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• US and UK spy agencies piggyback on commercial data • Details can include age, location and sexual orientation • Documents also reveal targeted tools against individual phones The National Security Agency and its UK counterpart GCHQ have been developing capabilities to take advantage of "leaky" smartphone apps, such as the wildly popular Angry Birds game, that transmit users' private information across the internet, according to top secret documents. The data pouring onto communication networks from the new generation of iPhone and Android apps ranges from phone model and screen size to personal details such as age, gender and location. Some apps, the documents state, can share users' most sensitive information such as sexual orientation – and one app recorded in the material even sends specific sexual preferences such as whether or not the user may be a swinger. Many smartphone owners will be unaware of the full extent this information is being shared across the internet, and even the most sophisticated would be unlikely to realise that all of it is available for the spy agencies to collect. Dozens of classified documents, provided to the Guardian by whistleblower Edward Snowden and reported in partnership with the New York Times and ProPublica, detail the NSA and GCHQ efforts to piggyback on this commercial data collection for their own purposes. Scooping up information the apps are sending about their users allows the agencies to collect large quantities of mobile phone data from their existing mass surveillance tools – such as cable taps, or from international mobile networks – rather than solely from hacking into individual mobile handsets. Exploiting phone information and location is a high-priority effort for the intelligence agencies, as terrorists and other intelligence targets make substantial use of phones in planning and carrying out their activities, for example by using phones as triggering devices in conflict zones. The NSA has cumulatively spent more than $1bn in its phone targeting efforts. The disclosures also reveal how much the shift towards smartphone browsing could benefit spy agencies' collection efforts.
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SECRET STRAP 1
MOBILE THEME BRIEFING MAY 28 2010
• MORE - mobile technologies, networks, signals
• • •
& locations
FASTER - developments against new mobile internet applications BEIJER - locating of mobile devices
•• This Information IS exempt under the Freedom of Information ACl2000 (FOIA) and may be exempt under other UK Information legislation Refer any .FOIAquenes to GCHQ on 01242 221491 x30306 or [email protected]:gov.uk. © Crown Copyright. All nghts reserved .
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Mobile Challenge 4 billion mobile subscribers worICJwide ... most prolific customer product ever invented
• By 2015 up to 900/0 of internet traffic will be accessed on moeile devices
• Over 200 3rd party Location Aware Applications on the iPhone alone Global mobile communications users outnumber internet users by 2: 1 Predicted that irn ~011 mobile broadbanC1 will
... overtake fixed-lime irnterAet connections in the UK • • • • • •
•• This information is exempt under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA) and may be exempt under other UK information legislation Refer any • FOIA queries to GCHQ on 01242 221491 x30306 or [email protected]. © Crown Copyright. All rights reserved .
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~roject Scope & Objectives
• Users are moving their Internet access point f~om a fixed device to a mobile device. Mobile versions of common applications (for instance Facebook or Google maps) are not processed by our current capabilities.
• The Mobile Applications Project aims to deliver two capabilities: - capability against mobile applications (on both mobile and core Internet netwQrks) -target-centric convergea analysis of Voice, Text, C2C and Geo data
'. All types of phone and (S)S present different challenges· -·.Iphone, Symmian, Anaroia,Wioeows Mobile, etc. -• This information is exempt under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (F:OIA) and may be exempt under other UK Information legislation, Refer any
• • FOIA queries to GCHQ on 01242 221491 x30306 or infoleg@gchq,gsi.gov,uk, © Crown Copyright. All rights reserved,
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Planning Approacb • Tackle Mobile Internet first - GRX/GTP. Gore
Internet next. • Project focused on exploiting Roaming Mobile
Network Traffic (GRX) - Rich in Converged Data
• • This Information is exempt under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA) and may be exempt under other UK Information legislation. Refer any
• • FOIA quenes to GCHQ on 01242 221491 x30306 or [email protected]. © Crown COPYright. All rights reserved .
• • SECRET STRAP 1
