[kictanet] NSA Tapping into Google & Yahoo Networks? How is Kenya protected?

[Ngigi Waithaka]

Listers,

Just came across this
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_story.html?hpid=z1

It looks like Google might have been caught by the NSA with their pants
down since hacking into their Data Transport layer simply gives up all the
secrets that encryption is supposed to be protecting.

Now, moving on swiftly to the local setup, I am also concerned that even as
we look to start pushing for National Standards of Encryption through the
PKI project, whether we as a country have come together to review and see
how to protect our countries intelligence and data.

We also know for a fact that the US was busy tapping into World Leaders
phones, and I can bet if there are a few presidents to be 'tapped' in
Africa, ours should be way up on that ladder!

However, more worrying would be, how protected are our internal networks
from such tapping, even from locals? Could there be a guy who has tapped
into Safaricoms internal network and is busy reading every email, chat that
is flying through and perhaps selling such information to our erstwhile
enemies the Al-Shabbab?

I was once very surprised when a personal friend got a transcript of all
his calls, and chat messages, word-for-word for the previous past 6 months,
dug up from one of the local Telcos. The ease with which such information
was availed appalled me as it clearly means that the Telcos clearly store
all our chats, and such records in clear text months after we have used
them and a guy with basic SQL knowledge just needs to hack into the network
(easy) and call them up.

So, as we continue with the PKI project, there are really very basic things
on security of data that we as a nation haven't even dealt with.
-- 
*Regards,*

*Wait**haka Ngigi*
Chief Executive Officer | Alliance Technologies | MCK Nairobi Synod Building
T + 254 (0) 20 2333 471 |Office Mobile: +254 786 28 28 28 | M + 254 737 811
000
www.at.co.ke
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