Entries Tagged "UK"

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Alan Turing Cryptanalysis Papers

GCHQ, the UK government’s communications headquarters, has released two new—well, 70 years old, but new to us—cryptanalysis documents by Alan Turing.

The papers, one entitled The Applications of Probability to Crypt, and the other entitled Paper on the Statistics of Repetitions, discuss mathematical approaches to code breaking.

[…]

According to the GCHQ mathematician, who identified himself only as Richard, the papers detailed using “mathematical analysis to try and determine which are the more likely settings so that they can be tried as quickly as possible.”

The papers don’t seem to be online yet, but here’s their National Archives data.

EDITED TO ADD (5/12): The papers are available for download at GBP 3.50 each.

Posted on April 23, 2012 at 6:18 AM • View Comments

British Tourists Arrested in the U.S. for Tweeting

Does this story make sense to anyone?

The Department of Homeland Security flagged him as a potential threat when he posted an excited tweet to his pals about his forthcoming trip to Hollywood which read: ‘Free this week, for quick gossip/prep before I go and destroy America’.

After making their way through passport control at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) last Monday afternoon the pair were detained by armed guards.

Despite telling officials the term ‘destroy’ was British slang for ‘party’, they were held on suspicion of planning to ‘commit crimes’ and had their passports confiscated.

There just as to be more than this story. The DHS isn’t monitoring the Tweets of random British tourists—they just can’t be.

EDITED TO ADD (1/30): According to DHS documents received by EPIC, the DHS monitors the Internet, including social media.

In February 2011, the Department of Homeland Security announced that the agency planned to implement a program that would monitor media content, including social media data. The proposed initiatives would gather information from “online forums, blogs, public websites, and messages boards” and disseminate information to “federal, state, local, and foreign government and private sector partners.” The program would be executed, in part, by individuals who established fictitious usernames and passwords to create covert social media profiles to spy on other users. The agency stated it would store personal information for up to five years.

[…]

The records reveal that the DHS is paying General Dynamics to monitor the news. The agency instructed the company to monitor for “[media] reports that reflect adversely on the U.S. Government, DHS, or prevent, protect, respond government activities.”

[…]

The DHS instructed the company to “Monitor public social communications on the Internet.” The records list the websites that will be monitored, including the comments sections of [The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, the Huffington Post, the Drudge Report, Wired, and ABC News.]”

Still, I have trouble believing that this is what happened. For this to work General Dynamics would have had to monitor Twitter for key words. (“Destroy America” is certainly a good key word to search for.) Then, they would have to find out the real name associated with the Twitter account—unlike Facebook or Google+, Twitter doesn’t have real name information—so the TSA could cross-index that name with the airline’s passenger manifests. Then the TSA has to get all this information into the INS computers, so that the border control agent knows to detain him. Sure, it sounds straightforward, but getting all those computers to talk to each other that fast isn’t easy. There has to be more going on here.

EDITED TO ADD (1/30): One reader points out that this story is from the Daily Mail, and that it’s prudent to wait for some more reputable news source to report the story.

EDITED TO ADD (1/30): There’s another story from The Register, but they’re just using the Daily Mail.

EDITED TO ADD (1/30): The FBI is looking for someone to build them a system that can monitor social networks.

The information comes from a document released on 19 January looking for companies who might want to build a monitoring system for the FBI. It spells out what the bureau wants from such a system and invites potential contractors to reply by 10 February.

The bureau’s wish list calls for the system to be able to automatically search “publicly available” material from Facebook, Twitter and other social media sites for keywords relating to terrorism, surveillance operations, online crime and other FBI missions. Agents would be alerted if the searches produce evidence of “breaking events, incidents, and emerging threats.”

Agents will have the option of displaying the tweets and other material captured by the system on a map, to which they can add layers of other data, including the locations of US embassies and military installations, details of previous terrorist attacks and the output from local traffic cameras.

EDITED TO ADD (1/30): New reports are saying that customs was tipped off about the two people, and their detention was not a result of data mining:

“Based on information provided by the LAX Port Authority Infoline—a suspicious activity tipline—CBP conducted a secondary interview of two subjects presenting for entry into the United States,” says the spokesperson, who notes that the CBP “denies entry to thousands of individuals” each year. “Information gathered during this interview revealed that both individuals were inadmissible to the United States and were returned to their country of residence.”

This makes a lot more sense to me.

Posted on January 30, 2012 at 10:52 AM • View Comments

"Operation Pumpkin"

Wouldn’t it be great if this were not a joke: the security contingency that was in place in the event that Kate Middleton tried to run away just before the wedding.

After protracted, top-secret negotiations between royal staff from Clarence House and representatives from the Metropolitan Police, MI5 and elements of the military, a compromise was agreed. In the event of Operation Pumpkin being put into effect Ms Middleton will be permitted to run out of Westminster Abbey with her bodyguards trailing discreetly at a distance. Plain-clothes undercover police, MI5 officers and SAS soldiers stationed in the crowd will form a mobile flying wedge ahead of her, clearing a path for the fugitive future princess to escape down.

Prince William will then have a limited time, the subject of tense negotiations between Clarence House and security chiefs, in which the path behind Ms Middleton will be kept open for him to go after her, after which the mobile protective cordon will close again at the Abbey end due to lack of manpower and the Prince will have let his bride slip through his fingers.

If Wills reacts fast enough, however, he will be able to chase after his fleeing fiancee for just under half a mile.

I wonder what security would have done if she just took off and ran.

EDITED TO ADD (5/5): The double negative in the first sentence has confused some people. To be clear: the article quoted, and Operation Pumpkin in general, is fiction.

Posted on May 4, 2011 at 12:15 PM • View Comments

Security Fears of Wi-Fi in London Underground

The London Underground is getting Wi-Fi. Of course there are security fears:

But Will Geddes, founder of ICP Group which specialises in reducing terror or technology-related threats, said the plan was problematic.

He said: “There are lots of implications in terms of terrorism and security.

“This will enable people to use their laptop on the Tube as if it was a cell phone.”

Mr Geddes said there had been numerous examples of bomb attacks detonated remotely by mobile phone in Afghanistan and Iraq.

He warned a wi-fi system would enable a terror cell to communicate underground.

And he said “Trojan” or eavesdropping software could be used to penetrate users’ laptops and garner information such as bank details.

Mr Geddes added: “Eavesdropping software can be found and downloaded within minutes.”

This is just silly. We could have a similar conversation regarding any piece of our infrastructure. Yes, the bad guys could use it, just as they use telephones and automobiles and all-night restaurants. If we didn’t deploy technologies because of this fear, we’d still be living in the Middle Ages.

Posted on April 13, 2011 at 1:14 PM • View Comments

UK Immigration Officer Puts Wife on the No-Fly List

A UK immigration officer decided to get rid of his wife by putting her on the no-fly list, ensuring that she could not return to the UK from abroad. This worked for three years, until he put in for a promotion and—during the routine background check—someone investigated why his wife was on the no-fly list.

Okay, so he’s an idiot. And a bastard. But the real piece of news here is how easy it is for a UK immigration officer to put someone on the no-fly list with absolutely no evidence that that person belongs there. And how little auditing is done on that list. Once someone is on, they’re on for good.

That’s simply no way to run a free country.

Posted on February 4, 2011 at 1:35 PM • View Comments

"Don't Commit Crime"

This sign is from a gas station in the U.K.

<img alt=”sign saying ‘Police Notice: Don’t Commit Crime'” src=”/images/dont-commit-crime.jpg” width=500 height=400″>

My first reaction was to laugh, but then I started thinking about it. We know that signs like “No Shoplifting” reduce shoplifting in the area around the sign, but those are warnings against a specific crime. Could a sign this general be effective? Clearly some comparative studies are needed.

EDITED TO ADD (7/7): This is part of a larger sign. Presumably, whoever put up the sign I saw cut the top and bottom off.

Posted on July 7, 2010 at 9:20 AM • View Comments

Dating Recordings by Power Line Fluctuations

Interesting:

The capability, called “electrical network frequency analysis” (ENF), is now attracting interest from the FBI and is considered the exciting new frontier in digital forensics, with power lines acting as silent witnesses to crime.

In the “high profile” murder trial, which took place earlier this year, ENF meant prosecutors were able to show that a seized voice recording that became vital to their case was authentic. Defence lawyers suggested it could have been concocted by a witness to incriminate the accused.

[…]

ENF relies on frequency variations in the electricity supplied by the National Grid. Digital devices such as CCTV recorders, telephone recorders and camcorders that are plugged in to or located near the mains pick up these deviations in the power supply, which are caused by peaks and troughs in demand. Battery-powered devices are not immune to to ENF analysis, as grid frequency variations can be induced in their recordings from a distance.

At the Metropolitan Police’s digital forensics lab in Penge, south London, scientists have created a database that has recorded these deviations once every one and a half seconds for the last five years. Over a short period they form a unique signature of the electrical frequency at that time, which research has shown is the same in London as it is in Glasgow.

On receipt of recordings made by the police or public, the scientists are able to detect the variations in mains electricity occurring at the time the recording was made. This signature is extracted and automatically matched against their ENF database, which indicates when it was made.

The technique can also uncover covert editing—or rule it out, as in the recent murder trial—because a spliced recording will register more than one ENF match.

Posted on June 16, 2010 at 7:00 AM • View Comments

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Sidebar photo of Bruce Schneier by Joe MacInnis.