Exclusive : UK’s secret Mid-East internet surveillance base is revealed in Edward Snowden leaks - UK Politics - UK

►http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/exclusive-uks-secret-mideast-internet-surveillance-base-is-revealed-i

The data-gathering operation is part of a £1bn internet project still being assembled by GCHQ. It is part of the surveillance and monitoring system, code-named “Tempora”, whose wider aim is the global interception of digital communications, such as emails and text messages.

Across three sites, communications – including telephone calls – are tracked both by satellite dishes and by tapping into underwater fibre-optic cables.

Access to Middle East traffic has become critical to both US and UK intelligence agencies post-9/11. The Maryland headquarters of the NSA and the Defence Department in Washington have pushed for greater co-operation and technology sharing between US and UK intelligence agencies.

The Middle East station was set up under a warrant signed by the then Foreign Secretary David Miliband, authorising GCHQ to monitor and store for analysis data passing through the network of fibre-optic cables that link up the internet around the world

The certificate authorised GCHQ to collect information about the “political intentions of foreign powers”, terrorism, proliferation, mercenaries and private military companies, and serious financial fraud.

However, the certificates are reissued every six months and can be changed by ministers at will. GCHQ officials are then free to target anyone who is overseas or communicating from overseas without further checks or controls if they think they fall within the terms of a current certificate.

The precise budget for this expensive covert technology is regarded as sensitive by the Ministry of Defence and the Foreign Office.

However, the scale of Middle East operation, and GCHQ’s increasing use of sub-sea technology to intercept communications along high-capacity cables, suggest a substantial investment.

Intelligence sources have denied the aim is a blanket gathering of all communications, insisting the operation is targeted at security, terror and organised crime.

Si l’on en croit Greenwald, cet article est en fait une manip’ des services UK visant à incriminer Snowden par la bande !
▻http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/23/uk-government-independent-military-base

J’ai peut-être mal lu cet article, mais il me semble que ni Greenwald ni Snowden ne disent que l’information est fausse et/ou ne se trouverait pas dans les documents de Snowden.

Ce qu’ils disent, c’est que :
– Snowden n’a pas parlé au Independant,
– que les journalistes avec lesquels Snowden travaille n’ont jamais livré ce genre d’informations, parce qu’elles ne seraient pas nécessaires au débat public et relèveraient de la trahison,
– d’où l’idée que peut-être le Independant se ferait manipuler pour faire croire que Snowden livre au public des informations réellement « damaging ».

Mais ce qu’ils ne disent pas, c’est que cette information serait fausse. Au contraire, pour incriminer Snowden, il faudrait que l’information soit « damaging », donc qu’elle soit véridique.

(John Le Carré, si tu utilises ça, tu me cites s’il te plaît.)

il me semble que tu as bien lu

“Bundesnachrictendienst (BND) and Spanish CESID jointly operated an undersea cable tapping station at Conil called Operation Delikatesse. The station tapped the cables linking Spain to the Canaries, other Mediterranean nations, Africa, and BND turned over operation of the station to CESID in1992 but like all these arrangements, German intelligence personnel likely remained for support.”

“NSA did the same with its Turkish SIGINT stations, turning over operation of Sinop on the Black Sea, for example, to Turkey’s MIT intelligence organization. The tapping facility, on ”Camino de los Militares” in Conil is near the Telefonica satellite ground station.”

Some of this activity was mentioned during the 2000 EP inquiry, but the specific contractual relationships with the NSA were not made clear.

▻http://www.privacysurgeon.org/blog/incision/former-nsa-contractor-warns-of-murky-interception-arrangements

L’interception à terre sur un goulet d’étranglement du réseau est trop tentante... Surtout en comparaison de la difficulté d’exécution d’une interception en mer : on a beaucoup parlé depuis 1999 des capacités du Jimmy Carter mais en pratique et malgré les rumeurs persistantes mettant un certain nombre de coupures de câbles sous-marins sur le dos de tentatives ratées de pose d’équipements d’interception, j’ai du mal à imaginer que cette technique est exploitable à des coûts cohérents avec le but recherché.

Quelques articles à ce sujet :
▻http://web.archive.org/web/20070420221651/http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9595_22-529826.html?legacy=zdnn
▻http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/ielx5/6/21038/975021/975021.html
▻http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/20/politics/20submarine.html

Tiens, ça vient de sortir aujourd’hui - fort à propos pour cette conversation:
►http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/exclusive-uks-secret-mideast-internet-surveillance-base-is-revealed-i

“Britain runs a secret internet-monitoring station in the Middle East to intercept and process vast quantities of emails, telephone calls and web traffic on behalf of Western intelligence agencies, The Independent has learnt.

The station is able to tap into and extract data from the underwater fibre-optic cables passing through the region”

“The Middle East installation is regarded as particularly valuable by the British and Americans because it can access submarine cables passing through the region. All of the messages and data passed back and forth on the cables is copied into giant computer storage “buffers” and then sifted for data of special interest”

Pas de raison que cette station soit la seule et qu’elle ne soit pas construite sur le modèle de ses sœurs telle que celle de Bude...

#câbles_sous-marins