Monday, December 30, 2013

NSA Intercepts Laptops Purchased Online to Install Spy Malware

New light has been shed on the extensive scope of the National Security Agency's spying operations yet again in a couple of reports from German publication Der Spiegel, which reveal various new "features" of the covert intelligence operations conducted by the NSA's "geek" armies. The agency will apparently pull out all the stops in order to get to the information it seeks, even if that means intercepting shipping of computers purchased online by targets in order to infect them with spyware, or replace components with its own malware-installed hardware.

In addition to sophisticated attacks that target the digital aspects of modern life, the NSA sometimes still has to use "old-school" methods. When it comes to intercepting deliveries -- a tactic that's called "interdiction" -- the NSA diverts the shipping delivery to its workshops where "agents carefully open the package in order to load the malware onto the electronics, or even install hardware components that can provide backdoor access for the intelligence agencies," Der Spiegel writes. All subsequent steps can then be conducted from the comfort of a remote computer.



Such operations are among "the most productive" operations conducted by the agency allowing it to get into protected networks "around the world," if needed, although there are several other means to getting to the information the NSA uses. However they're only used for certain targets, and likely not responsible for all those Amazon shipments not arriving it time for Christmas.



The NSA's Tailored Access Operations (TAO) division has been created in 1997 in order to use the growing Internet to spy on potential target. The division has increased its ranks and operations since then, massively expanding after the September 11, 2001 events, and it's expected to further increase operations -- with bases around the U.S. and maybe even in Europe -- for future spying projects. "Getting the ungettable" is apparently TAO's task, with one former TAO chief saying in a report that the division is responsible for "some of the most significant intelligence our country has ever seen," with TAO having access to its "very hardest targets."

For example, the agency can grab the error reports that Windows users send to Microsoft to identify bugs that can be used by TAO personnel to infect a targeted computer with custom spy malware. Moreover, the NSA uses various tactics to get its special spy Trojans installed on machines, from spam messages to targeting services like Facebook, LinkedIn Yahoo, Twitter and YouTube and using special operations with higher rates of success at infecting computers. Der Spiegel reveals that according to details in Washington's current budget plan for intelligence services, some 85,000 computers worldwide will have been infected one way or another with spy malware by the end of the year.

Furthermore, the NSA has the ability of diverting traffic to NSA covert system that replicate existing services in order to transfer malware programs on the computers the targets are using. Another NSA digital spying operation targets the actual fiber optics cables that connect continents. One such successful NSA operation includes the tapping of the SEA-ME-WE-4 cable system that connects Europe with North America, Gulf states, Pakistan, India, Malaysia and Thailand.

Finally, in addition to diverting product shipments, tapping into Internet cables and networks, and infecting computers, the agency also has another arm called ANT -- supposedly short for Advanced or Access Network Technology -- that was able over the years to burrow its way "into nearly all the security architecture made by the major players in the industry" according to a second Der Spiegel story reveals, including products from U.S. companies such as Cisco, Dell, Western Digital, Seagate, Maxtor, but also international companies such as Samsung or Huawei.

According to the publication, the ANT team appears to have a key for almost "every lock." A 50-page catalog apparently contains various technologies that can be used to compromise a digital target including laptops, computers, mobile phones, hard drives, routers and other gadgets susceptible to hacks. ANT operations include infecting machines at BIOS level in order for the spy malware to remain undetected to security program and to be reinstalled even after a system is completely cleaned. The agency has also compromised the firmware of hard drives manufactured by some of the companies mentioned above for similar spying purposes.

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“Control oil and you control nations; control food and you control the people.” Henry Kissinger


once a standing army is established, in any country, the people lose their liberty.”
George Mason

“Military men are dumb, stupid animals to be used as pawns for foreign policy.”
Henry Kissinger

“If you are an ordinary person, then you can prepare yourself for war by moving to the countryside and building a farm, but you must take guns with you, as the hordes of starving will be roaming. Also, even though the elite will have their safe havens and specialist shelters, they must be just as careful during the war as the ordinary civilians, because their shelters can still be compromised.”
Henry Kissinger

"We don't let them have ideas. Why would we let them have guns?" Joseph Stalin

The people who cast the votes decide nothing. The people who count the votes decide everything.
Joseph Stalin

Governments keep a lot of secrets from their people . . .
Why aren't the people in return allowed to keep secrets
from the government?

PHILIP ZIMMERMAN, DER SPIEGEL

“Some call it Communism, I call it Judaism.”

Rabbi Stephen Weiss

“Anti-Communism is Anti-Semitism.”
Jewish Voice, July - August 1941

Taxing People is Punishing Success
UNKNOWN

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The Tax you pay is The Bill for Staying Stupid

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The few who understand the system will either be so interested in its profits or so dependent on its favours that there will be no opposition from that class, while on the other hand, the great body of the people mentally incapable of comprehending the tremendous advantage that capital derives from the system will bear its burdens without complaint and perhaps without even suspecting that the system is inimical to their interests.
The Rothschild Bros

"Debts must be collected, bonds and mortgages must be foreclosed as rapidly as possible. When, through a process of law, the common people lose their homes they will become more docile and more easily governed through the influence of the strong arm of government, applied by a central power of wealth under control of leading financiers.

This truth is well known among our principal men now engaged in forming an imperialism of Capital to govern the world.

By dividing the voters through the political party system, we can get them to expend their energies in fighting over questions of no importance. Thus by discreet action we can secure for ourselves what has been so well planned and so successfully accomplished."

USA Banker's Magazine, August 25 1924


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UNKNOWN

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The modern definition of racist is someone who is winning an argument with a liberal
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Your Greatest Teacher is Your Last Mistake
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The one who Controls the Education System , Controls Perception
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"The world will not be destroyed by those who do evil, but by those who watch them without doing anything."

Albert Einstein

In The Left Nothing is Right & in The Right nothing is Left
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No man escapes when freedom fails; The best men rot in filthy jails. And those that cried 'Appease! Appease!' Are hanged by those they tried to please
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Freedom is not Free
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Don't Steal The Government Hates The Competition

Ron Paul

"Buy The Rumor , Sell The Fact " Peter Schiff


You can love your Country and not your Government

Jesse Ventura


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"The Government is not The Solution to our Problems , The Government is The Problem "

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"The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men." Plato


The world is a tragedy to those that feel, and a comedy to those that think...Beppe Grillo

"The people should not fear the government for it is the government who should fear the people" UNKNOWN

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Serial Killer Richard Ramirez

There is a Class War going on in America, & unfortunately, my class is winning." Warren Buffet

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Thomas Jefferson

"College is a waste of Money"
Albert Einstein

Schools manufacture people who think that they're smart but they're not.
Robert Kiyosaki

Education is what you learn after you leave School
Robert Kiyosaki

" ‏Schools were designed to create employees for the big corporations."
Robert Kiyosaki


"If a law is unjust, a man is not only right to disobey, he is obligated to do so" Thomas Jefferson

Dissent is the highest form of patriotism
Thomas Jefferson

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"One day your life will flash before your eyes. Make sure it's worth watching." - Gerard Way

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UNKNOWN

The losers in life think they have all the answers. They can’t learn because they’re too busy telling everyone what they know.
Robert T. Kiyosaki ‏

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UNKNOWN

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“If you are planning for a year, sow rice; if you are planning for a decade, plant trees; if you are planning for a lifetime, educate people” A Chinese Proverb

"First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out--
Because I was not a Socialist.

Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out--
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out--
Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me--and there was no one left to speak for me." UNKNOWN