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Electrospaces.net
Personal blog · electrospaces.blogspot.compoliticssecurity
Electrospaces.net is a personal blog at electrospaces.blogspot.com about politics and security. Since 2013, 36 different Hacker News readers have linked it 58 times, most often “How Obama's BlackBerry got secured”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-10-13, and you can follow it by feed.
A weblog about Signals Intelligence, Communications Security and top level telecommunications equipment
Most-linked posts?
- How Obama's BlackBerry got secured3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2013-10-25
- The Phones of US Director of National Intelligence James Clapper2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2016-03-30
- DRTBOX and the DRT surveillance systems2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2013-11-30
What Hacker News says?
> Fair point, though we did get GCHQ's data. No, the US gets some of GCHQ's intelligence reports , not all of GCHQ'S data . > According to [1], the NSA mass-collects VoIP partly through XKEYSCORE, FALLOUT and TURMOIL (harvested from INCENSER/DS-300/others), and PSTN through LOPERS (though it's unclear if LOPERS ingests domestic (INCENSER) data or just Europe<->Asia (DANCINGOASIS) data.) Do you even read your own sou…
Comment linking /2014/11/incenser-or-how-nsa-and-gchq-are.html?m=1
on “NSA collected 500M U.S. call records in 2017, a sharp rise: official report”Submitted How NSA and GCHQ are tapping internet cables as a story · 231 points
HN discussionFair point, though we did get GCHQ's data. Room 641A was part of the WINDSTOP programs run by SSO, comprised of MUSCULAR, INCENSER and DS-300. According to [1], the NSA mass-collects VoIP partly through XKEYSCORE, FALLOUT and TURMOIL (harvested from INCENSER/DS-300/others), and PSTN through LOPERS (though it's unclear if LOPERS ingests domestic (INCENSER) data or just Europe<->Asia (DANCINGOASIS) data.) Incidentally…
Comment linking /2014/05/nsas-largest-cable-tapping-program.html
on “NSA collected 500M U.S. call records in 2017, a sharp rise: official report”Submitted New phones aboard Air Force One as a story · 104 points
HN discussion"In the telcos, singlemode fiber is used to connect long distance switches, central offices and SLCs (subscriber loop carriers, small switches in pedestals in subdivisions or office parks or in the basement of a larger building). Practically every telco's network is now fiber optics except the connection to the home." [1] Specifically, AT&T has transitioned its PSTN backbone fully to SIP, which is a form of VoIP: "A…
Comment linking /2014/11/incenser-or-how-nsa-and-gchq-are.html?m=1
on “NSA collected 500M U.S. call records in 2017, a sharp rise: official report”Submitted The German Operation Eikonal as Part of NSA's Rampart-A Program as a story · 97 points
HN discussion> I'm not sure you addressed the main point, or admitted that in the reports they disclosed that the NSA did have direct full takes of the data No, I didn't address, but neither does the linked article - the documents cited state that they can keep encrypted data past 5 years in order to decrypt it. It doesn't say anything about "warrantless bulk collection of encrypted communications". The "warrantless" doesn't mak…
Comment linking /2014/09/nsas-strategic-mission-list.html
on “Inside the NSA's War on Internet Security”Submitted Breakdown of the NSA spying on French leaders as a story · 89 points
HN discussionHere's the list you will find ETERNALBLUE on: http://electrospaces.blogspot.com/p/nsas-tao-division-codewo...
Comment linking /p/nsas-tao-division-codewords.html?m=1
on “Rejection Letter”Submitted Dutch-Russian cyber crime case reveals how the police tap the internet as a story · 88 points
HN discussionI'm going to focus on voice as messengers are all over the place. People originally wanted secure voice. They started out as custom or value-added devices that, if worth a crap, often had special protections like dedicated IC's for crypto and TEMPEST protection: https://electrospaces.blogspot.com/2012/06/highly-secure-mob... Those were usually very simple. A good thing compared to modern ones. They all cost in the $…
Comment linking /2012/06/highly-secure-mobile-phones.html?m=1
on “Google collects metadata from Android phones”Submitted How Obama's BlackBerry got secured as a story · 83 points
HN discussionThough I recognize the thread is pretty much over with, I'll add on to irishcoffee's claim... It's very important to understand what Snowden's motives in evaluating the validity of the NSA documents. None of the documents have been released in their entirety, and often times the only thing that is released is a paragraph or two, or perhaps a couple of slides. Is there enough context in the partial source material pr…
Comment linking /2015/02/snowden-would-not-have-been-able-to.html
on “After Snowden, the NSA Faces Recruitment Challenge”Submitted Leaked documents that were not attributed to Snowden as a story · 77 points
HN discussionTEMPEST[1] / Van Eck threats are still prevalent. All EMF is going to leak information so sensitive devices have shielding when they are under elevated threat. See the government-grade shielding on Trump's monitor here: https://electrospaces.blogspot.com/2017/11/trumps-communicat... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tempest_(codename)
Comment linking /2017/11/trumps-communications-equipment-outside.html
on “PowerHammer: Exfiltrating Data from Air-Gapped Computers Through Power Lines”Submitted Some numbers about NSA's data collection as a story · 72 points
HN discussionHere are some excerpts from the WSJ paywalled article: Cellphones are programmed to connect automatically to the strongest cell tower signal. The device being used by the U.S. Marshals Service identifies itself as having the closest, strongest signal, even though it doesn’t, and forces all the phones that can detect its signal to send in their unique registration information. Even having encryption on one’s phone, s…
Comment linking /2013/11/drtbox-and-drt-surveillance-systems.html
on “Americans’ Cellphones Targeted in Secret U.S. Spy Program”Submitted Unnoticed leak answers and raises questions about operation Eikonal as a story · 63 points
HN discussion> Right, there's a huge amount of intelligence sharing. That's one of the critical points. Domestic law can be skirted by International Law and International Law can be skirted by Domestic Law. These slides aren't an example of skirting domestic laws - they're examples of expanding collection on the NSA's target through partnering with other countries. Greenwald and company were trying to spin these slides as saying…
Comment linking /2014/02/dutch-government-tried-to-hide-truth.html
on “Edward Snowden’s Privacy Tips: “Get Rid of Dropbox,” Avoid Facebook and Google”Submitted DRTBOX and the DRT surveillance systems as a story · 22 points
HN discussionThis is the actual legal definition of collected per DoDD 5240.1-R[1]: "C2.2.1. Collection. Information shall be considered as "collected" only when it has been received for use by an employee of a DoD intelligence component in the course of his official duties. Thus, information volunteered to a DoD intelligence component by a cooperating source would be "collected" under this procedure when an employee of such com…
Comment linking /2014/09/nsas-strategic-mission-list.html
on “Edward Snowden’s Privacy Tips: “Get Rid of Dropbox,” Avoid Facebook and Google”Submitted What if Google was an intelligence agency? as a story · 5 points
HN discussion> What would data protection by Chinese companies even mean? They're already comprehensively cooperating with the CCP. Well even if it looked anything like the EU's GDPR, even then the CCP would still have a carte blanche to collect whatever they wanted, just as the BND [0], AVID [1] et al do so today, and at least the politicians could pat them selves on the back about how they are protecting their people, while co…
Comment linking /2014/02/dutch-government-tried-to-hide-truth.html
on “In China, consumers are becoming more anxious about data privacy”Submitted The Phones of US Director of National Intelligence James Clapper as a story · 4 points
HN discussionNot everything Secretary Clinton did was TS/SCI. The common practice is an Android device[0] that is approved to SECRET only. This would suffice for general email and messaging. My understanding is that President Obama's blackberry [1] isn't really a mobile device as configured. This blackberry device connects to the a custom secure base station [2] or picocell, that follows him around just like the Football[3], whe…
Comment linking /2013/04/how-obamas-blackberry-got-secured.html
on “NSA refused Clinton a secure BlackBerry like Obama, so she used her own”Submitted The Snowden files: where are they and where should they end up? as a story · 3 points
HN discussionWow, thanks for accusing me of being an NSA goon. For the record, I said the reporting was sensationalized, not the documents. On the economic espionage front, I really don't care if the NSA spies in order to shape national policy. Things get a lot murkier when intelligence agencies spy and then hand off that data off to private companies. Huawei was caught red-handed using stolen source code from Cisco[1]. Cisco pr…
Comment linking /search/label/BoundlessInformant
on “NSA Reportedly Intercepts And Alters Routers And Servers Exported From U.S.”Submitted Section 702 FAA: what are the problems with PRISM and Upstream? as a story · 3 points
HN discussionThat's nothing new - the Electrospaces site has called into question the claims of Snowden and Greenwald on numerous occasions. For example: - Snowden would not have been able to legally "wiretap anybody": http://electrospaces.blogspot.com/2015/02/snowden-would-not-... - Snowden-documents show no evidence for global mass surveillance: http://electrospaces.blogspot.com/2014/06/snowden-documents-... - Document shows t…
Comment linking /2013/11/screenshots-from-boundlessinformant-can.html
on “Breakdown of the NSA spying on French leaders”Submitted The Phones of US Director of National Intelligence James Clapper as a story · 3 points
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