UK Surveilance Radio Transmissions - Spying on the Spies (2012)

Tutorial: How to replace the BIOS chip in a computer motherboard

From BULLRUN to NOCON and LACONIC

On September 5, The Guardian, The New York Times and ProPublica jointly revealed that NSA has a top secret program to break encryption systems used on the internet. This is done by for example inserting vulnerabilities into commercial encryption and IT systems. This program is codenamed BULLRUN, which, according to NSA documents, is not a regular sensitive information compartment, but a "secure COI".

COI or CoI stands for Community of Interest, a more common computer security feature by which network assets and/or users are segregated by technological means. This is done through a logical or physical grouping of network devices or users with access to information that should not be available to the general user population of the network. According to the 2011 Classification Manual (pdf), information residing on secure COIs may not be taken out of the COI or moved to other databases without appropriate approval.

ECI = Exceptionally Controlled Information; PTD = Penetrating Target Defences
IIB = Initial Infrastructure Build ?

According to a GCHQ briefing sheet about BULLRUN, there are at least two other COIs: ENDUE and NOCON, both for sensitive materials. These Community of Interest codenames were revealed here for the first time. For classification purposes they are treated as dissemination markings: they appear at the very end of a classification line, separated from other markings (like NOFORN and ORCON) by a single forward slash. For example: TOP SECRET//SI//NOFORN/BULLRUN
Surprise

As the COI codenames BULLRUN, ENDUE and NOCON are used within a Top Secret environment for highly sensitive NSA operations, it was quite a surprise to find the NOCON marking on another document too: an appendix (pdf) of a very secret NSA document. This appendix is about Public Key crypto s

ystems and has no date, but seems to be from the 1980s. It was declassified by the NSA in March 2007 upon request of the Cryptome website:

The document was marked TOP SECRET UMBRA LACONIC NOCON. This old style classification marking (without slashes between the categories and terms) means that the document has the overall classification level TOP SECRET and was protected by putting it in the UMBRA compartment, which was designated for the most sensitive communications intercept material. The LACONIC and NOCON markings will be explained below.


LACONIC

The function of LACONIC is clarified in the NSA's internal Cryptolog (pdf) magazine, 2nd issue from 1988, which says that LACONIC is not a clearance or a classification, but a handling control marking. It's described as a restrictive distribution indicator for certain techniques - what kind of techniques is blacked out. Access to documents marked with LACONIC does not require a special clearance, but the reader must have a need to know certain details about those undisclosed things.

An indication about what kind of techniques are blacked out can be found in the Cryptolog (pdf) issue of January/February 1986. There it's said that "LACONIC access" is required for attending the CRYSCO-86 conference about computer technology and cryptanalysis, so it seems likely that LACONIC is about sensitive computer codebreaking techniques.

This comes close to the BULLRUN program and therefore it's not unthinkable that LACONIC was one of its forerunners, allthough according to the New York Times, the direct predecessor of BULLRUN was a program codenamed MANASSAS.

The LACONIC marking was retired as of October 2006 and apparently replaced by a new compartment within the control system for Exceptionally Controlled Information (ECI).


NOCONTRACT

In addition to restricting access to people with the need-to-know, the 1988 Cryptolog explanation says that LACONIC was also designed to deny access to contractors and consultants. Therefore, LACONIC had always to be accompanied by the NOCONTRACT marking. Apparently this marking could also be shortened to NOCON, as can be seen in the aforementioned document about public key crypto systems.

The Director of Central Intelligence Directive (DCID) 1/7 from April 12, 1995 ruled that as from that date, the NOCONTRACT marking should not be used anymore. This because it had "clearly outlived [its] usefullnes". Officials could now release intelligence bearing the NOCONTRACT marking to appropriately cleared and access-approved contractors. It's no surprise that this came at a time when US intelligence agencies started their large-scale outsourcing to private contractors.

However, it seems strange that Directive 1/7 eliminated the NOCONTRACT marking in 1995, but at the same time we still see NOCON as a COI in recent BULLRUN documents. A possible explanation could be that NSA still wanted to keep some sensitive materials out of the hands of contractors, and therefore continued to use the NOCON marking internally.

This could also explain the fact that NOCON, like the BULLRUN and ENDUE COI markings, are not listed in the extensive classification marking manuals for the intelligence community. The 2010 BULLRUN Classification Guide confirms that "the BULLRUN data label (for use in databases) and marking (for use in hard- or soft copy documents) are for NSA/CSS internal use only".


Conclusion

At least since the 1980s, NSA used the LACONIC marking to protect sensitive information, which was probably related to computer codebreaking techniques. Whether LACONIC was for internal NSA use only is not entirely clear, but as LACONIC material was not meant for contractors and consultants, it had to be accompanied by the NOCONTRACT marking which was used throughout the intelligence community.

After the general use of NOCONTRACT or NOCON was prohibited in 1995, NSA seems to have continued it as an internal marking. Similar are the probably more recent markings ENDUE and BULLRUN, which are all used for highly sensitive information that is protected by putting it in separated and secured parts (COIs) of NSA's internal computer networks

http://electrospaces.blogspot.pt/2013/10/from-bullrun-to-nocon-and-laconic.html

XerXes DoS Attack (part2)

Xerxes DoS Attack (part 1)

Sdot Micha 2005 Arrow 3 Israeli Base

This moment is a big victory to me, personnal and politically, no one would get the blogger was shutdown, the specification about the Arrow 3 base for 2005 were gone, no country around the world gets satellite images over the Israeli terretory, Sdot Micha images wre a big victory, I'm celebrating with a lot of friends on the frequency. Now, grand grand father has nothing to say to me right now. He lost his argument, I'm sorry grand Pa.

Caros amigos e amigas, através de alguns contactos, foi-me solicitado que informasse um grupo de pressão, recentemente criado, que envolvem forças de segurança pública, sobre a matéria de impugnação do cargo de Presidente da República. Face ao estudo da jurisprudência sobre esta matéria, penso que a cassação da manifestação de vontade, de um eleitor singular, ou grupo de cidadãos eleitores, poderá... ser efectuada do seguinte modo:
1. Caso o Presidente da República tenha recebido formalmente uma queixa crime sobre corrupção em altos cargos de Estado, como sejam, o presumível "desvio" de verbas da Segurança social, para depósito particular de cargo público, ou o presumível "desvio" de dinheiro público na aquisição de equipamento que implique verbas avultadas, e caso não tenha enviado essa queixa crime para à PGR, com a sua assinatura a validar a investigação judicial, a lei justifica a impugnação do cargo de Presidente da República, por fraude e corrupção.
2. O prazo de lei, para a manifestação de vontade na impugnação, é de 15 dias após o recebimento da queixa crime, com a devida tomada de conhecimento formalizada.
3. O Supremo Tribunal de Justiça, tem 5 dias, para apreciar as provas, e 3 dias para se pronunciar.

Um amigo meu aqui da frequência está de cana, 13 anos, por posse e tráfico de estupefacientes, foi agarrado com 30 sabonetes. E eu estava-lhe a dizer o seguinte: primeiro, o batimento de maluco, ou seja não sou culpado, por mais que a Polícia insista no porquê, o argumento é que não te convém falar, sempre primeiro dizer que não és culpado. Segundo, no tráfico mundial de droga, existem correios, e... transportadores de larga envergadura, os correios normalmente batem se de malucos, que não sabiam que transportavam droga, mas o melhor argumento é dos grandes traficantes, que é sou intermediário, preciso por necessidade primária para viver, portanto, e aceitei ser intermediário, logo a acusação não deduz tráfico puro ou seja, venda directa no mercado, assim, embora haja lugar sempre a uma pena, esta pode ser suspensa, e no caso da Polícia questionar quem era o comprador final, pode se dizer, era para fazer uma entrega numa cabine telefónica, sem contactos, e já lá estava o dinheiro

LAJES : AMERICANOS AFASTAM-SE CHINESES APROXIMAM-SE

Base Aérea º4 nas Lajes, Terceira

Segundo notícia divulgada ontem pela Agência Lusa, a administração norte-americana informou o Governo português da sua intenção de reduzir significativamente a presença na Base Aérea das Lajes nos Açores.

Apesar de ser atualmente ponto de passagem e apoio para a aviação norte-americana, principalmente nas ligações de e para o Médio Oriente, novos tempos parecem avizinhar-se, com o consequente impacto que terá para a economia dos Açores e política externa nacional.

Esta decisão do executivo de Obama, vem na continuidade do que parece ser uma política de desinvestimento em bases externas, já que em 2006 os EUA abandonaram a utilização de outra base no Atlântico, mais concretamente em Keflavik na Islândia, tendo desde então o espaço aéreo desta nação nórdica sido patrulhado rotativamente pelos aliados da NATO (incluindo Portugal em agosto e setembro últimos).

Entretanto (e talvez por isso) têm circulado rumores do interesse da China na insular base aérea portuguesa, levantados especialmente pela passagem pouco previsível do Primeiro-Ministro chinês pelas Lajes em Junho passado, no regresso de uma visita oficial ao... Chile, que não fica propriamente em caminho.

O Primeiro-Ministro chinês e sua comitiva estiveram quatro horas de visita à base e ilha Terceira apesar de oficialmente a passagem ter sido designada como "escala técnica".

Do ponto de vista estratégico para a China, ter uma base no Atlântico Norte seria uma forma excelente de impor a sua presença entre EUA e a Europa, bem como contrabalançar o incómodo que é a a influência americana em Taiwan, um espinho cravado no orgulho chinês.

 

http://www.passarodeferro.com/2012/11/lajes-americanos-afastam-se-chineses.html

Teleporting (cont.)

LONDON, England (Reuters) -- Beaming people in "Star Trek" fashion is still in the realms of science fiction, but physicists in Denmark have teleported information from light to matter bringing quantum communication and computing closer to reality.

Until now scientists have teleported similar objects such as light or single atoms over short distances from one spot to another in a split second.

But Professor Eugene Polzik and his team at the Niels Bohr Institute at Copenhagen University in Denmark have made a breakthrough by using both light and matter.

"It is one step further because for the first time it involves teleportation between light and matter, two different objects. One is the carrier of information and the other one is the storage medium," Polzik explained in an interview on Wednesday.

The experiment involved for the first time a macroscopic atomic object containing thousands of billions of atoms. They also teleported the information a distance of half a meter but believe it can be extended further.

"Teleportation between two single atoms had been done two years ago by two teams, but this was done at a distance of a fraction of a millimeter," Polzik, of the Danish National Research Foundation Center for Quantum Optics, explained.

"Our method allows teleportation to be taken over longer distances because it involves light as the carrier of entanglement," he added.

Quantum entanglement involves entwining two or more particles without physical contact.
Although teleportation is associated with the science-fiction series "Star Trek," no one is likely to be beamed anywhere soon.

But the achievement of Polzik's team, in collaboration with the theorist Ignacio Cirac of the Max Planck Institute for Quantum Optics in Garching, Germany, marks an advancement in the field of quantum information and computers, which could transmit and process information in a way that was impossible before.

"It is really about teleporting information from one site to another site. Quantum information is different from classical information in the sense that it cannot be measured. It has much higher information capacity and it cannot be eavesdropped on. The transmission of quantum information can be made unconditionally secure," said Polzik whose research is reported in the journal Nature.

Quantum computing requires manipulation of information contained in the quantum states, which include physical properties such as energy, motion and magnetic field, of the atoms.
"Creating entanglement is a very important step, but there are two more steps at least to perform teleportation. We have succeeded in making all three steps -- that is entanglement, quantum measurement and quantum feedback," he added.

 

Biodigital Cloning

In 1998, physicists at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), along with two European groups, turned the IBM ideas into reality by successfully teleporting a photon, a particle of energy that carries light. The Caltech group was able to read the atomic structure of a photon, send this information across 1 meter (3.28 feet) of coaxial cable and create a replica of the photon. As predicted, the original photon no longer existed once the replica was made.

In performing the experiment, the Caltech group was able to get around the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, the main barrier for teleportation of objects larger than a photon. This principle states that you cannot simultaneously know the location and the speed of a particle. But if you can't know the position of a particle, then how can you teleport it? In order to teleport a photon without violating the Heisenberg Principle, the Caltech physicists used a phenomenon known as entanglement. In entanglement, at least three photons are needed to achieve quantum teleportation:

Photon A: The photon to be teleported
Photon B: The transporting photon
Photon C: The photon that is entangled with photon B

If researchers tried to look too closely at photon A without entanglement, they would bump it, and thereby change it. By entangling photons B and C, researchers can extract some information about photon A, and the remaining information would be passed on to B by way of entanglement, and then on to photon C. When researchers apply the information from photon A to photon C, they can create an exact replica of photon A. However, photon A no longer exists as it did before the information was sent to photon C.

In other words, when Captain Kirk beams down to an alien planet, an analysis of his atomic structure is passed through the transporter room to his desired location, where a replica of Kirk is created and the original is destroyed.

A more recent teleportation success was achieved at the Australian National University, when researchers successfully teleported a laser beam.

For a person to be transported, a machine would have to be built that can pinpoint and analyze all of the 10^28 atoms that make up the human body. That's more than a trillion trillion atoms. This machine would then have to send this information to another location, where the person's body would be reconstructed with exact precision. Molecules couldn't be even a millimeter out of place, lest the person arrive with some severe neurological or physiological defect.

If such a machine were possible, it's unlikely that the person being transported would actually be "transported." It would work more like a fax machine -- a duplicate of the person would be made at the receiving end, but with much greater precision than a fax machine. But what would happen to the original? One theory suggests that teleportation would combine genetic cloning with digitization.

In this biodigital cloning, tele-travelers would have to die, in a sense. Their original mind and body would no longer exist. Instead, their atomic structure would be recreated in another location, and digitization would recreate the travelers' memories, emotions, hopes and dreams. So the travelers would still exist, but they would do so in a new body, of the same atomic structure as the original body, programmed with the same information.

For theologists, this means that the new body wouldn't have the original soul

 

http://quantumhowto.blogspot.pt/