Privacy and the State

[amateur51]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-24549918

The essential details are:

"Police have been given more time to question four British men being held over an alleged terror plot.
Scotland Yard sign The Met said six addresses were searched across the capital

Detectives have until Sunday to interrogate the men, who are being held on suspicion of the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism.

They were detained after a series of raids in London on Sunday."

This need for additional time rather gives the lie to the notion that these suspects have been "under surveillance by police and MI5 for some time" as the Met told the London Evening Standard.

[An_Inspector_Calls]

. . . what I asked you was what price state security when it can be breached by anyone capable of hacking in state security systems and, once again, you evidently feel disincilined to answer that.

You've said this before. I read that and think you're saying that the security systems operated by all security organizations in any country can be breached by any competent hacker. Is that what you think?

[Mr Pee]

This need for additional time rather gives the lie to the notion that these suspects have been "under surveillance by police and MI5 for some time" as the Met told the London Evening Standard.

And I am sure you would have said exactly the same thing had they been released without charge.

Do PLEASE tell us how you have deduced that the surveillance was a work of fiction , given that you know nothing of any of the following:-

A) The nature of the surveillance

B) The precise details of the offences under investigation

C) The manner and detail of the questioning

D) The answers given or not given by those being questioned

E) Any other evidence that may have been gathered by the police and security services since the arrests and that may require further examination

F) The nature and progress of any ongoing searches at the suspect's addresses.

I'm sure there are more factors to take into account , but that will do for now. I am sure you can enlighten us on these matters, since you have put yourself up as such an expert in the field of counter-terrorism.

[amateur51]

And I am sure you would have said exactly the same thing had they been released without charge.

Do PLEASE tell us how you have deduced that the surveillance was a work of fiction , given that you know nothing of any of the following:-

A) The nature of the surveillance

B) The precise details of the offences under investigation

C) The manner and detail of the questioning

D) The answers given or not given by those being questioned

E) Any other evidence that may have been gathered by the police and security services since the arrests and that may require further examination

F) The nature and progress of any ongoing searches at the suspect's addresses.

I'm sure there are more factors to take into account , but that will do for now. I am sure you can enlighten us on these matters, since you have put yourself up as such an expert in the field of counter-terrorism.

Oh dear.

[ahinton]

You've said this before. I read that and think you're saying that the security systems operated by all security organizations in any country can be breached by any competent hacker. Is that what you think?

Yes. Not just those systems, though, but any systems of sufficient interest to anyone who wants to try to hack into them or find out how to do so and sell the knowlege for a good price - hence my question about the continuing viability and credibility of the very notion of "state secrecy". Sorry if I'd not made that sufficiently clear previously.

[ahinton]

I know you're hoping that they will be released without charge, because then, as far as you're concerned, it will back up your ludicrous theory that the whole operation was cooked up as a publicity stunt- which is borne out by your use of ' ' around the phrase Islamist terrorist Suspects.

They ARE suspects. That is why they were arrested.

It's really not a difficult concept.

That someone or some people are - or come to be regarded and treated as - "suspects" is indeed not a difficult concept, but "suspects" remains a loaded term to anyone prepared to doubt or question why someone in the employ of the police, armed forces or secutiry services allegedly suspects someone of something and acts upon that alleged suspicion by detaining them for as long as the law of the land allows; I don't care in principle one way or the other about whether or not these are released without charge, detained on and extension or charged with a crime provided that whichever of these events that actually does in the end occur falls within the remit of due legal process and becomes subject to justice.

[Mr Pee]

Oh dear.

Is that the best you can do?

[An_Inspector_Calls]

Yes. Not just those systems, though, but any systems of sufficient interest to anyone who wants to try to hack into them or find out how to do so and sell the knowlege for a good price - hence my question about the continuing viability and credibility of the very notion of "state secrecy". Sorry if I'd not made that sufficiently clear previously.

I thought that was your view. I think it's absurd.

How do you explain the 'successful' Stuxnet operation?

For simplicity, let's assume the CIA were behind this. It was a highly complex operation. The development of the Stuxnet worm would have taken a great deal of effort to develop and test to ensure that it worked first time - the mission would fail if it did no damage but alerted the Iranians to what was happened. It would have involved a large team taken from a range of engineering disciplines.

So why, then, had the Iranians not hacked into the CIA computers and revealed the Stuxnet programme?

[ahinton]

I thought that was your view. I think it's absurd.

How do you explain the 'successful' Stuxnet operation?

For simplicity, let's assume the CIA were behind this. It was a highly complex operation. The development of the Stuxnet worm would have taken a great deal of effort to develop and test to ensure that it worked first time - the mission would fail if it did no damage but alerted the Iranians to what was happened. It would have involved a large team taken from a range of engineering disciplines.

So why, then, had the Iranians not hacked into the CIA computers and revealed the Stuxnet programme?

I did not state that, because things are possible do, they're always done, did I?! I merely point out that any data stored and distributed electronically is subject to being corrupted and/or appropriated by those for whose use it was not originally intended.

[An_Inspector_Calls]

Oh, I see. the Iranians could have hacked into the CIA system, found out about Stuxnet, but just couldn't be arsed!

[ahinton]

Oh, I see.

One would never have guessed!

the Iranians could have hacked into the CIA system, found out about Stuxnet, but just couldn't be arsed!

I didn't say that either; your developing habit of telling forum members what some of them have said when they haven't said it is getting a mite irritating, if at the same gtime revealing of such modus op as you appear to have at your disposal.

I repeat that no data collected, stored and disributed electronically can ever be guaranteed as "secure" and, in such circumstances, there can never be 100% certainty as to the effective maintenence of "state security"; when members of the public in general or pressure groups within it in particular become aggrieved at the activities of GCHQ and the like in invading their personal privacy or at least being empowered to do so without prior reference to affected individuals and without specific evidence of justifiable terrorist orientated suspicion, the likelihood that they might retaliate by infiltrating the systems of the organisations concerned is bound to increase, so spying on the spies would no longer be done only by enemy states or professional whistleblowers such as Mr Snowden.

[An_Inspector_Calls]

In which case, I can only conclude again that the Iranians simply couldn't be arsed.

[amateur51]

Is that the best you can do?

I've lived with the Met and its shenanigans for over forty years as have millions of other Londoners. The recent stramash over the way police officer may have allegedly acted inappropriately against Andrew Mitchell MP is a current example of police misbehaviour potentially sanctioned by superiors. Corruption amongst the police officers is clear for all to see. Perhaps it's inevitable, but it's certainly never right.

My antennae were alerted by the 'convenient' conjunction of the political row over the possible impact of the Guardian's Snowden revelations and how this might have an impact on the task of preventing attacks by terrorists on the one hand, and a nice meaty 'protecting you from terrorism' story given to the London Evening Standard by the Met.

You're right, this is all supposition on my part, I have no 'evidence' as such.

But as you say, let's let the story pan out.

And it IS odd that a group who were apparently under such close surveillance for so long now have to be kept in custody for additional time before charges can be brought. What triggered this rush to arrest?

[ahinton]

In which case, I can only conclude again that the Iranians simply couldn't be arsed.

You conclude as you do without (as far as I can tell) reliable hard evidence directly from the Iranian government and/or its security services but, as I have already reminded you, my point was not in any case about one specific instance but the more general situation in which anyone can infiltrate any electronic data management system if they know how to do it and, since anyone employed by or otherwise contracted to the likes of GCHQ for the purpose of maintaining such systems has to know all there is to know about them in order to fulfil their professional duties, it's not beyond the wit of others to figure out how to do the same, which is why I observed that there's no such thing as security or state secrecy. That's all. No more, no less.

[An_Inspector_Calls]

Let's assume the Iranians have some of these competent security people in their employ. How come they didn't spot Stuxnet?

Let's assume GCHQ has all the security skills you describe and they then go through the thought process you describe; what do you think they will conclude?

Well, my intelligent guess is that they keep their main systems off the world-wide web. Completely.

So, the CIA would have developed Stuxnet off-web. That's not to say that they spurned all types of network connections, but if they did use them those networks were private and hidden.

The Iranians were doing exactly the same thing. Stuxnet did not find its target via the web, because the Iranian cyclotrons weren't on the web. Like ANY process industry competently managed, they keep their process computers off the web. In any event, most industrial computers (PLCs) don't use either Windows or Linux as their operating systems.

So no hacking is possible. You need guys like Snowden to spill the beans.