Boing Boing » spying

The CONET Project: spy station recordings reissued

David Pescovitz — Tue, 26 Mar 2013 18:00:48 +0000

In 1999, I wrote an article for the bOING bOING Digital site about the CONET Project, a multi-CD collection of mysterious "numbers stations" heard on shortwave. For decades, intelligence organizations have reportedly broadcast one-way messages to their agents in the field via shortwave, and the transmissions happen to sound weirder than any Stockhausen score or minimalist electronica you've ever heard -- a child's voice, or the obviously synthesized intonation on what's known as the "Lincolnshire Poacher" station, named for the folk song accompanying the numbers. Wilco's album Yankee Hotel Foxtrot is named for, and samples, a numbers station. The CONET Project has been available for several years for free download from various places online, including Archive.org. Now, the original compilers, Irdial-Discs MMX, have re-released The Conet Project in a special CD edition that includes the four original discs plus a fifth CD containing recordings of very strange "noise stations."

"The CONET Project: Recordings of Shortwave Numbers Stations / 1111"

"Spy vs. Spy: The Soundtrack" (bOING bOING Digital)

Space spy? NASA researcher, a Chinese national, arrested on plane bound for China

Xeni Jardin — Wed, 20 Mar 2013 17:53:04 +0000

Aerospace contractor Bo Jiang, who is accused by U.S. Rep. Frank Wolf (R-VA) of being a spy, made a first appearance in federal court on Monday. The Chinese national worked on contract at NASA's Langley's Research Center in Hampton, VA.

Federal agents grabbed him over the weekend just as he was boarding a flight from Dulles airport (in DC) to Beijing. He is charged with making false statements to U.S. authorities by failing to disclose all of the electronic devices he was carrying on his one-way flight, and has since been jailed.

From congressman Wolf's statement, which references the text of the federal warrant:

On Friday, March 15, federal agents learned that Mr. Jiang "was leaving the United States abruptly to return to China on a one-way ticket."
On Saturday, March 16, Mr. Jiang traveled by plane from Norfolk to Dulles to connect to a flight to China. While at Dulles he boarded a plane to Beijing. During a "border stop," federal agents conducted a search of Jiang's personal items.
And I'm quoting now directly from the arrest warrant: "During the consensual encounter, federal agents asked Jiang what electronic media he had with him. Jiang told the Homeland Security agent that he had a cellphone, a memory stick, and external hard drive and a new computer. However, during the search, other media items were located that Jiang did not reveal. Such items include an additional laptop, an old hard drive and a SIM card."
The warrant also notes that the FBI "believes this to be material to the federal investigation, in that it was important to learn what electronic media Jiang was taking out of the United States." It also mentions that agents are aware that Mr. Jiang previously traveled to China with a laptop belonging to NASA that agents believe to have contained sensitive information.

NASAWatch has links to all the early coverage.

CBS News has an updated account here. The Atlantic has an explainer post here, and the arrest warrant.

Sen. John Kerry has a planned trip to China coming up in the next few weeks. I'd imagine the Chinese government will not be happy about this case, which by any measure has so far provided all involved with more questions than answers.

(Thanks, Aileen Graef)

Texas judge questions tools that grab cellphone data from innocent people

Xeni Jardin — Wed, 21 Nov 2012 21:09:42 +0000

The Wall Street Journal reports that a Texas judge is asking questions about whether investigators are providing courts with sufficient detail details on technlogies that allow them to grab data on all cellphones in a given area, including those of people who are most certainly innocent of any crime. Snip:

One of the investigative tools in question is something called a “cell tower dump,” which allows law enforcement to get information on all the phones in a given area at a given time.
In two cases, Magistrate Judge Brian Owsley rejected federal requests to allow the warrantless use of “stingrays” and “cell tower dumps,” two different tools that are used for cellphone tracking. The judge said the government should apply for warrants in the cases, but the attorneys had instead applied for lesser court orders.
Among the judge’s biggest concerns: that the agents and U.S. attorneys making the requests didn’t provide details on how the tools worked or would be used — and even seemed to have trouble explaining the technology.

Petraeus let down guard, pants; Broadwell revealed CIA ops as self-appointed mouthpiece

Xeni Jardin — Mon, 12 Nov 2012 19:26:19 +0000

At Wired Danger Room, Noah Shachtman and Spencer Ackerman have an update this morning on the Petraeus/Broadwell mess. The focus: what the hell was Broadwell doing, apparently leaking CIA operational secrets at a public appearance she gave at an October 26 alumni symposium at the University of Denver?

The mistress of former CIA Director David Petraeus publicly discussed sensitive and previously unknown details about the assault on the U.S. mission in Benghazi, Libya.

In an October 26 alumni symposium at the University of Denver, Paula Broadwell said that the CIA annex at the Benghazi consulate came under assault on Sept. 11 because it had earlier “taken a couple of Libyan militia members prisoner and they think the attack on the consulate was an effort to try to get these prisoners back. It’s still being vetted.” (That information was not part of the CIA’s timeline of the Benghazi assault, and Eli Lake of the Daily Beast reports that the CIA has denied any such detention.) “I don’t know if a lot of you have heard this,” Broadwell prefaced her remarks by saying.

It was a surprising disclosure, given the deep classification of the CIA’s detention policies — and the enormous political stakes surrounding the Benghazi assault. But in many ways, it was only natural for Broadwell, given her evolution from Petraeus protegee to biographer to paramour and unofficial spokesperson.

More here, all worth reading, with some juicy details on the sex lives of the military elite.

Also out today, Petraeus says he knew nothing about Broadwell's harassing emails, and was shocked, shocked, to discover the behavior.

Previous reports, citing people involved in the FBI investigation that resulted in Petraeus' ouster, say Broadwell had classified docs on her computer, but that the CIA chief wasn't the source. So who was? And if we're reading this correctly, and Broadwell did leak secrets, will the administration prosecute her with the same zeal it has shown in going after Bradley Manning, Wikileaks and anyone suspected of being a Wikileaks supporter, and other corruption whistleblowers?

Additional questions I'd like to understand: if Petraeus didn't commit a crime, and there was no policy violation, why was he booted out—and in such dramatic fashion? Why did any of this end up going public, once the FBI determined he'd leaked no secrets and broken no laws or conduct codes?

Can the FBI be your private army? Harassing emails are not a crime. How did the FBI get access? If harassing emails are grounds for an FBI investigation, hoo boy, let me take you to my in-box, people.

Jill Kelley, the "other other woman," the unpaid "social liason" for CENTCOM in Tampa, evidently received a handful of "why are you flirting with my man" and "get away from my boo" emails from Broadwell, who used an alias and a poorly-cloaked Gmail account to send the harassing email.

Kelley is said to have contacted a friend who was an FBI agent, who very helpfully launched an official FBI probe to figure out who was sending her these annoying emails, which did not, according to reports, contain threats of personal harm or death.

Since when is the FBI available (for anyone with the right social connections) as a private troll-uncloaking cyber police force?

Do you have any idea how hard it is to get the FBI to take action on an actual online death threat case, if the recipient isn't a well-connected "honorary ambassador" in the military social elite? The short version: it simply does not happen. This whole story smells.

As former Wired News reporter Ryan Singel tweeted, "If the Broadwell/Petraeus case doesn't show how ridiculous the FBI's powers are, I don't know what will prove it to you."

FBI buddy opens investigation. To see IF crime committed, get info from OTHER email providers to see if accessed from that IP. What?
— Ryan Singel (@rsingel) November 12, 2012

This is total bullshit and reporters writing up as if this is normal practice. FBI ignores email death threats.
— Ryan Singel (@rsingel) November 12, 2012

But someone with connex gets FBI to investigate random e-mails? And then FBI goes 2703D or NSL? Shameful.
— Ryan Singel (@rsingel) November 12, 2012

Let me re-phrase: sending emails warning someone to stay away from yr man is free speech. Not grounds for FBI probe.
— Ryan Singel (@rsingel) November 12, 2012

What judge approved inquiries and on what grounds? And if turned into nat sec inv. all these leak are illegal. There's no crime.
— Ryan Singel (@rsingel) November 12, 2012

Final thought to press: The how, why, legality and import of FBI probe and powers is the story. Not the sex.
— Ryan Singel (@rsingel) November 12, 2012

Petraeus outed by Gmail

Xeni Jardin — Sat, 10 Nov 2012 04:38:53 +0000

As reported earlier today, CIA chief David Petraeus has resigned after an FBI probe into whether someone else was using his email led to the discovery he was having an extramarital affair.

The Wall Street Journal reports that the investigation focused on his Gmail account, and that the traffic they observed "led agents to believe the woman or someone close to her had sought access to his email." The woman in question has now been identified as West Point graduate Paula Broadwell, author of "All In: The Education of General David Petraeus."

While Mr. Petraeus was still a general, he had email exchanges with the woman, but there wasn't a physical relationship, the person said. The affair began after Mr. Petraeus retired from the Army in August 2011 and ended months ago, the person said.

Previously: CIA chief Petraeus steps down, having failed to keep his drone in his pants

Judge prods FBI over plans for Internet spying

Xeni Jardin — Mon, 05 Nov 2012 12:26:03 +0000

At CNET, Declan McCullagh reports on a federal judge's rejection of the FBI's attempts to withhold information about its efforts to make backdoors for government surveillance mandatory for internet firms.

CNET has learned that U.S. District Judge Richard Seeborg ruled on Tuesday that the government did not adequately respond to a Freedom of Information Act request from the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
Seeborg, in San Francisco, ordered (PDF) a "further review of the materials previously withheld" in the lawsuit, which seeks details about what the FBI has dubbed "Going Dark" -- the bureau's ongoing effort to force companies including Apple, Microsoft, Facebook, Yahoo, and Google to alter their code to ensure their products are wiretap-friendly.

One almost-entirely-redacted document that the FBI turned over.

New Orleans cancels plans for Super Bowl drone, after indie paper investigates

Xeni Jardin — Wed, 19 Sep 2012 18:02:44 +0000

Above, "The Bravo 300," a tactical drone manufactured in New Orleans by Crescent Unmanned Systems. Weeks after New Orleans local investigative paper The Lens began digging into city officials’ plans to use a U.S. Homeland Security Department aerial drone to monitor crowds at the upcoming Super Bowl, a spokesman for Mayor Mitch Landrieu announced that the city is no longer pursuing those plans.

Spokesman Ryan Berni offered no reason for dropping the eye-in-the-sky technology, telling a reporter to submit a public-records request. In a brief phone interview, he would say only that the decision to ditch the drone was made “over the past several days.” In a follow-up email, Berni said Homeland Security would be providing a manned helicopter, equipped with a camera, and that “the City learned by phone in the last few weeks” about the switch.

NSA to AT&T customers who believe wiretapping violates their rights: neener neener neener

Xeni Jardin — Tue, 18 Sep 2012 15:52:31 +0000

Courthouse News Service has an extensive explainer on the state of a legal battle between The National Security Agency and a group of non-terrorist AT&T customers who claim that warrantless wiretapping violates their rights. The short version: NSA argues it is immune from their federal lawsuit because REASONS.

If this law passes, cops may finally need a warrant to read your Gmail

Xeni Jardin — Thu, 13 Sep 2012 22:12:59 +0000

Cyrus Farivar at Ars Technica: "Right now, if the cops want to read my e-mail, it’s pretty trivial for them to do so. All they have to do is ask my online e-mail provider. But a new bill set to be introduced Thursday in the Senate Judiciary Committee by its chair, Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT), seems to stand the best chance of finally changing that situation and giving e-mail stored on remote servers the same privacy protections as e-mail stored on one's home computer."

Watch the watchers with this homebrew map of surveillance cams in Tampa at RNC convention

Xeni Jardin — Tue, 28 Aug 2012 15:43:31 +0000

Tampa, Florida web developer Jon Gales mapped the city's new network of downtown surveillence cameras installed for the Republican convention, to empower fellow citizens to become aware of the encroaching surveillance society. City authorities have not responded to his queries about what will happen to the cameras once the convention ends.

Gales himself lives in downtown Tampa. It was on his daily walks to work in July when he first noticed the cameras being installed by contractors. He says that the city never had to hold hearings about the installation of the cameras because they are being funded through a $50 million federal grant that the city received to prepare for the convention. That left him wondering what would happen after the convention. Would the cameras stay up? What would happen with the footage? What is the range of the cameras? Could they zoom in to spy on him in his apartment?

Gales' project is RNCCTV, and here's a direct link to the dynamically-generated map of cameras. About the city's surveillance project specs, Gales writes:

Aware Digital was awarded a multi-million dollar contract to install about 90 high-def cameras around the downtown area and a wireless network to connect the cameras. 63 of the cameras have pan/tilt/zoom (PTZ in CCTV lingo) capabilities which means that they can be remotely aimed and the zoom is an impressive 20x optical. 31 fixed point cameras have been installed, mostly to watch the Tampa Police Department and its parking garage. We have concentrated on mapping the cameras meant to watch you.

(Tech President via Josh Stearns; image courtesy rncctv.com)

Military spy blimps used in Afghanistan will now patrol US-Mexico border

Xeni Jardin — Tue, 14 Aug 2012 16:10:27 +0000

The Wall Street Journal reports that the U.S. military and border-patrol officials are teaming up on a new initiative to bring dozens of surveillance blimps from Afghanistan war zones to the Mexican border.

Over the next few weeks, the military will oversee a test in south Texas to determine if a 72-foot-long, unmanned surveillance blimp—sometimes called "the floating eye" when used to spot insurgents in Afghanistan—can help find drug runners and people trying to cross illegally into the U.S.
The project is part of a broader attempt by U.S. officials to establish a high-tech surveillance network along the border and find alternative uses for expensive military hardware that will be coming back from Afghanistan, along with the troops.

In other words, hardware recycling. Read more: Battlefield Blimps to Patrol U.S.-Mexico Borders (WSJ).

Image: REUTERS. A US military blimp carrying surveillance imaging equipment flies over eastern Afghanistan, September 2011. Devices like this are being tested along the US-Mexico border.

New virus targets online banking systems in Mideast

Xeni Jardin — Thu, 09 Aug 2012 17:40:33 +0000

Russian security firm Kaspersky Lab claims to have uncovered a new "cyber-espionage toolkit" designed by the same people behind the state-sponsored Flame malware that infiltrated machines in Iran. The researchers claim this new malware has been found infecting systems in other countries in the Middle East, and targets online financial systems. More at Wired Threat Level and Reuters. They're calling this one "Gauss."

Report: complexity of cyberspying botnets greater than previously known

Xeni Jardin — Mon, 30 Jul 2012 14:42:55 +0000

Brian Krebs interviews Joe Stewart, a security researcher "who’s spent 18 months cataloging and tracking malicious software that was developed and deployed specifically for spying on governments, activists and industry executives." Speaking at Defcon in Las Vegas, Stewart says the "complexity and scope of these cyberspy networks now rivals many large conventional cybercrime operations.

UK government offers unlimited budget to pay ISPs to spy on us

Cory Doctorow — Wed, 13 Jun 2012 16:29:03 +0000

The other shoe is slowly dropping on the "Snooper's Charter" -- the proposed UK Internet spying legislation that will require ISPs to harvest and retain fantastic quantities of user activity and make it available to government and law enforcement without a warrant. In a bid to win support for the proposal, the government has offered a "blank cheque" to ISPs, with an offer to pay for additional equipment required to effect this mass surveillance system. They also continue to draw a wholly artificial distinction between "metadata" and "content" -- the URL of a web-page you visit can be had with out a warrant, but the content of the page can't be (unless the police then go look at that page). This obfuscation is intended to make spying into every corner of our digital lives without judicial review -- without suspicion -- somehow less terrifying.

The communications data police and others may seek about an individual includes email addresses and phone numbers of people who have been in contact, when this happened, and where, the details giving the police records of suspects' associates and activities.

Online privacy: Home Office to write blank cheque for 'snoopers' charter'

US requests for secret spying warrants rose to nearly 2K in 2011, and not a single one was rejected

Xeni Jardin — Fri, 04 May 2012 00:49:51 +0000

The Federation of American Scientists (FAS) reports today that the US Justice Department made 1,745 requests last year to the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISA) for permission to wiretap electronic communications or search for physical evidence in counter-terrorism cases.

That's up from 1,579 requests in 2010. Every single one of the requests submitted in 2011 were accepted, though 30 were modified by the court.

All of this is noted in a new annual report to Congress. More context from the FAS blog post today by Steven Aftergood:

The new report says that the government filed 205 applications for business records (including “tangible things”) for foreign intelligence purposes last year, compared to 96 in the previous year.

But the number of “national security letters” (a type of administrative subpoena) declined last year. In 2011, the FBI requested 16,511 national security letters pertaining to 7,201 U.S. persons, the new report said, compared to the 2010 total of 24,287 letter requests concerning 14,212 U.S. persons.

(via Associated Press)

Photo: Vladi/Shutterstock

To do in NYC: "Surveillance Teach-in" at the Whitney, Fri. April 20, 2012

Xeni Jardin — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 02:05:09 +0000

If you are in New York on Friday, April 20, you'll want to attend this special event, offered as part of the Whitney Biennial:

Award-winning filmmaker Laura Poitras explores issues of war, justice, and power. Her current film trilogy, focusing on America post 9/11, documents the Iraq War, secret state surveillance, and the suspension of the rule of law in the “war on terror.” For this evening program, she is joined by Jacob Appelbaum, computer security researcher, privacy advocate, hacker, and human rights activist. Woven through the Museum will be interactive installations by Stimulate. The Surveillance Teach-In is an artistic and practical commentary on living in the contemporary Panopticon. Free with Museum admission, which is pay-what-you-wish on Fridays from 6–9 pm; there are no special tickets or reservations.

More details here. Both Poitras and Appelbaum have an odd thing in common: repeated harassment and detention by various US government agencies at airports (and ongoing surveillance).

Photo: Laura Poitras, still from Untitled Part III (9/11 Trilogy).

Air Space - a trip through an airport detention center - Boing Boing

Fooling facial recognition surveillance cameras with cunning and crocheting

Xeni Jardin — Wed, 21 Mar 2012 02:08:54 +0000

[Video Link]

Canadian yarn-lover and privacy-lover Howie Woo has developed an ingenious system for thwarting surveillance cameras that use face recognition technology. His solution involves crochet and LOLs. Here are more photos (via the Boing Boing Flickr Pool). More about Howie's playful creations here.

Still more proof NYPD spying program focused on Muslims who were not suspected of any crimes

Xeni Jardin — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 19:39:54 +0000

The AP has published more documents today which offer further evidence that the The New York Police Department "kept secret files on businesses owned by second- and third-generation Americans specifically because they were Muslims." The NYPD monitored these people based solely on their religion.

More on the Supreme Court ruling forcing FBI to turn off 3,000 GPS trackers

Xeni Jardin — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 02:10:59 +0000

At ABC News, a thorough "explainer" by Ariane de Vogue on the January Supreme Court ruling that requires the FBI to immediately stop using GPS tracking devices to spy on suspects. Today, FBI Director Bob Mueller said the Bureau will cooperate, but not without complaint: “Trackers enabled us to utilize resources elsewhere, so it is going have an impact on the work that we do but of course we will comply with the ruling.”

FBI shuts off thousands of GPS devices after Supreme Court ruling, now having trouble finding them

Xeni Jardin — Mon, 27 Feb 2012 19:11:12 +0000

A recent US Supreme Court ruling that overturned the warrantless use of GPS tracking devices "has caused a 'sea change' inside the U.S. Justice Department." Following the ruling, the FBI turned off an estimated 3,000 GPS tracking devices that were in use. But how to locate the little buggers to take them home?

From the WSJ, quoting FBI General Counsel Andrew Weissmann:

These devices were often stuck underneath cars to track the movements of the car owners. In U.S. v. Jones, the Supreme Court ruled that using a device to track a car owner without a search warrant violated the law.
After the ruling, the FBI had a problem collecting the devices that it had turned off, Mr. Weissmann said. In some cases, he said, the FBI sought court orders to obtain permission to turn the devices on briefly – only in order to locate and retrieve them.

Wikileaks releases "Global Intelligence Files" -- 5MM emails from private spook outfit Stratfor

Cory Doctorow — Mon, 27 Feb 2012 15:00:01 +0000

Today, Wikileaks releases its "Global Intelligence Files," a trove of more than 5,000,000 emails from Stratfor, a Texas based "global intelligence" company. The dump includes emails detailing Stratfor's work with the US government on discrediting Wikileaks itself, as well as a lot of extremely dirty geopolitical laundry.

"[Is it] possible for us to get some of that 'leak-focused' gravy train? This is an obvious fear sale, so that's a good thing. And we have something to offer that the IT security companies don't, mainly our focus on counter-intelligence and surveillance that Fred and Stick know better than anyone on the planet... Could we develop some ideas and procedures on the idea of ´leak-focused' network security that focuses on preventing one's own employees from leaking sensitive information... In fact, I'm not so sure this is an IT problem that requires an IT solution."
Like WikiLeaks’ diplomatic cables, much of the significance of the emails will be revealed over the coming weeks, as our coalition and the public search through them and discover connections. Readers will find that whereas large numbers of Stratfor's subscribers and clients work in the US military and intelligence agencies, Stratfor gave a complimentary membership to the controversial Pakistan general Hamid Gul, former head of Pakistan's ISI intelligence service, who, according to US diplomatic cables, planned an IED attack on international forces in Afghanistan in 2006. Readers will discover Stratfor's internal email classification system that codes correspondence according to categories such as 'alpha', 'tactical' and 'secure'. The correspondence also contains code names for people of particular interest such as 'Izzies' (members of Hezbollah), or 'Adogg' (Mahmoud Ahmedinejad).
Stratfor did secret deals with dozens of media organisations and journalists – from Reuters to the Kiev Post. The list of Stratfor’s "Confederation Partners", whom Stratfor internally referred to as its "Confed Fuck House" are included in the release. While it is acceptable for journalists to swap information or be paid by other media organisations, because Stratfor is a private intelligence organisation that services governments and private clients these relationships are corrupt or corrupting.
WikiLeaks has also obtained Stratfor's list of informants and, in many cases, records of its payoffs, including $1,200 a month paid to the informant "Geronimo" , handled by Stratfor's Former State Department agent Fred Burton.

The Global Intelligence Files - List of Releases

The Global Intelligence Files (Press release)

Meet more western companies that arm dictators and torturers with network spyware

Cory Doctorow — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 23:41:45 +0000

Last week, the Electronic Frontier Foundation profiled FinFisher and Amesys, two of the companies that had been caught selling network spying tools to despotic regimes around the world, including Hosni Mubarak's Egypt and Muammar Qaddafi's Libya. This week, EFF continues the series with profiles of Italy's Area SpA (which sells electronic tracking software to Bashar al-Assad's regime in Syria) and Germany's Trovicor (which sells spyware to a dozen countries in the Middle East and North Africa).

In 2011, at the same time that news of Syria’s violent crackdown on democratic protests graced the pages of the world’s newspapers, an Italian company called Area SpA was busy helping the Syrian’s dictator Bashar al-Assad electronically track the dissidents his army was firing upon in the streets. Area SpA had begun installing “monitoring centers” that would give the Syrian government the ability “to intercept, scan and catalog virtually every e-mail that flows through the country” as well as “follow targets on flat-screen workstations that display communications and Web use in near-real time alongside graphics that map citizens’ networks of electronic contacts.”
Worse, as the violence in Syria escalated in mid-2011, “Area employees [were] flown into Damascus in shifts” in the government’s push to finish the project, according to a report from Bloomberg News.

Spy Tech Companies & Their Authoritarian Customers, Part II: Trovicor and Area SpA

Canada's bull-moose civil libertarian on Canada's new domestic spying law

Cory Doctorow — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 07:47:33 +0000

On the always-excellent Search Engine podcast from TVOntario, host Jesse Brown interviews Alan Borovoy, general counsel of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association. Borovoy in one of Canada's most respected free speech and privacy activists, and he describes the state of Canada on the eve of the introduction of a sweeping spy-bill that will require ISPs to log and retain enormous amounts of our private communications, and then give police access to that material without a warrant. This is a stirring call-to-arms and an important historical context to understand the history of free speech and privacy in Canada.

Audio Podcast #124: Alan Borovoy | Search Engine (MP3)

Canada's spying bill: be very afraid

Cory Doctorow — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 05:31:03 +0000

Canadian comedy hero Rick Mercer nails the new Canadian spying bill and the political tactics that gave rise to it. Bravo!

Rick Mercer: Rant: Be Afraid (Thanks, James!)

Canadian MP: if you oppose warrantless snooping, you "stand with child pornographers"

Cory Doctorow — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 17:12:54 +0000

Vic Toews, the Canadian Tory MP pushing for the new spying bill says that people who oppose him are "standing with child pornographers." Mr Toews's bill will require ISPs to record all your online activity and give police access to those logs without a warrant. Ontario police recently busted a huge child-porn ring without needing any further spying power. In fact, no one can find any police investigation that has failed for lack of snooping powers. A leaked memo from the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police shows that Canada's law enforcement has been scouring its records for evidence supporting the need for this bill, without luck. (Thanks, Wild Rumpus!)

Leaked DHS internet watchlist lists msthirteen.com, skeevy German site about 13yo girls as MS-13 gang news

Xeni Jardin — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 23:29:22 +0000

So I'm going to be charitable here and presume that whoever compiled that internet monitoring watchlist at the Department of Homeland Security thought that "Miss Thirteen," at www.msthirteen.com, was a site about the ultraviolent Mara Salvatrucha or MS-13 gang, which originated in El Salvador and now operates in a number of US cities.

It's not.

Quote, mangle-translated from the original German by Google: "Change in our lives, accompanying us from our childhood into adult life. The hormones go crazy and actually everything is always much too confusing."

Perhaps this was the source for the bad link. And perhaps the fact that this site was included in the watchlist tells us something about how the watchlist was compiled, or how reliable its contents are as a disclosure of what the agency's monitoring.

(thanks, Elizabeth Gettelman!)

Previously: Homeland Security Internet Watch List leaked; Boing Boing sadly omitted from list of must-read sites for domestic spying

Update: Probably a more simple explanation -- the content of the site changed over time. The version of the document at Cryptome was published in 2011. The Reuters article that made the rounds today appears to be based on a new version of the document for 2012, which we haven't seen. BB reader Todd Towles says, "According to DNS Stuff, the current msthirteen.com domain was created in Sep 2011. According to the WayBackMachine, the site was about MS-13 on Feb 2010.

Homeland Security Internet Watch List leaked; Boing Boing omitted from list of must-read sites for domestic spying

Xeni Jardin — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 22:48:03 +0000

I am outraged that our blog once again failed to make it on to the list of websites the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's command center routinely monitors. The grandfather of all rogue leak sites, Cryptome, published a copy of the 2011 edition of the government document (PDF link to document copy). Apparently, there's a new 2012 version some have seen, on which a current round of news coverage is based.

There's a Reuters article summarizing its significance here:

A "privacy compliance review" issued by DHS last November says that since at least June 2010, its national operations center has been operating a "Social Networking/Media Capability" which involves regular monitoring of "publicly available online forums, blogs, public websites and message boards." The purpose of the monitoring, says the government document, is to "collect information used in providing situational awareness and establishing a common operating picture."
The document adds, using more plain language, that such monitoring is designed to help DHS and its numerous agencies, which include the U.S. Secret Service and Federal Emergency Management Agency, to manage government responses to such events as the 2010 earthquake and aftermath in Haiti and security and border control related to the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, British Columbia.

"This is a representative list of sites that the NOC will start to monitor in order to provide situational awareness and establish a common operating picture under this Initiative," the document reads.

Oh fine, so, the imminent Yeti invasion isn't something that needs to be monitored? The anal probe menace posed by illegal Martian invaders? No concerns about the toxicity of homemade sauerkraut as a biological weapon?

I mean, fucking MySpace and Hulu are on the list! Really? I'm surprised Friendster was omitted. And they're watching Flickr and YouTube and Huffpo! But our hard-hitting coverage of steampunk watches and DIY spaceships doesn't merit a click? Whatever, DHS. We don't want those ill-gotten clicks.

But there's still hope. "Initial sites listed may link to other sites not listed. The NOC may also monitor those sites if they are within the scope of this Initiative."

UPDATE: Leaked DHS internet watchlist "mistakes" msthirteen.com, skeevy German site about 13yo girls for MS-13 gang news.

As you already suspected, the CIA is reading your tweets and Facebook status updates

Xeni Jardin — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 15:16:33 +0000

According to this Associated Press story, the tinfoil beanie hat crowd was right all along: "In an anonymous industrial park in Virginia, in an unassuming brick building, the CIA is following tweets — up to 5 million a day. At the agency's Open Source Center, a team known affectionately as the 'vengeful librarians' also pores over Facebook, newspapers, TV news channels, local radio stations, Internet chat rooms — anything overseas that anyone can access and contribute to openly."

Governments turn to hacking techniques for surveillance of citizens

Xeni Jardin — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 14:44:37 +0000

"It's an open market. You cannot stop the flow of surveillance equipment."—Jerry Lucas, head of the Intelligence Support Systems conference showcasing technology that corrupt regimes around the world use to spy on, and censor, their citizens. Article by Ryan Gallagher in the Guardian.

FBI gives agents new powers to spy on you and go through your trash

Xeni Jardin — Mon, 13 Jun 2011 12:04:07 +0000

The New York Times reported this weekend that the FBI will grant "significant new powers to its roughly 14,000 agents"—powers that allow them them greater freedom to "search databases, go through household trash or use surveillance teams to scrutinize the lives of people who have attracted their attention." The FBI's general counsel describes the changes as "more like fine-tuning than major changes." The ACLU isn't buying it.