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GCHQ
Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) is an intelligence and security organisation responsible for providing signals intelligence (SIGINT) and information assurance (IA) to the government and armed forces of the United Kingdom. Primarily based at The Doughnut in the suburbs of Cheltenham, GCHQ is the responsibility of the country's Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Foreign Secretary), but it is not a part of the Foreign Office and its director ranks as a Permanent Secretary. GCHQ was originally established after the First World War as the Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS) and was known under that name until 1946. During the Second World War it was located at Bletchley Park, where it was responsible for breaking the German Enigma codes. There are two main components of GCHQ, the Composite Signals Organisation (CSO), which is responsible for gathering information, and the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), which is responsible for ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Doughnut
The Doughnut is the nickname given (due to its resemblance to a doughnut) to the headquarters of the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), a British cryptography and intelligence agency. It is located on a site in Benhall, Cheltenham, Benhall, in the suburbs of Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, in South West England. The Doughnut accommodates 5,500 employees; GCHQ is the largest single employer in Gloucestershire. Built to modernise and consolidate GCHQ's multiple buildings in Cheltenham, the Doughnut was completed in 2003, with GCHQ staff moving in the same year, and fully moved into the building in 2004. The Doughnut was too small for the number of staff at its completion, and a second building in a secret and undisclosed location in the 'Gloucestershire area' now also accommodates staff from GCHQ. The Doughnut is surrounded by car and bicycle parking in concentric rings, and is well protected by security fencing, guards, and CCTV systems. The construction of the buil ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Global Surveillance Disclosures (2013–present)
During the 2010s, international media reports revealed new operational details about the Anglophone cryptographic agencies' global surveillance of both foreign and domestic nationals. The reports mostly relate to top secret documents leaked by ex- NSA contractor Edward Snowden. The documents consist of intelligence files relating to the U.S. and other Five Eyes countries. In June 2013, the first of Snowden's documents were published, with further selected documents released to various news outlets through the year. These media reports disclosed several secret treaties signed by members of the UKUSA community in their efforts to implement global surveillance. For example, ''Der Spiegel'' revealed how the German Federal Intelligence Service (; BND) transfers "massive amounts of intercepted data to the NSA", while Swedish Television revealed the National Defence Radio Establishment (FRA) provided the NSA with data from its cable collection, under a secret agreement signe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tempora
Tempora is the codeword for a formerly-secret computer system that is used by the British Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ). This system is used to buffer most Internet communications that are extracted from fibre-optic cables, so these can be processed and searched at a later time.GCHQ report on the technical abilities of the powerful spying program TEMPORA, which allows for a "full take" released by Der Spiegel on 18 June 2014 It was tested from 2008 and became operational in late 2011. Tempora uses intercepts on the fibre-optic cables that serve as the backbone of the Internet to gain access to large amounts of Internet ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Single Intelligence Account
The Government of the United Kingdom maintains several Intelligence agency, intelligence agencies that deal with secret intelligence. These agencies are responsible for Intelligence collection management, collecting, Intelligence analysis, analysing and exploiting foreign and domestic intelligence, providing military intelligence, performing espionage and counter-espionage. Their intelligence assessments contribute to the conduct of the foreign relations of the United Kingdom, maintaining the National Security Strategy (United Kingdom), national security of the United Kingdom, military planning, public safety, and law enforcement in the United Kingdom. The four main agencies are the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS or MI6), the MI5, Security Service (MI5), the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) and Defence Intelligence (DI). The agencies are organised under three Departments of the United Kingdom Government, government departments, the Foreign, Commonwealth and Developmen ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Director Of GCHQ
__NOTOC__ The Director of the Government Communications Headquarters is the highest-ranking official in the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), a British intelligence agency that specialises in signals intelligence, information assurance and cryptography. The director is a Permanent Secretary, and appointed by and reports to the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs. Though the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom has ultimate responsibility within the British government for security matters and the intelligence agencies, the Foreign Secretary has day to day ministerial responsibility for GCHQ. The Director of GCHQ is also a permanent member of the United Kingdom's National Security Council and the Cabinet Office's Joint Intelligence Committee. The role of the Director of GCHQ was outlined by the Intelligence Services Act 1994, in which the director is described as "...responsible for the efficiency of GCHQ". The director's role is to ensure: The GC ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Edward Snowden
Edward Joseph Snowden (born June 21, 1983) is a former National Security Agency (NSA) intelligence contractor and whistleblower who leaked classified documents revealing the existence of global surveillance programs. Born in 1983 in Elizabeth City, North Carolina, he attended a community college and later enrolled at a masters programme of the University of Liverpool without finishing it. In 2005 he worked for the University of Maryland, in 2006 he started working for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and then switched to Dell in 2009 where he was managing computer systems of the NSA. In 2013, he worked two months at Booz Allen Hamilton with the purpose of gathering more NSA documents. In May 2013, Snowden flew to Hong Kong and in early June he revealed thousands of classified NSA documents to journalists Glenn Greenwald, Laura Poitras, Barton Gellman, and Ewen MacAskill. Global surveillance disclosures (2013–present), His disclosures revealed numerous global surveillance ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cheltenham
Cheltenham () is a historic spa town and borough adjacent to the Cotswolds in Gloucestershire, England. Cheltenham became known as a health and holiday spa town resort following the discovery of mineral springs in 1716, and claims to be the most complete Regency era, Regency town in United Kingdom, Britain. It is directly northeast of Gloucester. The town hosts several cultural festivals, often featuring nationally and internationally famous contributors and attendees: the Cheltenham Literature Festival, the Cheltenham Jazz Festival, the Cheltenham Science Festival, the Cheltenham Music Festival, the Cheltenham International Film Festival, the Cheltenham Cricket Festival and the Cheltenham Food & Drink Festival. In steeplechase (horse racing), steeplechase horse racing, the Cheltenham Gold Cup, Gold Cup is the main event of the Cheltenham Festival held every March. It is also home to a number of leading independent schools, including Cheltenham College and Cheltenham Ladies' Co ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Anne Keast-Butler
Anne Louise Keast-Butler is the Director of GCHQ, the UK's Intelligence, Cyber and Security Agency. Appointed in May 2023, she is the seventeenth person to hold the role and succeeded Sir Jeremy Fleming. Career Keast-Butler joined GCHQ from MI5, where she was Deputy Director General, responsible for MI5's operational, investigative and protective security work. This has included MI5's – and the allies' – preparation for and response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. In her previous Director General role, Keast-Butler was Director General Strategy, leading the enabling functions that support MI5’s operational activities. Prior to this, Keast-Butler spent two years on secondment to GCHQ as Head of Counter Terrorism and Serious Organised Crime and has also spent part of the last decade on secondment in Whitehall. Whilst there, she helped to launch the National Cyber Security Programme. She was appointed Honorary Colonel Joint Service Signal Unit (Reserves) on 1 December 2 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Government Code And Cypher School
The Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS) was a British signals intelligence agency set up in 1919. During the First World War, the British Army and Royal Navy had separate signals intelligence agencies, MI1b and NID25 (initially known as Room 40) respectively. It was particularly known for its work on codebreaking at Bletchley Park and after the war became the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ). Interwar period In 1919, the Cabinet's Secret Service Committee, chaired by Lord Curzon, recommended that a peacetime codebreaking agency should be created, a task which was given to the Director of Naval Intelligence, Hugh Sinclair.Johnson, 1997, p. 44 Sinclair merged staff from NID25 and MI1b into the new organisation, which initially consisted of around 25–30 officers and a similar number of clerical staff. It was titled the "Government Code and Cypher School" (GC&CS), a cover-name which was chosen by Victor Forbes of the Foreign Office. Alastair Denniston, who h ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
National Cyber Security Centre (United Kingdom)
The National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) is an organisation of the United Kingdom Government that provides advice and support for the public and private sector in how to avoid computer security threats. It is the UK's National technical authority for cyber threats and Information Assurance. Based in Victoria, London, it became operational in October 2016, and its parent organisation is GCHQ. History The NCSC absorbed and replaced CESG (the information security arm of GCHQ), the Centre for Cyber Assessment (CCA), Computer Emergency Response Team UK (CERT UK) and the cyber-related responsibilities of the Centre for the Protection of National Infrastructure (CPNI). It built on earlier efforts of these organisations and the Cabinet Office to provide guidance on Information Assurance to the UK's wider private sector, such as the "10 Steps" guidance released in January 2015. In pre-launch announcements, the UK government stated that the NCSC would first work with the Bank of Engla ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
National Security Agency
The National Security Agency (NSA) is an intelligence agency of the United States Department of Defense, under the authority of the director of national intelligence (DNI). The NSA is responsible for global monitoring, collection, and processing of information and data for global intelligence and counterintelligence purposes, specializing in a discipline known as signals intelligence (SIGINT). The NSA is also tasked with the protection of U.S. communications networks and information systems. The NSA relies on a variety of measures to accomplish its mission, the majority of which are clandestine. The NSA has roughly 32,000 employees. Originating as a unit to decipher coded communications in World War II, it was officially formed as the NSA by President Harry S. Truman in 1952. Between then and the end of the Cold War, it became the largest of the U.S. intelligence organizations in terms of personnel and budget. Still, information available as of 2013 indicates that the C ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bletchley Park
Bletchley Park is an English country house and Bletchley Park estate, estate in Bletchley, Milton Keynes (Buckinghamshire), that became the principal centre of Allies of World War II, Allied World War II cryptography, code-breaking during the Second World War. During World War II, the estate housed the Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS), which regularly penetrated the secret communications of the Axis Powers most importantly the German Enigma machine, Enigma and Lorenz cipher, Lorenz ciphers. The GC&CS team of codebreakers included John Tiltman, Dilwyn Knox, Alan Turing, Harry Golombek, Gordon Welchman, Conel Hugh O'Donel Alexander, Hugh Alexander, Donald Michie, W. T. Tutte, Bill Tutte and Stuart Milner-Barry. The team at Bletchley Park devised automatic machinery to help with decryption, culminating in the development of Colossus computer, Colossus, the world's first programmable digital electronic computer. Codebreaking operations at Bletchley Park ended in 1946 and al ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
