Irish Defence Forces in discussion with cybersecurity firm “Hacking Team”
Emails purported to be from hacked firm shows Irish Government involvement.
As has been widely reported, the Italian cybersecurity company Hacking Team had its systems hacked and as much as 400GB of documents were published online.
Numerous transactions, emails and other documents concerning its operations revealed that contrary to what the company had asserted, it has apparently worked with repressive regimes and security services such as
Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Russia, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE, many of whom have been criticised by international human rights organisations for their aggressive surveillance of citizens, activists and journalists both domestically and overseas.(The Guardian )
“Providing tools to police organisations and other government agencies that can prevent crimes or terrorism”
-In their own words: Hacking Team’s DaVinci software.
Paris-based Reporters Without Borders in 2013 named Hacker Team a “digital mercenary” for selling surveillance technology to authoritarian regimes:
Irish Defence Forces
Email correspondence reveals involvement of the Irish Defence Forces and meetings taking place as early as June 2012 at the ISS Prague conference:
Philip Carey, Irish Defence Forces, to Massimiliano Luppi, on meeting again in Italy in October:
In 2014, further discussions took place on purchasing a solution:
Copied on this email is Ciaran Motherway, Commandant
Irish Defence Forces, eg Intelligence services are “interested in purchasing a solution”
Late 2014, Ciaran Motherway has retired, but “new friends will be introduced”
28/05/2015: Latest update, “looking forward to meet you next week”
(At ISS Prague 2015 that took place in June )
It is not clear from these emails if a solution has indeed been purchased, but negotiations and discussions were clearly taking place over a three year period as these emails show, until very recently.
Just what the Irish Intelligence Forces would do with such a system remain to be explored. Maybe the data trove will uncover further documentation.
Revealed: The true extent of Hacking Team contacts across Europe.
Read part 1-UK-France-Ireland
Read part 2-Switzerland
Read part 3-Iraqi Kurdistan via Luxembourg
Read part 4-Cyprus
Read part 5-Balkans
