Surveillance programs and systems (global surveillance and espionage affairs)

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This article describes the surveillance programs and systems that have become known in the global surveillance and espionage affair .

Boundless informant

The American program Boundless Informant analyzes the amounts of data collected by the NSA. For example, it is possible to create maps that show the amount of data obtained from the individual countries via color coding.

Bullrun

Bullrun is the name of a NSA program to read encrypted data on the Internet. The British secret service GCHQ has a similar program called Edgehill . With PRISM's budget more than ten times its budget ($ 254.9 million), Bullrun is arguably one of the NSA's largest secret programs.

There are a variety of avenues of attack. For example, certification authorities or random number generators are delivered with vulnerabilities so that they can be cracked more easily later.

CNE

The GCHQ spy program, known as Computer Network Exploitation (CNE), is used to compromise the hardware of network service providers. The secret service infects the devices without the knowledge of the manufacturer and thus gains remote control over routers and terminals . Data transmitted via infected devices can be read, manipulated and diverted.

Internal documents dated June 13, 2008 of the GCHQ indicate that hardware from Cisco could be manipulated within the framework of this program . The GCHQ has brought the Pakistan Internet Exchange under its control.

According to the BBC, CNE was approved by the British Foreign Office and the routers were manipulated without Cisco's knowledge.

CO-TRAVELER Analytics

CO-TRAVELER Analytics is the name of a program run by the NSA for collecting and evaluating location information from mobile communications. According to media reports, several hundred million cell phones are monitored every day within the framework of this program, which means that over five billion data records with a memory size of more than 27 terabytes are stored and evaluated. The aim of the espionage program CO-TRAVELER Analytics is therefore to create comprehensive movement and relationship profiles.

Dishfire

With the help of Dishfire , the NSA (as of 2012) monitored and collected 200 million text messages per day. According to media reports, the surveillance takes place independently of suspicion and aims, among other things, with information on personal contacts, financial transactions and whereabouts.

FAIRVIEW

FAIRVIEW describes an approach of the NSA with which it is possible to access large amounts of data outside the territory of the United States. According to the Guardian, the NSA is working with US national telecommunications companies, which in turn are looking for cooperation with foreign companies. A US company receives access to a foreign network and forwards this access to the NSA - according to the Guardian, for example in Brazil.

genius

Genie is the code name for a botnet controlled by the NSA that comprised 21,252 computers worldwide in 2008. According to the Washington Post, certain networks are to be brought under the control of the NSA. If this succeeds, the computers in these networks can then be evaluated using XKeyscore. About three quarters of the Internet operations are said to have been directed against Iran, Russia, China and North Korea or against the proliferation of nuclear weapons. The Washington Post also reported 231 Internet operations performed in 2011.

Mail Isolation Control and Tracking

Mail Isolation Control and Tracking (MICT) refers to a surveillance program published by the FBI in June 2013, in which all mail traffic of the United States Postal Service (USPS) is photographed and made available in a database. In 2012 that was around 160 billion shipments. Criminal authorities can query this data.

The German postal photographed the addresses of all mailings. According to the company, this is used, for example, to ensure correct delivery. As part of pilot projects in which the US authorities are provided with relevant data from business customers, the aim is to simplify customs clearance.

MUSCULAR

MUSCULAR (DS-200B) is the name of a surveillance program which is operated in cooperation with the British GCHQ , the primary operator of the program, and the American NSA . The UK -based program was revealed through documents revealed by Edward Snowden and through Washington Post interviews with confidential sources. The two secret services tapped the main communication links that connect Yahoo and Google .

OAKSTAR

Is an Internet monitoring program by the NSA . OAKSTAR is an umbrella program for telecommunications monitoring in which, similar to BLARNEY , FAIRVIEW and STORMBREW , passing data is skimmed off directly on fiber optic cables and infrastructure (e.g. on a backbone ).

Optic nerve

Furthermore, it was revealed that the British intelligence agency GCHQ , the Yahoo -Videochats has been monitoring for years. 1.8 million users are said to have been spied on within a 6-month period alone. The material obtained also contained a large amount of sexually explicit images.

PRESTON

PRESTON is a UK- operated telephone and internet tapping center, operated by the United Kingdom at Security Service MI5 headquarters in London, whose existence was revealed in March 2015. Since 2000, "it has" networked huge databases of the National Technical Assistance Center (NTAC) that store tapped phone calls, recordings of Internet use, travel, finances, and other personal records. " PRESTON is also called the national Big Brother database .

PRISM

The PRISM program siphons data from the servers of nine large US Internet companies, including Apple , Microsoft , Facebook , Google and Skype . This data enables "live monitoring" of those affected. The companies deny giving up data voluntarily. They would only provide data by court order.

Quantum theory

According to media reports, a department of the NSA called Tailored Access Operations is said to be able to produce tools specifically geared towards various technical systems for spying on and manipulating computers or computer networks. Objectives include the takeover of botnets (program Quantumbot ) or data manipulation and access to target systems (program Quantumcopper ). A component called Quantum-Insert is said to have been used for the attack on the Belgian provider Belgacom .

Smurfs

The GCHQ operates a program for access to smartphones under the code name Smurfs (German Smurfs) . The program's skills are named after Smurfs .

  • Dreamy Smurf : Remotely switch smartphones on and off at will without being noticed
  • Nosey Smurf : Activate internal microphone and record conversations
  • Trackers Smurf : location with higher accuracy than through the GSM network
  • Porus : The Trojan's ability to go unnoticed
  • Paranoid Smurf : The Trojan's ability to defend itself

It is not known which operating systems are affected.

Squeaky Dolphin

In response to the Arab Spring , the NSA set up a program that enables user interactions to be followed in real time on Facebook , YouTube and Blogger.com, among others . The evaluation should enable the prediction of protests.

Tempora

Tempora is a UK GCHQ online and telephone communications skimming program that taps fiber optic cables running through UK territory.

XKeyScore

XKeyscore is said to have consisted of a network of more than 700 servers in 2008, which were distributed over 150 different locations. Possible applications of this system are data analysis and real-time monitoring. According to a Spiegel report from July 20, 2013, the system is to be used by both the German Federal Intelligence Service (BND), which is responsible for foreign intelligence, and the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV), which operates within Germany . This emerges from secret NSA documents disclosed by Edward Snowden, which Spiegel was able to see.

The BfV President Hans-Georg Maaßen told Bild am Sonntag on July 21, 2013: “The BfV is testing the software referred to by Spiegel, but is currently not using it for its work.” On September 13, 2013, the Süddeutsche Zeitung reported : "Should the secret service use the program in regular operation, the BfV has undertaken to share all findings with the NSA." Maaßen had assured the NSA of this.

Radar domes of the former Echelon Field Station 81 in Bad Aibling , Bavaria

The BND has been using XKeyscore since 2007 in the Mangfall barracks (Bad Aibling) - according to its own information, only to investigate foreign satellite communications. XKeyScore is only used to collect and analyze data that you have collected yourself. "With XKeyScore, the BND can neither access NSA databases, nor does the NSA have access to the system used by the BND," assured the foreign secret service. The listening facility in Bad Aibling was operated by the NSA until 2004, after which it was handed over to the Federal Republic and operated by the BND.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Glenn Greenwald, Ewen MacAskill: Boundless Informant: the NSA's secret tool to track global surveillance data ( English ) In: The Guardian . June 8, 2013. Archived from the original on May 6, 2014. Retrieved October 24, 2013.
  2. ↑ Glenn Greenwald, Ewen MacAskill: Obama orders US to draw up overseas target list for cyber-attacks ( English ) In: The Guardian . June 7, 2013. Archived from the original on May 6, 2014. Retrieved June 8, 2013.
  3. ↑ Judith Horchert, Spiegel Online -author mia: NSA and British intelligence crack systematically encryption . In: Spiegel Online . September 6, 2013. Archived from the original on April 16, 2014. Retrieved February 25, 2014.
  4. ↑ Zeit Online -Autoren lab, kb: Snowden documents: Even SSL encryption is not safe from NSA espionage . In: Zeit Online . September 6, 2013. Archived from the original on October 13, 2013. Retrieved on February 25, 2014.
  5. ↑ The Guardian: Project Bullrun - classification guide to the NSA's decryption program ( English , 6 pages) In: The Guardian . The Guardian. September 5, 2013. Archived from the original on February 25, 2014. Retrieved February 25, 2014.
  6. ↑ Fabian Scherschel: NSA affair: Generators for random numbers under the microscope . In: Heise Online . September 10, 2013. Archived from the original on April 20, 2014. Retrieved on February 25, 2014.
  7. ↑ a b Fabian Warislohner: Snowden reveals Smurf Parade: How the GCHQ hacks smartphones and routers . In: Netzpolitik .org . October 6, 2015. Retrieved October 29, 2015.
  8. ↑ Sian MacLeod, Mariot Leslie: ISA-94: APPLICATION FOR RENEWAL OF WARRANT GPW / 1160 IN RESPECT OF ACTIVITIES WHICH INVOLVE THE MODIFICATION OF COMMERCIAL SOFTWARE ( English ) In: GCHQ . June 13, 2008. Retrieved October 29, 2015.
  9. ↑ Peter Taylor, Howard Bradburn, Ceri Thomas: Edward Snowden: Spies and the Law ( English ) In: BBC Panorama . October 10, 2015. Retrieved November 11, 2015.
  10. ↑ Summary of DNR and DNI Co-Travel Analytics (redacted) . October 1, 2012. Retrieved May 2, 2016.
  11. ^ Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung: Five billion data records: NSA creates movement profiles from cell phone data . In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung . December 4, 2013. Archived from the original on December 18, 2013. Retrieved on February 25, 2014.
  12. ↑ The Washington Post: How the NSA is tracking people right now ( English ) In: The Washington Post . December 4, 2013. Archived from the original on February 25, 2014. Retrieved on February 25, 2014.
  13. ↑ Zeit Online author saw: Dishfire: NSA taps millions of text messages every day . In: Zeit Online . January 16, 2014. Archived from the original on May 29, 2014. Retrieved on February 25, 2014.
  14. ↑ James Ball: NSA collects millions of text messages daily in 'untargeted' global sweep ( English ) In: The Guardian . January 16, 2014. Archived from the original on April 26, 2014. Retrieved on February 25, 2014.
  15. ↑ Glenn Greenwald: The NSA's mass and indiscriminate spying on Brazilians ( English ) In: The Guardian . July 7, 2013. Archived from the original on August 23, 2013. Retrieved on August 11, 2013.
  16. ↑ Konrad Lischka, Julia Stanek: Genius program: USA infected tens of thousands of computers . In: Spiegel Online . August 31, 2013. Archived from the original on April 14, 2014. Retrieved February 25, 2014.
  17. ↑ Barton Gellman, Ellen Nakashima: US spy agencies mounted 231 offensive cyber-operations in 2011, documents show ( English ) In: The Washington Post . August 31, 2013. Archived from the original on January 28, 2014. Retrieved February 25, 2014.
  18. ↑ rpe, dpa: 160 billion items of the US Postal Service: USA photographs complete correspondence ( English ) In: n-tv . July 4, 2013. Archived from the original on August 18, 2013. Retrieved on August 11, 2013.
  19. ^ Ron Nixon: US Postal Service Logging All Mail for Law Enforcement ( English ) In: The New York Times . July 3, 2013. Archived from the original on August 18, 2013. Retrieved on August 11, 2013.
  20. ↑ Jan Dams: Data monitoring: Deutsche Post photographs letters for internal purposes . In: The world . July 6, 2013. Archived from the original on August 18, 2013. Retrieved on August 11, 2013.
  21. ↑ NSA infiltrates links to Yahoo, Google data centers worldwide, Snowden documents say . In: The Washington Post , October 30, 2013. 
  22. ^ How the NSA's MUSCULAR program collects too much data from Yahoo and Google , The Washington Post . Retrieved December 28, 2013. 
  23. ↑ Joe Kloc: Washington Post names 2 more NSA spy programs: OAKSTAR and STORMBREW. In: The Daily Dot. July 11, 2013, accessed October 25, 2015 .
  24. ↑ Spencer Ackerman, James Ball: Optic Nerve: millions of Yahoo webcam images intercepted by GCHQ. In: The Guardian. February 28, 2014, accessed on March 9, 2014 (English): "Britain's surveillance agency GCHQ, with aid from the US National Security Agency, intercepted and stored the webcam images of millions of internet users not suspected of wrongdoing, secret documents reveal. GCHQ files dating between 2008 and 2010 explicitly state that a surveillance program codenamed Optic Nerve collected still images of Yahoo webcam chats in bulk and saved them to agency databases, regardless of whether individual users were an intelligence target or not. "
  25. ^ Duncan Campbell: Big Brother is born. And we find out 15 years too late to stop him. In: The Register. September 16, 2015, accessed on December 18, 2015 (English): “PRESTON works alongside and links to massive databases holding telephone call records, internet use records, travel, financial, and other personal records held by the National Technical Assistance Center (NTAC ) "
  26. ^ Duncan Campbell: Big Brother is born. And we find out 15 years too late to stop him. In: The Register. September 16, 2015, accessed December 18, 2015 .
  27. ↑ Washington Post: NSA slides explain the PRISM data-collection program ( English ) In: The Washington Post . June 10, 2013. Archived from the original on July 24, 2013. Retrieved July 11, 2013.
  28. ^ A b Matthias Kremp, Konrad Lischka, Ole Reissmann: Project Prism: NSA spies on Internet users worldwide . In: Spiegel Online . June 7, 2013. Archived from the original on March 2, 2014. Retrieved July 10, 2013.
  29. ^ Patrick Beuth: Snowden Documents: NSA hackers bug computers ordered online . In: Zeit Online . December 29, 2013. Archived from the original on December 31, 2013. Retrieved on February 25, 2014.
  30. ↑ Spiegel Staff: The NSA Uses Powerful Toolbox in Effort to Spy on Global Networks ( English ) In: Spiegel Online . December 29, 2013. Archived from the original on May 5, 2014. Retrieved on February 25, 2014., pages 2 ( memento of January 7, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) and 3 ( memento of February 9, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) in the archive .
  31. ↑ Adam Clark Estes: A Peek Inside the NSA's Spy Gear Catalog ( English ) In: Gizmodo . December 30, 2013. Archived from the original on April 22, 2014. Retrieved on February 25, 2014.
  32. ^ Jacob Appelbaum , Marcel Rosenbach , Jörg Schindlisa Erdmann, Holger Stark , Christian Stöcker: Quantum Theory: How the NSA hacks computers worldwide . In: Spiegel Online . December 30, 2013. Archived from the original on March 23, 2014. Retrieved on February 25, 2014.
  33. ↑ James Ball: Angry Birds and 'leaky' phone apps targeted by NSA and GCHQ for user data ( English ) In: The Guardian . January 28, 2014. Retrieved November 11, 2015.
  34. ^ Ole Reissmann: Squeaky Dolphin: GCHQ analyzes Facebook and YouTube . In: Spiegel Online . January 28, 2014. Archived from the original on February 28, 2014. Retrieved on February 25, 2014.
  35. ^ Konrad Lischka, Christian Stöcker: XKeyscore: How NSA surveillance works . In: Spiegel Online . July 31, 2013. Archived from the original on October 25, 2013. Retrieved October 25, 2013.
  36. ↑ Spiegel Online -author syd: BND and BfV put an NSA Spähprogramm xkeyscore . In: Spiegel Online . July 20, 2013. Archived from the original on July 21, 2013. Retrieved July 21, 2013.
  37. ↑ Spiegel Online -Author juh: XKeyscore: Espionage tool is used by BND and BfV . In: Spiegel Online . July 21, 2013. Archived from the original on July 21, 2013. Retrieved July 21, 2013.
  38. ^ Christian Fuchs, John Goetz, Frederik Obermaier: Espionage in Germany - the protection of the constitution supplies NSA . In: Süddeutsche Zeitung . September 13, 2013. Archived from the original on March 31, 2014. Retrieved October 24, 2013.
  39. ↑ Sueddeutsche Zeitung -author: jasch: BND admits use of NSA Spähprogramm xkeyscore . In: Süddeutsche Zeitung . August 9, 2013. Archived from the original on February 10, 2014. Retrieved October 25, 2013.
  40. ^ Charlie Coon: Bad Aibling festival signals farewell . In: Stars and Stripes . April 6, 2004. Archived from the original on October 29, 2013. Retrieved October 25, 2013.