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A bug is found in Ecuador Embassy in London
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- beedogs 13y agoThe US government appears to be absolutely terrified of this 29-year-old former NSA contractor. What could he possibly be saving to use against them?
- krapp 13y agoThe US government appears to be absolutely terrified of this 29-year-old former NSA contractor. No it doesn't, really. I believe this is wishful thinking on your part, but see no evidence of it. You believe the US somehow planted this bug in the Ecuadorian embassy just in case Snowden ended up there? America isn't the only country in the world that bugs embassies and even so, where's the proof this particular bug is that new?
- ryguytilidie 13y agoHow you could say "I see no evidence of this" is just so far beyond me I don't know whether to laugh or cry. You think that insisting the guy is barred from every ally or that we are grounding foreign president's planes because we are worried Snowden might be on them and somehow your brain takes all these inputs and spits out "no evidence". How does that happen? Does one train in some sort of ignorance academy?
- krapp 13y agoYou think that insisting the guy is barred from every ally You're assuming that every other government is a puppet state of the US, incapable of making its own decisions or engaging in its own politics. No one else has to give Edward Snowden asylum if they don't want to. If you're talking about his passport being revoked, he was accused of a serious crime and was fleeing the country -- revoking someone's passport under those circumstances is not uncommon. None of this is evidence of the US being 'terrified' of anything. we are grounding foreign president's planes because we are worried Snowden might be on them WE did not ground anything, unless I missed the part where the United States runs the European Union. I suppose if there's a thunderstorm in Moscow, it's because the US controls the weather too? If Edward Snowden has a bad egg salad sandwich, the US must be poisoning everyone's chickens? Consider this... the assumption that Edward Snowden has access to secrets so utterly damaging to the US that the government would be willing to do anything and everything possible to stop him... which brings with it the suggestion that the US is so evil that it would have such a secret still stowed away somewhere.... ... and yet we let him leave the country at all. And yet, we appear (despite being 'absolutely terrified') to be working within the system. You think it would be impossible for the CIA to book a couple of flights to Moscow and maybe have Edward Snowden eat a bullet if they were that desperate?
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- vnchr 13y agoRegardless of potential damage, he has made a lot of powerful people very angry. Simple retribution seems like it would suffice for the reaction to date.
- wavefunction 13y agoThese "serious people" don't like to look like fools. Don't peek behind the curtain.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- logn 13y agoDirt on every single one of them personally? But I'd doubt that as Snowden actually seems like a person of high morals who wouldn't stoop to that even to save his life. Anyhow, the sad thing is, I don't think the government really cares. This is about making a point, showing their power, and discouraging this from ever happening again.
- ChrisAntaki 13y agoCell phones can be turned on remotely, and used as listening devices as well. This is why Edward Snowden told his HK lawyers to place theirs in a refrigerator. Source: http://news.cnet.com/2100-1029-6140191.html http://news.cnet.com/2100-1029-6140191.html
- femto 13y agoGiven that it is technically feasible, I'd assume it's possible for a mobile phone base station to geofence something like an embassy, or park bench, and have all mobile phones entering the geofenced perimeter go into surveillance mode, and return to normal on exiting the perimeter. Given that phones have a precise GPS locked timebase, I'd even assume that it is possible to beamform the signal from multiple phones, allowing conversations to be picked out from background noise. Continuous monitoring, as long as there is a continuous stream of mobile phones passing by.
- ars 13y agoI would be very surprised if the US didn't have bugs in every embassy on earth. In fact if they didn't I'd call the CIA to task and ask them to explain why not.
- Centigonal 13y agoThat's a dangerously lax attitude to have. What threat to national security could or would the CIA curtail by bugging Ecuador's embassy in London? I'd understand Chinese or Russian embassies, but expecting every embassy on Earth is an incredibly permissive stance to take, even as a safety-conscious citizen of the U.S.
- randuser 13y ago> What threat to national security could or would the CIA curtail by bugging Ecuador's embassy in London? Possible communications to/from Julian Assange?
- Centigonal 13y agoAh -- that sure is true. Part of my post has been invalidated. I think the point about expecting every embassy to be bugged being a dangerously lax attitude remains valid, though.
- prostoalex 13y agoBecause political alliances are impermanent? It would be pretty hard to bug Ecuador's embassy the day after they were deemed a threat to national security. >>> I'd understand Chinese or Russian embassies "We've always been at war with Eastasia".
- Centigonal 13y agoIt's not so much a matter of enmity (or lack thereof) as it is a matter of capability (or lack thereof). China and Russia are capable of causing serious harm to U.S. citizens and interests. Ecuador, not so much. Of course, this view does not account for black swans, but I think the possibility of an entirely unprecedented method for a militarily and economically inferior nation to meaningfully harm U.S. citizens and/or interests being developed and put to use (not even accounting for alliances or motives) is sufficiently low that the risk is not worth surveilling the world to mitigate.
- loupeabody 13y agoForgive my optimism, but perhaps things like this happen all the time and it's hardly ever newsworthy...? Yeah, I can't really find a positive outlook to all this international intrigue and espionage. There isn't one, right? This particular development, though, seems way more dramatic than the rest. I wonder what point there is in waiting until tomorrow to release the source of the bug.
- TillE 13y agoThere was a huge diplomatic incident in 2006 when the Russians discovered listening devices planted by the UK. This doesn't happen every day. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jan/19/fake-rock-plot-spy-russians http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jan/19/fake-rock-plot-s...
- loupeabody 13y agoWow, a fake rock? I can hardly believe this actually happened in a serious context.
- fnordfnordfnord 13y agoLooks like something they got from Sharper Image.
- Spooky23 13y agoSure it does. The Soviets went as far as to embed some sort of passive microphones in cinder blocks used to build the US Embassy in Moscow. The US planted copier repairmen/spies to install cameras in xerox machines at the Russian embassy.
- brown9-2 13y agoJust like when the US built a tunnel under the Soviet embassy in DC: http://www.nytimes.com/2001/03/04/us/us-thinks-agent-revealed-tunnel-at-soviet-embassy.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm http://www.nytimes.com/2001/03/04/us/us-thinks-agent-reveale...
- jandrewrogers 13y agoEmbassies are routinely bugged by myriad parties so I would not read too much into this. It is the expected background noise of working in an embassy. It is the selection bias of people paying attention now because there is a story that people are interested in. There is a reason they constantly search embassies for bugs. Also, most sophisticated buggings are usually difficult to detect even against a sophisticated adversary. All of which suggests to me that finding this bug in the Ecuador embassy is likely to be coincidence.
- ghayes 13y agoI agree with your statement of selection bias. For a good recent read on this subject, I'd suggest Foreign Policy: New Flash, States Spy on Each Other http://walt.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2013/07/01/news_flash_states_spy_on_each_other http://walt.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2013/07/01/news_flash_st...
- chronic25 13y agoCool
- ignostic 13y agoI do too, but... this is a good reason not to bug allies. You make everyone paranoid if it's discovered.
- jmduke 13y agoThe point is that allies are aware they're being bugged. It's just an accepted truth.
- seanmcdirmid 13y agoThe public of our allies don't really...these publics ultimately decide whether we are allies or not.
- 13y ago
- randuser 13y agoPerhaps the Russians planted the device and intentionally made it easy to find in order to incriminate the US.
- mikeyouse 13y agoEvery time the US, UK, or other 'western' governments announce a foiled terror attack or suspected plot, a significant portion of the HN community is vocally skeptical. I hope that skepticism persists even when it goes the other direction. I think it's pretty likely that the bug came from the US or one of our allies but its absolutely possible that it didn't. Everyone has home grown political enemies and this would be an excellent time for a false flag to capitalize on a prominent news story.
- lostlogin 13y agoWhat is the other direction to to skeptical in? And how does bugging that embassy relate to terrorism? A fair portion of terrorism comes from quite close US allies (Saudi, Pakistan arguably Israel depending on your politics), so I suppose bugging them may be helpful.
- mikeyouse 13y agoI suppose my original post was needlessly ambiguous. I was a bit apprehensive that the entire comment section would resemble the first few comments, where people would uncritically blame the US and insist that the government was out to get Snowden. What is the other direction to to skeptical in? Many on HN are very skeptical of the US/UK governments (generally for good reason), but seem to lack a similar level of skepticism for stories that make the governments look bad. That's the 'other direction' which I was implying. If some percent of stories that make the government look good are misleading / planted / etc, then logically, some percent of those which make them look bad are likely wrong too. And how does bugging that embassy relate to terrorism? It doesn't really, the response to articles like "FBI busts terror cell" was just the first example of government mistrust that came to mind.
- lostlogin 13y agoThanks.
- flyinRyan 13y ago>If some percent of stories that make the government look good are misleading / planted / etc, then logically, some percent of those which make them look bad are likely wrong too. That doesn't follow at all. If the government is actively trying to ensure stories make them look good, they certainly wouldn't want any to make them look bad. They certainly wouldn't be creating/planting/whatever stories to do that unless they were provably false and would be used to advantage later (e.g. "look at this bias reporting!").
- machrider 13y agoI'm getting an infinite google translate recursion situation here. Pretty amusing, actually.
- e3pi 13y agoJulian, now a year out, restless with cabin fever, wanders around the silent Ecuador Embassy at night in his `Sparky-the-Dog(tm)' pajamas, takes a chunk out of a smart phone, covers it with flat-black `Gaffer(tm)' fingernail polish, disgruntled with Ecuador President waffled then caved under US on Snowden asylum, glue-sticks his fake `bug' under an antique desk.
- e3pi 13y agoImage of fake bug: http://cryptome.org/2013/07/ec-bug-decoy.htm http://cryptome.org/2013/07/ec-bug-decoy.htm
- pearjuice 13y agoOdd how they find find it this late during runtime. I mean, how long has the building been standing there?
- ck2 13y agoApparently the cold war has never ended or the US government never got the message.
- ihsw 13y agoEnding the Cold War was a formality to 'restore' public faith in cohesive global organizations. Free-trade agreements and other major economic blocs shatter borders as a matter of policy -- the fact that such tight unity, solidarity, and uniformity between nations has gone unnoticed is probably more disturbing than actual acts that verify this unity (ie: Snowden having nowhere to run to). Multi-generational voter apathy has culminated to a point where most people are so disconnected from reality that they thought Snowden could escape the long arm of the US Government.
- mehmehshoe 13y agoI reeealy hate giving you an upvote.
- coldtea 13y agoOf course it has never ended. The War part was about who gets to be the top dog (i.e not specifically about communism vs capitalism), and that never stops. Before the cold war it was the colonial powers fighting it out, for the same reasons (when the US was still an emerging world player at the time). This gave us the 19th century wars, and WWI and WWII. After France, UK, etc lost any chance to the "top dog" position, and Germany failed quite spectacularly, they stopped fighting altogether. (Not because of any "hard lessons" learned during WWII -- if it was that, they would have stopped at WWI and even earlier. There was just not much to fight about anymore).
- lostlogin 13y agoHas anyone else tried reading that article on an iPhone? How many different sorts of bad is that experience? Banners, nav bar, non realizable, scrolls left to right and up and down.
- dfc 13y agoDoes anyone else get an endless recursive loop of google translate when clicking this link?
- antitrust 13y agoThey seem unstable. I'd bug them too!