Archiv: National Security Agency (NSA)


23.10.2024 - 07:51 [ BBC ]

What leaked US assessment of Israeli plans to strike Iran shows

The documents also report no sign of any preparations by Israel to activate its nuclear deterrent. (…)

The US has made no secret of its opposition to the targeting of either Iran’s nuclear research facilities or its oil installations.

23.10.2024 - 07:42 [ Middle East Eye ]

US intended to inform UK about Israeli stealth drone use over Iran

However, another piece of intelligence is marked as being for the eyes of US and British intelligence only: that Israel has been using a long-range unmanned surveillance drone which is capable of flying covertly over Iran and elsewhere in the Middle East.

The drone, an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV), is a “covert” drone named RA-01. It was not publicly known about.

19.10.2024 - 23:37 [ Axios ]

Pro-Iranian account leaks alleged U.S. intel on Israel‘s attack plans

Between the lines: The report, if accurate, would suggest very close and detailed surveillance by U.S. intelligence of Israel‘s preparations for an attack on Iran, including the use of satellites to spy on operations carried out at Israeli Air Force bases.

19.10.2024 - 23:30 [ CNN ]

Leaked documents show US intelligence on Israel’s plans to attack Iran, sources say

Another US official said that “these two documents are bad, but not horrible. The concern is if there are more.”

It is not clear how the documents became public, nor whether they were hacked or deliberately leaked.

04.12.2023 - 09:35 [ Newsmax.com ]

Kirby: US Intel Not Aware of Hamas Plan to Attack Israel

(03.12.2023)

“The intelligence community has indicated that they did not have access to this document,” Kirby said in an interview with NBC’s Kristen Welker on “Meet the Press” on Sunday.

04.12.2023 - 09:24 [ Vanity Fair ]

Israel Didn’t Give US Intelligence About Hamas Attack Plans: White House

(03.12.2023)

“Intelligence is a mosaic, and sometimes you know you can fashion things together and get a pretty good picture,” Kirby replied. “Other times, you know that there’s pieces of the puzzle that are missing.”

Kirby also declined to say whether Hamas’ incursion into Israel should be seen as a failure of Israeli intelligence.

04.12.2023 - 08:46 [ Politico.com ]

‘No indicators’ Israel shared Hamas war plans with U.S.

(01.12.2023)

On Capitol Hill, members of the Senate and House intelligence committees have received several briefings about the Oct. 7 attack, according to a congressional aide familiar with the matter.

In at least one of those closed-door conversations, members were told that Israel had been aware about the potential for a Hamas attack from Gaza. But those readouts did not include the specific details of the Jericho Wall document, said the aide.

25.10.2023 - 00:13 [ CNN ]

US officials raise concerns over Israeli intelligence after Hamas attacks

(October 7, 2023)

Other US officials familiar with the matter said if the US did have intelligence suggesting an upcoming attack, it would have undoubtedly shared that information with Israel.

The Israelis historically have had dominant capabilities to monitor communications in Gaza. The Israelis also have some of the best capabilities to break into encrypted communications, US officials say.

That’s partly the reason why US officials were shocked that preparation for Saturday’s attacks weren’t detected.

06.10.2023 - 09:45 [ Netzpolitik.org ]

Dänischer Geheimdienstchef und Ex-Minister vor Gericht

Die Staatsanwaltschaft wirft dem derzeit suspendierten Geheimdienstchef Lars Findsen und dem ehemaligen Verteidigungsminister Claus Hjort Frederiksen vor, Staatsgeheimnisse verraten und öffentlich der Presse zugänglich gemacht zu haben.(…)

Die Frankfurter Rundschau berichtet, dass Snowdens Enthüllungen 2013 ans Licht brachten, dass die NSA das globale Datenkreuz Kopenhagen für ihre Zwecke nach Belieben anzapfen konnte. Über die Datenzentrale des dänischen Auslandsgeheimdiensts FE hätten die US-Geheimdienste unter anderem Telefonate von Angela Merkel aus dem Bundeskanzleramt mitgehört.

Findsen und Frederiksen hingegen dürfen die genauen Vorwürfe nicht nennen, obwohl diese bereits öffentlich sind.

11.09.2023 - 23:04 [ Federation of American Scientists - fas.org ]

CRITICAL FOUNDATIONS: PROTECTING AMERICA’S INFRASTRUCTURES – The Report of the President’s Commission on Critical Infrastructure Protection

(13.10.1997)

Existing Information Sharing Efforts

(…) We also found a great deal of information sharing already underway. Trade associations, consortia, and other groups exchange information among their members and, in some cases, directly with government. Many federal, state and local government agencies have existing relationships with infrastructure owners and operators. Within all the infrastructure sectors, at least some portions are subject to regulatory control by government agencies, and information is shared, albeit sometimes within carefully defined constraints. Several federal agencies provide information to infrastructure owners and operators. The FBI’s Awareness of National Security Issues and Response (ANSIR) program gives over 25,000 industry members information that provides threat and vulnerability insights. More narrowly focused programs are the Department of Transportation’s terrorist threat notification to the civil aviation industry and the National Security Agency’s INFOSEC Vulnerability Assessment Program, which provides information systems-related data to private sector partners. The Comptroller of the Currency operates another system providing advisories on information integrity and security risks to financial institutions.

(…)

The third and least predictable threat to the infrastructure comes from deliberate attack. Depending on their objectives, attackers may seek to steal, modify, or destroy data stored in information systems or moving over networks, or to degrade the operation of the systems and net-works themselves, denying service to their users. Attackers include national intelligence organizations, information warriors, terrorists, criminals, industrial competitors, hackers, and aggrieved or disloyal insiders. While insiders constitute the single largest known security threat to information and information systems, controlled testing indicates that large numbers of computer based attacks go undetected, and that the unknown component of the threat may exceed the known component by orders of magnitude.

(…)

The air traffic control system of the FAA is based on decades old technology. The replacement system, while doubtless more efficient, will be more vulnerable unless special security measures are incorporated.

(…)

The Commission recommends the Secretary of Transportation:

1) Fully evaluate actual and potential sources of interference to, and vulnerabilities of, GPS before a final decision is reached to eliminate all other radiovnavigation and aircraft landing guidance systems.

2) Sponsor a risk assessment for GPS-based systems used by the civilian sector, projected from now through the year 2010.

3) Base decisions regarding the proper federal navigation systems mix and the final architecture of the NAS on the results of that assessment. The DOT and FAA must develop a better understanding of interference and other vulnerabilities of GPS before a final decision is reached concerning the status of all other radionavigation and landing guidance systems. A federally sponsored thorough, integrated risk assessment would lay a sound foundation for decisions on future courses of action.

The National Airspace System

The Commission recommends the FAA act immediately to develop, establish, fund, and implement a comprehensive National Airspace System Security Program to protect the modernized NAS from information-based and other disruptions, intrusions and attack. Program implementation should be guided by the recommendations found in the Vulnerability Assessment of the NAS Architecture, prepared for the Commission. The Vulnerability Assessment included the following recommendations: (…)

3) The FAA should consider the implementation of full “trusted” hardware and software security capabilities for only the FAA’s most vulnerable future subsystems, since the software cost for embedded applications, together with full audit, tracking, and monitoring, may be too great if applied to all subsystems. Relaxation of the full capabilities, such as less rapid revalidation (e.g., a slower fifteen minutes down time) and less constant vigilance of data integrity, should be considered on a case-by-case basis for less critical subsystems, particularly in situations where existing air traffic control recovery procedures exist.

4) The FAA should conduct a comprehensive investment analysis of NAS INFOSEC in order to determine the degree of security protection that is needed

(…)

Transportation: A critical infrastructure characterized by the physical distribution system critical to supporting the national security and economic well-being of this nation, including the national airspace system, airlines and aircraft, and airports; roads and highways,trucking and personal vehicles; ports and waterways and the vessels operating thereon; mass transit, both rail and bus; pipelines, including natural gas, petroleum, and other hazardous materials; freight and long haul passenger rail; and delivery services.

01.07.2023 - 13:08 [ Moguldom.com ]

Elon Musk: The US Government, Intelligence Agencies Had Access To Twitter Backdoor, Ability To Spy On Direct Messages

(Apr 17, 2023)

“The degree to which government agencies effectively had full access to everything that was going on on Twitter blew my mind,” Musk told Carlson. “I was not aware of that.”

01.07.2023 - 13:06 [ DailyMail.co.uk ]

Revealed: Google and Facebook DID allow NSA access to data and were in talks to set up ‚spying rooms‘ despite denials by Zuckerberg and Page over PRISM project

(8 June 2013)

Meanwhile, Twitter is one company which has managed to keep mum in PRISM discussions.

01.07.2023 - 13:04 [ theGuardian.com ]

NSA Prism program taps in to user data of Apple, Google and others

(7 Jun 2013)

The Guardian has verified the authenticity of the document, a 41-slide PowerPoint presentation – classified as top secret with no distribution to foreign allies – which was apparently used to train intelligence operatives on the capabilities of the program. The document claims „collection directly from the servers“ of major US service providers.

Although the presentation claims the program is run with the assistance of the companies, all those who responded to a Guardian request for comment on Thursday denied knowledge of any such program.

16.06.2023 - 15:45 [ Jabberwocking.com ]

The FBI abused its surveillance of Americans 278,000 times in 18 months

Section 702 of the FISA Act allows agencies like the NSA to eavesdrop on foreign nationals overseas. It prohibits spying on US citizens or anyone who‘s within the United States. (…)

In practice, then, NSA maintains a huge database of information about the communications of US citizens. Agencies like the FBI are allowed to query this database, but only under strict rules. The primary rule is that queries can only be done if they are related to foreign intelligence or are likely to show evidence of a crime.

01.06.2023 - 14:29 [ Techdirt ]

The FBI’s Constant Abuse Of Section 702 Surveillance May Finally Take This Tool Away From The NSA

That’s been the takeaway from every examination of the FBI’s access to NSA Section 702 collections. The FBI says one thing, does another, and months or years down the road, the system of checks and balances decides to call bullshit.

23.05.2023 - 11:35 [ Al Jazeera ]

US says China can spy with TikTok. It spies on world with Google

(28.03.2023)

Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which the US Congress must vote to reauthorise by December to prevent it from lapsing under a sunset clause, allows US intelligence agencies to carry out warrantless spying on foreigners’ email, phone and other online communications.

While US citizens have some protections against warrantless searches under the Fourth Amendment of the US Constitution, the US government has maintained that these rights do not extend to foreigners overseas, giving agencies such as the National Security Agency (NSA), Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) practically free rein to snoop on their communications.

07.05.2023 - 12:10 [ Ron Wyden / Youtube ]

Wyden Warns of Potential Public Backlash From Allowing Secret Law

(May 27, 2011)

Speaking on the floor of the U.S Senate during the truncated debate on the reauthorization of the PATRIOT ACT for another four years, U.S. Senator Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) — a member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence — warned his colleagues that a vote to extend the bill without amendments that would ban any Administration‘s ability to keep internal interpretations of the Patriot Act classified will eventually cause public outrage.

Known as Secret Law, the official interpretation of the Patriot Act could dramatically differ from what the public believes the law allows. This could create severe violations of the Constitutional and Civil Rights of American Citizens.

26.04.2023 - 15:20 [ CNN ]

The number of people with Top Secret clearance will shock you

(August 16, 2022)

The Director of National Intelligence publishes what is described as an annual report, “Security Clearance Determinations,” although the most recent one I could find was from 2017.

In it, more than 2.8 million people are described as having security clearance as of October 2017 – more than 1.6 million have access to either Confidential or Secret information and nearly 1.2 million are described as having access to Top Secret information.

26.04.2023 - 15:09 [ Daniel Neun / Radio Utopie ]

TOP SECRET AMERICA (II): “Nationale Sicherheit AG”

(24. Juli 2010)

– Von den 854.000 Personen mit dem Sicherheitszugang “Top Secret” sind 265.000 kommerzielle Vertragsnehmer, rund 30 Prozent des Arbeitspersonals im Spionage-Komplex.

– Im “Ministerium für Heimatschutz” (“Department of Homeland Security” DHS) arbeiten genauso viele staatliche Beamte wie Vertragsnehmer, in der Spionageabteilung stellt das “private” Personal sogar 60 Prozent. Das Heimatschutz-Ministerium hat Verträge mit 318 Konzernen, von denen allein 19 sich ausschließlich mit der Rekrutierung neuer Vertragsnehmer beschäftigen.

– 56 Firmen im Spionage-Komplex sind nur damit beschäftigt, ständig neue Linguisten, Sprachwissenschaftler und Dolmetscher zu rekrutieren. Anschliessend werden sie an die US-Regierungsbehörden weitervermietet, um auf dem ganzen Planeten abgehörte Telefonate und Gespräche, sowie abgefangene emails und Telekommunikation zu übersetzen und zu interpretieren.

– für die 16 US-Spionagedienste erstellen allein 400 Konzerne Datenverarbeitungs- und informationstechnische Systeme zur internen Kommunikation zwischen den Diensten und deren jeweiliger Computernetzwerke.

– die “National Security Agency” (NSA), die weltweite Telekommunikation abfängt und elektronische Überwachungen durchführt, bezahlt zur Zeit 484 Konzerne, u.a. für die Entwicklung neuer Spionage-Technologien.

– die planetare Satelliten-Spionage des “National Reconnaissance Office” (NRO), einem der wichtigsten von offiziell 16 Spionagediensten der USA, wäre nicht möglich ohne die Zuarbeit von vier großen Konzernen, die als Vertragsnehmer für die NRO arbeiten.

– Bei der CIA sind von (offiziell) 30.000 Personalstand 10.000 Personen externe, nichtstaatliche Vertragsnehmer aus sage und schreibe 114 Firmen. Viele von ihnen sind nur für zeitlich begrenzte Jobs oder Operationen an Bord und kommen aus der Militärspionage.

Die CIA ist das Beispiel für eine Regierungsagentur, welche nicht mehr ohne dieses kommerzielle Hilfspersonal auskommt, obwohl gerade sie Operationen durchführt, die keiner anderen Behörde gesetzlich erlaubt ist.

26.04.2023 - 14:52 [ Washington Post ]

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.

(…)

Most of these contractors do work that is fundamental to an agency‘s core mission. As a result, the government has become dependent on them in a way few could have foreseen: wartime temps who have become a permanent cadre.

12.04.2023 - 02:33 [ theAtlantic.com ]

The Details About the CIA‘s Deal With Amazon

(July 17, 2014)

This summer, a $600 million computing cloud developed by Amazon Web Services for the Central Intelligence Agency over the past year will begin servicing all 17 agencies that make up the intelligence community. If the technology plays out as officials envision, it will usher in a new era of cooperation and coordination, allowing agencies to share information and services much more easily and avoid the kind of intelligence gaps that preceded the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

For the first time, agencies within the intelligence community will be able to order a variety of on-demand computing and analytic services from the CIA and National Security Agency

04.02.2023 - 02:19 [ Laurie Law, Susan Sabett, Jerrry Solinas / technocracy.news ]

HOW TO MAKE A MINT: THE CRYPTOGRAPHY OF ANONYMOUS ELECTRONIC CASH*

(1997)

* This research Essay was prepared by NSA employees in furtherance of the study of
cryptography. The contents of the report do not necessarily represent the position or policies of the U.S. Government, the Department of Defense, or the National Security Agency. The authors are mathematical cryptographers at the National Security Agency‘s Office of Information Security Research and Technology.

04.02.2023 - 02:12 [ theHackerNews.com ]

Bitcoins – Secured by NSA designed Encryption or Backdoored ?

(Sep 13, 2013)

The integrity of Bitcoin depends on a hash function called SHA-256, which was designed by the NSA and published by the National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST).

Is it hard to believe that could the intelligence community have a secret exploit for Bitcoin?

04.02.2023 - 01:55 [ Technocracy.news ]

Bitcoin: Evidence Points To The NSA As Its Original Engineer

( December 13, 2017)

I’m going to assume the readers who make it to this article are well informed enough that I don’t have to go into the history of the global money changers and their desire for a one world currency. (If you don’t yet understand the goal of the globalist banking empire and the coming engineered collapse of the fiat currency system, you’re already about 5,000 posts behind the curve.)

With that as a starting point, it’s now becoming increasingly evident that Bitcoin may be a creation of the NSA and was rolled out as a “normalization” experiment to get the public familiar with digital currency. Once this is established, the world’s fiat currencies will be obliterated in an engineered debt collapse (see below for the sequence of events), then replaced with a government approved cryptocurrency with tracking of all transactions and digital wallets by the world’s western governments.

29.01.2023 - 08:51 [ Telegraph.co.uk ]

British intel may have been leaked to Russia by German ‚double-agent‘

(07.01.2023)

The case will likely have “deep implications” for future cooperation between the BND and other western spy agencies, said Erich Schmidt-Eenboom, a leading expert on the German spy service.

His level of seniority meant that he had access to highly classified partner intelligences, “in particular that of the (US intelligence agency) NSA”, added Mr Schmidt-Eenboom, author of several books on the BND.

08.01.2023 - 06:11 [ Inforadio.de ]

Geheimdienstexperte zu BND-Spion: Herber Niederschlag für Ukraine

(27.12.2022)

Russland könnte durch die Spionage in der Lage sein, Gegenmaßnahmen zu treffen, sagt Schmidt-Eenboom. Die Sorge sei, dass die ganze westliche nachrichtendienstliche Aufklärung gegenüber Russland nachhaltig beschädigt werde. Zur Bedeutung der Geheimdienste des Westens betont er: „Ohne die nachrichtendienstliche Unterstützung hätten die ukrainischen Streitkräfte diesen Krieg längst verloren.“

08.01.2023 - 05:52 [ Telegraph.co.uk ]

British intel may have been leaked to Russia by German ‚double-agent‘

The case will likely have “deep implications” for future cooperation between the BND and other western spy agencies, said Erich Schmidt-Eenboom, a leading expert on the German spy service.

His level of seniority meant that he had access to highly classified partner intelligences, “in particular that of the (US intelligence agency) NSA”, added Mr Schmidt-Eenboom, author of several books on the BND.

15.12.2022 - 09:00 [ Radio Utopie ]

Spionage und Informationskontrolle: Der technologische Quantensprung in 1943

(20.7.2014)

USA, 1943. Mitten im Zweiten Weltkrieg.

In einem Labor der 1877 vom Schwiegervater Alexander Graham Bells gegründeten Bell Company (heute der Weltkonzern AT&T), die für das 1860 gegründete Signal Corps der US Armee arbeitet, testet ein Wissenschaftler der Bell Company das 1925 von der US Armee in Dienst gestellte verschlüsselnde Text-Kommunikationssystem SIGTOT. Es arbeitet nach dem US Patent #1,310,719 für ein „geheimes Signalsystem“ des Bell Technikers Gilbert S. Vernam aus 1919 und benutzt zur Verschlüsselung ein Bell Gerät namens 131-B2.

An jenem Tage des Jahres 1943 bemerkt nun der für die US Armee arbeitende Wissenschaftler der Bell Company ein technisches Phänomen, welches bis heute fast der gesamten Weltbevölkerung unbekannt ist, obwohl es die Sicherheit, die Privatsphäre, die Gesellschaften, die Staaten, die Sicherheit und das Leben von heute 7 Milliarden Menschen unmittelbar berührt und gefährdet:

jedes Mal wenn er über den verschlüsselnden Text-Kommunikations-Apparat SIGTOT einen Buchstaben eintippt, schlägt in einem entfernten Teil des Labors ein Oszilloskop aus. Und zwar fünf Mal, für jedes Zeichen pro Sekunde („baud“). Als er die angezeigten Spannungsspitzen näher analysiert, stellt er fest, dass er die in den Text-Kommunikations-Apparat der Armee per Hand eingetippten und anschließend verschlüsselten Texte aus der Entfernung unverschlüsselt mitlesen kann.

15.12.2022 - 08:53 [ National Security Agency ]

TEMPEST: A Signal Problem

(1972)

Now, let´s go back to the beginning. During World War II, the backbone systems for Army und Navy secure teletypewriter communications were one-time tapes and the primitive crypto-equipment SIGTOT. For encrypting, the Services used a Bell-telephone mixing device, called 131-B2. When one of these mixers was being tested in a Bell laboratory, a researcher noticed, quite by accident, that each time the machine stepped, a spike appeared on an oscilloscope in a distant part of the lab. After he examined these spikes more carefully, he found that he could read the plain text of the message being enciphered by the machine.