Wired Magazine has obtained, and has posted, the complete text of a document that attempts to chronicle how AT&T equipped a “secret room” at 611 Folsom Street in San Francisco to track domestic and international phone calls made by American citizens and others.
That’s the entrance to the secret room at the top of this post.
The document, entitled AT&T’s Implementation of NSA Spying on American Citizens, was prepared by now-retired AT&T communications technician Mark Klein and is posted here.
The essential hardware elements of a TIA-type spy program are being surreptitiously slipped into “real world” telecommunications offices. In San Francisco the “secret room” is Room 641A at 611 Folsom Street, the site of a large SBC phone building, three floors of which are occupied by AT&T. High speed fiber optic circuits come in on the 8th floor and run down to the 7th floor where they connect to routers for AT&T’s WorldNet service, part of the latter’s vital “Common Backbone.”
Unlike copper wire circuits which emit electromagnetic fields that can be tapped into without disturbing the circuits, fiber optic circuits do not “leak” their light signals. In order to monitor such communications, one has to physically cut into the fiber somehow and divert a portion of the light signal to see the information.
OK,
HOw did you slip this IN???
1. they did 1 sampling of the net, and it filled a room 20×20 with info…
It would take 1 person 1 year to search this info for pertentant info….
GO FIGURE…
n overlooked aspect of the NSA debacle is the question of what the NSA would do without the cooperation of the phone companies. Surely this a scenario that they have to consider, and it is likely they have a Plan B.
But if they actually can’t collect this information without getting the coooperation of the companies and physically installing hardware in their facilities, what do they do in foreign countries? Do they rely on covert installation of hardware at the targeted country’s phone facilities? Or do they rely on remote interception, and if they do, can the same be done in the United States (or is it being done already?)
Knowing all of this, what can targeted countries do to protect themselves, and what foreign collection programs will be undermined now? If the NSA had the sense to steer clear of a law-bending domestic collection effort that was bound to be exposed, they could have avoided puttiing their foreign projects in jeopardy
These are the kind of operational details that are extraordinary sensitive but now become subject to public discussion and debate. Why? Because the agency was stupid enough to bend the law and begin a collection program in this country. If they were truly interested in keeping their collection programs secret—not just in the United States but especially in targeted countries—they should never have started a domestic collection program in the first place.
STILL,
The amount of data collected in 1 day is devastating…
Using keywords, to sort thru the amount of info passed, and then SORTING again, and again…dont make the pile any smaller.
In 1 day they would fill a room 20x20x8, they already TRIED to do this.
with all the Phones, cellphones, internet, encrypting, decrypting, and other ways to HIDE messages…It would take 5-10 years to sort thru 1 days data…
Looking at every SPAM, or EVERY pic, to cypher what is being hidden, would take YEARS… there are to many ways to HIDE things, and IF you think they ARENT useing alternate wording, or embedding code, you are (very probably) very mistaken. And its to EASY and not hard to do.
they would have to hire ALL the geeks in the US just to figure it out, and run the data.