Snowden Document Shows Canada Set Up Spy Posts For NSA

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Snowden Document Shows Canada Set Up Spy Posts For NSA

Posted by Unknown on Monday December 9, 2013 @10:03PM from the not-you-guys-too dept.

An anonymous reader writes with news that even Canada is getting its hands dirty in the international dragnet fiasco. From the article: "The leaked NSA document being reported exclusively by CBC News reveals Canada is involved with the huge American intelligence agency in clandestine surveillance activities in 'approximately 20 high-priority countries.' ... Wesley Wark, a Canadian security and intelligence expert at the University of Ottawa, says the document makes it clear Canada can take advantage of its relatively benign image internationally to covertly amass a vast amount of information abroad. 'I think we still trade on a degree of an international brand as an innocent partner in the international sphere,' Wark said. 'There's not that much known about Canadian intelligence.'"

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Old News by Anonymous Coward · 2013-12-09 22:10 · Score: 4, Informative

I thought it was common knowledge for quite a long time that the canadian Communications Security Establishment set up all the american embassies with their SIGINT gear and such.
1. Re:Old News by OptimalCynic · 2013-12-09 23:07 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  Yeah, I don't see why there's so much shock. "US ally assists US spy agency in spying." Wow. My flabber is truly gasted.
2. Re:Old News by EasyTarget · 2013-12-09 23:19 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  .. common knowledge for quite a long time
  If I had asserted it in public prior to the Snowdon leaks, anonymous apologists would have popped up saying: 'Where is your proof'.
  Now we have that proof the same anonymous apologists are saying it was: 'Common knowledge'.
  Hummm.
  
  --
  "Oops, I always forget the purpose of competition is to divide people into winners and losers." - Hobbes
3. Re:Old News by Anonymous Coward · 2013-12-09 23:30 · Score: 2, Interesting
  
  There's been proof before, just Snowden's expose AND the US Gov's reaction to it made it more obvious.
  http://www.heise.de/tp/artikel/2/2889/1.html
  http://cryptome.org/jya/echelon-dc.htm
  http://cryptome.org/echelon-baby.htm
4. Re:Old News by TheP4st · 2013-12-10 00:40 · Score: 3, Funny
  
  Then what would you call it?
  Covert Operation Collecting Knowledge, or COCK for short? Which clearly would not be the same as spying.
  
  --
  "I have downloaded hundreds and hundreds of records, why would I care if somebody downloads ours?" Robin Pecknold
5. Re:Old News by Xest · 2013-12-10 01:01 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  Not just US ally, Canada is one of the five-eyes group of nations (US, UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand). It's pretty well established that these nations security services all work together in unison on just about everything now.
  I'd wager given the status of five-eyes that New Zealand similarly uses it's benign image to spy where the US/UK can't get away with it on their behalf.
6. Re:Old News by Joce640k · 2013-12-10 02:05 · Score: 2
  
  Me? Not at all.
  
  --
  No sig today...
7. Re:Old News by NatasRevol · 2013-12-10 02:42 · Score: 4, Funny
  
  Mr. McMohammed is the only Scottish Muslim in Afghanistan, so it shouldn't be hard to track him down.
  
  --
  There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
8. Re:Old News by NatasRevol · 2013-12-10 02:42 · Score: 2
  
  Ben Affleck is Canadian.
  QED.
  
  --
  There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
9. Re:Old News by Anonymous Coward · 2013-12-10 03:30 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  We sold it to the American's and were kept on as consultants.
10. Re:Old News by s.petry · 2013-12-10 03:42 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  While perhaps funny, it misses the point. The story here, and with Germany, and with Britain, and with Italy, etc.. is not about those countries spying. The story is about these countries colluding to oppress their own citizens by said spying. The oppression/suppression of OWS is a verifiable example, and there are numerous stories from the UK and Germany that show how law enforcement used the same type of data to squash dissent.
  Intelligence gathering on foreign countries is not a shock, and not a surprise. Nobody sane would argue that we can't monitor what happens in the world. It's what we do with that intelligence that matters, and all of the supposedly "Free" countries have failed in their responsibilities to their own citizens.
  
  --
  -The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
11. Re:Old News by realityimpaired · 2013-12-10 04:05 · Score: 2
  
  They really don't care whether you use beef or poultry gravy on your poutine (for the record, poultry is better). At best, most of the domestic surveillance being done by CSE is keyword searches as part of the former Echelon program, but most of us aren't even on their radar -- they just don't have enough people to worry about the minutiae of all of us when there's real work to be done. There've been a few instances where they looked more closely at individuals closely associated with major events, such as the G20/G8 summits a few years ago, but most of the resources that CSE has are focused on external sources. The RCMP is there to act on internal threats, but only when there's a clear reason to do so, such as a background check on somebody looking for security clearance, or when there's a tip that somebody's involved in something stupid. None of this should come as a surprise to you.
  Privacy is an illusion. You can hope to keep stuff from the general public, if you don't put it on the Internet, but most of the details of your life are there for the consumption of anybody with access to it. The only thing that keeps your details private is that they just don't care enough to have a human look at it as long as you're not giving them a reason to care.
  I'd post anonymously, but I honestly don't care what they know... I'm not saying anything that shouldn't be public knowledge, and they've looked into my background on multiple occasions already.
12. Re:Old News by AHuxley · 2013-12-10 10:04 · Score: 2
  
  Canada as an "innocent partner in the international sphere" was the idea in the late 1940's to early 1950's.
  By the early 1950's Canada was finally ready to totally sign over to the US via memoranda of understanding, letters i.e. become totally dependant on the USA.
  The main fear of the US was a UK, Australia, NZ, Canada swap that would leak quality US material/methods with no way of tracking any cleared staff outside the US.
  Just as Snowden showed a standardisation of junk US telco encryption spreading world wide, the USA also wanted US security standardisation within its UK, Australia, NZ, Canada teams.
  Another fear of the US in the 1950-60's was that the UK and Canada would sell/use their own unique UK based crypto equipment. The US did not want such equipment on the global market. Expert staff in the UK and Canada been too smart with their own emerging crypto was also something the US wanted to avoid.
  Over the years US encryption, security was the set as the 'only' method for its closest partners.
  The idea that any other nation did not know of the role of Canada after the 1960's in a US global signals effort is strange.
  Microwave relay information gathering was exposed via the "Tryst", "Broadside" and Canadain 'Stephanie' efforts in the press in the late 1960's - early 1970's.
  
  --
  Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
Enough by Joce640k · 2013-12-09 22:11 · Score: 4, Interesting

They can't be trusted. Obama's unspecified "checks and balances" aren't working. Time to start encrypting everything by default.

--
No sig today...
1. Re:Enough by DarkOx · 2013-12-09 22:16 · Score: 2
  
  It's time to demand Clapper be hauled away in handcuffs
  
  --
  Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
2. Re:Enough by Anonymous Coward · 2013-12-09 22:26 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  Blaming one scapegoat will not resolve the deep deep deep corruption in our governing system(s). Short of a complete revolution with heads rolling, it would be futile and would only serve the propagandists.
3. Re:Enough by DarkOx · 2013-12-09 22:42 · Score: 5, Interesting
  
  No the problems start at the top, Senators, Presidents, powerful Congressmen, generals. The problem is the system has no way to deal with them because at those levels it basically depends on the punishing themselves and they have learned to circle the wagons when the people get riled up.
  The only option is to target their enablers, folks like clapper. If enough political pressure can be brought to bear and you give them the option to toss someone like Clapper under the bus along with a few low level admin types like snowdens coworkers who broke some rule somewhere some time they will.
  Do this often enough and they won't be able to find these facilitators who are willing to go a long with what they know to unethical, immoral, illegal or some combination there of because they will also know that when it comes to light and it will someday, it's going to be them that pays for it.
  
  --
  Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
4. Re:Enough by Burz · 2013-12-09 23:15 · Score: 2
  
  A darknet is the only proper way to do that. Otherwise, they get most of the metadata anyway: Who, When, Where. Those are important details.
5. Re:Enough by Anonymous Coward · 2013-12-09 23:36 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  Time to start encrypting everything by default.
  Can we please start with https://slashdot.org?
6. Re:Enough by Anonymous Coward · 2013-12-09 23:58 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  I disagree. I think if we executed a few Senators, Congressmen and lobbyists in the public square we would see a significant change in their behavior and the laws that are passed.
  The thought of being hanged, then drawn & quartered and then having your pieces parts burned at the stake will motivate enough lawmakers to change things.
7. Re:Enough by Charliemopps · 2013-12-09 23:59 · Score: 2
  
  What's funny is that he outranks the president. Look what happened when Clinton lied to congress... Then Clapper... and Clapper lied about important shit, many times.
8. Re:Enough by smpoole7 · 2013-12-10 00:25 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  > PS: If you're a terrorist reading this ...
  I'm NOT defending the NSA, but remember that this type of communication requires ... communication. In other words, you have to arrange in advance that the phrase "the chair is purple" means "proceed to site B." The US Government's plan has been to
  (a) freeze the assets of the terrorists so that they're constantly strapped for cash
  (b) via drone strikes and etc., make it clear that when they DO try to meet to arrange things, they'll possibly be blown up
  (c) look at every single communication between the groups when they DO try to arrange things.
  That's their plan, anyway. But anyone with any sense at all should have known that, once all of that surveillance was in place, it would be abused. As it has been.
  Counter argument: if the government had *allowed* details of the surveillance to leak, it might deter the terrorists. Kind of like during the Cold War, the US and Soviets *wanted* each side to at least have a rough idea of their capabilities, to further discourage anyone with an itchy finger on the Big Red Button.
  But the truth is, intelligence agencies want to know everything. Absolutely everything. It's just like a dog licking his privates: if he can, he will. Likewise, if they can monitor everything you do, they will. They can't resist it.
  
  --
  Cogito, igitur comedam pizza.
9. Re:Enough by Anonymous Coward · 2013-12-10 00:38 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  What's funny is that he outranks the president. Look what happened when Clinton lied to congress... Then Clapper... and Clapper lied about important shit, many times.
  Yes, but Clinton lied about sex!
10. Re:Enough by ImOuttaHere · 2013-12-10 00:43 · Score: 2
  
  I think this is too simplistic. You can replace every single president, senator and congress-critter in Washington and you'll have the same outcome as you're faced with today. The reason is that members of three letter agencies feel, with all their bleed'n-red-Amerikan-hearts that they are responsible maintaining "continuity". They don't care which political party is in power. They know politicians will come and go.
  I think you're very close with your inclusion of generals on your list of those needing to be replaced. Broaden that a bit to include anyone who can set policy and direction without public review and oversight , and I think you'd have something to work with.
  Which is the reason behind my ongoing snickering over a recently /.'d article that described how "hurt" NSA employees are that Obama has not paid them a personal visit. I can't imagine who died and left them in charge, but in charge they definitely feel. Think about it from my perspective and the underlying meaning of their being "hurt" might take on new weight and meaning.
  
  No the problems start at the top, Senators, Presidents, powerful Congressmen, generals...
11. Re:Enough by tlhIngan · 2013-12-10 04:21 · Score: 2
  
  Time to start encrypting everything by default.
  Except encryption is not a universal answer.
  It does NOTHING to stop "metadata" collection - your IP packets still have source and destination addresses that have to be encoded in ways anyone can decode it (i.e., if you encrypt that, then every router needs to be able to decrypt it, making it essentially plaintext). Note: Tor solves this problem.
  It does nothing about traffic flow fingerprinting - that is, examining how the packets evolve over time to figure out traffic. It's possible to differentiate HTTP traffic from SSH and others just by watching enough packets.
  All encryption gets you is the ability to hide the contents of the transmission. Whether or not it's useful depends on a lot of factors. But let's just say with traffic flows the way it is, metadata analysis wil probably get you most of the way. And sometimes a little ingenuity can solve the content problem - e.g., if the target IP is a web host and the traffic flow implies HTTP, then the content can be reasonably inferred to be some HTTP content contained on the server, so all you need is to find out what domains that machine hosts.
What? by Hamsterdan · 2013-12-09 22:27 · Score: 5, Funny

* 'There's not that much known about Canadian intelligence.'*
As A Canadian, I kinda resent that :)

--
I've got better things to do tonight than die.
1. Re:What? by korbulon · 2013-12-09 22:46 · Score: 2
  
  Nobody was implying that it doesn't exist, they were simply referring to it within the Rumsfeldian epistemological category of "unknown unknown".
Re:"There's not that much known about Canadian int by Hamsterdan · 2013-12-09 22:32 · Score: 2, Funny

We elected Harper, so I don't think so....

--
I've got better things to do tonight than die.
Canadian Intelligence by rikkards · 2013-12-09 22:47 · Score: 3, Funny

There's not that much known about Canadian intelligence.

Too easy..
1. Re:Canadian Intelligence by cervesaebraciator · 2013-12-10 05:08 · Score: 3, Funny
  
  When asked about collaboration with the National Security Agency, the PM responded with a puzzled, "NS eh?"
Re:Don't. by DarkOx · 2013-12-09 22:50 · Score: 5, Insightful

There isn't anything in any of these revelations many had not guessed or spotted. There were and still are tons of people who just wanted to live in denial about it. Snodens stuff is making that hard for them as they can't just dismiss the people saying it as tinfoil hat clad conspiracy nuts, with actual evidence floating about.

--
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
Re:Thank you kindly, Canada by Nerdfest · 2013-12-09 23:41 · Score: 2

Well, that and they pay us.
Sweden too by Flammon · 2013-12-10 00:23 · Score: 3, Informative

The Swedes 'cooperated' too.
http://www.thelocal.se/20131205/sweden-spied-on-russia-for-nsa-report
It's pretty hard to say no when the guy with the biggest guns and millions of murders to back them asks you to do something.

--
ayottesoftware.com
1. Re:Sweden too by AHuxley · 2013-12-10 12:12 · Score: 2
  
  Again Cold the reason why the "Soviet Union and Russia have long been interested in any country adjacent to their territory" is due to the real risk of repeated invasion.
  Russia lives in a very bad neighbourhood, historically surrounded by kings with faith based dreams, slavers,~ "colonialists" after Russian raw materials, fast moving fascists and a big spend military-industrial complex.
  Lets go down a simple short list:
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongol_invasion_of_Rus'
  Sweden with Teutonic Knights 1240-1242
  ~ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Ice
  Poland
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish-Muscovite_War_(1605–1618)
  Sweden
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo-Swedish_War_(1788–90)
  Napoleon 1812
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_invasion_of_Russia
  Germany WWI
  UK and others in 1918
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allied_intervention_in_the_Russian_Civil_War
  Germany again in WW2
  Then the overflights and spy drops in the Cold war :)
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Georgia–Russia_crisis
  So Sweden did deals with the GCHQ over elint (bases, airborne), Russia would take an interest :)
  
  --
  Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"