[Itpolicy-np] Mumbai Terrorists Used VoIP, Satellite Images and GPS to Help Plan and Carry Out Attacks.

[Bipin Gautam]

Sorry, my appeal was to point on the current void in the technological
capability of Nepalese security agency if we compare to other all
countries where such exists since long loooong back and they use it to
solve issues of national intrest. The New Nepal capable in information
operation, information warfare and communication intelligence would
only fill this void.

Our army is more primitive than the technology what USA used during
world war I. Then, American security agency approached telegraph and
postal companies to sniff all data/communication that flows within
which provided key intelligence. Americans cryptologist (~1920)
sniffed and cracked Japanese communication that provided key
intelligence for negotiation during post - world war treaties. They
send ships in oceans to to record and decode radio communications from
Asia. This was more than half a century back.

While, if search for similar scenes in Nepal, our army jammed Maoists
radio broadcasts, tried to crack into each other email and passwords
of stolen documents, tap telephones, crack into each others computer.
Then some of those Nepalese in the game use to use PGP Disk encryption
as well but had Trojan in their computer. See, these stunts were
really primitive and unmanaged approaches if our government was
serious or had the knowhow to try the real "technology approach" to
fix problems! I heard a foreign company did approached the government
then with some "monitoring equipments" to offer but dunno what went
with their deal. May be the Nepalese during the king rule didn't
understood its potential :)

Say for an example, then if Nepalese intelligence were capable of
doing "traffic analysis" on telecommunication alone, it could have
leaked vital clues about the Maoist chain of commands and their
possible location, but ofcourse Maoist also used satellite phones and
tracking it would require a different height of reach.

Sometimes back, one if the worlds best Open Source Intelligence
(OSINT) website cryptome.com published a list of "NSA" affiliated ip
block. In the document the number 120.0.0.0/6 caught my attention. NTC
ADSL client IP block fall to this and if we listen the website
120.0.0.0/6  is alleged to be used by the US for their "Terrorist
Surveillance Program" [1]

I find Cryptome a fairly credible source and in lights of all this
lets remember the fact "Maoist" who are leading the government are
still in US terrorist list!

Ref. the updated list@ http://cryptome.info/nsa-ip-blocks.htm

Also, http://cryptome.info/0001/nsa-ip-update14.htm

So, when did NTC purchased the IP's? From Who? Any details please......

This is an issue to least consider for some discussion. But really, in
reality this should have been the responsibility of a security agency
of Nepal to look into it but only if one exists one or is technically
capable to do so!

It really chills me and make me wounder about the possibilities of an
intelligence operation by foreign government when Nepalese ministers
accepts gifts like laptops from china and vehicles from india. Do they
think they least need to do a security clearance of their new found
goodies before possessing it. This could be the vehicle they use when
the talk their national strategy and its the same gifted laptop they
use to write notes of national interests. These are devices that can
be easily bugged with stealth (even from  remotely) and has the
potential to leak key intelligence to other party/government.

Espionage is a really old game. For China, India or the USA as Nepal
is in their interest to keep an eye on. Remember, All of the countries
are capable to acquire far better intelligence and information than
our government to use it on their own interest and they largely depend
on use of technology for intelligence gathering. For Nepalese we don't
even get the point to least consider this as a threat/potential. In
the future our VoIP traffic as well will largely flow through  china
or india. I hope our government is least aware of the fact both the
governments are capable to do a wholesale surveillance of the Nepalese
traffic / telecommunication.

Chinese government has offered a amount to assist Nepal on military
and or any security related aid. I believe its least an agenda to
consider for Nepalese government and take a technological leapfrog and
keep watch on security issues like any 21'st century government would
do as it has been a necessary evil but balancing "data protection
issues"

---
[1] According to the source: "The list of IP blocks are routinely used
by the US government entities (supported by private contractors) to
gain access to, to monitor, and in some cases, to destroy IT networks.
Such activity is related to the US "Terrorist Surveillance Program."
Most of the registrants of the blocks listed below are not aware of
these activities. Concerned network admins should examine traffic logs
closely. A correlation of traffic from several of these IP blocks
likely indicates that a network is under surveillance or has had
access attempted by the US intelligence community and affiliated
entities."