A U.S. government office in Quantico, Virginia, has direct, high-speed
access to a major wireless carrier's systems, exposing customers' voice
calls, data packets and physical movements to uncontrolled
surveillance, according to a computer security consultant who says he
worked for the carrier in late 2003.
"What I thought was alarming is how this carrier ended up essentially
allowing a third party outside their organization to have unfettered
access to their environment," Babak Pasdar, now CEO of New York-based
Bat Blue told THREAT LEVEL. "I wanted to put some access controls
around it; they vehemently denied it. And when I wanted to put some
logging around it, they denied that."
Pasdar won't name the wireless carrier in question, but his claims
are nearly identical to unsourced allegations made in a federal lawsuit
filed in 2006 against four phone companies and the U.S. government for
alleged privacy violations. That suit names Verizon Wireless as the
culprit.
Pasdar has executed a seven-page affidavit for the nonprofit Government Accountability Project in Washington, which on Tuesday began circulating the document (.pdf), along with talking points
(.doc), to congressional staffers hashing out a Republican proposal to
grant retroactive legal immunity to phone companies who cooperated in
the warrantless wiretapping of Americans.
more
Read More: Wired Threat-Level Blog
More Information from Slate
Last update : 01-08-2008 18:10
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