News / International
Blackberry, iPhone, Gmail Users 'All Screwed' Says Julian Assange
02 Dec 2011 at 13:06hrs | Views
Founder of whistle-blowing website Wikileaks Julian Assange attends a news conference at the City University in London December 1, 2011
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange told smartphone users they are vulnerable to a 'mass surveillance' industry that has been steadily growing since the September 11, 2001 attacks.
"Who here has an iPhone? Who here has a Blackberry? Who here uses Gmail? Well, you're all screwed," said Assange in this video taken during a speaking engagement at the Bureau of Investigative Journalism at the City University of London.
The admonition came as Assange launched his website's new Spyfiles project on Thursday.
The Spyfiles reveal the activities of about 160 companies in 25 countries which develop technologies to allow the tracking and monitoring of individuals by their mobile phones, email and Internet browsing histories.
"This in-depth investigation shows that this is not the relatively small industry it was 10 years ago. 9/11 has provided a license for European countries, for the U.S., for Canada, South Africa and others to develop spying systems that affect us all," Assange told reporters in London.
Surveillance technologies currently being used by some of the companies targeted in the WikiLeaks project reveals a global industry that has and continues to help dictatorships spy on their citizens.
The documents on the website include manuals for surveillance products sold to repressive Arab regimes.
They have come to light in part from offices ransacked during uprisings in countries such as Egypt and Libya earlier this year, as well as investigative work by WikiLeaks and its media and campaigning partners.
"These systems that are revealed in these documents show exactly the kind of systems that the Stasi (East Germany's secret police) wished they could have built," said Jacob Appelbaum, a former WikiLeaks spokesman and computer expert at the University of Washington.
"These systems have been sold by Western companies to places for example like Syria, and Libya and Tunisia and Egypt. These systems are used to hunt people down and to murder."
Experts who worked on the release warned that at present the industry was completely unregulated.
"Western governments cannot stand idly by while this technology is still being sold," said Eric King, from the Privacy International campaign group.
It is the first time WikiLeaks has released documents since it announced on October 24 that it had been forced to suspend publishing classified files due to a funding blockade that saw its revenues plunge by 95 percent.
Thursday's announcement had been trailed as the launch of a new secure system to submit documents to the site, but Assange said WikiLeaks was still working on this, saying the threat of surveillance made it extremely difficult.
"Who here has an iPhone? Who here has a Blackberry? Who here uses Gmail? Well, you're all screwed," said Assange in this video taken during a speaking engagement at the Bureau of Investigative Journalism at the City University of London.
The admonition came as Assange launched his website's new Spyfiles project on Thursday.
The Spyfiles reveal the activities of about 160 companies in 25 countries which develop technologies to allow the tracking and monitoring of individuals by their mobile phones, email and Internet browsing histories.
"This in-depth investigation shows that this is not the relatively small industry it was 10 years ago. 9/11 has provided a license for European countries, for the U.S., for Canada, South Africa and others to develop spying systems that affect us all," Assange told reporters in London.
Surveillance technologies currently being used by some of the companies targeted in the WikiLeaks project reveals a global industry that has and continues to help dictatorships spy on their citizens.
The documents on the website include manuals for surveillance products sold to repressive Arab regimes.
They have come to light in part from offices ransacked during uprisings in countries such as Egypt and Libya earlier this year, as well as investigative work by WikiLeaks and its media and campaigning partners.
"These systems that are revealed in these documents show exactly the kind of systems that the Stasi (East Germany's secret police) wished they could have built," said Jacob Appelbaum, a former WikiLeaks spokesman and computer expert at the University of Washington.
"These systems have been sold by Western companies to places for example like Syria, and Libya and Tunisia and Egypt. These systems are used to hunt people down and to murder."
Experts who worked on the release warned that at present the industry was completely unregulated.
"Western governments cannot stand idly by while this technology is still being sold," said Eric King, from the Privacy International campaign group.
It is the first time WikiLeaks has released documents since it announced on October 24 that it had been forced to suspend publishing classified files due to a funding blockade that saw its revenues plunge by 95 percent.
Thursday's announcement had been trailed as the launch of a new secure system to submit documents to the site, but Assange said WikiLeaks was still working on this, saying the threat of surveillance made it extremely difficult.
Source - nationalpost
