ICT Security-Sécurité PC et Internet

Edward Snowden may have gone public with his NSA leaks more than 18 months ago, but the rate at which we learn new information about government spying programs shows little sign of slowing. Witness today, the Wall Street Journal published a report claiming that the U.S. Justice Department is “snagging [mobile data belonging to] a large number of innocent Americans’” via technology that can identify criminal suspects using planes.

The WSJ cites sources who claim that the U.S. Marshals Service is using fake cell towers on airplanes — dubbed ‘dirtboxes’ — in order to access data from phones located on the ground.

Essentially, the dirtboxes pose as legitimate network operators, providing signal to devices which, it is claimed, can allow them to prize registration and identification information from a ‘target’. When successful, this removes the time-consuming need to go through mobile operators to gain these details during searches for suspects, it is argued.

Learn more:

- http://www.scoop.it/t/securite-pc-et-internet/?tag=Spy+Airplanes

It’s bad enough the government has been skulking around in cars and vans with a little device that can impersonate a cell phone tower and track you.

Now, in a move that should surprise no one, it’s taking to the skies to expand its tracking reach, in a move that would also allow it to collect data on more people at once.

That’s according to a new report from the Wall Street Journal indicating that the government has been using Cessna planes outfitted with special phone surveillance equipment to track suspects. But the surveillance system is designed to pick up the phone signals of anyone within range. The range of the equipment is currently unknown, but it means that data on potentially tens of thousands of phones could be collected during a single flight.

Learn more:

- http://www.scoop.it/t/securite-pc-et-internet/?tag=Spy+Airplanes

This is a huge deal. If the details in the WSJ are accurate, this program is as invasive and disturbing as the NSA surveillance programs exposed last year.

American Civil Liberties Union chief technologist Christopher Soghoian told the WSJ that this was "a dragnet surveillance program. It's inexcusable and it's likely—to the extent judges are authorizing it—[that] they have no idea of the scale of it."

Learn more:

- http://www.scoop.it/t/securite-pc-et-internet/?tag=Spy+Airplanes

Les autorités américaines disposent d'un outil surprenant pour mener certaines filatures, nous apprend le Wall Street Journal, jeudi 13 novembre.
Selon le quotidien américain, qui cite des sources anonymes au ministère de la justice, l'unité de police du ministère, les US Marshals, ont recours à de petits avions de tourisme pour surveiller les communications des téléphones portables de leurs suspects.

Ces aéronefs, capables de survoler la quasi-totalité de la population américaine, sont équipés d'appareils imitant les antennes-relais auxquelles se connectent les téléphones portables pour communiquer. En se faisant passer pour ces antennes, ils peuvent tromper le téléphone d'un suspect et capter des informations nécessaires à sa localisation.

Learn more:

- http://www.scoop.it/t/securite-pc-et-internet/?tag=Spy+Airplanes