Meet the IDF-Linked Cybersecurity Group “Protecting” US Hospitals ‘Pro Bono’

Whitney Webb | Unlimited Hangout (August 2020)

Anonymous “volunteers” from an opaque group founded by a former commander of Israel’s Unit 8200 have been granted access to some of the most critical private and public networks in the US’ healthcare and pharmaceutical sectors, with the help of a US federal agency now run by a former Microsoft executive.  

Since the Coronavirus crisis began in earnest earlier this year, the strain on hospitals in the US and around the world has been the subject of a considerable number of media reports. However, hardly any media attention has been given to the dramatic and unsettling changes that have been made to hospital and healthcare information technology (IT) systems and infrastructure under the guise of helping the US healthcare system “cope” with the surge in data as well as an unsettling uptick in cyberattacks. 

Over the past several months, 80% of healthcare institutions in the US have reported being targeted by some sort of cyberattack, ranging from minor to severe, with an uptick in phishing attempts and spam specifically. Most of these attempts have been aimed at illegally acquiring troves of patient data, including the recent hacks of hospitals in Chicagoand Utah. About 20% of the hacks and cyberattacks reported by hospitals and medical facilities since March directly affected the facilities’ capacity to function optimally, with a much smaller percentage of those including ransomware attacks.

One of the reasons for the increase in the success of these attacks has been the fact that more healthcare IT workers are working remotely as well as the fact that many IT staffers have been laid off or let go completely. In several recent instances, the removal of entire hospital system IT staffs have been tied to a larger effort by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to consolidate control over patient data, including Coronavirus-related data, with the assistance of secretive government contractors with longstanding ties to HHS.

The surge of cyberattacks combined with major budget cuts has made hospitals even more vulnerable as many are compelled to do more with less. As a result, there has been a renewed push for the improvement of cybersecurity at hospitals, clinics and other healthcare institutions throughout the country over the course of the Coronavirus (Covid-19) crisis.

Amid this backdrop, an odd group of “cyber threat intelligence” analysts with ties to the US government, Israeli intelligence and tech giant Microsoft have “volunteered” to protect US healthcare institutions for free and have even directly partnered with US federal agencies to do so. They have also recently expanded to offer their services to governments and social media platforms to target, analyze and “neutralize” alleged “disinformation campaigns” related to the Coronavirus crisis.

While these analysts have claimed to have altruistic motives, its members who have identified themselves publicly have notably dedicated much of their private sector careers to blaming nation states, namely Iran but also China, for hacking and, most recently, for cyberattacks related to the Coronavirus crisis, as well as the 2020 presidential campaign. These individuals and their employers rarely, if ever, make their reasons for assigning blame to state actors available to public scrutiny and also have close ties to the very governments, namely the US and Israel, that have been attempting to gin up hostilities with those countries in recent years, particularly Iran, suggesting a potential conflict of interest.

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In death tech we trust: Report reveals depth of Microsoft's contribution to Israeli killing machine

Press TV

 

An investigative report has provided further solid evidence of Microsoft's ongoing collaboration with the Israeli regime towards further empowerment of Tel Aviv's deadly ambitions for Palestinians.

The evidence was provided in a Wednesday report by The Guardian, which showed how the company has been quietly entangled in the regime's vast surveillance dragnet targeting Palestinians.

The bombshell investigation revealed that Unit 8200, the Israeli military's notorious cyber-intelligence arm, has been storing millions of intercepted Palestinian phone calls on Microsoft's Azure cloud servers in Europe since at least 2022.

The surveillance apparatus, which captures calls "by the million each hour," is fueled by a staggering trove of data housed primarily in the Netherlands and Ireland, the probe found.

It monitors Palestinian life in microscopic detail, from the Gaza Strip's bomb-scarred neighborhoods to every corner of the occupied West Bank, the daily showed.

One insider, meanwhile, described a rising eagerness among Israeli officials, who see this system as the bedrock of "long-term control" in Gaza as the stored data continues to inform operations, despite telecoms destruction across the Palestinian territory.

Officers sifted through intercepted calls made near bombing targets to justify airstrikes in heavily populated civilian areas.

As one insider put it, "When they need to arrest someone and there isn't a good enough reason to do so, that's where they find the excuse."

 

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How NeoCon Billionaire Paul Singer Is Driving the Outsourcing of US Tech Jobs to Israel

Whitney Webb
Mint Press news

WASHINGTON — With nearly 6 million Americans unemployed and regular bouts of layoffs in the U.S. tech industry, major American tech companies like Google, Microsoft and Intel Corporation are nonetheless moving key operations, billions in investments, and thousands of jobs to Israel — a trend that has largely escaped media attention or concern from even “America first” politicians. The fact that this massive transfer of investment and jobs has been so overlooked is particularly striking given that it is largely the work of a single leading neoconservative Republican donor who has given millions of dollars to President Donald Trump.

To make matters worse, many of these top tech companies shifting investment and jobs to Israel at record rates continue to collect sizable U.S. government subsidies for their operations while they move critical aspects of their business abroad, continue to layoff thousands of American workers, and struggle to house their growing company branches in Israel. This is particularly troubling in light of the importance of the tech sector to the overall U.S. economy, as it accounts for 7.1 percent of total GDP and 11.6 percent of total private-sector payroll.

Furthermore, many of these companies are hiring members of controversial Israeli companies — known to have spied on Americans, American companies, and U.S. federal agencies — as well as numerous members of Israeli military intelligence as top managers and executives. 

This massive transfer of the American tech industry has largely been the work of one leading Republican donor — billionaire hedge fund manager Paul Singer, who also funds the neoconservative think tank American Enterprise Institute (AEI), the Islamophobic and hawkish think tank Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), the Republican Jewish Coalition (RJC), and also funded the now-defunct Foreign Policy Initiative (FPI).

Singer’s project to bolster Israel’s tech economy at the U.S.’ expense is known as Start-Up Nation Central, which he founded in response to the global Boycott, Divest and Sanctions (BDS) movement that seeks to use nonviolent means to pressure Israel to comply with international law in relation to its treatment of Palestinians.

This project is directly linked to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who in recent years has publicly mentioned that it has been his “deliberate policy” to have former members of Israel’s “military and intelligence units … merge into companies with local partners and foreign partners” in order to make it all but impossible for major corporations and foreign governments to boycott Israel.

In this report, MintPress identifies dozens of former members of an elite Israeli military intelligence unit who now hold top positions at Microsoft, Google and Facebook.

Singer’s nonprofit organization has acted as the vehicle through which Netanyahu’s policy has been realized, via the group’s close connections to the Israeli PM and Singer’s long-time support for Netanyahu and the Likud Party. With deep ties to Netanyahu, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), and controversial tech companies — like Amdocs — that spied on the American government, this Singer-funded organization has formed a nexus of connections between the public and private sectors of both the American and Israeli economies with the single goal of making Israel the new technology superpower, largely at the expense of the American economy and government, which currently gives $3.2 billion in aid to Israel annually.

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Microsoft Wins Lucrative Cloud Deal With Intelligence Community

Bloomberg

 

Microsoft Corp. said it’s secured a lucrative cloud deal with the intelligence community that marks a rapid expansion by the software giant into a market led by Amazon.com Inc. 

 

The deal, which the company said Wednesday is worth hundreds of millions of dollars, allows 17 intelligence agencies and offices to use Microsoft’s Azure Government, a cloud service tailored for federal and local governments, in addition to other products Microsoft already offers, such as its Windows 10 operating system and word processing programs. 

 

The cloud agreement gives Microsoft more power to make its case to the Pentagon as goes up against competitors like International Business Machines Corp., Oracle Corp. and Amazon for the agency’s winner-take-all cloud computing contract for up to 10 years. Amazon Web Services, the leading cloud provider, is widely perceived to be the front-runner for the job, which is expected to amount to billions of dollars over the duration of the contract. 

 

"What this does, is it reinforces the fact that we are a solid cloud platform that the federal government can put their trust in," Dana Barnes, the vice president of the company’s national security group, said in an interview. "If the IC can trust it, so can the DOD." 

 

A Pentagon spokeswoman didn’t comment on the Microsoft cloud agreement.

You CAN clone yourself – in about 20 years, according to Microsoft; a “robot second-self” will act as a digital extension of your consciousness

Natural News 

In 20 years, humans will have robot doubles containing digital copies of their consciousness. That’s the future envisioned by Microsoft executives Brad Smith and Harry Shum. According to the two men, artificial intelligence (AI) alter egos are inevitable.

This is just one of the predictions they’ve outlined in their book, “The Future Computed.” In the pages, Smith and Shum discussed how the future version of Microsoft’s virtual assistant Cortana will integrate with the other smart devices around your home to make everyday living a simpler affair. From setting up meetings to replying to emails to booking reservations at restaurants, Cortana will be doing all that for you without you having to ask. In essence, she will become an extension of your consciousness — only digitized.

Microsoft already seems to be heading in that direction. 

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Microsoft Creates Smart Mirror That Reads Your Emotions, Shows the Weather

Softpedia

 

Microsoft has recently presented the company’s latest smart product, a mirror that can read your emotions and display content from the web, including the weather forecast and news.

The so-called Magic Mirror was presented by Microsoft at the InnovFest UnBound 2016 digital technology conference, and as CNBC writes, it can actually greet users, determine their emotions, and show pre-configured data, such as the weather forecast and news from selected feeds.  

The camera comes with a built-in camera integrating a facial-recognition system that’s being used to analyze your reactions and to determine emotions, such as anger and happiness. This has an immense potential for marketing, Microsoft says, as advertisers could see users’ reactions when watching their ads.

Watch out, ladies, it can take a photo of your face in the morning

“Imagine on the monitor of the mirror, you’re able to play an advertisement. And you have a camera that can snap a photo of the users that are viewing the advertisement,” Izzat Khair, member of Microsoft Singapore’s developer experience team, is quoted as saying by the aforementioned source.

While having a mirror that takes a photo of your face isn’t the kind of thing that most of us want, especially given the fact that it might simply kill off the idea of privacy, there are also more helpful purposes that this device can serve. One of them is to display weather, news, the Twitter or Facebook feeds when you simply do your makeup or style your hair.

It goes without saying that this project is still in its early days, and the demo presented by Microsoft only shows a prototype, but there’s definitely more room for improvement, and at some point in the future, it could even be pushed to mass production.

In the meantime, you’d better enjoy your privacy because, as technology evolves, more and companies develop new technologies that monitor their surroundings and every move that humans make, and similar products could soon be all around us.

In Historic Ruling, UK Surveillance Secrecy Declared Unlawful

The Intercept

The United Kingdom’s top surveillance agency has acted unlawfully by keeping details about the scope of its Internet spying operations secret, a British court ruled in an unprecedented judgment issued on Friday.

Government Communications Headquarters, or GCHQ, was found to have breached human rights laws by concealing information about how it accesses surveillance data collected by its American counterpart, the National Security Agency.

The ruling was handed down by the Investigatory Powers Tribunal, a special court that handles complaints related to covert surveillance operations conducted by law enforcement and intelligence agencies. In its 15-year history, the tribunal has never before upheld a complaint against any intelligence agencies.

The legal challenge was brought by human rights groups, including Privacy International and Liberty, following disclosures from NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden. The groups alleged that GCHQ was unlawfully obtaining data through the NSA’s online spying program PRISM, which collects data stored by Internet giants such as Google, Apple, Microsoft, and Yahoo. The groups also focused on GCHQ’s role in obtaining private communications swept up by the NSA directly from internet cables, known as so-called “upstream” collection.

The court ruling against GCHQ found that by keeping the rules underpinning the surveillance secret, the agency had “contravened” the privacy and free expression provisions of the European Convention on Human Rights. The secret policies were released for the first time in December, meaning that until then GCHQ had been operating unlawfully, likely for several years. (GCHQ has had access to PRISM since at least 2010, according to reports based on Snowden documents.)

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Extracting audio from visual information

MIT Technology Review 

Researchers at MIT, Microsoft, and Adobe have developed an algorithm that can reconstruct an audio signal by analyzing minute vibrations of objects depicted in video. In one set of experiments, they were able to recover intelligible speech from the vibrations of a potato-chip bag photographed from 15 feet away through soundproof glass.

In other experiments, they extracted useful audio signals from videos of aluminum foil, the surface of a glass of water, and even the leaves of a potted plant. The researchers will present their findings in a paper at this year’s Siggraph, the premier computer graphics conference.

“When sound hits an object, it causes the object to vibrate,” says Abe Davis, a graduate student in electrical engineering and computer science at MIT and first author on the new paper. “The motion of this vibration creates a very subtle visual signal that’s usually invisible to the naked eye. People didn’t realize that this information was there.”

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Google’s Growing Patent Stockpile

MIT Technology Review

Over the last few years, Google executives have had plenty to say about patents. According to Google, patents, particularly software patents, are mostly bogus, largely low-quality, and used in court by companies that can’t innovate to hurt consumers and stifle true innovators.

But data from the U.S. Patent & Trademark office shows that Google has been working very, very hard to win more patents on its own ideas. It has accelerated its activity to such a degree that Google inventors—among them founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page—are now winning 10 patents every day the patent office is open, covering everything from automated cars to balloon-based data networks. For comparison, consider that in all of 2003, Google was awarded four patents.

The recent deluge of patent documents offers fascinating insights into Google’s latest ideas (see “Is This Why Google Doesn’t Want You to Drive?”). It also demonstrates that Google is committed to having one of the world’s largest patent portfolios. The company is on pace to be awarded around 1,800 patents this year. That could be enough to vault Google, for the first time, onto the year’s list of top 10 patent recipients, ahead of industrial giants like General Electric and Intel.

Google urgently needs more patents to defend Android, its free operating system for mobile phones. Android is the most popular smartphone software; about 1.5 million Android phones are activated each day. But Google and handset makers like Samsung face increasing legal challenges. Just last month, they were sued in Texas for patent infringement by a company that represents Apple, Microsoft, and BlackBerry. One of the patents covered in the lawsuit was filed even before the search company was founded.

Publicly, Google continues to disparage patent claims, which it says amount to a tax on smartphones that raises prices for consumers. The company’s top lawyer, David Drummond, said in August that a typical smartphone could be covered by as many as 250,000 patents, but that, like most patents, they are “largely questionable” and for the most part “dubious.”

Nonetheless, filings show that Google started to realize as early as 2007 that it needed to play the patent game, and in a big way. That was the year Apple launched the iPhone, which came to market defended by a thicket of patents and trademarks on everything from the “home button” to the design of its rounded corners. Steve Jobs, stung by a $100 million loss in an intellectual property fight over the iPod a year before, had apparently made good on his vow “to patent it all.”

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Microsoft admits Patriot Act can access EU-based cloud data

zdnet.com/

At the Office 365 launch, Gordon Frazer, managing director of Microsoft UK, gave the first admission that cloud data — regardless of where it is in the world — is not protected against the USA PATRIOT Act. 

It was honestly music to my ears. After a year of researching the Patriot Act’s breadth and ability to access data held within protected EU boundaries, Microsoft finally and openly admitted it.

The question put forward:

“Can Microsoft guarantee that EU-stored data, held in EU based datacenters, will not leave the European Economic Area under any circumstances — even under a request by the Patriot Act?”

Frazer explained that, as Microsoft is a U.S.-headquartered company, it has to comply with local laws (the United States, as well as any other location where one of its subsidiary companies is based).

Though he said that “customers would be informed wherever possible”, he could not provide a guarantee that they would be informed — if a gagging order, injunction or U.S. National Security Letter permits it.

He said: “Microsoft cannot provide those guarantees. Neither can any other company“.

While it has been suspected for some time, this is the first time Microsoft, or any other company, has given this answer.

Any data which is housed, stored or processed by a company, which is a U.S. based company or is wholly owned by a U.S. parent company, is vulnerable to interception and inspection by U.S. authorities. 

Last week, Microsoft opened up its Online Services Trust Center which explained in great detail how data was managed, handled and if necessary, handed over to the authorities.