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.
Yes I'd expect this from the USA or the UK. But I thought Canada was better than that
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..
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
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.
Isn't "behaving" like a terrorist exactly the same as "being" a terrorist?
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.
"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!
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
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.