Mediaboss Marketing

An Air Force veteran told FBI agents that she had leaked classified U.S. documents, but a legal technicality may prevent prosecutors from using the confession as evidence in her upcoming trial, the Associated Press reports.

Reality Winner, a 25-year-old former Air Force linguist, stands charged of copying a classified report and mailing it to a leak-friendly news site. Winner was working as a government contractor in Augusta, Georgia, when the leak occurred in early May. She held a top secret security clearance at the time.

Winner later admitted to a pair of FBI agents that she had leaked the documents, according to a criminal complaint filed June 5 in the U.S.s Southern Georgia District Court. The two agents were executing a search warrant at Winners apartment when the confession was made.

[Winner] admitted removing the classified intelligence reporting from her office space, retaining it, and mailing it from Augusta, Georgia, to the news outlet, which she knew was not authorized to receive or possess the documents, according to a Department of Justice statement released on June 5.

Winners defense attorneys are now asking a federal judge to suppress any comments she made during the interview because the agents never gave her a Miranda warning, which law enforcement officials must read to criminal suspects in custody. But Winner had not been formally arrested at that point.

However, according to the AP, in a court motion filed on Aug. 29, an attorney for Winner said that she believed she was under arrest as she was being questioned in her apartment, noting that the agents were standing in front of the door.

Winner was never told she was free to leave, nor was she advised as to her arrest status, Winners attorneys wrote. Indeed, when she specifically asked whether she was under arrest, the agents told her they did not know the answer to that yet.

As of Aug. 31, the judge had not yet ruled on the defense motion, nor had prosecutors filed a reply. But on Aug. 30, U.S. Magistrate Judge Brian K. Epps agreed to postpone Winners trial, which was due to begin in October. The case has now been rescheduled for March 2018.

According to the AP, Winner has pleaded not guilty to charges that she illegally retained and transmitted national defense information. And while authorities have not publicly discussed what that information was or to whom Winner transmitted it to, it seems fairly obvious.

The Intercept reported in May that it had obtained a classified National Security Agency report suggesting Russian military intelligence executed a cyberattack on at least one U.S. voting software supplier and sent spear-phishing emails to more than 100 local election officials just days before last Novembers presidential election.

The Intercept said the NSA report was dated May 5, which is the same date that appeared on the document Winner is charged with leaking.

Soon after Winners arrest, The Intercept announced that its parent company, First Look Media, had decided to provide independent support for her legal defense, and argued that the leak highlighted vulnerabilities in the U.S. election system and [provided] vital context for the current debate over Russian interference in the election.

Winner could face up to 10 years in prison if convicted.

See more here:
Air Force Vet Admitted To Leaking NSA Documents, But Her Confession Might Not Count In Court - Task & Purpose

LORD INGLEWOOD of Hutton in the Forest, Penrith, Cumbria, has been announced as the new president of the National Sheep Association.

He takes over the position from His Grace The Duke of Montrose who handed over the reins at the recent NSA AGM in Ballymena, County Antrim.

As well as being a farmer and landowner in Cumbria with both upland and lowland farming interests, Lord Inglewood is actively involved as a member of the House of Lords. Among other commitments, he is also president of the Uplands Alliance and fulfils an influential role within the Livestock Auctioneers Association.

On his appointment as NSA president, Lord Inglewood said: At a moment when UK agriculture is under review as never before, I am delighted to support those in the sheep sector an integral part of livestock farming at this crucial moment. I am looking forward to working closely with NSA in the near future.

Speaking at the AGM, NSA chief executive Phil Stocker said: The role of NSA president is an essential one for the organisation and its influence can have a significant bearing on the future for the sheep industry here in the UK.

Our outgoing president, His Grace The Duke of Montrose, held this position for six years and has been an incredible ambassador for NSA, opening many doors for us and supporting a good number of NSA events around the country. I would like to give a huge thank you to the Duke for all he has done, and at the same time welcome Lord Inglewood into this role. I look forward to involving him in NSAs work during this crucial time.

Read the original:
NSA welcomes new association president - The Scottish Farmer

MARCH 16, 2015: Illustration of a spying CPU inside a computer with the NSA logo on it.

The National Security Agency is raising the stakes in the debate to renew sweeping surveillance powers contained in Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance (FISA) Act, arguing the law saves lives and that failing to reauthorize it could cost them.

Last year a foreign attack resulted in the deaths of more than 20 people, the signals intelligence agency said in a rare but vague blog post on its website Thursday. Who was behind it? Had they also taught others how to carry out such malicious acts? It was NSAs Section 702 collection that revealed the identities of the overseas terrorists who were responsible.

Section 702 authorizes NSA to tap the physical infrastructure of internet service providers, like fiber connections, to intercept foreign emails, instant messages, and other communications belonging to foreign nationals as they exit and enter the U.S. But according to NSA, the program also incidentally sweeps up the communications of Americans corresponding with, and until recently, merely even mentioning foreign targets.

This collection provided the necessary insights and reporting on the attack that refuted the terrorist organizations denial of any involvement, the NSA post continues. Specifically, Section 702 collection provided a direct claim of responsibility from the terror groups leaders and included a list of terrorists trained for the operation. This was crucial for supporting timely U.S. and coalition force planning and operations against terrorists in the region.

The statute received increased criticism from Congress, federal courts, digital and civil rights groups this year as it approaches expiration at the end of December. Experts say it likely results in tens of millions of warrantless intercepts of Americans communications, and prolific NSA leaker Edward Snowden and Democratic privacy hawk Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon suggest it could be manipulated to target communications that are entirely domestic.

NSA and others in the intelligence community are pushing back against those arguments, going so far as to pressure Congress to permanently enact the 2008 FISA Amendments Act, under which Section 702 is codified.

The post on NSAs website came one day after the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) released a cache of documents describing the training NSA signals intelligence analysts go through and annual reports on the number of intelligence reports it disseminated to other agencies containing data on Americans. Those documents were released pursuant to a Freedom of Information Act request related to a lawsuit the American Civil Liberties Union brought against NSA in New York.

Wyden, Kentucky Republican Sen. Rand Paul, and others have for years asked former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and now Dan Coats, the nations new top spy, for an estimate of how many Americans are swept up in Section 702 collection. Both, alongside NSA Director Adm. Mike Rogers, say its impossible to calculate without violating the very privacy rights Wyden, Paul and others are seeking to protect, since it would require looking for Americans directly in the NSAs broad dragnet.

One report covering Sept. 1, 2014 to Aug. 31, 2015 shows NSA disseminated 4,318 intelligence reports containing Section 702 information with at least one reference to a U.S. person. However this only includes U.S. person data that made it into a report, not data on U.S. persons the NSA collects and stores, but hasnt yet queried.

Follow Giuseppe on Twitter

See original here:
NSA Says Expiring Surveillance Powers Under FISA Section 702 ... - InsideSources

PrintWednesday 30th August, 2017By Edna A. Quansah, GNA Accra, Aug. 30, GNA - ShalinaHealthcare Limited, manufacturers of pharmaceutical products has donated a sumof GH15,000.00 and medical products to the National Sports Authority (NSA)towards the National sports festival, which commences on August 31 at the BabaYara Sports Stadium in Kumasi.Presenting the cash and products to theNSA on Wednesday, the Country Directo

By Edna A. Quansah, GNA

Accra, Aug. 30, GNA - ShalinaHealthcare Limited, manufacturers of pharmaceutical products has donated a sumof GH15,000.00 and medical products to the National Sports Authority (NSA)towards the National sports festival, which commences on August 31 at the BabaYara Sports Stadium in Kumasi.

Presenting the cash and products to theNSA on Wednesday, the Country Director of Shalina Health Care Ghana Mr. AmritPal Singh said it was part of his outfits Corporate Social Responsibility tosupport this great event, which is geared towards unearthing potential athletesin the country.

Mr Singh encouraged the athletes tocompete in line with the rules of the game and admonished them to becompetitive and bring their best in any discipline they compete in. This is acompetition which will bring the youth in this country together. A healthy bodyis a healthy mind that is why we associate ourselves with this event tosponsor.

Meanwhile, the NSA has also receiveddonations from Stanbic Bank and Fero Phones with GH10,000.00 and 30 pieces ofphones respectively to support the National Sports Festival.

The donated will be given tooutstanding athletes who will perform well in the various disciplines.

The Director General of the NSA Mr.Robert Sarfo Mensah thanked the sponsors for their immense contributionstowards the event, adding that, his doors are still opened for more corporateentities to come on board to support.

He said preparations for the sportsfestival are almost complete in terms of accommodation, feeding andtransportation.

The Ministry of Youth and Sports hasgiven USD 130,000 towards the event and other sponsors include Goil, GoldenBean Hotel, Angel Group of Companies, Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly andSoccerbet have also donated towards the games.

GNA

More:
Shalina Healthcare donates products plus GH15000.00 to NSA - Ghana News Agency

A team of researchers from Positive Technologies discovered an undocumented configuration setting, designed for use by government agencies, to disable Intel Management Engine 11. Now you too can partake in this government privilege to inactivate Intels proprietary CPU master controller.

Since 2008, Intels chipsets have contained a separate always-on Management Engine computer that could not be disabled. The EFF described Intel ME as a largely undocumented master controller for your CPU: it works with system firmware during boot and has direct access to system memory, the screen, keyboard and network.

Back in June 2016, hardware hacker Damien Zammit warned, Recent Intel x86 processors implement a secret, powerful control mechanism that runs on a separate chip that no one is allowed to audit or examine. When these are eventually compromised, they'll expose all affected systems to nearly unkillable, undetectable rootkit attacks.

Despite many people with x86 computers trying, no one could disable ME. The closest successful attempt was likely the me-cleaner project.

The purpose of ME, according to Intel, is to allow businesses to remotely manage computers via Active Management Technology (AMT). Yet plenty of experts have called ME a very powerful backdoor, an idea that picked up steam after a critical vulnerability was revealed in May.

Intel refuted those backdoor accusations, saying, Intel does not put backdoors in its products nor do our products give Intel control or access to computing systems without the explicit permission of the end user. In short, Intel does not participate in efforts to decrease security in technology.

Here comes the good news. As Positive Technologies researchers Mark Ermolov and Maxim Goryachy poked into the firmware, they discovered an undocumented HAP field. HAP, which stands for the High Assurance Platform (pdf) program, was developed by the NSA. The framework was for the development of the next generation of secure computing platforms.

The researchers discovered an undocumented field called reserve-hap and that HAP could be set to 1 for true. Apparently, the NSA wanted to ensure the agency could close off any possible security risk by disabling Intel ME. The researchers wrote, We believe that this mechanism is designed to meet a typical requirement of government agencies, which want to reduce the possibility of side-channel leaks.

When told about the research, Intel told Positive Technologies:

In response to requests from customers with specialized requirements, we sometimes explore the modification or disabling of certain features. In this case, the modifications were made at the request of equipment manufacturers in support of their customers evaluation of the U.S. governments High Assurance Platform program. These modifications underwent a limited validation cycle and are not an officially supported configuration.

If you want to disable Intel ME, you should first read the in-depth technical explanation about the researchers finding an undocumented PCH strap that can be used to switch on a special mode disabling the main Intel ME functionality at an early stage. Positive Technologies also made its Intel ME 11.x firmware image unpacker utility available on GitHub. Use at your own risk; the methods to disable Intel ME were described as risky and may damage or destroy your computer.

Read more here:
Now you, too, can disable Intel ME 'backdoor' thanks to the NSA - CSO Online