Archive for the 'Covert Operations' Category
U.S. Troops to Remain in Afghanistan, “Perhaps Indefinitely”
November 20th, 2013Via: NBC: While many Americans have been led to believe the war in Afghanistan will soon be over, a draft of a key U.S.-Afghan security deal obtained by NBC News shows the United States is prepared to maintain military outposts in Afghanistan for many years to come, and pay to support hundreds of thousands of […]
Rep. Trey Radel Busted in Cocaine Sting
November 19th, 2013Hmm. Via: USA Today: Rep. Trey Radel, R-Fla., was caught buying drugs as part of a federal investigation into a Washington, D.C., drug ring last month and is being charged with cocaine possession, according to a senior Drug Enforcement Administration official. The official, who was not authorized to speak publicly about the case, said several […]
Private Firms Selling Mass Surveillance Systems Around World
November 19th, 2013Via: Guardian: Private firms are selling spying tools and mass surveillance technologies to developing countries with promises that “off the shelf” equipment will allow them to snoop on millions of emails, text messages and phone calls, according to a cache of documents published on Monday. The papers show how firms, including dozens from Britain, tout […]
NSA Links to St Petersburg Florida Drug Ring
November 17th, 2013Via: Mad Cow Morning News: Skyway Global LLC, the St. Petersburg, FL company that owned the DC-9 airline busted in Mexico carrying 5.5 tons of cocaine, made its headquarters in a 79,000 sq ft building owned by Verint Systems (NASDAQ: VRNT), a foreign tele-communications company with a contract to wiretap the U.S. for the NSA […]
Amazon Will Build and Manage Cloud Infrastructure in CIA Facility
November 16th, 2013Via: Networkworld: Amazon Web Services recently won a reported $600 million contract to build the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) a cloud. But that cloud will not look like any other cloud on the planet. Given the sensitive nature of building an IT operation for one of the United States’ most secretive organizations, details about […]
The Weaponized Internet
November 16th, 2013Via: Wired: The internet backbone — the infrastructure of networks upon which internet traffic travels — went from being a passive infrastructure for communication to an active weapon for attacks. According to revelations about the QUANTUM program, the NSA can “shoot” (their words) an exploit at any target it desires as his or her traffic […]
CIA Collecting Data on International Money Transfers
November 14th, 2013Via: New York Times: The Central Intelligence Agency is secretly collecting bulk records of international money transfers handled by companies like Western Union — including transactions into and out of the United States — under the same law that the National Security Agency uses for its huge database of Americans’ phone records, according to current […]
The Second Operating System Hiding in Every Mobile Phone
November 12th, 2013The Find: Back in July 2013, The Washington Post reported that nearly a decade ago, the National Security Agency developed a new technique that allowed spooks to “find cellphones even when they were turned off. JSOC troops called this ‘The Find,’ and it gave them thousands of new targets, including members of a burgeoning al-Qaeda-sponsored […]
Stuxnet Infected Russian Nuclear Plant, International Space Station
November 11th, 2013Via: SC Magazine: Stuxnet had ‘badly infected’ the internal network of a Russian nuclear plant after the sophisticated malware caused chaos in Iran’s uranium facilities in Natanz. The malware, widely considered to have been developed by the US Government as a means to disrupt Iran’s uranium enrichment plans, had crossed a physically separated ‘air-gapped’ network […]
UK Spies Continue “Quantum Insert” Attack via LinkedIn, Slashdot Pages
November 11th, 2013Via: Ars Technica: Der Spiegel suggests that the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), the British sister agency to the NSA, used spoofed versions of LinkedIn and Slashdot pages to serve malware to targets. This type of attack was also used to target “nine salaried employees” of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), the global oil […]
