Google Looks to Ballooned Future for Internet (for north Korea)

Good for Eric Schmidt.  Have to like the name of the project.  Perhaps a well chosen one with a double meaning.

But on a serious note this is the kind of creative thinking for influence operations we need.  I wonder if the north will use its SA-2s to try to shoot down these balloons?

V/R

Dave

Google Looks to Ballooned Future for Internet

http://www.dailynk.com/english/read.php?num=11415&cataId=nk03600

Kim Bang Hyun, Editor, Bait [student magazine]  |  2014-01-23 19:11

Google recently revealed a new project that could pose a threat to the regime of Kim Jong Eun. “Project Loon” [http://www.google.com/loon/] uses superpressured helium balloons to provide networked wireless Internet services to inaccessible areas. Last summer Google tested the project in New Zealand, but says that some of the primary beneficiaries could be citizens of closed countries, a category that includes North Korea.

The balloons float 20km up in the stratosphere, where they move with the wind to form a network transmitting a signal that people on the surface can pick up via a special antenna. The balloons are self-contained: high enough not to be damaged by daily weather phenomena or aviation, they run on solar power, and each can survive for 100+ days due to their rugged construction.

If the project were to have a decisive effect on the people of North Korea, Google would thus be remembered as one of the leading protagonists in bringing and end to the Kim dynasty. Of course, there is no evidence whatsoever that this is their intention. Rather, Google pursues radical innovations for their own sake, and takes large, future-orientated gambles; changing the world is a byproduct.

Ironically, one of many things that already make Kim Jong Eun rather uncomfortable is the flying of leaflets into the North suspended beneath far more primitive balloons. The far-reaching power of these anti-regime leaflets should not be underplayed, and nor should their cost:effect ratio. As such, the North Korean regime reacts sensitively to the launching of such leaflets, and cites them as one cause of worsening North-South relations.

However, they are limited in the sense that is hard for them to physically reach people in interior regions of the country, including Pyongyang.

What if Project Loon were to transmit similar content? This would resolve the distance issue at a stroke. The people of North Korea could be receiving many, many leaflets, always unseen. And if the North were to shoot down the balloons, would the problem disappear? The internet-beaming solar-powered balloons are cheap to produce, whereas the cost of shooting them down one by one would be huge. As a result, the regime would be rendered helpless in the face of web-based leaflets raining down upon its head.

Google CEO Eric Schmidt visited North Korea in January 2013, whereupon he criticized the restrictions placed on the Internet in the country. The North Korean side appeared to ignore him. We know not whether Google had North Korea in mind as it pushed forward with its balloon project thereafter. Either way, the power elite in Pyongyang is evidently at pains to disaffirm the value of innovation, and does not recognize the signs of change coming right under their own noses.

* This Guest Column is an abridged version of one that appeared in Korean on January 23rd. Opinions expressed in Guest Columns are not necessarily those of Daily NK.

I wonder if anyone has done any detailed forensic analysis on the documents that Snowden is releasing (which may be different than the ones he stole).  I wonder if he has not doctored the documents in some way to generate further controversies.  It seems like we are going to see quite an NSA versus Google/Yahoo dust up here.  But if the fight is going to be based on Snowden's documents perhaps if they are doctored that should be exposed.  Of course on the other hand to effectively expose doctored documents and to prove it would require release of other classified information that might also damage national security.  Snowden is in a win-win situation then because he (and Greenfield) can doctor anything to suit his agenda and he cannot be challenged.  A real Catch-22 potentially.

V/R

Dave

NSA infiltrates links to Yahoo, Google data centers worldwide, Snowden documents say

By Barton Gellman and Ashkan Soltani, Published: October 30

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/nsa-infiltrates-links-to-yahoo-google-data-centers-worldwide-snowden-documents-say/2013/10/30/e51d661e-4166-11e3-8b74-d89d714ca4dd_print.html

The National Security Agency has secretly broken into the main communications links that connect Yahoo and Google data centers around the world, according to documents obtained from former NSA contractor Edward Snowden and interviews with knowledgeable officials.

By tapping those links, the agency has positioned itself to collect at will from hundreds of millions of user accounts, many of them belonging to Americans. The NSA does not keep everything it collects, but it keeps a lot.

According to a top-secret accounting dated Jan. 9, 2013, the NSA’s acquisitions directorate sends millions of records every day from internal Yahoo and Google networks to data warehouses at the agency’s headquarters at Fort Meade, Md. In the preceding 30 days, the report said, field collectors had processed and sent back 181,280,466 new records — including “metadata,” which would indicate who sent or received e-mails and when, as well as content such as text, audio and video.

The NSA’s principal tool to exploit the data links is a project called MUSCULAR, operated jointly with the agency’s British counterpart, the Government Communications Headquarters . From undisclosed interception points, the NSA and the GCHQ are copying entire data flows across fiber-optic cables that carry information among the data centers of the Silicon Valley giants.

The infiltration is especially striking because the NSA, under a separate program known as PRISM, has front-door access to Google and Yahoo user accounts through a court-approved process.

The MUSCULAR project appears to be an unusually aggressive use of NSA tradecraft against flagship American companies. The agency is built for high-tech spying, with a wide range of digital tools, but it has not been known to use them routinely against U.S. companies.

In a statement, the NSA said it is “focused on discovering and developing intelligence about valid foreign intelligence targets only.”

“NSA applies Attorney General-approved processes to protect the privacy of U.S. persons — minimizing the likelihood of their information in our targeting, collection, processing, exploitation, retention, and dissemination,” it said.

In a statement, Google’s chief legal officer, David Drummond, said the company has “long been concerned about the possibility of this kind of snooping” and has not provided the government with access to its systems.

“We are outraged at the lengths to which the government seems to have gone to intercept data from our private fiber networks, and it underscores the need for urgent reform,” he said.

A Yahoo spokeswoman said, “We have strict controls in place to protect the security of our data centers, and we have not given access to our data centers to the NSA or to any other government agency.”

Under PRISM, the NSA gathers huge volumes of online communications records by legally compelling U.S. technology companies, including Yahoo and Google, to turn over any data that match court-approved search terms. That program, which was first disclosed by The Washington Post and the Guardian newspaper in Britain, is authorized under Section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act and overseen by the Foreign ­Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC).

Intercepting communications overseas has clear advantages for the NSA, with looser restrictions and less oversight. NSA documents about the effort refer directly to “full take,” “bulk access” and “high volume” operations on Yahoo and Google networks. Such large-scale collection of Internet content would be illegal in the United States, but the operations take place overseas, where the NSA is allowed to presume that anyone using a foreign data link is a foreigner.

Outside U.S. territory, statutory restrictions on surveillance seldom apply and the FISC has no jurisdiction. Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) has acknowledged that Congress conducts little oversight of intelligence-gathering under the presidential authority of Executive Order 12333 , which defines the basic powers and responsibilities of the intelligence agencies.

John Schindler, a former NSA chief analyst and frequent defender who teaches at the Naval War College, said it is obvious why the agency would prefer to avoid restrictions where it can.

“Look, NSA has platoons of lawyers, and their entire job is figuring out how to stay within the law and maximize collection by exploiting every loophole,” he said. “It’s fair to say the rules are less restrictive under Executive Order 12333 than they are under FISA,” the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

(Continued at the link below)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/nsa-infiltrates-links-to-yahoo-google-data-centers-worldwide-snowden-documents-say/2013/10/30/e51d661e-4166-11e3-8b74-d89d714ca4dd_print.html

Google Bamboozled by North Korea?

At the link, Claudia references my congressional testimony last March.
V/R
Dave

Google Bamboozled by North Korea?

January 8th, 2013 - 12:51 am

http://pjmedia.com/claudiarosett/google-bamboozled-by-north-korea/

As if there isn’t enough trouble in the world, the executive chairman of Google Inc., Eric Schmidt, has taken it into his head to visit North Korea. Schmidt is touring the world’s leading totalitarian state as a member of a private group led by a former U.S. congressman, cabinet secretary, United Nations ambassador and New Mexico governor rolled into one, Bill Richardson — whose previous trips to North Korea have served mainly to dignify the Pyongyang regime.

Richardson’s current roadshow, with Google’s Schmidt in tow, seems to have generated some excitement at North Korea’s state propaganda organ, the Korean Central News Agency, or KCNA. KCNA has revamped its web site, including a new gmail contact address (though the address apparently doesn’t work)  and more colorful variations on the same old propaganda, including a special section on North Korea’s recent ballistic missile test   “Successful Satellite Launch,” and such classics as an account of the launch in Ecuador of the works of third-generation dictator Kim Jong Un, glorifying the revolutionary accomplishments of his late father, tyrant Kim Jong Il, and his grandfather, the Stalin-installed founder of the North Korean state, Kim Il Sung. On this same retooled KCNA web site, the private visit led by Richardson is heralded as “Delegation of Google Corp. of U.S. Arrives.”

(Continued at the link below)

http://pjmedia.com/claudiarosett/google-bamboozled-by-north-korea/

Eric Schmidt’s North Korea Trip May Not Be as Ridiculous as It Sounds

Sure I would hope that Kim Jong-un would accept Google in north Korea and allow his people access to outside information because as I have said he would be singularly responsible for the collapse of the Kim Family Regime and would become a hero to Korea making the largest contribution to unification that any foreigner could possibly make.  Professor Cha (though his earlier statements show perhaps a little too much optimism because I do not think this event is anything more than another gimmick to support "Image First Politics")  is exactly right with his concluding statement and very much the reason why nothing (beyond perhaps the release of Kenneth Bae) is likely to come of this and also why I believe that Richardson and Schmidt are going to get played.

It’s also hard to imagine that 29-year-old Kim Jong-un, who was educated in the West, can resist the same tech that defines the lives of twentysomethings around the world. “He’s got to be interested in this stuff,” Cha says. But the risks are great: “As soon as he allows open access to it, he can kiss his leadership goodbye.”

But I just heard Richardson say on CNN that he is in good hands because he is taking his expert advisor Tony Namkung (Chinese born and raised in Tokyo) who is an Asian expert.  You can read his bio below and note what he wrote in 2000 about the north opening up and of course blaming the US for being involved in dividing the peninsula – thus overlooking the fact had two US Army officers, Dean Rusk and Charles Bonesteel not come up with the plan for the Soviets to take the Japanese surrender north of the 38th parallel and the US to the South the peninsula would today be unified under the Stalinist dictatorship that was established in the north in 1945.

But I think perhaps Tony Namkung's north Korean expertise is equivalent to my current football skills.  I can watch a football game on TV and explain it so I must be able to play in the Super Bowl.

K.A. "Tony" Namkung, Ph.D. - Partner
http://www.zoominfo.com/#!search/profile/person?personId=49022005&targetid=profile
Tony is an internationally known expert on U.S. - Asia relations and is well known and highly respected by business and government leaders throughout Asia and the U.S. He is Owner of Murray Hill Consultants, LLC, an advisory services firm assisting corporations on both sides of the Pacific in the areas of corporate strategy, market access, and governmental relations. Tony's knowledge, experience and extensive professional network makes him uniquely suited to lead Sandia Capital Partners strategic advisory and investment activities for Asian businesses seeking to expand activities in the Southwestern United States and for US businesses seeking investment and strategic alliances with leading Asian corporations. 

Tony has over three decades' experience in fostering U.S.-Asia relations, including at U.C., Berkeley where he taught and served as Deputy Director of its Institute of East Asian Studies, as Executive Director of the Asia Society in New York, and in the think tank community as Guest Scholar at theBrookings Institution and Director of the Atlantic Council of the United States. He has also served as Senior Adviser to Shearman & Sterling and as President of the Shearman & Sterling Institute. He has been a member of the Council on Foreign Relations since 1991 and sits on the boards and committees of a number of national organizations dealing with U.S.-Asia relations.
Tony holds a Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley and is the recipient of numerous national fellowships, grants from private foundations, and honors and prizes in the Asian field. He was born in Shanghai and raised in Tokyo while attending American schools. 

NAPSNet Daily Report, Tuesday, October 10, 2000ftp.nautilus.org, 14 Mar 2001 [cached]The Los Angeles Times published an opinion article by K.A. Namkung, chairman of Murray Hill Company in New Jersey, specializing in doing business with North Korea, ("U.S.-N. KOREA NORMALIZATION IS NOW IN SIGHT," 10/6/00) which said this week's visit by Jo Myong- rok, DPRK's first vice chairman of the National Defense Commission to the US could reshape the security landscape of Northeast Asia.
...
This visit, Namkung wrote, " could lead to a meeting of leaders of the two nations."He continued, "With the dramatic improvement in its relations with South Korea, the restoration of its ties underway with its former allies, China and Russia, and its normalization efforts with the European Union, Japan and other countries, now was the time for North Korea to realize its decade- old strategy of bringing its most formidable adversary, the United States, to the peace table.But the United States must be more involved in easing the military standoff.It can serve as an honest broker between the two Koreas, not on the model of Camp David but as a stabilizer and harmonizer.The U.S. was involved in dividing the Korean peninsula.It must now help bring peace to this troubled land and thereby secure its long-term presence in the region."

V/R

Dave

Eric Schmidt’s North Korea Trip May Not Be as Ridiculous as It Sounds

• BY MARCUS WOHLSEN01.04.137:55 PM

• HTTP://WWW.WIRED.COM/BUSINESS/2013/01/ERIC-SCHMIDT-NORTH-KOREA/

Google chairman Eric Schmidt’s planned trip to North Korea promises few returns for the company’s shareholders. But for the world’s most locked-down country, where only a few thousand citizens have internet access at all, his visit could offer the strongest hint yet of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s tortured longing for openness.

To be sure, the gulf between Google and North Korea couldn’t seem wider.

“The face of probably the most important facilitator of borderless information in the world is going into the hyperstate for the control of information,” says Victor Cha, a director of Asian affairs for the National Security Council during the second Bush administration and now a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

The past quarter-century has seen ex-presidents, diplomats, and the world’s most powerful nations try and fail to crack open North Korea’s totalitarian regime. During the visit reportedly planned for later this month, Schmidt will join former New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson for what Richardson described as a “private humanitarian visit” to free a detained U.S. citizen over the State Department’s objections.

Richardson told CBS that Schmidt’s presence on the trip had nothing to do with Google.

“I invited Eric. He is going as a private citizen,” Richardson said. “This is not a Google trip.”

Perhaps. “We do not comment on personal travel,” a Google spokeswoman said in response to questions.

But since stepping down as Google’s CEO in 2011, Schmidt has continued to serve as the search giant’s most visible public face. The significance of showing that face in Pyongyang isn’t lost on North Korea, Cha says.

“I don’t know if it’s a good opportunity for Google. But it’s a good opportunity for the North Korean leadership to signal to the world that they’re serious about going forward,” he says.

(Continued at the link below)

HTTP://WWW.WIRED.COM/BUSINESS/2013/01/ERIC-SCHMIDT-NORTH-KOREA/

GOOGLE EXEC CHAIRMAN TO VISIT NKOREA

This should be interesting. I hope we can get some reports from someone traveling with him.  If he could make a deal to get internet access to the general population he would go down in history as making a significant contribution to the collapse of the Kim Family Regime and the unification of the Korean Peninsula.  Unfortunately as has happened to people in the past he may just get played by the regime.

V/R
Dave

APNEWSBREAK: GOOGLE EXEC CHAIRMAN TO VISIT NKOREA

By JEAN H. LEE

— Jan. 2 8:28 PM EST

6
http://bigstory.ap.org/article/apnewsbreak-google-exec-chairman-visit-nkorea\

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — Google's executive chairman is preparing to travel to one of the last frontiers of cyberspace: North Korea.

Eric Schmidt will be traveling to North Korea on a private, humanitarian mission led by former New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson that could take place as early as this month, sources told The Associated Press on Wednesday. The sources, two people familiar with the group's plans, asked not to be named because the visit had not been made public.

The trip would be the first by a top executive from U.S.-based Google, the world's largest Internet search provider, to a country considered to have the most restrictive Internet policies on the planet.

North Korea is in the midst of what leader Kim Jong Un called a modern-day "industrial revolution" in a New Year's Day speech to the nation Monday. He is pushing science and technology as a path to economic development for the impoverished country, aiming for computers in every school and digitized machinery in every factory.

However, giving citizens open access to the Internet has not been part of the North's strategy. While some North Koreans can access a domestic Intranet service, very few have clearance to freely surf the World Wide Web.

It's highly unlikely Google will push to launch a business venture in North Korea, according to Victor Cha, a former senior Asia specialist in the administration of President George W. Bush.

"Perhaps the most intriguing part of this trip is simply the idea of it," said Cha, an analyst with the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank in Washington. Kim Jong Un "clearly has a penchant for the modern accoutrements of life. If Google is the first small step in piercing the information bubble in Pyongyang, it could be a very interesting development."

It was not immediately clear who Schmidt and Richardson expect to meet in North Korea, a country that does not have diplomatic relations with the United States. North Korea has almost no business with companies in the U.S., which has banned the import of North Korean-made goods.

Schmidt, however, has been a vocal advocate of providing people around the world with Internet access and technology.

As Google's chief executive for a decade until 2011, Schmidt oversaw Google's ascent from a small California startup focused on helping computer users search the Internet to a global technology giant making inroads into mobile phone markets as well as mapping.

Google now has offices in more than 40 countries, including all three of North Korea's neighbors: Russia, South Korea and China, another country criticized for systematic Internet censorship.

After being accused of complying with China's strict Internet regulations, known as "the Great Firewall of China," Google pulled its search business from the world's largest Internet market in 2010 by redirecting traffic from mainland China to Hong Kong. The company maintains other businesses in China, but a recent transparency report shows Google's services there sporadically are blocked.

(Continued at the link below)

http://bigstory.ap.org/article/apnewsbreak-google-exec-chairman-visit-nkorea\