Tag: dutch

British and US spooks stole SIM card keys

Posted on February 20, 2015 by - News

james_bond_movie_poster_006Spies from the US and the UK hacked into the internal computer network of the largest manufacturer of SIM cards in the world and stole encryption keys used to protect the privacy of mobile phones.

According to the latest release from the Edward Snowden cache, the hack was perpetrated by a joint unit consisting of operatives from the NSA and its British counterpart Government Communications Headquarters, or GCHQ.

It all happened in 2010 when GCHQ document, gave the surveillance agencies the potential to secretly monitor a large portion of the world’s mobiles, including both voice and data.

Gemalto, a multinational firm incorporated in the Netherlands, makes 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.

It makes two billion SIM cards a year and with the stolen encryption keys, intelligence agencies could monitor mobile communications without seeking or receiving approval from telecom companies and foreign governments.

British spies mined the private communications of unwitting engineers and other company employees in multiple countries.

Apparently, Gemalto did not notice and still cannot work out how it was done.

According to one secret GCHQ slide, the British intelligence agency penetrated Gemalto’s internal networks, planting malware on several computers, giving GCHQ access.

Google gets Glass customer

Posted on February 10, 2015 by - News

Joe_90_(TV)Even if the project has been mothballed, Google has found a partner for its Glass project.

Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport in the Netherlands, is trialling Google Glass for use by airport authority officers as a hands-free way to look up gate and airplane information.

Apparently its security officers are testing Google’s wearable computer on travellers passing through the terminal in a bid to better understand the ‘customer journey’.

What this suggests is that the project is never going to be mass market, but will have a function for niche industrial and service industry applications.

Google pulled ‘Glass for the masses’ when it shuttered its Glass Explorer program last month.

The airport started its trial of Glass last month, and has developed a Glass app which lets staff ask the device for gate or aircraft data and have the results displayed via the headset or on their smartphone. The airport hopes to measure the placement distance of barriers on the taxiway just by looking at them, rather than officers having to take measurements manually.

The airport is not committed to Glass beyond trialling it at this point. Any decision about whether the face computers will become a permanent fixture on staff will be taken next year, it said.

 

Samsung sued by Dutch

Posted on December 31, 2014 by - News

dutch-childrenDutch based telecommunications company KPN has sued Samsung in the US state of Texas, claiming that it stole  some of its patented ideas.

The European network is suing the world’s largest smartphone company for using patented technology, with Samsung’s Galaxy S4 and Galaxy S5 among the listed devices.

Apparently KPN has been negotiating with Samsung for some years to reach a licensing agreement, but talks broke down.

As the court filing was made in the US, it seems KPN is focused on that market, but it is unclear if Samsung is infringing the same patent in other global regions, or if this was just “stage one” of a wider campaign.

Texas is a little more patent friendly to trolls, which does weaken the Dutch case somewhat. After all, if you really believed in your case you would choose a court where the jurors were a little less likely to automatically agree with you.

It is also not clear which patents Samsung is said to have broken – so far no news source from the US has said.

 

Dutch prepare to take on Google

Posted on December 16, 2014 by - News

boyne2_1Search engine outfit Google could face fines of up to $18.6 million if it does not stop violating the privacy of internet users in the Netherlands, the Dutch data protection agency warned.

The DPA said that Google is breaching the country’s data protection act by using people’s private information such as browsing history and location data to target them with customised ads.

Google has until the end of February to change how it handles the data it collects from individual web users or will have to start writing cheques.

The company’s handling of user data under its new privacy guidelines, introduced in 2012, has also been under investigation in five other European countries – France, Germany, Britain, Italy and Spain.

Jacob Kohnstamm, chairman of the Dutch DPA appears to have had a gutsful of Google prevaricating.

“This has been ongoing since 2012 and we hope our patience will no longer be tested,” said.

Google needs to adequately inform users in advance and ask for permission before it uses data in this way, the DPA said.

It ordered the company to stop the violations or face incremental fines up to a maximum of 15 million euros. It said Google must start informing users of its actions and seeking their consent.

Google should be careful, the Dutch managed to humiliate the British Empire on more than one occasion and a tech Empire should be a doddle.

 

Dutch can outsource spying

Posted on July 25, 2014 by - News

dutch-childrenThe Dutch courts have ruled that while the government is forbidden to snoop on its citizens over the internet, it is allowed to use data stolen from them by the American spooks.

The Hague District Court Dutch ruled that intelligence services can receive bulk data that might have been obtained by the US National Security Agency (NSA) through mass data interception programs, even though collecting data that way is illegal under Dutch law.

A civil case filed by a coalition of defence lawyers, privacy advocates and journalists who sued the Dutch government wanted a court order to stop the AIVD and MIVD from obtaining data from foreign intelligence agencies that was not obtained in accordance with European and Dutch law.

NSA’s mass data collection programs violate human rights guaranteed by international and European treaties including the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), the lawyers argued.

However, the court said that under Dutch law, Dutch intelligence services are allowed to collaborate with the NSA. The NSA in turn is bound by US law which, in general, does not conflict with the human rights convention privacy requirements.

Since raw data is shared in bulk, less stringent safeguards are necessary than would apply when the data is examined and used, the court said. It added that there would be a big difference between receiving data and using it for individual cases.

The court said it only ruled on general grounds, assessing the actions of the state in general. It suggested the outcome could be different when individual lawsuits or complaints were filed with the relevant institutions.

The lawyers bringing the case were furious and dubbed it “incomprehensible.”

In a statement, they said that innocent citizens’ privacy rights should prevail over the interests of intelligence services. Because the data exchanged in bulk involves information on many innocent people, safeguards that are more stringent are needed.

They plan to appeal the ruling.