8 ms·

Once again, I suggest everyone interested read James Bamford's book Shadow Factory. All these revelations regarding call metadata, PRISM collection (albeit und

by runjake 13y ago

Once again, I suggest everyone interested read James Bamford's book Shadow Factory. All these revelations regarding call metadata, PRISM collection (albeit under a different codename at the time), modern fiber taps, and even more are covered. You'll learn about how they shave fiber optic cables in order to intercept traffic and not be detected. You'll find out about the various facilities already reported, along with others like the NSA Georgia facility. You'll find out exactly where on what beach these fiber lines run in and out of. It's a very well-researched book. You'll learn a lot more than what's been verified with these leaks. http://www.amazon.com/The-Shadow-Factory-Eavesdropping-America/dp/0307279391/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1373476980&sr=8-1&keywords=shadow+factory http://www.amazon.com/The-Shadow-Factory-Eavesdropping-Ameri...

samsnelling 13y ago
Thanks for this! I've been looking for more to read (I just went back and re-read 1984). ... I thought one of the points of Fiber was that you couldn't tap in without disturbing the optical signal? Did I just make that up in my head?
- eitland 13y ago
  No, you have not made it up in your head. It has been widely accepted as a fact but I guess if it was originally true there must have been a few "givens'.
  - Locke1689 13y ago
    Who said this? It seems obviously false. All you would have to do is insert a detector and another emitter that simply replays everything the detector reads.
    - enko 13y ago
      While I agree it's certainly false, your implementation idea would almost certainly introduce detectable delay. All you'd need is a beam splitter. You can manufacture them to only take 1% of the beam.
      - Locke1689 13y ago
        Sure. But "Hey guys, just to let you know, we moved our relay back a couple meters for reorganization" would also introduce detectable delay -- I doubt anyone actually cares about the delay.
      - simmons 13y ago
        In the late 90's, I attended a presentation that described doing just such a fractional-light fiber split at major exchanges (e.g. MAE-West) to collect data for research purposes. [1] While the researchers were probably trustworthy, I remember thinking that such sniffing seemed like it could be pretty scary in the wrong hands. (The presentation was given by Evi Nemeth, who was sadly in the news recently due to being lost at sea.) [1] http://www.caida.org/workshops/isma/9808/report.html http://www.caida.org/workshops/isma/9808/report.html "The coral/ocXmon family of monitors use optical splitters to tap fiber, filtering 5-10% of the light signal to interface cards in the coral monitoring host."
      - brown9-2 13y ago
        Would such a splitter give you 1% of the messages passed, or 1% of a message?
        cnvogel 13y ago
        These splitter work in the domain of light-pulses transmitted over a fiber. So you get 100% of the messages, but the flashes of light representing the bits will be much weaker. Probably this will mean that you have to put in much more effort to decode the signal than a usual network-device will need, and also probably means that you will have a higher number of errors in your data. On the other hand, if you'd tap only a short distance downstream of the transmitter (or an inline amplifier), that 1% might be plenty, undisturbed by the distortions introduced further on the line, so probably that's the preferable tapping location anyway. [I know that I'm oversimplifying a lot here and modern optical communication systems work much different.]
        felixfurtak 13y ago
- enko 13y ago
  > you couldn't tap in without disturbing the optical signal Well of course you can't. If you're going to split it off to read it, then you're "disturbing" it by definition. Whether or not you can do such that it's not noticeable to the proper end parties, of course, is a different story.
  - bennyg 13y ago
    What's to stop a direct packet copy? The line goes in, a digital device sees the packets, copies them bit for bit and sends the original to their destination and a copy to the NSA. Similar to headphone splitting.
    - jeffasinger 13y ago
      The act of doing the splitting would increase latency.
    - tripzilch 13y ago
      I'm no expert but this will probably produce extra latency?
    - m4x 13y ago
      I think most of the taps they're referring to involve tapping light directly off the fiber, which reduces the light intensity at the receiving end and can therefore be detected in theory at least Interfering with existing amplifiers/signal boosters would be fairly hard to hide unless the NSA was solely responsible for that units maintenance, and I suspect that as a general rule they aren't. It's much easier to hide a tap at some random point along the line where nobody has any reason to visit
- leephillips 13y ago
  I don't see why that would be true. This is classical signal transmitted optically, not quantum cryptography. There is no reason you couldn't splice the cable through a machine that recorded the signal and then recreated it. Or a beam splitter that removed just a small fraction of the signal; the effect would be a slight increase in transmission loss.
  - sneak 13y ago
    The prevailing theory is that they do the latter; the former would be both easy to detect (at the time of splice) and locate (via TDR). Getting the signal out of the fiber pales in comparison, though, with the task of getting all of that data back to Maryland/Utah. Unless they have specific cooperation of the cable owners and can tap/split the fibers at the landings, they must be spending a significant percentage of the cost of the original fiber runs (in parallel cables to return the tapped data). The mind reels. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Jimmy_Carter_(SSN-23) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Jimmy_Carter_(SSN-23)
    - foobarqux 13y ago
      Beam splitters don't cause any reflections?
    - cdjk 13y ago
      I don't know much about undersea cables (although it is a fascinating subject), but I imagine there's no need to tap a cable in the middle of the ocean. If instead you tap it a couple miles offshore (even tens of miles), suddenly have a lot less undersea fiber to run. And if multiple cables come ashore at the same place, you can probably disguise it as just another fiber. Of course, this requires a friendly country at one end of the cable, but that's probably not too big a problem.
      - wyck 13y ago
        Yes but there is a problem, other countries also have submarines/boats that protect their assets.
  - deleted 13y ago
- biot 13y ago
  You're likely thinking of quantum communications: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_key_distribution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_key_distribution
- summerdown2 13y ago
  I don't believe fibre cables are single length. Between your point of signal origin and the destination are already a number of boxes that act as repeaters. To split the cable, you'd effectively add in another one (or subvert the provider, of course). Or I believe you can tap the cable anyway: This is a nice primer on fibre: http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/redbooks/pdfs/sg245230.pdf http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/redbooks/pdfs/sg245230.pdf And here is one talking about its security, in particular vs tapping (the conclusion: it can be done): http://www.sans.org/reading_room/whitepapers/physcial/fiber-optics-security-vulnerabilities_1648 http://www.sans.org/reading_room/whitepapers/physcial/fiber-... Finally, I always figured that tapping fibre was exactly what this was for: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Jimmy_Carter_(SSN-23) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Jimmy_Carter_(SSN-23)
- runjake 13y ago
  There are different non-disruptive techniques, two known methods being "shaving" the cable and the other involves bending the fiber optic cable at certain angles. I wouldn't be surprised if there are other esoteric techniques that somehow allow NSA to monitor emanations through an intact fiber optic cable and its shielding.
mindcrime 13y ago
In addition to The Shadow Factory he also wrote The Puzzle Palace and Body of Secrets. I'm not sure how much material is shared between the three books, or if they're meant to be read in any certain order, but I'm plowing through The Puzzle Palace now. In any case, it's wildly interesting stuff.
- SpikeGronim 13y ago
  I've read all of those books. They cover the NSA chronologically, so there isn't much overlap. I would recommend all of them. (edited: typo)
  - mindcrime 13y ago
    OK, good, glad to hear that. I had sort of assumed that that was the case, but wasn't sure. It's a lot of material to slog through, but I find this stuff fascinating for some reason.
- mturmon 13y ago
  Puzzle Palace is excellent. Specifically relating to the recent revelations, this book was where I learned of the NSA's "vacuum cleaner" approach, in which all available messages are collected -- in this case, it was trans-Atlantic radio transmissions being monitored by ECHELON. So, an American citizen in the UK calling an American citizen in the US would have their call collected. The approach (collect everything you can at the trunk line or server farm) is very similar to the e-mail collection strategy that's being documented now.
deleted 13y ago
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deleted 13y ago
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clarkm 13y ago
James Bamford also wrote and produced the PBS NOVA documentary "The Spy Factory", which is available for streaming on Netflix. Edit: It looks like it's been removed from Netflix, but you can still stream it directly from PBS's website: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/military/spy-factory.html http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/military/spy-factory.html
- sdoering 13y ago
  Well to bad I'm sitting in the wrong region of this localized internet. As so often the interesting resources are hidden behind a location-filter. [irony] As we are used in Germany, we are kept in the dark. [irony end]
  - galenko 13y ago
    Here it is on YouTube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZdPpdu8OGDQ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZdPpdu8OGDQ
specialist 13y ago
Was expecting to find comment by tptacek explaining how WP's Craig Timberg has no journalistic integrity because "direct access" clearly doesn't mean the NSA gets whatever data it wants by whatever means necessary. Rather, "direct access" can only imply the NSA administers the credentials of each and every server and database existent, which clearly couldn't be true. Maybe he's busy. I'll check back.
- virtuabhi 13y ago
  My thoughts exactly. I had assumed that tpateck would have magnified a figure of speech (e.g. full control -> judge can only appoint not remove), ranted about some obtuse point (e.g. which foreign government does not spy), and enjoyed the thread on violation of first/fourth amendment right derail from the issue. And all of his posts are moved to the top by HNers who recognize the name.
- furyofantares 13y ago
  How is this related to the comment you're replying to? I don't understand the connection.
  - b6 13y ago
    It wasn't. I agree there's a little bit of wrongness to that, but I hope his parent post won't mind too much, because there's a lot of truth to his point. Often we get more information like this, a fuller understanding of how Americans have been paying billions of dollars to fund this surveillance weapon that threatens the human race, and find an extremely well-written post by an obviously highly intelligent tptacek at the top, explaining why, strictly speaking, this is all legal -- or something. I'm glad I'm not the only one who finds it annoying.
    - PavlovsCat 13y ago
      Those posts usually have a lot of responses that rise to the challenge though, and without any opposition or advocacy for the devil, much less (or even nothing) is learned. I don't think it's fair to call him out like that, HN is better than this and posts can be dealt with on a one by one basis. Take off all the nicks, for maximum message resolution.

by runjake 13y ago

samsnelling 13y ago

Thanks for this! I've been looking for more to read (I just went back and re-read 1984). ... I thought one of the points of Fiber was that you couldn't tap in without disturbing the optical signal? Did I just make that up in my head?

eitland 13y ago
No, you have not made it up in your head. It has been widely accepted as a fact but I guess if it was originally true there must have been a few "givens'.
- Locke1689 13y ago
  Who said this? It seems obviously false. All you would have to do is insert a detector and another emitter that simply replays everything the detector reads.
  - enko 13y ago
    While I agree it's certainly false, your implementation idea would almost certainly introduce detectable delay. All you'd need is a beam splitter. You can manufacture them to only take 1% of the beam.
    - Locke1689 13y ago
      Sure. But "Hey guys, just to let you know, we moved our relay back a couple meters for reorganization" would also introduce detectable delay -- I doubt anyone actually cares about the delay.
    - simmons 13y ago
      In the late 90's, I attended a presentation that described doing just such a fractional-light fiber split at major exchanges (e.g. MAE-West) to collect data for research purposes. [1] While the researchers were probably trustworthy, I remember thinking that such sniffing seemed like it could be pretty scary in the wrong hands. (The presentation was given by Evi Nemeth, who was sadly in the news recently due to being lost at sea.) [1] http://www.caida.org/workshops/isma/9808/report.html http://www.caida.org/workshops/isma/9808/report.html "The coral/ocXmon family of monitors use optical splitters to tap fiber, filtering 5-10% of the light signal to interface cards in the coral monitoring host."
    - brown9-2 13y ago
      Would such a splitter give you 1% of the messages passed, or 1% of a message?
      - cnvogel 13y ago
        These splitter work in the domain of light-pulses transmitted over a fiber. So you get 100% of the messages, but the flashes of light representing the bits will be much weaker. Probably this will mean that you have to put in much more effort to decode the signal than a usual network-device will need, and also probably means that you will have a higher number of errors in your data. On the other hand, if you'd tap only a short distance downstream of the transmitter (or an inline amplifier), that 1% might be plenty, undisturbed by the distortions introduced further on the line, so probably that's the preferable tapping location anyway. [I know that I'm oversimplifying a lot here and modern optical communication systems work much different.]
        felixfurtak 13y ago
enko 13y ago
> you couldn't tap in without disturbing the optical signal Well of course you can't. If you're going to split it off to read it, then you're "disturbing" it by definition. Whether or not you can do such that it's not noticeable to the proper end parties, of course, is a different story.
- bennyg 13y ago
  What's to stop a direct packet copy? The line goes in, a digital device sees the packets, copies them bit for bit and sends the original to their destination and a copy to the NSA. Similar to headphone splitting.
  - jeffasinger 13y ago
    The act of doing the splitting would increase latency.
  - tripzilch 13y ago
    I'm no expert but this will probably produce extra latency?
  - m4x 13y ago
    I think most of the taps they're referring to involve tapping light directly off the fiber, which reduces the light intensity at the receiving end and can therefore be detected in theory at least Interfering with existing amplifiers/signal boosters would be fairly hard to hide unless the NSA was solely responsible for that units maintenance, and I suspect that as a general rule they aren't. It's much easier to hide a tap at some random point along the line where nobody has any reason to visit
leephillips 13y ago
I don't see why that would be true. This is classical signal transmitted optically, not quantum cryptography. There is no reason you couldn't splice the cable through a machine that recorded the signal and then recreated it. Or a beam splitter that removed just a small fraction of the signal; the effect would be a slight increase in transmission loss.
- sneak 13y ago
  The prevailing theory is that they do the latter; the former would be both easy to detect (at the time of splice) and locate (via TDR). Getting the signal out of the fiber pales in comparison, though, with the task of getting all of that data back to Maryland/Utah. Unless they have specific cooperation of the cable owners and can tap/split the fibers at the landings, they must be spending a significant percentage of the cost of the original fiber runs (in parallel cables to return the tapped data). The mind reels. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Jimmy_Carter_(SSN-23) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Jimmy_Carter_(SSN-23)
  - foobarqux 13y ago
    Beam splitters don't cause any reflections?
  - cdjk 13y ago
    I don't know much about undersea cables (although it is a fascinating subject), but I imagine there's no need to tap a cable in the middle of the ocean. If instead you tap it a couple miles offshore (even tens of miles), suddenly have a lot less undersea fiber to run. And if multiple cables come ashore at the same place, you can probably disguise it as just another fiber. Of course, this requires a friendly country at one end of the cable, but that's probably not too big a problem.
    - wyck 13y ago
      Yes but there is a problem, other countries also have submarines/boats that protect their assets.
- deleted 13y ago
biot 13y ago
You're likely thinking of quantum communications: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_key_distribution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_key_distribution
summerdown2 13y ago
I don't believe fibre cables are single length. Between your point of signal origin and the destination are already a number of boxes that act as repeaters. To split the cable, you'd effectively add in another one (or subvert the provider, of course). Or I believe you can tap the cable anyway: This is a nice primer on fibre: http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/redbooks/pdfs/sg245230.pdf http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/redbooks/pdfs/sg245230.pdf And here is one talking about its security, in particular vs tapping (the conclusion: it can be done): http://www.sans.org/reading_room/whitepapers/physcial/fiber-optics-security-vulnerabilities_1648 http://www.sans.org/reading_room/whitepapers/physcial/fiber-... Finally, I always figured that tapping fibre was exactly what this was for: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Jimmy_Carter_(SSN-23) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Jimmy_Carter_(SSN-23)
runjake 13y ago
There are different non-disruptive techniques, two known methods being "shaving" the cable and the other involves bending the fiber optic cable at certain angles. I wouldn't be surprised if there are other esoteric techniques that somehow allow NSA to monitor emanations through an intact fiber optic cable and its shielding.

mindcrime 13y ago

In addition to The Shadow Factory he also wrote The Puzzle Palace and Body of Secrets. I'm not sure how much material is shared between the three books, or if they're meant to be read in any certain order, but I'm plowing through The Puzzle Palace now. In any case, it's wildly interesting stuff.

SpikeGronim 13y ago
I've read all of those books. They cover the NSA chronologically, so there isn't much overlap. I would recommend all of them. (edited: typo)
- mindcrime 13y ago
  OK, good, glad to hear that. I had sort of assumed that that was the case, but wasn't sure. It's a lot of material to slog through, but I find this stuff fascinating for some reason.
mturmon 13y ago
Puzzle Palace is excellent. Specifically relating to the recent revelations, this book was where I learned of the NSA's "vacuum cleaner" approach, in which all available messages are collected -- in this case, it was trans-Atlantic radio transmissions being monitored by ECHELON. So, an American citizen in the UK calling an American citizen in the US would have their call collected. The approach (collect everything you can at the trunk line or server farm) is very similar to the e-mail collection strategy that's being documented now.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

clarkm 13y ago

James Bamford also wrote and produced the PBS NOVA documentary "The Spy Factory", which is available for streaming on Netflix. Edit: It looks like it's been removed from Netflix, but you can still stream it directly from PBS's website: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/military/spy-factory.html http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/military/spy-factory.html

sdoering 13y ago
Well to bad I'm sitting in the wrong region of this localized internet. As so often the interesting resources are hidden behind a location-filter. [irony] As we are used in Germany, we are kept in the dark. [irony end]
- galenko 13y ago
  Here it is on YouTube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZdPpdu8OGDQ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZdPpdu8OGDQ

specialist 13y ago

Was expecting to find comment by tptacek explaining how WP's Craig Timberg has no journalistic integrity because "direct access" clearly doesn't mean the NSA gets whatever data it wants by whatever means necessary. Rather, "direct access" can only imply the NSA administers the credentials of each and every server and database existent, which clearly couldn't be true. Maybe he's busy. I'll check back.

virtuabhi 13y ago
My thoughts exactly. I had assumed that tpateck would have magnified a figure of speech (e.g. full control -> judge can only appoint not remove), ranted about some obtuse point (e.g. which foreign government does not spy), and enjoyed the thread on violation of first/fourth amendment right derail from the issue. And all of his posts are moved to the top by HNers who recognize the name.
furyofantares 13y ago
How is this related to the comment you're replying to? I don't understand the connection.
- b6 13y ago
  It wasn't. I agree there's a little bit of wrongness to that, but I hope his parent post won't mind too much, because there's a lot of truth to his point. Often we get more information like this, a fuller understanding of how Americans have been paying billions of dollars to fund this surveillance weapon that threatens the human race, and find an extremely well-written post by an obviously highly intelligent tptacek at the top, explaining why, strictly speaking, this is all legal -- or something. I'm glad I'm not the only one who finds it annoying.
  - PavlovsCat 13y ago
    Those posts usually have a lot of responses that rise to the challenge though, and without any opposition or advocacy for the devil, much less (or even nothing) is learned. I don't think it's fair to call him out like that, HN is better than this and posts can be dealt with on a one by one basis. Take off all the nicks, for maximum message resolution.