Nate Swanner

In the wake of Edward Snowden once again making revelations about the NSAs widespread and troubling spying and information gathering, were getting a better idea of the lengths the United States Government agency went through to soak in knowledge. Were also finding out how hard it can be to get the information they desire. Though a single secure system may be easy to crack, Snowden says a layering of several might actually render you totally safe from the prying eyes of big brother.

According to Snowden, the NSA had a ranking system for those programs they wanted to hack. Some, like messaging apps, typically fall under level one, which is trivial. those would be easiest to snoop on.

Level five, however, is labeled as catastrophic. That is the hardest sometimes impossible protection layer, but also rarely comes via a single app or system.

When a few harder-to-crack layers were put together, the security was about as airtight as we can get as citizens. For instance, taking something like Tor and using it along with Zoho would fragment and encrypt your info to the point that piecing it together becomes extremely difficult.

The NSA also had trouble with Truecrypt, which encrypted files on your computer straight away. While none alone gave the NSA trouble beyond level four, or major, a combination could send a user into level five, giving the NSA fits.

Source: Der Spiegel

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Snowden reveals how to go ‘level 5′, give the NSA fits

The U.S. government still wants to get its hands on Edward Snowden, the former CIA officer who has detailed the extent to which the NSA spies on citizens. Here's a timely question: Would the federal government ever do anything about Citizenfour, the Oscar-contending documentary that features Snowden?

So far, the Barack Obama administration has given the film a pass, but on Friday, one former government official decided that enough was enough.

Read more'Citizenfour': New York Review

Horace Edwards, who identifies himself as a retired naval officer and the former secretary of the Kansas Department of Transportation, has filed a lawsuit in Kansas federal court that seeks a constructive trust over monies derived from the distribution of Citizenfour. Edwards, who says he has "Q" security clearance and was the chief executive of the ARCO Pipeline Company, seeks to hold Snowden, director Laura Poitras, The Weinstein Co., Participant Media and others responsible for "obligations owed to the American people" and "misuse purloined information disclosed to foreign enemies."

It's an unusual lawsuit, one that the plaintiff likens to "a derivative action on behalf of the American Public," and is primarily based upon Snowden's agreement with the United States to keep confidentiality.

Represented by attorney Jean Lamfers, Edwards appears to be making the argument that Snowden's security clearance creates a fiduciary duty of loyalty one that was allegedly breached by Snowden's participation in the production of Citizenfour without allowing prepublication clearance review. As for the producers and distributors, they are said to be "aiding and abetting the theft and misuse of stolen government documents."

See more Surveillance Cinema: 14 Movies Featuring Big Brother

The lawsuit seeks a constructive trust to redress the alleged unjust enrichment by the film. A 1980 case that involved a former CIA officer's book went up to the Supreme Court and might have opened the path to such a remedy, though the high court said nothing about orders against private citizens like the filmmaker. Assuming Edwards has standing to pursue the lawsuit hardly a given wouldn't that be censorship?

"This relief does not infringe upon First Amendment rights but maintains a reasonable balance between national security and the fundamental Constitutional protections of Freedom of the Press," the lawsuit states. "No censorship occurs and no public access is restrained. Rather, upon information and belief, this lawsuit seeks relief against those who profiteer by pretending to be journalists and whistleblowers but in effect are evading the law and betraying their country."

Edwards is clearly upset by Snowden's actions, calling them "dishonorable and indefensible and not the acts of a legitimate whistleblower," as well as by Hollywood for "omit[ting] from the storyline" perceived acts of foreign espionage, and Poitras for doing things like "hiding [Snowden] in her hotel room while he changes into light disguise, accepting all of the purloined information to use for her personal benefit financially and professionally, filming Defendant Snowdens meeting with a lawyer in Hong Kong as he tries to seek asylum"

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'Citizenfour' Producers Sued Over Edward Snowden Leaks ...

Citizenfour Edward Snowden Movie Hits Lawsuit Snag
Citizen Four, the Edward Snowden documentary, has been hit with a lawsuit from a former government employee based on the grounds that it seeks to profit of the leaking of classified government...

By: TheLipTV

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Citizenfour Edward Snowden Movie Hits Lawsuit Snag - Video

U.S. National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden has applied for extended asylum in Russia, according to news reports.

Snowden, the former NSA contractor who has leaked details of the agency's worldwide surveillance activities, will seek an extension after Russia's approval for him to stay expires on July 31, according to a Wednesday report in Russia news site RT.com.

Snowden, living in Russia for the past year, has submitted documents to "prolong his stay," said his lawyer, Anatoly Kucherena, quoted in the story.

Kucherena did not tell RT.com if Snowden was seeking a new residency status, such as Russian citizenship. A decision on Snowden's status is up to the Russia government, the lawyer said.

Snowden faces charges of espionage and theft of government property in the U.S.

Meanwhile, Snowden's leaks continue to generate news. On Wednesday, The Intercept reported that the NSA and FBI have covertly monitored the emails of prominent Muslims in the U.S. including civil rights activists, professors and lawyers.

Grant Gross covers technology and telecom policy in the U.S. government for The IDG News Service. Follow Grant on Twitter at GrantGross. Grant's email address is [emailprotected]

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Report: Snowden applies for extended asylum in Russia

Eyes open: Sarah Harbi protests against the NSA outside the Department of Justice in Washington, DC. Photo: Reuters

Cyber security experts are questioning whether US President Barack Obama can make good on his assurance that intelligence agencies aren't spying on "ordinary folks."

That promise is especially dubious, experts say, in instances where Americans are communicating with US citizens living abroad and other people overseas.

"It's very clear there are enormous loopholes," said Jonathan Mayer, a cyber security fellow at Stanford University's Centre for International Security and Co-operation, who is reverse engineering the NSA surveillance program to learn how much collection if taken to extremes is legally possible. "Their rules, combined with their capabilities, cut against the classical protections built into our legal system."

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The US National Security Agency (NSA) and the CIA are tasked with gathering foreign not domestic intelligence. Agency rules say they must have a "reasonable, articulated suspicion" about the people they target, and are required to sift through all the data they collect and eliminate any that might have been intercepted from an innocent American, on US soil or abroad.

This week the Obama Administration proposed that Congress overhaul the electronic surveillance program by having phone companies hold onto the call records as they do now.

But there remain a number of significant ambiguities that allow Americans' data to be swept up, saved and analysed, according to a series of disclosures from former intelligence contractor Edward Snowden, WikiLeaks source Private Chelsea (previously known as Bradley) Manning and the US government itself:

- Analysts need to be just "51 per cent confident" that someone is not in the US, based on phone numbers, Internet Protocol addresses and email addresses, before they can target the person.

-The NSA is allowed to store encrypted communications, domestic or foreign, at least until analysts can decrypt it to find out whether it contains information relating to national security. With widely used services like Gmail and Facebook adding encryption, this could encompass a vast amount of domestic communications.

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NSA rules leave privacy vulnerable: experts

Washington: The US National Security Agency has created a surveillance system that is recording all the phone calls in an undisclosed foreign country, allowing it to play back any conversation up to 30 days later, the Washington Post reported on Tuesday.

The newspaper cited unnamed sources with direct knowledge of the system as well as documents supplied by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, who since last year has leaked extensive data revealing sweeping US spying activities.

The newspaper said that at the request of US officials, it was withholding details that could be used to identify the nation where the system is being used or others where it might be used in the future. The Post cited documents that envisioned similar US spying operations in other nations.

Mr Snowden again spoke from his Russian exile on Tuesday, addressing a conference audience in Vancouver through a screen and a remote-controlled robot.

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"There are absolutely more revelations to come," he said. "Some of the most important reporting to be done is yet to come."

The voice interception program is known as MYSTIC and started in 2009, with its "retrospective retrieval" capability, called RETRO, reaching full strength in 2011 against the first target nation.

A classified summary of the system said the collection effort was recording "every single" conversation nationwide in the first target country, storing billions of conversations in a 30-day rolling buffer that clears out the oldest calls as new ones are made.

A senior manager for the program likened it to a time machine that can replay voices from any phone call without the need to identify a person for spying in advance.

Current and former US officials quoted anonymously said large numbers of conversations involving Americans would be gathered using the system.

Excerpt from:
NSA records all calls in targeted foreign nation :report

PRISM is a clandestine anti-terrorism[1]mass electronic surveillance data mining program launched in 2007 by the National Security Agency (NSA), with participation from an unknown date by the British equivalent agency, GCHQ.[2][3][4] PRISM is a government code name for a data-collection effort known officially by the SIGAD US-984XN.[5][6] The Prism program collects stored Internet communications based on demands made to Internet companies such as Google Inc. under Section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act of 2008 to turn over any data that match court-approved search terms.[7] The NSA can use these Prism requests to target communications that were encrypted when they traveled across the Internet backbone, to focus on stored data that telecommunication filtering systems discarded earlier,[8][9] and to get data that is easier to handle, among other things.[10]

PRISM began in 2007 in the wake of the passage of the Protect America Act under the Bush Administration.[11][12] The program is operated under the supervision of the U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISA Court, or FISC) pursuant to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).[13] Its existence was leaked six years later by NSA contractor Edward Snowden, who warned that the extent of mass data collection was far greater than the public knew and included what he characterized as "dangerous" and "criminal" activities.[14] The disclosures were published by The Guardian and The Washington Post on June 6, 2013. Subsequent documents have demonstrated a financial arrangement between NSA's Special Source Operations division (SSO) and PRISM partners in the millions of dollars.[15]

Documents indicate that PRISM is "the number one source of raw intelligence used for NSA analytic reports", and it accounts for 91% of the NSA's Internet traffic acquired under FISA section 702 authority."[16][17] The leaked information came to light one day after the revelation that the FISA Court had been ordering a subsidiary of telecommunications company Verizon Communications to turn over to the NSA logs tracking all of its customers' telephone calls.[18][19]

U.S. government officials have disputed some aspects of the Guardian and Washington Post stories and have defended the program by asserting it cannot be used on domestic targets without a warrant, that it has helped to prevent acts of terrorism, and that it receives independent oversight from the federal government's executive, judicial and legislative branches.[20][21] On June 19, 2013, U.S. President Barack Obama, during a visit to Germany, stated that the NSA's data gathering practices constitute "a circumscribed, narrow system directed at us being able to protect our people."[22]

Prior to 2013, a number of programs had been authorized and executed by the U.S. government which sought to collect communications or communications data on a large scale. Some aspects had been declared unconstitutional[citation needed](United States v. U.S. District Court)[citation needed], and legislation passed which was expected to resolve this; in at least one case, legal action was impeded by the secret nature of any purported or alleged surveillance (American Civil Liberties Union v. National Security Agency).

The Real Time Regional Gateway was a data collection program introduced in 2005 in Iraq by NSA during the Iraq War that consisted of gathering all electronic communication, storing it, then searching and otherwise analyzing it. It was effective in providing information about Iraqi insurgents who had eluded less comprehensive techniques.[23] This "collect it all" strategy introduced by NSA director, Keith B. Alexander, is believed by Glenn Greenwald of The Guardian to be the model for the comprehensive world-wide mass archiving of communications which NSA is engaged in as of 2013.[24]

Below are a number of slides released by Edward Snowden showing the operation and processes behind the PRISM program.

Slide showing that much of the world's communications flow through the U.S.

Details of information collected via PRISM

Slide listing companies and the date that PRISM collection began

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PRISM (surveillance program) - Wikipedia, the free ...

A total of 19 months after NSA contractor Edward Snowden disclosed details of the National Security Agencys massive surveillance program, the debate has simmered down and a legislative fix looks unlikely.

At the heart of Snowdens disclosures was that the NSA has access to meta-data of millions of phone calls and is also able to access emails, transcripts from online chats and troves of other data directly from internet companies.

While several bills have been introduced and even voted on in Congress, a legislative fix looks unlikely.

In July of 2013, the Amash-Conyers Amendment, sponsored by Rep. Justin Amash, R-Michigan, and Rep. John Conyers, D-Michigan, would have effectively ended NSA collection of data, but narrowly failed the House of Representatives by a vote of 217-205. 211 votes were needed for the bill to pass that day.

More recently, the USA Freedom Act, which would have made some reforms passed the House by a vote of 303-121 in May. Amash sponsored the original bill, but voted against it because it was watered down after changes were made and in his opinion, did not go far enough in reforms. While it passed the House, it failed in the Senate in November, when it could not receive 60 votes to move forward.

One of the bills sponsor, Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vermont, blamed the failure on other Senators who were fear mongering, thus stalling debate on the bill.

The program has seen some challenges in court. Several district courts have heard the case against the program, one judge in the D.C. district court called the program likely unconstitutional and almost Orwellian, but other courts have issued opinions in favor of the program.

Dirk Deam, senior lecturer in political science at Iowa State, said the court challenges will likely not spur any changes, rather it is up to Congress.

Itll be up to Congress. At the root of this is application of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which is an act of Congress, Deam said. Almost all the issues surrounding things that have been leaked are connected to FISA, so to the extent that people are going to react to that, theyre going to have to [make changes] through legislation.

Several students at Iowa State said they do not approve of the program.

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As chances of NSA reform fade, opinions remain strong

Edward Snowden - Amsterdam 16-12-2014
Edward Snowden receives Winston Award 0:35 Edward Snowden Interview 2:08 VIDEO - Edward Snowden receives Winston Award - Big Brother Awards X, Amsterdam http://vimeo.com/114807250 ...

By: localmcmedianed

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Edward Snowden - Amsterdam 16-12-2014 - Video

The Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) is the use of Internet of Things technologies by industrial organizations to deliver better performance and enhance competitive advantage not only in an individual facility, but across an industrial organizations supply chain and throughout its value network.

There have been many articles forecasting the explosive growth of the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT). Without a doubt, IIoT things industrial smart devices that connect to the Internet and are able to collect useful data will greatly outnumber people by many times within a decade. When one considers that IIoT things can include a companys transportation assets, industrial equipment, the products made, and the containers that carry products across a supply chain, it is easy to see why this explosive growth is inevitable.

Cyber security tops the list when it comes to challenges for the Industrial Internet of Things. When one thinks of a hacker getting into a system and shutting down a utility, for example, it is obvious that the consequences of an IIoT security breach could be dire. And the IIoT makes this problem so much greater. Hackers need only a tiny tear in the security fabric and they can get in and cause harm. And as those connected devices grow exponentially, so do the entry points.

Key technologies that can be employed to help secure the IIoT including Network Access Control, Device Security, Encryption, and Industrial Protocol Firewall solutions. But as a colleague, Max Parnell (on the IT Team at ARC), pointed out at a Christmas Party, part of the solution will be based on regulation. And those regulations need to reflect how society balances security and privacy.

Max pointed me to a blog by Robert Hansen, written by one of the top dogs of internet security. Hansen points out that we can structure the Internet to insure anonymity or accountability, but not both. If everything on the Internet could be attributed and tracked back to people, you would have complete accountability. If you knew the packet you sent would be tagged with the information necessary for someone to track you down, youd be extremely unlikely to commit any crimes using the Internet.

On the flip side, 100% attribution is terrible for privacy when youre not doing anything illegal, or if you are a political dissident. The very last thing our forefathers wanted when they were talking amongst themselves in pubs on the East coast, considering creating a new nation, was attribution. They saw fit to write amendments to the constitution to limit unlawful search and seizures, and to allow freedom of speech.

Hansen made the point that as a younger man he would have chosen attribution and security. But that I would now tell my younger self to look beyond security, and really contemplate what a completely secure society would look like.

Ive got to say, when I think about tracking down pedophiles or gun runners, it is easy to side with attribution and security. But in light of the Edward Snowden revelations, and the scope of government surveillance of everyday citizens, my older self is not nearly so sure that is the right path.

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Edward Snowden and the Downside to the Industrial Internet ...