| Dear All, The below news from the credible source, compels us to not let our "National Security" trivialized by few lobbyist of Foreign Internet Company. "INDIA FIRST" Best Regards, Rajesh Chharia +91 98110 38188 The Guardian, Friday 12 July 2013 http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jul/11/microsoft-nsa-collaboration-user-data How Microsoft handed the NSA access to encrypted messages â Secret files show scale of
Silicon Valley co-operation on Prism â â Outlook.com encryption unlocked
even before official launchâ â Skype worked to enable
Prism collection of video callsâ â Company says it is legally
compelled to comply Skype worked with
intelligence agencies last year to allow Prism to collect video and audio
conversations. Microsoft has collaborated
closely with US intelligence services to allow users' communications to be
intercepted, including helping the National Security Agency to circumvent the
company's own encryption, according to top-secret documents obtained by the
Guardian. The
files provided by Edward Snowden illustrate the scale of
co-operation between Silicon Valley and the intelligence agencies over the last
three years. They also shed new light on the workings of the top-secret Prism program, which was
disclosed by the Guardian and the Washington Post last month. The
documents show that: â
Microsoft helped the NSA to circumvent its encryption to address
concerns that the agency would be unable to intercept web chats on the new
Outlook.com portal; â The
agency already had pre-encryption stage access to email
on Outlook.com, including Hotmail; â The
company worked with the FBI this year to allow the NSA easier access via Prism
to its cloud storage service SkyDrive, which now has more than 250 million
users worldwide; â
Microsoft also worked with the FBI's Data Intercept Unit to
"understand" potential issues with a feature in Outlook.com that
allows users to create email aliases; â In
July last year, nine months after Microsoft bought Skype, the NSA boasted that a new capability had tripled the
amount of Skype video calls being collected through Prism; â
Material collected through Prism is routinely shared with the FBI and CIA,
with one NSA document describing the program as a "team sport". The
latest NSA revelations further expose the tensions between Silicon Valley and
the Obama administration. All the major tech
firms are lobbying the government to allow them to disclose more fully the
extent and nature of their co-operation with the NSA to meet their customers' privacy
concerns. Privately, tech executives are at pains to distance themselves from
claims of collaboration and teamwork given by the NSA documents, and insist the
process is driven by legal compulsion. In a
statement, Microsoft said: "When we upgrade or update products we aren't
absolved from the need to comply with existing or future lawful demands."
The company reiterated its argument that it provides customer data "only
in response to government demands and we only ever comply with orders for
requests about specific accounts or identifiers". In
June, the Guardian revealed that the NSA claimed to have "direct
access" through the Prism program to the systems of many major internet
companies, including Microsoft, Skype, Apple, Google, Facebook and Yahoo. Blanket
orders from the secret surveillance court allow these
communications to be collected without an individual warrant if the NSA operative
has a 51% belief that the target is not a US citizen and is not on US soil at
the time. Targeting US citizens does require an individual warrant, but the NSA
is able to collect Americans' communications without a warrant if the target is a
foreign national located overseas. Since
Prism's existence became public, Microsoft and the other companies listed on
the NSA documents as providers have denied all knowledge of the program and
insisted that the intelligence agencies do not have back doors into their
systems. Microsoft's
latest marketing campaign, launched in April, emphasizes its commitment to
privacy with the slogan: "Your privacy is our priority." Similarly,
Skype's privacy policy states: "Skype is committed to respecting your
privacy and the confidentiality of your personal data, traffic data and communications
content." But
internal NSA newsletters, marked top secret, suggest the co-operation between
the intelligence community and the companies is deep and ongoing. The
latest documents come from the NSA's Special Source Operations (SSO) division, described
by Snowden as the "crown jewel" of the agency. It is responsible for
all programs aimed at US communications systems through corporate partnerships
such as Prism. The
files show that the NSA became concerned about the interception of encrypted chats
on Microsoft's Outlook.com portal from the moment the company began testing the
service in July last year. Within
five months, the documents explain, Microsoft and the FBI had come up with a
solution that allowed the NSA to circumvent encryption on Outlook.com chats A
newsletter entry dated 26 December 2012 states: "MS [Microsoft], working
with the FBI, developed a surveillance capability to deal" with the issue.
"These solutions were successfully tested and went live 12 Dec 2012." Two
months later, in February this year, Microsoft officially launched the
Outlook.com portal. Another
newsletter entry stated that NSA already had pre-encryption access to Outlook
email. "For Prism collection against Hotmail, Live, and Outlook.com emails
will be unaffected because Prism collects this data prior to encryption." Microsoft's
co-operation was not limited to Outlook.com. An entry dated 8 April 2013
describes how the company worked "for many months" with the FBI â
which acts as the liaison between the intelligence agencies and Silicon Valley
on Prism â to allow Prism access without separate authorization to its cloud
storage service SkyDrive. The
document describes how this access "means that analysts will no longer
have to make a special request to SSO for this â a process step that many
analysts may not have known about". The
NSA explained that "this new capability will result in a much more
complete and timely collection response". It continued: "This success
is the result of the FBI working for many months with Microsoft to get this
tasking and collection solution established." A
separate entry identified another area for collaboration. "The FBI Data
Intercept Technology Unit (DITU) team is working with Microsoft to understand
an additional feature in Outlook.com which allows users to create email
aliases, which may affect our tasking processes." The
NSA has devoted substantial efforts in the last two years to work with
Microsoft to ensure increased access to Skype, which has an estimated 663 million
global users. One
document boasts that Prism monitoring of Skype video production has roughly
tripled since a new capability was added on 14 July 2012. "The audio
portions of these sessions have been processed correctly all along, but without
the accompanying video. Now, analysts will have the complete 'picture',"
it says. Eight
months before being bought by Microsoft, Skype joined the Prism program in
February 2011. According
to the NSA documents, work had begun on smoothly integrating Skype into Prism
in November 2010, but it was not until 4 February 2011 that the company was
served with a directive to comply signed by the attorney general. The
NSA was able to start tasking Skype communications the following day, and
collection began on 6 February. "Feedback indicated that a collected Skype
call was very clear and the metadata looked
complete," the document stated, praising the co-operation between NSA
teams and the FBI. "Collaborative teamwork was the key to the successful
addition of another provider to the Prism system." ACLU
technology expert Chris Soghoian said the revelations would surprise many Skype
users. "In the past, Skype made affirmative promises to users about their
inability to perform wiretaps," he said. "It's hard to square
Microsoft's secret collaboration with the NSA with its high-profile efforts to
compete on privacy with Google." The
information the NSA collects from Prism is routinely shared with both the FBI
and CIA. A 3 August 2012 newsletter describes how the NSA has recently expanded
sharing with the other two agencies. The
NSA, the entry reveals, has even automated the sharing of aspects of Prism,
using software that "enables our partners to see which selectors [search
terms] the National Security Agency has tasked to Prism". The
document continues: "The FBI and CIA then can request a copy of Prism
collection of any selectorâ" As a result, the author notes: "these
two activities underscore the point that Prism is a team sport!" In
its statement to the Guardian, Microsoft said: We
have clear principles which guide the response across our entire company to
government demands for customer information for both law enforcement and
national security issues. First, we take our commitments to our customers and
to compliance with applicable law very seriously, so we provide customer data
only in response to legal processes. Second,
our compliance team examines all demands very closely, and we reject them if we
believe they aren't valid. Third, we only ever comply with orders about
specific accounts or identifiers, and we would not respond to the kind of
blanket orders discussed in the press over the past few weeks, as the volumes
documented in our most recent disclosure clearly illustrate. Finally
when we upgrade or update products legal obligations may in some circumstances
require that we maintain the ability to provide information in response to a
law enforcement or national security request. There are aspects of this debate
that we wish we were able to discuss more freely. That's why we've argued for
additional transparency that would help everyone understand and debate these
important issues. In a
joint statement, Shawn Turner, spokesman for the director of National
Intelligence, and Judith Emmel, spokeswoman for the NSA, said: The
articles describe court-ordered surveillance â and a US company's efforts to
comply with these legally mandated requirements. The US operates its programs
under a strict oversight regime, with careful monitoring by the courts,
Congress and the Director of National Intelligence. Not all countries have
equivalent oversight requirements to protect civil liberties and privacy. They
added: "In practice, US companies put energy, focus and commitment into
consistently protecting the privacy of their customers around the world, while
meeting their obligations under the laws of the US and other countries in which
they operate." â
This article was amended on 11 July 2013 to reflect information from Microsoft
that it did not make any changes to Skype to allow Prism collection on or
around July 2012.
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