Showing posts with label Verint. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Verint. Show all posts

Wednesday, March 3, 2010

Israeli Mossad Spy Ring - Recovered!

Good day, dear readers!

Remember when I made a posting regarding the MOSSAD? Oopsie...looks like that link got ORWELLIZED. Now...I didn't really think that something would happen to this page, but I had a feeling that this page hit way too close to the mark. So...I backed up the page. So, when I attempted to read the page at a future date, I was greeted with, "Sorry, Charlie - your pagey gone!"

I was prepared. So, without further ado...here is the data from the page, without the images. I may go back and insert them, but they're really just window dressing - the meat is here, dear readers. At the very end are headlines to links - just copy the text and perform a Google search - you'll find the stories if you wish.

Israeli Mossad Spy Ring

This article outlines the presence of a massive Israeli spy ring operating inside the United States, known as the MOSSAD (Hebrew: "HaMossad LeModein Ve Tafkidim Meyuhadim" - translated into English - "Institute for Intelligence and Special Tasks").

Their official motto is "By Way Of Deception Thou Shalt Do War."

The Mossad consists of approximately 1,500 to 2,000 personnel, of which 500 are officers. Activities are divided into 8 departments:

1. Operational Planning and Coordination
2. Collection
3. Political Action and Liaison
4. Manpower, Finance, Logistics and Security
5. Training
6. Research
7. Technical Operations
8. Technology

The Mossad has most of its agents here in the United States, where they serve an important role in directing US Middle-Eastern policy. Mossad activity is diverse and it varies from silent operations, like monitoring individuals and organizations, to manipulating journalists, politicians and organizations, to the kidnapping and killing of individuals. Their own more sophisticated version of our NSA and CIA combined!

This is a reprehensible form of gratitude from a minuscule Middle Eastern nation that obtains approximately *10%* of its annual budget from American taxpayers! That translates into well over 'THREE BILLION DOLLARS' PER YEAR! We must end this abuse!

Hard working American taxpayers have been unwittingly sending Israel more than FOUR times what the U. S. space program invested to reach the Moon!! We must stop any further extortion!

What the tiny nation of Israel has done as an expression of their "appreciation" was set up government subsidized telecommunications companies that operate here, in the United States. One of these companies is Amdocs - which ** provides billing and directory assistance for '90%' of the phone companies in the USA!! ** Amdocs' main computer center for billing is actually in Israel and allows those with access to do what intelligence agencies call "traffic analysis" - create a 'picture' of someone's activities based on a pattern of *who* they are calling and *when* they are calling. This intrusive spying is a primary example of privacy invasiveness to the extreme!

Since these criminals have no regard whatsoever for Americans, by eavesdropping on our private conversations, using sophisticated equipment that **WE HAVE PAID FOR**, I have taken the liberty to disclose a little of 'their' personal information, by listing company names, addresses, phone numbers, IP addresses, etc., of the main offenders, for Americans to peruse, as a small token of MY *gratitude*, for Israel's disrespectful treatment of our people. I will continue to add to this list, as research uncovers even more about the heinous crimes that they have committed.

amdocs.com: 204.151.97.194
OrgName: Amdocs, Inc.
AMDOCS
1390 Timberlake Manor Parkway
Chesterfield
MO
63017
US

AdminHandle: INTER18-ARIN
AdminName: Internet Infrastructure
AdminPhone: +972-9-7765555
AdminEmail: inframaster@amdocs.com

TechHandle: YSH3-ARIN
TechName: Shriqui-Meles, Yafit
TechPhone: +972-9-7765117
TechEmail: yafit.shriqui@amdocs.com

Name: Shriqui-Meles, Yafit
Handle: YSH3-ARIN
Company: Amdocs Inc.
Address: Amdocs Israel
Address: Hapnina 8
City: Raanana
StateProv: Israel
PostalCode: 43000
Country: IL
RegDate: 2003-06-17
Updated: 2003-06-17
Phone: +972-9-7765117 (Office)
Phone: +972-9-7762700 (Fax)
Email: yafit.shriqui@amdocs.com

TechHandle: INTER18-ARIN
TechName: Internet Infrastructure
TechPhone: +972-9-7765555
TechEmail: inframaster@amdocs.com

Record expires on 01-May-2010.
Record created on 30-Apr-1995.
Database last updated on 23-Jan-2006 15:24:39 EST.

Domain servers in listed order:

NS1.AMDOCS.COM: 212.179.127.162
NS2.AMDOCS.COM: 212.117.152.137
NS3.AMDOCS.COM: 204.151.97.203

Another Israeli telecom company is Comverse Infosys (now known as Verint Systems Inc.), subcontracts the installation of *AUTOMATIC TAPPING EQUIPMENT WHICH IS BUILT INTO EVERY PHONE SYSTEM IN AMERICA!!* Comverse maintains its own connections to ALL of this phone tapping equipment, insisting that it is "for maintenance purposes only". However, Comverse has been named as the most likely source for leaked information regarding telephone calls by law enforcement that derailed several investigations into not only espionage, but also drug running.

cmvt.com: 63.64.185.201
OrgName: Comverse, Inc.
Address: Comverse
Address: 100 Quannapowitt Parkway
City: Wakefield
StateProv: MA
PostalCode: 01880
Country: US

RegDate: 2004-06-18
Updated: 2004-06-18

AbuseHandle: TH754-ARIN
AbuseName: Healey, Tom
AbusePhone: +1-781-224-8313
AbuseEmail: thomas.healey@comverse.com

AbuseHandle: LJG-ARIN
AbuseName: Gardino, Leonard john
AbusePhone: +1-781-224-8312
AbuseEmail: lenny.gardino@comverse.com

AdminHandle: LJG-ARIN
AdminName: Gardino, Leonard john
AdminPhone: +1-781-224-8312
AdminEmail: lenny.gardino@comverse.com

TechHandle: TH754-ARIN
TechName: Healey, Tom
TechPhone: +1-781-224-8313
TechEmail: thomas.healey@comverse.com

TechHandle: LJG-ARIN
TechName: Gardino, Leonard john
TechPhone: +1-781-224-8312
TechEmail: lenny.gardino@comverse.com

Registrant:
Verint Systems Inc.
Shai Lavie
330 South Service Road
Melville, NY 11747
US
Email: shai.lavie@verintsystems.com

Registrar Name....: REGISTER.COM, INC.
Registrar Whois...: whois.register.com
Registrar Homepage: www.register.com

Domain Name: cominfosys.com

Created on..............: Thu, Dec 17, 1998
Expires on..............: Mon, Dec 17, 2007
Record last updated on..: Fri, Dec 16, 2005

Administrative Contact:
Verint Systems Inc.
Shai Lavie
330 South Service Road
Melville, NY 11747
US
Phone: 001-631-9629494
Email: shai.lavie@verintsystems.com

Technical Contact:
Verint Systems Inc.
Shai Lavie
330 South Service Road
Melville, NY 11747
US
Phone: 001-631-9629494
Email: shai.lavie@verintsystems.com

Yet another Israeli telecom company is Odigo - which provides the core message passing system for *ALL Instant Messaging Services*. Two hours before the attacks on the World Trade Towers, Odigo employees received a warning to vacate. Odigo has an office that just happens to be located *two blocks* from the former location of the World Trade Towers!

odigo.org: 216.33.42.70
Domain ID: D7337550-LROR
Domain Name: ODIGO.ORG
Created On: 18-Jun-1999 16:52:04 UTC
Last Updated On: 09-Jan-2006 13:38:31 UTC
Expiration Date: 18-Jun-2008 16:52:43 UTC
Sponsoring Registrar: Network Solutions LLC (R63-LROR)
Status: CLIENT TRANSFER PROHIBITED

Registrant ID: 26331511-NSI
Registrant Name: Odigo, Inc
Registrant Organization: Odigo, Inc
Registrant Street1: 11 Broadway, Suite 365
Registrant Street2:
Registrant Street3:
Registrant City: New York City
Registrant State/Province: NY
Registrant Postal Code: 10004
Registrant Country: US
Registrant Phone: +1.21280920
Registrant Phone Ext.:
Registrant FAX:
Registrant FAX Ext.:
Registrant Email: coreye@ODIGO.COM

Admin ID: 26331513-NSI
Admin Name: Ellis Corey
Admin Street1: 11 Broadway suite 365
Admin Street2:
Admin Street3:
Admin City:New York
Admin State/Province: NY
Admin Postal Code: 10004
Admin Country: US
Admin Phone: +1.21280920
Admin Phone Ext.:
Admin FAX:
Admin FAX Ext.:
Admin Email: coreye@ODIGO.COM

Administrative Contact:
Buchnik, Lavi
lavi.buchnik@comverse.com
Comverse
11 Broadway Ste 365
11 Broadway, Suite 365
New York, NY 10004
US
+97236452307
fax: 12128092092

Tech ID: 26331513-NSI
Tech Name: Ellis Corey
Tech Street1: 11 Broadway suite 365
Tech Street2:
Tech Street3:
Tech City: New York
Tech State/Province: NY
Tech Postal Code: 10004
Tech Country: US
Tech Phone: +1.21280920
Tech Phone Ext.:
Tech FAX:
Tech FAX Ext.:
Tech Email: coreye@ODIGO.COM

Technical Contact:
Network Solutions, LLC.
customerservice@networksolutions.com
13200 Woodland Park Drive
Herndon, VA 20171-3025
US
1-888-642-9675
fax: 571-434-4620

Domain servers in listed order:

Name Server: NS1.COMVERSE.COM
Name Server: NS4.COMVERSE.COM
Name Server: NS2.COMVERSE.COM
Name Server: NS3.COMVERSE.COM

NS1.COMVERSE.COM: 63.64.185.242
NS4.COMVERSE.COM: 192.118.49.3
NS2.COMVERSE.COM: 63.64.185.243
NS3.COMVERSE.COM: 192.118.49.2

Record expires on 18-Jun-2006.
Record created on 18-Jun-1999.
Database last updated on 25-Jan-2006 18:11:08 EST.

Now, in a chilling real life version of the plotline from "The Net", it turns out that the majority of the firewalls on US corporate and government computer systems are provided by just one company, Checkpoint Systems, which like Amdocs, Comverse Infosys, and Odigo, is headquartered in Israel.

About Check Point Software Technologies Ltd.

Check Point Software Technologies
5 Ha’Solelim Street
Tel Aviv 67897, Israel
Tel: +972-3-753 4555

Check Point Software Technologies Ltd. is the global network security software market share leader and inventor of the patented "Stateful Inspection" technology. Its products are sold worldwide through OEM partners, distributors, VRS, systems and network integrators and Internet Service Providers. The company has its U.S. headquarters in Redwood City, California and international headquarters in Tel Aviv, Israel.

With a market cap of $16.2 billion, Check Point is Israel's biggest company. It is bigger than the country's airline and largest bank combined. In a word, it is Israel's version of Microsoft.

Someone from the 'Israeli Government Network' recently paid a visit to this site. Perhaps they are becoming increasingly concerned that the word is spreading about the deplorable bullying tactics that they are using on innocent American people?

April 16th 2006 09:24:43 PM
IP Address - 147.237.70.212
Country - Israel
Region - Yerushalayim (jerusalem)
City - Jerusalem
ISP - Israeli Government Network

Information related to '147.237.0.0 - 147.237.255.255'

inetnum: 147.237.0.0 - 147.237.255.255
netname: IL-GOVT-NET descr: Israeli Government Network
country: IL
admin-c: AT979-RIPE
tech-c: TT441-RIPE
status: ASSIGNED PI
mnt-by: GOV-IL-DNS
mnt-lower: GOV-IL-DNS
mnt-routes: AS8867-MNT { ANY }
mnt-routes: AS9116-MNT { 147.237.232.0/24^24-24 }
source: RIPE # Filtered

person: Admin Tehila
address: Israel Ministry Of Finance
address: 1 Kaplan st.
address: Jerusalem Israel
phone: +972 2 5317890
fax-no: +972 2 5317801
e-mail: nicadmin@tehila.gov.il

remarks: For ABUSE and security issues please contact
remarks: email: abuse@tehila.gov.il
remarks: or contact CERT.gov.il at report@CERT.gov.il
remarks: phone: +972-2-5317890 (emergencies - Gadi Evron)

nic-hdl: AT979-RIPE
source: RIPE # Filtered

person: Tech Tehila
address: Israeli Ministry of Finance
address: 1 Kaplan St. , Jerusalem 91008, Israel
phone: +972 2 5317890
fax-no: +972 2 5317801
e-mail: tech@tehila.gov.il

remarks: For ABUSE and security issues please contact
remarks: email: abuse@tehila.gov.il
remarks: or contact CERT.gov.il at report@CERT.gov.il
remarks: phone: +972-2-5317890 (emergencies - Gadi Evron)

nic-hdl: TT441-RIPE
source: RIPE # Filtered

Information related to '147.237.0.0/16AS8867'

route: 147.237.0.0/16
descr: IL-GOVT-BLOCK
origin: AS8867
mnt-by: AS8867-MNT
mnt-routes: AS8867-MNT { ANY }
mnt-routes: AS9116-MNT { 147.237.232.0/24^24-24 } source: RIPE # Filtered

There is nothing benign about Israel spying on the United States. When Jonathan Pollard stole our nuclear secrets (which your taxes paid to develop) and sent them to Israel, this soulless nation did not hesitate to trade those secrets to the USSR in exchange for increased emigration quotas.

Billions of our tax dollars have been given to Israel and have paid for a complex telephone tracking and wiretapping system that is capable of eavesdroping on *ANY* telephone call in the US; while impoverished men, women and children continue to sleep in America's alleys and eat out of trash bins!

Even the White House's telephones are subjected to invasive monitoring and eavesdropping, while government officials are "encouraged" to garner expeditious approval for covert Israeli agendas directed by the Mossad.

The Ken Starr report on Whitewater describes how former President Bill Clinton informed Monica Lewinsky that their phone sex conversations had been recorded. At the same time, President Clinton ordered the FBI to stop looking for an Israeli mole known to be *operating inside the White House* itself! What a coincidence!

So here we have this tiny rogue foreign nation with the capability of listening in on any phone calls at will, using sophisticated listening devices which cannot be found, because *they are built into the phone systems themselves*, and using information gleaned from those calls to blackmail Americans into any desired course of action! This is what Ariel Sharon meant when he stated that "We, the Jewish people, control America, and the Americans know it."

That the information extracted from these phone taps is being used to coerce the behavior of key individuals within the US Government and media is illustrated by the manner in which the government and the media have handled this scandal of the largest spy ring ever uncovered inside the United States, and of phone taps on all of our telephones. They are downplaying it. Actually, burying it is a better word.

Fox News, of all the media whore presstitutes, actually ran the story as a four-part broadcast, and put the story up on its web site. Then, without explanation, Fox News erased the story from their web site and have never mentioned it again. CNN followed by "Orwellizing" their report of the two hour advance warning of the WTC attacks sent to Odigo employees. But far more telling is the admission made by a US Official in part one of the Fox News report that *hard evidence existed* linking the events of 9/11 not to Arab Muslims, but to some of the more than 200 Israeli spies arrested both before and after 9/11, but that this evidence had since become "CLASSIFIED".

Since then, any and all mention of the Israeli spy ring and phone tapping scandal has resulted in a barrage of shrill screams of "hate" and "anti-Semitism" - two of the over-used psychological control devices to attempt to silence discussion on any topic unfavorable to the Middle Eastern nation which runs the spy ring in question!

The story of the uncovering of the largest spy ring ever discovered inside the United States should be the story of the century. That this spy ring helped drug smugglers evade investigators should be a major scandal. That it includes companies able to track and tap into any phone in America, including the White House, should be a cause for celebration, if indeed the US media is looking out for the best interests of the American people. But they are not.

The media is trying to bury this story. They are erasing it from their web sites in a chilling real-life Orwellian re-writing of history. The actions of the filthy US media are those of trying to protect this spy ring and those that the spy ring worked for.

The actions of the US media are those of traitors to the American people.

All 9/11 Airports Serviced By *One* Israeli-Owned Company!

A private security company called ICTS (now known as "I-SEC Technologies B.V.") is owned by an Israeli, Ezra Harel, and is registered in the Netherlands. This company was employed at Charles de Gaulle airport to screen passengers boarding US planes. Most of its personnel are ex-Shin Bet officers. The company covers security at Boston’s Logan airport, where the American Airlines plane came down after flight attendants and passengers overpowered Reid.

The point of the article was that ICTS knew Reid was dangerous, but allowed him on board a flight from Tel Aviv to Paris. Maybe they did and maybe they didn't. But the idea that an Israeli-owned company had inside access to the airport used to launch an abortive terror attack brought to mind the strange message Odigo Systems, another Israeli-owned company, with offices near the World Trade Towers, received that warned of the impending attacks before the hijacked planes had even left the ground.

So, I went back to another story that had surfaced briefly, Hijacker shot passenger on Flight 11, about how at least one hijacker had smuggled a GUN aboard one of the hijacked planes. Even prior to 9-11, getting a gun on board a passenger plane represented a serious lapse of security. I wondered why this story of a gun was being concealed behind talk of box cutters and screwdrivers.

Then I went back to the first article and its mention that ICTS handled security at Logan International Airport, from which two of the 9-11 hijacked planes had departed.

Sure enough, a visit to the ICTS web site confirms that ICTS is in fact an Israeli-owned company and that it sells services to every airport from which the hijacked planes operated, including security, sometimes through wholly owned subsidiaries like Huntleigh USA Corporation.

icts-tech.com: 80.244.167.19
inetnum: 80.244.167.0 - 80.244.167.255
netname: Interspace
descr: Interspace Ltd.
country: IL
admin-c: IN26-RIPE
tech-c: EG60-RIPE
status: ASSIGNED PA
mnt-by: EG-INTER
mnt-lower: EG-INTER
mnt-routes: EG-INTER

person: Itzik Nosatzki
address: Rehov Yad Harutzim 19 Netanya
address: Israel
phone: +972 9 8850480
e-mail: i@interspace.net
nic-hdl: IN26-RIPE
mnt-by: EG-INTER

person: Elliot Goldstein
address: Rehov Yad Harutzim 19 Netanya
address: Israel
phone: +972 9 8850480
e-mail: elliot@interspace.net
nic-hdl: EG60-RIPE
mnt-by: EG-INTER

Information related to '80.244.160.0/20AS21350'

route: 80.244.160.0/20
descr: Interspace
origin: AS21350
mnt-by: EG-INTER
source: RIPE # Filtered

ICTS.COM: 216.168.224.70

Registrant:
Golan, Ron
17 Naamat Street
Haifa 34670
IL

Domain Name: ICTS.COM

Administrative Contact, Technical Contact:

Golan, Ron
17 Naamat Street
Haifa 34670
IL
+972-54-5594400
fax: null
golan.ron@gmail.com

Record expires on 03-Aug-2006.
Record created on 03-Aug-1998.
Database last updated on 19-Feb-2006 15:52:50 EST.

Domain servers in listed order:

NS59.WORLDNIC.COM
216.168.228.32
NS60.WORLDNIC.COM
216.168.225.200

It has been suggested that the incredible feat of hijacking four aircraft without a single arrest at the gate would require the resources of a nation-state. This is even more true with the revelation that at least one gun had managed to be aboard a hijacked plane. One company had automatic inside access to all of the airports from which hijacked planes departed on 9-11, and to the airports used by Richard Reid, the shoe bomber. An Israeli company. One that Mossad agents could easily find employment with without the management knowing who they were or what their purpose really was ... but one thing was clear.

By virtue of the Odigo warning, someone knew enough about the planned attacks to warn Odigo *before* the planes had even departed from the airport terminal in Boston - yet they did not call ICTS (the Israeli-owned company responsible for *security* at the airports), which could have stopped the flights from leaving in the first place?!

Think about that one for a while.

EIR Blows Israeli Spies' Cover In September 11 Case
Mexican Attorney General Releases Zionist Terrorists

Tracking Isreali Spying In The US - Extensive Chronology

The FBI Is Lying - The 9/11 Passenger List Mystery

911 - Citizens' Investigation Continues

Israeli Espionage Case Skirted Public's Radar

Past Zionist-Jewish Terrorism - Some Historical Facts

The Israeli Spy Ring Was "Examined At The Highest Levels"
Of The Bush Administration

Ariel Sharon Proves How Israel Controls America

FBI'S Top Anthrax Letters Suspect Is Jewish

Was 9/11 A Mossad "False Flag" Operation?

7 Of 19 FBI "Identified" Hijackers Located Alive After WTC Attacks

Cheney Says U.S. Will Attack Iraq "For Israel's Sake"

The Spies Who Came In From The Art Sale

Israeli Spy Operation Confirmed

Israeli "Art" Deportees Were IDF Intel, Intercept, Explosives Experts

Massive Israeli Spy Ring Linked To Sept. 11

Israel Spying On America

Bush Seeks To Restrict Hill Probes Of Sept. 11

Car Crash Adds To Lebanese Suspicion Of Israeli Cover-Up

Muslims Suspend Laws Of Physics!

Was FBI Early Arrival In Oklahoma City?

JINSA Behind Drive To Cover-Up Israeli Spy Scandal

Attempted Terrorist Attack On Mexican Congress

9/11 Conspiracy Theories Given Currency By Mainstream Media

Israel Has Its Hand Out - Again

Israel And Anti-Semitism

EIR Blows Israeli Spies' Cover In Sept. 11 Case

U.S. Police And Intelligence Hit By Israeli Spy Network

Israeli Spying In U.S. Expos×™ Cracks Cover-Up Of Sept. 11

Fox News Pulls Israeli Spy Stories

Israel's Secret US Agenda

More Links To Mossad Arrest In Mexico

Jews' Plan To Kill US Congressman, Blow Up Mosque, Thwarted

JDL Leader Accused In L.A. Mosque Bomb Plot - Latest Details

Widow Presses FBI to Release Flight 93 Hijack Cockpit Tape

Why Would An American Ambassador Apologize To Sharon?

2 Men Found With Video Of Sears Tower In Plymouth

Armed With Bombs In Mexican Congress, 2 Israelis Arrested

5 Israelis Detained For "Puzzling Behavior" After WTC Tragedy

FBI Probes Espionage At Clinton White House

Canada "Outspooked" By Mossad Pirated Software

Mossad Spy Found Guilty

Mossad Scandal: Update And Background

A Survey of Missteps By The Mossad


hardtruthforum@gmail.com

Copyright © 2002-2010 Hard Truth

Sunday, September 28, 2008

Trojan Horse - How Israeli Backdoor Technology Penetrated the US Government's Telecom System and Compromised National Security - Christopher Ketcham

Trojan Horse - How Israeli Backdoor Technology Penetrated the US Government's Telecom System and Compromised National Security
by Christopher Ketcham

Since the late 1990s, federal agents have reported systemic communications security breaches at the Department of Justice, FBI, DEA, the State Department, and the White House. Several of the alleged breaches, these agents say, can be traced to two hi-tech communications companies, Verint Inc. (formerly Comverse Infosys), and Amdocs Ltd., that respectively provide major wiretap and phone billing/record-keeping software contracts for the US government. Together, Verint and Amdocs form part of the backbone of the government's domestic intelligence surveillance technology. Both companies are based in Israel – having arisen to prominence from that country's cornering of the information technology market – and are heavily funded by the Israeli government, with connections to the Israeli military and Israeli intelligence (both companies have a long history of board memberships dominated by current and former Israeli military and intelligence officers). Verint is considered the world leader in "electronic interception" and hence an ideal private sector candidate for wiretap outsourcing. Amdocs is the world's largest billing service for telecommunications, with some $2.8 billion in revenues in 2007, offices worldwide, and clients that include the top 25 phone companies in the United States that together handle 90 percent of all call traffic among US residents. The companies' operations, sources suggest, have been infiltrated by freelance spies exploiting encrypted trapdoors in Verint/Amdocs technology and gathering data on Americans for transfer to Israeli intelligence and other willing customers (particularly organized crime). "The fact of the vulnerability of our telecom backbone is indisputable," says a high level US intelligence officer who has monitored the fears among federal agents. "How it came to pass, why nothing has been done, who has done what – these are the incendiary questions." If the allegations are true, the electronic communications gathered up by the NSA and other US intelligence agencies might be falling into the hands of a foreign government. Reviewing the available evidence, Robert David Steele, a former CIA case officer and today one of the foremost international proponents for "public intelligence in the public interest," tells me that "Israeli penetration of the entire US telecommunications system means that NSA's warrantless wiretapping actually means Israeli warrantless wiretapping."

As early as 1999, the National Security Agency issued a warning that records of US government telephone calls were ending up in foreign hands – Israel's, in particular. In 2002, assistant US Attorney General Robert F. Diegelman issued an eyes only memo on the matter to the chief information technology (IT) officers at the Department of Justice. IT officers oversee everything from the kind of cell phones agents carry to the wiretap equipment they use in the field; their defining purpose is secure communications. Diegelman's memo was a reiteration, with overtones of reprimand, of a new IT policy instituted a year earlier, in July 2001, in an internal Justice order titled "2640.2D Information Technology Security." Order 2640.2D stated that "Foreign Nationals shall not be authorized to access or assist in the development, operation, management or maintenance of Department IT systems." This might not seem much to blink at in the post-9/11 intel and security overhaul. Yet 2640.2D was issued a full two months before the Sept. 11 attacks. What group or groups of foreign nationals had close access to IT systems at the Department of Justice? Israelis, according to officials in law enforcement. One former Justice Department computer crimes prosecutor tells me, speaking on background, "I've heard that the Israelis can listen in to our calls."

Retired CIA counterterrorism and counterintelligence officer Philip Giraldi says this is par for the course in the history of Israeli penetrations in the US He notes that Israel always features prominently in the annual FBI report called "Foreign Economic Collection and Industrial Espionage" – Israel is second only to China in stealing US business secrets. The 2005 FBI report states, for example, "Israel has an active program to gather proprietary information within the United States. These collection activities are primarily directed at obtaining information on military systems and advanced computing applications that can be used in Israel's sizable armaments industry." A key Israeli method, warns the FBI report, is computer intrusion.

In the big picture of US government spying on Americans, the story ties into 1994 legislation called the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act, or CALEA, which effected a sea-change in methods of electronic surveillance. Gone are the days when wiretaps were conducted through on-site tinkering with copper switches. CALEA mandated sweeping new powers of surveillance for the digital age, by linking remote computers into the routers and hubs of telecom firms – a spyware apparatus linked in real-time, all the time, to American telephones and modems. CALEA made spy equipment an inextricable ligature in our telephonic life. Top officials at the FBI pushed for the legislation, claiming it would improve security, but many field agents have spoken up to complain that CALEA has done exactly the opposite. The data-mining techniques employed by NSA in its wiretapping exploits could not have succeeded without the technology mandated by CALEA. It could be argued that CALEA is the hidden heart of the NSA wiretap scandal.

THE VERINT CONNECTION

According to former CIA officer Giraldi and other US intelligence sources, software manufactured and maintained by Verint, Inc. handles most of American law enforcement's wiretaps. Says Giraldi: "Phone calls are intercepted, recorded, and transmitted to US investigators by Verint, which claims that it has to be ‘hands on' with its equipment to maintain the system." Giraldi also notes Verint is reimbursed for up to 50 percent of its R&D costs by the Israeli Ministry of Industry and Trade. According to Giraldi, the extent of the use of Verint technology "is considered classified," but sources have spoken out and told Giraldi they are worried about the security of Verint wiretap systems. The key concern, says Giraldi, is the issue of a "trojan" embedded in the software.

A Trojan in information security hardware/software is a backdoor that can be accessed remotely by parties who normally would not have access to the secure system. Allegations of massive Trojan spying have rocked the Israeli business community in recent years. An AP article in 2005 noted, "Top Israeli blue chip companies…are suspected of using illicit surveillance software to steal information from their rivals and enemies." Over 40 companies have come under scrutiny. "It is the largest cybercrime case in Israeli history," Boaz Guttmann, a veteran cybercrimes investigator with the Israeli national police, tells me. "Trojan horse espionage is part of the way of life of companies in Israel. It's a culture of spying."

This is of course the culture on which the US depends for much of its secure software for data encryption and telephonic security. "There's been a lot discussion of how much we should trust security products by Israeli telecom firms," says Philip Zimmerman, one of the legendary pioneers of encryption technology (Zimmerman invented the cryptographic and privacy authentication system known as Pretty Good Privacy, or PGP, now one of the basic modern standards for communications encryption). "Generally speaking, I wouldn't trust stuff made overseas for data security," says Zimmerman. "A guy at NSA InfoSec" – the information security division of the National Security Agency – "once told me, ‘Foreign-made crypto is our nightmare.' But to be fair, as our domestic electronics industry becomes weaker and weaker, foreign-made becomes inevitable." Look at where the expertise is, Zimmerman adds: Among the ranks of the International Association for Cryptological Research, which meets annually, there is a higher percentage of Israelis than any other nationality. The Israeli-run Verint is today the provider of telecom interception systems deployed in over 50 countries.

Carl Cameron, chief politics correspondent at Fox News Channel, is one of the few reporters to look into federal agents' deepening distress over possible trojans embedded in Verint technology. In a wide-ranging four-part investigation into Israeli-linked espionage that aired in December 2001, Cameron made a number of startling discoveries regarding Verint, then known as Comverse Infosys. Sources told Cameron that "while various FBI inquiries into Comverse have been conducted over the years," the inquiries had "been halted before the actual equipment has ever been thoroughly tested for leaks." Cameron also noted a 1999 internal FCC document indicating that "several government agencies expressed deep concerns that too many unauthorized non-law enforcement personnel can access the wiretap system." Much of this access was facilitated through "remote maintenance."

Immediately following the Cameron report, Comverse Infosys changed its name to Verint, saying the company was "maturing." (The company issued no response to Cameron's allegations, nor did it threaten a lawsuit.) Meanwhile, security officers at DEA, an adjunct of the Justice Department, began examining the agency's own relationship with Comverse/Verint. In 1997, DEA transformed its wiretap infrastructure with the $25 million procurement from Comverse/Verint of a technology called "T2S2" – "translation and transcription support services" – with Comverse/Verint contracted to provide the hardware and software, plus "support services, training, upgrades, enhancements and options throughout the life of the contract," according to the "contracts and acquisitions" notice posted on the DEA's website. This was unprecedented. Prior to 1997, DEA staff used equipment that was developed and maintained in-house.

But now Cameron's report raised some ugly questions of vulnerability in T2S2.

The director of security programs at DEA, Heidi Raffanello, was rattled enough to issue an internal communiqué on the matter, dated Dec. 18, 2001, four days after the final installment in the Cameron series. Referencing the Fox News report, she worried that "Comverse remote maintenance" was "not addressed in the C&A [contracts and acquisitions] process." She also cited the concerns in Justice Department order 2640.2D, and noted that the "Administrator" – meaning then DEA head Asa Hutchinson – had been briefed. Then there was this stunner: "It remains unclear if Comverse personnel are security cleared, and if so, who are they and what type of clearances are on record….Bottom line we should have caught it." On its face, the Raffanello memo is a frightening glimpse into a bureaucracy caught with its pants down.

American law enforcement was not alone in suspecting T2S2 equipment purchased from Comverse/Verint. In November 2002, sources in the Dutch counterintelligence community began airing what they claimed was "strong evidence that the Israeli secret service has uncontrolled access to confidential tapping data collected by the Dutch police and intelligence services," according to the Dutch broadcast radio station Evangelische Omroep (EO). In January 2003, the respected Dutch technology and computing magazine, c't, ran a follow-up to the EO scoop, headlined "Dutch Tapping Room not Kosher." The article began: "All tapping equipment of the Dutch intelligence services and half the tapping equipment of the national police force…is insecure and is leaking information to Israel." The writer, Paul Wouters, goes on to discuss the T2S2 tap-ware "delivered to the government in the last few years by the Israeli company Verint," and quoted several cryptography experts on the viability of remote monitoring of encrypted "blackbox" data. Wouters writes of this "blackbox cryptography":

"…a very important part of strong cryptography is a good random source. Without a proper random generator, or worse, with an intentionally crippled random generator, the resulting ciphertext becomes trivial to break. If there is one single unknown chip involved with the random generation, such as a hardware accelerator chip, all bets are off….If you can trust the hardware and you have access to the source code, then it should theoretically be possible to verify the system. This, however, can just not be done without the source code."

Yet, as Wouters was careful to add, "when the equipment was bought from the Israelis, it was agreed that no one except [Verint] personnel was authorized to touch the systems....Source code would never be available to anyone."

Cryptography pioneer Philip Zimmerman warns that "you should never trust crypto if the source code isn't published. Open source code means two things: if there are deliberate backdoors in the crypto, peer review will reveal those backdoors. If there are inadvertent bugs in the crypto, they too will be discovered. Whether the weaknesses are by accident or design, they will be found. If the weakness is by design, they will not want to publish the source code. Some of the best products we know have been subject to open source review: Linux; Apache. The most respected crypto products have been tested through open source. The little padlock in the corner when you visit a browser? You're going through a protocol called Secure Socket Layer. Open source tested and an Internet standard. FireFox, the popular and highly secure browser, is all open source."

THE CALEA CONNECTION

None of US law enforcement's problems with Amdocs and Verint could have come to pass without the changes mandated by the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act of 1994, which, as noted, sought to lock spyware into telecom networks. CALEA, to cite the literature, requires that terrestrial carriers, cellular phone services and other telecom entities enable the government to intercept "all wire and oral communications carried by the carrier concurrently with their transmission." T2S2 technology fit the bill perfectly: Tied into the network, T2S2 bifurcates the line without interrupting the data-stream (a T2S2 bifurcation is considered virtually undetectable). One half of the bifurcated line is recorded and stored in a remote tapping room; the other half continues on its way from your mouth or keyboard to your friend's. (What is "T2S2"? To simplify: The S2 computer collects and encrypts the data; the T2 receives and decrypts.)

CALEA was touted as a law enforcement triumph, the work of decades of lobbying by FBI. Director Louis Freeh went so far as to call it the bureau's "highest legislative priority." Indeed, CALEA was the widest expansion of the government's electronic surveillance powers since the Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968, which mandated carefully limited conditions for wiretaps. Now the government could use coercive powers in ordering telecom providers to "devise solutions" to law enforcement's "emerging technology-generated problems" (imposing a $10,000 per day penalty on non-compliant carriers). The government's hand would be permanently inserted into the design of the nation's telecom infrastructure. Law professor Lillian BeVier, of the University of Virginia, writes extensively of the problems inherent to CALEA. "The rosy scenario imagined by the drafters cannot survive a moment's reflection," BeVier observes. "While it is conventionally portrayed as ‘but the latest chapter in the thirty year history of the federal wiretap laws,' CALEA is not simply the next installment of a technologically impelled statutory evolution. Instead, in terms of the nature and magnitude of the interests it purports to ‘compromise' and the industry it seeks to regulate, in terms of the extent to which it purports to coerce private sector solutions to public sector problems, and in terms of the foothold it gives government to control the design of telecommunications networks, the Act is a paradigm shift. On close and disinterested inspection, moreover, CALEA appears to embody potentially wrong-headed sacrifices of privacy principles, flawed and incomplete conceptions of law enforcement's ends and means, and an imperfect appreciation of the incompatible incentives of the players in the game that would inevitably be played in the process of its implementation." (emphasis mine)

The real novelty – and the danger – of CALEA is that telecom networks are today configured so that they are vulnerable to surveillance. "We've deliberately weakened the computer and phone networks, making them much less secure, much more vulnerable both to legal surveillance and illegal hacking," says former DOJ cybercrimes prosecutor Mark Rasch. "Everybody is much less secure in their communications since the adopting of CALEA. So how are you going to have secure communications? You have to secure the communications themselves, because you cannot have a secure network. To do this, you need encryption. What CALEA forced businesses and individuals to do is go to third parties to purchase encryption technology. What is the major country that the US purchases IT encryption from overseas? I would say it's a small Middle Eastern democracy. What we've done is the worst of all worlds. We've made sure that most communications are subject to hacking and interception by bad guys. At the same time, the bad guys – organized crime, terrorist operations – can very easily encrypt their communications." It is notable that the first CALEA-compliant telecom systems installed in the US were courtesy of Verint Inc.

THE AMDOCS CONNECTION

If a phone is dialed in the US, Amdocs Ltd. likely has a record of it, which includes who you dialed and how long you spoke. This is known as transactional call data. Amdocs' biggest customers in the US are AT&T and Verizon, which have collaborated widely with the Bush Administration's warrantless wiretapping programs. Transactional call data has been identified as a key element in NSA data mining to look for "suspicious" patterns in communications.

Over the last decade, Amdocs has been the target of several investigations looking into whether individuals within the company shared sensitive US government data with organized crime elements and Israeli intelligence services. Beginning in 1997, the FBI conducted a far-flung inquiry into alleged spying by an Israeli employee of Amdocs, who worked on a telephone billing program purchased by the CIA. According to Paul Rodriguez and J. Michael Waller, of Insight Magazine, which broke the story in May of 2000, the targeted Israeli had apparently also facilitated the tapping of telephone lines at the Clinton White House (recall Monica Lewinsky's testimony before Ken Starr: the president, she claimed, had warned her that "a foreign embassy" was listening to their phone sex, though Clinton under oath later denied saying this). More than two dozen intelligence, counterintelligence, law-enforcement and other officials told Insight that a "daring operation," run by Israeli intelligence, had "intercepted telephone and modem communications on some of the most sensitive lines of the US government on an ongoing basis." Insight's chief investigative reporter, Paul Rodriguez, told me in an e-mail that the May 2000 spy probe story "was (and is) one of the strangest I've ever worked on, considering the state of alert, concern and puzzlement" among federal agents. According to the Insight report, FBI investigators were particularly unnerved over discovering the targeted Israeli subcontractor had somehow gotten his hands on the FBI's "most sensitive telephone numbers, including the Bureau's ‘black' lines used for wiretapping." "Some of the listed numbers," the Insight article added, "were lines that FBI counterintelligence used to keep track of the suspected Israeli spy operation. The hunted were tracking the hunters." Rodriguez confirmed the panic this caused in American Intel"It's a huge security nightmare," one senior US official told him. "The implications are severe," said a second official. "All I can tell you is that we think we know how it was done," a third intelligence executive told Rodriguez. "That alone is serious enough, but it's the unknown that has such deep consequences." No charges, however, were made public in the case. (What happened behind the scenes depends on who you talk to in law enforcement: When FBI counterintelligence sought a warrant for the Israeli subcontractor, the Justice Department strangely refused to cooperate, and in the end no warrant was issued. FBI investigators were baffled.)

London Sunday Times reporter Uzi Mahnaimi quotes sources in Tel Aviv saying that during this period e-mails from President Clinton had also been intercepted by Israeli intelligence. Mahnaimi's May 2000 article reveals that the operation involved "hacking into White House computer systems during intense speculation about the direction of the peace process." Israeli intelligence had allegedly infiltrated a company called Telrad, subcontracted by Nortel, to develop a communications system for the White House. According to the Sunday Times, "Company managers were said to have been unaware that virtually undetectable chips installed during manufacture made it possible for outside agents to tap into the flow of data from the White House."

In 1997, detectives with the Los Angeles Police Department, working in tandem with the Secret Service, FBI, and DEA, found themselves suffering a similar inexplicable collapse in communications security. LAPD was investigating Israeli organized crime: drug runners and credit card thieves based in Israel and L.A., with tentacles in New York, Miami, Las Vegas, and Egypt. The name of the crime group and its members remains classified in "threat assessment" papers this reporter obtained from LAPD, but the documents list in some detail the colorful scope of the group's operations: $1.4 million stolen from Fidelity Investments in Boston through sophisticated computer fraud; extortion and kidnapping of Israelis in LA and New York; cocaine distribution in connection with Italian, Russian, Armenian and Mexican organized crime; money laundering; and murder. The group also had access to extremely sophisticated counter-surveillance technology and data, which was a disaster for LAPD. According to LAPD internal documents, the Israeli crime group obtained the unlisted home phone, cell phone, and pager numbers of some 500 of LAPD's narcotics investigators, as well as the contact information for scores of federal agents – black info, numbers unknown even to the investigators' kin. The Israelis even set up wiretaps of LAPD investigators, grabbing from cell-phones and landlines conversations with other agents – FBI and DEA, mostly – whose names and phone numbers were also traced and grabbed.

LAPD was horrified, and as the word got out of the seeming total breakdown in security, the shock spread to agents at DEA, FBI and even CIA, who together spearheaded an investigation. It turned out that the source of much of this black Intel could be traced to a company called J&J Beepers, which was getting its phone numbers from a billing service that happened to be a subsidiary of Amdocs.

A source familiar with the inquiries into Amdocs put to me several theories regarding the allegations of espionage against the company. "Back in the early 1970s, when it became clear that AT&T was going to be broken up and that there was an imminent information and technology revolution, Israel understood that it had a highly-educated and highly-worldly population and it made a few calculated economic and diplomatic discoveries," the source says. "One was that telecommunications was something they could do: because it doesn't require natural resources, but just intellect, training and cash. They became highly involved in telecommunications. Per capita, Israel is probably the strongest telecommunications nation in the world. AT&T break-up occurs in 1984; Internet technology explodes; and Israel has all of these companies aggressively buying up contracts in the form of companies like Amdocs. Amdocs started out as a tiny company and now it's the biggest billing service for telecommunications in the world. They get this massive telecommunications network underway. Like just about everything in Israel, it's a government sponsored undertaking.

"So it's been argued that Amdocs was using its billing records as an intelligence-gathering exercise because its executive board over the years has been heavily peopled by retired and current members of the Israeli government and military. They used this as an opportunity to collect information about worldwide telephone calls. As an intelligence-gathering phenomenon, an analyst with an MIT degree in algorithms would rather have 50 pages of who called who than 50 hours of actual conversation. Think about conversations with friends, husbands, wives. That raw information doesn't mean anything. But if there's a pattern of 30 phone calls over the course of a day, that can mean a lot. It's a much simpler algorithm."

Another anonymous source – a former CIA operative – tells me that US intelligence agents who have aired their concerns about Verint and Amdocs have found themselves attacked from all sides. "Once it's learned that an individual is doing footwork on this [the Verint/Amdocs question], he or she is typically identified somehow as a troublemaker, an instigator, and is hammered mercilessly," says the former CIA operative. "Typically, what happens is the individual finds him or herself in a scenario where their retirement is jeopardized – and worse. The fact that if you simply take a look at this question, all of a sudden you're an Arabist or anti-Semitic – it's pure baloney, because I will tell you first-hand that people whose heritage lies back in that country have heavily worked this matter. You can't buy that kind of dedication."

The former CIA operative adds, "There is no defined policy, at this time, for how to deal with this [security issues involving Israel] – other than wall it off, contain it. It's not cutting it. Not after 9/11. The funeral pyre that burned on for months at the bottom of the rubble told a lot of people they did not need to be ‘politically correct.' The communications nexuses [i.e. Amdocs/Verint] didn't occur yesterday; they started many years ago. And that's a major embarrassment to organizations that would like to say they're on top of things and not co-opted or compromised. As you start to work this, you soon learn that many people have either looked the other way or have been co-opted along the way. Some people, when they figure out what has occurred, are highly embarrassed to realize that they've been duped. Because many of them are bureaucrats, they don't want to be made to look as stupid as they are. So they just go along with it. Sometimes, it's just that simple."

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Here's where someone could say: "Well, if you aren't doing anything illegal, what do you have to worry about?"

The problem is that YOU don't get to decide what is legal and what is NOT.

In other news, Paul Newman passed away from cancer at the age of 83.

In tribute to Paul Newman, here's the egg scene from Cool Hand Luke (I recommend the Sting if you've never seen it):