Iranian official warns U.S.-led strike will engulf entire region By Hussein Dakroub   The Daily Star BEIRUT: A senior Iranian official warned Monday that a U.S.-led military strike on Syria would engulf the entire region and threaten American and Israeli interests. The statement by Alaeddin Boroujerdi, the chairman of the Iranian parliamentary committee for national security and foreign policy, was the latest in a series of stern warnings issued by Iranian and Russian officials against a possible Western military strike on Syria to punish the regime over its alleged use of chemical weapons. “We think that self-restraint shown so far by U.S. President Barack Obama, this American approach, serves America’s interests on the one hand, and the interests of the Zionist entity’s security on the other, because any political miscalculation in this regard could negatively backfire on the situation in the region as a whole,” Boroujerdi told reporters following talks with Speaker Nabih Berri at the latter’s residence in Ain al-Tineh. Boroujerdi spoke in Farsi and his remarks were translated into Arabic by an interpreter. The Iranian official arrived in Beirut Monday from Damascus to brief Lebanese officials on the conflict in Syria and discuss its repercussions on Lebanon. Boroujerdi, who issued a similar warning a day earlier during a trip to Syria where he met with President Bashar Assad, also said that the U.S. Congress should “bow to the will of the American people and take the right decision to put a brake to the American military approach against Syria.” “We think that the American public is sensitive toward and is opposed to any military aggression against Syria given the failed U.S. military experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan,” he said. Last week, Obama said he would seek the authorization of Congress for a military strike on Syria over its alleged use of chemical weapons. Obama has accused the regime of using poisonous gas on Syrian citizens on several occasions this year including the Aug. 21 attack which U.S. intelligence says killed over 1,400 people in a Damascus suburb. Boroujerdi said his talks with Assad focused on three main issues: defense of the resistance and Syria as a major pillar in the resistance axis, Iran’s strong and absolute opposition to any foreign military action against Syria, and its total condemnation of the use of chemical weapons “because this constituted a great danger to world and regional peace.” He said that during his visit to Damascus he found daily life was normal, while the morale of Syrian officials, including Assad, was high. The Iranian official also met with Prime Minister-designate Tammam Salam and several parliamentarians. “We presented a detailed report about the results of our official visit to Syria and the important meetings we had with President Assad, the parliament speaker, the prime minister and the foreign minister,” Boroujerdi told reporters after talks with Salam at the latter’s residence in Mseitbeh. Boroujerdi said he had affirmed Iran’s support for Syria, describing Tehran’s key Arab ally as “the principal foundation and the vital pillar in the resistance axis in the region.” “We informed Salam of Iran’s firm opposition to any form of foreign military aggression against Syria,” he said. Salam and Boroujerdi also discussed bilateral relations and expressed hope that a Lebanese government would be formed. “We hope that the obstacles still facing the formation of a new government under Salam are eliminated because this matter serves the interest of the Lebanese,” he said. The Iranian official also voiced his country’s support for Lebanon’s stability and national unity. “As you know the Islamic Republic of Iran has always affirmed its principled stance in supporting national unity as well as sovereignty, calm and stability in this brotherly country because we think that this matter greatly serves regional security and stability,” he said. Boroujerdi will Tuesday meet with President Michel Sleiman, caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati and caretaker Foreign Minister Adnan Mansour. Boroujerdi also held a meeting with Lebanon’s foreign affairs parliamentary committee headed by MP Abdel-Latif Zein. The talks, attended by lawmakers Nawaf Musawi, Yassine Jaber, Joseph Maalouf and Khodr Habib, touched on the repercussions of the Syrian conflict on Lebanon, particularly in terms of security. Last week, the head of Iran’s powerful Revolutionary Guard warned that a U.S. strike would trigger “reactions beyond” Syria and bolster extremism. And Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has said an attack on Syria would be a “disaster” for the entire region.

NSA Uses Supercomputers To Crack Web Encryption, Files Show

Michael Winter, USA TODAY September 5, 2013

Snowden documents reveal spy agency campaign to compromise online privacy for national security.

U.S. and British intelligence agencies have cracked the encryption designed to provide online privacy and security, documents leaked by former intelligence analyst Edward Snowden show.

In a clandestine, decade-long effort to defeat digital scrambling, the National Security Agency, along with its British counterpart, the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), have used supercomputers to crack encryption codes through "brute force" and have inserted secret "back doors" into software with the help of technology companies, The Guardian,The New York Times and ProPublica reported Thursday.

The NSA has also maintained control over international encryption standards.

As the Times points out, encryption "guards global commerce and banking systems, protects sensitive data like trade secrets and medical records, and automatically secures the e-mails, Web searches, Internet chats and phone calls of Americans and others around the world."

The American Civil Liberties Union, which has filed a federal suit challenging the government's collection of telephone communications data, immediately called the NSA's efforts to defeat encryption "recklessly shortsighted'' and are making the Internet less secure for all.

In a statement, the ACLU said the actions will "further erode not only the United States' reputation as a global champion of civil liberties and privacy but the economic competitiveness of its largest companies.''

"The encryption technologies that the NSA has exploited to enable its secret dragnet surveillance are the same technologies that protect our most sensitive information, including medical records, financial transactions and commercial secrets," said Christopher Soghoian, principal technologist of the ACLU's Speech, Privacy and Technology Project. "Even as the NSA demands more powers to invade our privacy in the name of cybersecurity, it is making the Internet less secure and exposing us to criminal hacking, foreign espionage, and unlawful surveillance.''

The spy agencies have focused on compromising encryption found in Secure Sockets Layer (SSL), virtual private networks (VPNs) and 4G smartphones and tablets. The NSA spent $255 million this year on the decryption program -- code named Bullrun -- which aims to "covertly influence" software designs and "insert vulnerabilities into commercial encryption systems" that would be known only to the agency.

The documents leaked by Snowden, who has been granted temporary asylum in Russia, do not name specific companies or encryption technologies, and refer to customers and users as "adversaries."

The NSA calls its decryption efforts the "price of admission for the U.S. to maintain unrestricted access to and use of cyberspace."

A 2010 memo describing an NSA briefing to British agents about the secret hacking said, "For the past decade, N.S.A. has led an aggressive, multipronged effort to break widely used Internet encryption technologies. Cryptanalytic capabilities are now coming online. Vast amounts of encrypted Internet data which have up till now been discarded are now exploitable."

The GCHQ is working to penetrate encrypted traffic on what it called the "big four" service providers — Google, Yahoo, Facebook and Microsoft's Hotmail.

One document shows that by 2012, the British agency had developed "new access opportunities" into Google's systems.

Major tech companies did not immediately respond. In the past, they have said they cooperate with government agencies only as prescribed by law.

The NSA says code-breaking is fundamental to its mission of protecting national security by deciphering communications from terrorists, spies or other U.S. adversaries.

During the 1990s, the agency fought unsuccessfully to have a secret government portal included in all encryption protocols.

Experts and critics say that while "back doors" may help intelligence gathering, they weaken the Web's overall security and trust, and could be used against Americans.

"The risk is that when you build a back door into systems, you're not the only one to exploit it," Matthew Green, a cryptography researcher at Johns Hopkins University, told the Times. "Those back doors could work against U.S. communications, too."

Bruce Schneier, a security technologist, examined the documents before they were published and authored an analysis for the Guardian. He told USA TODAY that they are the biggest revelations yet from the documents leaked by Snowden and said they show NSA has "subverted" much of the Internet and tech companies that form its backbone.

"They fundamentally undermine the social contract of the Internet — which is that you get what you think you get and it works,'' Schneier said. "An agency has subverted vast swaths of this to turn the Internet into a surveillance engine. Now the Internet doesn't do what people thought it did.''

"They've done it through secret agreements with companies, so essentially all the companies you deal with on the Internet have been lying to you. They have basically sucked the trust out of the Internet — the NSA and these companies. It's a public-private partnership to turn the internet into a surveillance engine.''

The Center for Democracy and Technology, a non-profit group that advocates for a free Internet, called the NSA efforts "a fundamental attack on the way the Internet works.''

"In an era which businesses as well as the average consumer trust secure networks and technologies for sensitive transactions and private communications online, it's incredibly destructive for the NSA to add flaws to such critical infrastructure," said Joseph Lorenzo Hall, CDT Senior Staff Technologist.

"The NSA seems to be operating on the fantastically naïve assumption that any vulnerabilities it builds into core Internet technologies can only be exploited by itself and its global partners. The NSA simply should not be building vulnerabilities into the fundamental tools that we all rely upon to protect our private information," Hall added.

The Times and ProPublica said intelligence officials asked them not to publish the article, arguing that the revelations "might prompt foreign targets to switch to new forms of encryption or communications that would be harder to collect or read."

After removing "some specific facts," they chose to publish "because of the value of a public debate about government actions that weaken the most powerful tools for protecting the privacy of Americans and others."

ProPublica published a separate article explaining its decision to publish:
The story, we believe, is an important one. It shows that the expectations of millions of Internet users regarding the privacy of their electronic communications are mistaken. These expectations guide the practices of private individuals and businesses, most of them innocent of any wrongdoing. The potential for abuse of such extraordinary capabilities for surveillance, including for political purposes, is considerable. The government insists it has put in place checks and balances to limit misuses of this technology. But the question of whether they are effective is far from resolved and is an issue that can only be debated by the people and their elected representatives if the basic facts are revealed.

The non-profit news organization noted that "American history is replete with examples of the dangers of unchecked power operating in secret," specifically the President Nixon, who "tried to subvert law enforcement, intelligence and other agencies for political purposes, and was more than willing to violate laws in the process."

"Such a person could come to power again. We need a system that can withstand such challenges. That system requires public knowledge of the power the government possesses. Today's story is a step in that direction," ProPublica wrote.