• Hacking News
    • Leaks
    • WikiLeaks
    • Anonymous
  • Tech
    • Android
    • Apple News
    • BlackBerry
    • Google News
    • Microsoft
    • Motorola
    • Nokia
    • Samsung
    • 3D
  • Cyber Crime
    • Phishing Scam
  • How To
  • Cyber Events
    • Censorship
    • Cyber Attacks
  • Security
    • Malware
  • Surveillance
    • Drones
    • NSA
    • Privacy
  • Explore
    • Gaming
    • Science
    • Viral
HackRead
  • March 3rd, 2021
  • Home
  • Advertise
  • Privacy Policy
  • Contact Us
HackRead
  • Hacking News
    • Leaks
    • WikiLeaks
    • Anonymous
  • Tech
    • Android
    • Apple News
    • BlackBerry
    • Google News
    • Microsoft
    • Motorola
    • Nokia
    • Samsung
    • 3D
  • Cyber Crime
    • Phishing Scam
  • How To
  • Cyber Events
    • Censorship
    • Cyber Attacks
  • Security
    • Malware
  • Surveillance
    • Drones
    • NSA
    • Privacy
  • Explore
    • Gaming
    • Science
    • Viral
  • Follow us
    • Facebook
    • Twitter
    • Linkedin
    • Youtube
Home
Surveillance

Pakistan’s ISI Plans to Tap International Undersea Cables, Rivals the NSA, GCHQ

July 25th, 2015 Farzan Hussain Surveillance 0 comments
Pakistan’s ISI Plans to Tap International Undersea Cables, Rivals the NSA, GCHQ
Share on FacebookShare on Twitter

The most powerful intelligence and spy agency of Pakistan, specifically Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), has now planned to tap all the Internet traffic that is entering or travelling through the international undersea cables passing through the country’s southern port city of Karachi.

For those of you who don’t know, every government seems to be interested in spying on Pakistan. For instance, United Kingdom’s Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) had a stock of every SIM key issued by the country’s biggest cellular networks, Telenor and Mobilink. On the other hand, the United States’ National Security Agency (NSA) tapped the fibre optic cables of Karachi and used millions of telephonic records gathered from various Pakistan telecommunications providers for investigation.

pakistans-isi-plans-to-tap-international-undersea-cables-rivals-the-nsa-gchq

Pakistan was one of the third-party partners who received approval to participate in spying through electronic signals with the help of America’s National Security Agency. And for last several years, NSA surveillance programs are being used in Pakistan to intercept local communications and provide information to the United States’ military operations across the country.

But now the tables are turned, according to the recently revealed 2013 project report by the London-based advocacy group Privacy International, ISI has planned to force every spy agency to run for their money by tapping worldwide internet traffic via underwater cables, giving the country a digital surveillance capacity to rival the United Sates’ NSA and the UK’s GCHQ.

The Pakistani government and ISI has been in contacts with the European and US based companies to help them acquire required tools and equipment to build a sophisticated mass surveillance system just like NSA, effectively giving them the ability to tap the worldwide internet traffic, emails and phone calls of hundreds of millions of people.

According to the leaked report:

“[By seeing the proposal requests,] what the ISI wanted to build was a complete surveillance system that would capture mobile communications data, including Wi-Fi, all broadband internet traffic, and any data transmitted over 3G.”

And the agency also wanted to make sure that their spying activities must have to be “seamless”, untraceable and invisible to the targeted subscriber.

The report didn’t reveal if the country has already built this type of surveillance system, but the report does raise some concerns that what the county and the government would do with this ultimate spying ability.

Sources say that the ISI has planned to gather phone records, cellular data transmission as well as the broadband internet traffic of the masses. The agency has been working on building their own surveillance system for years. Now Pakistan and its top-rated surveillance agency would no longer be relying on the United States for spying activities.

By investing into the high-end surveillance technology, Pakistan is already on its way to building a mass surveillance system. The country has purchased technologies and equipment from different countries including Huawei and Blue Coat. These companies are well known for their deep-packet scrutiny software which allows the user to search the internet traffic for precise terms.

The report also reveals that the UK-based manufacturer known as Finfisher has also provided the country with surveillance equipment. This company is popular for developing monitoring systems that can be used to eavesdrop on the targeted people using smartphones and desktop computers.

The system being build is based on the spying systems already in use by the United Kingdom’s secret intelligence Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) and the United States National Security Agency (NSA).

According to the previous records and leaks, Pakistan used to monitor the internet traffic of its citizens using a software developed by the US-based company Narus. Apart from that, the ISI officials and the government individuals had a good relationship with the Hacking Team’s member Emad Shehata to work on the local spying projects. However, Hacking Team haven’t confirmed their communications with ISI.

Read the in-depth report below:

Pakistan’s ISI Plans for surveillance from Waqas Amir

[src src=”source” url=”https://privacyinternational.org/?q=node%2F624″]PrivacyInternational[/src]

  • Tags
  • GCHQ
  • ISI
  • NSA
  • Pakistan
  • security
  • Spying
  • Surveillance
Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest
Previous article Google, Microsoft, Kaspersky Labs, NIC For Morocco Domains Hacked
Next article HORNET – Faster and Secure Anonymity Network Than Tor
Farzan Hussain

Farzan Hussain

I am Mohammad Farzan! A technology and gadget enthusiast as well as a creative content writer with over six years of experience in writing engaging content. You will mostly find me writing occasional blog posts, designing websites, capturing photos, social networking and listening to music.

Related Posts
A Ban on Ad Targeting: Why Did EU Regulators Call for It?

A Ban on Ad Targeting: Why Did EU Regulators Call for It?

Court docs show FBI can unlock iPhones, access Signal messages

Court docs show FBI can unlock iPhones, access Signal messages

Generation Z least likely to share their location data with government

Generation Z least likely to share their location data with government

Newsletter

Get the best stories straight into your inbox!



Don’t worry, we don’t spam

Latest Posts
Gootloader exploits websites via SEO to spread ransomware, trojans
Security

Gootloader exploits websites via SEO to spread ransomware, trojans

Authentication bypass vulnerability found in NATO, EU approved firewall
Security

Authentication bypass vulnerability found in NATO, EU approved firewall

Data analytics firm Polecat data breach - 30TB of data exposed
Leaks

Data analytics firm Polecat data breach - 30TB of data exposed

HACKREAD is a News Platform that centers on InfoSec, Cyber Crime, Privacy, Surveillance and Hacking News with full-scale reviews on Social Media Platforms & Technology trends. Founded in 2011, HackRead is based in the United Kingdom.

Follow us