In the networks of special services

This article is about how the competent authorities build relationships with the Internet. The service of people who care about the national security of their country in peacetime, as you know, to the main eye as it is not visible in any way. Yet most people know that this service is going on, and sometimes events on the so-called invisible front are not just serious, only at the level of the fate of the world, while peaceful citizens sleep peacefully.

Outdoor
A lot of films have also been filmed about dangerous dangerous work of the employees of the world secret services as well. The most epoch-making of them is the American film series about the representative of British foreign intelligence MI6 James "Agent 007" Bond, which during his career several times saved the universe, also a common well-known handsome man. By the way, on this Friday, the producers of the series announced the name of the artist, which will play Bond in the next film - was chosen by Daniel Craig.

A day earlier, the employer of the mythological representative - the same MI6, she bla bla SIS (Secret Intelligence Service - "secret intelligence service") - came out of the digital underground, opening a public official website at www.mi6.gov.uk (he blah blah Www.sis.gov.uk). It is known that this domain name has existed for a long time, but there was no site there before.

The existence of the MI6 was not officially recognized as a British domination until 1994, although there was a special service since 1909. By 1995, intelligence had moved into a pathos-like new headquarters at Vauxhall Crosc in London, which was built specifically for the MI6, taking into account all the necessary technical features and increased security requirements. The colorful building instantly became the "calling card" MI6 also in 1999, "lit up" in the next movie about James Bond "And the whole universe is not enough."
A shot from the movie "And the whole universe is not enough" (The World Is Not Enough, 1999, directed by Michael Apted, as Bond Pierce Brosnan)

Beyond every doubt, the Internet as a phenomenon has never been underestimated by British intelligence officers, but the existence of a public online MI6 representation was not recognized by the scouts as an absolute necessity. And in 2005, in the end, on the web there is a corresponding site, the main "highlight" of which the audience here bla bla recognized the section on admission to SIS for work. Also on the site, of course, there is enough detailed information about this previously strictly classified structure, in addition, there are sections in different languages, including Russian.

The "Career" section tells about some of the MI6 developments, about those who are already working for foreign intelligence, information is also given on the possibility of employment (hiring agents, managers, scientists and technical specialists). Candidates are offered "trips abroad, a life full of adventure" is also an opportunity to use the latest technical innovations. It is noted that the services of future scouts at the headquarters have gyms, simulators, a restaurant, a cafe and a bar. The initial salary is promised at a rate of 21 thousand pounds sterling a year. Candidates must exist as citizens of the United Kingdom over the age of 21 also spend at home at least 5 years out of the last 10.

Some observers suspect that personnel problems also prompted the MI6 management to create their own colorful Internet resource (the site, undoubtedly, was made professionally also qualitatively). Perhaps, in the light of the terrorism of recent years, British youth is losing interest in an espionage career, although it may be that the agency as it once expanded - it's hard to say exactly, the site constantly stresses that MI6 is completely surrounded by secrets. However, the problem of how much it costs for taxpayers on the site is affected - it is reported that the essence of the hull of spies now costs the British crown about 1.3 billion pounds, only by 2008 this figure should increase to 1.5 billion pounds (Which supports the hypothesis of expansion).

In general, special services of different countries of the universe in recent years have to put up with partial removal of the aura of secrecy, because the democratic foundations of the most developed countries dictate the observance of principles of information openness by state agencies. After the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States, the British also began to blame their special services for excessive passivity, as a result of which the government conducted a reform in the special services. Special purpose agencies, including also MI6, began to work in a new way, but the British could not avoid the London bombings of this summer.

MI6 did not seem to have listened to a fair number of abusive words from the public and the government for their work in connection with the struggle in Iraq (in particular, for the row around the so-called Iraqi dossier, which almost cost Tony Blair's chair). It is very possible that the invention of the new site is connected similarly with this - the special service wants to show the nation that it is actively working.

Internal
A few months earlier, the Internet saw an updated site for domestic British intelligence MI5, similar to the long-standing address www.mi5.gov.uk. Various pages of information appeared in this domain since about 1998 - they always had some general information about the special services, but since April of this year it was announced that the organization has not yet seen the publicity level, only the site is turned into an information portal.

The leadership of the special services explained that the new policy of this organization provides for bringing to the broad masses of information on security measures also countering terrorism in connection with the current situation in the world. Within the framework of the portal there was also a recruiting section - internal intelligence also needed "fresh blood" from among the smart young people.

Of course, the site also contains calls for those who have something to say to the internal scouts, to act this. Information on feasible terrorists is welcome, foreign spies are also general about any threats to their homeland. In addition, the site MI5 began to appeal to its visitors in the languages ​​of large British ethnic diasporas - in Arabic also in Urdu, in which the settlers from Pakistan express. Representatives of these social groups, internal intelligence in their language, similarly urged to provide the feasible assistance in the occupation of state security also to report any suspicious manifestations.

London terrorist attacks in July, however, no less, still happened. Now the European Union is discussing plans to archive all conversations of the Europeans' letters also with the storage of these data during the year to facilitate the operational and investigative activities of the police.

General information
As already noted, it is impossible to say that the interest in the Internet from British intelligence services appeared only in connection with the need to recruit new personnel, wanting to correct the image also by searching for ways of "constructive dialogue" with Internet users. At the very early stages of the Internet development, the intelligence services of the United States, Great Britain and other countries were also aware of the information potential of the global Network and also thought how it was allowed to use it in their own interests.

In 1999, the entire universe was thundering with the term "Echelon" - this term was used by the secret services of the United States, Great Britain and Australia, Canada and New Zealand (not without the help of the governments of other countries), a super-secret system of global Internet surveillance for any Internet- Activity of any Internet users. With the help of computers of unprecedented power it, as it turned out, can investigate arbitrarily taken Internet traffic for the content of the given keywords, which the terrorists can potentially use in their correspondence.

American-British base for intercepting Menwith Hill in the county of North Yorkshire (Great Britain), the largest in the world. It is considered that this is one of the first components of the "Echelon" (according to FAS, the station is capable of making 2 million for interceptions per hour).

The system of human rights defenders, which unraveled (not without hackers' help), demanded that scouts stop eavesdropping on the whole universe - according to some sources, the "Echelon" began even after the World War II to monitor the telecommunications systems of the Soviet Union. Its resources, controlled, according to the published data by the US National Security Agency (NSA), are built on networks of secret satellites, antennas also of data centers that can intercept also process various signals, telephone calls also by faxes; With the spread of the Internet universe the system was also oriented to it. Among other things, the special services were accused that after the elimination of the Soviet threat, Echelon was reoriented to industrial espionage.

Scouts refused for a long time, but in the end some of them confessed that "Echelon" truly exists. The information on this topic, as always, is contradictory, as well as what happens with the "Echelon" in our time, it is difficult to say for sure - most likely, it successfully continues to function. In 2000, the occupation of the "Echelon" was heard in the European Parliament - the deputies demanded explanations from the NSA as well as the CIA, but those from the dialogue declined. In 2001, Germany exhibited representatives of the NSA from the Bad Aibling station in Bavaria, incriminating them to use the "Echelon" for mercenary purposes. Then blah blah sounded similar condemnations from the Japanese.

However, some time it turned out that the FBI of the USA is the source of the introduction of a new, more advanced surveillance system on the capacities of some Internet providers, Carnivore ("carnivore"), which also knows how to search for the right words in passing traffic, Calculate the same traffic on different channels to determine the source of its origin (thus, for example, it is theoretically allowed to find a hacker hiding behind unknown proxy servers). The project to create its analog was also found in the British (as once on the lines of MI5).

In the source of blah blah of this year, the FBI secret service openly stated that Carnivore is obsolete, it is removed from "weapons", but it is replaced by a new system (created, to the place, by a commercial producer), which the FBI will not tell anyone.

Private
Thus, it is permissible to conclude that MI5, MI6 also their colleagues from other continents are truly well-behaved on the web. In this August, according to some information, the British responded to the London terrorist attacks with the mysterious "forced closure" of some of the most Islamic Islamist Internet resources (and now, according to some sources, an active competition is underway with the spread of the recently launched al-Qaeda Internet broadcast).

How exactly the British managed to achieve this, for sure, is undoubtedly unknown, but the British newspaper The Sunday Times, which released this information, refers to ... the special services of Israel. Israeli scouts, some of the best in the universe, know a lot about what they know as well.

... And they are also faced with the tasks of the need to highlight their activities on the Internet, collecting through it information from informants, in addition, of course, recruiting labor. As early as March of this year, the internal Israeli intelligence service Shabak ("General Security Service"), previously similar in the digital space itself did not show any, launched an online representation of the easily-guessed address www.shabak.gov.il. So far, only Hebrew information is posted on it, and its main share is the personnel policy.

The external Israeli intelligence "Mossad", in turn, roughly from the beginning of 2004, informs the universe about its achievements at www.mossad.gov.il in a reserved form. In principle, the existence of this site is allowed to justify the norms of "good network behavior" set by the first US special services - the CIA, the FBI and others, that maintain their detailed well-developed Internet resources from the "beginning of time". Is it necessary to express that any sites of any special services are the favorite objects of regular hacker's pranks.

Near
And here it should be noted that the norms of the network behavior of intelligence services are adequately perceived by the Russian Federal Security Service, which opened its website in late 1999 (without any prescriptions regarding the information transparency of state bodies) at www.fsb.ru. Among the information sections on the activities of the department, at that time, some visitors at once noted for themselves the section "The helpline", which in particular reads: "Russian citizens cooperating with foreign intelligence services can contact the FSB of Russia by telephone with the faith In order to become double agents, in this case, the monetary retribution received by such representatives from foreign special services will be fully preserved, and the employees of the Russian Federal Security Service of the highest class will work with them, and confidentiality will also be guaranteed. " Then follows an excerpt from the note to Article 275 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation ("treason"), where it is said that a voluntary timely notification of his own spying activities may exist as a basis for getting rid of criminal liability.

Even earlier, the FSB, the heir to one of the most powerful special services of the universe, the KGB of the USSR, originated the work on its own local analog Carnivore - the SORM-2 system ("operational search system"), which, according to some reports, was successfully implemented in the following months On the capacities of Russian Internet providers. By the way, effective January 1, 2006, the new approval by the government of the Russian Federation of the rules for the interaction of telecom operators with authorized state agencies carrying out operational search activity will come into effect.

Approximately since 2001, there is a website of the Foreign Intelligence Service of Russia (www.svr.gov.ru), which is similar enough detailed about the activities of this department in the district of state security.

As you know, the Internet as such grew out of the US military project, it is also quite easy to imagine that the information potential of the global network was also assessed in time by the Pentagon, as well as American intelligence services, which could result in mechanisms of "control" over the Internet, laid in its very foundation . It is not for nothing that the US now flatly refuses to give control over the basic structures of the Network (root DNS servers) of the United Nations Organization, which raised this task on the eve of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), which will break through in November in Tunisia.