Pakistan building it's own bulk surveillance system

[fatman17]

Reminds us of Orwells 1984 novel

By Russell Brandom on July 22, 2015

Pakistan has been building out its surveillance capabilities, according to a new report from the UK-based watchdog group Privacy International. The plan includes outlines for collecting broadband internet traffic, phone records, and cellular data transmissions en masse. They're along the lines of programs already run by the NSA and GCHQ, but they could end up even more invasive when combined with Pakistan's existing registration systems. The country requires universal SIM card registration by fingerprint, and maintains a national biometric ID program.

Much of the detail in the report is drawn from a series of contractor requests Pakistan made in 2013. "What the ISI wanted to build," the report says, "was a complete surveillance system that would capture mobile communications data, including Wi-Fi, all broadband internet traffic, and any data transmitted over 3G." It's still unclear how much of that capability Pakistan was able to achieve, but it's clear the country's intelligence agency had ambitions to equal Western surveillance agencies.

More controversially, they often ended up working with Western companies to fulfill those ambitions. To enable "lawful intercept" capability in the phone system, the country turned to familiar telecommunications companies like Ericsson, Alcatel, and Huawei. Records also indicate Pakistan monitored its citizens' web traffic with software from a US company called Narus, and also had working relationships with intrusion software vendors like FinFisher andHacking Team. While much of that software is already export-controlled, the country seems to have had no problem meeting customs requirements for much of the US and Europe. Germany alone authorized nearly 4 million euro in export licenses to Pakistan specifically for the purpose of "monitoring technology and spyware software."

 

[Saifullah Sani]

Pakistan building a surveillance system that could rival NSA


Privacy International, a UK-based Watchdog group, recently published a report which states that Pakistan is building its own massive surveillance system that could rival America’s National Security Agency (NSA) Prism program. The report outlines the program’s intentions to collect private user data such as phone records, cellular data transmissions, and internet traffic thus invading the privacy of Pakistani internet users on a local level. This program could be more invasive considering the fact that citizens can only acquire mobile SIMs and CNIC upon biometric (fingerprint) registration.

See Also: British intelligence agency hacked Pakistan Internet Exchange​

The details in the report have been gathered from the contractor requests that Pakistan started making back in 2013. The attached images from the report show the prominent companies like Ericsson, Huawei, Nokia who are providing security solutions to Pakistan.

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From page 15 of the report:
“In June 2013, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), Pakistan’s best known intelligence agency, sought to develop a mass surveillance system by directly tapping the main fibre optic cables entering Pakistan that carried most of the nation’s network communication data. The confidential request for proposals outlines a “Targeted IP Monitoring System and COE [Common Operations Environments]” that aimed to capture and store approximately 660 gigabits of internet protocol (IP) traffic per second under ISI control (See annex 3: ‘Inter-Services Intelligence Proposal, 2013’). This system would make available virtually all of the nation’s domestic and international communications data for scrutiny, the most significant expansion of the government’s capacity to conduct mass surveillance to date.”
“What the ISI wanted to build, was a complete surveillance system that would capture mobile communications data, including Wi-Fi, all broadband internet traffic, and any data transmitted over 3G.”
While it is still unclear of the progress that the intelligence agency has made in this field, it is apparent that the agency looks to watch over their citizens as keenly as their western neighbors are doing.
There is also evidence in the report to suggest Pakistan using western software to monitor traffic, the software is called ‘Narus’ and is based in the US. Further evidence leads to the fact that Pakistan had ties with FinFisher and HackingTeam, two of the most famous intrusion software vendors. The following is taken from Page 19 of the report.

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What is surprising is how the software was export-controlled, yet neither country faced any problem to meet the customs requirements with the following being one of the instances in the report; “Germany granted German companies export licenses valued at € 3.9 million to export “monitoring technology and spyware software” to Pakistan.” (found on page 18 of the report)
This is some pretty interesting material, it leaves one to wonder how far Pakistan has come since 2013 and whether the government has any plans on informing the general public about this monitoring activity?

See Also: Sindh Government intends to make Karachi Pakistan’s first Smart City​

While it became common knowledge sometime ago that the free WiFi Karachi will receive under the “Smart City” upgrade will have internet activity monitored on said WiFi Connections, are there any more surprises that lay in wait for the Pakistani consumer?
What are your thoughts on the increased surveillance system? A step forward or backward? Leave us your thoughts in the comments.
Pakistan building a surveillance system that could rival NSA

 

[Zarvan]

Reminds us of Orwells 1984 novel

By Russell Brandom on July 22, 2015

Pakistan has been building out its surveillance capabilities, according to a new report from the UK-based watchdog group Privacy International. The plan includes outlines for collecting broadband internet traffic, phone records, and cellular data transmissions en masse. They're along the lines of programs already run by the NSA and GCHQ, but they could end up even more invasive when combined with Pakistan's existing registration systems. The country requires universal SIM card registration by fingerprint, and maintains a national biometric ID program.

Much of the detail in the report is drawn from a series of contractor requests Pakistan made in 2013. "What the ISI wanted to build," the report says, "was a complete surveillance system that would capture mobile communications data, including Wi-Fi, all broadband internet traffic, and any data transmitted over 3G." It's still unclear how much of that capability Pakistan was able to achieve, but it's clear the country's intelligence agency had ambitions to equal Western surveillance agencies.

More controversially, they often ended up working with Western companies to fulfill those ambitions. To enable "lawful intercept" capability in the phone system, the country turned to familiar telecommunications companies like Ericsson, Alcatel, and Huawei. Records also indicate Pakistan monitored its citizens' web traffic with software from a US company called Narus, and also had working relationships with intrusion software vendors like FinFisher andHacking Team. While much of that software is already export-controlled, the country seems to have had no problem meeting customs requirements for much of the US and Europe. Germany alone authorized nearly 4 million euro in export licenses to Pakistan specifically for the purpose of "monitoring technology and spyware software."

Man I am a genius I always thought we should have a agency which should collect this kind of data. In fact I even had a name in mind NCA ( National Cyber Agency )