4 ms·

NSA Contracts Israeli Company for Wiretapping

36 points by kumarski 14y ago

deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
stephengillie 14y ago
According to a former Verizon employee briefed on the program, Verint, owned by Comverse Technology, taps the communication lines at Verizon, which I first reported in my book The Shadow Factory in 2008. Verint did not return a call seeking comment, while Verizon said it does not comment on such matters. At AT&T the wiretapping rooms are powered by software and hardware from Narus, now owned by Boeing, a discovery made by AT&T whistleblower Mark Klein in 2004. Narus did not return a call seeking comment. Pardon my ignorance, but why is the connection to Israel bad?
- kumarski 14y ago
  Not sure there is a bad connection. The fact that we're outsourcing our invasion of privacy to a foreign corporation is already hard to digest for many people.
  - otoburb 14y ago
    Please keep in mind even if (in this case) Verint's solution (software and hardware) may be tapping/intercepting data, whether they are allowed to view the data is a different matter. In most of those cases, 3rd party solutions are deployed (install, configured, integrated) and supported by the vendors, but they typically don't have direct access to the intercepted data. Of course, that's not to say that these 3rd parties couldn't get access to intercepted data if they really wanted to. But I want to point out that carrier policies (usually) dictate a strict separation of concerns specifically designed to protect privacy so that such data only available to carrier security teams and law enforcement personnel.
    - joewee 14y ago
      ...right because Intelligence Agencies have no experience at building complex back doors into products...yeah, that never happens...
- ucee054 14y ago
  Well the connection to Israel IS bad, but in this case it's more like a connection to Mossad. If you can't work out why that's bad, try substituting Russian FSB, Iranian Revolutionary Guards or Chinese PSB for Mossad in the sentence above. If you still can't work out why it's bad to outsource a security responsibility to a foreign intelligence service, please never get a job in counterintelligence.
- rdtsc 14y ago
  I feel like it should have been you justifying your belief why this normal, instead of asking everyone to justify why it is bad.
mtgx 14y ago
Is this so they can say they did it, not us?
- rhizome 14y ago
  Israel is the India of the US Defense contracting.
- mindslight 14y ago
  Bingo. The NSA, really the USG writ large, only 'respects' the constitution to politically cover their asses and to claim they're bound by some sort of rules (no matter how broken those rules actually are). By now, it should be sparkling clear that these organizations have no respect for the ideals that the constitution attempted to enshrine, namely personal freedom and a government subservient to the people, and they should be continually called out as the illegitimate charlatans they are. I can't claim to have a specific way of ousting these parasites, but I can assert that any such way doesn't involve constitutional fundamentalism, D/R consent voting, incremental hopechange, believing authoritarian propaganda, narrowing the blame to a few 'bad apples', flag waving, or pushing the reality of the situation to the back of your conscience.
  - jasonwatkinspdx 14y ago
    That's not entirely fair. It's not like every single person in these huge institutions is craven unprincipled authoritarian. But there are clear cultural problems, and a broader political failure that enables these flaws to escape accountability. I wish I had an easy answer, but sadly, I think the way things will go is that they'll get worse before they get better, and the process of change will not be easy. In the meantime, a great many largely innocent people are going to get ground up in the gears of the system our society is building.
    - mindslight 14y ago
      The specifics of the individuals and their beliefs don't matter, the ultimate behavior of the institutions is corrupt. Talking about culture and notions of accountability is missing the forest for the trees - any resulting reforms will simply be received as 'what hoops do we have to jump through now?'. The only way to stop the NSA from performing surveillance on everybody is to completely remove their on-books funding and then dismantle the remaining criminal organization.
mrschwabe 14y ago
Also note that Google has a secret working relationship with the NSA so thoeretically your search data is also being 'outsourced' to Israel. http://www.pcworld.com/article/217550/google_comes_under_fire_for_secret_relationship_with_nsa.html http://www.pcworld.com/article/217550/google_comes_under_fir...

36 points by kumarski 14y ago

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

According to a former Verizon employee briefed on the program, Verint, owned by Comverse Technology, taps the communication lines at Verizon, which I first reported in my book The Shadow Factory in 2008. Verint did not return a call seeking comment, while Verizon said it does not comment on such matters. At AT&T the wiretapping rooms are powered by software and hardware from Narus, now owned by Boeing, a discovery made by AT&T whistleblower Mark Klein in 2004. Narus did not return a call seeking comment. Pardon my ignorance, but why is the connection to Israel bad?

kumarski 14y ago
Not sure there is a bad connection. The fact that we're outsourcing our invasion of privacy to a foreign corporation is already hard to digest for many people.
- otoburb 14y ago
  Please keep in mind even if (in this case) Verint's solution (software and hardware) may be tapping/intercepting data, whether they are allowed to view the data is a different matter. In most of those cases, 3rd party solutions are deployed (install, configured, integrated) and supported by the vendors, but they typically don't have direct access to the intercepted data. Of course, that's not to say that these 3rd parties couldn't get access to intercepted data if they really wanted to. But I want to point out that carrier policies (usually) dictate a strict separation of concerns specifically designed to protect privacy so that such data only available to carrier security teams and law enforcement personnel.
  - joewee 14y ago
    ...right because Intelligence Agencies have no experience at building complex back doors into products...yeah, that never happens...
ucee054 14y ago
Well the connection to Israel IS bad, but in this case it's more like a connection to Mossad. If you can't work out why that's bad, try substituting Russian FSB, Iranian Revolutionary Guards or Chinese PSB for Mossad in the sentence above. If you still can't work out why it's bad to outsource a security responsibility to a foreign intelligence service, please never get a job in counterintelligence.
rdtsc 14y ago
I feel like it should have been you justifying your belief why this normal, instead of asking everyone to justify why it is bad.

mtgx 14y ago

Is this so they can say they did it, not us?

rhizome 14y ago
Israel is the India of the US Defense contracting.
mindslight 14y ago
Bingo. The NSA, really the USG writ large, only 'respects' the constitution to politically cover their asses and to claim they're bound by some sort of rules (no matter how broken those rules actually are). By now, it should be sparkling clear that these organizations have no respect for the ideals that the constitution attempted to enshrine, namely personal freedom and a government subservient to the people, and they should be continually called out as the illegitimate charlatans they are. I can't claim to have a specific way of ousting these parasites, but I can assert that any such way doesn't involve constitutional fundamentalism, D/R consent voting, incremental hopechange, believing authoritarian propaganda, narrowing the blame to a few 'bad apples', flag waving, or pushing the reality of the situation to the back of your conscience.
- jasonwatkinspdx 14y ago
  That's not entirely fair. It's not like every single person in these huge institutions is craven unprincipled authoritarian. But there are clear cultural problems, and a broader political failure that enables these flaws to escape accountability. I wish I had an easy answer, but sadly, I think the way things will go is that they'll get worse before they get better, and the process of change will not be easy. In the meantime, a great many largely innocent people are going to get ground up in the gears of the system our society is building.
  - mindslight 14y ago
    The specifics of the individuals and their beliefs don't matter, the ultimate behavior of the institutions is corrupt. Talking about culture and notions of accountability is missing the forest for the trees - any resulting reforms will simply be received as 'what hoops do we have to jump through now?'. The only way to stop the NSA from performing surveillance on everybody is to completely remove their on-books funding and then dismantle the remaining criminal organization.

mrschwabe 14y ago

Also note that Google has a secret working relationship with the NSA so thoeretically your search data is also being 'outsourced' to Israel. http://www.pcworld.com/article/217550/google_comes_under_fire_for_secret_relationship_with_nsa.html http://www.pcworld.com/article/217550/google_comes_under_fir...