Questions Raised About U.S. Firm's Role in Egypt Internet Crackdown

[Donnachaidh]

http://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2011/01/28-3

WASHINGTON - January 28 - A U.S. company appears to have sold Egypt technology to monitor Internet and mobile phone traffic that is possibly being used by the ruling regime to crack down on communications as protests erupt throughout the country. Boeing-owned, California-based company Narus sold Telecom Egypt, the state-run Internet service provider, "real-time traffic intelligence" equipment, more commonly known as Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) technology. DPI is content-filtering technology that allows network managers to inspect, track and target content from Internet users and mobile phones as it passes through routers on the Web.

The company is also known for creating "NarusInsight," a supercomputer system allegedly used by the National Security Agency and other entities to perform mass surveillance and monitoring of public and corporate Internet communications in real time.

Narus Vice President of Marketing Steve Bannerman said to Wired in 2006: "Anything that comes through (an internet protocol network), we can record. We can reconstruct all of their e-mails along with attachments, see what web pages they clicked on, we can reconstruct their calls."

Free Press Campaign Director Timothy Karr made the following statement:

More at the link --

[xchrom]

1. hmmm - interesting. nt

[SugarShack]

2. check out more on Boeing/Narus - I hope this helps

Boeing/Narus Helps Egyptian Dictatorship Fight Pro-Democracy Movement

Boeing/Narus Helps Egyptian Dictatorship Fight Pro-Democracy Movement

The government of Egypt’s attempted crackdown on mass protests has been aided by an American firm that sells telecommunications software that allows the authoritarian regime to spy on citizens’ emails and cell phone communications.

Narus, located in Sunnyvale, California, sold the Egyptian government Deep Packet Inspection equipment, a content-filtering technology used to inspect, track and target content from users of the Internet and mobile phones.

According to a Narus executive, owners of the software can record everything that goes through the Internet in their country, allowing them to read emails and attachments, view browsing histories and even reconstruct phone calls made over VOIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol).

Founded in 1997 by Israeli security experts to create and sell mass surveillance systems for governments and large corporate clients, Narus is now owned by Boeing.

http://www.allgov.com/US_and_the_World/ViewNews/Boeing_...

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More about Narus

http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2006/05/7....

05.17.06

The equipment that technician Mark Klein learned was installed in the National Security Agency's "secret room" inside AT&T's San Francisco switching office isn't some sinister Big Brother box designed solely to help governments eavesdrop on citizens' internet communications.

Rather, it's a powerful commercial network-analysis product with all sorts of valuable uses for network operators. It just happens to be capable of doing things that make it one of the best internet spy tools around.

"Anything that comes through (an internet protocol network), we can record," says Steve Bannerman, marketing vice president of Narus, a Mountain View, California, company. "We can reconstruct all of their e-mails along with attachments, see what web pages they clicked on, we can reconstruct their (voice over internet protocol) calls." . . .

In December, VeriSign, also of Mountain View, chose Narus' product as the backbone of its lawful-intercept-outsourcing service, which helps network operators comply with court-authorized surveillance orders from law enforcement agencies. A special Narus lawful-intercept application does this spying with ease, sorting through torrents of IP traffic to pick out specific messages based on a targeted e-mail address, IP address or, in the case of VOIP, phone number.


http://www..gizaarabia.com/NewDetails.aspx?Id=7

10/20/2006

Giza Systems has recently signed a contract with Narus, Inc., one of the world’s leading providers of unified Internet Protocol (IP) Management and Security. This contract allows Giza Systems to resell Narus’ comprehensive portfolio of solutions in the region. Together, Narus and Giza Systems deliver to carriers in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Palestine and Libya the unmatched IP network solutions made possible by Narus’ total network view of their IP traffic together with Giza Systems unmatched local support.


http://www.hotvoipnews.com/blog_87.shtml

VoIP blocking in Saudi Arabia has been around for sometime and was aided by the introduction of the VoIP blocking software provided by the Californian Company Narus. The reasons the Saudi government block VoIP is to protect the national telephone carrier Saudi Telecom from potential competition. By prohibiting VoIP calls people based in Saudi Arabia are forced to use the more expensive Saudi Telecom service.

Like many countries and organizations Saudi Telecom previously had no way to block VoIP services. However the introduction of VoIP blocking software from the Californian company Narus and other companies has allowed them to identify and prevent VoIP traffic traveling through the telephone network. Previously VoIP traffic could not be distinguished from other types of internet traffic but now Narus’s software can analyze the packets of data flowing through a network and analyze what protocols they adhere to thus allowing them to identify VoIP traffic including traffic on the Skype network.


http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12166690 /

4/5/2006

A U.S. maker of network management systems said Wednesday it had received an order from Shanghai Telecom Co. for a system that can detect and block telephone calls placed over the Internet.

Shanghai Telecom, which has 6.2 million landlines, plans to use Narus Inc.'s system to improve its ability to block "unauthorized" Internet calls that connect to its phone system, bypassing its toll structure. .. .

In China, the government has sided with carriers and allowed them to block VoIP services that compete with the carrier's own products. A recent report in the Financial Times quoted an executive with a Hong Kong company as saying that the government would not issue new licenses for computer-to-phone calling services until 2008. . . ..

Steve Bannerman, a spokesman for Mountain View, Calif.-based Narus, said carriers in several countries, including Egypt, are using its software to block gateways that connect VoIP calls to the phone network.


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and this:

Click here: WTO Lowers Boom on Boeing - WSJ.com
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704254304576116051390545350.html?mod=googlenews_wsj