AMERICAN AND BRITISH spies hacked into the internal computer network of the largest manufacturer of SIM cards in the world, stealing encryption keys used to protect the privacy of cellphone communications across the globe, according to top-secret documents provided to The Intercept by National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden.
The hack was perpetrated by a joint unit consisting of operatives from the NSA and its British counterpart Government Communications Headquarters, or GCHQ. The breach, detailed in a secret 2010 GCHQ document, gave the surveillance agencies the potential to secretly monitor a large portion of the world’s cellular communications, including both voice and data.
The company targeted by the intelligence agencies, Gemalto, is a multinational firm incorporated in the Netherlands that makes the chips used in mobile phones and next-generation credit cards. Among its clients are AT&T, T-Mobile, Verizon, Sprint and some 450 wireless network providers around the world. The company operates in 85 countries and has more than 40 manufacturing facilities. One of its three global headquarters is in Austin, Texas and it has a large factory in Pennsylvania.
In all, Gemalto produces some 2 billion SIM cards a year. Its motto is “Security to be Free.”
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4 comments:
Not surprised.
Snowden was exactly right, and this proves it totally. No wonder he can't come back here!
It looks like SIM cards are now history, and out "new" credit cards with the sim on them are already obsolete!
As some lofty gov't cop said after 9/11, "This was a gift to us."
Now here we are 13+ years later living in the 'police state' that America became on that day.
I have great fear for our republic, for the current national security regime, the secrecy regime, cannot coexist with a constitutional democracy. Something has to give way, and I'm more then afraid it's going to be the republic.
I am officially disgraced by virtue of my being of the 'baby boomers' generation. The single most destructive generation to ever have guided America.
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