"Russia carried out a 'stunning' breach of FBI communications system"

[Razer]

Hahaha! So the Russians suck in all the US embassy's rf comms. Man bites dog.! Whodathunkit?

On September 16, 2019 4:22:04 PM PDT, coderman <coderman at protonmail.com> wrote:
>‐‐‐‐‐‐‐ Original Message ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐
>On Monday, September 16, 2019 10:57 PM, Razer <g2s at riseup.net> wrote:
>...
>
>> "*sigh* As an old spook watcher and ComSec fan, this article
>indicates to me that some kind of shakeup in Russian collection inside
>the U.S. may have happened. But that is all. The authors of this
>article present as ignorant fools with no background knowledge or
>competency of any kind in intelligence studies and related technical
>basics. They simply repeat whatever Big Lie propaganda our spooks feed
>them, because that's what their publisher pays them to do.
>
>related, already being corrected:
>
>https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/russian-spies-u-s-collected-encrypted-fbi-radio-traffic-huge-n1055001
>
>Russian spies in the U.S. collected encrypted FBI radio traffic in huge
>operation, but did they crack it?
>
>There may not have cracked the codes, but Russian agents gained insight
>into the activities of secret FBI teams tracking Russian operatives in
>the U.S.
>Sept. 16, 2019, 7:54 PM UTC
>By Ken Dilanian and Tom Winter
>
>WASHINGTON — Russian spies in the U.S. conducted a massive operation to
>track and collect encrypted FBI radio traffic, but there is no evidence
>they ever cracked the codes and obtained the contents of the
>communications, two former senior FBI officials tell NBC News.
>
>Nonetheless, the [Russian
>intelligence](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/possible-ex-russian-spy-cia-living-washington-area-n1051741)
>success, [first reported by Yahoo
>News](https://news.yahoo.com/exclusive-russia-carried-out-a-stunning-breach-of-fbi-communications-system-escalating-the-spy-game-on-us-soil-090024212.html),
>provided Vladimir Putin's government unprecedented insights into the
>activities of secret FBI surveillance teams tracking Russian operatives
>in the U.S., the former officials said. The breach occurred sometime
>around 2010, and was well understood by 2012, the former officials
>said.
>
>Much of the message traffic [the
>Russians](https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/mueller-report-shows-trump-campaign-left-itself-wide-open-russians-n997716)
>collected was processed in two Russian diplomatic facilities that the
>Obama administration closed in 2016, citing Russia's interference in
>the presidential election.
>
>"We knew that they were on to us in terms of radio traffic," one former
>senior official told NBC News. "They had a huge effort they threw at
>it. But we never saw content."
>
>Yahoo News cited former officials who said the Russians had access to
>"likely the actual substance of FBI communications," but the two former
>officials told NBC News they did not believe that to be true. The two
>former senior officials said they had seen nothing to suggest Russia
>successfully decoded encrypted U.S. government communications. Rather,
>the Russians were able to detect and locate secret FBI radio
>transmissions, they said.
>
>"What they saw was traffic around certain meetings with people who were
>talking to them," one former official said.
>
>In some cases, the insights the Russians gleaned from the location and
>movements of FBI surveillance teams led them to stop meeting with
>sources in the U.S. the former official said.
>
>The former official added that the FBI and CIA learned of the Russian
>success through some espionage successes of their own, which he
>declined to detail.
>
>The Russian operation came at a time when the U.S. was developing its
>own capability to identify covert Russian communications. From March
>through May of 2010, FBI agents in New York were able to detect
>specialized encrypted communications sent from the laptop of a Russian
>spy, [Anna
>Chapman](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/spy-who-spurned-me-anna-chapman-refuses-discuss-snowden-proposal-flna8C11292219),
>to a minivan driven by a Russian government official, according to her
>indictment.
>
>Chapman was arrested along with nine other Russians, who were accused
>of acting as a network of sleeper agents sent to live in the U.S. under
>non-official cover. They were deported to Russia in a spy swap.
>
>It was long known that the Russians were using their diplomatic
>compounds in Maryland and New York as listening posts, which is why the
>Obama administration seized them in December 2016, officials said. But
>the CIA and FBI also learned that wives of Russian diplomats were
>working in the facilities to process FBI radio traffic, said the former
>senior official, who had direct knowledge of the matter.
>
>The news of the Russian success comes after revelations that the CIA's
>method of communicating with its informants had been compromised.
>
>NBC News and other organizations reported in 2018 that a secret FBI–CIA
>task force investigating the case of[an American CIA officer spying for
>China](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/china/cia-china-turncoat-lee-may-have-compromised-u-s-spies-n839316)
>concluded that the Chinese government penetrated the CIA's method of
>clandestine communication with its spies, using that knowledge to
>arrest and execute at least 20 CIA informants, according to multiple
>current and former government officials.
>
>[Yahoo News then
>reported](https://news.yahoo.com/cias-communications-suffered-catastrophic-compromise-started-iran-090018710.html)
>in November that Iran also had cracked the CIA's covert communications
>system, resulting in a cascading crisis that put at risk foreigners
>around the world who had been recruited by the American spy agency to
>provide information.
>
>Both of these matters are known to the Congressional oversight
>committees, officials tell NBC News, but since they are classified,
>there has been no public accountability.

-- 
Sent from my Android device with K-9 Mail. Please excuse my brevity.
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