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Leaked Snowden Docs Show Canada's "False Flag" Operations

An anonymous reader writes Documents leaked by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and The Intercept show the extent to which Communications Security Establishment Canada (CSEC) cooperates with the NSA — and perhaps most interestingly details CSEC's "false flag" operations, whereby cyberattacks are designed and carried out with the intention of attribution to another individual, group or nation state. The revelations come in the midst of Canadian controversy regarding the C-51 anti-terrorism bill.

28 of 202 comments (clear)

  1. 'In Canada's Interest' Really? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Sounds like outsourcing labour to from the US so that a third party catches flack for it should it go south. Canada, who basically has few natural enemies, could end up with a kick me sign on its back because of this.

    1. Re:'In Canada's Interest' Really? by gl4ss · · Score: 4, Insightful

      it's doubleception. canada could have blamed some other party after getting caught for trying to frame other party.

      now, framing individuals? that's war talk.

      I just wish other countries would already learn up and stop sending anyone into usa for being prosecuted for cybercrime. the fuck anyone can know who they framed or whatever, just as excercise...

      --
      world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
  2. I'm disappointed in Canada by Chrisq · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Yes I'd expect this from the USA or the UK. But I thought Canada was better than that

    1. Re:I'm disappointed in Canada by Mashiki · · Score: 4, Insightful

      This has happened before, it's one of the reasons why CSIS exists and is no longer under the umbrella of the RCMP and why an investigative committee exists which examines all CSIS actions. I expect the same to happen to CSEC, it may take a few years but it'll happen.

      --
      Om, nomnomnom...
    2. Re:I'm disappointed in Canada by phayes · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Yes Candide, nations all around the world have spies that are performing espionage so you can be expect to be disappointed by every nation on earth larger than Monaco, Andorra or Lichtenstein (though I'm not so sure about the last three either...).

      --
      Democracy is a sheep and two wolves deciding what to have for lunch. Freedom is a well armed sheep contesting the issue
    3. Re:I'm disappointed in Canada by bhcompy · · Score: 4, Insightful

      This is the worst type of behavior. Hopefully it's not true. Plotting against your own citizens for gains, whether it's political, monetary, or whatever, is worthy of revolution

    4. Re:I'm disappointed in Canada by king+neckbeard · · Score: 5, Insightful

      That doesn't mean that we need to accept it, though.

      --
      This is my signature. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
    5. Re:I'm disappointed in Canada by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Yes Candide, nations all around the world have spies that are performing espionage

      There is a pretty big difference between performing espionage and doing a false flag operation.
      A false flag operation actively tries to destabilize the relationship between other nations. (Or in the case when you use your host nation as a target, to trick the own population to accept certain infringements on freedom/democracy.)
      Neither case is really something where you can say "boys will be boys" and move on. The first case leads to a lot of hate and distrust between nations, the second case is treason.

    6. Re:I'm disappointed in Canada by LWATCDR · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Every nation will spy to the best of it's ability and within the limits of it's self interest.
      This has been true since the beginning of recorded history.

      The fact that people find this shocking is what is so bizarre to me. The original heroes of computer science where spying. Bletchley park's function was to spy. You spy in wartime to win you spy in peacetime to prevent war.

      --
      See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
  3. False Flag Plots.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Are the very opposite to what you want to run in a true democracy. If you must lie through your teeth to keep your own electorate in the dark, simply because you fear that the action(s) you are about to take would not be sanctioned by a well informed populous, then it's time to stop calling your country a democracy and start owning up to the fact that you live in and operate a dictatorship.
    Perhaps not as bad as most dictatorships out there, but it can be a very slippery slope..

  4. they all play this game by circletimessquare · · Score: 5, Insightful

    world governments to USA in public: "we are outraged about the NSA!"

    world governments to USA in private: "everything is coming along nicely"

    world governments, we-hate-USA-edition, in public: "we are outraged about the NSA!"

    world governments, we-hate-USA-edition, in private: "so how soon can we have NSA style abuses to add to our extensive portfolio of abuses?"

    americans should complain loudly about the NSA

    but the rest of the world, you should clean up your own fucking house, your government is feeding you manufactured NSA outrage as a distraction while it does the same

    --
    intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
    1. Re:they all play this game by Trepidity · · Score: 4, Insightful

      In Canada's case they've barely even bothered to feed outrage. Harper clearly wants to cooperate with the U.S. national-security establishment and doesn't care to even hide it.

  5. Pretending to be a terrorist by jbrown.za · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Isn't "behaving" like a terrorist exactly the same as "being" a terrorist?

  6. Re:Spies are sneaky by jellomizer · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Security vs. Liberty, It is always a tradeoff. And basicly we as a culture doesn't want to accept that reality.
    If you want the liberty without people spying on you, you will need to be brave enough as an overall population to say, I am willing to accept the Risks to our safety so we can have our liberty. Or if you want to stay secure, we as a population will need to say, We want to be safe, and are willing to trade our liberty for it.

    America like to say Land of the Free and Home of the brave. You need to be brave and accept the risks to be free. The more we cower in fear that the popular bad guys of the time will get us, either being the native americans, british, anarchist, communists, terrorists... The more liberties we lose. Or we stand up an say we are willing to take the risks, even it it means those guys will sneak in, but we will have more liberties.

    --
    If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
  7. Re:Spies are sneaky by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I would rather be less safe and free.

  8. Re:Spies are sneaky by king+neckbeard · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It's not a tradeoff at all. Our intelligence agencies are likely the biggest threat to our security today. We are giving up liberty to be in more danger.

    --
    This is my signature. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
  9. Limited 'show' here. by jythie · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Am I missing something? As far as I can tell the document just outlines what they can do, not what they have done. Having been through countless meetings with powerpoint presentations outlining what a department 'can' do, I can appreciate just how far apart these two things could potentially be.

  10. Re:Spies are sneaky by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Perhaps YOU should move to prison (where you will be 100% safe, monitored and provided for), and the rest of us can be free outside. No need for any of us to travel to shit tier country.

  11. Re:Spies are sneaky by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I've always thought that those who want security over liberty live in fear. They are afraid all out of proportion to actual threat and that illogical cowardice is hoisted upon the rest of us. Fingers twitching on gun triggers and shaking in the darkness of fear is no way to live life.

  12. Re:Spies are sneaky by BarbaraHudson · · Score: 3, Insightful

    There is no such thing as absolute safety, just as there is no such thing as absolute freedom. The closest you can get to that is to live alone on an abandoned island ir in an abandoned mine. And even then, Mother Nature is a b*tch. The whole "one or the other" argument is just a false dichotomy, acerbated by people who are motivated to present unrealistic arguments to further their own agendas or beliefs.

    --
    "Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
  13. Cyberattacks by ledow · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Which is just one reason why I'm always incredibly dubious that cyber-attacks "coming from China" etc. are used as potential justification for retaliation. This is entirely different to "proved originating from", where China etc. could just be an unfortunate third-party, a plant, or deliberately infiltrated to further some other countries ends with a cyberattack that DOES come from their country even if they don't know it.

    Sorry, but you cannot go to war on the basis of what packets travelled over the Internet. It's just too damn unreliable and unaccountable that you can't do such things.

    And yet all the first-world nations are saying that such things could be "just cause" for doing exactly that.

    If your military systems are THAT bad that you can even get into anything at all from the ordinary Internet, it's your own fault.

  14. Re:Spies are sneaky by shaitand · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "Security vs. Liberty, It is always a tradeoff."

    It's a trade I for one don't care to make. But this isn't just spying, this is creating fake attacks against our nation to make people THINK they are unsafe and trade away their liberty to the very groups that present the only real threat to it!

  15. Re:Spies are sneaky by O('_')O_Bush · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Perhaps you should move to North Korea.

    --
    while(1) attack(People.Sandy);
  16. Safe from false flag? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The whole point of these false flag ops is to make the world APPEAR to be less safe than it really is. The attacks you see, are actually your own side! So the tradeoff security vs liberty, APPEARS to require a lot less liberty.

    That Sony Hack evidence makes no sense, so now I wonder if one of the 5-eyes did it to market these new cyber laws that will legalize their actions. Laws like C51

  17. Re:Spies are sneaky by l0ungeb0y · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Or we stand up an say we are willing to take the risks, even it it means those guys will sneak in, but we will have more liberties.

    We are past the point of merely saying anything. We are to the point where only an outright civil war will stop our slide into a Totalitarian Police State.

  18. Re:Spies are sneaky by TheCycoONE · · Score: 2, Insightful

    No, it would be more detrimental to their efforts if they stopped king neckbeard from posting than if they allow him to continue when the general populous doesn't care or considers him paranoid. Kinda like how CSIS monitors all the file upload sites but doesn't report people for copyright infringement (they talked about having to sift through episodes of glee).

    Incidentally these silly little freedoms, to talk in a voice that isn't heard, to buy and share entertainment, and the ability to choose a Jesus fish or flying spaghetti monster for their back bumper is all most 'free world' citizens care about.

  19. Re:Spies are sneaky by KamikazeSquid · · Score: 2, Insightful

    where you will be 100% safe

    Sounds like you've never been to prison.

  20. Re:Spies are sneaky by PopeRatzo · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I am willing to accept the Risks to our safety so we can have our liberty.

    I don't know where the fuck you been, but people have been saying that since the Patriot Act was rammed through congress and signed by Bush.

    Take a look around you. People are over 9/11. They've internalized the fact that you're more likely to die of auto-erotic asphyxiation than by the hands of a terrorist. Hell, you're way more likely to be killed by a conceal/carry goofball who thinks more guns equals less crime or some half-bright "Oath Keeper" with more ammo than brains than you are by some Muslim extremist. People put up with the militarized barneys every fucking place because they've got fucking guns. But every time I fly or go to a basketball or hockey game, I hear plenty of voices say, in no uncertain terms, that this is bullshit and they're tired of this phony security theater. Yeah, we'll take the risk.

    Further, they're also tired of the phony security theater that says that having a bunch of US military propping up a corrupt drug lord in Afghanistan or rattling sabers at anybody who represents a political inconvenience to Bibi Netanyahu is in any way keeping the US safer. People got the memo that the entire security/intelligence/military apparatus of the United States exists only to perpetuate itself. We haven't fought a war for US security or liberty in the lifetime of anyone alive today.

    Maybe somewhere, there's some huddled neo-con think tank where they're quaking in their boots over every brown person who resides in an oil producing region, but other than that, yeah, we'll take the risk.

    --
    You are welcome on my lawn.