Occupy Corporatism
by Susanne Posel
The Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) uses hacker software to exploit vulnerabilities in cell phones that allow them to listen in on American citizen’s conversations to track criminals and terrorists.
By inserting spyware into suspect’s computers through emails and web links, government spooks are able to monitor their movements online.
Surveillance agencies blame their use of such tactics on suspects going dark by employing encrypted coding and new digital communications technology to evade detection.
By using already known vulnerabilities in software on computers and phones, agents can install their own programs to ensure stability and that their surveillance operations remain undetected.
As part of the scheme, the FBI employs hackers to create this specialized software; as well as private tech corporations that have recently sold such software to law enforcement agencies on the state and local level.
An anonymous source explained: “They hand out a target list and you try to find something; it starts with stuff that lots of people have, like Safari on Mac, and then works down into a bunch of weird and very specific software packages.”
Exploits for Safari Web browser could command as much as $100,000 while hacker software for Microsoft Explorer would be worth more on the market.
Google’s Android OS is vulnerable to such manipulation ; even to the extent of having all customer conversations recorded by the FBI or other surveillance agencies.
With Android being the most popular cell phone, the focus of attention by the FBI for surveillance operations is quite impressive.
This leaves millions and millions of Americans at the mercy of agencies that seek to illegally spy on them.
The FBI is capable of ascertaining every American’s location, sending targets text messages and reconfiguring each individual phone to expose vulnerabilities.
Verizon Wireless and surveillance agencies were exposed as having technology that can remotely surveil a target; including conducting operations that were not legally sanctioned by a court order or search warrant.
Known as StingRays , these “cell phone tracking devices” are “designed to locate a mobile phone even when it’s not being used to make a call.”
Revelations from the National Security Agency (NSA) PRISM program have strained relationships between spooks and the hacker community.
Alex Santos, presenter at the 2013 DEF CON talk in Las Vegas remarked : “We’ve gone backwards about 10 years in the relations between the good guys and the U.S. government.”
Employment of hackers by surveillance agencies such as the NSA and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has established a long-term connectivity between the two factions.
However, since NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden provided documentation of assertions long assumed to be true, protection for defense contractors, bank and utilities corporations have been on high alert from attack; necessitating the recruitment of professional hackers by the federal government.
Cyber wars have proven to need “cyber warriors” according to Richard George, technical director of the information assurance directorate at the NSA.
George said: ‘That’s the race that we’re in today. And we need the best and brightest to be ready to take on this cyber warrior status. We are straining to hire the people that we need.”
At the 2013 DEF CON talk, Christopher Cleary, representing the Navy’s cyber program and president of government-services at Vir-Sec, explained that since so many hackers appear at this conference which makes it easy pickings for the federal government.
Recruitment for the government gives current military leaders an edge in staffing war strategists and the latest incarnation of the cyber armies that fight for the agenda of the military industrial complex.
ConspiracyAnalyst.org 