Syria Using U.S. Made Web Surveillance and Censorship Systems
October 29th, 2011These boxes are probably rooted by NSA. The Syrians are clueless enough to have allowed them to phone home, so, my guess is that Uncle is on board too.
Via: Cnet:
Blue Coat Systems has confirmed that its devices were being used by Syria to censor the Web and said it is investigating how they got into that country despite a strict U.S. trade embargo, The Wall Street Journal reported today.
The appliances were “transmitting automatic status messages back to the company” Blue Coat executives told the newspaper.
“Blue Coat says it doesn’t monitor where such ‘heartbeat’ messages originate from,” according to the report. “Computer code reviewed by the Journal indicates that Syrians were also using other Blue Coat products, raising questions about how the tools came to be used this way and whether Blue Coat has violated the trade embargo.”
Reports began trickling out this summer that the devices were being used by Syria to monitor its citizens’ Internet activity in a crackdown on opposition that has left thousands of protesters dead and injured.
Last month, Blue Coat told ZDNet UK that company policy forbade the sale of equipment to the Syrian government.
Fourteen of the Blue Coat devices were shipped to Dubai late last year destined for the Iraq government, and at least 13 of them were found in use in Syria, company executives said.
Now, if the Syrians had only been reading their Cryptogon, perhaps they would have been a bit less clueless.
Yes, Crates, Cryptogoners suavely point to the three propellers on their beanies.