Mozaffar Khazaee, a former Manchester, Connecticut resident and defense contractor has been arrested by federal authorities on charges that he attempted to smuggle classified technical data on a variety of military projects—including the new F-35 Lightning II—out of the country and into Iran.
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When Belgian prosecutors suggested that Belgacom was the target of foreign espionage, many blamed the NSA — it has a history of snooping on other countries, after all. Those accusations may have been off the mark, however. Der Spiegel has revealed documents leaked by Edward Snowden which hint that the UK’s Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) was responsible. The intelligence agency reportedly tricked key Belgacom staff into visiting a malware-loaded website that hijacked their PCs. GCHQ could then spy on smartphones, map the network and investigate secure VPN connections. Neither Belgacom nor Belgium has responded to this latest Snowden leak, but we wouldn’t be surprised if the apparent evidence speeds up their investigation.
Filed under: Cellphones, Wireless, Internet
Via: Ars Technica
Source: Der Spiegel (translated)
Europeans are already jittery about possible foreign surveillance of their communications; today, those worries have reached a fever pitch. Belgian government investigators now suspect that a recently discovered virus in the internal systems of Belgacom, the country’s telecom giant, was planted as part of state-backed cyber espionage. The malware’s sophistication, scale and strategic focus suggest an attacker with “significant financial and logistic means,” according to prosecutors. Neither side has officially named a culprit. Local newspaper De Standaard isn’t quite so reticent, however — it alleges that the NSA has been spying on Belgacom’s voice traffic for at least two years, and that the discovery was prompted by Edward Snowden’s leaks. Whether or not the NSA is involved, the damage may be limited. Belgacom scrubbed its systems clean this weekend, and it doesn’t believe that the attack compromised customer data.
[Thanks, Joachim / image credit: Diluvienne, Flickr]
Dan Cooper contributed to this report.
Filed under: Cellphones, Internet
Via: Reuters
Source: De Standaard (translated), Belgacom
Though Huawei seems to spend just about as much time denying spying claims as it does building handsets and telecom equipment, it’s just taken that rhetoric up a notch. The company’s vice president, William Plummer, just demanded the US and UK “shut up” about such allegations unless they can prove them. That’s in response to a recent statement from former CIA head Michael Hayden, who accused the company of sharing “extensive knowledge of the foreign telecommunications systems” it worked on with the Chinese government. UK watchdogs also piled on, saying they would conduct a review of Huawei’s new Cyber Security Evaluation Center over a lack of information about its links to the Chinese government. The beleaguered outfit responded that “these tired, unsubstantiated, defamatory remarks are sad distractions from real-world concerns related to espionage, industrial and otherwise.” Those remarks show that Huawei’s hit a whole new level of frustration, but given recent White House accusations against China, it’s not likely to get any better.
Not surprisingly, the European Parliament isn’t happy to hear that the NSA and other US agencies are allegedly snooping on communications in Europe and elsewhere. It isn’t just complaining loudly, however — the Parliament just voted 483-98 in favor of a resolution that will investigate US surveillance activities in Europe and report on their impact before the end of the year. The measure also asks EU officials to consider limiting the data they voluntarily provide to American authorities, such as shutting down programs that forward air passenger and bank records. There’s nothing in the resolution that would immediately affect the EU-to-US communication pipeline, but that could change in half a year — US intelligence outlets may not get their European information served on a silver platter for much longer.
[Image credit: JLogan, Wikipedia]
Filed under: Internet
Via: ZDNet
Source: European Parliament
The US isn’t the only western country with an all-seeing digital eye… at least, according to Le Monde. The news outlet claims that France’s General Directorate for External Security has a PRISM-like system that captures and processes the metadata for “billions and billions” of communications, including internet messaging, phone calls, SMS and even faxes. The goal is ostensibly to track the behavior of terrorist cells, but the Directorate allegedly shares the anonymized information with other intelligence services, including the police. Whether or not residents can do much about the snooping, if real, is another matter. One source believes that it exists in a gray area, as French law reportedly doesn’t account for the possibility of storing personal data this way. We’re skeptical of claims that the Directorate can spy on “anyone, anytime,” especially without official commentary, but we’d suggest that locals be careful with their secrets all the same.
Dan Cooper contributed to this report.
Filed under: Internet
Via: GigaOM
Source: Le Monde (translated)
If you’re antsy at the idea of PRISM reading your Facebook messages, be thankful you’re not a foreign diplomat. The Guardian is reporting that GCHQ, the UK’s communications surveillance unit, hacked delegates’ BlackBerry handsets during 2009’s G20 summit in London. According to leaked documents, spies were able to relay private messages to analysts in “near real-time,” and pass that information along to top politicians as they were negotiating deals. The organization is also said to have set up fake internet cafés around the conference area, which used key-logging software to steal dignitaries’ passwords for long-term surveillance. If you’ll excuse us, we’re just off to, you know, change all of our login details.
Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile
Source: The Guardian
The US Navy’s quieter way to spy, the Ion Tiger, just bested its own 2009 flight record with a key assist from liquid hydrogen. The unmanned aerial vehicle had previously relied on 5000-psi compressed hydrogen for fuel, but for its latest flight test the Naval Research team swapped that out for a new cryogenic tank and delivery system that relies on the liquid stuff; a choice made for the element’s increased density. With that one significant change in place, the craft was able to outperform its last endurance run of 26 hours and two minutes by almost double, lasting 48 hours and one minute in a flight made mid-April. Spying: it’s not only good for the government, it’s good for the environment, too.
Filed under: Robots
Source: US Naval Research Laboratory
The US Department of Defense has taken the unusual step of singling out China’s cyber-spying activities in its annual report. Though the government has tacitly chided such deeds before and even threatened sanctions, yesterday’s document marks the DoD’s first direct allegation of Chinese espionage. It said that hacks directed toward government and business “appear to be attributable directly to the Chinese government and military” for the purpose of “exfiltrating information” to benefit its defense and industry. The paper also highlighted China’s “lack of transparency” with regard to its military, saying that expenditures on cyber-military operations and other defense spending were likely far in excess of the $114 billion it reported. Meanwhile, China denied the accusations, saying it was equally the victim of similar breaches, and suggested that the two nations work together to resolve the problem.
Filed under: Misc
Via: BBC
Source: US Department of Defense
The tale of this backpack review is one of love and regret; I love how this backpack works and I regret that I did not take it on my last trip. In short, it’s a good pack, generally does what it is designed for and does it well. As I know a lot of you are photographers (or at least enjoy carrying around thermos-shaped objects from place to place), I thought I’d talk a bit about what this bag can do.
Here’s what I love:
Love
The Timbuk2 Espionage Camera Backpack has 5 basic compartments: a hard-sided camera compartment at the bottom, a large zipper compartment built into the camera compartment opening flap, a medium size rucksack-like area above of the camera section, a full size laptop sleeve, and a phone compartment. It also has external straps to hold a small tripod along one side and a water bottle along the other side.
The large padded camera section — which can be customized with anti-scratch, tricot walls — can hold a decent amount of camera gear. A DSLR camera body with either a standard or telephoto lens attached, flashes, additional lenses, plugs, brackets, cables — pretty much most of what you would need on a regular day of shooting. The hard sides protect the camera equipment pretty well. As good as or better than any other non-enclosed hard case bags I have used.
The zipper compartment built into the opening flap of the camera area is wide and deep enough to house an iPad. The rucksack area above the camera section is big enough to hold a small coat, and maybe a few loose odds and ends. The laptop sleeve along the back will hold up to a 17 inch laptop. I was able to fit a phone and small pair of headphones in the phone compartment. The profile is about as small as you could get while still letting you carry this amount of equipment.
Despite any protection the bag provides I would be remiss without mentioning the key, critical feature the pack sports; the bottle opener. What photographer is ever without a beverage in their hand at some point during a busy day? Indeed, this critical feature alleviates the need to carry or even pack, a bottle opener. I’m, of course, joking here about it’s importance, but trust me, it is still appreciated. It comes standard on many Timbuk2 packs.
The black, ballistic nylon outer shell seemed sturdy enough and padding along the back plus a waist strap looked helpful.
Last but not least, the name of the pack — the Espionage — is a hint as to the possible aid this pack could provide to thwart would-be camera thieves (e.g. it doesn’t look like a normal camera bag and instead looks like a regular backpack, therefore no one will think to rip you off).
I am not so sure I completely buy this approach as I assume that all would-be backpack thieves are as eager to steal a regular backpack that could contain thousands of dollars worth of computer equipment as they are to steal a camera bag that could hold thousands of dollars worth of camera equipment. But who knows, maybe it will work.
Regrets
And now to the regrets. Why oh why did I not take this pack with me to SXSW last week? I needed to shoot a bunch of pictures. I needed to write a bunch of stories. It would have been perfect for the trip. But I didn’t take the Espionage with me to give it a proper test because of fear, my friends. I was afraid. Afraid of what exactly?
Well, when I first put the pack on, I’ll be honest that it felt a little uncomfortable to me. Maybe it was the stiffness of the hard-shell protection of the camera area? Maybe it was because it doesn’t exactly form-fit to your back when you put it on? I was afraid that while toting the bag around all day at SXSW and standing in line to watch and cover speakers, I would eventually fatigue (first world problem for sure).
I also thought it might be a bit too small. Surely I couldn’t fit everything I would need for a full day of blogging and photography, and batteries and cables and silly conference schwag?
In retrospect, the backpack could not have been any more uncomfortable than the the gigantic, pack I ended up taking that was overstuffed with things I probably didn’t need. (I barely collected any schwag anyway). Plus, I couldn’t open any beer bottles. Damn it!
Super-Secret Discovery
This wasn’t advertised in the manual, but it appears that the top of the camera area will unzip and fold flat, which means that if you take out the tricot dividers, you can combine the areas of the hard-sided camera section with the rucksack top to make one larger area. When both compartments are combined, the maximum total length of the larger area appears to be a little more than 20 inches — big enough to hold books or notebooks or larger items on those days when you don’t carry your camera with you. This changed everything for me when thinking about how I could actually use this backpack on a daily basis.
The Bottom Line
In the end, I think this is a much better backpack than I initially thought. I am glad I took a little extra time to use it and think about it. In fact, the only things I can really find wrong with it are it’s previously mentioned non form-fitting nature (a consequence of its protection) and that a few of the zippers are hard to unzip. But because of the multiple ways it can be used and its slim profile, maybe the Timbuk2 Espionage Camera Backpack really is the ultimate backpack?
Price: $199
Available at Timbuk2.com
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
