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USA-NSA: DATA SURVEILLANCE: Inside TAO: Documents Reveal Top NSA Hacking Unit

29 December 2013

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"The NSA's TAO hacking unit is considered to be the intelligence agency's top secret weapon. It maintains its own covert network, infiltrates computers around the world and even intercepts shipping deliveries to plant back doors in electronics ordered by those it is targeting."

See the article: Inside TAO: Documents Reveal Top NSA Hacking Unit (Der Spiegel, link)

Cited document: COTTONMOUTH (pdf)

See also: Shopping for Spy Gear: Catalog Advertises NSA Toolbox (Der Spiegel, link)

And see: NSA reportedly intercepting laptops purchased online to install spy malware (The Verge, link): "The report indicates that the NSA, in collaboration with the CIA and FBI, routinely and secretly intercepts shipping deliveries for laptops or other computer accessories in order to implant bugs before they reach their destinations. According to Der Spiegel, the NSA's TAO group is able to divert shipping deliveries to its own "secret workshops" in a method called interdiction, where agents load malware onto the electronics or install malicious hardware that can give US intelligence agencies remote access."

And: NSA Spying on Europe/Asia SEA-ME-WE-4 Undersea Telecom Cables (including document, link)

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