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Singapore & South Korea Help NSA Tap Undersea Cables
An anonymous reader writes "Singapore and South Korea are playing key roles helping the United States and Australia tap undersea telecommunications links across Asia, according to top secret documents leaked by Edward Snowden. Indonesia and Malaysia have been key targets for Australian and Singaporean intelligence collaboration since much of Indonesia's telecommunications and Internet traffic is routed through Singapore. The NSA has a stranglehold on trans-Pacific communications channels with interception facilities on the West coast of the United States and at Hawaii and Guam, tapping all cable traffic across the Pacific Ocean as well as links between Australia and Japan. Japan had refused to take part."
So I guess everybody is helping the US out with spying and such, but what is their motivation?
1) They think it's the right thing to do?
2) There is some (in)direct monetary gain?
3) They also get spy data?
4) They think the US is awesome?
5) All of the above?
6) Other?
I feel like i just wrote a poll, but I'm geniunly interested for some insight.
Maybe "Dropping Anchor" is code for wire tapping without permission. The old "a boat dropped anchor on the cable" so the internet is a trickle in Australia for 3 days trick.
"I'm just going to go drop an anchor on this call"
"We were dropped anchor off the coast of China last week"
As more and more of the leaks have been revealed, more and more countries are being linked to the Global NSA Franchise.
Those countries don't do stuffs for nothing - and the fact that so many countries have helped doing all the dirty works for NSA means that, in return, USA did something else for them.
But what can the government of the United States do to return the favor ?
Money ?
Nope. USA is bankrupt.
Fame ?
Nope. Everybody knows how popular it would be to be included in the "Uncle Sam Lapdog" list.
Power ? Longevity ?
Nope and Nope.
But there is one thing that Uncle Sam can do for them - Uncle Sam let them to live for another day.
One thing that everybody has witnessed and knew is this --- when and if Uncle Sam wants you to die, you will.
Look at what happened to Saddam Hussein.
Look at what happened to Qaddafi.
Even when Uncle Sam does not kill you, you will still end up in a very terrible place --- go ask Manuel Noriega how he felt, after being Uncle Sam's lapdog for ages, Uncle Sam turned against him.
There are, of course, _some_ lucky souls who managed to stay alive, no matter how many times Uncle Sam wants to do them in.
Cuba's Fidel Castro, for example.
But Fidel is an exception, rather than the rule.
I will not be surprised with the threats leveled by Uncle Sam against Lee Kuan Yew of Singapore or to whoever was in charge of the South Korean government - and again, both of those countries are themselves in _ VERY PRECARIOUS _ situation.
South Korea has to face with the fruitcakes from the North.
Singapore ? It's but " A tiny red island in the vast green sea ", as had uttered by one of Indonesia's former leader.
USA does not even need to threaten them much to get them to carry out all the dirty deeds --- all USA needed to do is to tell them that, if you don't do this for me, when you're in trouble, I won't help you.
That is all to get both South Korea and Singapore to get going.
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
Anybody know what the current reputation of The Netherlands is?
Awful. The prime minister even refuses to say anything bad about the unlawful interceptions, because "it could harm our interests as well". Clearly "our interests" do not include the interests of the citizens. And our domestic affairs minister wants to give the police unwarranted tapping powers with the possibility to install spyware, only controlled by their own organisation.
Disclaimer: I live there.
Nae king! Nae laird! Nae yurrupiean pressedent! We willna be fooled again!
Given that we're asking this question on a US forum we can take it as granted that 60% of the readers couldn't find either country on a map and that 90% have zero knowledge of their political and historical position. So about 90% will be ill-equipped to understand where Singapore's and South-Korea's self-interests might lie. But now that the question is asked, we can remedy that.
South Korea, needs the US to help defend themselves against neighbours who would be prepared to wage a full-scale war against them (North Korea). The US are pretty much the only ally of note and value they have, and they know it.
Singapore is surrounded by neighbours that completely dwarf them (Malaysia, Indonesia) only 50 years ago encompassed them (Malaysia), have an Islamic majority (Malaysia) or a virulent Islamic minority (Indonesia) and are debating whether to become a fully Islamic state (Malaysia).
Both countries have brought about an economic boom and depend on security (i.e. the absence of shooting wars), good trade relations with the West, open sea lanes and suchlike.
In both cases a critical part of their national security is having accurate information on what their neighbours are really up to. And in both cases the only serious partner is the US. As a stabilizing factor, a main ally, or a party with whom to trade information that they themselves cannot collect (like e.g. satellite coverage, ocean reconnaissance, comprehensive traffic monitoring etc. etc.).
For countries like that, helping the US eavesdrop on message traffic makes an uncommon lot of sense and is a small price to pay.
Whilst Snowden's relevations may have a beneficial effect on US *domestic* intelligence oversight, having such data-collection arrangements splattered on the front page are detrimental to the collective national security of the US, Singapore, and Korea.
Turn it any way you want, knowing what people are up to gives you a head start in dealing with them, and the US have been a stabilizing factor in Asia for 60 years or so. Eroding this data-collection capability is the price we pay for openness. I'm not certain if the price is too steep, all I'm saying is that it's a very real price we pay. Even if not everybody realises it or wants to hear about it.
that makes me ponder, were these cuts accidental or red herrings?
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/apr/06/georgian-woman-cuts-web-access
http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/story?id=4267160
http://tribune.com.pk/story/527148/undersea-internet-cable-cut-effects-50-of-pakistans-traffic/
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/mar/28/damaged-undersea-cable-internet-disruption
i'm aware you can tap fiber without disrupting it but it's underwater which seems difficult to start with and it doesn't mean all the cuts were by the NSA. (since apparently everyone is spy happy)
everything is suspicious now :((((
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
"Money ? Nope. USA is bankrupt."
When you're a country, being bankrupt doesn't mean you don't have a money. You can always "print" more. Or maybe the US should start paying their snoops in Bitcoins?
Ah the Poe's Law Troll, one of my favorites. However, I'll oblige.
You're not important enough for anyone to care about your private communications.
Until you are. Then you're fucked, even if it's a bullshit reason, like making anti-NSA political statements on the Internet, while also being an OS developer and having knowledge of unpatched OS exploit vectors, and developing your own cryptographic ciphers. Then you may find your router firmware mysteriously bricked by an exploit gone wrong -- You see, upon suspicion of odd things going on in my network (like 350 MB uploads in the middle of the night when no one was using the net to IP addresses owned by the US government) I cleansed my systems and replaced my router and its firmware, but caused it to still be fingerprinted as stock. That's called a canary, and my canary is dead. When I look at things from an intelligence perspective, It seems like I might be interesting to them, even though I'm a pacifist not a terrorist.
I'm not sure who wants into my systems or for what purpose. However, condoning such actions against citizens is abhorrent. If they showed up at my door step with a warrant I'd shake their hands and give 'em few cases of my homebrewed beer to take home and help them to everything they want to know -- That's what they should be doing. Now, I have to assume it's malicious attackers or enemy state actors. It's really not helpful to be at war with your allies... I don't think we should have to live in fear of whether or not the NSA style spying will be leveraged against citizens, or make the governments of our world illegitimate by violating citizens trusts and rights. Regardless if they are "legally" allowed, it means nothing if your populous abhors the action and despises the state for it. We should not have to wonder; We should know we can trust that our governments are not evil -- We should be able to prove it. We shouldn't allow them to do anything we don't know about. In the NSA's case they lie to their overseers. The threat such actions pose to national integrity and stability is far too a high a price to pay. The risk is too damn high.
I, for one, think it's hot that the NSA sees my sexts.
When the government retroactively declares your "sexts" to be offensive and illegal material they probably won't arrest you for it -- Unless they decide that they don't like you for some other reason. This is how police states operate. Anything you say or do can and will be used against you. They will not have the obligation to use the information they have to exonerate you. In fact, once they "like you" for a crime the states will employ the practice of Parallel Construction. And no matter how sexy, your sexting habits may be just the ticket to nail you for something else. In other words: We shouldn't help them fuck you. They should have to work for the taxes we pay.
If the NSA didn't do this, we'd already be dead.
Everybody already knew the NSA does this, so it doesn't matter.
This line of reasoning is pure bullshit. We suspected, but we didn't have evidence, and given that Habeas Corpus is now eliminated upon mere accusation of threat it does matter more than ever before. Those who love their country are not so content to have it turned into the same things their soldiers fight against. The greatest risk is that the honorable will STOP fighting for those who are seen as dishonorable when countries become like the enemies the soldiers were trained to despise. The NSA actions, and the spying actions like them by countries world wide are threats to national security and national sovereignty of all the world's peoples.
Finally, the terrorist threat is pathetic, though they say it's nothing to sneeze at the flu kills six times more Ameri
too lazy to find links. but a handful of undersea cables were 'mistakenly' cut by various excuses. I'm sure many people knew it was b.s. and that the gov was splicing them.
Regarding the "nothing to hide" argument: there have been cases of NSA employees using these systems to stalk and harass ex-lovers. Not to mention cases of mistaken identity, typos on warrants, and simple incompetence. Legal protections and limits on government power aren't about having something to hide. They are about the fact that government is no more trustworthy than any other organization.
This posting is provided 'AS IS' without warranty of any kind, implied or otherwise.
Go home, Zhaan. You're drunk.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_and_Mitchell_defection in late 1960. ... deliberately violating the airspace of other nations ... intercepting and deciphering the secret communications of its own allies ..."
"Our main dissatisfaction concerned some of the practices the United States uses in gathering intelligence information
There where so many hints going back to the 1960's - both in terms of physical world wide hardware, books, magazines, interviews.
The only conspiracy was getting to publishers, courts, the press, academics and ensuring 'less' got out until the 1970-80's.
The other conspiracy is all the staff in so many nations been trusted, paid well, given great pensions and having top clearances, setting crypto standards seem to have been more interested in helping the US and UK.
If the US and UK where allowed 'in' - who else got the codes, the cell or exchange computer links, setting taps codes or been warned of when a number was under investigation.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
Generations of top cleared staff got the keys to their countries telco networks for 'spy' hunting.
Generations of top cleared staff got the keys to their countries telco networks to help allies...
There was always feel good feedback to the local teams or a perfect cover story for the split/hardware/sites/code.
Who do you report to in "your" part of the world about a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A ?
Top staff would be in on the cover, lower ranking staff would not have the clearance and trust that its just 'contractors'.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
1. High-tech culture
2. Anime
3. Hentai
4. No NSA
Time to move to Japan!
Get free satoshi (Bitcoin) and Dogecoins
And Japan? Need we remind them what happened the last time they opposed the Good ol' USA? It would be best for everybody if 'all the ships sailed in the same direction'.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Having so much NSA associated countries could be a hint of a new world order appearing, no more first/second/third world but the ones with the USA in this and the rest attacked ( puttng backdoors in their networks for future action, causing unrest in population using social networks, and of course, stripping all their populations from a basic human right) by them sometimes without noticing that. So far the confirmed list of the NSA associated countries include UK, Sweden, Australia, New Zealand, Israel, South Korea and Singapore, but that list could include other close to US countries like Chile, Colombia, Panama, Mexico, South Africa, Japan, Saudi Arabia, Spain and France, maybe with different grades in that organization.
The rest of the countries could try to join to protect themselves from this (in South America and Europe several seem to be going in that direction) or try to resist by themselves in a way or another. Considering all that was disclosed since June, and all that is going from there this decade probably will bring a lot of changes to the world.
Until you are. Then you're fucked, even if it's a bullshit reason, like making anti-NSA political statements on the Internet, while also being an OS developer and having knowledge of unpatched OS exploit vectors, and developing your own cryptographic ciphers. Then you may find your router firmware mysteriously bricked by an exploit gone wrong -- You see, upon suspicion of odd things going on in my network (like 350 MB uploads in the middle of the night when no one was using the net to IP addresses owned by the US government) I cleansed my systems and replaced my router and its firmware, but caused it to still be fingerprinted as stock. That's called a canary, and my canary is dead.
The NSA prefers routers, it seems. I wish there were more focus on security in this area, but its 'fast wireless gaming multimedia' that gets all the attention these days. One consolation is that having a secure OS and network stack can greatly reduce the impact of a compromised router.