Quotulatiousness

April 19, 2011

WikiLeaks exposes Chinese espionage unit

Filed under: China, Military, Technology, USA — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 09:15

Strategy Page points out that it’s not just American and allied secrets that have been exposed by WikiLeaks:

Chinese Cyber War units have been plundering foreign government and military online data for over five years now. But thanks to Wikileaks, and several other sources, the identity and location of the main Chinese Cyber War operation is now known. The Chinese Chengdu Province First Technical Reconnaissance Bureau (1st TRB) is a Chinese Army electronic warfare unit located in central China (Chengdu), and is the most frequent source of hacking attacks traced back to their source. The servers used by the 1st TRB came online over five years ago, and are still used. The Chinese government flatly refuses to even discuss the growing pile of evidence regarding operations like the 1st TRB.

The 1st TRB is part of the Chinese Army’s Third Department, which is responsible for all sorts of electronic eavesdropping. But given the praise showered on the 1st TRB, a lot of valuable data has apparently been brought to Chengdu, and then distributed to the appropriate industrial, diplomatic or military operations. The hacking operation has been so successful, that it has obtained more staff and technical resources. As a result, in the last five years, detected hacking attempts on U.S. government and corporate networks has increased by more than six times. Most of these hacks appear to be coming from China. Not all the hacking is done by 1st TRB personnel. A lot of it appears to be the work of Chinese freelancers, often working for pay, but sometimes just to “serve the motherland.”

Reuters has a special report on “Byzantine Hades”:

According to U.S. investigators, China has stolen terabytes of sensitive data — from usernames and passwords for State Department computers to designs for multi-billion dollar weapons systems. And Chinese hackers show no signs of letting up. “The attacks coming out of China are not only continuing, they are accelerating,” says Alan Paller, director of research at information-security training group SANS Institute in Washington, DC.

Secret U.S. State Department cables, obtained by WikiLeaks and made available to Reuters by a third party, trace systems breaches — colorfully code-named “Byzantine Hades” by U.S. investigators — to the Chinese military. An April 2009 cable even pinpoints the attacks to a specific unit of China’s People’s Liberation Army.

Privately, U.S. officials have long suspected that the Chinese government and in particular the military was behind the cyber-attacks. What was never disclosed publicly, until now, was evidence.

U.S. efforts to halt Byzantine Hades hacks are ongoing, according to four sources familiar with investigations. In the April 2009 cable, officials in the State Department’s Cyber Threat Analysis Division noted that several Chinese-registered Web sites were “involved in Byzantine Hades intrusion activity in 2006.”

April 18, 2011

Happy thought of the day

Filed under: Law, Liberty, Media, Technology, USA — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 15:43

Darlene Storm offers this cheery little nugget of information (from a post back in December):

Dear Americans: If you are not “authorized” personnel, but you have read, written about, commented upon, tweeted, spread links by “liking” on Facebook, shared by email, or otherwise discussed “classified” information disclosed from WikiLeaks, you could be implicated for crimes under the U.S. Espionage Act — or so warns a legal expert who said the U.S. Espionage Act could make “felons of us all.”

As the U.S. Justice Department works on a legal case against WikiLeak’s Julian Assange for his role in helping publish 250,000 classified U.S. diplomatic cables, authorities are leaning toward charging Assange with spying under the Espionage Act of 1917. Legal experts warn that if there is an indictment under the Espionage Act, then any citizen who has discussed or accessed “classified” information can be arrested on “national security” grounds.

H/T to Bruce Schneier for the link.

March 24, 2011

China’s “sexy spies” score another intelligence goal

Filed under: China, Japan, Military, Technology — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 09:52

Strategy Page says that the Chinese are “probably the most enthusiastic, and successful, users of this technique these days”:

China is widely known to use sex to obtain secrets from foreigners, inside and outside of China. Four years ago, Japan uncovered a widespread Chinese effort to use sex to steal military technology. Attractive Chinese female intelligence agents in Japan were marrying members of the Japanese armed forces, and then using that access to obtain military secrets. The situation was complicated by the military attempts to keep these “embarrassing incidents” secret. The government was particularly anxious to keep the Americans in the dark about all this, since the Chinese apparently got their hands on Aegis anti-aircraft system technology via their sexy spies.

Actually, most of the Chinese agents don’t have to marry Japanese troops. Just putting out usually does the trick. In Japan, the military doesn’t get much respect, and many of the bases are in backwaters. So the troops are pretty lonely. It’s not unusual for Chinese women to be in the country, as many come, legally or illegally, looking for jobs. The set-up is perfect for using the old “honey pot” (sexual entrapment) routine to extract military secrets.

The military geeks are the most sought after, as these guys have access to the most valuable military secrets. Geeks tend to be least experienced with women, and most vulnerable to a clever, and shapely, Chinese spy. Military commanders are not sure if they have the problem under control, but now that the situation is out in the open, there will be more efforts to tighten up security. As the Japanese expected, the Americans were not amused. And the Chinese honey pot scandal was apparently one reason for refusing to sell F-22s to Japan. To make matters worse, part of the Japanese cover-up involved prosecuting the Chinese spies on immigration, not espionage, charges.

March 17, 2011

Industrial espionage, Chinese style

Filed under: China, Military, Technology, USA — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 09:38

Another good post at Strategy Page on the recent uptick in detection of Chinese industrial spies in the United States, and how this may not be a result of more successful anti-espionage efforts by the FBI or CIA — it may just be a by-product of stepped up efforts by China’s intelligence services:

For over two decades, China has been attempting to do what the Soviet Union never accomplished; steal Western technology, then use it to move ahead of the West. The Soviets lacked the many essential supporting industries found in the West (most founded and run by entrepreneurs), and was never able to get all the many pieces needed to match Western technical accomplishments. Soviet copies of American computers, for example, were crude, less reliable and less powerful. Same with their jet fighters, tanks and warships.

China gets around this by making it profitable for Western firms to set up factories in China, where Chinese managers and workers can be taught how to make things right. At the same time. China allows thousands of their best students to go to the United States to study. While most of these students will stay in America, where there are better jobs and more opportunities, some will come back to China, and bring American business and technical skills with them. Finally, China energetically uses the “thousand grains of sand” approach to espionage. This involves China trying to get all Chinese going overseas, and those of Chinese ancestry living outside the motherland, to spy for China, if only a tiny bit.

This approach to espionage is nothing new. Other nations have used similar systems for centuries. What is unusual is the scale of the Chinese effort. Backing it all up is a Chinese intelligence bureaucracy back home that is huge, with nearly 100,000 people working just to keep track of the many Chinese overseas, and what they could, or should, be to trying to grab for the motherland. It begins when Chinese intelligence officials examining who is going overseas, and for what purpose. Chinese citizens cannot leave the country, legally, without the state security organizations being notified. The intel people are not being asked to give permission. They are being alerted in case they want to have a talk with students, tourists or business people before they leave the country. Interviews are often held when these people come back as well.

Those who might be coming in contact with useful information are asked to remember what they saw, or bring back souvenirs. Over 100,000 Chinese students go off to foreign universities each year. Even more go abroad as tourists or on business. Most of these people were not asked to actually act as spies, but simply to share, with Chinese government officials (who are not always identified as intelligence personnel) whatever information was obtained. The more ambitious of these people are getting caught and prosecuted. But the majority, who are quite casual, and, individually, bring back relatively little, are almost impossible to catch.

February 27, 2011

Sunday book post

Filed under: Books, Economics, History, Media, Military, Wine — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 10:09

No, not my books: I’ve written lots, but they’re all technical manuals for software products the vast majority of you will never have heard of, and wouldn’t want to read about even if you had. I mean books I’ve read recently that I consider to be very good. I’ll categorize for convenience (both yours and mine):

Science Fiction and Fantasy

  • Darwin’s Watch: The Science of Discworld III, Terry Pratchett, Ian Stewart and Jack Cohen. An entertaining romp through (real) science placed within a fictional context. I read the first Science of Discworld book and quite enjoyed it, and this one is possibly even better. The Discworld, riding happily balanced on the backs of the four great elephants, who are in turn supported by the shell of the great turtle, has very different scientific principles than our own “exotic” roundworld. The most amusing part of the book is the wizards of the Unseen University attempting to ensure that Charles Darwin writes the “correct” book on roundworld. You’ll learn more science than you expect . . .
  • I Shall Wear Midnight, Terry Pratchett. The fourth of the Tiffany Aching sequence in the Discworld series. Although written for a younger audience, Pratchett’s sense of humour and brilliant presentation make this book eminently readable for all ages.
  • Cryoburn, Lois McMaster Bujold. The latest adventure of Miles Vorkosigan deals with the political and social implications of cryogenic preservation. No soaring battles in space, no stunner shootouts, no alien invasions. Sounds deadly dull, I realize, but I don’t think Lois could write a boring shopping list. It perhaps doesn’t stand alone quite as well as it might, but even if you haven’t read any of the other books in the series, I think you’ll find this worth reading.

History

  • The Canadian Army and the Normandy Campaign, John A. English. A book that undermines several widely held beliefs about the efficiency and capability of the Canadian First Army in 1944-45. Between incompetent, scheming generals and political interference, the Canadian Army was less than the sum of its parts, and the importance of training methods and doctrine are highlighted (that is, the faulty training methods in use probably added to the casualty lists in combat). Field Marshal Montgomery didn’t like or trust General Harry Crerar, but was forced to keep him in command due to Canadian government sensitivities. Montgomery’s view of Crerar almost certainly was reflected in the roles assigned to First Canadian Army after the Normandy landings.
  • The Grand Strategy of the Byzantine Empire, Edward N. Luttwak. A fascinating book about the differences between the Byzantine empire’s military and political goals and practices and those of the Roman empire from which it descended. Unlike Rome, the Byzantines were never the “superpower” of their part of the world, and their survival often depended on carefully constructed alliances, allies-of-convenience, and outright bribery of “enemies of their enemies”. Although not well remembered in the west, the survival of Byzantium almost certainly saved central Europe from conquest by the armies of the Caliph during the initial expansion of the Muslim empire. Byzantine armies rarely had much technological or doctrinal advantage over their opponents, so war had to be conducted with the key concept of retention of force: ambush, raid, counter-attack, feint, and misdirection became specialties because they offered (relative) effectiveness at lower risk of outright defeat.
  • In the Name of Rome: The Men Who Won the Roman Empire, Adrian Goldsworthy. A selection of mini-biographies of some of the greatest generals of the Roman empire. What is amazing, in reading about some of their careers, is how little actual military instruction Roman officers received, yet how effective the army could be in spite of that. Being an army officer was viewed as just part of the normal public service — in fact, it would have been problematic for a Roman patrician to remain with the army for an extended period of time, as it would slow down his progress through the civil government ranks.
  • The Defence of the Realm: The Authorized History of MI5, Christopher Andrew. If you wanted a thrilling account of the exciting and dangerous life of counter-espionage, you need to stick to works of fiction. The actual life of an MI5 officer is apparently much less James Bond and much more careful investigation, observation, and data correlation. Not that it isn’t an interesting career, but perhaps the “double oh” agents will get their own book (just kidding).

Economics

  • The Ascent of Money, Niall Ferguson. I enjoyed reading this one far more than I expected to: the author has a knack for carrying you through the less interesting bits without boring or lecturing you. The evolution of the modern monetary system, and the heroic roles played by unlikely characters in the process.
  • The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves, Matt Ridley. It’s easy to find depressing statistics and dreary anecdotes. Ridley’s view is that progress is a good thing, and that we’re enjoying a golden age even if we don’t realize it right now.

Biography

  • Robert A. Heinlein: In dialogue with his century Volume 1, William H. Patterson, Jr. I’ve been a huge fan of Heinlein’s works since I read Starship Troopers at about age 11. This biography more than met my expectations: I’d always regretted never having met Robert Heinlein, but between this book and Heinlein’s own autobiographical writings (Tramp Royale and Grumbles from the grave) I feel I’ve gotten as close to knowing him as possible — until the publication of Volume 2, anyway.
  • Thomas Paine’s Rights of Man, Christopher Hitchens. A lively appreciation of Thomas Paine’s most influential work, and much detail on his life. Paine was far from being the disreputable bomb-throwing anarchist his enemies painted him to be, but he also wasn’t the plaster saint his fans might imagine.

Wine

  • Billy’s Best Bottles: Wines for 2011, Billy Munnelly. Still the best annual wine guide for the everyday wine drinker in Ontario. If you like an occasional bottle of wine, but don’t want to study dozens of books in order to make a decision on what to buy, this is the book for you. He likes more “rustic” wines than I do, so I don’t find his recommendations in that category to be as useful, but he does a great job of sorting through the plethora of $10-20 wines available at the LCBO and tells you which ones are worth buying (and when to serve them).

February 18, 2011

The internet in China: hidden powers of persuasion

Filed under: China, Government, Technology — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 08:52

A look at how the internet in China has the power to (sometimes) punish corrupt officials and influence the government:

Corruption and viral marketing has provided the Chinese government with a powerful tool for controlling public opinion. It all began when Chinese companies realized that they could hurt competitors by planting damaging rumors on the Internet. This, even in China, is illegal. But the corruption in China being what it is, there was little risk of getting the police to hunt down and punish the perpetrators. This was partly because the marketing firms, hired by companies to burnish their image, or defame competitors, was careful to have other small outfits get on the Internet to actually do the work, and be careful to not be traceable. So the cops, when forced by companies to do something (often because the owner of the offended firm was well-connected politically), were stymied at first. But the police, declaring it a national security issue, eventually discovered how this was done. But this did not stop all these negative campaigns. To defend themselves, companies that were attacked by these Internet disinformation campaigns, fought back.

This use of negative tactics soon fell out of favor, as all those tarnished companies lost sales. So these Internet based opinion manipulation turned to praising your own products. About this time, the government discovered what was going on, and began to use these marketing companies, and their subcontractors, to change opinions towards government policies. There was a pressing need for this, because all this Internet opinion manipulation had started out, over the last decade, as a popular uprising against government corruption, mistreatment and media manipulation. This “online army” was not organized, except by outrage at government, or individual, wrongdoing. For example, many government officials, and their high-spirited offspring, injure or steal from ordinary citizens, and get away with it. These officials have enough political clout to make the police leave them alone. But once the online army gets onto these stories, everyone in the country knows, and is angry. There are over 400 million Internet users in China, a country of 1,400 million. When a lot of people on the Internet get angry enough, the story, and anger, explodes through the Chinese Internet community. China carefully monitors Chinese Internet use, and tries to block unwelcome information or discussions. But when the outrage on a particular item becomes too large, it’s better to just arrest and punish the guy whose misbehavior got the online army going in the first place.

Who knew that sockpuppeting would be such a valuable online tactic in China? It might not just be limited to China, however:

If the Chinese wanted to use this tool in other countries, they would require posters who are familiar with the language and culture of the target population. That’s difficult skill to acquire, especially for at least a few hundred posters required (to hit, regularly, hundreds of message boards, chat rooms and so on). Done right, you can shift opinions among millions of people in a few days. Done wrong, you fail. And if you’re operating in a foreign country, you might get found out. But the opportunity is there.

February 15, 2011

Defector’s lies may have been the key to convincing White House to invade Iraq

Filed under: Europe, Germany, Middle East, USA — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 12:05

The Guardian has a fascinating story about Rafid Ahmed Alwan al-Janabi, an Iraqi whose made-up tales of bioweapons may have tipped the scales on the decision to attack Saddam Hussein’s regime:

The defector who convinced the White House that Iraq had a secret biological weapons programme has admitted for the first time that he lied about his story, then watched in shock as it was used to justify the war.

Rafid Ahmed Alwan al-Janabi, codenamed Curveball by German and American intelligence officials who dealt with his claims, has told the Guardian that he fabricated tales of mobile bioweapons trucks and clandestine factories in an attempt to bring down the Saddam Hussein regime, from which he had fled in 1995.

“Maybe I was right, maybe I was not right,” he said. “They gave me this chance. I had the chance to fabricate something to topple the regime. I and my sons are proud of that and we are proud that we were the reason to give Iraq the margin of democracy.”

The admission comes just after the eighth anniversary of Colin Powell’s speech to the United Nations in which the then-US secretary of state relied heavily on lies that Janabi had told the German secret service, the BND. It also follows the release of former defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s memoirs, in which he admitted Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction programme.

Update: Ace points out that the Guardian is trying to push the idea that “Curveball” was a proven liar long before western intelligence agencies depended on his information:

The Guardian, in reporting this, is of course invested in proving that Curveball had “already” been “proven a liar” when Colin Powell referenced mobile WMD trucks in his United Nations speech. Their evidence? Well, Curveball claimed that the son of an Iraqi official in the Military Industries Commission was abroad for the purposes of procuring WMD. That official said that Curveball was lying. Case closed, the Guardian claims triumphantly.

What? One source says Iraq had mobile weapons lab and the man in the Military Industries Commission accused of facilitating WMD procurement says Oh no we don’t and the Guardian thinks that the case has been proven and this should have been oh so obvious to the world’s intelligence services?

While knocking Western intelligence for being credulous and not understanding that people might have motive to lie they credulously accept the word of a high military/industrial official in Saddam’s regime as the definitive statement on the matter.

Um, doesn’t he have a motive to lie, too?

If the Guardian and the left generally wants to demonstrate it’s more wordly, savvy, and wise than the dummy-dumb-dumbs in the intelligence bureaus, shouldn’t their conclusion be something far more modest like “The evidence was conflicting and scant, and should have given decision-makers pause” rather than “Oh gee, Saddam’s accused of something but one of his Top Henchmen says Nuh-uhhh so obviously the case for war was a lie”?

December 13, 2010

The impossible balance of security and utility

Filed under: Military, Technology — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 12:35

Strategy Page looks at the mechanic that PFC Bradley Manning is reported to have used to grab copies of all the information now being released by WikiLeaks:

A bit late, the U.S. military has finally forbidden the use of all removable media (thumb drives, read/write DVD and CD drives, diskettes, memory cards and portable hard drives) from SIPRNet. Thumb drives had earlier been banned. The motivation for this latest action was Wikileaks, which obtained hundreds of thousands of secret American military and diplomatic documents from a U.S. soldier (PFC Bradley Manning). As an intel specialist, Manning had a security clearance and access to SIPRNet (Secret Internet Protocol Router Network). This was a private Department of Defense network established in 1991, using Internet technology and able to handle classified (secret) documents. But Manning got access to a computer with a writable CD drive, and was able to copy all those classified documents to a CD (marked as containing Lady Gaga tracks) and walk out of his workplace with it. The big error here was having PCs available with writable media. You need some PCs with these devices, but they should be few, and carefully monitored. Normally, you would not need to copy anything off SIPRNet. Most of the time, if you want to share something, it’s with someone else on SIPRNet, so you can just email it to them, or tell them what it is so they can call it up themselves. A network like SIPRNet usually (in many corporations, and some government agencies) has software that monitors who accesses, and copies, documents, and reports any action that meets certain standards (of possibly being harmful). SIPRNet did not have these controls in place, and still does not on over a third of the PCs connected.

Just like their civilian counterparts, soldiers have been very eager to get and keep connected, both for personal and professional reasons. Data not shared can’t be useful.

For the last decade, the Pentagon has had increasing security problems with its internal Internet networks. The Department of Defense has two private Internets (using Internet technology, but not connected to the public Internet). NIPRNet is unclassified, but not accessible to the public Internet. SIPRNet is classified, and all traffic is encrypted. You can send secret stuff via SIPRNet. However, some computers connected to SIPRNet have been infected with computer viruses. The Pentagon was alarmed at first, because the computers only used SIPRNet. As a result, they did not have any anti-virus software installed. It turned out that worm type hackware was the cause of infection, and was installed when someone used a memory stick or CD, containing the worm, to work and, well, you know the rest.

[. . .]

It’s easy for troops to be doing something on SIPRNET, then switch to the Internet, and forget that they are now on an unsecure network. Warnings about that sort of thing have not cured the problem. The Internet is too useful for the troops, especially for discussing technical and tactical matters with other soldiers. The army has tried to control the problem by monitoring military accounts (those ending in .mil), but the troops quickly got hip to that, and opened another account from Yahoo or Google, for their more casual web surfing, and for discussions with other troops. The Internet has been a major benefit for combat soldiers, enabling them to share first hand information quickly, and accurately. That’s why the troops were warned that the enemy is actively searching for anything G.I.s post, and this stuff has been found at terrorist web sites, and on captured enemy laptops. In reality, information spreads among terrorists much more slowly than among American troops. But if soldiers discuss tactics and techniques in an open venue, including posting pictures and videos, the enemy will eventually find and download it. The terrorists could speed up this process if they could get the right hackware inside American military computers.

December 9, 2010

Bruce Schneier on the WikiLeaks situation

Filed under: Bureaucracy, Media, USA — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 07:48

Bruce Schneier has some useful observations about the ongoing WikiLeaks document release:

4. This has little to do with WikiLeaks. WikiLeaks is just a website. The real story is that “least trusted person” who decided to violate his security clearance and make these cables public. In the 1970s he would have mailed them to a newspaper. Today he uses WikiLeaks. Tomorrow he will have his choice of a dozen similar websites. If WikiLeaks didn’t exist, he could have put them up on BitTorrent.

5. I think the government is learning what the music and movie industries were forced to learn years ago: it’s easy to copy and distribute digital files. That’s what’s different between the 1970s and today. Amassing and releasing that many documents was hard in the paper and photocopier era; it’s trivial in the Internet era. And just as the music and movie industries are going to have to change their business models for the Internet era, governments are going to have to change their secrecy models. I don’t know what those new models will be, but they will be different.

December 6, 2010

A qualified list of terror targets in Canada

Filed under: Cancon, Economics, Military, USA — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 12:25

Norman Spector goes where US federal government employees are forbidden to go:

In February of last year, U.S. diplomatic posts were given one month by Washington to compile and forward an inventory of critical infrastructure and key resources in their respective reporting areas “whose loss could critically impact the public health, economic security, and/or national and homeland security of the United States.” The U.S. embassy in Ottawa — and the string of American consulates across Canada — were included in this “action request.”

[. . .]

Not surprisingly given that we share a continent, the U.S. compilation of critical infrastructure and key resources in foreign countries includes many sites and undertakings in Canada, from Nova Scotia to British Columbia. Dams; undersea cables; oil and gas pipelines; border crossings, including bridges; nuclear power plants; defence production factories; mines; and, last but not least, pharmaceutical and vaccine production plants.

While, there has been considerable sympathy to date for WikiLeaks and for Mr. Assange, I suspect that some of this might erode once Canadians get a look at this latest cable, which is now widely available, and which sets out the juiciest targets in Canada for those looking to do harm to the United States. Moreover, once Canadians have had a chance to examine the list of sites it includes, I doubt that many of our compatriots will conclude that its compilation by U.S. diplomats serving in this country amounts to anything remotely connected to what we understand to constitute espionage:

Canada: Hibernia Atlantic undersea cable landing Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada
James Bay Power Project, Quebec: monumental hydroelectric power development
Mica Dam, British Columbia: Failure would impact the Columbia River Basin.
Hydro Quebec, Quebec: Critical irreplaceable source of power to portions of Northeast
U. S. Robert Moses/Robert H. Saunders Power, Ontario: Part of the St. Lawrence Power Project, between Barnhart Island, New York, and Cornwall, Ontario
Seven Mile Dam, British Columbia: Concrete gravity dam between two other hydropower dams along the Pend d’Oreille River
Pickering Nuclear Power Plant, Ontario, Canada
Chalk River Nuclear Facility, Ontario: Largest supplier of medical radioisotopes in the world
Hydrofluoric Acid Production Facility, Allied Signal, Amherstburg, Ontario
Enbridge Pipeline Alliance Pipeline: Natural gas transmission from Canada
Maritime and Northeast Pipeline: Natural gas transmission from Canada
Transcanada Gas: Natural gas transmission from Canada
Alexandria Bay POE, Ontario: Northern border crossing
Ambassador Bridge POE, Ontario: Northern border crossing
Blaine POE, British Columbia: Northern border crossing
Blaine Washington Rail Crossing, British Columbia
Blue Water Bridge POE, Ontario: Northern border crossing
Champlain POE, Quebec: Northern border crossing
CPR Tunnel Rail Crossing, Ontario (Michigan Central Rail Crossing)
International Bridge Rail Crossing, Ontario International Railway Bridge Rail Crossing
Lewiston-Queenstown POE, Ontario: Northern border crossing
Peace Bridge POE, Ontario: Northern border crossing
Pembina POE, Manitoba: Northern border crossing
North Portal Rail Crossing, Saskatchewan
St. Claire Tunnel Rail Crossing, Ontario
Waneta Dam, British Columbia: Earthfill/concrete hydropower dam
Darlington Nuclear Power Plant, Ontario, Canada.
E-ONE Moli Energy, Maple Ridge, Canada: Critical to production of various military application electronics
General Dynamics Land Systems – Canada, London Ontario, Canada: Critical to the production of the Stryker/USMC LAV Vehicle Integration
Raytheon Systems Canada Ltd. ELCAN Optical Technologies Division, Midland, Ontario, Canada: Critical to the production of the AGM-130 Missile
Thales Optronique Canada, Inc., Montreal, Quebec: Critical optical systems for ground combat vehicles
Germanium Mine Graphite Mine Iron Ore Mine Nickel Mine Niobec Mine, Quebec, Canada
Niobium Cangene, Winnipeg, Manitoba: Plasma
Sanofi Pasteur Ltd., Toronto, Canada: Polio virus vaccine
GlaxoSmithKile Biologicals, North America, Quebec, Canada: Pre-pandemic influenza vaccines.

As Colby Cosh notes on Twitter, “That scary list of Cdn targets in the Wikileaks cable on security installations? You could have written it after a morning in the library.”

November 15, 2010

Russian “sleeper” agents apparently betrayed by “middle management”

Filed under: Military, Politics, Russia, USA — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 00:03

If you remember the foofaraw about the ten Russian sleeper agents who were in the news earlier this year, Strategy Page says they were actually unmasked long before it became public knowledge:

According to Russian officials, the ten Russian spies arrested in the United States last June were betrayed by a Russian espionage official (identified only as “colonel Shcherbakov”) in the SVR (Russian CIA). The U.S. claimed they had been watching the ten sleepers for several years, which may indicate that Shcherbakov has revealed a lot more if he was on the American payroll all that time. Shcherbakov was in charge of the SVR sleeper cell operation. The Russians use military ranks in the police and intelligence services, and colonels are middle-management. There is political pressure to on the head of SVR to resign, indicating that the damage was greater than anyone wants to admit.

Last July, after Shcherbakov was safely in the U.S., American and Russian officials conducted a spy swap in Vienna, Austria. This was the largest such swap since the Cold War. Russia pardoned and freed four Russians, including two former intel officers who had revealed the identities of numerous Russian agents in the West. These two are believed to have more information and insights of value. The U.S. released the ten Russians who had, for the last decade, been trying to pass themselves off as Americans, and operate as “illegals” (spies without diplomatic cover and protection). As part of the deal, the ten Russians had to admit their guilt. The FBI said that they caught on to this bunch early on, and have been watching them for years, trying to obtain more information on how Russian espionage operate in the United States. The FBI finally arrested these ten when it became apparent that the Russians had detected that they were being watched. Or because colonel Shcherbakov believed his SVR bosses were on to him, or because the colonel believed it was time to retire to that secret condo in the United States. Russian government officials are indicating that SVR assassins have been sent to kill Shcherbakov.

Some have speculated that these agents were actually just a cover for “real” sleeper agents who were doing actual espionage work — it’s as viable an explanation as the SVR deliberately placing ineffective agents.

October 26, 2010

The intelligence bonanza of the 2001 American EP-3E incident

Filed under: China, Military, USA — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 12:30

If you cast your mind back far enough, you’ll remember the political impact of the mid-air collision between a Chinese fighter and an American EP-3E electronic surveillance aircraft. It certainly had the potential to turn into a major standoff between the two powers, but apparently the real story was the intelligence breach following the emergency landing:

On April 1, 2001, an American EP-3E Aries II reconnaissance plane on an eavesdropping mission collided with a Chinese interceptor jet over the South China Sea, triggering the first international crisis of George W. Bush’s Administration. The Chinese jet crashed, and its pilot was killed, but the pilot of the American aircraft, Navy Lieutenant Shane Osborn, managed to make an emergency landing at a Chinese F-8 fighter base on Hainan Island, fifteen miles from the mainland. Osborn later published a memoir, in which he described the “incessant jackhammer vibration” as the plane fell eight thousand feet in thirty seconds, before he regained control.

The plane carried twenty-four officers and enlisted men and women attached to the Naval Security Group Command, a field component of the National Security Agency. They were repatriated after eleven days; the plane stayed behind. The Pentagon told the press that the crew had followed its protocol, which called for the use of a fire axe, and even hot coffee, to disable the plane’s equipment and software. These included an operating system created and controlled by the N.S.A., and the drivers needed to monitor encrypted Chinese radar, voice, and electronic communications. It was more than two years before the Navy acknowledged that things had not gone so well. “Compromise by the People’s Republic of China of undestroyed classified material . . . is highly probable and cannot be ruled out,” a Navy report issued in September, 2003, said.

The loss was even more devastating than the 2003 report suggested, and its dimensions have still not been fully revealed. Retired Rear Admiral Eric McVadon, who flew patrols off the coast of Russia and served as a defense attaché in Beijing, told me that the radio reports from the aircraft indicated that essential electronic gear had been dealt with. He said that the crew of the EP-3E managed to erase the hard drive — “zeroed it out” — but did not destroy the hardware, which left data retrievable: “No one took a hammer.” Worse, the electronics had recently been upgraded. “Some might think it would not turn out as badly as it did, but I sat in some meetings about the intelligence cost,” McVadon said. “It was grim.”

H/T to Bruce Schneier for the link.

August 26, 2010

WWII German spy success in Norway

Filed under: Britain, Europe, Germany, History, Military, WW2 — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 08:41

Newly released MI5 information shows that the allied defeat in Norway in 1940 may have been caused by a German espionage triumph:

[Marina] Lee is said to have infiltrated the headquarters of the British Expeditionary Forces in Norway and obtained information about the plan drawn up by British commander Gen Auchinleck.

German commander, Gen Eduard Dietl, who was holding the Norwegian port of Narvik, was reportedly considering a withdrawal, but the disclosure of these details meant his forces could block the Auchinleck plan.

British, French and Norwegian troops were later forced to withdraw from German-controlled Norway.

Born in St Petersburg, Russia, Lee was married to a Norwegian communist and had trained as a ballerina before becoming “a highly valued and experienced German agent”, according to the files.

She is described as “blonde, tall, with a beautiful figure, refined and languid in manner” and reportedly spoke five languages.

One account says she personally knew Stalin — leading to conjectures she was working for both Berlin and Moscow who, at that time, were on the same side, our reporter says.

June 30, 2010

Coming to the small screen soon: “Modern Spies”

Filed under: Military, Politics, Russia, USA — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 12:59

It’s a perfect media pitch: modern spies in America! It’s bound to be a mid-season replacement on Fox in 2011!

Charles Stross wonders why this is a surprise:

The only thing I’m startled at is that anyone would find this surprising. Pre-Glasnost, the KGB was heavily into the economic and corporate espionage business — not simply trying to suborn politicians and penetrate rival intelligence and counter-intelligence agencies, but actively trying to gain competitive advantage for the Soviet Union’s big industrial enterprises. From the early 1980s on, it was a huge priority for them — and indeed, Vladimir Putin was allegedly employed by the KGB directorate concerned with economic espionage. And human intelligence operations, even long-term infiltration ones, are comparatively cheap to engage in — given that agents need to work to maintain a cover identity, it takes relatively little money to maintain them in the field and to maintain a management structure at HQ: the cost of a single spy satellite would cover a hundred spies and their controllers for a multi-decade mission.

Looking at this, it’s hard to disagree with Jim Geraghty “I hope some creative casting director is signing Jewel Staite to play the alleged Russian spy Anne Chapman.”

April 15, 2010

QotD: Chinese espionage in Canada

Filed under: Cancon, China, Economics, Quotations — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 12:39

China’s not buying our oil; it’s buying the reliable flow of Canadian corporate profits and our stable economic outlook.

Is it a national security risk to Canada?

No, again. It is true that, according to CSIS, the Chinese government represents the largest espionage threat to Canada, stealing the equivalent of $1-billion a month from our country in industrial secrets. (That’s more than our annual exports to China.)

But that espionage is done illegally by Chinese students, expats and other sympathizers, not through the legal ownership of share certificates. No doubt our high-tech energy secrets are being stolen and will continue to be stolen, but that is not happening because of a Wall Street deal. The central strategic value of the oil sands is not at risk.

Ezra Levant, “Pipeline to Asia”, National Post, 2010-04-15

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