
Maximator: European signals intelligence cooperation, from a Dutch perspective - brakmic
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02684527.2020.1743538
======
arethuza
I'm in the middle of reading Richard Aldrich's book on GCHQ - which I thought
might be a bit dry but is actually completely fascinating.

Sigint is a remarkably devious business e.g. during the Falkland's War the UK
got live information on Argentinian ship locations from, of all places,
Norwegian intelligence who obtained it by hacking into _Soviet_ spy
satellites.

~~~
cryptonector
I'd like to read about that! Is that described in the book you mentioned, or
elsewhere?

The UK also got early warning of air attacks from Chilean radar installations
in Tierra del Fuego or thereabouts.

~~~
arethuza
Yes - that was from that book.

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itcrowd
This is a fascinating revelation, the European equivalent of the Five Eyes.

The author, by the way, is a Dutch professor of Security, Privacy and Identity
at the Radboud University (Nijmegen). His website is here:
[http://www.cs.ru.nl/~bart/](http://www.cs.ru.nl/~bart/)

~~~
contingencies
Echelon was only finally and definitively unmasked with the publication of the
European Parliament report in 2001.
[https://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-//EP/...](https://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-//EP//NONSGML+REPORT+A5-2001-0264+0+DOC+PDF+V0//EN)
(Prior to that, the general public would certainly consider you a nutjob for
discussing it.)

The EU's historians have recently (2014) published an historical perspective
on the writing and impact of that report, which is worth a read:
[https://www.europarl.europa.eu/EPRS/EPRS_STUDY_538877_Affair...](https://www.europarl.europa.eu/EPRS/EPRS_STUDY_538877_AffaireEchelon-
EN.pdf)

This is effectively _real world history_ , not the crap you garner from mass
media or would-have-you-believe books. Another great classic: the
conspicuously missing history of SWIFT, with its own EU parliament
discussions.

PS. Aussies, Maximator is AUD$100/slab (12x500mL) @
[https://www.purvisbeer.com.au/](https://www.purvisbeer.com.au/) \+ AUD$15
shipping (free pickup Melbourne)

------
ganzuul
We need to know if these are organs for circumventing the law of its member
countries by spying on each other when spying on their own citizens is
illegal.

Privacy is fundamental to democratic elections and enemies to democracy should
not be tolerated.

~~~
matheusmoreira
> We need to know if these are organs for circumventing the law of its member
> countries by spying on each other when spying on their own citizens is
> illegal.

This is a fact according to Snowden's leaked documents.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Eyes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Eyes)

> Documents leaked by Snowden in 2013 revealed that the FVEY has been spying
> on one another's citizens and sharing the collected information with each
> other in order to circumvent restrictive domestic regulations on
> surveillance of citizens.

If they don't care about the rights of their own citizens, there's no limit to
how much damage they're willing to cause to foreigners.

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jwandborg
Some weird things I noticed:

There are at least two typos in the abstract:

#1

> [...] Danmark, Sweden, Germany [...]

Should be "Denmark"

# 2 > [...] crypto analisis [...]

Should be "analysis"

There's a "cryptanalysis" later in the article.

The author's list of papers:
[http://www.cs.ru.nl/~bart/PAPERS/index.html](http://www.cs.ru.nl/~bart/PAPERS/index.html)
doesn't mention this article, even though it mentions another not-yet-
published paper.

~~~
NotSammyHagar
I believe Danish people and some others use the word "Danmark" with an 'a' for
their country. Wouldn't that explain this?

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pnathan
Interesting. I wonder why this is being revealed, and why now, and who it
serves.

~~~
gwern
It mentions that the recent unveiling of CryptoAG implies Maximator exists. At
a guess, because it's no longer secret, his Dutch sources wanted to boast
about it.

------
samizdis
A sigint alliance established after meetings in a pub and named for a brand of
beer. That is charmingly comforting.

------
chrismeller
So the European equivalent of the Five Eyes?

