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A new document made public this week via Edward Snowdens leak of NSA documents reveals a fascinating aim of signals intelligence program: The agency, it turns out, monitored international scientific developments in hopes of detecting nefarious genetic engineering projects more than a decade ago.

SIGINT is intelligence collected by monitoring electronic and communications signals. In 2013, documents leaked by NSA contractor Edward Snowden revealed the extent of the agencys reliance on this kind of intelligence to provide insight into the capabilities and intentions of foreign entities, as well as domestic targets. In the years since, documents have continued to trickle out of the Snowden leak that shed additional light on those efforts.

One such document made public by The Intercept this week describes a use of NSA signals intelligence not previously known to the public. In 2004, an NSA cryptanalyst intern described looking for information about genetic sequencing in the signals intelligence collected by the agency.

The ultimate goals of this project are to gain general knowledge about genetic engineering research activity by foreign entities, she wrote, and to identify laboratories and/or individuals who may be involved in nefarious use of genetic research.

Working for the Office of Tradecraft for Analysis, her job was developing algorithms to answer specific questions from metadata, looking for genetic sequences in signals and then presumably trying to figure out what kind of research activity those sequences indicated. This shouldnt be altogether surprisingafter all, senior intelligence officials have gone on record calling genetic engineering a weapon of mass destruction.

Given the broad distribution, low cost, and accelerated pace of development of this dual-use [genetic engineering] technology, its deliberate or unintentional misuse might lead to far-reaching economic and national security implications, an annual worldwide threat assessment report from the Central Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency, and half a dozen other U.S. spy and fact-gathering operations said last year. Also last year, genome editing was added to the list of national security threats for the first time.

Last years report noted that new discoveries move easily in the globalized economy, as do personnel with the scientific expertise to design and use them, and pointed out the possibility of using the cutting-edge gene-editing technique CRISPR to edit the DNA of human embryos.

The leaked NSA documents, though, are dated long before CRISPR came on the scene. More than a decade ago, the government was concerned that foreign entities might be using genetic engineering for evil, be it creating brutal bioweapons or engineered super soldiers.

The single document gives no indication as to whether the program has continued. But elsewhere, there are signs that the intelligence community has only ramped up its efforts to keep tabs on potentially threatening scientific developments. The FBI, the Pentagon, and the United Nations bioweapons office all have efforts aimed at monitoring and studying potentially destructive uses of CRISPR. As technology advances, its safe to assume those efforts arent going to go away.

[The Intercept]

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Leaked Documents Reveal the NSA Spying on Scientists to Find ... - Gizmodo

Forbes

Russian Cybercriminals Are Loving Those Leaked NSA Windows Weapons Forbes It's been little over a week and a half since a hacker crew called the Shadow Brokers released a batch of tools believed to have belonged to the NSA, designed to break through the defences of Windows systems. Whilst Microsoft mysteriously patched its ... NSA backdoor detected on >55000 Windows boxes can now be remotely removedArs Technica How leaked NSA spy tools created a hacking free-for-all - Apr. 25 ...CNNMoney Leaked NSA tools, now infecting over 200000 machines, will be weaponized for yearsCyberScoop TechTarget -LifeZette -TrendinTech -TechNet Blogs - Microsoft all 66 news articles »

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Russian Cybercriminals Are Loving Those Leaked NSA Windows Weapons - Forbes

To residents of Maryland, catching an occasional glimpse of a huge white blimp floating in the sky is not unusual. For more than a decade, the military has used the state as a proving ground for new airships destined for Afghanistan or Iraq. But less known is that the test flights have sometimes served a more secretive purpose involving National Security Agency surveillance.

Back in 2004, a division of the NSA called the National Tactical Integration Office fitted a 62-foot diameter airship called the Hover Hammer with an eavesdropping device, according to a classified document published Monday by The Intercept. The agency launched the three-engine airship at an airfield near Solomons Island, Maryland. And from there, the blimp was able to vacuum up international shipping data emanating from the Long Island, New York area, the document says. The spy equipment on the airship was called Digital Receiver Technology a proprietary system manufactured by a Maryland-based company of the same name which can intercept wireless communications, including cellphone calls.

With the exception of a few military websites that refer to the Hover Hammer as an antenna mounting platform, there is little information in the public domain about it. The classified NSA document describes the airship as a helium-filled sphere inside another sphere, constructed of Spectra, the same material used to make bullet-proof vests. It hovers above small arms fire, has a negligible [infrared] signature, and radar cant detect it. The agency added in the document that it planned to conduct more tests with the Hover Hammer, and said it wanted to develop a larger version of the blimp that would be capable of flying at altitudes of 68,000 feet for up to six months at a time. More experiments, including the use of onboard imagery sensors, are being conducted, it said.

The NSA declined to comment for this story.

In recent years, airships or aerostats, as they are formally called have been a source of major military investment. Between 2006 and 2015, the U.S. Army paid Raytheon some $1.8 billion to develop a massive missile-defense blimp called the JLENS, which is equipped with powerful radar that can scan in any direction 310 miles. (Thats almost the entire length of New York state.) In October 2015, the JLENS attracted national attention after one became untethered amid testing and drifted north from Maryland to Pennsylvania before it was brought back under control. In 2010, the Army commissioned another three airships called Long Endurance Multi-Intelligence Vehicles as part of a $517 million contract with Northrop Grumman. The company stated that the airships would shape the future of the militarys intelligence-gathering capabilities and provide a persistent unblinking stare from the sky.

Unsurprisingly, privacy groups have expressed concerns about the prospect of the blimps being used domestically to spy on Americans. However, military officials have often been quick to dismiss such fears. In August 2015, Lt. Shane Glass told Baltimore broadcaster WBAL that the JLENS blimps being tested in Maryland were not equipped with cameras or eavesdropping devices. There are no cameras on the system, and we are not capable of tracking any individuals, Glass stated. The same cannot be said, it seems, of the NSAs Hover Hammer.

Top photo: A flight crew launches a U.S. Army Joint Land Attack Cruise Missile Defense Elevated Sensor System (JLENS) at the Utah Test and Training Range, Utah, on Feb. 3, 2014.

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NSA Blimp Spied in the United States - The Intercept - The Intercept

The United States cyber defense capability is terrible its wholly inadequate, the former head of the National Security Agency said Friday in a speech at Duke.

Gen. Keith Alexander, former commander of U.S. Cyber Command and former director of the National Security Agency (NSA) under Presidents Bush and Obama, said the nations cyber offense is solid. But the U.S. needs to improve defensive capabilities to protect against the growing threats from outside the country, especially against businesses.

Over the last decade cyber has become an element of national power used by us and by our adversaries. We need the defensive architecture that allows industry to defend itself long enough for government to (then) come in and help, Alexander told an audience Friday night at Gross Hall.

He called for a real-time system in which companies can jointly monitor attacks and block them instead of largely fending for themselves.

That which we store our wealth on is also the biggest vulnerability we have, Alexander said. Its not going to go away. ... We need to fix the defense.

Alexander was head of U.S. Cyber Command from 2010-2014 and director of the National Security Agency and chief of Central Security Service from 2005-2014.

Hes now CEO and president of IronNet Cybersecurity, a company that provides strategic vision to corporate leaders on cybersecurity issues.

During the roughly 90-minute talk at Duke, Alexander shared insider stories, praised the work of NSA staff, took questions from the audience and made numerous jokes (i.e., he got the NSA job because selection was alphabetical.)

Along with a stronger cyber defense alliance between government and business, Alexander said terrorist groups like ISIS should not be allowed to use online platforms to recruit and share information on how to make explosives.

Id take them off the Internet, he said. Freedom of speech is for us, its not for bad guys.

The current tensions with North Korea could also spark cyberwarfare, he said.You can bet North Korea and others who get in a dustup with us are going to use cyber against us, he said.

One way to deter such attacks is to make it clear the United States will respond decisively, perhaps even militarily. Alexander said the current administration leans on the side of taking action rather than just talking about it.

Asked about shaky security information on which the U.S. based its invasion of Iraq, Alexander said hindsight is 20-20, but noted Iraq had used chemical weapons in the past. He added that dismissing the Iraqi military after the invasion was a huge mistake.

Host Patrick Duddy, senior advisor for global strategy in the Duke University Office of Global AffairsandU.S. ambassador to Venezuela from 2007-10, said he, Alexander and Secretary of Defense James Mattis were classmates at the National War College.

Duddy asked Alexander about whether the United States Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court -- or FISA Court -- which oversees requests for surveillance warrants against foreign spies inside the United States, provides adequate oversight on the intelligence agencies.

They dont roll over, theyre tough, Alexander said of the 11 federal judges.

As for allegedly listening to citizens phone calls, Alexander said the agency monitors to and from phone numbers for possible terrorist connections, not content. First and foremost, our government is here to protect you, not to listen to your phone calls and read your emails, he said.

Alexander said former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, who shared some of the most deeply held secrets of the agency, did huge damage to the nations national security. He added that Russia, where Snowden is in exile, may have played a role in Snowdens actions.

He also offered encouragement to his mostly student audience. Noting the exponential advances in technology since the introduction of the iPhone 10 years ago, Alexander said: Were going to solve cancer in your lifetime because of these (technological) breakthroughs, he said.

The talk was part of a new speaker series at Duke on the challenges of global governance, funded by the Ambassador Dave and Kay Phillips Family International Lectureship.

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U.S. Cyber Defense 'Terrible,' Former NSA Director Says | Duke Today - Duke Today

The surveillance hawks it would appear are never satisfied. When it comes to harvesting the data of American citizens, their mantra seems to be too much is never enough. The most recently revealed tool in the considerable arsenal of the surveillance state is a three-engine blimp equipped with eavesdropping apparatus.

As the online magazine The Intercept is reporting, the 62-foot diameter airship ominously named the Hover Hammer was fitted with an eavesdropping device back in 2004. The Intercept published a classified document on Monday as part of the Snowden Archive. That classified document shows that the Hover Hammer can be manned or remotely piloted and has already done demonstration flights up to 10,700 feet including a test in which the airship launched from an airfield near Solomons Island, Maryland and was able to intercept international shipping data emanating from the Long Island, New York area, including lines of bearing. Just to clarify, both Maryland and Long Island, New York, are in the United States, so the fact that the Hover Hammer intercepted international shipping data is considerably less than the whole story. In sweeping up that data, the Digital Receiver Technology model 1301 receiver onboard the airship undoubtedly also picked up domestic communications including mobile phone calls, texts, mobile data traffic, and presumably WiFi and other signals.

Moreover, since the document dated August 9, 2004 also says that other experiments were being conducted at that time including the use of onboard imagery sensors, it is a foregone conclusion that the past 13 years have been a heyday of domestic surveillance for the NSA (which operates the aircraft) and other three-letter-agencies that make up the surveillance state. After all, imagery sensors is just tech jargon for cameras. It is to be expected that these imagery sensors would include heat signature sensors as well as infrared sensors. This aircraft even as it existed in 2004 is a surveillance dream come true and a privacy living nightmare.

Of course, it is certain that the aircraft is not what it was in 2004; technology never stands still. In fact, the classified document leaked by Snowden and only recently published by The Intercept as part of the Snowden Archive shows that in 2004, the craft was already being sized up for more changes than just the addition of onboard imagery sensors:

The current plans are to develop the airship for unmanned operations at altitudes of approximately 20,000 feet for up to 48 hours. Future variants are planned to be 200 feet in diameter and will operate at 68,000 feet with mission durations of up to six months. NTIO and S3's Tactical Platforms are already collaborating on options for deploying SIGINT systems on this platform.

So, bigger is better in the darkened minds of the surveillance hawks. If the Hover Hammer could read signals from Maryland to Long Island being a mere 62 feet in diameter and topping out at flights reaching just under 11,000 feet, imagine what could be done with a 200-foot diameter craft flying at 68,000 feet.

And, as The Intercepts Ryan Gallagher pointed out in the article linked above, these eyes in the sky are big business for the surveillance state, which has big plans for them:

In recent years, airships or aerostats, as they are formally called have been a source of major military investment. Between 2006 and 2015, the U.S. Army paid Raytheon some $1.8 billion to develop a massive missile-defense blimp called the JLENS, which is equipped with powerful radar that can scan in any direction 310 miles. (Thats almost the entire length of New York state.) In October 2015, the JLENS attracted national attention after one became untethered amid testing and drifted north from Maryland to Pennsylvania before it was brought back under control. In 2010, the Army commissioned another three airships called Long Endurance Multi-Intelligence Vehicles as part of a $517 million contract with Northrop Grumman. The company stated that the airships would shape the future of the militarys intelligence-gathering capabilities and provide a persistent unblinking stare from the sky.

Of course, the surveillance hawks are not the least bit above misleading or even outright lying to the American people for whom they presumably work. As The Intercept article says:

Unsurprisingly, privacy groups have expressed concerns about the prospect of the blimps being used domestically to spy on Americans. However, military officials have often been quick to dismiss such fears. In August 2015, Lt. Shane Glass told Baltimore broadcaster WBAL that the JLENS blimps being tested in Maryland were not equipped with cameras or eavesdropping devices. There are no cameras on the system, and we are not capable of tracking any individuals, Glass stated.

Even if that were true and considering the fact that the surveillance state is populated by pathological liars, that would be a thin limb to go out on it is irrelevant. JLENS is small fries compared to the Hover Hammer, and there are likely other such aircraft that we know nothing of yet.

While Americans have known about much of what the three-letter-agencies of the surveillance state have been up to, the truth, it turns out, is even darker than many may have imagined. The surveillance hawks have built their Panopticon; they just built it in the sky. The all-seeing eye giving them a persistent unblinking stare means that when the surveillance hawks in both the intelligence community and Congress have complained about the problem of terrorists and other criminals going dark, they were lying.

This does of course underscore the importance of encrypting as much of your data and communications as possible. Encryption truly is the great equalizer in the battle for digital privacy. As this writer has said time and again: encrypt everything. If the surveillance hawks are going to take to the skies to harvest your data, make them waste their time (and your money) harvesting unintelligible gibberish that does them no good (and you no harm) without the decryption keys.

Image: Screenshot of YouTube video of Raytheon JLENS airship

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The NSA's Eye in the Sky: Blimp Spies on Americans - The New American