Forwarded from BlackBox (Security) Archiv
Project DREAD: White House veterans helped Gulf monarchy build secret surveillance unit
In the years after 9/11, former U.S. counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke warned Congress that the country needed more expansive spying powers to prevent another catastrophe. Five years after leaving government, he shopped the same idea to an enthusiastic partner: an Arab monarchy with deep pockets.
In 2008, Clarke went to work as a consultant guiding the United Arab Emirates as it created a cyber surveillance capability that would utilize top American intelligence contractors to help monitor threats against the tiny nation.
The secret unit Clarke helped create had an ominous acronym: #DREAD, short for #Development #Research #Exploitation and #Analysis #Department. In the years that followed, the #UAE unit expanded its hunt far beyond suspected extremists to include a #Saudi women’s rights activist, diplomats at the United Nations and personnel at #FIFA, the world soccer body. By 2012, the program would be known among its #American operatives by a codename: #Project #Raven.
Reuters reports this year revealed how a group of former National Security Agency operatives and other elite American intelligence veterans helped the UAE spy on a wide range of targets through the previously undisclosed program — from terrorists to human rights activists, journalists and dissidents.
Now, an examination of the origins of DREAD, reported here for the first time, shows how a pair of former senior White House leaders, working with ex-#NSA #spies and #Beltway contractors, played pivotal roles in building a program whose actions are now under scrutiny by federal authorities.
To chart the UAE spying mission’s evolution, #Reuters examined more than 10,000 DREAD program documents and interviewed more than a dozen contractors, intelligence operatives and former government insiders with direct knowledge of the program. The documents Reuters reviewed span nearly a decade of the DREAD program, starting in 2008, and include internal memos describing the project’s logistics, operational plans and targets.
Clarke was the first in a string of former White House and U.S. defense executives who arrived in the UAE after 9/11 to build the spying unit. Utilizing his close relationship to the country’s rulers, forged through decades of experience as a senior U.S. decision-maker, Clarke won numerous security consulting contracts in the UAE. One of them was to help build the secret spying unit in an unused airport facility in Abu Dhabi.
👉🏼 Read more:
https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-raven-whitehouse/
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📡@BlackBox_Archiv
In the years after 9/11, former U.S. counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke warned Congress that the country needed more expansive spying powers to prevent another catastrophe. Five years after leaving government, he shopped the same idea to an enthusiastic partner: an Arab monarchy with deep pockets.
In 2008, Clarke went to work as a consultant guiding the United Arab Emirates as it created a cyber surveillance capability that would utilize top American intelligence contractors to help monitor threats against the tiny nation.
The secret unit Clarke helped create had an ominous acronym: #DREAD, short for #Development #Research #Exploitation and #Analysis #Department. In the years that followed, the #UAE unit expanded its hunt far beyond suspected extremists to include a #Saudi women’s rights activist, diplomats at the United Nations and personnel at #FIFA, the world soccer body. By 2012, the program would be known among its #American operatives by a codename: #Project #Raven.
Reuters reports this year revealed how a group of former National Security Agency operatives and other elite American intelligence veterans helped the UAE spy on a wide range of targets through the previously undisclosed program — from terrorists to human rights activists, journalists and dissidents.
Now, an examination of the origins of DREAD, reported here for the first time, shows how a pair of former senior White House leaders, working with ex-#NSA #spies and #Beltway contractors, played pivotal roles in building a program whose actions are now under scrutiny by federal authorities.
To chart the UAE spying mission’s evolution, #Reuters examined more than 10,000 DREAD program documents and interviewed more than a dozen contractors, intelligence operatives and former government insiders with direct knowledge of the program. The documents Reuters reviewed span nearly a decade of the DREAD program, starting in 2008, and include internal memos describing the project’s logistics, operational plans and targets.
Clarke was the first in a string of former White House and U.S. defense executives who arrived in the UAE after 9/11 to build the spying unit. Utilizing his close relationship to the country’s rulers, forged through decades of experience as a senior U.S. decision-maker, Clarke won numerous security consulting contracts in the UAE. One of them was to help build the secret spying unit in an unused airport facility in Abu Dhabi.
👉🏼 Read more:
https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-raven-whitehouse/
📡@cRyPtHoN_INFOSEC_DE
📡@cRyPtHoN_INFOSEC_EN
📡@BlackBox_Archiv
Forwarded from BlackBox (Security) Archiv
Twelve Million Phones, One Dataset, Zero Privacy
Every minute of every day, everywhere on the planet, dozens of companies — largely unregulated, little scrutinized — are #logging the #movements of tens of millions of #people with #mobile #phones and storing the information in gigantic #data #files. The Times #Privacy #Project obtained one such file, by far the largest and most sensitive ever to be reviewed by journalists. It holds more than 50 billion location pings from the phones of more than 12 million Americans as they moved through several major cities, including Washington, New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles.
Each piece of #information in this file represents the precise location of a single #smartphone over a period of several months in 2016 and 2017. The data was provided to Times Opinion by sources who asked to remain anonymous because they were not authorized to share it and could face severe penalties for doing so. The sources of the information said they had grown alarmed about how it might be abused and urgently wanted to inform the public and lawmakers.
After spending months sifting through the data, tracking the movements of people across the country and speaking with dozens of data companies, technologists, lawyers and academics who study this field, we feel the same sense of alarm. In the cities that the data file covers, it tracks people from nearly every neighborhood and block, whether they live in mobile homes in Alexandria, Va., or luxury towers in Manhattan.
One search turned up more than a dozen people visiting the Playboy Mansion, some overnight. Without much effort we spotted visitors to the estates of Johnny Depp, Tiger Woods and Arnold Schwarzenegger, connecting the devices’ owners to the residences indefinitely.
If you lived in one of the cities the #dataset covers and use #apps that share your# location — anything from weather apps to local news apps to coupon savers — you could be in there, too.
If you could see the full trove, you might never use your phone the same way again.
Read more:
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/12/19/opinion/location-tracking-cell-phone.html
#surveillance #privacy #why #thinkabout
📡@cRyPtHoN_INFOSEC_DE
📡@cRyPtHoN_INFOSEC_EN
📡@BlackBox_Archiv
Every minute of every day, everywhere on the planet, dozens of companies — largely unregulated, little scrutinized — are #logging the #movements of tens of millions of #people with #mobile #phones and storing the information in gigantic #data #files. The Times #Privacy #Project obtained one such file, by far the largest and most sensitive ever to be reviewed by journalists. It holds more than 50 billion location pings from the phones of more than 12 million Americans as they moved through several major cities, including Washington, New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles.
Each piece of #information in this file represents the precise location of a single #smartphone over a period of several months in 2016 and 2017. The data was provided to Times Opinion by sources who asked to remain anonymous because they were not authorized to share it and could face severe penalties for doing so. The sources of the information said they had grown alarmed about how it might be abused and urgently wanted to inform the public and lawmakers.
After spending months sifting through the data, tracking the movements of people across the country and speaking with dozens of data companies, technologists, lawyers and academics who study this field, we feel the same sense of alarm. In the cities that the data file covers, it tracks people from nearly every neighborhood and block, whether they live in mobile homes in Alexandria, Va., or luxury towers in Manhattan.
One search turned up more than a dozen people visiting the Playboy Mansion, some overnight. Without much effort we spotted visitors to the estates of Johnny Depp, Tiger Woods and Arnold Schwarzenegger, connecting the devices’ owners to the residences indefinitely.
If you lived in one of the cities the #dataset covers and use #apps that share your# location — anything from weather apps to local news apps to coupon savers — you could be in there, too.
If you could see the full trove, you might never use your phone the same way again.
Read more:
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/12/19/opinion/location-tracking-cell-phone.html
#surveillance #privacy #why #thinkabout
📡@cRyPtHoN_INFOSEC_DE
📡@cRyPtHoN_INFOSEC_EN
📡@BlackBox_Archiv
Nonprofit Behind Tor Browser Asks for Corporate Sponsors to Help It Stay Afloat
After a round of layoffs in April, the Tor Project looks to corporate sponsors for financial help, but these benefactors will have no say in the group's decisions, it says.
After going through a round of layoffs, the nonprofit behind the privacy-enhancing Tor browser is looking to corporate sponsorships for an infusion of cash.
The Tor Project’s new membership program, announced today, allows the private sector to financially support the nonprofit’s work. In exchange, corporate sponsors can tout their association with the Tor Project, which is known for fighting for digital privacy and helping users bypass online censorship.
The first five sponsors are antivirus vendor Avast, search engine DuckDuckGo, secure OS provider Insurgo, Mullvad VPN, and cybersecurity company Team Cymru.
Back in April, the Tor Project cut 13 staffers, citing the economic impact from COVID-19, which left the organization with 22 employees.
https://www.pcmag.com/news/nonprofit-behind-tor-browser-asks-for-corporate-sponsors-to-help-it-stay
#Tor #Project
After a round of layoffs in April, the Tor Project looks to corporate sponsors for financial help, but these benefactors will have no say in the group's decisions, it says.
After going through a round of layoffs, the nonprofit behind the privacy-enhancing Tor browser is looking to corporate sponsorships for an infusion of cash.
The Tor Project’s new membership program, announced today, allows the private sector to financially support the nonprofit’s work. In exchange, corporate sponsors can tout their association with the Tor Project, which is known for fighting for digital privacy and helping users bypass online censorship.
The first five sponsors are antivirus vendor Avast, search engine DuckDuckGo, secure OS provider Insurgo, Mullvad VPN, and cybersecurity company Team Cymru.
Back in April, the Tor Project cut 13 staffers, citing the economic impact from COVID-19, which left the organization with 22 employees.
https://www.pcmag.com/news/nonprofit-behind-tor-browser-asks-for-corporate-sponsors-to-help-it-stay
#Tor #Project
PCMAG
Nonprofit Behind Tor Browser Asks for Corporate Sponsors to Help It Stay Afloat
After a round of layoffs in April, the Tor Project looks to corporate sponsors for financial help, but these benefactors will have no say in the group's decisions, it says.
Project Nimbus: how Google and Amazon made billions from the Israeli occupation of Palestine
"We are anonymous because we fear reprisals." This sentence was part of a letter signed by 500 Google employees last October, denouncing their company's direct support for the Israeli government and military.
In their letter, the signatories protested a $1.2 billion contract between Google, Amazon Web Services (AWS) and the Israeli government that provides cloud services for the Israeli military and government that "enables increased surveillance and illegal data collection on Palestinians, and facilitates expansion of Israel's illegal settlements on Palestinian land."
This is Project Nimbus, which was announced in 2018 and went into effect in May 2021, in the first week of the Israeli war on besieged Gaza, which killed more than 250 Palestinians and injured many more.
https://www.ramzybaroud.net/the-billion-dollar-deal-that-made-google-and-amazon-partners-in-the-israeli-occupation-of-palestine/
https://www.eulixe.com/articulo/reportajes/proyecto-nimbus-como-google-amazon-ganaron-miles-millones-ocupacion-israel/20220325103650025319.html
#BDS #Google #Amazon #Palestine #Israel #surveillance #project #nimbus
"We are anonymous because we fear reprisals." This sentence was part of a letter signed by 500 Google employees last October, denouncing their company's direct support for the Israeli government and military.
In their letter, the signatories protested a $1.2 billion contract between Google, Amazon Web Services (AWS) and the Israeli government that provides cloud services for the Israeli military and government that "enables increased surveillance and illegal data collection on Palestinians, and facilitates expansion of Israel's illegal settlements on Palestinian land."
This is Project Nimbus, which was announced in 2018 and went into effect in May 2021, in the first week of the Israeli war on besieged Gaza, which killed more than 250 Palestinians and injured many more.
https://www.ramzybaroud.net/the-billion-dollar-deal-that-made-google-and-amazon-partners-in-the-israeli-occupation-of-palestine/
https://www.eulixe.com/articulo/reportajes/proyecto-nimbus-como-google-amazon-ganaron-miles-millones-ocupacion-israel/20220325103650025319.html
#BDS #Google #Amazon #Palestine #Israel #surveillance #project #nimbus
Politics For The People
The Billion Dollar Deal that Made Google and Amazon Partners in the Israeli Occupation of Palestine - Politics For The People
While profit generation is understandably the main goal of companies like Google and Amazon, this goal can be achieved without necessarily requiring the subjugation of a whole people, who are currently the victims of the world’s last remaining apartheid regime.