Norway has stunned the international community by presenting “proof” Russia was behind a sophisticated GPS attack during war games.
War games are supposed to test a military’s ability to deal with the unexpected. But NATO got more than it anticipated last year when its warships’ navigation systems started acting up.
There was no way they could be where their computers were telling them they were.
This was no small issue: warships from 31 different nations were manoeuvring together in what was one of NATO’s largest exercises in decades.
But the implications went far beyond safety.
It means weapon systems without alternate means of finding out where they were could end up hundreds of kilometres off course.
It wasn’t the first time this GPS ‘glitch’ had been observed in Nordic nations such as Finland, Norway and Sweden. Civilian air traffic has reported several instances of their navigation systems going haywire.
EXPLORE MORE: Huge NATO exercise ‘jammed’ by Russia
DELVE DEEPER: Russia, China test GPS jamming systems’
In all, GPS signals have been reportedly disrupted five times in the northeastern region of Norway, Finland and Sweden since autumn 2017. But Trident Juncture exercise in October and November last year experienced the most intense attack.
A member of staff of the NATO naval and marine works with a navigation display on the bridge of USS Mount Whitney of the US Navy during the NATO-led military exercise Trident Juncture. Picture: AFPSource:AFP
Suspicion immediately fell upon Russia.
Moscow dismissed the claims.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Larov went so far as to call the allegations “fantasy”.
But, now, Norway says it has proof.
“Russia asked to give proof. We gave them the proof,” Norwegian Defence Minister Frank Bakke-Jensen told reporters after a bilateral meeting with Russia in Oslo.
Norwegian civilian science outposts had recorded the type, strength and origins of the signals used to distort signals emitted by GPS satellites, he said.
This data has now been handed over to Moscow.
“Russia said ‘thank you, we will come back when our experts review that’. To have such an answer from Russia is a positive thing,” he said.
Minister Bakke-Jensen said Russia would have had to be well aware of the impact of its jamming systems.
A map provided by Norway’s intelligence service showing the source and intensity of GPS jamming signals. Picture: Norway Defence MinistrySource:Supplied
“They were exercising very close to the border and they knew this will affect areas on the other side,” he said. “We recognise Russia’s right to exercise and train its capacities [but] it is not acceptable that this kind of activity affects security in Norwegian air space.”
And international conventions dictate notice be given of any kind of major military test.
The dates and locations of NATO’s Trident Juncture exercise was known to Russia for years.
But Moscow called a snap ‘live-fire’ exercise of its own warships on the boundaries of the NATO games. It also appears to have engaged in an undeclared test of its electronic jamming systems, encompassing Trident Juncture’s designated exclusion area.
Russia shows little regard for the ‘fallout’ of its electronic warfare testing.
Norways’ Ministry of Foreign Affairs was forced to contact Moscow in October 2017 to request jamming exercises along its border as part of Russia’s annual Zapad war-games be halted due to public safety concerns.
“It was a large military exercise by a big neighbour and it disrupted civilian activities including air traffic, shipping, and fishing,” defence minister Bakke-Jensen said at the time.
Category Archives: Whistleblower
DIA: Ron Rockwell Hansen, Pleads Guilty
We can’t know the extent of insider threats. The matter of China infecting our intelligence agencies and paying for spying continues.
Frankly, as compared to Jonathan Pollard, 180 months in prison for Hansen is hardly enough. Pollard was released after 30 years but remains on house detention. Pollard aided an steadfast ally, Israel….China is hardly a friendly country to the United States.
Anyway….
SALT LAKE CITY – A former Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) officer, taken into federal custody by the FBI in June 2018 as he was preparing to board a flight to China, pleaded guilty Friday afternoon to attempting to communicate, deliver, or transmit information involving the national defense of the United States to the People’s Republic of China.
Ron Rockwell Hansen, 59, a resident of Syracuse, Utah, entered his guilty plea before U.S. District Court Judge Dee Benson in Salt Lake City. The plea agreement includes a stipulated sentence of 180 months, subject to the approval of the Court. Sentencing in the case is set for Sept. 24, 2019, at 2 p.m.
Hansen pleaded guilty to the lead count of a 15-count indictment returned in June 2018, charging him with attempt to gather or deliver defense information, acting as an agent of a foreign government, bulk cash smuggling, structuring monetary transactions, and smuggling goods from the United States. Federal prosecutors will ask the Court to dismiss the remaining counts of the indictment at sentencing, however, the plea agreement includes an agreement that relevant conduct can be considered by the Court in determining the reasonableness of the sentence.
Hansen retired from the U.S. Army as a Warrant Officer with a background in signals intelligence and human intelligence. He speaks fluent Mandarin-Chinese and Russian, according to court documents. Upon retiring from active duty, DIA hired Hansen as a civilian intelligence case officer in 2006. Hansen held a Top Secret clearance for many years, and signed several non-disclosure agreements during his tenure at DIA and as a government contractor.
As Hansen admitted in the plea agreement, in early 2014, agents of a Chinese intelligence service targeted him for recruitment, and he began meeting with them regularly in China. During these meetings, the agents described to Hansen the type of information that would interest Chinese intelligence. Hansen stipulated that during the course of his relationship with Chinese intelligence, he received thousands of dollars in compensation for information he provided them.Between May 24, 2016, and June 2, 2018, Hansen admitted he solicited national security information from an intelligence case officer working for the DIA. Hansen admitted knowing that the Chinese intelligence services would find the information valuable, and he agreed to act as a conduit to sell that information to the Chinese. He advised the DIA case officer how to record and transmit classified information without detection, and how to hide and launder any funds received as payment for classified information. He admitted he now understands that the DIA case officer reported his conduct to the DIA and subsequently acted as a confidential human source for the FBI.
Hansen admitted meeting with the DIA case officer on June 2, 2018, and receiving individual documents containing national defense information that he had previously solicited. The documents he received were classified. The documents included national security information related to U.S. military readiness in a particular region — information closely held by the federal government. Hansen did not possess a security clearance nor did he possess a need to know the information contained in the materials.
As a part of his plea agreement, Hansen admitted he reviewed the documents, queried the case officer about their contents, and took written notes which contained information determined to be classified. He advised the DIA case officer that he would remember most of the details about the documents he received that day and would conceal notes about the material in the text of an electronic document he would prepare at the airport before leaving for China. He admitted he intended to provide the information he received to the agents of the Chinese Intelligence Service with whom he had been meeting. He also admitted knowing that the information was to be used to the injury of the United States and to the advantage of a foreign nation.
Hansen was arrested June 2, 2018, on his way to the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport in Seattle, Wash., to board a connecting flight to China.
As a part of the plea agreement, Hansen has agreed to forfeit property acquired from or traceable to his offense, including property used to facilitate the crime.
The case was handled by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Robert A. Lund, Karin Fojtik, Mark K. Vincent and Alicia Cook of the District of Utah, and Trial Attorneys Patrick T. Murphy, Matthew J. McKenzie and Adam L. Small of the National Security Division’s Counterintelligence and Export Control Section. Prosecutors from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Washington assisted with this case.
The prosecution is the result of an investigation by special agents of the FBI, IRS-Criminal Investigation, U.S. Department of Commerce, the U.S. Department of Defense, U.S. Army Counterintelligence, and the Defense Intelligence Agency.
US Media Compares to Joseph Goebbels’ Operations
Ah yes….Goebbels, the Minister of Propaganda for Nazi, Germany from 1933 to 1945. His job was to only present favorable stories for a positive image of the regime and to spread hate of the Jews. He used radio, literature, music, textbooks, printed posters/newspapers and theater to display the propaganda. He too was responsible for burning books….beginning to sound familiar?
Media and Marxist activist groups in the United States are all pounding the same drumbeat, pro-socialism, parts of stories and holding others that don’t fit the agenda.
Can you count the ways, the methods and the media outlets like the Washington Post, CNN, MSNBC and those pesky websites like Media Matters…..
Well, when Reuters reports on Reuters…..take notice. Senator Cruz took notice.
So Reuters had evidence in 2017 that Beto may have committed multiple felonies—which Beto confirmed on the record—but deliberately withheld the story for over a year to help him win his Senate race? But when he’s running against Bernie etc, NOW it’s news? https://t.co/dUfrRPw1By
— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) March 16, 2019
So, the Reuters backstory goes like this…even their summary is lacking but try it anyway…
(When Reuters held the story, obviously people still have not read it when they did publish it as Beto was able to raise $6.1 million in the first 24 hours of campaign announcement. He beat Bernie and all the other 2020 contenders…..sigh)
Maybe it is just cool to campaign on a restaurant counter.
Or the he skateboards onto a stage.
Presidential?
(Reuters) – Reuters reporter Joseph Menn exclusively revealed on Friday that Democratic presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke belonged to one of the best-known groups of computer hackers as a teenager.
Within minutes, his special report was the most popular story on Reuters.com here and was picked up by other news outlets. But the origin of the story goes back more than two years.
Members of the group, which calls itself Cult of the Dead Cow, protected O’Rourke’s secret for decades, reluctant to compromise the former Texas Congressman’s political career.
After more than a year of reporting, Menn persuaded O’Rourke to talk on the record. In an interview in late 2017, O’Rourke acknowledged that he was a member of the group, on the understanding that the information would not be made public until after his Senate race against Ted Cruz in November 2018.
Democratic 2020 presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke, 46, speaks with supporters during a three day road trip across Iowa, in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, U.S., March 15, 2019. REUTERS/Ben Brewer
In an interview with Reuters senior producer Jane Lee, Menn explains how he broke the story and got O’Rourke to open up about his hacking days.
“I decided to write a book about the Cult of the Dead Cow because they were the most interesting and influential hacking group in history. They illustrated a lot of the things that I think are fascinating about hacking and security work.
Focus on Trump’s speech after attack on Muslims“While I was looking into the Cult of the Dead Cow, I found out that they had a member who was sitting in Congress. I didn’t know which one. But I knew that they had a member of Congress.
“And then I figured out which one it was. And the members of the group wouldn’t talk to me about who it was. They wouldn’t confirm that it was this person unless I promised that I wouldn’t write about it until after the November election. That’s because the member of Congress had decided to run for Senate. Beto O’Rourke is who it was.
“I met Beto O’Rourke. I said ‘I’m writing a book about Cult of the Dead Cow, I think it’s really interesting. I know you were in this group. This book is going to publish after November and your Senate race is over. And he said, ‘OK.’
“And he told me about his time in the Cult of the Dead Cow.”
Menn explains more about the story on Twitter @josephmenn twitter.com/josephmenn
Meet Maduro’s Gang: the Colectivos
Not only does Maduro while struggling to hold on to power in Venezuela make full use of 25,000 Cuban military forces along with a security team provided by Putin known as the Wagner Group, but Maduro terrorizes his own citizens by deploying his ‘colectivos’.
Really?
Yes, they are rather like his own armada on motorcycles. And they too patrol the border between Venezuela and Columbia. The colectivos have been around for quite a while, in fact they were salaried going back to the Chavez regime. They have cell or branch operations in and around Caracas. They tell the media and citizens their job is to clean up corruption, enforce laws and to assist the police. Yeah….SURE.
It is likely that the colectivos also coordinate with the FAES, that is supposed to be the Venezuelan police but actually most of them come from the Bolivian government under orders. Nonetheless, all of these groups continue to believe in and carry on the Chavez revolution.
Negotiating with Maduro to get him to leave power and move to a sunny island as John Bolton suggested hardly means there will be peace after his departure given the marxist/communist operations that will remain. The interim president, Guido with the help of almost 80 countries will hardly have an easy transition to any new government.
The colectivos are not a gang but rather a Maduro/Chavez sanctioned paramilitary unit. They operate in every part of Venezuelan society, including schools, courts, retail stores and in hospitals. They control sports, provide food and humanitarian needs, television and radio and control community centers. Sounds rather like al Qaeda or Islamic State, doesn’t it? Many of the colectivos received training from FARC. That was/is the terror group that Obama and John Kerry negotiated with that was/is based in Columbia. (they still operate today, by the way)
The colectivos have direct access to the government resources including intelligence, money and weapons and tear gas. Many of them work during various shifts for the Maduro and the Bolivian government. Under approval of Maduro, the colectivos deal in the sale and distribution of drugs, gambling and extort anyone they can.
Introducing the Cheollima Civil Defense
Do you wonder if anyone in North Korea wants to overthrow the Premier Leader, Kim Jong Un? The answer is yes.
What does Madrid, Spain have to do with North Korea? The constant communications channels betwee the United States and North Korea are centered in Madrid, where Kim Hyok Chol, a former ambassador is based. What is not reported is the North Korean embassy in Madrid was raided last month. Eight people inside were beaten and interrogated by a group of alleged thugs just before the Trump Un summit. Embassy employees were gagged and computers along with cell phones were stolen and the attackers apparently sped away from the embassy in diplomatic vehicles. Police did investigate after calls were made to law enforcement.
Oh yeah, there are many that are aware of this event that are blaming the CIA.
But hold on, let’s go deeper.
The Cheollima Civil Defense operation was launched in 2017. This group is committed to overthrowing lil Kim. They on occasion go by another name, that being Free Joseon. In March of 2017, there was a video uploaded. Allegedly, Kim Han-sol was behind the video due in part to his father being killed in Malaysia in 2017 when 2 women attacked him at the airport, rubbing his face with the VX nerve agent.
Cheollima Civil Defense assists people attempting to defect from North Korea. By the way, the word/term Joseon is the very old historical name for Korea. There has been chatter for more than a year that the South Korea spy agency is behind Cheollima. Furthermore, the group has from time to time coordinated with the Netherlands, China and the United States for helping with security and protection.
It is thought that the leader of Cheollima, Kim Han-sol fled to the Netherlands and continues to operate from there under the local government’s protection. Other family members likely fled North Korea via Taiwan and may also be under Dutch protection.
The intrigue of diplomacy, dissidents and spying.