Technology
Top-Secret NSA Internet Spying Program ‘PRISM’ Uncovered
Jun 7th
PRISM spy program harvests Internet information
The National Security Agency has obtained direct access to the systems of Google, Facebook, Apple and other US internet giants, according to a top secret document obtained by the Guardian.
Top secret PRISM program claims direct access to servers of firms including Google, Facebook and Apple
The NSA access is part of a previously undisclosed program called PRISM, which allows officials to collect material including search history, the content of emails, file transfers and live chats, the document says.
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.
In a statement, Google said: “Google cares deeply about the security of our users’ data. We disclose user data to government in accordance with the law, and we review all such requests carefully. From time to time, people allege that we have created a government ‘back door’ into our systems, but Google does not have a back door for the government to access private user data.”
Several senior tech executives insisted that they had no knowledge of PRISM or of any similar scheme. They said they would never have been involved in such a program. “If they are doing this, they are doing it without our knowledge,” one said.
An Apple spokesman said it had “never heard” of PRISM. The NSA access was enabled by changes to US surveillance law introduced under President Bush and renewed under Obama in December 2012.
The program facilitates extensive, in-depth surveillance on live communications and stored information. The law allows for the targeting of any customers of participating firms who live outside the US, or those Americans whose communications include people outside the US.
It also opens the possibility of communications made entirely within the US being collected without warrants.
Disclosure of the PRISM program follows a leak to the Guardian on Wednesday of a top-secret court order compelling telecoms provider Verizon to turn over the telephone records of millions of US customers.
“It’s shocking enough just that the NSA is asking companies to do this,” he said. “The NSA is part of the military. The military has been granted unprecedented access to civilian communications. ”This is unprecedented militarisation of domestic communications infrastructure. That’s profoundly troubling to anyone who is concerned about that separation.”
The participation of the internet companies in PRISM will add to the debate, ignited by the Verizon revelation, about the scale of surveillance by the intelligence services. Unlike the collection of those call records, this surveillance can include the content of communications and not just the metadata.
Some of the world’s largest internet brands are claimed to be part of the information-sharing program since its introduction in 2007
Microsoft – which is currently running an advertising campaign with the slogan “Your privacy is our priority” – was the first, with collection beginning in December 2007.
It was followed by Yahoo in 2008; Google, Facebook and PalTalk in 2009; YouTube in 2010; Skype and AOL in 2011; and finally Apple, which joined the program in 2012. The program is continuing to expand, with other providers due to come online.
Collectively, the companies cover the vast majority of online email, search, video and communications networks. source – Guardian UK
Drone Makes Surprise Appearance At Kids Swim Meet In FL
May 18th
A chilling effect
This is conspiracy, but not a theory. I saw it with my own eyes. It happened tonight at a children’s swim meet in Northeast Florida. I was watching my children participate in the season-opener swim meet, and it was nearly over, just one more race to go. When, without warning, a drone appeared seemingly from nowhere, and began to circle slowly overhead.
I took these photos tonight on my iPhone as the drone hovered overhead for nearly five minutes.
A collective hush fell on the crowd of nearly 100 people as the drone slowly but methodically circled overhead. Disbelief was the expression on most of the faces of the people who saw it. As I stood there, snapping pictures and video, my mind began to race and recall some of the drone stories we have done in the last year.
Drones are the calling card of the Obama regime
I remembered New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg telling us that “it’s now Big Brother, and you better get used to it.” I remembered the story we did on how President Obama has now authorized drones to monitor people’s cell phone usage from the sky. Even the story about the Maple Seed Drones developed by US Governmental supplier Lockheed Martin.
Friends, the promise of Barack Hussein Obama to ‘fundamentally change America’ has come true. The America we love and used to know is gone, and it’s never coming back. George Orwell said that the “Big Brother” society he warned us about would take place in 1984. He was only off by 29 years.
Obama was caught up this week in the terrifying IRS targeting of conservatives and Tea Party-based groups who like to pray to God and read the Constitution. Drones are monitoring children’s swim meets, and soon will be an accepted fact of every day life. Obama is on record as of yesterday saying that he ‘offers no apologies’ for any of the scandals he and his administration are currently involved in. And he means it. He is not sorry one single bit, and given the chance, he will enslave America in exactly the same way as Hitler did to Germany in 1932.
Obama is busy now creating his private civilian army that will rival the United States military, as he promised to do in 2008. But he won’t be the ‘commander-in-chief’ of this army.
He will be the dictator.
Will NYC ‘Harmless’ Toxic Gas Subway Drill Explode Into Terror?
May 17th
Watch out for the ‘safety drill’, it’s a killer
At the exact time of the Newtown School Shooting in Sandy Hook, our federal government was running an active shooter drill staged around a school shooting. At the time of the Boston Marathon Shooting, our federal government was conducting a drill based on what would happen if a shooter started hitting runners. So now that word comes that a “drill” will be conducted in the New York City subway system around toxic gas being released, it’s nearly a sure bet that actual toxic gas will be released resulting in the deaths of dozens of people.
One thing is for sure, though: if our federal government comes to your town to conduct a “safety drill”, run as far away and as fast as you can.
From RT: The New York City Police Department announced Wednesday that it will deploy, then track, what it calls “harmless” gases into the city’s subway system over three non-consecutive days this summer.
The plan, to be enacted in July, will investigate New York’s readiness to handle a chemical terrorist attack by dispersing the colorless gas and tracing it as it flows through the city, according to Scientific American. The test is expected to cost $3.4 million and is scheduled to be carried out in all five boroughs and dozens of stations on 21 of the city’s 34 subway lines.
“The NYPD works for the best but plans for the worst when it comes to potentially catastrophic attacks such as ones employing radiological contaminants or weaponized anthrax,” police commissioner Ray Kelly said in a statement.
The police will use roughly 200 detectors to monitor the gas. Dubbed the Subway-Surface Air Flow Exchange, the test will be the largest of its kind and organized in cooperation with the energy department’s Brookhaven National Laboratory. They’ll use perfluorocarbon tracer gases (PFTs), which are frequently used to measure potential sites for underground construction.
Despite the science fiction catastrophe a plan of this magnitude naturally conjures, Fernando Ferrer, the acting chairman of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority maintained that it will not impact commuters.
“The NYPD, in partnership with the MTA, is responsible for keeping more than 5 million daily subway customers safe and secure,” he said in a statement Wednesday. “This study will bolster the NYPD’s understanding of contaminant dispersion within the subway system as well as between the subway system and street, thereby improving its ability to better protect both customers and the city population at large.”
The scheduled gas deployment comes years after investigators foiled an Al-Qaeda terrorist plot to bomb the New York subways, the largest public transportation system in the world. Three men had planned to detonate suicide vests just days before the eighth anniversary of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in what US Attorney General Eric Holder at the time called “one of the most serious threats” to the United States since 2001. source – RT
Obama’s America Has Become A Militarized Zone
Mar 25th
RELATED STORY: Obama’s Private Army and FEMA Detention Camps
When a fire broke out in a church in Mesa County, Colo., in September 2011, the police department was ready with its flight team. Strapping a thermal camera to a Draganflyer X6, they flew the drone above the burning building. Together, police and firemen identified hotspots in the structure, and traced the direction in which the fire was spreading.
At a quick glance, it’s nearly impossible to tell if this is an invading military force or the SWAT team from sheriff’s department in Montgomery County, Texas…is there a difference anymore?
In 2010, a 5-pound Marcus drone was loaned to forest rangers in West Virginia by University Cincinnati researchers, in order to monitor a controlled burn. Now the group is developing an unmanned system to help control wildfires.
“With drones, we have arrived at a moment when it is technologically possible to engage in constant mass aerial surveillance,” the ACLU’s Jay Stanley told NBC News. But don’t surveillance cameras do some of that already? “We don’t like those either,” Stanley added, “But I think that drones raise the stakes considerably from there.” source – MSNBC
Drones across America a reality
Despite Americans’ concerns about the domestic use of drones, California local agencies are reportedly moving forward with an application to declare a broad swath of Southern California a “drone zone” – an area to be used to test pilotless aircraft. The purpose: government stimulus.
In California, the San Diego Military Advisory Council (SDMAC) and the San Diego Regional Economic Development Corporation (EDC) have filed an application with the Federal Aviation Administration to create a drone zone. These groups want to stimulate state drone business, even as the state raises its taxes repeatedly, driving out other business. Northrup Grumman, a major drone producer, has relocated branches of its unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) program to Southern California. General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, which produces Predator drones, is located in Poway. The UAV industry in San Diego County clocks in at approximately $1.3 billion, and that number is growing fast.
And it’s not just California
The FAA is prepared to greenlight six test zones across the country, and over 40 applications have been filed or will be filed shortly, according to the San Diego Union-Tribune. Applicants include the State Department, the Ohio Department of Transportation, the National Institute of Standards and technologies, and the Grand Forks Sheriff’s Department. The winners of this drone zone sweepstakes will be able to claim a chunk of what may be a $10 billion industry. Senator Harry Reid’s office says he pushed the FAA program that laid the groundwork for the drone zones. “We had Nevada in mind,” said Reid’s spokeswoman to the Las Vegas Sun. But the zones are bipartisan-approved: Gov. Brian Sandoval (R-NV) is apparently working with Reid and the FAA to try to grab one of the zones. source – Breitbart
Apple To Roll Out Hyper-Invasive Indoor Tracking Technology
Mar 25th
The 666 Surveillance System
For many years now, NTEB has been telling you of the coming worldwide tracking system that, one day, will be connected to the Antichrist and the Mark of the Beast. We call it the 666 Surveillance System. Please keep that in mind as your read the story below…
From Fox News: Apple is looking to beef up the iPhone’s indoor location capabilities by acquiring WiFiSlam. According to The Wall Street Journal, which first reported the deal, Apple paid $20 million to scoop up the two-year-old startup based in Silicon Valley.
The next time you update your iPhone software, Apple will be able to track you down to the exact corner of the room you are in. Now why would they need to know that? Hmmm….
Using Wi-Fi signals, WiFiSlam determines a user’s location within buildings, which has implications for shopping, advertising and social networking. According to WiFiSlam, its technology can pinpoint a smartphone with 2.5 accuracy.
“We are building the next generation of location-based mobile apps that, for the first time, engage with users at the scale that personal interaction actually takes place,” a description reads on AngelList’s investment page for WiFiSlam. “Applications range from step-by-step indoor navigation, to product-level retail customer engagement, to proximity-based social networking.”
Perhaps WiFiSlam’s technology could help Apple not only makes its iAd platform more robust by delivering location-based offers but enhance the accuracy of its Passbook service. We’ve received lock screen notifications for Walgreens while we were a quarter of a mile away.
Apple gets some Google juice out of the deal, too. WiFiSlam’s co-founder, Joseph Huang, is a former Google software engineering intern. And one of the company’s angel investors was a Google employee. source – Fox News
NYC Mayor Bloomberg Says ‘It’s Big Brother, Get Used To It’
Mar 23rd
Bloomberg’s Vision of a Drone Police State Coming True
RELATED STORY: The 666 Surveillance System and the Mark of the Beast
Envisioning a future where privacy is a thing of the past, Mayor Bloomberg said Friday it will soon be impossible to escape the eye of Big Brother in the city.
“You wait, in five years, the technology is getting better, they’ll be cameras every place,” Bloomberg said during his weekly radio appearance. “Get used to it — whether you like it or not.”
It’s coming, Bloomberg declared, “whether you like it or not”…
The Police Department already has a network of its own surveillance cameras throughout the city, including in Times Square. And in Lower Manhattan, an initiative developed after 9/11 known as the “Ring of Steel” integrates the NYPD’s cameras with those of banks and other institutions.The security measures have drawn scorn from some civil libertarians — but Bloomberg scoffed at privacy concerns on his Friday morning program on WOR-AM. “The argument against using automation is just this craziness that ‘Oh, it’s Big Brother,’” Bloomberg said. “Get used to it!”
In the future, the cameras won’t just be limited to buildings and red lights. Some of them will be able to fly, the mayor pointed out.
“It’s scary,” he said. “But what’s the difference whether the drone is up in the air or on the building? I mean intellectually I have trouble making a distinction. And you know you’re gonna have face recognition software. People are working on that.”
Bloomberg warned that drones would be able to peep into a home’s windows — adding that Peeping Tom legislation could help maintain some privacy.
“It’s just we’re going into a different world, unchartered…,” he said, adding that you “can’t keep the tides from coming in.” source- NY Daily News
Obama Orders DHS To Scan US Civilian Emails, Web Traffic
Mar 22nd
Executive Order on Improving Critical Infrastructure Cybersecurity
RELATED STORY: Obama’s Private Army and FEMA Detention Camps
The U.S. government is expanding a cybersecurity program that scans Internet traffic headed into and out of defense contractors to include far more of the country’s private, civilian-run infrastructure.
Last month’s presidential order calls for commercial providers of “enhanced cybersecurity services” to extend their offerings to critical infrastructure companies. What constitutes critical infrastructure is still being refined, but it would include utilities, banks and transportation such as trains and highways.
As a result, more private sector employees than ever before, including those at big banks, utilities and key transportation companies, will have their emails and Web surfing scanned as a precaution against cyber attacks.
Under last month’s White House executive order on cybersecurity, the scans will be driven by classified information provided by U.S. intelligence agencies — including data from the National Security Agency (NSA) — on new or especially serious espionage threats and other hacking attempts. U.S. spy chiefs said on March 12 that cyber attacks have supplanted terrorism as the top threat to the country.
The Department of Homeland Security will gather the secret data and pass it to a small group of telecommunication companies and cyber security providers that have employees holding security clearances, government and industry officials said. Those companies will then offer to process email and other Internet transmissions for critical infrastructure customers that choose to participate in the program.
DHS as the middleman
By using DHS as the middleman, the Obama administration hopes to bring the formidable overseas intelligence-gathering of the NSA closer to ordinary U.S. residents without triggering an outcry from privacy advocates who have long been leery of the spy agency’s eavesdropping.
The telecom companies will not report back to the government on what they see, except in aggregate statistics, a senior DHS official said in an interview granted on condition he not be identified.
“That allows us to provide more sensitive information,” the official said. “We will provide the information to the security service providers that they need to perform this function.” Procedures are to be established within six months of the order.
The administration is separately seeking legislation that would give incentives to private companies, including communications carriers, to disclose more to the government. NSA Director General Keith Alexander said last week that NSA did not want personal data but Internet service providers could inform the government about malicious software they find and the Internet Protocol addresses they were sent to and from.
“There is a way to do this that ensures civil liberties and privacy and does ensure the protection of the country,” Alexander told a congressional hearing.
Fears grow of destructive attack
In the past, Internet traffic-scanning efforts were mainly limited to government networks and Defense Department contractors, which have long been targets of foreign espionage.
But as fears grow of a destructive cyber attack on core, non-military assets, and more sweeping security legislation remained stalled, the Obama administration opted to widen the program.
Last month’s presidential order calls for commercial providers of “enhanced cybersecurity services” to extend their offerings to critical infrastructure companies. What constitutes critical infrastructure is still being refined, but it would include utilities, banks and transportation such as trains and highways.
Under the program, critical infrastructure companies will pay the providers, which will use the classified information to block attacks before they reach the customers. The classified information involves suspect Web addresses, strings of characters, email sender names and the like.
Not all the cybersecurity providers will be telecom companies, though AT&T is one. Raytheon said this month it had agreed with DHS to become a provider, and a spokesman said that customers could route their traffic to Raytheon after receiving it from their communications company.
As the new set-up takes shape, DHS officials and industry executives said some security equipment makers were working on hardware that could take classified rules about blocking traffic and act on them without the operator being able to reverse-engineer the codes. That way, people wouldn’t need a security clearance to use the equipment.
Civil liberties implications
The issue of scanning everything headed to a utility or a bank still has civil liberties implications, even if each company is a voluntary participant.
Lee Tien, a senior staff attorney with the nonprofit Electronic Frontier Foundation, said that the executive order did not weaken existing privacy laws, but any time a machine acting on classified information is processing private communications, it raises questions about the possibility of secret extra functions that are unlikely to be answered definitively.
“You have to wonder what else that box does,” Tien said.
One technique for examining email and other electronic packets en route, called deep packet inspection, has stirred controversy for years, and some cybersecurity providers said they would not be using that. In deep packet inspection, communication companies or others with network access can examine all the elements of a transmission, including the content of emails.
“The signatures provided by DHS do not require deep packet inspection,” said Steve Hawkins, vice president at Raytheon’s Intelligence and Information Systems division, referring further questions to DHS.
The DHS official said the government is still in conversations with the telecom operators on the issue. The official said the government had no plans to roll out any such form of government-guided close examination of Internet traffic into the communications companies serving the general public. source – NBC News
