Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey will interview Edward Snowden on Periscope

Jack Dorsey is the CEO of both Square and Twitter. Image: Reuters

By tech2 News Staff /  13 Dec 2016 , 12:20

Jack Dorsey will conduct an interview with Edward Snowden on Periscope. Jack Dorsey is a known supporter of the Pardon Snowden movement, an initiative that aims to get a presidential pardon for Snowden.

Snowden blew the whistle on the NSA spying on US citizens without democratic consent, and pushed the tech industry towards taking more steps to safeguard the privacy of their users. Other known supporters of the Pardon Snowden campaign include Steve Wozniak, Tim Berners-Lee, Neil Gaiman and Mark Ruffalo.

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Tomorrow I'm talking with Twitter CEO @Jack at 12:05 EST. You'll be able to watch live via @PardonSnowden and ask questions via #AskSnowden https://twitter.com/PardonSnowden/status/808439089221533697 …

1:58 AM - 13 Dec 2016

 
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Edward Snowden famously exposed the illegal surveillance of US citizens by agencies. He has been on the run since then, and there has been a campaign to bring him back to the United States after being granted a pardon for spying on the spy agencies spying on the citizens. Snowden describes himself succinctly on Twitter as someone who worked for the government and now works for the public.

Snowden is popular all over the world for defending the right of privacy, particularly in Europe, which has much stronger privacy laws as compared to the United States. In Germany, fans of Snowden asked President Barack Obama if he could pardon Snowden,but Obama ruled out the possibility as the proper procedures were not initiated in the courts in the first place for the pardon to be granted.

Snowden is reportedly working on an iPhone case that prevents any kind of surveillance. He has also warned users against using Google’s instant messaging application, Allo, for holding secure and confidential conversations.

In India, the time for the interview works out to around 10:30 PM, tonight. The live Periscope interview will be hosted by the @PardonSnowden Twitter account. Users can submit questions for Dorsey to pose to Snowden using the #AskSnowden hashtag.

US and UK spies tried accessing data from passengers’ mobile phones on commercial airline, says report

  09 Dec 2016 , 10:49

American and British spy agencies have tried to intercept data from passengers’ mobile phones on commercial airlines including Air France, French media has reported, citing documents from US whistleblower Edward Snowden.

The French flag-carrier was an early target of the US National Security Agency and its British counterpart GCHQ as it was seen as a terrorist target and it carried out tests in 2007 on allowing the use of mobile phones on its aircraft.

“The use of mobile phones with Internet connections in the sky gave rise to the creation of specific programs at the NSA and GCHQ,” said Le Monde, which has access to Snowden’s archive in partnership with news website The Intercept.

While it is not normally possible to make phone calls on planes, some carriers allow passengers to connect to a cabin Wi-Fi, allowing them to use internet-based functions on their handsets.

In 2012, at least 27 airlines allowed passengers to use mobile phones on board, including British Airways, Aeroflot, Etihad, Cathay Pacific, Lufthansa and Singapore Airlines.

But Air France was “such a symbol of the surveillance of communications on board airlines that the British spy agency used a drawing of one of their planes to illustrate how the interception worked.”

Asked about the British and American surveillance claims, Air France told Le Monde, “We are visibly not the only ones to have been targeted and we know absolutely nothing about these practices.”

According to the report, internal documents from the two agencies describe the results of the “impressive” programs – codenamed “Thieving Magpie” and “Homing Pigeon” – which allowed data to be collected “almost in real time”.

In order to spy on a telephone, all that was needed was that the aircraft be cruising at an altitude above 10,000 feet, the report said.

Secret aerial stations on the ground could intercept the signal as it transited through a satellite.

“The simple fact that the telephone was switched on was enough to give away its position, the interception could then be cross-referenced with the list of known passengers on the flight, the flight number, and the airline code to determine the name of the smartphone user,” the report said.

The mobile phone’s function could also be disrupted, it said, forcing the user to input their access codes and thereby allowing the British spy agency to intercept the information.

Snowden, a former National Security Agency contractor, leaked thousands of classified documents to the press in 2013 which revealed the vast scope of US surveillance of private data that was put in place after the 9/11 attacks.

After fleeing his home in Hawaii, he now lives in exile in Russia where he has sought asylum.

Should he ever return to the United States, Snowden would be tried for espionage and other charges carrying up to 30 years in prison.

AFP

Shadow Brokers reveal more tools from NSA trove

Image Credit: Venture Beat

  01 Nov 2016 , 09:25

A group calling itself “Shadow Brokers” says it has released another gem from its trove of high-level hacking tools stolen from the U.S.’s National Security Agency, potentially offering added insight into how America’s spies operate online. The leak discloses NSA-style codenames — including “Jackladder” and “Dewdrop”— and carries internet protocol information about scores of organizations, many based in Japan, China and South Korea, according to severalexperts who have examined the data.

Matthew Hickey, co-founder of U.K.-based cybersecurity consultancy Hacker House, said it was plausible that the servers would have seen use as staging posts to help obfuscate the origin of electronic eavesdropping operations. More worrying for the NSA, the leak backs Shadow Brokers’ claims to have stolen an as-yet undisclosed set of electronic lock picks from the agency.

“Those can be hard to generate,” Hickey said in a telephone interview, calling it “quite expensive to replicate all those tools.” Shadow Brokers has been closely followed by intelligence watchers and cybersecurity specialists since the group released an initial set of NSA hacking tools back in August. The seriousness of the leak was confirmed when security companies rushed to patch holes in their software revealed by the disclosure.

The Intercept, an investigative publication with access to NSA material leaked by former intelligence contractor Edward Snowden, later confirmed Shadow Brokers’ tools were really from the NSA by cross-referencing the leaked data with information held in a previously unpublished top secret manual. The authenticity of the latest batch of material could not immediately be established, although Hickey said any hoax would have to have been unusually elaborate.

Shadow Brokers did not return messages seeking comment Monday. The NSA declined to comment.

AP

Booz Allen Hamilton has hired former FBI chief to review security after NSA contractor gets arrested

Image Credit: REUTERS

  28 Oct 2016 , 11:09

Booz Allen Hamilton said on Thursday it had hired a former FBI chief to conduct an external review of its security practices, after the consulting firm learnt for the second time in three years that an employee working under contract with the National Security Agency had been charged with stealing classified information.

Booz Allen, which earns billions of dollars a year contracting with U.S. intelligence agencies, has come under renewed scrutiny in recent weeks after authorities took Harold Thomas Martin into custody. The firm also employed Edward Snowden, who leaked a trove of secret files to news organizations in 2013 that exposed vast domestic and international surveillance operations carried out by the NSA. Snowden, who was in Hong Kong when his disclosures surfaced, lives in Moscow under asylum.

Former Federal Bureau of Investigation Director Robert Mueller is leading the audit of security, personnel and management practices, Booz Allen said in a statement. The review began on Oct. 19. Martin, 51, was taken into custody in August, but his arrest was not announced publicly until earlier this month. Prosecutors have alleged he spent more than two decades pilfering secret documents and hoarding them at his home in Maryland, where investigators said they seized at least 50 terabytes of data.

Among the material allegedly stolen by Martin was a top secret document that contained “specific operational plans against a known enemy of the United States and its allies,” the prosecutors said. The FBI is investigating possible links between Martin and the leak online this summer of secret NSA hacking tools used to break into the computers of adversaries such as Russia and China, U.S. officials said.

“We fired Harold Martin as soon as we learnt of his arrest, and we have been fully cooperating with the FBI’s investigation,” Booz Allen spokesman Craig Veith said. “We are determined to learn from this incident and look more broadly at our processes and practices.”

Reuters

Challenges to tackle Insider threat regains focus after the arrest of former NSA contractor

  07 Oct 2016 , 14:45

The arrest of a former National Security Agency contractor for allegedly stealing classified information represents the second known case since 2013 of a government contractor being publicly accused of removing secret data from the intelligence agency. The latest case comes as the NSA has worked to reform security after the Edward Snowden disclosures, especially with regard to insider threats.

Harold Thomas Martin III, 51, of Glen Burnie, Maryland, was arrested by the FBI in August after federal prosecutors say he illegally removed highly classified information and stored the material in his home and car. A defence attorney said Martin did not intend to betray his country.

The arrest was not made public until Wednesday when the Justice Department unsealed a criminal complaint that accused Martin of having been in possession of top-secret information that could cause “exceptionally grave danger” to national security if disclosed.

It’s not yet clear when the documents were removed. But the fact that Snowden and Martin – both working for Booz Allen Hamilton as contractors for the NSA – were accused of leaving the NSA with highly classified documents raises questions about the effectiveness and adequacy of the intelligence agency’s internal security controls. The NSA, which put security upgrades into place following the Snowden disclosures, has declined to comment.

“One key thing we don’t have visibility into now is how he was caught because that would provide some insight into whether the reforms that were put in post-Snowden were effective or not or their relative efficacy,” said Rajesh De, who was the NSA’s general counsel when the Snowden story broke. Snowden’s 2013 theft of documents that were leaked to journalists revealed the NSA’s bulk collection of millions of Americans’ phone records.

Rep. Adam Schiff of California, the senior Democrat on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, said in a statement that “it is painfully clear that the intelligence community still has much to do to institutionalise reforms designed to protect (U.S. government secrets) from insider threats.”

White House spokesman Josh Earnest said the federal government has made important changes since Snowden’s disclosures. He said the government has reduced the number of people who need security clearances by 17 percent and has enhanced the quality of background checks. Martin’s arrest appears to illustrate the difficulty of guarding against an insider threat given that employees, by virtue of their clearance level and jobs, must be

NSA contractor working for Edward Snowden's former employer charged with stealing secrets

By Rob Thubron on October 6, 2016, 10:30 AM


In what appears to be a case of history repeating itself, the NSA has arrested a contractor working for Booz Allen Hamilton, the same firm that employed Edward Snowden, and charged him with unauthorized removal and retention of classified materials, as well as theft of government property.

According to a statement from the Department of Justice, the contractor is 51-year old Maryland resident Harold Thomas Martin III. The criminal complaint against him states that investigators found thousands of physical and digital documents marked as top secret when they searched his home on August 27.

TechCrunch reports that the material contained hacking codes for government systems in Russia, China and North Korea. Moreover, six of the discovered documents were said to be of an extremely sensitive nature.

According to the complaint, Martin initially denied taking the documents but later admitted to storing them in his home and car, despite knowing they were classified. “Martin stated that he knew what he had done was wrong and that he should not have done it because he knew it was unauthorized,” the affidavit states.

Edward Snowden famously passed NSA documents on to journalists in 2013. It’s unclear if Martin leaked the information in the his documents, or if he passed them on to a third party. His lawyers told the New York Times: “We have not seen any evidence. But what we know is that Hal Martin loves his family and his country. There is no evidence that he intended to betray his country.”

While no connection between Martin and Snowden has been made, investigators discovered Martin’s alleged theft when they were looking into the recent Shadow Brokers leak, which exposed what appeared to be malware used by the NSA. The leak took place two weeks before Martin’s arrest, suggesting he may not have any connection to it.

If found guilty, Martin could face up to ten years behind bars for his crimes. If it’s discovered that he shared the information with anyone, the contractor may face charges under the Espionage Act, just as Edward Snowden does.

NSA contractor arrested for stealing highly classified information

Image Credit: Wikimedia.org

  06 Oct 2016 , 10:55

A National Security Agency contractor has been arrested and charged with stealing highly classified information, authorities said on Wednesday, a data breach that could mark a damaging new leak about the US government’s surveillance efforts.

Harold Thomas Martin, 51, who worked for Booz Allen Hamilton, was taken into custody in Maryland in August, said a US official, speaking on condition of anonymity. Booze Allen is the consulting firm that employed Edward Snowden when he revealed the collection of metadata by the NSA in 2013.

Booz Allen said in a statement that when the company “learned of the arrest of one of its employees by the FBI,” they immediately fired the employee and offered full cooperation to the FBI.

The same month Martin was arrested, some of the NSA’s most sophisticated hacking tools were dumped onto public websites by a group calling itself Shadow Brokers.

The company’s stock was down 3.7 percent to $30.33 a share, following the report.

The US Justice Department charged Martin, who had top secret national security clearance, with theft of classified government material, according to

Yahoo built software to scan all its customers' emails for US spy agencies

By Rob Thubron on October 5, 2016, 6:15 AM


It seems there’s no end to Yahoo’s problems. Last month, the troubled company admittedthat at least 500 million user accounts had been compromised in a breach that took place in 2014. It claimed “state-sponsored actors” were responsible for the attack, though a security firm disputes this. Now, it’s been revealed that Yahoo secretly built custom software last year that scanned all of its customers’ incoming emails for information provided by US intelligence officials.

The report comes from Reuters’ Joseph Menn, citing three people familiar with the matter.

Yahoo was complying with a classified US government request when it created the scanning tool that searched hundreds of millions of user emails at the behest of the National Security Agency or FBI. The software was searching for a specific string of characters, though it’s unclear exactly what words or phrases it was looking for and what data, if any, Yahoo handed over to the authorities.

When Yahoo’s internal security team discovered the software, they initial thought it was the work of hackers. Company CEO Marissa Mayer’s decision to comply with the demand led to Chief Security Officer Alex Stamos leaving his position to join Facebook in June 2015. Stamos said a programming flaw could have allowed hackers to access the stored emails.

The incident is the first known case of a company agreeing to an agency’s request to scan all arriving emails, rather than probing stored messages or a small number of accounts in real time. "Yahoo is a law-abiding company, and complies with the laws of the United States," the firm said

Moscow replacing Microsoft Exchange and Outlook with local products; Windows and Office may be next

By Rob Thubron on September 28, 2016, 12:15 PM


Russia’s capital city of Moscow is getting rid of Microsoft’s products, replacing them with domestic software. The move comes after President Vladimir Putin called for Russian authorities and companies to be less reliant on foreign technology.

The first casualties will be Microsoft’s Exchange Server and Outlook on 6000 Moscow computers. An email system installed by state-run carrier Rostelecom PJSC will replace the Redmond firm’s programs.

Bloomberg reports that authorities are looking to expand the homegrown system, developed by Russia’s New Cloud Technologies, to as many as 600,000 computers in the future. Artem Yermolaev, head of information technology for Moscow, said that Microsoft Windows and Office could be the next products that get replaced.

The migration to the new email servers is expected to take two years. The city has budgeted around $700,000 for the project, with the new licenses reportedly around 30 percent cheaper than Microsoft’s. Communications minister Nikolay Nikiforov said: “We want the money of taxpayers and state-run firms to be primarily spent on local software”.

The decision to abandon Microsoft comes at a time of high tensions between Russia and United States. The EU and US sanctions that followed the annexation of Crimea saw many American companies shutter or cut back their business dealings in the country.

Putin’s internet czar, German Klimenko, wants heavy taxes on U.S. technology companies, including 18 percent on app store purchases, to help Russian competitors in the country’s $3 billion software market.

Russia has been looking to tighten its grip over the nation's tech industry recently. Back in June, it was reported that the country was looking to make backdoors mandatory in all encrypted messaging apps, part of an “anti-terror” bill that Edward Snowden called a “Big Brother law.”