Slashdot Mirror


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.

49 of 202 comments (clear)

  1. No wonder the Canadian Flag... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    is covered in blood red with nine swords as the logo.

  2. '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.
  3. 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 Thanshin · · Score: 4, Funny

      I'm ready to believe it was all USA, posing as Canada posing as other countries, on its "double false flag" operations.

    5. 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.
    6. Re:I'm disappointed in Canada by Thanshin · · Score: 4, Funny

      Monaco is so chock full of spies you could cross the country, leaping from spy-car to spy-car without ever touching the ground.

    7. 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.

    8. Re:I'm disappointed in Canada by BENthesoundman · · Score: 2

      Canada: the source of and cause of most of America's problems.

    9. Re:I'm disappointed in Canada by DarkOx · · Score: 2

      No a false flag operation is pretty much any operation where one of its principle objectives is the miss-attribution of the action to another party.

      Suppose Bob hates Alice, and Bob also hates Ted who does not care about Alice one way or the other but similarly despises Bob. Ted might attack Bob under the flag of Alice, in hopes Bob will go to war with Alice. Bob will consume his resources fighting with Alice; perhaps to Ted's economic advantage or maybe so Ted can attack a further weakened Bob later.

      --
      Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
    10. Re:I'm disappointed in Canada by gstoddart · · Score: 3, Informative

      No, a false flag merely attempts to disguise itself as coming from another source ... that's it.

      What you specifically use it for isn't part of the definition.

      Pretty much any reason you can think of why it is advantageous to make people think it was someone other than you is why you might run a false flag.

      You're both assigning arbitrary constraints to a false-flag, and those constraints simply don't exist.

      --
      Lost at C:>. Found at C.
    11. Re:I'm disappointed in Canada by fustakrakich · · Score: 2

      The message that 98% of the voters send with their vote for incumbent political parties says that they do accept it. If people intend to resist, they need to show it.

      --
      “He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
    12. 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.
    13. Re:I'm disappointed in Canada by mu51c10rd · · Score: 2

      Canada is a "five eyes" country. I expect the same from the UK, Australia, and New Zealand. They and the US work quite closely in the world of intelligence.

    14. Re:I'm disappointed in Canada by king+neckbeard · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Or, you spy in peacetime to create war. Wars usually are the results of growing internal or external tensions, and any country large enough to not be militarily curbstomped in a day has enough restraint to not launch a war without obvious precursors. Plus, spies have a long history of being massive idiots who fuck everything up, which is a good way to cause a war.

      --
      This is my signature. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
    15. Re:I'm disappointed in Canada by Livius · · Score: 2

      I'm ready to believe it was all USA, posing as Canada

      That's my theory for Stephen Harper.

    16. Re:I'm disappointed in Canada by Cederic · · Score: 2

      Hmm. With a wingsuit it might well be possible. There are a couple of bloody big hills overlooking Monaco.

      Ok, can confirm: Optimal glide path for a wingsuit is 2.5:1. So stand on Tete de Chien (height 450m if you believe English Wikipedia, or 550m if you believe French wikipedia, so lets assume halfway: 500m). Jumping from there gives you approximately 1.25km distance under optimal conditions before you reach sea level.

      Assuming you can land on the sea (and someone's survived landing on cardboard boxes), assuming no tall buildings and assuming no yachts (a dodgy assumption here) you can fly over Monaco and land in the harbour in 1.25km (measured approximately using Google Maps).

      So yes, you can just jump over the whole country.

  4. 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..

    1. Re:False Flag Plots.... by myowntrueself · · Score: 2

      In the long run, it can definitely make Canada safer. Prohibiting this behavior means that we won't do stupid shit that will cause even more enemies.to appear. The number of threats that the Anglosphere faces that we didn't create ourselves is incredibly small.

      I've lived in 3 Anglosphere countries and 2 non-Anglosphere countries. I'm a native English speaker from the UK.

      Having experienced life outside the Anglosphere I'm puzzled why it is that virtually all the English speaking nations are so fucking retarded in so many ways. Its not just the dumbass self-defeating 'espionage' its also the amazing pedantry, prudishness, squeamishness etc, the obsession with poop jokes. Almost all the adults in these cultures seem, by external standards, to be like large schoolchildren.

      --
      In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
  5. 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.

    2. Re:they all play this game by houghi · · Score: 2

      We have the ability to do both. AND complain about what the NSA is doing AND complain what our governement is doing AND what Europe is doing AND ...
      We are able to multitask. One does not exclude the other.

      --
      Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
    3. Re:they all play this game by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Canadian government mails out leaflets "you support us, or the terrorists".

      http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...

      Toet's mailout asks "What do you think?" and requests people check off one of the following options:

            * I agree with my MP Lawrence Toet. We must take additional action to protect Canada from terrorism.â
            * I disagree. Terrorists are victims too.

  6. Excerpted from The Intercept by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Linky:

    The document suggests CSE has access to a series of sophisticated malware tools developed by the NSA as part of a program known as QUANTUM. As The Intercept has previously reported, the QUANTUM malware can be used for a range of purposes – such as to infect a computer and copy data stored on its hard drive, to block targets from accessing certain websites, or to disrupt their file downloads. Some of the QUANTUM techniques rely on redirecting a targeted person’s internet browser to a malicious version of a popular website, such as Facebook, that then covertly infects their computer with the malware.

    According to one top-secret NSA briefing paper, dated from 2013, Canada is considered an important player in global hacking operations. Under the heading “NSA and CSEC cooperate closely in the following areas,” the paper notes that the agencies work together on “active computer network access and exploitation on a variety of foreign intelligence targets, including CT [counter terrorism], Middle East, North Africa, Europe, and Mexico.” (The NSA had not responded to a request for comment at time of publication. The agency has previously told The Intercept that it “works with foreign partners to address a wide array of serious threats, including terrorist plots, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, and foreign aggression.”)

    Notably, CSE has gone beyond just adopting a range of tools to hack computers.

    According to the Snowden documents, it has a range of “deception techniques” in its toolbox. These include “false flag” operations to “create unrest” and using so-called “effects” operations to “alter adversary perception.” A false-flag operation usually means carrying out an attack but making it look like it was performed by another group – in this case, likely another government or hacker. Effects operations can involve sending out propaganda across social media or disrupting communications services. The newly revealed documents also reveal that CSE says it can plant a “honeypot” as part of its deception tactics, possibly a reference to some sort of bait posted online that lures in targets so that they can be hacked or monitored.

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

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

  8. 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.
  9. Re:Spies are sneaky by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I would rather be less safe and free.

  10. Re:Spies are sneaky by jythie · · Score: 2

    There is often a trade off, but it is not inherent. Security and Liberty are not diametrically opposed, but that false dilemma has proven an effective way to package power grabs.

  11. 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.
  12. 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.

  13. 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.

  14. B..but...that's a conspiracy theory by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Just remember this next time they use silly words like "conspiracy theory" as if the term means something that doesn't happen.

    Conspiracy theories like... US funded pro- and counter insurgencies....
    False flag attacks...
    Rigged elections...
    etc.

    They happen and they're quite well documented. The government attempts to ridicule the evidence, but in the end they are the ones who look idiotic.

    Take this recent hilarity: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

  15. 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.

  16. 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.
  17. 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.

  18. 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!

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

    Perhaps you should move to North Korea.

    --
    while(1) attack(People.Sandy);
  20. 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

  21. Re:Spies are sneaky by facetube · · Score: 5, Interesting

    And, in the US technology industry, it's one of the biggest threats to our ability to compete effectively in a global economy. When a giant company like Cisco is looking at ways to avoid shipping hardware directly from the US to keep its international customers, you know something's wrong.

  22. 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.

  23. 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.

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

    where you will be 100% safe

    Sounds like you've never been to prison.

  25. I'm disappointed in you. by TiggertheMad · · Score: 2

    Don't be naive, and ascribe personal ethics to the behaviors of state actors. States' behavior is driven by the lowest common ethical denominator of it's collective leadership. For any sufficiently large state, this will trend towards 0.

    --

    HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
  26. Re:Spies are sneaky by aralin · · Score: 2

    Yes, that has been the US mantra. You have a freedom of speech. But the thing is, you don't. Post of slashdot does not matter at all and where the speech matters, there it is viciously prosecuted. And if you did nothing wrong, well, everybody did something wrong. But even if you did not, who will question the authorities when they said they found a HDD full of child porn on your computer? Or that they find out you were enabling payment system for drug dealers? You will get railroaded and it won't even look political. That is how US operates. It leaves people to speak their mind because it does not matter. They can shout themselves to death. They just need to nab the few leaders of any of such effort, jail them on drug charges and are done with it. Or would you want to say that you mean to do some action beyond the words? No. You won't.

    All it takes when the discussion heats up is sending couple trolls like you, who will start to peddle the freedom of speech argument and people will think: "Well, its not so bad when they let me say all those bad things about them." They just need a reason to justify for themselves why they do nothing about it. And you are conveniently supplying it.

    --
    If programs would be read like poetry, most programmers would be Vogons.
  27. While I think this 'Spy vs Spy' ... by CaptainDork · · Score: 2

    ... shit is funny, I want to be in on the joke.

    We need more whistle blowers.

    Super powers are aiding each other and snooping on each other and throwing 'false flags' all behind our backs.

    That doesn't make it easy for us to make informed decisions.

    It's 'Government by the government for the government'.

    --
    It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
  28. 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.