Internet Spy Room Found In Tripoli – Packed With Western Technology
From protests precipitated by Facebook posts to internet censoring by authoritarian regimes technology has played a prominent role in the world’s recent moments of social unrest. We all know that the governments of Iran and Egypt and Libya eavesdrop when their citizens talk, but to listen in on Yahoo chat or Skype they needed help. Where that help came from might surprise you. Companies in the UK, Germany, France, the US and other countries in the West have sold software to regimes that enable them to spy on their citizens – ironically the same regimes those countries are now trying to topple.
Reporters from the Wall Street Journal recently discovered a technological spy headquarters in Tripoli. They found stacks of paper documenting thousands of conversations between Libyan citizens that had been intercepted by Moammar Gadhafi’s agents. They also saw a sign on the wall that read, “Help keep our classified business secret. Don’t discuss classified information out of the HQ.” The logo on the sign belonged to Amesys, a subsidiary of the French company Bull SA, that develops equipment to monitor communications over the Internet. According to the Wall Street Journal, in 2009 Amesys provided Tripoli with their Eagle system. A kind of “deep packet inspection” technology, the Eagle is a powerful monitoring tool that can eavesdrop on emails, chats, and other online communications. A poster in the room instructed Eagle users: “Whereas many Internet interception systems carry out basic filtering on IP address and extract only those communications from the global flow (Lawful Interception), EAGLE Interception system analyses and stores all the communications from the monitored link (Massive Interception).”
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There seems to be a disconnect between the US government and US companies dealing their censorship-enabling technologies. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had this to say last year, “Censorship should not be in any way accepted by any company from anywhere. And in America, American companies need to take a principle stand.” So what’s a government to do when its profit-minded, non-idealistic companies don’t listen? Fight technology with technology. The State Department has recently put $20 million towards funding software and technologies to help people in the Middle East get around Internet censorship.
A censorship that is enabled largely by US technology in the first place? Just making sure I got this straight.
A senior State Department official told the WSJ that the policy is in place to combat “a problem caused by governments abusing US products.” They really should put a paragraph on the box saying “This technology is not intended to be used to spy on, censor or otherwise oppress your people. Please store in a cool, dry location.”
The Western technology that decorates the Tripoli Internet monitoring center was made possible when Libya’s sanctions were lifted in 2004. Overnight, the country went from villainous to lucrative. I wonder if these companies have technology to track how many people are caught by governments using their devices. How many are jailed. How many are tortured. How many are murdered.
Much more at link
From protests precipitated by Facebook posts to internet censoring by authoritarian regimes technology has played a prominent role in the world’s recent moments of social unrest. We all know that the governments of Iran and Egypt and Libya eavesdrop when their citizens talk, but to listen in on Yahoo chat or Skype they needed help. Where that help came from might surprise you. Companies in the UK, Germany, France, the US and other countries in the West have sold software to regimes that enable them to spy on their citizens – ironically the same regimes those countries are now trying to topple.
Reporters from the Wall Street Journal recently discovered a technological spy headquarters in Tripoli. They found stacks of paper documenting thousands of conversations between Libyan citizens that had been intercepted by Moammar Gadhafi’s agents. They also saw a sign on the wall that read, “Help keep our classified business secret. Don’t discuss classified information out of the HQ.” The logo on the sign belonged to Amesys, a subsidiary of the French company Bull SA, that develops equipment to monitor communications over the Internet. According to the Wall Street Journal, in 2009 Amesys provided Tripoli with their Eagle system. A kind of “deep packet inspection” technology, the Eagle is a powerful monitoring tool that can eavesdrop on emails, chats, and other online communications. A poster in the room instructed Eagle users: “Whereas many Internet interception systems carry out basic filtering on IP address and extract only those communications from the global flow (Lawful Interception), EAGLE Interception system analyses and stores all the communications from the monitored link (Massive Interception).”
...
There seems to be a disconnect between the US government and US companies dealing their censorship-enabling technologies. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had this to say last year, “Censorship should not be in any way accepted by any company from anywhere. And in America, American companies need to take a principle stand.” So what’s a government to do when its profit-minded, non-idealistic companies don’t listen? Fight technology with technology. The State Department has recently put $20 million towards funding software and technologies to help people in the Middle East get around Internet censorship.
A censorship that is enabled largely by US technology in the first place? Just making sure I got this straight.
A senior State Department official told the WSJ that the policy is in place to combat “a problem caused by governments abusing US products.” They really should put a paragraph on the box saying “This technology is not intended to be used to spy on, censor or otherwise oppress your people. Please store in a cool, dry location.”
The Western technology that decorates the Tripoli Internet monitoring center was made possible when Libya’s sanctions were lifted in 2004. Overnight, the country went from villainous to lucrative. I wonder if these companies have technology to track how many people are caught by governments using their devices. How many are jailed. How many are tortured. How many are murdered.
Much more at link