Snowden Docs: Brits Hacked Accounts of Belgian IT Admins 126
An anonymous reader writes "British secret service GCHQ is willing to penetrate the networks of telecoms firms to subsequently use them for spying. German magazine DER SPIEGEL reports GCHQ hacked the machines of Belcacom staff to later use their GRX routers for targeted man-in-the-middle-attacks on people's phones. Belgacom is the biggest telecom in Belgium, and is partly state-owned. DER SPIEGEL publishes three original slides from a GCHQ presentation. They specifically mention targeting 'engineers/systems administrators.'"
This was probly at the request of (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:So we've learned... (Score:5, Insightful)
1. This is not a government spying on another government.
2. Economic espionage is illegal
3. Breaching trust like this will lead to all sorts of blowback when partners find out, it's hardly a good idea.
GCHQ has strayed well over the line from protecting British interests against our enemies to economic and political espionage. This op was probably ordered at the behest of some American service anyway (to whom GCHQ are in hoc to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars), who knows why or who it benefits, but it certainly isn't the people of the UK.
Sounds like Revenge... (Score:4, Insightful)
I could be way off base, but I bet this particular type of information was sought out from the leaks by Greenwald to dissuade GCHQ from behaving the way it did again...
Re:So we've learned... (Score:4, Insightful)
There's no such thing as illegal to a government.