Secret Service: Norway plans surveillance of Internet traffic

The Norwegian government is pushing for a new surveillance law despite the pandemic. The secret service is to be allowed to store metadata from telephone and internet use for 18 months.

While the European public is preoccupied with the corona virus, the Norwegian government has sent a proposal for mass surveillance of telecommunications to parliament without much fuss. The new law would allow the Norwegian Foreign Intelligence Service to eavesdrop on any communication with foreign countries and to store metadata for up to 18 months.

Norwegian providers will be legally obliged to have the secret service mirror all cross-border data transfers. The secret service may, with the consent of a court, evaluate the data according to defined search criteria, so-called selectors.

The focus is on foreign contacts, the government says: data from within the country should be filtered out as far as possible. But even if some data is filtered, most communication on the Internet runs via servers in other countries. Metadata such as IP addresses of website calls would be stored millions of times over under the law, as would telephone numbers and the duration of calls abroad.

Defense Minister Frank Bakke-Jensen considers the law to be unpostponable even in the pandemic. "Although the government's main concern at the moment is how to deal with the coronavirus situation, we must continue to work on other important issues," he said in writing in response to an inquiry from netzpolitik.org.

PDF:
https://www.regjeringen.no/contentassets/b7bada5f31bc482092318df675a2019d/no/pdfs/prp201920200080000dddpdfs.pdf

👉🏼 Read more 🇩🇪:
https://netzpolitik.org/2020/norwegen-plant-ueberwachung-des-internetverkehrs/

#Norway #surveillance #internet #spy #SecretService #pdf #thinkabout
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Exposed: CIA used Sheldon Adelson's firm to spy on Julian Assange

In his latest Grayzone exposé, Max Blumenthal reveals new details on the CIA spying and sabotage operation against Wikileaks founder Julian Assange. The US surveilled Assange inside Ecuador's London embassy, all while working with Trump mega-donor and casino magnate Sheldon Adelson's security team and a Spanish company that had initially been hired to protect the embassy.

Drawing on court testimony and internal documents, Blumenthal reports on how the CIA sabotaged an asylum plan for Assange; installed software that allowed it to directly monitor him; and harassed and monitored Assange's attorneys, friends, family, and journalist colleagues.

https://invidio.us/watch?v=I73VcDRGnk0

#Assange #FreeAssange #USA #CIA #spy #video #why #thinkabout
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Real-Time Passive Sound Recovery from Light Bulb Vibrations

Spies Can Listen to Your Conversations by Watching a Light Bulb in the Room

You might not believe it, but it's possible to spy on secret conversations happening in a room from a nearby remote location just by observing a light bulb hanging in there—visible from a window—and measuring the amount of light it emits.

A team of cybersecurity researchers has developed and demonstrated a novel side-channel attacking technique that can be applied by eavesdroppers to recover full sound from a victim's room that contains an overhead hanging bulb.

The findings were published in a new paper by a team of academics—Ben Nassi, Yaron Pirutin, Adi Shamir, Yuval Elovici and Boris Zadov—from the Israeli's Ben-Gurion University of the Negev and the Weizmann Institute of Science, which will also be presented at the Black Hat USA 2020 conference later this August.

The technique for long-distance eavesdropping, called "Lamphone," works by capturing minuscule sound waves optically through an electro-optical sensor directed at the bulb and using it to recover speech and recognize music.

https://www.nassiben.com/lamphone

PDF:
https://ad447342-c927-414a-bbae-d287bde39ced.filesusr.com/ugd/a53494_443addc922e048d89a664c2423bf43fd.pdf

👉🏼 Read more:
https://thehackernews.com/2020/06/lamphone-light-bulb-spy.html

#spy #cybersecurity #lightbulb #blackhat #sidechannel #attack
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NSO Group Closes Cyprus Office of Spy Firm

NSO recently closed the Cyprus office of phone network exploitation company Circles and fired a number of staff, according to two former NSO employees.

Controversial phone hacking company NSO Group has closed the Cyprus office of Circles, a surveillance firm that previously merged with NSO, and fired a number of staff, according to two former NSO employees.

Cyprus is a hotbed for surveillance companies that sometimes set up shop in the country and then sell their technology from the region.

"They fired all the Cyprus office," one of the former NSO employees told Motherboard.

"All Cyprus site was closed recently; all of the people fired," the second former employee added. Motherboard granted the sources anonymity as they weren't authorized to speak to the press about internal company issues, and to avoid retaliation from NSO.

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/ep48kp/nso-group-cyprus-circles-bulgaria-ss7

#Israel #Cyprus #NSO #spy #firm

The head of Denmark’s spy program has been fired for snooping on citizens and lying about it

The government in Denmark has fired 3 top officials from the country’s foreign intelligence agency, the Forsvarets Efterretningstjeneste (FE), following revelations from a whistleblower. The officials, including the head of the agency, Lars Finden, have been “relieved of duty for the time being” following the release of a trove of documents. The documents detailed that the FE has been illegally spying on Danish citizens in the last six years and were released by an unnamed whistleblower to the independent regulator of Danish security services which is known as Tilsynet med Efterretningstjenesterne (TET).

Whistleblower reveals Danish spying, gets Danish spy chief fired

According to a press release by the TET, Danish intelligence had maintained “operational activities in violation of Danish law, including obtaining and passing on a significant amount of information about Danish citizens.” Additionally, the TET noted that the FE had not only withheld information but actually reported back to overseers “incorrect information on matters relating to the collection of the service and disclosure of information.”

Prior to the whistleblower’s documents making their way to the TET, the FE had been stonewalling investigations on whether foreign intelligence spying capabilities had been used on domestic targets. The press release went on to note that Danish intelligence actually passed on the information to other countries. Unfortunately, due to the “extremely sensitive” nature of the information, it’s possible that we’ll ever know specifically who was spied on, for whom, or why.

👀 👉🏼 🇬🇧 https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/blog/the-head-of-denmarks-spy-program-has-been-fired-for-snooping-on-citizens-and-lying-about-it/

#denmark #spy #spionage #thinkabout
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Google removes Android app that was used to spy on Belarusian protesters

App mimicked a popular anti-government news site and collected location and device owner details.

Google has removed this week an Android app from the Play Store that was used to collect personal information from Belarusians attending anti-government protests.

The app, named NEXTA LIVE (com.moonfair.wlkm), was available for almost three weeks on the official Android Play Store, and was downloaded thousands of times and received hundreds of reviews.

To get installs, NEXT LIVE claimed to be the official Android app for Nexta, an independent Belarusian news agency that gained popularity with anti-Lukashenko protesters after exposing abuses and police brutality during the country's recent anti-government demonstrations.

https://www.zdnet.com/article/google-removes-android-app-that-was-used-to-spy-on-belarusian-protesters/

#Europe #Belarus #Google #spy #protesters #app #surveillance

Facebook Accused of Watching Instagram Users Through Cameras

Facebook Inc. is again being sued for allegedly spying on Instagram users, this time through the unauthorized use of their mobile phone cameras.

The lawsuit springs from media reports in July that the photo-sharing app appeared to be accessing iPhone cameras even when they weren’t actively being used.

Facebook denied the reports and blamed a bug, which it said it was correcting, for triggering what it described as false notifications that Instagram was accessing iPhone cameras.

In the complaint filed Thursday in federal court in San Francisco, New Jersey Instagram user Brittany Conditi contends the app’s use of the camera is intentional and done for the purpose of collecting “lucrative and valuable data on its users that it would not otherwise have access to.”

By “obtaining extremely private and intimate personal data on their users, including in the privacy of their own homes,” Instagram and Facebook are able to collect “valuable insights and market research,” according to the complaint.

Facebook declined to comment.

👀 👉🏼 https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-09-18/facebook-accused-of-watching-instagram-users-through-cameras

#fb #DeleteFacebook #instagram #accused #spy #privacy #surveillance #thinkabout
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Did Russian Spies Use Diplomatic Cover to Run a Global Cocaine-Smuggling Operation?

Six men await trial in Moscow and Buenos Aires, charged with operating one of the craziest, most ambitious narco-trafficking rings in history. Russia’s embassy in Argentina was the storage depot and Russian government transport was intended to move a cartel-sized consignment of virtually uncut cocaine from South America to Moscow.

It was a transnational crime that astounded and confused the world, not least because authorities allege it was carried out by a small but resourceful cabal including one dirty embassy employee, one corrupt cop, and one charismatic chameleon who used some of the most secure Russian state real estate to store and smuggle $60 million worth of drugs.

According to the official narrative, they did it all right under the noses of innocent diplomats and intelligence officers—and they would have gotten away with it without the plucky joint police work of Russian and Argentinian law enforcement. But what if that neat conclusion, which will soon be presented in court, is intentionally incomplete, a whitewash designed to protect more senior officials in the Russian government?

👀 👉🏼 https://www.thedailybeast.com/was-andrei-kovalchuk-and-the-russian-embassy-in-argentina-at-the-center-of-a-russian-spy-cocaine-ring

#russia #argentina #embassy #spy #drugs #cocaine #smuggling #whitewash #thinkabout
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The KGB Experience - How to Catch a Spy who Uses Numbers Stations?

Introduction

From 2019 onwards the Latvian National Archive offers access to various KGB documents. The author had already previously shown the very detailed efforts of the Latvian KGB counterintelligence to monitor and study the CIA and BND numbers stations broadcasts, or what they called – “one directional communications”.[1] These are one of the most definitive archival sources which prove that foreign intelligence actively used shortwave in the USSR and that the KGB was aware of it. The documents showed that the KGB had monitored these broadcasts from at least 1978, but the files spoke very vaguely if the monitoring effort led to any apprehension and capture of a foreign agent. We, however, know that there were such cases like Alexander Ogorodnik[2], and others where the use of shortwave signals was determined.

👀 👉🏼 https://www.numbers-stations.com/how-to-catch-a-spy-who-uses-numbers-stations-the-kgb-experience/

#russia #kgb #spy #numbersstations #research
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New York City police officer spied on fellow Tibetans for China, prosecutors charge

A New York City police officer who also serves in the U.S. Army Reserve was arrested Monday on a federal charges of acting as an illegal agent of China.

The police officer, Baimadajie Angwang, who was born in the autonomous region of Tibet in China, allegedly repeatedly reported to officials at the Chinese Consulate in New York on the activities of other ethnic Tibetans in the New York area.

A complaint said that Angwang "used his official position in the NYPD to provide [Chinese] Consulate officials access to senior NYPD officials through invitations to official NYPD events."

The 33-year-old cop, Baimadajie Angwang, who was born in the autonomous region of Tibet in China, allegedly reported to officials at the Chinese consulate in New York on the activities of other Tibetans in the New York area.

Angwang, after appearing remotely in federal court in New York via teleconference, was ordered by a judge to be detained without bond after prosecutors said he "presents a serious risk of flight" to avoid the criminal charges. Angwang's lawyer reserved his right to argue for bail at a later date.

If convicted, Angwan, a resident of Nassau County, Long Island, face a maximum possible prison sentence of 55 years.

Authorities noted in a criminal complaint that Angwang, who currently works for the New York Police Department's community affairs unit in the 111th precinct in Queens, "initially traveled to the United States on a cultural exchange visa."

But after overstaying a second visa he "eventually sought asylum in the United States on the basis that he had allegedly been arrested and tortured in the [People's Republic of China] due partly to this Tibetan ethnicity," the complaint said.

The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of New York, in a detention memo, said that despite Angwang's claims, an investigation found that "Angwang has traveled back to the PRC on numerous occasion since his asylum application was granted."

"These are not the actions of an individual who fears torture or persecution at the hands of the PRC, thus showing that his U.S. citizenship was secured through false pretenses," the memo said.

👀 👉🏼 https://www.cnbc.com/2020/09/21/nypd-cop-charged-with-acting-as-china-agent.html

#nypd #cop #charged #china #tibet #agent #spy
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Revealed: China suspected of spying on Americans via Caribbean phone networks

Security expert claims Chinese surveillance may have affected tens of thousands of Americans

China appears to have used mobile phone networks in the Caribbean to surveil US mobile phone subscribers as part of its espionage campaign against Americans, according to a mobile network security expert who has analysed sensitive signals data.

The findings paint an alarming picture of how China has allegedly exploited decades-old vulnerabilities in the global telecommunications network to route “active” surveillance attacks through telecoms operators.

The alleged attacks appear to be enabling China to target, track, and intercept phone communications of US phone subscribers, according to research and analysis by Gary Miller, a Washington state-based former mobile network security executive.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/dec/15/revealed-china-suspected-of-spying-on-americans-via-caribbean-phone-networks

#China #US #mobile #phone #networks #intelligence #spy #surveillance

Spy pixels in emails have become endemic

The use of "invisible" tracking tech in emails is now "endemic", according to a messaging service that analysed its traffic at the BBC's request.

Hey's review indicated that two-thirds of emails sent to its users' personal accounts contained a "spy pixel", even after excluding for spam.

Its makers said that many of the largest brands used email pixels, with the exception of the "big tech" firms.

Defenders of the trackers say they are a commonplace marketing tactic.

And several of the companies involved noted their use of such tech was mentioned within their wider privacy policies.

‼️ Emails pixels can be used to log:

❌ if and when an email is opened

❌ how many times it is opened

❌ what device or devices are involved

❌ the user's rough physical location, deduced from their internet protocol (IP) address - in some cases making it possible to see the street the recipient is on

This information can then be used to determine the impact of a specific email campaign, as well as to feed into more detailed customer profiles.

Hey's co-founder David Heinemeier Hansson says they amount to a "grotesque invasion of privacy".

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-56071437

#spy #pixels #email #invisible #tracking #bigtech #BigData #thinkabout
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thenewoil@freeradical.zone - The #FBI Used an Undercover Cop With Pink Hair to #Spy on Activists and Manufacture Crimes
🙈
https://theintercept.com/2023/03/21/fbi-colorado-springs-surveillance/

😅Не знаю как можно смотреть без улыбки на такие новости/расследования.

😅I don't know how you can look at such news/investigations without a smile.

📑Who Paid for a Mysterious Spy Tool? The F.B.I., an F.B.I. Inquiry Found.
"When The New York Times reported in April that a contractor had purchased and deployed a spying tool made by NSO, the contentious Israeli hacking firm, for use by the U.S. government, White House officials said they were unaware of the contract and put the F.B.I. in charge of figuring out who might have been using the technology.
After an investigation, the F.B.I. uncovered at least part of the answer: It was the F.B.I."🤣
📑FBI Ordered to Find Out Which Agency Disobeyed White House in Secret Deal, Finds Out It Was Itself.
"Now, several months later, the bureau’s investigation is complete, and it turns out that the agency that disobeyed the White House and purchased the creepy NSO tool was...the FBI."🤣

#NSO_Group #unit8200 #FBI #investigation #WhiteHouse #spy_tools #Pegasus_Spyware