Glenn Greenwald: how the NSA tampers with US-made internet routers

[baldguy]

The NSA has been covertly implanting interception tools in US servers heading overseas – even though the US government has warned against using Chinese technology for the same reasons, says Glenn Greenwald, in an extract from his new book about the Snowden affair, No Place to Hide

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/may/12/glenn-greenwald-nsa-tampers-us-internet-routers-snowden

Um ... "US-made internet routers"? Just what routers are US-made?

This demonstrates just how ignorant, out-of-touch, uninformed, and full of conspiracy theories Greenwald actually is. No wonder he likes Rand Paul.

[struggle4progress]

1. They've also been implanting control chips in the brains of the New Yorkers they export to Brazil!

You know it's true because they've completely hidden all the evidence for it, which they couldn't have done if they weren't doing it

Anyone who believes the paid shills who say otherwise is just naive

[Wilms]

2. How's this for ignorant?

From the article that YOU posted, no less. "...out-of-touch, uninformed, and full of conspiracy theories..." You threw in Rand Paul but forgot about boxes and pole dancers. Shame on you, LOL!

But while American companies were being warned away from supposedly untrustworthy Chinese routers, foreign organisations would have been well advised to beware of American-made ones. A June 2010 report from the head of the NSA's Access and Target Development department is shockingly explicit. The NSA routinely receives – or intercepts – routers, servers and other computer network devices being exported from the US before they are delivered to the international customers.

The agency then implants backdoor surveillance tools, repackages the devices with a factory seal and sends them on. The NSA thus gains access to entire networks and all their users. The document gleefully observes that some "SIGINT tradecraft … is very hands-on (literally!)".

"Um ...", indeed.

[MineralMan]

3. The keyword is "exported."

The NSA is supposed to collect intelligence outside of the US. That's its job. I'm sure they are targeting only some organizations with these doctored routers. It's what the NSA was created to do.

Now, it's possible that some people are opposed to all intelligence gathering, but I'm not one of them. Targeted intelligence gathering is something every nation does, for its own protection.

[DirkGently]

4. The NSA is supposed to serve "national security."

It's right there in the name. The NSA does not have a mandate to just generally spy on the entire world.

So,

1) The OP is wrong about routers not being made in the U.S.

When Greenwald revealed Snowden's alleged evidence of NSA spying, it turned the tables on the U.S., with network buyers in some countries avoiding U.S.-made gear. Cisco Systems, the world's biggest seller of networks, has said worries about the NSA affected its business in China.

2) The OP is wrong that Greenwald's report is nutty conspiracy theory. The actual nutty conspiracy theory here is that his reporting is some fiendish libertarian attack on President Obama.

3) The NSA was caught in a large public hypocrisy after warning Americans about Chinese made routers being compromised, while simultaneously engaging in that exact activity itself.

And of course, we already know that more than routers have been tapped. NSA reports indicate it tapped directly into Google's network.

The new charge vastly expands the scope of alleged NSA spying beyond the interception of traffic across the Internet, said Ranga Krishnan, a technology fellow at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. As an example, he pointed to reports from the Snowden documents that the NSA had tapped into Google's own fiber network among its data centers, where the company hadn't encrypted the traffic at all.

"That's how most organizations function," Krishnan said. "So once you're within the company's router, you have access to all that data that's unencrypted."

Moreover, compromising random systems all over the world impacts security generally everywhere.

"That's how most organizations function," Krishnan said. "So once you're within the company's router, you have access to all that data that's unencrypted."

In addition, any security hole that a government installs could open up the network to attacks by others, he added.

We're well beyond anyone credibly claiming there's nothing to see here, or that the NSA scandal is some kind of marginal conspiracy theory or partisan hyperventilating.

On the contrary, the continued attempts by a few to dismiss very important revelations about the way our National Security Agency is conducting itself is partisan hackery of the most absurd kind. No serious person, Democrat or not, is buying the idea that everything is fine and Greenwald, the Guardian, the NY Times, et al. are all in engaged in a massive libertarian conspiracy to attack the Obama administration.

[randome]

5. So saying to be careful that China doesn't spy on us is hypocrisy?

Every country spies on every other country. What this oh-so-important article fails to mention is what is meant by 'routine'. Is he implying that the NSA intercepts every shipment out of the U.S.? That's sheer idiocy to believe that.

Did he bother to find out whether the intercepts are as a result of targeted individuals? Nope again. This is just more vague fear-mongering. Journalists are supposed to ask pertinent questions. Greenwald does not.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]Treat your body like a machine. Your mind like a castle.[/center][/font][hr]

[DirkGently]

7. Yes. Doing what you criticize others for doing is hypocrisy.

Pulling back from the specific (tampering with routers) to the general ("spying&quot doesn't make it less so.

The implication was that people should not buy Chinese made equipment because of the terrible Chinese spying. Meanwhile, people should not buy American equipment because of the equally terrible American spying.

You can't simply reduce all of the NSA's activities to "spying" and conclude everything is okay because the NSA is supposed to be "spying." NSA doesn't have a mandate to conduct unlimited "spying." It's supposed to be conducting intelligence on foreign communications. Not Americans' "metadata," not Google's network, not routers that may end up anywhere.

Speaking of which, when Greenwald was on Colbert last night, he mentioned coming across an internal, unofficial statement of NSA's current intent. The gist was that NSA sought to collect "everything." Something about, "grab it all, sift it, store it, process it."

"Everything" collection is not the NSA's mandate. And that is the problem that's been uncovered here. Communications intelligence agencies all would like to have "everything." They have always sought to do this, and the law and U.S. civil rights have always limited it. In the new War on Terror world, NSA has again found ways to exceed its mandate and pursue intrusive communications gathering well beyond the scope of its authorization. It's not surprising, but that doesn't make it somehow okay.

As for "vague," you're reading a news report discussing an excerpt of a book. To conclude Greenwald's work isn't sufficiently detailed without actually reading it is baseless.

[JoePhilly]

6. How is this part of whistle blowing about Domestic Surveillance?

I thought these leaks were all about protecting the civil liberties of Americans. This was all about the Constitution.

Yet here, Greenwald is leaking information about the methods our intelligence agencies use for Foreign Surveillance.

First, one would have to be pretty naive to have not figured out that the US government sets up business entities in other parts of the world SPECIFICALLY for intelligence purposes. Remember Valerie Plame? She worked for a front company to spy outside the US. And folks here on DU were pissed when her name was leaked. Now apparently, spying in that fashion is bad, and leaks about it are good.

Second, we know that terrorist cells use burn phones and private networks to communicate. It makes sense that our intelligence agency would set up local businesses in locations where we expect terrorists to operate, and try to get them to obtain phones and other network equipment that has been doctored.

By leaking this info, Greenwald is exposing methods we use for national security, much like Cheney leaking Plame's identity.

[DirkGently]

8. Depends on whose equipment has been intercepted.

An attack on one legitimate target of foreign surveillance is not the issue.

Every router bound for export isn't going to be used exclusively by America's enemies. American companies themselves are often international at this point. Are they subject to NSA surveillance without suspicion of wrongdoing?

And the NSA doesn't have a mandate to simply spy on every foreigner, everywhere.

Foreign business interests, for example would be an overreach just as warrantless domestic surveillance is, without some relevance to national security.

But as Greenwald pointed out on Colbert last night, NSA's own internal memos indicate its goal had become to collect everything, everywhere. That is not the mandate we gave it, and that is the point of all this.

[JoePhilly]

10. So nothing to do with domestic surveillance.

An American company is not an American person. Or do we now think corporations are people?

Did Glenn provide any evidence that US companies operating abroad were targets? Is Glenn claiming that EVERY ROUTER that is exported is doctored? That's nonsense.

Again, Glenn is leaking information about specific methods our intelligence agencies use in foreign surveillance.

That information falls outside of any whistle blower status that Snowden, or his supporters, might claim.

And it makes me wonder whether raising concerns about domestic surveillance overreach was the primary goal.

[randome]

11. They are NOT intercepting everything. It's ludicrous to think that.

[hr][font color="blue"][center]A ton of bricks, a ton of feathers, it's still gonna hurt.[/center][/font][hr]

[DirkGently]

15. It's ludicrous to think they should try.

Not ludicrous to think the attempt is being made.

At a meeting with his British counterparts in 2008, Keith Alexander, then head of the National Security Agency, reportedly asked, “Why can’t we collect all the signals, all the time?” The NSA has since sought to dismiss that remark as a quip taken out of context

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/no-place-to-hide-by-glenn-greenwald-on-the-nsas-sweeping-efforts-to-know-it-all/2014/05/12/dfa45dee-d628-11e3-8a78-8fe50322a72c_story.html

[msanthrope]

13. "The NSA does not have a mandate to just generally spy on the entire world." Um, yes. Yes they do.

[DirkGently]

14. Well you and Peter King (R NY) agree. Pres. Obama does not.

Obama apologized to Merkel in a telephone exchange Oct. 23 and said that he would have stopped the alleged spying had he known about it, Spiegel magazine reported, citing unidentified chancellery officials

President Barack Obama should “stop apologizing” for the National Security Agency’s telephone-surveillance program that has “saved thousands of lives,” according to Republican U.S. Representative Peter King.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-10-27/king-says-obama-should-stop-apologizing-for-nsa-phone-intercepts.html

[msanthrope]

16. Oh please....don't mistake political theatre for reality. nt

[DirkGently]

17. Oh, wow. So Obama was being dishonest?

I give the man the benefit of the doubt when he says spying on other world leaders is an abuse of our intelligence resources and the trust of our allies.

But if your position is that our President lied to Angela Merkel and the rest of the world about our intentions, that is your perogative.

Seriously, though, is NOT the role of NSA to intercept everything it possibly can. That is not some kind of "realistic" view. We would have three kinds of cows if we caught an ally like Germany or the U.K. tapping Obama's personal cell.

It's an inherent danger in signals intelligence that its practioners would like to have everything, legal and proper or otherwise, to choose from. Digital communications have made the ambition to get "everything" a more tempting proposition.

It's hardly nutty or a partisan attack to recognize we need to reel that in and remind our secret agencies that their mandate is not to pursue universal, suspicionless surveillance.

[snooper2]

9. Sure greeny LOL, I'm sure the Chinese are too stupid to use wireshark LOL

god he is fucking stupid

[951-Riverside]

12. HAHAHA What a nut job. As if the NSA has the manpower to intercept US Servers sold overseas.

Oh I'm sure there a giant warehouse with hundreds of NSA agents processing these servers just like I'm sure there are thousands of Air Force personnel working on "Chem trailing" the skies, next he'll tell us the planes on 9/11 were remote controlled.

What a tin foil hat LOON :tinfoil:

[randome]

18. "Agent Mike, there's a parcel headed for China! Activate the Go Team!"

[hr][font color="blue"][center]TECT in the name of the Representative approves of this post.[/center][/font][hr]

[mindwalker_i]

20. Huh, I only see one rofl in this thread so far

Since that's the normal response to threads about the NSA and/or Snowden, I was expecting at least 50 rofls by now.

Slackers!