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Core Secrets: NSA Saboteurs in China and Germany

Core Secrets: NSA Saboteurs in China and Germany
The National Security Agency has had agents in China, Germany, and South Korea working on programs that use “physical subversion” to infiltrate and compromise networks and devices, according to documents obtained by The Intercept. The documents, leaked by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, also indicate that the agency has used “under cover” operatives to gain access to sensitive data and systems in the global communications industry, and that these secret agents may have even dealt with American firms. The documents describe a range of clandestine field activities that are among the agency’s “core secrets” when it comes to computer network attacks, details of which are apparently shared with only a small number of officials outside the NSA. “It’s something that many people have been wondering about for a long time,” said Chris Soghoian, principal technologist for the American Civil Liberties Union, after reviewing the documents. Sentry Eagle “Under Cover” Agents Corporate Partners Related:  Nowhere to Hide???

The CIA's Secret Journal Articles Are Gossipy, Snarky, and No Longer Classified The CIA has declassified a trove of articles from its in-house journal, Studies in Intelligence. Ostensibly a semi-academic review of spycraft, Studies emerges in the pieces, which date from the 1970s to the 2000s, as so much more, at turns mocking excessive secrecy and bad writing, dishing on problematic affairs, and bragging about press manipulation. Of course, there is plenty of self-serious material in the journal too, including scholarly reviews, first-person memoirs, interviews and intellectual ruminations on everything from maps to “How We Are Perceived” and “Ethics and Clandestine Collection.” The CIA posted the hundreds of declassified articles to its FOIA site. Here are a few that caught our eye. (If you see something interesting in the archive, post it in the comments, email it to tips@theintercept.com, or send it securely to me.) The documents include a 2004 interview with current CIA director John Brennan and a 2000 interview with Michael Hayden, then head of the NSA.

Who Is Running Phony Cell Phone Towers Around The United States? <img class="full-width" style="" typeof="foaf:Image" alt="" data-smsrc="<a pearltreesdevid="PTD454" rel="nofollow" href=" class="vglnk"><span pearltreesdevid="PTD455">http</span><span pearltreesdevid="PTD457">://</span><span pearltreesdevid="PTD459">www</span><span pearltreesdevid="PTD461">.</span><span pearltreesdevid="PTD463">popsci</span><span pearltreesdevid="PTD465">. Enlarge Who Is Running Interceptor Towers? On August 29, Popular Science published a map of interceptor towers -- surveillance devices that masquerade as cell phone towers to intercept voice and data transmissions from every cell user in an area. 19 of the interceptors were found in the United States in August, and two more popped up on September 5: one in Garden City, NY, and another in downtown Las Vegas. August GSM Interceptor Map So should we worry about interceptors?

I’m terrified of my new TV: Why I’m scared to turn this thing on — and you’d be, too I just bought a new TV. The old one had a good run, but after the volume got stuck on 63, I decided it was time to replace it. I am now the owner of a new “smart” TV, which promises to deliver streaming multimedia content, games, apps, social media and Internet browsing. Oh, and TV too. The only problem is that I’m now afraid to use it. You would be too — if you read through the 46-page privacy policy. The amount of data this thing collects is staggering. It also has a built-in camera — with facial recognition. More troubling is the microphone. You may not be watching, but the telescreen is listening. I do not doubt that this data is important to providing customized content and convenience, but it is also incredibly personal, constitutionally protected information that should not be for sale to advertisers and should require a warrant for law enforcement to access. According to retired Gen. Of course, there is always the “dumb” option.

The Psychology of Color in Marketing The psychology of color as it relates to persuasion is one of the most interesting—and most controversial—aspects of marketing. The reason: Most of today’s conversations on colors and persuasion consist of hunches, anecdotal evidence and advertisers blowing smoke about “colors and the mind.” To alleviate this trend and give proper treatment to a truly fascinating element of human behavior, today we’re going to cover a selection of the most reliable research on color theory and persuasion. Misconceptions around the Psychology of Color Why does color psychology invoke so much conversation… but is backed with so little data? As research shows, it’s likely because elements such as personal preference, experiences, upbringing, cultural differences, context, etc., often muddy the effect individual colors have on us. The conversation is only worsened by incredibly vapid visuals that sum up color psychology with awesome “facts” such as this one: Don’t fret, though. Color Preferences by Gender

The CIA's Mop-Up Man: L.A. Times Reporter Cleared Stories With Agency Before Publication A prominent national security reporter for the Los Angeles Times routinely submitted drafts and detailed summaries of his stories to CIA press handlers prior to publication, according to documents obtained by The Intercept. Email exchanges between CIA public affairs officers and Ken Dilanian, now an Associated Press intelligence reporter who previously covered the CIA for the Times, show that Dilanian enjoyed a closely collaborative relationship with the agency, explicitly promising positive news coverage and sometimes sending the press office entire story drafts for review prior to publication. In at least one instance, the CIA’s reaction appears to have led to significant changes in the story that was eventually published in the Times. Dilanian’s emails were included in hundreds of pages of documents that the CIA turned over in response to two FOIA requests seeking records on the agency’s interactions with reporters. That claim was subsequently debunked. “Hooray!” Photo: J.

The U.S. Government's Secret Plans to Spy for American Corporations Throughout the last year, the U.S. government has repeatedly insisted that it does not engage in economic and industrial espionage, in an effort to distinguish its own spying from China’s infiltrations of Google, Nortel, and other corporate targets. So critical is this denial to the U.S. government that last August, an NSA spokesperson emailed The Washington Post to say (emphasis in original): “The department does ***not*** engage in economic espionage in any domain, including cyber.” After that categorical statement to the Post, the NSA was caught spying on plainly financial targets such as the Brazilian oil giant Petrobras; economic summits; international credit card and banking systems; the EU antitrust commissioner investigating Google, Microsoft, and Intel; and the International Monetary Fund and World Bank. In response, the U.S. modified its denial to acknowledge that it does engage in economic spying, but unlike China, the spying is never done to benefit American corporations.

Police escalate use of secret surveillance Secret methods are being used increasingly by police. (Photo: Microstock) Secret methods are being used increasingly by police, according to Professor Paul Larsson of the Norwegian Police University College. Larsson presented his observations at a recent conference on police research in Växjö, Sweden. Larsson has published an article in the first edition of the Nordic Journal of Studies in Policing about how these methods affect the way police work and the society they work in. Normalizing the abnormal Secret, undercover methods are nothing new. While such methods were once mainly the province of counterespionage and preventing national security threats, police have expanded their use in recent decades. “A normalization of the abnormal has occurred,” says Larsson, whose experience includes a position as a section chief in Norway’s National Directorate of Police. A troublesome lack of transparency The police are obliged to adhere to stringent protocols when it comes to detective work.

Ten Popular Mind Control Techniques Used Today The more one researches mind control, the more one will come to the conclusion that there is a coordinated script that has been in place for a very long time with the goal to turn the human race into non-thinking automatons. For as long as man has pursued power over the masses, mind control has been orchestrated by those who study human behavior in order to bend large populations to the will of a small “elite” group. Today, we have entered a perilous phase where mind control has taken on a physical, scientific dimension that threatens to become a permanent state if we do not become aware of the tools at the disposal of the technocratic dictatorship unfolding on a worldwide scale. Modern mind control is both technological and psychological. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. A concerted effort is underway to manage and predict human behavior so that the social scientists and the dictatorial elite can control the masses and protect themselves from the fallout of a fully awake free humanity.

Invention Secrecy Orders Reach a 20 Year High On October 27, 1977, Dr. Gerald F. Ross filed a patent application for a new invention he had devised to defeat the jamming of electromagnetic transmissions at specified frequencies. In the interim, Dr. At the end of Fiscal Year 2014 (on September 30), there were 5,520 such invention secrecy orders in effect, according to statistics released by the U.S. That is the highest number of invention secrecy orders in effect since 1994. In fact, the overwhelming majority of current secrecy orders were issued in prior years, but there were 97 new secrecy orders that were imposed in FY 2014. Under the Invention Secrecy Act, secrecy orders may be imposed whenever, in the judgment of an executive branch agency, the disclosure of a patent application would be “detrimental to the national security.”

Cover Story: How NSA Spied on Merkel Cell Phone from Berlin Embassy It's a prime site, a diplomat's dream. Is there any better location for an embassy than Berlin's Pariser Platz? It's just a few paces from here to the Reichstag. When the American ambassador steps out the door, he looks directly onto the Brandenburg Gate. When the United States moved into the massive embassy building in 2008, it threw a huge party. Research by SPIEGEL reporters in Berlin and Washington, talks with intelligence officials and the evaluation of internal documents of the US' National Security Agency and other information, most of which comes from the archive of former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, lead to the conclusion that the US diplomatic mission in the German capital has not merely been promoting German-American friendship. The NSA spying scandal has thus reached a new level, becoming a serious threat to the trans-Atlantic partnership. Hardly anything is as sensitive a subject to Merkel as the surveillance of her cellphone. 'That's Just Not Done' Posing as Diplomats

What would you say to the NSA if you could send them an anonymous message? Christoph Wachter & Mathias Jud, Can You Hear Me, 2014. Antenna pointing at the Embassy of the U.S. Christoph Wachter & Mathias Jud, Can You Hear Me, 2014. Pariser Platz Berlin-based artists Christoph Wachter & Mathias Jud have installed WLAN / WiFi mesh network with can antennas on the roofs of the Academy of Arts and the Swiss Embassy, both located in the heart of "NSA's Secret Spy Hub" in the city. The installation is a direct reference to Edward Snowden's revelations that the U.S.' Christoph Wachter & Mathias Jud, Can You Hear Me, 2014 Wachter and Jud's DIY can antennas don't hide themselves. At the point at which the interception of Angela Merkel's cell phone occurred, the open network of anonymous communication options now unfolds as a legal and legitimate response to rigid restrictions on our freedoms and hidden, secret surveillance. Messages can be sent to the intelligence agencies on the frequencies that are intercepted by the NSA and GCHQ. Hi Mathias! You organize guided tours.

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