James Risen on the NSA "Program:" http://cryptome.org/nsa-program.htm Risen doesn't offer much new information in his book, out today, but this is a handy summary of how the NSA siphons data. The telecom and Internet giants are the ones to be hammered for secretly doing the dirty work against their customers. He fingers the international telecom hubs in NYC through which NSA grabs most of the data purposely sent through them to transoceanic cables worldwide. Hmm, the hubs on the West Coast are not mentoned. Wonder if that traffic is now redirected through New York too for easy watching. There are six or so of the giant facilities in Manhattan, and cable landings along Brooklyn, Queens and Long Island. Many more along the New Jersey coast. Most of the cable landings worldwide show up on nautical maps due to conflicts with mariners. In 2002 Cryptome published eyeballs: Downtown Manhattan Telephone Hubs http://eyeball-series.org/nytel-eyeball.htm US Transatlantic Cable Landings http://eyeball-series.org/cable-eyeball.htm US Transpacific Cable Landings http://eyeball-series.org//cablew-eyeball.htm
John Young wrote...
He fingers the international telecom hubs in NYC through which NSA grabs most of the data purposely sent through them to transoceanic cables worldwide. Hmm, the hubs on the West Coast are not mentoned. Wonder if that traffic is now redirected through New York too for easy watching.
I sincerely doubt that all of it can be. If anything, they have a local pre-sort that either discards low probability-of- interesting traffic or stores Variola suitcase-like it for periodic retreival or examination. Possibly, some of it will get routed through here (I say 'here' because out my window I see one of the big NYC COs). But if that's the case, look for very high bandwidth cross-country optical systems deployment with many wavelengths and lots of Raman as well as traditional optical amplification. Akin to what Corvis was building until they merged into Broadcom (hum...that's interesting if you think about it). I also happen to know enough about how a lot of the long-distance telecom networks are setup, so I also doubt they'd want to backhaul that through NYC if they're in the beltway, or southish like that. Then again, it's not impossible, and there can be very strong Operations reasons for moving traffic like that. -TD
On 1/3/06, John Young <jya@cryptome.net> wrote:
... He fingers the international telecom hubs in NYC through which NSA grabs most of the data purposely sent through them to transoceanic cables worldwide. Hmm, the hubs on the West Coast are not mentoned. Wonder if that traffic is now redirected through New York too for easy watching. ... US Transpacific Cable Landings
the nedonna beach landing point for the WCI cable (and others) underwent significant physical security and facility upgrades in recent years. back when critical infrastructure details were carefreely public the termination faclities a few hundred yards from the shore even carried a promiscuous "FIBER OPTIC" sign on the door. (the oregon fishermans undersea cable group used to provide the cable plots with GPS coordinates a few score miles out as well. now you have to request these from them directly so they can limit distribution to local area fishermen and others with a legitimate need for the information) initial reaction to security concerns included building a large razor wire chain link fence around the facilities, although it appears this was too much of an attention getter as they removed all such imposing fencing before long and have continued to rely on extensive cameras/alarms/highly visible boundary around the now rebuilt facilities (aprox. 3-4 times the size of the original structure). could more capturing equipment on site be the reason behind the significant facilities upgrade? they don't like to give tours of such places unfortunately... :) the main peering facilities located in hillsboro for the WCI cable have not undergone any similar upgrades although the building was already large and well secured from the start. [it would be interesting to know what changes have been implemented at other western landing sites; the nedonna beach point is the only one i am directly familiar with]
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