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NSA harvests the entire email. Source: http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2007/05/mark_klein_docu/ http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2007/05/mark_klein_docu/

chakalakasp 13y ago
If I'm not mistaken, isn't fiber optic splitting done with a glass... Prism?
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- mpyne 13y ago
  Careful, you're going down the Glenn Beck-style "OLIGARHY" route.
  - flyinRyan 13y ago
    The person in this thread that is closest to a Fox News cast member would be the local HN government apologist. Namely, yourself.
- leecbaker 13y ago
  I talked to a company that did this kind of work, and they used tiny MEMS mirrors made of gold plated silicon. They wouldn't tell me much about their customers, but they specialized in switching and splitting high speed data at the physical layer. http://www.glimmerglass.com/solutions/cyber-security-and-lawful-interception/ http://www.glimmerglass.com/solutions/cyber-security-and-law...
  - astrodust 13y ago
    "You know, in case you want a redundant signal for...redundancy...reasons."
- mortehu 13y ago
  It's done by bending the fiber, causing leaks. The signal has a single wavelength, so a prism would serve no purpose.
  - eksith 13y ago
    This makes sense. I would imagine, a prism would create a more noticeable loss of signal at the other end too since I'm guessing a splice is involved, whereas a passive leak would be less detectable.
  - jlgreco 13y ago
    Either way it is just refracted light, right? Same physics going on with either.
    - mpyne 13y ago
      It's physics, yes, but since the light has a uniform wavelength you can't "split" the beam with a prism: you get one beam going in and only one beam going out. Curving the cable as the other comment mentions might make sense if the curvature were calculated precisely, as then some (and not all) of the light would escape instead of being refracted back inside the cable.
      - jlgreco 13y ago
        My understanding is that you can use a beam splitter created from two prisms that will split laser light. This is done during holography from what I understand. I don't entirely understand all of this, my optics is very rusty. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beam_splitter http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beam_splitter http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holography#Apparatus http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holography#Apparatus http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_internal_reflection#Fractional_total_internal_reflection http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_internal_reflection#Fract...
        mpyne 13y ago
        Well a beam splitter as described in the Wikipedia page is moving past my own ability to describe, but the net effect from the double-prism description seems to resemble the effect of precisely curving the cable: Some light is able to internally reflect out the splitter while the rest proceeds as normal. But in this case the prism is 'just' a convenient way of getting the desired diagonal shape with materials of different refractiveness, you're not actually breaking light into its component wavelengths as you'd see in NSA's PRISM logo.
- leoc 13y ago
  What we've seen of the slides seems to indicate that the PRISM name refers specifically to the "direct collection" from cloud-data firms (using FAA70* directives), as distinct from the "upstream collection" from the network. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5887627 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5887627
- fnordfnordfnord 13y ago
  It's probably an optic with a coating that reflects some percentage (probably a small percentage) of the light, and a second detector. http://www.edmundoptics.com/optics/beamsplitters/ http://www.edmundoptics.com/optics/beamsplitters/
- tacoman 13y ago
  We use these extensively: http://vssmonitoring.com/products/traditional_tap.asp http://vssmonitoring.com/products/traditional_tap.asp I'm not sure how they work, but the sales engineer said "mirrors". The fibre units are completely passive.
guelo 13y ago
That's obvious since the email header and body are in the same document. Presumably what's going on is they capture all emails, process them to strip off the body, and then make the headers available to the analysis systems. They can then go back and retrieve the body of any email that interests them. One of the points that critics have been making is that analysts can make the decision to retrieve the content on their own without a court order, so this whole metadata safeguard isn't much of a protection at all.
- monorail 13y ago
  I thought the story was all metadata was captured but a warrant was needed for the contents because metadata was ruled to be not covered by the 4th amendment.

chakalakasp 13y ago

If I'm not mistaken, isn't fiber optic splitting done with a glass... Prism?

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
mpyne 13y ago
Careful, you're going down the Glenn Beck-style "OLIGARHY" route.
- flyinRyan 13y ago
  The person in this thread that is closest to a Fox News cast member would be the local HN government apologist. Namely, yourself.
leecbaker 13y ago
I talked to a company that did this kind of work, and they used tiny MEMS mirrors made of gold plated silicon. They wouldn't tell me much about their customers, but they specialized in switching and splitting high speed data at the physical layer. http://www.glimmerglass.com/solutions/cyber-security-and-lawful-interception/ http://www.glimmerglass.com/solutions/cyber-security-and-law...
- astrodust 13y ago
  "You know, in case you want a redundant signal for...redundancy...reasons."
mortehu 13y ago
It's done by bending the fiber, causing leaks. The signal has a single wavelength, so a prism would serve no purpose.
- eksith 13y ago
  This makes sense. I would imagine, a prism would create a more noticeable loss of signal at the other end too since I'm guessing a splice is involved, whereas a passive leak would be less detectable.
- jlgreco 13y ago
  Either way it is just refracted light, right? Same physics going on with either.
  - mpyne 13y ago
    It's physics, yes, but since the light has a uniform wavelength you can't "split" the beam with a prism: you get one beam going in and only one beam going out. Curving the cable as the other comment mentions might make sense if the curvature were calculated precisely, as then some (and not all) of the light would escape instead of being refracted back inside the cable.
    - jlgreco 13y ago
      My understanding is that you can use a beam splitter created from two prisms that will split laser light. This is done during holography from what I understand. I don't entirely understand all of this, my optics is very rusty. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beam_splitter http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beam_splitter http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holography#Apparatus http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holography#Apparatus http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_internal_reflection#Fractional_total_internal_reflection http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_internal_reflection#Fract...
      - mpyne 13y ago
        Well a beam splitter as described in the Wikipedia page is moving past my own ability to describe, but the net effect from the double-prism description seems to resemble the effect of precisely curving the cable: Some light is able to internally reflect out the splitter while the rest proceeds as normal. But in this case the prism is 'just' a convenient way of getting the desired diagonal shape with materials of different refractiveness, you're not actually breaking light into its component wavelengths as you'd see in NSA's PRISM logo.
leoc 13y ago
What we've seen of the slides seems to indicate that the PRISM name refers specifically to the "direct collection" from cloud-data firms (using FAA70* directives), as distinct from the "upstream collection" from the network. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5887627 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5887627
fnordfnordfnord 13y ago
It's probably an optic with a coating that reflects some percentage (probably a small percentage) of the light, and a second detector. http://www.edmundoptics.com/optics/beamsplitters/ http://www.edmundoptics.com/optics/beamsplitters/
tacoman 13y ago
We use these extensively: http://vssmonitoring.com/products/traditional_tap.asp http://vssmonitoring.com/products/traditional_tap.asp I'm not sure how they work, but the sales engineer said "mirrors". The fibre units are completely passive.

guelo 13y ago

That's obvious since the email header and body are in the same document. Presumably what's going on is they capture all emails, process them to strip off the body, and then make the headers available to the analysis systems. They can then go back and retrieve the body of any email that interests them. One of the points that critics have been making is that analysts can make the decision to retrieve the content on their own without a court order, so this whole metadata safeguard isn't much of a protection at all.

monorail 13y ago
I thought the story was all metadata was captured but a warrant was needed for the contents because metadata was ruled to be not covered by the 4th amendment.