FBI Exploits Known Security Holes in Consumer Tech

If PRISM, X-Keyscore, and other NSA programs weren't enough, this new revelation is definitely over the top. NSA Chief Alexander had to go to Blackhat this year to basically plead for support of his programs from the hacker community. Still, it's never enough. Even the FBI is starting to pick up bad habits. According to an ex-official, the FBI turns on embedded mica in Android devices and laptops to record conversations with no indication for the user.
Private sector companies are even beginning to advertise to the NSA that their products come with "unknown" security holes that allow for cyber surveillance. Plus, since the public doesn't know about the holes, you can't patch them up.

Just When You Thought the NSA Was Done: X-Keyscore Spying Project Revealed

A new NSA program, named X-Keyscore was leaked today. This project can give an NSA analyst access to almost everything a citizen does on the Internet.

When revealing PRISM, Edward Snowden claimed all he needed as an NSA operative was an email address to wiretap virtually anyone. As Edward Snowden said to the Guardian on June 10, “I, sitting at my desk could wiretap anyone, from you or your accountant, to a federal judge or even the president, if I had a personal email.” He was talking about the X-Keyscore project.

This system is available for use by NSA analysts and does not require a warrant. The "warranting procedure" is that you request data on certain individuals. X-Keyscore will keyword search data beginning and ending in the US. The system can search social media data as well as Internet sites.

The data searched is not permanent, due to that the system gathers billions of records a day. The databases can simply not hold all of these records, so every few days, the databases empty, and the process begins all over again. The NSA claims that these searches are aimed completely at overseas targets, and not at American citizens.

“X-Keyscore is used as a part of NSA’s lawful foreign signals intelligence collection system,” the NSA said to the Guardian. “Allegations of widespread, unchecked analyst access to NSA collection data are simply not true.”

You can check out the full report over at the Guardian.

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Google's Response to PRISM: What are you talking about?!

As you may have heard, the NSA and FBI have secretly been hoarding information about you. Google, one of those companies involved, is publicly denying this ever happened. Check out below for their post on the official company blog:

Taken from Google's Official Blog:

Dear Google users--

You may be aware of press reports alleging that Internet companies have joined a secret U.S. government program called PRISM to give the National Security Agency direct access to our servers. As Google's CEO and Chief Legal Officer, we wanted you to have the facts.

First, we have not joined any program that would give the U.S. government--or any other government--direct access to our servers. Indeed, the U.S. government does not have direct access or a "back door" to the information stored in our data centers. We had not heard of a program called PRISM until yesterday.

Second, we provide user data to governments only in accordance with the law. Our legal team review each and every request, and frequently pushes back when requests are overly borad or don't follow the correct process. Press reports that suggest Google is providing open-ended access to our uses' data are false, period. Until this week's reports, we have never heard of the broad type of order that Verizon received--an order that appears to have required them to hand over millions of users' call records. We were very surprised to learn that such broad orders exist. Any suggestion that Google is disclosing information about out users' Internet activity on such a scale is completely false.

Finally, this episode confirms what we have long believed--there needs to be a more transparent approach. Google has worked hard, within the confines of the current laws, to be open about the data requests we receive. We post this information on our Transparency Report whenever possible. We were the first company to do this. And, of course, we understand that the U.S. and other governments need to take action to protect their citizens' safety--including sometimes by using surveillance. But the level of secrecy around the current legal procedures undermines the freedoms we all cherish.

Posted by Larry Page, CEO and David Drummond, Chief Legal Officer