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posted by Fnord666 on Tuesday February 20 2018, @12:46AM   Printer-friendly
from the We-have-always-been-at-war-with-Eurasia dept.

For a moment, it seemed the hackers had slipped up and exposed their identities. It was the summer of 2013, and European investigators were looking into an unprecedented breach of Belgium's telecommunications infrastructure. They believed they were on the trail of the people responsible. But it would soon become clear that they were chasing ghosts – fake names that had been invented by British spies.

[...] The covert operation was the first documented example of a European Union member state hacking the critical infrastructure of another. The malware infection triggered a massive cleanup operation within Belgacom, which has since renamed itself Proximus. The company – of which the Belgian government is the majority owner – was forced to replace thousands of its computers at a cost of several million Euros. Elio di Rupo, Belgium's then-prime minister, was furious, calling the hack a "violation." Meanwhile, one of the country's top federal prosecutors opened a criminal investigation into the intrusion.

The criminal investigation has remained open for more than four years, but no details about its activities have been made public. Now, following interviews with five sources close to the case, The Intercept – in collaboration with Dutch newspaper de Volkskrant – has gained insight into the probe and uncovered new information about the scope of the hack.

Interesting both from the technical and the political viewpoints, this episode could have unexpected results for the future. Despite the egregious misuse of "hack" and related words.


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  • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday February 20 2018, @06:54AM (2 children)

    by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday February 20 2018, @06:54AM (#640517) Journal

    UK GDP structure [cia.gov]:

    agriculture: 0.6%
    industry: 19%
    services: 80.4%

    You really think that the majority of those 80.4% of services were actually exported?

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  • (Score: 2) by Arik on Tuesday February 20 2018, @09:49AM (1 child)

    by Arik (4543) on Tuesday February 20 2018, @09:49AM (#640565) Journal
    GDP is a very difficult concept and I have no confidence in it's application, particularly recently, but let's go with your figures.

    Agriculture is incredibly low. Either a truly wealthy country, or importing food. I happen to know they're importing food.

    And that's a tragedy. Britain is a fertile land which could feed it's inhabitants and easily.

    London is choking Britain, and more generally the urbane are choking the farmers, and that is no new thing, but it's never been worse. There hasn't been so little of the country in productive use for thousands of years. If London is forced to relax it's grip on the countryside simply in order to feed itself, then on the whole I'd say that's a good thing for the country. If this doesn't happen, and soon, the British rural tradition, which stretches back several thousands of years, will end with this generation, leaving nothing but a south asian megapolis with inexplicably shitty weather surrounded by ruined farmhouses and overgrown fields.

    But yes, a large portion of that paper GDP is services, and a large portion of those services are indeed exported. London, it never quits reminding us, is the world financial services capital, after all.
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    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by c0lo on Tuesday February 20 2018, @11:34AM

      by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday February 20 2018, @11:34AM (#640590) Journal

      London, it never quits reminding us, is the world financial services capital, after all.

      It's a convention rather than convenience.
      Easy come easy go, especially if there'd be social troubles - Brexit was a significant part an ef-you from countryside to London City.

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