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French-UAE Intel Satellite Deal in Doubt – US Parts Raise Security Concerns
- doctorpangloss 13y agoIt would be pretty awesome if the UAE put the interception technology on the satellites themselves. It would be a great way to get a discount from the French and perhaps a kickback from some American agency.
- awjr 13y agoTo a certain extent, I understand and accept Nations spying on each other is a big game that they all play with each other. I get it. It's very James Bond. However when your agencies are having a direct financial impact on your industries you really need to clean up your own backyard.
- furyg3 13y agoI don't understand or accept it. While your point about unintended financial consequences is very valid, I find this the lowest threshold of decision making. I don't steal staplers at work, not because I might get caught, or because everybody does it, or because it may adversely affect my company, or due to some other unforeseen consequence. I do it because I've thought a lot about stealing and have concluded that it's wrong to do so. The US has overwhelming military force (a house full of staplers). The US and/or France could have easily taken the decision to not deliver military satellites to the UAE (or to use political means to block it).
- mythealias 13y agoWake me up when US decides to sell it military tech for security and not money. I agree that financial consequences might not be a priority in decision making, but at the end of the day US (or rather the corporations, which can no longer be attributed to just US) are interested in money. I don't think UAE will stop buying stuff just because it is know to be tainted, but they get upper hand in bargaining the price. Also I don't understand your analogy to staplers fully. If US is a house of staplers and UAE (or any other nation) is not an employee there then the only reason they are not stealing is because they lack the skill. On an individual level it is relatively easier to make decisions regarding moral issues like stealing but that doesn't work for a group.
- furyg3 13y agoMy analogy is that the US shouldn't spy on it's parters because it is wrong and not because they may or may not get caught.
- wil421 13y agoWhat do you think spy agencies do? They spy on each other, I believe the part that is wrong is when they spy on innocent citizens. But intercepting military communications is what they do period. Right or wrong its their job, we may not agree with it but its what they are put there to do.
- furyg3 13y agoI'm a bit weary of this statement. Just because we created a institution who's job it is to secretly break laws abroad, does not mean that we don't have the right to say "hey, maybe institutionalizing criminal activity abroad was a bad move". I argue it was. I think that saying that we have these unalienable rights which God has given to all humans, creating a system of democracy around agreeing on them and settling disputes, and then saying "oh, but these rules only apply to how we treat ourselves" is crazy. If we've decided spying on our own citizens is bad, we should not do it to others. We would (and do) get upset if the government secretly and without cause taps a company's server. We have a right to be upset if China sells us routers which are bugged. We all agree that those are bad things. Yet we do them to others. That's amoral.
- bennyg 13y agoMeant to up vote you but blurry, just-put-contacts-in eyes clicked the down arrow.
- aethr 13y agoPolitical manoeuvring between states isn't a game that you can just choose not to play. Gathering intelligence about what the other players are doing, or intend to do, is an absolutely necessary part of the whole gambit. If the US and others didn't do this, they would be playing blind against better informed opponents. Each country is a team, competing on the political, military and economic fronts. Spying on your own citizens is wrong because they are supposed to be teammates, not adversaries. When this is done to consolidate power among those who are meant to be working in our best interests, we see that as an abuse of power and a subversion of the mechanisms of democracy in our own state. It's bad for the long term health of the political system of any democratic nation. Spying on your opponents is a completely different issue, as typically you are working in your team's best interests. Like many issues in life, it's complicated, and taking a hard line moral stance on the issue just isn't practical. I upvoted you because I think you raise an important question, but I'm also trying to point out that spying at home and abroad can't necessarily be evaluated on the same criteria. There are practical reasons to stop a government from spying on its own citizens, it isn't necessarily a moral argument.
- brudgers 13y agoIndividuals have moral agency. Corporate bodies such as governments do not. It is a category mistake to attribute agency to them. Governments are neither moral nor immoral. They are amoral. Defense satellites are no more staplers than monads are Scottish ballads. Defense satellites do not organize documents. They are tools to facilitate the use of violence. The UAE military establishment is following the same rationales as the US's - a bigger stick better insures achieving diplomatic objectives.
- PavlovsCat 13y agoGroups are made up of individuals. Those individuals are responsible for their actions, and hiding behind a group is in my opinion an immoral act. A group made up of individuals acting immorally in that way, is itself immoral. QED, or something.
- DigitalTurk 13y agoYou state your opinion as facts, but forget to give an argument. The least you could do is provide a reference. Prima facie, I don't find your view plausible at all.
- XorNot 13y agoHow can an entity which consists of between dozens to hundreds of thousands of people, each of whom has limited agency over the aggregate actions of that entity, and can be replaced at any time while fulfilling the same function (on paper) be remotely capable of demonstrating human-like moral agency?
- pvarangot 13y agoStates have not-human-like moral codes: agree Amoral states: don't agree I believe each group of people have their own social and moral codes that guide their behavior. I don't believe its something easy to understand, determine or represent.
- DigitalTurk 13y ago
- gbog 13y agoI may not steal staplers, and would certainly not pee in my neighbour's letter box except if really drunk, but, if I were in the position of Israel, which is a very unconfortable position, a war in fact, I would certainly work hard to find a way to listen to my hostile neighbours.
- tn13 13y agoLaws of morality do not apply to states. India has suffered a lot because it failed to understand this basic fact. I dont think there is any moral argument against what government is doing. The only argument is that American government is not strong enough to go ahead with these kinds schemes any more.
- twobits 13y agoWell, you'd also have to know how much you gained from spying, to know the score. I bet the wins are much more than the loses.
- ItendToDisagree 13y agoThe losses arn't to your 'agency' but to the companies in your country. So the opinion that "we're doing a lot of good but we can't tell you anything about it because terrorism!" outweighing the costs and lost sales to companies in your country seems pretty ridiculous.
- twobits 13y agoYou misunderstood me. The losses are to companies of the country, and the gains are again to companies of the country. I am saying that the gains to the companies by the spying must be much more.
- drdeadringer 13y agoPart of me is amazed that these folks don't have a "blowback" plan. Another part of me isn't surprised at all, out of suspecting a combination of hubris and incompetence.
- johnchristopher 13y agoI noticed the source of the article was voice of russia so I looked for other sources: http://www.france24.com/en/20140107-competitor-sabotage-behind-france-uae-spy-satellite-doubts/ http://www.france24.com/en/20140107-competitor-sabotage-behi... (french news) http://www.euronews.com/2014/01/06/france-uae-spy-satellite-deal-in-jeopardy-over-us-supplied-parts---claim/ http://www.euronews.com/2014/01/06/france-uae-spy-satellite-... Suggestions are made that the US or another bidding competitor planted the spying tech to ruin the french-UAE deal. Still can't say if we are talking hardware parts or software backdoor.
- salient 13y agoI think this was the original source, and it says 2 hardware components from US: http://www.defensenews.com/article/20140105/DEFREG04/301050006 http://www.defensenews.com/article/20140105/DEFREG04/3010500...
- bane 13y agoMy understanding is that the physics of imaging satellites is pretty precise, even a few ounces bias on one side can make the whole thing useless. Getting equipment of any sort installed on a very expensive satellite without anybody knowing would be pretty much impossible. I can't even imagine the complexity of designing such a device...it's not like it's a device that can be fired from a gun 300 meters away that sticks to the satellite and some 007 type happens to make the shot while the satellite is in transit to the payload fairing. It would have to fit perfectly within the power and payload envelope of the satellite and literally not be noticed by any of the engineers or designers working or designing what's essentially a 1-off piece of space hardware. And having it in relative isolation during assembly for months or even years. It'd be like somebody sticking an extra hard drive or NIC in the computer you built at home and you not noticing it. Anybody care to speculate what this device was within the bounds of physics or is this just paranoid politics over some specialized American built hardware that France needed to source for the comm system? The stated story smells. http://www.france24.com/en/20140107-competitor-sabotage-behind-france-uae-spy-satellite-doubts/ http://www.france24.com/en/20140107-competitor-sabotage-behi... has a more reasonable analysis Finding backdoor technology two months after signing a contract that neither the UAE experts nor the French engineers had been aware of also seems unlikely, according to both experts. "The most likely explanation is that a competitor has planted a seed of doubt in an attempt to sabotage the deal," said Charret.
- vidarh 13y agoWhy would you assume it needed to be done without anybody knowing? It would seem far easier to compromise/blackmail or bribe the right people.
- gbog 13y agoIf I were a French general and a colleague from the US came and said, ok, we help you sell this dish to the arabs but we add this little thing in here so a bell ring in my office if they plan to lightgun a nearby country. I'd say yes. I makes everyone happy: French have the money, US has their bell and Arabs have their dish.
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- thirdsight 13y agoI doubt this is possible. Every item that goes up is assembled and signed off piecemeal so every bit of hardware will be checked by multiple eyes. The buyer will have people on site checking this. From a software perspective, things are a little more uncertain but the workflows are tightly locked down. It would be extremely difficult to get anything shipped which isn't known about by everyone. Even attempting this is illogical. I agree with the assertion that this is to secure a better deal. (I wrote software to manage assembly and versioning of components on space and military equipment).
- bane 13y agoRight, so I'm guessing that there are two possible explanations: 1) There is something (HW or SW) on the satellite and it was installed with full knowledge of the assembly group. 2) There's nothing unusual on the satellite and something else, politics perhaps, are at play here. I wouldn't count out a desire to not have U.S. sourced parts on a military bird. Just like the U.S. doesn't want to have Chinese sourced hardware (even if it's just door handles).
- drdeadringer 13y agoI had the thought that perhaps how folks are more willing to call the US out on practices that have up-to-now been accepted wholesale or common practice?
- salient 13y agoWhy go through the trouble of accusing them of implanting a backdoor, if all they wanted is to review other countries' offers, which they're doing now anyway (Russia, China)? Are you saying that now they will go back, and say "ok, since you removed the backdoor, we're going to accept your 30 percent discounted offer."? That seems highly unlikely. If anything Russia and China will charge them more than the French now, to "guarantee" there's no backdoor, and since they are in a better negotiation position now than they would've been if UAE reviewed their offers pre-accusing France/US of backdooring the other offer.
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- junto 13y agoMeanwhile heads are rolling in the French Ministry of Defence, as it slowly dawns on them that they have used the same US spy components in their own satellite systems, and replacing them would cost billions of Euros.
- Eye_of_Mordor 13y agoWell, this could be the catalyst for a resurgence in EU industry. Do it yourself or get exploited by someone else?
- Eye_of_Mordor 13y agoEveryone is quite sensibly reviewing their US tech relationship and either going elsewhere or asking for an 'NSA tax'.
- peteretep 13y agoThankfully alternative suppliers like Russia and China have such spotless reputations when it comes to espionage.
- alan_cx 13y agoSure, but Im not sure we can legitimately accuse them of all the things we have proof the NSA have gotten up to. See, thats the problem for the US right now, we can play the proof game. Right now we know what the NSA and US get up to. Its no longer the wild speculation of the foil hat brigade. Its fact now. Where as, with everyone else, we have relatively small cases and speculation. So, if you have a choice, and you know absolutely that one supplier cant be even slightly trusted, why would you use it? How could you justify the spending and choice? You cant. If anything went wrong, or political alliances or policies change, well, you don't have a leg to stand on. Your career and reputation are over. You bought from a known bad actor. You cant deny it. So, you have to look else where. At the very least, at this level, you have to make one hell of a case to select US technology right now.
- Eye_of_Mordor 13y ago"No one ever got fired for buying IBM." Open source from now on, until there's a better business model.
- msantos 13y agoUS Air Force using counterfeit Chinese parts [1] s/counterfeit/backdoored/ [1] http://rt.com/news/us-air-force-counterfeit-electronics-879/ http://rt.com/news/us-air-force-counterfeit-electronics-879/
- kmfrk 13y agoAnd you thought you hated debugging.
- leephillips 13y agoThe most troubling aspect of this story, for me, is that the civilized world is providing this class of technology to countries like the UAE.
- gbog 13y agoNot sure the world you are talking about really qualifies as "civilized", but I agree with the sentiment. UAE, except for the oil, should be a few dunes of sand with a few tribes, not sure what for they would need war satellites.
- XorNot 13y agoYou may not have noticed, but none of the countries in the middle east like each other very much and satellite surveillance is kind of a big strategic deal...
- RRRA 13y agoCheck out this 30c3 video for more strange facts about US and space ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTVgPw7TR_k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTVgPw7TR_k
- Mankhool 13y agoThis may just be postering on the part of the UAE Government to get out of the deal, because they have been offered better terms from elsewhere. A relative in the US who was a very small military contractor delivered a radar system to the UAE Government last decade - on time, and on budget - only to be told that they didn't want it anymore and since they didn't want it, they were not going to pay for it. The company could not tolerate that loss and went bankrupt.
- leoedin 13y agoIf the article is correct (that this has been "discovered" rather than already known about, but not considered an issue until now), my suspicion is that they've discovered that aspects of the satellite's systems are under ITAR control. ITAR (International Traffic in Arms Regulations) applies to almost everything space related that originates in the US, passes through the US, has input from US citizens or is produced by a US based company. It's very easy for something to become subject to ITAR, and once something is considered to be subject to ITAR it's practically impossible to undo. It's possible that they've recently done an audit on the systems used (which are numerous and sourced from hundreds, perhaps thousands of suppliers) and found that something which was previously considered to be ITAR free could actually be subject to ITAR. Violation of ITAR by a company can result in huge fines or trade sanctions, and the only way to avoid them is not operate at all in the US, or even deal with US companies. I'd imagine that the only people in the space business who don't care about ITAR are the Chinese and Russians.
- tanzam75 13y agoAvoiding US companies isn't enough. Even the Europeans cannot manufacture an ITAR-free satellite, because they are not completely self-sufficient. Until last year, you used to be able to buy ITAR-free satellites from Thales Alenia. However, the US State Department aggressively went after the American suppliers -- one of them got fined, and some previously-unrestricted components are now ITAR-controlled. That was the end of Thales Alenia's ITAR-free satellite. If you want an ITAR-free satellite, you have to buy it from Russia or China. Those are the only two countries that have the capability to build a satellite without using any US components.
- eliteraspberrie 13y agoThe reality is not as dramatic as reported. A part of the satellite (probably the radio) was outsourced by the French to a US company. So naturally the US could intercept that satellite's communications. There are various types of French satellites: those carrying data which is protected from eavesdropping by anyone including the US, and those carrying data for NATO. The former are destroyed at the end of their life, the latter are up for sale. In other words, satellites that are protected from eavesdropping by the US are never for sale. The UAE, like all Gulf monarchies, is entirely dependent on the US militarily and strategically. This political stunt is for domestic consumption.
- downer86 13y agoBut no one has asked the real question. The real question is: Why the fuck does the UAE even need spy satellites? Seriously. What the fuck are they even spying on?