Even as Homeland Security officials have attempted to downplay the impact of a security measures intrusion that reached deeply into the connection of a Union surveillance contractile organ , secret documents , vade mecum , and slides concerning surveillance engineering deployed along U.S. borders are being widely and openlyshared online .
A TB of torrents seeded by circularise Denial of Secrets ( DDOS)—journalists dispersing record that governments and corp would rather nobody read — are as of composition being download daily . As of this week , that includes more than 400 GB of information stolen by an unnamed actor from Perceptics , a discreet declarer based in Knoxville , Tennessee , that works for Customs and Border Protection ( CBP ) and is , regardless of whatever U.S. officials say , powerful now the epicenter of a major U.S. government data breach .
The data file include powerpoint presentations , manual , marketing material , budgets , equipment listing , schematics , passwords , and other documents detail Perceptics ’ work for CBP and other government agencies for nearly a decade . Tens of thousands ofsurveillance photographstaken of traveler and their vehicles at the U.S. border are among the first tranches of data to be unloosen . newsperson are digging through the dump and already expandingour understandingof the enormous surveillance setup that is being raise on our molding .
Department of Homeland Security police gather at a press conference in Philadelphia following a $1 billion drug bust by Customs and Border Protection agents.Photo: Eduardo Munoz Alvarez / Getty
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In a statement last week , CBP take a firm stand that none of the simulacrum data point had been identified online , even asone headline declared , “ Here Are Images of gadget driver Hacked From a U.S. Border Protection Contractor . ”
“ The breach covers a huge amount of data which has , until now , been protected by lots of Non - Disclosure Agreements and the(b)(4 ) trade - secrets exemptionwhich Perceptics has demanded DHS apply to all Perceptics info , ” DDOS team penis Emma Best , who often reports for the Freedom of Information situation MuckRock , tell Gizmodo .
( upright has also contributedreporting on WikiLeaksfor Gizmodo . )
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Despite the government ’s attempt to downplay the breach , the Perceptics filing cabinet , she said , “ include schematic drawing , plans , and report for DHS , the DEA , and the Pentagon as well as foreign clients . ”
While the files can be view online , concord to Best , DDOS has experienced nearly a 50 percent spindle in traffic from user who ’ve opted to download the entire dataset .
“ We ’re making these files available for public limited review because they bring home the bacon an unprecedented and intimate look at the flock surveillance of legal travel , as well as more local surveillance of turnpike and secure facilities , ” Best said . “ Most significantly they provide a glimpse of how the government and these companies protect our information — or , in some cases , how they miscarry to . ”
Neither CBP nor Perceptics at once respond to a asking for comment .
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