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The Surveillance-Industrial Complex

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NPR Is Laundering CIA Talking Points to Make You Scared of NSA Reporting. The new headquarters for National Public Radio (NPR) on North Capitol Street in Washington (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak) On August 1, NPR’s Morning Edition broadcast a story by NPR national security reporter Dina Temple-Raston touting explosive claims from what she called “a tech firm based in Cambridge, Massachusetts.”

NPR Is Laundering CIA Talking Points to Make You Scared of NSA Reporting

That firm, Recorded Future, worked together with “a cyber expert, Mario Vuksan, the CEO of ReversingLabs,” to produce a new report that purported to vindicate the repeated accusation from U.S. officials that “revelations from former NSA contract worker Edward Snowden harmed national security and allowed terrorists to develop their own countermeasures.” The “big data firm,” reported NPR, says that it now “has tangible evidence” proving the government’s accusations. Bahrain Government Hacked Lawyers and Activists with UK Spyware. New evidence has emerged suggesting that the Bahraini government infected the computers of some of the country’s most prominent lawyers, activists and politicians with the malicious FinFisher spy software (also known as FinSpy).

Bahrain Government Hacked Lawyers and Activists with UK Spyware

The infections would have enabled the government to steal passwords and files, and spy through an infected computer’s webcam and microphone. The list of 77 computers infected by Bahraini authorities was part of a massive leak of data this week, purportedly hacked from the servers of the UK-German surveillance software company Gamma International — the makers of FinFisher. The new data seems to directly contradict earlier claims by Gamma that it does not do business with Bahrain and that its software is used primarily to target criminals and terrorists. Prominent among the list of apparent targets that Bahrain Watch was able to identify were: Human Rights Lawyers. Leaked Files: German Spy Company Helped Bahrain Hack Arab Spring Protesters. Photo credit: AP A notorious surveillance technology company that helps governments around the world spy on their citizens sold software to Bahrain during that country’s brutal response to the Arab Spring movement, according to leaked internal documents posted this week on the internet.

Leaked Files: German Spy Company Helped Bahrain Hack Arab Spring Protesters

The documents show that FinFisher, a German surveillance company, helped Bahrain install spyware on 77 computers, including those belonging to human rights lawyers and a now-jailed opposition leader, between 2010 and 2012—a period that includes Bahrain’s crackdown on pro-democracy protesters. FinFisher’s software gives remote spies total access to compromised computers. Some of the computers that were spied on appear to have been located in the United States and United Kingdom, according to a report from Bahrain Watch. How Britain exported next-generation surveillance — Matter. OVER THE PAST DECADE, countries all around the world have started to employ the same technologies Britain has been building for 30 years.

How Britain exported next-generation surveillance — Matter

Australia began fitting mobile ANPR units to its highway patrol vehicles in 2009. The small Belgian city of Mechelen was selected to trial the system in 2011: by the following year, the city was already monitoring a quarter of a million vehicles every month. Planet Blue Coat: Mapping Global Censorship and Surveillance ToolsThe Citizen Lab. Download PDF version Read The New York Times article associated with this report.

Planet Blue Coat: Mapping Global Censorship and Surveillance ToolsThe Citizen Lab

The following individuals contributed to this report:Morgan Marquis-Boire (lead technical research) and Jakub Dalek (lead technical research), Sarah McKune (lead legal research), Matthew Carrieri, Masashi Crete-Nishihata, Ron Deibert, Saad Omar Khan, Helmi Noman, John Scott-Railton, and Greg Wiseman. Summary of Key Findings Blue Coat Devices capable of filtering, censorship, and surveillance are being used around the world. During several weeks of scanning and validation that ended in January 2013, we uncovered 61 Blue Coat ProxySG devices and 316 Blue Coat PacketShaper appliances, devices with specific functionality permitting filtering, censorship, and surveillance.61 of these Blue Coat appliances are on public or government networks in countries with a history of concerns over human rights, surveillance, and censorship (11 ProxySG and 50 PacketShaper appliances).

Researchers Spot Blue Coat Web Control Gear In Another Repressive Regime: Burma. Bluecabinet. Next Step: Identifying Customers of Surveillance Technology Companies and Turning Up the Heat. In the past month—thanks to reporting from the Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg, as well as WikiLeaks and its media partners—a little sunlight has finally exposed a large but shadowy industry: Western technology companies selling mass spying software to governments. The amazing and dangerous capabilities of these tools are described in hundreds of marketing documents that were recently leaked to the media organizations.

Trade Fair... For Trojans. Most of the technology used in such intrusions are not developed by the governments themselves.

Trade Fair... For Trojans

They are made by private companies which are specializing in providing exploits, infection proxies and backdoors to governments. For more background, see our blog posts: • Egypt, FinFisher Intrusion Tools and Ethics • Possible Governmental Backdoor Found ("Case R2D2") • More Info on German State Backdoor Where do governments buy this stuff from? Well, there's a conference and a trade fair on this very topic.

However, you can't simply walk into these events, as they are "by invitation only", and available only to "Telecommunication service providers, government employees and Law Enforcement Officers". Danish company helps Iran spy on citizens. When Iranian journalist Ahmad Jalali Farahani was arrested back in 2009, he was confronted with the contents of his private mails.

Danish company helps Iran spy on citizens

Even though he had created the email account using a different name the Iranian security forces were fully aware. He was imprisoned and subjected to torture. »The Republican Guard completely follow what people write in their emails, on Facebook and on Twitter,« says Farahani. Special Report: How foreign firms tried to sell spy gear to Iran. The Surveillance Catalog - The Wall Street Journal. As the Internet has grown to handle more data, monitoring companies have had to keep up.

The Surveillance Catalog - The Wall Street Journal

Interception now can mean taking all the traffic from the Internet backbone and funneling it through devices that inspect the packets of data, determine what is inside them, and make decisions about whether to copy them for law enforcement. Governments turn to hacking techniques for surveillance of citizens. In a luxury Washington, DC, hotel last month, governments from around the world gathered to discuss surveillance technology they would rather you did not know about.

Governments turn to hacking techniques for surveillance of citizens

The annual Intelligence Support Systems (ISS) World Americas conference is a mecca for representatives from intelligence agencies and law enforcement. Document Trove Exposes Surveillance Methods. Main Page - Buggedplanet.info. The Surveillance Industry Index: An Introduction. Privacy International is pleased to announce the Surveillance Industry Index, the most comprehensive publicly available database on the private surveillance sector.

The Surveillance Industry Index: An Introduction

Surveillance Whos Who. Big Brother Inc. Do surveillance companies care about human rights? On Friday, we wrote to 140 companies around the world that are known to be selling surveillance technology, to ask them a series of questions. We wanted to know whether or not companies conducted human rights due diligence when dealing with foreign companies or governments, how many of them were doing business or seeking to do business with 'Not Free' countries (as categorised by Freedom House's latest report), and whether any of them would be interested in meeting with us to discuss their human rights policies.

When we first compiled the ‘Big Brother Incorporated’ list in partnership with the Bureau of Investigative Journalism back in November, we’d remarked on the significant number of companies based in the United States and the United Kingdom.