hbjhb

(Updated: February 27, 2015) Last Thursday, February 19, the website The Intercept broke a big story about how NSA and GCHQ hacked the security company Gemalto in order to acquire large numbers of keys used in the SIM cards of mobile phones. The story has quite some background information about how these keys are used and how NSA and GCHQ conducted this operation. But as we have often seen with revelations based upon the Snowden-documents, media once again came with headlines like " Sim card database hack gave US and UK spies access to billions of cellphones ", which is so exaggerated that it is almost a scandal in itself. Instead, analysing The Intercept's article and the original documents leads to the conclusion that the goals of this operation were most likely limited to tactical military operations - something that was completely ignored in most press reports. Also there is no evidence that Gemalto was more involved in this than other SIM card suppliers. To what ext...

(Updated: April 25, 2017) In recently published charts from NSA's BOUNDLESSINFORMANT tool about France, Spain, Norway and Afghanistan we see the mysterious term DRTBOX. For example, the screenshot for Norway presents 33 million telephony metadata, which were collected from mobile phone networks by a facility designated US-987F and processed/analysed by DRTBOX: (Click for a bigger version) Unlike what it seems, DRTBOX is not a codename, but part of a wireless surveillance system, made by a company generally known as DRT. This article will show that this company manufactures a range of sophisticated surveillance and tracking devices, used by US law enforcement and signals intelligence agencies. - Digital Receiver Technology, Inc. - Law enforcement - - Signals intelligence - Foreign usage - - . - . - . - . - .- Digital Receiver Technology, Inc. DRT is the abbreviation of Digital Receiver Technology, Inc. This company was formerly known as Utica Systems, Inc. and founded in 198...

(Updated: March 30, 2015) In an article by the German magazine Der Spiegel it was said that the NSA probably also eavesdropped on the mobile phone of chancellor Angela Merkel, which is dubbed Merkel-Phone in popular media. Der Spiegel provided little detail, but according to an article in Die Welt , the old cell phone number of Merkel was mentioned in a document provided by Edward Snowden. Der Spiegel presented their evidence to the German government, which led to an investigation by German intelligence and security agencies. Apparently the material proved to be trustworthy and chancellor Merkel expressed her anger in the media and even in a phone call to president Obama. Here we will take a closer look at how the official mobile phone of chancellor Merkel has been secured. UPDATE #1: A new article by Der Spiegel says that a phone number of chancellor Merkel was on an NSA target list since 2002. The document doesn't say what kind of communications were monitored or whether actua...

(Updated: November 2, 2016) In February this year, the communications division of defense contractor General Dynamics presented a software platform called GD Protected . This is the first product that secures commercial available Android smartphones in a way that they can be allowed to handle classified information. For decades, General Dynamics has been manufacturing devices for securing top level communications of the US government and armed forces, like the Sectéra voice encryption family. One of those products was a highly secure cell phone for GSM, which was produced from 2002 until 2012. Securing common cell phones generally requires hardware solutions, but to keep in pace with the fast evolving commercial smartphone technologies, security measures are now being implemented by using software applications. For smartphones there are already quite a number of apps for encrypting voice and data, but GD Protected also secures the Android operating system (OS) in order to meet the...

In the previous post we presented a range of highly secure mobile phones. Because of their nature we almost never see officials using them, but here we have a rare picture of US president Obama using a Sectéra Wireless GSM Phone , made by General Dynamics and approved by the NSA for conversations up to the level of Top Secret: President Obama using a Sectéra Wireless GSM Phone, March 19, 2011. (White House photo by Pete Souza - click for a bigger version) The picture shows president Obama giving the final authorization for the United States Armed Forces to begin a limited military action in Libya, in support of an international effort to protect Libyan civilians. This call was made during a short visit to Brazil. Sitting next to Obama is his National Security Advisor Tom Donilon, using one of the two secure STE desk top telephone sets, which are always standing by in case the president has to make a phone call. As can be seen in the bigger picture , the other STE phone seems to be u...

(Updated: April 9, 2016) In the previous post we saw that ordinary mobile phones offer only limited protection against eavesdropping. Therefore, special devices are designed to keep conversations safe. Here we will list a range of mobile phones, which offer a high level of security and are therefore suited for top level telecommunications. The following information is gathered from the internet, only to provide a general overview. For more information, provided by the manufacturer, please click the yellow section title or the fact sheet. - for government and military use - General Dynamics: Sectéra Wireless GSM Phone - Produced from 2002-2012 by the American company General Dynamics Corp. - For GSM and GPRS networks. - Ordinary Motorola Timeport GSM phone, with a special Security Module attached at the back side of the phone, replacing the battery cover. - Approved by the NSA for conversations up to the level of TOP SECRET * and by NATO for up to COSMIC TOP SECRET. This phone is als...