hrmm, another question below... On 5/11/06, Eugen Leitl <eugen@leitl.org> wrote:
... The National Security Agency has been secretly collecting the phone call records ... using data provided by AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth ... The NSA's domestic program began soon after the Sept. 11 attacks, ... NSA representatives approached the nation's biggest telecommunications companies. ... AT&T, which at the time was headed by C. Michael Armstrong, agreed to help the NSA. So did BellSouth, headed by F. Duane Ackerman; SBC, headed by Ed Whitacre; and Verizon, headed by Ivan Seidenberg. ... Trying to put pressure on Qwest, NSA representatives pointedly told Qwest that it was the lone holdout among the big telecommunications companies.
let's look at 2002 operating revenue as a clue to telco size: 1. Verizon - $67,625,000,000 2. SBC - $43,138,000,000 3. AT&T - $37,827,000,000 4. Sprint+PCS - $27,256,000,000 (now add nextel?) 5. BellSouth - $22,440,000,000 6. Quest - $19,965,000,000 funny there is no mention of requests to Sprint; why their conspicuous absence? here's a paranoid theory: they already provided pen register equivalent data in real-time and could easily support the additional raw fiber taps used for targeted capture before 9/11 made it a well funded and well obfuscated priority across all carriers. Daytona wasn't the only prototype / telco system adopted in this domestic info war zone. keep the whistles blowing...