Tag: NSA

Feds Ask Web Firms For Account Passwords

The U.S. government has demanded that major Internet companies divulge users’ stored passwords, according to two industry sources familiar with these orders, which represent an escalation in surveillance techniques that has not previously been disclosed.

If the government is able to determine a person’s password, which is typically stored in encrypted form, the credential could be used to log in to an account to peruse confidential correspondence or even impersonate the user. Obtaining it also would aid in deciphering encrypted devices in situations where passwords are reused.  …

Some of the government orders demand not only a user’s password but also the encryption algorithm and the so-called salt, according to a person familiar with the requests. A salt is a random string of letters or numbers used to make it more difficult to reverse the encryption process and determine the original password. Other orders demand the secret question codes often associated with user accounts.

via CNET News.

Well this sure has gotten ridiculous.

It’s Big Brother Day

Just plain too damn spooky for all this to hit in the same day.  If you’re not weirded out… you should be

Let’s start with the CIA keeping track of EVERYTHING you do.

Discussing the goldmine of data that today’s technology has created, the Central Intelligence Agency’s Chief Technology Officer Ira “Gus” Hunt on Wednesday said the spy agency tries to “collect everything we can and hang onto it forever.”  …

“The value of any piece of information is only known when you can connect it with something else that arrives at a future point in time,” Hunt said. “Since you can’t connect dots you don’t have, it drives us into a mode of, we fundamentally try to collect everything and hang onto it forever.”  …

Hunt said it is “really very nearly within our grasp to be able to compute on all human generated information.” This, he explained, would allow the CIA to analyze digital breadcrumbs people don’t even realize they are leaving behind.

“You are aware of the fact that somebody can know where you are at all times, because you carry a mobile device, even if that mobile device is turned off…You know this, I hope? Yes? Well, you should,” he added.

via TheBlaze.com.

For the record, this is totally illegal.  The CIA is not permitted to perform any investigations on U.S. citizens on U.S. soil.  This is the Obama administration run amok.

What’s that?  You doubt me that’s it’s the Obama admin pushing this?

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.  …

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

via NBCNews.com.

Ya, it’s the Obama admin.  And you will note that’s it’s DHS taking the lead here… Not the CIA.  Why?  Because DHS is allowed by spy on U.S. citizens (thank you Patriot Act.)

And while talking about DHS… keep in mind that they refuse to answer any questions about why they need 1.4 billion rounds of ammunition.

Speaking at CPAC with Infowars and We Are Change reporter, Luke Rudkowski, Congressman Timothy Huelscamp revealed this week that the Department of Homeland Security has refused to answer questions from “multiple” members of Congress regarding its recent purchase of huge amounts of weapons and ammunition.

“They have no answer for that question. They refuse to answer to answer that,” Huelscamp said.

“I’ve got a list of various questions of agencies about multiple things. Far from being the most transparent administration in the world, they are the most closed and opaque,” the Congressman added.

“They refuse to let us know what is going on, so I don’t really have an answer for that. Multiple members of Congress are asking those questions,” he added.

via Infowars.

Worry not.  Your government is here to protect you.

But just in case you’re not caught in the government tracking of absolutely everything you do.  Worry not… the Gestapo is alive and well.  You should keep an eye on your neighbor and see what they’re up to.

Nearly a year before signing the nation’s most stringent gun control measure into law, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo launched a hotline that allows state residents to report illegal gun owners in exchange for a $500 reward.  …

New Yorkers can call the “Gun Tip Line” if they believe someone they know has an illegal gun. Hotline calls are answered by state police and tips are referred to local law enforcement, the station reported.“This initiative seeks to turn neighbor against neighbor and use their own tax dollars to pay for the $500 reward,” Republican Assemblyman Steve McLaughlin told the station.

via Fox News.

It really is 1984, Fahrenheit 451, and Brave New World all rolled into one.

Sixty years of modern liberalism and brought us to this point.  People too dumb to know that they’re marching themselves into the arms of a dictator.

Keep watching Dancing with the Stars!!  Your government owns you.  You’re no longer free.  You’re nothing.  You’re like a damn battery in the Matrix.  Just putting out enough effort to keep the machine running so the government can pretend to protect you.

You should be ashamed of yourself.  God knows the minority of us are ashamed of you.  It’s time to wake up and redeem yourself.  Please.

You’re Being Watched by Your Government

Back in July I wrote about how your government was utilizing all kinds of technology to spy on you.  At the time it appeared to just be speculation; now we know it to be true.

Part I

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is suing the Justice Department for details of last month’s ruling by a secretive U.S. court that National Security Agency’s domestic spying program violated the U.S. Constitution, Jon Brodkin of arstechnica reports.

The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) found that “on at least one occasion” the NSA had violated the Fourth Amendment’s restriction against unreasonable searches and seizures.  …

The kicker is that there is ample evidence that the NSA has gone above and beyond the powers granted through the 2008 FISA Amendment Act by actively spying on the electronic communications of American citizens within the U.S. and by coercing service providers to feed it any and all information it wants.via Business Insider.

And it that’s not scary enough for you, check this out!

Part II

A Naomi Wolf article in the Guardian about the rise of security cameras at Occupy hangouts and the multi-billion dollar biometric technologies industry includes this story:

A software engineer … visited Disneyland, and … the theme park offered him the photo of himself and his girlfriend to buy – with his credit card information already linked to it. He noted that he had never entered his name or information into anything at the theme park, or indicated that he wanted a photo, or alerted the humans at the ride to who he and his girlfriend were – so, he said, based on his professional experience, the system had to be using facial recognition technology. He had never signed an agreement allowing them to do so, and he declared that this use was illegal. He also claimed that Disney had recently shared data from facial-recognition technology with the United States military.

It turns out that Disney applies biometrics – that is, the statistical analysis of biological data – in the form of scanning visitor fingerprint information and identifying people with facial recognition software.

In fact, “Walt Disney World is responsible for the nation’s largest single commercial application of biometrics” and after 9/11 the government sought “Disney’s advice in intelligence, security and biometrics,” as reported in 2006 by Karen Hamel of News 21.

Hamel listed several former Disneyland employees that have gone on to fill “some of the most sensitive positions in the U.S. intelligence and security communities,”

via Business Insider.

That’s more than just a little creepy.

There’s also a guy who used to work for the NSA who’s coming forward and blowing the whistle.

 

NSA to Spy on Everyone… Everyone.

Under construction by contractors with top-secret clearances, the blandly named Utah Data Center is being built for the National Security Agency. A project of immense secrecy, it is the final piece in a complex puzzle assembled over the past decade. Its purpose: to intercept, decipher, analyze, and store vast swaths of the world’s communications as they zap down from satellites and zip through the underground and undersea cables of international, foreign, and domestic networks. The heavily fortified $2 billion center should be up and running in September 2013. Flowing through its servers and routers and stored in near-bottomless databases will be all forms of communication, including the complete contents of private emails, cell phone calls, and Google searches, as well as all sorts of personal data trails—parking receipts, travel itineraries, bookstore purchases, and other digital “pocket litter.” It is, in some measure, the realization of the “total information awareness” program created during the first term of the Bush administration—an effort that was killed by Congress in 2003 after it caused an outcry over its potential for invading Americans’ privacy.

But “this is more than just a data center,” says one senior intelligence official who until recently was involved with the program. The mammoth Bluffdale center will have another important and far more secret role that until now has gone unrevealed. It is also critical, he says, for breaking codes. And code-breaking is crucial, because much of the data that the center will handle—financial information, stock transactions, business deals, foreign military and diplomatic secrets, legal documents, confidential personal communications—will be heavily encrypted. According to another top official also involved with the program, the NSA made an enormous breakthrough several years ago in its ability to cryptanalyze, or break, unfathomably complex encryption systems employed by not only governments around the world but also many average computer users in the US. The upshot, according to this official: “Everybody’s a target; everybody with communication is a target.”

via Wired.com.

Like most Wired articles this one goes into incredible detail about how the government spy’s on you and me.

Frankly, it’s kinda terrifying.  I wrote in an earlier post about how we’re at the point in time where Fahrenheit 451 meets 1984.  The government now has all the data in needs to know everything about your life.  All they have to do now is choose to control it… oh, wait.  Check out the Obama health care bill.

Somewhere right now a government jack-booted thug is ordering a few rat masks.