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Ersättningsvideo:
Will Webcam Images Be Used to Smear and Blackmail Targets?
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2014-02-28. Source: Washington’s BlogNewly-released Snowden documents show that the British and American spy agencies gathered and stored many millions of images from Yahoo web cam streams …
...and that a large percentage are naked or pornographic images.
Given that the spy agencies use porn to discredit activists – and apparently to blackmail critics - it is worth asking whether that was the larger purpose for this spy program.Indeed, Glenn Greenwald – who has seen all of the Snowden documents – tweets:
Regarding GCHQ/NSA collection of sex chat photos, remember they plot to use online sex activity to harm reputations ….The Associated Press notes:
The stockpiling of sexually explicit images of ordinary people had uncomfortable echoes of George Orwell’s “Nineteen Eighty-Four,” where the authorities — operating under the aegis of “Big Brother” — fit homes with cameras to monitor the intimate details of people’s home lives.
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The collection of nude photographs also raise questions about potential for blackmail. America’s National Security Agency has already acknowledged that half a dozen analysts have been caught trawling databases for inappropriate material on partners or love interests. Other leaked documents have revealed how U.S. and British intelligence discussed leaking embarrassing material online to blacken the reputations of their targets.
And Bill Binney – the high-level NSA executive who created the agency’s mass surveillance program for digital information, a 32-year NSA veteran widely regarded as a “legend” within the agency, the senior technical director within the agency and managed thousands of NSA employees, an expert on spying by the Soviets, interviewed by virtually all of the mainstream media, including CBS, ABC, CNN, New York Times, USA Today, Fox News, PBS and many others – told Washington’s Blog:- This is just one of the ways to make controlling people possible.
- Standard KGB/Stasi tactics.In addition, top security experts have pointed out that spy agencies’ mass surveillance leaves such information vulnerable to hackers and other malicious actors.
So even if those nude pictures aren’t used for smear campaigns or blackmail (or drooled over) by GCHQ or NSA personnel, others might still abuse them.
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http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2014/02/uk-us-spied-millions-webcam-images-smear-blackmail-targets.html
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http://www.blacklistednews.com/Will_Webcam_Images_Be_Used_to_Smear_and_Blackmail_Targets%3F/33240/0/0/0/Y/M.html
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---NSA Tracks Porn to Discredit Activists …
… And to Blackmail Critics?
***November 27, 2013
Huffington Post reports:
The National Security Agency has been gathering records of online sexual activity and evidence of visits to pornographic websites as part of a proposed plan to harm the reputations of those whom the agency believes are radicalizing others through incendiary speeches, according to a top-secret NSA document.
The document, provided by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, identifies six targets, all Muslims, as “exemplars” of how “personal vulnerabilities” can be learned through electronic surveillance, and then exploited to undermine a target’s credibility, reputation and authority. [...]
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2013/11/nsa-tracks-porn-discredit-activists.html
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RT 2014-02-27
British and American surveillance agencies teamed up to develop a system that collected millions of images from the webcams of unsuspecting and innocent internet users, new leaked documents reveal.
This “Optic Nerve” program — administered by the UK's GCHQ with the assistance of the National Security Agency — routinely intercepted and stored those webcam images in secret starting in 2008, according to documents disclosed by former intelligence contractor Edward Snowden and published by The Guardian on Thursday. The program indiscriminately collected millions of images from people who used Yahoo's webcam chat function, the Guardian's Spencer Ackerman and James Ball reported, “including substantial quantities of sexually explicit communications."
According to the journalists, the GCHQ relied on Optic Nerve to experiment with facial recognition programing to monitor existing targets and search for new persons of interest.
But the GCHQ didn't stop at targeting solely suspected terrorists, the report continues, and instead collected intelligence by seemingly anyone unfortunate enough to log-in to Yahoo's webcam chat feature, at least between 2008 and 2012.
"Yahoo webcam is known to be used by GCHQ targets,” reads a portion of the classified documentation published by the paper. The GCHQ did not limit their surveillance to just those target, however. According to the leaked Snowden document, 1.8 million Yahoo users had their webcam images collected by the agency during just a six-month span shortly after Optic Nerve was first rolled out.
When reached for comment by the British paper, a representative for Yahoo said the GCHQ program as explained demonstrates a “whole new level of violation of our users' privacy.”
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- Elsewhere in the leaked documentation, GCHQ agents admitted that a large portion of the imagery collected contained “undesirable(?) nudity.”
"Unfortunately … it would appear that a surprising number of people use webcam conversations to show intimate parts of their body to the other person,” one internal document cited by The Guardian reads. “Also, the fact that the Yahoo software allows more than one person to view a webcam stream without necessarily sending a reciprocal stream means that it appears sometimes to be used for broadcasting pornography."
And although the program was carried out by British spies, Ackerman and Ball acknowledged that millions of Americans may have had their own likeness — clothed or not — captured in the process.
“GCHQ does not have the technical means to make sure no images of UK or US citizens are collected and stored by the system, and there are no restrictions under UK law to prevent Americans' images being accessed by British analysts without an individual warrant,” they wrote.
But Vanee Vines, a spokesperson for the NSA, told the Guardian that the US spy agency “does not ask its foreign partners to undertake any intelligence activity that the US government would be legally prohibited from undertaking itself.”
"A key part of the protections that apply to both US persons and citizens of other countries is the mandate that information be in support of a valid foreign intelligence requirement, and comply with US Attorney General-approved procedures to protect privacy rights. Those procedures govern the acquisition, use, and retention of information about US persons,” Vines said. In an op-ed published in The Guardian also on Thursday, acclaimed security expert and cryptographer Bruce Schneier said even safeguards in place to prevent these images being viewed by any GCHQ staffer should be questioned.
“[I]s it really okay for a computer to monitor you online, and for that data collection and analysis only to count as a potential privacy invasion when a person sees it? I say it’s not, and the latest Snowden leaks only make more clear how important this distinction is,” he wrote.
http://rt.com/usa/optic-nerve-yahoo-webcams-050/
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Publicerad den 27 feb 2014
British and American surveillance agencies teamed up to develop a system that collected millions of images from the webcams of unsuspecting and innocent internet users, new leaked documents reveal. READ MORE: http://on.rt.com/qbv734***
Vissa bilder från: Amazing Data
NSA & GCHQ & FRA etc, lagrade miljoner porrbilder från webcams - för ökad trygghet!
--US senators plan probe into NSA’s role in Yahoo webcam spying scandal--
SvaraRaderaPublished time: March 01, 2014
Following the revelations that Britain’s spy agency intercepts Yahoo users’ private data, three outraged American senators plan to launch an investigation into the NSA’s involvement in the GCHQ operation.
The scandal with the British GCHQ intelligence agency collecting images of Yahoo users by secretly connecting to people’s webcams has made American lawmakers curious about whether their own National Security Agency has been cooperating with British intelligence in this respect.
Senators Martin Heinrich, Mark Udall and Ron Wyden, all members of the Senate Intelligence Committee, issued a joint statement Friday, stating that they were “extremely troubled” with the “breathtaking lack of respect for privacy and civil liberties” of the UK spy agency and said that “any involvement of US agencies in the alleged activities reported today will need to be closely scrutinized.”
“A very large number of individuals – including law-abiding Americans – may have had private videos of themselves and their families intercepted and stored without any suspicion of wrongdoing,” the statement said.
The senators acknowledged that the interrelatedness of global communications had “dramatically increased the likelihood of innocent Americans being swept up in intelligence collection nominally aimed at foreigners," and called for US authorities “to ensure that ‘foreign’ intelligence collection does not intrude unnecessarily on the rights of law-abiding people or needlessly undermine the competitiveness of America’s leading industries.”
On Friday the Internet Association, representing industry giants such as Amazon, AOL, eBay, Google, Netflix and Twitter, also expressed alarm over the latest GCHQ revelations and called for reform of the intelligence agencies.
“Today’s revelations, about British intelligence practices, are alarming and reaffirm the need for greater transparency and reform of government surveillance,” the Internet Association’s CEO Michael Beckerman said in a statement.
[...]
http://rt.com/usa/gchq-optic-nerve-investigation-335/
--Private Webcam Images of Nearly 2 Million Global Yahoo Users Intercepted by British Spy Agency with NSA Help--
SvaraRaderaAll Gov - Saturday, March 01, 2014
Yahoo users who used their webcams to communicate with others, including transmissions of a sexual nature, may have had their images captured—and ogled—by British spies.
With the help of the National Security Agency (NSA), Britain’s surveillance agency, Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), intercepted and stored millions of webcam images belonging to Yahoo customers not suspected of terrorism or other threats.
The secret program, codenamed Optic Nerve, collected the images from 2008 to 2010, and possibly beyond. Classified documents released by whistleblower Edward Snowden to The Guardian indicated the collection occurred between 2008 and 2010. However, another document obtained by the newspaper showed Optic Nerve was in operation as late as 2012.
The vacuuming of private images was vast in scope and substantial in quantity: during just one six-month span in 2008, the program intercepted webcam transmissions belonging to 1.8 million Yahoo users worldwide.
Images of American citizens who engage in webcam conversations via Yahoo were among those captured and stored by the government spy agency, since “there are no restrictions under UK law to prevent Americans’ images being accessed by British analysts without an individual warrant,” wrote The Guardian’s Spencer Ackerman and James Ball.
Many of the images contained nudity (somewhere between 3% and 11%), which not only proved irrelevant to GCHQ’s mission, but also distracting as far as keeping employees focused on more serious work.
“Unfortunately…it would appear that a surprising number of people use webcam conversations to show intimate parts of their body to the other person,” one document states. “Also, the fact that the Yahoo software allows more than one person to view a webcam stream without necessarily sending a reciprocal stream means that it appears sometimes to be used for broadcasting pornography.”
An internal GCHQ guide alerted its staff that they would be viewing nudity displayed by many global Yahoo users because the agency has “no perfect ability to censor material which may be offensive.”
Yahoo claims it was not aware of the webcam interception until The Guardian broached the subject.[...]
http://www.allgov.com/news/top-stories/private-webcam-images-of-nearly-2-million-global-yahoo-users-intercepted-by-british-spy-agency-with-nsa-help-140301?news=852567
--Insane McCain: “We Are All Ukrainians”--
SvaraRaderaMarch 1, 2014
Source: Time
In response to reports of a Russian takeover in parts of Crimea, Arizona Senator John McCain said on Friday, “We are all Ukrainians,” before calling for swift U.S. economic aid to Ukraine, condemnation of Russia at the United Nations, sanctions against Russian officials and the installation of U.S. missiles in the nearby Czech Republic.
Russian President Vladimir Putin believes “this is a chess match reminiscent of the Cold War and we need to realize that and act accordingly,” McCain said, in an exclusive interview with TIME. “That does not mean I envision a conflict with Russia, but we need to take certain measures that would convince Putin that there is a very high cost to actions that he is taking now.”
http://swampland.time.com/2014/02/28/ukraine-john-mccain-putin-crimea/
http://www.blacklistednews.com/Insane_McCain%3A_%E2%80%9CWe_Are_All_Ukrainians%E2%80%9D/33289/0/38/38/Y/M.html