
Britain's GCHQ hacked Belgium's telco Belgacom - filipmaertens
http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.spiegel.de&#x2F;fotostrecke&#x2F;photo-gallery-operaton-socialist-fotostrecke-101663.html
======
filipmaertens
Through excitement this was erroneously posted and contains the same article
of Der Spiegel as
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6416660](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6416660)

------
sasvari
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6416660](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6416660)

~~~
anthonyb
Which apparently has been flagged off of the front page.

~~~
pvnick
I'm getting tired of the knee-jerk tendency for a small group of people to
flag these extremely critical revelations. Yesterday the post about the mass
rally on Washington was flagged to the bottom and eventually kicked off the
front page. A recent poll revealed overwhelming support for _more_ , not less
reports on these spying stories, and yet a vocal minority is able to disregard
the community's wishes and ruin things for everyone.

I don't know how this can be solved other than perhaps intense moderation to
unflag everything regarding these revelations and let their popularity be
determined solely by votes.

~~~
tomjen3
This place is only incidentally run as a semi-democracy. The goal is not to
get the stuff on the front page that the most people want but the stuff that
satisfy peoples intellectual curiosity.

If you want a completely democratically run internet forum, create your own
subreddit or on www.reddit.com.

Incidentally Hacker News was made partially as a response to the decline of
the general reddit communities and with the hope of addressing at least some
of their failures - such as relying too much on democracy.

------
rwmj
Interestingly, this has not been reported in the UK.

~~~
da_n
There is a gag order on the media against any reporting of GCHQ. Ministry of
Truth is in full effect in the UK right now.

~~~
tombrossman
Not disputing that there is some 'voluntary' suppression of facts by the media
but a quick search of BBC news shows 5 stories in the last 10 days.
[http://www.bbc.co.uk/search/news/?q=GCHQ](http://www.bbc.co.uk/search/news/?q=GCHQ)

~~~
eliot_sykes
In the UK, we aren't having any real public debate about the security
services, largely because the homegrown news organisations aren't giving the
issues the attention they deserve. I don't know what would happen to them if
they took a stand against a D-Notice.

(BTW, the 2nd result on that BBC news search is more like a job ad for GCHQ)

(Edited to remove my erroneous claim that D-notices aren't voluntary, turns
out they are, though hardly any media orgs. go against them)

------
bsullivan01
Safe to say that they hacked every {country}com they could. That's not
personal, just business.

~~~
tomjen3
What I don't get is how the hell this is not an act of war? If I put a bomb
next to some critical telecommunications network, even if I made absolutely
sure nobody was harmed, and blew it up it would be considered an act of
terrorism.

So why the hell is GCHQ doing this to an allied country?

~~~
filipmaertens
The main target appears to be the BICS unit within the Belgacom's group, which
is a wholesale operation with a strong division in Dubai (peering to du/EITC
and Etisalat), covering Middle East switching/termination. Having access to
BICS infrastructure could give potential to tier-1 interception of middle east
peers. At least, that could be one of the many (many) motives for targeting
BICS imho. While Belgium may be an allied country, it might supply/export
services to other countries that may seemingly be other allied countries to
the U.S. but where a hidden agenda is played out according to the age old
saying "trust, but verify" :) Also, if designing attack trees, you take the
weakest links in order to have a successful attack. Taking Belgium/Belgacom
route may have proven to be a valid option so it seems ("hey, if the Belgians
don't care to be without government for over two years, they sure as hell
won't care about a hacking") :p

~~~
TheLegace
My only response is...so. So far it's nowhere near justified.

And I just get through reading some scary stuff about what Canadian spooks are
doing. Had to dig for it, well since nobody cares about Canada.

~~~
pyre
Care to link to that?

~~~
TheLegace
In his final report to Parliament, commissioner Robert Decary says some of the
spying at Communications Security Establishment Canada may have affected
Canadians in the past year. However, thanks to poor record-keeping, Mr. Decary
– a retired judge who has been the agency’s independent watchdog since 2010 –
said he can’t be sure.[1] CSEC is forbidden from intentionally collecting or
analyzing information from Canadian citizens in Canada or abroad. However, the
National Defence Act allows the defence minister to give CSEC written
ministerial authorization to intercept private communications unintentionally
while collecting foreign-signals intelligence.[1] Doesn't this contradict with
the Canadian Privacy Act? Yet, while Mr. Binney compliments the surveillance
acumen of Communications Security Establishment Canada, he also urged the
Canadian public to scrutinize CSEC – especially given its long-standing close
ties to the NSA. “They have integrated reps,” he said, referring to how the
agencies swap personnel. He pointed out that they also share technology, such
as a very powerful, recently revealed Internet-surveillance tool, code-named
“XKeyscore.” “CSEC does not direct its activities at Canadians and is
prohibited by law from doing so,” its chief, John Forster, said in a rare
public statement. Yet, records recently obtained by The Globe show that CSEC
has been developing its own secretive programs to “incidentally” monitor at
least some Canadian telecommunications traffic.[2] Some of Mr. Snowden’s leaks
speak to the NSA’s close relationship with CSEC – suggesting, for example,
that the two agencies teamed up to spy on foreign diplomats at a 2009 G20
meeting in London, and may have also been in cahoots to install a back door to
spy on encrypted messages on the Internet in 2006.[2] At the time, Canada’s
Communications Security Establishment ran the standards process for the
international organization, but classified documents describe how ultimately
the N.S.A. seized control. “After some behind-the-scenes finessing with the
head of the Canadian national delegation and with C.S.E., the stage was set
for N.S.A. to submit a rewrite of the draft,” the memo notes. “Eventually,
N.S.A. became the sole editor.”[3] So CSEC was being coerced by NSA and
completely gave up control. Although I can respect the apparent "restraint"
Canadian government has, but clearly system can be abused and will stay way
under the radar compared to NSA and GHCQ.
[1][http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/watchdog-
says-s...](http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/watchdog-says-s..).
[2][http://www.theglobeandmail.com/technology/beware-of-
data-](http://www.theglobeandmail.com/technology/beware-of-data-)
[3][http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/09/10/government-
announce](http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/09/10/government-announce)

~~~
pyre
Thanks for following up! I also caught your submission of this that made the
front page.

