The US Is Now Spending 26% Of Available Tax Revenue To Pay Interest

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The US Is Now Spending 26% Of Available Tax Revenue To Pay Interest

Commercially available NSA-style surveillance software allows everyday people to spy on smartphones

By Madison Ruppert

Editor of End the Lie

(Image credit: MLazarevski/Flickr)

Everyday people can now use surveillance software to spy on the phone calls and text messages of others, somewhat like a crude version of the National Security Agency (NSA) spy programs.

However, the commercially produced software can’t really hold a candle to the U.S. government’s custom malware including software enabling the remote activation of cameras and microphones, ability to track cell phones even when they’re off and massive metadata collection and analysis programs.

Let’s not forget, the software also doesn’t have the world’s largest surveillance network backing it up either.

The use of spy software made available to the public is apparently quite widespread. A new study examined data traffic of mobile devices on a European carrier’s Middle Eastern network and found that hundreds of people had surveillance software installed on their phones, according to Bloomberg.

The software isn’t the product of malicious applications users unknowingly download. Instead, they’re spyware placed by people with physical access to the device.

Mobile surveillance software is capable of everything from secretly logging all text messages, phone calls and contacts to even live eavesdropping on phone calls.

The study, conducted by Lacoon Mobile Security, a San Francisco-based startup, found that over 600 phones on the particular network had spyware.

Lacoon does research and development in Israel, according to Bloomberg, and sells mobile security software to detect malicious mobile apps and defend corporate networks. The company was founded by former members of the Israel Defense Forces.

Most of the installations were likely done by either spouse or private investigators, according to Michael Shaulov, CEO of Lacoon.

Shaulov told Bloomberg that he expects the number of infected phones to grow as the awareness of surveillance technology increases.

While spouses and private investigators are one major source of this type of spyware, corporate espionage is another driving factor behind installation of spyware, according to Bloomberg.

Shaulov would not identify what carrier the study analyzed, but he did say that they got permission to conduct the study from the carrier.

The study analyzed wireless traffic to see the number of devices sending data to servers associated with spyware companies in order to determine how many phones were infected.

Almost half of the infected phones were linked to SpyToMobile, a product marketed directly to consumers.

SpyToMobile boasts of  its ability to “intercept incoming and outgoing SMS messages, call history and contacts.”

The app collects data even when the phone doesn’t have an internet connection, then sends the information to SpyToMobile servers when the phone is reconnected to the internet.

It is also apparently able to track phones via GPS, as indicated by their frequently asked questions.

The SpyToMobile terms of service state that users can only install the software on phones that they own or obtain written authorization from the person being spied on, according to Bloomberg.

The company told Bloomberg via email that all users must accept their terms of service and that they have suspended accounts if they discovered the app was being used without the permission of the device’s owner.

Interestingly, Bloomberg noted that SpyToMobile is actually using the NSA spy scandal in their sales pitch.

SpyToMobile “said it does not share data with the NSA. At least, not knowingly,” Jordan Robertson wrote for Bloomberg.

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Commercially available NSA-style surveillance software allows everyday people to spy on smartphones

VOA now available in US

Yuri Gripas / Reuters

Voice of America staff are seen with Myanmar President Thein Sein before a town hall event at the Voice of America headquarters in Washington on May 20. Voice of America is the largest and oldest network of the Broadcasting Board of Governors, which will now be allowed in U.S. markets.

By Elizabeth Chuck, Staff Writer, NBC News

News consumers in the U.S. can now hear and watch reports from one of the largest broadcasting groups in the world — after decades of their taxpayer dollars funding them.

The change is due to a law, which went into effect on July 2, that authorizes an independent network of U.S. government-supported broadcasters called the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) to transmit their programs — which include Voice of America, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, the Middle East Broadcasting Networks, Radio Free Asia, and the Office of Cuba Broadcasting — to U.S. households.

BBG’s mission, according to its website, is to “inform, engage and connect people around the world in support of freedom and democracy.” Its budget for the 2012 fiscal year, fully funded by taxpayers, was $ 752.7 million, according to a spokeswoman.

But since 1948, BBG had only been allowed to disseminate its material to foreign listeners — this due to a law called the Smith-Mundt Act passed three years after World War II.

The purpose of the Smith-Mundt Act — also called the U.S. Information and Education Exchange Act of 1948 — was to “promote a better understanding of the United States in other countries, and to increase a mutual understanding between the people of the United States and the people of other countries.”

The law was first challenged in 1972 when J. William Fulbright, D-Ark., declared the U.S. was funding propaganda, and argued Voice of America, BBG’s oldest and biggest network, “should be given the opportunity to take [its] rightful place in the graveyard of Cold War relics.” Further restrictions on the dissemination of the material were implemented.

“The domestic dissemination ban was not really intended to protect the American public from propaganda,” Emily Metzgar, a professor at Indiana University school of journalism and a former U.S. diplomat who supports the change to the law, said. “The historical record suggests it was really more about protecting a nascent broadcast industry in the United States right after World War II, and it was over time that more and more politics got interjected into the discussion.” 

Last year, two lawmakers proposed the bipartisan Smith-Mundt Modernization Act of 2012.

Introduced by Rep. Mac Thornberry, R-Texas, and Adam Smith, D-Wash., the Modernization Act amended the 1948 Smith-Mundt Act so BBG’s U.S.-funded, foreign audience-intended broadcasts could finally be heard in the U.S. It became law on July 2.

A spokeswoman for BBG pointed out the broadcast group’s content had been available online for years, and that the new law just makes their programs accessible in broadcast quality in the U.S. to anyone who requests them.

She also responded to a slew of recent news headlines that suggested BBG would be spreading propaganda, including one from Foreign Policy magazine, which read, “U.S. Repeals Propaganda Ban, Spreads Government-Made News to Americans.”

“Just because a news organization receives government funding doesn’t mean it disseminates propaganda,”  Lynne Weil, director of communications and external affairs for BBG, said, citing Britain’s BBC as a government-supported media outlet. 

Metzgar, the former U.S. diplomat, was relaxed about the change.

“Everyone who is consuming any news at all should be media-literate, reading from a wide range of sources, triangulating what they can about the truth. In that sense, I’m not particularly alarmed about the government having a new path to propagandize the public,” she said.

A State Department official said in an emailed statement to NBC News that “the statutory intent remains for us to focus such materials on foreign audiences and not to pro-actively create materials for domestic audiences or pro-actively distribute our materials domestically.”

BBG’s journalists risk their lives to report in more than 100 countries and 61 languages, Weil said.

“This is good-quality reporting in places where many U.S. media may not have correspondents. Why shouldn’t it be available in the United States?” she said. “U.S. taxpayers should know what they’re funding.”

Ted Lipien, a former Voice of America employee based in California who retired from the network in 2006, said his biggest concern about BBG expanding into the American market was the quality of their journalism diminishing.

“The agency has been very badly mismanaged in recent years,” he said. “What I suspect will happen is that they will de-emphasize providing news and information for foreign audiences, which is their core and primary mission, and they will focus on the domestic market.”

VOA now available in US