It gets even better: Europol flat out refused to help in the investigation [1]
> However, Europol wanted nothing to do with the investigation and refused to assist, according to two sources familiar with the interaction. Europol asserted that it would not carry out investigations into other European Union member states – in this case, the U.K. The Belgians were frustrated and believed Europol had stonewalled them for political reasons; they noted with suspicion that the organization was led by Rob Wainwright, who is British.
I mean, what are we doing here? How can Europol so blatently refuse a case? Isn't that a clear violation of the trias politica?
Europol as an organisation has no power to act on its own, it relies on the co-operation of the EU member states, and needs permission from the relevant national authorities to conduct investigations and arrest suspects. Regardless of the nationality of its leader, it can't realistically investigate British suspects if the British won't co-operate, and there's no prospect of them doing that here.
Furthermore, all large countries, like Britain, France and Germany, engage in this kind of espionage against "friendly" countries, and none of them want an agency like Europol getting involved, because then they would reduce their co-operation with it, and that would harm the fight against organised crime and terrorism.
Basically, when it comes to a supranational organisation like Europol, real separation of powers is impossible, because there's always a political calculus involved in a collaboration between sovereign countries with occasionally competing interests.
>Aside from Belgacom, the agency has broken into the computer systems of the oil production organization OPEC; the Netherlands-based security company Gemalto; and organizations that process international cellphone billing records, including Switzerland’s Comfone. //
In theory any of these countries could surely just issue an arrest warrant for the head of GCHQ and order their extradition.
In view of that it seems there's some other aspect preventing such actions -- like blackmail by GCHQ. Or controlling powers in Belgian security being in part responsible.
Anyway, I wonder how much of this shit the Belgian public will put up with post Brexit.
It still seems illegal under UK law -- these things do show how the powers that be have no respect for the authority of the rule of law, that our democracy is only allowed inasmuch as it doesn't interfere with their plans.
The Belgian public neither knowd nor cares. The press should have made a fuss but didn't. I remember a couple of very short articles about it, which kind of sort of maybe said the British might have potentially but not likely been involved.
Belgium was designed to be a toothless and spineless state by the UK, France & Germany, and it's playing its part wonderfully.
> In theory any of these countries could surely just issue an arrest warrant for the head of GCHQ and order their extradition.
The rules are different for states. Arresting a foreign security official for the actions they carried out in their official capacity is an inherently political/diplomatic decision, and not a normal criminal one.
There are some carve-outs for war crimes, but there's a reason those were so difficult to push through even for countries that haven't committed war crimes lately and aren't even liable to get into any wars any time soon - the whole concept goes against a lot of the assumptions of state sovereignty.
The powers of GCHQ are basically unconstrained by the law: "[GCHQ shall] monitor or interfere with electromagnetic, acoustic and other emissions and any equipment producing such emissions and to obtain and provide information derived from or related to such emissions or equipment and from encrypted material [...] in the interests of national security, [...] in the interests of the economic well-being of the United Kingdom [... or] in support of the prevention or detection of serious crime." per http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1994/13/crossheading/gch...
Why on earth would you do that? Yes, he's the head of the agency that breaks the law in your country, but you've got one of those too. There is 0 chance of extradition actually happening.
What is also quite interesting is that this (at least partially) came to light because of the NSA breach. Couple of months ago we had Trump blabing his mouth about the Dutch hacking the Russians. I wonder how much all this loosing of secrets affects the standing of the US in the intelligence community.
First, it strikes me as obvious that if the Brits did this then it would have had to have been with the blessing of their peers in Belgium
No senior GCHQ officer is going to sign off in a cyber hack of an ally unless they had a really good reason and had covered their own ass.
But if they’d really been freewheeling then it amazes me just how much impunity state apparatus can act with - what hope has an ordinary individual or private company got of protecting themselves and seeking redress through the courts?
"No senior GCHQ officer is going to sign off in a cyber hack of an ally unless they had a really good reason and had covered their own ass."
good reason: much more information
Covering: was very good, only because of Snowden it got linked to the UK
So even though it might be possible, that Belgium was in it on high level (you hack, but we get data conveniently without legal issues), it is also very possible, that they went for it without saying anything.
I’m starting to distrust the current security model of all major operating systems. Assuming a safe CPU - and that’s a big one already - I’d like a system where any random app does not have unfettered access to any user file, where individual files can be classified and restricted from being accessed by processes with network capabilities and so on. Android permissions are a start.
This and browsers should really just execute in their own externally managed sandbox
Want to try it now? You can try it with Steam, which is otherwise notoriously annoying to install on Linux:
flatpak install --user --from https://flathub.org/repo/appstream/com.valvesoftware.Steam.flatpakref
flatpak override com.valvesoftware.Steam --filesystem=$HOME
# run it with this command:
flatpak run com.valvesoftware.Steam
Unfortunately, if you're running X11, Steam can still spy on everything you're doing in X11. But Wayland is coming/is here, and fixes that too.
Mandatory access controls were invented to address this exact weakness. Ironically, selinux might be the most mature implementation of it in Linux, if not the rest of the Unix land.
The article doesn't seem to touch on the motivation for the attack. (Perhaps it's taken to be obvious.) Why would the British government want to do this?
«
The British spies appear to have targeted Belgacom due to its role as one of Europe’s most important telecommunications hubs. Through a subsidiary company called Belgacom International Carrier Services, it maintains data links across the continent and also processes phone calls and emails passing to and from the Middle East, North Africa, and South America. But tapping into a broad range of global communications is only one possible motive. GCHQ may also have sought access to Belgacom’s networks to snoop on NATO and key European institutions, such as the European Commission, the European Parliament, and the European Council. All of those organizations have large offices and thousands of employees in Belgium. And all were Belgacom customers at the time of the intrusion.
»
The main motivation is that Bruxelles is in Belgium. The US / UK / “Five Eyes” security apparatus takes the EU more seriously than most EU members themselves. Among other things, they really don’t want for anything like “an European integrated army” to emerge as an alternative to Nato.
And the second motivation is that they can. The pre-Snowden speculation was that all major European carriers are targets for NSA and friends, and the Snowden files basically reinforced that view. The question is not “why should they spy on their allies”, everyone has always done that; the question is the degree of success that any given player achieves and what they do with the info they gather. In this case, it looks like the operation was a great success, followed by huge failure (it was burnt to the ground).
How can you get infected by just visiting a fake website, where they on windows, are we doing such a poor job, we like to brag with nice titles, architect etc, but the industry is quite shit, if you can get infected just by visiting a site.
Every current PC system can be broken, no matter which operating system it is running. Intelligence agencies use 0-day exploits and test the software they use against known antivirus software and intrusion detection systems.
There are also plenty of companies such as Lench/Gamma who overtly advertise their ability to penetrate any system. You can only buy or lease their software as a state actor, though.
"After installing malware on the engineers’ computers by luring them to a fake version of the LinkedIn website, GCHQ was able to steal their keys to the secure parts of Belgacom’s networks and begin monitoring the data flowing across them. "
Monitor their communications so you know exactly what software they are using, then drop a 0-day on the forged site (I find it very unlikely that GCHQ don't stockpile Firefox/Chrome escapes and Windows/Linux priv. escalations etc.). There's little an individual can do against such a targeted attack without completely airgapping the machine which A) probably isn't viable for a network/software engineer and B) GCHQ are probably determined enough to gain physical access if they deem it necessary.
Hmm seems like Belgacom has had several visits from the NSA and/or GHCQ. The most likely reason for these friendly visits is that Belgacom manged(manages?) a couple of submarine cables in the middle east and north Africa. It's public knowledge that either the NSA or GCHQ had infected their core routers/switches.
When that story first came to light, what they didn't tell you is that the NSA was also in Deutsche bank and several other financial institutions. Perhaps they still are.
[+] [-] 317070|8 years ago|reply
> However, Europol wanted nothing to do with the investigation and refused to assist, according to two sources familiar with the interaction. Europol asserted that it would not carry out investigations into other European Union member states – in this case, the U.K. The Belgians were frustrated and believed Europol had stonewalled them for political reasons; they noted with suspicion that the organization was led by Rob Wainwright, who is British.
I mean, what are we doing here? How can Europol so blatently refuse a case? Isn't that a clear violation of the trias politica?
[1] https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=y&pr...
[+] [-] stupidcar|8 years ago|reply
Furthermore, all large countries, like Britain, France and Germany, engage in this kind of espionage against "friendly" countries, and none of them want an agency like Europol getting involved, because then they would reduce their co-operation with it, and that would harm the fight against organised crime and terrorism.
Basically, when it comes to a supranational organisation like Europol, real separation of powers is impossible, because there's always a political calculus involved in a collaboration between sovereign countries with occasionally competing interests.
[+] [-] pbhjpbhj|8 years ago|reply
In theory any of these countries could surely just issue an arrest warrant for the head of GCHQ and order their extradition.
In view of that it seems there's some other aspect preventing such actions -- like blackmail by GCHQ. Or controlling powers in Belgian security being in part responsible.
Anyway, I wonder how much of this shit the Belgian public will put up with post Brexit.
It still seems illegal under UK law -- these things do show how the powers that be have no respect for the authority of the rule of law, that our democracy is only allowed inasmuch as it doesn't interfere with their plans.
[+] [-] Tharkun|8 years ago|reply
Belgium was designed to be a toothless and spineless state by the UK, France & Germany, and it's playing its part wonderfully.
[+] [-] azernik|8 years ago|reply
The rules are different for states. Arresting a foreign security official for the actions they carried out in their official capacity is an inherently political/diplomatic decision, and not a normal criminal one.
There are some carve-outs for war crimes, but there's a reason those were so difficult to push through even for countries that haven't committed war crimes lately and aren't even liable to get into any wars any time soon - the whole concept goes against a lot of the assumptions of state sovereignty.
[+] [-] stordoff|8 years ago|reply
CMA doesn't apply: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1990/18/section/10
The powers of GCHQ are basically unconstrained by the law: "[GCHQ shall] monitor or interfere with electromagnetic, acoustic and other emissions and any equipment producing such emissions and to obtain and provide information derived from or related to such emissions or equipment and from encrypted material [...] in the interests of national security, [...] in the interests of the economic well-being of the United Kingdom [... or] in support of the prevention or detection of serious crime." per http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1994/13/crossheading/gch...
[+] [-] wbl|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Chriky|8 years ago|reply
Under what law?
[+] [-] jsiepkes|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jarym|8 years ago|reply
No senior GCHQ officer is going to sign off in a cyber hack of an ally unless they had a really good reason and had covered their own ass.
But if they’d really been freewheeling then it amazes me just how much impunity state apparatus can act with - what hope has an ordinary individual or private company got of protecting themselves and seeking redress through the courts?
[+] [-] hutzlibu|8 years ago|reply
good reason: much more information
Covering: was very good, only because of Snowden it got linked to the UK
So even though it might be possible, that Belgium was in it on high level (you hack, but we get data conveniently without legal issues), it is also very possible, that they went for it without saying anything.
[+] [-] eecc|8 years ago|reply
This and browsers should really just execute in their own externally managed sandbox
[+] [-] striking|8 years ago|reply
Want to try it now? You can try it with Steam, which is otherwise notoriously annoying to install on Linux:
Unfortunately, if you're running X11, Steam can still spy on everything you're doing in X11. But Wayland is coming/is here, and fixes that too.[+] [-] luch|8 years ago|reply
The only issue is that QubesOS rely on paravirtualization (it's a Xen hypervisor underneath) for process isolation.
(By the way Windows is taking the same path with ApplicationGuard)
[+] [-] ENOTTY|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|8 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] fimdomeio|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nickcox|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mjw1007|8 years ago|reply
« The British spies appear to have targeted Belgacom due to its role as one of Europe’s most important telecommunications hubs. Through a subsidiary company called Belgacom International Carrier Services, it maintains data links across the continent and also processes phone calls and emails passing to and from the Middle East, North Africa, and South America. But tapping into a broad range of global communications is only one possible motive. GCHQ may also have sought access to Belgacom’s networks to snoop on NATO and key European institutions, such as the European Commission, the European Parliament, and the European Council. All of those organizations have large offices and thousands of employees in Belgium. And all were Belgacom customers at the time of the intrusion. »
[+] [-] toyg|8 years ago|reply
And the second motivation is that they can. The pre-Snowden speculation was that all major European carriers are targets for NSA and friends, and the Snowden files basically reinforced that view. The question is not “why should they spy on their allies”, everyone has always done that; the question is the degree of success that any given player achieves and what they do with the info they gather. In this case, it looks like the operation was a great success, followed by huge failure (it was burnt to the ground).
[+] [-] jjgreen|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] stevew20|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kylell|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] JohnStrangeII|8 years ago|reply
There are also plenty of companies such as Lench/Gamma who overtly advertise their ability to penetrate any system. You can only buy or lease their software as a state actor, though.
[+] [-] petepete|8 years ago|reply
FFS.
[+] [-] stordoff|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] scdthrowrgjir|8 years ago|reply
When that story first came to light, what they didn't tell you is that the NSA was also in Deutsche bank and several other financial institutions. Perhaps they still are.