NSA Publishes: Survey of Videoconferencing Apps

Selecting and Safely Using Collaboration Services for Telework
During a global pandemic or other crisis contingency scenarios, many United States Government (USG) personnel must operate from home while continuing to perform critical national functions and support continuity of government services. With limited access to government furnished equipment (GFE) such as laptops and secure smartphones, the use of (not typically approved) commercial collaboration services on personal devices for limited government official use becomes necessary and unavoidable. survey

National Security Agency (NSA) - 136 issues of its internal Cryptolog periodical spanning 1974 through 1997.

Five years ago, the National Security Agency (NSA) released 136 issues of its internal Cryptolog periodical spanning 1974 through 1997. The collection offered a look into the some of the discussions being held within one of America’s most secretive intelligence agencies. Today the GWU-based National Security Archive is providing a complete index of all 1,504 items in the declassified collection, including but not limited to articles, interviews, and puzzles. more

Happy 64th Birthday NSA

The National Security Agency celebrates its 64th birthday today.

The agency was established on Nov. 4, 1952, by President Harry Truman in the wake of World War II.

More information about NSA and its history is available online at nsa.gov.

NSA's Untangling the Web, A Guide to Internet Research

Want to learn how to search like a spy? 
This 600+ page tome will help you do it.

Untangling the Web, A Guide to Internet Research – has just been declassified, to satisfy a Freedom of Information Request. Download the irony here.

(Originally posted in 2013. Back by popular demand.)

Intriguing Spy Stories From Internal NSA Reports

In the early months of 2003, the National Security Agency saw demand for its services spike

as a new war in Iraq, as well as ongoing and profound changes in how people used the internet, added to a torrent of new agency work related to the war on terror, according to a review of 166 articles from a restricted agency newsletter.

The Intercept today is releasing the first three months of SIDtoday, March 31 through the end of June 2003, using files provided by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden. In addition, we are releasing any subsequent 2003 installments of SIDtoday series that began during this period. The files are available for download here.

We combed through these files with help from other writers and editors with an eye toward finding the most interesting stories... more

The NSA does excellent behind-the-scenes work. Since some of their work is now public you can now be thankful and proud. ~Kevin

Slow News Day in Spiesville

Disorder Convinced This Guy His Cat Was a Spy
You may have heard of Capgras syndrome, an eerie delusion that convinces people their loved ones have been replaced with nefarious clones. This is like that, only eerier: Due to what appeared to be a version of that syndrome, a 71-year-old man became “obsessed” with the idea that his cat had recently been replaced with an impostor cat, sent by the FBI to spy on him. The man’s ordeal was recently reported by the Discover blog Neuroskeptic, drawing from the case study in the journal Neurocase.

The Patient: This man, who is not named, had a history of heavy drinking and head injuries from his ice-hockey days; he had also been diagnosed with bipolar disorder. About six years before the cat-related delusion began, he stopped taking his anti-psychotics and soon became “acutely paranoid." The case-report authors write that he would pass his wife "written notes stating that their house was being monitored, and often mistook persons in parking lots for Federal Bureau of Investigation agents.” more

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Edward Snowden inspires spy video game

A new video game aiming to expose “suffocating privacy invasions” carried out by intelligence agencies has drawn some of its inspiration from controversial National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden.

The game, called “Need to Know,” requires players to climb the ranks of the fictional “Department of Liberty,” a government agency seemingly based on the NSA, whose mass surveillance programs Mr. Snowden exposed through leaks in 2013, Newsweek reported.

Players must decide whether to spy on citizens to gain information or leak intel from the department to underground media groups.

The game was developed by Australia-based Monomyth Games. The company hopes to raise $29,000 through crowdfunding to complete the game.

“Electronic surveillance is a huge issue for everyone today, and will only grow more pressing,” the game’s Kickstarter page reads. “Need to Know lets you spy on citizens’ texts, emails, geodata, and much more. How you’ll use this information is where the real excitement (and moral conflict) begins.” more

NSA Spy Cam Blocker

That little front facing camera on your laptop or tablet... 

can be a window for the world to see you - whether you know it or not! Stop hackers and the NSA with this simple camera blocker. Safe and practical. more

iPhones Have Built-in Spyware - Well, duh.

NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden has claimed that Apple’s iPhone range of devices contains built-in spy software that can be used to track the owner.

According to Snowden’s lawyer, the software can be remotely activated at any time without the user’s knowledge.
(more)

...thus upstaging Santa's naughty and nice list...

The US National Security Agency (NSA) published transparency reports on its web page at 1:30 pm on Christmas Eve.

Time span of the reports is from the fourth quarter of 2001 to the second quarter of 2013. The reports were released after the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) issued a Freedom of Information Act request for the information.
(more)

Hey Kids! You Too Can Have Cool NSA Spy Toys

Welcome to the home of the NSA Playset.

In the coming months and beyond, we will release a series of dead simple, easy to use tools to enable the next generation of security researchers. We, the security community have learned a lot in the past couple decades, yet the general public is still ill equipped to deal with real threats that face them every day, and ill informed as to what is possible.

Inspired by the NSA ANT catalog, we hope the NSA Playset will make cutting edge security tools more accessible, easier to understand, and harder to forget. Now you can play along with the NSA! (more) 

If you are thinking of contributing a new NSA Playset project, please keep in mind the following requirements:

1. A Silly Name
If your project is similar to an existing NSA ANT project, you can come up with a clever play on that name. For example, if your project is similar to FOXACID, maybe you could call it COYOTEMETH. Of course, if your project doesn't quite line up with anything in the ANT Catalog, you can come up with your own name. If you are feeling less creative, try out the handy name generator found here: http://www.nsanamegenerator.com/ (more)

Spy Bits

ISM Bugging Out
The revelation this week that the International Spy Museum would be once again hitting the pavement in search of a new home got us thinking: Where else in the District might work for the popular museum? (more)

ISIS Changing Name

During the premiere episode of the sixth season of Archer, FX’s outrageously funny animated spy series, spy matriarch Malory Archer is seen speaking on the phone with her juvenile, coddled son. In the background, you can see two movers rolling out a large, circular blue ISIS sign... for the past five seasons, ISIS (International Secret Intelligence Service) has been the name for the underground, non-government approved, New York City-based spy organization at the heart of the show. In light of recent events, however, creator Adam Reed along with executive producers Matt Thompson and Casey Willis—made a decision to quietly eliminate the acronym from their show. (more)

HHSC Wants Blimpies
Rep. Michael McCaul, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, said Friday that he wants to redeploy U.S. military spy blimps in Afghanistan to America’s southern border. (more) Poop on them if they don't know about this. (more)

Former NSA Head Said 
“Our data’s in there (NSA databases), my data’s in there. If I talk to an Al Qaeda operative, the chances of my data being looked at is really good, so I try not to do that. If you don’t want to you shouldn’t either,” he told MIRcon delegates. (more)

Middle-School Dropout Codes Clever Chat Program That Foils NSA Spying

The National Security Agency has some of the brightest minds... But a new chat program designed by a middle-school dropout in his spare time may turn out to be one of the best solutions to thwart those efforts... 

John Brooks, who is just 22 and a self-taught coder who dropped out of school at 13, was always concerned about privacy and civil liberties. Four years ago he began work on a program for encrypted instant messaging that uses Tor hidden services for the protected transmission of communications. The program, which he dubbed Ricochet, began as a hobby. But by the time he finished, he had a full-fledged desktop client...

“Ricochet is idiot-proof and anonymous.” (more)

NSA Quits Spying on Americans Out of Disgust

Citing an endless river of filth, vacuous conversations, idiotic Tweets and endless cat videos, the NSA announced it is “freaking done” with spying on Americans.

The NSA decision came only hours after thousands of analysts, following similar threats at CIA, said they planned to quit and apply for jobs as Apple Geniuses and Best Buy Geek Squad Support workers. 

Speaking on background, one disgruntled NSA employee said “Go ahead, throw me in jail for an Espionage Act violation, that would be better than doing this job." (more)

The NSA is Inventive - Just Look at Their Patents

What do a voice identifier, an automated translator, a "tamper-indicating" document tube, and a supersecure manhole cover have in common? They're all technologies for which the secretive National Security Agency (NSA) has been granted patents by the U.S. government, giving the agency the exclusive rights to its inventions.

The four technologies represent a tiny fraction of the more than 270 sleuthy devices, methods, and designs for which the nation's biggest intelligence agency has been granted a patent since 1979, the earliest year for which public figures are available. As the patent holder, the NSA can license the particular technology -- for a fee -- to anyone who wants to use it, so long as the patent hasn't expired.

The NSA's cryptologists and computer scientists have been busy over the years inventing methods of encrypting data, analyzing voice recordings, transferring digital files, and removing distortion from intercepted communications -- all things you'd expect from the world's largest and most sophisticated eavesdropping agency. And the digital spooks have patented gadgets straight out of a James Bond flick, such as tamper-indicating envelopes and finely tuned radio antennas. (more) (The List)

The NSA Speaks (humor)

The NSA addresses allegations that the U.S. has been spying on Germany. (video)

Infographic - NSA Interactive Spy Chart

This is a plot of the NSA programs revealed in the past year according to whether they are bulk or targeted, and whether the targets of surveillance are foreign or domestic. Most of the programs fall squarely into the agency’s stated mission of foreign surveillance, but some – particularly those that are both domestic and broad-sweeping – are more controversial.

Click to see whole chart.

Just as with the New York Magazine approval matrix that served as our inspiration, the placement of each program is based on judgments and is approximate.
For more details, read our FAQ or listen to our podcast. Also, take our quiz to test your NSA knowledge. (more)

Supposed NSA Surveillance Trigger Words Blacklist

The List.

...and the project to which they are linked.

NSA News Prompts Dance Rap Music Video

An anti-mass-surveillance music video by Shahid Buttar, director of the Bill of Rights Defense Committee. Download the extended dance floor mix. The lyrics (annotated with hyperlinks). (more)

How Your iPhone Could Eavesdrop on You Even When Switched-Off

...Like any magic trick, the most plausible method of eavesdropping through a switched-off phone starts with an illusion. Security researchers posit that if an attacker has a chance to install malware before you shut down your phone, that software could make the phone look like it’s shutting down—complete with a fake “slide to power off” screen. Instead of powering down, it enters a low-power mode that leaves its baseband chip—which controls communication with the carrier—on.

This “playing dead” state would allow the phone to receive commands, including one to activate its microphone, says Eric McDonald, a hardware engineer in Los Angeles. McDonald is also a member of the Evad3rs, a team of iPhone hackers who created jailbreaks for the two previous iPhone operating systems. If the NSA used an exploit like those McDonald’s worked on to infect phone with malware that fakes a shutdown, “the screen would look black and nothing would happen if you pressed buttons,” he says. “But it’s conceivable that the baseband is still on, or turns on periodically. And it would be very difficult to know whether the phone has been compromised.”

The Solution
McDonald suggests users turn off their iPhones by putting them into device firmware upgrade (DFU) mode, a kind of “panic” state designed to let the phone reinstall its firmware or recover from repeated operating system crashes. In DFU mode, says McDonald, all elements of the phone are entirely shut down except its USB port, which is designed to wait for a signal from iTunes to install new firmware. (more)


P.S. If you do this, be sure to watch the tutorial about getting your iPhone out of DFU mode.

Claims Of N.S.A. Bugging ‘Will Not Affect Tourism’ (Wait? What?!?!)

The Bahamas - A top hotel executive doesn’t believe the Bahamas’ tourism industry will be affected by revelations that the US’ National Security Agency (NSA) may be recording all cell phone calls in the country.

Baha Mar’s Senior Vice President Robert Sands said yesterday that the allegations of cell phone spying probably happens to many other countries around the world.

We all live in different communities from different parts of the world where the government makes the best decision that’s in the best interest of the sovereignty of its nation,” Mr Sands said, when asked to comment on the allegations and the repercussions they may have on the millions of visitors who visit the country each year. 

“It will have no impact on our tourism industry.” (more)

Don't you just love the optimism and élan of Bahamians. No stress. No worries. "It's better in The Bahamas!" (sing-a-long)