It used to be that they needed to dedicate entire rooms for interception hardware, and tighter maintenance schedules. Nowadays, the devices they use are tiny in comparison, way easier to hide. I've encountered infrastructure companies discovering hardware that doesn't belong to them, in their local infrastructure, and when detected and reported, law enforcement came to pick it up, and refused to talk about it. That case still hasn't had a resolution, and it's about 4 years ago now.
Because it wasn't in the US, and the specifics don't really matter. All countries I've lived in so far has had similar capabilities for sure, and practiced them too.
the point is, this isn't the action of local authorities. this is state level activity. if it is local, that's a level of sophistication and corruption that I have ever been aware.
Just for context in many smaller countries outside the US there isn't that much of a "local" thing like there is in the US, I.e. the national authorities may handle a lot of stuff that may be done by the local authorities in the US
That's OK and fair I think, even as a European. HN is fairly US-centric, both submissions, users and comments. I think after more than a decade here, you get to used to everyone assuming you're American and capitalist by default, which given the company who owns HN, kind of makes sense ;)
