Reply to post: Re: The underlying message

UK spies: You know how we said bulk device hacking would be used sparingly? Well, things have 'evolved'...

Anonymous Coward
Anonymous Coward

Re: The underlying message

Hide in plain sight may be the only option for the <insert bad group here>

I think you'll find that the IBGH already do. They realised long ago that the US had the ability to backdoor or hack most IT and comms hardware, from user devices through modems, routers, network switches to DC hardware, and even if a digital or voice message can be securely encrypted end-to-end, it still gives things away in duration, locations, and the network of contacts.

Far safer to use a chain of disposable couriers given idiot codes. The courier doesn't understand the code, so the best the "official" side can do is hope to disrupt the transmission - and unless it knows the couriers it can't easily track and disrupt it. Even if they get lucky, intercepting the transmission and seizing the code doesn't help because it can't be cracked and the courier doesn't know what it means.

Ultimately if you throw enough surveillance at it this can be tracked from "head office" down to operatives, but just look how long it took the US to find IBL, with the entire weight of the Western world's intelligence agencies on the job, along with military surveillance assets, and for all practical terms no legal oversight or restraint. And despite the billions spent on that, the Taliban are resurgent in Afghanistan, and Saudi Arabia is drifting back into its Wahabi extremism. I really don't see how bulk EI is going to help in the failed wars on terror, drugs and motorists.

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