{"id":36725,"date":"2018-08-16T07:38:25","date_gmt":"2018-08-16T12:38:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=36725"},"modified":"2018-08-16T07:38:25","modified_gmt":"2018-08-16T12:38:25","slug":"nsa-cracked-open-encrypted-networks-of-russian-airlines-al-jazeera-and-other-high-potential-targets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=36725","title":{"rendered":"NSA Cracked Open Encrypted Networks of Russian Airlines, Al Jazeera, and Other “High Potential” Targets"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Photo: Kamran Jebreili\/AP<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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NSA CRACKED OPEN ENCRYPTED NETWORKS OF RUSSIAN AIRLINES, AL JAZEERA, AND OTHER \u201cHIGH POTENTIAL\u201d TARGETS<\/a><\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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THE NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY<\/u> successfully broke the encryption on a number of \u201chigh potential\u201d virtual private networks, including those of media organization Al Jazeera, the Iraqi military and internet service organizations, and a number of airline reservation systems, according to a March 2006 NSA document<\/a>.A virtual private network, or VPN, uses an encrypted connection to enable users to go over the internet and connect to a private network, such as a corporate intranet. This allows an organization\u2019s staff to access internal services like file-sharing servers or private wikis without having to physically be in the office.<\/p>\n

The NSA\u2019s ability to crack into sensitive VPNs belonging to large organizations, all the way back in 2006, raises broader questions about the security of such networks. Many consumers pay for access to VPNs in order to\u00a0mask the origin of their internet traffic from the sites they visit, hide their surfing habits from their internet service providers, and to protect against eavesdroppers on public Wi-Fi networks.<\/p>\n

The fact that the NSA spied on Al Jazeera\u2019s communications was reported by the German newsmagazine Der Spiegel<\/a> in 2013, but that reporting did not mention that the spying was accomplished through the NSA\u2019s compromise of Al Jazeera\u2019s VPN. During the Bush administration, high-ranking U.S. officials criticized<\/a> Al Jazeera, accusing the Qatar-based news organization of having an anti-American bias, including because it broadcasted taped messages from Osama bin Laden.<\/p>\n

\u201cBoth protocols offer a zillion configurable options, which is a source of a lot of the vulnerabilities.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

At the time, Al Jazeera defended itself against this criticism, insisting that its reporting was objective. \u201cOsama bin Laden, like it or not, is a party to this present crisis,\u201d news editor Ahmed Al Sheikh told<\/a> the BBC in 2001<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u2026click on the above link to read the rest of the article\u2026<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Photo: Kamran Jebreili\/AP NSA CRACKED OPEN ENCRYPTED NETWORKS OF RUSSIAN AIRLINES, AL JAZEERA, AND OTHER \u201cHIGH POTENTIAL\u201d TARGETS THE NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY successfully broke the encryption on a number of \u201chigh potential\u201d virtual private networks, including those of media organization Al Jazeera, the Iraqi military and internet service organizations, and a number of airline reservation […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[22,12546,551,577,694],"class_list":["post-36725","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-geopolitics","tag-al-jazeera","tag-micah-lee","tag-national-security-agency","tag-nsa","tag-russia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36725","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=36725"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36725\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36726,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36725\/revisions\/36726"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=36725"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=36725"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=36725"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}