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VERRIMUS LTD, THE company whose sweep of the Garda Siochána Ombudsman Commission’s offices led to a surveillance controversy, has responded to the Cooke Report.
The security specialist was tasked last year to conduct surveys to identify all possible technical surveillance vulnerabilities to the security of critical information within the GSOC offices.
It said today that “it was never part of Verrimus’ remit to investigate and uncover the source of any possible surveillance threat”.
The Cooke Report found no evidence to support any claims of surveillance by members of the force.
Verrimus said that it carried out full and structured Technical Surveillance Counter Measures operations (TSCM – a counter espionage function) at the offices.
In relation to the TCSM operations, reports and evidence delivered by Verrimus, its professional competence, standards and methodology were independently reviewed and verified by a specialised TSCM company.
“This intelligent and accurate peer review was welcomed by Verrimus and we are pleased to see it referred to in the Cooke Report,” it said.
Vulnerabilities
According to Verrimus, the three vulnerabilities it identified during the TSCM operations at the offices “are indicative of methods that can be used by person(s) outside an organisation to gather critical information from within”.
Verrimus said it agrees with the Cooke Report comment that in the “world of covert surveillance and counter surveillance techniques, it is ultimately extremely difficult to determine with complete certainty whether unexplained anomalies of the kinds identified in this instance were or were not attributable to unlawful intrusion”.
Investigations to prove or disprove whether such vulnerabilities are associated with a criminal act can only effectively be carried out by properly qualified and experienced counter intelligence investigators in a timely response to presented evidence.
Verrimus said it is reassured by the recommendations, which mirror those it provided after its operations, that GSOC should act to improve existing security arrangements, act to resolve the vulnerabilities identified and conduct regular counter surveillance examinations of its offices.
Jaysus, so irrational fears are not always that irrational :-(
@Kem Trayle: I know Jesus. I have few enough fears, but being in a car underwater is way up there, and collapsing motorway bridges is one of the scenarios in my head that puts me there.
@Rónán O’Suilleabháin: My wife hates going the Jack Lynch tunnel since I told her we’re under water.She always breaths a sigh of relief when we come out of it.
@Billy McNamara: she’s not the only one.
@Barbara Edwards: True, My Wife Panics when crossing the ha’penny bridge..( no joke ).
Drove over it yesterday….was supposed to drive over it on Thursday
@Mark Hayden: you wont be now.
@Mark Hayden: Your guardian angels were on the ball. What a nightmare..
@Mark Hayden: Lucky you Mark.
@Mark Hayden: buy a lottery ticket. ..you’re having a lucky week
@Mark Hayden: drove over it 3 weeks ago. That’s truly frightening.
@Mark Hayden: your post has given me the shivers!
@Mark Hayden: Holy shi#e.Really? Don’t forget to do the lotto tomorrow.But maybe you have already had your win.RIP to the poor people who have no luck.
@Mjhint: you guys probably spent 5 seconds driving over that section of the bridge. The odds of it collapsing surfing the 5 seconds you were on it is almost negligible
@Peter: tell that to the 30 who died
Poor souls, that’s just tragic, doubtful nobody perished. RIP.
12pm in Italy is not 10am GMT, can’t even report the basics correctly……
@Fat Face 99: Actually, 12pm in Italy is currently the same as 10am GMT. GMT is Winter time. Currently, we are in IST (Ireland) or BST (UK) which is the same as GMT+1. Italy is 1 hour ahead of our timezone (CEST) which, at the moment, is set at GMT+2, but will revert to GMT+1 in October.
@Fat Face 99: I presume they mean 12 noon (which is neither pm nor am). This would be 1000 GMT, or UTC. Right??
@Fat Face 99:
1) you’re wrong
2) A breaking news article about a tragedy is not the time or place for commentary on minutiae
@Fat Face 99:
@Fat Face 99: Are you for yeal.Do you know people have died in this terrible incident?And all that’s worring you is the time.For fu#k sake what kind of a human are you?
@Tom Sheridan: Your’e just as bad as the as the arsehole you’re answering.
@Fat Face 99: you are wrong, and a tiresome, boring malcontent.
@Brian Ó Dálaigh: Maith leat Brian
Big tragedy, close to my country in this hard time ❤️
Terrible tragic disaster… really sad.
Eye witness said the bridge was stuck by a big bolt of lightning and then collapsed.
Maybe never check bridge from inspection. Scary collapse and hope all alive from vehicles fall
@Brian Flavin: very hard to detect fatigue, but should have reinforcement program after the first twenty or thirty years just in case. Thoughts are with all those families.
@Greg Blake: They did. It was restructured in 2016.
@Greg Blake: it isn’t that hard to detect fatigue if you use the correct non-destructive testing (NDT) techniques. Plenty of standards available showcasing methods to assess structural integrity including structures with existing defects. The real question is whether or not they were conducted in this case.
@Alison O’ Connor: not necessarily Alison, sometimes the micro cracks are so fine as to be intergranular and large sweep radiography fails to pick them up. It wasnt even recognised as a problem until the postwar period and many mysterious aircraft failures occurred. So they introduced life cycles for aircraft structural components as NDT was insufficient. Thats improved a lot since but still unreliable for minature stress induced flaws. I just read above that there was reinforcenent work done, but if not designed and carried out correctly that can stiffen the structure and accellerate micro cracking.
@Greg Blake: Reinforced concrete is not an elastic or homogenous material. Microcracking is inevitable and expected.
Most older bridges have not been designed with modern traffic volumes and weights in mind. Strengthening rather than replacing to uprate to modern loads is not unusual. All of little comfort to the victims involved.
@Greg Blake: argee your comment & sadly for family love one gone.pray all victims
Jesus that’s frightening,hopefully there’s a good outcome for families involved but highly unlikely from reading the report.
Rip
Awful.
Could happen here
@WreckDefier: No it couldn’t – we have Mr Ross in charge of transport!
May they rest in peace,amen
Rip to all the people but what’s the story with building standards in Italy???
@pg38: really? What do you mean what’s up with them?
…
If it was a lightning strike then no matter how structurally sound a bridge or any building is could withstand a high power lightning bolt.Global wether this year has been extreme and this unfortunate event may be as a result of this
Infrastructure needs looking at
have your say