Showing posts with label Cryptome. Show all posts

Security quotes : a FSB (successor to the KGB) analyst on Google Earth

January 04, 2006
"Lt. Gen. Leonid Sazhin, an analyst for the Federal Security Service, the Russian security agency that succeeded the K.G.B., was quoted by Itar-Tass as saying: "Terrorists don't need to reconnoiter their target. Now an American company is working for them." A great quote, and I find it totally true. The point is, not to look for high-resolution imagery, but to harness the power of OSINT, improve their confidence by observing the targets "from the sky", and actually plan and coordinate its activities on huge territories. AJAX anyone? :)

However, the public has always been good at bringing the real issue to the rest of the world. There have been numerous attempts to spot sensitive locations, and I wouldn't be myself if I don't share the joys of the Eyeball Series with you. Of course, in case you haven't come across the initiative earlier. However, the way it gives terrorists or enemies these opportunities, it also serves the general public by acting as an evidence for the existence of espionage sentiments, here and there. Echelon's Yakima Research Station was spotted on GoogleMaps, originally by Cryptome, see the dishes there? Any thoughts in here? Can Microsft's Local Live with its highly differentiated bird eye view on important locations turn into a bigger risk the the popularity of Google's services?

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Keep your friends close, your intelligence buddies closer!

January 04, 2006
Too much power always leads you to the dark side!

Cryptome has yesterday featured a excerpt from "State of the War : The Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration" shredding more light on what the NSA used to be before 9/11 and how things changed at a later stage. In case you really want to find out more about the entire history of the NSA, go though "The Quest for Cryptologic Centralization and the Establishment of NSA, 1940-1952", and some of the most remarkable NSA released publication entitled "Eavesdropping on Hell : Historical Guide to Western Communications Intelligence and the Holocaust, 1939-1945".

My opinion - With no guards, the gates are always open. But who will watch the watchers when they start watching us?!

Even though, as Marine Corps General Alfred M. Gray have put it years ago "Communications without intelligence is noise, intelligence without communications is irrelevant", and so is privacy in the 21st century, period.

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