NSA Never Stopped Intercepting Foreign Leaders' Communications, Swept Up Congress Members In Its Collection

from the another-shitload-of-empty-assurances dept

The Wall Street Journal is reporting the NSA is in the middle of another "incidental collection" mess, this time involving Congress.

The U.S., pursuing a nuclear arms agreement with Iran at the time, captured communications between Mr. Netanyahu and his aides that inflamed mistrust between the two countries and planted a political minefield at home when Mr. Netanyahu later took his campaign against the deal to Capitol Hill.

The National Security Agency’s targeting of Israeli leaders and officials also swept up the contents of some of their private conversations with U.S. lawmakers and American-Jewish groups. That raised fears—an “Oh-s— moment,” one senior U.S. official said—that the executive branch would be accused of spying on Congress.

Technically, spying on Congress is off-limits. In reality, the NSA can grab anything involving conversations with foreign citizens, provided it feels the content of the communications contains "significant foreign intelligence." Even so, the NSA is required to inform oversight committees when it has released unminimized, Congress-related communications to the executive branch. In this case, that information was never turned over to the oversight committees, and the executive branch deferred entirely to the NSA's judgment on the withholding of this information.

That's the little-b bombshell in the Wall Street Journal piece. The capital-B Bombshell is this: despite President Obama's public assertions in the wake of the Snowden leaks, the NSA never turned off its intercepts in foreign countries.

Instead of removing the implants, Mr. Obama decided to shut off the NSA’s monitoring of phone numbers and email addresses of certain allied leaders—a move that could be reversed by the president or his successor.

The very public indignation of German Chancellor Merkel and other NATO allies led to a quasi-promise: the NSA would no longer listen in on their conversations. But President Obama never specifically named which foreign leaders would be exempted from the NSA's surveillance. Merkel was namechecked and the administration agreed to stop surveillance of certain foreign leaders, but anyone below them (advisors, cabinet members) was still considered fair game. And other leaders, like Israel's Benjamin Netanyahu, were never considered for exclusion from NSA snooping.

There was little debate over Israel. “Going dark on Bibi? Of course we wouldn’t do that,” a senior U.S. official said, using Mr. Netanyahu’s nickname.

The shocking thing here isn't the surveillance of foreign leaders. That's what we expect agencies like the NSA to do. The shocking thing is the duplicitous nature of the Obama administration, which allowed Congress to be swept up by intercepts that were publicly claimed to have been shut off, as well as allowing behavior it promised to end to continue under its tacit blessing. The administration wanted intelligence it felt would be valuable while simultaneously wanting to protect itself from further blowback.

White House officials believed the intercepted information could be valuable to counter Mr. Netanyahu’s campaign. They also recognized that asking for it was politically risky. So, wary of a paper trail stemming from a request, the White House let the NSA decide what to share and what to withhold, officials said. “We didn’t say, ‘Do it,’ ” a senior U.S. official said. “We didn’t say, ‘Don’t do it.’ ”

Cowards.

Further making a mess of things is the NSA's long-running, begrudging intelligence partnership with Israel. As was revealed by the Snowden leaks, the NSA considers its partnership -- in which unminimized US citizen data and content are handed over to Israeli intelligence -- with the country to be lopsided. Israel is viewed as a needy partner which often takes much more than it gives.

However, Unit 8200 (the Israeli NSA) did gift the agency with a surveillance tool. But true to form, the gift horse was more of a Trojan.

Early in the Obama presidency, for example, Unit 8200 gave the NSA a hacking tool the NSA later discovered also told Israel how the Americans used it. It wasn’t the only time the NSA caught Unit 8200 poking around restricted U.S. networks.

The multiple levels of hypocrisy and deception are breathtaking. The administration was never truly interested in reigning in the NSA's activities. It was only interested in minimizing the damage it would sustain from the Snowden leaks. It allowed the NSA to do what it wanted while absolving itself of any responsibility. And it never held the agency up to the accountability standards the administration and the intelligence community repeatedly referred to when responding to each successive leak.

On top of it all, the NSA continued to use a surveillance tool it knew was compromised, rather than lose access to the information it obtained with it. And it shrugged off intrusions by a foreign surveillance agency because it's all just part of the spy game -- like telling world leaders you'll do one thing while never actually doing anything at all.

Filed Under: angela merkel, benjamin netanyahu, congress, israel, mass surveillance, nsa, surveillance

Guy Reveals Airtel Secretly Inserting JavaScript, Gets Threatened With Jail For Criminal Copyright Infringement

from the copyright-law-at-work dept

Last week, an Indian blogger, Thejesh GN, discovered that mobile operator Airtel was injecting javascript into subscribers' browsing sessions, which is both incredibly sketchy and a huge security concern (not to mention raising net neutrality issues on the side). He posted the proof to GitHub and tweeted about it: He posted the evidence showing that javascript was being quietly inserted, and that it apparently tried to insert some sort of toolbar:

That's all super sketchy. But that's just the very beginning of this story. Because days later, Thejesh received the most ridiculous legal threat letter, coming from a lawyer named Ameet Mehta from the law firm Solicis Lex. It claims to be representing an Israeli company, Flash Network, which is apparently responsible for the code injection software... and it claims that by merely revealing to the public that Airtel was doing these injections, he had engaged in criminal copyright infringement under the Information Technology Act, 2000. If that sounds familiar, that's because we wrote about that ridiculous law last year, noting that it would technically allow people to be put in jail for merely thinking about infringing someone's copyright.

And the Solicis Lex lawyers, to show they're not messing around, cc'd the police on the letter they sent: The crux of the "copyright" claim seems fairly ridiculous:

The said code is closed source software and our client is sole proprietor of the same. Therefore, no one can use the said code without obtaining license from our client against payment of fees and/or royalties and on commercial and legal terms acceptable to our client. Your aforementioned actions constitute a blatant violation of our client's copyrights and other proprietary rights in the said code.

Remember: all Thejesh GN did was show the code that Airtel inserted into his browser. If Flash Network thinks that showing the code that it dumps into each of your browsing sessions is criminal copyright infringement, just about anyone who does a "view source" could be guilty. That's a plainly ridiculous reading of the law.

On top of that, the lawyers sent a DMCA notice to GitHub, which caved in and took it down: This is despite GitHub's recent promise not to take things down without first alerting the users in question.

Absolutely everything about this is insane and bad. The initial injections by Airtel/Flash are bad and dangerous. Both companies should be called out for such javascript injections. But, Flash's response to not only threaten a completely bogus copyright takedown/cease and desist claim, but also to allege criminal violations that could lead to jail time just adds an insane layer on top of all that. Even arguing that merely posting screenshots of the injected code is civil copyright infringement is crazy. And then issuing a DMCA takedown to GitHub (not to mention GitHub agreeing to take the screenshots down...). All of it is ridiculous and a clear abuse of copyright law to silence someone who revealed Airtel and Flash Network were up to questionable activities.

For those who argue that copyright is never used for censorship: explain this story.

Of course, it all seems to be backfiring in a big way. Flash may have wanted to hide what they were up to, but now it's getting much, much, much more attention. Maybe, next time, rather than threatening whistleblowers of your bad practices with claims of criminal copyright infringement, Flash and Airtel will think more about their own crappy business practices that put users at risk.

Filed Under: cease and decist, copyright, criminal copyright, dmca takedown, free speech, india, injection, israel, javascript, javascript injection, thejesh gn
Companies: airtel, flash network, github, solicis lex

How The NSA Enabled Israel Military Intelligence To Politically Persecute Innocent Palestinians

from the a-huge-mess dept

Almost exactly a year ago, one of the many Snowden revelations came out, this time concerning the fact that the NSA was giving raw domestic communications data to Israeli military intelligence. This was somewhat shocking, because it basically was allowing Israeli intelligence to sift through communications data (both metadata and actual communications), including on Americans, without any restrictions. As was noted at the time:

Details of the intelligence-sharing agreement are laid out in a memorandum of understanding between the NSA and its Israeli counterpart that shows the US government handed over intercepted communications likely to contain phone calls and emails of American citizens. The agreement places no legally binding limits on the use of the data by the Israelis.

The disclosure that the NSA agreed to provide raw intelligence data to a foreign country contrasts with assurances from the Obama administration that there are rigorous safeguards to protect the privacy of US citizens caught in the dragnet. The intelligence community calls this process "minimization", but the memorandum makes clear that the information shared with the Israelis would be in its pre-minimized state.

James Bamford, the long-time NSA watcher and chronicler, has a new article in the NY Times, where he now connects that free and unencumbered data sharing with revelations of abuse by the very Israeli military intelligence unit the data went to. Bamford notes that, when he interviewed Snowden over the summer, Snowden had called out the data sharing with Israel as one of the most shocking finds:

Among his most shocking discoveries, he told me, was the fact that the N.S.A. was routinely passing along the private communications of Americans to a large and very secretive Israeli military organization known as Unit 8200. This transfer of intercepts, he said, included the contents of the communications as well as metadata such as who was calling whom.

Typically, when such sensitive information is transferred to another country, it would first be “minimized,” meaning that names and other personally identifiable information would be removed. But when sharing with Israel, the N.S.A. evidently did not ensure that the data was modified in this way.

Mr. Snowden stressed that the transfer of intercepts to Israel contained the communications — email as well as phone calls — of countless Arab- and Palestinian-Americans whose relatives in Israel and the Palestinian territories could become targets based on the communications. “I think that’s amazing,” he told me. “It’s one of the biggest abuses we’ve seen.”

And, indeed, Bamford notes, it's now been more or less confirmed that the information that NSA was sharing was used to persecute innocent Palestinians. This is only coming out now because dozens of veterans of the unit publicly called out the abuses and refused to continue to participate in the process:

It appears that Mr. Snowden’s fears were warranted. Last week, 43 veterans of Unit 8200 — many still serving in the reserves — accused the organization of startling abuses. In a letter to their commanders, to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and to the head of the Israeli army, they charged that Israel used information collected against innocent Palestinians for “political persecution.” In testimonies and interviews given to the media, they specified that data were gathered on Palestinians’ sexual orientations, infidelities, money problems, family medical conditions and other private matters that could be used to coerce Palestinians into becoming collaborators or create divisions in their society.

Everything about this is disturbing. There have long been concerns about the NSA and other intelligence agencies using the information they have access to try to coerce innocent people, threatening to embarrass them or reveal secrets. Other Snowden documents have revealed that the NSA in fact had plans on how to do something similar, using things like the porn surfing habits of people they didn't like to embarrass and discredit them -- even if they weren't part of any terrorist organization. While the NSA insisted it never did such things, this latest revelation suggests that the NSA clearly enabled the Israelis to do exactly that -- often using communications and metadata of Americans, handed over willy-nilly to the Israelis to do just that.

Meanwhile, kudos to the Israeli veterans for blowing the whistle on this kind of activity.

Filed Under: ed snowden, embarassment, israel, james bamford, minimization, palestinians, privacy, raw data, surveillance, unit 8200

Oil Traders Misread Tweet, Make Oil Prices Shoot Up

from the read-slower dept

There have been plenty of complaints about people who jump to conclusions too quickly online, but apparently at times that can actually have a material impact on things. Earlier today, the Israeli Defense Forces (who have been quite active on Twitter) put out a tweet commemorating the famed Yom Kippur war of 1973, in which Israel bombed Syria:

Oct. 10 #YomKippur73: Israel Air Force bombards airports in Syria to prevent Soviet weapons reaching the Syrian Army http://t.co/tKnMzYjgFF

— IDF (@IDFSpokesperson) October 10, 2013

The tweet may have been somewhat ill-timed, and poorly thought-out, given the current "heightened tensions" with Syria. Either way, apparently some oil traders either skipped over or didn't understand the hashtag reference to "YomKippur73" (and the reference to the Soviet Union -- a country that hasn't existed in decades) and interpreted the tweet to mean that Israel was bombing Syria today. And, in response they started bidding up the price of oil. Because twitchy commodities dealers apparently do their pricing based on tweets.

Of course, the article notes that traders eventually realized their mistake... but the price of oil stayed up, rising over a dollar from $110.40 a barrel to $111.50 a barrel, and then continuing to rise a bit (though more slowly) after the mistake was understood. Isn't it great that key pieces of the global economy can change based on some people totally misreading a tweet? Makes me feel so comfortable about the state of the world today.

Filed Under: israel, misreading, oil prices, reading comprehension, syria, twitter

NY Times Doesn't Think That NSA Sharing Raw Communications With Israel Is Newsworthy

from the really-now? dept

Last week, we were among those who wrote about the latest revelations via the Guardian about how the NSA was sharing raw communications it had collected with Israeli intelligence. This is a big story for any number of reasons, but apparently the NY Times doesn't think so. When Public Editor Margaret Sullivan asked why, the managing editor basically said the story wasn't newsworthy:

He told me that The Times had chosen not to follow the story because its level of significance did not demand it.

“I didn’t think it was a significant or surprising story,” he said. “I think the more energy we put into chasing the small ones, the less time we have to break our own. Not to mention cover the turmoil in Syria.”

So, I asked him, by e-mail, was this essentially a question of reporting resources? After all, The Times could have published an article written by a wire service, like Reuters or The Associated Press.

“I’d say resources and news judgment,” he responded.

The resources issue is one I can understand totally. Here at Techdirt, we probably cover about one quarter to one third the number of stories we'd like to (which is also why I have about a thousand open tabs of stories I'm "hoping" to get to one of these days). But to claim that it's not "significant" or "surprising" or somehow newsworthy is pretty crazy. This is a major part of the story -- where the NSA keeps insisting that it is exceptionally careful with the data it collects, yet here it is handing off a ton of communications, including those of Americans, off to a foreign intelligence agency with basically no oversight. If the NY Times doesn't think that's newsworthy, the NY Times needs to recalibrate its newsworthy scale.

Filed Under: israel, journalism, nsa, nsa surveillance
Companies: ny times

New Leak Shows NSA Shares Raw Domestic Communications Data With Israeli Intelligence

from the who's-'oversharing'-now? dept

The Guardian has posted another leaked document that exposes more of the NSA's cozy relationship with foreign intelligence agencies. In this case, it's Israel benefitting from the NSA's data hauls. As we've seen before, many European countries have a quid pro quo arrangement with the NSA, often exchanging access points for data.

The main difference here is that Israel is receiving raw (unminimized) intelligence data from the NSA. Anything the agency has swept up -- including data on American citizens -- is being handed over to Israel's intelligence, restriction-free.

Details of the intelligence-sharing agreement are laid out in a memorandum of understanding between the NSA and its Israeli counterpart that shows the US government handed over intercepted communications likely to contain phone calls and emails of American citizens. The agreement places no legally binding limits on the use of the data by the Israelis.

The disclosure that the NSA agreed to provide raw intelligence data to a foreign country contrasts with assurances from the Obama administration that there are rigorous safeguards to protect the privacy of US citizens caught in the dragnet. The intelligence community calls this process "minimization", but the memorandum makes clear that the information shared with the Israelis would be in its pre-minimized state.

This deal with the NSA's Israeli counterpart commenced in 2009. The memorandum continually stresses the privacy protections afforded to American data caught in the dragnet, but the program itself undermines these warnings by providing Israel's intelligence officers with raw data. Nothing in the document implies any sort of legal repercussions for any abuse of American data, which gives the program the appearance of a gentlemen's agreement. Considering intelligence work isn't really the best fit for honorable "gentlemen," the lack of any enforcement measures implicitly allows Israeli intelligence free rein to handle data on American citizens however it pleases.

The NSA doesn't deny it hands over raw data to Israel (how could it at this point?) but the unnamed spokesperson again makes the (unsupported) claim that the data is handled responsibly and protected from abuse.

"Any US person information that is acquired as a result of NSA's surveillance activities is handled under procedures that are designed to protect privacy rights," the spokesperson said.

Right, because the NSA has done such a bang-up job up to this point handling US citizens' information in a way that protects privacy rights. And that's just the data it still has complete control over. Expecting us to believe that foreign intelligence agencies haven't treated this data with the same level of casual abuse the NSA has would require a leap of credulity even the agency's staunchest supporters would be hesitant to make.

Not only that, but the spokesperson refused to answer further questions about the legality of this program.

The NSA declined to answer specific questions about the agreement, including whether permission had been sought from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance (Fisa) court for handing over such material.

This agreement also allows Israel to hold onto any US person's data for up to a year, provided it makes a courtesy call to the NSA liaison once the data is discovered. The pointlessness of this provision can't be emphasized enough. The NSA isn't auditing Israel's use of the data (other than a minimal pre-screen of random samples -- nothing post-delivery) so it's relying on its counterpart to give it a ring if it comes across anything it shouldn't necessarily have. If it doesn't, no one would know and the NSA would presumably be secure in the knowledge that no contact = no US person data.

But not all Americans are created equal. There are much more stringent policies in place to protect any US government data swept up and delivered to Israeli intelligence.

The Israelis were required to "destroy upon recognition" any communication "that is either to or from an official of the US government". Such communications included those of "officials of the executive branch (including the White House, cabinet departments, and independent agencies), the US House of Representatives and Senate (member and staff) and the US federal court system (including, but not limited to, the supreme court)".

One would expect US government communications to be a bit more sensitive, but this seems less about protecting the government from prying eyes and more about keeping a legally-dubious NSA program from drawing unwanted attention from its "oversight." Less government data exposure means fewer chances someone in the US government might be apprised of the situation.

Not only is plenty of raw communications data being given to Israel, but the NSA itself expresses concern in one of the Black Budget docs that the mutually beneficial data-sharing program is trending towards something more one-sided.

"Balancing the Sigint exchange equally between US and Israeli needs has been a constant challenge," states the report, titled 'History of the US – Israel Sigint Relationship, Post-1992'. "In the last decade, it arguably tilted heavily in favor of Israeli security concerns. 9/11 came, and went, with NSA's only true Third Party [counter-terrorism] relationship being driven almost totally by the needs of the partner…

Later in the document, the official is quoted as saying: "One of NSA's biggest threats is actually from friendly intelligence services, like Israel. There are parameters on what NSA shares with them, but the exchange is so robust, we sometimes share more than we intended."

The NSA is "oversharing" in order to maintain a relationship with one of the only "friendlies" in the Middle East. It suspects it's being taken advantage of, but can't seem to extricate itself from the questionable data exchange it initiated. The Guardian also points to a worrying statement from a previous Snowden leak that refers to "trust issues" resulting from previous Israeli operations.

The NSA grabs more than it needs and shares this largesse with Israeli intelligence (and other nations), offering only minimal restrictions which are largely unenforceable. And it continues to do this despite "trust issues" and a declining return-on-investment. Furthermore, it allows Israeli intelligence to share this data with "outside parties" (with written permission from the NSA), provided it strips out personally-identifiable information. Again, this agreement to strip out identifiable info relies on trust rather than enforcement procedures, which doesn't exactly inspire confidence considering the NSA's on-record complaint about "trust issues."

This is more evidence the NSA just simply doesn't care about the American citizens whose data it sweeps up. It's more than happy to "ship" it around the world with only the most minute amount of oversight or limitations. To the NSA, data exists solely to be collected and examined, and if legal safeguards need to be undermined, so be it.

Filed Under: israel, minimization, nsa, nsa surveillance, raw data

Twitter Diplomacy? New Iranian Officials Use Twitter To Make Surprising Moves To Cool Tensions Over Israel And Nukes

from the kind-of-amazing-when-you-think-about-it dept

Here's a fairly incredible story. The Iranian government is quite well known for stifling dissent and trying to limit the internet. However, we noted recently that the new President of Iran had made some surprisingly progressive statements about ending internet censorship and filtering, and supporting human rights. Obviously, it's easy to say things, while actually doing things is quite different. Even so, it's still surprising to see two recent tweets out of the Iranian government that suggest that perhaps they're really looking to ease certain tensions and move towards more peaceful relationships. The Back Channel blog has the details of the two key tweets, starting with surprising tweets from both the new President Hassan Rouhani and Foreign Minister Javad Zarif wishing Jews a Happy Rosh Hashanah.

As the sun is about to set here in #Tehran I wish all Jews, especially Iranian Jews, a blessed Rosh Hashanah. pic.twitter.com/tmaf84x7UR

— Hassan Rouhani (@HassanRouhani) September 4, 2013

Happy Rosh Hashanah

— Javad Zarif (@JZarif) September 5, 2013

As you probably know, Iran doesn't exactly have the best reputation with Jews, and its former President regularly threatened to go to war with Israel. Knowing a few Persian Jews who fled that country years ago, even any suggestion of a conciliation towards Jews is a stunning point. And, it went even further. Nancy Pelosi's daughter, Christine Pelosi, responded to Zarif's tweet, stating that it would be better if Iran stopped denying the Holocaust:

Thanks. The New Year would be even sweeter if you would end Iran's Holocaust denial, sir. “@JZarif: Happy Rosh Hashanah”

— sfpelosi (@sfpelosi) September 5, 2013

Amazingly, she got back a response, in which Zarif said that Iran does not deny the Holocaust, and that "the man who is perceived to be denying it is gone now," obviously referring to Ahmadinejad.

@sfpelosi Iran never denied it. The man who was perceived to be denying it is now gone. Happy New Year.

— Javad Zarif (@JZarif) September 5, 2013

Zarif later confirmed to reporters that it was really him who was tweeting those messages and also that he recognized he was tweeting with Nancy Pelosi's daughter.

The other interesting tweet came from President Rouhani, noting a change in who controlled Iran's nuclear efforts, and also signalling a greater willingness to have a "constructive interaction" with the world on this:

Foreign Ministry will be in charge of Iran's #Nuclear Negotiations.Ready for constructive interaction with the world http://t.co/sCrQ0Qhh5K

— Hassan Rouhani (@HassanRouhani) September 5, 2013

This, also, is a pretty big deal, and while I'm sure many will (rightfully) view the whole thing with skepticism, one can also be hopeful that this is a sign of a real shift in policies from Iran.

But perhaps even more interesting is the fact that this is all happening over Twitter. The fact that Zarif and Pelosi could have an exchange like that is fairly astounding once you think about it. That sort of thing was basically impossible just a few years ago. The ability to do diplomacy via social media is quite amazing. It really was just a year and a half ago that we were somewhat amazed (and also hopeful) that various citizens of both Israel and Iran were reaching out to each other via Facebook, to try to build direct connections and a hopeful sense of peace between citizens, but we wondered if the same sort of thing would ever extend up to the politicians and those in power. While we're not there yet, it's at least nice to see some sort of encouraging sign.

The ability to actually communicate and relate to one another as human beings rather than as caricatures is incredibly powerful. It can (and will) be abused at times, but we can still hope for good results and be encouraged when we see potential signs of it happening.

Filed Under: christine pelosi, hassan rouhani, holocaust, iran, israel, javad zarif, nancy pelosi, rosh hashana, social media
Companies: twitter

Israeli Bill Would Allow Secret Courts To Issue Confidential Warrants To Block Web Sites Allegedly Involved In Copyright Infringement

from the how-did-we-end-up-here? dept

One of the most depressing developments in recent years has been the gradual adoption of legal approaches to tackling copyright infringement that a few years ago would have been regarded as totally unacceptable, and the hallmarks of a tinpot republic run by some ridiculous dictator. Here's another example, this time from Israel, involving secret courts and inscrutable judgments, as Jonathan Klinger explains:

Israel is to attempt, again, to pass a bill that authorizes police officers to issue warrants to Internet service providers to block or restrict access to specific websites involved either in gambling, child pornography or copyright infringement. The bill itself proposes that such administrative procedures shall be clandestine and that court decisions shall be made ex-parte, where some of the court's ruling will not be even disclosed to the owner of the website, and the court may hear and use inadmissible evidence.

So not only are we talking about a process that can be conducted in secret, based on "inadmissible evidence" and in the absence of the accused (ex-parte), but one where core aspects of the final judgment may be withheld from the individuals affected, who will therefore have no way of knowing what they stand accused of, and hence no way of challenging the block.

Some might regard this as proportionate when combatting crimes as serious as child pornography; but undermining basic principles of law to tackle gambling sites, or those allegedly providing unauthorized access to copyright materials, seems an incredibly high price to pay for very little benefit. It's yet another indication of the way in which a continuing but unwinnable war on sharing has seriously damaged fundamental aspects of how justice and society now function.

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca, and on Google+

Filed Under: blocking, censorship, copyright, israel, secret courts

NYTimes Reveals Details Of How US Created Stuxnet... And How A Programming Error Led To Its Escape

from the when's-the-movie-coming-out dept

With a lot of new attention being paid to the Flame malware that was datamining computers around the Middle East, there have been plenty of comparisons to Stuxnet, the famous bit of malware that was targeted at mucking up Iran's nuclear power program. So it's very interesting timing to see the NY Times reveal many of the details behind Stuxnet, including confirming that it was a program driven by the US, with a lot of help from the Israelis. Many, many, many people suspected that already, but it certainly appears that the NYTimes has numerous detailed sources that support this claim.

Perhaps even more interesting, however, is the fact that Stuxnet (which apparently originally infected Iranian nuclear plants via workers using USB keys when they shouldn't) was never supposed to get out into the wild. It was supposed to just sit in the computers at the power plant, confusing the hell out of the Iranians. But, obviously, that didn't happen. Having that info get out into the wild probably killed off the effort much earlier than expected, since it basically explained to the Iranians what was happening.

It's also noteworthy that a source in the article claims that Stuxnet was the first example of using a computer attack to destroy physical items (it made centrifuges work irregularly in ways that could cause them to break). Some have therefore used Stuxnet as "proof" of the cybersecurity threats out there and the misnamed "cyberwar." I'm not sure that's true. Stuxnet still appears to be a rather unique case in terms of a very, very specific target that had some significant vulnerabilities. We hear lots of worries about cybersecurity impacting physical infrastructure -- and I'm sure that those who wish to do harm would love to bring down power grids and airplanes through some form of a cyber attack. But I'm not convinced that the success of Stuxnet is so easily replicable in other such areas. And I don't see how that automatically justifies effectively tossing out all privacy protections.

Filed Under: cybersecurity, cyberwar, iran, israel, middle east, stuxnet

Iran Threatens Action After Google Wipes Persian Gulf (Label) Off Map

from the under-what-law? dept

Putting together maps may seem like a simple thing, but it can often have significant consequences, especially involving national identity and nationalistic feelings. And, given the prominence of Google Maps, the company has been no stranger to controversy over some of its mapping choices. Back in 2005, Taiwanese politicians protested Google referring to the island as a province of China. Similarly, there have been complaints about Palestinian territories being labeled as a part of Israel. Of course, given the very well documented disputes about the issues in both regions, it's no surprise that the mapping choices (either way) would likely upset some. Of course, my favorite Google Maps dispute may have been when Nicaragua accidentally invaded Costa Rica and then blamed Google Maps for the mistake, which came close to creating a serious international incident.

The latest such story involves Iran threatening to sue Google for not labeling the Persian Gulf. The article goes through the details, and Google seems to dance around the subject. A spokesperson claims that not every body of water is labeled -- but as the report points out, lots of other bodies of water in the area (including many that are significantly smaller) are labelled. As the article notes, there is at least some dispute over what the body of water is called, suggesting that Google's way of dealing with the controversy this time around is to just not label it at all. Though, clearly, that doesn't seem to have helped.

Of course, what I'm wondering is just what kind of "legal action" Iran thinks it can reasonably take here. I'm sure they can go after Google in an Iranian court, but I can't see how that matters. Google is outside their jurisdiction and the "worst" case scenario is that Google gets blocked. But given Iran's widespread internet censorship, and the expectation that it's about to expand greatly, it's not clear that even that would be a big change. If Iran were to sue somewhere else, what would be the basis? Not liking how a map is labeled doesn't automatically make it illegal.

Filed Under: iran, israel, mapping, persian gulf
Companies: google