Confiscating the Phone Records of US Citizens

[RecycleMichael]

I had about 3 months of trying to get the company laptop microphone to work - and enlisted the aid of 3 IT guys over that time.  Could not get it to work.  Finally, one day for no apparent reason, it turned on and has worked fine ever since. 

Thanks, new Pope.

[heironymouspasparagus]

Thanks, new Pope.

Works for me...

[patric]

Snowden In Testimony To European Parliament

(Snowden) argues that mass surveillance, aside from the civil rights violations that it entails, makes people less safe because it overloads intelligence agencies with too much information. "I believe investing in mass surveillance at the expense of traditional, proven methods can cost lives, and history has shown my concerns are justified," says Snowden.

He gives the example of the Boston marathon bombers, who went uninvestigated despite specific Russian information that Tamerlan Tsarnaev was a threat, and Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab (the underwear bomber) who was able to board a plane with a bomb despite mass surveillance and Transportation Security Agency (TSA) screening, only failing because his bomb didn't actually work. The NSA's only security victory according to a White House oversight committee was the interception of an illegal $8,500 transfer to Somalia in 2007.

Snowden also told the European Parliament that he had previously told 10 different officers about his concerns before going public, but that none of them took action on his complaints and that he was repeatedly warned to drop the matter because he would face retaliation like previous NSA whistleblowers Kirk Wiebe, William Binney, and Thomas Drake who faced armed raids and were threatened with criminal prosecution after coming forward.

Because he was a contractor, and not directly employed by the NSA, Snowden says that he had no protection under the 2012 Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act. For all the talk of following proper channels, there were no legal channels open to him.

Edward Snowden's ultimate recommendation isn't to end surveillance, but to drop mass data collection in favor of targeted surveillance with a strong check.

[patric]

If the TSA ruined flying, then the NSA will be remembered for ruining the internet:




The NSA would pretend to be Facebook and trick unsuspecting users' computers into thinking they were connecting to Facebook's servers. Then, the NSA would hack into your hard drive and steal your personal data.

The TURBINE program also used spam emails to infect computers will malware. The malware installed by the NSA could then gain access to the users' microphone to record conversations, webcams to take photos, record browser history, save passwords and logins, corrupt downloaded files, and take data from flash drives that users plugged into their computers.

The NSA allowed an automated bot to act without oversight and target users indiscriminately, whether they were criminals or not. Once the bot had taken over the process, the program quickly escalated to include as many as 85,000 to 100,000 malware implants.

https://firstlook.org/theintercept/article/2014/03/12/nsa-plans-infect-millions-computers-malware

[dbacksfan 2.0]

If the TSA ruined flying, then the NSA will be remembered for ruining the internet:




The NSA would pretend to be Facebook and trick unsuspecting users' computers into thinking they were connecting to Facebook's servers. Then, the NSA would hack into your hard drive and steal your personal data.

The TURBINE program also used spam emails to infect computers will malware. The malware installed by the NSA could then gain access to the users' microphone to record conversations, webcams to take photos, record browser history, save passwords and logins, corrupt downloaded files, and take data from flash drives that users plugged into their computers.

The NSA allowed an automated bot to act without oversight and target users indiscriminately, whether they were criminals or not. Once the bot had taken over the process, the program quickly escalated to include as many as 85,000 to 100,000 malware implants.

https://firstlook.org/theintercept/article/2014/03/12/nsa-plans-infect-millions-computers-malware

So, how would the NSA duplicate Facebook? They would have to duplicate the interface that the user sees as well as pass the information to your Facebook friends, and duplicate the interface your friends see, as well as the ads, instant communication, and regular feeds for postings. They would have to duplicate it, and integrate it so that the users and Facebook would not know that anything happened.

The traffic monitors Facebook uses would see a decrease in traffic to their site. Unless the NSA can spoof all of the ISP's and all the social media sites, and I don't think the Utah data center has the possibility to spoof the web in north America.

[patric]

So, how would the NSA duplicate Facebook?

It's past tense.  They started in 2004 and fully automated it in 2010.

http://vimeo.com/video/88822483

[nathanm]

So, how would the NSA duplicate Facebook?

They don't. They sit in the middle between you and Facebook. So you send a request to Facebook, they copy it, check the cookies to see if you're a person of interest, and if so, intercept Facebook's response and inject whatever malware they desire before forwarding it on to you. Basically, they have installed what I would term malware and what they would term interception software on a large fraction of the routers that make up the Internet. This gives them the capability to reroute your traffic through their servers on its way to its final destination and vice versa. Or just copy it and save it for later.

[patric]

They don't. They sit in the middle between you and Facebook. So you send a request to Facebook, they copy it, check the cookies to see if you're a person of interest, and if so, intercept Facebook's response and inject whatever malware they desire before forwarding it on to you. Basically, they have installed what I would term malware and what they would term interception software on a large fraction of the routers that make up the Internet. This gives them the capability to reroute your traffic through their servers on its way to its final destination and vice versa. Or just copy it and save it for later.

It's ancient history now, but there's a chance that if you were surfing porn in 2011 it was passing thru an FBI-operated server.

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2406837,00.asp

[RecycleMichael]

It's ancient history now, but there's a chance that if you were surfing porn in 2011 it was passing thru an FBI-operated server.

Not me. I type with both hands.

[patric]

Not me. I type with both hands.

RM never disappoints. 

Neither does Snowden.  This just keeps getting better...

The U.S. National Security Agency has "swallowed" unnamed country's entire telephone network, recording every call made over a 30-day period for instant replay.
http://www.zdnet.com/nsa-records-foreign-countrys-phone-calls-for-instant-replay-7000027441/
The latest batch of leaked documents from whistleblower Edward Snowden, published on Tuesday by The Washington Post, detailed how the program, started in 2009, can record "every single" phone call nationwide.

[patric]

A federal appeals court has ruled that the warrantless collection of cellphone tower data, which can be used to track the location of a suspect, is unconstitutional without a probable-cause warrant from a court.

A three-judge panel of the 11th Circuit Court in Florida ruled that the government's warrantless collection of a defendant's cell site data violated his reasonable expectation of privacy.

"In short, we hold that cell site location information is within the subscriber's reasonable expectation of privacy," they wrote in their ruling. "The obtaining of that data without a warrant is a Fourth Amendment violation."

"The court's opinion is a resounding defense of the Fourth Amendment's continuing vitality in the digital age," said Nathan Freed Wessler, a staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union. "This opinion puts police on notice that when they want to enlist people's cell phones as tracking devices, they must get a warrant from a judge based on probable cause. The court soundly repudiates the government's argument that by merely using cell a phone, people somehow surrender their privacy rights."

The ruling could have implications for other warrantless metadata collection programs, according to Jennifer Granick, civil liberties director at the Stanford Center for Internet and Society. Granick wrote today that because the ruling involves stored cell site data it undermines the NSA's phone metadata collection program, which the government has argued is allowed because customers relinquish their right to privacy when it comes to a company's business records. Granick points out that the appeals court ruling today found that the defendant in this case "had an expectation of privacy despite the fact that the cell data was also the company's business record."

The cell site records include a record of all calls made by a cell phone as well as the location of the cell tower to which the phone connected to make the call, allowing authorities to track the location of a caller.

The court noted that a cell phone "can accompany its owner anywhere. Thus, the exposure of the cell site location information can convert what would otherwise be a private event into a public one. When one's whereabouts are not public, then one may have a reasonable expectation of privacy in those whereabouts."

[patric]

If Your Smartphone Was Just Hacked By The Government, This Could Be How It Happened

Discovered: a remote-controlled trojan that can capture anything from keystrokes to voice and video content to calendar entries.
Researchers at Kaspersky Lab in the U.S. and Canada's Citizen Lab have just uncovered the global servers of a particularly invasive brand of remote-controlled trojan that governments can use to hack into--and take control of-- smartphones.

The Italian cyber offense firm HackingTeam advertises its product, Galileo, as spyware to use against criminals but its victims include "activists and human rights advocates, as well as journalists and politicians," Kaspersky said in a press release.
http://www.fastcompany.com/3032330/fast-feed/if-your-smartphone-was-just-hacked-by-the-government-this-could-be-how-it-happened

Eyes on You: Experts Reveal Police Hacking Methods
"This in many ways is the police surveillance of the now and the future," said Morgan Marquis-Boire, a security researcher with Citizen Lab and a lead author on one of the reports. "What we need to actually decide how we're comfortable with it being used and under what circumstances."
http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory/eyes-experts-reveal-police-hacking-methods-24285294

[patric]

Its true, the NSA really can see you naked...

Former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden says the analysts who monitored the texts and e-mails of millions of Americans would sometimes share intercepted nude photos and sex texts with colleagues.

"Many of the people searching through the haystacks (of information) were young, enlisted guys, 18 to 22 years old," Snowden told the publication. "In the course of their daily work, they stumble across something that is completely unrelated in any sort of necessary sense – for example, an intimate nude photo of someone in a sexually compromising situation. But they're extremely attractive. So what do they do?

"They turn around in their chair and they show a co-worker. And their co-worker says, 'Oh, hey, that's great. Send that to Bill down the way,' and then Bill sends it to George, George sends it to Tom, and sooner or later this person's whole life has been seen by all of these other people."
http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2014/07/21/snowden-nsa-sexting/12937507/

Thats what we call "National Security."

[Conan71]

Its true, the NSA really can see you naked...

Former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden says the analysts who monitored the texts and e-mails of millions of Americans would sometimes share intercepted nude photos and sex texts with colleagues.

"Many of the people searching through the haystacks (of information) were young, enlisted guys, 18 to 22 years old," Snowden told the publication. "In the course of their daily work, they stumble across something that is completely unrelated in any sort of necessary sense – for example, an intimate nude photo of someone in a sexually compromising situation. But they're extremely attractive. So what do they do?

"They turn around in their chair and they show a co-worker. And their co-worker says, 'Oh, hey, that's great. Send that to Bill down the way,' and then Bill sends it to George, George sends it to Tom, and sooner or later this person's whole life has been seen by all of these other people."
http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2014/07/21/snowden-nsa-sexting/12937507/

Thats what we call "National Security."

Even before this, anyone who assumes any conversation or data transfer they do over the air is private is a raving moron.

[heironymouspasparagus]

Its true, the NSA really can see you naked...

Former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden says the analysts who monitored the texts and e-mails of millions of Americans would sometimes share intercepted nude photos and sex texts with colleagues.

"Many of the people searching through the haystacks (of information) were young, enlisted guys, 18 to 22 years old," Snowden told the publication. "In the course of their daily work, they stumble across something that is completely unrelated in any sort of necessary sense – for example, an intimate nude photo of someone in a sexually compromising situation. But they're extremely attractive. So what do they do?

"They turn around in their chair and they show a co-worker. And their co-worker says, 'Oh, hey, that's great. Send that to Bill down the way,' and then Bill sends it to George, George sends it to Tom, and sooner or later this person's whole life has been seen by all of these other people."
http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2014/07/21/snowden-nsa-sexting/12937507/

Thats what we call "National Security."

Somehow, I do feel safer now....!!