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New WikiLeaks Documents Reveal NSA Spied on French Companies

528 points by maelito 11y ago

api 11y ago
I've thought for a long time that the most likely corruption we'd see around the surveillance issue is industrial espionage. It'd be a great way for the NSA to give an unfair advantage to state-linked American corporations, or for independent actors within NSA to line their pockets. A related issue would be insider trading. I mean, with a source of data like that you could basically 'jackpot' stock markets and extract arbitrary amounts of money from the global economy. Members of Congress are immune from prosecution for insider trading.
- TheOtherHobbes 11y ago
  Actually this has been SOP for US corps and the US gov since the days of the telegraph - literally.
  - SixSigma 11y ago
    SOP Source of Pride
    - azdle 11y ago
      In this case, I read that as "Standard Operating Procedure".
      - aquadrop 11y ago
        And I read it as "Source Of Profit", let's wait and see who's right :)
- oh_sigh 11y ago
  > It'd be a great way for the NSA to give an unfair advantage to state-linked American corporations, or for independent actors within NSA to line their pockets. Funny, because this is exactly the reason that the NSA is spying on these French companies(to determine if they are illegally affecting the US via hidden state subsidies, breaking of international regulations, etc).
  - api 11y ago
    The two are not mutually exclusive. That could well be the official above-board reason. I was simply pointing out the absolutely immense opportunity for unchecked corruption that's inherent in programs like this. They're classified, therefore they get little to no external oversight. Corruption need not be top-down. If Snowden could walk out with so much data without discovery, what could a more 'entrepreneurial' insider do?
- nota_bene 11y ago
  > A related issue would be insider trading. To be honest, all of the data hoovers such as Google, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Co. have a pretty obvious insider knowledge-like cash machine: simply look into a few correlations between what data their users (as signed in users or as involuntary shadow profiles) put into these companies' databases and the movements of the stock market. Then predict and cash out.
  - mwerd 11y ago
    This is actually the case in at least one public example[1]. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Wednesday filed a lawsuit in federal court in Philadelphia against Bonan Huang and Nan Huang, saying the analysts used the nonpublic data to trade in the shares of consumer retail companies ahead of sales and earnings reports. The lawsuit said from November 2013 to January 2015, the two analysts, who had access to the data as fraud investigators, made hundreds, if not thousands, of keyword searches for sales data on at least 170 publicly traded companies. The SEC said the two employees were able to analyze the data to determine if a company's sales were increasing or decreasing on a periodic basis. [1]http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/01/22/capital-one-fin-insidertrading-idUSL1N0V02ZY20150122 http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/01/22/capital-one-fin-in...
- a3n 11y ago
  There is probably no spy agency in any developed country that can rival the reach, effectiveness and immediacy of the NSA. So this kind of industrial espionage is a huge unfair trade advantage, at least from the victim's point of view. I wonder how long it's going to be until Europe levies an NSA trade tax against US goods and services.
  - wahsd 11y ago
    What really has not been highlighted to even remotely an adequate level is the huge damage to the trust and confidence in the USA as the stalwart and upstanding sentinel image that we have cultivated to exquisitely over decades now. If there had only been some really good alternatives for the global focus to orient itself by, the USA would have been side-lined and crushed economically by now due to the direct and deliberate self-sabotage by our intelligence community. Will we see the USA recover from all the damage, abuse, and devastation it has caused to its relationships and self-destruction it has wrecked upon itself? I don't know, but I can tell you that if the European Union rightfully moves against American companies as a justified threat to their national security, it will cost our economy billions. Facebook's market cap is currently $245 billion, how many billions do you think would be shaved off if the EU and / or other countries acted against that facade of USA global surveillance domination? How about Google? How about Cisco? Apple ... even though at least in terms of impression, I think Apple is playing a smart card by siding with encryption of their devices. Personally, though, I think the lies by the NSA to our own government and the revealed actions prove one thing, that you can't trust anything that comes from our government and you really can't trust anyone that is affiliated, either voluntarily or compulsory, and Apple has been working with the government and intel agencies. Can they be trusted? Are their efforts to secure and encrypt their devices really genuine or just lip service and smoke and mirrors? Who knows. The trust is permanently destroyed, really!
    - happyscrappy 11y ago
      We have been hearing this trope for years and Europe is more dependent upon the US than ever.
- chmaynard 11y ago
  > Members of Congress are immune from prosecution for insider trading. This is a strong claim. Are you referring to trading in global equity markets?
  - mafuyu 11y ago
    There has been some controversy over the years regarding Congress and insider trading: https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/05/07/congress-argues-cant-investigated-insider-trading/ https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/05/07/congress-argue... http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/17/stock-act-change-insider-trading_n_3100115.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/17/stock-act-change-in...
Smerity 11y ago
Does anyone know of a modern, comprehensive list of such industrial espionage events from a trustworthy source? One of my go-tos was the European Parliament's report on the ECHELON interception system[1] as it gives an idea of how long this has been happening (the report was published 2001), but it's so very old now. Under "Published Cases", the European Parliament list industrial espionage attacks on a variety of companies and government agencies. Some you might consider reasonable (exposing bribery in the bidding process then nudging the contract to a US firm) but others are incredibly dodgy (forwarding technical details about a wind generator to a US firm so they could patent it first). [1]: http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-//EP//TEXT+REPORT+A5-2001-0264+0+DOC+XML+V0//EN http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-//EP//...
h1fra 11y ago
I wonder how Barack Obama will stand against this assumption. There are some serious accusation, I'm pretty sure both side will temper all the way they can but may lead to intense change in business as company already starting to file complain !
- rudolf0 11y ago
  France's intelligence agencies are known to engage in this same kind of economic espionage, including against the US. Not that that necessarily makes it right for us to do it, but any outrage from France's government is feigned.
- x5n1 11y ago
  Basically the rules of the game are there are no rules. Whoever can steal anyone's secrets does and probably should or risk being left behind. China plays by these rules, it's about time that everyone else wisen up to this and accept it as the real state of affairs outside of rhetoric and propaganda.
  - marcosdumay 11y ago
    > China plays by these rules, it about time that everyone else wisen up to this. Are you aware that this story is about the US, right?
    - x5n1 11y ago
      Obviously. I meant in addition China also plays by these rules.
      - irishcoffee 11y ago
        You're being sarcastic, right?
  - tawaynow 11y ago
    Ok so next US officials accuse the Chinese of spying based on some very shaky evidence we can just all collectively tell them to stop whining right?
coldcode 11y ago
It might be shorter to list who the NSA didn't spy on.
- qnaal 11y ago
  reminds me of the snl sketch where the other colors of soylent individually turn out to also be made out of people
- minusSeven 11y ago
  off course if you can find someone nsa didn't spy on. ;)
tptacek 11y ago
Three fun truths: * France is one of the most notoriously brazen state sponsors of industrial espionage, especially within the EU. * This stuff is rampant between all the industrialized nations. You can find stories going back decades about Americans being evicted from embassies over industrial espionage. Somehow, we all seem to remain allies. * Technically --- modulo the "getting caught" part --- this is what NSA is supposed to be doing. That's a positive assertion, not a normative one! Curious how we never seem to see Russia as the focus of Wikileaks releases. They must just be really respectful of the civil liberties of citizens of the world.
- foobarqux 11y ago
  No one seems to tout the "everyone's doing it" mantra when China does it.
  - tptacek 11y ago
    It's hard to coherently sum up the response to Chinese hacking, because it's as big a component of the public dialog as NSA spying is. However, I do think there's a difference between remarks about Chinese hacking and NSA spying. Outrage about NSA spying seems always to be moral. Outrage over Chinese hacking seems more practical: it's taken as given that China is going to sponsor hackers and that they're really good at it. Look at the recent OPM debacle. Virtually all the coverage I see about it is about how OPM (and the USG more broadly) fell down on the job, not about we should retaliate against the people who broke in.
    - foobarqux 11y ago
      I'm pretty confident that if you were to do a study of American media coverage of the events, or a survey of American public sentiment regarding Chinese hacking, they would both overwhelmingly indicate a perception of immorality.
      - jacquesm 11y ago
        Ditto outside of the USA.
bediger4000 11y ago
Isn't the real problem with "economic espionage" who the NSA gives the info to? By picking and choosing who gets the info, the NSA/executive branch isn't really letting the free market make the choices any longer. There could be political implications, giving info to companies that do campaign contributions, or lobby more expensively.
- jsprogrammer 11y ago
  >free market Why can't competitors obtain and release the info to those they consider more deserving?
- fweespeech 11y ago
  To some degree, yes. However... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_espionage#France_and_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_espionage#France_an... US/French economic espionage has been an ongoing problem since before the Cold War ended. Its the "normal" state of affairs, similar to US v. China. Its simply a question of how "gentlemanly" the matter is handled. France/US tends to be rather "gentlemanly" as they tend to target the negotiations/technology/contracts specifically. > According to an economic espionage order, the NSA intercepted all French corporate contracts and negotiations valued at more than $200 million in many different industries, such as telecommunications, electrical generation, gas, oil, nuclear and renewable energy, and environmental and healthcare technologies.
  - bediger4000 11y ago
    I think I might have been unclear. I often read that "this is the sort of thing we expect spy agencies to do". I stipulate that economic espionage is part of what spy agencies do, and should do. So, "normal" it is. I'm interested in what information gets distributed to which US corporations, and maybe why. That is, should the NSA give Boeing info it's filched from Airbus, or should Lockheed-Martin get it, too? Why exclude Grumman-Northup? Did LockMart give more in campaign contributions? Is that why they got the insider info? I want to use real US companies, I'm pretty certain that defense contractors aren't multi-nationals. Certainly you could erase specific corporate names and re-fill the blanks with corporations from another, arbitrary, market. The problem is that the NSA (or whoever, the President maybe) becomes the arbiter of which corporation succeeds and which doesn't, regardless of what the rest of the market perceives, and how the rest of the market acts. This seems like a bad idea.
hbbio 11y ago
It would be very interesting to know, technically, what are the interception means. Does it target phone calls, emails, internal spys, other things? From other documents, it appears that the NSA has the ability to listen to phone calls on French networks. As most of the "targets" use Orange, the historical telecom operator, and that collaboration from Orange with the NSA is unlikely, it would mean that their IT systems are owned. Regarding email, most French companies use Microsoft products both as servers (Exchange) and client (Outlook). Are there exploitable vulnerabilities in these products? As we are in that space, we have to push hard, for people even to consider French-written, open source communication software such as ours (https://github.com/MLstate/PEPS https://github.com/MLstate/PEPS).
- chaostheory 11y ago
  http://www.networkworld.com/article/2458706/microsoft-subnet/about-those-alleged-backdoors-in-microsoft-products.html http://www.networkworld.com/article/2458706/microsoft-subnet... "Although the feds denied it, Peter Biddle, the head of the engineering team working on BitLocker in 2005, claimed that the government makes 'informal requests' for backdoors. Allegedly after making claims about 'going dark,' the FBI 'informally' asked Microsoft for a backdoor in BitLocker."
- Zigurd 11y ago
  > From other documents, it appears that the NSA has the ability to listen to phone calls on French networks. As most of the "targets" use Orange, the historical telecom operator, and that collaboration from Orange with the NSA is unlikely, it would mean that their IT systems are owned. It's probably much worse than that. France, Germany, and most of the rest of Europe are vassal states of the US through cooperation among intelligence agencies. In other words, France is being sold out not only by Orange and/or employees of Orange, but by their own intelligence services who have a stronger allegiance to their links with Five Eyes intelligence services than to French interests. This is another reason "everyone does it" doesn't hold water as a justification. The situation is massively asymmetrical.
  - renaudg 11y ago
ScootyPuff2000 11y ago
So what? I certainly don't mind if my Government spies on _other_ countries. It's just spying on its own citizens that's an issue.
- wahsd 11y ago
  That's kind of ignorant of the fact that such a mentality starts breaking down a system of trust and confidence that can lead to major cracks in economy and retaliatory actions. It is never a good rule to simply play a game that only has one rule, that everyone is allowed to cheat.
- Roodgorf 11y ago
  I honestly can't tell if this is sarcastic or not. Are you saying that you believe ethical practices are so vastly different across arbitrary distinctions like state borders?
  - cheald 11y ago
    Well, your government ostensibly has an obligation to protect your interests, while other state governments have no such obligation. You can certainly argue against the ethics of any spying, but it should be abundantly clear that a government and its agents have a duty to its citizens that is greater than its duty to the citizens of other sovereign nations.
secfirstmd 11y ago
One of the things that annoys me about these revelations is that, particularly in regards to the espionage aspect of things, essentially private businesses are de facto in some way gaining from either increased inside knowledge or increased protection from the likes of the NSA or French equivalents etc... However, if private people, journalists or NGOs are targeted by foreign governments (or corporate intelligence) they are never told about it (probably leading to the death of sources etc) - and if they conducted hacking/espionage activities for the greater public good (for example to expose information about people wanted for genocide in Darfur, those who murder journalists in Russia, diamond corruption in the DRC) they would go to jail...What a sad world we live in that we would rather prioritise protecting clean engine patents and airplane deals instead of human life :(
mrschwabe 11y ago
The espionage is perhaps most bothering of all. In some ways, most of us can rationalize spying for the purposes of security (albeit a dangerous and perhaps short-sighted rationalization) but when it's done with the intention of economic advantage it clearly undermines our entire financial system and the best features of capitalism: which is to reward those who innovate; delivering the market with higher quality products at lower pricing over time. Because now you have a 'special access' class of the economy that can subvert this innovation/value mechanism with stolen data. Add corrupt politicians, easily exploited loopholes, biased media channels, and a docile public - and it's easy to see how this special access class can twist, distort (and ultimately destroy) the system. One can only imagine what humanity could achieve without these parasites infecting our lives and businesses.
- mc32 11y ago
  All capable states spy on each other. Enemy states spy on govt secrets and friendly states focus on industrial espionage. France, Israel and China are some of the most vigorous at industrial espionage. Like it or not that's how the world operates and, unfortunately, we can't simply wish that away.
  - sounds 11y ago
    I don't think he wished anything away, I think his point is that it reduces the value for all of us. Maybe take it as an appeal to logic: if nations are to grapple with the issues raised by the NSA and her sister orgs in the five eye countries, the best approach to raising the issue and proposing solutions (in my opinion) is to appeal to the logic of each individual and demonstrate how they are best served by dismantling these espionage operations.
    - mc32 11y ago
      I think it's wishful thinking. I knew of a guy who wanted to open a coffee shop. He got to know another existing coffee shop owner and picked his brain for the dos and don'ts. He said, I'll be opening a shop (in a diff city) and I see yours is doing well... So what does he do? Opened a shop one block down and drove the fist guy out of business. Business is ruthless.
r0h1n 11y ago
A state intelligence agency found spying on foreign private cos. in critical sectors like nuclear power plants, planes, high speed trains, telecommunications and energy, in order to pass on the intelligence and aid its own domestic firms. For a minute I almost thought we were talking about China.
fixxer 11y ago
"economic intelligence" sounds so much nicer than "corporate espionage"
themeek 11y ago
Espionage is standard practice in the world today. So are isolated assassinations, torture, coups, and state sponsorship of terrorism. The United States participated in all of the above. Domestic citizens in America feel as though their government is 'clean' or 'noble'. This is a myth propelled by Public Affairs, PR and supported by the media (at worst, the media will say, the US made blunders and mistakes). The United States is in the boxing ring with every other nation. It's a heavyweight. What's happening right now is that the United States is 'short of breath'. It's overextended. Long term plans haven't worked out. The US is finding itself reacting to other nations rather than keeping them on their toes. It's dropped in its financial, economic, and technological development capabilities. It is having trouble facing challenges brought by new technology. It is losing the support of its closest allies. It's a difficult time for America. Not everything is decided. It may yet remain a unipolar power. But to do so it will need to get in and scrap. The hawks want to scrap. They want to fight for continued supremacy. There are no doves that are serious contenders for president and I don't know if the system would allow a dove to be elected, even if the candidate had majority support from citizens. In this turbulence, we have to think about what we can do as citizens. The clearest answer is to get quality information and to be informed. Taking the Snowden and Wikileaks documents as a list of things that the US does that are bad is not the best way to read them. The best way to read these and other documents is to better understand dog-eat-dog realpolitiks of global power games. No matter whether you want to support the United States in this moment or demand it change course one thing is certain: you must be as educated as possible about the tradeoffs, the current investments, the challenges and the nature of the Great Game. Read across different sources of information and focus not only on domestic news but good foreign policy sources. Talk with neighbors and friends about your and American ideals and how and whether to negotiate and achieve those goals in a world that is 96% non-American. Wikileaks is a great place to start. The reason for this is not that they have 'the dirt'. It's because they have primary documents. When you read, prioritize information that isn't summarized or filtered. Muckrack is another great source. Washington Thinktanks another.
doczoidberg 11y ago
I am a German SaaS developer. More and more customers are asking me for not using infrastracture services from US companies. On the one hand this is bad for me because google and microsoft have top products for my needs. On the other hand this means big opportunities because my customers are heavily searching for alternatives. The trust in US IT companies was never so bad here. It can become a desaster for their european sales.
- higherpurpose 11y ago
  If only that led to a surge in usage of open source software in Europe, especially in government institutions, as well as for EU services and products that would need to fill the void. I've already noticed a small increase in interest for using open source in EU governments, but it's still far too small and far less aggressive than I would like it to be. The adoption should be 10x faster than it is now, post-Snowden.
  - woah 11y ago
    I'm all for open source, but I don't really understand what its relevance is here. I'm pretty sure OP was talking about infrastructure services. I'm guessing (s)he develops all of his software with OSS backend and frontend frameworks, and open source is completely orthogonal to his client's concerns.
    - trimtab 11y ago
      You can't trust what you cannot audit. Open Source is auditable software. You can hire non-vested 3rd parties to validate it.
- TeMPOraL 11y ago
  I wonder how much that has to do with CCC and general German culture. The only stories about European customers refusing to use US web infrastructure I hear come from Germany. I live next doors, in Poland, and here it seems like nobody cares.
kxyvr 11y ago
If the NSA commits an act of industrial espionage, who gets access to that information? Ostenscibly, this information would be valuable to American companies, but I don't recall there being any federal registration where I can sign up to receive such information. Certainly, some company is getting access to this information, but because this process isn't transparent, the other problem with such espionage is that it leads to greater corruption. Basically, someone gets to pick and choose who receives this extremely valuable information in private industry with no external oversight.
- saryant 11y ago
  When Bush Sr. was head of the CIA, agents would routinely meet with American businessmen after overseas trips for off-the-record conversations. Both sides learned from the other. My father once cryptically told me "every American businessman overseas is a spy." At first I didn't know what he was talking about—now I get it.
5kyn3t 11y ago
The news usually shows China as the bad-bad hacker-land, which is evil because of their IT-espionage. So what is the US now?
- kushti 11y ago
  the US is the exceptional country. Some polishing using double-standards, and it will shine like a brightest star again.
ghaydarov 11y ago
I think it's a bigger problem when we just accept it as it is, something that is necessary.
jimjimjim 11y ago
Is anybody even remotely surprised? even slightly? Any country with sufficient power will spy on any and all people, countries and entities it can. If they don't either something bad will happen (and the public will be demanding to know why someone didn't do anything about it) or they will be out-maneuvered by countries that do. Information is power and all types of information add to a map of what's going on and with who. Companies/Corporations are modern day dukes, robber barons and tyrants, and people with power and influence have always been spied upon.
- neilk 11y ago
  With respect - I don't know why people always say this when government misbehavior comes to light. Other than to demonstrate that they were more jaded than everyone else. Yes -- everybody knows that the government does bad things. Having evidence is different. I'm sure the French government knew they were being spied on to some degree, but with this evidence they can now react officially. Allied countries will be less likely to engage in mutual intelligence sharing, knowing that their domestic industries can suffer. Non-aligned countries might walk away entirely. And the US government will have more difficulty internally when these powers are brought up for legislative review. Also, we know the government does bad things. However, they don't do every conceivable bad thing - they wouldn't have time or resources. Knowing which bad things they are doing is also helpful.
darkhorn 11y ago
And Microsoft Turkey (future partner) ask us to host our web application in Azure. I'll do my best to keep my employer out of this way.
necrodawg 11y ago
Corporate espionage is like tax havens. You can't expect one country to stop it, everyone needs to agree to stop doing it at the same time. Otherwise the first to stop will be at a disadvantage. And a lot of countries do this.
ExpiredLink 11y ago
Asylum for Snowden in France now!
minusSeven 11y ago
Zzzzzz this has gone from one of the shocking news in the world to a regular occurrence that its not much a news anymore.

528 points by maelito 11y ago

api 11y ago

I've thought for a long time that the most likely corruption we'd see around the surveillance issue is industrial espionage. It'd be a great way for the NSA to give an unfair advantage to state-linked American corporations, or for independent actors within NSA to line their pockets. A related issue would be insider trading. I mean, with a source of data like that you could basically 'jackpot' stock markets and extract arbitrary amounts of money from the global economy. Members of Congress are immune from prosecution for insider trading.

TheOtherHobbes 11y ago
Actually this has been SOP for US corps and the US gov since the days of the telegraph - literally.
- SixSigma 11y ago
  SOP Source of Pride
  - azdle 11y ago
    In this case, I read that as "Standard Operating Procedure".
    - aquadrop 11y ago
      And I read it as "Source Of Profit", let's wait and see who's right :)
oh_sigh 11y ago
> It'd be a great way for the NSA to give an unfair advantage to state-linked American corporations, or for independent actors within NSA to line their pockets. Funny, because this is exactly the reason that the NSA is spying on these French companies(to determine if they are illegally affecting the US via hidden state subsidies, breaking of international regulations, etc).
- api 11y ago
  The two are not mutually exclusive. That could well be the official above-board reason. I was simply pointing out the absolutely immense opportunity for unchecked corruption that's inherent in programs like this. They're classified, therefore they get little to no external oversight. Corruption need not be top-down. If Snowden could walk out with so much data without discovery, what could a more 'entrepreneurial' insider do?
nota_bene 11y ago
> A related issue would be insider trading. To be honest, all of the data hoovers such as Google, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Co. have a pretty obvious insider knowledge-like cash machine: simply look into a few correlations between what data their users (as signed in users or as involuntary shadow profiles) put into these companies' databases and the movements of the stock market. Then predict and cash out.
- mwerd 11y ago
  This is actually the case in at least one public example[1]. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Wednesday filed a lawsuit in federal court in Philadelphia against Bonan Huang and Nan Huang, saying the analysts used the nonpublic data to trade in the shares of consumer retail companies ahead of sales and earnings reports. The lawsuit said from November 2013 to January 2015, the two analysts, who had access to the data as fraud investigators, made hundreds, if not thousands, of keyword searches for sales data on at least 170 publicly traded companies. The SEC said the two employees were able to analyze the data to determine if a company's sales were increasing or decreasing on a periodic basis. [1]http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/01/22/capital-one-fin-insidertrading-idUSL1N0V02ZY20150122 http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/01/22/capital-one-fin-in...
a3n 11y ago
There is probably no spy agency in any developed country that can rival the reach, effectiveness and immediacy of the NSA. So this kind of industrial espionage is a huge unfair trade advantage, at least from the victim's point of view. I wonder how long it's going to be until Europe levies an NSA trade tax against US goods and services.
- wahsd 11y ago
  What really has not been highlighted to even remotely an adequate level is the huge damage to the trust and confidence in the USA as the stalwart and upstanding sentinel image that we have cultivated to exquisitely over decades now. If there had only been some really good alternatives for the global focus to orient itself by, the USA would have been side-lined and crushed economically by now due to the direct and deliberate self-sabotage by our intelligence community. Will we see the USA recover from all the damage, abuse, and devastation it has caused to its relationships and self-destruction it has wrecked upon itself? I don't know, but I can tell you that if the European Union rightfully moves against American companies as a justified threat to their national security, it will cost our economy billions. Facebook's market cap is currently $245 billion, how many billions do you think would be shaved off if the EU and / or other countries acted against that facade of USA global surveillance domination? How about Google? How about Cisco? Apple ... even though at least in terms of impression, I think Apple is playing a smart card by siding with encryption of their devices. Personally, though, I think the lies by the NSA to our own government and the revealed actions prove one thing, that you can't trust anything that comes from our government and you really can't trust anyone that is affiliated, either voluntarily or compulsory, and Apple has been working with the government and intel agencies. Can they be trusted? Are their efforts to secure and encrypt their devices really genuine or just lip service and smoke and mirrors? Who knows. The trust is permanently destroyed, really!
  - happyscrappy 11y ago
    We have been hearing this trope for years and Europe is more dependent upon the US than ever.
chmaynard 11y ago
> Members of Congress are immune from prosecution for insider trading. This is a strong claim. Are you referring to trading in global equity markets?
- mafuyu 11y ago
  There has been some controversy over the years regarding Congress and insider trading: https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/05/07/congress-argues-cant-investigated-insider-trading/ https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/05/07/congress-argue... http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/17/stock-act-change-insider-trading_n_3100115.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/17/stock-act-change-in...

Smerity 11y ago

Does anyone know of a modern, comprehensive list of such industrial espionage events from a trustworthy source? One of my go-tos was the European Parliament's report on the ECHELON interception system[1] as it gives an idea of how long this has been happening (the report was published 2001), but it's so very old now. Under "Published Cases", the European Parliament list industrial espionage attacks on a variety of companies and government agencies. Some you might consider reasonable (exposing bribery in the bidding process then nudging the contract to a US firm) but others are incredibly dodgy (forwarding technical details about a wind generator to a US firm so they could patent it first). [1]: http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-//EP//TEXT+REPORT+A5-2001-0264+0+DOC+XML+V0//EN http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-//EP//...

h1fra 11y ago

I wonder how Barack Obama will stand against this assumption. There are some serious accusation, I'm pretty sure both side will temper all the way they can but may lead to intense change in business as company already starting to file complain !

rudolf0 11y ago
France's intelligence agencies are known to engage in this same kind of economic espionage, including against the US. Not that that necessarily makes it right for us to do it, but any outrage from France's government is feigned.
x5n1 11y ago
Basically the rules of the game are there are no rules. Whoever can steal anyone's secrets does and probably should or risk being left behind. China plays by these rules, it's about time that everyone else wisen up to this and accept it as the real state of affairs outside of rhetoric and propaganda.
- marcosdumay 11y ago
  > China plays by these rules, it about time that everyone else wisen up to this. Are you aware that this story is about the US, right?
  - x5n1 11y ago
    Obviously. I meant in addition China also plays by these rules.
    - irishcoffee 11y ago
      You're being sarcastic, right?
- tawaynow 11y ago
  Ok so next US officials accuse the Chinese of spying based on some very shaky evidence we can just all collectively tell them to stop whining right?

coldcode 11y ago

It might be shorter to list who the NSA didn't spy on.

qnaal 11y ago
reminds me of the snl sketch where the other colors of soylent individually turn out to also be made out of people
minusSeven 11y ago
off course if you can find someone nsa didn't spy on. ;)

tptacek 11y ago

Three fun truths: * France is one of the most notoriously brazen state sponsors of industrial espionage, especially within the EU. * This stuff is rampant between all the industrialized nations. You can find stories going back decades about Americans being evicted from embassies over industrial espionage. Somehow, we all seem to remain allies. * Technically --- modulo the "getting caught" part --- this is what NSA is supposed to be doing. That's a positive assertion, not a normative one! Curious how we never seem to see Russia as the focus of Wikileaks releases. They must just be really respectful of the civil liberties of citizens of the world.

foobarqux 11y ago
No one seems to tout the "everyone's doing it" mantra when China does it.
- tptacek 11y ago
  It's hard to coherently sum up the response to Chinese hacking, because it's as big a component of the public dialog as NSA spying is. However, I do think there's a difference between remarks about Chinese hacking and NSA spying. Outrage about NSA spying seems always to be moral. Outrage over Chinese hacking seems more practical: it's taken as given that China is going to sponsor hackers and that they're really good at it. Look at the recent OPM debacle. Virtually all the coverage I see about it is about how OPM (and the USG more broadly) fell down on the job, not about we should retaliate against the people who broke in.
  - foobarqux 11y ago
    I'm pretty confident that if you were to do a study of American media coverage of the events, or a survey of American public sentiment regarding Chinese hacking, they would both overwhelmingly indicate a perception of immorality.
    - jacquesm 11y ago
      Ditto outside of the USA.

bediger4000 11y ago

Isn't the real problem with "economic espionage" who the NSA gives the info to? By picking and choosing who gets the info, the NSA/executive branch isn't really letting the free market make the choices any longer. There could be political implications, giving info to companies that do campaign contributions, or lobby more expensively.

jsprogrammer 11y ago
>free market Why can't competitors obtain and release the info to those they consider more deserving?
fweespeech 11y ago
To some degree, yes. However... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_espionage#France_and_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_espionage#France_an... US/French economic espionage has been an ongoing problem since before the Cold War ended. Its the "normal" state of affairs, similar to US v. China. Its simply a question of how "gentlemanly" the matter is handled. France/US tends to be rather "gentlemanly" as they tend to target the negotiations/technology/contracts specifically. > According to an economic espionage order, the NSA intercepted all French corporate contracts and negotiations valued at more than $200 million in many different industries, such as telecommunications, electrical generation, gas, oil, nuclear and renewable energy, and environmental and healthcare technologies.
- bediger4000 11y ago
  I think I might have been unclear. I often read that "this is the sort of thing we expect spy agencies to do". I stipulate that economic espionage is part of what spy agencies do, and should do. So, "normal" it is. I'm interested in what information gets distributed to which US corporations, and maybe why. That is, should the NSA give Boeing info it's filched from Airbus, or should Lockheed-Martin get it, too? Why exclude Grumman-Northup? Did LockMart give more in campaign contributions? Is that why they got the insider info? I want to use real US companies, I'm pretty certain that defense contractors aren't multi-nationals. Certainly you could erase specific corporate names and re-fill the blanks with corporations from another, arbitrary, market. The problem is that the NSA (or whoever, the President maybe) becomes the arbiter of which corporation succeeds and which doesn't, regardless of what the rest of the market perceives, and how the rest of the market acts. This seems like a bad idea.

hbbio 11y ago

It would be very interesting to know, technically, what are the interception means. Does it target phone calls, emails, internal spys, other things? From other documents, it appears that the NSA has the ability to listen to phone calls on French networks. As most of the "targets" use Orange, the historical telecom operator, and that collaboration from Orange with the NSA is unlikely, it would mean that their IT systems are owned. Regarding email, most French companies use Microsoft products both as servers (Exchange) and client (Outlook). Are there exploitable vulnerabilities in these products? As we are in that space, we have to push hard, for people even to consider French-written, open source communication software such as ours (https://github.com/MLstate/PEPS https://github.com/MLstate/PEPS).

chaostheory 11y ago
http://www.networkworld.com/article/2458706/microsoft-subnet/about-those-alleged-backdoors-in-microsoft-products.html http://www.networkworld.com/article/2458706/microsoft-subnet... "Although the feds denied it, Peter Biddle, the head of the engineering team working on BitLocker in 2005, claimed that the government makes 'informal requests' for backdoors. Allegedly after making claims about 'going dark,' the FBI 'informally' asked Microsoft for a backdoor in BitLocker."
Zigurd 11y ago
> From other documents, it appears that the NSA has the ability to listen to phone calls on French networks. As most of the "targets" use Orange, the historical telecom operator, and that collaboration from Orange with the NSA is unlikely, it would mean that their IT systems are owned. It's probably much worse than that. France, Germany, and most of the rest of Europe are vassal states of the US through cooperation among intelligence agencies. In other words, France is being sold out not only by Orange and/or employees of Orange, but by their own intelligence services who have a stronger allegiance to their links with Five Eyes intelligence services than to French interests. This is another reason "everyone does it" doesn't hold water as a justification. The situation is massively asymmetrical.
- renaudg 11y ago

ScootyPuff2000 11y ago

So what? I certainly don't mind if my Government spies on _other_ countries. It's just spying on its own citizens that's an issue.

wahsd 11y ago
That's kind of ignorant of the fact that such a mentality starts breaking down a system of trust and confidence that can lead to major cracks in economy and retaliatory actions. It is never a good rule to simply play a game that only has one rule, that everyone is allowed to cheat.
Roodgorf 11y ago
I honestly can't tell if this is sarcastic or not. Are you saying that you believe ethical practices are so vastly different across arbitrary distinctions like state borders?
- cheald 11y ago
  Well, your government ostensibly has an obligation to protect your interests, while other state governments have no such obligation. You can certainly argue against the ethics of any spying, but it should be abundantly clear that a government and its agents have a duty to its citizens that is greater than its duty to the citizens of other sovereign nations.

secfirstmd 11y ago

One of the things that annoys me about these revelations is that, particularly in regards to the espionage aspect of things, essentially private businesses are de facto in some way gaining from either increased inside knowledge or increased protection from the likes of the NSA or French equivalents etc... However, if private people, journalists or NGOs are targeted by foreign governments (or corporate intelligence) they are never told about it (probably leading to the death of sources etc) - and if they conducted hacking/espionage activities for the greater public good (for example to expose information about people wanted for genocide in Darfur, those who murder journalists in Russia, diamond corruption in the DRC) they would go to jail...What a sad world we live in that we would rather prioritise protecting clean engine patents and airplane deals instead of human life :(

mrschwabe 11y ago

The espionage is perhaps most bothering of all. In some ways, most of us can rationalize spying for the purposes of security (albeit a dangerous and perhaps short-sighted rationalization) but when it's done with the intention of economic advantage it clearly undermines our entire financial system and the best features of capitalism: which is to reward those who innovate; delivering the market with higher quality products at lower pricing over time. Because now you have a 'special access' class of the economy that can subvert this innovation/value mechanism with stolen data. Add corrupt politicians, easily exploited loopholes, biased media channels, and a docile public - and it's easy to see how this special access class can twist, distort (and ultimately destroy) the system. One can only imagine what humanity could achieve without these parasites infecting our lives and businesses.

mc32 11y ago
All capable states spy on each other. Enemy states spy on govt secrets and friendly states focus on industrial espionage. France, Israel and China are some of the most vigorous at industrial espionage. Like it or not that's how the world operates and, unfortunately, we can't simply wish that away.
- sounds 11y ago
  I don't think he wished anything away, I think his point is that it reduces the value for all of us. Maybe take it as an appeal to logic: if nations are to grapple with the issues raised by the NSA and her sister orgs in the five eye countries, the best approach to raising the issue and proposing solutions (in my opinion) is to appeal to the logic of each individual and demonstrate how they are best served by dismantling these espionage operations.
  - mc32 11y ago
    I think it's wishful thinking. I knew of a guy who wanted to open a coffee shop. He got to know another existing coffee shop owner and picked his brain for the dos and don'ts. He said, I'll be opening a shop (in a diff city) and I see yours is doing well... So what does he do? Opened a shop one block down and drove the fist guy out of business. Business is ruthless.

r0h1n 11y ago

A state intelligence agency found spying on foreign private cos. in critical sectors like nuclear power plants, planes, high speed trains, telecommunications and energy, in order to pass on the intelligence and aid its own domestic firms. For a minute I almost thought we were talking about China.

fixxer 11y ago

"economic intelligence" sounds so much nicer than "corporate espionage"

themeek 11y ago

Espionage is standard practice in the world today. So are isolated assassinations, torture, coups, and state sponsorship of terrorism. The United States participated in all of the above. Domestic citizens in America feel as though their government is 'clean' or 'noble'. This is a myth propelled by Public Affairs, PR and supported by the media (at worst, the media will say, the US made blunders and mistakes). The United States is in the boxing ring with every other nation. It's a heavyweight. What's happening right now is that the United States is 'short of breath'. It's overextended. Long term plans haven't worked out. The US is finding itself reacting to other nations rather than keeping them on their toes. It's dropped in its financial, economic, and technological development capabilities. It is having trouble facing challenges brought by new technology. It is losing the support of its closest allies. It's a difficult time for America. Not everything is decided. It may yet remain a unipolar power. But to do so it will need to get in and scrap. The hawks want to scrap. They want to fight for continued supremacy. There are no doves that are serious contenders for president and I don't know if the system would allow a dove to be elected, even if the candidate had majority support from citizens. In this turbulence, we have to think about what we can do as citizens. The clearest answer is to get quality information and to be informed. Taking the Snowden and Wikileaks documents as a list of things that the US does that are bad is not the best way to read them. The best way to read these and other documents is to better understand dog-eat-dog realpolitiks of global power games. No matter whether you want to support the United States in this moment or demand it change course one thing is certain: you must be as educated as possible about the tradeoffs, the current investments, the challenges and the nature of the Great Game. Read across different sources of information and focus not only on domestic news but good foreign policy sources. Talk with neighbors and friends about your and American ideals and how and whether to negotiate and achieve those goals in a world that is 96% non-American. Wikileaks is a great place to start. The reason for this is not that they have 'the dirt'. It's because they have primary documents. When you read, prioritize information that isn't summarized or filtered. Muckrack is another great source. Washington Thinktanks another.

doczoidberg 11y ago

I am a German SaaS developer. More and more customers are asking me for not using infrastracture services from US companies. On the one hand this is bad for me because google and microsoft have top products for my needs. On the other hand this means big opportunities because my customers are heavily searching for alternatives. The trust in US IT companies was never so bad here. It can become a desaster for their european sales.

higherpurpose 11y ago
If only that led to a surge in usage of open source software in Europe, especially in government institutions, as well as for EU services and products that would need to fill the void. I've already noticed a small increase in interest for using open source in EU governments, but it's still far too small and far less aggressive than I would like it to be. The adoption should be 10x faster than it is now, post-Snowden.
- woah 11y ago
  I'm all for open source, but I don't really understand what its relevance is here. I'm pretty sure OP was talking about infrastructure services. I'm guessing (s)he develops all of his software with OSS backend and frontend frameworks, and open source is completely orthogonal to his client's concerns.
  - trimtab 11y ago
    You can't trust what you cannot audit. Open Source is auditable software. You can hire non-vested 3rd parties to validate it.
TeMPOraL 11y ago
I wonder how much that has to do with CCC and general German culture. The only stories about European customers refusing to use US web infrastructure I hear come from Germany. I live next doors, in Poland, and here it seems like nobody cares.

kxyvr 11y ago

If the NSA commits an act of industrial espionage, who gets access to that information? Ostenscibly, this information would be valuable to American companies, but I don't recall there being any federal registration where I can sign up to receive such information. Certainly, some company is getting access to this information, but because this process isn't transparent, the other problem with such espionage is that it leads to greater corruption. Basically, someone gets to pick and choose who receives this extremely valuable information in private industry with no external oversight.

saryant 11y ago
When Bush Sr. was head of the CIA, agents would routinely meet with American businessmen after overseas trips for off-the-record conversations. Both sides learned from the other. My father once cryptically told me "every American businessman overseas is a spy." At first I didn't know what he was talking about—now I get it.

5kyn3t 11y ago

The news usually shows China as the bad-bad hacker-land, which is evil because of their IT-espionage. So what is the US now?

kushti 11y ago
the US is the exceptional country. Some polishing using double-standards, and it will shine like a brightest star again.

ghaydarov 11y ago

I think it's a bigger problem when we just accept it as it is, something that is necessary.

jimjimjim 11y ago

Is anybody even remotely surprised? even slightly? Any country with sufficient power will spy on any and all people, countries and entities it can. If they don't either something bad will happen (and the public will be demanding to know why someone didn't do anything about it) or they will be out-maneuvered by countries that do. Information is power and all types of information add to a map of what's going on and with who. Companies/Corporations are modern day dukes, robber barons and tyrants, and people with power and influence have always been spied upon.

neilk 11y ago
With respect - I don't know why people always say this when government misbehavior comes to light. Other than to demonstrate that they were more jaded than everyone else. Yes -- everybody knows that the government does bad things. Having evidence is different. I'm sure the French government knew they were being spied on to some degree, but with this evidence they can now react officially. Allied countries will be less likely to engage in mutual intelligence sharing, knowing that their domestic industries can suffer. Non-aligned countries might walk away entirely. And the US government will have more difficulty internally when these powers are brought up for legislative review. Also, we know the government does bad things. However, they don't do every conceivable bad thing - they wouldn't have time or resources. Knowing which bad things they are doing is also helpful.

darkhorn 11y ago

And Microsoft Turkey (future partner) ask us to host our web application in Azure. I'll do my best to keep my employer out of this way.

necrodawg 11y ago

Corporate espionage is like tax havens. You can't expect one country to stop it, everyone needs to agree to stop doing it at the same time. Otherwise the first to stop will be at a disadvantage. And a lot of countries do this.

ExpiredLink 11y ago

Asylum for Snowden in France now!

minusSeven 11y ago

Zzzzzz this has gone from one of the shocking news in the world to a regular occurrence that its not much a news anymore.