Spying Birds

 

Image credit: http://www.pcworld.com/article/2092560/hackers-deface-angry-birds-website-following-nsa-spying-claims.html

Video game developer Rovio saw its Angry Birds site hacked and defaced with an image entitled Spying Birds that featured an NSA (National Security Agency) logo. 

The attack followed the publication of leaks that indicated the US spy agency and its British counterpart GCHQ had obtained data released by at least one of the Finnish firm's games. The report, published by the New York Times, ProPublica and the Guardian, says the NSA and GCHQ have worked together since 2007 to develop ways to gain access to information from applications for mobile phones and tablets.The scale of data gathering is unclear. 

But the reports suggest data is gained from mapping, gaming and social networking applications, using techniques similar to the ones used to intercept mobile internet traffic and text message data. 

The documents also reveal the two agencies are increasingly convinced of the importance of mobile applications data. The joint spying program "effectively means that anyone using Google Maps on a smartphone is working in support of a GCHQ system" one 2008 document from the British intelligence agency is quoted as saying. 

Another GCHQ report, in 2012, laid out how to extract information from Angry Birds user information from phones on the Android operating system. The game has been downloaded 1.7 billion times across the world. 

The British spy agency said it would not comment on intelligence matters, but insisted that all of its activities were "authorized, necessary and proportionate". 

Another NSA document described a "golden nugget" – a perfect scenario where NSA analysts could get broad selections of information from the applications, including networks the phone had connected to, documents downloaded, websites visited and "buddy lists". 

Other applications mentioned by the documents include the photo-sharing site Flickr, movie-based social network Flixster and applications that connect to Facebook. Developers are responsible for the information generated from each application, but there was no suggestion firms were actively agreeing to give the spy agencies data. 

Rovio denied any collaboration or collusion with any government spy agency. The company also added it had quickly fixed its site. 

The above is one of countless revelations about the US National Security Agency's spying that has provoked global outrage. But really, this is nothing new. The NSA surveillance program is only one chapter in a long history of government surveillance. 

We will just have to remember that Big Brother is always watching!