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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."
were trying to break in , so we did it first to warn you.
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?
If I was the state department I would be furious about this.
Short of a direct attack on a diplomat I don't think there is a worse breach of international custom and law.
Snooping on citizens is bad enough, but this is playing with fire.
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)
So where did Der Spiegel get these documents? On Friday, Edward Snowden accused the US government of intentionally leaking documents to The Independent that were potentially damaging, in an effort to discredit the responsible reporting being done by The Guardian and the Washington Post. He said he had never worked with nor even spoken to anyone at The Independent. Is the same thing happening here?
Breakfast served all day!
RT is infamous for being virulently anti-American; it's a Russian news organization with an agenda that is fairly obvious at times. Now, that said, Der Spiegel is a totally valid news organization...so can someone provide something directly from that, instead of interpretation by people with their own agenda regarding this?
Ah, never mind: here you go: http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/08/25/us-usa-security-nsa-idUSBRE97O08120130825
For your security, this post has been encrypted with ROT-13, twice.
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?
Was the encryption cracked, or was it just bypassed?
Very worrisome if it's the former.
I can't tell if they just disabled encryption on one of the end points.
the chinese where exploiting huawei routers firmware, while nsa where at it with the cisco stuff
Oh give it up. How about early European settlers wiping out 12 million indigenous Americans by smallpox and influenza within a decade of landing on shore? Yes, we should remember the Holocaust during WWII. And Rwanda. And Nanking. And godknowswhatelse. Nobody's ancestors have much of a moral high ground.
Move along.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
I'm not condoning what the NSA has done, but this is firmly within their mandate. Who they spy on and how may be completely secret. The fact that this is what they do is not.
From their Mission Statement:
The Signals Intelligence mission collects, processes, and disseminates intelligence information from foreign signals for intelligence and counterintelligence purposes and to support military operations.
Cheers,
Bruce.
Bruce A. Knack
Silicon Surfers
A state spy agencies first objective is to find information helpful in protecting their state.
Here we see a spy agency not knowing who is their enemy.
Please remember the UN was for a significant part set up and is still financed by the US.
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
Past vs. present. You dig?
Seriously: 'The Germans' are out, the Turks are out, the french, the British, the Spanish, the Dutch, the Japanese... All those nations with a history (sic)... oh, never mind.
It's sat, btw.
That is a great point, and a perfect analogy! The NSA is just trying to help US win the war against the UN !!!
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
Are you telling me the NSA actually spends time and money on doing the job it's supposed to, not just spying on US citizens? I am absolutely shocked.
You're still suffering under the delusion that the U.S. are the "good guys"? lol.
In the same period of time, the United States, officially a secular nation but predominantly Christian, attacked ....... Afghanistan (2001 to present), Haiti (2010), etc. etc. etc. etc.
So, who is the danger to world peace?"
Errr...the US retaliated against (not attacked) Afghanistan in 2001, due the the fact that the Taliban appeared to be housing/helping the group that attacked and killed a few thousand civilians in the US.
Similarly, the US didn't attack Haiti in 2010. They sent the military in the help in the aid efforts after the earthquake struck just west of Port-au-Prince.
Why didn't you add to your list that the US attacked Antarctica in 2003, when they built the current Amundsen-Scott research base? That would have made about as much sense as some of your listings....
"City hall" in German is "Rathaus" Kinda explains a few things......
Impressive. You just presented both "Just doing my job" and "Everyone else does it" arguments in a single post. Well done.
There are treaties governing the presence of the UN on US soil. If these have been breached by the NSA action, the US has broken treaty obligations. Now, as the Native American Tribes of the US will testify, this usually doesn't make a lot of difference, but there's a chance that such a breach is actionable in US courts, which could get VERY messy.
Read at least a little history. The SDP and German Communist party fought valiantly against Hitler, right up until the enabling acts were forced through parliament (and that only succeeded because the Communists were evicted before the vote). The German left fought street battles against the brown shirts trying to prevent their rise to power.
The Nazis were way more committed to what they were doing than the US Government is. If the dissenters in the US (I'm looking at you, Occupy) showed a fraction of the resolve that the Weimar left showed, we'd have cleaned house by now.
Even after Hitler came to power, leaders in the one place there was still some free speech -- the independent churches -- continued to voice and rally dissent. German intellectuals fled the country and loudly protested the Hitler regime from around the world.
The first concentration camps were set up to detain Nazi political opponents, they were only turned to the purpose of ethnic cleansing in 1938.
You frankly don't know what you're talking about.
Don't forget the "attack" on Yugoslavia to protect muslim bosniaks from christian serbs and croats. Our sworn enemies always seem to gloss over that one when tallying up our sins.
I am becoming gerund, destroyer of verbs.