Yahoo! was designed and put in place in 2015 a computer program to monitor in real time the e-mail boxes of all its users, in order to detect key-words : this is what says a survey by the Reuters news agency, based on the testimony of two former employees. According to Reuters, this program has been designed to respond to a directive american, remained secret, which could originate from a request of the NSA (the intelligence services) or the FBI (federal police).
Yahoo! there has been only very partially the charges, merely to ensure that the company was in compliance with the laws of the united states. The details of this program are still largely unknown – all we know is that its purpose was to identify, in real time, ” selectors “, the key words in the jargon of the intelligence services, which can be as much a word as an address e-mail address or the IP address of a machine.
These revelations have provoked the wrath of the freedom defence associations, to commence by the powerful American Civil Liberties Union, which denounces a violation of the fourth amendment of the u.s. Constitution guaranteeing the right to protection against searches and abusive. “It is really disappointing that Yahoo! has not sought to dispute this claim of supervision of the masses “, considers the organization. In the United States, surveillance of citizens is very strictly framed by the law and jurisprudence.
the illusion of reform
At the beginning of the year, Apple was opposed to a request a little different, but has similarities legal. The FBI had asked the company to design a tool to unlock the phone encrypted of one of the terrorists who committed the bombing of San Bernardino. Apple had contested this request, arguing that an investigation could not ask a private company to design a specific tool. The FBI was finally able to unlock the phone without the help of Apple, but Yahoo! would have been able to dispute this claim, based, at a minimum, on the same arguments.
Read also : The FBI waives the right to request assistance from Apple to unlock an iPhone in New York State
For Amnesty International and the whistleblower Edward Snowden, which revealed the existence of the system of surveillance of the Internet put in place by the us NSA, the new Yahoo! demonstrates in all cases that the reforms in the intelligence business since 2013 have been an illusion. the ” Remember, during the negotiations on the agreement on the transfer of data between Europe and the United States, the us government said that this type of things would never happen “, written to Edward Snowden on Twitter. The opponents to this agreement, voted this year, and allows companies to store data of european citizens to the United States, charged in particular that it would allow the United States to continue to monitor the massive European – Washington commitments being very vague.
Read also : Has barely been adopted, the agreement Privacy Shield on the personal data is already at risk
The shadow of PRISM
This new scandal reminds us directly to the one of the more controversial – and still misunderstood – of the us NSA : PRISM. This program, whose existence was revealed in 2013 by the documents Snowden showed that the NSA had direct access to the data of very large american companies, including Google, Apple, Facebook or Yahoo!. The latter had strongly denied having had knowledge of the existence of PRISM, and have all assured never to have been part of it. Asked on 4 October by the american press, Apple, Facebook, Microsoft, and Google have all denied having received a request similar to that made to Yahoo!.
Read also : Battle information around the surveillance tool, “Prism”
the existence of The surveillance program, Yahoo! has been kept largely a secret within the company. The director of security at Yahoo! was not even aware until the program reaches an advanced stage. In may 2015, after having discovered what he thought to be a hacking or external, Alex Stamos, the head of information security Yahoo! had alerted the management of the company – and discovered that it was an internal program, authorized by the CEO ,Marissa Mayer, who was not made aware. Mr. Stamos had then resigned from Yahoo!, before being hired by Facebook.
These revelations have nothing to do with the hacks massive which has also been the victim of Yahoo!, and the existence of which was revealed at the end of September. The passwords and the personal information of 500 million users have been stolen by a hackers, and the service may have been the victim of a second hacking similar.
Read also : 500 million user accounts of Yahoo! have been hacked
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