On Thursday, December 1st, 2011 WikiLeaks began publishing The Spy Files, thousands of pages and other materials exposing the global mass surveillance industry. Sure it’s a stale news, the whole Wikileaks story is slowly getting under radar of media these days. Then again, it’s Christmas time, who needs more gory revelations about Internet (or SkyNet) watching you? Instead of recent cozy and Christmasy assurances that majority of Carrier IQ privacy invaders stopped their nefarious practice voluntarily? Which they might not even consider seriously as a threat.
Wikileaks have released another installment of the Spy Files, allegedly showing how a person can be stripped of any vestiges of his or her privacy with the click of a mouse. Or just without. For those who do not believe they live in a Big Brother land, here’s the sources:
List of documents > by Release Date
Links above give access to documetation for techniques in IT intrusion and spying. Some of these links tagged as “Video” in Document Type column give simple demonstrations in the form of 3D animations for the content and functioning of the intrusion kit. Together with a presentation of personnel traing in spying methods, use of WiFi in the hotel lobbies, of USB or Firewire dongles with the intrusion software suite on unattended target computer, etc.
FINSPY MOBILE is a tool used by sending a false update to a Blackberry user which then gives full access of the “target” to the sender of the update. Similarly, an iTunes update did the same on a Mac OS desktop target.
In principle, the techniques themselves are nothing new, and they are widely used by security specialists to check robustness of information systems when security measures are deployed for an organization, or business. What might be new is the presumed spread of such spying techniques beyond natural and legal customers, such as recognized and certified security firms and agencies. Now, it doesn’t really matter, do you believe this new installment of Spy Files in Wikileaks, or not. The possibility of somebody else than your correspondent on Skype is watching you is here. Recent Carrier IQ debacle was just a tip of an iceberg.
Orwell was a genius with many present day followers. But if you’re not a terrorist, or a conspirology adept, it’s perfectly nothing to be scared about. Have a nice Christmas! And yes, Santa Claus is watching you.
