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Murdered spy Gareth Williams cracked coded terrorist messages
Gareth Williams was a top cryptologist who eavesdropped on conversations of militants, drug dealers
- Daily Mail
- Published: 00:00 August 30, 2010
London: Gareth Williams played a key role in the world's most sensitive and secretive electronic intelligence gathering system — leading to new fears about the serious national security implications of his death.
Williams was a top-level cryptologist helping to oversee a network called Echelon, which links satellites and super-computers in Britain and the United States with those of other key allies.
Set up to monitor the military and diplomatic communications of the Soviet Union during the Cold War, Echelon now eavesdrops on terror suspects and drug dealers, and searches for other political and diplomatic intelligence.
It reputedly intercepts five billion conversations and other forms of communications every day.
Echelon looks for key words and phrases that might suggest, for example, that a terrorist attack is being planned.
Williams' expertise in his field is reflected by the fact that he had been posted to MI6's key listening station in Afghanistan, and had been sent to Fort Meade, in Maryland, home of the US National Security Agency.
He is also thought to have visited the NSA cryptology centres in Texas and in Colorado.
It is understood Williams was part of a team of maths geniuses trying to adapt the 40-year-old Echelon system to deal with new forms of electronic communications.
According to sources, one of the big issues Williams was working on was how the security and intelligence agencies can monitor internet telephone calls — known as Voice Over Internet Protocol (VoIP) — such as Skype, which are being used by terrorists and foreign agents to try to circumvent routine eavesdropping on telephone and mobile networks.
It is understood he was also involved in refining the sophisticated algorithms which determine the key words and phrases the system is looking for as it monitors conversations taking place around the world.
Williams' death is likely to be a major blow to Government Communications Headquarters' (GCHQ) efforts to crack VoIP.
Two years ago Britain's Intelligence and Security Committee, which oversees the work of Britain's spies, revealed: "One of the greatest challenges for GCHQ is to maintain its intercept capability in the face of rapidly evolving communications technology. This relates in particular to the growth in internet-based communications and voice over internet telephony."
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