NSA and GCHQ Target "Leaky" Phone Apps To Scoop User Data 144
schwit1 writes "New leaked NSA documents shed a new light on the agency's assault on the data controls of smartphone apps. Using app data permissions as a jumping off point, the documents show agency staffers building huge quantities of data, including 'intercepting Google Maps queries made on smartphones, and using them to collect large volumes of location information.' One slide lists capabilities for 'hot mic' recording, high precision geotracking, and file retrieval which would reach any content stored locally on the phone, including text messages, emails and calendar entries. As the slide notes in a parenthetical aside, 'if it's on the phone, we can get it.'"
Smurftastic! (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.theguardian.com/wor... [theguardian.com]
From what I gather, TRACKER SMURF module of the WARRIOR PRIDE rootkit for both IOS and Android sort of grabs pin positions of places you search for in Google Maps as well as where you actually ARE. What's interesting is the seeming fascination with sexual orientation and clubs. I guess if there is dirt to be had on an operative or a politician, it might be if they are secretly a wild and crazy guy, or perhaps visiting a mistress in South America instead of being lost on the Appalachian trail.
I know it's fashionable to be angry and all that, but the more of these slides they release, the more you understand how good these guys are at spycraft. It's a solid rootkit base with modules for various device driver interaction, it's pulling back info to be sorted in databases specifically at dossier building on targets, etc etc. It's a well organized program of information gathering, actually.
You read /. so you already knew this right? (Score:5, Informative)
The file "Computer_Forensics_for_Prosecutors_(2013)_Part_1".pdf has this gem in it.
"Users of mobile devices and cloud storage sign off on their rights to data scanning, There is no opt-out option."
This file showed up when a question of True Crypt being back doored came up, as out of the blue it mentions it is; if not set up correctly I would tend to agree.
Page 16 http://www.techarp.com/article... [techarp.com]
article lies about Phil ZImermann but the only place I could find the file.
Re:Can you hear me now? (Score:4, Informative)
And that's an excuse to make the moves that actually ARE wrong?