Edward Snowden leaks reveal UK’s secret Middle-East internet surveillance base
20 replies, posted
[QUOTE]Britain runs a secret internet-monitoring station in the Middle East to intercept and process vast quantities of emails, telephone calls and web traffic on behalf of Western intelligence agencies, The Independent has learnt.
The station is able to tap into and extract data from the underwater fibre-optic cables passing through the region.
The information is then processed for intelligence and passed to GCHQ in Cheltenham and shared with the National Security Agency (NSA) in the United States. The Government claims the station is a key element in the West’s “war on terror” and provides a vital “early warning” system for potential attacks around the world.
The Independent is not revealing the precise location of the station but information on its activities was contained in the leaked documents obtained from the NSA by Edward Snowden. The Guardian newspaper’s reporting on these documents in recent months has sparked a dispute with the Government, with GCHQ security experts overseeing the destruction of hard drives containing the data.
The Middle East installation is regarded as particularly valuable by the British and Americans because it can access submarine cables passing through the region. All of the messages and data passed back and forth on the cables is copied into giant computer storage “buffers” and then sifted for data of special interest.[/QUOTE]
HAHAHA that picture cracked me up. Where is the link to the article?
[url]http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/exclusive-edward-snowden-leaks-reveal-uks-secret-middleeast-internet-surveillance-base-8781082.html[/url]
Yeah, that it's just one of those dumb stock images.
The PRISM 'leak' was hardly surprising (given the US and European government's penchant for surveillance programs that have been publicly known for years), this is even less surprising.
If you've ever lived in the region, you'd know the SEA-ME-WE cable is pretty much the backbone of the internet through most coastal countries in Asia (including Iran, Northern Africa, Israel and the Gulf states) extending from Europe all the way down to Australiasia.
There were several outages of this undersea cable dating back from 2008 and even earlier that were never fully explained to the media aside from the following excuses:
-a boat anchor somehow caught onto the cable and severed it
-sharks internal senses are affected by the electricity and they bite the cable
-weather
Lots of media knew this was some form of espionage or attempt at eavesdropping on the cable just because of how silly the situation was.
In the most extreme case, [URL="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-21963100"]the Egyptian government actually caught 3 guys cutting the cable (BBC article)[/URL]:
[QUOTE]
[IMG]http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/66650000/jpg/_66650348_66650345.jpg[/IMG]
The men were caught on a fishing boat just off the port city of Alexandria, said military spokesman Col Ahmed Mohammed Ali.
The damaged cable caused a drop in the speed of online services in Egypt and some other countries, said Egyptian news agency Mena.
It was unclear whether the incident was linked to cables damaged last Friday.
At the time, cable operator Seacom said several lines connecting Europe with Africa, the Middle East and Asia were hit, also slowing down internet services, reported Reuters news agency.[/QUOTE]
Not to mention as I said on another post here, there are very western friendly governments around the place that demanded RIM turn over encryption keys for their service to continue operating. They also monitor phone conversations, SMS, email, web access and keep very close tabs on who enters/exits the country.
Even the majority of Pakistan's internet is provided by the SEA ME WE and other similar cables.
So yeah, unless you were living under a rock for the past decade then this isn't actually news.
[QUOTE=nigerianprince;41936662]The PRISM 'leak' was hardly surprising (given the US and European government's penchant for surveillance programs that have been publicly known for years), this is even less surprising.
If you've ever lived in the region, you'd know the SEA-ME-WE cable is pretty much the backbone of the internet through most coastal countries in Asia (including Iran, Northern Africa, Israel and the Gulf states) extending from Europe all the way down to Australiasia.
There were several outages of this undersea cable dating back from 2008 and even earlier that were never fully explained to the media aside from the following excuses:
-a boat anchor somehow caught onto the cable and severed it
-sharks internal senses are affected by the electricity and they bite the cable
-weather
Lots of media knew this was some form of espionage or attempt at eavesdropping on the cable just because of how silly the situation was.
In the most extreme case, [URL="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-21963100"]the Egyptian government actually caught 3 guys cutting the cable (BBC article)[/URL]:
Not to mention as I said on another post here, there are very western friendly governments around the place that demanded RIM turn over encryption keys for their service to continue operating. They also monitor phone conversations, SMS, email, web access and keep very close tabs on who enters/exits the country.
Even the majority of Pakistan's internet is provided by the SEA ME WE and other similar cables.
So yeah, unless you were living under a rock for the past decade then this isn't actually news.[/QUOTE]
it was always one of those things that everyone suspected but nobody had any concrete evidence of. same with pretty much everything else snowden leaked, everyone knew about the wiretapping and internet surveillance and whatnot, just nobody could ever prove it.
I don't know what's more frightening; The thought that my government is loose lipped enough to have so many major leaks in such a short time, or the thought that the leaks were intentional for some yet unknown end objective. IDK about you guys but I got a bad feeling about the next couple of years.
[QUOTE=frozensoda;41937053]I don't know what's more frightening; The thought that my government is loose lipped enough to have so many major leaks in such a short time, or the thought that the leaks were intentional for some yet unknown end objective. IDK about you guys but I got a bad feeling about the next couple of years.[/QUOTE]
Or the guy objects to U.S. government's mass surveillance programme.
[QUOTE=butre;41937021]it was always one of those things that everyone suspected but nobody had any concrete evidence of. same with pretty much everything else snowden leaked, everyone knew about the wiretapping and internet surveillance and whatnot, just nobody could ever prove it.[/QUOTE]
Well most of those countries use western-made products that keep track of the internet. Most of them will keep all SMS communications for a period of 5-10 years. They are pretty much all surveillance states.
Paired with the number of foreign bases in the region, it wouldn't be hard to fathom that friendly governments were already helping out.
This isn't really surprising in the least bit anymore.
[QUOTE=Computrix;41937824]This isn't really surprising in the least bit anymore.[/QUOTE]
I still cannot fathom how people thought PRISM was surprising when the ECHELON program and similar things have been publicly known about for well over a decade--with listening stations in most western countries.
Just because it has a fancy name and a logo doesn't change the notion its been something that has been going on for decades.
I don't see how this leak does anything but hurt counter-terrorism operations.
[QUOTE=nigerianprince;41937938]I still cannot fathom how people thought PRISM was surprising when the ECHELON program and similar things have been publicly known about for well over a decade--with listening stations in most western countries.
Just because it has a fancy name and a logo doesn't change the notion its been something that has been going on for decades.[/QUOTE]
I think it was a wake-up call more than anything.
can we protest yet because i'm honestly getting sick of the USA and now my own country
[QUOTE=nigerianprince;41937938]I still cannot fathom how people thought PRISM was surprising when the ECHELON program and similar things have been publicly known about for well over a decade--with listening stations in most western countries.
Just because it has a fancy name and a logo doesn't change the notion its been something that has been going on for decades.[/QUOTE]
Not to mention that its something that [I]should[/I] be happening. Like in the sense its the entire reason why the NSA, GCHQ etc exist. What did people think they were doing all these years?
[QUOTE=Thom12255;41937983]I don't see how this leak does anything but hurt counter-terrorism operations.[/QUOTE]
"It appears that the UK government is...intentionally leaking harmful information to The Independent and attributing it to others"
[url]http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/23/uk-government-independent-military-base?CMP=twt_gu[/url]
[QUOTE=RAG Frag;41939920]"It appears that the UK government is...intentionally leaking harmful information to The Independent and attributing it to others"
[url]http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/23/uk-government-independent-military-base?CMP=twt_gu[/url][/QUOTE]
This shit is getting stranger by the day.
Comments are interesting on that article by the way, he has responded to quite a lot of questions about various things. If anyone has some spare time some of them are well worth reading.
[QUOTE=Instant Mix;41938641]can we protest yet because i'm honestly getting sick of the USA and now my own country[/QUOTE]
Our media has been surpressing this news.
[QUOTE=Jsm;41939373]Not to mention that its something that [I]should[/I] be happening. Like in the sense its the entire reason why the NSA, GCHQ etc exist. What did people think they were doing all these years?[/QUOTE]
[URL="http://www.zdnet.com/news/spy-agency-taps-into-undersea-cable/115877"]Here's an article from 2001[/URL] (this is even before 9/11):
[QUOTE] Much of the information the agency once gleaned from the airwaves now travels in the form of light beams through fiber-optic cables crisscrossing continents and ocean floors. That shift has forced the NSA to seek new ways to gather intelligence--including tapping undersea cables, a technologically daunting, physically dangerous and potentially illegal task.
In the mid-1990s, the NSA installed one such tap, say former intelligence officials familiar with the covert project. Using a special spy submarine, they say, agency personnel descended hundreds of feet into one of the oceans and sliced into a fiber-optic cable. The mixed results of the experiment--particularly the agency's inability to make sense of the vast flood of data unleashed by the tap--show that America's pre-eminent spy service has huge challenges to overcome if it hopes to keep from going deaf in the digital age.
...
Former intelligence officials say the agency made its tap with the help of a customized sub. "It's a submarine capable of bringing a length of cable inside a special chamber, where the men then do the work," while the sub hugs the ocean floor, says one former official. The surface ships used by undersea-cable companies to install and repair cables have similar chambers--called jointing rooms--where crews work on the delicate fibers. When repairing a broken cable, cable companies generally lift one end of the rupture to the surface and into the jointing room, splice in a new length of cable, then lift the other end of the rupture and repeat the process.
In 1997, the NSA and the Navy proposed equipping the USS Jimmy Carter with such a chamber, as part of a "special operations" upgrade to the $2.4 billion sub.[/QUOTE]
So yeah, they've been able to tap undersea cables for more than a decade.
newsflash edward snowden revealed that the CIA and MI5or6 spies on forigners in their own countries!
[editline]23rd August 2013[/editline]
[QUOTE=nigerianprince;41941190][URL="http://www.zdnet.com/news/spy-agency-taps-into-undersea-cable/115877"]Here's an article from 2001[/URL] (this is even before 9/11):
So yeah, they've been able to tap undersea cables for more than a decade.[/QUOTE]
apparently the u.s. navy has been doing that since the 70s
[url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Ivy_Bells[/url]
[QUOTE=nigerianprince;41941190][URL="http://www.zdnet.com/news/spy-agency-taps-into-undersea-cable/115877"]Here's an article from 2001[/URL] (this is even before 9/11):
So yeah, they've been able to tap undersea cables for more than a decade.[/QUOTE]
Shits been happening INSIDE the US for years as well.
[url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A[/url]
[QUOTE=Sableye;41941425]newsflash edward snowden revealed that the CIA and MI5or6 spies on forigners in their own countries!
[editline]23rd August 2013[/editline]
apparently the u.s. navy has been doing that since the 70s
[url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Ivy_Bells[/url][/QUOTE]
AFAIK that was for a regular undersea cable; the operation in 2001 was the first time anyone was able to intercept a fiber optic undersea cable.
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