A well-known privacy advocate has given the public
an unusually explicit peek into the intelligence world's tool box, pulling back
the curtain on the National Security Agency's arsenal of high-tech spy gear.
Independent journalist and security expert Jacob Appelbaum
on Monday told a hacker conference in Germany that the NSA could turn iPhones
into eavesdropping tools and use radar wave devices to harvest electronic
information from computer even if they weren't online.
Appelbaum told hundreds of computer experts gathered at
Hamburg's Chaos Communications Conference that his revelations about the NSA's
capabilities "are even worse than your worst nightmares."
"What I am going to show you today is wrist-slittingly
depressing," he said.
Even though in the past six months there have been an
unprecedented level of public scrutiny of the NSA and its methods, Appelbaum's
claims - supported by what appeared to be internal NSA slideshows - still
caused a stir.
One of the slides described how the NSA can plant malicious
software onto Apple Inc.'s iPhone, giving American intelligence agents the
ability to turn the popular smartphone into a pocket-sized spy.
Another slide showcased a futuristic-sounding device described
as a "portable continuous wave generator," a remote controlled device
which - when paired with tiny electronic implants - can bounce invisible waves
of energy off keyboards and monitors to see what is being typed even if the
target device isn't connected to the Internet.
A third slide showcased a piece of equipment called
NIGHTSTAND, which can tamper with wireless Internet connections from up to 8
miles away.
An NSA spokeswoman Vanee Vines said that she wasn't aware of
Appelbaum's
presentation, but that in general should would not comment on
"alleged foreign intelligence activities."
"As we've said before:
NSA's focus is on targeting the communications of valid foreign
intelligence targets - not on collecting and exploiting a class of communications
or services that would sweep up communications that are not of bona fide
foreign intelligence interest to the U.S. government," Vines said.
The documents included in Appelbaum's presentation were
first published by German magazine Der Spiegel Sunday and Monday.
Appelbaum and Der Spiegel have both played an important role
in the disclosures of NSA leaker Edward Snowden, but neither has clarified
whether the most recent set of slides came from Snowden.
Der Spiegel's revelations related to a division of the NSA known as Tailored Access Operations, or TAO, which is painted as an elite team
of hackers specializing in stealing data from the toughest of targets.
Citing internal NSA documents, the magazine said Sunday that
TAO's mission was
"Getting the ungettable," and quoted an unnamed
intelligence official as saying that TAO had gathered "some of the most
significant intelligence our country has ever seen."
Der Spiegel said TAO had a catalog of high-tech gadgets for
particularly hard-to-crack cases, including computer monitor cables specially
modified to record what is being typed across the screen, USB sticks secretly
fitted with radio transmitters to broadcast stolen data over the airwaves, and
fake base stations intended to intercept mobile phone signals on the go.
Additionally, the magazine reported the NSA was intercepting
computer deliveries to install spying abilities on them, and suggested the
agency was "compromising the technology and products of American companies"
like Dell and Microsoft.
0 comments :
Post a Comment