
Snowden Documents Indicate NSA Has Breached Deutsche Telekom - mstolpm
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/snowden-documents-indicate-nsa-has-breached-deutsche-telekom-a-991503.html
======
lispm
I'm pretty sure our German services know much more than they say. There is
also a lot of cooperation between German services and the US. Keep in mind
that Germany hosts major military and intelligence installations for the US.
The central US military commands for Europe and Africa are both hosted in
Germany. The US organizes a lot of the world-wide military activities (aka
wars) from Germany. We host US nuclear weapons. We have surveillance
installations here. The CIA and NSA have bases here...

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Africa_Command](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Africa_Command)
in Stuttgart/Germany. Imagine that, the US military activities for Africa are
coordinated in Germany.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_European_Command](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_European_Command)
in Stuttgart/Germany.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dagger_Complex](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dagger_Complex)
in Griesheim/Germany hosts 1000+ people working for the NSA.

[https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consolidated_Intelligence_Cent...](https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consolidated_Intelligence_Center)
under construction in Wiesbaden/Germany, for the US Army and the NSA.

~~~
sauere
The main problem is that the ruling political parties in Germany are - please
excuse the language, i don't know how else to put this - sucking US d*ck big
time. The way the whole NSA/Snowden thing has been handled in Germany is a
fucking joke.

~~~
TehCorwiz
"sucking US d*ck big time." has several other options available:

"In cahoots with", "defers to", "is complicit with", "is subservient to", "is
unquestioning towards"

See, you just need to sprinkle a little bit of vocabulary to taste. I'll
admit, it doesn't have the same panache as your "dick", but it is less
derogatory.

~~~
panzi
Is it really less derogatory? Deferring to another countries government is
treason, isn't it?

~~~
TehCorwiz
Not necessarily. They formed an alliance which is legal under both countries'
documents of sovereignty.

An example:

Most E.U. member countries relinquish the protection of their borders to the
E.U. organization proper. Does it lessen the sovereignty of the country?
Yes,for instance, because of that reason France didn't acquiesce to the E.U.
and retains full sovereignty and their own military.

Is it treason? No, because they have defined treason to allow it.

~~~
panzi
Yeah, but the E.U. contracts are out in the open (not secret) and the people
had to vote for Germany to become a member of the E.U. At least in Austria we
had to vote, I think it was the same in Germany.

------
kaeso
While everybody is mostly focused on Deutsche Telecom and Stellar, I'm more
concerned about the long list of big-profile red-filled dots ('SIGINT
collection points from AS') in the dox and slides:

* AS1299 (TeliaSonera)

* AS3549 (Level3/GBLX)

* AS6762 (TelecomItalia/Sparkle)

* AS3320 (DeutscheTelekom)

* AS1273 (CW Cable and Wireless)

* AS702 (Verizon/UUNET)

This list covers most of the uplink/transit/tier-1 providers, serving most of
EU operators (TATA and TINET being the biggest absents here).

------
chestnut-tree
The BBC broadcast a good documentary on the broad issue of internet
survelliance a few weeks ago (Horizon: Inside the Dark Web). It's been
uploaded to YouTube and is well worth a watch.

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fTjNkbLBEqg](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fTjNkbLBEqg)

There is a segment in the programme that starts at 4 mins 50 sec that explains
how key fibre optic cables that connect the UK and US handle as much as 25% of
all internet traffic. It also explains how relatively simple it is for GCHQ to
insert an "optical tap" that allows them to capture the data that flows
through the cables.

------
etiam
You may also perhaps also be interested in the corresponding article at The
Intercept, mostly the same journalists.
[https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/09/14/nsa-
stellar/](https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/09/14/nsa-stellar/)

~~~
valevk
I'm not sure if they see this for the first time, or whether it's a little
staged for the camera, but those guys have to be feeling really uncomfortable.
Imagine some journalist coming to your office, and showing you slides with
passwords, that can access you infrastructure.
[http://vimeo.com/106026217](http://vimeo.com/106026217)

~~~
kriro
Well you can see it in their faces. It was a true WTF moment. The lead
engineer visibly choked a couple of times.

As an aside...pretty weak password for such an important system.

------
bowlofpetunias
The picture in the sidebar (Spiegel cover on the fall of the Berlin wall) is
extremely painful in this context.

Millions of Germans that honestly believed they wouldn't be spied on anymore
once they were part of the "free" West.

~~~
DanielBMarkham
That's a rather odd thing to believe. As an American, I certainly never felt
like I was immune to foreign governments spying on me.

My problem is when my government collects tons of data about my own life and
is then able to assemble it into any kind of crime they want. It's the
collection of my personal information by my _own_ government and then the use
of that information for social control that I don't expect to happen. I would
expect other governments to keep a close eye on me, especially if I were to
get into a position where I could affect national policy. That is, after all,
the role of an intelligence agency. [Insert long discussion about how spying
and intelligence agencies have done a lot to _prevent_ many wars.]

Why did they feel this way? Did they feel that freedom somehow meant being
left alone by every government on the planet? There was a general
understanding that people are in some form of agreement with their own
government, right? And that this agreement had absolutely no bearing on any
other government, right?

~~~
coldtea
> _That 's a rather odd thing to believe. As an American, I certainly never
> felt like I was immune to foreign governments spying on me._

That's mostly due to cold war propaganda, and the tons of movies and shitty
shows like 24 that legitimize the notion that small nations (e.g Yugoslavia of
yore, or some insignificant arab country) have spies everywhere and perform
high-tech James-Bond like operations...

Foreign governments never cared/dared to spy on Americans like that. Most
don't have the means, and even if they did, they have no power to do anything
about what they find. And of course it they were caught they'd have to face
the consequences from the 100000-pound global military, diplomatic and
economic gorilla. Plus, most world governments are in cushy terms with the US.

The worst offender was USSR -- and then again it was insignificant to the
level that is going on today, and USSR was a paper-tiger in lots of ways
itself. Smaller countries, at worst, try to spy a little on delevelopments
involving their country, e.g to spy on some diplomats, large businesses with
interest in their area, etc. And that's talking about countries like France,
Germany etc, not Belize or Albania or whatever.

Believing this is like believing the school bully is equally bullied himself
from the other children.

~~~
selimthegrim
Actually, I remember reading that UDBA was pretty feared and had pretty much
free rein in the West; not that it was tussling with the CIA or anything

------
crazy1van
Evidence that the US spy agencies engage in large scale espionage on its own
people is outrageous. Evidence that US spy agencies engage is foreign
espionage is expected.

What is the difference? The US has made explicit commitments to its people
through things like the 1st and 4th amendments to protect their privacy.

~~~
panzi
And this is exactly why more and more non-US-citizen don't like the US
anymore. Seeing the world in two classes "US" and "non-US". Yes, I know, no
secret service is better. The question is: Are secret services compatible with
democracy? More and more indicators let me think: no.

~~~
blumkvist
Nobody lives in a true democracy. And it's actually a good thing.
Unfortunately the majority of the population is willingly ignorant and refuses
to be educated on complex issues. Instead, they have very unbalanced opinions,
based almost solely on emotion. It is very easy to harness those emotions and
use them to raise to power and then do unspeakable atrocities. Hitler,
Musolini to name just a couple.

~~~
bjelkeman-again
And what is a true democracy then?

~~~
panzi
Everything the government is 100% out in the open (except for ongoing police
investigations - but the moment they are finished they are made public). There
are only direct elections and almost all decisions are don via general
elections. The whole population is well educated on all issues that are
subject to politics so they can make informed decisions when voting.

This is of course unfeasible. The only way to make something like that
feasible would be to link up our minds like the Borg. Still, the current state
is not good enough.

------
metafex
A few years ago I worked for a small Telco company who provided software for
virtual MNOs, and security there was not that, let's say, inspiring
confidence. It is generally a problem with small companies in the Internet and
Mobile-services areas that security is only an afterthought. Partially also
due to the fact that the protocols which are used are pretty old and do not
implement much, if any, security measures.

edit: customers of the company were mostly in eastern europe, middle east and
oceania, so maybe that was another reason ;-)

~~~
schoen
There's also the problem that when communications companies think of security,
they may be thinking of "revenue protection" more than customer privacy (that
is, making sure that customers have to pay to communicate, and that they get
billed accurately).

Ross Anderson liked to point out that the crypto that some cell phones used to
discourage you from using aftermarket batteries was stronger than the crypto
they used to protect your voice calls over the air. He's also suggested that
the crypto in GSM ended up more focused on subscriber authentication than on
voice privacy.

There is also now a source for the notion that governments pressured the
designers of GSM to make it not provide strong cryptographic privacy:

[http://www.aftenposten.no/nyheter/uriks/Sources-We-were-
pres...](http://www.aftenposten.no/nyheter/uriks/Sources-We-were-pressured-to-
weaken-the-mobile-security-in-the-80s-7413285.html)

Here is a sad thing: Governments are _STILL_ pressuring the designers of GSM
to make it not provide strong cryptographic privacy. Like, today. We got some
documents from ETSI only a couple of years ago showing that they are designing
a cryptographic backdoor mode for the official GSM end-to-end voice
encryption, which isn't even deployed yet. The use of the backdoor mode will
be optional according to carriers' view of their jurisdictional obligations.

Sorry, that last part is less on-topic for this thread. But in the big
picture, I'm sure the people who are involved in those efforts are _not_
making corresponding compromises in the billing and revenue-protection areas.

------
rukugu
Maybe we should have ethics taught in CS so that people know that it's wrong
even if you are sitting at a terminal and having fun because the work is
challenging.

~~~
RivieraKid
That sounds silly. Ethics is subjective. When you teach "This is wrong." and
the student replies "I feel it's right.", what do you say? Unless you have
some ethical framework plus a good reason to follow act according that
framework, you operate on the level of subjective feelings and opinions.

~~~
pluma
There is such a thing as "ethics class" and it's really not about dogmatic "do
this" or "don't do that". Instead it analyzes various situations to derive
insight about why some things are ethically right and some aren't.

By calling it entirely pointless you're dismissing a whole branch of
philosophy. I know moral relativism is still popular among some groups of
people, but there are other approaches to understanding morality. And no, I'm
not talking about religion or Ayn Rand.

~~~
RivieraKid
> derive insight about why some things are ethically right and some aren't

What exactly "ethically right" means is subjective.

> you're dismissing a whole branch of philosophy

Yes, and it's not the only branch I dismiss :-)

> but there are other approaches to understanding morality

For example? My problem with ethical systems is that they're built on a
subjective feelings of rightness and wrongness.

------
BillFranklin
Having access to an ISP at the level the NSA does, geolocation, complete
communications surveillance and MitM attacks become very easy. I'm based in
Cologne and a customer of one of the breached ISPs - very annoyed.

------
japasc
As i see it, all the US patent system is invalid with this kind of revelation.
They can not claim any original idea any more, because of spying

~~~
ghshephard
Has there been a single report, story, or even _rumor_ that the United States
has ever used the NSA to assist american corporations in developing
inventions?

Nothing in any of the snowden reports even hints at this - so I think your
comment that "no patents have original ideas any more because of spying" is a
little out there.

~~~
sharpneli
They do have plans for it [https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/09/05/us-
governments...](https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/09/05/us-governments-
plans-use-economic-espionage-benefit-american-corporations/)

GP's comment is still far fetched. But US does indeed contemplate on starting
economic espionage if they ever lose their tech lead.

~~~
japasc
As the link shows, its from 2009. Also as an example, its proven that the
Canadian spied on Brazil for trade secrets. If Canadians do, for sure the
principal do it also. And because the law in US forces you to obey secret
courts with secret orders, you are never sure about the truth nor trust any
claim from a US citizen/corporation.

------
danbruc
The main problem in this whole story is the inability to punish the
misbehavior without getting hit by the backlash. It's the same with Russia's
recent activities. We lack efficient means of punishment on a global scale
when dealing with powerful nations. Therefore the best option is usually to
improve defense measures and that takes time.

~~~
coldtea
What "recent activities"? I'm afraid the very powerful nations that have done
what TFA says have also frame your understanding of what Russia did.

Some thinking points: a) Russia is next to Ukraine, so it's like they're
dealing with a dispute in their borders (e.g not like certain countries that
go across the globe to the middle east or asia to assert their "national
interests"). b) Ukraine's legitimate voted for government was toppled by a
minority (including nazi sympathizers) with western support. c) The population
of Ukraine has tons of people that are pro-Russia and are of Russian descent.
Crimea in particular had voted to unite with Russia time and again.

Imagine Mexico's legitimate government had been toppled by a Russian-supported
coalition (with pro-nazi's among them). Imagine Baja California had 90% people
of USA descent that had voted for union with California. What the US response
to that would be?

~~~
twoodfin
So you'd support a US invasion of Mexico under those circumstances? Somehow I
doubt it.

~~~
coldtea
Under those circumstances? Yes. Or at least I'd understand it and respect the
resoning behind it.

I don't expect "knight on a white horse" or a beacon of justice, and I don't
judge all situations the same. It's all a matter of degree and case-by-case
basis, there's no black and white in politics. For the same reasons I'm
against USSR's invasion of Afghanistan or Hungary too.

So, comparatively speaking, this is a 10 times more defensible situation that
an all-powerful country invading/bombing a smaller one (and under false
pretextes at that) to secure cheap resources and/or a favorable diplomatic
outcome in the area. The hypocrisy of people treating those two situations the
same is incredible.

------
PaulHoule
I knew skript kids who were networking mapping cities and national networks
like TymNet back in 87. Around 2k I made a map of the Netherlands, because it
was a small but interesting country. The bigger boys play with bigger toys.

------
mgulaid
Most likely, the hacked company in the video is Horizon Energy in the UAE. The
first part of the IP matches of the UAE, and you can see the name horizon on
the screen. after quick search you can see Horizon has energy operations in
the ME and Africa.

------
doctorstupid
Imagine the uproar that would ensue if Germany were to be found spying on U.S.
citizens.

~~~
takeda
And they probably are.

What if US spies on German citizens, and Germany spies on US citizens and then
they both exchange with each other what they have learned?

------
igl
This article disappeared from the german frontpage of Spiegel.de very quickly
:)

~~~
danbruc
It's still there, just not the featured one on top. And as bad as all this is,
there are still worse things happening in the world.

~~~
igl
yes, if you scroll down to the Top ten list of most shared articles in the
small widget to the right. It's #4.

By worse things you mean camerons face? In an article that asks "why isn't GB
[the NATO] bombing the shit out of iraq yet [again]?"

------
markdutton
Interesting how this post is disappearing fast from the front page.

On the other hand, when Apple launches a new product, the front page looks
like the front page of Apple.com, for more than 1 day.

------
BillFranklin
This will strain the US-German relationship even further.

~~~
andreasvc
Really? I get that as part of the diplomatic games they have to take on an
outward posture of being shocked by such revelations, but aren't their
intelligence agencies fully aware that these things are just par for the
course?

------
Keyframe
It has now been a year+ since Snowden is out of the loop (I guess). I wonder
how fast NSA moves and how much things have changed since this intel.

~~~
vidarh
Presumably a lot have changed, but if anything we can pretty safely assume it
has changed for the worse, not better.

------
sauere
Imagine where Germany would be today if the US would not have been stealing
trade secret, patented designs and other stuff over the last 70+ years.

~~~
Theodores
Germany is doing very nicely when it comes to GDP, balance of trade, making
progress on renewables and plenty of other metrics. The USA? Don't they just
print money?

The kids at school that work out their own homework go on to do well. The kids
that copy from others don't really succeed too brilliantly. Those that copy
are a step behind.

In terms of innovation, I don't see American goods as anywhere near as
polished as their German counterparts. I would take the lowest spec. German
car over any American car in current production without hesitation. The same
applies to white goods and even cakes!

~~~
fnordfnordfnord
>The USA? Don't they just print money?

It isn't a mere house of cards; we bully developing countries for their
resources, too.

>The kids at school that work out their own homework go on to do well.

This is true, to some extent, but it isn't a guarantee.

>The kids that copy from others don't really succeed too brilliantly. Those
that copy are a step behind.

Are you implying some kind of meritocracy exists? Because I would disagree.
Some of the kids that cheat seem to do quite well, much to our collective
detriment.

In terms of innovation, I don't see American goods as anywhere near as
polished as their German counterparts.

I agree. IMO some of that is a deliberate compromise between durability and
cost, and some of it is probably just industrialized sloth and rent seeking.
We do still have lots of innovation here, but IMO we've lost that edge, and
are doing nothing that would help us regain it, or even remain competitive.

> I would take the lowest spec. German car over any American car in current
> production without hesitation. The same applies to white goods and even
> cakes!

You might be interested to know that I have two German (and two American) cars
in my drive right now. I'm happier with the 1982 model though than I am with
the 1999; but even with their problems they are superior to their American
"equivalents". German cakes? You've gone a step too far!

~~~
junto
> German cakes? You've gone a step too far!

To be fair, my reasons for moving to Germany were a) my wife, and b) German
cakes. My wife came first by the narrowest* of margins! ;-)

* Only kidding dear wife (should you happen to read this in the future).

------
meepmorp
At this point, Snowden's clearly a traitor.

His revelations about domestic surveillance were important and timely (if not
surprising to people who've been paying attention). But here, he's leaked data
that's unarguably within the laws under which the NSA operates - it's a
foreign telecom operator that operates abroad.

Releasing this information isn't whistle blowing, it's pursuing a political
agenda.

~~~
w1xonaut
He may be a traitor to that vile and heinous entity known as the United
States, but he's a godamned hero to the rest of the world for exposing the
crimes against humanity that the American people are allowing to occur in
their name. It is the American people who cannot be trusted, for they have
allowed their government, for decades, to get away with countless series of
crimes against humanity, and done nothing to stop its military industrial
masters from having with the world as they will.

So if you have a strictly America-first orientation towards the world, feel
free to continue the justification. But if you can see the world outside the
pretty box, Snowden is one of the most important figures in the world today.
He represents what America used to be: brave, honorable, and doing what's
right in face of the certain personal danger one faces when going up against
totalitarian systems of control which have the purpose of enslaving us all.

~~~
mercurial
Well, take a look around you if you're in Europe, Australia or New Zealand and
notice that while they're mouthing embarrassed platitudes, the heads of most,
if not all, EU countries are busy cooperating with the NSA. If you're not, I'd
be curious to know in which wonderful country you live, where something like
"the rule of law" applies to intelligence services.

That said, wrt to Snowden being a traitor... if that is your reaction to "the
previous and current administrations have created a completely out-of-control
behemoth which invades both our and our allies' privacy without any oversight,
and therefore threatens the notion of free and fair election anywhere in the
western world", maybe you should rethink your priorities.

~~~
DanBC
GCHQ operate to English law. They have specific exemptions and exclusions
under and protections under all the relevant English law.

Have a look at RIPA, one important bit of law that regulates GCHQ:
[http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2000/23/contents](http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2000/23/contents)

Here's an example of GCHQ being mentioned as exempt from a law. This is the
sexual offences act; GCHQ are allowed to "make"[1] a photograph of child
sexual abuse if it's needed for a function of GCHQ.
[http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2003/42/section/46](http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2003/42/section/46)

Peoe said when RIP was a bill that it was too strong and did not offer enough
protection.

The poor quality of oversight of GCHQ is surprising.

[1] make here is a technical term and includes "make a copy of a digital
file".

~~~
mercurial
> GCHQ operate to English law. They have specific exemptions and exclusions
> under and protections under all the relevant English law.

Well, I don't know about that. The fact that they're happily sending
everything to the NSA can hardly be compatible with EU data protection law,
and considering that their best friends, the US intelligence and law
enforcement services, were caught red-handed doing illegal wiretaps right
before the executive branch retroactively made it legal, well, it doesn't
inspire much confidence. Now, if you start looking at, say, the activities of
the British secret services during the Thatcher era, you come to realize that
there may be a slight gap between the things they admit to do, and the stuff
they actually do.

