back to article Belgium: Oi, Brits, explain why Belgacom hack IPs pointed at you and your GCHQ

GCHQ’s rumoured hacking operation against Belgacom came back into the spotlight yesterday after a local newspaper revealed more tantalising snippets from a Belgian judicial investigation into the attack. Originally having come to light thanks to whistleblower Edward Snowden’s disclosures from American spy agency files he …

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  1. Bonzo_red

    Maybe people of interest to GCHQ were using Belgian telephones.

    1. Peter2 Silver badge

      GCHQ's job is to intercept communications, break the encryption and hand plain text usable information over to the people in charge.

      The USA compromised the UN communications, it would be terminally naive to expect that the GHCQ wouldn't have targeted the EU parliament and EU commission's communications.

      1. Teiwaz

        The USA compromised the UN communications, it would be terminally naive to expect that the GHCQ wouldn't have targeted the EU parliament and EU commission's communications.

        This is why the UK isn't that popular. We send snooty MEPs over who have a 'don't like foreigners attitude' and hack them instead of asking nicely, then boast about our good relations and partnerships.

        No wonder we're not trusted with Space related contracts now we're leaving if that was our track record while a member.

        1. I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

          It's funny though. When there's a desperate need for intel on terrorism in Europe, our security services are dead popular. And strangely the same is true when it comes to the requirement for planes and troops to guard Eastern Europe.

          I suspect your problem is that you need a more nuanced view of international relations.

          Was Merkel really pissed off when it turned out the NSA were hacking her mobile? If so, was she in fact annoyed with her intel people for letting it happen? Or the US for trying?

          We employ spies to read other people's mail. It's dashed ungentlemanly, but sometimes very useful. So people take a public position when it's revealed - but that's not always what they're really thinking.

          1. FlamingDeath Silver badge

            Which security service are you referring to?

            Is it the security services presented to you by their PR teams?

            Or is it the security services that formulates relationships with t̶e̶r̶r̶o̶r̶i̶s̶t̶s moderate rebels to carry out false flag attacks and proxy wars at the bequest of our mentally unstable deepstate

            The phrase "Hearts & Minds™" means something very different to me than what I suspect it means to you

            If you think our security services are good people, you're wrong. A lot of them are bonafide sociopaths

        2. Spazturtle Silver badge

          "This is why the UK isn't that popular."

          Remember that time French security services blew up and sunk a ship that was docked at the Port of Auckland in New Zealand? Or do you think the UK security services are alone in doing shady things?

    2. Steve Channell
      Pint

      Belgian terrorists

      Before we go all Snowdon about mass surveillance, it is worth remembering that the terrorists that attacked Paris originated in Brussels, where the security services are useless (much like everything run in that City).. and British Intelligence is the only such service in Europe not tarnished by association with the Gestapo or KGB.

      If they happen to pick up on the wittering of Politicians... all well and good, somebody should have an idea of what is going to happen...

      1. BebopWeBop
        Facepalm

        Re: Belgian terrorists

        and British Intelligence is the only such service in Europe not tarnished by association with the Gestapo or KGB.

        Are you so sure of that? I seem to remember much of British Intelligence being run by the KGB.And Philby, Blunt et al were just the ones they found.....

        1. Peter2 Silver badge

          Re: Belgian terrorists

          Are you so sure of that? I seem to remember much of British Intelligence being run by the KGB.And Philby, Blunt et al were just the ones they found.....

          I think what he means is that British Intelligence is an honest spy outfit that covertly seeks information to pass onto parts of Her Majesties Government, whereas both the KGB and the Gestapo (though he probably means stasi here) had something of a habit of torturing information out of people they didn't like, or re-educating them in a Gulag in Siberia. Or just killing them.

          By contrast, the most dodgy conduct uncovered about GCHQ is them discovering that somebody is smuggling drugs into the country in a particular vehicle and somebody in GCHQ then phones customs up and tells them to do a "random" search on that vehicle with specially trained sniffer dogs, and to exercise their selective amnesia by forgetting that GCHQ phoned.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Belgian terrorists

            >KGB and the Gestapo .....had something of a habit of torturing information out of people

            They also torture who only stand and watch.

      2. Teiwaz

        Re: Belgian terrorists

        Before we go all Snowdon about mass surveillance, it is worth remembering that the terrorists that attacked Paris originated in Brussels, where the security services are useless

        [Hands to cheeks in shock] Of course how could I forget, the ever efficient British were able to step in on the toes of the useless Belgians and stop that....

        Oh, wait, they didn't.

        and British Intelligence is the only such service in Europe not tarnished by association with the Gestapo or KGB.

        Ah, yes. The 'it could never happen here' mentality. The perfect blinkered viewpoint that is almost guarenteed to ensure it will at some point this century if thinking doesn't change.

      3. Steve Davies 3 Silver badge
        Facepalm

        Re: Belgian terrorists

        British Intelligence is the only such service in Europe not tarnished by association with the Gestapo or KGB.

        ROFL.... Seriously ROFL...

        I guess you are not old enough to remember Kim Philby, Guy Burgess and the other KGB spies that worked for British Intelligence...

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Belgian terrorists @Steve Davies 3

          ROFL.... Seriously ROFL...

          I think you're missing the point of the argument. The infiltration of British intelligence by the KGB wasn't voluntary on the part of the British agencies. However, rather too many of the European intelligence agencies co-operated either voluntarily, or to serve their own interests.

          By your logic, the Belgians "co-operated" with GCHQ by virtue of being hacked. That doesn't work for me, although I'll grant you that additional facts might yet show it to be true.

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Joke

          Re: Belgian terrorists

          British Intelligence is the only such service in Europe not tarnished by association with the Gestapo or KGB.

          British Intelligence's association with the KGB is so close that when their people want to retire or fancy a change, we offer them a job. Oleg Gordievsky, for example.

    3. Anonymous European

      Belgians, you mean?...

      1. I ain't Spartacus Gold badge
        Happy

        Belgians, you mean?...

        Perhaps they were playing the name 10 famous Belgians game at GCHQ - and it got out of hand...

        1. Nick Kew
          Trollface

          Perhaps they were playing the name 10 famous Belgians game at GCHQ - and it got out of hand...

          Would Hercule Poirot be the man to solve this?

        2. sitta_europea Silver badge

          "Perhaps they were playing the name 10 famous Belgians game at GCHQ - and it got out of hand..."

          That's SIX famous Belgians. You've got to have at least some chance...

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Bungling Brits ...

    The first rule of spying on your allies is to never get caught spying on your allies.

    Looks like the rest of the world has an(other) stick with which to beat the UK. Luckily the UK doesn't need any support from around the world, despite Russia queering the WTO, Australia insisting on zero-tariffs, and Argentina deciding now is a very good time to talk Falklands before talking trade.

    Because if you did need that support, having been caught with your hands in someone elses till (so to speak) is probably the worst hand you could have dealt yourselves. It's not as if you're the US, is it ?

    1. Mark 65

      Re: Bungling Brits ...

      It's not as if you're the US, is it ?

      No, but in all likelihood we were doing it at their behest.

  3. ici.chacal

    If the NSA knew of this, more likely that the UK was spying on the EU on behalf of the USA...

    1. I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

      No. It doesn't tell us who ordered what, or even what they were after. The NSA know about most things GCHQ do. As is true in reverse. This is long-term intelligence cooperation that is older than most people alive - let alone outlasting most people's careers. I'm sure they keep secrets from each other - but they've been working so closely together since World War II that the cooperation is probably habit at almost every level of the organisations.

      The target of this operation was supposedly comms in the MIddle East and Africa. Though I'm sure they took time to spy on other stuff while they were there. They're professionally nosy bastards after all...

  4. A Non e-mouse Silver badge

    Really?

    Three of those addresses were owned by a British company, indicating that the spy software manager is in Great Britain

    Are you sure? Isn't there a chance that these British companies are just fronts for the real hackers. Which means those in control don't have to be British.

    1. Augie

      Re: Really?

      If you believe that, I have a wonderful bridge I can sell you..

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: If you believe that, I have ...

        To be fair, we are constantly advised in these forums that hacks from China might not be Chinese, or those from Russia aren't actually Russian, and so on, so why should hacks from the UK necessarily be British? Did they leave little jpegs of bowler hats, and evidence of innumerable requests for cups of tea everywhere or something? :-)

        Nb: Not that I actually think GCHQ didn't do this one - wouldn't surprise me at all [1]

        [1] I have to say something like this or I'll probably be accused of being part of the UK-trollfactory that masquerades as members of the Upper Worthington Railway Modeling Society's Afternoon Tea Arrangements committee [2].

        [2] Unless it's a frightfully clever double bluff! [3]

        [3] Do you all think that a dozen extra scones for this weekend's get together should be sufficient?

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: If you believe that, I have ...

          "UK-trollfactory that masquerades as members of the Upper Worthington Railway Modeling Society's Afternoon Tea Arrangements committee"

          And that's your annual bonus down the drain, tovarishch. Don't forget to wear rubber gloves when opening doors. You're not supposed actually to give away the plot.

          ...perhaps GCHQ has been so infiltrated by the GRU that, as in the Philby days, nobody knows who's spying on who any more.

        2. I ain't Spartacus Gold badge
          Mushroom

          Re: If you believe that, I have ...

          [3] Do you all think that a dozen extra scones for this weekend's get together should be sufficient?

          Shit! Shit! Shit! WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE!!!!!

          Oh sorry. Wrong code. That's the code for prepare for disinformation or distraction of journalists in the next news cycle. "The macaroons are looking particularly delicious" is the code for all-out nuclear war.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Mushroom

            Re: If you believe that, I have ...

            The macaroons are looking particularly delicious

            1. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              Re: If you believe that, I have ...

              > The macaroons are looking particularly delicious

              Thank-you, I baked them last Thursday at gas mark 13.

              1. herman

                Re: If you believe that, I have ...

                What a maroon!

                1. Anonymous Coward
                  Anonymous Coward

                  Re: If you believe that, I have ...

                  > What a maroon!

                  The Two Ronnies...

                  "...and now the news. Earlier today, in the English Channel, a ship carrying red paint was in collision with a ship carrying blue paint. Both crews were marooned."

        3. Anonymous Coward Silver badge
          Coat

          Re: If you believe that, I have ...

          Clearly the Upper Worthington Railway Modeling Society's Afternoon Tea Arrangements committee is a genuine committee.

          The ones you need to look out for are the Railway Modeling Society of Upper Worthington's Afternoon Tea Arrangements committee.

          Thanks. Mine's the one with Judean people on the front.

      2. werdsmith Silver badge

        Re: Really?

        If you believe that, I have a wonderful bridge I can sell you..

        Hi there, my name’s McCulloch, I’ll buy your facing stones from your old bridge (which I’ve been to look at and had surveyed) and I’ll use it in my new Lake Havasu City and make millions of $$$$ profit from it thank you.

  5. Wellyboot Silver badge
    Big Brother

    Other angles

    UK & Belgium have a very long standing (currently via EU & NATO) security relationship.

    Perhaps we were spying on Belgium because their security service (like ours) has inconvenient rules about spying on its own people.

    Perhaps as the state hosting both the EU & NATO headquarters there are a lot of 3rd party countries doing sneaky beaky stuff that we both are quite keen to keep tabs on.

    1. Baldrickk

      Re: Other angles

      I could imagine that there are all sorts of deals kept out of the light of day for this sort of thing.

    2. I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

      Re: Other angles

      As I understand it, Belgium's security services haven't been all that cooperative historically. Although I don't know if that's because they don't cooperate - or just don't have the information to share. Certainly lots of people popped out of the shadows after the Paris and Brussels attacks to complain about pisspoor intelligence sharing from Belgium. But I think that's because they weren't actually collecting all that much info on their internal terrorist networks - which have emerged as being quite extensive since.

      So I don't know if the Belgians weren't playing ball, hence we hacked them. Or perhaps they were even too polite to read the mail going through Belgiacom and so had nothing to share.

      It was nice of GCHQ to wait for the year I cancelled my Belgacom mobile contract, before they started the hack... Like I believe that they weren't hacking them before. Echelon was a big story for about 6 months, when I was living in Brussels. And I've no sympathy, given what the buggers charged me - they could at least have spent some of it on security...

    3. rg287

      Re: Other angles

      Perhaps as the state hosting both the EU & NATO headquarters there are a lot of 3rd party countries doing sneaky beaky stuff that we both are quite keen to keep tabs on.

      I have no doubt that there's an element of this. Lower level NATO <Classified> documents will be in the Kremlin before they've been read by everyone on the official circulation list. It's blatantly obvious that you'd want to be keeping an eye on who is talking to who, or sharing what and where - and if Belgian spooks aren't doing it (or aren't sharing), then you do it yourself.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Other angles

        "Lower level NATO <Classified> documents will be in the Kremlin before they've been read by everyone on the official circulation list."

        This has probably got worse since we invited a number of countries into NATO that were were formerly part of the Soviet Union and where a substantial chunk of their citizens are of Russian origin, some of whom may side with Moscow.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Other angles

          This has probably got worse since we invited a number of countries into NATO that were were formerly part of the Soviet Union

          Well, the Yanks were the architects of NATO expansion in the hope of weakening Russia, so they can't really complain about any downsides. They'd have evaluated the possible consequences beforehand, and presumably accepted all the downsides.

    4. mwnci

      Re: Other angles

      100% reciprocal arrangement - "Err....Mr Smith, would you mind keeping an eye on this gentleman"..."Why certainly Mr Peeters, we've certainly had some concerns about that gentleman in Sint-Jans-Molenbeek for a while"..."Why James, thank you, these National Laws on surveillance are so tedious".."Don't worry old chap, we are on the ball".

  6. Valeyard

    Believable?

    I mean we spy on our own citizens, spying on our allies is nothing once you've opened that pandora's box

  7. Dan 55 Silver badge
    Thumb Up

    Go El Reg!

    GCHQ has a long-standing policy of refusing to comment on its actions, though a sample of the meaningless boilerplate it issues on all such occasions can be read towards the end of this 2014 article.

    If they just use the opportunity to reinforce the NLP du jour (e.g. strong and stable), they don't deserve a place in the article.

  8. Mr Dogshit

    Yawn

    Spies found spying.

    Film at 10.00

    1. Adrian 4

      Re: Yawn

      It's unsurprising that spies are spying.

      The newsworthy bit is that they got caught, which is less common.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Yawn

        The newsworthy bit is that they got caught, which is less common.

        Not these days. Pretty commonplace for them to get caught, and in may instances (eg Skripal) they wanted to be caught.

        Old fashioned spying continues much as it always has, and never sees the light of day. What we see in the press isn't the stuff that went wrong, its the stuff that one - or both - sides wanted us to see.

        1. Alan Brown Silver badge

          Re: Yawn

          "Old fashioned spying continues much as it always has, and never sees the light of day. "

          The vast majority of spying and intelligence gathering is reputed to take place in the newspaper reading rooms of public libraries with absolutely no cloak and dagger stuff or clandestine meetings involved at all.

          Old men read papers, take notes and see what stories on the back pages simply stop being talked about - there are far more clues in that than in anything that might be said, or kept secret all along.

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    spying on friends

    Rule No 1:

    Don't spy on friends

    Rule No 2:

    Unless you think you can get away with it

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    All true.....but.........

    ...........it's the flagrant hypocrisy that I can't stand!!

    *

    BAD....if the Russians or Chinese or the Equifax hackers are doing it..........

    .....but EXCELLENT if it's GCHQ.

    *

    There are NO 'GOOD GUYS' out there.

    *

    ....AND one of these days some trivial stupid mistake could cause a real war....not just a "cyber" event!

    1. Muscleguy

      Re: All true.....but.........

      Indeed, just as war is politics by other means cyber attacks are war by other means.

      1. I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

        Re: All true.....but.........

        Your quote is wrong. Von Clausewitz said that "Warfare is diplomacy by another means". But as I understand it, that's a mis-translation. His actual meaning was that warfare is just another of the various tools that make up your diplomatic options.

        Also I don't think that cyberattacks are neccessarily war by another means. It depends what you do. If you blow up a power station that might be an act of war - if you use a cyberattack to disable it, then you could argue that's the same thing.

        As for spying, you're both wrong. Spying is mostly about avoiding war. That's the reason that diplomats do so much of it, and are punished so lightly when caught. Note that after the attempted murder of the Skripals a bunch of Western governments got annoyed and kicked out a bunch of Russian spies posing as diplomats. Spies that they'd known about for years. But had continued to allow to operate, because they knew who they were and so could try to spy on them while they were spying. But also because we knew the Russians would retaliate by kicking out our spies working under diplomatic cover in Moscow.

        This is why missions like BRIXMIS were allowed to operate freely in East Germany, throughout the Cold War. Because in exchange we allowed Russians to wander West Germany, looking at our military exercises - and thus both were reassured that there were no immediate preparations for war - and nobody ever pressed the nuclear panic button.

        Diplomatically the penalties for getting caught eavesdropping are red faces all round, and being summoned to the Foreign Ministry for an interview without coffee - and the poor ambassador getting ranted at.

        I cannot think of a passive spying operation that has got even close to risking a war - let alone actually starting one.

        The one I can remember where the British government were actually embarrassed was in the 90s. Where our genuine diplomats had been asked to help SIS out in some skullduggery or other. And so real FCO diplomats got PNG'd for spying, who were actually guilty of it. As opposed to the odd case where the KGB screwed up and deported some poor sod who wasn't a spy - or often where we'd deport more of their spies than we had spies for them to deport - so ordinary diplomats got used to make up the numbers.

        In general the Russians don't employ local nationals in their embassies. So a lot of the GRU people aren't posing as diplomats, but are there as drivers / secretaries / cleaners / office managers. Which means they've got more nationals to deport - and probably more spies in place. Whereas most countries employ locals for those jobs, as it's so much cheaper.

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