The British Government Communications (Letter) Headquarters, one of the most mysterious departments in the UK, is the UK Secret Communications Electronic Monitoring Centre, abbreviated as GCHQ. UK Government Communications Headquarters. Act as the UK's intelligence agency responsible for communications, electronic reconnaissance, mail inspection. The British government communications (letter) headquarters, together with the famous British MI5 and MI6, is known as the "trident" of British intelligence agencies.
Night view of the town of Cheltnum, a suburb of Gloucestershire
Since its headquarters are located in the town of Chertenham, west of London, it is also known as the "Chertenan Centre". It is extremely mysterious, that is, within the government, the classification level is also the highest. It was not until 1983 that the British government recognized the existence of the agency. This began with the fact that some highly vetted out-of-business visitors, when allowed to enter the mysterious institution, may not even see the tip of the iceberg.
Its predecessor for some time can be traced back to the famous British "Room 40" ("Room 40 is the famous British deciphering agency that was born during World War I.") It was assigned to the Royal Naval Intelligence Service, the main part of which was separately compiled to become today's British government communications headquarters), and at that time it was openly called the Intelligence Department of the British Foreign Office (if you are interested, you can read the novel "Thirty-ninth Step", in which british agents came from this office). However, the earliest specific date of its establishment is unknown, which should predate the Industrial Revolution.
Since the beginning of World War II, it has cooperated closely with the United States. There is a dedicated NSA senior liaison officer. During World War II, the United Kingdom and the United States Agreement was signed with the United States, and an exchange of information was reached, which is still valid today.
The agency has about 13,000 cryptographers, mathematicians, scientists, linguists, staff, etc., about half of whom are in the headquarters, and the rest are in the listening stations of various places at home and abroad and embassies and consulates. It employs a total of about 20,000 people and employs another 11,000 people. Its leaders generally have high professional and technical ability and political influence.
Declassified archives show that Roosevelt was re-elected in 1940, thanks to the British Communications Headquarters.
The main task of the Government Communications Headquarters is to conduct long-distance surveillance of the secret activities of other countries through electronic devices, intercept, collect and decipher various foreign codes and signals, obtain intelligence from them, and be responsible for compiling passwords for the Government to protect the security of its communications.
The government communications headquarters has nearly 100 listening stations around the world, ranging from 20,000 pairs of lines to Atlantic satellites and 5,000 pairs of lines on eight national cables. Surveillance methods include telephone eavesdropping, wireless telegraph, cable telex, microwave telecommunications and satellite communications. During the Cold War, its horizon radar could monitor conversations over the radio between tank commanders during military exercises in the interior of the former Soviet Union.
In 1995, Then British Prime Minister Major ordered the formation of a five-member commission to improve oversight of the communications headquarters. Roger Horn was appointed head of the committee at that time. The Committee is composed of representatives of the Secret Security Service, the Secret Intelligence Service and the Ministry of Defence, and its task is to examine the role, mandate and management of the Government Communications Headquarters in order to provide a basis for budget reductions and staff reductions at headquarters.
After 9/11, the British government communications headquarters re-examined its own level of security protection and built a new headquarters, which was extremely strong. The new headquarters is today in the suburb of Cheltnang in Gloucestershire, nicknamed "Fried Doughnut", contracted by two large construction conglomerates: The Denmark's Carriling Safety Construction Company, and the British bt Company. For maintenance alone, the British government will have to come up with 800 million pounds in 30 years. This is the most expensive project in British history contracted by a publicly funded private company.
It replaces more than 50 special affairs office buildings (rooms) that were originally divided into two parts. Learning the lesson of the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center in New York, the "Fried Dough" was designed to withstand the impact of Boeing 747 aircraft without damage. Inside the two large circular buildings, separated by glass-covered "streets". In the center is a dew
The Sky Garden, as big as the famous British Albert Garden, allows the staff of the Intelligence Center to take a break in the garden and the street. The ground floor of the building is filled with the most sophisticated supercomputer equipment; it is one of the largest computer systems in the world. All buildings are covered with special bulletproof glass, and without exception, the inside can see the outside, and the outside cannot see the inside.
Visitors must go through three security checks to see the agency's outer corridors. Mobile phones, USB sticks, and PDAs are all prohibited things to bring in, which can completely prevent confidential leaks or virus intrusions. The analysts, including some of Britain's finest mathematicians, were generally tasked with cracking complex codes. Behind them are hundreds of linguists and the most powerful computer system in Europe. Previously, GCHQ's work was limited to serving the defence and foreign services, but now the scope of its work is much larger, including ensuring the security of communications in several areas, such as missile silos and the Prime Minister's mobile phone communications.
In the area of counter-terrorism, the task is now even more onerous. These include code-breaking, telephone and radio interception, specifically addressing the triple threat of terrorism, espionage and organized crime. Speaking about the biggest challenge at work, "pinpointing potential terrorists or criminals is like finding a needle correctly in a haystack." ”
The agency's top-priority signaling operations center is On Friday night, the busiest hour is Friday night, when it receives an avalanche of interceptions from MI6, senior military officials, and counterterrorism. They asked him to spy on or listen to foreign regimes, Taliban groups, terrorist phone calls, etc. Its head once told reporters: "Busy Fridays are very famous here. ”
Underground at the headquarters, there are also special fast tunnels and various express transportation vehicles that have been directly connected to critical locations such as airports or relevant agencies in other countries.
The new headquarters has just been inaugurated, and linguists and translators alone have hired a variety of talents who are proficient in a total of 67 languages. It also pioneered a device and means to securely transmit intelligence over the Internet without fear of enemy interception.
The British government's communications headquarters also carried out overseas missions, and there were also sacrifices. Government communications officer Lake has helped British forces fight local militants in Iraq and Afghanistan. He was one of the lesser-known intelligence officers sent overseas to the British Army, having been to Iraq four times and Afghanistan once. "It's the most fulfilling job, and I know my job can save soldiers' lives," he said. "Like other military units, GCHQ has people dying on missions overseas.
The dead will engrave their names on a bronze statue of a man and a woman in the central garden. On the back of the statue reads: "In memory of comrades who died in action." ”
The British Government Communications Headquarters has a close relationship with the U.S. National Security Agency and receives funds and technical equipment from the United States. It has special liaison offices within the United States National Security Agency, the Communications Department of the National Research Council of Canada, and the Australian National Signal Agency, and is permanently stationed by senior officials. Therefore, people say that the British government communications headquarters is the intelligence clearing house of the United States, Britain, Canada and Australia.
A telephone booth on the wall outside the headquarters is equipped with graffiti
In 2013, after the Prism Gate incident, the "Government Communications Headquarters" (GCHQ) was suspected of using the US Prism system (Project Prism) to bypass British law and intercept citizens' information.
On 16 June 2013, the Guardian published a number of confidential documents provided by Edward Snowden, a former employee of the CIA, showing that as early as 2009, at the G20 summit in London, the British intelligence agency, Government Communications Headquarters, overheard multiple government delegations calling and obtained their email messages. Meanwhile, British and American intelligence agencies work closely together, and the NSA, which has hundreds of analysts at Menways Hill Air Force Base, interacted with the British government's communications headquarters through a liaison office at that G20 summit. U.S. intelligence agents monitored a satellite phone call to Moscow from then-Russian President Dmitry Medvedev at the meeting, the documents show.
According to the latest british intelligence agency documents, intelligence agents installed interceptors and keylogger software in computers in the network cafes near the venue, and monitored the delegation's use of these computers. At the same time, the mobile phones of several members of delegations were compromised in order to collect e-mail and call information.
During the summit, the government communications headquarters organized 45 network engineers to analyze the records of telephone exchanges around the clock. Those who have been confirmed to be being spied on include Turkey's finance minister and 15 other members of his party. In a slide file labeled "Top Secret," GCC argued that similar surveillance techniques were used in multiple international conferences to collect passwords for target email addresses to "read e-mails before or at the same time as targets." It is in line with the national security strategy.
On 5 December 2014, the Uk's Special Judiciary, the Investigative Power Tribunal, ruled that the intelligence gathering system at the Government Communications Headquarters of the UK intelligence agency did not violate the European Convention on Human Rights.
On 3 August 2014, the UK's intelligence agency, the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), authorised six UK universities to offer master's degrees in training future cybersecurity experts.
This special degree is part of the UK's Cyber Security Strategy, published in 2011, which recognises higher education as a key element in improving the UK's protection against hacking and cyber fraud.
The cybersecurity courses approved by GCHQ are:
Edinburgh Napier University;
Lancaster University;
The University of Oxford and royal Holloway, University of London.
In addition, Cranfield University's Cyber Defense and Information Security Assurance Course and the University of Surrey's Information Security Course have also received temporary certifications from GCHQ.