
Japan's secret spy agency - tjomk
https://theintercept.com/2018/05/19/japan-dfs-surveillance-agency/
======
stareatgoats
Thanks to Snowden (who keeps on giving, even 5 years more or less to the day
after his escape to Hong Kong), we can assume that Japan too conducts dragnet
surveillance. It is the state of current affairs that it hardly raises more
than a yawn.

Still an interesting article, since it reveals that the Japanese take their
secrecy really, really seriously, and so we may not assume much of what they
are up to, really.

The problem with secret government agencies is otherwise generally that they
are notoriously difficult to reign in. They are governed by law, but are
likely to develop their own agendas, and since lawmakers are kept in the dark
they can end up meddling in policy, using all the means at their disposal.

Our ultimate line of defense against such, and only hope are the brave
whistleblowers. Edward Snowden needs to be pardoned.

~~~
marricks
Are they governed by law? I'm starting to feel that no one follows the law, or
spirit of it at least, unless they have to or can write the laws themselves.

Corporations write their own laws through lobbyists and circumvent it when
they can. Top secret agents don't really have anyone they are accountable to
since they're so top secrete there isn't any public oversight.

For some reason the secret courts convened to check them (FISA) are just
rubber stamp mills too because hey, those don't really have any oversight
either.

It really doesn't seem like this stuff will get any better without a ton more
oversight. It'll be interesting to see if the Japanese people are more
appalled by this and more willing to stand up.

~~~
fossuser
It's worth reading Beyond Snowden which is written by Timothy Edgar, a former
ACLU lawyer who got hired into the Obama administration as a PCL advisor and
eventually worked at the NSA.

He gives a lot of insight into how things actually work with a deep
understanding of the issues and the difficulty around these policy tradeoffs.
The organizations do take oversight seriously, but there's still a risk of
'turn key tyranny' and there are improvements that can be made.

It's possible to have security and civil liberties, but you need effective
policy and it can't happen in secret.

------
leaveyou
>In 2012, the country’s police investigators were repeatedly thwarted by a
hacker known as the “Demon Killer,” who posted a series of death threats
online. The hacker used Tor to successfully evade detection for seven months,
which was a major source of embarrassment for Japanese police — and likely
fueled demand for new surveillance capabilities.

yes.. it was a bad bad hacker who fueled demand for more money thrown at the
defense industry and not someone acting on purpose.

~~~
willvarfar
It is most unlikely that the Demon Killer was a false flag funding exercise.
Imagine the problems if a whistleblower exposed _that_!

It is much more likely that the Military-Industrial Complex used the
opportunity to push for more powers and funding. As all Military-Industrial
Complexes do all around the world at every opportunity.

~~~
PostOnce
"imagine the PR problems if X" worked prior to snowden, but now it seems no
one cares.

If we don't care that they're spying on us all, why would we care about the
reason behind the spying?

Your argument _is_ very logical and plausible, but we live in illogical and
implausible times.

~~~
bonaldi
If no-one cares there's no need to false flag a justification, is there?

~~~
CiPHPerCoder
Devil's advocate: What's the harm in keeping your hands "clean"? The public
zeitgeist can change, after all, and someday the public _may_ care. Better be
prepared for that, etc.

~~~
SiempreViernes
Extra cost and complication _now_ versus potential costs in the future.

~~~
CiPHPerCoder
Small up-front cost now versus having your lives threatened in the future.

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neves
The Intercept is the most impressive free press initiative of the last 50
years. We thought that the Internet would democratize the free flow of
information, that we could be free of a handful media conglomerates and what
we got was Facebook.

Snowden whistle blower greatest consequence was the initiative to create The
Intercept.

~~~
driverdan
I have such mixed feelings about The Intercept. They break extremely important
news but mix in too many opinionated blog posts.

Read some of their articles about animal cruelty. The topics and information
are great but the writing is littered with opinion and assumption instead of
objective journalism.

I couldn't even take two podcast episodes before I stopped listening. They had
skits mocking Trump. That's not journalism. That just makes people who like
Trump shut down and call your site fake news. Stick to the facts and leave the
BS to the bloggers.

~~~
krapp
>That just makes people who like Trump shut down and call your site fake news.

... good riddance?

~~~
sfotm
Why good riddance? If a person who disagreed with my ideologies was looking
for a news source, should I point them to an echo chamber that reinforces
their beliefs, or a place that I believe to do good journalism (not
necessarily The Intercept, per se)?

~~~
krapp
If a person is willing to dismiss the credibility of a news source because
they mock Trump, then that person doesn't seem very open to questioning their
ideology to begin with.

It's like arguing with a conspiracy theorist - you can't get anywhere near a
real conversation as long as they're trapped in a feedback loop of
defensiveness that makes critical self-examination impossible.

~~~
mrhappyunhappy
This argument does not hold up. Flip this around and you are the one to
dismiss the credibility of a news source because it puts trump on a pedestal.
Are you not open to questioning your ideology if someone presents some very
compelling arguments despite how much you can’t stand Trump?

~~~
krapp
>Are you not open to questioning your ideology if someone presents some very
compelling arguments despite how much you can’t stand Trump?

I am open to it - as long as there are compelling arguments made, it shouldn't
matter either way. I'll admit I would have a bias against it, since I don't
find much praiseworthy about Trump personally or politically, but I wouldn't
dismiss it out of hand. But if I did, I would be guilty of the same thing.

If you flip my argument around and apply it to me, then you seem to be
admitting that it does hold up, in general terms.

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tlear
Clearly they can keep things secret unlike NSA and co. Whole article is random
guesses, names of building and not much of anything else, that is kind of
impressive. In fact the only real stuff is from a power point shared with
NSA..

~~~
willstrafach
Looking at source materials, it is not hard to see what they are doing. They
have radome’s to obfuscate where their dishes are pointed, and use them to
collect signals that pass through the Chinese and other satellites they can
see.

They appear to request processing assistance from NSA, so the most educated
guess would be that they know the right satellites to collect from, but are
not quite there yet in terms of normalizing and analyzing most of the data.

You can scroll to the bottom of linked article to view the source documents.

~~~
euske
Funny you put it that way because it sounds very Japanese to me.

Japan always focuses heavily on the physical infrastructure. They meticulously
build amazing machines, bridges and grid systems, but don't know what to do
with them.

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zipwitch
Wait, it's not called Public Security, Section 9?

~~~
yborg
When you have a long-established culture of unaccountable organizations with
nearly unlimited budgets and nothing else to do, you eventually will get
something like Section 9.

~~~
monocasa
I wish... Section 9 is outrageously competent.

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Jolter
I bet someone is getting disciplined for leaving the blinds open in that first
picture...

~~~
tniemi
No sensitive work should ever be done in a place with glass windows.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laser_microphone](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laser_microphone)

~~~
rl3
Or you just pump rock music in between the panes of glass.

~~~
jacquesm
Take the same music, invert phase, add to original: sound recovered. Very loud
white noise would be a lot more effective.

~~~
kuschku
Take rock music, played by a $0.20 shitty chinese speaker. Indistinguishable
from white noise.

~~~
eeZah7Ux
Actually a shitty speaker makes it even easier to filter out by producing a
smaller spectrum.

You need real white noise - not very loud, but it has to be random as in not
predictable.

~~~
rl3
You don't actually:

[https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=956894...](https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=95689436)

 _" And to prevent sophisticated laser devices from capturing the telltale
vibration of his voice on the glass, music played between the panes."_

------
ggg9990
I have basically always assumed that all governments are conducting the
maximum amount of espionage on their citizens and adversaries as they are able
to within the constraints of their technology and budget.

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creo
Can someone please link me street view near those gigantic balls? Thanks!

~~~
cowpewter
Here you go! This is the location of the second arial photo in the article.
[https://www.google.com/maps/@33.4416085,130.6032298,3a,60y,2...](https://www.google.com/maps/@33.4416085,130.6032298,3a,60y,208.08h,90t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1s40oXFiYhgGMfqyQZXn6M7w!2e0!7i13312!8i6656)

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icanhackit
I'll just leave this here...

[https://theintercept.com/feed/?lang=en](https://theintercept.com/feed/?lang=en)

~~~
mrhappyunhappy
What’s the point of this?

~~~
icanhackit
RSS link to free full-length reports from the Intercept.

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enqk
Looks a lot like the NHK (national broadcaster) got the word in order to
prepare the public for a constitutional change..

