The amendments to the Unlawful Combatants Law were passed following the Hamas attack of October 7, 2023 and currently enable banning a Gaza detainee from meeting with a lawyer for the first 45 days of his detention. During this time, Israeli authorities also refuse to inform family members of the person’s whereabouts. This refusal to provide information on a detainee’s location is contrary to its past practice and to Israel’s legal obligations. A petition against the Law, filed by human rights organizations, including HaMoked, has been pending for over a year now.
Archiv: deflection / fogging / secrecy / cover / cover-up / covert operations
Chinese malware removed from SOHO routers after FBI issues covert commands
(February 1, 2024)
The US Justice Department said Wednesday that the FBI surreptitiously sent commands to hundreds of infected small office and home office routers to remove malware China state-sponsored hackers were using to wage attacks on critical infrastructure.
(…)
The takedown disclosed Wednesday isn’t the first time the FBI has issued commands to infected devices without the owners’ knowledge ahead of time. In 2021, authorities executed [justice.gov] a similar action to disinfect Microsoft Exchange servers that had been compromised by a different China-state group tracked as Hafnium.
(…)
In 2018, researchers reported that more than 500,000 SOHO routers had been compromised [arstechnica.com] by sophisticated malware [arstechnica.com] dubbed VPNFilter. The mass hack was later revealed to be an operation by a Russian-state group tracked as Sofacy. In that event, the FBI issued an advisory urging people to restart their routers [arstechnica.com] to remove any possible infections. The agency also seized [arstechnica.com] a domain used to control VPNFilter.
Ousting Shin Bet chief: Netanyahu‘s maneuver to avoid scrutiny over October 7 – analysis
The real issues are: Who is to blame for failing to prevent Hamas’s October 7 invasion, will the failures be fixed, and will the Shin Bet be turned into a loyalty agency that looks the other way when Jewish extremists perpetrate violence against West Bank Palestinians, as many observers say happened to the police under National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, which is to say under Netanyahu.
Bar says firing him a ‘fundamentally invalid’ attempt to undermine Shin Bet as it probes Qatar’s influence on PM’s office
Dismissing the Shin Bet head during the investigation, Bar argues, is tainted with “extraneous considerations and a personal and institutional conflict of interest that could not be more serious.” It risks jeopardizing the investigation, he says, which is a danger to the country’s security.
He also pushes for a state commission of inquiry into October 7: “The urgent national need for such an investigation cannot be subordinated to the personal considerations of those involved in the matter, as it is the only way to ensure that such a multi-system failure will not occur again.”
Context: his closest advisor, the person who knows everything about him, is now suspected of espionage and money laundering.
(…)
Defying AG, cabinet schedules Thursday night vote to fire Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar
The announcement was made despite a letter sent to the government by the Attorney General’s Office earlier in the day, which stated that the government must obtain a recommendation from an advisory committee before weighing Bar’s dismissal.
Citing a cabinet resolution from 2016, the office said that the Senior Appointments Advisory Committee must sign off on the dismissal of anyone from seven different senior civil service positions, including the head of the Shin Bet.
Netanyahu moves to fire intel chief who is investigating his aides
(March 16, 2025)
– The investigation, dubbed „Qatar-Gate“ in the Israeli press, focused on alleged payments Netanyahu‘s advisers facilitated and received from Qatar in return for working on improving the image of the country in Israel.
– Qatar is one of the key mediators in the Gaza hostage and ceasefire deal. But Netanyahu‘s decision in 2018 to ask Qatar to transfer money to Hamas in Gaza for humanitarian purposes became one of the main points of criticism against him after the Oct. 7 attack.
– The Shin Bet determined a portion of that money went to Hamas‘ military build-up.
Court slaps total gag order on explosive ‘Qatar-Gate’ investigation
(March 11, 2025)
Two weeks ago, Baharav-Miara stated that the probe would be conducted by the Israel Police and the Shin Bet security agency. The case focuses on three close associates of Netanyahu:
– Eli Feldstein, a spokesperson who has already been investigated and indicted in a separate case involving leaked classified documents.
– Jonathan Urich, an adviser and spokesperson also implicated in the classified documents case, where he allegedly corresponded directly with Feldstein regarding the leaked material.
– Israel Einhorn, a campaign consultant involved in Likud‘s election efforts.
Hostage Families Outraged by Alleged Leak From Prime Minister’s Office
(November 4, 2024)
During that period, the US, Qatar, and Egypt were mediating talks between Israel and Hamas, seeking a framework for a ceasefire and a potential hostage release. Both sides ultimately accused the other of obstructing progress. Hostage families, frustrated by the lack of movement, joined journalists in a petition to lift the gag order on Feldstein’s case.
Netanyahu‘s spokesman verified suspect passed leaked documents to Bild
(NOVEMBER 19, 2024)
Yonatan Urich, spokesperson for Benjamin Netanyahu, verified that the primary suspect in the Prime Minister‘s Office leaks scandal, Eliezar Feldstein, had passed classified information to the German newspaper Bild, according to a report by KAN11.
Urich, who was investigated along with other employees of the PMO, verified with Feldstein that he had passed the classified documents to the „Husid“ (devotee), the codename for Shrulik Einhorn, their main contact at the Bild.
Apple appeals UK encryption backdoor demand
(March 5, 2025)
Let’s say that Apple lets the order stand and simply opts out of the UK market, which is essentially what it has already done, he said. That could encourage other governments, especially those in France, Australia, and Canada, to try the same tactic.
“If that happens, then the [UK] government has set a precedent,” Chagnon said. But if Apple succeeds in this appeal, which was reported in various media including The Financial Times, “then Apple will have turned the tables and set their own precedent. It would be saying ‘No, China, no, Germany, no, France, you can’t have a backdoor.’”
What’s in the Newly Unearthed FBI Files Tied to President Kennedy’s Assassination?
(February 11, 2025)
Now we discover that its vetting and releasing of documents under the 1992 Assassination Records Collection Act has been of a piece with the moment in 1963 when Dallas FBI agent James Hosty flushed a threatening note from Lee Harvey Oswald down the john. (…)
We’ve been fooled by what we thought was the sound of ice cracking on all of this too often to make me sanguine about anything coming of it. But the situation, at least to my mind, pits the FBI against the CIA, which traditionally has dragged its feet on releasing what it knows about Oswald—which is considerable. Joannides, for example, was a CIA psyop officer. If the FBI releases its files on him, the folks at Langley are going to have their mellows harshed considerably. About damn time.
FBI discovers over 2,000 secret records on Kennedy assassination
(February 11, 2025)
The existence of the new JFK documents was disclosed to the White House on Friday, and a further review of those records could reveal more information as to what happened in one of the most scrutinized tragedies in American history. The release of the new documents could also change the federal procedures for vetting and releasing information related to government events.
FBI says it has discovered new files on JFK assassination
(February 11, 2025)
The FBI has discovered about 2,400 new records related to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy from a new records search following an executive order from President Donald Trump.
Families of captives Matan Zangauker, Nimrod Cohen sue for full text of hostage deal
(February 9, 2025)
The families of hostages Matan Zangauker and Nimrod Cohen on Sunday petitioned the High Court demanding it order the government to publish the Gaza ceasefire and hostage release deal agreed with Hamas in its entirety.
The agreement has been published only in part.
CCIA Responds to Reports of UK Demand for Worldwide Apple iCloud Access
The following can be attributed to CCIA President & CEO Matt Schruers:
“As the recent Salt Typhoon breach makes clear, end-to-end encryption may be the only safeguard standing between Americans’ sensitive personal and business data and foreign adversaries.
“Reports that Apple has been secretly ordered by the UK Government to weaken its encryption, including in the United States, are a troubling development, if accurate. Decisions about Americans’ privacy and security should be made in America, in an open and transparent fashion, not through secret orders from abroad requiring keys be left under doormats.”
Apple’s ‘Dangerous’ iPhone Update Is Much Worse Than You Think
So, why is this worse than you think. In my view — and no one can officially comment, so “views” will be all we can share — any such government action would not stop with Apple. Not to over-simplify matters, but a bad actor would simply run Google’s helpful switch to Android software. If the U.K is going after Apple, it’s also going after Google and Meta and others. Why would they not? But Soviet-style, none of these other parties can comment or answer questions or confirm or deny.
U.K. orders Apple to let it spy on users’ encrypted accounts
(February 7, 2025)
The law, known by critics as the Snoopers’ Charter, makes it a criminal offense to reveal that the government has even made such a demand. An Apple spokesman declined to comment.
Apple can appeal the U.K. capability notice to a secret technical panel, which would consider arguments about the expense of the requirement, and to a judge who would weigh whether the request was in proportion to the government’s needs. But the law does not permit Apple to delay complying during an appeal.
Apple ordered to open encrypted user accounts globally to UK spying
Apple’s iCloud backups aren’t encrypted by default, but the Advanced Data Protection option was added in 2022, and must be enabled manually. It uses end-to-end encryption so that not even Apple can access encrypted files. In response to the order, Apple is expected to simply stop offering Advanced Data Protection in the UK. This wouldn’t meet the UK’s demand for access to files shared by global users, however.
UK verlangt Zugriff auf verschlüsselte Daten aller Apple-Nutzer weltweit
(today)
Hintertüren, wie die von den Briten geforderte, sind von Natur aus gefährlich. Beim Hack der US-Kommunikationssysteme im Jahr 2024, der angeblich von chinesischen Akteuren durchgeführt wurde, wurde eine Hintertür verwendet, die die USA und andere Regierungen gefordert hatten:
„Dies ist nicht das erste Mal, dass Hacker die von CALEA vorgeschriebenen Abhör-Backdoors ausnutzen. Wie der Computersicherheitsexperte Nicholas Weaver 2015 gegenüber Lawfare betonte, „muss jede in den USA verkaufte Telefonanlage die Möglichkeit bieten, eine große Anzahl von Anrufen effizient abzuhören. Und da die USA einen so großen Markt darstellen, bedeutet dies, dass praktisch jede weltweit verkaufte Telefonanlage die Funktion ‚Lawful Intercept‘ enthält.“
Vor zwei Jahrzehnten wurde diese obligatorische Abhörfunktion von Hackern, die es auf Vodafone Griechenland abgesehen hatten, unterwandert. Sie fingen Telefongespräche des Premierministers des Landes und hochrangiger politischer, polizeilicher und militärischer Beamter ab.“
Israel accused of torturing Palestinian workers to death
The Israel Prison Service gave the Palestinian union a vague response confirming the deaths of 34 workers who died inside detention centres under „mysterious circumstances or from heart attacks“.
Badarneh explained that until 7 October 2023, 18,000 Palestinians from Gaza were in Israel with work permits.
Gunmen kill 10 in Syria village ‚massacre‘ – monitor
The Britain-based monitor, which has a large network of sources on the ground in Syria, said gunmen „rapped on the doors of houses in the village and shot at people using handguns equipped with silencers“ before fleeing.
(…)
Syrian newspaper Al-Watan, quoting a security source in Hama, said security forces „are surrounding the Arzah area to hunt the criminals“ behind the killings.
US-backed Syrian authorities conduct dozens of sectarian executions
SOHR reported earlier this month that at least 150 Alawites have been killed since the new government came to power. Heavy media censorship is being imposed, and the numbers are expected to remain on the rise. Alongside Alawites, members of the Christian community in Syria and their holy sites have been targeted.
In January, over 190 people were killed – including five women – in field executions or revenge killings, according to SOHR.
DECLASSIFICATION OF RECORDS CONCERNING THE ASSASSINATIONS OF PRESIDENT JOHN F. KENNEDY, SENATOR ROBERT F. KENNEDY, AND THE REVEREND DR. MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.
I have now determined that the continued redaction and withholding of information from records pertaining to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy is not consistent with the public interest and the release of these records is long overdue. And although no Act of Congress directs the release of information pertaining to the assassinations of Senator Robert F. Kennedy and the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., I have determined that the release of all records in the Federal Government’s possession pertaining to each of those assassinations is also in the public interest.
Trump Pledges to Declassify JFK, RFK, and MLK Assassination Files
The announcement, made during his victory rally in Washington, D.C., was met with thunderous applause from supporters.
„As the first step toward restoring transparency and accountability to government, we will also reverse the over-classification of government documents,“ Trump declared to a packed Capital One Arena. „And in the coming days, we are going to make public remaining records relating to the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy, his brother Robert Kennedy, as well as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.“
HTS raids and forced disappearances fuel fear in Syria’s Alawi heartlands
MEE is not aware of any evidence linking Assad’s departure to a deal with Israel. However, there have been reports suggesting that the former president shared sensitive military information with Israel in exchange for a guarantee of safe passage out of Syria.
Since the government collapsed, Israel has conducted hundreds of strikes on Syrian military positions nationwide and launched a ground invasion, capturing the entire buffer zone along the occupied Golan Heights and beyond.
The government, Hussem said, had the means to resist but chose not to, opting instead to flee and leave their officers to fend for themselves.
Kamal Adwan’s Hussam Abu Safia held in Ofer Prison, rights group says
An Israeli rights group says Hussam Abu Safia, the director of Kamal Adwan Hospital who was detained by Israeli forces during their raid on the facility in Beit Lahiya last month, is being held in a notorious Israeli military prison in the occupied West Bank.
Physicians for Human Rights-Israel (PHRI), said the Israeli military confirmed in an email that Abu Safia was at Ofer Prison. A lawyer for Abu Safia’s family was told that he would not be allowed to see him until January 29, said a spokesman for PHRI, Ran Yaron, according to The Associated Press.
Israeli Govt Pressed to Reveal Location of Detained Gaza Hospital Director
In response to an official request submitted by Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) Israel on behalf of his family to arrange a lawyer’s visit for him, “Mashlat” – the body responsible for coordinating with the army regarding the location of detainees and prisoners from the occupied Gaza Strip – stated that they have no indication of his arrest or detention of the Kamal Adwan Hospital director, Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya. Despite clear documentation of his arrest, the Israeli army officially stated on Thursday, January 3, that “it has no indication of the arrest or detention of the Kamal Adwan Hospital Director.”
Families of missing Syrian Army soldiers rally in Tartus amid claims some were imprisoned by HTS
Dec 25, 2024
Footage shows them holding banners and speaking with officials.
There was no response from the Tartus authorities or the HTS-led administration at time of publication.
The FBI‘s mysterious case against Dr Aafia Siddiqui
The website of America’s Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is brimming with advice and useful information should you need help. There’s even a bright red button to press if you want to report a crime. I pressed it and reported the crime of perjury involving the complex case of US Prisoner Dr Aafia Siddiqui who is currently serving 86 years in a Texas prison for attempting to kill US soldiers. She didn’t do anything of the sort. Yes, there was a shooting incident in Ghazni Province’s National Police station in Afghanistan, but it was the soldiers who nearly killed her.
(…)
During the past 20 years, some very powerful senior figures in America, Pakistan and elsewhere have lied to and deceived the US authorities to ensure that the rather brilliant academic Dr Aafia Siddiqui remains behind bars. In 2023, her sister described her as looking like a “living corpse”.
DNSSEC History Project
DNS Security Prehistory
Few technologies are more critical to the operation of the Internet than the Domain Name System (DNS). The initial design of DNS did not take security into consideration, which was not unusual for protocols designed in the early 1980s. At the time of its development, and for many years there after, DNS had functioned without many formal security mechanisms, thereby making it vulnerable to DNS spoofing and other malicious attacks.
Determining the Need for DNSSEC
[What drove the work? Big picture issues. Surely this includes the demonstrations of cache poisoning by Steve Bellovin and Tsutomu Shimomura in the early 1990s and the similar work by Dan Kaminsky in 2008, but it may include much other activity.]
(…)
Cache Poisoning
The earliest known security problem with DNS was DNS cache poisoning, also sometimes called DNS spoofing. DNS cache poisoning happens when a DNS server downstream from the authoritative one returns incorrect data to queries for names or IP addresses. This occurs because an attacker has ‘poisoned’ the cache of the downstream DNS server to return the malicious response. DNS cache poisoning is a subset of a group of problems computer scientists often classify as cache invalidation.
This problem, known to the Computer Science Research Group(CSRG) at U.C. Berkeley since 1989, was finally described in a paper by Steve Bellovin in 1993. Bellovin initially put off publishing the paper out of fear the information would be exploited.
(…)
Concern over DNS cache poisoning, specifically that the leak would become publicly known, existed from 1989 to 1995.
RAY McGOVERN: Will Gabbard Be Able to Direct the Intelligence ‘Community’?
On July 22, 2004, immediately after the 9/11 Commission report was released, I found myself with 9/11 commissioner (and former senator from Washington) Slade Gorton in the BBC blue room in Washington. I had the temerity to remind him that it was far from the case that “no one was in charge” of the intelligence community; that Tenet had all the authority he needed.
Gorton turned to me, smiled and said: “Of course we know all that; but we in the Commission and in Congress just had to do something so the American people would see that we were doing something.”
Yuck.
The national intelligence director, and the newly created bureaucracy, is what it is. Maybe Tulsi Gabbard can take the reins and make the community work. It will take a miracle; let’s hope for one.
DNSSEC History Project
DNS Security Prehistory
Few technologies are more critical to the operation of the Internet than the Domain Name System (DNS). The initial design of DNS did not take security into consideration, which was not unusual for protocols designed in the early 1980s. At the time of its development, and for many years there after, DNS had functioned without many formal security mechanisms, thereby making it vulnerable to DNS spoofing and other malicious attacks.
Determining the Need for DNSSEC
[What drove the work? Big picture issues. Surely this includes the demonstrations of cache poisoning by Steve Bellovin and Tsutomu Shimomura in the early 1990s and the similar work by Dan Kaminsky in 2008, but it may include much other activity.]
(…)
Cache Poisoning
The earliest known security problem with DNS was DNS cache poisoning, also sometimes called DNS spoofing. DNS cache poisoning happens when a DNS server downstream from the authoritative one returns incorrect data to queries for names or IP addresses. This occurs because an attacker has ‘poisoned’ the cache of the downstream DNS server to return the malicious response. DNS cache poisoning is a subset of a group of problems computer scientists often classify as cache invalidation.
This problem, known to the Computer Science Research Group(CSRG) at U.C. Berkeley since 1989, was finally described in a paper by Steve Bellovin in 1993. Bellovin initially put off publishing the paper out of fear the information would be exploited.
(…)
Concern over DNS cache poisoning, specifically that the leak would become publicly known, existed from 1989 to 1995.
UK urged to share Gaza spy planes footage with ICC war crimes probe
(October 30, 2024)
The defence ministry told Middle East Eye: “As a matter of principle, we only provide intelligence to our allies where we are satisfied that it will be used in accordance with International Humanitarian Law, and in this instance, only information relating to hostage rescue is passed to the Israeli authorities.”
(…)
Brendan O’Hara, the Scottish National Party’s spokesperson for the Middle East, told MEE it was “inconceivable”, given the scale of the destruction and death in Gaza, that the flights “do not contain footage which would be of significant interest to the investigators from the International Criminal Court”.
(…)
Labour MP Rachael Maskell told MEE: “It is crucial that any intelligence of breaches of international law are shared with the courts so they can assess the evidence and secure justice.”
“I trust that the UK government is working with the international courts to aid them in their work.”
Revealed: UK military has flown 200 spy missions over Gaza in support of Israel
(May 8, 2024)
British spy planes have recorded up to 1,000 hours of footage over Gaza, including from the day Israel assassinated three UK aid workers.
1.25 Million Have ‚Top Secret‘ Access in the U.S.
(April 14, 2023)
Peo0le with clearance and access to „Top Secret“ U.S.federal government information, by employee type
Government 605.579
Contractor 472.576
Other 173.803
Total 1.251.958
As of Oct.1, 2019
Source: Office of the Director of National Intelligence via Federation of American Scientists
TOP SECRET AMERICA: National Security Inc.
(July 20, 2010)
The Post investigation uncovered what amounts to an alternative geography of the United States, a Top Secret America created since 9/11 that is hidden from public view, lacking in thorough oversight and so unwieldy that its effectiveness is impossible to determine.
It is also a system in which contractors are playing an ever more important role. The Post estimates that out of 854,000 people with top-secret clearances, 265,000 are contractors. There is no better example of the government‘s dependency on them than at the CIA, the one place in government that exists to do things overseas that no other U.S. agency is allowed to do.
(…)
Contractors kill enemy fighters. They spy on foreign governments and eavesdrop on terrorist networks. They help craft war plans. They gather information on local factions in war zones. They are the historians, the architects, the recruiters in the nation‘s most secretive agencies. They staff watch centers across the Washington area. They are among the most trusted advisers to the four-star generals leading the nation‘s wars.
When Did Liberals Become So Comfortable With War?
First, history has shown that governments and bureaucracies tend to become addicted to a war footing, with failure sucking them in further — think of America’s war on terror, or Vietnam. War encourages a perverse cycle of escalation in which huge financial and political gains accrue for governments and the military-industrial complex while the costs tend to be borne by weaker parties — before they start to come home in some shape or form.
We’ve called this bipartisan pattern “wreckonomics” and have found it especially present in wars or conflicts with costs that Western politicians can largely outsource — from fighting terrorism, drugs and smugglers to quasi-colonial interventions during the Cold War.
Saudi nuclear program can be secretly managed – top Israeli sources
(September 14, 2023)
Top Israeli sources have told the Jerusalem Post that there are secret technological ways to ensure that the Saudis do not misuse civilian nuclear items, which the US may give them as part of a three-way normalization deal, for military purposes.
Although there are no guarantees, because the issue is highly technical and there are issues to address regarding the Palestinians and highly complex politics, these technological fixes could be key to locking in a normalization deal between Riyadh and Jerusalem, under Washington’s auspices.