Skype

Washington Post Releases Four New Slides From NSA’s Prism Presentation

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– Washington Post releases four new slides from NSA’s Prism presentation (Guardian, June 30, 2013):

Newly published top-secret documents detail how NSA interfaces with tech giants such as Google, Apple and Microsoft

The Washington Post has released four previously unpublished slides from the NSA’s PowerPoint presentation on Prism, the top-secret programme that collects data on foreign surveillance targets from the systems of nine participating internet companies.

The newly published top-secret documents, which the newspaper has released with some redactions, give further details of how Prism interfaces with the nine companies, which include such giants as Google, Microsoft and Apple. According to annotations to the slides by the Washington Post, the new material shows how the FBI “deploys government equipment on private company property to retrieve matching information from a participating company, such as Microsoft or Yahoo and pass it without further review to the NSA”.

Read moreWashington Post Releases Four New Slides From NSA’s Prism Presentation

Skype Provided Backdoor Access To The NSA Before Microsoft Takeover

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– Skype Provided Backdoor Access to the NSA Before Microsoft Takeover (Softpedia, June 20, 2013):

The NSA saga continues in the Redmond-based empire, this time with a new report aimed at Microsoft’s flagship VoIP platform Skype.

A report published by The New York Times and citing people who asked not to be named for obvious reasons, Skype developed its own user-monitoring system before the Microsoft acquisition in October 2011.

It appears that US intelligence agencies have insisted that local software companies must cooperate closer with the NSA, so it asked several top vendors, including Skype, to put together secret teams to develop systems that would provide them with backdoor access to users’ conversations.

Read moreSkype Provided Backdoor Access To The NSA Before Microsoft Takeover

Google, Facebook, Skype, Yahoo And AOL Blatantly Lying To Users In Denying NSA Spy Grid Scheme PRISM

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Related info:

– President Obama & America’s Internet Companies Are ALL LYING – Here Is How Your Data Is Handed Over To Uncle Sam

– UK’s Electronic Eavesdropping And Security Agency GCHQ Also Accesses NSA’s Secret PRISM Programme

– Obama Regime To Shoot The PRISM-Gate Messenger, Launches Criminal Probe Into NSA Leaks

– President Obama Defends Unconstitutional Surveillance Programs In San Jose Speech

– How Google, Facebook, Skype, Yahoo and AOL are all blatantly lying to their own users in denying NSA spy grid scheme (Natural News, June 8, 2013):

What do Google, AOL, Skype, Facebook, Apple, Hotmail and Yahoo all have in common? They have all been caught turning over private user data to the government’s spy agency, the NSA. All these companies routinely turn over the emails, voice calls, text chats, photos, files and even logins and passwords of their users, including Americans.

“There is a massive apparatus within the United States government that with complete secrecy has been building this enormous structure that has only one goal,” journalist Glenn Greenwald recently told Piers Morgan (who knows all about spying and hacking people’s private data). “And that is to destroy privacy and anonymity not just in the United States but around the world.”

Tech companies rush to issue (false) denials

Read moreGoogle, Facebook, Skype, Yahoo And AOL Blatantly Lying To Users In Denying NSA Spy Grid Scheme PRISM

President Obama & America’s Internet Companies Are ALL LYING – Here Is How Your Data Is Handed Over To Uncle Sam

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– “You Should Use Both” – How America’s Internet Companies Are Handing Over Your Data To Uncle Sam (ZeroHedge, June 8, 2013):

In the aftermath of the PRISM spying scandal, the first and logical response was an expected one: lie. The president did it, and so did the various companies implicated in the biggest US surveillance scandal ever exposed. To wit:

  • Zuckerberg: “Facebook is not and has never been part of any program to give the US or any other government direct access to our servers.”
  • Google CEO Larry Page: “We have not joined any program that would give the US government – or any other government – direct access to our servers.”
  • Yahoo: “We do not provide the government with direct access to our servers, systems, or network.”

One small problem: they are all lying.

The NYT explains just how the explicit handover of private customer data from Corporate Server X to NSA Server Y takes place.

The companies that negotiated with the government include Google, which owns YouTube; Microsoft, which owns Hotmail and Skype; Yahoo; Facebook; AOL; Apple; and Paltalk, according to one of the people briefed on the discussions. The companies were legally required to share the data under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. People briefed on the discussions spoke on the condition of anonymity because they are prohibited by law from discussing the content of FISA requests or even acknowledging their existence.

In at least two cases, at Google and Facebook, one of the plans discussed was to build separate, secure portals, like a digital version of the secure physical rooms that have long existed for classified information, in some instances on company servers. Through these online rooms, the government would request data, companies would deposit it and the government would retrieve it, people briefed on the discussions said.

Read morePresident Obama & America’s Internet Companies Are ALL LYING – Here Is How Your Data Is Handed Over To Uncle Sam

UK’s Electronic Eavesdropping And Security Agency GCHQ Also Accesses NSA’s Secret PRISM Programme

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UK security agency GCHQ gaining information from world’s biggest internet firms through US-run Prism programme


Documents show GCHQ (above) has had access to the NSA’s Prism programme since at least June 2010. Photograph: David Goddard/Getty Images

– UK gathering secret intelligence via covert NSA operation (Guardian, June 7, 2013):

The UK’s electronic eavesdropping and security agency, GCHQ, has been secretly gathering intelligence from the world’s biggest internet companies through a covertly run operation set up by America’s top spy agency, documents obtained by the Guardian reveal.

The documents show that GCHQ, based in Cheltenham, has had access to the system since at least June 2010, and generated 197 intelligence reports from it last year.

The US-run programme, called Prism, would appear to allow GCHQ to circumvent the formal legal process required to seek personal material such as emails, photos and videos from an internet company based outside the UK.

Read moreUK’s Electronic Eavesdropping And Security Agency GCHQ Also Accesses NSA’s Secret PRISM Programme

Spy state shock: Gmail, Yahoo Mail, Facebook, Skype, AOL, Apple all secretly sharing private user communications with NSA

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– Spy state shock: Gmail, Yahoo Mail, Facebook, Skype, AOL, Apple all secretly sharing private user communications with NSA (Natural News, June 7, 2013)

Breaking News: Disclosed Classified Docs Show Vast, Real-Time, Warrantless NSA Online Surveillance

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– Disclosed classified docs show vast, real-time, warrantless NSA online surveillance (RT, June 6, 2013):

Classified information obtained by the Washington Post and The Guardian has revealed a massive, warrantless online surveillance system in use by a US military intelligence agency, giving access to Americans’ search history, emails, live chats and more.

The 41-page PowerPoint presentation, which has been verified by both papers and published almost concurrently on Thursday evening, outlines details of a previously undisclosed program known as PRISM, which allows the fabled military intelligence agency to harvest massive amounts of data on everything from electronic correspondence to file transfers.

The slides were meant to be declassified in 2036.

According to the documents, the program currently boasts access to some of the largest Internet companies in the world, with Microsoft thought to be the first corporation to sign onto the surveillance arrangement in 2007.

That company’s participation was followed by Yahoo in 2008, Google, Facebook and PalTalk in 2009, YouTube in 2010, Skype and AOL in 2011, and Apple joining in 2012. Meanwhile, cloud storage company Dropbox is described as “coming soon.”

With the participation of those companies, PRISM and thereby Washington intelligence workers have access to the bulk of Americans’ email, video and voice chat, videos, photos, voice-over-IP (Skype) chats, file transfers, social networking details and more.

Read moreBreaking News: Disclosed Classified Docs Show Vast, Real-Time, Warrantless NSA Online Surveillance

MI5 To Install ‘Black Box’ Spy Devices To Monitor Britain’s Entire Internet Traffic

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– UK government plans to track ALL web use: MI5 to install ‘black box’ spy devices to monitor British internet traffic (Daily Mail, Feb 6, 2013):

  • MPs’ report outlines spooks’ take on the draft Communications Data Bill
  • It shows they are keen to implement nationwide surveillance regime
  • They want ISPs to install ‘black boxes’ that can inspect all internet traffic
  • Spies claim they are only interested in ‘communications data’
  • Campaigners warn it will give spies unprecedented surveillance powers

    • UK spy agencies want to install ‘black box’ surveillance devices across the country’s communications networks to monitor internet use, it emerged today.

    A report by an influential committee of MPs tells how spooks are keen to implement a nationwide surveillance regime aimed at logging nearly everything Britons do and say online.

    The spy network will rely on a technology known as Deep Packet Inspection to log data from communications ranging from online services like Facebook and Twitter, Skype calls with family members and visits to pornographic websites.

    Read moreMI5 To Install ‘Black Box’ Spy Devices To Monitor Britain’s Entire Internet Traffic

    Skype Goes Big Brother

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    – Skype goes Big Brother, allowing police to monitor text chats (Natural News, Aug 1, 2012):

    Long sought and used as a communications tool beyond the reach of Big Brother’s probing eyes, Skype has recently announced the company plans more cooperation with police, to include sharing of text chats.

    While surveillance of the audio and video feeds of the online phone service remains impractical – even when courts issue warrants – that barrier, too, could eventually be dismantled as Skype transforms into one of the globe’s premier forms of telecommunication, The Washington Post reported recently.

    Read moreSkype Goes Big Brother

    Rogue SSL Certificates Issued For CIA, MI6, Mossad

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    – Rogue SSL certs were also issued for CIA, MI6, Mossad (Help Net Security):

    The number of rogue SSL certificates issued by Dutch CA DigiNotar has balooned from one to a couple dozen to over 250 to 531 in just a few days.As Jacob Appelbaum of the Tor project shared the full list of the rogue certificates, it became clear that fraudulent certificates for domains of a number of intelligence agencies from around the world were also issued during the CA’s compromise – including the CIA, MI6 and Mossad.

    Additional targeted domains include Facebook, Yahoo!, Microsoft, Skype, Twitter, Tor, WordPress and many others.

    He received the list from sources in the Dutch Government, which has retracted its statement about trusting DigiNotar’s PKIoverheid CA branch, announced to its citizens that it cannot guarantee the security of its own websites, and taken over DigiNotar’s operations and immediately organized audits of its infrastructure.

    Read moreRogue SSL Certificates Issued For CIA, MI6, Mossad