{"id":117523,"date":"2015-06-23T15:02:11","date_gmt":"2015-06-23T15:02:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=117523"},"modified":"2015-06-29T06:27:40","modified_gmt":"2015-06-29T06:27:40","slug":"is-big-brother-spying-on-you-through-your-computer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=117523","title":{"rendered":"Is Big Brother spying on you through your computer?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Darkmoon \u2013 June 23, 2015<\/h1>\n

\u201cI have this microphone sitting on top of my monitor. It looks just like a mini-camera to me. It has an \u201cEYE\u201d right in the middle, with two speakers on either side. I am wondering if this so called \u201cmicrophone\u201d is actually looking at me and the room in the background? Could it be a combined camera and microphone? Is it secretly spying on me in the privacy of my room, watching every expression on my face and recording every whisper? This is scary! I\u2019m getting worried! \u201d
\n— Paranoid lady to her psychiatrist.<\/h5>\n

\"Big<\/a><\/p>\n

We documented earlier today that \u2013 if you are near your smart phone \u2013 the NSA or private parties could\u00a0remotely activate your microphone and camera and spy on you<\/a>.<\/span><\/h5>\n
This post shows that the same is true for our computer.<\/h5>\n
Initially,\u00a0the NSA built backdoors into the world\u2019s most popular software program \u2013 Microsoft Windows \u2013 by 1999<\/a>.<\/span><\/h5>\n
A top expert in the \u2018microprocessors\u2019 or \u2018chips\u2019 inside every computer \u2013 having helped start two semiconductor companies and a supercomputer firm \u2013\u00a0say<\/span>s<\/a>:<\/h5>\n
He would be \u201csurprised\u201d if the US National Security Agency was not embedding \u201cback doors\u201d inside chips produced by Intel and AMD, two of the world\u2019s largest semiconductor firms, giving them the possibility to access and control machines.<\/em><\/h5>\n
And a government expert told the Washington Post that the government \u201cquite literally can watch your ideas form as you type<\/a><\/span>\u201d (confirmed<\/a><\/span>). Even that is\u00a0just \u201cthe tip of the iceberg<\/span>\u201d<\/a>, according to a congress member briefed on the NSA\u2019s spying program.<\/h5>\n
The New York Times reported in 2011 that German police were\u00a0using spyware to turn on the webcam and microphone on peoples\u2019 computers<\/a><\/span>:<\/h5>\n
A group that calls itself the Chaos Computer Club prompted a public outcry here recently when it discovered that German state investigators were using spying software\u00a0capable of turning a computer\u2019s webcam and microphone into a sophisticated surveillance device<\/strong>.<\/h5>\n
The club \u2026announced last Saturday it had analyzed the hard drives of people who had been investigated and discovered that they were infected with a Trojan horse program that gave the police the ability to log keystrokes, capture screenshots and\u00a0activate cameras and microphones<\/strong>.<\/h5>\n
Reuters documented last year that the U.S. and Israeli governments can\u00a0remotely turn on a computer\u2019s microphone<\/a><\/span>:<\/h5>\n
Evidence suggest that the virus, dubbed Flame, may have been\u00a0built on behalf of the same nation or nations that commissioned the Stuxnet worm that attacked Iran\u2019s nuclear program in 2010<\/strong>\u00a0[i.e.\u00a0the U.S. and Israel<\/a><\/span>], according to Kaspersky Lab, the Russian cyber security software maker that took credit for discovering the infections.<\/h5>\n
Kaspersky researchers said they have yet to determine whether Flame had a specific mission like Stuxnet, and declined to say who they think built it.<\/h5>\n
Cyber security experts said the discovery publicly demonstrates what experts privy to classified information have long known: that nations have been using pieces of malicious computer code as weapons to promote their security interests for several years.<\/h5>\n
***<\/h5>\n
The virus contains about 20 times as much code as Stuxnet, which caused centrifuges to fail at the Iranian enrichment facility it attacked. It has about 100 times as much code as a typical virus designed to steal financial information, said Kaspersky Lab senior researcher Roel Schouwenberg.<\/h5>\n
Flame can\u00a0<\/strong>gather data files, remotely change settings on computers,\u00a0turn on PC microphones to record conversations, take screen shots\u00a0<\/strong>and log instant messaging chats.<\/strong><\/h5>\n
Kaspersky Lab said Flame and Stuxnet appear to infect machines by exploiting the same flaw in the Windows operating system and that both viruses employ a similar way of spreading.<\/h5>\n

***<\/p>\n

\u201cThe scary thing for me is:\u00a0if this is what they were capable of five years ago, I can only think what they are developing now<\/strong>,\u201d Mohan Koo, managing director of British-based Dtex Systems cyber security company.<\/h5>\n
PC Magazine\u00a0tech columnist<\/a><\/span>\u00a0John Dvorak\u00a0writes<\/a><\/span>:<\/h5>\n
From what we know the NSA has back door access into Apple, Microsoft, and Google. What kind of access we don\u2019t know, but let us assume it is similar to what they did about 7 years ago to AT&T. They had a secret room at Fulsom St. in San Francisco and the AT&T engineers had no control and no access to a room full of NSA equipment that had direct access to everything AT&T could do.<\/h5>\n
Microsoft is the source of the operating system for Windows and Windows cell phones. Apple controls the OS for Macs, iPhones, and iPads. Google controls the Chrome OS, Chrome Browser, and Android cell phones. The companies regularly push operating system upgrades and security updates to users on a regular basis.<\/h5>\n
Imagine however that the NSA has access to these updates at the source and has the ability to alter these update in order to install some sort of spyware on your phone, tablet, or computer.\u00a0The software could turn on your camera or microphone remotely<\/strong>, read all your private data, or erase everything and brick your phone or computer.<\/h5>\n
The Wall Street Journal\u00a0notes<\/a><\/span>:<\/h5>\n
The FBI develops some hacking tools internally and purchases others from the private sector. With such technology, the bureau can remotely activate the microphones in phones running Google Inc.\u2019s\u00a0 Android software to record conversations, one former U.S. official said.\u00a0It can do the same to microphones in laptops without the user knowing, the person said.<\/strong><\/h5>\n
A former high-level NSA insider confirmed to us that any computer\u2019s microphone can be remotely accessed.<\/h5>\n
Moreover \u2013 as documented by\u00a0Microsoft<\/a><\/span>,\u00a0Ars Technica<\/a><\/span>,\u00a0CNET<\/a><\/span>, the\u00a0Register<\/a>,\u00a0Sydney Morning Herald<\/a><\/span>,\u00a0AP<\/a><\/span>\u00a0and many other sources \u2013\u00a0private<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0parties<\/em>\u00a0can turn on your computer\u2019s microphone and camera as well.<\/h5>\n
Cracked\u00a0noted<\/a><\/span>\u00a0in 2010:<\/h5>\n
All sorts of programs are available to let you remotely commandeer a webcam, and many of them are free. Simple versions will just take photos or videos when they detect movement, but more complex software will send you an e-mail when the computer you\u2019ve installed the program on is in use, so you can immediately login and control the webcam without the hassle of having to stare at an empty room until the person you\u2019re stalking shows up.<\/h5>\n
The bottom line is that \u2013\u00a0as with your phone, OnStar type system or other car microphone<\/a><\/span>,\u00a0Xbox<\/a><\/span>, and other digital recording devices \u2013 you shouldn\u2019t say or do anything near your computer that you don\u2019t want shared with the world.<\/h5>\n
Postscript: You could obviously try to cover your webcam and microphone when you don\u2019t want to use them.<\/strong><\/h5>\n
But if you really want privacy, take a lesson from spy movies: Go swimming with the person you want to speak with \u2026 since electronics can\u2019t operate in water.<\/strong><\/h5>\n
\u00a7<\/h5>\n

\"uk-scan-surveillance-nwo-big-brother\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Part 2: Is your Google Chrome browser spying on you through your microphone<\/span>?<\/a><\/h2>\n

by Rick Falkvinge\u00a0<\/em><\/h3>\n
Yesterday, news broke that Google has been stealth downloading audio listeners onto every computer that runs Chrome, and transmits audio data back to Google. Effectively, this means that Google had taken itself the right to listen to every conversation in every room that runs Chrome somewhere, without any kind of consent from the people eavesdropped on. In official statements, Google shrugged off the practice with what amounts to \u201cwe can do tha<\/strong>t\u201d.<\/h5>\n
It looked like just another bug report. \u201cWhen I start Chromium, it downloads something.\u201d Followed by strange status information that notably included the lines \u201cMicrophone: Yes\u201d and \u201cAudio Capture Allowed: Yes\u201d.<\/h5>\n

\"chrome-voicesearch\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

Without consent, Google\u2019s code had downloaded a black box of code that \u2013 according to itself \u2013 had turned on the microphone and was actively listening to your room<\/strong><\/h3>\n<\/blockquote>\n
A brief explanation of the Open-source \/ Free-software philosophy is needed here.<\/h5>\n
When you\u2019re installing a version of GNU\/Linux like Debian or Ubuntu onto a fresh computer, thousands of really smart people have analyzed every line of human-readable source code before that operating system was built into computer-executable binary code, to make it common and open knowledge what the machine actually does instead of trusting corporate statements on what it\u2019s supposed to be doing. Therefore, you don\u2019t install black boxes onto a Debian or Ubuntu system; you use software repositories that have gone through this source-code audit-then-build process. Maintainers of operating systems like Debian and Ubuntu use many so-called \u201cupstreams\u201d of source code to build the final product.<\/h5>\n
Chromium, the open-source version of Google Chrome, had abused its position as trusted upstream to insert lines of source code that bypassed this audit-then-build process, and which downloaded and installed a black box of unverifiable executable code directly onto computers, essentially rendering them compromised. We don\u2019t know and can\u2019t know what this black box does. But we see reports that the microphone has been activated, and that Chromium considers audio capture permitted.<\/strong><\/h5>\n
This was supposedly to enable the \u201cOk, Google\u201d behavior \u2013 that when you say certain words, a search function is activated. Certainly a useful feature. Certainly something that enables eavesdropping of every conversation in the entire room, too.<\/h5>\n
Obviously, your own computer isn\u2019t the one to analyze the actual search command. Google\u2019s servers do. Which means that your computer had been stealth configured to send what was being said in your room to somebody else, to a private company in another country, without your consent or knowledge, an audio transmission triggered by\u2026 an unknown and unverifiable set of conditions.<\/h5>\n
Google had two responses to this. The first was to introduce a practically-undocumented switch to opt out of this behavior, which is not a fix: the default install will still wiretap your room without your consent, unless you opt out, and more importantly, know that you need to opt out, which is nowhere a reasonable requirement. But the second was more of an official statement following technical discussions on Hacker News and other places. That official statement amounted to three parts (paraphrased, of course):<\/h5>\n
1) Yes, we\u2019re downloading and installing a wiretapping black-box to your computer. But we\u2019re not actually activating it. We did take advantage of our position as trusted upstream to stealth-insert code into open-source software that installed this black box onto millions of computers, but we would never abuse the same trust in the same way to insert code that activates the eavesdropping-blackbox we already downloaded and installed onto your computer without your consent or knowledge. You can look at the code as it looks right now to see that the code doesn\u2019t do this right now.<\/h5>\n
2) Yes, Chromium is bypassing the entire source code auditing process by downloading a pre-built black box onto people\u2019s computers. But that\u2019s not something we care about, really. We\u2019re concerned with building Google Chrome, the product from Google. As part of that, we provide the source code for others to package if they like. Anybody who uses our code for their own purpose takes responsibility for it. When this happens in a Debian installation, it is not Google Chrome\u2019s behavior, this is Debian Chromium\u2019s behavior. It\u2019s Debian\u2019s responsibility entirely.<\/h5>\n
3) Yes, we deliberately hid this listening module from the users, but that\u2019s because we consider this behavior to be part of the basic Google Chrome experience. We don\u2019t want to show all modules that we install ourselves.<\/h5>\n
If you think this is an excusable and responsible statement, raise your hand now.<\/h5>\n
Now, it should be noted that this was Chromium, the open-source version of Chrome. If somebody downloads the Google product Google Chrome, as in the prepackaged binary, you don\u2019t even get a theoretical choice. You\u2019re already downloading a black box from a vendor. In Google Chrome, this is all included from the start.<\/h5>\n
This episode highlights the need for hard, not soft, switches to all devices \u2013 webcams, microphones \u2013 that can be used for surveillance. A software on\/off switch for a webcam is no longer enough, a hard shield in front of the lens is required. A software on\/off switch for a microphone is no longer enough, a physical switch that breaks its electrical connection is required. That\u2019s how you defend against this in depth.<\/h5>\n
Of course, people were quick to downplay the alarm. \u201cIt only listens when you say \u2018Ok, Google\u2019.\u201d (Ok, so how does it know to start listening just before I\u2019m about to say \u2018Ok, Google?\u2019) \u201cIt\u2019s no big deal.\u201d<\/h5>\n
A company stealth installs an audio listener that listens to every room in the world it can, and transmits audio data to the mothership when it encounters an unknown, possibly individually tailored, list of keywords \u2013 and it\u2019s no big deal!?<\/strong><\/h5>\n
\u201cYou can opt out. It\u2019s in the Terms of Service.\u201d (No. Just no. This is not something that is the slightest amount of permissible just because it\u2019s hidden in legalese.) \u201cIt\u2019s opt-in. It won\u2019t really listen unless you check that box.\u201d (Perhaps. We don\u2019t know, Google just downloaded a black box onto my computer. And it may not be the same black box as was downloaded onto yours. )<\/h5>\n
Early last decade, privacy activists practically yelled and screamed that the NSA\u2019s taps of various points of the Internet and telecom networks had the technical potential for enormous abuse against privacy. Everybody else dismissed those points as basically \u201ctinfoilhattery\u201d \u2013 until the Snowden files came out, and it was revealed that precisely everybody involved had abused their technical capability for invasion of privacy as far as was possible.<\/h5>\n
\n
Perhaps it would be wise to not repeat that exact mistake. Nobody, and I really mean nobody, is to be trusted with a technical capability to listen to every room in the world.\u00a0Privacy remains your own responsibility<\/strong><\/h5>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Source <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On the rise of the all-seeing surveillance state<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[59],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-117523","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-Surveillance"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117523","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=117523"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117523\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":117815,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117523\/revisions\/117815"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=117523"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=117523"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=117523"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}