Security experts say that Canadian intelligence has developed a powerful spying tool to scope out and target specific phones and computers so as to better set up hacking and bugging operations.

The outlines of the technology are contained in the slides of a PowerPoint presentation made to allied security agencies in June, 2012. Communications Security Establishment Canada (CSEC) called the tool “Olympia,” showing how its analysts sifted through an immense amount of communications data and zeroed in on the phones and computer servers they determined merited attention – in the demonstration case, inside the Brazilian Ministry of Energy and Mines.

Within weeks, CSEC figured out who was talking to whom by plugging phone numbers and Internet protocol addresses into an array of intelligence databases. In this way it “developed a detailed map of the institution’s communications,” Paulo Pagliusi, a Brazilian security expert who examined the slides, told The Globe.

The slides are part of a large trove of documents that have been leaked by Edward Snowden, the former contractor with the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) whose disclosures have set off a debate over whether the agency has improperly intruded on the privacy of Americans. Other disclosures have raised questions about its spying on foreign governments, sometimes with the assistance of allied intelligence agencies.

The Globe and Mail has collaborated with the Brazil-based American journalist Glenn Greenwald, based on information obtained from the Snowden documents. Mr. Snowden, who went into hiding in Hong Kong before the first cache of NSA documents was leaked, has been charged by the United States with espionage and theft of government property. Russia has granted him temporary sanctuary.

Canadian officials declined to comment on the slides. Responding to an e-mail requesting comment on whether Canada co-operated with its U.S. counterpart in tapping into Brazilian communications, CSEC spokesman Andy McLaughlin said the agency “cannot comment on its foreign intelligence activities or capabilities.” Prime Minister Stephen Harper said earlier this month that he is “very concerned” about reports CSEC focused on the Brazil ministry.

Any ability to sift through telecommunications data for specific leads can be valuable for electronic-eavesdropping agencies, especially the capacity to map out – without necessarily listening into – an organization’s Internet or voice communications. This, in turn, can help isolate specific devices for potential hacking operations. By developing “Olympia” as a method for doing just this, Canada added to its spymasters’ toolkit.

The PowerPoint presentation by CSEC was first reported by Brazil’s Fantastico TV program, which earlier reported the NSA spying, in conjunction with Mr. Greenwald. Brazilian officials expressed outrage at the United States, but their criticism of Canada was more fleeting. They say they now intend to put public employees on an encrypted e-mail system.

The CSEC presentation – titled Advanced Network Tradecraft – described a technological reconnaissance mission aimed at the Brazilian energy ministry in April and May of 2012. According to the presentation, the agency knew very little about the ministry going in, apart from its Internet domain name and a few associated phone numbers. The presentation never makes clear CSEC’s intentions for targeting the Brazilian ministry.

The leaked slides also suggest Canada sought to partner with the NSA, with one slide saying CSEC was “working with TAO to further examine the possibility” of a more aggressive operation to intercept Internet communications.

“TAO” refers to “tailored access operations,” said Bruce Schneier, a privacy specialist for the Berkman Center for the Internet and Society at Harvard. “It’s the NSA ‘blackbag’ people.” (A “blackbag job” refers to a government-sanctioned break-and-enter operation – hacking in this case – to acquire intelligence.)

It is not clear whether CSEC or the NSA followed up with other actions involving the Brazilian ministry.

COLIN FREEZE AND STEPHANIE NOLEN
WASHINGTON and RIO DE JANEIRO — The Globe and Mail
Published Saturday, Oct. 19 2013, 8:00 AM EDT

Find this story at 19 October 2013

© Copyright 2013 The Globe and Mail Inc.

Observers have suggested that Canada’s actions are related to potential competition to its tar sands. Photograph: Orjan F Ellingvag/Corbis

The Canadian government agency that allegedly hacked into the Brazilian mining and energy ministry has participated in secret meetings in Ottawa where Canadian security agencies briefed energy corporations, it has emerged.

Claims of spying on the ministry by Communications Security Establishment Canada (CSEC) come amid the Canadian government’s increasingly aggressive promotion of resource corporations at home and abroad, including unprecedented surveillance and intelligence sharing with companies.

According to freedom of information documents obtained by the Guardian, the meetings – conducted twice a year since 2005 – involved federal ministries, spy and police agencies, and representatives from scores of companies who obtained high-level security clearance.

Meetings were officially billed to discuss “threats” to energy infrastructure but also covered “challenges to energy projects from environmental groups”, “cyber security initiatives” and “economic and corporate espionage”.

The documents – heavily redacted agendas – do not indicate that any international espionage was shared by CSEC officials, but the meetings were an opportunity for government agencies and companies to develop “ongoing trusting relations” that would help them exchange information “off the record”, wrote an official from the Natural Resources ministry in 2010.

At the most recent meeting in May 2013, which focused on “security of energy resources development”, meals were sponsored by Enbridge, a Canadian oil company trying to win approval for controversial tar sands pipelines.

Since coming to power, Conservative prime minister, Stephen Harper, has used his government apparatus to serve a natural resources development agenda, while creating sweeping domestic surveillance programs that have kept close tabs on indigenous and environmental opposition and shared intelligence with companies.

Harper has transformed Canada’s foreign policy to offer full diplomatic backing to foreign mining and oil projects, tying aid pledges to their advancement and jointly funding ventures with companies throughout Africa, South America and Asia.

Keith Stewart, an energy policy analyst with Greenpeace Canada, said: “There seems to be no limit to what the Harper government will do to help their friends in the oil and mining industries. They’ve muzzled scientists, gutted environmental laws, reneged on our international climate commitments, labelled environmental critics as criminals and traitors, and have now been caught engaging in economic espionage in a friendly country. Canadians, and our allies, have a right to ask who exactly is receiving the gathered intelligence and whose interests are being served.”

Observers have suggested that Canadian spying on Brazil is related to the country’s auctioning of massive offshore oil finds, potential competition to Canada’s tar sands, and Canada’s desire to gain competitive advantage for more than 40 Canadian companies involved in Brazil’s mining sector.

“There is very substantial evidence that the spying Canada was doing for economic reasons aimed at Brazil is far from an aberration,” Guardian columnist Glenn Greenwald told Canadian media on Tuesday. Greenwald hinted that he will be publishing further documents on CSEC.

“We’ve already seen how Canadian embassies around the world essentially act as agents for Canadian companies – even when they’re implicated in serious human rights abuses,” said Jamie Kneen of MiningWatch Canada, an NGO watchdog. “We just had no idea how far they were willing to go.”

Martin Lukacs and Tim Groves
theguardian.com, Wednesday 9 October 2013 12.08 BST

Find this story at 9 October 2013

© 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved.

A former high-ranking member of Canada’s spy service says he suspects the leaked documents that purport to show Ottawa was spying on Brazil are in fact part of a pretend “wargame scenario.”

“There’s no smoking gun here. It’s again more little snippets and snapshots from the Snowden revelations; they actually mislead more than they inform,” says Ray Boisvert, until last year a deputy director of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service.

“I don’t believe it’s likely Brazil was targeted.”

A Brazilian television report on Sunday said Canada’s electronic eavesdropping agency, the Communication Security Establishment Canada (CSEC) targeted the ministry that manages the South American nation’s vast mineral and oil resources. The report was based on documents leaked by former U.S. National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden.

Mr. Boisvert, who left the Canadian Security Intelligence Service in 2012, said the top priority for CSIS and CSEC is counter-terrorism. The directive from on high was national security, not infiltrating a Brazilian government department of mining.

“When I worked there, very closely with CSEC and I was a top-line operational leader, we were all too busy chasing bad guys who want to kill people,” the former CSIS official said.

“At the end of the day CSIS and CSEC have a mandate to go after foreign powers if those are acting in a way that’s inimical to our interests, so the poster child for that would be Iran. Everything from nuclear proliferation to state-sponsored terror,” he said.

“Brazil seems highly unlikely to me,” Mr. Boisvert said.

He said one regular practice of security organizations, however, is war-gaming.

“I’m more inclined to think that this is probably a case of a hypothetical scenario,” Mr. Boisvert said.

“CSEC does war gaming just like the military and in their case they look at [computer] networks. Before they go after a target, they will play a game on paper,” he said.

“I have got a funny feeling that is all Snowden has: is just that exploratory war game piece saying ‘OK, what would we do, boys and girls, if we had to do this?’ ”

When pressed Monday for comment on allegations that CSEC spied on Brazilians, the Harper government gave repeated indirect answers to the question, saying the CSE does not conduct surveillance on Canadians.

“This organization cannot and does not target Canadians under Canadian law,” Defence Minister Rob Nicholson said.

Canadians and Brazilians are both working on a United Nations peacekeeping mission in Haiti and Mr. Nicholson rejected the suggestion the revelations might hurt relations between Canada and Brazil.‎ “I believe our collaboration and friendship will continue,” Mr. Nicholson said.

“It’s wise not to get involved with commenting on foreign intelligence gathering activities and so I don’t do that.”

Mr. Boisvert said he assumes the Canadian government is reaching out to Brazil to explain what really happened.

STEVEN CHASE
OTTAWA — The Globe and Mail
Published Monday, Oct. 07 2013, 1:12 PM EDT

Find this story at 7 October 2013

© Copyright 2013 The Globe and Mail Inc.

Leaked documents showing that Canada’s electronic intelligence-gathering agency targeted the Brazilian government threaten to disrupt relations between the countries – and thrust the secretive CSEC into the public spotlight.

On Sunday night, Brazil’s flagship Fantastico investigative program on the Globo television network revealed leaked documents suggesting that Communications Security Establishment Canada (CSEC) has spied on computers and smartphones affiliated with Brazil’s mining and energy ministry in a bid to gain economic intelligence.

The report, attributed to documents first obtained by the former U.S. government contractor Edward Snowden, includes frames of a CSEC-earmarked presentation that was apparently shared with the United States and other allies in June, 2012.

“Brazilian Ministry of Mines and Energy (MME),” a title page of the leaked case study reads. “New target to develop.”

The presentation then rhetorically asks “How can I use the information available in SIGINT [signals-intelligence] data sources to learn about the target?” before delving into specific hacking techniques.

The documents were part of a collaboration with Globo by Glenn Greenwald. The Rio de Janeiro-based journalist and confidante of Mr. Snowden has spent the past four months steadily disclosing a treasure trove of leaked materials recording the electronic eavesdropping practices of the United States and its allies.

Washington has been reeling from the disclosures. In Brazil, they have caused the most serious rift between the two nations in years – after the first revelations about NSA espionage were made last month, Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff canceled an official state visit to Washington; it was to be the first in 18 years and was intended to showcase the growing economic and political ties between the two countries. Instead Ms. Rousseff went to the UN General Assembly where she complained of “totally unacceptable” U.S. spying in her country. She gained a considerable bump in personal approval ratings after lashing out at the U.S. over the NSA activity, which has elicited a reaction of deep offense from many Brazilians.

***

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/five-highlights-from-the-canada-brazil-spying-revelations/article14721506/

Five highlights from the Canada-Brazil spying revelations Add to
…
GLOBE STAFF

The Globe and Mail
Published Monday, Oct. 07 2013, 11:02 AM EDT

Canada’s signals-intelligence agency has been spying on Brazil’s Mines and Energy Ministry, according to documents the former U.S. government contractor Edward Snowden leaked to Brazil’s Globo television network.

Globo obtained a copy of a slide presentation made by someone at the Communications Security Establishment Canada (CSEC). The document was shown at a June 2012 gathering of members of the “Five Eyes,” the signals-intelligence alliance of Canada, the United States, Britain, Australia and New Zealand.

Here are some highlights that can be gleaned from the slides:

1. Using a program called Olympia, CSEC took aim at Brazil’s Ministry of Mines and Energy, describing it as a “new target to develop” despite “limited access/target knowledge.”

2. One of the slide shows that CSEC focused on ministry portable devices and was able to identify their carriers (such as Brasil Telecom S.A. or Global Village Telecom), the kind of hardware being used (for example a Nokia 3120 or an Android-based Motorola MRUQ7) and metadata about where calls were placed, in countries such as Peru, Venezuela, Poland, Singapore, Great Britain.

Another slide in the presentation explains how analysts cross-referenced a handset’s SIM card with the network telephone number assigned to it and the handset’s unique number (IMEI).

3. CSEC metadata collection included calls made from the Ministry of Mines and Energy to the Brazilian embassy in Peru and the head office of OLADE, the Latin American Energy Organization, in Quito, Ecuador.

One slide titled showed how the Canadians connected an IP addresses assigned to the ministry to e-mail communications with Canada, Eritrea, Saudi Arabia, Thailand, Afghanistan, Jordan and South Africa.

4. Another phone monitored by CSEC belonged to Paulo Cordeiro de Andrade Pinto, a career diplomat who was ambassador to Canada from 2008 to 2011, and is now Brazil’s Under Secretary for Middle East and Africa.

5. CSEC’s next step was going to be the collection of e-mails and cooperation with a hacking specialists working for a secret unit of the U.S. National Security Agency.

“I have identified MX [email] servers which have been targeted to passive collection by the Intel analysts,” says a slide titled “Moving Forward.”

The slide mentions TAO (Tailored Access Operations), an NSA unit specializes in installing spyware and tracking devices and has been reported to have played a role in the hunt for Osama Bin Laden.

“I am working with TAO to further examine the possibility for a Man on the Side operation,” the CSEC slide says, alluding to a form of online eavesdropping.

The impact for Canada of these revelations could be equally grave: they come at a time when Brazil has become a top destination for Canadian exports, when a stream of delegations from the oil and gas industries are making pilgrimages to Rio de Janeiro to try to get a piece of the booming offshore oil industry, and when the Canadian government is eager to burnish ties with Brasilia. Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird visited Brazil in August, and spoke repeatedly about the country as a critical partner for Canadian business.

American lawmakers have introduced several bills that aim to rein in the U.S. National Security Agency’s domestic surveillance programs.

Throughout all this, Canada’s electronic eavesdropping agency has kept a relatively low profile, never before emerging as the central figure in any Snowden-leaked spying program. Although it has existed since the Second World War, CSEC has rarely discussed any of its operations in public.

CSEC has a $350-million budget and 2,000 employees. By law, it has three mandates – to safeguard Canadian government communications and computers from foreign hackers, to help other federal security agencies where legally possible, and to gather “foreign intelligence.”

The federal government is building a new $1-billion headquarters for CSEC on the outskirts of Ottawa.

Given wide latitude by its political and bureaucratic masters to collect what “foreign intelligence” it can, CSEC is exceedingly discreet. The spy agency’s leaders rarely make any public remarks. When they do, they tend only to speak vaguely of the agency’s role in fighting terrorism.

But economic espionage appears to be a business line for CSEC. Former Carleton University Professor Martin Rudner has pointed out that the spy agency started recruiting economists and business analysts in the mid-1990s.

“CSE[C] operations in economic intelligence have gone rather beyond the strictly defensive to also help promote Canadian economic competitiveness,” Mr. Rudner wrote in an essay published in 2000. He added that the spy agency is rumoured to have given the Canadian government a leg up during NAFTA negotiations with Mexico, and also eavesdropped on the 1997 APEC summit.

Mr. Rudner added that Ottawa officials don’t necessarily share with Canadian businesses what CSEC surveillance turns up. Instead, he writes, they “sometimes provide advice and counsel by way of helping to promote Canadian trade, without necessarily revealing their sources in economic intelligence.”

While CSEC’s role in conducting economic espionage has been alluded to before, how it does this job has not. The significance of the documents obtained by Globo in Brazil is that they speak to how “metadata” analysis by CSEC can be used to exploit a rival country’s computer systems.

The CSEC-labeled slides about the “Olympia” program describe the “Brazilian Ministry of Mines and Energy” as a “new target to develop” despite “limited access/target knowledge.”

The presentation goes on to map out how an individual’s smartphone – “target’s handset” – can be discerned by analysis, including by cross-referencing the smartphone’s Sim card with the network telephone number assigned to it and also to the handset’s unique number (IMEI).

The “top secret” presentation also refers to attacks on email servers.

“I have identified MX [email] servers which have been targeted to passive collection by the Intel analysts,” one slide says, without explaining who the speaker is.

The slide suggests the presenter hoped to reach out to American superhackers – the NSA’s “Tailored Access Operations” group – for a more specialized operation: “I am working with TAO to further examine the possibility for a Man on the Side operation.”

A “Man on the Side” operation is a form of interception. According to a recent Guardian column, the NSA has installed secret servers on the Internet that can be used “impersonate a visited Web site” that a target plans to visit. The rerouting of the target’s traffic opens his or her computer or mobile device to invasion by the impersonating website.

The “Top Secret” presentation obtained by Globo is an exceedingly rare disclosure. In Ottawa, CSEC’s employees are sworn to secrecy and visitors to its complex have to check their smartphones, iPads, laptops and memory sticks at the door.

The CSEC-labeled presentation appears to have been shared with the NSA, the agency Mr. Snowden once worked for. He had retained access to the NSA’s data repositories as a security-cleared private contractor, prior to copying reams of material early this year and then flying with it to Hong Kong this summer.

Mr. Snowden leaked the materials to Mr. Greenwald in Hong Kong, prior to flying to Russia to seek asylum. The U.S. government wants to try him on espionage charges.

The leaked “CSEC – Advanced Network Tradecraft” presentation about the Olympia spying program kicks off with an allusion to Greek mythology.

It alludes to how Zeus and his sibling deities waged a 10-year battle to overthrow an older order of gods, known as the Titans. “And they said to the Titans ‘Watch Out OLYMPIAns in the house!” reads a slide in the presentation.

COLIN FREEZE AND STEPHANIE NOLEN
TORONTO AND RIO DE JANEIRO — The Globe and Mail
Published Monday, Oct. 07 2013, 7:14 AM EDT

Find this story at 7 October 2013

© Copyright 2013 The Globe and Mail Inc.

TV Globo’s Fantastico obtains exclusive access to another document leaked by former NSA analyst Edward Snowden

The Plaza of Ministries. The heart of power in Brazil. One of these buildings houses the Ministry of Mines and Energy. On the ground floor, one room is special. Its doors open only to a select few, identified by their thumbprints.
The huge noise in the small room comes from the air conditioning, used to preserve the machines. All of the ministry’s communications go through them – phone calls, e-mail, internet.

They store files with all data on the country’s energy and mineral resources. The room, called The Safe, has steel walls and is disaster-proof. According to the IT specialist, not even a fire or a collapse of the building would harm The Safe. And the protection is not just physical. This is the most secure network on the Plaza of Ministries. It has the same kind of security used by banks, for example. And yet it has been mapped by spies in surprising detail.

The Ministry of Mines and Energy has been targeted by American and Canadian spies.

Fantastico obtained exclusive access to another document leaked by former NSA intelligence analyst Edward Snowden, now exiled in Russia. This document was only identified last week. It was among thousands delivered by Snowden in Hong Kong last June to American journalist Glenn Greenwald, co-author of this story with TV Globo Reporter Sonia Bridi.

Greenwald explains that there are thousands of documents, and it takes time to read, to understand and to make the connections between them.

Over the last ten days, Bridi and Greenwald analyzed and checked the documents with help from specialists in data protection. One presentation showcases the tools employed by the Communications Security Establishment Canada – CSEC.

The target is the Ministry of Mines and Energy of Brazil. This presentation was shown last June at a yearly meeting of analysts from intelligence agencies from five countries. The group is called Five Eyes – the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Edward Snowden was present at the conference.

According to Greenwald, the documents are shared so that all are aware of what the others are doing. A computer program called Olympia shows step-b-step how all the ministry’s telephone and computer communications – including e-mails – were mapped.
The caption on one of the slides reveals the aim of the Canadian agency:
“Discover contacts of my target” – the Ministry of Mines and Energy of Brazil.
The result of this monitoring is a detailed map of the Ministry’s communications during a period not specified in the document.

Phone calls made from the Ministry to other countries were used as examples. In Ecuador, the numbers called more often are those of OLADE, the Latin American Energy Organization.
In Peru, the number belongs to the Brazilian Embassy.

Via the internet, the Canadian agency accessed communications between the Ministry’s computers and computers in countries from the Middle East, in South Africa, and in Canada itself.
Information security expert Paulo Pagliusi says He was astonished by the power of these tools. He was specially surprised by the detailed and straightforward way in which the process is explained to intelligence agents, and how thoroughly the Brazilian Ministry’s communications were dissected.

The tool identified cell phone numbers, chip registry and even make and model of the cell phones.
We found out one of them is used by the International Department of the Ministry.
Also by phone, we found another user: Paulo Cordeiro, the former Ambassador of Brazil in Canada, currently posted in the Middle East Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Contacted by Fantastico, He declined to comment.

On Friday in Brasilia, the Minister of Mines and Energy, Edison Lobão, considered the issue a very serious one. “This is a grave fact which needs to be condemned. President Dilma Rousseff already has done so strongly at the United Nations,” said Lobão.
In her speech last month at the U.N. General Assembly, President Rousseff declared, “Telecommunication and information technologies cannot become a new battlefield between States.”

President Rousseff herself and Petrobras, the oil company associated with the Ministry, have also been targeted by American spies, as Fantastico has shown exclusively. And both may have been monitored indirectly by accessing the Ministry’s servers.

These servers use private encryption, which means they are protected by a series of codes. One of the servers, for instance, is used to contact the National Oil Agency, Patrobras, Eletrobras, the National Department of Mineral Production and even the President of the Republic. These are State conversations, government strategies which no one should be able to eavesdrop.

Minister Lobão explains that the ministry often contacts different authorities, including the President, by videoconference. “It’s regrettable that all of this is being exposed to espionage.”
Three of the world’s four largest mining companies are based in Canada.

Minister Lobão claims Canada has interests in Brazil, and particularly in the mining sector. “Several Canadian companies have shown interest in our country. Whether that means the aim of this espionage is to boost business for certain groups, I can’t say.”

The main data on Brazil’s mineral reserves is public, and spying is not required to access it.
But the Ministry’s system holds strategic information. Besides Petrobras, the Ministry of Mines and Energy’s network is connected to Eletrobras; the energy research company; the National Electric Energy Agency, which regulates bids for power plant contracts; and the National Oil Agency, in charge of auctions for exploration of the pre-salt layer.

Former Eletrobras President Pinguelli Rosa considers that this information can give a competitive advantage to companies bidding at these auctions. “Whoever knows what will happen beforehand can form partnerships, or estimate the values needed to win the auction and act accordingly. This is not a trifle, it’s a game of billions of dollars.”

Greenwald concludes that the aim of this espionage, which targets a specific ministry of one country, is clearly economic. “That’s what Snowden told me in the interview three months ago in Hong Kong.”

There is no indication in the documents that the content of these communications has been accessed – only who spoke to whom, when, where, and how.

But the author of the presentation makes the next steps very clear: among the actions suggested is a joint operation with a section of the American NSA, TAO, which is the special cyberspy taskforce, for an invasion known as “Man on the Side”.

All incoming and outgoing communications in the network can be copied, but not altered.
It’s like working on a computer with someone looking over your shoulder.
For Minister Lobão, Brazil is obviously the target of an international system of surveillance.
“What kind of damages are we risking, besides the attack on our sovereignty and individual rights? Business issues, for instance. This has not been evaluated yet, and may only surface in the long run.”

The Embassy of Canada in Brasilia declared it does not comment on intelligence and security issues.

The Communications Security Establishment issued a statement declaring that the CSE does not comment on foreign signals intelligence activities.
In another statement, the National Security Agency of the United States declared: “We are not going to comment publicly on every specific alleged intelligence activity, and as a matter of policy we have made clear that the United States gathers foreign intelligence of the type gathered by all nations. As the President said in his speech at the UN General Assembly, we’ve begun to review the way that we gather intelligence, so that we properly balance the legitimate security concerns of our citizens and allies with the privacy concerns that all people share.”

TV Globo – Fantástico
Edição do dia 06/10/2013
06/10/2013 22h39

Find this story at 6 October 2013

© Copyright 2013 Globo Comunicação e Participações S.A.

One week after revealing USA surveillance of the presidents of Brazil and Mexico, Fantastico brings another exclusive.

One of the prime targets of American spies in Brazil is far away from the center of power – out at sea, deep beneath the waves. Brazilian oil. The internal computer network of Petrobras, the Brazilian oil giant partly owned by the state, has been under surveillance by the NSA, the National Security Agency of the United States.

The spying is confirmed by top secret documents leaked by Edward Snowden, and obtained exclusively by Fantastico. Snowden, an ex-intelligence analyst employed by the NSA, made these and thousands of other documents public last June. He has been given asylum by Russia.
These new disclosures contradict statements by the NSA denying espionage for economic purposes.
saiba mais

The information was found by journalist Glen Greenwald, co-author of this story along with TV Globo Reporter Sonia Bridi, amid the thousands of documents given to him by Edward Snowden in June.

This statement addressed to “The Washington Post” this week highlights that ‘The department does ***not*** engage in economic espionage in any domain, including cyber.'”

However, a top secret presentation dated May 2012 is used by the NSA to train new agents step-by-step how to access and spy upon private computer networks – the internal networks of companies, governments, financial institutions – networks designed precisely to protect information.

The name of Petrobras – Brazil’s largest company – appears right at the beginning, under the title: “MANY TARGETS USE PRIVATE NETWORKS.”

Besides Petrobras, e-mail and internet services provider Google’s infrastructure is also listed as a target. The company, often named as collaborating with the NSA, is shown here as a victim.

Other targets include French diplomats – with access to the private network of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of France – and the SWIFT network, the cooperative that unites over ten thousand banks in 212 countries and provides communications that enable international financial transactions. All transfers of money between banks across national borders goes through SWIFT.

Names of other companies and institutions on the list were blacked out in order not to compromise operations involving targets linked to terrorism.

Greenwald defends the decision to omit the names. “It’s a question of responsible journalism”, says Greenwald. “These documents contain information regarding spying against terrorists, matters of national security which should not be published, because nobody doubts that the United States, just as any other country, has the right to spy in order to guarantee national security. But there is much more information on spying on innocents, against people who have nothing to do with terrorism, or on industrial issues, which need to be made public.”

The documents are classified as “top-secret”, to be seen only by those named by the Americans as “Five Eyes” – the five countries allied in spying: the United States, Australia, Canada, Great Britain and New Zealand.

The name of Petrobras appears on several slides, as the training goes deeper in explaining how date from the target companies is monitored.

Individual folders are created for each target – and contain all the intercepted communications and IP addresses – the identification of each computer on the network – which should be immune to these attacks.

Paulo Pagliusi has a PhD in information security and has written books on the subject. He analyzed the documents for Fantastico.

“The networks in the presentation all belong to real companies. These are not made-up situations”, says Pagliusi. “Some details stand out. For instance, some numbers were blacked out. Why would they be blacked out if they weren’t real? It’s as if the instructors didn’t want the trainees to see them.”

Pagliusi points to signs that this is part of systematic spying. “You don’t obtain all of this in a single run. From what I see, this is a very consistent system that yields powerful results; it’s a very efficient form of spying,” he says.

Pagliusi concludes that this has been going on for a while: “There’s no place for amateurs in this area.”

The yearly profits of Petrobras are over 280 billion reais – US$ 120 billion. More than the GDP of many countries. And there are plenty of motives for spies to want access to the company’s protected network.

Petrobras has two supercomputers, used mainly for seismic research – which evaluate oil reserves from samples collected at sea. This is how the company mapped the Pre-salt layer, the largest discovery of new oil reserves in the world in recent years.

There is no information on the extent of the spying, nor if it managed to access the data contained in the company’s computers. It’s clear Petrobras was a target, but no documents show exactly what information the NSA searched for. But at any rate, Petrobras has strategic knowledge of deals involving billions of dollars.

For example, the details of each lot in an auction set for next month: for exploration of the Libra Field, in the Bay of Santos, part of the Pre-salt. Whether the spies had access to this information is one of the questions the Brazilian government will have to put to the United States.

Former Petrobras Director Roberto Villa considers this the greatest action in the history of oil exploration. “It’s a very peculiar auction. The auction of an area where we already know there’s oil, there’s no risk”, he says. What no one else should know, Villa says, is which are the richest lots. “Petrobras knows. And I hope only they know.” He considers that such information, if stolen, could give someone an advantage. “Someone would have an edge. If this information was leaked and someone else has obtained it, he would be in a privileged position at the auction. He’ll know where to invest and where not to. It’s a handy little secret.”

Another former Petrobras Director considers this a serious matter. “Commercially, internationally, this means a game with marked cards for some places, some countries, some friends,” says Antonio Menezes.

The Pre-salt oil is found at high seas, at depths of two thousand meters – below a layer of rocky salt, four kilometers below the ocean floor. Reaching this oil requires a lot of technology, and Petrobras is a world leader in deep-sea oil extraction.

Adriano Pires, a specialist in infrastructure, considers that spies could be specially interested in ocean-floor exploration technology. “Petrobras is the world’s number one in drilling for oil at sea. Pre-salt layers exist all around the world – there’s a pre-salt in Africa, in the Gulf of Mexico, in the North Sea. If I have this technology, I can drill for oil anywhere I want,” says Pires.

The NSA presentation contains documents prepared by the GCHQ – the British Spy agency, from a country that appears as an ally of the United States in spying. The British agency shows how two spy programs operate. “Flying Pig” and “Hush Puppy” also monitor private networks which carry supposedly secure information. These networks are known as TLS/SSL.

The presentation explains how data is intercepted, through an attack known as “Man in the Middle”. In this case, data is rerouted to the NSA central, and then relayed to its destination, without either end noticing.

A few pages ahead, the document lists the results obtained. “Results – what do we find?” “Foreign government networks”, “airlines”, “energy companies” – like Petrobras – and “financial organisations.”

TLS/SSL networks are also the security system used in financial transactions, such as when someone accesses their bank account through an ATM. The connection between a remote terminal and the bank’s central goes through a sort of secure tunnel through the internet. No one is supposed to see what travels through it.

Later, the NSA presentation shows in detail how the data of a chosen target is rerouted through spy filters beginning at the very source, until they reach the NSA’s supercomputers.

In this document the NSA names Latin America as a key target of the “SILVERZEPHYR” program, which collects the contents of voice recordings, faxes, as well as metadata, which is the overall information being transmitted in the network.

Last Sunday, Fantastico showed exclusively how the President of Brazil is a direct target of espionage.

On Thursday, President Dilma Rousseff met American counterpart Barack Obama at the G20 Summit in Russia, and she demanded explanations.

“This is what I asked: It’s very complicated for me to learn about these things through the press. I read something one day, then two days later I learn something else, and this goes on piece by piece. I’d like to know what exists (about spying). I want to know what’s going on. If there is something or not, I want to know. Is it real or not? Besides what’s been published by the press, I want to know everything they have regarding Brazil. The word ‘everything’ is very comprehensive. It means all. Every bit. In English, ‘everything’.” – the President told a press conference on Friday.

On the day Rousseff and Obama met, a story published simultaneously by British newspaper The Guardian and the American New York Times revealed that the NSA and the British GCHQ broke the protected communication codes of several internet providers – enabling them to spy on the communications of millions of people, and also on banking transactions.

The story shows that cryptography, the system of codes provided by some internet operators, comes with a built-in vulnerability, inserted on purpose by the NSA, which allows the spies to enter the system, copy, snoop, even make alterations, without leaving footprints. There is also evidence that some equipment put together in the United States comes with factory-installed spying devices.

The “New York Times” says this was done with at least one foreign government that bought American computers. But it does not reveal which government payed to be spied upon.

Lastly, another document obtained by Fantastico shows who are the spies’ clients – who gets the information obtained: American diplomats, the intelligence agencies, and the White House. It proves that spying doesn’t have as its sole purpose the fight against terrorism. On this list of objectives are also diplomatic, political and economic information.

Petrobras declined to comment. President Dilma Rousseff awaits clarifications by the U.S. government later this week.

The NSA has sent a statement attributed to James Clapper, director of National Intelligence, declaring that the agency collects information in order to give the United States and their allies early warning of international financial crises which could negatively impact the global economy and also to provide insight into other countries’ economic policy or behavior which could affect global markets.

The statement also stresses that the collected intelligence is not used “to steal the trade secrets of foreign companies on behalf of – or give intelligence we collect to – US companies to enhance their international competitiveness or increase their bottom line.”

The UK Foreign Office in London and the British Embassy in Brasilia declared they do not comment on intelligence-related issues.

Globo TV – Fantástico
Edição do dia 08/09/2013
08/09/2013 22h52 – Atualizado em 09/09/2013 00h07

Find this story at 9 September 2013

© Copyright 2013 Globo Comunicação e Participações S.A. Política de Privacidade

RIO DE JANEIRO — The Brazilian government condemned a U.S. spy program that reportedly targeted the nation’s leader, labeled it an “unacceptable invasion” of sovereignty and called Monday for international regulations to protect citizens and governments alike from cyber espionage.

In a sign that fallout over the spy program is spreading, the newspaper Folha de S.Paulo reported that President Dilma Rousseff is considering canceling her October trip to the U.S., where she has been scheduled to be honored with a state dinner. Folha cited unidentified Rousseff aides. The president’s office declined to comment.

The Foreign Ministry called in U.S. Ambassador Thomas Shannon and told him Brazil expects the White House to provide a prompt written explanation over the espionage allegations.

The action came after a report aired Sunday night on Globo TV citing 2012 documents from NSA leaker Edward Snowden that indicated the U.S. intercepted Rousseff’s emails and telephone calls, along with those of Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto, whose communications were being monitored even before he was elected as president in July 2012.

Mexico’s government said it had expressed its concerns to the U.S. ambassador and directly to the U.S. administration.

Brazilian Foreign Minister Luiz Alberto Figueiredo said, “We’re going to talk with our partners, including developed and developing nations, to evaluate how they protect themselves and to see what joint measures could be taken in the face of this grave situation.”

He added that “there has to be international regulations that prohibit citizens and governments alike from being exposed to interceptions, violations of privacy and cyberattacks.”

Justice Minister Eduardo Cardozo said at a joint news conference with Figueiredo that “from our point of view, this represents an unacceptable violation of Brazilian sovereignty.”

“This type of practice is incompatible with the confidence necessary for a strategic partnership between two nations,” Cardozo said.

Earlier, Sen. Ricardo Ferraco, head of the Brazilian Senate’s foreign relations committee, said lawmakers already had decided to formally investigate the U.S. program’s focus on Brazil because of earlier revelations that the country was a top target of the NSA spying in the region. He said the probe would likely start this week.

“I feel a mixture of amazement and indignation. It seems like there are no limits. When the phone of the president of the republic is monitored, it’s hard to imagine what else might be happening,” Ferraco told reporters in Brasilia. “It’s unacceptable that in a country like ours, where there is absolutely no climate of terrorism, that there is this type of spying.”

During the Sunday night TV program, U.S. journalist Glenn Greenwald, who lives in Rio de Janeiro and first broke the story about the NSA program in Britain’s Guardian newspaper after receiving tens of thousands of documents from Snowden, told the news program “Fantastico” that a document dated June 2012 shows that Pena Nieto’s emails were being read. The document’s date is the month before Pena Nieto was elected.

The document indicated who Pena Nieto would like to name to some government posts, among other information.

It’s not clear if the spying continues.

As for Brazil’s leader, the NSA document “doesn’t include any of Dilma’s specific intercepted messages, the way it does for Nieto,” Greenwald told The Associated Press in an email. “But it is clear in several ways that her communications were intercepted, including the use of DNI Presenter, which is a program used by NSA to open and read emails and online chats.”

The U.S. targeting mapped out the aides with whom Rousseff communicated and tracked patterns of how those aides communicated with one another and also with third parties, according to the document.

In July, Greenwald co-wrote articles in the O Globo newspaper that said documents leaked by Snowden indicate Brazil was the largest target in Latin America for the NSA program, which collected data on billions of emails and calls flowing through Brazil.

The spokesman for the U.S. Embassy in Brazil’s capital, Dean Chaves, said in an emailed response that U.S. officials wouldn’t comment “on every specific alleged intelligence activity.” But he said, “We value our relationship with Brazil, understand that they have valid concerns about these disclosures, and we will continue to engage with the Brazilian government in an effort to address those concerns.”

In Mexico City, the Mexican foreign ministry said it sent a diplomatic note to the U.S. asking for a thorough investigation of the report’s claims. It said officials also summoned the U.S. ambassador to express Mexico’s concerns.

“Without assuming the information that came out in the media is accurate, Mexico’s government rejects and condemns any espionage activity on Mexican citizens that violate international law,” the Foreign Relations Department said. “This type of practice is contrary to the Charter of the United Nations and the International Court of Justice.”

The U.S. Embassy in Mexico highlighted the “close cooperation” of Mexico and the U.S. in many areas, but said it wouldn’t comment on the NSA program or its alleged targeting of the Mexican leader.

Associated Press writer Bradley Brooks reported this story in Rio de Janeiro and Marco Sibaja reported in Brasilia. Associated Press writer Michael Weissenstein in Mexico City contributed to this report.

By BRADLEY BROOKS and MARCO SIBAJA 09/02/13 07:38 PM ET EDT

Find this story at 2 September 2013

Copyright © 2013 TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc.

Brazil says it will demand an explanation from the US after allegations that the National Security Agency (NSA) spied on Brazilian government communications.

The allegations were made by Rio-based journalist Glenn Greenwald in a programme on TV Globo on Sunday.

Mr Greenwald obtained secret files from US whistle-blower Edward Snowden.

Communications from the Mexican president were also accessed by the NSA, Mr Greenwald said.

The US ambassador to Brazil, Thomas Shannon, was briefly summoned to the Brazilian foreign ministry, “to explain” the claims made by the American journalist.

He did not speak to reporters when he left, and there have been no comments from the foreign ministry either.
‘Attack on sovereignty’

Mr Greenwald, a columnist for the British Guardian newspaper, told TV Globo’s news programme Fantastico that secret documents leaked by Edward Snowden showed how US agents had spied on communications between aides of Brazil’s President Dilma Rousseff.

Brazil’s Justice Minister Jose Eduardo Cardozo said that “if these facts prove to be true, it would be unacceptable and could be called an attack on our country’s sovereignty”.

According to the report, the NSA also used a programme to access all internet content that Ms Rousseff visited online.

Her office said the president was meeting top ministers to discuss the case.

The BBC’s Julia Carneiro in Sao Paulo says that the suspicion in Brazil as to why the United States is allegedly spying Brazilian government communications is because Brazil is a big player and there are lots of commercial interests involved.
Mexican connection

The report also alleges that the NSA monitored the communications of Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto, even before he was elected in July last year.

Mr Greenwald said that a document dating from June 2012 showed that Mr Pena Nieto’s emails were being read.

A spokesman for the Mexican foreign ministry told the Agence France Presse news agency that he had seen the report but had no comment.

The documents were provided to Mr Greenwald by ex-US intelligence analyst Edward Snowden, who was granted temporary asylum in Russia after leaking secret information to media in the US and Britain.

Mr Greenwald was the first journalist to reveal the secret documents leaked by Mr Snowden on 6 June. Since then, he has written a series of stories about surveillance by US and UK authorities.

The detention last month for nine hours at London’s Heathrow airport of Mr Greenwald’s partner, David Miranda, caused widespread controversy in the UK and abroad.

Mr Greenwald said the detention of his partner amounted to “bullying” and was “clearly intended to send a message of intimidation” to those working on the NSA revelations.

2 September 2013 Last updated at 12:20 ET

Find this story at 2 September 2013

BBC © 2013 The BBC

Une semaine après les manifestations d’indignation exprimées par les autorités politiques françaises après les révélations du Monde sur l’ampleur des interceptions électroniques réalisées, en France, par l’Agence nationale de sécurité (NSA) américaine, de nouveaux éléments montrent que cette émotion pouvait être, en partie, feinte.

Mardi 29 octobre, devant la commission du renseignement de la Chambre des représentants, le chef de la NSA, le général Keith Alexander, a juré que les informations du Monde ainsi que celles d’El Mundo, en Espagne, et de L’Espresso, en Italie, sur l’interception de communications de citoyens européens par la NSA étaient « complètement fausses ». Il a précisé qu’il s’agissait de « données fournies à la NSA » par ces mêmes partenaires européens.

Quelques heures plus tôt, le quotidien américain The Wall Street Journal, s’appuyant sur des sources anonymes, affirmait que les 70,3 millions de données téléphoniques collectées en France, par la NSA, entre le 10 décembre 2012 et le 8 janvier 2013, ont été communiquées par les services français eux-mêmes. Ces éléments auraient été transmis, selon ce journal, conformément à un accord de coopération en matière de renseignement entre les Etats-Unis et la France.

UN ACCORD DE COOPÉRATION CONNU SOUS LE NOM DE « LUSTRE »

Ces informations, qui tendent à dédouaner la NSA de toute intrusion, ne permettent de progresser dans la compréhension de l’espionnage américain dans le monde qu’à condition de les mettre en résonance avec l’éclairage apporté, le 28 octobre, par la Süddeutsche Zeitung. La presse allemande a signalé, grâce à une note dévoilée par l’ex-consultant de la NSA Edward Snowden, l’existence d’un accord de coopération sur la surveillance entre la France et les Etats-Unis connu sous le nom de « Lustre ».

Selon nos informations, recueillies auprès d’un haut responsable de la communauté du renseignement en France, la direction des services extérieurs français, la DGSE, a, en effet, établi, à partir de la fin 2011 et début 2012, un protocole d’échange de données avec les Etats-Unis.

La France bénéficie d’un positionnement stratégique en matière de transport de données électroniques. Les câbles sous-marins par lesquels transitent la plupart des données provenant d’Afrique et d’Afghanistan atterrissent à Marseille et à Penmarc’h, en Bretagne. Ces zones stratégiques sont à la portée de la DGSE française, qui intercepte et stocke l’essentiel de ce flux entre l’étranger et la France.

“UN TROC ENTRE LA DIRECTION DE LA NSA ET CELLE DE LA DGSE”

« C’est un troc qui s’est institué entre la direction de la NSA et celle de la DGSE, explique la même source. On donne des blocs entiers sur ces zones et ils nous donnent, en contrepartie, des parties du monde où nous sommes absents, mais la négociation ne s’est pas effectuée en une fois, le périmètre du partage s’élargit au fil des discussions qui se prolongent encore aujourd’hui. »

Il paraît donc, a priori, en partie exact, qu’une partie des données téléphoniques transitant sur le sol français soit transmise, conformément aux accords de coopération, et sans tri préalable, par la DGSE à la NSA. Il s’agit donc de données concernant aussi bien des citoyens français recevant des communications de ces zones géographiques que d’étrangers utilisant ces canaux.

Il paraît peu probable que le gouvernement français, qui supervise le financement des infrastructures d’interception et de stockage de la DGSE, ne soit pas au courant de ces pratiques. Ce qui relativise la sincérité des récriminations françaises après l’annonce, par Le Monde, de ces interceptions américaines.

GÉOGRAPHIE SOUS-MARINE

L’absence de statut juridique clair des métadonnées en France et l’étrange discrétion de la Commission nationale de contrôle des interceptions de sécurité (CNCIS) paraissent, de plus, avoir facilité la transmission à la NSA par la DGSE de millions de données relevant de la vie privée de millions de Français.

Au regard de la quantité des interceptions réalisées en un seul mois, la justification avancée par les services de renseignement concernant des questions liées à la lutte contre le terrorisme peut également être sujette à caution.

D’après un responsable à Matignon, la France n’est pas la seule à « troquer » ainsi les données passant sur son territoire. Elle appartiendrait à « une amicale » qui comprend des pays tels qu’Israël, la Suède ou l’Italie, vers lesquels convergent également des câbles sous-marins stratégiques pour les Américains. Depuis 2011, une nouvelle redistribution des cartes de la coopération en matière de renseignement s’est ainsi réalisée sur le seul fondement de cette géographie sous-marine.

RESPONSABILITÉ DES AUTORITÉS POLITIQUES FRANÇAISES

Ces informations viennent donc préciser celles déjà publiées par Le Monde concernant la collecte, en un mois, par la NSA, de 70,3 millions de données téléphoniques concernant la France. Qu’une partie de ces informations soient transmises avec l’assentiment de la DGSE ne change en rien son caractère attentatoire aux libertés. Ce nouvel éclairage pose avant tout la responsabilité des autorités politiques françaises. Sollicitée sur cette coopération, la DGSE s’est refusée à tout commentaire.

Par ailleurs, Le Monde maintient, sur la base des documents dévoilés par Edward Snowden permettant de décrypter les tableaux d’interceptions de données téléphoniques et numériques à travers le monde, qu’il s’agit d’opérations « contre » un pays nommé. Dans ce cas précis, la France.

Un haut responsable du renseignement français, joint, mercredi matin, a admis, sous couvert d’anonymat, l’existence de « ces échanges de données ». Il a néanmoins démenti « catégoriquement » que la DGSE puisse transférer « 70,3 millions de données à la NSA ».

LE MONDE | 30.10.2013 à 12h51
Par Jacques Follorou

Find this story at 30 October 2013

© Le Monde.fr

Während Hollande den jüngsten Lauschangriff heftig kritisiert, arbeitet Frankreich längst mit amerikanischen und britischen Geheimdiensten zusammen. Unter dem Codenamen “Lustre” hat die Regierung vor einiger Zeit einen Kooperationsvertrag geschlossen – sie ist damit nicht alleine.

Hollande kritisiert den Lauschangriff der US-Dienste und rückt näher an Merkel. Doch der Geheimdienst seines Landes arbeitet indes unter dem Codenamen “Lustre” mit dem Geheimdienstbündnis “Five Eyes” zusammen, dem neben den USA und Großbritannien auch Neuseeland, Kanada und Australien angehören. Paris liefert ihnen systematisch Informationen.

Frankreich hat ein entsprechendes Kooperationsabkommen – ein sogenanntes Drittparteiabkommen – geschlossen, wie aus Dokumenten des Whistleblowers Edward Snowden hervorgeht, die der Norddeutsche Rundfunk und die Süddeutsche Zeitung einsehen konnten.

Demnach kooperieren auch Israel (Codename Ruffle), Schweden (Codename Sardine) und Italien mit dem britischen und amerikanischen Geheimdienst. Die “Five Eyes”-Mitglieder sollen sich versprochen haben, sich nicht gegenseitig auszuspionieren. Das italienische Magazin L’Espresso berichtete unterdessen, dass Italiens Regierung ebenfalls von der NSA ausgespäht worden sein soll.

Süddeutsche Zeitung
26. Oktober 2013
Von John Goetz und Frederik Obermaier

Find this story at 26 October 2013

© Süddeutsche Zeitung Digitale Medien GmbH / Süddeutsche Zeitung GmbH

On Monday, the news broke that the National Security Agency has been actively intercepting French telephone calls and email traffic — collecting over 70 million French calls in a single month, according to Le Monde.

Turns out this is only the latest surveillance operation in a long, long history of America spying on France. A newly declassified intelligence document reveals that the NSA and its antecedents have been intercepting French communications and breaking French codes and ciphers for more than 70 years.

Monday’s Le Monde report may have generated enormous controversy in France, leading the French foreign minister to call in the U.S. ambassador and read him the riot act. But it’s hardly a new development. American eavesdroppers began listening on France during World War II. They continued doing so during the Cold War. The NSA even spied on France during the run-up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

A 1947 top-secret code-word NSA document, titled “The General Cryptanalytic Problems,” reveals that in April 1941, eight months before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, a small U.S. Army code-breaking unit, headed by French linguist Herrick F. Bearce, began trying to solve the diplomatic codes and ciphers of the Vichy French regime headed by Marshal Philippe Pétain, which had actively collaborated with Nazi Germany since the fall of France in 1940. A few months earlier, in January 1941, U.S. Army and Navy listening posts had begun intercepting Vichy diplomatic radio traffic between France and its colonies in North and West Africa, Martinique, Madagascar, Indochina, French Guiana, Djibouti, and St. Pierre et Miquelon off the Canadian coast.

Success quickly followed, indicating that the French codes and ciphers were not particularly secure. The report shows that Bearce’s cryptanalysts broke their first Vichy French code, designated FBT, shortly after the Pearl Harbor attack in mid-December 1941. The size of Bearce’s section grew by leaps and bounds as his cryptanalysts, with considerable help from their counterparts in Britain and Canada, solved several dozen Vichy encryption systems with increasing ease. The Army continued to read all of the Vichy French codes and ciphers being used until Pétain’s regime collapsed following the Allied landings in North Africa in November 1942. Within a matter of weeks, Vichy communications traffic disappeared from the airwaves except for occasional cables to the sole French colony controlled by Vichy in French Indochina (in what is now Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia).

After Pétain’s Vichy government collapsed, in April 1943 the U.S. Army code breakers turned their attention to the diplomatic codes and ciphers then being used by America’s nominal ally, Gen. Charles de Gaulle’s Free French government in exile, which was based in London but maintained embassies in the United States and elsewhere around the world. The report shows that in October 1943, the U.S. Army’s French code-breaking specialists, then headed by Maj. William F. Edgerton, solved the first of de Gaulle’s most important diplomatic cipher systems, designated FMD. In the months that followed, a half dozen other Free French diplomatic ciphers were solved.

With the solutions of these systems, decrypted French diplomatic traffic became the single most important source of intelligence information being produced by the U.S. Army’s code-breaking unit after Germany and Japan. By the time Japan surrendered in August 1945, the U.S. Army’s code breakers had broken or were working on the solution to 60 French diplomatic or military code and cipher systems, including nearly all of the high-level encryption systems used by de Gaulle and his top ministers to communicate with French diplomats and generals around the world.

The amount of intelligence information produced from decrypted French diplomatic traffic was enormous and incredibly valuable. For example, the French FMT diplomatic code, which the U.S. Army broke in February 1945, proved to be an intelligence bonanza for the United States since the messages encrypted in the system contained all of the high-level diplomatic traffic between Paris and the French delegation at an April 1945 conference in San Francisco that led to the establishment of the United Nations. In other words, the State Department officials at the San Francisco conference knew everything about the French negotiating positions even before the conference began.

But that is not the extent of the surprises contained in the newly declassified report. Buried all the way at the back of the document is a nine-page chapter titled simply “Assistance From Espionage,” which describes in some detail how the FBI and the predecessor to the CIA, then known as the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), stole countless foreign code books and cipher materials in order to help the Army’s code breakers at their work.

It turns out that much of the success enjoyed by the Army’s code breakers against the French codes and ciphers during World War II was because FBI and OSS burglars repeatedly broke into French embassies in Washington, D.C., and elsewhere around the world to steal French cryptographic materials. These “black-bag jobs” proved to be enormously useful in allowing the Army to break French codes and ciphers. The report states (p. 302) that “The French Section has been the recipient of more compromised [stolen] material than any other language group [within the Army code-breaking organization],” with the document showing that FBI and OSS burglars surreptitiously copied at least nine French codes and ciphers between 1941 and 1945.

But this is only the beginning of a story that has yet to be told. It might surprise people to learn that the NSA and its partners in Britain, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand have never stopped intercepting French diplomatic and military communications, or trying to break French codes and ciphers, since the day Japan surrendered on Aug. 14, 1945. The NSA’s intercept operators monitored French military communications in Indochina in the 1950s, as well as French military and diplomatic traffic during the Algerian insurgency in the 1960s. Much of what the U.S. intelligence community knew about the Israeli nuclear weapons program in the late 1950s and early 1960s came from intercepted French communications. And when the French government led the fight in the United Nations against the U.S. government’s plans to invade Iraq in 2002 and 2003, the NSA was listening then as well.

France may be a friend and ally of the United States, but that means very little in the U.S. intelligence community, where spying on America’s friends is as much a fact of life as spying on America’s enemies. As senior U.S. intelligence officials are fond of saying, “We have no friends, only targets.”

Matthew M. Aid is the author of Intel Wars: The Secret History of the Fight Against Terror and The Secret Sentry: The Untold History of the National Security Agency.

Posted By Matthew M. Aid
Tuesday, October 22, 2013 – 5:32 PM

Find this story at 22 October 2013

©2013 The Slate Group, LLC.

The US National Security Agency has spied on French diplomats in Washington and at the UN, according to the latest claims in Le Monde newspaper.

NSA internal memos obtained by Le Monde detailed the use of a sophisticated surveillance programme, known as Genie.

US spies allegedly hacked foreign networks, introducing the spyware into the software, routers and firewalls of millions of machines.

It comes a day after claims the NSA tapped millions of phones in France.

The details in the latest Le Monde article are based on leaks from ex-intelligence analyst Edward Snowden, through Glen Greenwald, the outgoing Guardian journalist, who is feeding the material from Brazil, says the BBC’s Christian Fraser in Paris.

It comes on the day the US Secretary of State, John Kerry, is in London meeting foreign counterparts to discuss Syria.
‘Spy implants’

The Le Monde report sets out details of Genie, an NSA surveillance programme in which spyware implants were introduced remotely to overseas computers, including foreign embassies.

It claims bugs were introduced to the French Embassy in Washington (under a code name “Wabash”) and to the computers of the French delegation at the UN, codenamed “Blackfoot”.

The article suggests that in 2011, the US allocated $652m (£402m) in funding for the programme, which was spent on “spy implants”. Tens of millions of computers were reported to have been hacked that year.

A document dated August 2010 suggests intelligence stolen from foreign embassy computers ensured the US knew ahead of time the positions of other Security Council members, before a UN vote for a resolution imposing new sanctions on Iran.

The US was worried the French were drifting to the Brazilian side – who were opposed to implementing sanctions – when in truth they were always aligned to the US position, says our correspondent.

The intelligence agency quotes Susan Rice, then-US ambassador to the UN, who praises the work done by the NSA: “It helped me know… the truth, and reveal other [countries’] positions on sanctions, allowing us to keep one step ahead in the negotiations.”

On Monday, Le Monde alleged that the NSA spied on 70.3 million phone calls in France between 10 December 2012 and 8 January 2013.

At a breakfast meeting with the US secretary of state on Tuesday, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius demanded a full explanation.

Referring to a telephone call between the French and US presidents, Mr Fabius told reporters: “I said again to John Kerry what Francois Hollande told Barack Obama, that this kind of spying conducted on a large scale by the Americans on its allies is something that is unacceptable.”

Asked if France was considering reprisals against the US, government spokeswoman Najat Vallaud-Belkacem replied: “It is up to Foreign Minister Fabius to decide what line we take but I don’t think there is any need for an escalation.

“We have to have a respectful relationship between partners, between allies. Our confidence in that has been hit but it is after all a very close, individual relationship that we have.”

Both French officials made their comments before the latest revelations appeared in Le Monde.

Mr Snowden, a former NSA worker, went public with revelations about US spying operations in June.

The information he leaked led to claims of systematic spying by the NSA and CIA on a global scale.

Targets included rivals like China and Russia, as well as allies like the EU and Brazil.

The NSA was also forced to admit it had captured email and phone data from millions of Americans.

Mr Snowden is currently in Russia, where he was granted a year-long visa after making an asylum application.

The US wants him extradited to face trial on criminal charges.

22 October 2013 Last updated at 13:36 ET

Find this story at 22 October 2013

© 2013 The BBC

Latest leaks from Edward Snowden say American agents recorded more than 70 million French phone calls in just 30 days – including those of politicians and businessmen

The French government has summoned the US ambassador in Paris to provide an explanation for fresh Edward Snowden revelations about the NSA.

According to reports this morning in Le Monde, the American National Security Agency recorded more than 70 million phone calls made France over the course of just 30 days.

If accurate, the reports are the latest indicator of the extraordinary reaching of US electronic spying, and come alongside the news that agents also hacked the email account of former Mexican president Felipe Calderon.

The French interior minister, Manuel Valls, told reporters at an EU meet in Luxembourg: “I have immediately summoned the US ambassador and he will be received this morning at the Quai d’Orsay [French Foreign Ministry].”

“Rules are obviously needed when it comes to new communication technologies, and that’s something that concerns every country,” he the Europe-1 radio station. “If a friendly country – an ally – spies on France or other European countries, that is completely unacceptable.”

Le Monde’s story, which included the byline of the outgoing Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald, said that the communications of prominent businessmen and politicians were spied on alongside those of suspected security threats.

It said the NSA had targeted Orange and Alcatel-Lucent – two of the biggest network operators in France – and that it used keyword technology and lists of certain types of numbers to automatically pick up millions of records a day.

The 70.3 million pieces of data came from 10 December 2012 and 8 January 2013, and it was not made clear whether they included the full content of conversations or just the metadata – the information of who, when and where the call was made.

The programme of surveillance, codenamed US-985D, also reportedly stored millions of intercepted text messages.

The article followed reports in the German weekly Der Spiegel that the NSA accessed the email account of Felipe Calderon, the former Mexican president. Mexico said it would be seeking an explanation from US officials “as soon as possible”.

Mr Snowden, a former contractor with the NSA who first went public about US surveillance techniques in June, warned then that he had gigabytes of data full of other revelations, to be released over time.

He is currently a refugee at an unknown location in Russia, after he was granted one year’s asylum on the condition, president Vladimir Putin said, that he stop leaking US secrets.

It is not known whether today’s revelations come straight from Mr Snowden himself, or if they are part of a large stock of data given in bulk to journalists at an earlier date.

The US has, as with other Snowden stories, refused to comment on what it calls confidential information.

Officials nonetheless referred Le Monde to a statement made in June, in which US director of national intelligence James Clapper defended the NSA’s programmes.

“They are lawful and conducted under authorities widely known and discussed, and fully debated and authorised by Congress,” he said. “Their purpose is to obtain foreign intelligence information, including information necessary to thwart terrorist and cyber-attacks against the United States and its allies.”

Adam Withnall
Monday, 21 October 2013

Find this story at 21 October 2013

© independent.co.uk

The future will perhaps tell us one day why France has remained so discreet in comparison with Germany or Brazil, for example, after the first revelations about the extent of the American electronic espionage programmes in the world as revealed by Edward Snowden, the ex-employee of an NSA (National Security Agency) sub-contractor. France was also concerned and today has at its disposition tangible proof that its interests are targeted on a daily basis.
According to the documents retrieved from the NSA database by its ex-analyst, telephone communications of French citizens are intercepted on a massive scale. Le Monde has been able to obtain access to documents which describe the techniques used to violate the secrets or simply the private life of French people. Some elements of information about this espionage have been referred to by Der Speigel and The Guardian, but others are, to date, unpublished.

Amongst the thousands of documents extracted from the NSA by its ex-employee there is a graph which describes the extent of telephone monitoring and tapping (DNR – Dial Number Recognition) carried out in France. It can be seen that over a period of thirty days – from 10 December 2012 to 8 January 2013, 70,3 million recordings of French citizens’ telephone data were made by the NSA. This agency has several methods of data collection. According to the elements obtained by Le Monde, when a telephone number is used in France, it activates a signal which automatically triggers the recording of the call. Apparently this surveillance system also picks up SMS messages and their content using key words. Finally, the NSA apparently stores the history of the connections of each target – or the meta-data.

This espionage is listed under the programme US-985D. The precise explanation of this acronym has not been provided, to date, by the Snowden documents nor by the former members of the NSA. By way of comparison, the acronyms used by the NSA for the same type of interception targeting Germany are US-987LA and US-987LB. According to some sources, this series of numbers corresponds to the circle referred to by the United States as the ‘third party’, to which belong France, Germany but also Austria, Poland or again Belgium. ‘The second party’ concerns the English-speaking countries historically close to Washington: the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand – this group is known by the name the ‘five eyes’. ‘The first party’ concerns the sixteen American secret services of which today the NSA has become the most important, according to a senior official from the French Intelligence community.

The techniques used for these interceptions appear under the codenames ‘DRTBOX’ and ‘WHITEBOX’. Their characteristics are not known either. But we do know that, thanks to DRTBOX, 62.5 million data were collected in France and that WHITEBOX enables the recording of 7.8 million elements. The documents which Le Monde has been able to see have not enabled the provision of further details on these methods. But they give sufficient explanation to lead us to think that the NSA targets concerned both people suspected of association with terrorist activities as well as people targeted simply because they belong to the worlds of business, politics or French state administration.

The NSA graph shows an average of 3 million data intercepts per day with peaks at almost 7 million on 24 December 2012 and 7 January 2013. But between 28 and 31 December no interception seems to have taken place. This apparent stoppage of activity could be explained, in particular, by the time required at the end of December 2012, for the American Congress to renew section 702 of the law dealing with electronic espionage abroad. Similarly nothing appears on the 3, 5 and 6 January 2013; this time we cannot suggest any plausible reason. Many questions are still posed by this diagram – to start with the precise identity of the targets and the justifications for such a large-scale collection of data in a foreign country which is both sovereign and an ally.

When questioned, the American authorities did not wish to comment on these documents which they considered to be ‘classified’. Nevertheless, they do refer to the statement made on 8 June 2013 by the Director of National Intelligence according to which, ‘the government cannot target anyone under the court-approved procedures for Section 702 collection unless there is an appropriate, and document foreign intelligence purpose for the acquisition (such as for the prevention of terrorism, hostile cyber activities, or nuclear proliferation) and the foreign target is reasonably believed to be outside the United States. We cannot target even foreign persons overseas without a valid foreign intelligence purpose.

France is not the country in which the NSA intercepts the most digital or telephone connections. The ‘Boundless Informant’ system, revealed in June by Edward Snowden to the British daily The Guardian, enabled an overall vision and in real time of the information gathered throughout the world, by means of the various NSA wire-tapping systems. This system gathers not only telephone data (DNR) but also digital data (DNI Digital Network Intelligence). One of the documents which Le Monde was able to consult notes that between 8 February and 8 March 2013, the NSA collected, throughout the world, 124,8 billion telephone data items and 97,1 billion computer data items. In Europe, only Germany and the United Kingdom exceed France in terms of numbers of interceptions.

Le Monde.fr
21.10.2013 à 06h08
Par Jacques Follorou et Glenn Greenwald (Journaliste)

Find this story at 21 October 2013

© Le Monde.fr

Agents said to have intercepted 70 million calls and text messages a month
France had previously blamed the United States of America
U.S. was first suspected of hacking into Nicolas Sarkozy’s phone in 2012
Americans insisted they have never been behind hacking in France
Comes after it emerged German officials are planning trip to U.S. to discuss allegations Angela Merkel’s phone was hack by the NSA
The German Chancellor said President Obama’s reputation has been shattered on an international scale because of espionage scandal

Israel and not America was behind the hacking of millions of French phones, it was claimed today.

In the latest extraordinary twist in the global eavesdropping scandal, Israeli agents are said to have intercepted more than 70 million calls and text messages a month.

Up until now the French have been blaming the U.S., even summoning the country’s Paris ambassador to provide an explanation.

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France first suspected the U.S. of hacking into former president Nicolas Sarkozy’s communications network when he was unsuccessfully trying for re-election in 2012

But today’s Le Monde newspaper provides evidence that it was in fact Israeli agents who were listening in.

France first suspected the U.S. of hacking into former president Nicolas Sarkozy’s communications network when he was unsuccessfully trying for re-election in 2012.

Intelligence officials Bernard Barbier and Patrick Pailloux travelled from Paris to Washington to demand an explanation, but the Americans hinted that the Israelis were to blame.

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The Americans insisted they have never been behind any hacking in France, and were always keen to get on with the French, whom they viewed as some of their closest allies.

They were so determined to be friends with the French, that U.S. briefing notes included details of how to pronounce the names of the Gallic officials.

A note published in Le Monde shows that the Americans refused to rule out Mossad, Israel’s notoriously uncompromising intelligence agency, or the ISNU, Israel’s cyber-intelligence unit.

Today’s newspaper report was co-written by Glenn Greenwald, whose main contact is NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden (pictured)

Tailored Access Operations (TAO), the branch of the US National Security Agency (NSA) which deals with cyber-attacks, is referred to throughout the note.

It reads: ‘TAO intentionally did not ask either Mossad or ISNU whether they were involved as France is not an approved target for joint discussions.’

Le Monde’s article, co-authored by U.S. journalist Glenn Greenwald, whose main contact is NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, however, hints that the Israelis were doing the spying.

Both US and French intelligence work closely with Mossad, but there is known to be a great deal of suspicion between all the agencies.

A 2008 NSA note says that the Israelis are ‘excellent partners in terms of sharing information’, but it also says that Mossad is ‘the third most aggressive intelligence service in the world against the United States’.

A spokesman for the Israeli government told Le Monde: ‘Israel is a country which is a friend, ally and partner of France and does not carry out any hostile activity which could pose a threat to its security.’

France has complained in the past about Mossad’s use of its soil to plan so called black operations including the 2010 assassination in Dubai of Mahmoud Al-Mabhouh of the Palestinian movement Hamas.

The revelation comes after senior German officials said they would be travelling to the U.S. ‘shortly’ to talk about allegations the NSA bugged Angela Merkel’s phone.
Obama orders review of surveillance activities

Anger: German Chancellor Angela Merkel (left) and Brazil’s Dilma Rousseff (right) have both voiced concerns over the NSA’s infiltration of the online communications of foreigners

The heads of Germany’s foreign and domestic intelligence agencies will participate in high-level discussions with the White House and National Security Agency, government spokesman Georg Streiter said.

News of the talks signals an escalation in the diplomatic tensions between the U.S. and its allies after it was claimed the NSA had monitored the calls of 35 world leaders.

Brazil and Germany have joined forces in an attempt to pile pressure on the United Nations to rein in the snooping activities. They want a UN General Resolution that promotes the right to online privacy.

This step, the first major international response to the NSA’s infiltration of the online communications of foreigners, comes after German Chancellor Merkel said the recent U.S. espionage scandal has shattered international trust in Barack Obama.

Angela Merkel said the recent espionage scandal has shattered international trust in President Obama

Not hacked: The White House has denied that David Cameron’s communications were ever monitored

A month earlier Brazil’s president Dilma Rousseff branded the NSA’s clandestine activities ‘a breach of international law’ in a speech to the UN General Assembly and demanded steps be made to stop ‘cyberspace from being used as a weapon of war’.

Brazilian and German diplomats met in New York yesterday to thrash out a draft resolution demanding the strengthening of privacy rights in the International Covenant Civil and Political Rights.

While the UN has no real power to reign in the NSA, there are fears among security experts that the effort alone could signal a growing consensus to freeze the US out of future international security dialogues.

By Nabila Ramdani

PUBLISHED: 16:32 GMT, 25 October 2013 | UPDATED: 20:46 GMT, 25 October 2013

Find this story at 25 October 2013

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