Big Brother — The Government Listening Agencies

Modified 27 March 2007

The walls have ears, behave accordingly. Here are some organizations that take information security and/or communications security very seriously indeed, some of which also expend some effort in breaking that of other peoples. Depending on who and where you are, the below will likely be a mix of good guys and bad guys.

• Australia —
  • DSD — Defence Signals Directorate, Information Security Branch. http://www.dsd.gov.au
  • ASIS — Australian Secret Intelligence Service. http://www.asis.gov.au/
• Canada
  • CSE — Communications Security Establishment.
    • http://www.cse.dnd.ca/
    • http://www.cse-cst.gc.ca/cse/english/home_1.html
  • CSIS — Canadian Security Intelligence Service http://www.csis-scrs.gc.ca/eng/menu/menue.html
  • Canadian Forces School of Intelligence http://www.cfsis.brdn.dnd.ca/
• Germany — Bundesamt fur Sicherheit in der Informationstechnik, or Federal Office for Information Security, or BSI, is Germany's equivalent of the NSA: http://www.bsi.bund.de/english/publications/index.htm
• INTERPOL — International Criminal Police Organization.
  • http://www.interpol.int/
  • http://www.interpol.com/
• New Zealand — Government Communications Security Bureau: http://www.gcsb.govt.nz/
• Russia
  • ФСБ (FSB) — Федералная Служба Безопасности (Federal'naya Sluzhba Bezopasnosti, or Federal Department of Security). The new name for Komityet Gosudarstvyenoy Bezopasnosti, the Committee for State Security, or the KGB. http://www.fsb.ru
  • Institute Kryptographiy, Svyazi, i Informatiki (Institute of Cryptography, Signals, and Informatics).
    • http://www.fssr.ru/index.html
    • http://www.fssr.ru/old/icccs/icccs.html
• Serbia — Bezbednosno-Informativna Agencija (Security Information Agency) — http://www.bia.sr.gov.yu/
• South Korea — National Intelligence Service —
  • http://www.nis.go.kr/index.shtml
  • http://www.nis.go.kr/eng/index.shtml
• Spain — Centro Nacional de Inteligencia — http://www.cni.es/
• Turkey —
  • Ulusal Elektronik ve Kriptoloji Araştırma Enstitüsü, or National Research Institute of Electronics and Cryptology — http://www.uekae.tubitak.gov.tr/
  • Milli Istihbarat Teşkilati — National Intelligence Organization http://www.mit.gov.tr/
• Ukraine —
  • Sluzhba Bespeky Ukrayiny (SBU) — Security Service of Ukraine — http://www.sbu.gov.ua/
• United Kingdom —
  • GCHQ — Government Communications Headquarters — the main comsec/sigint agency in the U.K. http://www.gchq.gov.uk/
  • MI6 — The Secret Intelligence Service. http://www.sis.gov.uk/
  • MI5 — The Security Service. http://www.mi5.gov.uk/.
• United States of America — Note that NSA is the main comsec/sigint agency in the U.S., although NRO operates satellites for NSA, and DIA runs some of the other data-gathering operations.
  • CIA — Central Intelligence Agency. http://www.cia.gov/
  • DIA — Defense Intelligence Agency. http://www.dia.mil/
  • FBI — Federal Bureau of Investigation. http://www.fbi.gov/
  • NRO — National Reconnaisance Office http://www.nro.gov/
  • NGA — National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency http://www.nga.mil/
    Formed out of (among other things) NIMA — National Imagery and Mapping Agency, the home of Admiral Sandecker. Or so I always claim.
    And confusingly overlapping with NRO — National Reconnaissance Office, http://www.nro.gov/
  • NSA — National Security Agency. http://www.nsa.gov/. There has been a lot of recent controversy over the NSA's listening to Europe, which mostly proves that the Europeans haven't been paying attention. For details:
    • http://www.europarl.eu.int/dg4/stoa/en/publi/166499/execsum.htm
    • http://www.freecongress.org/ctp/echelon.html

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