Explosive New Snowden Doc: NSA/GCHQ Stole Vital Cell Phone Encryption Keys

[kpete]

Explosive New Snowden Doc: NSA/GCHQ Stole Vital Cell Phone Encryption Keys
New reporting by The Intercept, based on documents leaked by whistleblower, reveals how spy agencies hacked world's largest SIM card manufacturer
byJon Queally, staff writer


Explosive new reporting by The Intercept published Thursday, based on documents obtained by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, reveals how the U.S. spy agency and their British counterpart, the GCHQ, worked together in order to hack into the computer systems of the world's largest manufacturer of cell phone SIM cards – giving government spies access to highly-guarded encryption codes and unparalleled abilities to monitor the global communications of those with phones using the cards.

Following its publication, journalist Glenn Greenwald called it "one of the biggest Snowden stories yet."

According to fellow journalists Jeremy Scahill and Josh Begley, who did the reporting on the top-secret documents and detail the implications of the program, the target of the government hacking operation was a company called Gemalto, based in the Netherlands, which makes SIM cards for some of the best known makers of cell phones and other portable electronic products, including AT&T, T-Mobile, Sprint, and hundreds of other global brands. The acronym SIM stands for "subscriber identity module" and is a small intergrated circuit within a phone that is used to authenticate users and relay key information to the network on which the phone is operating.

As Scahill and Begley report:

With these stolen encryption keys, intelligence agencies can monitor mobile communications without seeking or receiving approval from telecom companies and foreign governments. Possessing the keys also sidesteps the need to get a warrant or a wiretap, while leaving no trace on the wireless provider’s network that the communications were intercepted. Bulk key theft additionally enables the intelligence agencies to unlock any previously encrypted communications they had already intercepted, but did not yet have the ability to decrypt.

As part of the covert operations against Gemalto, spies from GCHQ — with support from the NSA — mined the private communications of unwitting engineers and other company employees in multiple countries.

..........

jeremy scahill ✔ @jeremyscahill
Follow
This is basically what the NSA & GCHQ are doing to cell phone "privacy" http://interc.pt/1COE51C
11:47 AM - 19 Feb 2015

https://twitter.com/jeremyscahill/status/568497102076190722


MORE:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/02/19/snowden-s-revenge-new-mega-spying-project-revealed.html?via=mobile&source=twitter
'http://www.commondreams.org/news/2015/02/19/explosive-new-snowden-doc-nsagchq-stole-vital-cell-phone-encryption-keys
https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/02/19/great-sim-heist/
https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/1670898-dapino-gamma-gemalto-yuaawaa-wiki.html

[MohRokTah]

1. How is this explosive?

Spy agency spies on foreign corporation to retrieve information to allow them to spy on others.

What's the big deal? That's what spies are paid to do.

Nothing in the documents suggests any misuse of this capability.

All the release of the documents did was to warn those we might want to spy on (read terrorists) how we will spy on them.

Snowden literally gave aid and comfort to America's enemies with this release.

Snowden has now literally committed treason.

[DisgustipatedinCA]

2. That's what you took from this? Snowden committed treason?

1939 called. It wants Poland back.

[MohRokTah]

3. That's the only conclusion to make from it.

To try and gin it up as something nefarious by the NSA is silly. Spy agencies spy. It's why they exist.

[DisgustipatedinCA]

4. That's the only conclusion? You're limited. nt

[MohRokTah]

5. Anything else is pure speculation.

I'll not put more into the documents than was there.

Snowden is guilty of treason now.

[NanceGreggs]

6. WOW!!!

An "explosive" new revelation by Snowden - that now has six replies on a site full of his staunchest supporters.

Oh, how the once allegedly mighty have fallen. So now it's on to the next shiny object ...

[Fumesucker]

9. This is about the third or fourth time the piece has been posted

Replies are seldom as frequent after the first couple of times.

When the Republicans take the presidency which they will sooner or later you'll be regretting this, they will use these spying capabilities to get all the possible dirt they can on every Democrat.

I completely fail to understand why so many politically engaged Democrats think that Republicans wouldn't ever use this sort of spying capability for nefarious ends.

[malaise]

7. This should be on the greatest page already

Rec

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

8. Oh, that's OK. We can trust the NSA to use the codes only with the approval of the courts.

And, with complete transparency.