Why banning BlackBerry is not the answer?

Now that RIM has agreed to give ‘lawful’ access to the security agencies what is the guarantee that the government will not spy on legitimate communication (personal, business, legal) between citizens.

Given the Indian Government’s record in illegally tapping phones there is a huge possibility of them using the access to BB devices to monitor communications of business leaders, journalists, social activists, political rivals, and bureaucrats among others.

Details of US-Russia spy swap

A White House official has revealed that the Obama administration was considering a spy swap well before the 10 were arrested on 27 June. White House officials were first briefed on the spy ring in February, while President Barrack Obama was made aware of the case on 11 June.

“The idea of a swap was discussed among the administration’s national security team before the arrests were made,” the source added. According to the White House, the US itself chose the names of the four men to be freed by Moscow.

China steals India’s secret documents: Report

The report, Shadows in the Cloud: Investigating Cyber Espionage 2.0, is the result of a collaborative investigation by the Information Warfare Monitor and Shadowserver Foundation.

The recovered data that was stolen from sensitive locations in India was analyzed by the researchers. One of the document was an encrypted diplomatic correspondence. Other documents belonging to the Indian government included two marked as “SECRET”, six as “RESTRICTED”, and five as “CONFIDENTIAL”.

US will never extradite Headley to India

While the confusion prevails on whether India will get access to Headley, Canary Trap brings you the details of Headley’s plea bargain. The government knows that Headley has signed a plea agreement while pleading guilty to all the 12 terrorism related charges against him.

It is quite clear from the agreement that US wants to control access to David Headley for reasons that Canary Trap has highlighted in a previous post. The Indian Government can make tall claims of questioning/extraditing Headley, but the reality is that it is not being taken seriously by the US administration.

Delhi Police and Batla House encounter

While human rights activists, media, lawyers, and citizens create holes in the police’s encounter theory (based on the details of the postmortem reports), one thing that the encounter highlighted was the lack of coordination among security agencies in the country and intense competition between them to outdo each other and hog the media limelight.

Canary Trap had earlier raised questions over the murky encounter and even suggested that the encounter might have been a fallout of a tussle between the Mumbai Police and the Delhi Police to hog the limelight. According to various media reports, both Mumbai and Delhi police were behind Atif Amin and the latter went ahead with the encounter in a bid to pre-empt the former.

Why Indians are being attacked in Afghanistan?

The attacks on Indians and Indian establishments in Afghanistan are rising in the last few years.  The Indian and Afghan government have blamed Pakistan for the deadly attacks. Pakistan, on the other hand, blames India for training Baloch and Sindhi insurgents from their bases in Afghanistan.

The truth is that after the defeat of the Taliban (who captured power with the help of Pakistan), Afghanistan has become a new battleground for the India-Pakistan rivalry. Both the countries are trying their best to increase their influence in the country.

Intel inputs, terror alerts, and the Indian intelligence

According to security experts, Pakistan-based terror organizations — with help from Inter-Services Intelligence — have set up hundreds of terror cells/modules across India. A terror module is a functional unit which includes one or more terror cells. Every cell works independently of the other and the handlers in Pakistan manage these cells without worrying about the Indian agencies.

The recurring terror strikes in our country suggests that the Indian agencies does not have the required human intelligence about the numerous cells and modules that operate here.