tangent4ronpaul
06-09-2013, 03:08 PM
U.S. intelligence being processed by Google | Hong Kong Herald
Hong Kong Herald
http://www.hongkongherald.com
U.S. intelligence being processed by Google
Hong Kong Herald Sunday 9th June, 2013
• SIPRNet is the military's Secret Internet Protocol Router Network
• Intelink is a SIPRNet search engine powered by Google
• Google infrastructure powering Intelink is largest outside Google
Google has long been considered a monopoly with close ties to the U.S. government.
Now it is learned the U.S. military's powerful classified intranet is not being processed through government servers, but is being powered by Google.
The revelation came on the opening day of the Bradley Manning court-martial at Fort Meade in Maryland this week.
Manning, who is being accused by the United States government of downloading 700,000 documents and passing them on to WikiLeaks, gained access to the material through the military's Secret Internet Protocol Router Network (SIPRNet), a system of interconnected computer networks used by the United States Defense Department with its search facility provided through a browser known as Intelink.
Captain Morrow, chief prosecutor for the government in the case against Manning was explaining to the judge on Monday the workings of the SIPRNet and how Manning had systematically accessed it to gain confidential diplomatic cables and classified military files.
He pointed out how Intelink logs could be used by forensic computer examiners to monitor Manning's movements "minute by minute."
In explaining what Intelink was, Morrow said:
"Intelink, Your Honor." Intelink is a SIPRNet search engine, very similar to Google, in fact powered by Google."
On Wednesday Major Ashden Fein for the prosecution asked witness Chief Warrant Officer Two Kyle Balonek to put on the record what Intelink was.
"Intelink in a nutshell is the simpler version of Google," came the reply. "It is a search engine that allows you to find sometimes quickly the information you're looking for."
"And how did analysts use Intelink,?" asked Major Fein.
"For, I mean, if you couldn't find something you usually try Intelink first to see if you can pull it out without having to go in the databases and look specifically for one single report," said Balonek. "If you had a numbered report you could look in Intelink and pull that single report without having to muddle through the database."
"Was using Intelink a common tool used by the Foxes Shia analysts,?" asked Fein.
"Yes, sir."
Another witness on Wednesday confirmed that emails between military personnel, including from one analyst to another, are also being sent through SIPRNet.
While the Mountain View, California-based Google provides custom search engines for hundreds of thousands of websites, this is the first time it has been revealed publicly that among its customers is the military and intelligence services of the United States government.
While the Mountain View, California-based Google provides custom search engines for hundreds of thousands of websites, this is the first time it has been revealed publicly that among its customers is the military and intelligence services of the United States government.
It has since been learned the Google infrastructure powering Intel is the largest Google infrastructure outside that powering its own operations.
Coming at a time when an army private is facing up to 154 years in prison for mishandling confidential and classified documents, it is somewhat ironic that the US government itself is trusting the care of the bulk of its inventory of classified military intelligence to a large commercial organization that makes little secret of making use of personal and private information it has accessed from users.
The likelihood that Bradley Manning downloaded documents from a search engine hosted on Google servers is one concern. Of equal concern is that the US government itself failed to detect that 700,000 documents had been downloaded from its highly classified system, including 250,000 diplomatic cables in one day. Both Google and the US government have extensive monitoring and hacking detection tools yet the downloads not only took place but did so without Google and the Department of Defense knowing about it, let alone preventing it.
-t
Hong Kong Herald
http://www.hongkongherald.com
U.S. intelligence being processed by Google
Hong Kong Herald Sunday 9th June, 2013
• SIPRNet is the military's Secret Internet Protocol Router Network
• Intelink is a SIPRNet search engine powered by Google
• Google infrastructure powering Intelink is largest outside Google
Google has long been considered a monopoly with close ties to the U.S. government.
Now it is learned the U.S. military's powerful classified intranet is not being processed through government servers, but is being powered by Google.
The revelation came on the opening day of the Bradley Manning court-martial at Fort Meade in Maryland this week.
Manning, who is being accused by the United States government of downloading 700,000 documents and passing them on to WikiLeaks, gained access to the material through the military's Secret Internet Protocol Router Network (SIPRNet), a system of interconnected computer networks used by the United States Defense Department with its search facility provided through a browser known as Intelink.
Captain Morrow, chief prosecutor for the government in the case against Manning was explaining to the judge on Monday the workings of the SIPRNet and how Manning had systematically accessed it to gain confidential diplomatic cables and classified military files.
He pointed out how Intelink logs could be used by forensic computer examiners to monitor Manning's movements "minute by minute."
In explaining what Intelink was, Morrow said:
"Intelink, Your Honor." Intelink is a SIPRNet search engine, very similar to Google, in fact powered by Google."
On Wednesday Major Ashden Fein for the prosecution asked witness Chief Warrant Officer Two Kyle Balonek to put on the record what Intelink was.
"Intelink in a nutshell is the simpler version of Google," came the reply. "It is a search engine that allows you to find sometimes quickly the information you're looking for."
"And how did analysts use Intelink,?" asked Major Fein.
"For, I mean, if you couldn't find something you usually try Intelink first to see if you can pull it out without having to go in the databases and look specifically for one single report," said Balonek. "If you had a numbered report you could look in Intelink and pull that single report without having to muddle through the database."
"Was using Intelink a common tool used by the Foxes Shia analysts,?" asked Fein.
"Yes, sir."
Another witness on Wednesday confirmed that emails between military personnel, including from one analyst to another, are also being sent through SIPRNet.
While the Mountain View, California-based Google provides custom search engines for hundreds of thousands of websites, this is the first time it has been revealed publicly that among its customers is the military and intelligence services of the United States government.
While the Mountain View, California-based Google provides custom search engines for hundreds of thousands of websites, this is the first time it has been revealed publicly that among its customers is the military and intelligence services of the United States government.
It has since been learned the Google infrastructure powering Intel is the largest Google infrastructure outside that powering its own operations.
Coming at a time when an army private is facing up to 154 years in prison for mishandling confidential and classified documents, it is somewhat ironic that the US government itself is trusting the care of the bulk of its inventory of classified military intelligence to a large commercial organization that makes little secret of making use of personal and private information it has accessed from users.
The likelihood that Bradley Manning downloaded documents from a search engine hosted on Google servers is one concern. Of equal concern is that the US government itself failed to detect that 700,000 documents had been downloaded from its highly classified system, including 250,000 diplomatic cables in one day. Both Google and the US government have extensive monitoring and hacking detection tools yet the downloads not only took place but did so without Google and the Department of Defense knowing about it, let alone preventing it.
-t