The British on intelligence: a collection (SIS, MI5, GCHQ & more)

[davidbfpo]

Very few noticed this and no, it has nothing to do with the current spat over President Trump's allegations:

On 3 March 2017, the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), Britain’s signals intelligence agency, announced an authorised history, written by noted signals intelligence historian John Ferris, to be published to tie in with the organisation’s centenary in 1919.

Link to a commentary:http://www.historyandpolicy.org/opin...orised-history

Link to GCHQ's announcement:https://www.gchq.gov.uk/news-article...centenary-2019

[davidbfpo]

A curious article via Twitter by a serving GCHQ official, which opens with:

Security services across the globe struggled to keep pace with threats to public safety in the digital age, as insurgents, terrorists and criminals have moved online. Dr Paul Killworth considers the challenges GCHQ continue to face and argues for the need to bridge the ideological gaps between security specialists, academics and tech utopianists.

Link:https://quarterly.demos.co.uk/articl...article-footer

[davidbfpo]

Copied from a 2014 post in the Snowden thread to act as an introduction to the next post:

A few weeks ago, Glenn Greenwald, while working with NBC News, revealed some details of a GCHQ presentation concerning how the surveillance organization had a "dirty tricks" group known as JTRIG -- the Joint Threat Research Intelligence Group. Now, over at The Intercept, he's revealed the entire presentation and highlighted more details about how JTRIG would seek to infiltrate different groups online and destroy people's reputations -- going way, way, way beyond just targeting terrorist groups and threats to national security.

Link:ttps://www.techdirt.com/articles/201...utations.shtml

[davidbfpo]

Spotted via Twitter a PPT presentation and talk in Germany about JTRIG. The source is:

This site offers a wide variety of video and audio material distributed by the Chaos Computer Club

Their introduction to the 31 minute talk:

The Joint Threat Research Intelligence Group (JTRIG), a unit in one of Britain’s intelligence agencies, is tasked with creating sockpuppet accounts and fake content on social media, in order to use "dirty tricks" to "destroy, deny, degrade [and] disrupt" enemies by "discrediting" them. In this talk, we reveal some of that content, in relation to infiltrating activists groups around the world, including during the Arab spring and Iranian revolution.

Link:https://media.ccc.de/v/34c3-9233-unc...media_personas

[davidbfpo]

I am always curious when a former British "insider" publishes an article abroad. This time it is the barrister David Anderson, who until recently as the Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation and the author of a review into the 2017 attacks.
Link:https://www.lawfareblog.com/new-appr...e-oversight-uk

Compared to the optimism of David Anderson there is a skillful dissection of the (Parliamentary) Intelligence & Security Committee, which has an odd history and the government is not always helpful:

Oversight and scrutiny depend on primary evidence: without sight of the actual documents provided to Ministers we cannot ourselves be sure – nor offer an assurance to Parliament or the public – that we have indeed been given the full facts surrounding the authorisation process for the lethal strike against Reyaad Khan.

Link:https://parliamentsandlegislatures.w...ity-committee/

[davidbfpo]

Dr Dan Lomas (again) has a commentary which opens with:

Sir Norman Brook’s report on the ‘Secret Intelligence and Security Services’ is an important document for understanding the state of Britain’s intelligence and security machinery at the start of the Cold War. Finished in 1951, this wide-ranging review of the intelligence community revealed that all was not well with Britain’s efforts to collect secret information on the Soviet Union. In contrast to the wartime successes of Bletchley Park and the Double Cross (XX) system, Britain’s Cold War spies faced an uphill struggle. Brook’s review tried to remedy this.

Link:https://history.blog.gov.uk/2018/01/...-brook-report/

After the eventual WW2 successes, notably cracking the Enigma code machine used by Germany, and facing a new enemy to realize there was a lack intelligence came as a problem (being diplomatic).

[davidbfpo]

An interesting article, with both UK & US ex-intelligence directors commenting, on the Five Eyes network:

In many respects, the Five Eye’s intelligence sharing network, sometimes written as FVEY, is the most enduring and robust alliance, eclipsing even NATO in terms of information exchange among members. The origins of the network can be found in the wake of World War II, when the U.S. and UK formalized their signals intelligence (SIGINT) partnership in the UKUSA Agreement, signed in March 1946.

Link:https://www.thecipherbrief.com/artic...d-trump-tweets