Personal blog. Hobbies: IT, security, privacy, democracy.
On June 16, the Dutch General Intelligence Security Service (AIVD) announced that they prevented a Russian military intelligence officer from gaining access as an intern to the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague. The ICC is of interest to the GRU because it investigates possible war crimes committed by Russia in Georgia (2008) [ ]
A week after Poland announced it expels 45 Russian diplomats, the foreign ministries of Belgium, the Czech Republic, Ireland and the Netherlands announced on March 29, 2022 that they too will expel Russian diplomats. A day later, Slovakia followed up by announcing expulsion of another 35 Russian diplomats. The Czech Republic, who in 2021 called [ ]
This is an English translation of a piece in Dutch by Johan Leupen and Jan Fred van Wijnen published in Dutch newspaper Het Financieele Dagblad (FD) on 7 February 2022. (Please reference that paper, not my blog.) Takeaways: The AIVD observed an increase in the scope and frequency in targeting and recruitment attempts by Chinese [ ]
UPDATE: 2020-12-14 09:00 UTC: small guest contribution to IntelNews: Holland expels two Russian diplomats, summons Kremlin envoy to issue protest. UPDATE: 2020-12-13 11:05 UTC: the AIVD released bits of recorded video of one contact moment between the SVR officer and one of his assets in NL. It was shown today on national TV during WNL op [ ]
On 23 October 2020, the Dutch state secretary for Economic Affairs and Climate Policy, Mona Keijzer, sent a letter (in Dutch) about submarine communication cables to our House of Representatives. This post provides an English translation of that letter. Takeaways: Distinction must be made between intercontinental cables and non-intercontinental cables. Only the former require underseas [ ]
UPDATE 2020-10-26: I replaced the word cryptophones with two-way radios everywhere because in this (historic) context, the use of the word cryptophones is anachronistic and needlessly confusing. This is a translation of a piece published at Nu.nl today, covering an upcoming story by investigative journalists of Dutch radio program Argos (Twitter: @Argosradio1) about how Operation [ ]
UPDATE 2020-10-28: Spy agency ducks questions about back doors in tech products (Reuters) and NSA: We ve learned our lesson after foreign spies used one of our crypto backdoors – but we can t say how exactly (The Register). Takeaway: NSA now asserts that it cannot locate [the lessons learned] document [about the Juniper incident] , according to [ ]
Note: I have mixed feelings about repeating/amplifying this information by posting a translation here, but deficiencies similar to the observations by the Court of Audit can also be found in public reports in other countries (Anglosphere and beyond). I.e., information security in foreign affairs realms is a generic(-ish) point of attention, not a Dutch one. [ ]
Note: this post is only of interest to those not already (self-)informed about the basics of intelligence and espionage and those who in general take an interest in what the AIVD communicates to the public. On 26 May 2020, the Dutch General Intelligence Security Service (AIVD) released a new brochure (.pdf, in Dutch) to [ ]
On 9 April 2020 the Dutch government announced (in Dutch) that the Council of Ministers approved the establishment of an independent committee to evaluate the Intelligence and Security Services Act of 2017 ( Wiv2017 ). In the legislative process that followed the draft bill back then referred to as Wiv20xx released in 2015, the House [ ]