OT: Skype surveillance system discovered in China
-
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/3125179/Skype-surveillance-system-discovered-in-China.html
Skype surveillance system discovered in China
Users of Chinese Skype are being monitored by an extensive surveillance system
which tracks and archives the online messages for words deemed politically
sensitive, according to a report.
By Tom Leonard in New York
02 Oct 2008
An extensive surveillance operation has been archiving millions of text
messages on TOM-Skype, a joint venture between a Chinese media company and the
US internet giant eBay, researchers at the University of Toronto's Citizen Lab
have discovered.
Offending messages, which included keywords such as "communist", "Taiwan",
"Olympic Games", "earthquake" and "milk powder", are stored on insecure
publicly-accessible web servers, said the researchers.
The news that the operation of Skype - best known for allowing customers to
make free telephone calls over the internet - has been compromised highlights
the extent of Chinese web snooping - 166,000 TOM-Skype messages were archived
in just two months - and contradicts a public statement made by the company in
2006 that all conversations were protected and private, the researchers said.
The report's authors were unable to identify who was conducting the
surveillance.
"We were able to download millions of messages that identify users," Prof
Ronald Deibert, an author of the report, told the New York Times.
The researchers were able to analyse the surveillance data because the Chinese
computers holding it had been improperly configured.
An eBay spokesman said it had expressed concern over the report's finding to
TOM Online and the Chinese company had promised to "fix the problem" within 24
hours.
A spokesman for TOM said: "As a Chinese company, we adhere to rules and
regulations in China where we operate our businesses."
Telegraph Media Group Limited 2008
z1
>
> Users of Chinese Skype are being monitored by an extensive surveillance system
> which tracks and archives the online messages for words deemed politically
> sensitive, according to a report.
>
>
so for a place like China, governed by you-know-who, why are you so
surprised?
and how about digging up news about how any government might check on
it's citizens anyway?
if you think you might be telling us something new . . .
take a rest for a few years and see what's new.
-
z1 <z...@127.0.0.1> wrote:
> so for a place like China, governed by you-know-who,
> why are you so surprised?
Nobody said anything about being surprised.
> and how about digging up news about how any government
> might check on it's citizens anyway?
Be my guest; I invite you.
> if you think you might be telling us something new . . .
> take a rest for a few years and see what's new.
Being published here because the Chinese press and media
does not allow Chinese people to publish these stories in China.
- regards
- jb
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
VIDEO: LaRouche: No Bailout! The American People Will Kill You !
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jd5uaScAUSQ
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Wall Street cheers Bailout as Woman, 90, shoots self inside foreclosed home
Congress Bails Out Wall Street
Gentiles on Main Street will pay out big money for the slippery
practices of the mostly-Jewish bankers on Wall Street. Could the
"subprime loan" crisis - which caused the Wall Street crash - have
happened without "fractional-reserve" banking? No. There wouldn't have
been enough money in the system. Too much money was available.
Question: who sets U.S. banking policy, especially the "reserve-level"
rate? [1]. Answer: the Federal Reserve [2]. It's time for Congress to
reform America's money system by, for starters, mandating reserve
banking instead of fractional-reserve banking:
http://www.reuters.com/article/vcCandidateFeed7/idUSN0335059120081003
Woman, 90, shoots self inside foreclosed home
(CNN) -- A 90-year-old Akron, Ohio, woman who shot herself as
sheriff's deputies tried to evict her from her foreclosed home became
a symbol of the nation's home mortgage crisis Friday.
Addie Polk is being treated at Akron General Medical Center after
shooting herself at least twice in the upper body Wednesday afternoon,
her city councilman said.
U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, mentioned Polk on the House floor
Friday during debate over the latest economic rescue proposal.
"This bill does nothing for the Addie Polks of the world," Kucinich
said after telling her story. "This bill fails to address the fact
that millions of homeowners are facing foreclosure, are facing the
loss of their home. This bill will take care of Wall Street, and the
market may go up for a few days, but democracy is going downhill."
Neighbor Robert Dillon, 62, used a ladder to enter a second-story
bathroom window of Polk's home after he and the deputies heard loud
noises inside, Dillon said.
http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/10/03/eviction.suicide.attempt/index.html
www.vnnforum.com
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
z1
>
>
> Being published here because the Chinese press and media
> does not allow Chinese people to publish these stories in China.
>
and what makes you think that anyone in China is able to access
rec.games.go?
-
> "-" wrote:
>> Being published here because the Chinese press and media
>> does not allow Chinese people to publish these stories in China.
z1 <z...@127.0.0.1> wrote:
> and what makes you think that anyone in China is able
> to access rec.games.go?
You're fairly dense. Chinese people presently outside China
may read rec.games.go and, of course, the Chinese government
may read rec.games.go . Occasionally a reader from China is
able to post to rec.games.go .
- regards
- jb
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Malware Removal and Prevention: Introduction
http://wiki.castlecops.com/Malware_Removal_and_Prevention:_Introduction
-----------------------------------------------------------------
z1
and in the end 1.3 billion Chinese will be eternally grateful to you.
keep up your self-appointed calling
and I hope the CIA might give you some pocket money from time to time.
-
z1 <z...@127.0.0.1> wrote:
> and in the end 1.3 billion Chinese will be eternally grateful to you.
> keep up your self-appointed calling
You haven't asked how Chinese surveillance was discovered.
> and I hope the CIA might give you some pocket money from time to time.
Sorry, I'm not a Zionist ...
- regards
- jb
------------------------------------------------------------------
House Of Lies: How Congress Failed To Protect Our Economy
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z5z9lD4C2Io
------------------------------------------------------------------
-
>> z1 <z...@127.0.0.1> wrote:
>>> so what have the Chinese got to be worried about,
>>> when the world is coming to them :)
> "-" wrote:
>> I suppose that if Armageddon were happening everywhere
>> then there's no worry if the entire species becomes extinct...
"z1" <z...@127.0.0.1> wrote in message
> obviously it might then be too late . .
> your point being?
Reflection (copycat of other societies) is a false ideology
and leads mostly into perdition. Does China really consider
that it's advisable to take their cues from British Surveillance
because they believe Britain obtains a superior civilization?
- regards
- jb
-----------------------------------------------------------
Homeland Security's Space-Based Spying Goes Live
By Tom Burghardt
Global Research, October 4, 2008
Antifascist Calling...
While America's attention has shifted to the economic meltdown and the
presidential race between corporate favorites John McCain and Barack Obama,
The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday that the Department of Homeland
Security's (DHS) National Applications Office (NAO) "will proceed with the
first phase of a controversial satellite-surveillance program, even though an
independent review found the department hasn't yet ensured the program will
comply with privacy laws."
As I wrote in June, NAO will coordinate how domestic law enforcement and
"disaster relief" agencies such as FEMA use satellite imagery intelligence
(IMINT) generated by U.S. spy satellites. Based on available evidence, hard to
come by since these programs are classified "above top secret," the
technological power of these military assets are truly terrifying.
Unlike commercial satellites that beam TV programs, forecast the weather
or provide global positioning services, their military cousins are far more
flexible, have greater resolution and therefore, more power to monitor human
activity. By utilizing different parts of the light- and infrared spectrum,
spy satellites, in addition to taking ultra high-resolution photographs to
within a meter of their "target," can also track the heat signatures generated
by people inside a building. ("Homeland Security's Space-Based Spies,"
Antifascist Calling, June 4, 2008)
In other words, when combined with illegal NSA and FBI domestic surveillance
programs--from data-mining to the massive interception of telephone and
internet communications--NAO will furnish DHS and outsourced corporate
grifters who actually run the program, with the blanket coverage of American
citizens long sought by securocrats. Aside from The Wall Street Journal
and The Raw Story, not a single media outlet has disclosed this vital
information to the public.
Despite the absence of rigorous oversight that would determine whether or not
NAO complies with what's left of privacy laws, DHS is proceeding full speed
ahead. The Journal reports,
A new 60-page Government Accountability Office report said the department
"lacks assurance that NAO operations will comply with applicable laws and
privacy and civil liberties standards," according to a person familiar with
the document. The report, which is unclassified but considered sensitive,
hasn't been publicly released, but was described and quoted by several people
who have read it.
The report cites gaps in privacy safeguards. The department, it found, lacks
controls to prevent improper use of domestic-intelligence data by other
agencies and provided insufficientassurance that requests for classified
information will be fully reviewed to ensure it can be legally provided.
(Siobhan Gorman, "Satellite-Surveillance Program to Begin Despite Privacy
Concerns," The Wall Street Journal, October 1, 2008) [emphasis added]
Reporting on the shocking absence of oversight features built into the
program, Nick Juliano writes,
Essentially, the bill only requires the Homeland Security Secretary to
assure lawmakers that NAO programs comply with exisiting laws. Congress also
has required the DHS Inspector General to provide quarterly classified reports
on how much information has been collected by the domestic satellite
surveillance, although the bill required those reports be made to the
House and Senate Appropriations Committees, not the Homeland Security
Committees that are traditionally in charge of DHS oversight. ("DHS satellite
spy program going forward despite objections," The Raw Story, October 2, 2008)
The GAO's suppressed report is not the first to criticize the breathtaking
scope of this repressive program. The Congressional Research Service (CRS)
issued a study in June raising critical questions about NAO's legality.
Members of Congress and outside groups have raised concerns that using
satellites for law enforcement purposes may infringe on the privacy and Fourth
Amendment rights of U.S. persons. Other commentators have questioned whether
the proposed surveillance will violate the Posse Comitatus Act or other
restrictions on military involvement in civilian law enforcement, or would
otherwise exceed the statutory mandates of the agencies involved. Such
concerns led Congress to preclude any funds in the Consolidated Appropriations
Act, 2008 (H.R. 2764, P.L. 110-161), from being used to "commence operations
of the National Applications Office ... until the Secretary [of the Department
of Homeland Security] certifies that these programs comply with all existing
laws, including all applicable privacy and civil liberties standards, and
that certification is reviewed by the Government Accountability Office."
(Section 525.) Similar language has been included in FY2009 homeland security
appropriations bills. (Richard A. Best Jr. and Jennifer K. Elsea, "Satellite
Surveillance: Domestic Issues," Congressional Research Service, June 27, 2008)
But as the Journal reported, Congress' "partial funding" for the program in "a
little-debated $634 billion spending measure," means that an operational NAO
will now provide federal, state and local officials "with extensive access to
spy-satellite imagery--but no eavesdropping--to assist with emergency response
and other domestic-security needs, such as identifying where ports or border
areas are vulnerable to terrorism."
Such hollow "no eavesdropping" assurances to Congress from quarterly
classified reports from the DHS Inspector General fly in the face of the
steady erosion of constitutional protections by the Bush administration.
What "other agencies" might the GAO have in mind when citing concerns over
potential abuse of intelligence data supplied by the National Applications
Office? Well, take your pick since the U.S. "intelligence community" is
comprised of 16 different agencies under the operational control of the Office
of National Intelligence (ODI) and the powerful Office of the Director of
National Intelligence (ODNI).
Led by Michael McConnell, a ten-year veteran of the spooky Booz Allen Hamilton
corporation, purchased this year by the sinister Carlyle Group, ODNI can truly
be described as a "public-private partnership" in political repression. As
CorpWatch reported in March,
McConnell ... spent more than 10 years as a Booz Allen senior vice
president in charge of the company’s extensive contracts in military
intelligence and information operations for the Pentagon. In that job, his
official biography states, McConnell provided intelligence support
to "the U.S. Unified Combatant Commanders, the Director of National
Intelligence Agencies, and the Military Service Intelligence Directors." That
made him a close colleague of not only Donald Rumsfeld, who ran the Pentagon
from 2001 to 2007, but of Vice President Cheney, who has served President Bush
as a kind of intelligence godfather since the earliest days of the
administration. (Tim Shorrock, "Carlyle Group May Buy Major CIA Contractor:
Booz Allen Hamilton," CorpWatch, March 8, 2008)
Investigative journalist Tim Shorrock revealed last year, that the
intelligence-sharing system to be managed by NAO,
...will rely heavily on private contractors including Boeing, BAE Systems, L-3
Communications and Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC).
These companies already provide technology and personnel to U.S. agencies
involved in foreign intelligence, and the NAO greatly expands their markets.
Indeed, at an intelligence conference in San Antonio, Texas, last month,
the titans of the industry were actively lobbying intelligence officials to
buy products specifically designed for domestic surveillance. ("Domestic
Spying, Inc." CorpWatch, November 27, 2007)
NAO will utilize the military imagery and mapping tools of the National
Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA). NGA maintains a symbiotic relationship
with both the NSA and the ultra-secret National Reconnaissance Office (NRO),
that builds and maintains America's fleet of spy satellites. Additionally, NRO
operates the planetary wide network of ground stations where NSA's signals
intelligence (SIGINT) and NGA's imagery intelligence (IMINT) are processed and
analyzed.
Shorrock revealed that the program was kick-started in 2005 and the impetus
came from veteran spooks with extensive ties to the
military-industrial-security apparatus and corporate outfits such as Booz
Allen Hamilton. The company was "tasked" with studying how "intelligence from
spy satellites and photoreconnaissance planes could be better used
domestically to track potential threats to security within the U.S." Completed
in 2005, the Booz Allen plan became the basis for NAO.
Veteran spook Charles Allen told The Wall Street Journal in August 2007 that
NAO is "an idea whose time has arrived." As DHS chief intelligence officer,
Allen will head the new program.
Additionally, an "independent study group" appointed in 2005 by the Director
of National Intelligence, tasked with reviewing the deployment of military
reconnaissance assets in the "homeland" reached the desired conclusions.
According to a press release by the Department of Homeland Security,
The study group unanimously recommended in its September 2005 report that
the scope of the Civil Applications Committee be expanded beyond civil
applications to include homeland security and law enforcement applications,
and concluded that there is an urgent need for action. The study group
concluded a new approach is needed to effectively employ Intelligence
Community capabilities for civil applications, homeland security and law
enforcement uses. ("Fact Sheet: National Applications Office," Department of
Homeland Security, August 15, 2007)
How "independent"? You make the call! Shorrock reported that the group,
... was chaired by Keith Hall, a Booz Allen vice president who manages his
firm's extensive contracts with the NGA and previously served as the director
of the NRO.
Other members of the group included seven other former intelligence officers
working for Booz Allen, as well as retired Army Lieutenant General Patrick M.
Hughes, the former director of the DIA and vice president of homeland security
for L-3 Communications, a key NSA contractor; and Thomas W. Conroy, the vice
president of national security programs for Northrop Grumman, which has
extensive contracts with the NSA and the NGA and throughout the intelligence
community. (Shorrock, 2008, op. cit.)
From the start, the group's findings were "heavily weighted" toward
corporations "with a stake" in both foreign and domestic intelligence. No
surprise then, when the group's "contractor-advisers" called for "a major
expansion in the domestic use of the spy satellites that they sell to the
government."
A power-grab by the ODNI and DHS should raise serious alarms of further
encroachments by a lawless "unitary executive" and serve as a warning that
domestic law enforcement is rapidly coming under the purview of opaque
Pentagon spy agencies.
While the creeping militarization of civilian policing is not a new
phenomenon, the NAO launch represents a qualitative leap towards the
surveillance society dreamed up by Iran-Contra felon and former DARPA
administrator John Poindexter, before he was kicked to the curb when plans for
the Total Information Awareness (TIA) program first gained notoriety in 2003.
And like the newly-launched NAO, TIA was managed by none other than Booz Allen
Hamilton and their sidekicks at the San Diego-based Science Applications
International Corporation! Small world (of open-ended contracts for giant Bush
regime-connected multinationals).
The NAO will be overseen by the National Applications Executive Council
(NAEC). In turn, NAEC will be "tri-chaired" by the Deputy Secretary of
Homeland Security, the Deputy Secretary of the Department of the Interior
(DOI), and the Principal Deputy of the Director of National Intelligence, a
position held by Donald M. Kerr.
As with the vast majority of top securocrats, Kerr has served in a multitude
of capacities inside and outside government. When he ended his tenure as
Director of the National Reconnaissance Office in 2007, Kerr joined ONI. The
one-time CIA and FBI employee was also a SAIC executive vice president during
the 1990s.
Tim Shorrock reported in his essential book, Spies for Hire, that Kerr
described how "ninety-five percent of the resources over which we have
stewardship in fact go out on a contract to our industrial base. It's an
important thing to recognize that we cannot function without this highly
integrated industrial government team." Brutal honesty for brutal times.
Despite rigorous objections by members of Congress and civil liberties' groups
to a program with the breathtaking potential to invade our privacy in newer
and more lethal ways, NAO is now reality. America's headlong flight towards
constructing a post-Constitutional "new order" just added another brick in the
wall.
Tom Burghardt is a researcher and activist based in the San Francisco Bay
Area. In addition to publishing in Covert Action Quarterly, Love & Rage and
Antifa Forum, he is the editor of Police State America: U.S. Military "Civil
Disturbance" Planning, distributed by AK Press.
-----------------------------------------------------------