Workers preparing the former headquarters complex of bankrupt Nortel Networks in Ottawa, Canada, have discovered that the complex had been bugged by spy gear. As a result the Canadian Department of National Defense may not move in.Gee, ya think? Now Nortel went Tango Uniform for a whole number of reasons. But it can't have helped to have your HQ building full of listening devices. Cleaning that building out is likely to be a challenge, to say the least. We had to knock down our old Embassy building in Moscow because we couldn't guarantee that we'd gotten all the bugs. I'd actually be kind of shocked if the DND moves in.
The report amplifies previous stories that Nortel had allegedly been hacked for years by Chinese operatives as part of an industrial espionage campaign.
According to the Ottawa Citzen, workers "discovered electronic eavesdropping devices, prompting new fears about the security of the facility."
CTV News in Canada reported that as a result of the discovery the defense department "may not move into its new headquarters."
Tuesday, October 8, 2013
Oops. We need an (electronic) exterminator
There are friendly foreign countries, but there are no friendly foreign Intelligence Agencies:
Which makes me wonder what other buildings, in Canada and elsewhere, suffer the same malady.
ReplyDeleteThat campus when I worked, um "in the area" had nothing around it other than golf courses, the Canadian space agency, the Canadian federal communications research center, and an army cadet training centre. Most of those campuses you couldn't even gain entry as a visitor without some sort of security clearance.
ReplyDeleteAnd Nortel as a private business had the best cafeteria around. One couldn't get in except as a guest of someone with a Nortel employee badge, but we all ate there whenever we could swing it.
Cleanse it with fire.
ReplyDeleteWhich is why a policy of PC Multiculturalism might not be a good idea when employing people who read Sun Tzu and do not share your morality.
ReplyDeleteIn case your wondering what GCHQ is up to.....
ReplyDeletehttp://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/society/gchq-codebreakers-working-on-personalised-numberplates-2013100880154
I probably shouldn't find this so funny. Back in the 90s lots of stuff at Shirley's Bay involved Nortel making the VLSICs, or used Nortel expertise on switching and communications systems.
ReplyDeleteThey had the posh conference rooms, and if there was any excuse to have Nortel host the meeting, that's where everyone would try to have it take place.