Guymon

You May Be a Terrorist

Public Intelligence veröffentlich eine Liste von Dingen/Verhaltensweise nach denen das Department of Homeland Security, das FBI und andere 3 Buchstaben Organisationen scheinbar Ausschau halten:

The following list demonstrates the extent of “suspicious activity reporting” by listing a number of behaviors and activities which are said to potentially indicate criminal or terrorist activity. Given the breadth of the activities, nearly any reader should be able to identify at least one indicator which they feel personally applies to them. It is important to remember that these indicators are all taken from restricted law enforcement reports that are normally unavailable to the public, but have since been published by this site.

Ich erfülle gleich mehrere Merkmale wie Like to pay in cash, Have photographs of well-known locations, Have a GPS unit, Traveled overseas lately, Overly concerned about privacy, …

Top Secret America

Spannendes Projekt der Washington Post: Top Secret America:

These are some of the findings of a two-year investigation by The Washington Post that discovered what amounts to an alternative geography of the United States, a Top Secret America hidden from public view and lacking in thorough oversight. After nine years of unprecedented spending and growth, the result is that the system put in place to keep the United States safe is so massive that its effectiveness is impossible to determine.

The investigation’s other findings include:

• Some 1,271 government organizations and 1,931 private companies work on programs related to counterterrorism, homeland security and intelligence in about 10,000 locations across the United States.
• An estimated 854,000 people, nearly 1.5 times as many people as live in Washington, D.C., hold top-secret security clearances.
• In Washington and the surrounding area, 33 building complexes for top-secret intelligence work are under construction or have been built since September 2001. Together they occupy the equivalent of almost three Pentagons or 22 U.S. Capitol buildings - about 17 million square feet of space.

Imaging System for Immersive Surveillance

cnet über die 360-Grad Kamera ISIS (Imaging System for Immersive Surveillance)

The ultrawide camera system streams distortion-free, real-time stitched video and has a resolution capacity of 100 megapixels, which is “as detailed as 50 full-HDTV movies playing at once, with optical detail to spare,” the DHS said in a release. It has been built with off-the-shelf cameras, image processors, and software.

The ISIS interface can zoom in on certain areas without loss of clarity while continuing to capture the whole scene. A range of commercially available applications allows the system to perform functions such as automatically tracking objects, vehicles, or people picked out by a user—even against cluttered backgrounds. Another app can establish a visual “exclusion zone” and will alert users if it is breached.

Global Spying: Realistic Probabilities in Modern Signals Intelligence

Die Black Hat® Konfernz hat mal wieder einige spannende Vorträge zu bieten, unter anderem den Vortrag von Steve Topletz, Jonathan Logan und Kyle Williams: Global Spying: Realistic Probabilities in Modern Signals Intelligence

When talking about the threat of Internet surveillance the argument most often presented is that “there is so much traffic that any one conversation or email won’t be picked up unless there is reason to suspect those concerned; it is impossible that ‘they’ listen to us all”. Unfortunately this widely held belief is both flawed, and false. This presentation provides insight into the realistic feasibility and implementation of Internet mass surveillance.

Ein wenig wenig mehr Infos gibt es bei daten-speicherung.de:

Das Netzwerk, das in vollem Gange sei, zeige eindrucksvoll, was bereits heute in puncto Massenüberwachung technisch möglich sei, so Topletz. Das Überwachungsprogramm sei seit mindestens 7 Jahren unerkannt im Einsatz, weil es hinter einer anderen, verbreiteten Freeware stecke, über deren Subventionierung sogar offen diskutiert werde. Die Freeware wird hierzulande unter anderem von Computerbild, Sueddeutsche.de, GMX oder MSN angepriesen. Das weltweit aktive Netzwerk spioniere einerseits die infizierten Rechner aus und versende die gesammelten Daten und greife gleichzeitig andere Rechner an. Die Referenten wollen auf der Konferenz unter anderem Logdateien und Videos zeigen. Angriffsziel des Netzwerks seien sowohl fremde Regierungs- als auch private Rechner. Die Referenten glauben, dass die Software auch eine heimliche Fernsteuerung des Rechners ermögliche, für die unter anderem authentifizierte Sessions und Cookies ausgenutzt würden. Die Spionagesoftware sei sogar so fortgeschritten, dass sie selbst die von der NSA und dem Department of Homeland Security entwickelte, noch nicht veröffentlichte Antispionagesoftware Einstein 3 unterlaufe.

Ich bin gespannt.

Satelliten-Überwachung der Buerger

Das US-Heimatschutzministerium hat ein Programm zur Überwachung mit Satelliten gestartet. (…)

Ziel ist es, durch die Nationale Behörde für Geographische Aufklärung (National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency - NGA) erfassten Satellitendaten und Kartenmaterial den verschiedensten regionalen, nationalen und federalen US-Behörden zur Verfügung stellen.

Berichtet das virtuelle Datenschutzbuero. Die Begruendung ist natuerlich wieder Schutz vor Terrorismus. Interessanter fand ich was inteldaily ueber die Faehigkeiten der Satelliten schreibt:

Unlike commercial satellites that beam TV programs, forecast the weather or provide global positioning services, their military cousins are far more flexible, have greater resolution and therefore, more power to monitor human activity. By utilizing different parts of the light- and infrared spectrum, spy satellites, in addition to taking ultra high-resolution photographs to within a meter of their “target,” can also track the heat signatures generated by people inside a building. (“Homeland Security’s Space-Based Spies,” Antifascist Calling, June 4, 2008)