Intelligence & National Security Discussion

vishvak · Post by **vishvak** » 16 Jun 2013 20:21

There is enough data about terror in India and enough data on gogol. Still a lot of data does get ignored while propaganda took over news channels with so called colors of terror, which was no more than noise and chatter without any accurate substance. Still there was enormous amount of it. When this loud propaganda started, to me it looked like my TV had problem with its acoustic system. Fact is that no one understood what is terror nomenclature and how it is related to India. The data taken from gogol mail or social media has similar issues too, no one understood how it is related to why it is collected then and even now when these things are coming out.

About Americans collecting data, how much of it will be filtered out and how much propaganda will come out of selective inaccurate reporting is not something Indians can decide/judge. The example of sexual abuse in American military is an indicator of how domestic issues within USA can get totally chaotic with politics, religion, and what not becoming part of the system. So when the yuppies give information to Indians, what would Indians expect and how much of that will be accurate and unbiased is not for Indians to decide.

The least Indians could do is to get information from Prez of USA about what is the definition of terror and how much of it is it without religious historic/colonial bias.

Another aspect is how Indians are fifth biggest target of snooping, more than China. As propaganda in India was turned into noise and chatter to hide actual substance and accurate information, such hit jobs can happen with enormous data collected from India too. gogol/social media does not explain this.

vasu raya · Post by **vasu raya** » 16 Jun 2013 21:24

This is really old news, however what does it say about PRISM now?

Google founders' mentor found dead in swimming pool
Rajeev Motwani, Stanford professor who worked with search engine founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, dies aged 47

A US computer science professor who played a key role in the creation of the internet search giant Google has been found dead at the age of 47 after apparently falling into his swimming pool.

Rajeev Motwani was mentor to Google's founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, when they were PhD students at Stanford university. His body was found in the pool of his home in Atherton, California, on Friday.

A spokesman for the university said the cause of death was unclear. Friends said he could not swim, but was planning to learn. Some reports speculated that Motwani, who regularly worked late into the night, could have accidentally fallen into the pool after going outside in the dark.

On his blog, Brin led tributes to Motwani as the inspiration behind a number of computing advances. "Today, whenever you use a piece of technology, there is a good chance a little bit of Rajeev Motwani is behind it," he wrote.

"When Larry and I began to work together on the research that would lead to Google, Rajeev was there to support us and guide us through challenges, both technical and organisational."

A 1998 paper written by Page, Brin and Motwani, unearthed by the blog TechCrunch, discussed the development of Google. "We have developed a global ranking of web pages called PageRank based on the link structure of the web that has properties that are useful for search and navigation … We have used PageRank to develop a novel search engine called Google, which also makes heavy use of anchor text," it said.

Stanford said Motwani's work on data mining influenced the way algorithms are used in Google searches. It pointed out that he was also an influential investor who backed the initial development of what turned out to be a number of successful hi-tech companies and initiatives, including the internent payment giant PayPal.

"Rajeev's connections to Silicon Valley were all important, but he will be remembered most for the personal friendships he had with students, faculty colleagues and staff in the department. We will all miss him tremendously," Jim Plummer, the dean of the school of engineering, told the university's news service.

Motwani was born in Jammu, India, and grew up in New Delhi. He travelled to the United States for his doctorate in computer science at the University of California, Berkeley. He is survived by his wife, Asha Jadeja, and two daughters.

Gagan · Post by **Gagan** » 16 Jun 2013 22:24

RIP B Raman.
He had stopped posting on his blog. His last post was on the 14th of May. His previous post had details of his disease. The cancer was slowly but marching on within his body, invading his bladder, bones, other organs. He was passing blood in the urine.

RIP Dear Sir, you are truly a great son of India.

NRao · Post by **NRao** » 16 Jun 2013 22:51

vasu raya wrote:This is really old news, however what does it say about PRISM now?

Zilch.

Three lettered institutions (all over the world - yeah, they all do these things, even in India) have developed their own algos. Some of which predate the birth of the founders of google. Search, pattern recog, warehousing, mining, NLU and the like is not new. What was new (1995ish) was data integration.

There used to be a company called Autonomy (bought by HP) that would be a far better fit than google.

KrishnaK · Post by **KrishnaK** » 16 Jun 2013 23:36

Gagan, +1 RIP B. Raman

shyamd · Post by **shyamd** » 17 Jun 2013 01:52

Great Scoop by the Guardian: GCHQ intercepted foreign politicians' communications at G20 summits - http://t.co/aADIHw4mSm

Boreas · Post by **Boreas** » 17 Jun 2013 08:28

RIP B Raman. He always had this extraordinary analytical skill.. he can break down even the most complex of situations into simple 4-5 point list. Stood brave till the end.

Sad day for Indian clandestine community. RIP.

symontk · Post by **symontk** » 17 Jun 2013 09:22

Austin · Post by **Austin** » 17 Jun 2013 09:53

US spied on Russian President Medvedev at 2009 G20 summit – NSA leaks

According to the leaked documents viewed by the British paper, the details of the intercept of Medvedev’s communications were set out in a briefing prepared by the US National Security Agency (NSA), and shared with high-ranking officials from Britain, Australia, Canada and New Zealand. The document entitled "Russian Leadership Communications in support of President Dmitry Medvedev at the G20 summit in London – Intercept at Menwith Hill station" was drafted in August 2009, four months after the Russian president attended the London G20 summit.

The NSA paper says: "This is an analysis of signal activity in support of President Dmitry Medvedev's visit to London. The report details a change in the way Russian leadership signals have been normally transmitted. The signal activity was found to be emanating from the Russian embassy in London and the communications are believed to be in support of the Russian president."

The information obtained by the GCHQ analysts was being rapidly passed on to the British representatives in the G20 meetings, giving them a negotiating advantage. "In a live situation such as this, intelligence received may be used to influence events on the ground taking place just minutes or hours later. This means that it is not sufficient to mine call records afterwards – real-time tip-off is essential," read one of the leaked documents.

During the London summit, GCHQ used what one document described as "ground-breaking intelligence capabilities" to intercept the communications of the foreign delegations. The spy agency set up internet cafes where they used an email interception program and key-logging software to monitor delegates' use of computers. The security of delegates’ BlackBerrys had been penetrated to enable GCHQ see their messages and phone calls.

vasu raya · Post by **vasu raya** » 17 Jun 2013 10:37

NRao wrote:
vasu raya wrote:This is really old news, however what does it say about PRISM now?
Zilch.

Three lettered institutions (all over the world - yeah, they all do these things, even in India) have developed their own algos. Some of which predate the birth of the founders of google. Search, pattern recog, warehousing, mining, NLU and the like is not new. What was new (1995ish) was data integration.

There used to be a company called Autonomy (bought by HP) that would be a far better fit than google.

Two factors in favor of google,

It has a very large user base and across nations as well as integrated with other social media artifacts

Then as part of cost cutting many organizations are adopting COTS concept as seen in last decade, who is to say the NSA isn't funding Google and its alliances so they can afford to offer free services. Agreed NSA runs a larger program.

For the bolded part seems like IBM has more patents IMHO

vasu raya · Post by **vasu raya** » 17 Jun 2013 10:42

Meanwhile,

Defenders of NSA surveillance omit most of Mumbai plotter’s story

Officials say National Security Agency intercepts stopped David Coleman Headley’s planned attack in Denmark, but sources say a tip from the British led to his capture after the U.S. failed for years to connect multiple reports of terror ties

Defending a vast program to sweep up phone and Internet data under antiterror laws, senior U.S. officials in recent days have cited the case of David Coleman Headley, a key plotter in the deadly 2008 Mumbai attacks.

James Clapper, the director of national intelligence, said a data collection program by the National Security Agency helped stop an attack on a Danish newspaper for which Headley did surveillance. And Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., the Senate intelligence chairwoman, also called Headley's capture a success.

But a closer examination of the case, drawn from extensive reporting by ProPublica, shows that the government surveillance only caught up with Headley after the U.S. had been tipped by British intelligence. And even that victory came after seven years in which U.S. intelligence failed to stop Headley as he roamed the globe on missions for Islamic terror networks and Pakistan's spy agency.

Supporters of the sweeping U.S. surveillance effort say it’s needed to build a haystack of information in which to find a needle that will stop a terrorist. In Headley’s case, however, it appears the U.S. was handed the needle first — and then deployed surveillance that led to the arrest and prosecution of Headley and other plotters.

Failure to connect

As ProPublica has previously documented, Headley’s case shows an alarming litany of breakdowns in the U.S. counterterror system that allowed him to play a central role in the massacre of 166 people in Mumbai, among them six Americans.

A mysterious Pakistani-American businessman and ex-drug informant, Headley avoided arrest despite a half dozen warnings to federal agents about extremist activities from his family and associates in different locales. If those leads from human sources had been investigated more aggressively, authorities could have prevented the Mumbai attacks with little need for high-tech resources, critics say.

“The failure here is the failure to connect systems,” said a U.S. law enforcement official who worked on the case but is not cleared to discuss it publicly. “Everybody had information in their silos, and they didn’t share across the silos. Headley in my mind is not a successful interdiction of a terrorist. It’s not a great example of how the system should work.”

Officials from Clapper’s office reiterated last week that he was referring to the prevention of Headley’s follow-up role in a Mumbai-style attack against Denmark’s Jyllands-Posten newspaper, a prime target because it published cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad that many Muslims found offensive. To that extent, Clapper’s comment shed a bit of new light on this aspect of a labyrinthine case.

Separately last week, NSA Director Gen. Keith Alexander told a Senate committee that surveillance conducted by his agency helped disrupt “dozens” of attacks aimed at the U.S. and elsewhere. According to The Washington Post, Alexander cited the Headley case and promised to make more information public about the success of the NSA’s phone surveillance program, which captures “metadata” such as number, time and location of but not the content of calls.

In January, a federal judge in Chicago imposed a 35-year prison sentence on Headley, 51, for his role in Mumbai and the foiled newspaper plot. He got a reduced sentence because he testified at the federal trial in Chicago of his accomplice, Tahawurr Rana, who was sentenced to 15 years in prison.

Headley confessed to doing undercover surveillance in Mumbai for the Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorist group and Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate (ISI). U.S. officials also charged a major in the ISI with serving as Headley’s handler before the attack in November 2008. Pakistan denies involvement.

Detected by the British

In early 2009, according to trial testimony, Lashkar and the ISI sent Headley on a surveillance mission to Denmark. After he returned to Pakistan, his Lashkar and ISI handlers backed off. But Headley continued the plot with support from al-Qaida, whose leaders wanted a team of gunmen to attack the newspaper offices in Copenhagen, take hostages and throw their severed heads out of the windows.

Headley returned to Europe from Chicago for a second reconnaissance mission that July. The official version has been that he was detected at this point — but not by U.S. agencies.

Instead, U.S. and European counterterror officials have told ProPublica in interviews that British intelligence learned of Headley’s contact with al-Qaida operatives near Manchester, England, who were already under surveillance. Headley planned to meet with the extremists in hopes they would supply money, arms and personnel for the Denmark attack.

“Headley was an unknown until not long before his arrest,” a senior U.S. counterterrorism official told ProPublica in 2010.

“He came to light because of the British. They knew him only as ‘David the American.’ [The British] MI5 [security service] detected that he was in contact with a group in the U.K. that they were watching ... David had made direct contact with two of the main targets of the U.K. investigation.”

Scandinavian visits

On July 23, 2009, the FBI asked U.S. Customs and Border Protection analysts in Washington, D.C., for assistance in identifying a suspect who would travel shortly from Chicago via Frankfurt to Manchester, according to U.S. officials interviewed in 2011. The tip described a suspected American associate of Lashkar or al-Qaida with only his first name, flight itinerary and the airline, officials said. The customs analysts identified Headley through their databases containing records of his previous travel and interviews by U.S. border inspectors.

Headley went on to Sweden and Denmark. Alerted by U.S. agencies, Danish intelligence officers followed him as he scouted targets in Copenhagen and tried to find sources for guns, according to court records and interviews with counterterror officials. In the United States, court-approved FBI surveillance continued after his return in August and until his arrest that October, according to counterterror officials and court records.

Officials in Clapper’s office declined to comment on accounts of the British tip. But they said that information lawfully gathered under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act was integral to disrupting the attempted attacks on the Danish newspaper. This does not rule out other sources of information at other points in the investigation, the officials said.

Separately, the U.S. law enforcement official familiar with the case also said last week that a British communications intercept first detected Headley. Because the NSA works closely with its British counterparts, at that point U.S. intelligence agencies likely became involved in reviewing communications records to identify Headley and begin tracking his movements and associates, the official said.

“It was a communications intercept involving a bad guy in England,” the law enforcement official said. “It was the Brits who passed us the info. Without knowing all the gritty technical details, [Clapper's depiction] definitely fits with my understanding.”

The 30,000-page case file in Chicago remains wrapped in secrecy. Prosecutors have not said how investigators first detected Headley. Once he was under investigation by the Chicago field office of the FBI, agents intercepted his calls and emails and retrieved NSA intercepts of previous communications to build the case, according to court documents and ProPublica interviews. During questioning after his arrest, FBI agents confronted him with information from NSA intercepts as well as foreign intelligence agencies, the senior counterterror official said.

“What it may have allowed them to do is to go back and find emails and calls and map his movements,” said Charles Swift, a lawyer for Rana, the Chicago accomplice.

Headley began cooperating after his arrest, turning over his computer and giving the FBI access to his email accounts. Swift said he is not aware of anything in the case to suggest that the disputed NSA programs identified Headley, though he acknowledged that defense lawyers were not shown the government application for a warrant to monitor Headley under FISA.

Missed Mumbai

Swift called the case a dramatic example of the limits of the U.S. counterterror system because both high-tech and human resources failed to prevent the Mumbai attacks.

“You have to know what you are looking for and what you are looking at,” Swift said. “Headley’s the classic example. They missed Mumbai completely.”

The Headley case is also problematic because of his murky past.

The convicted drug smuggler radicalized and joined Lashkar in Pakistan in the late 1990s while spying on Pakistani heroin traffickers as a paid informant for the Drug Enforcement Administration. His associates first warned federal agencies about his Islamic extremism days after the Sept. 11 attacks. Investigators questioned him in front of his DEA handlers in New York, and he was cleared.

U.S. prosecutors then made the unusual decision to end Headley’s probation for a drug conviction three years early. He then hurried to Pakistan and began training in Lashkar terror camps. Although the DEA insists he was deactivated in early 2002, some U.S., European and Indian officials suspect that he remained an informant in some capacity and that the DEA or another agency sent him to Pakistan to spy on terrorists. Those officials believe his status as an operative or former informant may have deflected subsequent FBI inquiries.

The FBI received new tips in 2002 and in 2005 when Headley’s wife in New York had him arrested for domestic violence and told counterterror investigators about his radicalism and training in Pakistan. Inquiries were conducted, but he was not interviewed or placed on a watch list, officials have said.

Headley was recruited in 2006 by ISI officers, who with Lashkar oversaw his missions, according to Headley's trial testimony and other court records.

In late 2007 and early 2008, another wife told U.S. embassy officials in Islamabad that Headley was a terrorist and a spy, describing his frequent trips to Mumbai and his stay at the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel. In fact, Headley was conducting meticulous surveillance on the Taj and other targets for an impending attack by a seaborne squad of gunmen.

Once again, U.S. agencies say they did not question or monitor him because the information from the wife was not specific enough.

‘Double agent’

Senior Indian officials believe the U.S. government did not need high-tech resources to spot Headley. They have alleged publicly that he was a U.S. double agent all along. U.S. officials strenuously deny that. They say Headley simply slipped through the cracks of a system in which overwhelmed agencies struggle to track threats and to communicate internally and with each other.

The final tip to authorities about Headley came from a family friend days after the Mumbai attacks. This time, FBI agents in Philadelphia questioned a cousin of Headley’s. The cousin lied, saying Headley was in Pakistan when he was actually at home in Chicago, according to trial testimony and court documents. The cousin alerted Headley about the FBI inquiry, but Headley went to Denmark as planned.

U.S. agencies did not find Headley or warn foreign counterparts about him in the first half of 2009 while he conducted surveillance in Denmark and India and met and communicated with ISI officers and known Lashkar and al-Qaida leaders.

shyamd · Post by **shyamd** » 17 Jun 2013 13:08

sum wrote:^^ So ow do we communicate amongst each other , esp the sensitive orgs given that we dont use telephones( not sure how strong our encrypted systems are when Khan tries to break them) and dont use mails( since we dont have gmail equivalent)?

Depends on the govt department and sensitivity levels of the topic in discussion.

Austin · Post by **Austin** » 17 Jun 2013 23:50

Edward Snowden: Truth is coming, and it cannot be stopped

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 17 Jun 2013 23:52

India should consider overseas UK Pakis for cultivation if not already done.

shyamd · Post by **shyamd** » 18 Jun 2013 02:23

What purpose? Prevent a terror attack?

Austin · Post by **Austin** » 18 Jun 2013 22:59

Intelligence Bureau plays chinese checker, proposes to ban 'We Chat'

abhishek_sharma · Post by **abhishek_sharma** » 22 Jun 2013 07:26

Booz Allen, the World's Most Profitable Spy Organization

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 22 Jun 2013 09:49

abhishek_sharma wrote:Booz Allen, the World's Most Profitable Spy Organization

The third job is for a senior linguist fluent in Malayalam, spoken mostly in the Indian state of Kerala, where there’s a growing Maoist insurgency. That the Pentagon is looking for someone who speaks the language suggests American intelligence assets are there. The listing specifies “austere conditions.”

There is no Maoist insurgency in Kerala.

However a lot on Indian Navy facilities are there.

Vayutuvan · Post by **Vayutuvan** » 22 Jun 2013 10:10

VSRC ?

Aditya_V · Post by **Aditya_V** » 22 Jun 2013 10:28

Malyalam,

Seems to be Americans are

1) Upto something in Kerala or just facilitating the right Politicians win and wrong saffron types Politicians don't take root in the state.

2) PFI and other like minded orgs are now registering on thier radar.

3) Seems unlikely but they feel Malayalee workers could be a good plant to spy in West Asia.

krishnan · Post by **krishnan** » 22 Jun 2013 10:35

it could be non spieing type of job, i doubt anyone would openly advt for spies esp with such requirements

Kati · Post by **Kati** » 22 Jun 2013 17:41

^^^^^^

Golden says he constantly sees openings at Booz Allen and other contractors for “collection managers” in posts around the world. “A collection manager is someone at the highest level of intelligence who decides what assets get used, how they get used, what goes where,” he says. “They provide thought, direction, and management. They basically have full status, as if they were a government employee. The only thing they can’t do is spend and approve money or hire and fire government workers.”

The pay fluctuates widely, depending on the candidates’ skills and experience. “This money comes from the intelligence budget, so there isn’t much oversight,” Golden says. He estimates that the Malayalam translator job, for example, will pay between $180,000 and $225,000 a year. That’s partly to compensate for the austere conditions as well as insurgents’ tendency, unmentioned in the posting, to target translators first. The pay is also a reflection that the past 10 years have been boom times for private spies.

Two reasons:

1. Maoists are spreading in TN-Kerala border. They are secretly setting up their base in jungles. Some of their leaders from Chhatrishgarh-AP-Jharkhand are being rotated through the new areas to make them familiarized with new terrains.

2. North Kerala is now very well connected with Gulf. A lot of Jihadi activities' pulse can be felt here. A good number of israeli tourists (some say - M-agents) visit Kerala to keep a tab on these activities. You will be surprized that M is very very well networked in Bharat under the sarkar's nose (don't know how much the sarkar bahadur knows about it or not). When asked an eye bee guy, they have no clue about it.

3. By the way, unkil is hiring a lot of people with expertise on every regional bharatiya bhasas. it was a bit perplexing news....but now it makes sense.....Bharat is the fifth most targetted country by yen yes eyh.

shyamd · Post by **shyamd** » 22 Jun 2013 19:01

Kati wrote:
2. North Kerala is now very well connected with Gulf. A lot of Jihadi activities' pulse can be felt here. A good number of israeli tourists (some say - M-agents) visit Kerala to keep a tab on these activities. You will be surprized that M is very very well networked in Bharat under the sarkar's nose (don't know how much the sarkar bahadur knows about it or not). When asked an eye bee guy, they have no clue about it.

They are aware at highest levels of eyeb. They have a very interesting set up. They have turned a blind eye but the red line is obviously if they fish in places they shouldn't be.

svinayak · Post by **svinayak** » 22 Jun 2013 20:05

Kati wrote:

3. By the way, unkil is hiring a lot of people with expertise on every regional bharatiya bhasas. it was a bit perplexing news....but now it makes sense.....Bharat is the fifth most targetted country by yen yes eyh.

Bharat is becoming a the rival ground for agencies of many other nations. Kerala is for the IN info
PRC, UK, Unkil etc trying to build their sources. India due to geo graphic region is a focus and long term changes in society (revolution)
is what they are looking for

Without Indian traitors no foreign country can gain access to India

Nikhil T · Post by **Nikhil T** » 23 Jun 2013 03:41

Govt largest client for luxury cars in India: TOI Blog

An important nugget of information:

(snip)
Today, things appear to have gone totally upmarket in banana land, probably in the name of austerity. According to the off-the-record comments of somebody very close to the India head of a car company, the government car business is a shade below 20% of the total luxury car business in India, and is their single largest category. This does not include the potential from after-sales and service revenues, as well as playing around with the discounts and rebates as well as if possible over-charging over list prices.

But the real winner was, a few drinks later, when the said person let slip that almost all luxury cars sold in India were equipped with bugging and evesdropping devices. I knew they bugged cars provided to the motoring media, but now they had really moved up, it seems. The more luxurious the car, the more bells and whistles it came with, the easier it was to bug - and not get spotted.

And Indians, supposedly, tend to speak in English in the back seats of their cars. Maybe they think the drivers won't understand them. Whatever, it just made life easier for the person doing the transcripts, can you imagine if they spoke in Pali?

This obviously left me very bugged. Good tax-payer money was being spent so that everybody else in the world could listen in to our government officials

Surya · Post by **Surya** » 23 Jun 2013 18:35

aha the Snowden affair became more interesting as he leaves HK

Kati · Post by **Kati** » 23 Jun 2013 20:16

First FSB got hold of that see-eye-eyh guy who was trying to recruit ...
now Putin showing his middle-finger to Ombaba.....
Bahut mazaa aayegaa......

Rahul M · Post by **Rahul M** » 24 Jun 2013 09:59

shyamd wrote:
sum wrote:^^ So ow do we communicate amongst each other , esp the sensitive orgs given that we dont use telephones( not sure how strong our encrypted systems are when Khan tries to break them) and dont use mails( since we dont have gmail equivalent)?

as shyamd rightly said it depends on the dept and sensitivity of info. That said how difficult is it for a country like India to set up its own net w/o using the www ?

I will leave it at that.

Austin · Post by **Austin** » 25 Jun 2013 20:12

Putin: Snowden still in Moscow airport transit zone, won't be extradited

Speaking to journalists in Finland, Putin said that there is no extradition treaty between Russia and the US, which makes it impossible to extradite people like Snowden.

“We can only extradite any foreign citizens to such countries with which we have signed the appropriate international agreements on criminal extradition,” he explained.Snowden “has not committed any crime” on Russian soil, Putin added. "Snowden is a free person. The sooner he chooses his final destination, the better it is for him and Russia," Putin said.

He also expressed hope that the Snowden saga would not have any effect on business relations between Russia and the US.

Putin asked a question to the audience if "people like Assange and Snowden should be extradited to be put to prison or they shouldn't?"

"In any case, I would like not to deal with such issues because it is like shearing a pig: there's lots of squealing and little fleece," he said.

Ashok Sarraff · Post by **Ashok Sarraff** » 25 Jun 2013 20:52

Rahul M wrote: That said how difficult is it for a country like India to set up its own net w/o using the www ?
I will leave it at that.

Can't share much info, but AFAIK, almost every single piece of network hardware or software we use for mil communication (LAN or WAN) is of US or western origin. This includes switches, routers, network management systems, and even associated computers/consoles. Our mil folks rely heavily on US/Western OEMs for training, upkeep, upgrade of this infrastructure. At most, we have some Indian companies fronting these foreign manfacturers and for bribing the corrupt. Sadly, we are decades away from developing our own secure comm network technology and products. Because of our dependence on foreign tech, it should be very easy for any foreign agency to bug these systems and to disrupt them if need be. The knowledge of our military personnel in core technological domain remains superficial (they know how to use the infrastructure, but not what's inside the infrastructure), probably because its not their job. But even our PSU's are no where close to CISCOs and CAs of the world. I am saying this based on my involvement in a number of huge network projects in desh. Won't say more.

.

sum · Post by **sum** » 25 Jun 2013 21:47

"In any case, I would like not to deal with such issues because it is like shearing a pig: there's lots of squealing and little fleece," he said.

Love this guy and his choice of words!!!

Can't share much info, but AFAIK, almost every single piece of network hardware or software we use for mil communication (LAN or WAN) is of US or western origin. This includes switches, routers, network management systems, and even associated computers/consoles. Our mil folks rely heavily on US/Western OEMs for training, upkeep, upgrade of this infrastructure. At most, we have some Indian companies fronting these foreign manfacturers and for bribing the corrupt. Sadly, we are decades away from developing our own secure comm network technology and products. Because of our dependence on foreign tech, it should be very easy for any foreign agency to bug these systems and to disrupt them if need be.

Exactly what i was thinking and thats why the Q about why we are so confident that virtually everything we communicate isn't being tapped.

Rahul M · Post by **Rahul M** » 25 Jun 2013 22:03

Saraff ji, I agree with most of what you say. but as far as my understanding goes, whatever the origin of the hardware may be if the info is encrypted (with more than 1 level of security) it's not easy to crack it in any meaningful amount of time.

military and some other info gathering depts use a BEL product at field level . it is still a decently robust system AFAIK.

Ashok Sarraff · Post by **Ashok Sarraff** » 25 Jun 2013 22:07

Rahul M wrote:Saraff ji, I agree with most of what you say. but as far as my understanding goes, whatever the origin of the hardware may be if the info is encrypted (with more than 1 level of security) it's not easy to crack it in any meaningful amount of time.

military and some other info gathering depts use a BEL product at field level . it is still a decently robust system AFAIK.

Rahul M, the problem is even the encryption is done using US equipment and protocols

. BEL products also use US/Western chips/software/comm components to a large extent. It's a mystery how anything remains 'secret' in our establishment.

Added later--forget about hitech LANs/WANs, we even use Xerox/Canon for printing/photocopying maps, use Siemens EPABX for internal office communication, make external calls using Nokia switches installed in BSNL exchange buildings, and send faxes using Canon fax machines. And I am referring to high-security places frequented by top generals. It's a dire situation!

KrishnaK · Post by **KrishnaK** » 25 Jun 2013 22:24

Yes, everything is of US origin. Kinda how every chip is made in Taiwan. India (not just the government) buys tons of such equipment. No way for somebody to predict which piece of hardware is going where. It should be easy to check the traffic on a network to see if there's some that's unexpected. If such snooping is to be hidden by compromising the hardware/software used to monitor the network, somebody would've had to compromise both. Again without know which piece of hardware is going to be used in a certain network/location, it's near impossible. If we create the hardware using off the shelf COTS and use something like a customized version of linux/*bsd, compromising and then successfully concealing the compromise becomes even harder.

Compromising a windows client using phishing is probably easier and more successful.

abhishek_sharma · Post by **abhishek_sharma** » 28 Jun 2013 07:55

Wide asleep on the net: Hardeep S Puri

Austin · Post by **Austin** » 29 Jun 2013 23:35

U.S. bugged EU offices, computer networks - German magazine

BERLIN, June 29 (Reuters) - The United States bugged European Union offices and gained access to EU internal computer networks, according to secret documents cited in a German magazine on Saturday, the latest in a series of exposures of alleged U.S. spy programmes.

Der Spiegel cited from a September 2010 "top secret" document of the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) which it said fugitive former NSA contractor Edward Snowden had taken with him and which the weekly's journalists had seen in part.

The document outlines how the NSA bugged offices and spied on EU internal computer networks in Washington and at the United Nations, not only listening to conversations and phone calls but also gaining access to documents and emails.

The document explicitly called the EU a "target".

A slew of Snowden's disclosures in foreign media about U.S. surveillance programmes have ignited a political furore in the United States and abroad over the balance between privacy rights and national security.

According to Der Spiegel, the NSA also targeted telecommunications at the Justus Lipsius building in Brussels, home to the European Council that groups EU national governments, by calling a remote maintenance unit.

Without citing sources, the magazine reported that more than five years ago security officers at the EU had noticed and traced several missed calls to NSA offices within the NATO compound in Brussels.

Each EU member state has rooms in Justus Lipsius with phone and Internet connections, which ministers can use.

abhishek_sharma · Post by **abhishek_sharma** » 30 Jun 2013 20:25

The Watchers: A startup’s plan to launch a fleet of cheap, small, ultra-efficient imaging satellites and revolutionize data collection.

Austin · Post by **Austin** » 01 Jul 2013 09:14

Seems like Indian Embassy in US was wiretapped along with many others probably for Business Interest reasons.

US-Japanese relations may be affected by US spying - Kyodo

The Japanese government responded with restraint today to reports that U.S. intelligence agencies systematically wire-tapped the country's embassy in Washington.

"We want to verify this information", said Chief Cabinet Secretary Esihide Suga at a press conference in Tokyo. “We will use diplomatic channels."

On June 30 the British newspaper the Guardian, quoting former CIA officer Edward Snowden said that in the U.S. subjected 38 foreign embassies and other missions, in particular, the EU, Japan, South Korea, India and Mexico to wire-tapping and surveillance.

According to the Kyodo news agency, "This may have an impact on Japanese-US relations."

‘No stopping’ more Snowden revelations – Assange

abhishek_sharma · Post by **abhishek_sharma** » 01 Jul 2013 19:22

Part 1: How the NSA Targets Germany and Europe

Part 2: Spying on the European Union
Part 3: NSA 'Alliances With Over 80 Major Global Corporations'

Neshant · Post by **Neshant** » 02 Jul 2013 13:22

I wonder what the Indian govt will do if he shows up at the Indian embassy and asks for asylum.

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Snowden has asked for asylum in India

Snowden, who faces espionage charges in the United States and is believed to be staying in a transit area at Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport, surfaced with a letter to the Ecuadorean government and in a statement released through anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks, which has taken up his cause.

WikiLeaks also released another statement saying Snowden was asking for asylum in several countries, including Russia, China, Brazil, India and Ireland. Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa was quoted in Britain's Guardian newspaper as saying his country could not consider an asylum request unless Snowden was on Ecuadorean territory.

http://news.yahoo.com/snowden-threatens ... 54372.html