What is the difficult situation surrounding anti-spy agencies in Western countries?


By

Bernard Hermant

In response to the development of communication technologies such as smartphones and changes in laws from the perspective of privacy, etc., our response to spy tricks and spies is also changing. Is fed into a spy in the partner country intelligence activities or perform, prevent the intelligence activities of the partner countries of the spy intelligence agencies about the change of, is Edward Mr. Lucas journalist that in such Western society and Russia and China have different situation I am talking in detail.

The Spycraft Revolution-Foreign Policy
https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/04/27/the-spycraft-revolution-espionage-technology/

Until a long time ago, it was possible to create a career, address, or nationality, such as a career, and to perform a spying activity that would spoof into other countries as 'spoofing' as seen in movies. However, as technology has evolved in the modern era, it has been difficult to disguise itself. Face recognition software developed by technology companies allows information agencies to not only maintain a large number of face databases but also to identify individuals by querying personal information and photos uploaded to Facebook etc. It is easy,

Chinese police find out fugitives from concert venue with participation of 60,000 people using face recognition function-GIGAZINE



It turns out that Amazon sells face recognition software to the police, and a warning bell is rang as an ant that can be abused for national surveillance-GIGAZINE



For example, if there is a suspicious person claiming to be 'architectural student attending a university in Canada', the information agency will first investigate social media groups related to the university in which the student attends. If the person turns out to be a person with no information on social media, then it's likely that he is disguising himself.

A system to ask SNS account information for travelers entering the United States is introduced-GIGAZINE



One of the most important things in modern anti-spy technology is the smartphone. If you hack the smartphone, you can not only intercept the contents of the phone and messages, but also intercept the location information of the smartphone itself, and even the owner's current location can be known.

One of the measures against hacking with smartphones is that you do not have a smartphone. However, if a person suspected of being a spy turns out 'does not have a smartphone', the suspicion that the person is a spy will be quite strong. Also, 'most recently, people who have recently renewed their phone number' are also suspected of being spies, as most people try to maintain the phone number they originally acquired.


By James Sutton

On the other hand, one of the strategies for sending spies is to “make false identity plausible”. Not only fake names, bios, addresses, etc., but also creating a new LinkedIn account or credit card, pausing a Facebook account, and making 'digital identity' plausible.

The second strategy is to hire a new civilian as a spy. Because civilians have real identity, there is no need to disguise their identity. The third is that 'I use a one-time fake identity and discard it after the mission is over'. None of these strategies are cost-effective and not ideal.

In addition, even today, even if a spy gets information, it is difficult to report to the institution to which he belongs. The transmission of information over the network is also unreliable because it can be intercepted. Other methods of reporting are known as ' dead drop ' in which a spy drops items such as documents or microfilms to a designated place and a collaborator recovers it, but location information using a smartphone is known. The tracking of these makes it easy to discover dead drops.


By

Nik MacMillan

It is said that the legal disparities between the West, China, Russia, etc. limit the spy's behavior against the impact of such technological changes on intelligence activities. According to Lukas, China's National Security Law requires all individuals and businesses to support intelligence agencies, but in the West, a search warrant is needed to access the internal information of a smartphone.

Apple engineers with US citizenship are required to 'unlock smartphones and PCs' when they enter the United States-GIGAZINE



In addition, negative public opinion against spy activity is persistently present. The US, UK and EU intelligence agencies are hiring lawyers and experts to focus on data protection laws and other laws because of concerns that they may interfere with spying.

It is unconstitutional to inspect smartphones and laptops at the time of entry, and the Electronic Frontier Foundation will be launched-GIGAZINE



According to Lukas, intelligence agencies in most countries have been slowing down activities to consider if they have been criticized by the public, and it has become impossible to prevent espionage in hostile countries. Also, requiring lesser privacy to be protected makes it harder for intelligence agencies to intercept hostile espionage. On the other hand, intelligence agencies in socialist countries such as Russia and China are working without such obstacles.

'Most people should not want to live in a controlled society , such as China-Russia, in which the reports of intelligence agencies determine the lives and politics of the people. Countering intelligence agencies in China-Russia In order to protect an open society, we need the presence of an information agency in our own country, but that information agency should not be overpowered, 'Lukas claims.

in Note, Posted by darkhorse_log