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NSA Cracked Into Encrypted UN Video Conferences
McGruber writes "According to documents seen by Germany's Der Spiegel, the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) successfully cracked the encryption code protecting the United Nations' internal videoconferencing system. NSA first breached the UN system in the summer of 2012 and, within three weeks of initially gaining access to the UN system, the NSA had increased the number of such decrypted communications from 12 to 458. On one occasion, according to the report, while the American NSA were attempting to break into UN communications, they discovered the Chinese were attempting to crack the encryption code as well."
Am I the only one seeing a war on information soon descending upon us?
Governments, once they realize the full breadth & capability of the US surveillance, and the fact that they themselves are vulnerable, and not only their citizen... they will soon decide to take action! And of course the US, having the confrontation with China in mind (and that it cannot weaken its position in such a critical time), will not back down easily.
Net neutrality is the first that could go, but I'm not sure it will be the last.
Do you think that Snowden will prove to be the trigger to the 3rd WW? (but an information/electronic one this time)
If the NSA can do it, so can other people. So should the NSA reveal what they can do so the UN can switch to more secure communications. Or should the NSA have continued to monitor with the knowledge that the Chinese, Russians and probably a few others were also listening in?
Where's the dilemma? Yes. No.
USA.
First you make bribing politicians legal, destabilize the entire world's banking industry and start war after war in 3rd world countries so your military industrial complex can get more tax payer money. And now new private contractors show up and bribe some politicians who in return give them the right and money to spy on whoever they want.
And do you even protest or riot? No you assholes whine on /. I think there have been more protests here in germany over that than in the US
Why would any country trust a closed-sourced product produced by a US Technology firm?
The UN doesn't care any more. There is barely a power structure left which isn't dominated by US flunkies.
The world was rightly scared of the USSR, but it should be far more worried about a one-superpower world.
If spying were an "act of WAR", then EVERY government has a casus bellum against EVERY OTHER country.
Face it, espionage has been a fact of life between governments since at least the time of the ancient Greeks...
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
Of course. We may do every kind of atrocity, for it is in the name of peace and democracy.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Spying is an act of WAR.
No, spying has been an illegal but ongoing act of governments everywhere, and has been true across history. It's unethical, highly offensive, unjustifiably immoral, and dangerous to the agent if you act on the knowledge gained, but it's not an act of war.
The primary differences between the NSA and all other spying is that they have essentially unlimited resources, technology, and personnel to throw at it, and they are very, very good at it.
Where the NSA is lacking, though, is with actual infiltration. They have no agents hiding inside every possible organization. They are instead performing their spying on the communications that the other people are using. It's cheaper, easier, more reliable, and more "politically acceptable" to tap conversations. It's expensive, difficult, and unreliable to have a source reporting from within the organization, and it's politically unpalatable when an agent is discovered and killed or tortured for their treason.
Typically, infiltration has been the job of the CIA and similar spy agencies in other countries, but their historic mission has been to infiltrate an entire nation-state. Nations are easier to spy on because the attack surface is large, and they can get useful benefits from spies anywhere in the government, military, or police. It's much harder to infiltrate a religious or tribal clan, where it's a smaller group where everyone is personally known to the others.
Where it gets dodgy, though, is not in the passive (or even aggressive) monitoring. It's when the monitors begin injecting their own information in order to influence the behavior of others. It's obviously one thing to overhear a voice on the radio saying "we'll meet at the ABC building on Thursday," but a completely different thing to alter the voice on the radio to say "let's meet at the 123 building on Thursday" to lead them into an ambush. Deploying an agent provocateur can indeed be an act of war, even via the proxy of communications.
John
Face it, espionage has been a fact of life between governments since at least the time of the ancient Greeks...
And soon, it we don't so something about it:
Year 4026, in the Human's Republic of Earth: "Face it, government surveillance of citizens in their own homes has been a fact of life since at least the time of the ancient American empire..."
It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.
It's very simple, and there's a multitude of historical precedent; war is profitable. It keeps the "little people" in line via fear, and it's a wonderful oppurtunity to steal everything you can pick up. It has evolved into the "military industrial complex" and it isn't going away until and only if We the People exercise our fundamental right to self protection and get rid of the thieves and murderers that always inhabit governments. The "Axis of Evil" is easy to find in the present case: it's midway between the White House and the Capitol Building in Washington D.C.
Of course it's probably moot, our Plutocrats can easily see climate change, peak oil, and worldwide food shortages looming and have been building the infrastructure of control as fast as they can so they can toss us all under the bus with impunity when the shit hits the fan big time. They will be able to do this because most of those reading this are way too complacent to try to defend themselves even when it's obvious their own death is imminent. "Land of the free, home of the brave" . . . right.
So you advocate a get out of jail free card for anyone who only sold a few bags of dope or 'only' robbed a few liquor stores? How about if they "only" committed tax fraud? It's not like they overthrew their government and ordered the death of millions or anything. They didn't even dupe a superpower into a costly and unnecessary war with trumped up evidence.
I am sad to say, the U.S. has tortured, and it has imprisoned people without a trial and without competent legal representation. It has performed lethal medical experiments on minorities. It hasn't done it on the scale of the Nazis but it has done it. It would be easier to say that was then but it has grown and changed if we didn't still have Gitmo up and running and if the NSA's domestic spying had been shut down instantly and without question rather than being allowed to continue while we hunt down the person who exposed the distinctly unConstitutional and un-American (in the ideals sense rather than actuality) program.