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NSA Cracked Open Encrypted Networks of Russian Airlines, Al Jazeera, and Other 'High Potential' Targets (theintercept.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Intercept: The National Security Agency successfully broke the encryption on a number of "high potential" virtual private networks, including those of media organization Al Jazeera, the Iraqi military and internet service organizations, and a number of airline reservation systems, according to a March 2006 NSA document. The fact that the NSA spied on Al Jazeera's communications was reported by the German newsmagazine Der Spiegel in 2013, but that reporting did not mention that the spying was accomplished through the NSA's compromise of Al Jazeera's VPN. During the Bush administration, high-ranking U.S. officials criticized Al Jazeera, accusing the Qatar-based news organization of having an anti-American bias, including because it broadcasted taped messages from Osama bin Laden.
According to the document, contained in the cache of materials provided by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, the NSA also compromised VPNs used by airline reservation systems Iran Air, "Paraguayan SABRE," Russian airline Aeroflot, and "Russian Galileo." Sabre and Galileo are both privately operated, centralized computer systems that facilitate travel transactions like booking airline tickets. Collectively, they are used by hundreds of airlines around the world. In Iraq, the NSA compromised VPNs at the Ministries of Defense and the Interior; the Ministry of Defense had been established by the U.S. in 2004 after the prior iteration was dissolved. Exploitation against the ministries' VPNs appears to have occurred at roughly the same time as a broader "all-out campaign to penetrate Iraqi networks," described by an NSA staffer in 2005.
According to the document, contained in the cache of materials provided by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, the NSA also compromised VPNs used by airline reservation systems Iran Air, "Paraguayan SABRE," Russian airline Aeroflot, and "Russian Galileo." Sabre and Galileo are both privately operated, centralized computer systems that facilitate travel transactions like booking airline tickets. Collectively, they are used by hundreds of airlines around the world. In Iraq, the NSA compromised VPNs at the Ministries of Defense and the Interior; the Ministry of Defense had been established by the U.S. in 2004 after the prior iteration was dissolved. Exploitation against the ministries' VPNs appears to have occurred at roughly the same time as a broader "all-out campaign to penetrate Iraqi networks," described by an NSA staffer in 2005.
We have it all.
Q
That's what they exist to do.
More or less, anyway. But I don't understand how they found time for this, what with all the domestic spying they were doing...
#DeleteChrome
<SARCASM>I'm shocked!</SARCASM>
You made your riches by stealing from other countries. Now open your borders, we're coming in!
Isn't that what they're supposed to do?
Please tell my why this is news? I expect them to do this. If they didn't, THAT would be news, because it means they are negligent.
So, naturally, I want to know which VPN suites they broke into, any particulars on the settings used in such VPNs would also be great.
I would like to improve my own VPN to be.. not what they broke into. No real point in this article if we can't learn how to better secure our own VPNs from it.
I've no problem with our intelligence agencies spying on everyone else. That's their job. I expect them to spy on Russia, China etc. What pisses me off is when they spy on us.
As long as you don't like Trump, literally everything else is inconsequential.
Oh, and we all know that Snowden totally heroically defected years before Trump ever even announced his candidacy to expose Trump's evil abuse of power.
Get with the program.
AntiFA: An abbreviation for Anti First Amendment.
Hi Yvan and Alexander ! Still divide and conquer trolling technics?
... because of all the superior airplane technology and the military secrets that can be sourced from there, right?
Or was this network just hacked to later stage really relevant attacks originating from there, that are then attributed to evil Russians?
Because the people who called Snowden a hero had fallen for the Russian agitprop which was implemented by Greenwald and followed up by Assange
If you have not realized they used this tool (Snowden) to intentionally direct people AWAY from voting, then you really are not all that bright
So can the NSA crack consumer VPN's in the U.S.? like turdVPN..?
It's what they are tasked to do.
How about a moderation of -1 pedantic.
Oh, oh, Yvan then Alexander and now Mikhail, let's spread FUD, camarade!
This makes me wonder if what the cost/effort for NSA is to crack a VPN? Is it high enough that somebody there has to justify it?
The pessimist in me fears its the latter, or will be that very soon...
Summary miss the method of exploitation: this was done thought LogJam. Note that this is a 12 years old source within Snowden leaks.
If you compromise state carrier airline booking systems you then know who's travelling where.
So, you suspect General Whackovich is meeting with military suppliers somewhere and you then confirm he flew first class on that day to the same city a bunch of the suppliers flew to as well.
Etc etc
Its very handy to know peoples travel arrangements.
Even better if General Whackovich travelled with a hot 20 year old blonde. Be a real shame if the wife was to find out about that, huh comrade ?
Cracking of encryption is generally done via special circuitry on chips. But in order to mask this pervasive technique, and to also cover any data transfers involved, there is usually some "virus" installed at the "hacker" level. But the decryption at chip level would work regardless. Keyboard chips are a favorite.
They were hacking journalists VPNs and they took 5 years to disclose this.
The choices the journalists with this information are making on it's disclosure are very strange, to say the least.
captcha: loyalty
you then know who's travelling where.
You must be quite the idiot if you think General Whackovich travels on Aeroflot aircraft. The general has his own Tu-154 with a crew of hot blondes, and that's what he's flying with.
Just like his U.S. counterpart, Gen. "Buck" Turgidson.
U.S. officials criticized Al Jazeera, accusing the Qatar-based news organization of having an anti-American bias, including because it broadcasted taped messages from Osama bin Laden.
So Qatar is the badguy because they broadcast messages, but Saudi Arabia is on our side because actually causing 911 is OK.
Good to know, funding terrorists and killing thousands of Americans is not as bad as gloating about it afterwards.