[LINK] WikiLeaks: The Spy Files

[stephen at melbpc.org.au]

The Spyfiles

WikiLeaks: The Spy Files  (Dec 1st 2011)

 <http://wikileaks.org/the-spyfiles.html>


Mass interception of entire populations is not only a reality, it is a 
secret new industry spanning 25 countries

It sounds like something out of Hollywood, but as of today, mass 
interception systems, built by Western intelligence contractors, 
including for ’political opponents’ are a reality. 

Today WikiLeaks began releasing a database of hundreds of documents from 
as many as 160 intelligence contractors in the mass surveillance 
industry. 

Working with Bugged Planet and Privacy International, as well as media 
organizations form six countries – ARD in Germany, The Bureau of 
Investigative Journalism in the UK, The Hindu in India, L’Espresso in 
Italy, OWNI in France and the Washington Post in the U.S. Wikileaks is 
shining a light on this secret industry that has boomed since September 
11, 2001 and is worth billions of dollars per year. 

WikiLeaks has released 287 documents today, but the Spy Files project is 
ongoing and further information will be released this week and into next 
year.

International surveillance companies are based in the more 
technologically sophisticated countries, and they sell their technology 
on to every country of the world. 

This industry is, in practice, unregulated. 

Intelligence agencies, military forces and police authorities are able to 
silently, and on mass, and secretly intercept calls and take over 
computers without the help or knowledge of the telecommunication 
providers. 

Users’ physical location can be tracked if they are carrying a mobile 
phone, even if it is only on stand by.

But the WikiLeaks Spy Files are more than just about ’good Western 
countries’ exporting to ’bad developing world countries’. Western 
companies are also selling a vast range of mass surveillance equipment to 
Western intelligence agencies. 

In traditional spy stories, intelligence agencies like MI5 bug the phone 
of one or two people of interest. In the last ten years systems for 
indiscriminate, mass surveillance have become the norm. Intelligence 
companies such as VASTech secretly sell equipment to permanently record 
the phone calls of entire nations. Others record the location of every 
mobile phone in a city, down to 50 meters. Systems to infect every 
Facebook user, or smart-phone owner of an entire population group are on 
the intelligence market.

Selling Surveillance to Dictators

When citizens overthrew the dictatorships in Egypt and Libya this year, 
they uncovered listening rooms where devices from Gamma corporation of 
the UK, Amesys of France, VASTech of South Africa and ZTE Corp of China 
monitored their every move online and on the phone.

Surveillance companies like SS8 in the U.S., Hacking Team in Italy and 
Vupen in France manufacture viruses (Trojans) that hijack individual 
computers and phones (including iPhones, Blackberries and Androids), take 
over the device, record its every use, movement, and even the sights and 
sounds of the room it is in. Other companies like Phoenexia in the Czech 
Republic collaborate with the military to create speech analysis tools. 
They identify individuals by gender, age and stress levels and track them 
based on ‘voiceprints’. Blue Coat in the U.S. and Ipoque in Germany sell 
tools to governments in countries like China and Iran to prevent 
dissidents from organizing online.

Trovicor, previously a subsidiary of Nokia Siemens Networks, supplied the 
Bahraini government with interception technologies that tracked human 
rights activist Abdul Ghani Al Khanjar. He was shown details of personal 
mobile phone conversations from before he was interrogated and beaten in 
the winter of 2010-2011.

How Mass Surveillance Contractors Share Your Data with the State

In January 2011, the National Security Agency broke ground on a $1.5 
billion facility in the Utah desert that is designed to store terabytes 
of domestic and foreign intelligence data forever and process it for 
years to come.

Telecommunication companies are forthcoming when it comes to disclosing 
client information to the authorities - no matter the country. Headlines 
during August’s unrest in the UK exposed how Research in Motion (RIM), 
makers of the Blackberry, offered to help the government identify their 
clients. RIM has been in similar negotiations to share BlackBerry 
Messenger data with the governments of India, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, and 
the United Arab Emirates.

Weaponizing Data Kills Innocent People

There are commercial firms that now sell special software that analyze 
this data and turn it into powerful tools that can be used by military 
and intelligence agencies.

For example, in military bases across the U.S., Air Force pilots use a 
video link and joystick to fly Predator drones to conduct surveillance 
over the Middle East and Central Asia. This data is available to Central 
Intelligence Agency officials who use it to fire Hellfire missiles on 
targets.

The CIA officials have bought software that allows them to match phone 
signals and voice prints instantly and pinpoint the specific identity and 
location of individuals. Intelligence Integration Systems, Inc., based in 
Massachusetts - sells a “location-based analytics” software called 
Geospatial Toolkit for this purpose. Another Massachusetts company named 
Netezza, which bought a copy of the software, allegedly reverse 
engineered the code and sold a hacked version to the Central Intelligence 
Agency for use in remotely piloted drone aircraft.

IISI, which says that the software could be wrong by a distance of up to 
40 feet, sued Netezza to prevent the use of this software. Company 
founder Rich Zimmerman stated in court that his “reaction was one of 
stun, amazement that they (CIA) want to kill people with my software that 
doesn’t work."

Orwell’s World

Across the world, mass surveillance contractors are helping intelligence 
agencies spy on individuals and ‘communities of interest’ on an 
industrial scale.

The Wikileaks Spy Files reveal the details of which companies are making 
billions selling sophisticated tracking tools to government buyers, 
flouting export rules, and turning a blind eye to dictatorial regimes 
that abuse human rights.

How to use the Spy Files 

To search inside those files, click one of the link on the left pane of 
this page, to get the list of documents by type, company date or tag.

To search all these companies on a world map use the following tool from 
Owni ..
--

(and..)

<http://news.cnet.com/8301-31921_3-57335240-281/wikileaks-files-expose-
surveillance-industrial-complex/>

WikiLeaks files expose surveillance-industrial complex
 
by Declan McCullagh |December 1, 2011 4:15 PM PS

A set of nearly 300 documents that the document-leaking Web site 
published today reveals how extensive and privacy-invasive the secretive 
multi-billion dollar industry devoted to surveillance technology has 
become. 

 "We are in a world now where not only is it theoretically possible to 
record nearly all telecommunications traffic out of a country, all 
telephone calls, but where there is an international industry selling the 
devices now to do it," Assange said in a video interview today. 

What WikiLeaks has dubbed the "Spy Files" is a collection of marketing 
and technical documents, including previously unreleased presentations 
from companies that showed up at government-only conferences like ISS 
World Europe, billed as a gathering in 2008 for "telecom operators, law 
enforcement," and employees of spy agencies....  (snip)
-- 

Stephen