Garda Ombudsman offices bugged

CarrickMcJoe · 10-02-2014 02:24PM

wazky wrote: »

Ah now, don't be ridiculous.

They have moved onto tin cans and string.

A Baby monitor.......:D

hatrickpatrick · 10-02-2014 03:16PM

Driminagh wrote: »

This all appears to me to be set up by the GSOC to get maximum publicity. Why would a reporter be the first person to known about such a serious breach of security in such an important and sensitive organisation.

If GSOC wanted publicity they'd hardly be declining comment on this story. This leak doesn't benefit GSOC in any way, the idea that they would have leaked it is pretty laughable.

I can understand why GSOC would not contact the Gardai but to keep it from the Minister for Justice is very strange. There is more going on here than meets the eye

The same Minister for Justice who has been known to get confidential reports about serving TDs from the Garda Commissioner in casual conversation? Yeah, very surprising that they didn't feel like telling him. :rolleyes:

MilanPan!c · 10-02-2014 03:21PM

Driminagh wrote: »

This all appears to me to be set up by the GSOC to get maximum publicity. Why would a reporter be the first person to known about such a serious breach of security in such an important and sensitive organisation. Who payed for this British company to carry out this security sweep. I would have thought that GSOC would have to get permission from the Department of Justice to spend funds of this nature. I can understand why GSOC would not contact the Gardai but to keep it from the Minister for Justice is very strange. There is more going on here than meets the eye

Ehhh...

The GSOC thinks it's being bugged.

It has some idea because things said in private are turning up in the hands of people not involved directly.

They know the MOST LIKELY people interested in their activities are in the government/Gardai.

They then spend some of their budget on a security firm with no ties to the government.

It tells them they are being bugged by someone with access to government level technology.

Now at this point you think they should go to the government?

And when they declare this a state secret or otherwise make sure it never comes out then what?

Better still: go to the media. Make sure it comes out and make sure that the people who would be interested in the info, and who have access to the technology, are made at least state they didn't do it.

SEPT 23 1989 · 10-02-2014 03:23PM

One of the biggest stories in the history of the State

MilanPan!c · 10-02-2014 03:23PM

who_ru wrote: »

It's disturbing how the media are kow towing to the minister here trying to portray the ombudsman as the problem.

Well it's obvious they're being told things behind the scenes. Who knows what however or if it's true.

The media in this country is pretty suite as well, if you haven't noticed.

First Up · 10-02-2014 03:24PM

My name is URL wrote: »

http://www.rte.ie/news/2014/0210/503344-garda-ombudsman/

So he's describing the claims themselves as sinister.. not the fact that the premises was bugged?

Removing any doubt that he's an utter dope with the above statement.

His comments are obviously a bit too nuanced for you.

Kaizersoze81 · 10-02-2014 03:30PM

SEPT 23 1989 wrote: »

One of the biggest stories in the history of the State

Let's not get carried away here

Santa Cruz · 10-02-2014 03:30PM

SEPT 23 1989 wrote: »

One of the biggest stories in the history of the State

Comic book guy "worst scandal ever"

tomwaterford · 10-02-2014 03:32PM

Kaizersoze81 wrote: »

Let's not get carried away here

so you consider bugging of the only independent office to be investigating the gaurds in the history of the state not to be a big story????

seamus · 10-02-2014 03:32PM

Driminagh wrote: »

Who payed for this British company to carry out this security sweep. I would have thought that GSOC would have to get permission from the Department of Justice to spend funds of this nature. I can understand why GSOC would not contact the Gardai but to keep it from the Minister for Justice is very strange.

You seem to misunderstand the role and setup of the GSOC.

It's an independent body corporate, which the MOJ is not in charge of. It's free to spend its money as it sees fit and has no obligation to report ongoing matters to anyone. The GSOC makes a report to the MOJ every March, detailing its activities in the previous year. Note that it does not require the approval of the MOJ or anyone to carry out its duties, because that would be a violation of its independence, which is set out in law.

The only real power the MOJ has over the commission is to appoint new commissioners, but he can't just fire the ones that are in place.

They are generally prohibited from telling anyone what they're doing, except for the MOJ, the Garda Commissioner, and a few other bodies. But they are not required to inform these people of their ongoing activities.

I don't think it's odd in the slightest that GSOC haven't told Shatter or the Gardai. They don't have to, and in any investigation all information should be held on a need-to-know basis.

Khannie · 10-02-2014 03:33PM

wendell borton wrote: »

A agency dealing with highly confidential info shouldn't be using wifi.

Rubbish, tbh. Properly secured wifi is secure.

My name is URL · 10-02-2014 03:33PM

First Up wrote: »

His comments are obviously a bit too nuanced for you.

What's nuanced about them? He seems totally bewildered about why the GSOC wouldn't want to bring the matter to the attention of Shatter or the DoJ.. given that they could well be suspects and all.

Doesn't exactly take a genius to see that.. though it's apparently beyond the realms of understanding for Pat Rabbitte

Uriel. · 10-02-2014 03:35PM

DistanceVector wrote: »

Why? he/she is acting as a concerned citizen. You are the one that should be embarrassed with a post like that.

Why? because it is atrociously written.

I'd suggest that if you want to be taken serious that you could put together a well rounded submission rather than feral ranting and signing off with

Looking forward to seeing , hearing and reading all about this on your , sorry MY news service very soon.

A person that pays your wages

Makes you you look like a nutjob or a child.

I certainly wouldn't take such correspondence too seriously.

DistanceVector · 10-02-2014 03:41PM

Uriel. wrote: »

Why? because it is atrociously written.

I'd suggest that if you want to be taken serious that you could put together a well rounded submission rather than feral ranting and signing off with

Makes you you look like a nutjob or a child.

I certainly would take such correspondence too seriously.

While I get your point, at least he did something, however small.

If we all did a small thing like this we might get a real Republic around here.

The Irish way, pick his grammar apart and ignore the point.
What have you done?

sopretty · 10-02-2014 03:47PM

Uriel. wrote: »

Why? because it is atrociously written.

I'd suggest that if you want to be taken serious that you could put together a well rounded submission rather than feral ranting and signing off with

Makes you you look like a nutjob or a child.

I certainly would take such correspondence too seriously.

Ironic lack of the word 'not'.

Uriel. · 10-02-2014 03:49PM

DistanceVector wrote: »

While I get your point,they at least he did something, however small. If we all did a small thing we might get a real Republic around here.

What have you done?

I bat signaled the Commissioner. It's all grand now.

I just don't see the need for immediate outrage or conspiracy theories because RTÉ didn't cover the matter,within hours of the story breaking yesterday. As a credible (whether you want to believe it or not) news source, and particularly as a state broadcaster, there's a higher burden on them to verify facts. A separate source broke the story, presumably because GSOC made a strategic decision in relation to the leak.

Uriel. · 10-02-2014 03:50PM

sopretty wrote: »

Ironic lack of the word 'not'.

fixed. meh. the world will keep spinning.

hatrickpatrick · 10-02-2014 03:53PM

Uriel. wrote: »

A separate source broke the story, presumably because GSOC made a strategic decision in relation to the leak.

This leak creates a whole bunch of potential problems and headaches for GSOC, why in hell would they have leaked it? I don't see the logic in the argument that GSOC chose to make this information public. They gain absolutely nothing from this leak but it could cause major problems for them... Them leaking it would be utterly illogical.

Uriel. · 10-02-2014 03:53PM

DistanceVector wrote: »

The Irish way, pick his grammar apart and ignore the point.

In reply to your edit with this additional nugget - I didn't focus on his grammar (though if I was making a formal complaint to an organisation, I'd be double checking mine); I focused on the tone and style of his correspondence.

To be honest, I know you know that!!! I made sure to highlight the specifics in my post when I quoted his sign off.

richiek83 · 10-02-2014 03:55PM

seamus wrote: »

You seem to misunderstand the role and setup of the GSOC.

It's an independent body corporate, which the MOJ is not in charge of. It's free to spend its money as it sees fit and has no obligation to report ongoing matters to anyone. The GSOC makes a report to the MOJ every March, detailing its activities in the previous year. Note that it does not require the approval of the MOJ or anyone to carry out its duties, because that would be a violation of its independence, which is set out in law.

The only real power the MOJ has over the commission is to appoint new commissioners, but he can't just fire the ones that are in place.

They are generally prohibited from telling anyone what they're doing, except for the MOJ, the Garda Commissioner, and a few other bodies. But they are not required to inform these people of their ongoing activities.

I don't think it's odd in the slightest that GSOC haven't told Shatter or the Gardai. They don't have to, and in any investigation all information should be held on a need-to-know basis.

You're broadly correct. It is accountable to the Oireachtas and not the Government. The Government, in other words the Cabinet, has authority to nominate the Commisssioners. Ultimate approval is given by the President.

It gets it budget from the Justice Vote Allocation. All monies by spent by it is audited by the Comptroller and Auditor General. Details or expenditure areas of monies spent by GSOC is included in its Annual Report.

Overheal · 10-02-2014 03:58PM

Khannie wrote: »

Rubbish, tbh. Properly secured wifi is secure.

Do you trust them to properly secure it though

Uriel. · 10-02-2014 03:58PM

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

This leak creates a whole bunch of potential problems and headaches for GSOC, why in hell would they have leaked it? I don't see the logic in the argument that GSOC chose to make this information public. They gain absolutely nothing from this leak but it could cause major problems for them... Them leaking it would be utterly illogical.

So if GSOC didn't leak it, how did it get to a journalist?

It would be unusual for security firms to leak information about their clients.
Was it the media themselves? Well if it was, then they'd have to have insider knowledge, either through an informant (then it was leaked) or because they bugged GSOC. Why would the media publish a story about a GSOC investigation into the bugging of its office, when someone in the media are the culprits?

Did it leak because GSOC informed the DOJ or AGS - media sources say this didn't happen. Hard to know what to believe at this stage though.

It would seem credible to me that if GSOC confirmed its offices were being bugged, and it didn't trust the Minister/DoJ or AGS, that their best approach would be to let it go public, to put political pressure on the establishments.

Again, we don't know. We may never know.

Youzername · 10-02-2014 04:01PM

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

This leak creates a whole bunch of potential problems and headaches for GSOC, why in hell would they have leaked it? I don't see the logic in the argument that GSOC chose to make this information public. They gain absolutely nothing from this leak but it could cause major problems for them... Them leaking it would be utterly illogical.

Unless they already have a pretty good idea of who the guilty party is and are waiting for the opportune moment to oust them as soon as they put their foots in their mouths?

Khannie · 10-02-2014 04:04PM

Overheal wrote: »

Do you trust them to properly secure it though

They clearly take security seriously. How many others would discover bugs on their phone system?

sopretty · 10-02-2014 04:07PM

It would be interesting to know which cases another party had 'inside' knowledge of and how the GSOC became aware of them having such knowledge. I am sure that since they know who had the information (which apparently led them to carry out this investigation in the first place), they know the source of the hacking...

seamus · 10-02-2014 04:07PM

Overheal wrote: »

Do you trust them to properly secure it though

Actually we have no indication that the WiFi wasn't properly secured. Clearly someone had physical access to the building at some point. Once physical access is obtained, it's game over for most security precautions.
They could easily have scraped what they needed from any of the machines in the building, they could even have authorised their own devices onto the network. It's a small office, so unless they have someone running intrusion detection scans, which they probably didn't since they needed to get a 3rd party security company in, then the stuff will sit unnoticed.

SpaceTime · 10-02-2014 04:08PM

It would seem completely logical that you'd carry out the investigation into the espionage without informing anyone of what you're doing or even making it obvious that you're 'on to them'.

I wouldn't necessarily rule out foreign intelligence services.
For example, was the GSOC possibly dealing with anything relating to Northern Ireland troubles era stuff?
I wouldn't be entirely surprised if some intelligence agencies were interested in knowing the details of that stuff.

Also, the US agencies have been known to just routinely spy on all sorts of rather mundane EU bodies and allegedly even went as far as to bug the Papal Conclave. You'd really have to wonder what the logic of that was if you're looking for 'value for money' on your spying. I'd consider it quite a waste of US tax payers' money.

It will certainly be interesting to find out what the background to this is.

It also highlights the need for Irish public bodies and companies to take spying seriously. It's not some kind of conspiracy theorists thing, it actually does happen.

EireGun · 10-02-2014 04:15PM

seamus wrote: »

Actually we have no indication that the WiFi wasn't properly secured. Clearly someone had physical access to the building at some point. Once physical access is obtained, it's game over for most security precautions.
They could easily have scraped what they needed from any of the machines in the building, they could even have authorised their own devices onto the network. It's a small office, so unless they have someone running intrusion detection scans, which they probably didn't since they needed to get a 3rd party security company in, then the stuff will sit unnoticed.

No clear indication in the newspaper reports that physical access was gained to the GSOC building. The wifi network may have been hacked remotely, the line from the conference phone may have been hacked remotely, and the fake 3G network could have been set up close by, but to do that they would not necessarily have to gain access to the building. NSA and GCHQ (not saying it was them, probably wasn't) have done this before to other buildings without setting a foot in their country.

seamus · 10-02-2014 04:37PM

EireGun wrote: »

No clear indication in the newspaper reports that physical access was gained to the GSOC building. The wifi network may have been hacked remotely, the line from the conference phone may have been hacked remotely, and the fake 3G network could have been set up close by, but to do that they would not necessarily have to gain access to the building. NSA and GCHQ (not saying it was them, probably wasn't) have done this before to other buildings without setting a foot in their country.

http://cdn1.independent.ie/irish-news/article29994519.ece/ALTERNATES/h342/NWS_2014-02-10_NEW_002_30609700_I1.JPG

Bits_n_Bobs · 10-02-2014 04:44PM

My name is URL wrote: »

What does 'government level technology' mean when it comes to the Irish government?

E-voting machines.

Garda Ombudsman offices bugged

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