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Fwd: Internet security (VERY LONG)
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Subject: Fwd: Internet security (VERY LONG)
Date: Sun, 18 Jan 98 12:34:36 -0500
From: Somebody
To: "Robert Hettinga" <[email protected]>
Mime-Version: 1.0
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Date: 01/17 3:25 PM
Received: 01/17 5:24 PM
From: Richard Fairfax, [email protected]
Reply-To: CSA Talk, [email protected]
To: CSA Talk, [email protected]
The following forwarded mail may have implications for clients with
sensitive data. The field encription features in Troi FM Plug-in could
prove to be a valuable asset.
Richard Fairfax
Oakwood Designs
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From: [email protected],Net
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Aus: z-netz.datenschutz.spionage:
A GLOBAL electronic spy network that can eavesdrop on every telephone,
email and telex communication around the world will be officially
acknowledged for the first time in a European Commission report to be
delivered this week.
The report - Assessing the Technologies of Political Control - was
commissioned last year by the Civil Liberties Committee of the European
Parliament. It contains details of a network of American-controlled
intelligence stations on British soil and around the world, that
"routinely and indiscriminately" monitor countless phone, fax and email
messages.
It states: "Within Europe all email telephone and fax communications
are routinely intercepted by the United States National Security Agency
transfering all target information from the European mainland via the
strategic hub of London then by satellite to Fort Meade in Maryland via
the crucial hub at Menwith Hill in the North York moors in the UK."
The report confirms for the first time the existence of the secretive
ECHELON system.
Until now, evidence of such astounding technology has been patchy and
anecdotal. But the report - to be discussed on Thursday by the commit-
tee of the office of Science and Technology Assessment in Luxembourg -
confirms that the citizens of Britain and other European states are
subject to an intensity of surveillance far in excess of that imagined
by most parliaments. Its findings are certain to excite the concern of
MEPs.
"The ECHELON system forms part of the UKUSA system (see 'Cooking up a
charter for snooping') but unlike many of the electronic spy systems
developed during the Cold War, ECHELON is designed primarily for non-
military targets: governments, organizations and businesses in vir-
tually every country.
"The ECHELON system works by indiscriminately intercepting very large
quantities of communications and then siphoning out what is valuable
using artificial intelligence aids like MEMEX to find key words".
According to the report, ECHELON uses a number of national dictionaries
containing key words of interest to each country.
For more than a decade, former agents of US, British, Canadian and New
Zealand national security agencies have claimed that the monitoring of
electronic communications has become endemic throughout the world.
Rumours have circulated that new technologies have been developed which
have the capability to search most of the world's telex, fax and email
networks for "key words". Phone calls, they claim, can be automatically
analysed for key words.
Former signals intelligence operatives have claimed that spy bases
controlled by America have the ability to search nearly all data
communications for key words. They claim that ECHELON automatically
analyses most email messaging for "precursor" data which assists in-
telligence agencies to determine targets. According to former Canadian
Security Establishment agent Mike Frost, a voice recognition system
called Oratory has been used for some years to intercept diplomatic
calls.
The driving force behind the report is Glyn Ford, Labour MEP for
Greater Manchester East. He believes that the report is crucial to
the future of civil liberties in Europe.
"In the civil liberties committee we spend a great deal of time
debating issues such as free movement, immigration and drugs.
Technology always sits at the centre of these discussions. There
are times in history when technology helps democratise, and times
when it helps centralise. This is a time of centralisation. The
justice and home affairs pillar of Europe has become more powerful
without a corresponding strengthening of civil liberties."
The report recommends a variety of measures for dealing with the
increasing power of the technologies of surveillance being used at
Menwith Hill and other centres. It bluntly advises: "The European
Parliament should reject proposals from the United States for making
private messages via the global communications network (Internet) a
ccessible to US intelligence agencies."
The report also urges a fundamental review of the involvement of the
American NSA (National Security Agency) in Europe, suggesting that
their activities be either scaled down, or become more open and
accountable.
Such concerns have been privately expressed by governments and MEPs
since the Cold War, but surveillance has continued to expand. US intel-
ligence activity in Britain has enjoyed a steady growth throughout the
past two decades. The principal motivation for this rush of development
is the US interest in commercial espionage. In the Fifties, during the
development of the "special relationship" between America and Britain,
one US institution was singled out for special attention.
The NSA, the world's biggest and most powerful signals intelligence
organisation, received approval to set up a network of spy stations
throughout Britain. Their role was to provide military, diplomatic and
economic intelligence by intercepting communications from throughout
the Northern Hemisphere.
The NSA is one of the shadowiest of the US intelligence agencies. Until
a few years ago, it existence was a secret and its charter and any
mention of its duties are still classified. However, it does have a Web
site (www.nsa.gov:8080) in which it describes itself as being respon-
sible for the signals intelligence and communications security activ-
ities of the US government.
One of its bases, Menwith Hill, was to become the biggest spy station
in the world. Its ears - known as radomes - are capable of listening in
to vast chunks of the communications spectrum throughout Europe and the
old Soviet Union.
In its first decade the base sucked data from cables and microwave
links running through a nearby Post Office tower, but the communi-
cations revolutions of the Seventies and Eighties gave the base a
capability that even its architects could scarcely have been able to
imagine. With the creation of Intelsat and digital telecommunications,
Menwith and other stations developed the capability to eavesdrop on
an extensive scale on fax, telex and voice messages. Then, with the
development of the Internet, electronic mail and electronic commerce,
the listening posts were able to increase their monitoring capability
to eavesdrop on an unprecedented spectrum of personal and business
communications.
This activity has been all but ignored by the UK Parliament. When
Labour MPs raised questions about the activities of the NSA, the
Government invoked secrecy rules. It has been the same for 40 years.
Glyn Ford hopes that his report may be the first step in a long road
to more openness. "Some democratically elected body should surely
have a right to know at some level. At the moment that's nowhere".
See also in this week's issue: Pretty good Phil bounces back (a report
on the consolidation of the reputation of Phil Zimmermann, creator of
PGP). 14 October 1997: Europe's private parts to expand
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<Somebody's .sig>
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Robert Hettinga ([email protected]), Philodox
e$, 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA
"... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity,
[predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to
experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'
The e$ Home Page: http://www.shipwright.com/
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