News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on South African authorities admit to mass surveillance. Parent comment

Re:South African authorities admit to mass surveillance by mad_tortoise on Tuesday September 03, 2019 @03:34AM (#20864366)
Fellow South African here, you'd be very surprised then with the capabilities of our spy agency. Very secretive by hugely funded. The former apartheid spies went on to consult for the current government, and they were all very highly trained. In fact one of the precursors to the mass surveillance tech made famous by Snowden, was actually developed at a firm in Stellenbosch in the late 90's to early 00's. That was then sold on to various other state intel agencies, of which SA got a cut of the profit.

We've been developing very high level intelligence tools for years in private/public partnerships. It's all just highly secretive, and one of the areas that really does work, so it doesn't get any attention. Most of us, like yourself, just assume that because other areas here are awful, that our intel community must be to, but nothing could be further from the truth.

Lastly don't forget JZ himself was Head of Intelligence, so he always held it in high regard, and gave it the funding it required.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:South African authorities admit to mass surveillance by madlodlombe on Tuesday September 03, 2019 @05:20AM (#20864880)
Not so secretive, in recent history VASTech (based in Stellenbosch's Technopark) were known to be supplying Gadaffi's Libya with telephone surveillance tech. [0]

Didn't know about the precursor tech being developed in Stellenbosch as well, do you have any sources on that? I'd be interested to see who was involved.

Agreed on the intel community generally being in a grey area as far as the law is concerned, it's a struggle enough keeping them impartial and not meddling in domestic affairs - talking about JZ being head of the ANC's intelligence in exile brings back memories of his ultimate succession of Thabo Mbeki and former spy chief Billy Masetlha's role in that.

[0] https://mg.co.za/article/2011-09-02-sa-firm-helped-gaddafi-s...

[ Parent | on HN ]