http://www.thehindu.com/business/vodafo ... 770734.eceVodafone, Verizon accused of sharing data with British spy agency
Devesh K. Pandey
Quoting information published by various news agencies, an office memorandum of the internal security division of the Union Home Ministry last December alleged that leading telecom firms, including Vodafone and Verizon, were learnt to have shared subscriber details with Britain’s spy agency, Government Communication Headquarters (GCHQ).
While the Cabinet has cleared Vodafone’s FDI proposal to increase its stake in its Indian venture to 100 per cent in February, the Home Ministry’s note has been forwarded by the Finance Ministry to the Department of Telecom for appropriate action.
In a statement to the media, Vodafone said the Indian government raised no such concern with it and the government of India’s approval of its FDI application stated that it was cleared by the Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) and the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) after all due diligence.
The company also denied having disclosed any customer data in any jurisdiction, unless it was legally required to do so, and said it complied with the law in all countries of its operations, including the EU Privacy Directive and EU Data Retention Directive in its European businesses.
The issue was raised by the Home Ministry in respect of security clearance for Vodafone India Limited.
Based on news reports, the memorandum said that leading telecom companies were learnt to be passing on details of their customers’ phone calls, email messages and other communication and were known as ‘intercept partners’; that Vodafone and others had given the GCHQ secret, unlimited access to their network of undersea cables, which carried much of the world’s phone calls and internet traffic; that the GCHQ’s mass tapping operation had been built up over the past five years by attaching intercept probes to the transatlantic cables; and that the ‘intercept partners’ were paid for logistics and technical assistance.
Incidentally, based on the documents leaked by the U.S. whistleblower Edward Snowden, The Guardian last August carried a report that said: “Some of the world’s leading telecoms firms, including BT and Vodafone, are secretly collaborating with Britain’s spy agency GCHQ, and are passing on details of their customers’ phone calls, email messages and Facebook entries.”
The same report carried denials from Vodafone and Verizon.
Telecom operators sharing data with external agencies
Telecom operators sharing data with external agencies
Re: Telecom operators sharing data with external agencies
http://www.computerworld.in/news/india- ... se-stationIndia Investigates Alleged Huawei 'Hacking' of Mobile Base Station
By John E Dunn, 10-Feb-2014
Chinese equipment maker Huawei is reportedly being investigated by the Indian Government over alleged ‘hacking' of equipment belonging to state-run telecoms firm Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL).
Chinese equipment maker Huawei is reportedly being investigated by the Indian Government over alleged 'hacking' of equipment belonging to state-run telecoms firm Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL).
The concerns are believed to be connected to media reports of interference with a mobile base controller belonging to BSNL in the state of Andhra Pradesh by engineers working for Huawei.
"An incident about the alleged hacking of Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) network by Huawei has come to [our] notice," junior minister for communications and information technology Killi Krupa Rani was quoted as saying by Reuters in a written reply to a parliamentary question.
"The government has constituted an inter-ministerial committee to investigate the matter," she added without elaborating on details.
What 'hacking' means in this context is open to interpretation but the equipment is believed to have been installed by Huawei's Chinese rival, ZTE, in 2012. The issue could be local to a piece of equipment or of wider significance.
India has a history of suspicion over the Chinese equipment vendors building the country's communications systems, and like their US and European counterparts, the Indian intelligence services are reported to monitor Huawei's behaviour.
"Huawei India denies such alleged hacking and continues to work closely with customers and governments in India to address any network security issue that may arise in technical and business operations," a company spokesperson was quoted by Reuters as saying.
In the UK, and despite a charm offensive, suspicions about the company remain. In January it was reported that Government departments had rejected Huawei conferencing equipment over bugging fears, the latest in a long line of slights directed at a firm whose technology nevertheless makes up the backbone of UK telecoms infrastructure.
On the other hand, as Huawei might privately point out, it's not as if the same surveillance isn't a risk at the hands of the NSA; documents released as part of the Snowden cache late in 2013 reportedly claimed that the US spy agency had found and exploited backdoors in the networking equipment of a number of large and trusted vendors, including Cisco and Juniper Networks.
Re: Telecom operators sharing data with external agencies
Ib4tl Siddhu ji.
Can easily belong in the internal security thread?
Can easily belong in the internal security thread?