Category Archives: Edward Snowden

Snowden aftermath: Defense contractors revamp policies, practices

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Summary: Following the Edward Snowden wake-up call, three in four defense contractors have already made significant changes in their IT security and hiring practices.

Both the volume and the sensitivity of the information leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden has compelled US defense contractors to drastically overhaul their hiring practices and reevaluate employees' data access privileges.

The new study conducted by Opinion Matters on behalf of security software provider ThreatTrack Security found that 75 percent of IT and security managers employed by defense contractors have changed their cybersecurity processes in a variety of ways.

Of the 100 respondents, 41 percent said they've implemented stricter hiring practices and 39 percent acknowledged that their own IT administrative rights have been restricted.

The depth and breadth of the Snowden leaks were also a wake-up call to enterprise companies who understand and appreciate the immense value of the intellectual property housed and accessed on their corporate networks.

"It's interesting to note that while defense contractors seem to have better security practices in place and are more transparent than many companies in the private sector, they are finding the current cyber threat onslaught just as difficult to deal with," said ThreatTrack Security CEO Julian Waits, Sr., in the report.

Fifty-five percent of defense contractors are now providing more general cybersecurity awareness training to their employees and 52 percent have reviewed or reevaluated employees' data access privileges.

It doesn't help, contractors said, that it's become increasingly difficult to find and hire qualified security staffers at a time when new threats are multiplying at an exponential rate.

Twenty-six percent of contractors said there was a shortage of "highly skilled" security personnel on staff and their existing IT security team is routinely torn between resolving new malware sample analyses and cleaning malware off executives' devices.

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Snowden aftermath: Defense contractors revamp policies, practices

WikiLeaks, Greenwald Blast Guardian Journalist’s Book On ‘FSB Prisoner’ Snowden

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Details Published on Tuesday, 04 February 2014 17:36

Is Snowden being held hostage in Russia?/npr.orgWHISTLEBLOWING project WikiLeaks has excoriated a new book by Guardian foreign correspondent Luke Harding, who claims former NSA contractor Edward Snowden is being kept hostage by the Russian security agency, the FSB.

A new exclusive extract from Hardings book The Snowden Files, published by the Guardian on Sunday, has sparked a furious reaction from supporters of NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, including WikiLeaks and former Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald.

Titled Is Edward Snowden a prisoner in Russia? the extract appeared to focus on Hardings favorite topic the activities of Russias Federal Security Service, the FSB, which the author views as a simple rebranding of the notorious Soviet KGB agency. It is full of clichs of the Kremlins hand and FSB connections, and referring to East Berlin the author does not hesitate to brand it Stasiland.

Readers may wonder where Snowden, who exposed the vast surveillance activities of the US security agency, the NSA, and has been stranded in Moscow ever since the US revoked his passport, fits into this picture. Harding claims: The hacker turned whistleblower had got his asylum. But the longer he stayed out of public view, the more it appeared that he was, in some informal way, the FSBs prisoner.

According to Harding, from the very start of Snowdens stay in Russia the former CIA employee has been surrounded by minders from the FSB, with even his trusted lawyer, Anatoly Kucherena, being an FSB-handpicked person of the system.

Harding then attempts to find every possible hint of Snowden being under Russian pressure in those few statements and video recordings of the whistleblower released during his time in Sheremetyevo Airport and afterward. Allegations of Snowden being a Russian spy or his leaks archive having been possibly accessed by the Russian agents are also cited, although Harding himself clearly does not believe Snowden to be a traitor.

The end of the extract outlines an imagined bleak future for Snowden, saying that: He is a guest of the Russian Federation, whether he likes it or not. And, in some sense, its captive. No one quite knows how long his exile might last. Months? Years? Decades?

However, Harding does not mention in the extract that Russia was the only country that did provide the whistleblower with a safe haven, despite the threat of a diplomatic row with the US. He also does not mention that it was Washington that left Snowden stranded in Moscows Sheremetyevo Airport transit zone by canceling his US passport.

But crucially, it turns out that all of Hardings reasoning and allegations are based on media reports and Snowdens statements available on the internet. According to WikiLeaks, Harding never contacted Snowden.

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WikiLeaks, Greenwald Blast Guardian Journalist’s Book On ‘FSB Prisoner’ Snowden

Politicians attack Great Barrier Reef, Edward Snowden and TV Reporter – TFU Friday – Video

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Politicians attack Great Barrier Reef, Edward Snowden and TV Reporter - TFU Friday
And I manage to tie it all to Tony Abbott. Australia Permits Dredge Dumping Near Great Barrier Reef for Major Coal Port http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2014/0...

By: AngryAussie

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Politicians attack Great Barrier Reef, Edward Snowden and TV Reporter - TFU Friday - Video

Edward Snowden: World’s most wanted man

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(CNN) -

The "world's most wanted man" may be holed up in Russia, but Edward Snowden's story will soon be available -- as they say -- everywhere books are sold.

"The Snowden Files: The Inside Story Of The World's Most Wanted Man," by reporter Luke Harding, from the British newspaper The Guardian, comes out in the UK this week, with a U.S. release date of February 11.

The Guardian is a key player in the Snowden saga, having provided an outlet for the former NSA contractor-turned-whistle-blower to expose what he knew about the U.S. government's mass surveillance programs. Harding accessed a wealth of inside information, such as this story about how Snowden first connected via e-mail with Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald.

Harding writes in the book: "This mystery correspondent asked Greenwald to install PGP encryption software on his laptop. Once up and running, it guarantees privacy (the initials stand for Pretty Good Privacy) for an online chat. Greenwald had no objections. But there were two problems. 'I'm basically technically illiterate,' he admits. Greenwald also had a lingering sense that the kind of person who insisted on encryption might turn out to be slightly crazy."

Greenwald and Snowden eventually built a mutual trust, and the former IT contractor divulged many of the top secret documents in his possession.

At that point, The Guardian's U.S. Editor Janine Gibson drew up plan before publishing, including seeking legal advice and working out a strategy for approaching the White House. She had some tough decisions to make.

Harding wrote: "Gibson decided to give the NSA a four-hour window to comment, so the agency had an opportunity to disavow the story. By British standards, the deadline was fair: long enough to make a few calls, agree a line. But for Washington, where journalist-administration relations sometimes resemble a country club, this was nothing short of outrageous."

Harding said Gibson's tough decisions meant she'd have to face down some tough people, including FBI deputy director Sean M. Joyce, NSA deputy director Chris Inglis, and Robert S. Litt, general counsel for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

The author writes: "By fielding heavyweights, the White House had perhaps reckoned it could flatter, and if necessary bully, the Guardian into delaying publication. Gibson explained that the editor-in-chief -- in the air halfway across the Atlantic -- was unavailable. She said: 'I'm the final decision-maker.' After 20 minutes, the White House was frustrated. The conversation was going in circles. Finally, one of the team could take no more. Losing his temper, he shouted, 'You don't need to publish this! No serious news organisation would publish this!' Gibson replied, 'With the greatest respect, we will take the decisions about what we publish.'"

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Edward Snowden: World's most wanted man

Edward Snowden, a Party to Subverting Nations in Latin America

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Monday, February 3, 2014

Edward Snowden, a Party to Subverting Nations in Latin America

By Jerry Brewer

To those of the naivet persuasion who believe that Edward Joseph Snowden [30] is a hero for democracy and/or world freedom as a whistleblower, Latin America is simply one region of the globe that is experiencing the sour and bitter notes of his whistle playing, while he has taken up a convenient place of residence in Russia.

Let us not forget a fellow player of this rogue orchestra of oratorical disharmony, one Julian Paul Assange [42]. Since June 19, 2012 Assange has resided cozily in the Ecuadorean Embassy in London, where he has been granted diplomatic asylum.

Assange initially started with WikiLeaks in 2006, and subsequently began to publish US military and diplomatic documents that exposed secrets, sources and methods.

What do Snowden and Assange share in common, and who has facilitated their agendas and exploited their operational acts?

The dark and shadowy specter of espionage, with its many tentacles of manipulation and world players, are indeed suspect in a myriad of applications.

As the exploits of Snowden and Assange alone seem to primarily focus on the US, they are joined by leftwing rogue nation leaders and their own devious security services who point their crooked fingers at democracy -- spy versus spy is alive and well in virtually every corner of the world, and it will remain quite possibly until the end of time.

Reportedly, espionage preceded biblical times. A modern colloquialism references, The satanic serpent, an agent operating under the cover of a reptile, who enlisted Eve as an intelligence asset to destabilize the relationship between God and the Garden of Eden.Although a graphic philosophical illustration, it does identify the purpose and essential ethic of the intelligence craft -- coaxing your contact to part with confidences.

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Edward Snowden, a Party to Subverting Nations in Latin America