Ntrepid ION: More Stuff for the Spy Crowd

Ntrepid ION: More Stuff for the Spy Crowd

by Susan Basko, esq.

see also: Anonymizer: What is it?
see also: Ntrepid: What is it?
see also: Trapwire: what the heck is it? 
see also:  The Human Audit

Ntrepid is a Florida corporation based in Virginia that makes SaaS (software as a service) for the spy crowd.  (Ntrepid also sells car surveillance products.)  ION is the name of an Ntrepid series of software products.  This is not to be confused with ION software from India.  In fact, as of Sept. 12, 2012, Ntrepid's application for trademarks on the word "Ion" have been suspended by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office because of the prior applications by the Indian company claiming the name.  Word to the wise: If you plan to use a name, do a good trademark search first and file your application to secure the name.  And better still -- don't pick a name likely to fail at trademark because it is a common word and already used in 894 trademarks.  Why spend millions on marketing materials for a product where you are most likely going to have to change the name?   But, I digress here.  The topic is:  What is ION?

ION is Ntrepid's Virtual Desktop for spies.   It sounds real similar in many ways to Anonymizer, which is marketed to hip young moms at home (who want to anonymously watch porn? or something?), except Ion is souped-up and sold to the spy crowd. This seems to include government spies, for-hire spy companies, corporate spies, and  wannabe spy busybodies.  What's it for?

Ntrepid says ION is for OSINT (open source intelligence) analysts to "monitor terrorist operations, criminal activities and hostile and nefarious networks."  Hmm, sounds like these folks are hanging out on Twitter all day.

So how does it work?  First, you buy a subscription. Then you log into ION, which is on a cloud (my, how secure..) and then you get a Virtual Desktop that is "non-attributable." That means other people on the internet cannot tell your real IP (internet protocol) address, because this gives you a fake one and also keeps rotating you to different fake ones.  Also, it fakes up your location and keeps swapping that out. You can pick CONUS (Contiguous U.S., which means the U.S. except not Alaska or Hawaii.  "Contiguous" means connected)  or OCONUS (outside the Contiguous U.S.)

This is the standard Ntrepid ION package: Custom VPN on a cloud, Daily IP address rotation (how sneaky, lol), innocuous IP addresses that look normal, blah blah blah. In other words, for the standard package, you get a new fake IP address each day.

For a bit more moolah, you get media that looks normal, but is not traceable.  By "media," they mean photos and videos.  So you can post psy-ops stuff.  You also get a clean slate with no history or cache.   And an IP address that operates in the local language, so you look like a local.  What's funny is I get such visitors to my blogs with frequency, and I can always tell they are there, and I suppose others worldwide can, too.  This is the internet equivalent of someone calling you on the phone using a funny voice.   It is not at all as secret as the users imagine it to be.

If you really want to soup it up, you can get ION with high-volume non-attribution -- meaning you can pretend to be a whole bunch of fake people all at once and be from different places.  You can get email non-attribution, so you can send emails from fake IP addresses. This is what is also done by Nyms, another Ntrepid/ Anonymizer product.  You can also get anonymous VOIP (voice over internet protocol, like Skype phone).  And "persistent managed e-identities."  That is in case you want to go back day after day as the same persona.

I include this graphic, because I think it is good art for 2012: "Harvesting Activity that Mimics Human-Like Behaviors."  There are other facets of ION, so expect future posts.