Indian DRDO staff lose their top secret laptops

[Nahraf]

www.outlookindia.com | By The Way, I Dropped It

EXCLUSIVE
intelligence security breaches
Hanging Up On The Eavesdroppers
Clean-up operations are on at the NTRO but who will head it: an intelligence official or a DRDO man again?
Security
The Web Of Kafka
Two security hands find themselves chained to bizarre charges
Saikat Datta

In 2006, Ravind Sistala was one among a clutch of scientists on deputation from the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) to the National Technical Research Organisation (NTRO) in New Delhi. Set up in the aftermath of the 1999 Kargil War, NTRO was meant to be a single technical intelligence facility to keep watch on India’s hostile neighbours. It was also supposed to issue warning signals to those manning India’s missile systems and nuclear warheads in real time so that they could retaliate in case of a possible enemy strike. Sistala’s was a crucial job. The fortysomething was the centre director of NTRO’s missile monitoring division, a position that called for high levels of responsibility and secrecy. But very few within India’s security apparatus are aware, even today, that Sistala was involved in one of the biggest security breaches in India’s post-Independence history. He compromised a Rs 1,850-crore intelligence-gathering programme that had key linkages to India’s growing nuclear arsenal and missile systems. Unencrypted ‘Top Secret’ data pertaining to these was stored on Sistala’s Hewlett-Packard laptop (given to him by NTRO) which disappeared mysteriously while he was on his way to the Delhi airport in early 2006. Did the information-packed computer fall into the wrong hands? Was it stolen by an enemy agent? Even today, no one knows where the laptop is. If still in enemy hands, it has the potential to inflict immense damage.

Ideally, such a security leak should have set alarm bells ringing and occasioned a swift and thorough investigation by the IB, RAW and Delhi Police. But rather than give the incident the attention and inquiry it deserved, a small but extremely powerful group of people—comprising a PMO official, DRDO scientists on deputation to NTRO and intelligence officials—helped Sistala escape any indictment by holding just an inhouse inquiry, which unearthed little. The missing laptop forgotten, Sistala continued as the head of the sensitive missile programme for another two years, and then returned to the DRDO.


Our radar deployments

Two years after the Sistala episode, another security breach took place in the NTRO. Arun Dixit, the centre director of the organisation’s atomic explosion division (AED), lost his laptop somewhere in Washington DC during an official trip to the US with the NTRO chairman. The laptop was crammed with top secret data on India’s intelligence on the nuclear weapons programmes of several countries, including Pakistan, China and North Korea. But like in Sistala’s case, the powerful lobby of defence scientists once again scuttled a thorough investigation. The leak was buried and kept out of the files. Dixit too escaped any scrutiny and still serves in the NTRO in the very same post.

Lost Laptops And Their ‘X’ Files

Place Delhi
Year 2006
Official Involved Ravind Sistala
Designation Centre Director (missile monitoring division)
Organisation National Technical Research Organisation
Incident Laptop goes missing from his car

Secret Data Lost

* Presentations on Indian efforts to monitor missiles of neighbouring countries
* Details on the capabilities of the nuclear delivery systems of Pakistan and China
* Response options available to India’s nuclear forces (Strategic Forces Command)
* Deployment of radars to counter incoming missiles
* Vulnerable points in India’s air defence network

Action taken None. Laptop not recovered. Official transferred to DRDO in a more sensitive position.

***

Place Washington DC
Year 2008
Official Involved Arun Dixit
Designation Centre Director (atomic devices division)
Organisation NTRO

Secret Data Lost

* Defence nuclear programmes of neighbouring countries
* Nuclear proliferation in Asia
* Dirty bombs being made in neighbouring countries

Action taken None. Laptop not recovered. After probe, errant official retained in the same organisation.

***

Place Delhi
Year 2003
Organisation Defence Research and Development Organisation
Incident 53 computers go missing; later found with hard disks removed

Secret Data Lost

* Secret coding of all communication used by the Intelligence Bureau (IB), Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), the defence forces, and the paramilitary forces, including Border Security Force
* Logs of intercepted Pakistani communications

Action taken Case still unsolved. None of the hard disks have been recovered. DRDO has practically closed the case.

The NTRO was set up in the summer of ’03. A year earlier, a Group of Ministers had handpicked RAW special secretary R.S. Bedi to set up the new intelligence outfit. Bedi started the process by setting up an office in room no. 326, Sardar Patel Bhavan, in the heart of Delhi, on March 29, 2003. The organisation was formally notified in July.

Set up to plug gaps in India’s security establishment post the Kargil debacle, the NTRO’s charter eventually went much beyond the mere act of gathering intelligence. It became a key element within the security apparatus, hitting headlines recently when Outlook reported its ability to pluck GSM phone calls off the air. Bedi had served in RAW’s Aviation Research Centre, which monitored the missile and atomic programmes of neighbours. NTRO took on this responsibility after it came into being.

NTRO’s task thus was to monitor and gather intelligence on all missile programmes in the region and convey the data in real time to the Strategic Forces Command (SFC), a special military organisation that mans India’s nuclear arsenal and would deploy it in the event of a nuclear war. The SFC would also, based on NTRO data, periodically review and upgrade its positioning of nuclear missiles, and coordinate with the defence forces in launching a counter-strike against any nuclear threat.




Sistala and Dixit clearly violated OSA, but escaped. They were also liable to 14 years’ imprisonment.



This called for a credible linkage between a vast and intricate network of ground-based radars, satellites, secret command codes and SFC’s nuclear arsenal. NTRO’s missile monitoring division established these linkages and set up an early warning network for the SFC. Sistala had a key role in creating these linkages and as such had access to the most sensitive data on India’s capabilities, response time and secret codes. Naturally enough, all these details were part of the presentations, notes, documents, files and folders—all marked ‘Top Secret’—he had on the laptop he was given by the NTRO. Standard rules mandate that a laptop given by the organisation cannot be taken home or used to connect to the Internet. But these being early days for NTRO, Sistala was travelling around the country making presentations to security officials, beginning with then NSA M.K. Narayanan to the three service chiefs, the SFC commander, the intelligence chiefs and other top DRDO scientists who were to work on the technological aspects of the project.

This is the time his laptop went missing. Shockingly, NTRO buried the episode in no time. A preliminary inquiry was ordered to be carried out by Brigadier Anil Malhotra, its counter-intelligence official, but it was quickly wound up. By this time, Bedi had retired from NTRO. A powerful lobby of defence scientists, led by R. Chidambaram, the principal scientific advisor to the government, had already determined his successor: DRDO scientist K.V.S.S. Prasad Rao. Rao had no previous experience in intelligence but he had served as the staff officer to Chidambaram for several years. Sistala, also from the DRDO, got a much-needed reprieve from the ongoing inquiry. He continued with the missile monitoring division for two more years before returning to the DRDO to work on air defence radars.

Outlook’s attempts to elicit an official comment from NTRO via a detailed questionnaire sent a week before going to print met with silence. Phone calls and text messages to NTRO chairman Prasad Rao, its advisor P.V. Kumar, Sistala and Dixit evoked no response either. DRDO, in a cryptic response to an Outlook query, said it wasn’t aware of any lapses by Sistala at NTRO.

Such security breaches are nothing new for the clique that still lords it over DRDO and NTRO. In Oct ’03, 53 computers were stolen one night from two DRDO labs—the Systems Analysis Group and the Institute for Systems Analysis and Studies—in Metcalfe House in Delhi. The computer carcasses were found later, but the hard disks had been removed. They contained secret encryption codes and communications of the army, navy, air force and all central police organisations. Till date, no DRDO scientist has been blamed. Many have even been promoted. A police investigation made no headway, while an internal inquiry remains alive on paper even though many of its members have retired.

It’s also ironical that while many other officials have been prosecuted under the Official Secrets Act (OSA) on flimsy and concocted cases (see following story), Sistala and Dixit have escaped, despite being in clear violation of the OSA. In fact, since the leaks were related to India’s nuclear defence as well as secret codes, they could easily have attracted a penalty of 14 years’ imprisonment. Instead, the duo has continued in their careers. Should India’s intelligence agencies really be allowed to operate without even a modicum of accountability?

 

[Markus]

The laptops were lost in 2003/06/08. If they indeed fell into wrong hands then the damage has already been done.

 

[Condor]

To recover the lost items - search the pockets of ISI Chief

 

[IndianRobo]

oh ooooooh, this could prove Costly

 

[Nahraf]

To recover the lost items - search the pockets of ISI Chief

Then it would have been a successful operation by ISI ! Most probably the culprits were local thieves that target expensive items left in the cars and resell them.

 

[EjazR]

Its not the ISI, but the US and possibly China that will be the main beneficiries.


Our police and judicial services are hopeless. With a police force as prejudiced as wehave today, India has a long way to go before havingany sort of stable internal environment.


www.outlookindia.com | The Web Of Kafka
While the intelligence and police apparatus spares the likes of Ravind Sistala and Arun Dixit—NTRO officials of joint secretary level who mysteriously lost their laptops containing top secret information about India’s missile monitoring system and N-weapons programme—it has been quick to victimise innocents. The authorities failed to affix blame for laxity even when 53 computers full of secret codes were stolen from DRDO’s labs at Metcalfe House, Delhi. The computer shells were found subsequently, but their hard disks remain untraced. But in 2006, an overenthusiastic Delhi police went all out against Commander Mukesh Saini, a retired naval officer, after he was accused of leaking secrets to a foreign agent. Saini, who has a masters in computer management and business administration, had served the National Security Council Secretariat (NSCS) for almost three years as its top cyber security expert.

In 2006, Saini was granted premature retirement to seek a career in the private sector. Armed with his expertise, Saini landed a job with software major Microsoft. He was all set to begin a new career when his world fell apart. The Delhi police arrested him for allegedly leaking secrets to an American agent. Also arrested was Brig Ujjal Dasgupta, the computer security expert of RAW, India’s external intelligence agency. Both arrests were made under the draconian Official Secrets Act. According to the grapevine, in its overenthusiasm, the IB had got the wrong men and once it set the police on them, it didn’t want to admit its mistake.

Saini finally got out of jail on bail after nearly four years. Today he is an angry and bitter man, who has already spent more time in jail than what even his maximum sentence would have entailed—which is three years—and that too even before the trial began. His story, and that of Dasgupta, are in stark contrast to the security breaches committed by NTRO’s Sistala and Dixit. And yet, without any powerful lobby to help them, Saini and Dasgupta became victims of a case that was questionable from the very start.

Sample this. Saini, who was serving with the NSCS, should have been arrested and prosecuted after the competent authority gave sanction, as mandated by the Official Secrets Act. The authority in this case was clearly the NSCS. But when the police went to it for sanction, they were turned down. Embarrassed, the cops approached the defence ministry, which, incidentally, had nothing to do with the case to begin with. But the defence ministry’s deputy secretary, V.P. Varghese, didn’t even seek, let alone examine the documents cited as evidence by the police. Sources say Varghese was given a draft sanction order which he immediately signed without applying his mind or even referring it to his seniors.

This brings us to the documents allegedly “leaked” by Saini and cited as “evidence” against him. They were the “draft report of the Indian nuclear doctrine” and a note on the “KRA Canal (Thailand) and its impact on India”. But both documents were unclassified. In fact, one of them, the nuclear doctrine document, had been released to the media years ago, according to the NSCS. The other document, a note on the proposed KRA canal in Thailand, was written by Saini himself. It examined the dangers posed by such a canal, as it would link the Andaman Sea to the South China Sea, giving China access to the Andaman & Nicobar Islands. The NSCS has clearly stated that this is not its document, and therefore couldn’t be one that was classified. All that Saini had done was some loud thinking, set down on paper, about a canal project that eventually was cancelled by Thailand. If this was laughable, the evidence cited against Saini was even more ludicrous.

The police alleged that Saini had leaked the minutes of a meeting of the Indo-US Cyber Security Forum to an American agent, a US embassy official, Rossanna Minchew. While Saini was the Indian coordinator for the forum, Minchew was his counterpart from the US. While submitting this document as “evidence”, the police failed to explain how a document that recorded the minutes of a meeting that was held with the Americans could be considered classified?

“Even if I did give the document to Minchew, as alleged,” says Saini, “then I am only giving her what she or her colleagues who attended the meeting already knew!” But the police nevertheless cited this as “evidence”. To take the cake, there was a far more serious flaw in the allegation: the police claimed the document was the minutes of a meeting held on January 28, 2003. “However, no such meeting ever took place at all,” says Saini. “And the records of all the meetings of the forum are readily available.” Also cited as ‘evidence’ was a proposal by Saini for a network of computers that would enable all the intelligence agencies to share real-time data seamlessly. It remained on paper and was a harmless document showing how such a project could be implemented. Any networking engineer could draw up such a document.

And for Dasgupta? The police cited numerous calls between Dasgupta and Minchew as “evidence”. But both were after all part of a forum set up by the Indian and US governments, and therefore bound to interact. The police also alleged that Dasgupta had leaked a secret RAW software, which he had developed, to the US. But how could a mere internal operating software be a secret? Files created using that system could have been secret. The operating system itself wouldn’t amount to a secret, so there’s no question of leakage. The more insidious parts of the prosecution lay elsewhere. The computers of Saini and Dasgupta had been confiscated on their arrest and sent to the Central Forensic Science Laboratory for analysis. Its report was devastating to the police case: the documents cited as ‘evidence’ hadn’t been accessed by Saini or Dasgupta for long. If that was true, how were they transmitted to Minchew?

The strangest aspect of the case was government’s attitude towards Minchew, a co-accused in the case. Documents now available clearly show that the Indian embassy in Washington had done a thorough background check on her before granting her a visa. Ironically, while she was in Delhi even while the investigations were on, no effort was made to either arrest her or declare her persona non grata. Instead, she quietly flew out of Delhi and no one knows where she is. Even though India and the US are signatories to the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty, no effort has been made by New Delhi to seek the questioning or deposition by Minchew.

Unlike the security breaches committed by the NTRO and DRDO officials, which have the potential to lay bare India’s most sensitive secrets, including its efforts at developing a capability to launch a retaliatory nuclear strike, Saini and Dasgupta’s alleged leaks were inconsequential. They were probably not even leaks. But for a security establishment in the habit of responding to the whims of the powerful, Saini and Dasgupta’s lives were expendable. Today Saini, though out on bail, is struggling to make ends meet, having sold off his house to pay legal fees. He has to go to court as and when summoned. Dasgupta languishes in jail awaiting trial.

 

[Jazzbot]

wow what a loss..

 

[TexasJohn]

Could the laptops have had deliberate mis-information? Just a thought. Perhaps that's why the boneheads were not punished?

 

[Markus]

Could the laptops have had deliberate mis-information? Just a thought. Perhaps that's why the boneheads were not punished?

Yes, that's a good thought. Could be true.

Such sensitive information cannot be without encryption as the article said it was. And that too loosing laptops on 3 different occasions certainly points that it could be deliberate.

 

[Condor]

Could the laptops have had deliberate mis-information? Just a thought. Perhaps that's why the boneheads were not punished?

Brilliante....

 

[Hud]

This has happened thousands times before so chill and enjoys the best monsoon of the decade.( No Pun intended. )

 

[!!craft!!]

food for thought!!

 

[nicamarvin]

Its not the ISI, but the US will be the main beneficiries.
.

what could we possibly gain from you..... the top secret plans of your 6th gen air dominance fighter....

 

[Guynextdoor]

Then it would have been a successful operation by ISI ! Most probably the culprits were local thieves that target expensive items left in the cars and resell them.

Highly improbable. ISI's reputation in terms of real intelligence work is pretty bad. Their core capabilities are in creating/arming/funding terror outfits not real intelligence.