UK secret services monitor hotel booking systems worldwide – reports. Britains Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) intelligence agency uses a special automated system to track diplomats and officials travels worldwide. Documents leaked by former US NSA contractor Edward Snowden show that the GCHQ has a top secret program code-named Royal Concierge that tracks the hotel bookings of diplomats and official delegations. Once a room is identified, various spying options are put in place such wiretapping the rooms telephone and fax machine or putting a spy in a neighboring suite. At least 350 upscale hotels across the world have been thus monitored. The UKs intelligence spying agency has been using bogus accounts created on the professional social networking site LinkedIn to target global roaming data exchange companies and spy on the Vienna headquarters of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). The Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) has implemented a technique known as Quantum Insert, placing its servers in strategic spots where they could intercept and redirect target traffic to a fake website faster than the legitimate service could respond. The same technique was used earlier this year to inject malware into the systems of Belgian state-owned telecommunications company Belgacom. The data collected by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden revealed that the surveillance attack emanated from the British GCHQ – and that British intelligence had palmed off spyware on several Belgacom employees. OPEC was yet another target of the Quantum Insert attack, said to the report. According to a leaked document, in 2010 GCHQ managed to infiltrate the computers of nine OPEC employees. The spying agency succeeded in penetrating the operating space of the OPEC Secretary-General and also managed to spy the on Saudi Arabian OPEC governor. Germanys Der Spiegel magazine has quoted NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden as saying that the UKs Government Communications Headquarters has been using bogus accounts created on the professional social networking site Linkedin, which has over a quarter billion users, to spy on Belgiums state-owned Belgacom telecommunications company and on the Vienna headquarters of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries. Other media reports say GCHQ and its counterpart agency in France have almost caught up with the American NSA in tapping international phone calls and intercepting communications conducted through major Internet portals. ---------- First hand wittness.
Posted on: Sun, 17 Nov 2013 11:13:06 +0000
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