A procrastination in of itself
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I mean payment would certainly be proof of something happening, but that doesn’t mean they won’t pay people, there are plenty of ways to cover up payments for things.
Some people don’t get paid by choice or because what they’re offering isn’t valuable enough, but that’s standard for anyone assisting a government.
Plus with SIS you never know the truth, as they have strict rules about never confirming that anyone has worked for them (these are the guys who will with a strait face deny that their HQ is their HQ, while standing inside said HQ), so they’ll never come out and say that they did pay the guy and he’s lying.
“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran
Japanese news video on letting Japanese university students interact with PSIA officers/support personnel to understand the work they do.
News out of Vienna is that an ex-Austrian officer is being investigated for being a Russian mole from the 1990s.
Igor Koborov, head of GRU, passed away.
He was also subjected to Western sanctions, including the US.
Bellingcat posted some uncovered info about a GRU officer suspected of being involved in a coup plot against Montenegro:
IIRC, an ex-CIA case officer was arrested for being part of it.
Edited by Ominae on Nov 22nd 2018 at 6:09:49 AM
That’s the second head of the GRU to pass away under mysterious circumstances in as many years. Wonder if they have a lot of applicants for the top spot, what with the apparent danger and all.
Word is that he died of cancer and independent analysts were sure that he didn’t get into major trouble with the Kremlin.
Igor Kostyukov is taking over GRU for the meantime.
He’d been on the outs with Putin for a few months now, and is being replaced by a known Putin supporter. highly doubt anyone is buying this, but it’s not like it really matters in the grand scheme of things.
I read this Bellingcat report about the FSB trying to infiltrate a company that processes visa for Russians traveling to states that require visas. Seemingly, the Russians used the threat of now renewing the visa of his Mongolian wife.
The man sought asylum to America.
I’m also breaking another spying story in France.
The DGSI is interrogating Benoît Quennedey, the head of the Franco-Korean Friendship Association, for spying on behalf of Pyongyang.
I’m kinda not sure which external intelligence agency handles foreign intelligence...
Servant of the Omnissiah
I think foreign intelligence is the preserve of the DGSI. If it has a military dimension, it's handled by the DPSD and DRM.
Edited by TechPriest90 on Dec 1st 2018 at 1:52:33 PM
I hold the secrets of the machine.
DGSE is (particularly ruthless) foreign intelligence. DGSI is the internal security service.
Si Vis Pacem, Para Perkele
Dammit...
I should have rephrased it if the senator had made contact with someone from the State Security Department or another North Korean intelligence agency.
I see that the only way (at least one way) for him to pass intel is through his Pyongyang visits (officially at least).
Seems like the UAE State Security has investigated a British Ph D candidate and insisted that he's with MI:6 and reports came that he was offered to be a double agent.
Russian Agents Sought Secret US Treasury Records On Clinton Backers During 2016 Campaign
:
"...The foundations of the Treasury Department’s highly unorthodox relationship with its Russian counterpart were built late 2015, sources and internal documents show.
One of Fin CEN’s key jobs is to work with other governments to track illicit money networks and shell companies across the globe. Nearly 160 countries, including Russia, have agreements to share bank information through a secure network.
But Russia chose to work outside that system — and it began by building a relationship with a unit of Treasury called the Office of Terrorist Financing and Financial Crimes."
It appears that the Russian agency convinced an investigative branch of the treasury dept. to exchange messages via insecure gmail accounts, for the explicit purpose of acquiring private financial records of a number of prominent American public figures, incl. Hilary Clinton. This was just before the infamous Trump Tower meeting during which a Russian official offered to provide compromising information on the Clinton campaign.
Apparently the New York Post thinks Huawei is helping China to take over the world.
Edited by Kaiseror on Dec 22nd 2018 at 12:21:18 PM
Isn't the Post something of a tabloid rag?
Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.
The article itself is more balanced in tone:
"...Huawei is a key part of this aggressive effort to spy on the rest of the world. The company’s smartphones, according to FBI Director Christopher Wray, can be used to “maliciously modify or steal information,” as well as “conduct undetected espionage.” Earlier this year the Pentagon banned the devices from all US military bases worldwide."
"...The “Five Eyes” — Great Britain, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, and the US — have over the past year waged a concerted campaign to block the Chinese tech giant from dominating next-generation wireless networks around the world. Not only have they largely kept Huawei out of their own countries, they have convinced other countries like Japan, India and Germany to go along, too."
These are the strategic level intelligence battles of the future.
Looks like the SHISH don’t give a shit if some details on their agents/financial details are on Albanian online media.
Servant of the Omnissiah
An unfortunate lapse, even for the Albanians. That said, if it's a leak, it's probably intentional. There is no such thing as an accidental leak.
On the face of it though, this mostly looks like a monumental screw-up on the end of the SHISH rather than any deliberate leak.
Edited by TechPriest90 on Jan 1st 2019 at 4:59:39 AM
I hold the secrets of the machine.
"This in-depth article details how the leak was discovered, and, the Albanian authorities’ apparent inability to remove the leaks from the web after they were repeatedly notified of them.
What happened was, in fact, simple.
In an effort to boost transparency and combat corruption, the Albanian Ministry of Finance and Economy publishes — almost on a daily basis — spreadsheets of day-to-day payments of all government institutions on their website."
and later in the same article:
"...A longtime former official of the Albanian intelligence service told Bellingcat that the “inability [of the Albanian authorities] to remove the data comes from the fact that they don’t feel personally responsible for the leaks. That is why the information continues to be online and will probably stay online.”
Not so much a "leak" as a bureaucratic cock-up.
https://edition.cnn.com/2019/01/11/tech/poland-huawei-exec-arrest/index.html
The Agencja Bezpieczeństwa Wewnętrznego announced that a Chinese national working in Huawei is arrested with a Polish national for espionage.
Now I heard that the Polish person arrested used to be with ABW.
Looks like Iran's getting back in the cybewarfare/espionage game with a new group:
“APT 39 is an Iranian cyber espionage actor that Fire Eye intelligence has tracked since November of 2014,” Ryan Whelan, a senior manager for strategic intelligence operations at Fire Eye, announced Tuesday at a cyber conference in Tel Aviv. “We assess APT 39’s principal activities is to conduct operations to support Iranian operations in other areas and by other groups, or other organizations.”
Whelan said Fire Eye had tracked the group for more than four years and was confident it was Iranian, based on Persian-language intercepts and domain registries linked to Iran,
APT 39’s targeting is global, but the “majority of [its] operations are centered in the Middle East,” including Israel, Whelan said.
In a blog post the company posted Tuesday morning, Fire Eye says “APT 39 has prioritized the telecommunications sector, with additional targeting of the travel industry and IT firms that support it and the high-tech industry.” The group appears to be gathering information on people as a way to launch further operations.
In 2017, Fire Eye identified another group, called APT 34, that was also targeting organizations involved in critical infrastructure in the Middle East. The overlap of this new group with APT 34, as well as other Iranian-government associated groups, suggests this one is “state operated,” Whelan said.
Fire Eye believes his new group is distinct from APT 34, “but they do share similarities and resources within the Iranian apparatus,” he said.
APT 39 was mainly focused on stealing personal data, according to Whelan. “This differentiates them from previous Iranian APT actors,” he said.
While the group has targeted transportation and telecom firms, Whelan said one of the ultimate targets appears to be a “specific Middle Eastern oil and gas company,” though he didn’t name it. He said the attackers penetrated a telecom company and ran search on customer logs and employee data for the oil and gas company. Whelan said it appeared that the hackers were trying to obtain information that could be commercially useful.
But what appears to be most striking about this new group is its focus on collecting intelligence on individuals, which has been a priority of other recent suspected state-sponsored hacks. That appears to have parallels to other attacks, according to John Hultquist, who manages intelligence analysis at Fire Eye.
“It’s useful to compare this actor to the Chinese one who targeted [U.S. Office of Personnel Management], insurance, travel for similar reasons,” Hultquist wrote to Yahoo News.
“Iran’s interest in the cyber domain is consistent with its preference for asymmetric and indirect conflict while disguising its hand,” said Behnam Ben Taleblu, a research fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies in an interview with Yahoo News.
“However, stealing personal information and penetrating networks, as reported of APT 39, offers Iran an array of targets for future exploitation should the regime need to escalate against the West,” he continued.
The Iranian Interests Section at the Pakistani Embassy, Iran’s consular representation in the U.S., did not respond to a request for comment on the new research.
The Trump administration has ramped up its rhetoric against Iran in recent months. In 2018, President Trump announced his intention to end the multilateral nuclear pact, and the White House is currently in a battle with European allies over the imposition of sanctions on Tehran.
“We are aware of reports claiming that Iran is increasing its cyber hacking activities,” a State Department spokesperson wrote in a statement.” The United States is deeply concerned with the Iranian regime’s malicious cyber activity. We express particular concern for cyber activities targeting critical infrastructure that have the potential for disruptive or destructive consequences.”
The National Public Radio show "Fresh Air" broadcast a segment this week on cyber espionage, the main take away is that US predominance in key cyber technology is coming to an end. The Chinese, in particular, are poised to improve their global leverage, particularly as their cell com giant Hwawei starts building networks around the world.
Don't tell me that the MSS is doing this.