Code name "Killer Rabbit": New Sub Can Tap Undersea Cables

[Tyler Durden]

When I was in Telecom we audited pieces of an undersea NSA network that was 
based on OC-3 ATM. It had some odd components, however, including 
reflective-mode LiNBO3 modulators and even acousto-optic modulators. 
(Actually, one of the components started dying which put them into a 
near-frenzy...it turned out we had someone who happened to know the designer 
of that very piece and so understood the failure mode completely.)

My theory is that they were multiplexing their OC-3-collected information 
back over the same set of fibers the intelligence came from, or else 
re-routed it to another "friendly" cable nearby.

These days, however, a la Variola I don't think that a single OC-3 will do 
even for specially-selected traffic, so they must do something different now 
(unless, of course, that OC-3 was just their OAM&P/control network, which is 
entirely possible).

-TD

>From: "R.A. Hettinga" <rah at shipwright.com>
>To: osint at yahoogroups.com, cryptography at metzdowd.com, 
>cypherpunks at al-qaeda.net
>Subject: Code name "Killer Rabbit":  New Sub Can Tap Undersea Cables
>Date: Fri, 18 Feb 2005 20:47:02 -0500
>
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>
>WCBS 880 | wcbs880.com
>
>Experts: New Sub Can Tap Undersea Cables
>	* 	USS Jimmy Carter Will Be Based In Washington State
>Feb 18, 2005 4:55 pm US/Eastern
>
>  The USS Jimmy Carter, set to join the nation's submarine fleet on
>Saturday, will have some special capabilities, intelligence experts say: It
>will be able to tap undersea cables and eavesdrop on the communications
>passing through them.
>
>The Navy does not acknowledge the $3.2 billion submarine, the third and
>last of the Seawolf class of attack subs, has this capability.
>
>"That's going to be classified in nature," said Kevin Sykes, a Navy
>spokesman. "You're not going to get anybody to talk to you about that."
>
>But intelligence community watchdogs have little doubt: The previous
>submarine that performed the mission, the USS Parche, was retired last
>fall. That would only happen if a new one was on the way.
>
>Like the Parche, the Carter was extensively modified from its basic design,
>given a $923 million hull extension that allows it to house technicians and
>gear to perform the cable-tapping and other secret missions, experts say.
>The Carter's hull, at 453 feet, is 100 feet longer than the other two subs
>in the Seawolf class.
>
>"The submarine is basically going to have as its major function
>intelligence gathering," said James Bamford, author of two books on the
>National Security Agency.
>
>Navy public information touts some of the Carter's special abilities: In
>the extended hull section, the boat can provide berths for up to 50 special
>operations troops, like Navy SEALs. It has an "ocean interface" that serves
>as a sort of hangar bay for smaller vehicles and drones to launch and
>return. It has the usual complement of torpedo tubes and Tomahawk cruise
>missiles, and it will also serve as a platform for researching new
>technologies useful on submarines.
>
>The Carter, like other submarines, will also have the ability to eavesdrop
>on communications-what the military calls signals intelligence-passed
>through the airwaves, experts say. But its ability to tap undersea
>fiber-optic cables may be unique in the fleet.
>
>Communications worldwide are increasingly transmitted solely through
>fiber-optic lines, rather than through satellites and radios.
>
>"The capacity of fiber optics is so much greater than other communications
>media or technologies, and it's also immune to the stick-up-an-attenna type
>of eavesdropping," said Jeffrey Richelson, an expert on intelligence
>technologies.
>
>To listen to fiber-optic transmissions, intelligence operatives must
>physically place a tap somewhere along the route. If the stations that
>receive and transmit the communications along the lines are on foreign soil
>or otherwise inaccessible, tapping the line is the only way to eavesdrop on
>it.
>
>The intelligence experts admit there is much that is open to speculation,
>such as how the information recorded at a fiber-optic tap would get to
>analysts at the National Security Agency for review.
>
>During the 1970s, a U.S. submarine placed a tap on an undersea cable along
>the Soviet Pacific coast, and subs had to return every few months to pick
>up the tapes. The mission was ultimately betrayed by a spy, and the
>recording device is now at the KGB museum in Moscow.
>
>If U.S. subs still must return every so often to collect the
>communications, the taps won't provide speedy warnings, particularly
>against imminent terrorist attacks.
>
>"It does continue to be something of a puzzle as to how they get this stuff
>back to home base," said John Pike, a military expert at 
>GlobalSecurity.org.
>
>Some experts suggest the taps may somehow transmit their information, using
>an antenna or buoy-but those modifications are easier to discover and
>disable than a tap attached to the cable on the ocean floor.
>
>"Unless they have some new method of relaying the information, it doesn't
>serve much use in terms of warning," Bamford said. He contended tapping
>undersea communications cables violates a number of international
>conventions the United States is party to.
>
>Such communications could still be useful, although the task of sorting and
>analyzing so many communications for ones relevant to U.S. national
>security interests is so daunting that only computers can do it.
>
>The nuclear-powered sub will be commissioned in a ceremony at 11 a.m.
>Saturday at the submarine base at New London, Conn. The ceremony marks the
>vessel's formal entry into the fleet. The former president, himself a
>submariner during his time in the Navy, will attend.
>
>After some sea trials, the ship will move to its home port in Bangor, Wash.
>
>--
>-----------------
>R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah at ibuc.com>
>The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/>
>44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA
>"... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity,
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>experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'