NSA Able to Target Off-Line Computers Using Radio Waves

Chris Carrington
Activist Post

A report by RT states that the NSA has implanted software in computers around the world that enables them to use surveillance of those machines even when they are off-line.

According to the report:

The secret technology uses covert radio waves transmitted from small circuit boards and USB cards clandestinely inserted into targeted computers, The New York Times reported. The waves can then be sent to a briefcase-sized relay station intelligence agencies can set up just miles away, according to NSA documents, computer experts and US officials. 

The radio frequency technology – which often needs to be physically inserted by a spy, manufacturer or unwitting user – has helped US spies access computers that global adversaries have gone to great lengths to protect from surveillance or cyber-attack. 

The NSA calls use of the infiltration software and radio technology – all part of a program known as Quantum -“active defense”against cyber-attacks, though it has condemned use of similar software by Chinese attackers against American companies or government agencies. 

“What’s new here is the scale and the sophistication of the intelligence agency’s ability to get into computers and networks to which no one has ever had access before,”James Andrew Lewis, cyber security expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, told The Times.“Some of these capabilities have been around for a while, but the combination of learning how to penetrate systems to insert software and learning how to do that using radio frequencies has given the U.S. a window it’s never had before.”

Russia and China have been frequent targets of the technology, as have Mexican authorities and drug cartels.

Edward Snowden has released documents showing the locations of around 100,000 implanted computers around the globe, and last month Der Spiegel published details of the NSA ANT product data.

(Image from spiegel.de)

The NSA maintains that the implanted systems gives an early warning of cyber attacks aimed at the US…something that many technology experts say is not strictly true.

The debacle over the NSA and its techniques has circled the globe, and there’s no sign yet that the firestorm of accusation against the department is going to stop anytime soon.

Chris Carrington is a writer, researcher and lecturer with a background in science, technology and environmental studies. Chris is an editor for The Daily Sheeple, where this first appeared. Wake the flock up!