
Maximator: European signals intelligence cooperation - tormeh
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02684527.2020.1743538
======
sgift
Source article this is based on:
[https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02684527.2020.1...](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02684527.2020.1743538)

(Found it since I cannot read the full economist article)

~~~
livatlantis
Thank you for this complete version.

Random detail, but "Maximator" is a type of beer (a Starkbier/Doppelbock)
brewed by the the very popular Augustiner brewery, not a brand in itself. In
fact, it's a Bavarian tradition for the names of Doppelbocks to generally end
in "-ator": Celebrator, Optimator, Animator...

~~~
cmroanirgo
The article covers this fact well. I like the idea that a super secret cabal
name is based on the drink they were having at the time. It humanizes the
whole endeavour showing how they agree on more than secrecy.

~~~
sorokod
Or the place they were having the drink in, like the Beer Hall Putsch

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beer_Hall_Putsch](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beer_Hall_Putsch)

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SiempreViernes
From the source article:

"Certain countries were deliberately not allowed to join because within the
Maximator alliance they were considered as lacking relevant (signal-/crypto-
analytical) expertise and/or experience. Allegedly, these countries include
Norway, Spain and Italy."

And

"Belgium is a notable exception in north-western Europe; it had not been
invited to join Maximator because of its lack of SIGINT (and COMSEC)
capabilities." adding in a footnote that "Belgium’s cryptographic behaviour
and discipline were problematic. For instance, at least once it compromised
its own communications via a basic mistake in key management;"

:D

~~~
koheripbal
It is disappointing to continue to see such rampant fragmentation within
Europe.

I had hoped that the EU would break down regulatory barriers and force
bureaucratic consolidation, but it seems progress has stalled in the last 10
years.

The EU should have one single intelligence agency - not a dysfunctional
collection of fighting to be part of the "in" group.

~~~
jhelphenstine
One single intelligence agency? And what if the Germans are interested in
gaining better understanding of Viktor Orban? Or if the Italians want to know
just how far Germany will really go to help them financially? An intelligence
agency is a means of acquiring answers to intelligence needs - I'm not sure
Europe is of one mind with regard to what questions merit answering.

~~~
seppin
Exactly. You'd need a single united economic and political union first.

The EU is heading away from that, not towards it.

~~~
normalnorm
How do you figure that?

The EU is an economic and political union. It might not be complete or
perfect, but integration has been happening decade by decade. We now have a
single currency, a unified supreme court, a single charter of citizen rights,
freedom of movement and a single market. A lot of younger people feel
European, there is such a thing as an European identity. Each one of these
things was considered impossible at a certain point. It is a slow and hard
process but it is happening.

I find that the English-speaking media is particularly keen on repeating the
mantra that "the EU is collapsing". I've witnessed this all my life. It became
more intense now with Brexit, but the UK was not ever a real member. It opted
out and demanded exceptions for everything. Unfortunately, the EU had to be
built _around_ the UK, not _with_ it. There was also a shift in attitude with
the current administration in the US, which sees the EU as an adversary
instead of as a friend. So I would take anything I read in English about the
EU with a pinch of salt...

~~~
JetSetWilly
> the UK was not ever a real member. It opted out and demanded exceptions for
> everything. Unfortunately, the EU had to be built around the UK, not with
> it.

There's a tendency among hardcore europhiles to blame the nasty british for
all questioning of the European ideal, as though if it weren't for perfidious
albion Europe would be of one mind.

This completely ignores both the deep euroscepticism felt by many people
across the EU(which European countries tend to just ignore instead of being so
hasty like Britain as to actually have a referendum - and if a referendum must
be held, just have it again and again until you get the right answer...) and
also ignores that other countries have differing opinions to France and
Germany too.

~~~
normalnorm
> There's a tendency among hardcore europhiles to blame the nasty british for
> all questioning of the European ideal, as though if it weren't for
> perfidious albion Europe would be of one mind.

Perhaps, but that was not what I said at all. What I said is that the UK
always chose to not participate in the project, and that the project went on
without it. Now, with Brexit, the UK government is openly hostile towards the
EU. This is just a fact. Another fact is that the EU was able to maintain a
united political front when faced with Brexit (which posed -- and was meant to
pose -- an existential threat to the EU). So the reports of EU's death may be
premature, as the cliché goes...

> This completely ignores both the deep euroscepticism felt by many people
> across the EU

Well, I haven't. On the contrary, I said that it is a very hard and incomplete
project, and that it was considered impossible by a lot of people every step
of the way. I also mentioned that it is among the younger generations that a
European identity is growing. Not established, but growing.

> and also ignores that other countries have differing opinions to France and
> Germany too

Well, I ignored none of that. You just assumed it.

What I think is undeniable is that there are vested interests in the collapse
of the EU. The EU is composed of many small countries, that could be much more
easily pushed around if not acting as bloc. Naturally, those who would indeed
like to push Europe around dislike the EU. With the stance of the current US
administration and of the post-Brexit UK government, it just so happens that
in the current year of 2020, a lot of people with such vested interests write
in English.

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PatrolX
What's most interesting about this is what Professor Jacobs omitted, and the
stuff he omitted happens to be related to his circle of friends.

Set up a Google Alert for appropriate keywords, this could get really
interesting in the coming months. That's all I can say, sorry.

~~~
secfirstmd
Intriguing comment given what he has worked on and with who.

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tormeh
> Crypto AG, a Swiss firm that dominated the global market, turns out to have
> been jointly owned by the CIA and its German counterpart, the BND. They
> would sell rigged machines to friends and enemies alike, including several
> NATO countries.

~~~
billfruit
How is this getting a free pass, while allegations about other countries
prompt much consternation.

I think it is ethically problematic to assist/work for any
espionage/intelligence related work during peace time.

~~~
blaser-waffle
The Cold War was mostly a spy game and it kept the peace for decades. There
was no gigantic WW3, no nuclear holocaust, and kept the regional conflicts
limited to that specific region.

Everyone plays the great game, even allies vs other allies (e.g. the French
spying on US businesses, and the US NSA spying on Europeans during
negotiations).

~~~
ntsplnkv2
Surely the threat of mass destruction had more to do with that so-called
peace.

And was it really peaceful? All that espionage essentially led to the proxy
wars across the globe that cost countless number of lives.

~~~
deathgrips
How many people died in WW2 vs all wars after WW2?

~~~
ntsplnkv2
Why?

~~~
deathgrips
Proxy wars and spying kills less people than world wars. It's objectively
better.

~~~
ntsplnkv2
It's only objectively better until another world war comes - we are not
immune, and then, it will be easily objectively worse. This argument is rather
pointless - externalizing warfare to poor nations and then saying the world is
"peaceful" is quite immoral.

~~~
deathgrips
Do you have a better, moral way to reduce war fatalities?

~~~
ntsplnkv2
Do you have an argument that isn't a straw-man?

Espionage is not used by governments to maintain peace and reduce war
fatalities - it's used by governments to gain an edge over their adversaries.
Espionage existed in WW2 as it did in times of peace - to say peace is a
consequence of it is absurd.

MAD is the only thing that has prevented major world conflict.

------
disabled
As both an American (culturally) and European (by citizenship, as in European
Union citizen), this whole ordeal is going to be profoundly damaging to US-EU
relations.

But, you (Americans) should be angry because democracy has been in backslide
hardcore in the US. Europe has dealt with populism before, unlike the US, and
is more likely to recover from these bad times than the US—and it is really
due to a multitude of reasons.

My bet is that the US closed the operation once they knew they were certainly
busted. Who knows, maybe even a European counter-operation of some sort
occurred. The US probably has several other covert operations now based
directly on intelligence from the devices with poor encryption. Sure, post
World War 2, the US maybe had legitimate reasons to be spying on such
activities in general in Europe. They also probably knew (practically
guaranteed) over time from various patterns (from good data—whatever that data
could possibly be) that a super coordinated secret intelligence operation was
going on between European countries, while not knowing who exactly they were
(as in not being able to put their finger on what was going on, but still
being able to rely on intuition to just know and to justify the means).

Swiss laws permitting ultra-confidentiality in banking do absolutely have a
legitimate purpose, but they are problemsome too. Unless you have been living
under a rock in recent years, everybody knows that there are plenty of
oligarchs (Russian oligarchs in particular) funneling dirty money through the
Swiss banking system. America also effectively has its own form of oligarchy
too (by the way, guess who is listed top in the world for wealth inequality by
Credit Suisse? Russia. Guess who is second? USA.), so it is not like this
route seemed unnatural.

Even if the Europeans knew for certain that somebody had some sort of
substantial counterintelligence on them, it would still take a long time to
figure out the source of failure. That is, unless the US messed up severely,
which, I suspect, is probably what happened.

~~~
microcolonel
> _But, you (Americans) should be angry because democracy has been in
> backslide hardcore in the US. Europe has dealt with populism before..._

Populism is a creature of democracy, what you're talking about is a failure of
the republic; which itself is debatable.

------
vslira
"Maxinator", "Five Eyes"

Imagine being in the brainstorming session to come up with name for
intelligence agencies alliances.

"It must sound dangerous, yes, but not evil. Like some kind of anti-villain"

~~~
dghughes
Whenever I read about such organizations I always wonder who cleans the
toilets. Whether they are real like the CIA, Five Eyes, or even Dr. Evil
someone low down on the ladder has to get access.

~~~
_jal
Keep in mind that there are all sorts of odd circumstances and that the rules
surrounding this stuff are necessarily inflexible, so there are lots of
different arrangements.

That said, in the US, the janitor is probably a contractor. Typically ex-
military, they have to pass a background check and are cleared to work in
public spaces. When cleaning secure areas, they're escorted and watched.

~~~
ttul
And the people escorting and watching them are also escorted and watched. And
their families are interviewed. Etc... It's a huge undertaking.

------
Hokusai
> to the considerable irritation of those who had kept it under wraps for
> decades

On one side, so much secrecy worries me. On the other side kudos for keeping
the secret pact secret for so long.

------
l1ghthouse
[http://archive.is/zmTgX](http://archive.is/zmTgX)

------
selimthegrim
They let the Turkish Army into NATO and hold nukes and it reuses OTPs?

~~~
nabla9
They don't let Turkish Army hold nukes.

They are just located in Turkey. Turkish Air force practises the delivery so
that they can do it if necessary.

~~~
jacobush
Yeah, however there was talk that getting the nukes _out_ of Turkey would not
be easy, especially if Turkey would not cooperate.

------
wooptoo
Sans paywall [https://outline.com/VKPeR4](https://outline.com/VKPeR4)

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neonate
[https://archive.md/FMsZM](https://archive.md/FMsZM)

------
Harvesterify
Can somebody explain why The Register and The Economist suddenly pick up the
subject, while the original article from Jacobs was published a few months
ago, and several newspaper already covered the topic ?

Anything new happened ?

------
Havoc
I wonder what is behind the comment that french/german works better than
french/UK

~~~
frabbit
The origins of the EEC were a French(agriculture + coal) and German
(manufacturing) alliance. The other countries were just added on as export
markets.

~~~
DoingIsLearning
Those were probably powerful lobbies for an enlargement of an economic union.

However, technically the concept of an european economic union originated with
the treaty for the Benelux Economic Union (1958)

(Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg)

~~~
frabbit
Generally treaties occur after interested parties have realized their
interests and undertaken discussions for a great deal of time prior to the
signing of anything.

------
kleiba
Supposedly, they mean West-Germany when they say Germany?

~~~
wyldfire
Yes. BND originated as West German intelligence agency.

------
adaisadais
Nothing on SPECTRE

