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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."

21 of 427 comments (clear)

  1. Yo Dawg we heard the chinese by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    were trying to break in , so we did it first to warn you.

    1. Re: Yo Dawg we heard the chinese by Opportunist · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.
    2. Re: Yo Dawg we heard the chinese by sjames · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

  2. The dilema ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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?

    1. Re:The dilema ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

    2. Re:The dilema ... by CrimsonAvenger · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Spying is an act of WAR.

      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"
    3. Re:The dilema ... by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 5, Informative

      Spying is an act of WAR.

      Spying is almost never considered an act of war. Although it has at times lead to war, for instance the Ems Dispatch and the Zimmermann Telegram.

    4. Re:The dilema ... by plover · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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
    5. Re:The dilema ... by dotancohen · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.
    6. Re:The dilema ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

    7. Re:The dilema ... by Lincolnshire+Poacher · · Score: 5, Informative

      What if the UN kicks the US out of the UN?
      UN loses military and funding.

      What?

      Jordan, Bangladesh, even ZAMBIA contribute more to UN military operations than the USA.

      Currently there are an embarrassing THIRTY US military personnel on UN deployments. Seriously.

      National contributions to UN operations

    8. Re:The dilema ... by EuclideanSilence · · Score: 5, Informative

      Well after some searching I found this for the year 2009:
      http://www.un.org/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=ST/ADM/SER.B/755

      In one year the United States contributed $598,292,101 to a UN budget of $2,498,618,698 which comes to 22% of the entire budget.

      On the other hand, some sources like here explain that the funding is actually pretty complicated, as various departments of the federal government all contribute individually to various departments of the UN, up to as much as "$5.327 billion in 2005".

      I'm not sure what the actual true percentage of UN funding is that comes from the US, but the fact remains that they aren't going to do anything substantial regardless of anything the US does.

  3. Diplomatic implications by shentino · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

    1. Re:Diplomatic implications by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

  4. War on Information imminent? by protoporos · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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)

  5. Leaked? by PCM2 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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!
  6. Fuck the by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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

  7. So much for the US Tech Industry by JoeyRox · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Why would any country trust a closed-sourced product produced by a US Technology firm?

  8. Re:LOL, a German bragging about social protests by ColdWetDog · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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!
  9. Re:You don't know shit. by cbiltcliffe · · Score: 5, Informative

    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......
  10. Re:LOL, a German bragging about social protests by cartel1982 · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.