GCHQ used 'Quantum Insert' technique to set up fake LinkedIn pages and spy on mobile phone giants

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Source: Independent.UK


GCHQ uses doctored websites including those from the business network LinkedIn to secretly install surveillance software on the computers of unwitting target companies and individuals it wants to spy on, the German news magazine Der Spiegel has reported.

The disclosures, which were said to be based on the contents of intelligence data leaked by the US whistleblower Edward Snowden, came less than a week after The Independent revealed the existence of a suspected secret GCHQ listening post on the roof of the British embassy in Berlin.

Der Spiegel said that GCHQ, the Government’s surveillance centre based in Cheltenham, used “manipulated copies” of web pages put online by the business network LinkedIn to gain access to the computers of suspects it was targeting. LinkedIn has some 260 million users in more than 200 countries.

GCHQ and the National Security Agency, its US equivalent, were said to have developed a practice codenamed “Quantum Insert” to install spy software on the computers of targets without their knowledge. A LinkedIn spokesman was quoted as saying: “We were never told about this alleged activity and we would never approve of it, irrespective of what purpose it was used for.”



Read more: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/gchq-used-quantum-insert-technique-to-set-up-fake-linkedin-pagesand-spy-on-mobile-phone-giants-8931528.html

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1. Oil Espionage: How the NSA and GCHQ Spied on OPEC

America's NSA and Britain's GCHQ are both spying on the OPEC oil cartel, documents from whistleblower Edward Snowden reveal. The security of the global energy supply is one of the most important issues for the intelligence agencies.

Documents disclosed by whistleblower Edward Snowden reveal that both America's National Security Agency (NSA) and Britain's Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) have infiltrated the computer network of the the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC).

In January 2008, the NSA department in charge of energy issues reported it had accomplished its mission. Intelligence information about individual petroleum-exporting countries had existed before then, but now the NSA had managed, for the first time, to infiltrate OPEC in its entirety.

OPEC, founded in 1960, has its headquarters in a box-like building in Vienna. Its main objective is to control the global oil market, and to keep prices high. The 12 member states include Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Iran and Iraq.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/how-the-nsa-and-gchq-spied-on-opec-a-932777.html#ref=rss

[Jesus Malverde]

2. I could never figure out the point to linkedin... now we know...nt

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3. Yah. They get nothing from me, facebook too, all of them.

They are not to be trusted.

Their business model is exploitation of your private information.

[grasswire]

4. Oy.

Where does it end?