20 July 2004.
A. writes:
The cover of K & C Garages is about to be blown in a few days.
K & C Garages are alleged to have installed covert surveillance devices in targeted vehicles for the Garda's C3 and Special Branch.
15 June 2004
A. writes:I've been an avid reader of your website for a few years, and this is the first time I've felt that an article doesn't smell right. Regarding the sb-sop.htm post: I can't help but feel that the info you were given is fabrication, and the follow up post which threatens your wife is designed to make the article about the mobile phones appear to be serious, with the ultimate goal being to discredit your site.
1) The address the threatening email came from does not exist. The mail exchanger for melontraffickers.com states that there is no such account as "juicy". (I thought it was fake in the first place just by looking at it)
2) The methods described in the sb-sop.htm file are neither technically or operationally feasible. The info has clearly been written by someone who lacks technical knowledge of GSM cellphone systems and how to subvert them.
- A) It is senseless to jam someones handset in order to make them return it to the store for service. Criminals who find their phone to be broken will simply dispose of it and purchase a new one.- B) Previous articles on your site detail how GSM can be comprimised by a clandestine third party, this technology is available off the shelf to authorities and is not beyond the reach of non-state-sponsored third parties. Your writer mentions that the supposed keylogger would relay information such as the handset PIN back to the SB operatives - the PIN is useless information to anyone, even a petty thief can flash the chip and unlock the handset without the PIN.
- C) In strictly operational terms, can you really see SB operatives walking into a highstreet mobile phone store, flashing ID and demanding access to a handset in for repair? Do you think they would want the spotty kid behind the counter to know that they are SB and that the handset he is repairing (and consequently has access to lots of information about the owner) belongs to a suspect? This just isn't feasible.
- D) Your writer states that the "keylogger" is in the form of a modified battery, which is patently absurd since the battery has no interaction with the circuitry of the handset beyond supplying power!
- E) Your writer states that the information aquired by this "keylogger" is sent out through the mobile network - this would require modified firmware to be flashed into the handset's chip, Again, can you really see SB operatives going into a high street phone store and demanding to flash and modify one of their customers handsets?
- F) Who gets a handset repaired these days?! If your phone breaks, you get it replaced, not repaired!
- G) Why would SB go to all this bizarre hassle of sabotaging and then interdicting and modifying a suspects handset, when they can just go to the network operator with a warrant and request anything they like?
I think you''ve been taken for a ride on this one, and juicy@melontraffickers.com is possibly the same person that sent you the info in sb-sop.htm, with the intention of discrediting you.
10 June 2004
From: A.Melon <juicy@melontraffickers.com> [This is an anonymous remailer address.]
To: jya@pipeline.com
Subject: Request You Remove File
Date: Thu, 10 Jun 2004 11:09:08 -0700 (PDT)Dear. Mr. John Young:
We respectfully request that you remove the file sb-sop.htm immediately. For this information to get into the public domain is enemical to the national interests of certain states. We can, in return for this favor, keep your wife's status as an intelligence resource out of the public eye. Thank you for attending to this immediately.
The message is probably a joke but here's the file on CIA and Cryptome: http://cryptome.org/cia-cryptome.htm
9 June 2004. Thanks to A.
With regard to Special Branch (SB) in Ireland, here are some of the SOPs they adopt for gathering intelligence on paramilitary and criminal elements.
1) SB obtained a piece of kit some time back from the CIA/NSA which can disrupt mobile phone signals in specific phone numbers. The idea was to target specific phone numbers belonging to specific people and let them think their mobile phone was on the blink and then they would leave it in for repair. The phone then gets left in to the repair shop where it is interecepted by SS's personnel and then it is fitted with a modified key logger which would relay things such as the pin number to the phone back to the SS through the mobile networks. For people under closer watch, the surveillance car could lay back a good distance behind the target vehicle and listen to all the conversations (two-way) that are going on. Generally, SB will have someone within the service provider for the backup support, but it's always someone they trust. This key logger is generally a modified battery in the phone so nothing looks out of order should someone open the back of the phone. They operate through the mobile networks so if someone does sweep a room or person and this key logger is in place, they just think it's the signal given off by the phone.
2) The other way of doing it is through the garage. The cops know that many paras and crims have a taste for flashy cars with all the latest gadgets. One of the favourite gadgets is the car kit. Close quarter teams will disable something on the car and the target leaves it in for repair. If the garage owner cant be persuaded to cooperate they break in and fit another type of modified key logger into the cradle of the car kit. This other version does the same job as the first one I described. I know of at least 3 garage owners who actively cooperate with C3 and SB on this point.
One of the car dealers is in Churchtown and the other two are in Galsnevin and Cloghran. You should be very careful about revealing their exact identities because someone would put a bullet in their heads.
20 July 2004:
Now one of the car dealers is K & C Garages in Churchtown (Rover/Land Rover/Range Rover) and the other are two Denis Mahony in Galsnevin and Annesley Motors in Cloghran, Swords Road (both are Lexus and Mercedes dealers).