Report: NSA can access most smartphone data

AP via knoxnews.com ^ | September 8, 2013 | Frank Jordans

[John W]

BERLIN (AP) — The U.S. National Security Agency is able to crack protective measures on iPhones, BlackBerry and Android devices, giving it access to users' data on all major smartphones, according to a report Sunday in German news weekly Der Spiegel.

The magazine cited internal documents from the NSA and its British counterpart GCHQ in which the agencies describe setting up dedicated teams for each type of phone as part of their effort to gather intelligence on potential threats such as terrorists.

The data obtained this way includes contacts, call lists, SMS traffic, notes and location information, Der Spiegel reported. The documents don't indicate that the NSA is conducting mass surveillance of phone users but rather that these techniques are used to eavesdrop on specific individuals, the magazine said.

[ilgipper]

Sorry, but the fact that this stands and does not have American citizens in an uproar tells me a lot about the state of our nation. This is the single greatest invasion of privacy and invasion of our constitutional rights in history.

[basil]

I’m very happy with my dumb phone. I can no nothing with it but make and receive phone calls.

[varyouga]

Phone calls that are logged and transcribed by machine into text

[RayChuang88]

The NSA has more supercomputer access than anyone else on Earth. If they can break 1024-bit encryption, they could easily track all cellphone calls.

[basil]

Whatever-—I simply don’t care any more, and if anyone is interested in my phone conversations, I beg them to get a life.

[Grampa Dave]

This is probably the main reason, NSA, is building its massive data storage center in Utah. With millions of smart phones in the US and our allies, a lot of storage must be needed.

” The U.S. National Security Agency is able to crack protective measures on iPhones, BlackBerry and Android devices, giving it access to users’ data on all major smartphones, according to a report Sunday in German news weekly Der Spiegel.”

[servantboy777]

Americans ARE in an uproar. They are in an uproar in regards to the IRS targeting as well.

But....they know, nothing will be done to change it.

Webs of cameras being installed “Britain style”, Surveillance drones being deployed across America, DHS grants to local law enforcement to militarize their operations, Every alphabet agency deploying swat units, federal gubbamint attempting to dry up ammunition supplies, LEO raids on Amish dairy farms, home schools, private community gardens, private businesses.

What’cha gonna do? You call, you write, you attend townhalls...what else can a citizen do? They are NOT listening.

[DonaldC]

And if they can access data, they can plant data.

[Joe Boucher]

not doing too much illegal here for these maggots to see, other than me calling them at best maggots

[rarestia]

If they can break 1024-bit encryption

Show me where they claim to be able to do this. The NSA has done nothing intelligent when it comes to encryption. They've seeded back doors into applications and brute-forced very simple private keys, but actually decrypting RSA 1024-bit encryption is not possible with even the most advanced farms of servers. Not yet, anyway. Quantum computing is a ways off. With current hardware, even in the best case scenarios and an estimated 100,000 dual-octo core processor servers with 1TB/s fiber backplanes, it would take over 10 years to crack a properly-implemented encryption algorithm assuming large primes greater than or equal to half of the large primes used below 1024-bit encryption or greater than 75% of large primes.

[adorno]

You call, you write, you attend townhalls...what else can a citizen do? They are NOT listening.

Chances are that by now, the vast majority of people have heard about NSA spying. But, to the majority, it's not their problem, since, they believe that, they have nothing to hide or useful to the government.

In addition, the people running the government and making the decisions, were put into office by a coalition of the clueless and the government dependents, which in reality, is more than 50% of the population. When 43-47% of the population doesn't pay federal taxes, and when most of them need some sort of government assistance, they will be voting for the people who can continue giving them things from government. Thus, the country is doomed. The NSA spying and EPA abuses and FBI targeting of reporters and the issue of Benghazi, is all foreign to most of the people who seek big government to take care of them, and they couldn't care less about any of those issues. They care more about keeping their benefits and freebies flowing their way.

It's the "what's in it for me" mentality. They can't relate to the issues, as long as those issues don't take away their freebies and benefits.

[RayChuang88]

You assertion may be true if you're talking standard commercially available hardware used on most supercomputer systems.

But the NSA has supposed worked with IBM on special dedicated computer hardware designed specifically for breaking encryption, which means custom made hardware including the processing chips. If that's the case, the NSA is many steps ahead of everyone else in breaking encryption, since by using dedicated hardware the time needed to break the encryption is vastly shorter.

[Paladin2]

"It's the "what's in it for me" mentality."

Then there is the "I'm not slaving away to fund this nonsense anymore" mentality .

[Grampa Dave]

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3064092/posts

Obama administration had restrictions on NSA reversed in 2011
The Washington Post ^ | Ellen Nakashima

Posted on Sunday, September 08, 2013 6:59:34 AM by originalbuckeye

The Obama administration secretly won permission from a surveillance court in 2011 to reverse restrictions on the National Security Agency’s use of intercepted phone calls and e-mails, permitting the agency to search deliberately for Americans’ communications in its massive databases, according to interviews with government officials and recently declassified material.

In addition, the court extended the length of time that the NSA is allowed to retain intercepted U.S. communications from five years to six years — and more under special circumstances, according to the documents, which include a recently released 2011 opinion by U.S. District Judge John D. Bates, then chief judge of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.

[Vaduz]

Techniques are used to eavesdrop on specific individuals.
Looks like the only way to have security is talk face to face only.

[Nita Nupress]

Well, i would hope the NSA has this capability, because their Chinese counterparts do. The only thing i wonder when i read this stuff is how often the NSA impersonates the Chinese & Russian state-sponsered hackers to obfuscate their cybertracks.

Once you wrap your head around the intrusion capabilities of these freaks to get past the paranoia stage, it can even be a source of entertainment. We’ve created our own redneck-based language to use in front of phones, computers, etc., and it can get quite hilarious at times. Our latest entertainment involved trying to inject the uniquely illiterate “Honey-BooBoo Family Phonics” into our own vernacular. Lol! Have you ever tried speaking a complete sentence without ever closing your lips to form the words?

[kdot]

Correct. “Plant” in data terms means INSERT, UPDATE, or DELETE. It just depends on who needs what. Easier than you think.

[rarestia]

I hedge everything I say with the phrase “properly-implemented.” That means no root CAs with 10+ year expiry, no intermediate CAs with greater than 2 year expiry, no encryption hashes under 1024-bit, symmetric key generation, 45 day password change requirements with >12-character, symalphanumeric (symbols, letters, and numbers) with no repeatability, mandatory two-factor authentication (what I have and what I know), and no local key generation (all keys generated on a non-Internet-connected machine).

I’m not saying that they can’t crack it all, ever, but the amount of effort required to read my personal documents, emails, browser history, and secure transactional databases is such that they will need a really good lead to think I’m even remotely worth the effort.

Essentially, I’m hedging against someone planting incriminating data on any of my devices in the event someone or entity wants to take me down. I’m prepared to die with my complex passwords.

[Bobalu]

What we need is an open-source smart phone.

All this closed-source equipment is the NSAs playground.

The government has access to the source code for cellphones and smart phones...I’m sure of this. The reason I am sure is that you must have that source code to modify a smart phone to add really strong encryption abilities to the phone. With that level of encryption the phone becomes as secure as the older STU3 secure phones. You see government officials using smart phones all the time, even the president has one. These phones are secure.

They probably forced the companies to hand over the source code :-( With the source they can write patches and put them onto your phone and make it dance to their tune.