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Danish military intelligence uses XKEYSCORE to tap cables in co-op with the NSA
- aliceryhl 6y agoThis was all over the news some time ago, albeit not for that many days. Happy to see it summed up, because I never did figure out what was up back then.
- yuskii 6y agoI knew a few Danish folk, just sayin'
- skrebbel 6y agoTotally off topic, but I love that XKEYSCORE sounds like a Redis command. There has to be an opportunity for some sort of practical joke here but I can't find it.
- rathel 6y agoThey always sound so memorable yet mysterious, especially so the ones created by concatenation of two ordinary words, like ETERNALBLUE or FOGBANK. We should make a GPT-based generator of USA secret codenames ;)
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- privong 6y ago> We should make a GPT-based generator of USA secret codenames ;) I'd read somewhere (can't remember where, unfortunately) that program code names were randomly generated by selecting words from two lists. The idea is that, if (accidentally) revealed, the name wouldn't provide any information about the program's function. The thing I read said people would often re-query the generator until they got a name that they liked.
- captn3m0 6y agoLikely the British Military research projects. >Each rainbow code name was constructed from a randomly selected colour, plus an (often appropriate) noun taken from a list https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Rainbow_Codes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Rainbow_Codes
- privong 6y ago> Likely the British Military research projects. Sounds similar, but whatever I had read was about the US intelligence community. Perhaps it was Edward Snowden's book.
- mtgx 6y agoThis happens a lot more than people think. Pretty much any European country that has cooperated with US intelligence and have received "tools" from US intelligence to help them gather their own intelligence at home have also agreed to share local data with the NSA.
- markus_zhang 6y ago>The novelty of XKEYSCORE is that it enables analysts to find exactly those anonymous communications. For that purpose it reassembles IP packets into their original format ("sessionizing"), like Word documents, spreadsheets, chat messages, etc. This sounds interesting. Does it mean they write a sort of serialization/deserialization routine for whatever format they can grab at hand? For example maybe it's possible to assemble a piece of binary data travelled through the Internet to its original, Borland database file format?
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- londons_explore 6y agoNot quite. Many of our extractors are stateful - ie. They need to see previous packets in the session to extract keys, state, etc. This is done by having front ends which direct raw packets to backends based on which session they are a part of - the obvious one being the tcp 4-tuple. The backends then don't each have many sessions to look after - perhaps tens of thousands each. That means they can keep many kilobytes of state. Each time they get a packet, they process it by updating the state. Certain state transitions (eg. The completion of a credit card transaction in a finance feed session) will trigger another event to be emitted, which goes through the same system again, and might go into another extractor or be persisted for analysts to view.
- DAlperin 6y agoVery interesting. Is this written up anywhere?
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- toopok4k3 6y agoI love how the politicians presume NSA is safe partner and their danish citizens are not in the data. It does not really help if every other neighbouring country does the same. NSA will get danish info elsewhere. Everyone gets played. It works as long as USA is an trusthworthy ally. They wouldn't dare to abuse the information for private gains... right?
- vinay427 6y agoThis doesn't even need to be a specifically anti-US thing. I think countries should generally not trust other countries that don't have a strong and nearly binding interest in their stability, security, prosperity, etc. In a close multinational union like the EU, one could argue that this is currently the case, or perhaps with closely-tied countries like Australia and New Zealand. It becomes harder to justify as you move down the line, even if the US is far from an enemy of the aforementioned places. Consequently, in the other direction I don't think the US should necessarily trust Germany with sensitive data, or Switzerland should trust Canada, etc. EDIT for clarity.
- op03 6y agoThat is exactly what I do. Today in fact, I got my Postman to sign an affidavit that he has "a strong and nearly binding interest in my stability, security, prosperity, etc".
- aliceryhl 6y agoAre you sure? I find it very convincing that NSA would not betray the trust, as it also says in the article. > "I can not at all imagine in my imagination that the NSA would betray that trust. I consider it completely and utterly unlikely. If the NSA had a desire to obtain information about Danish citizens or companies, the United States would simply turn to [the domestic security service] PET, which would then provide the necessary legal basis." I definitely think it would make more sense to give up on using the system on the citizens of a single small country, in exchange for not risking the extensive access to citizens of many other countries, including China and Russia. If they want to investigate danes, they still have all their other methods at disposal.
- waihtis 6y agoThis article is about 10x better in terms of explaining XKEYSCORE than the mess which is XKEYSCORE's Wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XKeyscore#Workings https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XKeyscore#Workings
- StanislavPetrov 6y agoIts almost like Wikipedia is largely run by an army of Philip Cross like people/agents whose goal is to manage the information that people see. https://wikipedia.fivefilters.org/ https://wikipedia.fivefilters.org/
- jorblumesea 6y agoIf all we have to go off of is the slides and rumors, it's still not super clear exactly how it works. Even for HN users, which are largely engineers, it can be confusing. If you're a wikipedia editor, probably more so.
- waihtis 6y agoAgreed, though the big thing missing from the Wikipedia article is the root data collection method - cable tapping - which makes all the difference in explaining an ubiquitous surveillance system.
- lern_too_spel 6y agoThe reason the Wikipedia article is so confusing is that it has to explain Greenwald's and Snowden's explanation of XKEYSCORE, which was wrong.
- yur3i__ 6y agoDidn't the NSA say they shut down XKEYSCORE after Snowden or am I misremembering?
- lgl 6y agoLet's not get naive here. I don't know if they did say that, but even if they did, would you actually believe an espionage organization's "word"? They've clearly spent a lot of money and man hours developing it and reaped a lot of benefits from that system and it's not like they can uninvent the thing. They might have renamed it or bumped up the clearance level to tighten up the circle of people in the know, but are most likely still running it and constantly improving it to keep up and make use of most new technological, bandwidth and storage developments. They certainly won't stop collecting everything they can, that's just how things work, for better or worse.
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- cm2187 6y agoAccording to google, about 90% of the web traffic on chrome is now encrypted [1]. Does it matter that they are tapping a cable? The metadata can’t be that useful. [1] https://transparencyreport.google.com/https/overview?hl=en_GB https://transparencyreport.google.com/https/overview?hl=en_G...
- noitpmeder 6y agoYou're assuming that most traffic is web traffic (opposed to non-browser traffic) and that encryption is secure.
- tjoff 6y agoIf it didn't matter they sure would not tap it.
- cm2187 6y agoThe infrastructure may have been built when that number was low (Snowden was ages ago)
- pastrami_panda 6y agoI've heard that metadata can be very useful (sometimes more so than the actual data). I don't remember the argument very well or where I read it, but it was something along the lines of analyzing the timing of activities to connect individuals to groups and events iirc.
- boxfire 6y agoThat metadata is surely still useful when you know frequency and target IP addresses. In addition not everyone uses google services and browsers, and so its really narrow to say 'chrome is encrypted, so who cares?'... This metadata by the way is exactly how you can calculate correspondence and association of graphs of people and information. How is that not exactly a breach of exactly what people fear most? It doesnt matter what data you are looking at, it matters who else is looking.
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- jtchang 6y agoAll these comments about metadata not being useful are missing the point. Metadata is incredible valuable and sometimes just as valuable as the decrypted data itself. Knowing what sites a target visits, access patterns, changes in behavior: all this can be fed into ML algorithms to come up with fingerprints. You don't need to be able decrypt the data in transit if you know the endpoints and can somehow compromise the endpoints at a later date. And that is way easier. Breaking encryption is hard and time consuming. Identifying a site a user regularly visits and exploiting that is more straightforward.
- pfortuny 6y agoPeople have gone to jail for metadata. That is exactly what you are saying. That is its importance. And that is only speaking of something within the Rule of Law (accessing metadata with a warrant)... Outside of the Rule of Law, people have been killed for metadata.
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- e12e 6y agoEd: > Outside of the Rule of Law, people have been killed for metadata. Indeed: https://theintercept.com/2014/02/10/the-nsas-secret-role/ https://theintercept.com/2014/02/10/the-nsas-secret-role/ > According to a former drone operator for the military’s Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) who also worked with the NSA, the agency often identifies targets based on controversial metadata analysis and cell-phone tracking technologies. Rather than confirming a target’s identity with operatives or informants on the ground, the CIA or the U.S. military then orders a strike based on the activity and location of the mobile phone a person is believed to be using.
- pfortuny 6y agoThanks. Too lazy to search for specific examples. Also, obviously, Mafias and the USSR, PRC...
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- iconara 6y agoIt's very important that we keep Huawei out of our 5G networks! (what if they discovered things like this and told the citizens about it?)
- pastrami_panda 6y agoPlease stop equating totalitarian regimes with democracies.
- seniorivn 6y agoin terms of domestic espionage on private citizens they are pretty similar now days
- openssl 6y agoData collection and political system are VERY different. All governments collect data on their private citizens, but not all sell their organs for profit or do forced sterilization
- romanoderoma 6y agoAs an European, does it really make a difference? Is USA really much better than China?
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- openssl 6y agoUSA has your data already (internet cables), why send it to China? Not going to answer the 2nd question for personal reasons.
- romanoderoma 6y agoI guess as an Italian I don't see China as a bigger threat and probably China is less interested in harvesting my data for the reason that they are not selling me anything by targeting me whenever I do something on the internet? I speak English, I don't speak Chinese, my continent is watching the US elections tonight, it doesn't happen with Chinese politics, my pears stay awake at night to watch the Oscars, I don't even know if the Chinese equivalent exist, basically what US does is much more relevant in day to day life, what happens in China stays in China, so they are not really trying to buy my attention, which is the most valuable asset I own.
- Havoc 6y agoThe fact that Danish intel has access to me just emphasizes how much of a free for all this is on that level. (nothing against the Danish - but think about what that implies about "trusted" relationships like five eyes)
- goto11 6y agoDanish intelligence have access to cables running through Denmark. This is what you should expect. This whole debacle is about Danish intelligence giving US intelligence access to the Danish cables - not the other way around!
- Havoc 6y ago>Danish intelligence have access to cables running through Denmark. Access to cables and access to xkeyscore are fundamentally not the same thing
- mrweasel 6y agoWelcome to six years ago, where Americans where shocked that the NSA had spied on US citizens but did not give a shit about the spying on regular innocent people in other countries around the world. As a Dane, I hope that the politicians a going to make it crystal clear the the FE is suppose to collect intel to protect the country, but not at any cost. Flat out lying and keeping secrets from the people who are tasked with the civilian oversight of the FE should be punished with prison time to make it clear, at all levels, that this will not be tolerated. I don’t have much faith in any serious reprocaution though. At least two ministers of justice have told telcos to continue provide mass survilance to PET ( Internal police intelligence ). It’s clearly against EU law and EU courts have made rulings telling the Danish government to stop. They just don’t care. The police won’t even say how often it’s used. The general consensus seems to be basically NEVER, and it’s never the main intelligence source, still they refuse to stop.
- Kosirich 6y agoAs someone living in Denmark I wonder how do they classify a Danish citizen? Someone living in Denmark, having permanent residence, living in Denmark and being EU national, holding passport or being born here? Also, from a fair amount of conversation with my Danish colleagues I find it odd how uncritical they are when describing the relationship of Denmark and USA, regardless if I myself find the specific view different than mine. The people in question are of the right political spectrum and not overly political but still.
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- cambinoda 6y agoThe NSA is harmless compared to social media and other privacy threats. Without tapped lines WWII wouldn’t have been won. Silicon Valley was founded with that budget. They aren’t 24/7 trying to change your spending habits like social media. And they aren’t stealing your company or reproducing your product at lower cost to make your inventory worthless. Is it concerning? Sure. But so is the speech enabled remote control (which you can drill btw) and phone you use that listen and watch.
- cambinoda 6y agoYep, TOR is not secure. The other thing not mentioned enough is how insecure blockchain is. Both are vulnerable to time-correlation. https://www.wired.com/story/theres-no-good-reason-to-trust-blockchain-technology/ https://www.wired.com/story/theres-no-good-reason-to-trust-b...
- ColanR 6y agoI wish people would emphasize this more. Bitcoin isn't anonymous, and with the legal requirements for reporting transactions, much of what happens on there can be corellated to real-world identities. Far as privacy goes, it's probably a step backwards even from bank accounts and credit cards since there's no warrant needed to access it.
- nootropicat 6y agoBitcoin is old and stagnant, the future is full anonymity in the form of zk-snarks, used by millions.
- hammock 6y agoWhat's an example of a zk-snark, assuming they exist today, and what millions use them?
- asymptotically3 6y agoZCash is barely used, the shielded transactions even less so. Monero is the way forward.
- exoji2e 6y ago> In recent years, the NSA and the German BND have also been accused of massive illegal domestic spying. Thorough investigations have shown that was not the case, although their employees were sometimes careless and it was technically not always possible to do what was legally required. Absurd statement from the article. What investigations? Internal from the NSA? It's like saying "No the NSA are not collecting data on Americans because Mr. Clapper said so to the Senate under oath."
- croon 6y agoSo this comes two months after the head of Danish Defense Intelligence Service was relieved of duty for withholding information from watchdogs and violating Danish law [0]. I honestly don't know who should be blamed if there's not enough political capital to reign in these agencies globally. Either the electorate accept it, or don't know about it, which is bad enough in itself. [0] https://apnews.com/article/32814a611e84011e93894e4ab37bb11c https://apnews.com/article/32814a611e84011e93894e4ab37bb11c
- liversage 6y agoIn the 90s I remember critical media linking Sandagergård to the Echelon Project. There were also rumors about foreign contractors operating at the facility. I've always thought about this when I was near Sandagergård (it's situated in a beautiful place off the beaten path not far from Copenhagen) but as far as I remember the stories where mostly based on speculation without any hard facts. With these recent disclosures it seems that there might have been some truth to those old stories. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ECHELON https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ECHELON
- Dahoon 6y agoAs someone who has heard my father re-tell the same story at least 20 times of the time back in the 90's when he was out walking his dog near Sandagergård and was stopped at a military checkpoint by soldiers talking American English to him this almost feels like déjà vu. Anyone who used the area knows Americans was there.
- toyg 6y ago> it seems that there might have been some truth to those old stories It's really weird to see confirmed, year after year, that all those "conspiracy theories" (first circulated on the '90s internet) turned out to be almost entirely true, when it comes to network-based espionage. Echelon/five eyes? Check. Massive network surveillance? Check. Compromised ciphers? Check. Compromised hardware manufacturers? Check. NSA being fundamentally devoid of oversight? Check. US espionage targeting allies for industrial gain? Check, check, aand check. This shit was ridiculed back then, and it makes so hard to discern what is true in contemporary news reporting.
- m00dy 6y agoI live in Denmark and feel a bit scared :/
- ToFab123 6y ago> In the mid-1990s, the NSA had found out that somewhere under Copenhagen there was a backbone cable containing phone calls, e-mails and text messages from and to countries like China and Russia, which was of great interest for the Americans. Tapping that cable, however, was almost impossible without the help of the Danes, so the NSA asked the FE for access to the cable. This was revealed in details about 20 - 30 years ago in the Danish publication "Månedsbladet Press". I remember they had an insert, looked like a small newspaper, containing all the details about this. I remember this because this was the first time I heard the term "echelon". I my memory serves me correct I think that insert in the magazine was the first story or source of Echelon operating outside of the US so there is some kind of historical significance to this story. If I recall correctly they did this wiretapping in a underground bunker in the middle of Copenhagen. The bunker had no toilet and they got spotted by the journalists that wonder why more people was coming out of that bunker everyday to go the bathroom than people going in. Something like that. I don't have the magazine anymore but I know that the main library in Copenhagen has a copy as I checked several years later. If any historians around here want the backstory behind all this you should contact the library and get a copy of that publication. The publication stopped long ago, but that was the only newspaper-like insert they every had so it should be easy to locate in the archives.
- messo 6y agoThis is really fascinating. I dug around a bit to see if I could find a digital copy of the article you mentioned. The Norwegian National Library have an impressive archive of scanned books and newspapers going back hundreds of years, but apparently no danish newspapers. Instead I found a reference to a book from 1996 by an author from New Zealand which seems to describe the same topic in great detail. This is basically the very early, pre-internett version of what Snowden revealed. The book is made available for free by the author: http://www.nickyhager.info/Secret_Power.pdf http://www.nickyhager.info/Secret_Power.pdf This old website also contains a lot of interesting information on Echelon: https://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/ciencia/echelon04.htm https://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/ciencia/echelon04.htm The summary is quite something: «In the greatest surveillance effort ever established, the US National Security Agency (NSA) has created a global spy system, codename ECHELON, which captures and analyzes virtually every phone call, fax, email and telex message sent anywhere in the world.» There was also made a documentary based on the book (?):https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-S0JH5YYZw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-S0JH5YYZw
- PeterStuer 6y agoYou can not share this link via Facebook Messenger. Tried it and got a "You can't share this link. Your link couldn't be shared because it goes against our Community Standards". Never saw that before.
- PeterRatgen 6y agoJust tried to share it through Facebook Messenger as well and got the same message. Truly creepy.
- ibobev 6y ago> Part of the agreement between the US and Denmark was that "the USA does not use the system against Danish citizens and companies. And the other way around". Similar words can be found in an NSA presentation from 2011: "No US collection by Partner and No Host Country collection by US" At first glance, it sounds OK, but what if the US has similar agreements with some neighboring countries (and as mentioned in the article it has) and uses the data collected via them against Danish citizens and companies and vice versa? Everything will be perfectly legal, but in practice, no one is at safety and the creators of the system who have agreements with many countries have a huge advantage over their so-called "partners" because they are aggregating the big picture, but "the partners" have some guarantees only about the data which is transferred via them and have no guarantees even about it when it leaves their country.
- garfieldnate 6y agoI take issue with the statement that "Snowden was driven more by fears than by facts". Snowden revealed that the NSA was collecting information about citizens (American and many other countries) indiscriminately, for example every call record, every internet search, every web page viewed, etc. The documents he shared show the NSA's mission to collect ALL data possible, terrorist or not. Additionally it showed that there was basically no oversight when it came to digging into people's private lives; an NSA analyst could type in an email or IP address, click a few buttons, put down a few words for "justification" and then get a live view of someone's internet activity, have access to all of their data held by Microsoft, Google, Apple, Facebook, Skype, etc. This is all bad, and it's real, not just a fear. BTW the ninth circuit court of appeals ruled that the bulk collection was illegal a couple months ago: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/sep/03/edward-snowden-nsa-surveillance-guardian-court-rules https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/sep/03/edward-snowd...