NSA and GCHQ target 'leaky' phone apps like Angry Birds to scoop user data
Last edited Mon Jan 27, 2014, 03:53 PM - Edit history (1)
Source: The Guardian
The National Security Agency and its UK counterpart GCHQ have been developing capabilities to take advantage of "leaky" smartphone apps, such as the wildly popular Angry Birds game, that transmit users' private information across the internet, according to top secret documents.
The data pouring onto communication networks from the new generation of iPhone and Android apps ranges from phone model and screen size to personal details such as age, gender and location. Some apps, the documents state, can share users' most sensitive information such as sexual orientation and one app recorded in the material even sends specific sexual preferences such as whether or not the user may be a swinger.
Many smartphone owners will be unaware of the full extent this information is being shared across the internet, and even the most sophisticated would be unlikely to realise that all of it is available for the spy agencies to collect.
Dozens of classified documents, provided to the Guardian by whistleblower Edward Snowden and reported in partnership with the New York Times and ProPublica, detail the NSA and GCHQ efforts to piggyback on this commercial data collection for their own purposes.
Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jan/27/nsa-gchq-smartphone-app-angry-birds-personal-data
New York Times version of this story:
Spy Agencies Scour Phone Apps for Personal Data
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/28/world/spy-agencies-scour-phone-apps-for-personal-data.html
... The secret report noted that the profiles vary depending on which of the ad companies which include Burstly and Googles ad services, two of the largest online advertising businesses compiles them. Most profiles contain a string of characters that identifies the phone, along with basic data on the user like age, sex and location. One profile notes whether the user is currently listening to music or making a call, and another has an entry for household income.
Google declined to comment for this article, and Burstly did not respond to multiple requests for comment. Saara Bergstrom, a Rovio spokeswoman, said that the company had no knowledge of the intelligence programs. Nor do we have any involvement with the organizations you mentioned, Ms. Bergstrom said, referring to the N.S.A. and the British spy agency.
Another ad company creates far more intrusive profiles that the agencies can retrieve, the report says. The apps that generate those profiles are not identified, but the company is named as Millennial Media, which has its headquarters in Baltimore.
... According to the report, the Millennial profiles contain much of the same information as the others, but several categories listed as optional, including ethnicity, marital status and sexual orientation, suggest that much wider sweeps of personal data may take place.
JoeyT
(6,785 posts)I heard Bin Laden's favorite bird was the red one.
Jesus Malverde
(10,274 posts)Next they'll be downloading the tapes my psychiatrist sends off to india to be transcribed. They could probably do the transcription for him.
Obvious is.... that this is the worlds largest blackmail program. If you get out of line, like Jane Harman, they will blackmail you to do their will.
http://www.vanityfair.com/online/daily/2009/04/did-alberto-gonzales-blackmail-jane-harman
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/more-on-that-suspected-israeli-agent
Purveyor
(29,876 posts)You hit the nail right on its fucking head and drove it clear to the board.
Makes me sick that this is happening under a President I trusted. Used to trust, should I add.
I'll bet there won't be too many NSA apologists posting in this thread. It's hard to justify this degree of excessive surveillance.
dickthegrouch
(3,184 posts)Otherwise the NSA and any other government agency can Fuck Off.
A Simple Game
(9,214 posts)rules against them. Which I assume he didn't think the court would do.
Roots for the conservative Supreme Court and is admittedly also a Rand Paul follower.
Why is someone like that on DU?
christx30
(6,241 posts)can be mu$ed upon for a while. But who know$? It's a my$tery.
Indi Guy
(3,992 posts)randome
(34,845 posts)...no one posed the question about whether this monitoring was done to Americans or to foreign individuals. They didn't even pose the question as to whether or not these unknown individuals might be the target of an investigation.
Articles written without context are only red meat to draw eyeballs their way.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]No squirrels were harmed in the making of this post. Yet.[/center][/font][hr]
Indi Guy
(3,992 posts)Your tax dollars are paying for spooks to exploit leaks in Angry Birds, for Pete's sake.
randome
(34,845 posts)I would think those would be the first two questions to consider for anyone who was objective.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]Everything is a satellite to some other thing.[/center][/font][hr]
Indi Guy
(3,992 posts)"The NSA declined to respond to a series of queries on how routinely capabilities against apps were deployed, or on the specific minimisation procedures used to prevent US citizens' information being stored through such measures."
I believe this covers both of your questions.
jsr
(7,712 posts)neverforget
(9,437 posts)But it doesn't tell anything about you......
fujiyama
(15,185 posts)We already known this.
And he left his stripper girlfriend.
There's all the talking points. I don't get them anymore myself because all the people spewing them are now on ignore.