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How To Stop the Next WikiLeaks

Hugh Pickens writes "Eli Lake reports that the U.S.'s 16 intelligence agencies are using a program called SureView that makes it easier to spy on the spies and catch whistleblowers early in the act. SureView is a type of auditing software that specializes in 'behavior-based internal monitoring' that monitors the intelligence officer's computer activity. If the officer acts like a potential leaker, sending an encrypted email or using an unregistered thumb drive, the analyst might push a button and watch a screen video of the officer's last hour of work. Once a case is made that a leak might be imminent, it is checkmate: the agent is thwarted. 'Had SureView been on Bradley Manning's machine, no one would know who Bradley Manning is today,' says Ryan Szedelo, manager for Raytheon's SureView software. The intelligence community has had auditing software for years. SureView came on the market in 2002. But the programs were buggy and often prone to false positives, alerting a network administrator too often to routine behavior. 'The technology has gotten substantially better in the last year,' says Jeffrey Harris, a former head of the National Reconnaissance Office. 'The problem with audit files was it took an army of people to understand them. Now we have rule-driven systems and expert systems that help us reason through the data.'"

2 of 191 comments (clear)

  1. I think Dr Seuss said it best by Rogerborg · · Score: 4, Informative

    Oh, the jobs people work at!
    Out west, near Hawtch-Hawtch,
    there's a Hawtch-Hawtcher Bee-Watcher.
    His job is to watch...
    is to keep both his eyes on the lazy town bee.
    A bee that is watched will work harder, you see.

    Well... he watched and he watched.
    But, in spite of his watch,
    that bee didn't work any harder. Not Mawtch.

    So somebody said,
    "Our old-bee-watching man
    just isn't bee-watching as hard as he can.
    He ought to be watched by another Hawtch-Hawtcher!
    The thing that we need
    is a Bee-Watcher-Watcher!"

    WELL...

    The Bee-Watcher-Watcher watched the Bee-Watcher.
    He didn't watch well. So another Hawtch-Hawtcher
    had to come in as a Watch-Watcher-Watcher!
    And today all the Hawtchers who live in Hawtch-Hawtch
    are watching on Watch-Watcher-Watchering-Watch,
    Watch-Watching the Watcher who's watching the bee.
    You're not a Hawtch-Watcher. You're lucky, you see!

    --
    If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
  2. Re:What if... by durrr · · Score: 3, Informative

    Use a VGA/DVI interception hardware device to save to external storage. People will be stuck thinking in the box so you'll have no problems whatsoever as long as you don't save or move any data "in-system".

    Please don't forget to mention how SureView is awsome and ensures 100% data security while at it to keep the blinders on.