detection, only 2 or 3 antiviruses detected them, and MBAM was not among them !
Dude, they’re the freaking NSA. I’m sure they can get passed some anti-malware somehow. The article stated that they can customize their malware tools pretty much however they want.
LOL! good luck with that.
Even ordinary hackers routinely buy all the AV programs and test their malware against them until it can’t be detected. Imagine what the NSA can do. Even the best antimalware programs routinely detect only about sixty percent of the malware being produced.
If you’re running Windows, you’re an egg on a plate. Switch to Linux or BSD – and even then make sure it’s patched up to date. Use a live CD to do your online banking and not for anything else.
Does this really surprise anyone ? If it does then it’s your own fault .
Wars no longer surprise me, floods no longer surprise me and famine no longer surprises me. Does this mean that I’m total disinterested in anything that happens? No, because being surprised is not the only worthy goal in life.
Yea I’ve never understood that criticism. I suppose if they dod find actual irrefutable proof that the CIA killed Kennedy there would be people complaing “This isn’t news, we knew that all along, move on.”
We have always been and remain very quick to jump onto any reason to blame the federal government, whether right or wrong. This is because the Federal government has been caught lying multiple times. I’m beginning to believe we should ignore the Feds and work on changing things at a State level…or ask Gene Sharp, founder of the Albert Einstein Institution and Nobel Peace Prize nominee.
What bothers me most about the data collection is actually not the data collection, per se, but in the potential for abuse of the knowledge gleaned from the data. If Snowden, a contractor for a 3rd party IT company can get his hands on all this stuff, how many other’s have already done it – not for the noble purpose of exposing it all – but for their own personal enrichment, or to fuck somebody over, blackmail, extortion, or whatever. How many ideas have been stolen and sold to competing companies? How much insider trading on wall street has occurred as a result of this data collection? It’s simply too tempting for mortals to have all this data sitting there for the perusal. And the idea that we should trust this data to for-profit 3rd party enterprises is terrifying and IMHO a serious failure in judgement by NSA.
What I find hard to understand is that with all this amazing kit they still can’t put together a nice looking powerpoint. It looks like they’ve done it in MS paint…
powerpoint is actually a virus.
Why don’t America quit using computers and cell phones…[email protected] Then they can only spy on each other again,,,,Why do you think everybody can get a computer or cell phone so easily… silly…they can’t spy on you if you don’t have their inventions to see you with…!!!! Come on…yal’ ain’t that stupid…are you????
You are a very smart lady ! ;)
GLENN GREENWALD will go down in history as A TOTAL HERO.
The only way to take on this illegal activity is public awareness.
Congratulations Glenn.
I don’t know about that dude. We’ve been pretty aware of a lot of their spy efforts (thanks to Edward Snowden) and they haven’t stopped yet. Public awareness certainly does help, but it isn’t enough.
John Mcafee on infowars today…is another one… don’t miss it !!!
Is it possible to download these files? Once upon time you could find all these leaks, but now. It look like a few chosen can see it…
If you want to download the files being shown in this article, using Firefox, just right click, select “View Page Info”, select the Media tab, then examine each link until you see the images you want to download. Right click on the link, cut and paste it into the address bar in a new tab and hit return. The image will be be loaded and can be downloaded like any image. Most of this stuff is being hosted at Amazon’s S3 document cloud. That’s true for the Guardian articles as well as here. Any of these NSA docs can be downloaded for local storage.
What you can’t download are the original leaks because Snowden wanted responsible parties to process them and select what is revealed. Eventually I suspect some hacker will get hold of them and release them all.
Any thing you here about me is just BS. Most of my life has been documented in Government files already. Anything else they want to know, just ask me. If you get info from from Facebook, I consider it bad info written by others to under-mind my life. And what my grand-kids write about me on their sites are just BS, too!
A lot of things have been written about me for my words about articles. I’m now a racist. Funny that they never knew my friends in the Air Force and other major metropolitan areas in the US. A lot of different races of people from Afro-American to native American. To those who doubt it, check with the NSA. I got a good record. And to others, go SUCK A POST!!! With all my love,… ME!
TIA, or Total Information Awareness has been the policy of this government for a long, long time. Nothing in these documents are all that surprising actually. Every single node on the Internet is owned – be it a router, a windows/mac/linux box/smartphone – all of them. Accessible at any time, and the full functionality of each device is available. Why do you think all smartphoens have cameras and gps devices? Seriously. Backbone routers are compromised to strip the exfiltrated packet-padding data appended to legitimate traffic sent from compromised nodes (e.g. you) and is shunted to massive databases for automated analysis. This is NOT news. Encryption is pointless because the node itself is compromised. As a normal, non-threat entity, the best you can hope for is that they don’t inadvertently fuck up your box or delete anything important! If you are connected, you are completely laid bare. Period. Stop acting indignant or surprised. Jeez.
You are exactly right, for anyone who thinks this is all a new revelation hasn’t been paying attention. Its not so much intriguing how these folks do this, more so than how long they have been doing it for without really anyone calling them out.
Snowden is no hero and some of this stuff should never have been made public. I find it interesting to see how this is all interfaced with literally everything.
This is deeply disturbing that our own Govt. deems it necessary to engage in these types of actions to spy on innocent Americans and others abroad. The lust for power and the lust of possessing it are always dangerous and end up with the suffering of millions of average people just trying to live and survive for a better day. This whole scheme by the USA Govt. and NSA can only inspire hatred of the USA. And they will say that with so many freedoms that Americans are at fault for letting their Govt. get out of control. So the blame carries over to all Americans and only gets worse when the retaliation and spirit of revenge rears their ugly heads.
Snowden is a hero because now we know HOW they’re doing it (to a higher degree than before).
And ALL of it should be made public, whether it threatens someone’s life or not. If some spy somewhere gets killed because of that, well, that’s the same “collateral damage” the government relies on when they wipe out some wedding party in Pakistan with a drone… In other words, tough…If they weren’t doing this crap, we wouldn’t need to “out” anyone…
Not a long long time according to Binney , one of the whistleblowers. It illegally crossed many boundaries under Bush and all the rest under Obama. Some agency leaders have wanted this and some have wanted a more accountable system. Your ‘everyone should know this because I know this ‘ argument is kind of weak. Not everyone knows the full extent of this and techies might benefit from knowing the methods. Your apparent proposal of acceptance and inevitability is just what the NSA likes to hear.
For those that keep stating “Americans”, remember that these documents and operations were carried out by other organizations as well. GCHQ is one. But look at the letters at the bottom of the docs. It’s not just the US and GB.
At what point in time did It become legal to invade peoples privacy on their phone calls and emails without a warrant from a judge. I think a class action lawsuit against the Federal Government is what is needed.
“At what point in time did It become legal to invade peoples privacy on their phone calls and emails without a warrant from a judge.”
At the time we lost the concept of limited government. I’m not sure when but it just sort of slipped away by subtle degrees.
no shit, how do we do that. i’m all about protecting us from terrorist and shit but this is going after the people and they got no right doing that. they have no right listening to my computer mic or viewing my webcam. i’m not a threat to them and most people are not. they need to get there priority’s right
We’d be spinning against a hurricane. Do you not think that the Justice Department is not privy to all of this?
Patriot Act
Time to revisit September 11, 2001. Wasn’t that the alleged reason for the “War on Terror” and the “Patriot Act?”
At least the implants were not penile implants.
This site is not encrypted.
Amerika=4th REICH
Trust me.
It isn’t going to last one thousand years.
4th Reich, this exactly what i say about the US gov for 15 years now.
The 4th Reich actually probably could have only fantasised about the power that is currently available to any nation state or reasonably endowed corporation with the wherewithal to put a satellite into space (and, to wit, the powerful optics on the governmental or large corporate versions vastly and extraordinarily exceed what you probably believe them capable of at this point — even though you no doubt use Google Street View religiously and thoughtlessly).
Step back in time to WW2 for a moment and imagine — could the von Trapps have ever gotten the hell over that mountain given first world satellite capabilities? Now expand that to tracking, mobile phones, communications, and a million other things that, back then, were all strictly analog and grossly dependent on a limited pool of human resources.
This isn’t the 4th Reich, friends. You probably should be wishing it were.
What a dirty filthy f EVIL REGIME AMERIKA IS..
as some commenters have mentioned before – the situation is deeply ironic – as the only realistic way to fight the ever increasing intrusion -(mainly by private enterprises) – is – first – to get out of social media – and then out of the Internet entirely – and as getting out of facebook -(even if it was very difficult) – was such a satisfying experience to unplug from the Internet might be even better?
-(with one exception – one needs to keep the contact with tehe economical thoughts of Paul Krugman)
But everything else? –
Let it go guys – It’s not worth it!
-(and what is the evil facebook reference doing on the right top of this comment section?)
-(and what is this evil little facebook sign on top of this page?)
The thing that one needs most to let go of is the operating system which allows other people to take control of it. I am deeply disappointed that this article does not make that crystal clear. Much of the problem here is with MS Windows allowing operation without a password. I’m not advocating any specific OS, but if a computer is able to run a virus without the operator allowing it, then there is something seriously wrong. I run UNIX systems in my home, (cost nothing) but others may prefer any of the many other choices out there. So, the article should say “Windows Computer”, and not “computer”. People have a choice and it is wrong to suggest that they don’t. Does the author have shares in Microsoft? It looks like it.
The National Security Agency – NSA – is an integral part of United States Department of Defense. Its facilities are military installations.
Why does this need to be stressed?
Because these covert operations are reaching almost every computer and mobile phone user on this planet. And these operations have been conducted by the US military.
if someone didn’t get it yet, it means every person (with internet connection or a person with a sim-card) in the world is a direct target for abuse by the US military.
No one is safe from their bombs.
No one is safe from their electronic attacks.
What do you mean? Let us all shun all internet. I can’t imagine what way US is watching me, you and billion others. I doubt US govt might have sponsored Facebook’s Whatsapp purchase to snoop more millions netizens. Courtesy Obama, who claimed to be a champion of free speech and democracy. Certainly biggest hacker in the world turned out to be US led by its trophy president. And add to it, Google, Facebook (Cohorts in snooping mega-scheme) are planning Drones and Loons so that it can facilitate US to reach the unreachable corners of the world. Now US can watch how African aboriginals copulate, live. What a fun? Strange enough few Americans are complaining. Though EU is at the receiving end now, and asking for tougher measures, I wonder does EU have spine take US head on.
What do you mean? Let us all shun all internet. I can’t imagine what way US is watching me, you and billion others. I doubt US govt might have sponsored Facebook’s Whatsapp purchase to snoop more millions netizens. Courtesy Obama, who claimed to be a champion of free speech and democracy. Certainly biggest hacker in the world turned out to be US led by its trophy president. And add to it, Google, Facebook (Cohorts in snooping mega-scheme) are planning Drones and Loons so that it can facilitate US to reach the unreachable corners of the world. Now US can watch how African aboriginals copulate, live. What a fun? Strange enough few Americans are complaining. Though EU is at the receiving end now, and asking for tougher measures, I wonder does EU have spine take US head on.
ask the NSA what part they had on the attack of THE USS LIBERTY THE DEATH OF 34 AMERICAN SAILORS AND THE CAPTURE OF THE USS PUEBLO?
Wow, what a surprise! Said not a single American.
My first comment didn’t appear here. Is it firstlook or NSA?
A week or so ago I posted a video, which is strongly critical of the status quo, on my wordpress blog. Then opened a second tab in firefox to check the page. Nothing appeared!
Refreshed both tabs several times. The video appeared on the page in the original tab but not on the new tab for at least 15 minutes.
This can only occur if there are two identical blog sites under my name, one of which isn’t controlled by yours truly.
If your living right why do you care, the government doesn’t care about your porn, if your not a criminal they won’t give a shit about you, they are not interested in watching you masturbate, everybody that’s worried and mad seems like they are doing something wrong that they wan’t to hide.
Yeah, I mean, just like the gov has done nothing wrong and is embracing and welcoming the wholesale exposure of it’s activities, we should have no problem with massive, unfettered and indescriminate spying of our private activities. lol
Exactly
Well they seem to care about journalists, activists and protesters, and minority groups, and none of these are criminal activities. Also what about businesses intellectual property, is that not important ? But hey yeah right Blake, we must all be criminals, or doing something wrong because we have concerns about privacy, and oppression. Dehhhhhhhhhhhh !
If they want to install such a system of governance, they should say so at election time. Are you aware that the idea that “if you are doing nothing wrong you have nothing to hide” is often attributed to Joseph Goebbels.
http://falkvinge.net/2012/07/19/debunking-the-dangerous-nothing-to-hide-nothing-to-fear/
Sounds like a brain washing response if we do not believe in right to privacy then we admit constitution does not matter. What does? Why we spread democracy to other countries? Colonialism by default?
The things that are being targeted is something that one shouldn’t have to hide.
Perhaps most people really don’t have anything to hide, I’m just a regular guy who lives a regular life.
What if you somehow uncovered some horrible secret that you think people should know about – then you would suddenly care *a lot* about surveillance and censorship. Any journalist with some really substantial information, not just gossip BS, they are a target of the NSA, they don’t want anybody to find out their secrets.
No, maybe the average regular person really doesn’t have anything to hide.
But what if you’re part of an activist or protest group, you’re a homosexual, you’re a member of a fringe politics group.
Then, you might have a lot to hide.
The government is working to extinguish protesters and activists, eliminate those who challenge the status quo, and prevent people from having an opposition to the state.
.
The end result is self-censorship and fear.
If you know you’re being watched, you won’t be very willing to read some article that criticizes the government, and one would be very afraid to even publish something like that.
If you’re a journalist or some regular person who discovers some alarming government abuse like torture or prison camps, you would be terrified that you even have that information, let alone actually tell anybody else.
If surveillance is everywhere, a protest or activist group would have to operate in complete secrecy – or not gather at all.
And openly being a member of a fringe demographic like homosexuals or jews might become very dangerous.
Actually, they are watching you masturbate. The Guardian’s piece on all the webcam images they captured mentioned they were having trouble keeping all the naked pictures away from their staff…
So what you’re really saying is if you’re not doing anything wrong you have no right to privacy.
Blake,
It is what the government is doing with your info that you do not know about. Do a search on “Silent Weapons for Quiet Wars”
You can manipulate and even predict an outcome when you are able to tap into mass amounts of data.
You make a good point, Blake, but then I don’t have a dog in this fight. I simply stay home, mind my own business, be kind and loving to people as much as possible and I do my most important work — clearing my own mind of past battles. if that became a terrorist act — sanity — then getting “fired” off this planet would be the best thing that had ever happened to me. The battle of good against evil can only be permanently resolved in the mind.
When you speak of implanting malware a couple of questions come to mind. What would prevent commercial software such as an anti-virus program from detecting and eliminating this malware or prevent open source development of detection and eradication tools?
The reason that I’m asking is that I believe detection tools are a great means of raising public awareness. When someone sees the report of an attempted intrusion on their own computer they have a more personal connection to the collection of data. Particularly if an origin or purpose is assigned to the intrusion. (Look at Diane Feinstein to see how that personal connection motivates one)
I believe the problem in devicing a program capable of detecting the malware (and *specifically* this one) would be treated as treason. And probably with a drone hit or rendition.
Like the rest of the I.T. industry, they are generously paid to implement backdoors and shut their mouth.
The Microsoft VIA (Virus Information Alliance) allowed the NSA to make great progress abroad in this area.
The problem is that any antimalware tool can be acquired by a hacker and used to test his malware so he can tweak it until it’s not detected. This is done routinely by hackers.
No software can detect malware until someone notices it OUTSIDE of the software and reports it to the antimalware software companies who then can change their software to detect it. Some AV software uses “heuristics” – rules to try to detect when a suspect program is doing something suspicious. But these often produce false positives, erroneous results that blacklist a legitimate program.
There is no AV that is 100 percent reliable at detecting NEW malware. It’s an arms race between malware developers and AV companies – and the malware developers are winning.
More good news from our beloved NSA. You are making us feel so secure and safe with all your violation.
coool, more powerpoints from 2005 telling us what we already knew
You were obviously bored by your training sessions in 2005, and I admit the NSA does not create the most scintillating slides. But if you review the documents, you will see they are from five to seven years later, and highlight distinct improvements in the NSA’s capabilities. So no, you don’t know everything. But the fact you think you do is why you’ve been given the menial task of pasting propaganda posts.
nice straw man – thank God for this $250 wordpress blog telling us shit weve all known since 9/11 – oh wait the guy who wrote this thinks 9/11 was done by guys in a cave and his sugar daddy helped reboot the Crimean War for his NWO paymasters that want to encircle RUS Fed while pumping the EU (a NWO bloc-structure IPO).
yes, i’ll get scared on queue now and just swallow this predictive programming, i see the light now, i will play the role of bystander that has been cast for my by these compartmentalized idiots, profiled and exploited for their moral and ratiocinative degeneracy lol. You’ve made me see the light because you are a potato.
Snowden is a run-rabbit-run created by the intelligence community to debrief you all on how far the post-9/11 spying stick has been jammed up your ass – the CAPEX is done, now its time to tell the slaves the score – and THIS is how they do it. Greenwald/Snowden likely don’t even know they are compartmentalized useful idiots.
I’ll just like… be waiting for you to materially refute my arguments (forever).
$250M dollar wordpress blog lol
OH
MY
GOD!
That is the coolest, funniest, most biting slice of sarcastic, smartass backtalk I have ever read on the internet! I’m posting it on my blog.
THANK you! I bow to a superior Jedi of Smartmouth!
-faye kane girl brain
I wonder how Dennis Rodman would perform as the next President. He has recently learnt quite a few tricks that can be useful to maintain status quo.
I still like the USA, it is a good country overall.
I may days at NSA, this capability was nonexistent. But Hayden hired web warriors by the hundreds to dominate the web and exploit in in every way. My Snowden has exposed the rotten fruits of their evil labors.
F the nsa
If one lives in the United States, many positive actions have been taken or are being formulated to curtail NSA spying. Perhaps it is necessary and appropriate to mention some of these now. Here are a few links.
http://dprogram.net/2013/12/01/turning-them-off-the-plan-to-beat-nsa-spying-at-the-state-and-local-levels/
http://offnow.org/
http://tenthamendmentcenter.com/
http://www.activistpost.com/2014/02/first-in-nation-arizona-senate.html#more
http://dprogram.net/2014/01/22/tennessee-introduces-bill-to-take-on-nsa-encryption-breaking-facility-at-oak-ridge/
http://www.activistpost.com/2014/01/mississippi-is-tenth-state-to-consider.html
http://www.activistpost.com/2014/03/new-hampshire-house-passes-bill-to-ban.html#more
http://www.activistpost.com/2014/03/oakland-forced-to-dial-back-full.html#more
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oGxzK5usAo8#t=159 (Rand Paul Sues President Obama Over NSA Spying)
? Maybe we should consider a class action lawsuit against Microsoft and Apple for allowing mass violations of privacy rights inherent in their Operating System Designs?
Old but Gold: https://portside.org/2013-06-12/86-civil-liberties-groups-and-internet-companies-demand-end-nsa-spying
My point is that much good has already come from the efforts of Mr. Snowden and his chosen group of journalists. Don’t be faint of heart. Fight for your Constitutional Rights while you still have them. Write letters to your elected State Congressional Representatives and tell them what you think about being spied upon by the Federal Government. Suggest that they look into 10th Amendment actions. Get the ball rolling. This matter crosses party lines.
Keep the faith.
Ok, but how many of those actions are aiming to limit or stop attacking non-US citizens? Like Hyppönen said on his TED-speech, 95% of world’s population are “foreigners”, like US gov likes to call us.
Keep the faith Foreigner.
As the citizens of the USA topple the NSA, it will set off a chain reaction in which all of their counterpart agencies in other Nations will come under global scrutiny and they might just topple with them bringing their International Bank of Settlements masters along.
I see the plastic surgeons are now in line for the same shit the NSA’s been catching…….
1984. It comes through the internet via the web cam, not the tele screen!
This is the most important story based on the Snowden documents so far. This program may only be in its infancy, but the developments it describes have the potential to fundamentally change the nature of our society.
One interesting side note is the comparative lack of coverage, so far, of this story in the mainstream media. While factors such as standing DA-notices in the UK, and vested interests in the US may partially explain this, I believe the underlying dynamic illustrates a blind spot in the media. They really have no metric to determine the social impact of a story. Other more trivial stories, such as the bugging of Angela Merkel’s phone, received wider attention. If a story features a celebrity, or has a human interest angle, the press in its mindless way will fixate on those events. But an abstract description of a program like this one doesn’t have a hook to grab the presses’ attention. So far, this story has featured in information technology media, but much less so in the wider world.
But the story is very significant. Most other NSA programs in general can be summarized as the collection, storage and analysis of communications data. The scope and the breadth of many of these programs has been surprising, but it remains essentially a passive activity. This new program has the potential to be much more wide reaching. Taking control of people’s computers on a massive scale, confers the power to filter what information they receive; in other words, it will shape their subjective reality. And it also confers the power to control what they communicate to the outside world, which in turn determines how others perceive them.
The implications go far beyond mere concerns about invasion of privacy. Those who control the programs which control our computers and cell phones, can determinative what information we receive and limit what we can communicate to others. The individual will lose much of their free agency, becoming the pawns of those who operate this system.
This story foreshadows a very troubling future.
Agreed. This is the most Orwellian aspect of the surveillance state we’ve seen so far. With the logical evolution of this technology, the NSA will eventually have the capability (whether or not they use it) to keep a file on every person owning a cell phone and/or a computer, that contains an audio track of all digital activity, nearly everything we say verbally (recorded by microphones), and a good deal of video footage (recorded by webcams and phone cameras). Talk about big brother…
“Skillz”? How old are these people?
Other nations may have honed their skillz, but the US still pwns them. Global dominance is the ultimate online fantasy game.
Thanks Glenn for all you do and who you are – I feel so reassured that “my” government is looking out for me (fifteen years an ex-pat, and no reason to ever go back)
7 months ago, no one ever heard of Edward Snowden. Today he is a celebrated hero. I appreciate what he has done for the world in bringing what is wrong with our government to light.
Had he not the courage to come forward, we would still never know. No one else is talking.
Critical sentence missing:
“You only need to worry if you or your organisation run Microsoft products, particularly newer ones.”
Humbug …iToyz and the MacOS are no more secure
Actually they are simply because they’re not used by the majority of people. The same with Linux and BSD which are designed to be more secure than Windows. Not that they can’t be breached, either, but you eliminate 99% of malware right off the bat by using them. Most hackers target Windows systems for the simple reason there are more of them. Changing your platform dramatically improves your security. Maybe not from the NSA, but from most hackers.
And Linux and BSD can be run from live CD’s which makes it much harder to infect them. Always use a live CD to do your Internet banking.
This article must be true, because it’s on the Internet…
… And, yet you read it and posted your comments so that others may read your comments to be true.
I think facebook should be canceled, I think it has caused lots problems for people in many ways,honest and dishonest, I think it needs be deleted
I think Facebook is used and supported by the US gvmt. One company cannot grow such big and fast without the support of money and the US gvmt and NSA need the “social profiles and info” for their spies and agents to better control..
Information = power
and now Facebook has a lot of information in it :) i like the silly statement that a website mimicking Facebook was used.. but I think Facebook is aready used by the gvmt, no need to mimick one :)
Please shed some light on Facebook and their evil
When this business with the NSA leak first started. I thought well, this guy Edward Snowden is just a trader and commited an act of treason against the people of the United States. Now after listening to all the feds spin and thinking about what his motives might be, its beginning to look more like Edward Snowden is a patriot that saw what our government was doing and new that it was wrong, very wrong, so tyrannical in fact that as a proudly free person and citizen of the United States he new that he must do something to try to stop it. He has placed himself in great jeopardy for the benefit of his fellow citizens at no profit to himself. There is little more he can do to stop the tyranny that our government has undertaken. I guess the rest of the story is up to us.
setagl
“… treason against the people of the United States …” No man it’s not only against the people of the USA it’s against mankind as a whole!! I know you think you are from the land of the free but you just a part of mankind with no special rights over others.
Well, it’s about time!
My partner and I were writing this book already about Microsoft, Windows 8 and how to install Linux when the Snowden revelations were revealed– lots of pieces fit together regarding backdoors, bloated browsers, viruses….. we give the book away for free… http://freeyourselffrommicrosoftandthensa.org/
Thank you for posting this link. Very enlightening background information contained in your book. Well worth the visit to your site.
If you want to escape the senseless NSA spying, just step back a few years in time and remember how we used to live, when living was worthwhile. This is what I plan to do myself. Get off of the internet, unless it is just for work or reading news/weather. Need to research something, go to the public or university library. Send a letter in the mail instead of email, remember how thrilled you were to recieve one from someone? Give the Post Office something to do other than delivering junk mail. Supposedly no body has time to write, but as it turns out, you have nothing but time. You choose to use it the way you want to. Use land line phones (no radio emissions) when discussing private issues, only use cell phones for emergencies and 911 calls. In other words, drop off of the radar from those with prying eyes. Would you tolerate any other types of criminal activities in your life, without taking countermeasures??? Drop out of all social media, who gives a hoot anyway, I haven’t heard of any worthwhile relationships ever develop on the internet, and who really needs to hear real time what everyone else in the world is doing anyway (who could possibly care). If Jesus or Buddha were on social media, would they have had the same effect as speaking in person?? Drop off the radar, that’s my advice, even if NSA makes changes, how could you ever verify these? These people, along with the CIA and other agencies lie for a living, so get used to it, they will always be spying on you. That’s how and why they fit in so well with the politicians, whom they serve so well. Stop complaining and take personal responsibility for your own privacy, deny them access whenever and wherever. Use cash, stop using credit cards. Make no mistake, we’re at war with the organizations under discussion and their lackey organizations and corporations. They have no morals or ethics, only you do. The government will not save your hide, in fact it the last thing they would want to do. You are responsible for your own privacy, make it your priority number one. It’ll take work but one by one, we can drop off the public grid and return to normal society once again. Just some ideas from a simple person. Take responsibility. No one else but you can.
I agree with you mate
I thought the internet was created by the military. Why the surprise that they look. Grow up and as Larry says go out and live life and get off the damn computer.
The internet was created by civilians at civilian institutions. Some of the funding came from the military (through DARPA), but the military never owned or controlled the internet. Until now.
Yes, what Saquatch said.
Where Wizards Stay Up Late: The Origins Of The Internet
That’s a great idea for someone that never needs health care, never takes an airline flight, doesn’t have to work in a modern workplace and has no need to stay in close touch with friends or family.
If you think the internet is the only way to communicate you’re face is too close to your phone screen to realise…..it’s a damn phone.
Health care, organised over the phone. Airline flight is easier to organise over the net but there are other ways. Workplace you don’t have to worry about because usually the company you work for owns the workstations and you’d be pretty dumb to store personal information there.
I checked my laptop for being monitored. Sure enough, NSA.gov is there. I am a single lady and never even had a traffic ticket. I resent it a great deal and take it very personal.
One problem with your plan: the FBI still opens mail, scans it, and reseals it…if you’re on their list that is.
I tried to send a letter to President Obama by sending it to 15 foreign embassies in Washington DC. I only ever heard back from one embassy: Canada. My letter to Pope Francis, along with my letter to the Dalai Lama, were never responded to either. I also sent a letter to the Mexican Consulate in San Francisco out of concern for a young man who was supposed to meet me July 1st to crew for me but he never showed up and disappeared online. I never heard back from them, despite asking for a reply of some kind on the results of their search for him.
I don’t know what substance there is to the notion that the FBI/NSA or whomever is censoring my mail, but given the activities of the NSA with the internet, I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised.
Also, the FBI monitors all Library computers.
As for me, I’m going to HAM and will try to create a VPN Mesh Network that would allow digital open communications between users on the network with interconnections made through HAM. Since the system uses HAM, it falls under HAM laws, which require open communications without encryption, and also that conversations be personal, not for profit-making use. The system would run in parallel with the internet, but would be completely decentralized. Of course anyone could listen, but that’s the point – we need a more open and honest society, not one in which we feel it is okay or necessary to hide what we say from each other. Remember the days of the Party Line?
“Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists.”
I guess he meant that there are 300 million terrorists hiding under beds in the USA.
With all the gadgetry and spy tools available to different government entities they still can’t tell us where the Malaysian plane is? Couldn’t they all use the satellites and gadgetry to find one 777 plane?!
Ahahahah that’s a good point Omom
The public-facing names of the malware are reportedly “Facebook” and “Twitter” and “Gmail”. Sign up for them today!
The next thing the NSA will probably do is offer fraudulent encryption services if they really do intend to “own the net”.
Oh, that’s already happened. Read up about the NSA connection to RSA, the body setting global encryption standards. They compromised encryption used worldwide and got paid by the NSA to do it.
And since they are already working with manufacturers of computer hardware it seems probable that they could implant something that would decode encryption.
Yeh, the article already said that encryption is not an obstacle for what they have.
Now who seriously believes the “incompetencies” of the spy agencies?
The USA is run by a bunch of dirty bastards, inc. NSA/PRISM/CIA/FBI/SS and the White House crew, inc. Pres. O’bomb-a
Does this site send metadata to third party sites? If so, what does that include and what happens to it?
This site includes Google Analytics and Mixpanel as mentioned in the privacy policy https://firstlook.org/theintercept/privacy-policy/
Yup, and except for Amazon Web Services (hosting, etc. provider) and Vimeo (video hosting), those are the only scripts running on this page (at least at the moment).
If you are truly concerned about these matters, you should probably learn to monitor (and control) the scripts that sites all over the ‘net routinely run in your browser.
For a start, grab Firefox and visit this site:
http://noscript.net/
https://www.ghostery.com/
“Ghostery” a downloadable tracker plug in (and blocker of trackers, “it says”) for browsers (e.g. Safari, Firefox, et al) gives a report listing “Conviva” (an advertising tracker) and “Google Analytics” and “Mixpanel” (both categorized as analytical trackers), sending cookies when on links to “The Intercept” Website. The cookies are supposedly blocked by the “Ghostery” plug-in when the blocking option is active (can be toggled on/off for any particular tracker[s]).
I wonder what happens to the data that the site logs all on its own? Mixpanel allows them to do that as I understand it. So can a useer know what that data is and where it goes from this site? Is it retained for long?
According to an [interview][1] with Intel Corporation representative Frank Kuypers at CeBIT in Germany, Intel is adding a new capability to future processors allowing certain software to remain undetectable as well as making its removal disable features of the CPU. Combine this capability with the NSA’s global malware initiatives and you have the perfect storm.
[1]: https://plus.google.com/+GuidoStepken/posts/bD2VHB4LcEU
Interesting discussion within the comment section at the link. I know which microprocessor I will choose with my next purchase and it will not be Intel.
I am so sick of the government pissing on the constitution and violating my rights. F*** You Uncle Sam I hope someone blows up the NSA like they did to the CIA in homeland.
Hail to the United Secret Police State of America!!! Seig Heil! Seig Heil!
Try to breathe ….
Sieg Heil! (Not Seig Heil: watch the spelling. Must be correct!)
Hasta la Victoria Siempre motherfucker!
Why is this news to anyone? It is not a great leap to assume the NSA would be doing this. Further, it seems to me that Snowden as already made his point. Why is it necessary to keep rel;easing information? He is just on a vendetta, short and simple.
“Move along folks, nothing to see here.”
Because the world, and especially the tech community, need to know the data released today. So people can do work-arounds — where they cannot secure meaningful reform.
Also, Snowden has nothing to do with what documents are published. Those are chosen by the journalists from the trove Snowden gave them eight months ago.
Gradual release of the documents is extremely smart of them to do. What Mona said is correct. What she didn’t say is that if they were released en mass 8 mo ago then everyone (at least the sheep) would have forgotten about them by now. Release over an extended period of time keeps the issue in the public eye for as long as they have material to release. This is EXACTLY what is needed to effect change (if there is any chance of it). It allows the public and the IT community to digest the gravity of it as each peice is released. Additionally it is the only responsible way to release it.
Plus, as an added bonus, the drip, drip, drip of daily revelations, which could go on for years, is driving the NSA and Obama Admin Police State crazy. I’m loving it!
It’s great to have this outlet for actual evidence of NSA hacking but while allot of what has been revealed is very news worthy i’m worried that the tech community need more “technical” information. There needs to be software for example to catch these attacks so that they can be proven and approached in the courts on an individual basis as to their legality. It is well known that there is at least a 6 year gap for legislation to catch up where technology is concerned so if there are supporting technical documents that are related to these even though it might be the same “story” do they stand a chance of being released.
It is certainly possible to develop software to be made available that will be able to prove these attacks and query them as they happen and log breaches. This is what needs to happen, it can then be proven to be malicious and without due process (and all the other things: waist of money etc.)
Using one clock cycle of CPU doesn’t go unnoticed in a computer. It is impossible not to leave a trace, we need help to catch them at it and challenge them. I need every ounce of CPU I have to do what I do for a living, if my hard drive is spinning it is because I tell it to. It is not just privacy it is the property aspect of law which we also ought to peruse.
You raise an interesting point. While some infosec experts have detected some of this malware – Stuxnet, for example, as mentioned in the article – I wonder how many of them are actively trying to detect this malware on the Internet. There are some infosec researchers who do mass scans of the Internet for various research purposes. Perhaps some of them might explicitly try to detect some of these NSA systems, obtain the executable code and reverse-engineer.
I can guarantee that given the capabilities of this malware that there are criminal hackers out there who are trying to do this. It’s very likely that the NSA capabilities will make their way into criminal hacker code within the next couple of years. The infosec community had better catch up…
there is none and there will be none, these are just mid-lvl orientation powerpoints leaked to the public via a run-rabbit-run psyop – think about it, you built the slave grid and now its time to take it public, but how do you tell the sheeple? well folks, you are looking at it. They profiled some well meaning lefty (who ended up working at Booz? lol) whom they knew would run, data dumped him, found some sleezebag NY M&A lawyer who wanted to reinvent himself as a heroic journalist (why not prep another gatekeeper org while were at it boys? first round’s on me at the local Langley watering hole amirite?) and bam – instant mass debriefing/conditioning op.
I always wondered what kind of evil Ba$tard would sit and spend the time to create viruses to attack computers. I surmised it was to stop people from stealing Movies and such but the answer was right in front of me the whole time and I think I already knew it. Its the same people that create viruses that attack the human body. Our Evil Leaders!
Exactly Phil, bingo!
I’m so glad to see so many aware americans here, what will be the date of the first american CIVIL WAR ?
I’m reserving my flight to N.Y. that day.
Does anyone know if NSA buys metadata from facebook, google or third party sites?
Why pay when you can steal?
Does it cost much? Seems pretty convienent, and it may not be illegal. In any case I’d lime to know. What metadata if any is collected by this site? Who or what is mxpanel.com?
Buy?! Why would they need to buy them?
Maybe compensate for any trouble caused.
The classified program named “PRISM” began in 2007 and has signed on Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, PalTalk, AOL, Skype, YouTube, and Apple. The recent NSA revelations have laid it all out: The NSA is watching us online. Its overreaching surveillance is creating a climate of fear, chills free speech, and violates our basic human rights — and it operates without any meaningful oversight.
Americans Right to Privacy has solutions and I am anxious to share them with you. We offer secure, encrypted email, a Virtual Private Network (VPN) which secures your computer’s internet connection, to guarantee that all of the data you’re sending and receiving is encrypted and secured from prying eyes. Switzerland, a country known for its strict data privacy laws, has no back door access to encryption for any government agency, not even Switzerland itself.
http://www.americansrighttoprivacy.com
you need to read more. they can inject the encryption, in fact as long as your using wireless they can catch packtes, encase them and send them back altered which is how they upload spyware and malware. in this case it doesn’t matter what vpn you have…they can still see what your doing
Dear ‘United’ States of America (and complicit lackeys):
“Because we can” is not a moral argument. In fact it is indicative of mental problems.
Keeping my fingers crossed that some young, still idealistic NSA operative will have to read this: With all this capacity to attack and control anybody–what happened to attacks on child porn servers, Mexican cartel computers, tax evaders putting their stash into Swiss banks, mony launderers.. these all should be easy to spot and own. Maybe it’s too secret to let on and one fine day, all these above creeps will get rounded up at once.
Or one fine day we’ll find out that above creeps own the NSA and keep all it’s employees duped into thinking they’re serving God and Country, not Sinaloa/ Wells Fargo/human traffickers/ arms merchants?
my best guess is that anybody who publically advocates an end to Fracking will get their computer taken over. Somebody reading this tell me I’m wrong.
Only thing is, this is the spin needed to make everything they are doing alright by some…e.g to have the potential to solve these particular problems in society
Yea, infact! I would also know where can I find those juicy snuff-porn videos recordered with Iraqis children and women lock down in Abu Grahib.
There sure are a lot of people leaving comments that really have no idea what they are talking about. How many of you work in the Security sector? Programmers? Hmmm… not many i see. Perhaps try learning something about how the internet works before leaving mindless comments to confuse other people trying to learn something.
All this post is, is a re-hash of what Snowden has been leaking for months. Like it or not, this is actually happening. It’s not a fairy tale, it is REALITY.
I strongly urge you comment trolls to get on the right side of the fence. You are not helping your nation and fellow americans by spreading disinformation on website comment sections.
All you’re doing is harping on the commenters. Do you actually want to comment on the contents of the article?
Not the comment of a programmer. He did comment on the article, for those he is addressing they know who they are..
the trolls are paid by the NSA to spread more disinfo just ignore them.
As long as they don’t look at MY LIBRARY CARD, like that Evil George Bush was gonna? They can do whatever they want.
Signed: The Left.
SSL is end to end encryption. When you communicate with an HTTPS website, your HTTP request (and also a randomly generated symmetric encryption key, generated at the time the request was made) is encrypted at your computer with the destination server’s public key, and becomes an HTTPS request. The HTTPS data is routed through the ISP to the destination server, which then decrypts the HTTPS data with their private key. Their server finds the file (usually an HTML file, or a resource like a PNG image) specified in the now decrypted HTTP request, and uses the supplied symmetric key (which was also encrypted along with the HTTP request) to encrypt (via AES, or 3DES) the file in question. The encrypted file (HTTPS reply) is then sent back to your browser (routed through the ISP) and your browser then uses its copy of the symmetric key to decrypt the data (webpage, resource file, etc). The government does not have access to the private key of the server you sent the HTTPS request to, and therefore can not decrypt your HTTPS request. Further more, because the HTTPS request cannot be decrypted by the government, the government also doesn’t have access to the symmetric key and therefore cannot decrypt the HTTPS reply. HTTPS is basically hardened against all kinds of attacks, so even if man in the middle was performed by the government compromising the ISP and they stole all the data passing through the ISP, they still wouldn’t be able to recover the HTTPS stuff. To crack any kind of key with the bitlength used by most modern encryption standards, it would be impossible to brute force it, even with a supercomputer. It would require literally a quantum computer to accomplish. And those are just barely in the experimental phase, able to do only the most basic arithmetic like 2+3=5. Though they have potential to be trillions of times faster than the best supercomputers we have now, they currently don’t even live up to the capabilities of the old vacuum-tube computers like the Univac, Eniac, and Edsac, all of which are so huge as to fill up entire rooms (and by the way, the current quantum computers are just as big, because even though their main functioning parts are atoms, the equipment required to support their operation is huge, even with modern technology). It will be decades before the NSA (or any other agency with interest in quantum computing) will be able to get them even up to the ability of current silicon-based home computers, even with the best scientists in the world working on these projects. It will be well over a century before there are quantum computers that surpass modern supercomputers to a sufficient degree as to make it possible to brute force any long bitlength key within the time period of a human life-span. And until that has been achieved, the NSA (regardless of their vain bragging) will NOT be able to crack HTTPS, SSL, RSA, AES, or any other encryption. Now any of those that rely on human typed passwords will be weakened by the human-factor (people don’t like long complicated passwords, because they are hard to remember, even though they are more secure), but those such as automatically generated RSA keys are VERY immune to brute forcing with anything short of a quantum computer.
What you should be saying ( and maybe it’s buried in there somwhere ) is that the mathematical basis for encryption is still valid ( despite much misinformation trying to discourage its use ) .
The fact that the spies are trying to infect computers and obtain encryption keys or data before encyption tells you how good the actual encryption actually is…
So what? Someone with that much power can just get a SSL certificate for their own server from one of the browser-builtin cert agencies, and none of the major browsers would be able to detect it (the last-known cert is not stored, wouldn’t be possible to store in private mode anyway, and then there’s the problem of the initial connect which could already be hijacked), so unless the user goes and compares cert fingerprints (with what?) on his own, he would’t even notice.
If they don’t have facebook’s private key anyway.
Theoretically, no. But they could force a certificate authority to issue them a certificate as if they were, say, facebook.com. Voila, you go to https://facebook.com, and you might be in some other server, even though there are no security warnings from the browser. For that matter, right now we could be exchanging comments in a server that is not firstlook.org, despite the connection being ostensibly secure. And there would be no way to know if it’s a man-in-the-middle as opposed to a DNS attack. (FWIW, here’s the firstlook.org IP I get: 4.53.16.143.)
More importantly, here’s the cert’s digital signature reported by the browser for firstlook.org: ?c8 9e bf 71 4d eb ba 8e 3e 15 d8 99 27 99 79 86 2a 75 c6 f1
Did you miss the part of the article where they are targeting system administrators? Once you pwn the sysadmin, you own the network – security certificates, keys, everything. Then you don’t need to “crack” anything.
As long as they don’t go looking at MY LIBRARY CARD, like that Evil George Bush was gonna, I don’t care what they do.
Signed: THE LEFT.
There is only one way for the United States to save face on this, and that is to completely defund the NSA and all of its activities and bring the department under criminal investigation.
In this way, the illegal activities of a rogue agency can be separated from the nation it is supposed to serve. But this would be a committment to the highest level of reform of the US Government, and would require a gutting of the executive branch of government. Doing so would save Congress, for now.
Of course, we all know that this will never happen. I firmly believe that the only real solution available to the American people, is a complete replacement of elected federal government. By creating a new political party and quickly putting a presidential candidate and candidates for all available offices of Congress, and by presenting the party openly and honestly to the American people; a new power can emerge in Washington which promises to sweep away the corruption. If fully one third of both the house and Senate can be replaced, along with the President, by this third party; the federal government can be handed back to the American people.
Only then can action be taken to undermine the criminal actions of the federal government, including the NSA. And by running on a platform of opening government and ending America’s illegitimate nuclear reign; we can not only save America for Americans, but for the world as well, and with our infrastructure, restore America to a global power, leading this time by example, rather than the might of the nation’s nuclear muscle.
I don’t know how to organize people, but have been running an internet show on Youtube under the username zapocalypsediaries. This is a fictional show, but can be a means of organizing; as such means are not made readily available to us here in the United States. I am hoping to inspire or directly organize people to form this party. I am willing to act as a consultant, but will only take up nomination if asked. I do believe I have what it takes to make for a good president, as I care nothing for money and everything for people.
I don’t know what else I can contribute to this problem. It is an unprecendented problem for the most part. I have been asking myself what it must have been like for Germans during the rise of Hitler. Given that the very same techniques were used in Germany then as are being used now (namely Propaganda), I have found that attempting to organize Americans is rather fruitless; thus the show, its content, and its aim to reprogram people, to undo the brainwashing that a lifetime of television has inflicted upon us.
Oh, and a question – is it just me, or does the NSA seem more like internet trolls than actors in national security?
What makes you think the NSA is rogue? It’s doing exactly what its masters have ordered. Relax. Resistance is futile, but please complain all you like.
when spooks spy on the legislators you know they must have got control over some thereof,
just common sense and Hoover……..
Yes, they seem more like Internet trolls.
Agree – and not all American’s are influenced by the propaganda. VIVA LA REVOLUTION!
Does no one see the legal loop-hole here? A person can now do whatever they want, just blame the NSA since they are ‘inserting’ things into our devices: “I didn’t write/do/say that, the NSA clandestinely wrote/did/said that posing as me!” Gives new meaning to – ‘The Devil Made Me Do It’. Make sure you keep a few hard copies of this article. Send one to yourself and one to your lawyer via certified mail. Instruct your lawyer not to open it until the need should arise to present it in a court as evidence against the NSA.
Americans Right to Privacy has solutions and I am anxious to share them with you. We offer secure, encrypted email, a Virtual Private Network (VPN) which secures your computer’s internet connection, to guarantee that all of the data you’re sending and receiving is encrypted and secured from prying eyes. Also a “Swiss Bank Account for your Data” Digital Safe! Switzerland, a country known for its strict data privacy laws, has no back door access to encryption for any government agency, not even Switzerland itself
We offer a professional global email service solution for both personal and business use. PrivacyAbroad email service is free of advertising, SPAM and provides private communication with your emails saved and backed up in Switzerland, renowned for its strong data privacy protection laws. Email comes with 1 GB of expandable storage space.
Your search for online privacy is over…
http://www.americansrighttoprivacy.com
*… Americans Right to Privacy has solutions and I am anxious to share them with you…*
You are not ANXIOUS but greedy to make MORE $£€ with it no? Every opportunity is good, isn’t it?
You do not seem to have understood the core of the article (I am 100% sure you did not read it because your only concern is money), you came here to advertise your company… which is SWISS, country where the banks like your company act as gangsters to enable rich people avoid paying taxes. Shame on you ! boooooh
Be careful btw NSA is watching you too ;)
Eddie Bates
@eddiebates23
Proud American & even prouder Texan! Has-Been golfer who can still break 80 at any time! Sober since Oct2008 Loving life and @ColleenAstedt loves Me!!!
*… Sober since Oct2008…* which means that before Oct2008 you were an alcoholic like a certain G.W Bush, Texan citizen too ;) Since then he is a *christian-reborn or reborn-christian*
I like very much the purpose statement of your company :
Effectively serve our resellers, customers and employees, PrivacyAbroad is committed to:
– Bringing glory to God in all that we do by operating in a manner consistent with Biblical principles.
– Serving our employees, resellers and customers through encouragement, integrity, and value based policies.
Come on! are you joking bending yourself in front of a supposed god ?
Too late, it’s already complete.
Can you believe this crap?
Barack Obama is going to let Mike fuckin’ Rogers head the NSA? And DiFi is huffing about spying (who’s due to retire)? Fuck me but Dick Cheney could get a few tips from this latest authoritarian.
http://www.emptywheel.net/2014/03/12/in-nomination-hearing-dirnsa-nominee-mike-rogers-continues-james-clapper-and-keith-alexanders-obfuscation-about-back-door-searches/
These fucktards lie without blinking. Likes Charles Manson. No, wait, my bad- at least Charley didn’t lie, he admitted it proudly. Psychopaths are running the asylum. Fuck me runnin’.
These fucktards lie without blinking.
Do nictating membranes count? :-p
Had to look that one up! (nictitating membrane). Very apt, sis.
I think you might be mixing up your “Mike Rogers'”? This is Vice Admiral Mike Rogers they are referring to (http://www.politico.com/story/2014/03/mike-s-rogers-nsa-nominee-surveillance-104537.html) and not congressman Mike Rogers.
I know who I’m talking about. Thanks for your concern.
LOL, sure you did.
Change, change, change… The SAME, The SAME, WORSE!
Psychopaths are running the asylum.
I don’t think you’ll be peekin’ through that fence. ;-}
p.s. I spelled “nictitating” wrong. Glad you found it, even with the headfake. Cool word. Right up there with “coprolalia”, another infliction associated with (some) members of this, ahem, class of people. :-)
the blood is on our hands now
The NSA is your friend.
I loves you
and is there to protect your freedom.
Do not be afraid.
It is all good.
Ahahahah Mollie, what’s that, evangelist church preaching or they gave you double sugar coffee this morning ? NSA is the evil. NSA is the end of the human being. Prequel to terminator3
Where have I heart this before…
“Following the destruction of its major assets, Cyberdyne was ruined financially but some of its research and plans survived. The United States Air Force purchased the company and started in-house development of the projects in its Cyber Research Systems Division (CRS). After years of work, CRS had nearly completed Skynet, a software system designed to make real-time strategic decisions as well as protect their computer systems from cyber attacks. Due to the massive computing needs and to protect it from direct attack, Skynet utilized a large network of computers that would be nearly impossible to deactivate completely. Unknown to CRS, Skynet began to spread beyond its original computing base through the Internet and various other digital media.
Prior to Judgment Day, Skynet had penetrated nearly every networked machine in the world, causing malfunctions in everything from barcode scanners to nuclear launch systems. This was originally believed to be the effects of a new virus, and increasing pressure was placed on the CRS to purge the corrupted systems. The CRS attempted to eliminate it from the U.S. defense mainframes by tasking Skynet with removing the infection, effectively telling the program to destroy itself. Skynet took control of the various machines and robots in the CRS facility and used them to kill the personnel and secure the building. John Connor attempted to attack Skynet’s computer core, hoping to stop it before it proceeded to its next attack, only to find he could not. Skynet was pure software and on too many systems to be attacked. Shortly afterward, Skynet began a nuclear bombardment of the human race with the launch systems it had infected. Judgment Day occurred despite Connor’s efforts.”
– http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skynet_(Terminator)?
” Judgment Day occurred despite Connor’s efforts.’
LOL That’s precisely why Terminator 3 was hated by almost everyone… The TV series was even worse – the only person who struck a useful blow against Skynet…was a Terminator. That’s kinda the opposite of what James Cameron intended in the first two movies…
Eventually people will become so disgusted that they will use infect other’s computers and use them as bots that randomly send messages with dangerous words in them and pictures of random places, this will keep the pathetic drones busy chasing ghosts.
there is an APP for that……..
ahahahahaha share the name of the Appp !
I’d like to get some fun.
slate.com ran an article
scaremail
benjamin grosser
search terms…..
Peeping NSA Toms are even in your toilet! Don’t forget to flush!
ahahahahahahah
Hi
I get it… and it is dangerous… but I have to add some other element.
Our power grid has been infiltrated. Can this whole NSA thing stop an attack on our infrastructure? Can something positive come out of this?
not, in my opinion.
only for the State………
Everywhere is a public place now. Peeping NSA Toms are even in your toilet
Everywhere is a public place now. Peeping NSA Toms are even in your toilet. Actually, that’s right where they belong, FLUSH!
VERY dishonest and misleading reporting (all of it, not just this latest version)
They DO NOT only have capacity to REMOVE data, but PLANT it as well
You NEVER see that discussed. Think about where that goes.
Want to cause a stock market crash? Plant phoney sell orders
Which bit is dishonest and what do you find misleading?
It would be a VERY dangerous to plant something i.e a photo as this would be evidence of a system breach. It is not necessary to plant phony sell orders to cause market crash the FED can taper etc to cause these which would be easier. It is important to note that things are planted that allow remote control of target computer including possibility to plant naturally.
It can only be a criminal offense to hack a computer without a warrant..
They did say that the NSA is “planting” malware and scaling that up. Maybe planting of data is a future topic. Do you know something about the NSA planting data, or is that theoretical?
You might have proposed a mechanism to quick-transition from the exploitive capital market. Let’s plan a better economy, shall we? RDWolff.com
As for planting false data for blackmail: You didn’t suggest it but your premise leads there. Everyone has a human right to their personal and private information/knowledge. When that is violated, most people can be “owned”; there is no need to “frame” them. By the way, these journalists are not doing this, but maybe that should be on the agenda. I don’t want to see John Brennan and his mistress’ kinky photos, but it is well past time to dump evidence of his war crimes on Wikileaks (or even YouTube if convenient).
This article links to this New York Times article which covers it (http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/15/us/nsa-effort-pries-open-computers-not-connected-to-internet.html?_r=2)
So spare us your whining.
The US government has turned into a criminal organisation.
The appropriate response would be a total UN enforced embargo – isolating the USA form the rest of the world until they start behaving in a civilized and law abiding manner again and the responsible ones face justice in an international court.
@Horst – Good luck with that. Do you even understand how the UN works other than the fairy-tale visions in your obviously undeveloped mind?
Here is some help:
http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2010/08/us-funding-of-the-united-nations-reaches-all-time-high
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Security_Council
http://www.un.org/en/peacekeeping/contributors/2014/feb14_1.pdf
Go back to watching cartoons.
I absolutely agree. The USA seems to be trying to stir the pot every which way it can and call all Americans crimminals when their government agencies ,cooperate TPP friends can dictate,bomb and destroy anybody the want without without probable cause or retobution. The next thing you can only guess ‘WORLD WAR 111’1
NO INTERNATIONAL COURT ANYTHING GLOBALIST!
The modern American Nazi,
Khakis, button down or a suit at some agencies, and if a contractor even less causal. Two kids and SUV, exercise class and Starbucks coffee on their way to the office and they are clueless as to the Bill of Rights and what it really means. Known a few, was married to one.
The deployment of mass surveillance programs sickens me and it ought to sicken those people but a GS13 in the DC area makes roughly $125,000 so it will never happen.
The can all BIH
“Don`t use E-Mail, G-Mail, Skype, facebook,twitter,etc. Go back to the old fashion time honored hand written letters, and use notes instead, at least that is what a lot of reporters arenow doing instead of the internet and e-mails, also use word of mouth if you have to due to this sicko NSA and their nefarious cabals,etc,etc,etc”!
This is just a false flag. If you run Windows on your computer, and probably 95% do, then you already have been hacked. Microsoft puts NSA backdoors into every copy of Windows, so this is just a diversion.
I’ve been running a Mac workstation for seven years with an OS that doesn’t have a back door because I refuse to update to their bullshit. Works fine with the added feature of a back door denier (I prolly have 500 dead trojan horses locked up).
What do you mean by a ‘false flag’ btw? I know the term well but am interested on what yer talkin’ bout.
There are always Flag possibilities but this one is not one of them. This is comprehensive evidence of particular techniques used to access systems by NSA/GCHQ et al. Even though a heavy percentage (95%?) what is to stop microsoft addressing it’s backdoors in future OS development for example. This article includes evidence of ‘man in the middle’ etc which doesn’t require the door left open, and there were plainly not thousands of warrants sought for this number of attacks which is one the main things this article points out (to me anyway).
Diversion from what? We need evidence to change policy and this and other docs are providing us with the means to protect ourselves and the evidence needed to debate upon some way to change this activity.
Actually there was no clear evidence that Microsoft had NSA keys embedded in the OS.
HOWEVER… In developing Windows Vista (and probably Windows 7 and 8 as well), Microsoft DID allow the NSA to review the source code in order to detect security vulnerabilities. So obviously what the NSA would do as we now know is find ten vulnerabilities – and tell Microsoft about maybe six of them, reserving the other four for NSA use.
This is so obvious it’s clear Microsoft didn’t even care.
Imagine the over the top existential catastrophic portrayal this issue would receive from the MSM if Bush (or any Republican) were president and this crap was going on.
Since it’s obama (or if it were any democrat) they are downplaying it in order to prevent exposure, embarrassment and political hardship.
There’s really no other way to look at it. The MSM are either epic hypocrites or a wholly owned subsidiary of the democrat party.
so why isn’t fox reporting on it?
Did you not notice that this Intercept article includes several links to the New York Times and Washington Post’s (i.e. the “MSM”) coverage of these exact topics?
Here, let me give them to you:
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/15/us/nsa-effort-pries-open-computers-not-connected-to-internet.html?_r=1
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
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/stuxnet-was-work-of-us-and-israeli-experts-officials-say/2012/06/01/gJQAlnEy6U_story.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/us-israel-developed-computer-virus-to-slow-iranian-nuclear-efforts-officials-say/2012/06/19/gJQA6xBPoV_story.html
So the second and eight ranked newspapers in terms of circulation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_newspapers_in_the_United_States_by_circulation), reported on this but are somehow “downplaying it in order to prevent exposure, embarrassment and political hardship.”
It’s not all some big conspiracy, the information is out there.
Of course the hardcore types are here and are all in agreement. But outside of them, I don’t think people are responding to these “bombshells” in quite the way you think they are.
When a troll is right, he’s right. These articles probably get 1% of the readers that the latest Bieber news get. That doesn’t reflect badly on the reporting, though. It reflects badly on (1) the general population’s awareness and intelligence, and (2) mainstream media self-censorship.
But it’s not like folks like me spreading the word to otherwise ignorant people. I’m guessin’ you like ignant folks. Um humm (h/t Slingblade).
There was a time (pre Obama) when I would say that it is important for a just and lawful government like America to know this information to protect the world, but with a President who won’t own up to BenGazi, Libya, IRS Targeting, and politicizing every branch of government that was once neutral, even the surgeon general, and when Congress is looking out only for themselves, and when the Supreme Court helps reword Obama care so they can pass it as constitutional, I ask if this is the America where the rule of law ruled over the whims of man. So, this NSA overreach bothers me now because I can’t assume, as I once did, that the purpose is to defend democracies over totalitarian regimes.
Ha. Exactly how long “before Obama” was that?
Dec. 7, 1941?
And when was the mission to protect the world?
BENGHAZI!!!!
Everybody’s favorite scandal that wasn’t…
Michael, please. Some of this started in the Clinton era. The programs gained momentum under GW Bush. It was the Bush administration who authorized torture of prisoners, invaded Iraq on false pretenses, and set up unconstitutional surveillance of US citizens. Obama’s great failing is that he has not stopped any of this criminality except the outright torture. But I think the intelligence services have gathered enough power to essentially call the shots with regard to their budgets, their spheres of operation, and their choices of techniques. The official US government is a false-front, for the most part. That goes for Republican as well as Democrat, conservative as well as liberal. The controlling power is elsewhere, and the security services are part of that reality.
The people who run and work at the NSA are literally PSYCHOPATHS!! Why is the NSA allowed to exist? The NSA is a threat to the whole world!
My computer froze up upon clicking on the link to this article from Facebook. Coincidence?
take your meds.
Hey Schmuck. You can go back to living in a world full of flowers and butterflies and pink elephants….OK?
Commodore64 is not your friend?
Dear Mr. Greenwald… please forgive me because this is totally OT – but the comment board is blowing up and I’m pinched for time. When you’re reworking the board comments section can you please provide the ability to:
1. Follow/UnFollow: specific Commenters, Conversations
2. Filter/Watch: Conversations I’d like to follow… this is more so I can still follow commenters/conversations when a troll is babbling or the conversation.
3. Receive alerts based on my user preferences and how I tick the boxes of #1 & #2
I know these are first-world problems… I’d do it myself but I haven’t written “code” for over 20 years and a lot has changed. Please don’t respond – just wanted to put this in a suggestion box. Go back to your writing. Thank you.
p.s. Dear NSA – since I know you’re reading this – BTW – I really don’t like a bunch of suits breaking into my house, especially while I’m taking a shower, and watching or raping me. I never sent you an invitation – and I promise you a rose garden. Trust. You people are creepy, freaky, sick, deluded fuckers. Just a heads up. Have a nice day :-)
CORRECTION: – and I NEVER promised you a rose garden.
I’m so pissed about this new revelation even my fingers are spitting!!!!
is there any info on which country is the fifth eye ?
I don’t know what you mean by “which country.” I don’t think there is a specific or ordered 1,2,3,4,5 sequence. Each is an eye is an eye is an eye: Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States
Do they understand just how angry Americans are becoming?? Ssure they must and with Obama not only not prosecuting perjurer Intel Director James Clapper, HE RETAINS HIM!!?? Could Obama actually be seeking 1st blood on the part of Constitutionalists (Note I did not say Left, Right, Tea Party, Republican, Democrats) to enact serious Executive Orders? I would have thought that crazy talk a year ago, not so much any more.
Last June Sen. Dianne Feinstein called Edward Snowden a traitor, well, well,…don’t feel so good when the spooks are doing it to you Diane does it? But then again, we are just the little people aren’t we?
We know that the NSA will lie about their contract employees,..When the CIA and NSA were confident they had agent Snowden corralled in Hong Kong and arrest was imminent they would have made Joseph Goebbels proud,they released false and partial information; “failed in the military” –
Lie, he had a medical release due to training accident,..failed high school- Lie, he had meningitis and had to complete his studies by GED. They even tried to make him out to be stupid, by the time he got to Russia, he showed them who the brighter one was.
He risked his life or a life behind bars, for what? No money rewards, actually he sacrificed a great wage,..for fame? In exchange for a hellacious price in exile?, I doubt it,..I believe Ed Snowden did it for us, for our Constitutional rights. Agent Snowden turned the political paradigm of Left Right party politics upside down and inside-out. Snowden forced them to show their true colors, We have those like Rep.Ron Paul who understand that Snowden could not just go up the chain of command, he would have been quietly dealt with and I would not be writing this and you would not be reading this. The last thing the NSA or Clapper wants is this ex-contract intelligence agent Snowden’s charges dropped and him testifying before Congress. No matter what the intelligence community spouts, Snowden revealed no field agents, no technologies except those that were used against American citizens while criminally breaking our Constitutional laws.
Patriot Snowden will go down in history with the likes of Patrick Henry. Unfortunately I fear his fate may be the same, and straight out of the lyrics of Secret Agent Man,..
Oh, be careful what you say,
Or you will give yourself away.
Odds are you won’t live to see tomorrow.
Snowden is still alive and free to speak to the world community. He reached 337,000 world citizens in his live-streamed address to SXSW on Monday, March 10. During the past nine months, the US Government – DOJ, NSA, CIA, Obama, Kerry and others – and their UK GCHQ partner and supporters have tried everything in the book, legal and illegal, to silence him. They have failed and they are in shock that they, with all their power, threats, and coercion, didn’t succeed in killing him or jailing him and treating him like they did Chelsea Manning. He is in Russia, currently the safest place for him on earth. He didn’t plan on ending up there but he did. Isn’t fate great?
Superb article. I will have to read it again tomorrow and have a look at the docs too. The best so far along with the online covert agents article and drone SIGINT intelligence one. Thanks Glenn for getting this out so quickly, and making it clear that this is just the Intercept in its early stages, so I look forward to more great reporting like this but more of it, more regularly.
I will assume the NSA/CSS has “infected” this device. When, not if, civil disobedience and worse begin, these facilities will fall. When, not if,is why these agencies are doing this.
Terrorism is a word. The definition depends who is defining it.
It is anathema to America’s constitution and transgresses all humanity. Those (yes you) that commit such acts will say I was only following orders as millions have said before but justice was still served.
and…..? do you think the US is the only nation that has this ability?
What’s your point, idiot?
If you move to Stockholm maybe you will find kinder fascist masters to watch over you.
To me the real terrorist are the leadership and employees of the NSA…they claim what they do is to “keep us safe” by “us” they mean the government
We all forget that the original meaning of “terrorism” was actually “state terrorism”. “Terrorism” by the people is actually, “resistance”, or “revolution”.
(this will prob get censored like my other comments) That’s why some webpages take so long to load. They are transferring data from your computer to theirs. Wondered why data travels through many different unrelated sites, and social networks before you get your article. Be a good social networker and “like” these companies so they can spy on you. What is a company doing on a social network anyways.
I’ve been using Windows 98 all along, and after reading this I am definitely going to keep using it. And contrary to popular belief, it is very usable in terms of web browsing and video watching today.
How’s that rotary dialing working for you?
Please tell me you are kidding, ahahaha
If you like your health insurance, you can keep your health insurance.
If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor, period.
If you like your privacy, you can keep your privacy.
If you like your constitution, you can keep your constitution.
Get it?
You seem a bit confused about who was president in 2004.
Then, the health insurance line, right so a lie of omission, “provided it’s exactly the same health plan you have today in Sept. 2009, yes you can keep it.” Is as serious as these abuses?
no need to sound off, true believer. we already know what you think that you think.
I’m a software engineer with 25+ years of experience. I’ve implemented a LOT of networking code. From reading this article, my long-held suspicions appear to be confirmed. The TLA’s (three letter agencies) have successfully exploited the entire spectrum of network protocols, even though they didn’t really have to.
(For example, basically security boils down to “you have to trust someone” – your computer / home router HAS to trust your ISP’s internet gateway, which then provides links to services such as DNS, which HTTPS (TLS/SSL) then rely on. IF this ONE ‘choke-point’ is compromised, you’re owned. The TLA’s didn’t have to own the entire spectrum of infrastructure, but they did anyway.)
Every time I read another of these revelations, it makes me realize that I’ve (complicity) helped create a monster. I’ve become more and more reticent in participating in developing this technology. Having witnessed the evolution of commercial surveillance technology first-hand, and now learning about the even broader & deeper government surveillance technology, I’m seriously considering just getting out of technology entirely.
If my reaction represent the typical user (if somewhat elite from a technical standpoint), this all will deeply hurt the US economy and technical base we we start to leave en-mass. I’ve built big systems that sustain billions of dollars in transactions per year; now I think that this experiment we’re performing in ourselves is just wrong. On so many levels. We’re no better than the Chinese. We spy, torture, pollute our world with abandon… This is not going to end well. Let someone else build the advanced systems of tomorrow. I think I’m going to retire, buy a cabin in the woods somewhere, and let others help destroy the world. I’ve had it.
It’s too bad – we’re on the cusp on world-saving technologies such as plasma jet fusion for power generation. But I honestly don’t think we’re going to make it across the technology bridge to a better future. Not when we squander our wealth on vile technologies described above, allow corporate media to control the ignorant masses with propaganda, and enrich the rich at the expense of the poor.
I had such high hopes for Obama…
(and Yes, I’m very aware that despite this being a HTTPS site, that’s just creates a false sense of security and that my post (and your reading the post) is very very likely to be added to the ‘file’ that the government / corporations keep on each and every individual who has ever touched a ‘connected device’.)
Jay:
Then don’t read this website on a computer that can be linked to you, and don’t use an email that can be linked to you.
Really, this is news?
And just how is that done? There is a trail that can be tracked 20 ways from yesterday
Bill, reread what I wrote.
If the computer and its use can’t be linked to you, then it’s easy enough to hide activities from this kind of spying.
For example, how as long as you don’t use your named email would a computer in an Apple store track you specifically? All the servers connected to that computer see is someone surfing from the Apple store. As long as you don’t provide some name.
You watch, Russia, China, and other countries will build their own internet that will be closed off to all US contracts and users. But the NSA will have more control over internet within borders and less control outside. Not necessarilly a bad thing for THEM since Americans will be force fed propaganda and in the dark about the outside world. Just like when Hitler took power.
No, it does not “have to trust” the ISP gateway. That’s not true at all. (It is true that, in the vast majority of cases, “your” system at home is organized in such a way that it does trust your ISP, but it is perfectly possible to treat that entity as hostile.
You (certainly, with your level of expertise) and potentially every other user on the Internet have the ability to choose which DNS server(s) you use. Nothing forces anyone to use the one(s) provided by an ISP.
This isn’t even remotely close to the truth.
You may have written a lot of networking code, but you need to review the standard protocols of TCP/IP communications and the options for implementing them. You are providing fundamentally inaccurate advice.
You’re not getting what he is saying in the post. It doesn’t matter if the DNS belongs to the ISP or another DNS service. You still have to trust it. Even with VPNs you’re still placing trust on the VPN. If any of these get compromised whether covertly or complicitly you’re screwed.
No, it’s you who don’t understand. One of the things you don’t understand is that you could run your own DNS (or any other) server, and so could your friends, neighbors, trustworthy local business or community organization. And each or all of those can also run VPNs.
Dave G is just plain wrong.
N.B. If DNS is compromised at the level of the authoritative name server for a domain, of course, the altered responses will be propagated through the system. However, exploits like that tend to be discovered fairly quickly.
read and compile source code, build the network infrastructure….you’re just plain wrong.
“…pollute our world with abandon… This is not going to end well. Let someone else build the advanced systems of tomorrow. I think I’m going to retire, buy a cabin in the woods somewhere, and let others help destroy the world. I’ve had it.”
At least one renown biology professor from an R1 university took this route (GuyMcPherson.com). He explains that our triggering of 30 some self-reinforcing climate/environmental loops in recent years will likely cause near-term extinction of humans by ~2030. We are in the midst of the 6th mass extinction now, loosing some 200 species per day.
Forgive my following your “tangent”, but nature does have everything connected. And, please forgive the “heavy rap”. McPherson (and many others) doesn’t think environmental engineering can save Gaia as we know her (or us), but he does propose living it out with peace, dignity, and respect for the biodiversity we will be leaving behind. We can apply the engineering to controlling the fascists of the world. Let’s try to make this worldwide revolution peaceful, but we might keep all potentially effective options on the table. As we review and probably abolish the death penalty, Brennan, Chenny, Clapper, Alexander… Bush… the Kenyan guy… and criminals of their ilk may or may not be amongst the last to go that way (too easy for them, yes). If we keep them, may they completely transform to revile every one of their criminal deeds and every aspect of their former self(ves) that enabled their criminality. May they also wear the shame of their crimes for all to scrutinize forever more. And, may they serve society in some appropriately guided way for the rest of their days.
Today, regaining your online Privacy means going Abroad
http://www.americansrighttoprivacy.com
If the NSA has turned into a ‘monster’ like Frankenstein, let’s say, then it is incumbent upon the scientists that ultimately built the
Frankenstein to unbuild the Frankenstein. Scientists that now feel guilty about their involvement have an obligation to articulate
why they do not support the Frankenstein that is now abbreviated NSA. The American National Security Agency has actually morphed into
something very grotesque to the very scientists that built their capability. In brief, contemporary science and scientists, as well as academic
scientific institutions owe civilization and academia more than the National Security Agency gone rogue, BuckO!
But the monster has intelligence, and no longer needs scientists
Dave G – Thank you for such an honest and thoughtful comment.
The world would be a very different place if everyone realised how unconsciously complicit we are in all sorts of areas of our lives. And then took very real steps to choose differently.
Zuckerberg should file suit with the courts against NSA breach of his company sanctity in terms of user base and trust
in the technology. NSA has cost FACEBOOK investors bigtime because everyone now knows this story. Who would invest in FACEBOOK now that we
all know it has been hacked n’ stacked by the NSA?
“The man-in-the-middle tactic can be used, for instance, to covertly change the content of a message as it is being sent between two people, without either knowing that any change has been made by a third party. The same technique is sometimes used by criminal hackers to defraud people.”
Isn’t this redundant?
THANK YOU! GREAT ARTICLE!! KEEP IT COMING!
Now, class, yesterday Sen. Feinstein claimed that the CIA/committee spying breached the the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. You’ll find it in Title 18, US Code, the Federal criminal code, specificially 18 USC § 1030.
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1030
If this law sounds familiar, it’s what the US Attorney charged Aaron Swartz with.
http://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/217115/20110719-schwartz.pdf
see also
https://www.eff.org/issues/cfaa
Now, applying the wording of 18 USC 1030 (see Cornell, cited supra) to today’s fact pattern, how many different breaches can you spot?
Discuss.
The counter is spinning so rapidly that I keep losing track and getting all confused.
It’s a good thing for those spooks that they have de facto immunity.
So… the NSA has already gotten the public viewpoint skewed this far??
NO government malware is acceptable. NO EXCEPTIONS!!
Anyone who says differently, including Hypponen, commits treason!
Just a matter of time before non-US countries build their own internet, alienating American users about the truth in the world. They are already taking their business elsewhere. They are building new fiber across the ocean. US tech companies should be mad a heck since it will be hurting their bottom line. NSA can have a spyfest by spying on Americans as I believe is the true intention.
More than that, now that the US has infected computers everywhere indiscriminately with malware, every country in the world can now claim the right to do the same in the US, as a proportional retaliatory response. They constantly talk about the threat of cyberwar. They could very well have started one.
It is this country’s “Law Enforcement” who enable this swill. Every one of them swore an oath to the Constitution before they pinned on that badge. Yet not even ONE of them will arrest these maggots for their treason.
“I VUS CHUST DOINK MEIN CHOB!“
Precisely.
“The agency sought $67.6 million in taxpayer funding for its Owning the Net program last year.”
Isn’t that nice, using taxpayer funding to spy on the taxpayers.
“According to the Snowden files, the technology has been used to seek out terror suspects as well as individuals regarded by the NSA as “extremist.”
Here in the United States the government has defined “extremists” to include conservatives, Christians, Republicans, those who support the US Constitution, those who deny global warming, and military vets. Of course the definition of extremists depends on which political party the head of NSA belongs to…
“The mission, codenamed “Operation Socialist,” was designed to enable GCHQ to monitor mobile phones connected to Belgacom’s network.”
Operation Socialist is an appropriate name since Socialist/Communist states depend on absolute control over the people in order to rule over them. Without privacy there can be no individual freedom.
Great work here, really glad there are people out there like yourself Glenn and the people working hard at The Intercept to bring us this information in the comprehensive that laymen can understand. I have a good picture of what is going on here and see why Ed made the sacrifice he did leaving Hawaii and the cushy job at the NSA. Again I appreciate your hard work.
Thanks.
I’m looking for the people who, just last Friday, confidently proclaimed that we clearly had no more significant stories left and had used up all the good parts of the archive: all because Peter Maass wrote a light but still significant and interesting story about how even the NSA’s own employees recognize the toxic effects of privacy violations when applied to them.
Let me know if you see those individuals.
And, as always, there are a lot more to come.
Russell Tice.
This Peter Maass article among others (Snowdens testimony to the EU etc.) are stories I had not seen until I read thru the comments section here and then searched them out. Where I use google news with sections for both NSA surveillance and Edward Snowden I feel like I am missing critical parts of the information needed to stay informed. Is there a service or a site that is out there to be better informed about these and other civil liberty issues?
Edit: The Peter Maass story was here actually and I did read it, but the question still stands.
Is there a service or a site that is out there to be better informed about these and other civil liberty issues?
You have found it. There are others that have been writing stories as well, especially wrt NSA – Bart Gellman at WaPo, Spencer Ackerman at the Guardian, etc. But over the years, I have found Greenwald et al to be the most informative place to start.
I frequent the following in trying to stay informed:
https://freesnowden.is
http://www.emptywheel.net
http://www.cryptome.org
Democracy Now
ACLU
Techdirt (search on NSA or Snowden or ???)
In a sane society every employee of the NSA would be executed to prevent the Stasi State virus from spreading.
In a sane society there would be no executions at all.
Executions would be far less common if the jury that sentenced death also had to execute.
Little authoritarians believing in in the apotheosis of the state amount to little more than little Caesars with their thumbs down and clean hands.
I want to see jury members waking in the night remembering what they have done and seen, not some indifferent state psychopath banally following orders .
After all is said and all revealed, the one thing that will have the longest lasting, and possibly the most detrimental affects, but will in all likelihood receive the least attention. Will be the intangible drain on knowledge such a massive and ubiquitous system requires. The NSA is the largest employer of mathematicians in the world, it also employees a vast network of computer scientists among other talented individuals (It Trolls Hundreds of Universities). By taking these intelligent individuals and turning them into voyeurs and voyeur enablers, the surveillance state has not only destroyed our privacy, but also perverted a portion of our future. What could have been discovered, created, and built by these individuals, had they not been seduced into a life of convenience and luxury (building databases, Etc. doesn’t require a whole lot of critical thinking and Snowden was making upwards of $100,000). The lasting effect of this will be intangible, but surely great.
What may have been had all this potential and knowledge gone, not to exploiting the present, but rather building for a better tomorrow?
Links*****
NSA Employment/Recruiting:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/mathematicians-and-computer-scientists-shrug-over-the-nsa-hacking/
I didn’t even think of that, very good observation. It really gets you thinking and what really burns my ass is that this is all taxpayer funded. Billions of dollars going to watching people on the internet while kids are hungry and living in squalor and schools are shutting down. It really bothers me what the governments priorities are.
I share your disgust and disappointment. Trillions, not billions, of dollars have created spying and warring entities while basic human needs such as food, health, housing, jobs, and clean air and water have been cruelly neglected. We have a government that works only for itself. It is a greedy evil soulless monster.
^^+1
The drain on knowledge required by NSA activities sets up the scenario for an oppressed population under the forced control of global government.
The US labor pool is zero-sum. There is some 20+% of US GDP generated by governments. By diverting massive resources to feed the organization into a monster, we are on our way to creating a psy ops nightmare.
Check out some of the federal contractor job websites such as icfi.com, battelle, etc to see the vast resources being poured into spy ops activities. It makes me sick to see how a culture of surveillance has gotten a stranglehold on the general population.
People who think public key encryption can save them from government snooping are delusional.
It make keep credit card scamers at bay but the government snoops us all the time.
If you need secure data links then a code book must be physically transported to and keep secure at all points in the data network.
All else is worthless.
National. Scum. Agency.
No Such Agency
Never Say Anything
No Sodding Accountability
New Stasi of America
Nazi, Socialist, A$$holes.
Everyone use Linux! It isn’t hard to install. You can tailor it to do many things. Linux is open source so if it tried to use backdoors, computer geeks worldwide would immediately notice and call it to our attention. Intel and AMD, the CPU chip makers have already constructed new back doors that Microsoft and Apple give the NSA access to. Linux doesn’t cooperate. I use Slackware64, Version 14.1. Linux isn’t super friendly, but once installed, IT IS ROCK SOLID.
Dream on. The data security features are almost non-existent Applications can dynamically alter the OS just long enough to unlock everything then put it back again.
Without hardware that can independently detect malicious references or alterations the data security offered by software is nothing but BS.
Yeah, except for the browser app you’re using. Did you read the article?
Linus, what you’re missing is that ANY OS that updates (inc. virtually all flavors of Linux) already have the NSA back doors built in. The NSA has seen to it.
Critical crypto bug leaves Linux, hundreds of apps open to eavesdropping
This GnuTLS bug is worse than the big Apple “goto fail” bug patched last week.
http://arstechnica.com/security/2014/03/critical-crypto-bug-leaves-linux-hundreds-of-apps-open-to-eavesdropping/
Feelin’ the love…. (?)
The mass inserting of spyware to defeat encryption has a home in most if not all sites like TI, the Guardian. I posted earlier regarding getting replies faster than even reading what I posted. To me its obvious a computer is reading my typing and sending a reply that appears to be triggers when I hit the send button. Up pops a reply!
So what is a humble Sys Admin supposed to do in response to such shocking revelations?
Our small firm has contracts with corporate clients that make us responsible for defending against disclosure of Confidential Information we may hold or have access to on behalf of our clients. We are obligated to file a “Security Incident Response Plan” in the event of a breach, or “a reasonable expectation of a compromise of the security, confidentiality or integrity of data or information under control.” These are standard boilerplate contracts.
Based on your article, it would appear that nearly every tech corporation on the planet needs to inform their clients that we can no longer guarantee the confidentiality of their data, and need to invoke indemnification under an “Uncontrollable Forces” clause (if we are fortunate enough to have one). For example, ” shall not be liable for… any cause beyond its reasonable control such as… war, sabotage, act of a public enemy… provided that promptly notifies in writing…”
Are other firms with in-house counsel already doing this?
Glenn/Ryan, I’d like to see more analysis on how major tech industry firms are responding to the risky legal situation your revelations have raised.
That is an excellent idea! Some people are not following this very closely or they assume it is governments spying on governments something to bring it a little closer to home could be useful in the fight. It is probably more safe for some people than my idea of hacking the NSA, GCHQ, and friends employee list and letting the community know who and where the traitors of the people are. I still think we should cut off the water supply to places like PRISM though and let their servers fry.
When this agency has RSA on its payroll, taps trunks, coerce providers, use secret courts, its not about security, its the thrill of the hunt. Again “they” will say I was following orders as millions have before.
In my humble opinion, the more transparent and upfront you are to your clients about what you do and do not have to do is the way forward. Integrity is what people are really craving in today’s world – beyond contracts and the so-called ‘law’.
Never use facebook.
Nor Google. Nor Microsoft. Nor Apple. Probably a bunch of other American companies as well that have provided back doors into their software. But at least those four are certain.
Never look up.
I wish Steve Jobs was alive and running Apple. He may have been enough of an idealist to have told the US government hands off. It appears only small companies like Ladar Levison’s Lavabit have a “spine”. What new revelation will it take for a large US company to tell the US Government to “pound sand”?
Dates in the article for “blocking” maybe for the specialized current blocking, but it began in the later portion of the 1990’s. The resurgence of blocking lately seems to tie well with lil clapper lying to congress. In my experience it has never ended(since 1990’s) but has spiked numerous times and likely higher since the lying to congress of late.
Whoa, big time revelations here. I am starting to see the rest of the picture with this round of documents. Not only does NSA/GCHQ want to monitor and infiltrate targets computers they also want to play big brother with what seems the entire internet if they aren’t doing that already. What a great intelligence gathering position to be in, at the arches of the information network, collecting and monitoring whatever the NSA wants. Goodbye internet
We’re back to the Neanderthal days, where now our amygdalae once again rules over any rationality we may have gained in the thousands of years we’ve been walking upright on this planet.
From Quinn’s “A Day of Speaking Truth to Power” – https://medium.com/quinn-norton/dbc0669aa9ca
Not really surprising, I’d thought of this kind of thing years ago. It’s an obvious problem with having a computer (or smartphone) always connected to the internet.
Also: it’s a pretty clear way to track some internet use by those using the TOR browser, or other proxies: fake the server, put a server in the middle, or spy directly on the source of the TOR use, your computer.
The policies of Google, FBook, MicrosSoft, Verizon, ATT, Sprint, TMobile I’m sure, don’t help. So in these regards Yahoo and Blackberry both come out of this looking a bit, only a bit better.
Groundbreaking surveillance technology ? Gee, the next thing they will do is call the program ‘bots’
Why, the NSA has made all the way into the 90’s with their groundbreaking surveillance technology.
Sort of agree, this is probably a distraction from what’s possible, and being done.
No, I don’t mean that Greenwald and The Intercept are paid agents of this conspiracy.
Is it any surprise that CIA spied on US Senators after forcing those Senators to use CIA supplied computers to read classified docs?
Don’t worry about this; the government will only use this on its enemies.
Worry that your government thinks you are its enemy.
Based on this behavior of making 1984 a reality, it is impossible not to be the enemy of the NSA. They will of course call on us to unilaterally disarm.
This is all nothing short of complete power and control of the world’s population for the purpose of enslaving that population.
Once enslaved we have no place to run, no refuge from the tyranny. Exactly the same senario as slaves since millenia.
The NSA is following orders of Israel. If you wan to see your future, just look to the Palestinians.
Outstanding work, Glenn and Ryan. You guys are getting really good at presenting these complex and convoluted stories.
Also, it’s encouraging to note that the reporting here seems, if anything, rather less constrained than in other fora. A very good thing.
Now I’m suffering from code name overload!
TURBINE … UNITEDRAKE … CAPTIVATEDAUDIENCE … GUMFISH … FOGGYBOTTOM … GROK … SALVAGERABBIT … HAMMERCHANT … HAMMERSTEIN … QUANTUMSKY … QUANTUMCOPPER … WILLOWVIXEN … QUANTUMHAND … SECONDDATE … FOXACID … VALIDATOR … TURMOIL … TUTELAGE … INSENSER … QUANTUMTHEORY
It’s just a matter of time before the gov’t/NSA/military decides to begin massive censorship of the internet and to close sites at will if they advocate “freedom”. There goes your freedom of speech.
“……There goes your freedom of speech……”
Yea. There it goes. Have you seen any evidence of that yet??
My, what short memories we have here!
https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/02/24/jtrig-manipulation/
https://firstlook.org/theintercept/article/2014/02/18/snowden-docs-reveal-covert-surveillance-and-pressure-tactics-aimed-at-wikileaks-and-its-supporters/
Just to give two examples. Plenty more examples available on request.
I believe that the tactic in of the United States is not to openly jail and ban viewpoints; it’s tactic is to let you say what you want and then persecute you if you say something that is not approved of.
“……..I believe that the tactic in of the United States is not to openly jail and ban viewpoints; it’s tactic is to let you say what you want and then persecute you if you say something that is not approved of……”
You really shouldn’t confuse free speech with an individual releasing information that is clearly in violation of the law and in violation of the non disclosure of information he was required to sign while he worked for the NSA as a subcontractor. Snowden lied to his employer to get his job. He specifically applied for the job to steal the documents. He stole far more than necessary to get his point across and now he has chosen (and I mean chosen) to live in an anti-democratic country to avoid prosecution.
Assange, who has also released an abundance of top security documents, is wanted for questioning in Sweden for the assault of two women. That must be a new form of freedom of expression. Who really even brings it up his assault charges anyway? Far left wingers are far to infatuated with Assange’s attempts to discredit the US government regardless of what he might be charged with in connection with two rapes.
Already going on. Notice how various Corbett Report clips and other youtube videos have audio that just drops out during key parts. And did you ever notice on Reddit when it says something like “45 comments” but you click in to it and there are only a handful?
Just goes to show change to the entire political structure must be made. The controllers are finding ways to keep their advantage in a new digital age where more and more ordinary folk are waking up to the shenanigans that have been perpetrated on the world for eons. With this technology and robotic technology, humanity is shifting to a very ugly world, one controlled by the traditional narcissistic “powers” that be. On the other hand, they don’t know anything about computers and have to use the computer savvy. When we disempower the controlling parasites, humanity can herald a golden age – we can use this technology for our edification instead and accelerate our evolution.
“One implant, codenamed UNITEDRAKE, can be used with a variety of “plug-ins” that enable the agency to gain total control of an infected computer.”
Oh reeeeeeeealy? UNITEDRAKE you say????? Oh how you all must just sit back and laugh and laugh during your wordplay. Listen up kids – that’s childplay compared to what’s headed for your cribs. Just wait until YOU are being raked over the coals by THE UNITEDPITCHFORKS OF AMERICA with a variety of plug-ins that enable OUR agency to gain total control of your every infected and collective orifices!!! I know how to use my words too…
Ok, you bring the pitchforks and I’ll bring the guillotines!!!!!
@bloodypitchfork … I think wolfess just called your name. Can you bring your guns – and your cute little wolverines, too? Pretty please????
http://sipseystreetirregulars.blogspot.com/2009/08/son-you-dont-poke-wolverine-with-sharp.html
I understand the calls to fire the brass……. Its just that you can imagine how these things get so out of hand.
There is this important job to protect the nation. There are threats all around the world and even on home soil. You put these super smart and ambitious people in charge of finding out ways to find out what the bad guys are doing. They look at oversight as red tape. Its just a pain in the rear. Its the government stupidly getting in the way of itself. Its hamstringing efforts to protect Americans. I doubt that they consider very much the ramifications of what they are doing. They have a job to do. Its an important one, and one that they believe in.
There are all sorts of problems with this narrow thinking. The one I find interesting is the given by Mikko Hypponen at the beginning of the article.
Forget about our freedoms and liberty being violated (Flippant, I know). It sounds as though Mikko Hypponen can very reasonably argue that deploying all of this malware could make the internet less stable. It could create more holes for those with bad intentions to do harm to Americans and American government.
As far as how Greenwald is choosing to release the Snowden leaks, I think its smart. All of these new revelations are hard to digest. By bringing them out bit by bit we can force the government to answer very specific questions about very specific actions. We can very specifically catch them in lies, which has already happened. If everything were released at once, I think that important details could be thrown out too easily. The administration could answer a simple question about malware, and when a more difficult question comes up they could simply say, “We’ve already addressed that. If you want that answer please refer to this or that response that really won’t tell you anything about the question you just asked, but it can sort of pacify those listening enough while we move onto something else. Next.” Having these revelations role out more slowly is causing them to have a greater and lasting impact.
NSA owns the net, yet when Russia, a country, not a tipster, warned the US about the Boston Bomber, the US did not have enough resources to fully evaluate him.
When the father of the Underwear Bomber, walked into the American Embassy, and told them his son is dangerous, the US did not have enough resources.
The US would rather lock-up forever the Fort Dix 5, who were totally innocent of terrorism,
then go after any real suspects.There is a need for real suspects, with warrants, to be under monitoring.Till this happens, I can’t see the NSA as anything more than Security Theater, like the TSA does at airports.
Exactly. With so much secrecy, it almost impossible to hold the incompetent ones accountable. This is what thoughtful hawks like Eisenhower and Richard Clarke have always been so worried about.
It is very difficult anymore to separate the good guys from the bad guys. I fear I am going to wake up one day and find that I live in the former East Germany or Soviet Union. The government at all levels needs to get the heck out of private citizens lives.
Maybe because there’s no such thing. There’s only guys, with different interests, values and worldviews, some with a bit more of a sociopathic personality than others. Plus a lot of this is not individuals doing stuff. It’s bureaucracies that act in certain ways for the benefit of the concentration of power, both financial and political.
“skillz” is not a sic btw. It’s hacker-speak for tech skills.
That’s why “SIC” means, “spelling is correct”. It is explicitly to point out an unusual word is not a typographical error.
Actually “sic” is meant to show that a word was written as shown, regardless of being spelled correctly or not… short for sic erat scriptum or “thus it was written”
“sic” also means “this alternate spelling is a disturbing window into the sick minds at the NSA”. The spelling speaks volumes about the professionalism and emotional maturity of the analyst in question.
The NSA analyst (probably a white male with a crew cut and wearing a suit) was thinking “We [NSA] da baddest gangstaz in da hood!”
It is Latin for ‘thus’, i.e. ‘it was thus in the original’ and indicates that the preceding word was incorrect in the original, and is not an error of the present writer.
My family was brutalized via NSA supplied data Sept 11 2002. Multiple events. It was a mistake. Are there documents identifying individual innocent victims that can personalize the big picture?
The use of the phrase “foreign targets” is used repeatedly throughout the article, but what really does that mean? It implies, I’m guessing, that these techniques aren’t being deployed against US citizens, but aren’t US citizens, in the minds of the UK or New Zealand for example, considered foreign? Of course, exempting US citizens doesn’t make it any more acceptable, but I would really like to know what the phrase means in the context of the NSA directives.
The U.S. citizens are snagged by GCHQ and the Aussies.
I think the answer to that is in the NDAA that Obama just signed. It gives them the power to lock up Americans without charges for as long as they care too. But Barry promised not to use it, so don’t be alarmed. It also legalizes the use of propaganda on the American public. Not that they haven’t for years but I think it is telling that they have made it the law.
To paraphrase Victoria Lebensraum, Duck EU’All ! Das POTUS’ halfascist Adolphbet strudel agencies are already malwaring US DOMESTICALLY!
“The intelligence community’s top-secret “Black Budget” for 2013, obtained by Snowden, lists TURBINE as part of a broader NSA surveillance initiative named “Owning the Net.””
Translation: They declared a Technology War against this world and used our own fucking computers in the warfare to shoot ourselves in the face, ass, hearts and heads out. And then they sat the fuck back, poured fucking shot of Crown Royal with a plate of caviar and melba toast … and sat back watching us whore ourselves out in their twisted version of internet porn – then got off on it! At least Quinn Norton got to LITERALLY call them “creepy fuckers” to their face: https://medium.com/quinn-norton/dbc0669aa9ca (thanks @TallyGoGazehound for the original link!)
These fuckers are ALL grand fucking poo-bah’s, imperial brethren, and card-carrying members of the Jeepers Creepers Fucker Club.
Let’s see if we can make a simile here. The difference between today — this administration and the Internet — and the 1950s — the Eisenhower administration and the Interstate Highway System — is that Ike didn’t rig the Interstates to collapse in the name of national security.
That about right? Because the one sector of the US economy that worked now has more holes in it than a Gruyère cheese. That is no highway to prosperity.
BTW, Congress, get out your textbooks and turn to Art. I, Sec. 8, clause 3: “The Congress shall have power … To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States …” CON-GRESS, you idiots, not Fort Meade. Remember that the next time you want donations from Silicon Valley.
Precisely.
CONgress is acting like a gawddamned neutered capon, when in reality, they have the power of the purse. If they wanted to stop this nonsense, all they have to do is suck it up, grow a set of knutz, and slash funding 100%. Cripple these c*ocksuckers in their tracks. Shut off their power, and water, and gas, and let them sit in their cube farms in the dark.
They’ve almost all been spied on and found to have skeletons hidden away they don’t want exposed – that’s the stick. The carrot is the riches they will acquire if they don’t complain.
Well, seeing as they are US citizens, regardless of how crooked they may be, I guess the “Foreign targets” have never been that “foreign” at all, huh?
Knowledge is power, the internet now contains most of the knowledge in the world, most of what’s left lies on personal computers. Now the NSA has been in control of that power for over a decade, and all they have to do now is sit back, push the button, and watch how their nations swing in the breeze like fucking wind chimes.
The 5 eyes alliance: Controlled by their own spies. I guess we now knows who watches the watchmen when they don’t watch themselves. So I guess the new question is, do these fuckers realize that the power they hold could destroy the world and do they give a fuck?
As I recall the original solution to the watchmen problem was to tell them that if they didn’t do their job, the world would end.
These guys know that to be a lie. They could do their jobs and *cause* the world to end.
That being so, there’s still my point about damaged commerce. You’d think that Congress would look at their campaign-finance reports and see who’s damaged by an Internet so compromised that no one will buy products, goods or downloads over it any more.
They might not care about the Bill of Rights, but if they won’t enforce the Commerce Clause — the Silver Chalice of American law — then Americans are screwly trued.
Did you not read where it said they would monitor those labeled as “extremists”? I wouldn’t go quoting the Constitution unless you want to wear a label. You know they already send the IRS and the Justice Department after other groups who Nancy Pelosi gave that label to.
If the Commerce Clause is subversive or extremist, then we really have gone through the looking glass.
If this comes as a surprise to anyone, then I can only say “wake up and smell the roses”. Did you miss that all US software and cloud services have backdoors (even Microsoft….), anyone using Firewalls from Israel or even Antivirus from Russia? There are plenty of choices for security products made in Germany, that do have a no backdoor guarantee and adhere to some of the strongest privacy laws worldwide. The time has come to take action and things in your/our own hands.
Not funny. The brilliance of such minds being used for such deviousness. How can these people live with themselves, with their families, in their communities? Soiling us all.
Some folks will do anything for a buck.
They wrap themselves in the Flag, and the tattered Constitution, and convince themselves that they are “Patriots” and “Freedom Fighters”. Protecting US all from their fabricated boogey-man named Al.
Al K. Ida.
Half of these “intelligence” people were recruited from the criminal world. The ultimatum left to the hackers is either your with us, or against us. The good news is that I am sure with the help of these documents, many a new hacker are avoiding the NSA like the plague, thus effectively reducing the size of the NSA by default.
“The system would relieve the user from needing to know/care about the details,”
I’m not on your fucking “NEED TO KNOW” list you conniving pieces of shit. Have you forgotten in your big Pharma-induced coma that YOU answer to MY ass! And to ALL the rest of US!!
Don’t you dare sit there and tell us pat us our fucking heads and rub our fucking bellies then call US crazy!!!! Now let’s just see who are the inmates in MY fucking asylum!!!!! You don’t even deserve padding the cell.
Don’t hold back.
Tell them what you really think………
I’ve only just begun… Don’t piss off a red-headed Irish chick. Our DNA is as tender in love as it is lethal in war. We whisper little strategies to our men and feed them breakfast before kissing them as they leave for battle against our enemies. And we’ve got our God, saints and angels to back us up. And who pray tell our little counter-spy in all this? Why it the Devil himself. They left that part out of the bible … and I know for a fact – there WILL be hell to pay. And I’m just over in my little ‘ole kitchen … building a little fire in oven … making dinner … waiting for MY man to bring home the bacon. Thank God. Amen. Good night fuckers!
Um… this is awkward. Punctuation is everything and most of the time I barely know what I’m doing. Even I’m blushing over the potential impact of that last line because I don’t know when to/not use a comma properly. Take that line anyway you like, but FWIW – I would never say anything too profane. SRSLY – I am a lady!
As a red-headed, Irish blood-blended male. I get your drift.
Hah!
@Geoman… Hello my fellow Spud lover. Those douchebag fuckers – don’t they know the Irish LIVE for this shit? Bloody Mc’s are kinda relentless that way! Our entire culture was born of politics, war, family and our fellow countrymen. Poetry is still read in every pub, sometimes choking back tears telling all about our legends and lores … as we sit silently hanging on every word. We get pissed ass drunk listening to haunting wails of pipes … and to songs with melodies so sweet it takes your breath way … of our grief … and of war … until we crumble and weep.
The next day we get up, have a pot-luck and get pissed ass drunk dancing jigs on the graves as we swear an oath to avenge that death, their honor, and their bravery – even if it kills us to do it! And we throw the best damn wakes IN this town! But It’s – always -the – fucking – politics – that picks the fight to start party again. Every. damn. time. We only fight each other to warm up – but we always have each others back in battle, right?
Hell hath no fucking fury as a woman scorned. You guys can have all the rest of them – but I am saving my darkest prayers for the devil himself to personally show no mercy to all the double-crossing, no-good, lying thieving, peeping, torturing, SOB – Irish – Em-Effers who stood with England in this battle while they hocked loogies on those graves of my ancestors. And especially for those that are suffering for it that are living today.
Psst – NSA – BTW – I’m Irish AND American. And that’s not your heartbeat – think of it as the throbbing Michael-Flatley footwork before you make it YOUR grave… Good night. Amen.
Although, of course, the actions of these spying agencies are indefensible, I believe a fair amount of the blame should also be levied against the tech industry (silicon valley). Spy agencies are created and designed to spy. That is what they do, and so we cannot be shocked when they devise invasive spying programs for internet data. What is completely inexcusable is the absence of better encryption and firewall protection built into the existing programs that we purchase and use everyday. Where is Google, where is Apple, where is Microsoft??? What the hell have the so called computer genius “developers” been doing? All of this NSA news has led to a complete failure of Office 365, as most corporations cannot trust or use this software. This even led to Microsoft changing their CEO. I’m glad they have taken a huge hit and feel that all of these major tech companies are in everyway complicit, have egg on their face, and should be ashamed of themselves.
I don’t know too much about this stuff but I am very interested and it is clear to me that we have very power hungry Governments around the world. People saying there are spying activities going on in other countries that are just as significant are probably right, but does Greenwald have that information? No, he has the NSA files. Why should he release them all at once, that wouldn’t be very effective in creating a transparent government because the public would never be able to comprehend that much information.
Sooooo…… WHO failed to see this coming?
the FaceBook stuff is a given…since 2009
I am sure the all-seeing, all-knowing brilliant minds in government service had conceived of the need to control or eliminate citizen communication long before the unwashed masses had a clue, but Iran’s little Green Revolution using social media so effectively, surely motivated them beyond mere ‘war-gaming’. How many months after that became obvious did we have the nationwide cellphone blackout, which was advertised as some sort of “test”.
This is mind freaking, I thought Bad Guys are compromising the networks, but never thought of the government.
nsa malware aka microsoft windows.
“(humans tend to operate within their own environment, not taking into account the bigger picture).”
I guess these kids forgot they were human too. Maybe they should taken into account the bigger picture of what they were perpetrating against other humans while handing out business cards. They sure as shit didn’t take into account how that would factor into their picture. TERROR???? This is very own God damned, come to life, ZOMBIE TECHAPOCALYPSE!!!!!
Keep painting the picture Glenn. There are a lot of art lovers out here who love your work and who will come to appreciate your talent and technique. I can only draw stick figures, some people cartoon and “some people” are idiot savants … and you are the great master in this renaissance. Thanks Edward Snowden for providing the paint. And TI the brushes. This shit is PRICELESS!….
I failed to give credit to Mr. Gallagher. I apologize. As I myself am Irish too. I take personal delight in your name. St. Michael is answering my prayers so I don’t think it’s a coincidence you are a fierce warrior in this battle. Thank you.
CORRECTION: As I myself am Irish too I take personal delight in your name.
Jeesh! Talking is so much easier … proof-reading and punctuation is a tricky business.
Hardly surprising, for godsakes, given the kind of money spent on all this NSA shite, that the USA has so little cash left over with which to restore its crumbling and collapsing infrastructure. — As for GCHQ, I wonder whether any VAT and corporation taxes get paid on all its US $ profits into the UK’s public purse? — BTW, I am inclined to think that GCHQ will already by now have lobbied the OED to redefine the word “hacking” as synonymous with “owning” — but only if and as and when GCHQ is itself the subject of the verb.
The government prints money and can have as much or as little as it wants to have. Programs it likes never want for money. Programs it does not like quietly get defunded. And which ones meet which fate are far from accidental.
Yeah, thanks for the feedback. I’ve long maintained that the ever-expanding, ever-encroaching NSA is actually no more than a ponzi-scheme, not worth the paper it’s written on in terms of the promised dividend — viz., so-called terrorists.
“The intelligence community’s top-secret “Black Budget” for 2013, obtained by Snowden,”
In a one sentence paragraph, near the head of a long article. Way to rivet one’s attention, Glenn.
Indeed. Do tell us more.
Time to fire all upper management of the CIA & NSA including Generals, who should be busted & dishonorably discharged, with no pension & then prosecuted ! We should all give them the one FINGER salute as they leave & tell them to sit on it and rotate !
Disclaimer: Be advised it is possible, that this communication is being monitored by the National Security Agency, GCHQ or other third party organizations. I neither condone nor support any such policy, by any Government authority or organization that does not comply, as stipulated by the 4th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
“Time to fire all upper management of the CIA & NSA including Generals, who should be busted & dishonorably discharged, with no pension & then prosecuted ! ”
Nah, thats not going to do anything. Time for Ron Paul’s idea-simply eliminate huge departments of the government. The CIA should be the first to go.
Of course they’ll never actually do anything like that because America is a completely paranoid nation whose fear of foreign threats is waaaaay greater then the fear of a police state.
This is a masterpiece! Thank you!
If one has ever been on the receiving end of the aforementioned attacks, the veracity of this information and scope of operation can not be questioned.
Essentially you are screwed if you are using any Operating System (OS). See Selector types above and note Windows Update ID’s and Windows Error ID’s. Dumping your OS will not help because as soon as you register the new one your screwed again. Here are some tips that will REDUCE but not alleviate NSA access to your machine.
Do not allow firewall exceptions.
Always clear browsers and temporary internet files. Do this frequently. Configure your browsers wisely.
Load Malwarebytes.
Run an AV program that cleans content. Run additional programs that clean content and/or Registry entries.
Run an IP Blocker program.
Do not allow Windows Update to load updates automatically. Choose to manually update.
Check your Services carefully. Disable all of the ones that enable NSA access such as Remote access services.
Manually pick over your registry from time to time.
Stay off of social networking sites. This is paramount.
Use Startpage as your Search Engine as opposed to Google or Bing and delete their entries from your registry.
Print rather than download.
I am not a techie but I have found the above listed things to minimize machine problems caused by NSA intercepts. Please keep in mind that even these things will not alleviate the problem. If you are using a machine online you are screwed. Yup….it is us against them but we have numbers on our side. It is NOT their internet.
Thank you once again for publishing this excellent article.
“Stay off of social networking sites. This is paramount.”
In a sense, isn’t that what we are all doing here, networking?
Although it is a given, that this site in monitored all day, everyday………….
(No need for a response, I was being sarcastically rhetorical)
But hey, anytime I can ridicule those fools, it makes my day.
Yup….but it is a calculated risk in the formation of opposition.
I most definitely appreciate the finer arts of the “Lock and Load” mentality. Drive on CitizenSane!
Ha, by using a closed sourced OS like Windows your screwed anyway, you can be sure that things has built in backdoors. So your counter measures above, while good practice, will not stop the like of the NSA if they wanted.
To have the best chance of security, you must at least start with a open source OS, plently of Linux/BSD stuff out there a hell of a lot safer then any MS OS
You speak the truth. I wonder why nobody else in this thread mentioned Open Source Solutions …
Seriously?
Linux was in part developed and is widely in use by the DOD. Check it out.
Sure…just use the DOD servers! Make it easy for them….
Sort of like jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire.
An option yes, but no thank you.
Um… this site and the comment threads ARE social media. I’m a middle-aged old dame who’s been around the technology block so even though these not my FB friends (closed years ago) and I don’t tweet them (twit speak gives me seizures) – there is no doubt in my mind that as we gleefully socialize here – it is – in fact – social media. The NSA is hanging on our every word. Everywhere and on any piece of technology you use. Today – they own the EVERY technologies’ ass. It’s up to us to kick theirs before they screw us to the wall. They’ve been shelling out our tax dollars for military grade equipment and selling their cast-offs to any local law enforcement agency that will take it at a discount – then provide training – double dipping your tax dollars to do it. Wake up dear. And after you do … doublecheck those numbers again. Please. Cuz your numbers are way off if you think any combination of virus protection has any chance to stop this shit.
It is unfortunate that the techs working at the NSA are enabling all of this. It used to be something to be proud of to work for the NSA. Now it is just an embarrassment.
How many former NSA techs have to lie on a resume about where they used to work. Just remove NSA with McDonalds and you have more credibility.
Mr. Greenwald and Mr. Gallagher
Do we even know if the US and the UK are the leaders in this kind of technology worldwide? Could it be that US rivals like the Chinese and the Russians could have surpassed US capabilities? In the digital age, cyber warfare is becoming a much more important tool for intelligence agencies. Malware has been used to attack the Iranian nuclear program, and certainly, cyber warfare has been used by all intelligence agencies to gain access to defense contractors and other companies that develop technology used for military purposes. Cyber warfare is being used by both sides in Ukraine and shows the importance of intelligence capabilities to ward off and to access computers for future conflicts.
“……..U.S. intelligence analysts are closely watching the roles hackers are playing in the Ukraine conflict for clues to how Russia and others might employ cyber capabilities in future conflicts, said two U.S. officials who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence issues. The officials said cyberspace is quickly rivaling traditional battlefields as a place where wars may be won or lost…….And on Feb. 23, state-funded Voice of Russia published e-mails alleged to have been written by Vitali Klitschko, a pro-Western candidate for the Ukrainian presidency. The documents leaked by a hacker group calling itself Anonymous Ukraine included one in which Mr. Klitschko thanked an adviser to Lithuania’s president for funding the Ukrainian protests……”
Of course, our whistleblower in Russia is likely right on top of Russian intelligence hacking into systems to expose their covert violations of the Ukrainian email system(?).
Aside from the so called violation of the Fourth Amendment by the NSA, do Americans (or anyone for that matter) understand that they are giving up privacy willingly and without their knowledge on a daily basis – and that this is a result of living in the digital age? According to 60 Minutes which aired last Sunday:
“……Over the past six months or so, a huge amount of attention has been paid to government snooping, and the bulk collection and storage of vast amounts of raw data in the name of national security. What most of you don’t know, or are just beginning to realize, is that a much greater and more immediate threat to your privacy is coming from thousands of companies you’ve probably never heard of, in the name of commerce…..They’re called data brokers, and they are collecting, analyzing and packaging some of our most sensitive personal information and selling it as a commodity…to each other, to advertisers, even the government, often without our direct knowledge………..[a] multibillion dollar industry that operates in the shadows with virtually no oversight…….Companies and marketing firms have been gathering information about customers and potential customers for years, collecting their names and addresses, tracking credit card purchases, and asking them to fill out questionnaires, so they can offer discounts and send catalogues. But today we are giving up more and more private information online without knowing that it’s being harvested and personalized and sold to lots of different people…our likes and dislikes, our closest friends, our bad habits, even your daily movements, both on and offline. Federal Trade Commissioner Julie Brill says we have lost control of our most personal information…….”
It’s fairly pathetic to focus on the NSA without acknowledging that today privacy is an ongoing issue in all walks of our lives. This area would seem to be a less destructive use for whistleblowers.
All valid points, and I would add that, given the amount of private consumer datamining, we now have troves of data, and like any treasure chest, it can be stolen. Certainly this kind of NSA lock-picking means a lot of compromised systems for crooks, not to mention foreign gov’ts, to exploit. The attacks on systems administrators in particular is not going to protect either commercial or national security, either from petty theft or a surprise cyber-attack.
You’re right about the US/UK pioneering this kind of technology, in the same sense that the US pioneered winged aviation in the last century. Unfortunately, other countries can adapt that technology and teach us a thing or two about national security, as we found out in Hawaii one Sunday morning. We even had the tech to see it coming, but …
– – –
Radar Operator: Sir, this is Private Elliott at Opana Point. There’s a large formation of planes coming in from the north – 140 miles, 3 degrees east.
Duty Officer: Yeah? Well … Don’t worry about it. (click)
— “Tora Tora Tora”
“…….You’re right about the US/UK pioneering this kind of technology, in the same sense that the US pioneered winged aviation in the last century…..”
Personally, I think you are winging it. Needless to say, I never said or implied that we developed the technology. I doubt anyone knows for sure what the Russians and Chinese have developed on the cyber-games front. Russian interception of emails just indicates that the Russians have developed similar technology. Chinese hackers have attempted quite successfully (at times) I suspect, accessing US military applications. It’s certainly a worry. Now, of course, our enemies have the advantage. Nothing lost though really, eh?
“……..Certainly this kind of NSA lock-picking means a lot of compromised systems for crooks, not to mention foreign gov’ts, to exploit……”
The key here is that there is a huge amount of personal data that is compromising our privacy. Much of the data we give with our permission to Google and others who sells the data to advertisers who rumble through our email etc. The NSA might be overstepping the Fourth, but it’s the tip of the iceberg. Clearly Snowden must understand this – as does Greenwald so is this really an issue of privacy with the NSA? I doubt it with Greenwald. Most of what he has written has been in opposition to US policies (and Israel). It was ironic that he cited Russian TV for freedom of the press (by a reporter stationed in Washington DC where she cannot be beaten or killed). I’m not sure what the difference between the two might be since they both focus on US policies. Maybe RT is a sister station?
What if all this backdoor hacking has compromised our commercial and private software? Sure, the Russians and Chinese probably have tried it as well, but did we self-inflict?
Addendum to Dan Froomkin’s piece from yesterday.
What charles Pierce said:
Time to fire all upper management of the CIA & NSA including Generals, who should be busted & dishonorably discharged, with no pension & then prosecuted ! We should all give them the one FINGER salute as they leave & tell them to sit on it and rotate !
Disclaimer: Be advised it is possible, that this communication is being monitored by the National Security Agency, GCHQ or other third party organizations. I neither condone nor support any such policy, by any Government authority or organization that does not comply, as stipulated by the 4th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
With the content of the current article here, and the content of this article here https://www.federalregister.gov/articles/2013/11/18/2013-27343/special-conditions-boeing-model-777-200–300-and–300er-series-airplanes-aircraft-electronic-system I wonder if there are any overlapping issues, or is it apples and oranges?
Could the disappearance of the Malaysian Airlines Jetliner be a NSA experiment gone FUBAR….?
For Chrissakes, I’ve got drunk and lost my car, but it is pretty hard to lose a jumbo-jet.
Corporate media “lost” the plane, but someone never lost track of it.
For anyone who comforts themselves with the knowledge that the NSA only operates on Foreign targets, it’s worth pointing out that by sharing the technology with other countries, they can enlist their help in applying the same techniques to Americans.
How do I know I am hacked by my govt? Twice in the recent past I have gotten responses immediately after I posted a comment such as I am doing now. What I am saying parties are monitoring some of my computer time(s), and placing comments immediately following mine to discredit what I have posted!
Is this what we pay taxes for? Is this what we abide by the rule of law for? Are We nolonger Citizens?
My belief and observations regarding ‘facts’, we(The People) have LOST! And its time for a New War.
Note to Mr. Greenwald; Sir you do us all a disservice requiring identification. Let the Govt have to provide the proofs in Court, rather than allowing it to force you into being their means.
This explains why, when I turn my computer on first thing in the morning, I see a flashing neon sign that says “You are being Redirected”, and immediately the NSA Homepage pops up, with the icon “Ask Zelda”……..
/sarc.
You mean Ask Ni Hao ;-)
It’s extremely irritating having permanent cyberstalkers that just can’t escape from, isn’t it? Have they started stalking and harassing you outside of the web yet?
Maybe your stalkers are just women looking for some pen”s
Karmic Retribution = Turbine …
The NSA couldn’t even be satisfied by just any old fan … they needed a God damned TURBINE! At least there will be no fucking mistaking exactly in which direction the full force of responsibility and accountability will be pointed. I truly relish the day when the velocity of their massive, steaming, putrid piles of dung in the blowback of this circus will fill their drawers once again. And I PRAY to watch in on live TV at their sentencing. As they weep…
When my mother used to tell me “Stop crying or I’ll give you something to REALLY cry about.” that usually did the trick. So fellas, um … “Terror”? You don’t seem to grasp the meaning of that word. That’s why god gave us knees … so when they start shaking uncontrollably from fear … you KNOW you’re in deep. Who are your enemies, again? Oh… and the delicious taste of terror that I feel for you is making me hungry. I’m saving my appetite for dessert! Thanks GG & TI … for letting those sweet aromas blow first in the Turbine first. Terror….
“Terror”?
That is the definition of what they will ALL feel.
It will be their puckering strings clenching a full blown “Ten” on the pucker scale, when their collective sphincter’s shrink, as they gasp and gaze at the throngs approaching the Bastille………..
@Citizen …
The U.S./U.K. and God knows who the fuck else have DECLARED INTERNET WAR on the entire fucking world.
Snowden was generous to throw them bones … and they just minced his words. Then they tried to chewing asses out left, right and center to stop him? And GG, The Guardian, Assange and Chelsea Manning… etc.
I CAN NOT WAIT for my turn in this savory buffet line to savor the assortments of offal that will be served up. Then I’ll will lick their damn pork chops and suck every last last bit of flavor out of them! Then I’m going back for seconds. Terror….
The blowback is happening now(with Putin, China). Maybe the NSA realizes this and is going on the offensive. US can’t keep invading countries and fighting stupid wars. I hope no country does to us what US did to them. China is building up, waiting, until US done spending themselves silly.
Glenn,
Your statement “Under cover of secrecy and without public debate, there has been an unprecedented proliferation of aggressive surveillance techniques.” is an exaggeration without any context. You neglect to mention many previous and arguably more invasive surveillance methods used throughout history. Just as an example, the active SORM program used by the Russians.
Please stop controlling the release of these documents and adding your biases. Your only value is the fact you control this information. Without that control you’re another insignificant reporter. Who is the real winner in this whole situation? Snowden – No. The public – No. Greenwald – Yes! You already have and will profit more than anyone. You are attempting to control the narrative like you control the documents. This is turning into Glenn Greenwald self aggrandizing slow drip torture.
Slow drip? There were 12 top secret documents published to support the claims made in this article. Other websites may indeed be publishing larger numbers of top secret documents, but quality and context is just as important as quantity.
G-Man is right. He’s making the NSA out to be the boogey man without providing context about other nation state actors with equal or worse programs and events that got us here (thousands of murdered Americans). Russia just invaded Ukraine. He’s slowly released docs since last June. I can read them myself. I don’t need him to tell me what they mean. Why isn’t Greenwald publishing them wikileaks style with discretion (unlike wikileaks) and then just getting out of the limelight? He is turning this into his own business venture.
without providing context about other nation state actors with equal or worse programs
Why isn’t Greenwald publishing them wikileaks style
Do you see any contradiction between those two statements? If Greenwald published more NSA documents at once, how does that provide context about what other nations are doing? By publishing this story, Greenwald is giving the NSA an opportunity to respond. With their massive resources, I assume they know all about what other state actors are doing. So if they deem it to be in their interest, they can now provide as many details as they like it order to place what they do in the proper context.
However, two things are revealing – their silence and the fact that most of their efforts are devoted to offensive cyber operations. If other nations have equal capabilities, that would force the NSA to place more effort on cyber defense. So until someone produces actual evidence otherwise, I will assume the US and its five eyed cohort are the dominant players in this game.
So let me get this straight.
You guys are PRO massive whistle blower dumps of secret raw data with minimal redaction (e.g., Manning and WikiLeaks) and CON well documented research and exemplary journalism?
Good point, ‘Tater; although I would argue that quality and context trumps quantity.
After all, isn’t that the NSA’s argument? They want bulk info acquisition, most of which is totally unrelated to the quality or context in which it will help protect our national interests.
It’s already been made clear many times over Glenn does not have exclusive access. Other journalists Bart Gellman and Laura Poitras also have the documents. As does the New York Times, ProPublica, Washington Post, and so on.
His usage of unprecedented seems accurate to me – there is no precedent for a global dragnet surveillance system with the aggressiveness and scale with which the Snowden archives detail.
Is this a joke? How is the public not a winner? Pathetic NSA apologist.
You are attempting to control the narrative like you control the documents.
Of course he is. That’s why he shared documents with numerous journalistic organizations all over the world: Washington Post, Guardian, NYT, Der Spiegel, etc. all have sets of documents given to them by that tightwad Greenwald. He made them swear they wouldn’t use them though. And Bart Gellman and the cadre of reporters who’ve been writing their own stories using these documents since almost the beginning of the revelations are sworn to only publish under Greenwald’s byline.
It’s positively devilish how he set this up so that he has sole control.
http://utdocuments.blogspot.com.br/2013/12/questionsresponses-for-journalists.html
Yup. Greenwald has controlled the shit out of these documents.
I suspect G Man can only have one of two agendas. (1) He is part of that Dump It All crowd that believes the average reader can sift through the minutiae on their own and make sense of it, and doesn’t believe Glenn should honor his commitment to Snowden. Or, (2) he full well understands the liability that Glenn incurrs by being a purveyor of classified documents – as opposed to reporting on them – and actively seeks for Glenn to incur that liability. The arrogance and hubris of the G Man is rivaled only by that of the NSA…. So, I’m guessing you can infer which of the two agendas I most suspect in the G Man’s case. Particularly, as you outline, the degree to which Glenn has gone to report on the documents he has, as well as the number of other journalists who have their own cache of these documents.
I’m not suggesting he dump it all. Selectively dumping without starting a media company that benefits him and releasing the docs attached to his articles. I, in fact, can read them myself. I believe Greenwald has biases that surface in his articles. Seems that is blasphemy on these message boards… Greenwald is now a millionaire. I mean…. hello world….Greenwald is not a millionaire because of this!?!? It’s amazing how many people here express hate for America when we live in a country that’s more open and works better than every where else in the world. I have lived in Europe, Russia and Latin America. Would the people here rather be ruled by Putin, corrupt Latin American gov’t or the Chinese communist party? I’m baffled by the herd mentality dominating these message boards.
How much are they paying you, G Man? Or are we witnessing the even more insidious phenomenon of self-delusion… Either way, I fear your flying in the face of facts won’t influence anyone here; The Intercept is a place of truth and light, where reason is adhered to and enjoyed by all. Your input is of course wholly necessary and encouraged (look at me go, J.S. Mill!), but sadly, uninformed and naive as the other replies demonstrate ably. I just had an urge to underscore a few righteous sentiments that I couldn’t resist :)
Thank you Jamie for your courteous reply. I still stand by my statements. I’m not buying his whole spiel. Agreed, other outlets have some of the documents but only 1 person controls the mother load. Times received 50,000?? Over 2,000,000 were stolen. Okay so another outlet has 2.5% of the docs? Give me a break. I still believe the way he is releasing these benefits him more than anyone else. His rationalizations are self motivated.
There are other programs not run by NSA, SORM for example, that make the NSA look laughable with the US’s respect for “rule of law”. SORM acts without any restraint.
I’m not going to jump on this train saying these revelations are all good. A lot of people responding here are also naive.
quote”You neglect to mention many previous and arguably more invasive surveillance methods used throughout history. Just as an example, the active SORM program used by the Russians.”unquote
ummmm, has some Russian whistle blower leaked secret Russian intelligence docs…or did your MilProp supervisor tell you that?
I actually found this to be a relatively straightforward article, with plenty of facts and quotes from many sources, and very little bias from the author. Just because the rest of the world is concurrently developing these types of intelligence programs does NOT mean that it is not unprecedented in the United States. In fact, this statement applies to the NSA as well as the SORM program you’re referencing. In the history of humanity, this is an unprecedented breach of privacy, and it is not up for public debate. That’s simply the truth.
Who breached your privacy? No one cares about your emails or data. Your data resides on a data farm accessible by someone regardless whether it’s a company or the NSA. It’s never truly “private” unless it’s flawlessly encrypted end to end. No one at Google, Microsoft or the NSA cares about your data. Get over it.
Others have already addressed your boiler plate remark about “control of the documents,” so I’ll address your remark about “insignificant reporter.”
Edward Snowden chose to reach out to Glenn Greenwald to work with because, obviously, he saw a lot of “value” in the work he had seen from Greenwald over the years leading up to making his choice. He chose Glenn Greenwald for the very reason that he had long been reading his work. So Snowden obviously didn’t choose him to contact about working with him because he saw him as “an insignificant reporter.”
Glenn and Ryan
Just an FYI – I think the link to the “NSA Phishing Tactics and Man in the Middle Attacks” is busted. I cannot access it from my ipad. It may just be on my end but can’t access through Safari or Chrome.
I’d love to know their definition of necessary and proportionate. That would reveal their true intent. Power is one thing, but what this surveillance gives the Authoritarians is the ability to control us in every conceivable way by manipulating the mundane realities of our lives, and ultimately by directing how and what we think, feel, and dream – if we are even permitted the subversive act of dreaming.
The degree of malevolence this document reveals is astounding!
Clearly, our Government has let US down.
Thank you Captain Obvious: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dIqRGrP0ttA
Aren’t you just full of wit this morning.
I am so happy that you have mastered that cut and paste feature.
It took me a while but I did.
Wonderful!
You could have a career at the NSA.
@JLS … Now that you’ve mastered C&P maybe you should call Rand Paul. He likes to cut and paste – I hear he eats the paste, too. You two should get along swell. Buh bye now!
This may be off topic, but should be of general interest. Edward Snowden’s live-stream session on Monday, March 10 at the South by Southwest Festival (SXSW) in Austin, Texas, had Impressive audience viewing numbers. These audience participation numbers are encouraging as Edward Snowden’s enlightening revelations and heartfelt recommendations are now being heard by a much larger audience thanks to the journalistic efforts of Glenn, Laura, The Intercept, and other brave folks like the organizers at SXSW who refused to buckle to government pressure. The number of live-stream viewers, like me, of the Monday, March 10, Snowden SXSW session have been compiled by the Texas Tribune. Here are their Analytics:
“Okay, the numbers are coming in — here’s a summary of Snowden traffic from various other sites’ embeds of our feeds, etc.:
Visits: 271,823
Uniques: 228,712
Countries 203
Desktop/Mobile: 82%/18%
Per the Texas Tribune spokesperson, the live-stream numbers above are for embed feeds from the NYT, The Guardian, Verge, and others.
The Texas Tribune live-stream viewers peaked at 50,000. However, they reported that the Antarctica viewership, and I quote, “was paltry”.
Journalist attendees, regular attendees and photos show that the multiple viewing rooms at SXSW were packed. The total theater seating was 7600 so the journalist attendee estimates of over 7000+ are right on.
Feel free to repost these viewership numbers to other sites. People need to know that the message on privacy violations, and the NSA/GCHQ, … mass surveillance systems’ unlawful and unConstitutional activities are reaching a larger and more engaged world community. I am pleased.
That is awesome news!
Where is the “NSA Phishing Tactics and Man in the Middle Attacks” document?
What operating systems does this malware target, and on what ratios?
I use firefox on a windows xp v3 computer and found the malware TURBINE and HAMMERSTEIN in my registry. I encourage everyone to use Run and type regedit, in edit go to search and type in TURBINE. I found both in Microsoft Search Assistant.
For those of you that play Lord of the Rings Online you WILL find a registry key for the term TURBINE because that the developer…you can ignore that one
You found these because your search terms are recorded in the registry. Search for BANANAHAMMOCK or WEDGIESALAD and you will find them in the same place.
” I encourage everyone to use Run and type regedit”
Well…. dang. I’ll just go hop on my unicorn pony right now and do that! Should I format C:\ after I’m done eviscerating my registry?
“I encourage everyone to use Run and type regedit”
If you want to know if your computer is infected why would you not look? By the way, how are things in Maryland?
AND! This is NO DIFFERENT than what the Chinese and Russians are working on, planing to do, or already doing at the present time and using against the rest of the world.
shhhhhh…..you’re scaring me! twit.
How do you know?