Leaked documents detail how and why NSA targets network admins

With the amount of NSA-related information that's been leaked to the press, one may wonder if the feds will have anything new to share whenever the agency's first transparency report releases. The latest info is that the NSA was targeting foreign network administrators to gain access to the networks they control, as late as 2012. Edward Snowden gave The Intercept a handful of screengrabs from an internal agency message board that, among other things, detail how the NSA can monitor calls and emails moving through a foreign telco's network simply by having access to the system admin's PC. The steps for that apparently include grabbing the admin's IP address, and from there hacking the user's Facebook or web-mail accounts to gain full access to their computer via surveillance malware.

The postings were supposedly written by the author of last October's Tor network attack-report, and go on at length describing his or her dream to build a master list of system admins that would span the globe. What good would that do? Well, it'd enable the agency to launch an attack once an "extremist/terrorist or government official" uses the network an admin oversees. There are also step-by-step instructions for attacking an admin's computer through its network router using Telnet, the agency's SIGINT tools as well as the Quantum hacking-platform.

The posts say nothing about how the NSA would sidestep inadvertently hacking system admins in the US either, or even system admins working for foreign companies on domestic soil. Be sure to check the source links for the full story, but don't the playful tone of the posts distract you from the real issue: the government was, and could possibly still be, persistently monitoring civilians who've done nothing wrong in the off-chance that an enemy of the state could log on to their network.

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Source: The Intercept (1), (2)

Tags: espionage, hacking, Internet, nsa, prism, privacy, sigint, snowden, SystemAdministrator Next: Turkey bans Twitter but users can still tweet via SMS .fyre .fyre-comment-divider

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Indian Business Angel Network Makes First Investment, In UK’s SwiftShift

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India’s largest business angels group has made its first investment in a UK start-up, investing in a London-based company SwiftShift. The amount was not disclosed. The Indian Angel Network (IAN) is Asia’s largest angel network of over 250 investors spread across 10 countries. Effectively, this is an Indian angel network investing in a UK company run by an Israeli in London.

SwiftShift allows companies to quickly fill short notice shifts using their own staff through SMS, email, and mobile technology.

The Indian Angel Network decided to invest in SwiftShift following a pitching session in London organised by UKTI where 7 companies presented to the investors.

According to UK government figures Indian firms are now the 5th largest investors in the UK and more than 50% of Indian investment into Europe goes to the UK.

The IAN has already invested in start-ups in countries including the USA, Canada, France, Hong Kong, Singapore, Sri Lanka and India.

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Crowdsourced WiFi Network Fon Picks Up $14M Led By Qualcomm, Adds Facebook Integration

Fon, a free “crowdsourced” WiFi network that is created out of people sharing a portion of their private WiFi connections, is today announcing another $14 million in funding led by Qualcomm Ventures. It’s a strategic investment: sometime in the first half of 2014, Fon will be shipping a new, “social-music” router, called Fonera, based on a chipset from Qualcomm subsidiary Atheros. Qualcomm will also be integrating Fon into other Atheros chipsets, making it available as part of the SDK.

“The amount of this round and the caliber of investors will propel us into our next stage of growth,” said Martin Varsavsky, CEO, Fon, in a statement.  “We are excited about our new relationship with Qualcomm, which is an amazing company and a leader in mobile data communication.  By integrating Fon into Qualcomm Atheros’ chipsets, more devices and systems will be automatically equipped to be part of Fon’s global Wi-Fi network.”

The investment is part of a big push that Madrid-based Fon, which now has some 12 million hotspots worldwide, is making to tackle the U.S. market. As part of that, it will be partnering with Facebook to provide a Fon integration — Facebook friends of Fon users will now be able to use their friends’ Fon connections, when they are in the same physical space as their friends.

(The advantage of doing this is that you don’t have to give out your password to your own WiFi network, making it easier for people to connect when they are visiting you at home or in your office.)

The company has to-date had an extensive rollout across Europe, with partnerships with companies like BT in the UK giving BT’s broadband subscribers the ability to access WiFi outside the home. It says that its grown by 50% this year, and claims 10% penetration in markets like Belgium and the UK.

Perhaps that plus the success of other collaborative consumption startups like Airbnb has made Fon and its investors more bullish on the prospects of the company repeating that success in the U.S. It will also be announcing carrier partnerships in the country, we understand.

Others in this round include existing investors Index Partners, Google, Coral and Atomico and Deutsche Telekom (DT). Fon has raised nearly $72 million since being founded in 2006.

“Fon’s unique approach to crowd-sourcing Wi-Fi is going to play an increasingly instrumental role in the future of mobile data,” said Miles Kirby, senior director for Qualcomm Ventures, in a statement.  “Qualcomm is leading the 1000x mobile data challenge, and Fon fits perfectly into our vision to solving the increasing demand for data.”

Fon is projecting that it will be touching some 35 million hotspots by 2016. “Our recent expansion in the U.S. and projects such as our work with the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership to provide downtown Brooklyn residents, businesses and public with free Wi-Fi are all a part of the strategy to reach that goal,” said Varsavsky in a statement.

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Nintendo Network stutters under holiday traffic, Pokemon Bank and Transporter delayed

Unwrap a Wii U this holiday season? Apparently, you weren't the only one: the company's Nintendo Network seems to be stumbling over increased traffic. "Players are having trouble setting up Nintendo Network IDs and downloading content in the Nintendo eShop on both Wii U and Nintendo 3DS," Nintendo writes on its US support page. "We truly regret the inconvenience, and wish to reassure everyone that providing a solution is our top priority."

The network issues are sure to be a thorn in the side of new users pursuing the Wii U's requisite updates, not to mention current owners hoping to check out this week's eShop sales. Folks planning to pick up Pokemon Bank and Poke Teleport (a pair of programs designed to allow players to save, store and transfer their pocket monsters between new and old versions of the games) will have to wait too -- both apps have been delayed until the network issues can be resolved. With any luck, that won't take too long, but if you care to nip at Nintendo's heels you'll find the company's official announcement at the source links below.

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Source: Nintendo (1), (2), (3)

Game Informer Tags: 3ds, nintendo, Nintendo Network, Wii U Next: Official CyanogenMod ROM now available to every Oppo N1
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Enterprise Social Network Convo Adds At-Rest Encryption To Its Servers To Better Protect Client Data

Convo, an enterprise social network that competes with the now Microsoft-owned Yammer, today announced that it has added at-rest encryption (ARE) to its servers in order to better protect its client information.

Recent revelations relating to the National Security Administration (NSA) have taught the technology community and world at large that data isn’t safe from surveillance, and other forms of snooping. One NSA program, MUSCULAR, became infamous for tapping communication links between American companies’ data centers abroad.

The Washington Post reported that the NSA has “secretly broken into the main communications links that connect Yahoo and Google data centers” abroad, and that by “tapping those links, the agency has positioned itself to collect at will from hundreds of millions of user accounts, many of them belonging to Americans.”

In response, Google and others are working to encrypt the data that flows between their vast server installations. Microsoft, for example, went as far as calling the NSA and others of its ilk “advanced persistent threat

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AT&T delivers GigaPower fiber network to Austin

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