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Snowden programmed Googlebot-like crawler to collect NSA data

9 February 2014, 10:35

The fugitive US whistleblower Edward Snowden who alerted the world to America's dragnet data collecting programs run by the National Security Agency reportedly used a Googlebot-like crawler program to scoop tons of files on the spy agency's online activities.

The New York Times has quoted senior US intelligence officials investigating the breach as saying the leaker made use of a low-cost and widely available program, similar but not as advanced as Google's search engine crawlers, or spiders, to "scrape" NSA's global networks, going as far as its remote outposts that keep an eye on China and North Korea.

"We do not believe this was an individual sitting at a machine and downloading this much material in sequence," the official confessed.

The spider can be programmed to jump from website to website following embedded links and copying everything in its way. Snowden reportedly set the right algorithm for the software that indicated subjects and how far it was to follow the links. At the end of the day, the whistleblower was able to gain access to a trove of 1.7 million files, including NSA's internal "wiki' materials that are used to share data across the world.

US officials said in an interview that the activist ran the web crawler to search, index and backup websites while he went about his daily routine. The official added that Snowden's interference was not very sophisticated and could have been easily detected. In fact, it has turned out that the leaker was challenged about his doings on several occasions, but managed to calm down fears.

Snowden could access all NSA files because he was employed as a technology contractor for the spy agency's outlet in Hawaii. Once, when questioned about his data-downloading activities, he reportedly came up with what was later described as "legitimate-sounding explanations." The whistleblower allegedly said that, as a systems administrator, he was responsible for routine network maintenance, including backing up the entire systems and moving data to local servers.

The information that Snowden's crawler had industriously collected was first disclosed to international public in The Guardian on 5 June 2013, followed by an avalanche of revelations that implicated the US in massive spying activities.

Voice of Russia, New York Times, RT

Source: http://voiceofrussia.com/2014_02_09/Iran-agreed- seven-practical-steps-with-IAEA-8604/