By cracking cellphone code, NSA has capacity for decoding private conversations

[alp227]

Source: Washington Post

The cellphone encryption technology used most widely across the world can be easily defeated by the National Security Agency, an internal document shows, giving the agency the means to decode most of the billions of calls and texts that travel over public airwaves every day.

While the military and law enforcement agencies long have been able to hack into individual cellphones, the NSA’s capability appears to be far more sweeping because of the agency’s global signals collection operation. The agency’s ability to crack encryption used by the majority of cellphones in the world offers it wide-ranging powers to listen in on private conversations.

U.S. law prohibits the NSA from collecting the content of conversations between Americans without a court order. But experts say that if the NSA has developed the capacity to easily decode encrypted cellphone conversations, then other nations likely can do the same through their own intelligence services, potentially to Americans’ calls, as well.

Encryption experts have complained for years that the most commonly used technology, known as A5/1, is vulnerable and have urged providers to upgrade to newer systems that are much harder to crack. Most companies worldwide have not done so, even as controversy has intensified in recent months over NSA collection of cellphone traffic, including of such world leaders as German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/by-cracking-cellphone-code-nsa-has-capacity-for-decoding-private-conversations/2013/12/13/e119b598-612f-11e3-bf45-61f69f54fc5f_story.html

[Jesus Malverde]

1. The NSA is the military...

Seems lost often in these articles.

[Orrex]

2. Oh yeah? Where would the NSA get ~$8.4 trillion in funding over the past decade?

Surely such a scandalously huge amount would be noticed if it went missing from some other agency's budget, right?

[SoapBox]

8. Where did you get the 8 trillion number?

...I don't see that in the article. Or did I miss it?

[ManiacJoe]

4. How did you jump to that conclusion?

> The NSA is the military...

[Jesus Malverde]

5. It's always been a part of the military and led by generals.

The National Security Agency (NSA) is the main producer and manager of signals intelligence for the United States. Estimated to be one of the largest of U.S. intelligence organizations in terms of personnel and budget, the NSA operates under the jurisdiction of the Department of Defense and reports to the Director of National Intelligence.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Security_Agency

In fact the NSA and the CIA are rivals.

Fact: Petraeus brags your appliances are spying on you (purview of the NSA)
- CIA Chief: We’ll Spy on You Through Your Dishwasher

Fact: Petraeus destroyed when his gmail hacked (purview of the NSA)

Fact: Former CIA employee Edward Snowden leaks documents potentially destroying the NSA or at least hampering their ability to dominate the intelligence space.

[ManiacJoe]

9. That would probably not meet the normal definition

of "part of the military", but OK.

[Jesus Malverde]

10. What do you think the Department of Defense is?

[ManiacJoe]

11. ... Never mind....

[OnyxCollie]

3. Oh, but the NSA wouldn't do something like that.

They're only interested in phone numbers.

La di da, doo doo.

[grahamhgreen]

24. Only terrorists... And we're all terrorists now, lol

[bvar22]

6. Joe Biden speaks out!!!!

Thank Gawd someone is on our side!
.
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.
what?
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[font size=1]Oops!
My Bad.
That was before HE became Vice-President.
Obviously, he has "evolved" since then.
Please ignore this post.

[Whisp]

7. but I thought the NSA already had everything we say and what we surf already stored.

somewhere.



?

[ManiacJoe]

12. There is not enough server space for that.

[Whisp]

13. I wouldn't think so! But people still believe that.

there was a guy on TED talks, he was into internet security and such and he led his audience to believe that everything was stored, somewhere, illegally. I was really disappointed in the blatant misinformation and why TED would b a part of that. The guy obviously was using scare tactics to beef up his own computer and internet security business.

It took a lot of talking to get my husband to understand some key points. One being there is not enough darn room to store Everything, Every day. And of course that whole huge misunderstanding of what metadata is and isn't and what secure ftp sites are and are not - for transferring files to the law.

This TED guy made it sound like the NSA and whoever can just walk into all the servers that Google, Verison and all those have, and just stroll around and take whatever they wanted. Which is b.s.

[ManiacJoe]

14. Congrats on being able to explain it to others!

[Archaic]

21. You don't store it.

You process it.

I just met with a storage vendor yesterday that handles the processing back end for the text messaging/data usage for one of the main US telecoms. They've put a building full of this gear up to process those transactions for billing and other things. We use their gear to turn 32 hour analytic runs into 1 hour analytic runs.

You peel off the interesting stuff, and put it on the slow disk, then tape it if you really want it for later. My company of 1500 people spends $100K a year on TAPE, and a couple million on storage. You can imagine what the big guys spend.

So they don't have to store it until they can read it all, they process it, file the useful stuff and trash the rest. How many pizza calls are happening right now? How many Bieber texts? All that crap is filtered right where it belongs.

Dump it all and process the next batch.

Put that in enough places, and yeah, you can absolutely do that.

The telecoms are for profit companies, that have shareholders and have to report financials. Imagine what an NSA/DIA can do with black budgets.

The point doesn't have to be that they've got everything ever. It's that they can capture it live, and just keep throwing more storage and more CPU at it until they can effectively process it and purge the crap faster.

[ManiacJoe]

22. Exactly!

[Ed Suspicious]

15. They might not have everything but they sure as hell can have anything and I find that to be every

bit as troubling as the former.

[Whisp]

16. that story was flogged here by many, and many times.

that the NSA had Everything. Every phone all, every site you visited.
and they are holding it all in some huge building, somewhere....




I guess you missed that?

[Progressive dog]

17. Cell phone conversations were not always encrypted

and the article did explain that

U.S. law prohibits the NSA from collecting the content of conversations between Americans without a court order. But experts say that if the NSA has developed the capacity to easily decode encrypted cellphone conversations, then other nations likely can do the same through their own intelligence services, potentially to Americans’ calls, as well.

.
The ability of the NSA to decode a particular targeted foreign cell phone isn't earth shaking. The NSA is a spy agency. The foreign governments would need access to the encrypted conversations to have something to decode.

[quadrature]

18. how long till criminals and terrorists figure out...

that their cell-phones have a direct link to
the FBI?

[blkmusclmachine]

19. 9/11 and NSA. Which came first, the chicken or the egg?

[Martak Sarno]

20. Which came first?

Pretty sure it was the Rooster!

[Indi Guy]

23. K n/t

[cantbeserious]

25. Big Brother - Thy Name Is NSA - The Intelligence Community Is Out Of Control

eom