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Belgium Investigates Suspected Cyber Spying By Foreign State

Posted by samzenpus on from the usual-suspect dept.

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.'"

9 of 158 comments (clear)

  1. Will Europe contain the USA? by ImOuttaHere · · Score: 5, Interesting

    This is an interesting development.

    Having said that, the Germans, French, and other European states have publicly denounced NSA spying. Yet, they all quietly continue to work as normal with the US. So... what gives? Are they politically motivated to put limits on NSA spying or is it all for public show?

    1. Re:Will Europe contain the USA? by Nidi62 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      This is an interesting development.

      Having said that, the Germans, French, and other European states have publicly denounced NSA spying. Yet, they all quietly continue to work as normal with the US. So... what gives? Are they politically motivated to put limits on NSA spying or is it all for public show?

      To them, the US is essentially a necessary evil (how evil depends on your point of view, I guess). European governments depend on the US for protection both militarily (NATO) and through other methods such as the NSA/CIA. By working with the NSA, they gain access to some of the NSA's capabilities without having to make the necessary investments to their own security apparatus, which allows them to divert funds and energy to other things. Obviously the population of Eurpe is not happy with the NSA, or with the US government generally (however I feel like they at least are generally amiable towards Americans as individuals). So, essentially the European governments are getting to have their cake and eat it too. Privately they get the support necessary from the US government to continue on the way they have been, while publicly denouncing it to appeal to their domestic constituency. They probably don't like it, but more than likely they see it as the only option.

      --
      The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
    2. Re:Will Europe contain the USA? by dkleinsc · · Score: 4, Interesting

      European governments depend on the US for protection both militarily (NATO)

      Really?

      The biggest conventional military threat to EU nations would be Russia, which has about 1 million active duty military personnel. If France, Italy, Germany, and the UK combine, they have forces roughly even with Russia. If things get bad enough, the rest of the EU would certainly be interested in defending themselves, so you'd have Greece, Spain, Poland, and Romania putting in another 400,000 or so into action, plus a lot of smaller countries fielding forces of around 30-40,000 troops. Even if you look at nukes, then yes, Russia could blow up Europe, but the UK and France could also blow up Russia. And if everyone mobilizes their reserves, that doesn't change the math much.

      As far as spying goes, I'm sure that the Europeans have significant investments in it. Sure, they probably work with the US to get their hands on the latest and greatest, but there's no reason to think they're slouches in that department. And in counter-terrorism, the UK and Spain have had lots of practice at dealing with terrorists (the IRA and Basque separatists) and would be able to lead the effort if they needed to.

      So I'm not convinced that the EU depends on the US to defend itself. It cooperates with the US for the cost reasons you've mentioned, but the "we need the Americans to be able to defend ourselves" argument isn't valid.

      --
      I am officially gone from /. Long live http://www.soylentnews.com/
    3. Re:Will Europe contain the USA? by IamTheRealMike · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I'm a Brit who lives in central Europe. So, if you have a point, I'm not sure what it is.

      Europe isn't it like it was in the first part of the 20th century. There are no former, broken empires having massive war reparations extracted from them right on Britain's doorstep. There are no charismatic leaders with radically nationalistic talk. Russia isn't going to invade Europe anytime soon. Neither is China. In the event that the world undergoes radical political change, there will be plenty of warning and time to engage in an arms race.

      The country that has most extra-territorial control over Europe is the USA. Russia and China do not explicitly threaten or indeed engage in warfare of any kind against Europeans. The USA has actually passed laws that will automatically bankrupt any financial institution anywhere that does not comply with US law. If US law conflicts with local law, tough.

      If there's ANY country that Europe might need to defend itself against in the forseeable future, it's the USA. Against military attack? Probably not. Against other forms of attack? It already happens.

  2. Re:Country spies on other country by gl4ss · · Score: 4, Interesting

    well isn't breaking law abroad technically CIA's job? ..either way, the news is that some country is actually saying that "hey fuckers, it's not all right to break the law you wrote a contract not to break - also, you promised to send us people who would break these laws on our property if we asked for them so what the fuck guys??".

    I mean, why the fuck should belgium honor american intellectual property rights for example if america doesn't honor even basic property rights?(hacking is messing with property with tangible damages, at least when usa is being hacked..)

    --
    world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
  3. Re:In other news... by the+eric+conspiracy · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Since drug cartels run multiple governments in Latin America, why not?

    Israel, Russia and China certainly have a pretty high level of skill in this arena as well.

    They must be laughing up their sleeves at the NSA. They would have taken Snowden out LONG ago.

  4. Remember the Greeks by nicolaiplum · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The USA has got form here. Remember the Greek Vodafone hacks in 2004 - technically sophisticated and never traced, but available evidence pointed to the geographic region of the US Embassy in Athens. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_wiretapping_case_2004–05

    --
    "For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled"
  5. Re:Surely they mean 2001 by number11 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Obama was supposedly going to be this guy who would mend relations with foreign entities (frankly I felt embarrassed for America when he does those stupid bows to foreign leaders) and really the only thing he has done to improve America's image is just get elected in the first place due entirely to the fact that most people just assume he's going to do something good for them. Hence he gets the first "Nobel Peace Prize for Absolutely Nothing At All"(tm).

    Other than doing nothing more than simply winning the election, he's actually rather made things worse.

    Obama is what happens when you have a binary political system. The other guy wanted to steal everything that wasn't nailed down and give it to the rich. Obama said he didn't. The other guy wanted to attack and occupy as many other countries as possible, to show how tough he was. Obama said he didn't. The other guy was an idiot who couldn't talk in complete sentences. Obama was a great talker. The other guy was a rich white dude who'd always had a silver spoon in his mouth. Obama was a black guy who'd been a community organizer.

    We believed Obama was a better choice. He likely was. We thought that all things equal, it would be great to have a black guy win the post, that it would improve relations between whites and "others". It probably did, though nowhere near as much as we hoped. We wanted to believe that Obama would be a big improvement, and some people actually got sucked into believing that he would be. He wasn't. After eight years of the dumbest and worst president in American history, the guy who attacked Iraq and flew the economy into the ground, we wanted something better. We got it. But "better" is relative.

    When you have to choose between dreadful and not-quite-as-bad with a few good points, you do the best you can. The fact that the result isn't great doesn't mean that the other choice wouldn't have been worse.

  6. Re:Country spies on other country by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    While it is probably true that every nation maintains some degree of spying, nothing like this has ever happened in the history of the world. Get some degree of understanding please.
    It is true for example that the USA broke Japanese codes in 1941. That hardly compares with rifling the transactions of everyone in Japan!
    It is probably a good idea to have some spying but total information awareness isn't exactly rational. It has to demonstrate a high degree of insanty to want it at all.