Belgium Investigates Suspected Cyber Spying By Foreign State

First time accepted submitter julf writes "The Belgian newspaper De Standaard reports that in an internal investigation, Belgacom, the mostly state-owned telecoms operator in Belgium, discovered evidence that the NSA has been listening in (Dutch) on the Belgacom network since 2011. From the Reuters article: 'Belgium said on Monday it was investigating suspected foreign state espionage against its main telecoms company, which is the top carrier of voice traffic in Africa and the Middle East, and a newspaper pointed the finger at the United States. Federal prosecutors said in a statement that the former state telecoms monopoly Belgacom had filed a complaint in July about the hacking of several servers and computers. "The inquiry has shown that the hacking was only possible by an intruder with significant financial and logistic means," they said.'"

Comments

Re:Country spies on other country

[hedwards]

And Israel spies on the US more than anybody else. It's hardly a shocker that the US would be spying on Belgium, I'm sure we're spying on pretty much everybody.

Doesn't necessarily make it right, but it's unrealistic to believe that they aren't spying on us as well. It's how international relations work. Perhaps someday that will change, but until then, nobody can allow others to do that without also joining in.

Re:Surely they mean 2001

[Anonymous Coward]

You care what I think because I am saying something bad about your hero.

The fact that you even rationalize his activity because he "never promised to stop spying" is hilarious. It isn't that he never promised to stop. He actually increased the spying -this case started in 2011- that the government is doing, which he claimed was wrong before he was in office.

For people who don't speak dutch ...

[lord_rob the only on]

Try the translated page

Re:Country spies on other country

[PolygamousRanchKid]

It's hardly a shocker that the US would be spying on Belgium, I'm sure we're spying on pretty much everybody.

The EU government is located in Brussels . . . in Belgium. So if they are spying in Belgium, they are spying on all the EU countries that have offices there.

No surprise.

Netherlands??

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is this post tagged with 'netherlands'? Belgium hasn't been part of the netherlands since 1830 ... I know you lot are a bit retarded when it comes to history, but nearly 200 years is a pretty long time ..

Re:Netherlands??

[TheP4st]

A couple of reasons that many do care:

Belgium is in possession of 10-20 nuclear warhead under the NATO nuclear weapons sharing program.

NATO's Central Command is in Belgium.

The European Commssion is in Belgium.

The second largest container port in Europe is in Belgium.

Europe's second largest chemical plant is BASF in Belgium where they also have the HQ for their own banking operation which have enough financial power to influence currency exchange rates of a country by dumping for example the SEK.

Many of the worlds best beers are brewed in Belgium.

I hope for your sake that the there's truth to Thomas Gray's words "ignorance is bliss"