Fun facts about this Founding Father
<p>In 2013, Edward Snowden, a National Security Agency (NSA) intelligence subcontractor, leaked classified documents revealing the existence of top-secret surveillance programs. As one of the most notorious whistleblowers of recent times, Snowden was behind the biggest security breach in the agency's history. His disclosures revealed numerous global spying tactics, many carried out by the NSA and the UK's Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ). In the wake of the sensational revelations, Snowden fled to Moscow. He became a naturalized Russian citizen in 2022.</p><p>Edward Snowden's actions forced US intelligence agencies to admit extensive spying on their own citizens. It also exposed global <a href="https://www.starsinsider.com/lifestyle/808107/trends-in-workplace-surveillance" target="_blank">surveillance</a> operations undertaken by both the NSA and the GCHQ. But what exactly was leaked, and who was affected?</p><p>Click through the following gallery and learn more about the man who stole hundreds of thousands of highly classified secrets and revealed them to the world.</p>
Among the secrets the Snowden documents revealed in 2013 was the existence of the PRISM program. PRISM was the codename for an operation that allowed the National Security Agency (NSA) to collect internet communications from various US internet companies.
PRISM facilitated access by the NSA to emails, documents, photos, and data stored by tech companies, including Facebook, Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, YouTube, Skype, and Apple.
Snowden also revealed the existence of Tempora. This leak exposed the practice by UK-based intelligence and security organization Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) of tapping fiber-optic cables to collect, store, and share with the NSA huge amounts of internet users' personal data.
The Boundless Informant program is a vast data analysis and data visualization tool used by the NSA that functions by collecting and counting metadata.
Snowden exposed Boundless Informant in June 2013, explaining that intelligence is gathered from millions of Americans through access to the country's computer and phone networks.
In July 2013, Edward Snowden publicly revealed XKeyscore, a secret computer system used by the NSA to access and analyze global internet data.
XKeyscore's scope and function is vast. Indeed, it's been described as "NSA's Google." The system comprises at least 700 servers at sites all over the world, all connected to the NSA's analysts.
A catchphrase popularized by the 1976 docudrama film 'All the President's Men,' Follow the Money refers to a branch of the NSA charged with tracking and collecting global financial data.
Snowden revealed that intel is mainly gathered through credit card transactions, including international payments processed by companies including Visa
The Joint Threat Research Intelligence Group (JTRIG) is a unit of GCHQ. It can also be described as a "dirty tricks department," as its mission is to engage in online manipulation, propaganda, and disinformation campaigns.
Snowden disclosed how JTRIG operations are broken down and assigned a codename. For example, some of the tools include the ability to manipulate the results of online polls ('Underpass'). JTRIG can also source private photographs of targets on Facebook, a procedure known as 'Spring Bishop.'
The leaked NSA files supplied by Snowden revealed how the agency eavesdropped on allies as well as enemies using a system known as Nymrod.
Nymrod was also used by GCHQ to target at least 11 world leaders, among them the then-Syrian president Bashar al-Assad and former Ukrainian prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko. The then-German chancellor Angela Merkel was also listed by name, a revelation that strained diplomatic relations with many European countries.
According to the Snowden documents, Bullrun is a clandestine, highly classified program to crack encryption of online communications and data. It was created to undermine encryption standards using an array of methods including computer network exploitation and interdiction.
Interdiction is a process whereby shipments of computer electronics are intercepted before they reach their destination and installed with malicious hardware that can give US intelligence agencies remote access. GCHQ has a similar program codenamed Edgehill.
Snowden's whistleblowing blew the lid off MUSCULAR, a joint NSA-GCHQ surveillance program that enabled field operatives to break into the main communications links that connect the data centers of Yahoo and Google.
The leaked documents revealed that in a single day, the NSA's so-called "acquisitions directorate" redirected millions of records from Yahoo and Google internal networks to data warehouses at NSA Fort Meade headquarters.
Also a result of Snowden's whistleblowing, the wider world became aware of the NSA's cyber-warfare intelligence-gathering unit known as the Office of Tailored Access Operations (TAO).
TAO are essentially government hackers. Their job is to identify, monitor, infiltrate, and gather intelligence on computer systems being used by entities foreign to the United States. At the time of the leaks, TAO had more than 1,000 military and civilian operatives. Today the unit is known as Computer Network Operations.
Snowden's leaks confirmed what many already believed to be true, that intelligence agencies intercepted and collected huge caches of mobile phone communications and emails.
Not so well known is that this intel was collected from employees of mobile operators to identify security weaknesses in networks that the NSA could exploit for surveillance purposes.
In February 2014, it was revealed that GCHQ, with assistance from the NSA, surreptitiously collected private webcam still images from users while they were using a Yahoo webcam application.
GCHQ called this underhanded practice the Optic Nerve program. Snowden revealed that data was collected indiscriminately in bulk from users regardless of whether they were an intelligence target or not.
The bizarrely codenamed Operation EgotisticalGiraffe refers to the NSA's practice of infiltrating and compromising popular social networking platforms. It does this by undermining the Tor network.
Tor—short for The Onion Routing project—is an open-source privacy network for anonymous web browsing. In 2013, both the GCHQ and the NSA made repeated attempts to identify people using the Tor anonymity service, but were largely unsuccessful.
Snowden's revelations against the NSA extended to accusing it of hacking foreign mobile phone companies to access millions of private text messages in China. In 2012, text messaging was the most popular form of communication in mainland China.
The leaked documents also revealed a covert global surveillance collection system and database codenamed Dishfire.
Operated by both the NSA and the GCHQ, Dishfire involved the gathering, storage, and analysis of hundreds of millions of global text messages (SMS), both foreign and domestic, on a daily basis.
Sources: (Spyscape) (The Intercept) (American Civil Liberties Union) (Der Spiegel) (The Guardian) (The Independent) (Tor Project) (South China Morning Post)
See also: Unexpected ways spies have been caught
The secrets revealed by whistleblower Edward Snowden
Learn more about the man who blew the whistle on the intelligence services
LIFESTYLE Espionage
In 2013, Edward Snowden, a National Security Agency (NSA) intelligence subcontractor, leaked classified documents revealing the existence of top-secret surveillance programs. As one of the most notorious whistleblowers of recent times, Snowden was behind the biggest security breach in the agency's history. His disclosures revealed numerous global spying tactics, many carried out by the NSA and the UK's Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ). In the wake of the sensational revelations, Snowden fled to Moscow. He became a naturalized Russian citizen in 2022.
Edward Snowden's actions forced US intelligence agencies to admit extensive spying on their own citizens. It also exposed global surveillance operations undertaken by both the NSA and the GCHQ. But what exactly was leaked, and who was affected?
Click through the following gallery and learn more about the man who stole hundreds of thousands of highly classified secrets and revealed them to the world.