The Internet

Govt backs away from internet restrictions

Radio NZ,

15 October, 2013

The Government has made changes to a controversial telecommunications bill that would have banned some international internet companies from offering services in New Zealand.

The legislation, which is back before Parliament on Tuesday, sets out how internet service providers must work with law enforcement agencies to allow them to monitor communications.

Communications Minister Amy Adams says the changes go further than those recently recommended by the Law and Order Select Committee.

They include removing a clause that could have prevented companies such as Google and Facebook from offering encrypted messaging services in New Zealand unless they were able to be broken into by law enforcement agencies.

Ms Adams says she has also narrowed the scope of the matters that must be notified to the Government's spy bureau.

Internet giants plan to track 

users even more

While public unease with the National Security Agency’s surveillance efforts continues to grow, there are new signs indicating that technology companies are also upgrading their efforts to track what you’re doing on the Internet.

RT,

14 October, 2013

According to a new report by Wired, companies like Microsoft and Google are developing increasingly sophisticated means of collecting consumer data online. The goal is to harvest the new data for advertising purposes, but, as noted in the article, there’s always concern that the NSA could gain access to and use the information for other purposes. NSA documents published by the Guardian already suggest that the agency could use ad data and cookies to help it find people who use the anonymous Tor browser.

“Users did not have much control in the cookie era,”Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, a nonprofit advocacy group in Washington, said to Wired.“But the problem is about to get much worse — tracking techniques will become more deeply embedded and a much smaller number of companies will control advertising data.”

Microsoft, in particular, is reportedly developing new tracking techniques that would be capable of recording when users transition from the web to apps, and even between separate devices, like PCs, tablets, phones, and video game consoles. According to AdAge,“Microsoft’s cookie replacement would essentially be a device identifier, meaning consumers could give permission for its advertising use when opting in to a device’s regular user agreement or terms of service.”

Asking for permission via a terms of service agreement sounds like a reasonable way of presenting the development to consumers, but chances are that the vast majority of users would agree simply because most services require it in order to function.

While the AdAge report notes that Microsoft’s system would only be available to authorized third parties, reports have shown the company working with the NSA to hand over consumer data in the past. Files released by Edward Snowden through the Guardian revealed that Microsoft helped the NSA work its way around the company’s encryption, gain access to the cloud storage system SkyDrive, and collect data accrued via Skype calls.

Additionally, even when the NSA has not been authorized to collect data by Microsoft, the agency has circumvented the company and collected it regardless.

When asked about its still-in-development tracking technology, a Microsoft spokesperson simply said,“Microsoft believes going beyond the cookie is important. Our priority will be to find ways to do this that respect the interests of consumers. We have nothing further to share.”

Whether or not anonymous systems like Tor will still be able to protect users against these new techniques is a question that has yet to be answered, but it's apparent that Microsoft isn’t the only company heading in this direction. Google is said to be developing a similar system, and Facebook has already begun tracking user behavior outside of the social network in order to sell targeted ads.

Although consumers are more concerned with the NSA’s surveillance program than being advertised to, recent outcry against Microsoft’s Xbox One video game console show that many will fight any new attempts to track their behavior. A separate AdAge report suggested that Microsoft’s Chief Marketing & Strategy Officer is open to using the new console’s Kinect camera to track user engagement with advertising, including recording biometric feedback such as heart rates, and releasing that data to marketers.

After receiving extremely harsh pushback from the public, Microsoft denied the report altogether as a misunderstanding. This much is clear, however: consumers are more concerned than ever over their privacy, and rolling out new tracking techniques could spark even more outrage

Cyber-shield: Brazil 

announces govt system to 

block NSA snooping

Brazil is creating an email system intended to shield the government from NSA spying. The country is set to vote on a cyber-security bill following revelations the US spy network had infiltrated the highest levels of Brazil’s administration.

RT,

14 October, 2013

Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff tweeted the news, stressing the need for greater security “to prevent possible espionage.”

Rousseff said the Federal Data Processing Service (SERPRO) had been charged with creating the spy-proof system for the Brazilian government.

“This is the first step toward extending the privacy and inviolability of official posts,” Rousseff said.

Dilma Rousseff        ✔ @dilmabr

Determinei ao Serpro implantação de sistema seguro de e-mails em todo governo federal (cont)

7:49 утра - 14 октября 2013

237 РЕТВИТОВ 33 ИЗБРАННЫХ

Furthermore, Brazil’s Minister of Communication Paulo Bernardo said that the new system would most probably be put to the test at the end of the month. SERPRO is also developing an email security system that will be freely available for the Brazilian public.

The initiatives are part of a number of measures being introduced by the Brazilian government to sure up internet security. It comes after security leaks by former CIA employee Edward Snowden revealed that the NSA had been spying on the communications of the Brazilian government.

The classified cables obtained by American journalist Glen Greenwald and published by Brazilian newspaper O Globo revealed that the US spy agency had infiltrated the state-run oil giant Petrobras. The NSA had even managed to hack into President Rousseff’s email account.

Canada was also implicated in the scandal for spying on Brazil’s Ministry of Mines and Energy and then disseminating the data among the others in the ‘Five Eyes’ intelligence network – the US, UK, New Zealand and Australia.

“They [Five Eyes] are sharing all the information, handing over documents to let other countries know exactly what they are doing,” Glen Greenwald told Brazilian current affairs program Fantastico.

President Dilma condemned the NSA’s spying as a breach of Brazilian sovereignty and made it clear that Brazil would not tolerate such activities. She called on both Canada and the US to cease the ‘cyberwar’ they had started against Brazil.

“Without respect for [a nation’s] sovereignty, there is no basis for proper relations among nations. Those who want a strategic partnership cannot possibly allow recurring and illegal action to go on as if they were an ordinary practice,” she said in a speech to the UN in September.

In retaliation, Dilma postponed an official visit to Washington and announced that Brazil will host an international conference on internet governance next year.

Meanwhile, the White House has released a statement saying President Barack Obama had ordered an investigation into the US intelligence program in Brazil.

"As the president previously stated, he has directed a broad review of US intelligence posture, but the process will take several months to complete,” said the statement

Not one byte! German telecom giant plans to rout foreign spooks

Germany’s largest telecom provider, Deutsche Telekom, is looking to introduce a “national routing” service which would keep German internet traffic out of the hands of foreign spies.

RT,

14 October, 2013

Germany’s largest telecom provider, Deutsche Telekom, is looking to introduce a “national routing” service which would keep German internet traffic out of the hands of foreign spies.

RT,

14 October, 2013

The former state-owned communications giant outlined the plans at a secret meeting in the Economy Ministry, business weekly Wirtschaftswoche reported.

Currently, email data is exchanged between users worldwide via international Internet exchange points; physical structures through which Internet service providers (ISPs) exchange Internet traffic between their networks.

The company hopes to hammer out an agreement with other national Internet providers which would guarantee that “while being transported from the sender to the receiver in Germany… no single byte leaves Germany,” Thomas Kremer, a board member of Telekom’s data privacy, legal affairs and compliance, told the magazine.

To put the plan into effect, Deutsche Telekom must secure the support of all its competitors, including Telefonica and Vodafone.

While Vodafone and Telefonica are currently mulling the initiative, another competitor – Internet service provider QSC – has questioned the efficacy of the plan, saying it was not possible to determine with certainty whether data is being routed nationally or internationally.

"In a next step, this initiative could be expanded to the Schengen area," the spokesman said, referring to the group of 26 European countries – excluding Britain – that have removed border controls for participating countries.

Deutsche Telekom first began leading the charge for to protect its users’ privacy from foreign intelligence agencies in August when they rolled out 'Email Made in Germany', an encrypted email service that only uses German servers to process and store all domestic email traffic.

The move followed revelations that the US National Security Agency (NSA) collects 500 million pieces of phone and email metadata from Germany each month — more than in any other EU country.

“Germans are deeply unsettled by the latest reports on the potential interception of communication data," said Rene Obermann, head of Deutsche Telekom.

“Now, they can bank on the fact that their personal data online is as secure as it possibly can be.”

Experts do not believe the move will stop governments from getting their hands on information, although it might complicate efforts to do so.

"Of course the NSA could still break in if they wanted to, but the mass encryption of emails would make it harder and more expensive for them to do so," Sandro Gaycken, a professor of cyber security at Berlin's Free University, said when the idea was first proposed.

Internet censorship

Blocked from access to RT

For the last 24+ hours I have been unable to access (of all sites), RT

Neither have a couple of friends within NZ, that read my blog.

I checked by going to the local library and immediately accessed the site without problem, as did my partner through her work network.

What my two friends share in common is that both are regular readers of mu blog; they also share the same web provider (Vodaphone).

Whether this is a case of censorship by the authorities or has a more innocent explanation I cannot rightly tell. Certainly my provider can't yet shed any light on this either.

Given the history of DdoS attacks and other strange happenings I have little doubt in my mind that this is related to state surveillance activity.

Our ISP used to be Telstra Clear which has been bought out by British telecom giant Vodaphone.

In this regard the following should be kept in mind:

BT and Vodafone helped UK cyber-spying effort, report claims

Spy access to NZ used as bargaining tool.

Mike Ruppert is in little doubt about all as to what is happening:

“It is foolish to suspect anything other than interference now. I have been having highly unusual issues. I noticed this pattern right after Snowden's disclosure went viral. The surveillance system is being altered and I suspect tech issues have arisen. On the other hand, things like the attack on Guy McPherson's were absolutely intended. Could be either but this is abnormal.”

I tend to agree with Mike in this.  


This has been a good exercise in ridding oneself of any naivety as to what is going on behind the scenes.

In the meantime, with the help of a web proxy, I am now able to by-pass my ISP and access RT.

My own suspicions in all this is that this has coincided with coverage by RT of the calamatous events at Fukushima that RT is covering like no other mainstream media outlet.

Situated as we are, so to speak, in the firing line, in the South Pacjfic I am convinced that the government and its media proxies do not want the public of New Zealand to know anything approaching the reality of the situation.


People who tell the truth are now deemed dangers to state securiy.

Let me say at this point that if, for any reason I am blocked from this site I have a plan B. Perhaps you ought to keep THIS ADDRESS for future reference

POSTSCRIPT:

Just a few hours ago, after solving the problem for myself, RT came back online

We Are All Witnesses Now

PRISM and the Rise of a New Fascism

John Pilger

Counterpunch,

21 June, 2013

In his book Propaganda, published in 1928, Edward Bernays wrote: “The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organised habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society.

“Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country.”

The American nephew of Sigmund Freud, Bernays invented the term “public relations” as a euphemism for state propaganda. He warned that an enduring threat to the invisible government was the truth-teller and an enlightened public.

In 1971, the whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg leaked US government files known as the Pentagon Papers, which showed that the invasion of Vietnam was based on systematic lying. Four years later, Frank Church conducted sensational hearings in the Senate: one of the last flickers of American democracy. These laid bare the extent of the invisible government: the domestic spying and subversion and warmongering by intelligence and “security” agencies and the backing they received from big business and the media, both conservative and liberal.

Speaking about the National Security Agency (NSA), Senator Church said: “I know the capacity that there is to make tyranny total in America, and we must see to it that this agency and all agencies that possess this technology operate within the law . . . so that we never cross over that abyss. That is the abyss from which there is no return.”

On 11 June, following the revelations in the Guardian by the NSA contractor Edward Snowden, Ellsberg wrote that the US had now fallen into “that abyss”.

Snowden’s revelation that Washington has used Google, Facebook, Apple and other giants of consumer technology to spy on almost everyone is further evidence of a modern form of fascism. Having nurtured oldfashioned fascists around the world – from Latin America to Africa and Indonesia – the genie has risen at home. Understanding this is as important as understanding the criminal abuse of technology.

Fred Branfman, who exposed the “secret” destruction of tiny Laos by the US air force in the 1960s and 1970s, provides an answer to those who still wonder how a liberal African-American president, a professor of constitutional law, can command such lawlessness. “Under Mr Obama, America is still far from being a classic police-state . . .” he wrote. “But no president has done more to create the infrastructure for a possible future police state.” Why? Because Obama understands that his role is not to indulge those who voted for him but to expand “the most powerful institution in the history of the world, one that has killed, wounded or made homeless well over 20 million human beings, mostly civilians, since 1962”.

In the new American cyberpower, only the revolving doors have changed. The director of Google Ideas, Jared Cohen, was an adviser to Condoleezza Rice, the former secretary of state in the Bush administration who lied that Saddam Hussein could attack the US with nuclear weapons. Cohen and Google’s executive chairman, Eric Schmidt – they met in the ruins of Iraq – have co-authored a book, The New Digital Age, endorsed as visionary by the former CIA director Michael Hayden and the war criminals Henry Kissinger and Tony Blair. The authors make no mention of the Prism spying programme, revealed by Snowden, that provides the NSA with access to all of us who use Google.

Control and dominance are the two words that make sense of this. These are exercised by political, economic and military design, of which mass surveillance is an essential part, but also by insinuating propaganda into the public consciousness. This was Edward Bernays’s point. His two most successful PR campaigns convinced Americans that they should go to war in 1917 and persuaded women to smoke in public; cigarettes were “torches of freedom” that would hasten women’s liberation.

It is in popular culture that the fraudulent “ideal” of America as morally superior, a “leader of the free world”, has been most effective. Yet even during Hollywood’s most jingoistic periods there were exceptional films, such as those of the exiled Stanley Kubrick, and adventurous European films would find US distributors. These days there is no Kubrick, no Strangelove, and the US market is almost closed to foreign films.

When I showed my own film The War on Democracy to a major, liberal-minded US distributor, I was handed a laundry list of changes, to “ensure the movie is acceptable”. His memorable sop to me was: “OK, maybe we could drop in Sean Penn as narrator. Would that satisfy you?” Kathryn Bigelow’s torture-apologising Zero Dark Thirty and, this year, Alex Gibney’s We Steal Secrets, a cinematic hatchet job on Julian Assange, were made with generous backing by Universal Studios, whose parent company until recently was General Electric. GE manufactures weapons, components for fighter aircraft and advanced surveillance technology. The company also has lucrative interests in “liberated” Iraq.

The power of truth-tellers such as Bradley Manning, Julian Assange and Edward Snowden is that they dispel a whole mythology carefully constructed by the corporate cinema and the corporate media. WikiLeaks is especially dangerous because it provides truthtellers with a means to get the truth out. This was achieved by Collateral Damage, the cockpit video of a US Apache helicopter allegedly leaked by Manning. The impact of this one video marked Manning and Assange for state vengeance. Here were US airmen murdering journalists and maiming children in a Baghdad street, clearly enjoying it, and describing their atrocity as “nice”. Yet, in one vital sense, they did not get away with it; for we are all witnesses now, and the rest is up to us.

John Pilger’s film on Australia, Utopia, will be released in the autumn.

The Edward Snowden Affair

Snowden spy row grows as US is accused of hacking China

Whistleblower charged with espionage reportedly claims US authorities accessed millions of private text messages in China

The Guardian,

22 June, 2013

Edward Snowden, the former CIA technician who blew the whistle on global surveillance operations, has opened a new front against the US authorities, claiming they hacked into Chinese mobile phone companies to access millions of private text messages.

His latest claims came as US officials, who have filed criminal charges against him, warned Hong Kong to comply with an extradition request or risk complicating diplomatic relations after some of the territory's politicians called for Snowden to be protected.

The latest developments will raise fears that the US's action may have pushed Snowden into the hands of the Chinese, triggering what could be a tense and prolonged diplomatic and legal wrangle between the world's two leading superpowers.

Snowden, whose whereabouts have not been publicly known since he checked out of a Hong Kong hotel on 10 June, was reported by the Chinese media on Saturday to be in a "safe place" in the former British colony.

The 30-year-old intelligence analyst has over the past three weeks leaked a series of documents to the Guardian revealing how US and UK secret services gain access to huge amounts of phone and internet data, raising serious questions about privacy in the internet age.

On Friday, based on documents from Snowden, the Guardian reported that Britain's spy agency GCHQ has secretly gained access to the network of cables carrying the world's phone calls and internet traffic, without the authorities having made this known to the public. It was also reported that GCHQ is processing vast streams of sensitive information which it is sharing with its US partner, the National Security Agency.

On Saturday the former British foreign secretary Sir Malcolm Rifkind, who now chairs the intelligence and security committee, said the committee would launch an investigation into the latest revelations. The committee will receive an official report from GCHQ about the story within days and will then decide whether to call witnesses to give oral evidence. If it is then thought necessary, the committee can require GCHQ to submit relevant data.

Within hours of news breaking that the US had filed charges against Snowden, the South China Morning Post reported that the whistleblower had handed over a series of documents to the paper detailing how the US had targeted Chinese phone companies as part of a widespread attempt to get its hands on a mass of data.

Text messaging is the most popular form of communication in mainland China where more than 900bn SMS messages were exchanged in 2012.Snowden reportedly told the paper: "The NSA does all kinds of things like hack Chinese cellphone companies to steal all of your SMS data."

The paper said Snowden had also passed on information detailing NSA attacks on China's prestigious Tsinghua University, the hub of a major digital network from which data on millions of Chinese citizens could be harvested.

As Snowden made his latest disclosures, the US issued an extradition request to Hong Kong and piled pressure on the territory to respond swiftly. "If Hong Kong doesn't act soon, it will complicate our bilateral relations and raise questions about Hong Kong's commitment to the rule of law," a senior Obama administration official said.

Snowden appeared to be gaining support from politicians in Hong Kong who said China should support him against any extradition application from the US, which on Friday charged him under its Espionage Act. One legislator, Leung Kwok-hung, said Beijing should issue instructions to protect Snowden from extradition before his case was dragged through the courts. Leung urged the Hong Kong people to "take to the streets to protect Snowden". Another politician, Cyd Ho, vice-chairwoman of the pro-democracy Labour party, said China "should now make its stance clear to the Hong Kong SAR [Special Administrative Region] government" before the case goes before a court.

China has urged Washington to provide explanations following Snowden's disclosures that NSA programs collect millions of telephone records and track foreign internet activity on US networks. In a press conference Hong Kong's police commissioner, Andy Tsang, indicated that the normal legal process would be followed after the US filed criminal charges. "All foreign citizens must comply with Hong Kong's law," he said, adding that the police would act on the request once it was received.

He declined to comment on reports in one Hong Kong newspaper that Snowden is already in a police safe house.

In response to the Guardian's latest revelations regarding the surveillance activities of GCHQ, politicians and freedom of information campaigners raised concerns about the lack of oversight and up-to-date laws with which to monitor and regulate the activities of the secret services. Former Foreign Office minister David Davis MP said documents containing an admission by GCHQ lawyers that UK oversight was "light" compared with that in the US were particularly worrying.

"This reinforces the view that the oversight structure is wholly inadequate. Really what is needed is a full-scale independent judicial oversight that reports to parliament."

Shami Chakrabarti, the director of Liberty, said: "It's possible to be shocked but not surprised at this blanket surveillance on a breathtaking scale. The authorities appear to be kidding themselves with a very generous interpretation of the law that cannot stand with article 8 of the European convention on human rights.

"To argue this isn't snooping because they haven't got time to read all this private information is like arguing we'd all be comfortable with our homes being raided and our private papers copied – as long as the authorities stored them in sealed plastic bags."

Carl Miller, director for social media at the thinktank Demos, said: "Just like the rest of us, terrorists and criminals are increasingly using social media and other forms of online communication. So it's clear that the intelligence services should be able to access this where it is necessary and proportionate. But this is the crucial point. What these latest stories reveal is that much of this surveillance is happening already, but without the security services having made the public argument for these powers. There is a clear need for a legal grounding or oversight structure that commands public confidence."

The Surveillnance State - Interview with whistleblower

Every one of these whistlblowers is a hero.

Guardian interview -

NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden: 'I don't want to live in a society that does these sort of things'

Ex-CIA worker source of US spy agency leaks

Washington: A 29-year-old government contractor has been revealed as the source of bombshell leaks about US monitoring of internet users and phone records

SMH,

10 June, 2013

.

Edward Snowden told the Guardian newspaper on Sunday he was motivated solely by a desire to inform the public about the ‘‘massive surveillance machine’’.

‘‘I have no intention of hiding who I am because I know I have done nothing wrong,’’ he said. But with the US government seeking a criminal investigation into the leaks, he admitted: ‘‘I do not expect to see home again.’’

The newspaper, which posted a video interview of Mr Snowden clearly showing his face, said it was revealing his identity at his request.

A former technical assistant for the CIA, Mr Snowden worked for four years at the National Security Agency as an employee of various outside contractors, including Dell and Booz Allen Hamilton, his current employer.

‘‘My sole motive is to inform the public as to that which is done in their name and that which is done against them,’’ Mr Snowden said.

Three weeks ago, he packed his bags for Hong Kong and left a salary of about $US200,000 ($A210,150), a girlfriend with whom he lived in Hawaii, a stable career and a loving family, according to The Guardian.

‘‘I’m willing to sacrifice all of that because I can’t in good conscience allow the US government to destroy privacy, internet freedom and basic liberties for people around the world with this massive surveillance machine they’re secretly building,’’ Mr Snowden said.

Director of National Intelligence James Clapper earlier called for a criminal probe into the leaks, slamming the ‘‘gut-wrenching’’ disclosures for causing ‘‘huge, grave damage’’ to US intelligence capabilities.

‘‘The NSA has filed a crimes report on this already,’’ Mr Clapper told NBC, referring to the leaks to The Guardian and The Washington Post.

With NSA Leaker in Hong Kong, US Looks to Blame China

Former CIA Officer Says Snowden Should've Leaked From Someplace Else

Anti-war,

9 June, 2013

Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and others have made it clear that they are offended by the notion that the American public now knows about the NSA’s broad surveillance of everyday life, and have promised to see the leaker severely punished for threatening their regime with “reckless disclosures” of their untoward behavior.

The promises of a prosecution, seemingly just for spite’s sake, took another turn today when Guardian identified former CIA contractor Edward Snowden as the leaker, and revealed that he is in Hong Kong.

And since Hong Kong is in China, this sparked immediate speculation that the whole matter is China’s fault, as though the Chinese government was the only one who had some vested interest in making the American public aware of just how little privacy they have.

Former CIA officer Robert Baer said that if Snowden seriously just wanted to let the American public know the truth, he should’ve leaked the data from somewhere that it would be easier to extradite him from, or better still from the US itself.

“We’ll never get him from China. There’s not a chance,” lamented Baer. Though Hong Kong has an extradition agreement with the US, Snowden cited the city’s long-standing support for free speech as a factor in his being there. He added that he is interested in asylum from any countries that might oppose the US surveillance state.