(This post is from our new blog: Unofficial Sources.)
As soon as my article about how NSA computers can now turn phone conversations into searchable text came out on Tuesday, people started asking me: What should I do if I don’t want them doing that to mine?
The solution, as it is to so many other outrageously invasive U.S. government tactics exposed by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, is, of course, Congressional legislation.
No, the real solution is end-to-end encryption, preferably of the unbreakable kind.
And as luck would have it, you can have exactly that on your mobile phone, for the price of zero dollars and zero cents.
The Intercept’s Micah Lee wrote about this in March, in an article titled: “You Should Really Consider Installing Signal, an Encrypted Messaging App for iPhone.”
(Signal is for iPhone and iPads, and encrypts both voice and texts; RedPhone is the Android version of the voice product; TextSecure is the Android version of the text product.)
As Lee explains, the open source software group known as Open Whisper Systems, which makes all three, is gaining a reputation for combining trustworthy encryption with ease of use and mobile convenience.
Nobody – not your mobile provider, your ISP or the phone manufacturer — can promise you that your phone conversations won’t be intercepted in transit. That leaves end-to-end encryption – using a trustworthy app whose makers themselves literally cannot break the encryption — your best play.
As Lee writes:
Signal’s code is open source, meaning it can be inspected by experts, and the app also supports forward secrecy, so if an attacker steals your encryption key, they cannot go back and decrypt messages they may have collected in the past.
Using Signal and Red Phone means your voice conversations are always full scrambled. As Lee wrote:
Other apps with encryption tend to enter insecure modes at unpredictable times — unpredictable for many users, at least. Apple’s iMessage, for example, employs strong encryption, but only when communicating between two Apple devices and only when there is a proper data connection. Otherwise, iMessage falls back on insecure SMS messaging. iMessage also lacks forward secrecy and inspectable source code.
Signal also offers the ability for power users to verify the identity of the people they’re talking to, confirming that the encryption isn’t under attack. With iMessage, you just have to take Apple’s word for it.
The big announcements by Apple and Google last fall were about encrypting data on users’ phones, not the calls made by those phones.
Although regular phone calls on the iPhone are not encrypted, Apple’s extremely popular FaceTime service is encrypted by default, as is iMessage. So when you’re using those services (with another Apple user) your conversations are encrypted whether you knew it or not.
There are of course some caveats, as Lee writes:
It’s important to keep in mind that no technology is 100 percent secure, and an encrypted messaging app can only be as secure as the device you install it on. Intelligence agencies and other hackers can still exploit security bugs that have not been fixed, known as zero day exploits, to take over smartphones and bypass the encryption that privacy apps employ. But apps like Signal go a long way to making mass surveillance of billions of innocent people infeasible.
Photo illustration by Dan Froomkin and Connie Yu.
Interesting article, not sure about the solutions. As I understand the ruling, it was dealing with the collection of records by the NSA, and possibly “listening” in on voice calls. Note that it deals with “regular” voice calls, which if I understand correctly, means those carried over PSTN, not those carried over the internet. Which would mean that any voice/video calls made over the internet would not be covered. I agree the solution lies with encryption – end-to-end encryption. Signal recently had a massive security hole that let any hacker insert their authentication cert into an exchange and then they were able to read that stream – totally circumventing the encryption. Whisper also has a security issue with the ability to by-pass the Whisper PIN completely to get to events and data. When it comes to messages, voice and video, I use Rakem – it has transaction level encryption (every message is encrypted differently) and has end-to-end strong encryption of voice and video. Worth checking out – http://www.raketu.com/technology .
imessage should not be considered secure. Because apple controls the key exchange they can easily enable eavesdropping and there is no way for you to tellhttp://blog.cryptographyengineering.com/2013/06/can-apple-read-your-imessages.html?m=1
Disappointed in the Intercept for touting these programs as a solution. How is granting access to the following items going to give me a greater level of privacy?
Device and App History
Contacts
SMS
Phone
Photos/Media/Files
Microphone
Device ID and Call Information
Technically the majority of those permissions are required to send smses, mmses, and make calls. Apps permissions are broken in general. Get Xprivacy and you can at least add some granularity. Tho as I have said in other comments I do not trust anything that involves and intermediary service (maybe not in so many words). Blah blah metadata.
I also find the timing of this article on the Intercept to be interesting. Could it be that the Intercept’s decision to publish these stories is related to the court case? In other words, if the appeals court has ruled that mass-surveillance metadata phone programs are illegal then it is safe to assume that the secret FISA courts will have to abide by that precedent when evaluating the constitutionality of other programs? And that they would have to not approve some of these programs? And that it would be then safe to publish stories like this since the secret FISA courts cannot rubber stamp them if the appeals courts have set a precedent of them being illegal?
Legislation against illegal CIA and NSA activity should reduce funding for these operations but won’t eliminate them. As a results of 9/11 the govt made spying on citizens “legal”, thus opening the floodgate for spending in this area. They now have a huge infrastructure for spying on Americans, like the new $1.5 billion facility in Utah, that will likely never be shut down. Asking a government not to spy on its own citizens is like asking a man not to use his eyes. The only way to fight tech is with tech.
If the government is converting phone calls to text and searching the text, then was President Obama lying when he said that people from the government are not listening to your phone calls?
If so, then President Obama not only didn’t fire James Clapper when he lied to congress, but instead, he doubled down and told a lie himself to the American people.
People weren’t listening, machines were processing. People might have read, but you do not listen with your eyes, ergo they can vehemently proclaim they didn’t lie (though some people’s calls are most certainly also listened to; I think he said something like “everyone’s” though, so all’s fine in the heady lands of linguistic reinterpretation.
The “people” aspect of President Obama’s statement was not lost on me, and he may feel (if in fact there is a computer program listening to calls) that a computer program doesn’t count as people. However, the American people may not see the distinction. If he made that statement under oath, a judge might not recognize that distinction and might throw him in jail for perjury. However he did not lie (if in fact there is such a program) under oath. He only lied to the American people (if in fact there is a program). I understand that it was craftily worded legalese like Bill Clinton’s, “I didn’t have sexual relations with that woman.” But President Obama should not have staked his integrity by making that statement (if in fact there is a program). Because if it turns out that there is a program, a lot of people are going to consider him a filthy liar. A lot of people (if there is a program) are going to agree with Ben Carson who called him a psycopath because he can lie like a slick criminal.
If it turns out there is such a program, then by making this statement he dishonored the office of the presidency.
Wishful thinking that Obama would be called on for perjury when even Clapper wasn’t. This reminds me more of the Oliver North thing than Clinton’s so-called impeachment spectacle (honestly I never believed his sex life, nor any politician’s sex life, should be anything anyone but the parties involved should be privy to, excepting the case of a possible gross conflict of interest (eg leader from country 1, politician or person with power from country 1 or politician/leader/person with power from country 2, et cetera – like how the SEC would judge based on insider trading rules, if they actually mattered more). In a way it’s a funny topic to bring up though since, of course, no doubt the intelligence agencies know now exactly who’s sleeping with what, where, when and how, and almost certainly use it to (tada) wield power.
Obama has been dishonouring the office of the presidency, and more specifically the people that voted him in, even before he was voted in. And no I am not a LibDemRepubliConservArchist not do I give much of a twiddle what any leader’s stated party is. Putting aside everything else, he was dishonest from the get-go and way too inexperienced, but the kids wanted someone who said they wanted Change. I wonder if they Believe In it now or if they have figured out saying yoi want chamge is very different from meaning it (at least with a positive connotation)? The sad thing is, voting for any president probably should be done on what he/she will outright veto or NOT pass presidential orders about. Someone promising change is either a liar or disturbingly naive. But just my two cents on the subject, as it were. Anyone who wants to be a politician should probably be disqualified based on that want.
Also in regard to the word “everyone” he may later point out that there was an exception for members of Congress so that it wasn’t truly “everyone” (if in fact there is a program). Or maybe (if there is a program) he created an exception for members of Congress immediately prior to making the statement or some BS like that?
Maybe it’s another one of those “every US person” things. Apparently those of us not flying the stars and stripes aren’t quite people in the same way. Like Jews weren’t in WW2 with a twist (sorry but similar pathway to hell).
Having suggested those but mentioning hesitancy about WhisperSystems amd its models, I am currently auditing SecureSMS in my free time (or what I have of it), which uses TextSecure’s encryption algos but which is freely and openly available via FDroid. It is still working some kinks out (and I am not done auditing it, nor close) but I highly suggest ANY solution chosen be something totally open source and NOT gotten via Google’s “Play Store” (sic). Frankly for any privacy-minded application, which includes Guardian Project’s offerings (which encompasses several tools for Android, do look), I would suggest FDroid. I would also suggest, on a rooted phone, XPrivacy, which, while a pain to implement at first, can be disturbingly eye-opening for most who do not know the Android model (which is NOT at all concerned with even a whiff of privacy).
Try using red flag words like “bomb” in all conversations.
Python program would recognize them in past.
“Frustrated by the insensitivity of meme-makers driving “someone set us up the bomb” and pop culture adopting the colloquialism “da bomb”, the 1990s and early 2000s must have been a particularly trying time for the typical SIGINT operator, thought Harry, as he pored through the day’s voluminous intercepts with renewed vigour and purpose, while sipping his Starbucks and considering what he might like to grab for lunch”.
Thank you!
Except, as TI itself has reported, NSA are collecting your call records, not listening to your calls. The Russians on the other hand…
The NSA DOES listen per Snowden interview.
No, American fuckwit(s). The Chinese and Americans are listening to your calls. Russia will catch up, I’m sure.
Have you ever wondered about the significance of those “Made in China” stamps on Cisco routers? No?
Those are so the US can covertly insert backdoors which, if discovered, can be pinned on the Chinese, probably.
The quality level of comments at The Intercept seem to be below YouTube. How’s that even possible?
When you are under surveillance, the best defense is to spout nonsense. Using encryption only encourages them to take direct control of your smart phone. Many also simply avoid using their phones or the internet all together, which is why you don’t see them here.
In general, the coherence of the comments is inversely proportional to the knowledge of the commenters regarding US government surveillance.
In general, the coherence of the comments is inversely proportional to the knowledge of the commenters regarding US government surveillance
Can be interpreted in at least two ways: a sarcastic insult to those excluded from the Torture Community’s poshest country clubs or honest acknowledgement the most harassed are the most knowledgeable. (Deluded Patriots don’t concern their empty heads with trivialities such as never having a moment of solitude or peace while confronting the banality of American Totalitarianism®.)
I use a simple code in phone calls that my acquaintances understand. Yes means no and no means yes. It works very well, although my relationship with feminists has deteriorated.
Open whisper systems is a scam as far as I am concerned!
-another- scam you meant, right?
Sad thing is that it is being promoted at TI
RCL
So what if you’re not talking on a mobile\smartphone? Any help for that case?
VOIP and Asterisk maybe?
Uhm.. I just speak in pig latin.
This is a slightly different angle, but I began researching the method of hacking into web-enabled microphones in late 2012. Transcription tech applied to ambient audio streaming through a mic in someone’s pocket or on their desk is obviously going to be less accurate than having people speak directly into phones, but there is a lot of current research and attention by contractors addressing this specific issue – how to filter out voice chatter, how to segment the parties into Speaker A, Speaker B, speaker identification via voiceprints, etc. Earlier this year I posted a summary of my thoughts on the issue at: panaudicon.wordpress.com. It’s likely that the conglomeration of technologies I posit to enable what is essentially automated bugging could at the present time be most freely applied outside the U.S. from a legal perspective, but from a technical perspective I don’t believe it’s going that far out on a limb to propose how all of the pieces could interface.
Signal requires iOS 8.
Good thing the NSA has no back door to these apps…..LOL if you buy that one.
It’s open source. The burden of proof is on your side: Show us the line of code or stop spreading FUD.
Who cares? NSA is harmless, they can amass any data they want. Why?
I discovered and patented how to structure any data: Language has its own Internal parsing, indexing and statistics. For instance, there are two sentences:
a) ‘Fire!’
b) ‘Dismay and anguish were depicted on every countenance; the males turned pale, and the females fainted; Mr. Snodgrass and Mr. Winkle grasped each other by the hand, and gazed at the spot where their leader had gone down, with frenzied eagerness; while Mr. Tupman, by way of rendering the promptest assistance, and at the same time conveying to any persons who might be within hearing, the clearest possible notion of the catastrophe, ran off across the country at his utmost speed, screaming ‘Fire!’ with all his might.’
Evidently, that the phrase ‘Fire!’ has different importance into both sentences, in regard to extra information in both. This distinction is reflected as the phrase weights: the first has 1, the second – 0.02; the greater weight signifies stronger emotional ‘acuteness’.
First you need to parse obtaining phrases from clauses, for sentences and paragraphs.
Next, you calculate Internal statistics, weights; where the weight refers to the frequency that a phrase occurs in relation to other phrases.
After that data is indexed by common dictionary, like Webster, and annotated by subtexts.
This is a small sample of the structured data:
this – signify – : 333333
both – are – once : 333333
confusion – signify – : 333321
speaking – done – once : 333112
speaking – was – both : 333109
place – is – in : 250000
To see the validity of technology – pick up any sentence.
Do you have a pencil?
All other technologies depend on spying, on quires, on SQL, all of them, finding statistics. See IBM, Oracle, Microsoft, Google and Yahoo? Apache Hadoop and NoSQL? My technology is the only one that obtains statistics from texts themselves.
Being structured information will search for users based on their profiles of structured data. Each and every user can get only specifically tailored for him information: there is no any privacy issue, nobody ever will know what the user got and read.
What NSA can do with data if there are no quires? If NSA cannot track who use what? Nothing. NSA and my technology are not compatible. Finita la commedia.
My technology exploits the Laws of Nature, which determine the inner construction of all Languages: I came from Analytic Philosophy, from Internal Relations Theory.
I very much doubt it. They must be using some sort of DAG-based corpora
RCL
If I download the android one, can I use it with people who have the iphone one? Anyone know?
RED PHONE requires app on both ends.
Yes. Signal is compatible with textsecure and redphone.
At the risk of being censored. I think this article is an odd joke and you should not take it from me:
If you still need more enlightening:
// __ Secrets, lies and Snowden’s email: why I was forced to shut down Lavabit
~
theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/may/20/why-did-lavabit-shut-down-snowden-email
~
Also, Lee has a tendency to talk in ways that not only technical people may find funny.
Satyagraha,
RCL
I totally DISAGREE with the article. ALL the applications listed here are EASY vulnerable and intercepted. TextSecure uses OBSOLETE OTR encryption which is extremely easy to decrypt , i could do it in 1 second. The best security is code your own protocol or use real secure applications. If you want more info, contact me.
Text Secure does not even use OTR. It uses axolotl protocol. OTR uses DH handshake and AES that are the current recommendations. I give you that much the DSA keys are not up to date in security. Not going to bother emailing you with queries on something that most probably is snake oil — this is a great place to market your FOSS solution so post it here for everyone’s scrutinity.
“or use real secure applications”
Mind saying what those are?
Actually, there is something journalists can do to help promote security. They can check the Boni Fides of corporations and organizations that provide security products. Average consumers don’t have the time or resources to check who is actually behind the software/services they use. In the final analysis you have to trust someone. The question is whether they are deserving of your trust.
Corporate ownership is often used to hide who owns what. An example would Skype. Skype started out as tech start-up then Microsoft bought them. So, in essence trust was involuntarily transferred from the original owners to Microsoft..
Another way to move privacy forward is to get security companies to tout their products. Most people don’t know what to look for or why one piece of software is better than another. In other words, inform the consumers.
From a journalism perspective, Get some form letters/emails and start querying software/service providers by category. I like the check list approach provided by EFF.
https://www.eff.org/secure-messaging-scorecard
The encryption used for imessage and facetime is not one that would prevent NSA snooping since Apple does have the key.
According to Apple, they do not hold the keys and do not have the capability to decipher the messages
It’s important to keep in mind that no technology is 100 percent secure, and an encrypted messaging app can only be as secure as the device you install it on. Intelligence agencies and other hackers can still exploit security bugs that have not been fixed, known as zero day exploits, to take over smartphones and bypass the encryption that privacy apps employ. But apps like Signal go a long way to making mass surveillance of billions of innocent people infeasible.
Yes.
I ordered an iPhone for my niece, and when it arrived a month later, the packing slip listed the stops along the way — from the factory in China to my apartment in CA. It made a stop in Alaska. Does Apple have a factory in Alaska?
Luckily, for my niece, that supposedly compromised iPhone was stolen from her while at a friend’s party in Amazonia.
Not that it precludes the NSA from tampering with your phone, but Alaska is a shipping hub, meaning that it is a normal place for packages from China to be rerouted to other hubs.
Not that it precludes the NSA from tampering with your phone, but Alaska is the shipping hub for most packages coming to North America from China.
It would be a surprise if your package had NOT been rerouted from there.
Plausible. I suspected the iPhone was compromised given the many other abuses.
All iPhones are assumably compromised. They probably do not bother with hardware when they own the software and the network unless you are likely to use your device in unusual ways or favour esoteric software or networks and/or are particularly and unusually nomadic. It is in their financial and political interest to avoid that sort of evidence (or “killing” of a particular kind of tech that is easier to spot by an expert once it has been outed).
Qualifying the bit about the efficacy of legislation was a good idea. Thanks.
Now, please tackle domestic torture, but avoid fakes who want to discuss directed energy weapons, mind control, and implants.
I have the urge to take back the word “please” — I am not yet prepared to beg.
Stan, how are YOU being tortured? I’ve said how I am. If not with DEWs or biomems, then with what?
I think you are one of the fakes. But as part of walking the talk, here is the reply.
I don’t know what the perps call my treatment, but it seems similar to the Stasi’s¬Zersetzung practices. The tactics have varied over time and location.
While living in London during 2002-2005, I once noticed being observed and sneered at by well-dressed, thuggish looking people on the metro soon after the July 2005 bombings, after which I had posted a comment – basically thanking Bush and Blair for putting me/us in the line of fire. I was insulted at Heathrow while my small duffle bug was searched — just after stepping through the door and onto the jetway/finger of a plane from Dulles. A helicopter hovered over my head/apartment for about 20 minutes; it took me years to realize it actually was me they were trying to intimidate. I was working at BBC News Online at the time. I went in with respect, but got a little down and surly after seeing firsthand how Iraq Invasion propaganda was stenographed; maybe I annoyed someone in the Torture Community. During that period, I ignored other incidents. I refused to believe I was of any interest to spooks. Subsequent events indicate I was wrong.
In Brazil, I was sexually assaulted in a medical lab. Stasi rodents with a rectal obsession have made lewd references to that incident — to me, on this site. They are quite amused. On September 10, 2014, a disturbing, loud gang-stalking skit was performed by my barber and a colleague while he shaved me with a straight razor. Before I sat down in the chair he gave me a meaningful look and said “You will get the package”. While I am here in Sampa (Sao Paulo), I have to walk by this place almost every day. Thuggish looking Americans once (?) waited for me to exit my apartment so they could insult me. I was still in the habit of thinking: “that really did not just happen”. As late as 2010 I was still refusing to believe I was of any interest to anyone but rogue, vengeful US military types because in Dec. 2000 I disowned belligerent and racist family in Texas — one of them an F-15 pilot / religious fundamentalist. I tried to make a deal with them: show some respect and I will reciprocate. (No deal, as expected.) On a beach near Rio, thuggish looking people – presumably US soldiers on leave (?) – stalked me, leaving me no way past them – only through the four of them. There have been many other menacing incidents, and only after the NSA docs starting dripping out did I realize there must be a well funded program, and hundred or even thousands of targets. Recent reports of the US health community’s involvement in torture seems to be corroborating my speculations.
Here in Sampa, I also watched Newt Gingrich reel off a long list of terms and phrases that could only have been mine – I forget if it was on CNN or Fox. Also, a grainy version of this famous torture photo Abu Ghraib Abuse Standing-On-Box was flashed at me on the same digital TV. For years, I saw personally insulting things on web-pages — web ads, such as a grainy pic of Obama saying something like “You think you’re smart — take an IQ test”… Really silly things. One day, while working on my software project at home and listening to music (jazz/classical) on lastfm.com, the site switched to country music while I was in the bathroom. (I was born in Texas, but have no taste for the stuff.) I got suspicious email spam; I remember one with the subject: “US Army Watches Domestic Politics”.
Inside the US, where I currently work, it is psychological torture, including death threats. When I was still working in London and arranging to go to my father’s funeral service in Texas in Dec. 2004, I was informed I would be shot if I showed up. Just a few days after receiving three explicit death-threats in Nov. 2008 – one from a former USAF pilot — a very large man (I characterized him as a goon) sat down next to me at the Austin airport lunch counter. We were the only two people at the counter and he was compelled to sit so close as to almost be rubbing elbows. After I finished my lunch – ignoring him – I was the first person to board the plane to Dulles (the hub to home: Sao Paulo) as a stand-by passenger. I know many people who work and have worked for this particular airline in Sao Paulo. This never happens – stand-by passengers are the last to board, not the first. When I entered the plane, none other than the same lunch counter goon was already installed in the seat next to mine. I assume he was a Fed. Air Marshall or a USAF buddy of my ex-brother-in-law’s … who knows. But it was obvious he was there to intimidate me – right after the previously mentioned death-threats had been delivered. (A more innocuous blood relative in Austin told me, just prior to that incident that I was in store for a “marketing campaign”. Of course it had already begun.)
In the US, the most common type of tactic is childish mimicry of certain personal habits, gestures, and things I have said and written, by people I do not know. Skits and/or rude gestures are performed by street level perps at the car dealership, in the grocery store, getting out of the car after parking in a public lot, taking a walk, waiting on the tarmac before a flight takes off — then while de-boarding the plane. This is only a subset of the behaviors I’ve seen… A doctor will insert a personal insult while I’m trying to have a condition diagnosed. A lab tech will do the same, while preparing me for an invasive exam. (They say things which were obviously scripted, based on things I have said in “private”, or written in some comments section of a website.) An insurance agent upped my car insurance 1000% without explanation, and did nothing to correct the problem. While trying to apply for life insurance from the same insurance company, they sent a kid to stick me twice for a blood exam, each time extracting not a single drop of blood. During a time of financial difficulty I went through many job interviews via Skype, where I could tell the interviewers were only interested in humiliating me. At my current job site in Sillicon Valley, certain people make a point of making the environment poisonous: making certain noises and saying provocative things in the interest of making me react in a way which would jeopardize my tenuous financial situation. One person in this same company tried to convince me – with the aid of a corrupt member of the US medical community in Ft. Collins, CO – to deliver my spouse to a radical treatment in Houston, which our doctors in Brazil said would kill her. When I confronted her she did not call the police, human resources, or a lawyer; instead she moved her office. And again, my digital TV has been used to personally insult me. Some very well known “celebrities” are involved.
This is a short list off the top of my head. Childish, trivial tactics are mixed with terrorist tactics. It is torture, plain and simple. Experience it yourself, and find the right word to describe it.
I answered, but they have not published the reply.
I am going to post my reply one more time, with a few spelling corrections. I doubt they’ll post it, but hope TI journos and editors will at least read it and decide for themselves what the right word to summarize this brief description of my experiences.
I post it to TI because they have the NSA doc trove, and US torturers are NSA customers.
I think you are one of the fakes. But as part of walking the talk, here is the reply.
I don’t know what the perps call my treatment, but it seems similar to the Stasi’s¬Zersetzung practices. The tactics have varied over time and location.
While living in London during 2002-2005, I once noticed being observed and sneered at by well-dressed, thuggish looking people on the metro soon after the July 2005 bombings, after which I had posted a comment – basically thanking Bush and Blair for putting me/us in the line of fire. I was insulted at Heathrow while my small duffle bug was searched — just after stepping through the door and onto the jetway/finger of a plane from Dulles. A helicopter hovered over my head/apartment for about 20 minutes; it took me years to realize it actually was me they were trying to intimidate. I was working at BBC News Online at the time. I went in with respect, but got a little down and surly after seeing firsthand how Iraq Invasion propaganda was stenographed; maybe I annoyed someone in the Torture Community. During that period, I ignored other incidents. I refused to believe I was of any interest to spooks. Subsequent events indicate I was wrong.
In Brazil, I was sexually assaulted in a medical lab. Stasi rodents with a rectal obsession have made lewd references to that incident — to me, on this site. They are quite amused. On September 10, 2014, a disturbing, loud gang-stalking skit was performed by my barber and a colleague while he shaved me with a straight razor. Before I sat down in the chair he gave me a meaningful look and said “You will get the package”. While I am here in Sampa (Sao Paulo), I have to walk by this place almost every day. Thuggish looking Americans once (?) waited for me to exit my apartment so they could insult me. (I was still in the habit of thinking: “that really did not just happen”.) As late as 2010 I was still refusing to believe I was of any interest to anyone but rogue, vengeful US military types because in Dec. 2000 I disowned belligerent and racist familiy in Texas, one of them an F-15 pilot/religious fundamentalist. I tried to make a deal with them: show some respect and I will reciprocate. (No deal, as expected.) On a beach near Rio, thuggish looking people – presumably US soldiers on leave (?) – stalked me, leaving me no way past them – only through the four of them. There have been many other menacing incidents, and only after the NSA docs starting dripping out did I realize there must be a well funded program, with hundreds or even thousands of targets. Recent reports about the US health professionals’ involvement in torture is corroborating my speculations.
Here in Sampa, I also watched Newt Gingrich reel off a long list of terms and phrases that could only have been mine – I forget if it was on CNN or Fox. Also, a grainy version of this famous torture photo Abu Ghraib Abuse Standing-On-Box was flashed at me on the same digital TV. For years, I saw personally insulting things on web-pages — web ads, such as a grainy pic of Obama saying something like “You think you’re smart — take an IQ test”… Really silly things. One day, while working on my software project at home and listening to music (jazz/classical) on lastfm.com, the site switched to country music while I was in the bathroom. (I was born in Texas, but have no taste for the stuff.) I got suspicious email spam; I remember one with the subject: “US Army Watches Domestic Politics”.
Inside the US, where I currently work, it is psychological torture, including death threats. While still working in London, I was arranging to go to my father’s funeral service in Texas in Dec. 2004, and was informed I would be shot if I showed up. Just a few days after receiving three explicit death-threats in Nov. 2008 – one from a former USAF pilot — a very large man (I characterized him as a goon) sat down next to me at an Austin airport lunch counter. We were the only two people at the counter and he was compelled to sit so close as to almost be rubbing elbows. After I finished my lunch – ignoring him – I was the first person to board the plane to Dulles (the hub to home: Sao Paulo) as a stand-by passenger. I know many people who work and have worked for this particular airline in Sao Paulo. This never happens – stand-by passengers are the last to board, not the first. When I entered the plane, none other than the same goon was already sitting in the seat next to mine. I assume he was a Fed. Air Marshall or a USAF buddy of my ex-brother-in-law’s … who knows. But it was obvious he was there to intimidate me – right after the previously mentioned death-threats had been delivered. (A more innocuous blood relative in Austin told me back in Nov. 2008 that I was in store for a “marketing campaign”. Of course it had already begun.)
In the US, the most common type of tactic is childish mimicry of certain personal habits, gestures, and things I have said and written, by people I do not know. Skits and/or rude gestures are performed by street level perps at the car dealership, in the grocery store, getting out of the car after parking in a public lot, taking a walk, waiting on the tarmac before a flight takes off — then while deboarding the plane. This is only a subset of the behaviors I’ve seen… A doctor will insert a personal insult while I’m trying to have a condition diagnosed. A lab tech will do the same, while preparing me for an invasive exam. (They say things which were obviously scripted, based on things I have said in “private”, or written in some comment section of a website.) An insurance agent upped my car insurance 1000% without explanation, and did nothing to correct the problem. While trying to apply for life insurance from the same insurance company, they sent a kid to stick me twice for a blood exam, each time extracting not a single drop of blood. During a time of financial difficulty I went through many job interviews via Skype, where I could tell the interviewers were only interested in humiliating me. At my current job site in Silicon Valley, certain people make a point of creating a poisonous environment: making certain noises and saying provocative things in the interest of making me react in a way which would jeopardize my tenuous financial situation. One person in this same company tried to convince me – with the aid of a corrupt member of the US medical community in Ft. Collins, CO – to deliver my spouse for a radical treatment in Houston, which relevant doctors in Brazil had already said would kill her. When I confronted this employee, she did not call the police, human resources, or a lawyer; instead she moved her office. And again, my digital TV has been used to personally insult me. Some very well known “celebrities” are involved.
This is a short list, off the top of my head. The trivial tactics are mixed in with terrorist tactics. It is torture, plain and simple. Experience it yourself, and find the right word to describe it.
Abu Ghraib Abuse Standing-On-Box pic flashed on my digital TV.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Ghraib_torture_and_prisoner_abuse#/media/File:AbuGhraibAbuse-standing-on-box.jpg
I await Nate’s summary and Cindy’s expert psychoanalysis.
You have a job??
Yes, despite your strenuous efforts., American
I am pretty certain there was a page on wikipedia for “Zersetzung” — accessed via the link I had provided.
At this moment, there is a page for this link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stasi#Zersetzung
Let’s see if the Stasi removes it.
Nope, my mistake. The link I provided ended in a double-quote: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zersetzung“
http://ipsoscustodes.wordpress.com/2010/10/16/quis-custodiet-ipsos-custodes/
RCL
FBI use Stasi techniques to torture, such as pesticide to poison.
FightGangStalking.com
FBI Stingray Detector app: AIMSICD
developed but in early stage.
FSG.com: probably another disinformation site. The author has denied physical torture is carried out with barbershop and medical utensils, has defended corrupt US medical profession — to me, personally — and prefers to focus on directed energy weapons.
As I said before, DEWists are fakes.
I’m targeted because I did some minor military whistleblowing. They have to be spending around three million a year on me. They go all out. And they can do anything they want because no one will believe you. My site shows some of what they can do: http://chemspray.weebly.com
The CIA is in charge of cracking encryption.
NSA DOES listen to conversations and view media sent per Ed Snowden interview.
On a local level the FBI cell interceptions are done via Stingray.
IMSI catchers have complete access to cell.
All stored data, all apps, live mic, live camera and setting.
Also cell location within 30 ft.
Stingray detector app available free in early stage of development: AIMSICD
One of the problems with apps like AIMSCID is, that well-meaning as they may be, they require (a) sharing your own data, location, etc (ironic), but more importantly (b) a known good set of parameters and basestations (which, short of gaining info from every last carrier since some allow piggybacking, generally means you don’t know what is legit or not in the first place). I could go on but my point is they can create a false sense of security, and by the time you might need it, your phone’s info has already been dumped into someone’s db, or even their db (especially if you make use of the API key feature), and whatever may be listening in jjust pops up on the initial scan. That said I do think it is an interesting idea to have a small device that does monitor new stuff locally… just not on your phone… and to take it with a grain of salt. Tho the Silent SMS stuff could be (possibly) useful. Don’t know if the kinks are worked out with that yet.
Also consider https://ostel.co
It’s a service that works with apps compatible with many more platforms than Signal and without the need to have your address book slurped up by OpenWhisperSystem’s servers.
Yeah that’s one thing that bothers me (among many things) about their stuff.
Ima download it right away