{"id":44930,"date":"2014-07-21T12:00:16","date_gmt":"2014-07-21T11:00:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=44930"},"modified":"2015-05-05T21:33:39","modified_gmt":"2015-05-05T20:33:39","slug":"hacking-online-polls-and-other-ways-british-spies-seek-to-control-the-internet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2014\/07\/hacking-online-polls-and-other-ways-british-spies-seek-to-control-the-internet\/","title":{"rendered":"Hacking Online Polls and Other Ways British Spies Seek to Control the Internet"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"poll_cropped-copy<\/a><\/p>\n

The secretive British spy agency GCHQ has developed covert tools to seed the internet with false information, including the ability to manipulate the results of online polls, artificially inflate pageview counts on web sites, \u201camplif[y]\u201d sanctioned messages on YouTube, and censor video content judged to be \u201cextremist.\u201d The capabilities, detailed in documents provided by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, even include an old standby for pre-adolescent prank callers everywhere: A way to connect two unsuspecting phone users together in a call.<\/p>\n

The tools were created by GCHQ\u2019s Joint Threat Research Intelligence Group (JTRIG), and constitute some of the most startling methods of propaganda and internet deception contained within the Snowden archive. Previously disclosed documents have detailed JTRIG\u2019s use of \u201cfake victim blog posts,\u201d \u201cfalse flag operations,\u201d \u201choney traps\u201d and psychological manipulation to target online activists<\/a>, monitor visitors to WikiLeaks<\/a>, and spy on YouTube and Facebook users<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But as the U.K. Parliament today debates a fast-tracked bill to provide the government with greater surveillance powers<\/a>, one which Prime Minister David Cameron has justified as an \u201cemergency\u201d<\/a> to \u201chelp keep us safe,\u201d\u00a0a newly released top-secret GCHQ document called \u201cJTRIG Tools and Techniques\u201d provides a comprehensive, birds-eye view of just how underhanded and invasive this unit\u2019s operations are. The document\u2014available in full here<\/a>\u2014is designed to notify other GCHQ units of JTRIG\u2019s \u201cweaponised capability\u201d when it comes to the dark internet arts, and serves as a sort of hacker\u2019s buffet for wreaking online havoc.<\/p>\n

\"jtrig-grab<\/a><\/p>\n

The \u201ctools\u201d have been assigned boastful code names. They include invasive methods for online surveillance, as well as some of the very techniques that the U.S. and U.K. have harshly prosecuted young online activists for employing, including \u201cdistributed denial of service\u201d attacks and \u201ccall bombing.\u201d But they also describe previously unknown tactics for manipulating and distorting online political discourse and disseminating state propaganda, as well as the apparent ability to actively monitor Skype users in real-time\u2014raising further questions about the extent of Microsoft\u2019s cooperation with spy agencies<\/a> or potential vulnerabilities in its Skype\u2019s encryption. Here\u2019s a list of how JTRIG describes its capabilities:<\/p>\n

\u2022 \u201cChange outcome of online polls\u201d (UNDERPASS)<\/p>\n

\u2022 \u201cMass delivery of email messaging to support an Information Operations campaign\u201d (BADGER) and \u201cmass delivery of SMS messages to support an Information Operations campaign\u201d (WARPARTH)<\/p>\n

\u2022 \u201cDisruption of video-based websites hosting extremist content through concerted target discovery and content removal.\u201d (SILVERLORD)<\/p>\n

\u2022 \u201cActive skype capability. Provision of real time call records (SkypeOut and SkypetoSkype) and bidirectional instant messaging. Also contact lists.\u201d (MINIATURE HERO)<\/p>\n

\u2022 \u201cFind private photographs of targets on Facebook\u201d (SPRING BISHOP)<\/p>\n

\u2022 \u201cA tool that will permanently disable a target\u2019s account on their computer\u201d (ANGRY PIRATE)<\/p>\n

\u2022 \u201cAbility to artificially increase traffic to a website\u201d (GATEWAY) and \u201cability to inflate page views on websites\u201d (SLIPSTREAM)<\/p>\n

\u2022 \u201cAmplification of a given message, normally video, on popular multimedia websites (Youtube)\u201d (GESTATOR)<\/p>\n

\u2022 \u201cTargeted Denial Of Service against Web Servers\u201d (PREDATORS FACE) and \u201cDistributed denial of service using P2P. Built by ICTR, deployed by JTRIG\u201d (ROLLING THUNDER)<\/p>\n

\u2022 \u201cA suite of tools for monitoring target use of the UK auction site eBay (www.ebay.co.uk<\/a>)\u201d (ELATE)<\/p>\n

\u2022 \u201cAbility to spoof any email address and send email under that identity\u201d (CHANGELING)<\/p>\n

\u2022 \u201cFor connecting two target phone together in a call\u201d (IMPERIAL BARGE)<\/p>\n

While some of the tactics are described as \u201cin development,\u201d JTRIG touts \u201cmost\u201d of them as \u201cfully operational, tested and reliable.\u201d It adds: \u201cWe only advertise tools here that are either ready to fire or very close to being ready.\u201d<\/p>\n

And JTRIG urges its GCHQ colleagues to think big when it comes to internet deception: \u201cDon\u2019t treat this like a catalogue. If you don\u2019t see it here, it doesn\u2019t mean we can\u2019t build it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The document appears in a massive Wikipedia-style archive used by GCHQ to internally discuss its surveillance and online deception activities. The page indicates that it was last modified in July 2012, and had been accessed almost 20,000 times.<\/p>\n

GCHQ refused to provide any comment on the record beyond its standard boilerplate, in which it claims that it acts \u201cin accordance with a strict legal and policy framework\u201d and is subject to \u201crigorous oversight.\u201d But both claims are questionable.<\/p>\n

British watchdog Privacy International has filed pending legal action against GCHQ<\/a> over the agency\u2019s use of malware to spy on internet and mobile phone users. Several GCHQ memos published last fall by The Guardian<\/em><\/a> revealed that the agency was eager to keep its activities secret not to protect national security, but because \u201cour main concern is that references to agency practices (ie, the scale of interception and deletion) could lead to damaging public debate which might lead to legal challenges against the current regime.\u201d And an EU parliamentary inquiry earlier this year concluded that GCHQ activities were likely illegal<\/a>.<\/p>\n

As for oversight, serious questions have been raised about whether top national security officials even know what GCHQ is doing. Chris Huhne, a former cabinet minister and member of the national security council until 2012, insisted that ministers were in \u201cutter ignorance\u201d<\/a> about even the largest GCHQ spying program, known as Tempora\u2014not to mention \u201ctheir extraordinary capability to hoover up and store personal emails, voice contact, social networking activity and even internet searches.\u201d In an October Guardian<\/em> op-ed<\/a>, Huhne wrote that \u201cwhen it comes to the secret world of GCHQ and the [NSA], the depth of my \u2018privileged information\u2019 has been dwarfed by the information provided by Edward Snowden to The Guardian<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n

__________________________<\/p>\n

Glenn Greenwald is a journalist, constitutional lawyer, commentator, and author of three New York Times best-selling books on politics and law. His fifth book, <\/em>No Place to Hide<\/em>, about the U.S. surveillance state and his experiences reporting on the Snowden documents around the world, will be released in April 2014. Prior to his collaboration with Pierre Omidyar, Glenn\u2019s column was featured at <\/em>Guardian US<\/em> and <\/em>Salon<\/em>. He was the debut winner, along with Amy Goodman, of the Park Center I.F. Stone Award for Independent Journalism in 2008, and also received the 2010 Online Journalism Award for his investigative work on the abusive detention conditions of Chelsea Manning. For his 2013 NSA reporting, he received the Gannett Foundation award for investigative journalism and the Gannett Foundation watchdog journalism award; the Esso Premio for Excellence in Investigative Reporting in Brazil (the first non-Brazilian to win), and the Electronic Frontier Foundation\u2019s Pioneer Award. Along with Laura Poitras, <\/em>Foreign Policy<\/em> magazine named him one of the top 100 Global Thinkers for 2013. He lives in Rio, Brazil.<\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 firstlook.org<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The secretive British spy agency GCHQ has developed covert tools to seed the internet with false information, including the ability to manipulate the results of online polls, artificially inflate pageview counts on web sites, \u201camplif[y]\u201d sanctioned messages on YouTube, and censor video content judged to be \u201cextremist.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[60],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-44930","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-whistleblowing-surveillance"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44930","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44930"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44930\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44930"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44930"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44930"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}