A News Aggregator That Covers The World's Major Wars And Conflicts. Military, Political, And Intelligence News Are Also Covered. Occasionally We Will Have Our Own Opinions Or Observations To Make.
The National Assembly in France adopted article 3 of the Justice bill which authorizes the authorities to remotely activate the cameras and microphones of telephones or other connected devices without the knowledge of the persons concerned.
PARIS - French police should be able to spy on suspects by remotely activating the camera, microphone and GPS of their phones and other devices, lawmakers agreed late Wednesday.
Part of a wider justice reform bill, the spying provision has been attacked by the left and rights defenders as an authoritarian snoopers’ charter, though Justice Minister Eric Dupond-Moretti insists it would affect only “dozens of cases a year”.
Covering laptops, cars and other connected objects as well as phones, the measure would allow geolocation of suspects in crimes punishable by at least five years’ jail.
WNU Editor: Any doubts that the government can use our cell phones to watch and listen to what we do via through our cell phones without us knowing has now been put to rest by this story.
A document shows the Protective Services Battalion uses sophisticated surveillance tools that can pinpoint anyone’s location.
When the Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley enters into his scheduled retirement later this year, one of the perks will include a personal security detail to protect him from threats — including “embarrassment.”
The U.S. Army Protective Services Battalion, the Pentagon’s little-known Secret Service equivalent, is tasked with safeguarding top military brass. The unit protects current as well as former high-ranking military officers from “assassination, kidnapping, injury or embarrassment,” according to Army records.
Protective Services’s mandate has expanded to include monitoring social media for “direct, indirect, and veiled” threats and identifying “negative sentiment” regarding its wards, according to an Army procurement document dated September 1, 2022, and reviewed by The Intercept. The expansion of the Protective Services Battalion’s purview has not been previously reported.
WNU Editor: My gut tells me that what they are really looking for are negative portrayals/comments of senior Pentagon officials from those who directly work for the military and/or those who are subcontracted.
This studio photographic illustration shows a smartphone with the website of Israel's NSO Group which features 'Pegasus' spyware, on display in Paris on July 21, 2021. - Private Israeli firm NSO Group has denied media reports its Pegasus software is linked to the mass surveillance of journalists and rights defenders, and insisted that all sales of its technology are approved by Israel's defence ministry (Photo by JOEL SAGET / AFP)
In June 2019, three Israeli computer engineers arrived at a New Jersey building used by the F.B.I. They unpacked dozens of computer servers, arranging them on tall racks in an isolated room. As they set up the equipment, the engineers made a series of calls to their bosses in Herzliya, a Tel Aviv suburb, at the headquarters for NSO Group, the world’s most notorious maker of spyware. Then, with their equipment in place, they began testing.
The F.B.I. had bought a version of Pegasus, NSO’s premier spying tool. For nearly a decade, the Israeli firm had been selling its surveillance software on a subscription basis to law-enforcement and intelligence agencies around the world, promising that it could do what no one else — not a private company, not even a state intelligence service — could do: consistently and reliably crack the encrypted communications of any iPhone or Android smartphone.
* Athletes will be under ‘Orwellian’ levels of surveillance by the Chinese state
* The assessment was made on Tuesday by a Human Rights Watch panel
* Team GB have offered their delegation temporary phones due to spying fears
* There are concerns over using the Olympic platform to flag human rights issues
Athletes competing at the Winter Olympics in Beijing next month have been issued a stark warning that they will be under ‘Orwellian’ levels of surveillance by the Chinese state.
The assessment was made on Tuesday by a Human Rights Watch panel, which has repeatedly criticised the forthcoming Games as a ‘sportswashing’ exercise designed to conceal China’s ‘abysmal human rights record’.
In urging caution among competitors at the Games, Dr Sophie Richardson, the China director for Human Rights Watch, said: ‘One of the features of the 2008 Olympic Games (in Beijing) was the authorities’ use of what was then considered high technology.
China is turning a major part of its internal Internet-data surveillance network outward, mining Western social media, including Facebook and Twitter, to equip its government agencies, military and police with information on foreign targets, according to a Washington Post review of hundreds of Chinese bidding documents, contracts and company filings.
China maintains a countrywide network of government data surveillance services — called public opinion analysis software — that were developed over the past decade and are used domestically to warn officials of politically sensitive information online.
(Bloomberg) -- In video reviews of the latest drone models to his 80,000 YouTube subscribers, Indiana college student Carson Miller doesn’t seem like an unwitting tool of Chinese spies.
Yet that’s how the U.S. is increasingly viewing him and thousands of other Americans who purchase drones built by Shenzhen-based SZ DJI Technology Co., the world’s top producer of unmanned aerial vehicles.
Miller, who bought his first DJI model in 2016 for $500 and now owns six of them, shows why the company controls more than half of the U.S. drone market.
“If tomorrow DJI were completely banned,” the 21-year-old said, “I would be pretty frightened.”
Critics of DJI warn the drone maker may be channeling reams of sensitive data to Chinese intelligence agencies on everything from critical infrastructure like bridges and dams to personal information such as heart rates and facial recognition. But to Miller, consumers face plenty of bigger threats to the privacy of their data.
“There are apps that track you on your smartphone 24/7,” he said.
The rise of web-based devices represents a growing risk to national and personal security, a U.S. intelligence official warned.
Remember way back in 2017, when then-President Donald Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway appeared to suggest the Trump administration may have been spied on with microwaves?
I certainly do, if for no other reason than it put me in the undesirable position of having to partially defend her claim. There's no evidence this occurred — but yes, the capacity exists!
In fact, the topic of household and other internet-connected devices going rogue — or worse, being maliciously controlled by third parties — is a key concern for the National Security Agency. That’s the word I received from a presentation at this year’s AI Summit and IoT World, a California-based tech conference.
WNU Editor: If a device is connected to the internet, it can be physically altered to monitor you. And in an age where everything can be miniaturized, the possibilities are truly endless.
The seafloor ocean observatory off the coast of northern Norway can detect submarine traffic, which could make it a prime target for the Russians.
Undersea sensors off the coast of northern Norway that are able to collect data about passing submarines, among other things, have been knocked out, the country’s state-operated Institute of Marine Research, or IMR, has revealed. The cause of the damage is unknown, but the cables linking the sensor nodes to control stations ashore are said to have been cut and then disappeared. This has raised suspicions about deliberate sabotage, possibly carried out by the Russian government, which definitely has the means to do so.
A former U.S. national security official warned that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is stealing data to compile a “dossier” on every American adult and may use coercive means to influence private citizens and political leaders.
During a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing this week, former Trump deputy national security adviser Matthew Pottinger said the CCP has stolen Americans’ sensitive data via illicit methods, including cyber theft and hacking.
“Assembling dossiers on people has always been a feature of Leninist regimes, but Beijing’s penetration of digital networks worldwide, including using 5G networks … has really taken this to a new level,” Pottinger said, referring to former Soviet dictator Vladimir Lenin.
* Software, called Pegasus, was developed by Israel's NSO group, a private firm
* List of more than 50,000 phone numbers included journalists and politicians
* Women on list close to murdered Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi
Activists, journalists and politicians around the world have been spied on using cellphone malware developed by a private Israeli firm, it emerged Sunday, igniting fears of widespread privacy and rights abuses.
The use of the software, called Pegasus and developed by Israel's NSO group, was reported on by the Washington Post, the Guardian, Le Monde and other news outlets who collaborated on an investigation into a data leak.
The leak was of a list of up to 50,000 phone numbers believed to have been identified as people of interest by clients of NSO since 2016.
* Biden administration officials are alarmed by rising COVID cases in 43 states
* The DNC is planning to send text messages and use 'aggressive' fact-checkers to dispel misinformation, a report suggests
* Biden last week said the administration would go 'door to door' but latest plans rely on 'trusted' providers including family physicians
* Officials are moving ahead with how to manage the county with only 68% of people vaccinated
* 91 million people are unvaccinated; 42 states have increase in COVID infections
* 'We are under no illusions that each person in this stage will take longer to reach,' a senior administration official told Politico
The Biden administration is planning to ramp up efforts to combat vaccine misinformation in areas where vaccination rates are lagging and COVID cases are rising, according to a report.
The Democratic National Committee is considering working with SMS companies to vet texts and send messages directly to Americans to stop the spread of inaccurate information, Politico reported Monday.
The party organization is also reportedly considering employing 'aggressive' fact-checkers to monitor communications in a plan drawing furious pushback from conservatives.
WNU Editor: This is a natural progression from having tech companies monitoring and deleting our social media posts if they feel it violates their standards, to now making proposals like this on having cell phone companies monitoring our text messages.
My advice to Americans is that this is a slippery slope that you do not want to fall into. Because after social media restrictions, to monitoring text messages, they will want to expand this even further.
* Tucker Carlson on June 28 told his three million viewers he was spied on by the NSA, with the intelligence agency reading his emails
* On June 29, the NSA denied Carlson was deliberately targeted by the NSA - which is illegal - but did not deny he could have been inadvertently swept up
* On Wednesday it emerged he was allegedly spied on while seeking an interview with Vladimir Putin
* Seeking an interview with a world leader is not unusual: NBC's Keir Simmons sat for a lengthy interview with the Russian leader, which aired on June 14
* Carlson confirmed on Wednesday evening that he had been trying to arrange an interview with the Russian leader, and demanded to know who 'unmasked' him
* Carlson's communications could have been inadvertently recorded, but his identity by law should have been kept a secret: he asked why it wasn't
* The Russian leader met Joe Biden in Geneva on June 16
* U.S. government officials learned about Carlson's efforts to secure the Putin interview, Axios reported
* The 52-year-old on Wednesday said that he was told at a funeral in Washington last week that his emails had been intercepted by the NSA
Tucker Carlson said on Wednesday night that he was trying to arrange an interview with Russian president Vladimir Putin when he 'was spied on by the NSA'.
The Fox News host said that his communications were intercepted by the National Security Agency, and his identity - which should by law have been kept a secret - was 'unmasked' by senior intelligence officials.
Carlson claimed that the content of his emails and texts was then disseminated, in a bid to discredit him.
'Late this spring I contacted a couple of people I thought could help get an interview with the Russian President Vladimir Putin,' Carlson told his viewers.
WNU Editor: The reporter and network that eventually got that interview with Putin was NBC's Keir Simmons on June 14 at Geneva.
Is Tucker Carlson's claims exaggerated?
Not really.
The U.S. intel community has a long history of intercepting and leaking selective communications. Edward Snowden, Michael Flynn, and all the anonymous intel sources that only certain members of the main stream media like to use is more than enough evidence to me that the American people have a problem with a politicized intel community, and that it will need to be addressed one day.
More News On Tucker Carlson's Claims That The NSA Leaked His Private Communications
WNU Editor: Wikileaks, Edward Snowden, and scores of other whistle blowers have provided more than enough evidence over the years that the U.S. intelligence community is monitoring the communications of American citizens and institutions.
Is the NSA monitoring FOX News and Tucker Carlson?
I do not know.
But if history is any indication I would not be too quick to ridicule or disregard Carlson's claim as many in the pundit class are doing right now.
More News On FOX News Saying U.S. Intelligence Is Monitoring Its Communications
MOSCOW —Russian authorities are ramping up the use of facial recognition technology to track opposition protesters to their homes and arrest them — a powerful new Kremlin tool to crush opposition.
But when state security agents are suspected of murders or attacks on journalists and opposition activists, surveillance cameras have at times been switched off or “malfunction.”
And the system is so leaky that surveillance data on individuals can be bought for a small sum on Russia’s notorious black market in data, along with all kinds of other personal information.
There is even a name for the clandestine cyber bazaar: probiv.
China leads the world in rolling out a vast network of facial recognition technology, including a system to track and repress its Uyghur minority. But Putin’s Russia is racing to catch up.
The Nachshon Oron is the first of an undisclosed number of advanced multi-mission intelligence-gathering aircraft for Israel.
The Israeli Air Force has unveiled a new multi-mission intelligence-gathering aircraft, the Nachshon Oron. The new aircraft will join an existing fleet of airborne early warning and signals intelligence platforms, all based on the Gulfstream bizjet airframe, but will add important new capabilities, including those focused on the maritime domain.
The Israeli Air Force (IAF) announced yesterday that the Oron had been formally unveiled by 122 Squadron, “Nachshon,” a specialist intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) unit at Nevatim Air Base in Israel’s Negev desert. The aircraft, based on a Gulfstream G550 airframe, arrived in Israel last month, after delivery from the United States where it was manufactured and flight-tested. It wore the temporary registration N552GD for its delivery flight, which took it via a stopover in Shannon, Ireland.
WNU Editor: A lot of work went into planning, designing, and building this surveillance aircraft .... nine years have been spent on designing and developing the aircraft and its subsystems.
(Reuters) - The Chinese military has banned Tesla cars from entering its complexes, citing security concerns over cameras installed on the vehicles, two people who have seen notices of the directive told Reuters.
The move is the latest sign of China’s growing scrutiny of the U.S. electric carmaker amid tensions with Washington.
Analysts said it resembled Washington’s measures against Chinese telecoms firm Huawei citing national security.
Chinese military restrictions on Tesla surfaced as senior Chinese and U.S. officials held a contentious meeting in Alaska, the first such interaction since U.S. President Joe Biden took office.
A defense contractor that claims to have access to motor vehicle location data on a global scale says it wants to use that data to help U.S. federal agencies conduct more efficient spying and military operations.
The Ulysses Group, which offers “cutting edge operational and intelligence services, support, and equipment” to government clients, says it can “access over 15 billion vehicle locations” worldwide every month. This data, which can be viewed “historically” or in real-time, should be used operationally by U.S. agencies, the company says.
WNU Editor: This is not only outrageous, but the information that these defense contractors published (and were paid for) is factually incorrect. Its a 28 minute video, but worth the time to watch.
On a personal note. I subscribe to Rebel News because they have a good track record of posting worthy news stories that the Canadian media either ignore ... or report on but days/weeks later.
BIG Brother-like mass state surveillance is being developed by China with streets full of cameras that can monitor citizens' emotions and track their "social credit" scores.
The high tech systems will also help people snoop and rat on each other from the comfort of their homes — or on the go with their smartphones.
The Communist regime's nightmare-inducing plans involve installing spy cameras in all places and using artificial intelligence to calculate a person's "social score" which will determine benefits or punishments.
The sheer level of surveillance being planned is straight out of the dystopia created by author George Orwell in his book 1984, where the eyes of the state - Big Brother - are always watching you.
But now it is being made easy with 21st-century spy technology.
DIA says it buys commercially available geolocation data and has used it five times in recent years for authorized investigations
WASHINGTON—In a new document made public Friday, the nation’s top military intelligence agency acknowledged monitoring the location of U.S.-based mobile devices without a warrant through location data drawn from ordinary smartphone apps.
The Defense Intelligence Agency told congressional investigators that the agency has access to “commercially available geolocation metadata aggregated from smartphones” from both the U.S. and abroad. It said it had queried its database to look at the location information of U.S.-based smartphones five times in the last 2½ years as part of authorized investigations.
Such data is typically drawn from smartphone apps such as weather, games and other apps that get user permission to access a phone’s GPS location. A robust commercial market exists for such data for advertising and other commercial purposes. The Wall Street Journal first revealed last year that numerous U.S. government agencies were also buying access to that data from commercial brokers without a warrant, raising questions about whether those agencies were adequately safeguarding the privacy and civil liberties of Americans.
The ability of U.S. intelligence agencies to access data on Americans for intelligence purposes is typically circumscribed. A warrant from the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court is required for most kinds of surveillance. However, the Defense Intelligence Agency told Congress that it didn’t believe it needed any sort of court authorization to acquire commercial data for foreign intelligence or national security purposes.
WNU Editor: What caught my eye in this WSJ report is not the military tracking people's movements via through their cell phones. It is that the IRS did the same thing ....
.... IRS officials who conducted a year-long pilot program with phone data explained that if one phone is in repeated physical proximity to another phone, investigators can guess they are associates—even if they take steps to switch phones or other precautions.
I have been involved in numerous computer science projects since the 1980s, as well as developing numerous web projects since 1996.
These blogs are a summation of all the information that I read and catalog pertaining to the subjects that interest me.
