Posts by Russell Brown
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A document included in the trove of National Security Agency files released with Glenn Greenwald’s book No Place to Hide details how the agency’s Tailored Access Operations (TAO) unit and other NSA employees intercept servers, routers, and other network gear being shipped to organizations targeted for surveillance and install covert implant firmware onto them before they’re delivered. These Trojan horse systems were described by an NSA manager as being “some of the most productive operations in TAO because they pre-position access points into hard target networks around the world.”
Has photographs.
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Hard News: Snowden and New Zealand, in reply to Stephen Judd,
For the non technical, CentOS is a kind of Linux operating system, VMWare is a technology for making one big grunty server behave like a lot of small servers so you can consolidate services on less hardware – they aren’t nefarious tools for doing bad.
No, no, Daniel wasn't saying that and neither was I.
But that map identifies Waihopai as a location for X-Keyscore, which is the "spy Google" created by the NSA, to which our spooks have access. Daniel just spotted pre-Snowden that GCSB had issued an RFP for exactly the same kit as the NSA uses. Perhaps it's not that unusual, but it's interesting in retrospect.
There might be an interesting discussion over whether that part of Waihopai is an NSA or a GCSB facility, of course.
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Okay, thoughts please on the decision to grant a $375m interest-free loan rather than conventional funding to NZTA.
This will cost only what it costs to serve the loan, but I'm not clear on how NZTA pays it back. Is it fair or not to say that the $375m loan is a dodge to contrive the $372m surplus?
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Hard News: Comedy Festival 2: The Genius…, in reply to Kath,
It’s definitely here already… I saw John Gordillo on Monday as well , and was thinking the same, that it wasn’t really a thing here – then today I saw this…
Great spotting!
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Another NSA map, from last year -- identifying Waihopai as a location for X-Keyscore. Via Daniel Ayers, who noted that the GCSB issued an RFP "for loads of IT kit same as NSA uses. ... Pre-Snowden NSA contractor job ads want experience w CentOS, VMware, etc. Guess what GCSB issued RFP for?"
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The answer on Problem Gambling funding:
Reasons for Change in Appropriation The decrease of $1.936 million is due to the expected timing of expenditure under the Problem Gambling 3-Year Services Plan and a one-off funding transfer, which increased the 2013/14 appropriation by $1.730 million. Current and past policy initiatives are listed above
http://www.treasury.govt.nz/budget/2014/estimates/v6/est14-v6-health.pdf
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Competent Budget in which the free doctors’ visits for under-13s will justifiably get a lot of coverage. But … it appears that this government continues to hate on public health and primary care services, including for disability. Cuts in dollar terms in quite a few places.
And for reasons I can’t work out, the budget for Problem Gambling Services has been cut 11.6% and is less than the income from the gambling levy that funds it.
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From Buddle Finlay's October 2013 summary Telecommunications interception Bill – too much?:
SERVICE PROVIDERS
A "service provider" under the Bill is any person within or outside New Zealand (other than a network operator) who provides a telecommunications service in New Zealand to an end-user, as part of a business or otherwise. Subject to considerable limitations, the responsible Minister may, on the application of a surveillance agency, direct a service provider to comply with one of a specific list of network operator duties, including duties to be "intercept ready" or "intercept accessible" (and may direct the operator to comply with corresponding network operator "obligations"). The limitations on these directions include that the surveillance agency must notify the affected service provider and give it a reasonable time within which to make submissions to the Minister. The agency must also consider whether that lack of interception capability on the provider's telecommunications service adversely affects national security (including New Zealand's economic well-being) or law enforcement. If the Minister makes such a direction the service provider may request a review of the decision by a panel of suitably qualified independent persons, who must each have the appropriate security clearance.
The definition of "service provider" is wide enough to cover any business or agency making internet or email services available to its staff or customers, even on a non-commercial basis, and would include the likes of Google, Yahoo! and Facebook.
The "TICS" Bill imposes significant obligations on telecommunications network operators. It also has the potential to impose significant obligations on other providers who might not generally be considered to be in the business of providing public telecommunication services.
In addition, while surveillance agencies already have some powers under the Telecommunications (Interception Capability) Act 2004, the Bill extends the scope of those powers and extends their application beyond the traditional telcos and imposes interception-related obligations on a very broad class of service providers (based both in New Zealand and overseas)
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Hard News: Weirder yet, in reply to Steve Barnes,
It ain’t Got that Tokona should be thanking and if I were him I would be feeling shame. He, unwittingly, maybe, is helping the Rich White wrong guy.
I suspect that there are people who don't care about his welfare but will be only too happy to use him. Ask Bevan Chuang.
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Hard News: Snowden and New Zealand, in reply to Idiot Savant,
Requiring such clearance for appropriate government work is one thing. But demanding it of civilians who have nothing to do with the government (and potentially being able to shut down an entire business if they don’t jump through your stupid hoops) is intrusive and onerous.
Many people in telecommunications are very unhappy about all this. Understandably.
