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The article doesn't seem to touch on the motivation for the attack. (Perhaps it's taken to be obvious.) Why would the British government want to do this?

jjgreen 9y ago
Big boys told us to do it.
mjw1007 9y ago
From the article: « The British spies appear to have targeted Belgacom due to its role as one of Europe’s most important telecommunications hubs. Through a subsidiary company called Belgacom International Carrier Services, it maintains data links across the continent and also processes phone calls and emails passing to and from the Middle East, North Africa, and South America. But tapping into a broad range of global communications is only one possible motive. GCHQ may also have sought access to Belgacom’s networks to snoop on NATO and key European institutions, such as the European Commission, the European Parliament, and the European Council. All of those organizations have large offices and thousands of employees in Belgium. And all were Belgacom customers at the time of the intrusion. »
toyg 9y ago
The main motivation is that Bruxelles is in Belgium. The US / UK / “Five Eyes” security apparatus takes the EU more seriously than most EU members themselves. Among other things, they really don’t want for anything like “an European integrated army” to emerge as an alternative to Nato. And the second motivation is that they can. The pre-Snowden speculation was that all major European carriers are targets for NSA and friends, and the Snowden files basically reinforced that view. The question is not “why should they spy on their allies”, everyone has always done that; the question is the degree of success that any given player achieves and what they do with the info they gather. In this case, it looks like the operation was a great success, followed by huge failure (it was burnt to the ground).
- deleted 9y ago
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jjgreen 9y ago

Big boys told us to do it.

mjw1007 9y ago

From the article: « The British spies appear to have targeted Belgacom due to its role as one of Europe’s most important telecommunications hubs. Through a subsidiary company called Belgacom International Carrier Services, it maintains data links across the continent and also processes phone calls and emails passing to and from the Middle East, North Africa, and South America. But tapping into a broad range of global communications is only one possible motive. GCHQ may also have sought access to Belgacom’s networks to snoop on NATO and key European institutions, such as the European Commission, the European Parliament, and the European Council. All of those organizations have large offices and thousands of employees in Belgium. And all were Belgacom customers at the time of the intrusion. »

toyg 9y ago

The main motivation is that Bruxelles is in Belgium. The US / UK / “Five Eyes” security apparatus takes the EU more seriously than most EU members themselves. Among other things, they really don’t want for anything like “an European integrated army” to emerge as an alternative to Nato. And the second motivation is that they can. The pre-Snowden speculation was that all major European carriers are targets for NSA and friends, and the Snowden files basically reinforced that view. The question is not “why should they spy on their allies”, everyone has always done that; the question is the degree of success that any given player achieves and what they do with the info they gather. In this case, it looks like the operation was a great success, followed by huge failure (it was burnt to the ground).

deleted 9y ago
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