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Posted in Site News at 4:16 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: A Tuesday protest, titled ‘The Day We Fight Back’, has got our support
TECHRIGHTS has covered mass surveillance for a number of years now. Information about the NSA, for example, has been mostly accessible, but it was not widely published (corporate media was complicit) and there were no leaked documents to factually support key claims. At times, the truth did get published, only to be followed by puff pieces and clever denials by the abusers and their accomplices or collaborators (people like Rupert Murdoch). Noise outweighed the signal and left some people uncertain.
This week, just ahead of ‘The Day We Fight Back’, a new site run by two journalists who personally spoke to Snowden in Hong Kong and then broke NSA stories officially became public. There are some stories derived from it below. A lot of the stuff we now know is not necessarily new, but the public reaction, press reaction, etc. leave us hopeful that ‘new media’ is possible, even if the publisher cannot be trusted. █
NIST continues using SHA-1 algorithm after banning it The SSL certificate for www.nist.gov is signed using the SHA-1 hashing algorithm, and was issued by VeriSign on 23 January 2014, more than three weeks after NIST’s own ban came into effect. Also issued this year, NIST’s “Secure File Transfer Service” at xnfiles.nist.gov uses a SHA-1 certificate.An attacker able to find SHA-1 collisions could carefully construct a pair of certificates with colliding SHA-1 hashes: one a conventional certificate to be signed by a trusted CA, the other a sub-CA certificate able to be used to sign arbitrary SSL certificates. By substituting the signature from the CA-signed certificate into the sub-CA certificate, certificate chains containing the attacker-controlled sub-CA certificate will pass browser verification checks. This attack is, however, made more difficult by path constraints and the inclusion of unpredictable data into the certificate before signing it.IBM developing Self-Destructing Microchips for US DefenseScience Fiction Movies always show the possible direction of the development of technology and gives us the opportunity to think about it. The U.S. Government is also trying to develop such technology that was introduced in movies like Star Trek and TERMINATOR i.e. Self destructing Network of computers, Sensors and other devices.[...]The project announced a year back, known as Vanishing Programmable Resources (VAPR), which is dedicated to developing a CMOS microchip that self-destructs when it receives a certain frequency of radio signal from military command, in order to fully destroy it and preventing it from being used by the enemy. Glenn Greenwald’s New Site Goes Live With NSA AllegationsGlenn Greenwald’s new site devoted to the security leaks of Edward Snowden and broader “adversarial journalism” has launched as The Intercept.The site is led by Greenwald and two other noted investigative journalists – Laura Poitras and Jeremy Scahill. Scahill takes the lead bylines with Greenwald on the site’s first major story – an investigation of the NSA’s role in locating targets for U.S. drone strikes.NSA Refuses to Confirm or Deny Whether It Has Documents on Spy Program It Already Talked AboutI’m getting a kick out of the letters the National Security Agency (NSA) has been sending me in response to my Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests.A couple of weeks ago, the NSA refused to release 156 pages of draft talking points the agency created in the wake of the Edward Snowden leak, citing a “grave threat” to national security if any portion of the documents were declassified and released. Now, the NSA is refusing to confirm or deny whether it has documents on a top-secret surveillance program the agency has acknowledged exists and discussed publicly. This is the backstory.On January 16, The Guardian published a report based on documents the newspaper obtained from Snowden identifying an NSA program called DISHFIRE, which captures 200 million text messages a day from around the globe, “pretty much everything it can,” according to an internal NSA document published by The Guardian. New Photos of the NSA and Other Top Intelligence Agencies Revealed for First TimeOver the past eight months, classified documents provided by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden have exposed scores of secret government surveillance programs. Yet there is little visual material among the blizzard of code names, PowerPoint slides, court rulings and spreadsheets that have emerged from the National Security Agency’s files.Gov’t Officials Leak Classified Info To Journalists To Discredit Snowden For Leaking Classified Info To JournalistsWe already mentioned the bizarre NY Times article from over the weekend that described how Snowden apparently used some basic web crawler software to collect the documents he later leaked. As we noted, the basic story itself is unremarkable, other than for how the NY Times tried to turn “man uses basic tool” into a story. However, there is a really good quote from Snowden himself (via his lawyers) in response to the article. Since most of it involves senior government officials telling NYT reporters about security problems at some NSA facilities, Snowden was quick to point out the irony: “It’s ironic that officials are giving classified information to journalists in an effort to discredit me for giving classified information to journalists. The difference is that I did so to inform the public about the government’s actions, and they’re doing so to misinform the public about mine.” What Key NSA Overseers Don’t Know About the Phone DragnetIs the National Security Agency collecting and storing data on fewer telephone calls than we thought? So say reports in the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and New York Times. “Although intelligence officials have indicated since last summer that the National Security Agency was vacuuming up nearly every American telephone record for counter-terrorism investigations,” the L.A. Times reports in its version, “officials acknowledged Friday that the spy agency collects data from less than a third of U.S. calls because it can’t keep pace with cellphone usage.” GCHQ – Don’t Spy On UsOn Tuesday, internet users all over the world are standing up to say no to GCHQ and the NSA’s mass surveillance. Over the last eight months we’ve heard plenty about how intelligence agencies monitor us on the Internet.‘The Day We Fight Back’ against NSA spying is TuesdayEven though the movement is mainly aimed at pushing the U.S. government to take action, more than 5,000 websites from around the world have committed to participating in some way to speak up for privacy protections. Some notable names taking part include the ACLU, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Mozilla, and the Libertarian Party, which will run banners on their websites asking users to write their legislators and raise hell.Report: NSA Relies on Unreliable Phone Data for Drone StrikesNSA spying undermines separation of powers: ColumnThe program makes it easy for the president to spy on and blackmail his enemies.Omidyar online magazine launches with fresh NSA storyThe online news venture backed by eBay founder Pierre Omidyar debuted Monday, featuring fresh revelations about US intelligence from investigative reporter Glenn Greenwald.The news site dubbed “The Intercept” launched with two articles, including one co-authored by Greenwald stating that the US National Security Agency is relying on electronic surveillance, such as cell phone location, rather than human intelligence, to locate targets for lethal drone strikes.The report said the NSA “geolocates” the SIM card or handset of a suspected terrorist’s mobile phone for raids and drone strikes to capture or kill suspected terrorists.NSA ‘drone strikes based on mobile phone data’ The US National Security Agency (NSA) uses electronic surveillance rather than human intelligence in lethal drone strikes, it has been reported.The new publication headed by Glenn Greenwald, the journalist who broke the news of US government surveillance in The Guardian, claims the revelations were made by a former US drone operator.The Intercept, the first online publication from eBay founder Pierre Omidyar, is now liveOmidyar’s ‘Intercept’ launches with new NSA revelationsLights Out for NSA? Maryland Lawmakers Push to Cut Water, Electricity to Spy Agency HeadquartersThe National Security Agency’s headquarters in Ft. Meade, Md., will go dark if a cohort of Maryland lawmakers has its way.Eight Republicans in the 141-member Maryland House of Delegates introduced legislation Thursday that would deny the electronic spy agency “material support, participation or assistance in any form” from the state, its political subdivisions or companies with state contracts.The bill would deprive NSA facilities water and electricity carried over public utilities, ban the use of NSA-derived evidence in state courts and prevent state universities from partnering with the NSA on research.Surveillance by NSA violates 4th amendmentWhat is the NSA, and what does it do? The NSA is the National Security Agency. This program is funded by the “government” – in other words, us.As it says at nsa.gov, its commitment is to combat terrorism around the globe, support and protect our troops in the field and adhere to the spirit and the letter of the Constitution and the laws and regulations of the United States.The NSA began to expand its programs after the 9/11 incident in New York. George W. Bush was president at the time. President Obama is now enforcing and expanding the program. Death By Metadata: Jeremy Scahill & Glenn Greenwald Reveal NSA Role in Assassinations Overseas In the first exposé for their new venture, First Look Media’s digital journal The Intercept, investigative journalists Jeremy Scahill and Glenn Greenwald reveal the National Security Agency is using complex analysis of electronic surveillance, rather than human intelligence, as the primary method to locate targets for lethal drone strikes. The NSA identifies targets based on controversial metadata analysis and cellphone tracking technologies, an unreliable tactic that has resulted in the deaths of innocent and unidentified people. The United States has reportedly carried out drone strikes without knowing whether the individual in possession of a tracked cellphone or SIM card is in fact the intended target of the strike. Scahill and Greenwald join us in this exclusive interview to discuss their report and the launch of their media project. NSA Metadata Used For Drone StrikesContrary to the continual rationalizations by NSA defenders such as President Obama that metadata is benign – that it is only used to see patterns not identify individuals – it is now being reported that metadata alone is the basis for lethal drone strikes. According to First Look Media metadata, not human intelligence, is the tool the NSA is using to locate people to be assassinated by drone strikes.Snowden accused of using hacking’s greatest weapon to access NSA files: wgetExfiltrated data said to be using previously unknown port 80. Experts remain amused by media hype.[...]So this is where the FUD and comical nature of this story starts. In essence, the big news here is that Snowden used wget, or something similar, to mirror the NSA’s SharePoint archives. This isn’t mastermind-level hacking, it’s something at any network administrator would know how to do.75 Percent of Defense Contractors Say NSA Revelations Changed Their Security PracticesWhen NSA Error Leads to Innocent People’s Deaths
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