Slashdot Mirror
Echelon Architect Interviewed
ploog writes "Echelon has been surrounded by controversy since rumors of it first popped up on the net. The US Government has never admitted to it, although various other governments have. Now, a lead architect for Echelon and its "big brother," Echelon II, has been discovered and interviewed. This is fascinating stuff. He is able to give some details about how Echelon works, although he doesn't come divulge everything, for obvious reasons.
Trying to deny Echelon just got that much harder. Link found via Megarad.com."
... by secrecy, I wouldn't instantly arrive at the conclusion that any of this interview (with a somewhat elusive subject) is valid. :p
Do you like German cars?
Hopefully this guy doesn't now disappear like the world's leading microbiologists. At least he is "the business" and should be better able to protect himself.
Well, I don't know what to think of this article. Actually, I do: I don't believe any of it.
:-)
l on/prechel on_en.htm
I've somewhat followed the entire echelon story, and you quickly end up with a lot of speculation, conspiracy theories etc., which is of course exactly what THEY want
Anyway, more reliable information can be found in the official reports of the european union, in their investigation of the echelon system. Look on google for Duncan Campbell and his first reports for the european parliament. Scary stuff, and definitely more trustworthy than some interview with the supposed creator of echelon, containing no evidence of anything whatsoever.
Here's a link to get you started:
http://www.europarl.eu.int/tempcom/eche
If they were calls to 911, they were recorded anyway. No reason to be paranoid.
- A.P.
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
You should all notice this doesn't tell us anything at all. Not technical specifications, no idea about facilities, and boy do i hope that the automatic translation software they have is better than the stuff on the market at the moment.
I'm starting to think the whole think is just a smoke screen for less high tecvh breaking & entering & pressuring sources for information.
Echelon is the largest contributor to the exasperation that Europe feels towards America. Essentially, Europe is happy to back the US line on everything as they, too, stand to gain from the promoting the fantasy of a free market that puts the rest of the world at a permanent disadvantage.
What stuns European leaders is the fact the US is just as enthusiastic about screwing them: using this incredibly sophisticated spy network, lavishly funded by the American people, to undermine European companies, all the while evangelistically talking up the idea of Free Markets.
And the kicker is that, in order not to rock the boat, the European leaders have to pretend they don't know that Echelon exists! So far only the Netherlands government has officially acknowledged what everyone already knows.
Here's an article describing the growing concerns of America's most important partner. The main problem is that the contradiction between the Free Market talk and actual actions such as Echelon threaten to stoke a widespread antipathy towards America.
BTW, I'm so tired of the way in which any post that in any way examines American foreign policy gets modded down. If we're discussing Echelon, of all things, we should be able to discuss it's real implications without feeling that someone is attacking the American Way of Life.
How do we know if they are abusing the power of Echelon? Easy.
One of the scary facts of Intelligence is having to intentionally not act on it.
For example, we broke the German codes during WWII. We knew way too much. But yet to act on that info (saving Allied lives in the process) would tip our hand, the Germans would change encryption, and we would lose our advantage.
So what advantage did we have? The Big Picture. Which allowed us to "randomly" take advantage of weak points, etc. Allowing us to win the overall objective: National Security (and win the war).
So how does this relate here? If the NSA et al actually used this massive field of info to help small, pathetic things (saving an individual life, helping an individual company, saying "tsk, tsk" about naughty e-mail suggestions to your secretary), that would not have survived any other way, then the NSA would be giving up their hand.
By not caring about day to day affairs of people and the world, they are free to inform heads of government about grave threats to national security and then play the chess game which follows.
If the NSA began abusing this power, eg, a lot of NSA employees making it big on the stock market, or the guvmint coming to your door asking about e-mail sent to your tailor in the middle east, etc. There would be huge public outrage.
The truth of the matter is, the intel weenies aren't hitting it big on the market. I have not been harassed for getting hand-tailored suits from the middle east (I was stationed there btw). And the average joe isn't getting harassed by NSA for copyright infringment, etc...
Just my 1/50th of a dollar.
The USA Patriot Act is another matter entirely.
Abort, Retry, Fail?
From ./'s blurb:
From the article:
Aren't most architects involved before something is built? Is it really that hard to get this kind of thing right?
Cheers
-b
It would seem obvious to me, but I haven't seen anyone point out that this was useless against al Qaeda. Supposedly, bin Laden and them all communicate personally through close family ties, not with the use of pgp or e-mail. So not only is this a waste of money, a violation of our civil rights, and a great wedge between the US and Europe, but it, ah, well, that's about it, actually. Hope this isn't redundant.
Dan
You all are breaking the TOS by linking to a page other than the index. Now that I think about it, so am I.
http://www.ijet.com/about/terms.html
"General. You may create a bookmark in your browser to the home page of the Site. Otherwise, you may not create a link to the Site without our prior written approval. All rights not expressly granted in this Agreement are reserved to iJET No other rights or licenses, whether express, implied, arising by estoppel, or otherwise are conveyed or intended by this Agreement."
And how do you define "the right" people?
Did you see in the news the 100th innocent death row inmate getting released? How many have been put to death by the state for being "the right people"?
Abolish the death penalty. Right now.
The state shall have no power of individual's life.
Clearly I can't answer your question as I don't have access to what was in Echelon prior to Sept. 11th... While the data is in the system, it still takes people (translators, specialists, etc) to put the pieces together... maybe no one was looking - maybe people were blinded (on purpose) from looking into it... who knows...
.. most from the NSA's own tools - but some from external goverments and sources... the NSA lacks translators to make sense of non-english intercepts - this flaw has been taking advantage repeatedly over the last couple decades.
This book clearly points out that the CIA and NSA don't share info together... and the NSA primary function is to spy on other governments not the US. Basically the book says that have been trapping US information in various ways but they aren't doing anything with it right now... it's there if they need it - but they don't spend the time looking into like they do on foreign governments. So a lot of intel on what was going while the terrorist where in the states was probably overlooked - the flaw is in how the information is handled and not how it is gathered. The NSA intercepts more than it can handle... I believe something like 20% is actually looked at a second time and so forth.
Also the NSA - while in transition to a more global format - is heavily broken into regions... so it takes someone in the western european region to report that terrorist are doing such and such.. and someone would have to compare that to what was going on the middle east. According to the book... and any research you do into the subject - a shitload of stuff goes into this databank
"he was on a congressional committee charged with investigating Echelon which repeatedly questioned the military" Very vague.. the U.S. military is very compartmentalized, and information between classified projects isn't supposed to be passed around. Who did they question, and why were those Military Officers thought to have knowledge of Echelon. (I could go up to a boot camp private, demand he acknoledge the existence of Echelon, and also claim proof of "stonewall"(ing) and military denial) Also, is the NSA is a part of any branch of the U.S. Military?
Let me turn that around one more time. Spying...why is it bad? I would love to have the EU spying on the US.
Spying reassures each country that the others are doing what each say they are doing. Spying evens out technological developements. Without spying your fears are fed with ignorance, and in the end your enemy may be hiding a Nuke behind his back.
Spying between nations is good. I think it sucks when it goes from national security (ie war, death, territorial gain, etc), to enomomic security. That is were the it changes from self preservation to a crime.
-- I am not a fanatic, I am a true believer.