US hacking hypocrisy

[Harleyman]

Harleyman,

 

How else do they communicate? Well, during the Anglo-Irish discussions- which eventually led to the Good Friday agreement - the Irish government found out that the British Embassy in Dublin had managed to 'crack' the Swiss made code machine they were using to monitor communications between Dublin & the Irish Embassy in London.

 

How did they find out? Turns out they were 'monitoring' the British Embassy in Dublin themselves. Everyone is at it.

 

From then on they communicated by sending written information. An Irish Embassy 'official' would drive to Heathrow & hand a sealed document to the Captain of an Aer Lingus flight to Dublin, upon arrival he would be met by an army dispatch rider. The reverse would then apply for return information.

 

Meanwhile of course the compromised Swiss code machine was used to dis-inform.

 

The way to beat new technology is to use old technology.

 

Al Qaeda cannot operate in the manner you described above. We're talking about a group that has splintered off into small independent groups since 9/11 and exist in very remote isolated areas separated by vast distances. Moreover these groups are outlawed by the governments of the countries they operate in. Code machines, embassy phone tapping and exchanges of sealed documents belong in another world.

The only means of communication therefore must be by cell phone and or computer. This means of communication has now become hazardous since phone calls and E-mails can be tracked to their location and targeted for drone attacks.

Al Qaeda will in all likelehood continue to carry out attacks in places like Nigeria, Kenya etc but their effectiveness in being able to plan, organize and carry out an attack in western countries on the scale of 9/11 has been very seriously jeopardized and that's what new technology has accomplished

[anywebsite]

So, how does tapping the phones of allied European leaders stop terrorism?

[Harleyman]

I'm not sure why you're making the distinction between them. Bombs are bombs and kill people whether they are planted by al Qaeda affiliates or local, supposedly secular, groups. I doubt various national authorities try any less to stop one rather than the other. If blanket monitoring of communications works for one it should work just as well for the other.

 

The basques have been carrying out terrorist attacks for decades. The Spanish security authorities failed on numbers of occasions to stop them. Ultimately they are responsible for their own internal security just as Homeland Security is in the US

 

---------- Post added 31-10-2013 at 18:11 ----------

 

Does it matter who carried out the attacks in Madrid or Boston, the fact terror attacks have happened in Europe and the USA since 9/11. Or are you suggesting that because Al-Qaeda might not have been involved in them that all this snooping has been a great success.

 

To say or claim that all this snooping has not been <overall> a success would be a classic case of naivety

[anywebsite]

You're getting deep into conspiracy theories if you think it was Basque separatists that did the Madrid bombings, why would they want to deny responsibility, blame Al Qaeda & plant evidence to implicate Al Qaeda?

 

And what does that have to do with the rest of the thread?

[Harleyman]

Merkel's mobile tapping was for economical/realpolitik reasons, pure and simple. There can be no other logical explanation. Same goes for any tapping of the higher echelons of Gvt of 'friendly' nations/NATO 'allies'.

 

So, nothing to do with terrorism whatsoever, but all to do with getting intel on what the German Gvt was up to, in advance of any negotiations/position-taking (e.g. about Libya, Syria, EU finances, Greece, etc.)

 

Were I German, I'd consider that an act of outright belligerence/economical spying.

 

Launch the U-Boats, bring on the Panzers. sieg heil !

 

---------- Post added 31-10-2013 at 18:22 ----------

 

You're getting deep into conspiracy theories if you think it was Basque separatists that did the Madrid bombings, why would they want to deny responsibility, blame Al Qaeda & plant evidence to implicate Al Qaeda?

 

And what does that have to do with the rest of the thread?

 

The Madrid bombings happened in 2004. That was before all this tapping into phones and communications first started in 2005 during the Bush administration. Therefore claiming that this mass surveillance which is being done now was ineffective in stopping the Madrid bombings is obviously senseless

[mjw47]

Al Qaeda cannot operate in the manner you described above. We're talking about a group that has splintered off into small independent groups since 9/11 and exist in very remote isolated areas separated by vast distances. Moreover these groups are outlawed by the governments of the countries they operate in. Code machines, embassy phone tapping and exchanges of sealed documents belong in another world.

The only means of communication therefore must be by cell phone and or computer. This means of communication has now become hazardous since phone calls and E-mails can be tracked to their location and targeted for drone attacks.

Al Qaeda will in all likelehood continue to carry out attacks in places like Nigeria, Kenya etc but their effectiveness in being able to plan, organize and carry out an attack in western countries on the scale of 9/11 has been very seriously jeopardized and that's what new technology has accomplished

 

Begs the question, if these people exist in very remote isolated areas why the need to bug everyone in the entire world?

 

Presumably any communication to or from these areas will be monitored & traced to specific locations & then intense surveillance applied at that point.

 

There is such a thing as information overload, whilst I appreciate there will no doubt be very sophisticated software used in this process, the amount of data involved here surely has to be counter productive were it needed for security purposes only?

 

The sheer quantity & apparent non specific nature of this surveillance would tend to suggest there is more to it than security issues alone. In my view, whilst there is undoubtedly a genuine security aspect, the US is also using it as an excuse to trawl for economic & industrial information from wherever it can obtain it, including from supposed allies.

[truman]

 

Was that carried out by a Muslim group or the Basque freedom movement?

 

I'm not sure it matters..it was an organised terror attack...something that you said hadn't happened...

[erebus]

So spying is what exactly, just looking at ordinary people's e-mails and other digital traffic? Well ordinary people's lives could be used against them in a decade or two, when their offsprings can be tainted when it comes to certain well paid jobs.

 

But in the here and now, the game is blackmail, finding out about other people's research, universities etc. knowing how people in power and those associated with it are thinking, thus counteracting possible opposition to war, military expansions, and exploitation.

 

But who benefits from information mining? The security services are just the miners, even if they are prospecting everywhere about everything. Would governments benefit? Who do you think are the Beneficiaries from such information?

 

What organisations, individuals, institutions would such information benefit, in financial terms, as its not just doing it because it can be done. It's sophisticated as an unnamed party destroyed the centrifuges in Iran, so there is nowhere that cannot be influenced, phones switched off can be made to not just transmit stored information but listen in to what is happening, if you are deemed important enough that is. So no one on this site!

 

One can influence world prices in commodities if one knows what others will do, or shut down systems thus plunging parts of the world into temporary stasis.

 

So who do you think benefits from the informations, and who might be behind needing such informations.

 

One must not forget the biggest joke going on in the courts regarding hacking, which compared to what the state and other states are involved with, makes the whole legal procedure nothing more than hypocrisy on a grand scale, we are all paying for the farce, through our taxes.

[Harleyman]

So spying is what exactly, just looking at ordinary people's e-mails and other digital traffic? Well ordinary people's lives could be used against them in a decade or two, when their offsprings can be tainted when it comes to certain well paid jobs.

 

But in the here and now, the game is blackmail, finding out about other people's research, universities etc. knowing how people in power and those associated with it are thinking, thus counteracting possible opposition to war, military expansions, and exploitation.

 

But who benefits from information mining? The security services are just the miners, even if they are prospecting everywhere about everything. Would governments benefit? Who do you think are the Beneficiaries from such information?

 

What organisations, individuals, institutions would such information benefit, in financial terms, as its not just doing it because it can be done. It's sophisticated as an unnamed party destroyed the centrifuges in Iran, so there is nowhere that cannot be influenced, phones switched off can be made to not just transmit stored information but listen in to what is happening, if you are deemed important enough that is. So no one on this site!

 

One can influence world prices in commodities if one knows what others will do, or shut down systems thus plunging parts of the world into temporary stasis.

 

So who do you think benefits from the informations, and who might be behind needing such informations.

 

One must not forget the biggest joke going on in the courts regarding hacking, which compared to what the state and other states are involved with, makes the whole legal procedure nothing more than hypocrisy on a grand scale, we are all paying for the farce, through our taxes.

 

Not to worry matey. Nobody's going to attach much significance to your phone in orders for kebabs and chips to go.

 

---------- Post added 31-10-2013 at 21:21 ----------

 

Begs the question, if these people exist in very remote isolated areas why the need to bug everyone in the entire world?Presumably any communication to or from these areas will be monitored & traced to specific locations & then intense surveillance applied at that point.

 

There is such a thing as information overload, whilst I appreciate there will no doubt be very sophisticated software used in this process, the amount of data involved here surely has to be counter productive were it needed for security purposes only?

 

The sheer quantity & apparent non specific nature of this surveillance would tend to suggest there is more to it than security issues alone. In my view, whilst there is undoubtedly a genuine security aspect, the US is also using it as an excuse to trawl for economic & industrial information from wherever it can obtain it, including from supposed allies.

 

New wonders in technology. A terrorist in some god fosaken village somewhere on the ass end of the world can speak with a contact in Birmingam or Manchester or Berlin or Madrid or New York or Paris. Crystal clear reception. Wonderful things those satellites

 

---------- Post added 31-10-2013 at 21:30 ----------

 

Begs the question, if these people exist in very remote isolated areas why the need to bug everyone in the entire world?

 

Presumably any communication to or from these areas will be monitored & traced to specific locations & then intense surveillance applied at that point.

 

There is such a thing as information overload, whilst I appreciate there will no doubt be very sophisticated software used in this process, the amount of data involved here surely has to be counter productive were it needed for security purposes only?

 

The sheer quantity & apparent non specific nature of this surveillance would tend to suggest there is more to it than security issues alone. In my view, whilst there is undoubtedly a genuine security aspect, the US is also using it as an excuse to trawl for economic & industrial information from wherever it can obtain it, including from supposed allies.

 

If you ever read any history about intelligence gathering during the cold war the listening stations picked up a zillion transmissions a week and 95 percent of them were garbage but...... among that zillion transmissions sometimes they hit pay dirt. It's all about patience and tenacity and often long tedious and boring hours of sifting through it all to come across the vital transmission that matters

[mjw47]

Not to worry matey. Nobody's going to attach much significance to your phone in orders for kebabs and chips to go.

 

---------- Post added 31-10-2013 at 21:21 ----------

 

 

New wonders in technology. A terrorist in some god fosaken village somewhere on the ass end of the world can speak with a contact in Birmingam or Manchester or Berlin or Madrid or New York or Paris. Crystal clear reception. Wonderful things those satellites

 

---------- Post added 31-10-2013 at 21:30 ----------

 

 

If you ever read any history about intelligence gathering during the cold war the listening stations picked up a zillion transmissions a week and 95 percent of them were garbage but...... among that zillion transmissions sometimes they hit pay dirt. It's all about patience and tenacity and often long tedious and boring hours of sifting through it all to come across the vital transmission that matters

 

That's my point, when someone from 'the ass end of the world' (wonderfully evocative expression by the way ) contacts someone in a western first world country it stands out somewhat, wouldn't you agree?

 

At which point action needs to be taken, but using a shotgun when a snipers rifle would be more appropriate is crude & causes as many problems as it solves in my view.

 

Yes, I am reasonably familiar with the history of intelligence gathering ( William Melville? M ).

 

I doubt however, that I am as familiar with it's history as various terrorist groups. Whilst I am mildly interested, they have a life or death incentive to be aware of what methods were, & are, employed.

 

The US has every right to defend itself against ' All enemy's both foreign & domestic'.

What it doesn't have a right to do is spy on innocent private individuals & use the all embracing excuse of national security to break the law & ride roughshod over other countries sovereign rights.