Counterintelligence

In letzter Zeit wurde es wieder zum Thema: Der Einsatz westlicher Überwachungstechnologie in repressiven, autoritären Staaten. Zuletzt ärgerten sich Nokia Siemens Networks über schlechte Presse, im zitierten Fall handelte es sich um einen Bloomberg-Artikel von Vernon Silver und Ben Elgin. Dort war im Zusammenhang mit der Verhaftung eines Aktivisten in Bahrain u.a. zu lesen: „...they dragged him upstairs for questioning by a uniformed officer armed with another kind of weapon: transcripts of his text messages and details from personal mobile phone conversations, he says…“It was amazing,” he says of the messages they obtained. “How did they know about these?” The answer: Computers loaded with Western-made surveillance software generated the transcripts wielded in the interrogations…The spy gear in Bahrain was sold by Siemens AG (SIE), and maintained by Nokia Siemens Networks and NSN’s divested unit, Trovicor GmbH…” Der komplette Artikel ist hier zu lesen: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/20

In the current issue of The Economist (August 13th – 19th 2011) one can read an exciting article, you will never find in any German weekly: “The Queensway syndicate and the Africa trade“ (p. 15 ff.) Subject is et al. the Queensway Group in Hong Kong, famous for insiders as a shadowy and complex Chinese structure of firms, some of them intelligence and/or government related and well known for its (Chinese) wall: no or few informations as possible about the business, network, financial engagements and contracts. One figure to name – and the mentioned article name him – is Mr. Sam Pa, maybe one of the spiders in the network, maybe the one and only spider. Concerning to him The Economist writes about “a 2009 American congressional report”, which is of course a great source for every Asian intelligence researcher. For understanding Chinese (intelligence) activities in Africa and elsewhere check the firms and persons mentioned in this and other reports, make an update of the personal statu