Report: Web monitoring devices made by U.S. firm Blue Coat detected in Iran, Sudan - #surveillance

These devices are turning up in places they’re not supposed to be

Report: Web monitoring devices made by U.S. firm Blue Coat detected in Iran, Sudan - The Washington Post

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Experts say that in Syria, Blue Coat’s tools have been used to censor Web sites and monitor the communications of dissidents, activists and journalists. In Iran and Sudan, it remains unclear exactly how the technologies are being used, but experts say the tools could empower repressive governments to spy on opponents.
“These devices are turning up in places they’re not supposed to be,” said Morgan Marquis-Boire, a project leader at the University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab, which detailed the findings in a new report provided to The Washington Post. “The human rights implications of finding these surveillance technologies in these countries are extremely worrying. It’s a systemic problem.”
Blue Coat promotes itself as a leading provider of Web security and management. According to its Web site, it has 15,000 government and corporate customers worldwide. Its products, including high-end computer systems, are used for myriad purposes, including filtering for computer viruses and child pornography.
Some technology experts, however, have argued that because Blue Coat’s tools have various uses, they fall into regulatory gaps and are thus not subject to certain export restrictions.
“The only thing stopping the export of human-rights-abusing equipment to a country like Sudan is the blanket restriction on exports under the sanctions program,” said Collin Anderson, an independent consultant on the Blue Coat report, which is to be released Tuesday. “There are no controls in place right now on equipment that can also be used to violate human rights.”
David Murphy, Blue Coat’s chief operating officer and president, said the company takes reports about its products in countries under U.S. trade embargoes very seriously. The firm, he noted, is cooperating with a U.S. investigation into how a reseller managed to get the devices into Syria on a few occasions in 2010 and 2011.
“Blue Coat has never permitted the sale of our products to countries embargoed by the U.S.,” Murphy said. “We do not design our products, or condone their use, to suppress human rights. . . . Our products are not intended for surveillance purposes.”
A spokesman for the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, which enforces U.S. sanctions, declined to comment on the new allegations other than to say, “Treasury takes sanctions violations very seriously and has aggressively pursued enforcement actions where violations have occurred.”


Report: Web monitoring devices made by U.S. firm Blue Coat detected in Iran, Sudan - The Washington Post

Exclusive: Documents Illuminate #Ecuador's Spying Practices #NSA #Snowden

#NSA counter attacks:

Exclusive: Documents Illuminate Ecuador’s Spying Practices



The country where anti-surveillance hero Edward Snowden wants to take refuge spent half a million dollars on an Israeli-made “GSM interceptor” in a deal brokered by a U.S. middleman. Seeking the capacity to “intercept text messages, falsify and modify the text messages” among other tricks. posted on June 25, 2013 at 7:01pm EDT


A supporter of Edward Snowden holds a sign outside the Embassy of Ecuador in London June 24. Image by Luke Macgregor / Reuters


WASHINGTON — The intelligence agency of Ecuador appears to have sought in recent months to obtain new equipment for a large-scale surveillance, according to confidential government documents obtained by BuzzFeed.

The capabilities sought by Ecuador resemble the National Security Agency practices revealed by Edward Snowden, who is reportedly seeking asylum in the left-leaning Latin American republic.

The Ecuadorian documents — stamped “Secret” — obtained by BuzzFeed appear to show the government purchasing a “GSM Interceptor” system, among other domestic spying tools, and they suggest a commitment to domestic surveillance that rivals the practices by the United States’ National Security Agency that are at the center of a fierce national debate. They include both covert surveillance capacities and the targeting of President Rafael Correa’s enemies on social media. According to the files, SENAIN keeps close tabs on the Facebook and Twitter accounts of journalists, opposition politicians and other individuals, some with few followers.

Ecuador, which has been harboring WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange for over a year at its embassy, has been internationally criticized for a recent communications law that is widely seen as a gag order for the media and includes prohibitions on “media lynching.”

Ecuador also has a record of being ahead of the game in domestic surveillance. Last year, it became the first country in the world to implement a nation-wide facial and voice recognition system.

The documents and correspondence obtained by BuzzFeed appear to show that SENAIN, Ecuador’s intelligence agency, paid $526,500 January 2013 for equipment through 500 Smart Solutions LLC, a company registered in Delaware that is listed as having an office in New York. The payment, according to the documents, was for services rendered from August to December 2012. Smart Solutions acted as an intermediary through which SENAIN could buy materials from two Israeli security contractors: Elkat LTD Security Engineering and UVision Air LTD, which manufactures drones. SENAIN bought surveillance equipment from the companies through Smart Solutions.

Elkat is described by the publication IsraelDefense as “a leading Israeli distributor of advanced electronic equipment for the security field” whose products include “highly advanced electronic surveillance systems.” It is based in Tel Aviv.

The documents were provided to BuzzFeed from inside SENAIN through activists who wished to call attention to the government’s spying practices in the context of its new international role. The sources who provided the documents on the condition of anonymity, citing the dangers of attempting to publicize them domestically.

They also suggest that the Ecuadorians sought to buy drones. Smart Solution proposed two surveillance systems to SENAIN, one called the “Semi Active GSM Interceptor System” and the other called a “Passive Surveillance System. ”

In a letter to Pablo Romero last year in June, a Smart Solutions representative named Gabriel Guecelevich touted the capabilities of the GSM system, promising the abillity to “copy SIM cards, identify phone calls, route phone calls to different places, intercept text messages, falsify and modify the text messages, keep messages in their system, disconnect calls, block phone calls, system should be able to intercept a minimum of 4 phone calls simultaneously.”

(The correspondence, posted in full below, is in Spanish.)

Guecelevich also specified that the GSM system, which has previously been mentioned in WikiLeaks files as a spy tool, can be used from a car that is 250 meters away and that it is portable. Guecelevich explained which tests Smart Solutions can run to prove that the system works. The first system, he wrote, is intercepting technology; the second is a passive system that can intercept GSM communication which Guecelevich promised can process 32 channels simultaneously, record conversations, among other capabilities.

In August, an official from SENAIN wrote to Smart Solutions about wanting to acquire unmanned drones.

“The National Secretary of Intelligence, which has within its powers projects focused on national security, is moving forward with a project to acquire unmanned aerial vehicles,” communications and special projects coordinator José Miguel Delgado wrote. “It is for this reason that we need to know whether Smart Solution is capable and legally able to provide these assets or services.”

Delgado also wrote to Smart Solutions about conducting GSM tests in the city of Tulcan in August.

Also in August, the Israeli company Elkat gave Smart Solution permission to sell products from Uvision to “potential clients in Ecuador,” according to the documents.

One of the documents is a draft of a letter Romero wrote to Smart Solution to let them know of the decision to purchase the equipment and the $526,500 payment for the equipment. Payment was promised upon the delivery of the goods in March.

Invoices Smart Solution sent to SENAIN for equipment and internal SENAIN calculations also tabulate the cost. Two of the documents show plans for a new SENAIN center in Guayaquil, the largest city in Ecuador.

Smart Solution was incorporated in Delaware by Guecelevich on July 25, 2012, and lists only a Delaware address. Guecelevich did not return a request for comment, and the company has no obvious public presence.

The people who provided BuzzFeed with these documents say that they attempted to leak them to WikiLeaks three days ago, but were unsuccessful. WikiLeaks spokesman Kristinn Hrafnsson called this claim “false” and said “No one in our team recognises having been approached with such material as you describe.”

Ecuadorian officials did not respond to a inquiry through their embassy in Washington.

This post has been updated with a comment from the WikiLeaks spokesman. (6/26, 12:13 p.m.)

Smart Solutions proposal to SENAIN

Letter from SENAIN to Smart Solutions

Letter From SENAIN Concerning Drones



Go online to see the above documents and more:

Exclusive: Documents Illuminate Ecuador's Spying Practices







The Pangea Advisors Blog

#Data storage: Spying fears highlight worth of #Swiss data centres - swissinfo.ch #NSA

Having your #datacentres outside of the USA is becoming ever so more important now with the NSA on a full blown assault on all #Data

Spying fears highlight worth of data centres
Data storage

by Matthew Allen, swissinfo.ch


June 24, 2013 - 11:00


The granite grey slab of the Swisscom data centre outside Bern can protect its clients’ most valuable assets from bombs, earthquakes and even a direct aircraft hit. It’s only one of the reasons why there’s growing interest in such hubs.
The centre’s stark concrete vaults also protect the highly sensitive information of banks and other clients from the prying eyes of governments or economic spies. ‘Trust’ is the watchword of the expanding Swiss data storage industry as it quietly carves out a highly lucrative global niche. Recent revelations of United States intelligence agency spying, coupled with ongoing reports of espionage emanating from China, may have raised public consciousness of the dangers to data but the industry has known about it for years. At the Swisscom centre in Zollikofen, canton Bern, no stone has been left unturned to protect its valuable cargo from any form of threat. Six powerful diesel-powered generators are kept permanently warmed, ready to kick into life within 15 seconds and able to power the entire centre’s operations in the event of total power failure. Thousands of video, heat and infra-red sensors would detect anyone who managed to get past the strict entrance security controls. Staffing is kept to a minimum, leaving the ranks of servers unmolested. Enquiries related to encryption techniques and other measures to prevent cyber intrusion are met with a polite but firm “no comment”. Political stability, a tradition of confidentiality and strong data protection laws have all added to Switzerland’s growing reputation as an international data safe house. Unlike in the US, even the Swiss government would need a court to approve each request for data. “Clients increasingly want to entrust their data to a jurisdiction where there is legal certainty,” Bruno Messmer, head of sourcing consulting at Swisscom, told swissinfo.ch. “This will be one of Switzerland’s many strong selling points in the future.”


Expansion
Some data storage providers have taken security to extremes, housing their servers in ex-military alpine bunkers, such as the aptly-named ‘Fort Knox’ in canton Bern. One company using the bunker, Siag – which labels itself the “Swiss private bank for digital assets” - refuses to deal with US clients on security grounds. “We decided 10 years ago not to deliver data to the US because we knew we could not do it without giving [the US intelligence agencies] a back door [access to this data],” Siag chief executive Christoph Oschwald told swissinfo.ch. While Switzerland is a relative minnow in the data storage industry compared to the US or Britain it will still carve out some 160,000 square metres of secure space by the end of this year, expanding to more than 200,000 by 2016, according to market research consultants Broadgroup. This equates to the second densest data storage capacity per capita in Europe, second only to Ireland. The comparison between the two countries is no accident as both compete to attract multinational company HQs to their borders. “The broad benefits that Switzerland offers as a location for companies, such as tax, skilled labour, a stable economy and reliable legal situation, also attracts data,” Broadgroup managing director Steve Wallage told swissinfo.ch. “In many cases these companies like to set up their data centres within an hour’s drive from the office.”


Green credentials
Relatively cheap and reliable energy supplies and a strong real estate market, that encourages investors to build in Switzerland, are also strong attractions. In addition, some niche players have attracted business by displaying their green credentials. One of the biggest concerns for data centres is wastage with some two thirds of energy lost through heat. The Swisscom Zollikofen centre, together with a sister centre in Bern, uses enough energy to power a 150,000 population town. Swisscom’s new building in the Bern suburb of Wankdorf will recycle that energy to heat new homes being built by the city. The Green Data Center in Lupfig, canton Aargau, also employs heat exchangers to redirect lost energy to other buildings. It also boasts the latest power saving direct current (DC) technology and offers clients the option of using renewable only energy sources. The sustainable energy is not just a green gimmick and would not attract clients purely on social grounds, Franz Grüter, chairman of the parent company green.ch told swissinfo.ch. “Clients are not really interested in the latest cleantech technology unless you can show them it will save them money,” he said. “The less energy we waste, the less we have to use for cooling the servers. Our measures save us 20 per cent on our energy costs.” The data storage industry in Switzerland faces some challenges ahead, not least because it has limited space and tough planning procedures. The future supply of cost efficient energy is under some doubt after Switzerland’s decision to scrap its nuclear power stations and the handover of banking data to the US has undermined its reputation for confidentiality. But the recent tales of US intelligence data espionage might make up for that to some degree, according to Broadgroup’s Steve Wallage. “Several Middle East companies have already targeted Switzerland because they distrust the US,” he told swissinfo.ch. “The stories coming from the US have chipped away at people’s confidence and that could be good news for a market like Switzerland.”


Matthew Allen, swissinfo.ch






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See the article online here: Data storage: Spying fears highlight worth of data centres - swissinfo.ch

The Geek that Knew Too Much Why #NSA IT Guy Leaked Top Secret Documents

Why NSA IT Guy Edward Snowden Leaked Top Secret Documents - Forbes




Edward Snowden

When the Washington Post described the person who leaked a NSA PowerPoint presentation about “PRISM” as a “career intelligence officer,” I was expecting the kind of 50-something technocrat that Bryan Cranston would play in the inevitable movie about the ‘NSA Papers.’ But on Sunday, the Guardian revealed that the person behind a series of leaks that have provided an unprecedented peek into how one of America’s most secretive spy agencies works is a 29-year-old high school drop-out whose computing skills allowed him to get jobs with the CIA and contractors for the National Security Agency.




This may be the NSA office in Hawaii from which Edward Snowden worked. Seriously. (screenshot of NSA press release on center's opening)

Edward Snowden tells the Guardian that he had a $200,000 job with defense contractor Booz Allen Hamilton — to that company’s chagrin — doing work for the NSA at its office in Hawaii. That office is likely the rainbow-shooting $358 million Hawaii center cited in a 2012 NSA press release which is tasked with processing “data from a broad variety of sources at various classification levels” and “eliminating physical, virtual, and other barriers to information sharing.” Snowden certainly did the latter, though not as the NSA intended it, sharing with the press top secret documents about the degree to which telecoms and Internet companies pass along customers’ data to the NSA, presidential preparation for cyberattacks on other countries, and the tools the NSA uses to monitor the healthiness of its global information collection. All these documents are available on the Guardian site here. Snowden took the documents to Glenn Greenwald at the Guardian after the Washington Post failed to publish the PowerPoint presentation within a 72-hour deadline he set, writes Barton Gellman.




NSA Contractor Booz Allen Hamilton Rushes To Distance Itself From Staffer Who Leaked Top Secret Docs Andy Greenberg Forbes Staff

Snowden describes himself as a systems administrator, which basically means he was an NSA IT guy. And like the IT guys in any office, he could see (and capture) many of the documents flying around on his network. (And that my friends, is one reason why you shouldn’t sext on company devices or from company email accounts; IT guys see all.) He describes himself in a video on the Guardian site as “being able to see everything;” he had the kind of spying ability on the NSA that it would love to have on the wider Internet.

“When you’re in positions of privileged access, like a systems administrator for the intelligence community agencies, you’re exposed to a lot more information on a broader scale than the average employee,” says Snowden in a video. “Because of that you see things that may be disturbing. Over the course of a normal person’s career, you’d only see one or two instances, but when you see everything, you see them on a more frequent basis.”

And he happened to be a libertarian-leaning, Internet-freedom-loving geek, judging from donations he made to the Ron Paul campaign and the EFF and Tor stickers on his laptop. In other words, exactly the kind of person who would be alarmed by the kind of documents he was seeing floating around the NSA about Verizon turning over call records and Internet companies being part of secret programs to turn over user data.

But the director of national intelligence’s claim that many of the documents being released were being misinterpreted because they were being taken out of context is now more understandable. Snowden wasn’t involved in these programs; he was just seeing documents — and I assume — seeing chatter about them. That’s how he took this PowerPoint slide describing the NSA’s ability to both gather data flowing through fiber-optic cables (which confirms a long-held allegation by whistleblowers) and to get data “directly from the servers of these U.S. Internet providers: Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, Paltalk, AOL, YouTube, Skype, Apple” to mean that the government had “direct access” to those companies’ servers. Since then, it’s emerged that it’s a more complicated process that does involve court orders and is directed only at non-U.S. citizens… which won’t be especially reassuring to these companies’ customers abroad as noted by David Kirkpatrick.

Many people see objectionable practices in their workplaces. Most grumble to colleagues or complain to a sympathetic spouse. Why did Snowden decide to share what he saw with the world, torpedoing his $200,000 job, forcing him to flee the country and hole up in a Hong Kong hotel, and risking a lifetime in prison if he’s successfully prosecuted for violating the Espionage Act? He has been interviewed by the Guardian and by the Washington Post about why he leaked the documents; here’s a collection of his quotes explaining his motivation:

• Concern about how easy it is to spy on people given the way we live today: “The internet is… a TV that watches you. The majority of people in developed countries spend at least some time interacting with the Internet, and governments are abusing that necessity in secret to extend their powers beyond what is necessary and appropriate.” (Washington Post)
• Fear of a surveillance state: “I believe that, at this point in history, the greatest danger to our freedom and way of life comes from the reasonable fear of omniscient State powers kept in check by nothing more than policy documents… It is not that I do not value intelligence, but that I oppose . . . omniscient, automatic, mass surveillance. . . . That seems to me a greater threat to the institutions of free society than missed intelligence reports, and unworthy of the costs.” (Washington Post)
• To encourage other whistleblowers: He wanted “to embolden others to step forward” by showing that “they can win.” (Washington Post)
• To let people in on what they don’t usually get to see: “I will be satisfied if the federation of secret law, unequal pardon and irresistible executive powers that rule the world that I love are revealed even for an instant.” (Washington Post) // “I think the public is owed an explanation of the motivations behind the people who make these disclosures outside the democratic model… My sole motive is to inform the public as to that which is done in their name and that which is done against them.” (The Guardian)
• Because he thinks these programs should be debated openly, and not just by government officials in the U.S.: “[T]he debate which I hope this will trigger among citizens around the globe about what kind of world we want to live in.” (The Guardian)
• Because the revelation was worth more than a happy life with his girlfriend and “a high-paying job in paradise”: “If living unfreely but comfortably is something you’re willing to accept, you can get up everyday, go to work and collect your large paycheck for relatively little work against the public interest and go to sleep at night after watching your shows. But if you realize that’s the world you helped create and it’s going to get worse with the next generation and the next generation who extend the capabilities of this sort of architecture of oppression, you realize you might be willing to accept any risk and it doesn’t matter what the outcome is as matter as the public gets to decide how that’s applied… I’m willing to sacrifice all of that because I can’t in good conscience allow the US government to destroy privacy, internet freedom and basic liberties for people around the world with this massive surveillance machine they’re secretly building.” (The Guardian)
• Because he could: “I’m no different from anyone else. I don’t have special skills. I’m just another guy who sits there day to day, watches what’s happening and goes, ‘This is something that’s not our place to decide.’ The public needs to decide whether these policies or programs are right or wrong. I’m willing to go on the record to defend the authenticity of them. This is the truth, this is what’s happening. you should decide whether we should be doing this.” (Video on the Guardian)
• Allegedly not for the fame: “I’ve been a spy for almost all of my adult life — I don’t like being in the spotlight.” (Washington Post) // “I don’t want public attention because I don’t want the story to be about me. I want it to be about what the US government is doing.” (The Guardian)
• Because what he saw makes him feel like he’s living in a sci-fi novel about a totalitarian state: “They are intent on making every conversation and every form of behaviour in the world known to them.” (The Guardian) // “Even if you’re not doing anything wrong, you’re being watched and recorded… you don’t have to do anything wrong, you simply have to eventually fall under suspicion from somebody even by a wrong call and then they can use the system to go back in time and scrutinize every decision you’ve ever made, every friend you’ve ever discussed something with and attack you on that basis to derive suspicion from an innocent life and paint anyone in the context of a wrongdoer.” (Video on the Guardian)
• Not because he thinks the government is a pushover: In a note to reporters when releasing the documents, says Gellman, he wrote that the U.S. intelligence community “will most certainly kill you if they think you are the single point of failure that could stop this disclosure and make them the sole owner of this information.” (Washington Post)
• Because he loves the concept of privacy: “I don’t want to live in a world where there’s no privacy and therefore no room for intellectual exploration and creativity.” (The Guardian)

Why NSA IT Guy Edward Snowden Leaked Top Secret Documents - Forbes

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-- The MasterFeeds

federal agencies do not need a warrant to read #emails older than six months

Emails are not private. A message may have one sender and one recipient but it can, with little effort, be read by a third party. In fact, despite the Fourth Amendment’s protections against unlawful searches, federal agencies do not necessarily need a warrant to read emails older than six months. 

Concerns over such government snooping were raised by the American Civil Liberties Union, which last week noted a “troubling picture” of email surveillance practices by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Department of Justice. The agencies may be taking advantage of a component of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, which requires warrants only for emails that have been stored on a third-party server for less than 180 days. 

 Read the story online here: How to stop the FBI from reading your email - MarketWatch