Most governments don't prosecute Information War activities in court because it forces a country to give up too much information about sources and methods to get a conviction. So, it should not be a surprise to anyone that when the Special Council tried to do it, too much information went straight to the public. The Russians are going to make this as painful as possible and they have already started.
The Wall Street Journal article says "hackers obtained and leaked confidential information" that Robert Mueller linked to the disinformation campaign used in the 2016 election. The indictment linked that case to the documents that were posted and named the Internet Research Agency and private companies in Russia to the campaign. These were covert operations run by the Russian government and they do not like the idea of having them coming to court. It reminded me of John Carlin's book the Dawn of the Code War. He says sometimes law enforcement "was not always the right tool to solve a problem" which I don't think covers half of the problem here.
If you want to undermine a covert operation, you do it with another covert operation that doesn't expose some of the ways you know what Russia is doing. In court that is going to be very obvious. The defense always says, "It wasn't us." You have to prove how you know it was them, and you can't use articles in the New York Times and Washington Post to prove it. You can't interview witnesses unless Russia gives them over and you believe what they have to say. I like Mr. Mueller a lot, but he knows there are limits to what he can get and to what those witnesses can say. The attempt has just started to give up secrets that go deep into the sources and methods of how we know what we know about these Russian operations.
The Special Prosecutor would be better served to not be involved in things that are linked to intelligence service operations in the US and should have known better than to bring criminal charges on these kinds of operations (two others charges are made by the Justice Department against the GRU on tampering with the Anti-Doping Agency the International Olympic Committee (IOC), the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (“FIFA”) and other locations to find information about ongoing investigations. The Russian agents succeeded in releasing information on 250 athletes in over 30 countries).
Russia has deniability on these cases and wants us to reveal how we knew what we knew so it can discredit those sources as soon as they are known. They control their press and the agencies named, so they have the ability to do it. These are Friends of Putin who were indicted. Do we think he is willingly going to see them prosecuted? Guess again.
Thursday, January 31, 2019
Huawei Indictment for T-Mobile Tech Theft
In what is one of the most interesting documents of its type, we get to see the case against Huawei for trying to steal detailed information about a robotic telephone testing system made by T-Mobile. It carries some lessons for anyone doing business with Huawei, should the stated charges turn out to be representative of Huawei's actions.
It is obvious in the indictment that T-Mobile and Huawei U.S. were trying to follow rules established by T-Mobile for the protection of its proprietary testing robot. They had an area set aside for the testing and restricted access, initially to only T-Mobile testers. They might have been better served to stay with that approach. They had a physical guard and entry requirements. They had non-disclosure agreements. Huawei in the US actually listened to what T-Mobile told them, but asked the questions that Huawei China asked them to ask. Repeatedly, Huawei US told Huawei China that T-Mobile was not going to give up that information.
What they found was that over a two-three year period the questions got more detailed and more persistent. There was increasing pressure and soft warnings. Huawei phones were not passing the tests and they really wanted a robot to test before sending them to the US for sale. T-Mobile wouldn't sell them one, so according to the indictment, they set out to steal what they needed. When T-Mobile caught wind of what they were up to, they were banned from the testing lab but kept coming back. When caught the second time, Huawei US did an "internal investigation" and found employees were "rouge" and fired them (I remind you that the Chinese have done these firings before and moved the individuals to other jobs in their own affiliates, or in the case of ZTE, didn't fire them). Huawei and T-Mobile settled this on their own, after T-Mobile threatened a civil suit. But, Huawei China made this more difficult by offering bounty money for information on certain types of technical data its employees could get.
It seems odd that five years later we get an unsealing of the indictment and a criminal prosecution. but, what it does point out is how difficult it is for US operating locations to say no to their corporate parents. US subsidiaries, large customers dependent on Huawei for devices, and retailers might think twice about entering into this kind of arrangement with a company that was clearly intent on getting the proprietary information it was after, using whatever methods it could force on the business partners. This is a great case study for business schools.
It is obvious in the indictment that T-Mobile and Huawei U.S. were trying to follow rules established by T-Mobile for the protection of its proprietary testing robot. They had an area set aside for the testing and restricted access, initially to only T-Mobile testers. They might have been better served to stay with that approach. They had a physical guard and entry requirements. They had non-disclosure agreements. Huawei in the US actually listened to what T-Mobile told them, but asked the questions that Huawei China asked them to ask. Repeatedly, Huawei US told Huawei China that T-Mobile was not going to give up that information.
What they found was that over a two-three year period the questions got more detailed and more persistent. There was increasing pressure and soft warnings. Huawei phones were not passing the tests and they really wanted a robot to test before sending them to the US for sale. T-Mobile wouldn't sell them one, so according to the indictment, they set out to steal what they needed. When T-Mobile caught wind of what they were up to, they were banned from the testing lab but kept coming back. When caught the second time, Huawei US did an "internal investigation" and found employees were "rouge" and fired them (I remind you that the Chinese have done these firings before and moved the individuals to other jobs in their own affiliates, or in the case of ZTE, didn't fire them). Huawei and T-Mobile settled this on their own, after T-Mobile threatened a civil suit. But, Huawei China made this more difficult by offering bounty money for information on certain types of technical data its employees could get.
It seems odd that five years later we get an unsealing of the indictment and a criminal prosecution. but, what it does point out is how difficult it is for US operating locations to say no to their corporate parents. US subsidiaries, large customers dependent on Huawei for devices, and retailers might think twice about entering into this kind of arrangement with a company that was clearly intent on getting the proprietary information it was after, using whatever methods it could force on the business partners. This is a great case study for business schools.
Wednesday, January 30, 2019
Don't Blame the Intelligence Messenger
I have seen a few Presidents and senior government officials question the analysis made by the Intelligence Community. I always wondered why they did it. It is a lot like arguing with your attorney about what is right course to take. You can ignore that advice, or not, but it helps if you are a lawyer yourself.
The Intelligence Community does estimates. They gather as many facts as they can and come to a conclusion. It is a best guess, and it comes with a confidence factor - we assess that this conclusion is given with a high confidence. It is the same as advice from the lawyer. You are free to disagree. You are free to ignore the conclusions. But, don't question the process that goes with it.
An assessment usually comes from a lot of information sources, but sometimes those are limited to what is available. North Korea, for example does not have as much as anyone would want, those might have less confidence. They also come with many analyst's views, aggregated into a product that none of agree with exactly, but all of them support. If not, they can write a minority opinion - kind of. That can be done formally, or just internally to say "I told you so".
Now, while this process has some blatant failures on occasion, it has been worked and refined for a long, long time. It is influenced by politics, even though the members of the Community would not agree that it is. I saw that with Missile Defense when the Congress was splitting hairs on whether a missile could hit the United States. The Clinton Administration said it couldn't, but agreed that it could hit Hawaii and Alaska. Ted Stevens from Alaska and Innoue from Hawaii thought this was ludicrous thinking and said so because it was a matter of record that it could hit Hawaii and Alaska. Clinton didn't care about that. It wasn't what the IC had said, but there were interpretations of the final product on all political levels including the President. There always will be. They fought about it but it didn't become public. President Clinton wanted to reduce the amount of money going into missile defense and needed a justification for doing that. He got it by twisting what had been said.
So, take the advice or reject it, but don't complain about the assessment as given. Order a review of the assessment if you want, or keep quiet and ignore the statements. Making it public makes it worse on both sides.
The Intelligence Community does estimates. They gather as many facts as they can and come to a conclusion. It is a best guess, and it comes with a confidence factor - we assess that this conclusion is given with a high confidence. It is the same as advice from the lawyer. You are free to disagree. You are free to ignore the conclusions. But, don't question the process that goes with it.
An assessment usually comes from a lot of information sources, but sometimes those are limited to what is available. North Korea, for example does not have as much as anyone would want, those might have less confidence. They also come with many analyst's views, aggregated into a product that none of agree with exactly, but all of them support. If not, they can write a minority opinion - kind of. That can be done formally, or just internally to say "I told you so".
Now, while this process has some blatant failures on occasion, it has been worked and refined for a long, long time. It is influenced by politics, even though the members of the Community would not agree that it is. I saw that with Missile Defense when the Congress was splitting hairs on whether a missile could hit the United States. The Clinton Administration said it couldn't, but agreed that it could hit Hawaii and Alaska. Ted Stevens from Alaska and Innoue from Hawaii thought this was ludicrous thinking and said so because it was a matter of record that it could hit Hawaii and Alaska. Clinton didn't care about that. It wasn't what the IC had said, but there were interpretations of the final product on all political levels including the President. There always will be. They fought about it but it didn't become public. President Clinton wanted to reduce the amount of money going into missile defense and needed a justification for doing that. He got it by twisting what had been said.
So, take the advice or reject it, but don't complain about the assessment as given. Order a review of the assessment if you want, or keep quiet and ignore the statements. Making it public makes it worse on both sides.
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