Can societies manage the SIGINT monster?

Presented at DeepSec 2015 „DeepSec No. 9“, Nov. 19, 2015, 9:10 a.m. (50 minutes).

Behind closed doors, ubiquitous surveillance systems have evolved in parallel to and hidden within the global communications infrastructure. Developments in signals intelligence (Sigint) technology and tradecraft have shadowed all new telecommunications developments. Sigint agencies have covertly sought to lead, change, and subvert arrangements that IT practitioners make for security and privacy. Partly in consequence, in this decade, we have entered a period of frequent massive and damaging data losses. In this talk, he will review the history of mass electronic surveillance in the post Edward Snowden world, and the technical challenges that can be examined with the benefit of new information.   The scale and intrusiveness of what has been found baked into the Internet has taken everyone by surprise. But it has not revealed magic. Instead, the security of the Internet and all connected to it has been broken by familiar, understandable techniques and technologies. Now we know their names.   In the transitions from analogue to digital, from the first days of C2C ("computer-to-computer") spying to DNI (Digital Network Intelligence) today, from the first automated surveillance system to today's multinational behemoths, common tools are still in use 50 years after they were first invented. This talk will help dissect the obscure tradecraft terms that mask and obfuscate how Sigint works.   


Presenters:

  • Duncan Campbell - IPTV Ltd
    Duncan Campbell is an investigative journalist, author, consultant and television producer specialising in privacy, civil liberties and surveillance issues. His best-known investigations led to major legal clashes with successive British governments. Campbell now also works and is recognised as a forensic expert witness on computers and communications data. He has providing specialist testimony in over a hundred criminal and civil cases and has given evidence to the House of Commons and the European Parliament on surveillance legislation. For over three decades, he has produced and researched in-depth reports for television, print and online media. His award-winning work into topics including government secrecy, corporate crime and medical fraud has earned critical acclaim and provoked legal challenges. He has published on a wide range of subjects in leading UK newspapers including the Guardian, Observer, Sunday Times, Independent, Mail on Sunday, Daily Express. He first became nationally known as ‘C' in the infamous ABC official secrets case of 1977-78, when a Labour government prosecuted two journalists and a former soldier for holding an interview, using a law they had promised to repeal years before. The ABC case (named after the three defendants, Aubrey, Berry and Campbell) ended in November, 1978, causing grave embarrassment for the Labour government.

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