So “the Russians and Americans are spying on us with their antennas”, what do we know about Sigint

The collection of sensitive information can take place in a variety of ways, as demonstrated by the case of Chinese spy balloons over the United States, for example. Signet’s case, Signal Intelligence, i.e. passive data scraping by intercepting and analyzing electromagnetic signals. But collection can also be done from fixed locations. The case of the Russian Embassy in Poland recently appeared, “on the roof of which a container full of antennas was observed and which, in all likelihood, represent the listening stations of the Sigint listening station. This equipment is used, as mentioned, to track phones and to intercept the communications of persons of interest to Russian intelligence, such as politicians , who do not always use encrypted communications, or to identify counterintelligence,” explains Inside Over.

In short, the suspicion is that the Russians maintain the rooftops of embassies, consulates, trade representations, and buildings where Russian diplomats work, equipment that could be used for Sigint’s operations throughout the European Union. In particular, the Union has listening stations in the diplomatic offices of Spain, Hungary, Sweden, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Germany, Bulgaria, Romania, Greece and Portugal. and “Since at least the mid-2010s, Russian intelligence has also used portable equipment for electronic surveillance of top targets. Western security services are known to be wary of diplomatic buses or vans, as the Russians use these means for Signit activity.”

It must be said that the Russians are not alone. A few years ago, the investigation by “Der Spiegel”, which reported on espionage activity carried out by the US National Security Agency in Germany, caused a sensation. According to what was reported by the German weekly at the time, the United States was planning to intercept more than 80 American embassies and consulates around the world. The investigation was based on documents published by WikiLeaks according to which from December 10, 2012 to January 13, 2013 the NSA had spied on 124.8 billion phone calls worldwide. Among others, 46 million of them are in Italy.

Overall, the NSA and its other intelligence agency, the CIA, would operate “between 76 and 80 Cigint listening posts inside US embassies and consulates around the world, under the command of a secret joint NSA-CIA unit called the Special Collection Service,” Analysis reads.