This Is What the World's Spies Used Instead of MSN Messenger (vice.com) 65
An anonymous reader writes: What do spies use to chat online? A terribly ugly Windows programme. At least, that's what the Five Eyes intelligence alliance (made up of the US, UK, Australia, New Zealand and Canada) was using back in 2003, according to a newly released Snowden document. "The Five-Eyes SIGINT [signals intelligence] Directors will soon be using a new tool to enhance their collaboration on subjects ranging from current intelligence objectives to future collection planning," reads an issue of SID Today, the NSA's internal newsletter, dating from September 2003. InfoWorkSpace (IWS), as the tool is called, allowed text chat, audio conferencing, shared screen views, and virtual whiteboards, the newsletter explains. It adds that, at the time, some 4,000 NSA and Five Eyes employees were already using IWS to work on a number of topics, such as international terrorism, real-time collection coordination, and Operation Enduring Freedom, the term given to operations in Afghanistan from 2001 to 2014. The newsletter announcement refers to SIGINT Directors gaining access to the tool. Another Snowden document published by The Intercept notes that senior officials held their first virtual meeting with IWS around December 2003, but that "GCHQ was unable to attend due to a computer failure."
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Sorry, citation needed. Please provide your sources.
Re:Donald Trump eats babies on toast! (Score:4, Funny)
Lots of very reputable people are saying this. Lots of credible, smart people. Awesome people.
Many people are also saying that Trump makes regular donations to NAMBLA, and that's why he won't release his tax returns.
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Okay then, since you say that these people are awesome, then we will accept it as a matter of fact. I will edit the wikipedia entry later, after I get my prescription refilled, as the voices are getting louder.
Thank you kindly, you a mensch and a scholar.
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I believe this earns you a "whoosh".
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Many people are also saying that Trump makes regular donations to NAMBLA, and that's why he won't release his tax returns.
What's peoples problem with the North American Marlon Brando Lookalike Association?
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Donald Trump eats babies on toast! Why does nobody care?
Baby whats? Context is king.
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Worse, he eats toast with a fork.
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Because he only used good, clean American-bred babies, not filthy illegal immigrant babies. And they're properly peeled alive, then thoroughly cooked, so there is no safety risk.
Shocking! (Score:1)
YOU won't believe how ugly this weird secret messagging app is!
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YOU won't believe how ugly this weird secret messagging app is!
I know, right, it is almost like they didn't expect the whole world to look at it and check if they were being trendy enough. As if they just wanted a business tool, or something.
Misspelling (Score:2, Funny)
They misspelt "Operation Ending Freedom".
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So does SIGINT send a SIGINT (Ctrl+C) [wikipedia.org] to the private sector's privacy throughout the English-speaking world?
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No, they mislabeled Operation Eternal Opium [bbc.co.uk]
Re:Re:Misspelling (Score:1)
Perhaps it should have been called "Operation ABENDing Freedom".
--
The best predictor of future actions is past actions.
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Ugly? (Score:5, Insightful)
What's your problem? It looks like every other program written in 2003.
Re:Ugly? (Score:4, Interesting)
A terribly ugly Windows programme.
Isn't calling a windows program ugly redundant?
It's pretty sad that most Linux applications have a more attractive UI than Windows; even back in 2003.
Re:Ugly? (Score:4, Insightful)
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It must be, all the applications I use have had the same UI since the 90s. And Windoze actually had the same UI as us back then!
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What's your problem? It looks like every other program written in 2003.
Their problem is the people publishing the Snowden leaks have a fixation against the United States and want to make even the most asinine detail appear in the most negative light possible. What a great whistle blower... Blowing the whistle on 2000s era GUI design....
Re:Yet another example of treason (Score:4, Insightful)
While not popular since anything pro-Snowden is considered religiously approved on here you have a point.
There's exactly nothing that violates the U.S. Constitution or any other legal or ethical standard* in an intelligence agency using a communications tool that protects the privacy of its users from other intelligence agencies, and leaking out the details is certainly illegal espionage at a minimum and treason at worst.
* I mean real ethical standards, not the made-up delusions of Slashtards who think that literally any attempt by the U.S. to do anything to stop any terrorist or foreign government from doing anything is the greatest crime of all time [incidentally, that standard does not apply to any country other than the U.S.].
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Why do people think that this type of leak was necessary?
Because we want something as robust (if it really is). We all have the same right to protected communications.
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If the workers and contractors in 5 eye nations, a few trusted helper nations can do this at work
When they move to the private sector as ex staff or former staff the skill sets and methods go with them.
Easy crypto access is then for sale to anyone or any nation with a shared faith, cash or friendships...
The US gov has allowed backdoors over generations of products to stay in place.
Once crypto like this is allowed over generations, all
UX Hipsters? (Score:1)
It looks simple and functional. Something you don't see anymore. Hell, a lot nicer than GNOME. Firefox? LOL. Sheesh.
Boring (Score:2)
It's classified U//FOUO! You could have probably gotten that document through a FOIA request.
Controlled Unclassified Information is FOIA-exempt (Score:2)
From the Army's FOUO fact sheet [army.mil]:
For Official Use Only is part of Controlled Unclassified Information [wikipedia.org], which is
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Thank God we now have pretty - at the expense of everything else - browser based software like Slack to collaborate over.
Do you think Slack is pretty? Or nice-looking?
Who cares.... (Score:2)
Honestly what the program looked like means nothing at all. Was it peer to peer or server based? encrypted end to end using what? Because there have been online collaboration tools like that available both commercially and open source at the same time frame.
Honestly I am surprised they were not using Tandberg Codecs with the advanced encryption options that would allow point to point calling with routing and conferencing capabilities. the company I worked for back then sold a LOT of Tandbergs to milit
InfoWorkSpace (Score:1)
Anybody got a price and/or torrent? It seems to be a fairly closely guarded secret.
A publicly available alternative wouldn't hurt.
Is this encrypted? (Score:1)
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EARTH SHAKING! (Score:2)
So, 13 years ago they were using some funky secure chat program...
And?
Actually we use something even more primitive (Score:1)
It's kind of sad that you think we should use leaky protocols and code, when our old code works just fine, but you're not cleared to know about it.
Nice try, n00bZ
Java (Score:1)
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FreeTel 1999 FTW (Score:1)
Java? (Score:2)
To me that looks like a Java desktop application using Swing. The shading of the toolbars and the bold fonts are a dead giveaway.
So, yeah. It looks awful. :P