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Comment by jordigh | Hacker News Reader

The main repo seems to be here:

https://bitbucket.org/cse-assemblyline/assemblyline/src

Released under the MIT license with crown copyright. Looks like a plain ol' Flask application. I don't know what I was expecting from the government. Maybe more Microsoft and more Oracle, more "enterprise". And the git history goes back ten months with an initial commit of December 21, 2016.

I'm actually surprised to learn that CSE would be in charge of such a thing. I would have thought that this fell under the role of Canadian Security Intelligence Services. We definitely don't hear a lot about CSIS or CSE in the news to the point that I think most Canadians might have a hard time expanding those acronyms or know what they mean. It's good to see a little more transparency from them and to not have to wait for NSA leaks to figure out what their Canadian counterparts are up to.

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CSE is comparable to America's NSA in general function and scope. While CSIS does intelligence work with computers and hires a lot of programmers and analysts, CSE is traditionally the more technologically-focused of the two. You also hear significantly less about it than even CSIS.

They're good at their jobs.

edit: Spelling. They changed it from CSEC to CSE

More like they changed it "back" to CSE. :)

Citation needed.

https://www.cse-cst.gc.ca/en/about-apropos/faq

Suspect the Citation needed was referring to "They're good at their jobs."

Well we do know they successfully hacked the Brazilian government in the interests of private oil companies? That's something isn't it?

> CSEC had been meeting with the heads of our country’s largest energy companies and debriefing them on all the secrets they’ve stolen from Brazil’s mining and energy ministries.

https://www.vice.com/en_ca/article/5gqkwq/the-canadian-gover...

Have you ever done well on a group project without doing much work yourself?

I just doubt the hacking group is the same group that chose riak, solr, etc.

I'm sorry but I don't understand your question here. Unless you didn't catch the sarcasm of my original comment?

CSE recruits fairly heavily at student-focused CS events in Montreal. Never seen or heard a peep about CSIS.

Interesting - I remember seeing CSIS at CS student events in Vancouver, but I don't think I saw CSE.

CSIS likes very much to not be in the news. They seem to actively work to stay unknown. I've heard, but cannot verify, that they are the only government agency that is not required to have a "Government of Canada dept X" sign outside their buildings. They do have them outside some buildings, but not all buildings.

It's kind of what I like about them. Now quiz time. Who's heard of JTF2?

Their "secret" base was a short drive from where I grew up. Every local knew what it was. But they are still the most badass dudes.

My brother's (not JTF2) told me stories about their training/graduation exercises. Intense is a little too mild a word.

I take it you can't expand on that a bit?

JTF2 are dope.

https://beta.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/canadian-elit...

Yes, killing people in fabricated wars is so dope.

I had a colleague that applied, and was subsequently interviewed for a position with CSIS. He said he was instructed to go to a large office tower in Toronto, go to x floor and ask for a particular person. Nothing was labelled as CSIS.

I had a friend in Israel who, for part of her induction into her mandatory 18mo IDF service, was scheduled for an interview with the Israeli intelligence service.

In preparation for the interview, they sent her the address, a map showing the building, and marked three separate entrances and how to get to their office from them: the main entrance, a side entrance, and one off the alley behind the building (which I assume is closer to parking? maybe?).

It was very weird. I think she decided just to go in through the lobby.

Three potential routes means a grab team attempting to snatch someone have to have three plans.

Security by obscurity works better in the physical world.

Yup. I also can't verify much, but I know a person who performed electrical work in one of their buildings and you wouldn't even know that building belonged to CSIS.

Our PM doesn't name and shame them on twitter, and they don't get involved in elections. Is that so weird?

Pretty weird. Most countries are extremely corrupt.

If you read through the Snowden leaks you'll see just how normal the CSE is. If you're a reasonably good hacker think how you'd do it. They probably do it kinda like that.

They've been given additional powers lately to expand surveillance on regular citizens, so I wonder how much that "sweet innocence" of theirs will last and how long until they also become more like the NSA, especially under a conservative government in the (near) future.

They don't have to be.

They can spy on Americans, the NSA can spy on Canadians, and the two governments can freely share information between eachother. (Because it's not information about their own citizens.) Canada is one of the five eyes, after all.

> not have to wait for NSA leak

soon we'll learn this whole project a plant by NSA, complete with 10 months spent fabricating the commit history.

It's probably safer to assume CSE/CSIS would use open-source tools than stuff from MSFT/ORCL.

Especially because, unlike the NSA, they can't send legally-enforceable secret letters telling MSFT and ORCL what to do.

Anecdotal, but I was in an Oracle University training course last year with someone who confirmed, in an indirect and vague way, that he worked for the CSE. We were training on Oracle Database 12. He had plenty of "real world scenario" questions.

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