[36] in Best-of-Security
BoS: "Secret Power"
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Darren Reed)
Fri Feb 21 17:43:14 1997
From: Darren Reed <darrenr@cyber.com.au>
Date: Tue, 18 Feb 1997 14:17:32 +1100 (EST)
Reply-To: best-of-security@suburbia.net
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To: best-of-security@suburbia.net
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Further to the two chapters sent to this list a while ago, here's the details
on how to get it if your local distributor won't import it:
"Secret Power: New Zealand's role in the international spy network",
by Nicky Hager
ISBN 0-9-908802-35-8
Published by Craig Potton Publishing
Box 555, Nelson, New Zealand
(First published 1996, republished 1996)
It makes for incredibly interesting reading, with details including
personnel names and descriptions of building layouts used.
The political subterfuge the various governments have put in place between
themselves and the public is also quite intriguing. How do they get away
with it ?
The appendixes contain refernces to many of the sources of information,
breakdown of the organisational heirarchy and who held what position when.
>From page 113:
"Generally, the UKUSA agencies apply a lot of their time to targts that
use little or no encryption anyway. Most of the telephone, dax and e-mail
communications relayed through international telecommunications networks
have no protection and provide easy pickings. Even when the ciphers can
not be broken - for example the high-level Russian, French ad Japanese
communications targeted by the UKUSA alliance - information can still be
gleaned by studying an encrypted message. This is part of the job of the
GSCB's C Unit"
On page 205, definitions of "CONFIDENTIAL", "SECRET" and "TOP SECRET" are
given (TOP SECRET = Information or material the unauthorised disclosure
of which is liekly to damage national interests an an exceptionally grave
manner) and above which it mentions four higher ratings: "SECRET MORAY",
"SECRET SPOKE", "TOP SECRET UMBRA" and "TOP SECRET GAMMA".
If this book is real and the information within isn't faked or invented for
the intent of this publication, then it provides some interesting insights;
which probably amount to the tip of the iceberg for this field. It also
gives some credit to the stories of scanning telexes, etc, for keywords are
true, with lists of words searched for co-ordinated between agencies.
The cost to me was ~AUS$34 (including shipping). I'd heartily recommend it
to anyone with even a slight interest in this field, despite its obvious
New Zealand angle (home of the author).
Darren
