Published time: August 13, 2014 22:43
Ex CIA employee Edward Snowden (RIA Novosti / Tatiana
Lokshina)
The US National Security Agency owns a “MonsterMind”
program designed to prevent foreign cyberattacks and, also, automatically
strike back, former NSA contractor Edward Snowden told Wired magazine.
In his latest revelation, Snowden said that the
defense software in the works would robotically hunt for the launches of
foreign cyberattacks against the US and neutralize them.
MonsterMind - unlike similar schemes that have existed
for many years now - would also be capable to fire back at such attacks without
any human intervention Snowden said in an extended interview with Wired’s writer James Bamford.
The new defense program, Snowden warned, could
unintentionally cause serious diplomatic incidents, because many cyberattacks
are routed through computers in countries that are not aware of their
involvement. That means that a retaliation strike launched by the US system
could lead to a conflict with the nation where the machines used by adversaries
are located.
“These attacks can be spoofed,” Snowden said. “You could have someone
sitting in China, for example, making it appear that one of these attacks is
originating in Russia. And then we end up shooting back at a Russian hospital.
What happens next?”
The NSA leaker did not specify how exactly a
counterstrike would work and whether it would completely disable the attacking
system.
Huge privacy concerns is another problem that
MonsterMind could stir up, Snowden believes. To make the program work, the NSA
would have to spy on basically spy on all private communications coming in from
abroad to the US, the whistleblower explained.
“The argument is that the only way we can identify
these malicious traffic flows and respond to them is if we're analyzing all traffic
flows,” Snowden said. “And
if we're analyzing all traffic flows, that means we have to be intercepting all
traffic flows.”
This, in his words, is a violation on the Fourth
Amendment to the US Constitution, “seizing private communications
without a warrant, without probable cause or even a suspicion of wrongdoing”.
A spokesperson for the NSA declined to comment on
MonsterMind, Wired wrote.
Wired’s journalist Bamford travelled to Moscow to meet
with former CIA employee described by the magazine as “the most wanted
man in the word”. Snowden got temporary asylum in Russia after fleeing the
US having copied piles of secret documents on the government’s mass
surveillance schemes.
He told Wired that the actual number of classified
documents he took is far less than the 1.7 million the government reported.
Still, it’s likely that revelations from the former CIA employee will keep
rocking the world, as not even Snowden himself is entirely sure what other
secrets that “mammoth” batch of documents could contain.
The interview, already described in some media as a
“bombshell”, comes amid growing allegations that Snowden inspired others to follow him in supplying the media with
classified documents.
If that proves to be true, it would demonstrate that
the NSA has not learned the lesson from the scandal sparked by Snowden
disclosures.
“They still haven't fixed their problems,” Snowden told Bamford. “They still have
negligent auditing, they still have things going for a walk, and they have no
idea where they're coming from and they have no idea where they're going. And
if that's the case, how can we as the public trust the NSA with all of our
information, with all of our private records, the permanent record of our
lives?”
Earlier in August, Snowden got a three-year residence
permit in Russia. According to Wired, the NSA leaker “learned to live
modestly in an expensive city that is cleaner than New York and more
sophisticated than Washington.” He shops in a local grocery shop,
where no one recognizes him. Not long ago, he was spotted enjoying an opera at the Bolshoi Theatre in what became his first
public appearance in over a year since he arrived in Moscow from Hong Kong.
He still fears the CIA and NSA, according to Wired.
“If somebody’s really watching me, they've got a team
of guys whose job is just to hack me,” Snowden said. “I don’t think they've geolocated
me, but they almost certainly monitor who I'm talking to online. Even if they
don't know what you're saying, because it's encrypted, they can still get a lot
from who you're talking to and when you're talking to them.”
He does not want a mistake to ruin the progress toward
reforms for which he sacrificed so much.
“I'm not self-destructive. I don't want to
self-immolate and erase myself from the pages of history. But if we don't take
chances, we can't win,” the
whistleblower told the magazine.
Snowden constantly changes computers and email
accounts to throw his possible pursuers off the trail.
However, he said, “I'm going to slip up and
they’re going to hack me. It's going to happen.”
The 31-year-old North Carolina native hopes one day he
will be able to return to the US.
“I told the government I'd volunteer for prison, as
long as it served the right purpose,” Snowden told the magazine. “I care more
about the country than what happens to me. But we can't allow the law to become
a political weapon or agree to scare people away from standing up for their
rights, no matter how good the deal. I'm not going to be part of that.”
The story is accompanied by a provocative photo of
Snowden – seen by many in the US as a traitor – embracing the American flag. The
portrait will also appear on the cover of the magazine’s September issue.
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