Big Brother Running Amok: NSA/GCHQ Hack Huge SIM Card Producer

Stories of the NSA drive to in the words of retired boss General Keith Alexander “Collect It All”, have lately gone the way of “Deflategate” in the mainstream media but Big Brother never sleeps. We all need to understand that we live in the waning days of having any expectation of privacy and it is only a matter of time until big government is trying to get at what is inside our skulls too. This week there were two major reports of what the secret police have been up to yet the domestic media has largely stayed focused on the political rat race and various and sundry celebrity tales. This failure to engage in serious investigative journalism is exactly why guys like Brian Williams are able to land multi-million dollar jobs as the gatekeepers in the McNews industry.

The story with the most far reaching consequences is the allegation that the NSA and their counterparts across the pond in jolly old England - GCHQ - hacked into the world’s largest provider of SIM cards. Those are those little things inside everyone’s smartphones that allow for the protection of private data when communicating and engaging in financial transactions. Billions of cellphones worldwide could possibly be affected by this massive breach of encryption - maybe even yours.

As reported by Reuters in the story “NSA, British spies hack Gemalto to tap mobile calls: Intercept”:

Digital security company Gemalto NV was hacked by American and British spies to steal encryption keys used to protect the privacy of cellphone communications, news website Intercept reported, citing documents provided by whistleblower Edward Snowden.

The hack by the National Security Agency (NSA) and UK's Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) allowed the agencies to monitor a large portion of voice and data mobile communications around the world without permission from governments and telecom companies, according to the report.

A GCHQ spokesperson said the agency did not comment on intelligence matters. NSA could not be immediately reached for comment.

Gemalto makes smart chips for mobile phones, bank cards and biometric passports and counts Verizon and AT&T Inc among its 450 wireless network provider customers around the world.

The hack story was broken by the website The Intercept in a huge expose entitled “The Great SIM Heist:  How Spies Stole The Keys To The Encryption Castle” which is a long and detailed piece that is well worth the time spent reading it. Many will of course dismiss this out of hand because the documents about the hacking were provided by former government contractor turned NSA Whistleblower Edward Snowden who is a controversial figure to put it mildly. However, in the days of a rogue government and the Obama regime’s ongoing war on journalists and whistleblowers it takes bold action to expose the scale of government criminality.

The other story, which is easily dismissed because it can simply be denounced as Putin propaganda is that of Russian computer security firm Kaspersky identifying the ability to embed spyware deep inside computer hard drives. According to the Reuters story “Russian researchers expose breakthrough U.S. spying program”:

The U.S. National Security Agency has figured out how to hide spying software deep within hard drives made by Western Digital, Seagate, Toshiba and other top manufacturers, giving the agency the means to eavesdrop on the majority of the world's computers, according to cyber researchers and former operatives.

That long-sought and closely guarded ability was part of a cluster of spying programs discovered by Kaspersky Lab, the Moscow-based security software maker that has exposed a series of Western cyberespionage operations.

Kaspersky said it found personal computers in 30 countries infected with one or more of the spying programs, with the most infections seen in Iran, followed by Russia, Pakistan, Afghanistan, China, Mali, Syria, Yemen and Algeria. The targets included government and military institutions, telecommunication companies, banks, energy companies, nuclear researchers, media, and Islamic activists, Kaspersky said.

The firm declined to publicly name the country behind the spying campaign, but said it was closely linked to Stuxnet, the NSA-led cyberweapon that was used to attack Iran's uranium enrichment facility. The NSA is the agency responsible for gathering electronic intelligence on behalf of the United States.

A former NSA employee told Reuters that Kaspersky's analysis was correct, and that people still in the intelligence agency valued these spying programs as highly as Stuxnet. Another former intelligence operative confirmed that the NSA had developed the prized technique of concealing spyware in hard drives, but said he did not know which spy efforts relied on it.

NSA spokeswoman Vanee Vines declined to comment.

These stories are perfect examples of how the surveillance industrial complex has run amok and will continue to do so until lawmakers do their jobs. Our elected 'representatives' should subject the NSA to the type of rigorous oversight needed to prevent the ongoing digital rampage. The spooks and data vampires whose activities are funded by U.S. taxpayer dollars are not only gutting the Constitution but doing immense and irreparable damage to American tech businesses, especially in the new era of cloud computing.

Silicon Valley high-rollers understand this too and have been highly critical of the potential financial damage to their industries and have taken their concerns directly to Emperor Barack Obama himself. But Obama is a defender of the status quo and there will be no effort to reign in the data grabbers and snoopers on his watch. Don't look for it from Jeb Bush either if he is the next one to sit on the throne, especially since he just defended his brother's mass surveillance programs that "keep us safe".

One day Americans will be made to face the consequences of their complicity in allowing the wolves to be the ones charged with guarding the hen house and that day is rapidly approaching.

British Cohorts of NSA Stasi Decry Reporting on Spying

Across the pond, the British Norsefire government is again on the attack over the revelations of their own surveillance programs over at GCHQ which has renewed threats of an imminent media crackdown.  Sir John Sawers, the head of MI6 (James Bond’s employer) and from the sound of it a real royal assclown channeled Dick Cheney at a public hearing declaring that "the leaks from Snowden have been very damaging. They have put our operations at risk. It is clear our adversaries are rubbing their hands with glee. Al-Qaida is lapping it up." That such horseshit exists outside of the rogue U.S. government is both scary as well as sardonically amusing  the same con is being run down on the queen's subjects. So after years of being subjected to the phony war on terror, a phantom menace ginned up by cynics and criminals out of the ashes of tragedy primarily to enrich well connected military and surveillance firms both foreign and domestic the lies continue. It really takes some set of it takes a set of stones to continue to slap the leather to that dead horse.

The Guardian story that describes the hearings could easily be juxtaposed with tales of the NSA Stasi with only the names and titles changed. It is pretty obvious that GCHQ, MI5 and MI6 received a version of the same NSA talking points that instructed those giving testimony to rely heavily on the 9/11 references, the chosen bread and butter of the American fascist state for years. Andrew Parker, the director of MI5 and just one more lying noxious bastard stated that – “since 2005 and the 7/7 attacks, 34 separate plots had been foiled, including one that would have created mass casualties.” But of course the successful foiling of the plots included the same specific set of details provided by the defenders of U.S. surveillance – none.

The media, especially The Guardian again came under attack by the establishment, specifically this from Sir John:

At Thursday's hearing, Sawers criticised newspapers for claiming they could judge whether disclosures would compromise national security, saying they were not particularly well placed to make such decisions. But pressed to accept that the disclosures had raised issues about the line between secrecy and openness, however, Lobban acknowledged the urgency of the issue, saying: "Clearly with the situation we are in, we are actively considering that with government."

It is the utmost in hypocrisy when the misdeeds of criminals in high places are exposed by what is at least theoretically a free press are the first ones calling for the government to stifle reporting when their schemes are outed. It was just a few weeks ago when top NSA Nazi General Keith Alexander gave an interview where he expressed the sentiment of the U.S. regime to similarly stomp the jackboot of the state down upon the meddlesome press. At least there is reporting in jolly old England that is taken seriously while our own corrupt corporate state press is content to wallow in the panties of Lindsey Lohan and Miley Cyrus while only occasionally paying lip service to holding power accountable.

The war on reporting is rapidly escalating abroad and as the U.S. hits on the Guardian website for real news have the Cameron regime scrambling to get a lid on it, outside of dispatching government goons to supervise the smashing of computer hard drives. Glenn Greenwald’s partner David Miranda who was abducted and detained by thugs at London's Heathrow Airport back in August has been officially labeled as a “terrorist” which does not bode well for the future of Guardian reporting on the NSA/GCHQ activities. Greenwald saw the writing on the wall and got the hell out in time because the crackdown is coming. 

This all must have put a real twist in the queen’s knickers and that mummified old bag cannot be happy seeing the exposure deliver a nice backhand slap across the legendary “stiff upper lip”. It just keeps coming too. According to a paper released by The Center for European Policy Studies (CEPS), an influential Brussels based think tank the British are in violation of European law with their spying activities. Seems like James Bond is a hell of a lot less cool now that the U.K. has been exposed as the authoritarian menace to individual freedom that it has always been, they never really gave up the empire and only merged with their fascist American deep state counterparts.

Oh Guy Fawkes Where Art Thou?