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Comment by ofrzeta | Hacker News Reader

I don't quite get what they are "spying" there, as there's probably no specific information to get there. From the article the Russians are meeting German informants there, ok. Then there's the issue with SIGINT on the roofs of Russian embassy etc. Is there anything to be got that can not be collected anywhere else, specifically in Russia?

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During the cold war, Austria was the on border between the Soviet bloc and the West. Historically, the Austro-Hungarian empire had a lot of territories in Central Europe, which has strong ties to Russia as well. I am guessing that some of the links are still there.

>I don't quite get what they are "spying" there... the issue with SIGINT on the roofs of Russian embassy etc.

Is there anything to be got that can not be collected anywhere else, specifically in Russia?

GSM, 3G, 4G, 5G interceptors, cellular tapping and eavesdropping

Stingrays, also known as "cell site simulators" or "IMSI catchers,"

are invasive cell phone surveillance devices that mimic cell phone towers,

and send out signals to trick cell phones in the area into transmitting their locations and identifying information.

cell site simulators : <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Search?search=cell+sit...>

WiFi snooping bases, etc.

Vienna is full of international organizations from UNO to OPEC: https://wien-io.diplo.de/iow-en/international-organizations

Right, having once worked there, it was obvious to me these organizations provided the perfect opportunity for contact without raising red flags. (No, that wasn't my job, my work was far too prosaic for that.)

Re comment "...has once again become the espionage capital of Europe after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine — and Austria’s government seems in no rush to change that."

It's obvious why not, to do so would instantly tread on the toes of these organizations and that's just not going to happen.

This is replaced by Brussels for long, with the EU and NATO headquarters there. Most of the spying is happening there nowadays. Then Washington, then Geneva.

But all the known Russian spies were not sent home, so the West is angry.

It is true that EU and NATO are important spying targets, but Vienna still has relevant targets, with many UN departments, IAEO, OPEC and being a meeting point between East and West (Visegrád etc.)

And then you have buildings like IZD Tower which are known to be almost certainly NSA spying sites.

During the Cold War, even information that we would now think of as open source intelligence, like newspaper and magazine articles, was valid SIGINT. The closer you came to the dividing line between the blocks, the more probable it was to find this kind of information (just like you may be more likely to find maritime information in a port, as compared to the a landlocked place). This naturally attracted foreign personal and international organizations, as well, which introduced another class of targets of value. Which in turn makes overall activities more likely, which also provides a certain level of noise to hide your own activities…

Or just on the roof of the Russian Embassy in London/Berlin/Washington?

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