GCHQ and NSA intercepted Yahoo users' private photographs
7 replies, posted
[url]http://rt.com/usa/optic-nerve-yahoo-webcams-050/[/url]
[IMG]http://cdn.rt.com/files/news/22/ec/a0/00/3.si.jpg[/IMG]
[QUOTE]British and American surveillance agencies teamed up to develop a system that collected millions of images from the webcams of unsuspecting and innocent internet users, new leaked documents reveal.
This “Optic Nerve” program — administered by the UK's GCHQ with the assistance of the National Security Agency — routinely intercepted and stored those webcam images in secret starting in 2008, according to documents disclosed by former intelligence contractor Edward Snowden and published by The Guardian on Thursday.
The program indiscriminately collected millions of images from people who used Yahoo's webcam chat function, the Guardian's Spencer Ackerman and James Ball reported, “including substantial quantities of sexually explicit communications."
According to the journalists, the GCHQ relied on Optic Nerve to experiment with facial recognition programing to monitor existing targets and search for new persons of interest.
But the GCHQ didn't stop at targeting solely suspected terrorists, the report continues, and instead collected intelligence by seemingly anyone unfortunate enough to log-in to Yahoo's webcam chat feature, at least between 2008 and 2012.
"Yahoo webcam is known to be used by GCHQ targets,” reads a portion of the classified documentation published by the paper.
The GCHQ did not limit their surveillance to just those target, however. According to the leaked Snowden document, 1.8 million Yahoo users had their webcam images collected by the agency during just a six-month span shortly after Optic Nerve was first rolled out.
When reached for comment by the British paper, a representative for Yahoo said the GCHQ program as explained demonstrates a “whole new level of violation of our users' privacy.”
Elsewhere in the leaked documentation, GCHQ agents admitted that a large portion of the imagery collected contained “undesirable nudity.”
"Unfortunately … it would appear that a surprising number of people use webcam conversations to show intimate parts of their body to the other person,” one internal document cited by The Guardian reads. “Also, the fact that the Yahoo software allows more than one person to view a webcam stream without necessarily sending a reciprocal stream means that it appears sometimes to be used for broadcasting pornography."[/QUOTE]
I really hope Western governments pay the piper one day, in a big way.
[QUOTE]"Unfortunately … it would appear that a surprising number of people use webcam conversations to show intimate parts of their body to the other person,” one internal document cited by The Guardian reads. “Also, the fact that the Yahoo software allows more than one person to view a webcam stream without necessarily sending a reciprocal stream means that it appears sometimes to be used for broadcasting pornography."[/QUOTE]
Time for a FOIA request for the data!
snip
Great, now they are collecting nudes. Don't they have anything better to do?
At least will Yahoo encrypt all future communication:
[QUOTE]Yahoo was not aware of the reported activity. “This report, if true, represents a whole new level of violation of our users’ privacy that is completely unacceptable,” Yahoo stated, adding that it is committed to preserving its users’ trust and security and will continue its efforts to expand encryption across all services.
See more at [URL="http://goo.gl/bmyEMM"]http://goo.gl/bmyEMM[/URL]
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I like how RT has an entire section devoted to the US
[editline]2nd March 2014[/editline]
Like seriously their USA section consists of articles about how bad the US is
[QUOTE=Kyle902;44103284]I like how RT has an entire section devoted to the US
[editline]2nd March 2014[/editline]
Like seriously their USA section consists of articles about how bad the US is[/QUOTE]
The sad thing is that most of it is true.
To all you rating me disagree, even though Russia is invading the Ukraine right now, I don't think Russia did a massive spying campaign on their own civilians and allies. (Well, not since soviet days.)
Has anyone heard about any major protests against this shit? I just can't believe the American public hasn't gotten angrier, everyone seems so complacent and content with the invasions of privacy. I feel like the government has no incentive to stop this shit if we don't tell them we've had enough.
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