Category Archives: Edward Snowden

Topeka man asks federal court to stop Edward Snowden film before the Oscars

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The 10th Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday denied a Topeka mans request for an emergency injunction to prevent the documentary Citizenfour from being shown before the Academy Awards ceremony Sunday.

Horace Edwards, 89, first filed suit in December, claiming producers of the documentary, which chronicles former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowdens leak of classified documents, shouldnt be allowed to profit from what Edwards called Snowdens crimes. The lawsuit was filed Dec. 19 in U.S. District Court in Kansas City, Kan.

On Feb. 13, a district court issued an order refusing to grant Edwards motion to seal the classified records revealed in the film, allowing the documentary to continue to be distributed, according to Jean Lamfers, Edwards attorney.

This is not a leak case about typical government inefficiencies, Lamfers wrote in the appeal Friday. It is about the classified information contained in Citizenfour that goes too far and discloses for any viewers consumption, serious national security information stolen by Snowden.

Citizenfour is one of five films being considered in the Best Documentary Feature category at Sundays award show.

Edwards, who served in the Navy during World War II and says he was granted several security clearances by the Atomic Energy Commission, felt compelled to file the lawsuit after seeing the documentary in late 2014.

I was kind of amazed a bit shocked, I guess as it dawned on me what it was a story about, he told The Topeka Capital-Journal during an interview Dec. 31.

Snowden was working as an NSA contractor for the consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton when, in the summer of 2013, he released thousands of documents to journalists, revealing the agencys national and international surveillance efforts. He was charged with violating the Espionage Act and has spent nearly two years in asylum inside Russia.

Named as defendants in Edwards original lawsuit were Snowden, Praxis Films Inc., Participant Media, The Weinstein Company and producers Laura Poitras, Diane Weyermann and Jeffrey Skoll. After the district courts refusal order on Feb. 13, Lamfers filed a second complaint on Feb. 14, adding several other defendants to the lawsuit, including the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and Home Box Office Inc.

Such widespread distribution of Citizenfour, coupled with the publicity the night before on the Oscars broadcast, (by) HBO will bring widespread release of classified information harmful to national security to small, secret cells of members of recognized, but de-centralized terrorist organizations, Fridays court filing argued.

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Topeka man asks federal court to stop Edward Snowden film before the Oscars

Edward Snowden: US, British spies hacked cell phone SIM …

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The US National Security Agency (NSA) and Great Britains Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) hacked into the world's largest SIM card manufacturer, stealing encryption information, according to documents released by whistle-blower Edward Snowden and reported by The Intercept Thursday.

This gave the agencies the ability to secretly monitor a large portion of the worlds cellular communications, including both voice and data, according to The Intercept report, The Great SIM heist.

With these stolen encryption keys, intelligence agencies can monitor mobile communications without seeking or receiving approval from telecom companies and foreign governments, the report asserts. Possessing the keys also sidesteps the need to get a warrant or a wiretap, while leaving no trace on the wireless providers network that the communications were intercepted. Bulk key theft additionally enables the intelligence agencies to unlock any previously encrypted communications they had already intercepted, but did not yet have the ability to decrypt.

Gemalto, the Netherlands-based company allegedly targeted, produces some 2 billion SIM (subscriber identity modules) cards a year used in mobile phones and next-generation credit cards.

Among its clients are AT&T, T-Mobile, Verizon, Sprint, and some 450 wireless network providers around the world. The company operates in 85 countries and has more than 40 manufacturing facilities. One of its three global headquarters is in Austin, Texas, and it has a large factory in Pennsylvania, according to The Intercept report.

As part of the covert operations against Gemalto, spies from GCHQ with support from the NSA mined the private communications of unwitting engineers and other company employees in multiple countries, the report states.

The full impact of this latest revelation about the NSA may never be known. But if Snowdens latest claim as reported by The Intercept is true, it raises questions about the security of cell phone voice and data communications around the world.

The breach is disastrous for mobile security, which has historically already been on shaky ground, writes T.C. Sottek, senior news editor at The Verge, a technology newsand media network.

Once you have the keys, decrypting traffic is trivial, Christopher Soghoian, principal technologist for the American Civil Liberties Union, told The Intercept. The news of this key theft will send a shock wave through the security community.

Officials at Gemalto say they knew nothing about the security breachuntil the company wascontacted by The Intercept. After ordering its security team to look for signs of a breach on Wednesday, it found none, company officials told thenextweb.com.

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Edward Snowden: US, British spies hacked cell phone SIM ...

Edward Snowden: US, British spies hacked cell phone SIM card encryption keys (+video)

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The US National Security Agency (NSA) and Great Britains Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) hacked into the world's largest SIM card manufacturer, stealing encryption information, according to documents released by whistle-blower Edward Snowden and reported by The Intercept Thursday.

This gave the agencies the ability to secretly monitor a large portion of the worlds cellular communications, including both voice and data, according to The Intercept report, The Great SIM heist.

With these stolen encryption keys, intelligence agencies can monitor mobile communications without seeking or receiving approval from telecom companies and foreign governments, the report asserts. Possessing the keys also sidesteps the need to get a warrant or a wiretap, while leaving no trace on the wireless providers network that the communications were intercepted. Bulk key theft additionally enables the intelligence agencies to unlock any previously encrypted communications they had already intercepted, but did not yet have the ability to decrypt.

Gemalto, the Netherlands-based company allegedly targeted, produces some 2 billion SIM (subscriber identity modules) cards a year used in mobile phones and next-generation credit cards.

Among its clients are AT&T, T-Mobile, Verizon, Sprint, and some 450 wireless network providers around the world. The company operates in 85 countries and has more than 40 manufacturing facilities. One of its three global headquarters is in Austin, Texas, and it has a large factory in Pennsylvania, according to The Intercept report.

As part of the covert operations against Gemalto, spies from GCHQ with support from the NSA mined the private communications of unwitting engineers and other company employees in multiple countries, the report states.

The full impact of this latest revelation about the NSA may never be known. But if Snowdens latest claim as reported by The Intercept is true, it raises questions about the security of cell phone voice and data communications around the world.

The breach is disastrous for mobile security, which has historically already been on shaky ground, writes T.C. Sottek, senior news editor at The Verge, a technology newsand media network.

Once you have the keys, decrypting traffic is trivial, Christopher Soghoian, principal technologist for the American Civil Liberties Union, told The Intercept. The news of this key theft will send a shock wave through the security community.

Officials at Gemalto say they knew nothing about the security breachuntil the company wascontacted by The Intercept. After ordering its security team to look for signs of a breach on Wednesday, it found none, company officials told thenextweb.com.

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Edward Snowden: US, British spies hacked cell phone SIM card encryption keys (+video)

Edward Snowden Leak: US And British Spies Accused Of Stealing SIM Encryption Keys

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Documents leaked by whistleblower Edward Snowden revealed that American and British spies had broken into networks of the digital security companyGemaltoto steal encryption keys that are used to safeguard the privacy of cellphone communications worldwide, The Intercept reported Thursday.

The hack was carried out by the American National Security Agency (NSA) and its British counterpart, Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), in 2010, according to the Intercept report. A top-secret GCHQ document accessed by the Intercept provided details about the breach that allowed the agencies to secretly monitor cellphone communications, including calls, texts and emails.

Netherlands-based Gemalto, which makes Subscriber Identity Modules (SIM) cards that are used in cellphones and credit cards, was reportedly targeted in the hack. The company, which is the world's largest SIM card manufacturer, is headquartered in Amsterdam and has several subsidiaries across the world. Its clients include AT&T, T-Mobile, Verizon, Sprint and some 450 wireless network providers worldwide.

With stolen encryption keys, intelligence agencies can monitor mobile communications without seeking or receiving approval from telecom companies and foreign governments, the report revealed. Possessing the keys also sidesteps the need to get a warrant or a wiretap, while leaving no trace on the wireless providers network that the communications were intercepted. Bulk key theft additionally enables the intelligence agencies to unlock any previously encrypted communications they had already intercepted, but did not yet have the ability to decrypt.

According to The Intercept, Gemalto was unaware of the breach, and Paul Beverly, an executive vice president of the company, said that the most important thing for us now is to understand the degree of the breach, according to media reports.

Im disturbed, quite concerned that this has happened, he added.

AGemalto spokeswoman told Reuters: "From what we gathered at this moment, the target was not Gemalto, per se - it was an attempt to try and cast the widest net possible to reach as many mobile phones as possible.

"We take this publication very seriously and will devote all resources necessary to fully investigate and understand the scope of such highly sophisticated technique to try to obtain SIM card data," she reportedly said.

Once you have the keys, decrypting traffic is trivial, Christopher Soghoian, the principal technologist for the American Civil Liberties Union, said, according to The Intercept. The news of this key theft will send a shock wave through the security community.

As of now, NSA and GCHQ have not responded to the allegations, according to media reports.

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Edward Snowden Leak: US And British Spies Accused Of Stealing SIM Encryption Keys

Timothy Olyphant joins Oliver Stone’s Edward Snowden movie

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February 20, 2015 - 15:32 AMT

PanARMENIAN.Net - Justified star Timothy Olyphant has joined Oliver Stones untitled movie about whistleblower Edward Snowden, Variety reports.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Shailene Woodley and Melissa Leo are also signed up for the project with Open Road Films and Endgame Entertainment teaming on the U.S. release.

Stone and longtime producing partner Moritz Borman acquired the rights last year to two books Time of the Octopus, a novel written by Snowdens Russian lawyer Anatoly Kucherena, and Luke Hardings The Snowden Files, The Inside Story of the Worlds Most Wanted Man as sources for Stones screenplay. Borman is producing with Eric Kopeloff.

Snowden was charged in 2013 by the U.S. Department of Justice with two counts of violating the Espionage Act and theft of government property and his passport was revoked a week later by the U.S. Department of State. He was granted temporary asylum by Russia last year.

Olyphant has been cast as a CIA agent who befriended Snowden after Snowden released the classified documents. Leo will portray Laura Poitras, whose Snowden documentary Citizenfour is the frontrunner in the category at Sundays Academy Awards.

Olyphant starred in This Is Where I Leave You.

The news was first reported by Deadline.com.

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Timothy Olyphant joins Oliver Stone’s Edward Snowden movie