On Monday, December 30th of 2013 Jacob Applebaum gave a presentation in to a conference in Germany where he described, in his words, “wrist slitting depression” details of just how far the NSA has extended its reach over the past years. The video is a little over an hour and length but I would suggest everyone to watch through it to see what is happening in our world. Especially the point showing the UI used to steal a contact list, login information and webcam photos. As well as the presentation, Der Speigel put out an article in conjunction with Applebaum’s presentation, going over the details of the materials covered.
In both the article and video we can see that the NSA has extended its hand far and wide to encompass the globe in their dragnet using tools such as TURBINE and TURMOIL, not only conducting surveillance on all communications but also being able to inject packets into these communications when they see fit. The ability to turn on a webcam to snap photos of someone’s room, or listen in on their conversations through their cellphone’s microphone is straight out of sci-fi and spy novels, and a reality in this day and age.
It also appears that the NSA is able to intercept electronic purchases and install their own hardware and software before it arrives at your door if they actively want to look into you. That’s not all though, in the Speigel article, it cites:
“In the case of Juniper, the name of this particular digital lock pick is “FEEDTROUGH.” This malware burrows into Juniper firewalls and makes it possible to smuggle other NSA programs into mainframe computers. Thanks to FEEDTROUGH, these implants can, by design, even survive “across reboots and software upgrades.” In this way, US government spies can secure themselves a permanent presence in computer networks. The catalog states that FEEDTROUGH “has been deployed on many target platforms.”
And in another article goes on:
“The NSA has also targeted products made by well-known American manufacturers and found ways to break into professional-grade routers and hardware firewalls, such as those used by Internet and mobile phone operators. ANT offers malware and hardware for use on computers made by Cisco, Dell, Juniper, Hewlett-Packard and Chinese company Huawei.”
Actively undermining the security of the Internet as well as American companies, the NSA has held back information on specific vulnerabilities to be able to exploit them. All of this information is extremely frightening as it comes to light.