TED Fellows Retreat 2013
Christopher Soghoian: Government surveillance — this is just the beginning
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Privacy researcher Christopher Soghoian sees the landscape of government surveillance shifting beneath our feet, as an industry grows to support monitoring programs. Through private companies, he says, governments are buying technology with the capacity to break into computers, steal documents and monitor activity — without detection. This TED Fellow gives an unsettling look at what's to come.
Christopher Soghoian - Privacy researcher and activist
Christopher Soghoian researches and exposes the high-tech surveillance tools that governments use to spy on their own citizens, and he is a champion of digital privacy rights. Full bio
Christopher Soghoian researches and exposes the high-tech surveillance tools that governments use to spy on their own citizens, and he is a champion of digital privacy rights. Full bio
Double-click the English transcript below to play the video.
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The 2011 Arab Spring
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captured the attention of the world.
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It also captured the attention
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of authoritarian governments in other countries,
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who were worried that revolution would spread.
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To respond, they ramped up surveillance
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of activists, journalists and dissidents
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who they feared would inspire revolution
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in their own countries.
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One prominent Bahraini activist,
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who was arrested and tortured by his government,
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has said that the interrogators showed him
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transcripts of his telephone calls
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and text messages.
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Of course, it's no secret
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that governments are able to intercept
telephone calls and text messages.
telephone calls and text messages.
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It's for that reason that many activists
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specifically avoid using the telephone.
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Instead, they use tools like Skype,
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which they think are immune to interception.
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They're wrong.
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There have now been over the last few years
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an industry of companies
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who provide surveillance technology to governments,
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specifically technology that
allows those governments
allows those governments
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to hack into the computers
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of surveillance targets.
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Rather than intercepting the communications
as they go over the wire,
as they go over the wire,
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instead they now hack into your computer,
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enable your webcam, enable your microphone,
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and steal documents from your computer.
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When the government of Egypt fell in 2011,
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activists raided the office of the secret police,
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and among the many documents they found
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was this document by the Gamma Corporation,
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by Gamma International.
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Gamma is a German company
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that manufactures surveillance software
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and sells it only to governments.
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It's important to note that most governments
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don't really have the in-house capabilities
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to develop this software.
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Smaller ones don't have the resources
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or the expertise,
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and so there's this market of Western companies
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who are happy to supply them with the tools
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and techniques for a price.
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Gamma is just one of these companies.
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I should note also that Gamma never actually sold
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their software to the Egyptian government.
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They'd sent them an invoice for a sale,
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but the Egyptians never bought it.
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Instead, apparently, the Egyptian government
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used a free demo version of Gamma's software.
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(Laughter)
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So this screenshot is from a sales video
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that Gamma produced.
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Really, they're just emphasizing
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in a relatively slick presentation
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the fact that the police can sort of sit
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in an air-conditioned office
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and remotely monitor someone
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without them having any idea that it's going on.
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You know, your webcam light won't turn on.
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There's nothing to indicate that
the microphone is enabled.
the microphone is enabled.
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This is the managing director
of Gamma International.
of Gamma International.
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His name is Martin Muench.
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There are many photos of Mr. Muench that exist.
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This is perhaps my favorite.
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I'm just going to zoom in a little bit onto his webcam.
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You can see there's a little sticker
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that's placed over his camera.
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He knows what kind of surveillance is possible,
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and so clearly he doesn't want it to be used
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against him.
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Muench has said that he intends
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for his software to be used
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to capture terrorists and locate pedophiles.
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Of course, he's also acknowledged that once
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the software has been sold to governments,
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he has no way of knowing how it can be used.
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Gamma's software has been located on servers
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in countries around the world,
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many with really atrocious track records
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and human rights violations.
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They really are selling their
software around the world.
software around the world.
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Gamma is not the only company in the business.
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As I said, it's a $5 billion industry.
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One of the other big guys in the industry
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is an Italian company called Hacking Team.
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Now, Hacking Team has what is probably
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the slickest presentation.
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The video they've produced is very sexy,
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and so I'm going to play you a clip
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just so you can get a feel
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both for the capabilities of the software
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but also how it's marketed
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to their government clients.
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(Video) Narrator: You want to look
through your target's eyes.
through your target's eyes.
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(Music)
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You have to hack your target.
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["While your target is browsing the web, exchanging documents, receiving SMS, crossing the borders"]
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You have to hit many different platforms.
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["Windows, OS X, iOS, Android,
Blackberry, Symbian, Linux"]
Blackberry, Symbian, Linux"]
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You have to overcome encryption
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and capture relevant data.
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[Skype & encrypted calls, target location,
messaging, relationships,
messaging, relationships,
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web browsing, audio & video"]
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Being stealth and untraceable.
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["Immune to any protection system
Hidden collection infrastructure"]
Hidden collection infrastructure"]
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Deployed all over your country.
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["Up to hundreds of thousands of targets
Managed from a single spot"]
Managed from a single spot"]
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Exactly what we do.
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Christopher Soghoian: So, it
would be funny if it wasn't true,
would be funny if it wasn't true,
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but, in fact, Hacking Team's software
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is being sold to governments around the world.
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Last year we learned, for example,
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that it's been used to target Moroccan
journalists by the Moroccan government.
journalists by the Moroccan government.
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Many, many countries it's been found in.
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So, Hacking Team has also been actively courting
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the U.S. law enforcement market.
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In the last year or so, the company
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has opened a sales office in Maryland.
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The company has also hired a spokesperson.
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They've been attending
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surveillance industry conferences
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where law enforcement officials show up.
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They've spoken at the conferences.
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What I thought was most fascinating was
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they've actually paid for the coffee break
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at one of the law enforcement conferences
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earlier this year.
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I can't tell you for sure that Hacking Team
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has sold their technology in the United States,
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but what I can tell you that if they haven't sold it,
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it isn't because they haven't been trying hard.
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So as I said before,
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governments that don't really have the resources
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to build their own tools will buy
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off-the-shelf surveillance software,
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and so for that reason,
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you see that the government of, say, Tunisia,
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might use the same software
as the government of Germany.
as the government of Germany.
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They're all buying off-the-shelf stuff.
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The Federal Bureau of
Investigation in the United States
Investigation in the United States
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does have the budget to build
their own surveillance technology,
their own surveillance technology,
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and so for several years, I've been trying
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to figure out if and how the FBI
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is hacking into the computers of surveillance targets.
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My friends at an organization called
the Electronic Frontier Foundation --
the Electronic Frontier Foundation --
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they're a civil society group —
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obtained hundreds of documents from the FBI
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detailing their next generation
of surveillance technologies.
of surveillance technologies.
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Most of these documents were heavily redacted,
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but what you can see from the slides,
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if I zoom in, is this term:
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Remote Operations Unit.
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Now, when I first looked into this,
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I'd never heard of this unit before.
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I've been studying surveillance
for more than six years.
for more than six years.
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I'd never heard of it.
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And so I went online and I did some research,
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and ultimately I hit the mother lode
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when I went to LinkedIn,
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the social networking site for job seekers.
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There were lots of former
U.S. government contractors
U.S. government contractors
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who had at one point worked
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for the Remote Operating Unit,
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and were describing in surprising detail on their CVs
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what they had done in their former job.
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(Laughter)
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So I took this information
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and I gave it to a journalist that I know
and trust at the Wall Street Journal,
and trust at the Wall Street Journal,
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and she was able to contact several other
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former law enforcement officials
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who spoke on background and confirmed
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that yes, in fact, the FBI has a dedicated team
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that does nothing but hack into the computers
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of surveillance targets.
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Like Gamma and Hacking Team,
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the FBI also has the capability
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to remotely activate webcams, microphones,
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steal documents, get web browsing information,
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the works.
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There's sort of a big problem
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with governments going into hacking,
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and that's that terrorists, pedophiles,
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drug dealers, journalists and human rights activists
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all use the same kinds of computers.
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There's no drug dealer phone
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and there's no journalist laptop.
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We all use the same technology,
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and what that means then is that for governments
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to have the capability to hack into the computers
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of the real bad guys,
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they also have to have the capability
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to hack into our devices too.
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So governments around the world
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have been embracing this technology.
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They've been embracing hacking
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as a law enforcement technique,
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but without any real debate.
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In the United States, where I live,
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there have been no congressional hearings.
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There's no law that's been passed
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specifically authorizing this technique,
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and because of its power and potential for abuse,
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it's vital that we have an informed public debate.
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Thank you very much.
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(Applause)
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ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Christopher Soghoian - Privacy researcher and activistChristopher Soghoian researches and exposes the high-tech surveillance tools that governments use to spy on their own citizens, and he is a champion of digital privacy rights.
Why you should listen
TED Fellow Christopher Soghoian is a champion of digital privacy rights, with a focus on the role that third-party service providers play in enabling governments to monitor citizens. As the principal technologist at the American Civil Liberties Union, he explores the intersection of federal surveillance and citizen's rights.
Before joining the ACLU, he was the first-ever technologist for the Federal Trade Commision's Division of Privacy and Identity Protection, where he worked on investigations of Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and Netflix. Soghoian is also the creator of Do Not Track, an anti-tracking device that all major web browsers now use, and his work has been cited in court.
Christopher Soghoian | Speaker | TED.com