Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s decision to allow some Huawei equipment to be used in the building of the country’s 5G networks is splitting Western Intelligence services. In one camp are Britain’s MI5, the equivalent of the FBI, and the General Communication Headquarters (GCHQ) and Canada’s Communications Security Establishment (CSE), equivalents to the NSA. They believe...
Category: Europe
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FSB Blocks ProtonMail After a Wave of Bomb Threats
If you’re not familiar with it, ProtonMail is a free encrypted email service, meaning if third parties intercept your email they can’t read it. Now the FSB, Russia’s equivalent of the FBI, has banned it. The recent bomb scares are big news in Russia. So is the government’s effort to ban a private communication channel...
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Impeachment Primer: How Does the U.S. Support the Ukraine Military?
With President Trump’s impeachment trial focuses on the U.S. military assistance to Ukraine, the details of U.S. support are key to understanding the debate in the Senate. The Washington-based Security Assistance Monitor explains what the aid does–and does not–do. U.S. support has grown rapidly since 2014 when Russia annexed Crimea, the easternmost part of the Ukraine. After...
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Let’s Compare U.S and Russian Conspiracy Theories
Meduza, the independent Russian news site, has an interesting podcast, Naked Pravda, comparing the conspiracy theories that circulate in each country. They’re talking about each other again in Moscow and Washington, often spinning stories that aren’t exactly rooted in facts. Whether it’s Russiagate in the United States or color revolution in Russia and countries across...
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U.K. Approves Limited Huawei Technology–and U.S. Signals Approval
In Western intelligence agencies there is no issue more divisive than Huawei, the Chinese telecom sells sophisticated communications technology. The U.S. intelligence community argues that any reliance on Huawei technology is an inherent security risk, given the firm’s connections to the Chinese government. President Trump has forbidden U.S. firms from buying Huawei products, while the...