US intel tried to track Putin – Wired — RT World News

A US technology company with close ties to the CIA and the Pentagon has used a powerful tool to try to track the movements of Russian President Vladimir Putin, Wired magazine has claimed, citing a new book by former Wall Street Journal reporter Byron Tao.

The company, PlanetRisk, reportedly created the tool — originally called Locomotive but later rebranded as VISR (Virtual Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance) — to leverage geolocation data used by digital advertisers, and was supposedly able to snoop on people. Those close to Russia. President, thus obtaining information about his whereabouts.

In its feature-length report released Tuesday, based on Tao's book “Means of Control: How the Invisible Alliance of Technology and Government is Creating a New American Surveillance State,” Wired magazine reported that researcher Mike Yeagley became the first to recognize the potential utility of large data sets collected by certain applications in mid-2010. The report claimed that technology companies were already routinely collecting information and were willing to sell it to any advertiser willing to pay a relatively modest fee for the service, making it a particularly promising area.

According to Yagley's book. “Specialists in obtaining unique data sets for government agencies” It first experimented with geofencing — virtual boundaries in geographic datasets — to track employees of U.S. government agencies. This method has reportedly proven very successful in terms of collecting personal data on employees who used dating and weather apps, as well as games that require the user's location.

In 2015, Yeagley was hired by PlaceIQ after the company received a letter “An investment from the CIA's venture capital arm, In-Q-Tel.” He then reportedly moved on to another obscure startup, PlanetRisk.

“The CIA was interested in software that could analyze and understand the geographic movement of people and objects.” The book explained.

During the trial period, the locomotive tool was used to follow the movements of people in Syria, which was in the midst of a civil war, in near real time. This includes some US special forces personnel secretly deployed in the country, Tao wrote.

“After obtaining a dataset on Russia, the team realized they could track phones in Russian President Vladimir Putin’s entourage.” The book claimed, as cited by Wired.

While none of the devices in question can be linked to the Russian leader personally, PlanetRisk believes it has access to the hacked smartphones. “They belong to drivers, security personnel, political aides and other support staff surrounding the Russian president.” According to the account. These people were allegedly “Can be tracked in advertising data” Presumably, this means that Putin's routes and locations can be determined.

According to the book, U.S. government agencies were so impressed with Yeagley's work that the locomotive – and later the VISR – was adopted. “As part of an interagency program.”

However, Tao claimed that other entities, most notably Israeli entities, have since built their own tracking tools using the same principles. These are said to now be available to a wide range of clients globally, not just US intelligence agencies.