NSA Revelations You Need To Know About
Posted by: Greg Miller
September 30, 2014
The NSA is perhaps the biggest threat to the deep web. As the Snowden documents continue to be released, they have a tendency to all blend together and evoke the response “Whats new?” Though, with the risk of information overload, these NSA revelations are important for any deep web user.
NSA Elite Hacking Squad Is Inject Malware into Millions Of Computers
Tailored Access Operations (TAO), a elite squad of NSA hackers, in 2004 started revamping up its hacking efforts by hiring new hackers and developing new tools to infiltrate computers. 10 years later they have a massive worldwide network that is able to gather and store data of people who happened to be caught into the fray.
Though, TAO is a smaller and elite unit who job is to go after the most difficult targets, it has created a mostly automatic network that has been valuable to the NSA in its board sweeping hacking efforts. TAO’s main task was to install implants into hardware that was ordered by a target. This hardware is intercepted and TAO puts a backdoor into it, allowing for easier access to the cyber spy agency. Since TAO started they have done this in a larger and more aggressive fashion, resulting in a massive network around the world.
As the network grew and the amount of data became massive, TAO was called to lessen the burden on NSA’s hackers by automating the attacking and search of the data after it is captured. TAO did thisand now the network attacks people without any direction from humans, resulting in innocent people being attacked. The process of finding and analyzing the data has been made faster, saving the NSA a countless number of hours. In secret internal memos, TAO is regarded as the most successful NSA venture.
Yahoo Tried To Fight the NSA and Lost
Recently, it has been revealed that Yahoo has tried to fight and stop the NSA when the NSA tried to gain access to information to certain oversea users in 2007. The whole struggle is laid out in more than a 1,000 pages of court documents released by the director of National Intelligence.
This might be a PR push for Yahoo but the court documents support their claim that they tried to stop the NSA and protect their user’s privacy. Regardless, it shows that even people that respect privacy and are willing to fight for it can’t be trusted. You can’t say no to the government because they have all the guns and are willing to throw you in jail. Despite putting a dent in my pessimistic view of the world and let a ray or two of sunshine through, it illustrates the importance of trustless and open source software.
The NSA Has Its Own Version Of Google
The NSA has made its own version of google that easily and quickly searches 850 billion records about phone calls, emails, cellphone locations, and internet chats. The search engine is open to 12 US governmental agencies, which include the FBI, CIA, DIA, and DEA.
The search engine makes finding stolen documents very easy and quickly. Concerning the deep web, it is quite disturbing that the DEA and FBI has access to the information. This obviously represents a massive violation of human rights but so far seems unlikely that we get information about how the data is used by these agencies in cases.
It is strongly believed that NSA gathered data was used in the case of DPR. DPR’s defense lawyer specifically thought that NSA data was used to find the location of Silk Road’s servers but the FBI said that they found a bug on Silk Road’s login page. It was such a lousy lie, and was a obvious attempt to cover up how they actually got the information.
NPR Is Trying To Make You Afraid Of The NSA And Forget About The CIA
NPR has become a pawn in the PR war between the CIA and the NSA. The last thing you want if you involved in secretive work for the government is to appear repeatably in the headlines in the world’s biggest publications. That is what was been happening to the NSA, though. A rival spying organization, the CIA has been feeding NPR talking pointsthat Showden’s leaks resulted in terrorists overhauling their encryption, in order to better protect themselves the west’s spying efforts.
The report was grossly misguided. The report was described to be published by a independent cyber research firm, this firm actually was has major ties to the CIA. The firm has many connections to the CIA, including receiving investments and research from the governmental agency. Besides that, the claim that Showden that terrorists have started overhauling their online security since the Showden is completely baseless. There are many papers and articles released by various terrorists groups that describe how to avoid being spied on that been released well before the Showden leaks.
How To Get On The Terrorist Watchlist
The US’s terror watchlist has been surrounded in mystery but the document that contains the guidelines that various US agencies follow is declassified but access has remained difficult because of US officials attempts to keep it from public view. The online publication, The Intercept, published the document in whole on their website. The document revealed what can get you on the list.
Finding specific actions or marker that will get you on the list is very hard task but the document still reveals the very important insight into what can get you on the list. The definitions are very vague and even expected crimes can get you on the list. The number thing that can be taken way from the document is that anyone they want to be, can be on the list. This makes the list very reminiscence of the list that the Soviet Union had political dissents.
Updated: 2014-09-30