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NSAers Meet With Finns for Annual Talks

SUMMARY

The authors describe NSA's annual talks with the Finnish Intelligence Research Establishment (FIRE). In 2006 they discussed Russian military issues, including "modems and crypto devices in use today" by Russia.

DOCUMENT’S DATE

Nov 03, 2006

PUBLICLY AVAILABLE

May 29, 2019

TAGS

Finland, Russia

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DYNAMIC PAGE -- HIGHEST POSSIBLE CLASSIFICATION IS TOP SECRET // SI / TK // REL TO USA AUS CAN GBR NZL (S//SI//REL) NSAers Meet With Finns for Annual Talks FROM: (S//SI//REL) Run Date: 11/03/2006 Office of Russia (S2H) and CDO for Finland (DP11) (U) Talks center on Russian military issues. (S//SI//REL) The Annual Planning Conference (APC) for Finland took place 2-4 October and was considered an overall success from both sides. A large part of the conference was used for analytic exchange between FIRE (the Finnish Intelligence Research Establishment) and NSA analysts. All action items from last year's APC were closed out to everyone's satisfaction. (S//SI//REL) APC topics covered a wide range of Russian military issues, including new Russian radar, navigation and C3I* Air Defense systems. The Finns updated us on their collection of communications from sites using the new UNIVERSAL Air Defense system. In turn, NSA answered questions posed by FIRE regarding Russian military communications equipment, including modems and crypto devices in use today. This candid discussion was greatly appreciated and very useful to the FIRE representatives. (S//SI//REL) The Finns were also briefed about ADET (NSA's Associate Directorate for Education and Training). They were very impressed by the facility and are particularly interested in taking Signals Analysis training. (S//SI//REL) NSA's Russia Military (S2H4) analysts provided excellent briefings on several topics, including analysis of Short Duration Signals (SDS). The SDS used by Russian Strategic Bombers and Naval Vessels proved to be an eye-opener for FIRE analysts; it was apparent that FIRE analysts have much to learn on this topic and will benefit greatly from our experience in this field. (S//SI//REL) FIRE briefed their crypto-analytic effort on the Russian NSA refers to as NSA's Technical Analysis Branch (S2H46) will be providing FIRE with and training to bring them up to speed on this important aspect of Russian communications. (S//SI//REL) In the end, FIRE's Colonel Juha Wihersaari stated that they were "happy" with the conference, which made the NSA participants' day! (U) Notes: * C3I = Communications, Command, Control and Intelligence "(U//FOUO) SIDtoday articles may not be republished or reposted outside NSANet without the consent of S0121 (DL sid_comms)." DYNAMIC PAGE -- HIGHEST POSSIBLE CLASSIFICATION IS TOP SECRET // SI / TK // REL TO USA AUS CAN GBR NZL DERIVED FROM: NSA/CSSM 1-52, DATED 08 JAN 2007 DECLASSIFY ON: 20320108