Among a dozen or so lunchtime demonstrators at a luxury mall in the Central business district, a man raised a poster that -- viewed from afar -- read in Chinese, ``Liberate Hong Kong, revolution of our times.''

Foreign ministers from the Five Eyes intelligence sharing group discussed the situation in Hong Kong during a conference call on Wednesday, a Canadian government official told Reuters.

Intercepting and decoding foreign transmissions is nothing new; that kind of warfare is as old as the telegraph or even simple handwritten messages.