Intelligence & National Security Discussion - July 2018

[AkshaySG]

there is very little all this device security would do. They would have found a way.

Not really, It would go a long way in hindering such acts. Info Security is a layered and each layer saves you from a % of hacks and data losses.

There are broadly 3 ways spies get access to sensitive info from our folks's devices

1. Inadvertently clicking a malicious link, download button etc and having malware in the system

2.. Honeypotting Indian guys, Asking them to download Xyz app for chatting playing on their ego etc and then gaining access At that point the DRDO/IA guy may not even know he is sharing info with a foreign spy

For both 1,2 stringent device security will go a long way in eliminating data and secret loss



3. They turn these guys based on BEMI (blackmail, ego, money, ideology) at which point the internal resource themselves has turned malicious

The latter is harder to spot and stop but higher security means taking more risks and thus making it easier to spot stuff out of the ordinary.

No local copies of data, No app install permissions without admin/IT help, No access outside of Org VPN's etc is basic stuff and can be taken much further with IP address monitoring, counter intelligence stuff

[AkshaySG]

Ajit Doval's son Vivek is in the news for some court case, He is testifying that he is a UK citizen and a OCI card holder

How are we to govern ourselves if the our own best (Senior ministers, Generals, PMO officials and other key folks) continue sending their kids abroad and being foreign citizens?

Just how many bargaining chips are we giving to the West with this kind of tomfoolery.

It is one thing to go and study and get some broader worldview or experience but becoming a citizen is a whole different thing.

Fathers risking their lives and spending 40-50 years battling for this country and their kids are content with a comfortable life in upper middle class American suburbs.

[Aditya_V]

+1 IT is huge leverage which Western Governments have.

[S_Madhukar]

Plenty of armed forces kids are also in US. I think risk is eventually this will push us into their orbit for good and we might end up playing second fiddle and content being #3 or thereabouts by default. Hence the Bharatiya narrative needed at grassroots level. Having said that if I look at SE Asia then if we can match their development and infra then incentives will reduce to permanently settle in US/EU as the novelty will wear off after a generation.

[Rakesh]

How do you stop your kid from wanting better opportunities in life? US or wherever, if that is what they want to do...what practical/realistic option do you really have?

[pgbhat]

Kid's choice once they are older.Anyways a lot of Chinese Communist Party member kids immigrated to the west. Doesn't mean China is playing second fiddle to west. We have to find our own way around this.

[Rakesh]

Source of Image: The Kaoboys of R&AW.

Link to Entire Book ---> https://books.google.ca/books?id=nsBerw ... &q&f=false

https://x.com/YearOfTheKraken/status/18 ... 4613660105 ---> “The worst threat to an R&AW officer posted abroad comes from the wives of the IFS officers. Many of them take a sadistic delight in going around telling people. “This officer is not from the IFS. He is actually from the R&AW.”

[ernest]

Source of Image: The Kaoboys of R&AW.

Link to Entire Book ---> https://books.google.ca/books?id=nsBerw ... &q&f=false

https://x.com/YearOfTheKraken/status/18 ... 4613660105 ---> “The worst threat to an R&AW officer posted abroad comes from the wives of the IFS officers. Many of them take a sadistic delight in going around telling people. “This officer is not from the IFS. He is actually from the R&AW.”

I had the opportunity to work with the wives welfare association of a large security agency (not intelligence) for organizing an event. The entitlement (very colonial master like attitude) and confident stupidity that I saw, was crazy. The officers themselves were well behaved like you'd expect. I very much suspect that most of the corruption/dysfunction in these organizations is driven by the pressure from wives that are in over their head. The expectation of being treated like gora sahibs and constant comparisons are not good for morale. I do not want to generalize, but that is a significant factor in some of problems in our orgs.

[S_Madhukar]

Gora sahib mentality is one thing among IAS but what about discipline. Looks like after independence babus kept privileges and not the discipline that goras enforced.

My dad says that BEST bus services in Mumbai were run down once the goras got replaced by locals and I can see the effect more pronounced in the last 2 decades, hence there used to be a joke that while India got independence Mumbaikars missed the goras and their discipline as they saw VT station and other gora architecture and then what became of it !

[wig]

https://www.news18.com/india/pakistani- ... 69309.html

Bengaluru Shocker: Four Arrested Pakistani Nationals, Disguised As Hindus, Propagated Religion

The investigation into the arrest of the Pakistani nationals in Bengaluru has revealed shocking facts.

An official said that all four arrested persons including two women hailed from Pakistani cities of Karachi and Lahore.

“They had managed to obtain Indian passports and indulged in the activity of spreading religion. All accused had taken the identity of Hindus in Bengaluru,” he said

The arrested are identified as Rashidh Ali Siddakki aka Shankar Sharma, a resident of Karachi in Pakistan; Ayesha aka Asha Rani, a resident of Lahore in Pakistan; Hanif Mohammad aka Rambabu Sharma, a resident of Lahore; Rubina aka Rani Sharma, a resident of Lahore in Pakistan.

The police have launched a hunt for Farvez and others. The accused have been presented before the court and taken into police custody for 10 days for investigation. The sleuths of the Intelligence Bureau (IB) have visited the Jigani police station and gathered information about the accused persons.

The police have lodged a case against the accused under the provisions of IPC sections 420, 468 and 471. They are also booked under the Passports Act, 1967 Sections 12(1)(B), 12, 1A (b), 12 (2).

[Manish_P]

We never learn.. and we just don't care

Mumbai police struggle with limited fleet as coastal security funds remain unpaid

The coastal security of Mumbai and Maharashtra is facing severe challenges, as most patrolling boats remain non-operational. Maintenance work has come to a halt since March this year because the two operators responsible for servicing the boats have refused to continue due to non-payment for over 2.5 years.

Officials have stated that the Maharashtra coastal area had around 55 patrolling boats post-26/11 terror attacks, including 23 under the Mumbai Police. Maintenance of these boats was managed by two operators, who have halted services until pending payments are cleared. As a result, boats used to patrol the coastal areas from Sindhudurg to Palghar have also been affected, with most of them now non-functional.

As a result, the city police are struggling to manage a limited number of functional boats. Although the payments have been approved by the relevant departments in Mumbai, the process is reportedly stuck at the IG Motor Transport office in Pune, with files being repeatedly sent back to the IG Coastal for further clarification. Due to the lack of maintenance, all the speed boats are currently wrapped in tarpaulin and lying unused at Mazgaon's Lakdi Bunder, east of the city’s coastline.

The Maharashtra coastline spans 720 kilometres, with 114 kilometres falling under the jurisdiction of the Mumbai Police. Coastal patrolling in this area is managed by the DCP Motor Transport (2) of the city police. Sources informed Mid-day that the Mumbai Police initially acquired 46 boats—comprising 19 amphibious boats, four sea legs capable of operating both underwater and near the shore, and 23-speed boats—three years after the 26/11 terror attacks. These attacks, which claimed over 160 lives and injured more than 300 people, highlighted the need for enhanced coastal security, as the 10 Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorists had used the sea route to enter Mumbai through Budhwar Park on November 26, 2008.

Sources revealed that over time, the 19 amphibious boats and 4 sea legs became defunct due to lack of maintenance a few years ago. While the 23-speed boats remained operational, the operators eventually refused to continue maintenance due to non-payment for the last 2.5 years. As a result, only 9 boats are currently operational, while 14 lie unused at Lakdi Bunder.

[sanjayc]

Source of Image: The Kaoboys of R&AW.

Link to Entire Book ---> https://books.google.ca/books?id=nsBerw ... &q&f=false

https://x.com/YearOfTheKraken/status/18 ... 4613660105 ---> “The worst threat to an R&AW officer posted abroad comes from the wives of the IFS officers. Many of them take a sadistic delight in going around telling people. “This officer is not from the IFS. He is actually from the R&AW.”

In the US, it is a federal offence to reveal the identity of a CIA officer. India needs the same law. Amazing it has not been done yet.

Intelligence Identities Protection Act
The Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982 (Pub. L.Tooltip Public Law (United States) 97–200, 50 U.S.C. §§ 421–426) is a United States federal law that makes it a federal crime for those with access to classified information, or those who systematically seek to identify and expose covert agents and have reason to believe that it will harm the foreign intelligence activities of the U.S.,[1] to intentionally reveal the identity of an agent whom one knows to be in or recently in certain covert roles with a U.S. intelligence agency, unless the United States has publicly acknowledged or revealed the relationship.[2]

Journalists and political commentators alike could be prosecuted should they show an effort towards discovering or revealing identities of covert agents. Individuals would only be prosecuted if they engage in a pattern of activities intended to identify and expose covert agents

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellige ... 2%80%93426)%20is,U.S.%2C%20to%20intentionally%20reveal%20the

[Rakesh]

In the US, it is a federal offence to reveal the identity of a CIA officer. India needs the same law. Amazing it has not been done yet.

Rahul Gandhi will ask for caste even during arrest. If you are SC/OBC or minority, you will be pardoned. Simble onlee.

[Manish_P]

..
In the US, it is a federal offence to reveal the identity of a CIA officer. India needs the same law. Amazing it has not been done yet.
..

Also shows the elitist mindset of the IFS baboons that they allowed such stupid & reckless behavior by their wives

[drnayar]

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/ind ... 885521.cms

The controversial interview quoted Vijayan as saying that 150kg of smuggled gold and hawala money totalling Rs 123 crore meant for "anti-state" and "anti-national" activities had been confiscated over the past five years in the district, where over 68% of the population is Muslim.

[ likely tip of the iceberg ]


CM Vijayan clarified on Tuesday that he did not make any remark blaming any particular district or religious community. He said at an event that the only occasion he spoke about this was at a presser, mentioning gold seizures at Karipur airport, which is in Malappuram.
"It is a fact that 123.9kg of gold was seized in 156 instances at Karipur airport, constituting the majority of gold seized in the state. Additionally, Rs 87 crore out of the Rs 122 crore in hawala money confiscated in the state was in Malappuram," he said, flaying alleged attempts by some quarters to paint CPM as "communal".

[Rakesh]

How private intelligence companies became the new spymasters
https://engelsbergideas.com/essays/priv ... elligence/
24 Sept 2024

In a world awash with digital data, private intelligence companies now compete with state agencies, turning everyone into potential spies and transforming the age-old craft of espionage into a high-stakes technological arms race.

[drnayar]

https://on.ft.com/3Nj7Hzi

The Russians are already so nervous that complex electronics can be manipulated by opponents that they have created a special institute to test the veracity of western chips smuggled in

In 2018, Bloomberg reported that Chinese spies had added a rice-sized chip to server circuit boards used by Amazon, Apple and the Pentagon. The extra chip reportedly allowed an external act

[drnayar]

How private intelligence companies became the new spymasters
https://engelsbergideas.com/essays/priv ... elligence/
24 Sept 2024

In a world awash with digital data, private intelligence companies now compete with state agencies, turning everyone into potential spies and transforming the age-old craft of espionage into a high-stakes technological arms race.

Analysts noticed that CCTV cameras in Taiwan and South Korea were digitally talking to crucial parts of the Indian power grid – for no apparent reason. On closer investigation, the strange conversation was the deliberately indirect route by which Chinese spies were interacting with malware they had previously buried deep inside the Indian power grid.

And that was found by a private company abroad

[AdityaM]

https://x.com/ani/status/1843913652682010784?s=46

Army misled the general

Twitter extract taken from 1hr2 min from below video

[partha]

https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-ne ... 24753.html

View: Why is Canada targeting Amit Shah and Ajit Doval ?

Indian intelligence still feeds on scraps from their associates in the West rather than building capacities and capabilities in China, Pakistan, and the West.

WTF? This is shocking. Shishir Gupta is GOI's official leaker in media. So in the last 10 years, there is a dream team running the country. It can't get better than that and still this is the situation?

[sanjaykumar]

The real problem is that India is independent.

The Anglo Saxon west would dump Europe for India in a heartbeat if India threw in its lot unreservedly with the US. Imagine a Japan ten times larger in Asia. India’s ascent has only started. Why would they not want such an ally?

So it’s carrots and sticks.

[vsunder]

^^^ Hindustan Times is the outlet in India of what the Russians want Indians to hear. The "leaks" in this newspaper is thus also intelligence as to how the Russians want the Indians to think. In this game always remember there are no friends and only interests and all powers will play to make India adopt their viewpoint.
There are other newspapers in India that tout the US and China line. All these newspapers are important as they provide data for a analysis of what the powers want India to do to best serve their interest. Do not fall for Shishir Gupta, Jagadamba Dubey or Rakesh Tewari or Manikavachagam Pillai, just use your own head!!

[sanjaykumar]

I found the article unexceptional. Except I don’t think a US functionary would be so naive as to broach ‘human rights’ with the home minister. So mota bhai rattled some closets.

It will only get more public. If the Indians make similar statements on human rights about Canada’s history with the natives, you will know that the rupture/rapture is here.


Anyway do use the head. Learn from how the game is played. I do believe India has a soft spot for the Soviet Union and its successor state. But I also believe that they will benefit America much as European trained personnel did in the 1930s and 1940s. Well perhaps not quite so much. Those people made America what it is today. Technological supremacy and self confidence to match.

[sanjaykumar]

Perhaps mota bhai should be jado bhai

[vsunder]

India for many years since 1947 was only focused on its backyard, so the intelligence gathering only was limited to Pakistan, the other neighbors and China. It is only in the last 5 years that other countries have entered the ambit of India in a major way where it becomes imperative to know and gather intelligence about them. To develop assets takes a lot of time and effort. Unfortunately the low level mantris that have been in charge of defence and so on have little knowledge or inclination for the nuances of this. In a fit of stupidity they have thrown away assets developed over several years. One does not have to look far. There was an a***hole PM called Inder Gujral in India. The family still exists as wheeler dealers in Delhi, one brother was an architect. India had over the years developed assets to report on the Pakistani nuclear weapons program. In a fit of "aman ka tamasha" and bonhomie and "friendliness" Gujral revealed to the Pakistanis all the names of Indian intelligence operatives who were reporting the status of the Pakistani nuclear program. They were rounded up and executed and a veil of silence descended on that program. Such is the flippancy intelligence was treated by the highest in the land.

Indian intelligence was restricted to having a cipher clerk in Pakistan in the pay, a person who could take a photoshot of a document in a diplomatic bag in Sri Lanka etc etc It is now that a need has arisen to go beyon the small fry and it will take time. Do not forget during WW2, Japan was an "inscrutable Asian" with a complete veil. It is to the credit of the Americans that they had a marvellous codebreaking team before the war started. Sinkov, Friedman and Rochefort are the great codebreakers. They managed to break PURPLE the top Japanese diplomatic code and then the Japanese Imperial navy codes which enabled them to break the back of the Japanese at Midway and kill Admiral Isakoru Yamamoto while he was on an inspection flight to Rabaul. These are great achievements of Mathematics that ripped the fight out of Japan. At no time during the war were there human assets inside the Japanese systems. Contrast this today with the immense internet traffic, satellites and massive computers. So a lot of collation of data etc can be done by computers and AI.

Whether code breaking institutions exists in India is a guess. Whether it is at the level of Fort Meade off I 95 between Baltimore and Washington DC, who knows. Fort Meade recruits top Number Theory PhD students from US universities for its many programs.
For sure there are no courses on related Mathematics in ANY Indian syllabus or an IIT, just coolie level stuff by gas balls. Friedman also was instrumental having a Ghaddar Party guy arrested and imprisoned who was sending messages using a book code, Hermaba Lal Gupta. The book by David Kahn which I read 45 years ago and has been since updated is a thrilling account of Codebreaking

https://www.amazon.com/Codebreakers-Com ... 0684831309

One things is also certain, the Israelis also have a top program and recruit top notch products from Tel Aviv University ad the Technion Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa.

Books on the mathematical aspects of Codebreaking are beyond members of this forum, frankly you lack the prerequisites.

[sanjaykumar]

No offence taken saar. I can always get a janitor’s job at Bletchley Park.

Not kidding. Recently there has been outrage that south asians (you know who) have been cheating on their truck driving exams.

Well many years ago south Asian ( you know who) night janitors at the local driver test facilities were copying the tests and spreading them through the mohala resulting in 100% pass rates.

[vsunder]

Then of course with getting too close to people you run the issue of such problems as stated below:

https://www.cnn.com/2024/10/19/politics ... index.html

So fine for fanboyz here to post all sorts of pics of those "joint exercises", but remember they are gathering intelligence on you and also probing military officers in India if they are amenable to passing info. Lets not forget the Larkin brothers:

http://trishul-trident.blogspot.com/202 ... ation.html

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/ind ... 716099.cms

[sanjaykumar]

That sounds like the classic leaked leak.

That serves a purpose.

[drnayar]

Then of course with getting too close to people you run the issue of such problems as stated below:

https://www.cnn.com/2024/10/19/politics ... index.html

So fine for fanboyz here to post all sorts of pics of those "joint exercises", but remember they are gathering intelligence on you and also probing military officers in India if they are amenable to passing info. Lets not forget the Larkin brothers:

http://trishul-trident.blogspot.com/202 ... ation.html

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/ind ... 716099.cms

Absolutely..these can be a liability at some point. In a way it already is.

[sanjayc]

There was an a***hole PM called Inder Gujral in India. The family still exists as wheeler dealers in Delhi, one brother was an architect. India had over the years developed assets to report on the Pakistani nuclear weapons program. In a fit of "aman ka tamasha" and bonhomie and "friendliness" Gujral revealed to the Pakistanis all the names of Indian intelligence operatives who were reporting the status of the Pakistani nuclear program. They were rounded up and executed and a veil of silence descended on that program.

That was Morarji Desai

[basant]

Morarji Desai did not reveal the names. He mentioned that India knew about Kahuta and the rest was done by the Pakistanis themselves. Of course, the ex-PM did have contempt for RAW and the then chief, RN Kao, resigned.

[Manish_P]

Inder Gujral, Hamid Ansari, Kamal Nath, Morarji Desai, ... passers of info

[sanjayc]

Digvijay Singh too

[vera_k]

Since PVNR was charged and convicted after leaving office, there is not a bar or immunity conferred on Prime Ministers.

How is it that Desai and Gujral were not charged with treason after they left office?

Maybe a new law is needed to make these crimes punishable.

[Vayutuvan]

Since PVNR was charged and convicted after leaving office, there is not a bar or immunity conferred on Prime Ministers.

How is it that Desai and Gujral were not charged with treason after they left office?

Maybe a new law is needed to make these crimes punishable.

Both are dead now. So they don't matter. But we need legislation to go after Ansari and Kamal Nath. Dig Singh too.

[Vayutuvan]

.

[vera_k]

Law will be useful to change the culture where low and high level people do not take intelligence seriously.

[pgbhat]

R&AW must answer why it tolerates poor tradecraft, recruitment standards, officer oversight - Praveen Swami

Former Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) officer DSP Ajay Kumar Bassi alleged in the Supreme Court that his agency had intercepted conversations between former R&AW chief Samant Goel and banker Somesh Prasad, warning the Dubai-based fugitive not to return to India at any cost.

“Large numbers of Indian Police Service officers now serving in R&AW don’t have long experience of the covert life, or the skills it needs to operate in a hostile environment,” another senior R&AW officer said. “They’re [just] six months [of] training away from a life where they were rulers of a district, and could pretty much say what they liked, do what they liked and get away with it. The habits of a lifetime are hard to unlearn.”

Even though R&AW has significantly expanded its cadre of regional-language experts—hiring many junior personnel familiar with Mandarin and other critical languages—relatively few of its IPS leadership possess long-term experience in covert operations. “There’s no point [in] playing spy if your only experience of the world is operating under the protection of diplomatic cover,” the officer added.

Failures of tradecraft—the skill-set on which intelligence officers rely for their survival—run through the indictment filed by prosecutors in New York. Yadav and Gupta are alleged to have openly discussed the plot to murder Pannun, as well as the killing of Sikh separatist leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar, evidently convinced that their encrypted messaging application was secure. However, as even ordinary citizens familiar with the Pegasus surveillance scandal would know, no electronic communication is guaranteed to be safe from the prying eyes of the intelligence services of nation-states.

Gupta was allowed to leave India for the Czech Republic, where he was arrested, two weeks after the murder plot failed to materialise. “A professional officer should never have allowed someone like Gupta to visit an area where he could be apprehended by Western law enforcement,” one officer said.

“The real questions Indians should be asking,” the officer added, “are why such poor tradecraft is countenanced. How good are R&AW’s procedures? What are the standards of its recruitment? What is the robustness of senior officer oversight on operations?”

As ThePrint revealed on Saturday, Yadav had worked as a probationer in R&AW for nine years before finally going to court to secure a permanent appointment. Two months after the Gupta indictment became public, he was appointed a Senior Field Officer at R&AW’s sister image-intelligence gathering agency, the Aviation Research Centre.

[Manish_P]

The 'disrespectful' remarks are what forced the issue to blow up and come into the limelight leading to a spotlight being put on it.

Indian Navy, Coast Guard And Air Force Likely To Begin Process Of Termination Of Contracts With Uber: Sources

The Indian Navy, the Coast Guard and the Indian Air Force are likely to begin the process of termination of the contracts they had entered into with Uber very shortly. According to sources, "data access" was the issue, which could have security considerations. For, the data involving the family members of personnel of the three services would be available with Uber and it would be "insecure" considering the capabilities of hackers who can break into secure information

The agreement was to ensure that family members of personnel got access to comfortably priced transportation but there have been questions about data privacy.

While there may be data privacy issues involved, there is a feeling in the defence establishment that constructive criticism was the order of the day and disrespectful remarks were uncalled for though security issues needed to be looked at carefully. This was in response to posts in the social media about the linkup with Uber.

[titash]

Cross-posting from the Bangladesh thread:
=====================================



Very interesting watch - a discussion between a popular UK based Bangladeshi Islamist, and a popular Bangladesh based Bangladeshi Islamist (an academic at that)

Eye opening revelations about how Bangladeshi islamists thing about the present and future:

1) The concept of Lebensraum (living space) is well and truly alive...the academic jihadi actually craves the entirety of Assam, Burmese Arakan, West Bengal, and India's northeastern tribal belt

2) There is a strong desire to "recover" the erstwhile Bengal Sultanate territories and spread out / take over the surrounding sparsely populated territories

3) There is a strong desire to become a nuclear weapons state and become equal-equal to India

4) There is a string desire to subvert India's interests in the Bay of Bengal by inviting the Chinese to drop anchor

5) The is ZERO belief in secularism. The Two Nation Theory is a core belief, and there is a strong affinity for the Pakis, 1971 massacres be damned

6) There are deep connections to the Bangladeshi military and current regime aka Yunus-man. Abovementioned ideas are currently being put into motion as we speak (from the horse's mouth)

(and all this is coming from a University Professor by the way - so much for education. You can put all the lipstick on a pig that you want, but it's still a pig)

We should widely spread this video - the storm is coming.