Snowden Document Says Dutch Secret Service Hacks Internet Forums 162
vikingpower writes "In the ever-longer wake of the NSA scandal, much-respected Dutch newspaper NRC today reveals, in English, as mandated by the gravity of the occasion, that the Dutch secret service, the AIVD, hacks internet forums. And yes, that is gross misconduct against Dutch law. The service, whose headquarters are in Zoetermeer, did not yet comment upon the divulgence of the document from Edward Snowden's collection. Incensed Dutch parliamentarians are calling for an enquiry."
There's only two things I hate in this world... (Score:3, Funny)
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True and Insightful! Dutch here btw.
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The big bosomed lady with the Dutch accent / who tried to change my point of view / Her ad lib lines were well rehearsed / but my heart cried out for you /
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Whoosh [youtube.com]
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Well, technically it is wooshy on the slim chance that you consider Dutch a culture.
I needed to listen to an awful lot of techno EPs and to forget about a lot of paintings, to be able to do that myself.
Huh? What? (Score:4, Funny)
Surprise! Every govt has an intelligence service and every intelligence service spends at least part of its time spying on its own citizens. If this is news to you, then you will surely be traumatized when you find out that every country tortures people during wars and most torture a few during times of peace. Who do you think Lady GaGa sells most of her recordings to?
Re:Huh? What? (Score:5, Insightful)
It might not be news, but it is still stuff that matters!
I want the world I live in to be a good place, not a place where, as you put it, people are tortured and spied upon. I want to be able to sleep at night, knowing that my government works for basic human rights, including the right to privacy and the right to not be tortured in some prison camp!
The more the wrongdoings of the governments of the west are exposed, the easier it is to stand up against them using non-violent means like voting and demonstrating. So, don't come here and tell me that it isn't in the category news and/or stuff that matters. I for one don't accept the world I live in, and I want to change it for the better.
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Many other countries under princes, juntas, communism, faiths just admit they need 'experts' and 'time' to bring their staff up to an very low international standard.
Does that make it right? No? Then SO WHAT? (Score:5, Interesting)
Sick of this "Everyone does it!".
Child trafficking is rampant.
So it's OK if I do it?
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When the local staff exit the gov security services (misconduct or lured by private sector cash flow) they take the gov level telco codes/skills with them to the highest bidder (other govs, faiths, firms, mercenaries).
Weak US and UK encryption 'sold' to the world is junk at an international and domestic level.
You really want to ensur
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YES!
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So if someone employs the GP to do child trafficking, it's alright?
It's his job!
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Just following orders.
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That's where the "everyone does it" argument comes from.
Popularity is not a justification. "Everyone does it" is not a justification.
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too bad the contracts made by the countries didn't at least on paper include a "oh by the way we have this list of people who's crimes we will not investigate" clause.
what it will lead to eventually is that all countries just stop honoring any hacker extradition requests. why? because every other country is doing likewise.
by the way at least one country classified at least in speeches such activities as war(but then again that country already declared several wars on abstract ideas). and potential hostiles?
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You spelled it wrong. It's a common mistake and even book publishers do it.
It is actually spelled "Just us" department. Justice implies something completely different then what normally happens where just us hits the nail on the head.
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The point is that a lot of people weren't aware of the extent or scale of it
Most people didn't know about this at all. Unsurprisingly, most people are also highly unintelligent.
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Agreed. But you'd have to be unintelligent to not have figured out that something like this was happening a long time ago.
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Yes, let's accept despicable behaviour to make ourselves look jaded and cool on the internet. That is a great solution to all problems!
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Apathic troll.
Die.
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So your point is...?
- We should all just shut up like good sheeple?
- We should learn to like spying?
- Torture is good!
- They are saving us from the terrorists!
- Lady Gaga?
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What is far more important is why and not just that they are doing. It is all smelling like existing dominant political parties and using political appointees infesting security organisations to subvert democratic principles to lock in their power and deny access to other political groups. This seems to be a growing global problem resulting from the loss of influence of the idiot box and it's ability to filter out content with insufficient capital access.
It seems to be about the evil internet and the ric
Do you really believe the politicians ? (Score:2)
Last sentence of the TFA:
Incensed Dutch parliamentarians are calling for an enquiry
Are the politicians really incensed ?
Aww ...
Please don't disappoint me.
Please don't tell me that the Dutch politicians are all angels !!
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It's just politics. None of the politicians came across as serious when the first revelations of Snowden came out. Only the SP wanted to ask questions to Snowden directly, but he definitely won't fly to Holland :).
When it comes to this situation, there's no real party you can trust.
Color me surprised. (Score:5, Insightful)
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I'm kind of shocked that people are so shocked. It's like they thought they had privacy or something. Amazing how many people are waking up to the fact they were living in a fantasy world.
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I'm kind of shocked that people are so shocked.
Who's shocked? People in places such as this, or 'normal' people? If the latter, you shouldn't be shocked; they've always been unintelligent.
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So let me get this straight. Before all this revelations, people who talked about espionage like this where named tinfoils and laughed upon. And now after these revelations people who complain are told that they are idiots since everyone always knew that this was going on.
Yeah, that makes perfect sense...
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I wonder what people thought intelligence gathering agencies did. I wonder what they thought all those antenna farms the NSA built decades ago were for. This stuff has been mentioned for ages. Hoover was tapping phones back in the 50's and 60's of so called "radicals" and that was pretty much common knowledge. Did people think things were improving? Anyone who thought they could pick up a phone and have a private conversation have been deluding themselves for many, many years.
Dates back to suppressed newspaper stories (Score:2)
So "common knowledge" to a lot of people wa
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I grew up in the 60's and 70's and I think most people were aware that this stuff was going on although maybe not to the degree. For the most part the attitude was "so what, I've got nothing to hide." I really don't think most people think privacy is such a big deal. Here in the geek world it's blown up to be a sign of tyranny but I think Joe Public isn't quite so outraged. Even with the Snowden files dribbling in the public outcry isn't that imperious for something to be done. Spy agencies spy on peop
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The NSA, DEA "parallel construction" telco idea can have many legal issues that most countries have faced or know never to get pulled into again.
Every top criminal can pay for insights into the domestic operation/tech policy formation of surveillance via their police, lawyers, press, judicial contacts.
They will never be caught or can bribe/counter most gov efforts.
Most countries understand that a defendant
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Yeah, it's like people are surprised that the actions they do in public (i.e., anything you do on the Internet) actually can be watched, observed and noticed by people.
I mean, if you want to keep something private, or want some privacy, you keep that stuff under wraps. You don't go post it online or anything where other pe
But not from other people. (Score:1)
I am not my government.
I do not want this.
Therefore I can be outraged at YOUR government's villainy just fine, thank you.
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"This revelation only removes "the Moral High Ground" from another nation's people."
considering that the Dutch government is actually angry about this, and not defending it like the US government is, no I do not at all think this removes the moral high ground.
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considering that the Dutch government is actually angry about this
It's probably more a credit to the Dutch people than their government.
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It's a known fact they sometimes (regularly?) get donations from their US cousins to set up projects that are of mutual interest.
So far I see no problems, but Dutch privacy law is an entirely different beast to US privacy law (or the lack thereof), we do have guarantees re. privacy and consider it important to protect them.
What I do find of interest is the AMS-IX or Amsterdam Internet Exchange [ams-ix.net], it would be a great point for tapping...
/. and mysql? (Score:2, Interesting)
The real question is, of course, if Slashdot is using mySQL as well.
(Don't bother: if you did not read the article, you will not understand the comment)
Re:/. and mysql? (Score:5, Funny)
(Don't bother: if you did not read the article, you will not understand the comment)
Haha... very clever -- nearly tricked me into reading the article! We on Slashdot know better than that!
"is" vs "would" (Score:1)
And yes, that is gross misconduct against Dutch law.
Just because Snowden alleges anything doesn't necessarily mean that thing is true. Snowden must provide enough proof (be it direct or indirect) for his claims to be actually taken seriously.
Therefore, by logic, the OP should have actually commented "what WOULD BE gross misconduct against Dutch law".
This Just In (Score:1)
Re:"is" vs "would" (Score:5, Insightful)
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I just read a statement by the responsible minister Plasterk who says he feels the AIVD (secret service) is working within the law.
He refuses to go into detail but admits the AIVD is targeting fora where people are called upon to take part in violence and fora with violent video's. He states the authority (CTIVD) tasked with supervision of the secret services did not see reasons to correct the activities of the services.
I must agree with him (and against you) that
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Now, an internet forum is not an "organization which endangers national or public security"
Actually, the legal justification for this is that the internet forum is the ONLY way in which these people meet, exchange ideas, put together timetables, and organize. Which means that the forum members are an organization and the forum is the embodiment of that organization.
While one can (and lots of people will!) certainly argue the point, it's not without merit. I don't condone *anything* the AIVD does, including this, because their main function is to protect the status quo and that only coincidentally
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The problem is precisely that this absurd interpretation of the words "criminal organisation" is used with regards to internet forums. Apparently, the fact that some people on forums might be dangerous terrorists (of the Muslim persuasion, according to the AIVD, because as we know extreme right movements never bomb anything...) means that the whole forum can be considered a criminal organisation and makes it okay to siphon up all user data, including that of innocent users.
The other problem is that the law
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Comments of the AIVD (Score:2)
The AIVD did comment, even before the NRC published the article: https://www.aivd.nl/actueel/@3033/interception/ [www.aivd.nl] (Dutch)
And after the article was published: https://www.aivd.nl/actueel/@3034/reactie-nrc/ [www.aivd.nl] (Dutch)
According to them, this is allowed by the current law. However, a lot of parties in parliament and expers don't agree with this assesment and are starting actions to disallow this kind of investigation.
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s/expers/experts
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Basically, they are saying that they can intercept everything and store it in the haystack, and as long as it is not processed, no privacy has been violated. They use the analysis of metadata to obtain targeted approva
At the risk of this being a very Dutch-centric (Score:3)
- post (damn Slashdot constraints on the length of the subject)
It looks like the scandal in The Netherlands about the NSA from what is revealed by Snowden, is mainly the *lack* of anything scandalous at all. There was a four-page article in a leading newspaper the other week about it, and the most it could claim was that we were infiltrated from 1947 until 1968 and that, every now and then, they might take a poorly protected mySQL database on some poor slob's website.
I don't mean to sound like those other 'security experts' who feign fatigue and familiarity with NSA's practices, but this one mainly stood out by its complete and utter boringness, I tell you.
Iron Sky flashback (Score:2)
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Oh man please be the same and we're the only ones who haven't...
News Flash (Score:1)
And take a wild guess who their client is (Score:2)
Ot should that be "whose client they are".
Who gives.
And nothing is changing yet (Score:2)
While certain diplomatic and economic relations are under strain and protests go on all over, it's important to note that none of the surveillance and other civil rights and outright illegal activity has slowed or stopped at all. In some ways it seems to have increased.
Demanding that these activities cease is action #1.
Re:Language? (Score:5, Informative)
The Dutch normally speak Dutch, because, well, it's their native tongue. Dutch itself is pretty close to German, but neither are world-popular language. As such, most people in the Netherlands speak English as well, because they're a hub of business. Publishing this in English ensures it's widely readable to the rest of the world.
Re:Language? (Score:5, Funny)
but [German is not] a world-popular language.
Yet.
Send in the panzers!!!!
You thought all those comments about grammar-nazis were just jokes, eh?
Today your diction... tomorrow the world!
Re: Language? (Score:1)
What's not to rike?
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ROR
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ftgAG3Vnif8 [youtube.com] @0:18
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Whether it`s Dutch, German or English, it should be fora... not forums.
In the Dutch version, it is!
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Actually, both are equally correct in Dutch.
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All language is convention, that's why and how it works.
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I've also personally witnessed that the Dutch tend so speak a much, much better English than the rest of Europe. I'm saying this as a French, who is generally a people who don't speak other languages very well. I believe this is because in the Netherlands almost no English program is dubbed, so people develop a good skill for the language. Since I travel across all of Europe, I've noted that countries that usually dub the English program (Germany, France, Spain, Italy) tend to have a lower English level tha
Re:Language? (Score:4, Interesting)
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When I was in the Peace Corps (American) in Africa, I met several Dutch Peace Corps volunteers. They were all multilingual and their English was almost perfect. They told me that when you come from a small country surrounded larger countries that speak other languages, you learn their languages. They were all great people. The world could use more people like the Dutch.
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The Dutch normally speak Dutch, because, well, it's their native tongue. Dutch itself is pretty close to German, but neither are world-popular language. As such, most people in the Netherlands speak English as well, because they're a hub of business. Publishing this in English ensures it's widely readable to the rest of the world.
Is American "World English"? The rest of the world puts in the missing letters omitted from words, such as neighbour, colour, etc.
The rest of the world says I will take some ideas "from" xyz and Americans say "will take ideas "off of" xyz.
It would take tomes to list the differences in language usage, so much so that in my view, "American" is a distinct language.
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It's a fact that the Dutch language sits somewhere between English and German, all three have a common Germanic ancestor.
Please ignore the idiots that keep repeating something that happened well before their time.
Re:Language? (Score:5, Informative)
Do not worry, there is a dutch version as well: http://www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2013/11/30/aivd-hackt-internetfora-tegen-wet-in/ [www.nrc.nl]
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The real question is: how did the NSA know that the Dutch secret service was doing this?
Either the NSA is spying on the spies, or they're sharing data.
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The real question is: how did the NSA know that the Dutch secret service was doing this?
They were paying them to do it?
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Eh.. because 'friendly' spying agencies are well-known for the way in which they exchange this kind of information?
/ Seriously.
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At a top level they get to go to the US and UK, they are supported in their expensive regional tech upgrades and their own continuing tech education.
The data flows one way - back to the USA/UK and their select friends but local EU staff in select nations have been well cared for over ~50 years.
EU secret services now face the reality of groups of individuals with top EU securi
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EU political leaders are slowly understanding the secure phone they where given is junk, trade negotiations where always 'lost' by their own trusted staff, their nations expensive mil/science and secure crypto efforts where given to a list of other countries for 'free' over decades.
It actually doesn't matter what the EU political leaders understand, but the big change is that they have to find a new way to sell the bullshit ideas that they represent to the public now that the public recognizes said ideas as bullshit.
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Reality is vomit-inducing. It's not his fault.
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I'm a Dutch, living abroad.
What I can say is that the situation has deteriorated over the past decade. Mostly thanks to kowtowing to the US. Nowadays everyone has to carry ID all the time; that's since just over a decade (and the rule was implemented remarkably silently). You have to give fingerprints for your passport, officially to make it more secure (but does it? Last summer I didn't see fingerprint scanners at the border, for example).
Overall I think the Dutch do not fear their government (not like in
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Don't blame Snowden (Score:2)
I'd really hate to deliver bills or bad news to you
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And I can largely subscribe to the points you are making.
We don't have the 'fear' or hatred of our government you sometimes read about on
So in this particular case we will see some interesting debates between the executive and the elected legislature.
I just read a statement by the responsible minister Plasterk who sa
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A civil war between those with Facebook accounts and those without? I'm in, even if we're outnumbered.
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The fingerprints are likely stored for verification purposes and might be sent out to requesting authorities across the world to combat passport forgery.
That doesn't improve the situation in the least. Violating people's privacy for security purposes is not acceptable.
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Do they take codes, methods, skills with them and work in the same way?
What gov, company or other person do they end up working for in the private sector?
"Corporate and police spying on activists undermines democracy"
http://www.bath.ac.uk/ipr/our-publications/policy-briefs/policy-brief-corporate-and-police-spying-on-activists.html [bath.ac.uk]
"The corporate security agencies and private spies involved in collecting and analysing acti
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Do they take codes, methods, skills with them and work in the same way?
It appears possible that they do. How do we know that Snowden isn't doing exactly that.
Was that your point? I didn't really pick up what you were putting down.
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A few times it seems to make the press or is reflected back in the wider EU legal system.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SISMI-Telecom_scandal [wikipedia.org]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_wiretapping_case_2004 [wikipedia.org]–05
As for Snowden all the docs are in the hands of the press for the 'press' to sort, publish, keep, hold.. as they wish ov
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There are no Amish subtitles (Score:2)
At least they don't hard code their !@#$%%# subtitles before the upload their rips. Even they're not that discourteous.
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Only paid shills have called him a traitor.
Even the dumb people that think government is their friend have enough sense to know that Snowden's actions could not, in any stretch of the imagination, be considered traitorous. Of course, this doesn't stop certain news groups from trying to change the definition of words like "treason" to mean "anything that I don't personally agree with" in attempt to mislead the populace.
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And keep repeating the unasked for message.