CONTRIBUTION OF INTELLIGENCE ACTIVITY TO THE DEVELOPMENT OF INFORMATION SCIENCE Prispevek obveščevalne dejavnosti k razvoju informacijske znanosti1
Izvleček
Resnice se ne da preprečiti, da sčasoma pride na dan!
Glavna domneva je, da je razvoj obveščevalne dejavnosti v področju informacijskih dejavnosti in tehnologij prispeval k razvoju informacijske znanosti in tehnologije.
Moderna informacijska znanost je po prvi pobudi za razvoj v področju obveščevalnih dejavnosti med in neposredno po Drugi svetovni vojni znovič pridobila močno tovrstno pobudo v prvem desetletju 21. stoletja. Po terorističnem napadu na ZDA 11. 9. 2001 se je National Security Agency (NSA) prerodil in preoblikoval v največjo, najbolj prikrito in potencialno najbolj vsiljivo obveščevalno agencijo, kdaj koli ustvarjeno v svetu v tej dejavnosti. Strateški cilj NSA je svetovna informacijska prevlada. Od leta 2001 se je začel s strani države finančno obilo podprt novi razvojni zagon. Začela se je izgradnja Podatkovnega centra NSA v Utahu. Glavni vir podatkov za verifikacijo glavne domneve so »direktorske instrukcije« (DNI presenter) v delu, ki se nanaša na program XKeyScore in usposabljanje analitikov obveščevalnih podatkov z uporabo metapodatkov. Drugi izzivi, na katere se je odzval NSA kot dejavnik, ki je prispeval k razvoju informacijske znanosti in tehnologije so bili obveščevalna revolucija, začetek digitalne dobe in veliko podatkovje (big data). Digitalna doba se je začela 2002. leta, ko je človeška vrsta prvič shranjevala več informacij v digitalnih kot v analognih napravah. Klasično vohunjenje je zbiranje tajnih in težko dosegljivih informacij na nedovoljen način. Vendar se danes na tajne informacije nanaša šele 1 , medtem ko se od preostalih 99 informacij 9 nanaša na »sive« in 90 na javne informacije, tako da danes mora biti fokusiran obveščevalni sektor na »javne« informacije, ki so vsem dostopne bodisi v medijih ali pri posameznikih. Prvič po aferi Watergate in drugih škandalov Nixonove administracije je NSA obrnil svoj nadzorni aparat na ZDA in ameriške državljane. Podatkovni center Utah kot skladišče velikega podatkovja, ki nosi kodno ime Bumblehive (zbirališče čmrljev), je namenjen obvladovanju enormnega povečanja digitalnih podatkov in njihovih metapodatkov, kot posledice naraščanj globalnih omrežij.
XKeyscore je »top secret« program NSA, ki predstavlja "najširše" zbiranje spletnih podatkov na sploh. Xkeyscore zajema skoraj vse, kar tipični uporabnik počne na internetu, e-pošto, online klepete, aktivnosti na družabnih omrežjih in zgodovino vseh iskanj po spletu ter je »najširši« sistem za razvoj obveščevalne dejavnosti na računalniških omrežjih.
Sistem XKeyscore neprekinjeno zbira toliko internetnih podatkov, da jih je mogoče shraniti le za kratek čas. Da bi rešili to težavo, je NSA ustvaril večstopenjski sistem, ki analitikom omogoča shranjevanje »zanimive« vsebine v drugih zbirkah podatkov, kot je Pinwale, ki lahko hrani gradivo do pet let.
V prvem desetletju 21. stoletja je NSA prispeval k razvoju informacijske znanosti (kar je bilo treba dokazati), v drugem desetletju pa se je usmeril na razvoj znanosti o varnosti (Science of Security, SoS). Iskanje elementov formalne podlage za zasnovo varnostnih sistemov vključuje prispevke iz računalništva, matematike, vedenjskih znanosti, ekonomije, fizike in informacijske znanosti. Vodilna misel je nacionalna varnost, temelječa na (novi) znanosti o varnosti in privatnosti, kar pa se tiče podatkov o nacionalni varnosti je poudarek na njihovi zaščiti in zaščiti javnosti pred informacijskimi prevarami in goljufijami!
Prva številka revije NSA The Next Wave za 2021 je posvečena raziskovanju prevar in uporabi znanosti za razkrivanje resnice!
Zadnji cikel razvoja informacijske znanosti je na posreden način omogočil razvoj znanosti o varnosti z vsemi pozitivnimi in negativnimi posledicami za pravico do zasebnosti in svobodah posameznikov brez izjeme.
Ključne besede: obveščevalne dejavnosti; informacijska znanost; Xkeyscore; znanost o varnosti
Abstract
The truth cannot be prevented from coming out eventually!
The main assumption is that the development of intelligence in the field of information activities and technologies contributed to the development of information science and technology.
Modern information science, after the first initiative for development in the field of intelligence activities during and immediately after the Second World War, again gained a strong initiative of this kind in the first decade of the 21st century. After the terrorist attack on the United States on 9/11/2001, the National Security Agency (NSA) was reborn and transformed into the largest, most covert, and potentially the most intrusive intelligence agency ever created in the world in its line of business. The NSA’s strategic goal is global information dominance. Since 2001, a new development drive has begun, with ample financial support from the state. Construction has begun on the NSA Data Center in Utah. The main source of data for the verification of the main hypothesis is the »director’s instructions« (DNI presenter) in the work related to the XKeyScore program and the training of intelligence analysts using metadata. Other challenges to which the NSA responded as a factor contributing to the development of information science and technology were the intelligence revolution, the beginning of the digital age and big data. The digital age began in 2002, when for the first time the human species stored more information in digital devices than in analog devices. Classic espionage is the collection of secret and hard-to-reach information in an unauthorized way. However, today only 1 refers to classified information, while of the remaining 99 of information, 9 refers to »grey« information and 90 to public information, so today the focus of the intelligence sector must be on »public« information that is available to everyone available either in the media or from individuals. For the first time since Watergate and other Nixon administration scandals, the NSA has turned its surveillance apparatus on the United States and American citizens. The Utah data center as a big data warehouse, codenamed Bumblehive, is designed to handle the enormous increase in digital data and its metadata, as a result of the growth of global networks.
XKeyscore is a »top secret« NSA program that represents the »broadest« online data collection ever. Xkeyscore captures almost everything a typical user does on the Internet, e-mail, online chats, social network activity and the history of all web searches, and is the »most comprehensive« system for developing computer network intelligence.
The XKeyscore system continuously collects so much Internet data that it can only be stored for a short time. To address this problem, the NSA created a tiered system that allows analysts to store »interesting« content in other databases, such as Pinwale, which can store material for up to five years.
In the first decade of the 21st century, the NSA contributed to the development of information science (which had to be proven), and in the second decade it focused on the development of the science of security (Science of Security, SoS). The search for elements of a formal basis for the design of security systems includes contributions from computer science, mathematics, behavioral science, economics, physics, and information science. The guiding thought is national security, based on the (new) science of security and privacy, but as for national security data, the emphasis is on their protection and the protection of the public against information fraud and deception!
The first issue of the NSA magazine The Next Wave for 2021 is dedicated to Deception Research: Using Science to Reveal the Truth!
The last cycle of the development of information science indirectly enabled the development of the science of security with all the positive and negative consequences for the right to privacy and the freedoms of individuals without exception.
Keywords: .
intelligence; Information science; Xkeyscore; Science of Secutity (SoS)
INTRODUCTION
Introductory note
The present article is an unpublished part of my book »Information science on two-way bridges: A selection of theoretical works from information science«, technologically organized according to the »eclectic document« model without redundancy [1].
I wrote the book under a contract with the Institute of Information Sciences in Maribor (IZUM) and it will be ready after the publication of the manuscript of the 2nd part of the article »The connection between information science and psychology in the case of the paradox of wisdom«, submitted for publication to the IZUM journal »Organizacija znanja/Knowledge Organization«, the publication of this article that I am sending for publication to the journal »American Journal for Information Science and Technology« in the publishing house Science Publishing Group (SPG) and the publication of the Introduction to the book that I have already written! With the publication of the Introduction and Preface written by the book’s editor, the concerned electronic »network« book is automatically created with open access! For the »network book«, essentially a digital file [2], the notion of an eclectic document [1] was proposed, gr. eklektikos selective, choosing thoughts from various sides. The eclectic document solves the problem of duplication, redundancy and quantity of information on the World Wide Web (WWW) and opens up new possibilities for ensuring the quality of information on the WWW. Marjan Pungartnik’s article »Book, booklet and e-book« [3] is also a very instructive article on this issue!
Among other things, the Introduction to the book includes expressions of my gratitude.
Above all, I would like to thank all colleagues of IZUM, where I worked for twenty years and for the next ten years as a pensioner honoris causa, for the most urgent logistics necessary for the preparation of the manuscript of this kind of book!
I would like to thank Igor Brbre, Primož Britovšek, Bojan Oštir, Anka Rogina, Valerija Trojar, Tvrtko Ujević and Andreja Avberšek, who participated in the writing of individual parts of the book as co-authors or expert advisors and who provided me with optional support regarding my worldview.
I express my gratitude to Tomaž Seljak, the then director of IZUM, who enabled me to continue working on the book at the Institute even after retirement. With appropriate support for the project continued the following directors of IZUM Davor Šoštarič and dr. sc. Aleš Bošnjak.
I would like to especially thank the reviewers, university professors prof. dr. sc. Siniša Maričić from Zagreb and prof. dr. sc. Vladimir Štambuk from Belgrade for those critical comments, suggestions and hints that I took into account when preparing the manuscript of the book!
I express my gratitude to the editor Franci Pivec and the editors Aleksandra Rubelj and Branka Badovinac for the editing and publication of parts of the present book, which were published as articles in Izum’s journal Organization of Knowledge and thus enabled the »automatic« creation of the »network book«.
When the scientific publisher, to whom I offered the book for publication, said to me »But dr. Šercar, who will read (read: buy) this book of yours?«, I resigned myself to the fact that nothing would come of the book’s print on paper, and decided to »edit« parts of the book and publish them as online accessible articles in electronic form. According to this idea, all that remains is to ensure that the Introduction is published in such a format that, together with the other parts, it automatically (on click) »works« as a »network book« in the planned dimension!
The book consists of 42 parts. The parts are written in such a way that they can be read and understood independently of each other and in any order. The price of this is sometimes minor repetitions of statements of certain facts and findings. The article »Contribution of intelligence activity to the development of information science« belongs to a group of historical studies on information science and must be read in view of this context!
Assumptions
Britovšek and I [4] have already hinted that modern information science, after the first initiative for development in the field of intelligence activities during and immediately after the Second World War [5]. [6, 7] 2, [8], has once again acquired a strong initiative in the first decade of the 21st century. However, we would not have learned this without James Bamford3 [9,10, 11, 12, 13]. an American best-selling author, journalist and documentary producer, widely known for writing about the US intelligence community, particularly the development of the National Security Agency, NSA) and its source, the whistleblower William Binney, in the first decade of the 21st century, as well as the revelations of other whistleblowers, who in the meantime have become an institutional part of modern professional society, especially if it were not for the selfless social action and courageous disclosures of the global whistleblower Edward Snowden [14] and his collaboration with investigative journalist Glenn Greenwald and journalist Laura Poitras. The truth must be told, because willy-nilly it has the potential to spread, which cannot be prevented from eventually coming to light!
After the terrorist attack on the USA on 9/11/2001, the NSA was reborn and transformed into the largest, most covert and potentially most intrusive intelligence agency ever created [13]!
The main assumption in a summarized form is as follows: in the NSA, since 2001, a new development drive, financially supported by the state, has started. Construction of the Data Center in Utah has begun4. The development of intelligence activities in the field of information activities and technologies contributed to the development of information science and technology. Whistleblower Edward Snowden announced to the whole world the global dimension of NSA spying and wiretapping, which includes American citizens without exception. For US government structures, starting with the president, Snowden is a metaphor for the most dangerous traitor and criminal5 of its kind [15 ], but without his discoveries, we would not know about the NSA’s contribution to the development of information science and technology.
The main source of data for the verification of the main hypothesis is the »director’s instructions« (DNI presenter) in the part related to the XKeyScore program and the training of intelligence analysts using metadata [16 ], [17].
From a phenomenological point of view, information communication technology (ICT) is, like any other technology, »non-neutral«. Technologies are created starting from the idea of a neutral means that »blindly« serves the intended purpose. In the case of technologically mediated communications (paper, telephone, radio, television, e-mail, Internet, etc.), communication is carried out by mediating technical means as transmission factors. This third element is not neutral, but rather »non-neutral«, as it is shaped by the communication situation (relationship, etc.) between the communicating parties. The negative consequences of the transformative nature of ICT are overcome by the invisibility of the trasmitter as a third element. In the case of ideal technology, the third element is invisible, and its purpose is »forgotten« during use. Transformativeness and »non-neutrality« transform the physical space into a quasi-space of technologically mediated communication and nullify the greatest distances into »near-distance« and create a technologically mediated now in real time.
From a moral point of view, technology is neutral, and »good« or »bad« is only the intention of the individual or collective for which it is used.
There is always some use associated with ICT, and this context of ICT use is also part of a wider cultural context.
Hypotheses non fingo, I’m not making assumptions!6 [18].
Other challenges to which, according to the present disposition, the NSA responded as a factor that hypothetically contributed to the development of information science and technology were:
the intelligence revolution [19]
the beginning of the digital age [20]
big data [21].
After the intelligence revolution that took place in the nineties of the 20th century, the world is divided into intelligence-developed and rich countries and corporations, and the main question of the new conceptualization of intelligence is how to collect and navigate the multitude of publicly available information and communications [19].
Classic espionage is the collection of secret and hard-to-reach information in an unauthorized way. However, today only 1 refers to classified information, while of the remaining 99 of information, 9 refers to »grey« information and 90 to public information, so today the focus of the intelligence sector must be on »public« information that is available to everyone either in the media or from individuals.
Figure 1 Representation of different types of information in intelligence [22]
Figure 2 Hilbert and Lopez [20] identified 2002 as the »beginning of the digital age«- the moment when the human species first stored more information in digital than in analog devices, and endangering individual freedom and privacy on a new level!
The result of the development of information technology and content was massive amounts of data, ie. big data, mass data [23].
Big data is an opportunity for development and success! The key to success is availability and relevance and pertinence7. Extracting value from big data requires automatic real-time access primarily and exclusively to relevant data according to the search term and pertinent data according to the needs of the user.
The Internet and big data must be separated. The Internet has changed the way we communicate. Big data is more than just communication and expresses the idea that from a large amount of information we can learn about things that would otherwise be impossible to understand with a smaller amount of data. Big data is slowly changing the way we think about the world, understand events and make decisions, and learn that many aspects of life are more likely than strictly determined.
The new digital world of globally connected and largely encrypted communications has required revolutionary changes in the field of intelligence as well, in particular the modernization of the strategy and the shift »live to the web«, as stated in the strategy of the American security agency NSA, because in the new circumstances we cannot remain only with access to analog information and communications regarding the defense of the country and the security of citizens as the primary objectives of intelligence work.
NSA Strategy:
leading a skilled workforce to advance and manage cryptographic systems and tools worldwide,
Increasing the efficiency, use and protection of knowledge and operations,
meaningful and secure exchange of electronically collected data at the speed of global information networks and
measurably increasing the security of the national security system and other critical operations and information when and where needed.
»Whistleblower«: etymology of the word, definitions
We have the right to know (= the right to be informed), and whistleblowers contribute significantly to enforcing this right!
It is written in the Gospel according to Luke: »17For nothing is secret, that shall not be made manifest; neither [any thing] hid, that shall not be known and come abroad…« (Luke 8:17) Luke Chapter 8 Continued (bible-studys.org), and whistleblowers are those who reveal something hidden and inform about it... !
According to The Phrase Finder, the word whistleblower was first used in The Janesville Gazette, June 1883, in a story about a policeman who woke up half the town to stop a riot! https://www.phrases.org.uk/, according to Merriam-Webster dictionary the word dates back to 1963! https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/whistle-blower
The etymology of the term »whistleblower« is an allusion, a slight reference to a policeman who blows his whistle when observing a violation of the law. Idiomatically, colloquially, a person who reports a problem or a violation to the authorities or a superior, an employee or former employee who reports an irregularity of the employer.
According to Etimoline and Wordorigins, the term »whistle-blower« comes from a »whistle«, which the referee »blows« to indicate an illegal position and a foul in the game. With this, Wikipedia refers to New Scientist of 9/12/1971, p. 69 [24]:
»The code of good practice contains confidentiality clauses that effectively prohibit Nader-style whistleblowing to alert the public to harmful practice.«
The term whistle-blower comes from the whistle used by a referee to indicate foul or foul play. It is believed that the term was coined by the American civil society activist Ralph Nader in the early 1970s. In fact, he only gave a new, namely a positive connotation to the term to avoid the negative connotations that e.g. the word »informant« and ... »whistleblower« (snitch, tattler, type of bird, twistleblower),
A whistleblower is a person who tells the police, the press, etc. about something (such as a crime) that has been concealed; a corporate whistleblower is a person who works for a company and tells people about the company’s illegal activities. (Lerner’s Dictionary). http://www.learnersdictionary.com/definition/whistle-blower)
A whistleblower is an employee or former employee who discloses wrongdoing, alleged unfair, unethical, discriminatory, inappropriate or illegal activity occurring within the organization by current or former members. The alleged violation can be classified into several areas: violation of laws, rules, regulations and/or direct threat to the public interest, such as fraud, violations of health and safety at work, and corruption. Whistleblowers can make allegations internally (to other individuals in the accused organization) or externally (to regulators, law enforcement, the media). One of the most famous whistleblowers was Jeffrey Wigand, who exposed the tobacco industry; his story is described in the 1999 film Insider. Famous examples include Edward Snowden, Chelsie Manning and Julian Assange.
Whistleblowing is a topic of ongoing ethical debate. The main argument of the ideological camp that the work of whistleblowers is ethical is that whistleblowing is a form of civil disobedience and a means of protecting the public from government violations of the law. In the opposite camp, they believe that whistleblowing is unethical because of the breach of confidentiality, especially in industries with sensitive customer and patient information.
Democracy is under attack and whistleblowers are essential for the existence of democracy and thriving markets.
The Whistleblower Protection Center was established in Ljubljana on March 17, 2021. The center will deal with the elimination of the consequences of retaliatory measures that often happen to whistleblowers, the center wrote, and will provide legal, financial and psychological assistance in this area of work. Ivan Gale soustanovil Center za zaščito žvižgačev - RTVSLO.si
Franzen and Snowden
Jonathan Franzen, the most widely read and celebrated American writer of the middle generation, was inspired by Julian Assange and Edward Snowden [25] for the character of Tom Wolfe in the novel Purity. Franzen’s views on state digital surveillance are not one-sided. Snowden had no intention of making money by releasing the data. He had a large pile of documents, and he found journalist Glenn Greenwald. Franzen is convinced that Snowden is by no means among the villains! However, when people glorify someone, as is happening in the case of Snowden, suspicion is awakened in him. And while Snowden’s actions can be heavily justified, Obama’s response is also understandable, as the American public expected the country to protect them from foreign terrorist attacks. Franzen doesn’t care if the NSA knows he sent an email to such and such an address on such and such a day. He is also convinced that American institutions are vigilant enough and sooner or later it would become known if someone were to use this data, for example for security purposes, and they would make a whole mess.
What really shocks Franzen is how much a culture of low-level self-disclosure has flourished on the Internet, along with a culture of harmless marketing-driven stalking and surveillance. But apparently no one cares about that.
Google has a complete archive of what we’ve searched for over the past eight years. Some are really more concerned that the state keeps nine types of data about our exchange of text messages for 90 days. In this case, if we present the national security agency as the villain and Silicon Valley as the prince on a white horse and the savior of the world, it really pisses him off.
This skepticism is expressed by Franzen in the novel Purity as the opinion of his hero. Wolf compares the apparatchiks of the East German secret police to those of the Internet. The privileged in East Germany had a phone, a nice apartment, and a travel permit, which was all-important, but they were no less paltry than the number of Twitter followers we have today, the legions of Facebook fans, and the occasional minute-long spot on CNBC. In East Germany they had the most comprehensive totalitarian system outside of East Asia in history - because East Germany was only surpassed by the North Koreans.
Capitalist ideology is based on creating anxiety, and those of us in the »free world« must be afraid, whether it’s terrorists, bacteria, Muslims, Martians, or communists.
In one interview, Franzen said that the freedom to screw up your life however you want is the one thing no one can take away from you!
Permanent Record
Edward Snowden’s autobiography, Permanent Record, was released on September 17 (Constitution Day in the United States) in 2019. In the book, he describes his childhood, work at the CIA and the National Security Agency, and the motivation for revealing highly classified information in 2013 from a number of global spying, wiretapping and surveillance programs. carried out primarily by the NSA. Snowden also discusses his views on the authoritarianism of Chinese society, democracy and citizen privacy.
The published revelations and memoirs have reignited a global debate about the spying, wiretapping and surveillance carried out by the National Security Agency (NSA).
The book has been censored in China and content including comments on authoritarian states, privacy-enhancing technologies and the right to privacy have been removed.
After the book appeared on the market in the USA, the US government filed a lawsuit against Snowden, but not because of the content of the book, the alleged violations of the agreements between Snowden, the CIA and the NSA on the confidentiality of information or the sale of the book, but because of the seizure of the proceeds that Snowden will earn from the sale of the book!
National Security Agency (NSA) .
In 1952, the US Department of Defense established the National Security Agency (NSA) to intercept, collect and decrypt foreign communications. Over the past decade, the NSA has poured hundreds of millions of dollars into cyber warfare research and development (R&D).
The new digital world of globally networked encrypted communications also demanded dramatic changes in the field of intelligence, and the NSA also had to update its strategy and move, as the NSA strategy put it, »live on the network«, because in the new circumstances it could not remain only in accessing analog communications in light of the defense of the United States and the security of citizens as the priority purpose of NSA operations. The need to change the design of intelligence activity was also demanded by the fact that secret information represents only a small percentage of intelligence material, and the main question became how to obtain and find one’s way among the multitude of publicly available information and communications.
For the NSA, which received a budget of more than ten billion dollars after 9/11/2001, the growth in the need for cryptanalysis came in handy. Established as a post-Pearl Harbor arm of the Department of Defense, with the primary purpose of preventing another surprise attack, the NSA suffered a series of humiliations in the post-Cold War years. After a series of terrorist attacks, from the first terrorist attack on the World Trade Center 1993, the bombing of the American embassy in East Africa 1998, attacks on the American military ship 2000 to the devastation of September 11, 2001, many questioned the justification for the existence of the NSA. In response, the NSA was quietly reborn. And while there is little sign that its actual effectiveness has improved, in the end, despite abundant evidence and missed intelligence opportunities, the NSA also botched a near-disastrous attempted attack on Detroit 2009 and with a car bomber in Times Square 2010, there is no doubt that it must have transformed into the largest, most covert and potentially most aggressive intelligence agency ever created [13].
For the first time since Watergate and other Nixon administration scandals, the NSA has turned its surveillance apparatus on the United States and American citizens. Wiretapping of post offices across the country was established to collect and sift through billions of emails and phone calls, whether originating in the country or abroad. They created a supercomputer with an almost unimaginable speed of finding patterns and deciphering codes. Finally, the agency began building a facility to store the billions of words, thoughts and whispers captured in electronic networks. And, of course, this is all done in secret. For those on the inside, the old adage that the NSA stands for »Never Say Anything« applies more than ever!
NSA data center in Utah, USA
In front of the entrance to the Administration Building, visitors are greeted with the following venomously mocking slogan as a welcome: »If yuo have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear«!
Figure 3 Utah Data Center Administration Building NSA Utah Data Center - Serving Our Nation’s Intelligence Community (gov1.info)
The Utah data center, codenamed Bumblehive, is the first data center of the Intelligence Community Comprehensive National Cyber-security Initiative (IC CNCI), which is designed to support the intelligence community’s efforts to monitor, strengthen and national security. Utah’s »big data warehouse« is designed to handle the massive increase in digital data accompanying the growth of the global web.
NSA is an executive branch (agency) of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) and the lead agency within the Center.
The $2 billion, 400,000-square-foot Bluffdale / Camp Williams LEED Silver facility houses 100,000 square feet of Tier III mission-critical data center space. The remaining 300,000 square meters are dedicated to technical support and administrative space. The complex, which consists of twenty buildings, also includes water treatment plants, cooling plants, an electrical station, a fire pump, a warehouse, a vehicle inspection facility, a visitor control center and sixty emergency diesel generators, and a fuel facility for 3 days of 100 backup power.
Figure 4 Utah Data Center
The construction of the NSA Data Center in Bluffdale was completed at the end of 2013.
The data center was built under the top-secret label and is the last piece in the puzzle created over the last decade for the NSA to intercept, decrypt, analyze and store data from the world’s satellite, underground and undersea international foreign and domestic communications networks. Through its servers and routers flows data on all forms of communication, including the entire contents of private emails, cell phone calls, web inquiries, as well as all kinds of personal information about parking, travel itineraries, bookstore purchases, and other forms of digital »pocket change« (pocket litter), and stored in bottomless databases. This is to some extent the realization of the »shared information memory« program created during the first term of the Bush administration, which was rejected by the US Congress in 2003 after protests against the threat to the privacy of Americans that it contained.
But »it’s more than just a data center,« said one senior intelligence official involved in the program. The mammoth center in Bluffdale has an additional and much more secret role that has not been revealed until now. Also important, he said, is deciphering the codes, which is critical because of the strong encryption of the data the center handles: financial and business data, foreign military and diplomatic secrets, legal documents and confidential personal communications. According to another top official involved in the program, the NSA made a huge breakthrough a few years ago in the agency’s ability to cryptanalyze and decipher the complex code systems used not only by governments around the world but also by many average computer users in the USA. The slogan of this official was: »Everyone is a target, everyone who communicates is a target!« So: Watch what you say!
In an operational capacity, the Data Center is the NSA cloud. The center is filled with data collected by other intelligence agencies. The data is accessible to code breakers, NSA data miners, China analysts, counterterrorism experts, and other experts working at Fort Meade headquarters and around the world. The figure below shows the location of the Data Center in the NSA World Mosaic [13].
Figure 5 Cloud computing concept diagram
Figure 6 The NSA Spy Cloud
A legend
1 Geostationary satellites. Four satellites orbiting the globe monitor the frequencies of all walkie-talkies and cell phones from Libya to radar systems in North Korea. The umbrella software acts as the first filter in the collection process. Only key regions, countries, cities, and phone numbers and email addresses are targeted.
2 Aerospace Data Facility, Buckley Air Force Base, Colorado. Intelligence gathered via geostationary satellites, as well as signals from other spacecraft and overseas eavesdropping posts, are sent to this facility outside of Denver. About 850 NSA employees track satellites, transmit targeting information and store intelligence spoils.
3 NSA Georgia, Fort Gordon, Augusta, Georgia. They are focused on intercepting communications from Europe, the Middle East and North Africa. Sweet Tea is the code name for the facility, which has expanded greatly and now has a 200,000 square foot operational building for more than 4,000 operators, analysts and other interception specialists.
4 NSA Texas, Lackland Air Force Base, San Antonio. They are focused on intercepting communications from Latin America and, since September 11, 2001, from the Middle East and Europe. About 2,000 employees are involved in the operations. The NSA recently agreed with the government for $100 million in storage space to back up the Data Center in the state of Utah.
5 NSA Hawaii, Oahu. They are focused on intercepting communications from Asia. In the house built for the assembly of aircraft during the Second World War, he is building an 80,000 square meter bunker with the nickname »Hole«. Like other NSA operations centers, it has since expanded, and its 2,700 employees now do their work in a new 80,000-square-foot, above-ground facility.
6 Home Jobs for Wiretapping. The NSA has long eavesdropped on international satellite communications. But after September 11, 2001, »taps« were installed on telecommunications »switches« also in the USA for access to domestic traffic. One former NSA official says there are 10 to 20 such devices.
On the basis of secret court orders, the NSA has acquired the largest American Internet and telecommunications companies as its main partners in the collection of intelligence data.
Figure 7 NSA’s home stations for interception [26]
NSA technicians set up interception stations at key hubs across the country. Hubs are located in large, windowless buildings owned by major telecommunications companies and control domestic Internet traffic across the country. A fiber-optic »splitter« is placed on the incoming communications lines and traffic flow for NSA interception and processing stations.
Three National Security Agency (NSA) whistleblowers, Thomas Drake, Kirk Wiebe, and William Binney, have come forward with their allegations of illegal domestic surveillance measures by the NSA. Whistleblowers specifically mention 9/11 as the date after which electronic surveillance reached a new dimension. A huge number of emails and mobile phone conversations are stored and monitored. When asked if they knew about the electronic surveillance being used by the NSA, Kirk Wiebe said they didn’t even believe the US government could go that far.
William Binney said there could be up to 20 »secret rooms« at AT&T in the US. The secret surveillance octopus is incomparably larger than the president’s surveillance program, which represents a series of covert intelligence activities authorized by then-US President George W. Bush after the September 11, 2001, attacks as part of the War on Terror.
Figure 8 In the picture we see the »secret room« no. 641A!
But there is still hope, as the Office of the Director of National Intelligence appears to have recently acknowledged that the government’s spying efforts have crossed legal lines at least once. Let’s hope this all ends and our freedoms are preserved. As Benjamin Franklin said: Those who can give up fundamental liberty to gain a little temporary security deserve neither liberty nor security!
7 Overseas Wiretapping Jobs. According to a well-informed intelligence source, the NSA has installed taps on at least a dozen major overseas communications links to eavesdrop on high-speed communications.
8 Utah Data Center, Bluffdale, Utah. At over 400,000 square feet, this $2 billion digital repository outside Salt Lake City is part of the NSA’s cloud-based strategy for data and document decryption.
9 Multiprogram Research Center, Oak Ridge, Tennessee. About 300 scientists and computer engineers are involved in building the world’s fastest supercomputers and developing applications for cryptanalysis and other classified projects.
10 NSA Headquarters, Fort Meade, Maryland. Here, analysts have access to material stored at Bluffdale to prepare reports and policy recommendations. The NSA is also building an $896 million supercomputer center to process the ever-increasing amount of data.
Figure 9 NSA surveillance octopus
Legend:
Yakima listening station. One way to send phone calls and other messages from the US to Asia and other destinations is via satellite and microwave transmitters. This satellite device collects millions of communications per hour from international communication satellites.
A listening station in Sugar Grove, West Virginia. One way to send phone calls and other messages from the US to Europe and other places is via satellite and microwave transmitters. This NSA satellite device collects millions of communications per hour from international communications satellites.
Internet Service Provider (ISP). The NSA can compel ISPs to provide it with information in the form of computer eavesdropping and scanning of all communications passing through a particular ISP.
Central switch (Central switch). Devices, one in New York and one in Northern California operated by the major telecommunications companies. They are the primary means of mixing voice and data communications, including those traveling over overseas submarine fiber optic cables. They are headed towards their destinations. By serving as central switching points, they provide the NSA with access to a large volume of communications.
Internet exchange. Publicly or privately owned »Internet exchanges« are where Internet traffic is exchanged between the networks that make up the Internet. These publicly or privately owned »internet exchanges« are divided into Tier 1, Tier 2, and Tier 3 exchanges. Tier 1 exchanges, usually located in large cities, are exchanges that have a national and global reach and are likely to be of most interest to NSA.
Tapping submarine cables. According to published reports, US divers are able to install surveillance devices on oceanic cables to make phone calls and transmit data across the sea. One of these eavesdropping devices was discovered in 1982, but apparently other devices were operating undetected. The invention of fiber optic cables created problems for the NSA, but there is no reason to suspect that this problem was not solved by the NSA.
NSA headquarters. Tens of thousands of people, including intelligence analysts, linguists and computer specialists, work at the complex in Fort Mead, Maryland. The NSA headquarters is where millions of intercepted communications are processed and analyzed.
Telco: Domestic telephone company. The NSA not only has eavesdropping networks, but also eavesdrops on customer communications.
NSA Data Hub8: Domestic Alert Hub and Data Repository, Aurora, CO. A massive NSA data storage facility is located in the suburbs of Denver, which also houses an on-site viewing satellite dish and NSA data mining operations. A CIA facility and the Army’s Northern Command (NORTHCOM) are also located there Layout 1 (aclu.org)
NSA programs
Until 1978
ECHELON, MINARET, SHAMROCK, PROMIS
Since 1978
Upstream collection, BLARNEY, FAIRVIEW, Main Core, ThinThread,
Since 2001
OAKSTAR, STORMBREW, Trailblazer Project, Turbulence
President’s Surveillance Program
Terrorist Surveillance Program
The NSA’s strategic goal is, as they say, global information dominance, and in order to achieve this goal, in addition to programs such as Dancingoasis, Oakstar, Blarney and Rampart-T., it primarily uses PRISM.
Wolfgang Schmidt, a former colonel in East Germany’s secret intelligence service, the Stasi10, said the Stasi would consider such a program a »dream«, as the Stasi did not have technology such as PRISM. Schmidt added that it is extremely naive to think that once collected data will not be used. This is the nature of secret government organizations. The only way to protect people’s privacy is to not allow the government to collect this data.
Letter from the A29 WP Chairman Jacob Kohnstamm to the Vice President of the European Commission Mrs Reding regarding the PRISM program (13 August 2013)
Jacob Kohnstamm [27], as Chairment, on behalf of all 28 supervisory authorities for the protection of personal data of the European Union, united in 29WP, sent to the Commissioner for Justice and Human Rights Viviane Reding the letter »PRISM Programme: Joint letter from the European Privacy Ombudsman to Commissioner Reding, 2013«, in which once again drew attention to the US NSA’s data collection through the PRISM program. The letter provides an analysis of aspects of the processing of personal data of EU citizens to which the European Commission should pay special attention.
The main stated missions of The Working Party on the Protection of Individuals with regard to the Processing of Personal Data were to:
Provide expert advice to the States regarding data protection;
Promote the consistent application of the Data Protection Directive in all EU state members, as well as Norway, Liechtenstein and Iceland;
Give to the Commission an opinion on community laws (first pillar) affecting the right to protection of personal data;
Make recommendations to the public on matters relating to the protection of persons with regard to the processing of personal data and privacy in the European Community
According to several media, the personal data of consumers of nine big internet companies are allegedly used by US intelligence agencies for law enforcement purposes. Considering the impact this may have on data protection, especially of European citizens, He urgently request that Reding ask for clarifications from her counterparts in the United States of America about these allegations; on whether the PRISM program is only aimed at data of citizens and residents of the Unites States or also, or perhaps only, to non-US citizens and residents, among them European citizens; furthermore, on whether access to such data is strictly limited to specific and individual cases, based on a concrete suspicion, or if information is also accessed in bulk. Considering the fundamental rights of European citizens might be at stake, he trust the European Commission will ensure the necessary clarification is provided.
29WP considers it its duty to also independently assess to what extent the data protection provided by EU legislation is at risk and what consequences the use of PRISM and related programs may have for the privacy of personal data of EU citizens. First, it is necessary to clarify what information is actually collected through intelligence programs under Section 215 of the US Homeland Security Act, Section 702 [28], Executive Order 12333, and other relevant legislation. New reports indicate that both (meta) data and the content of non-US communications are being collected, but it is not yet entirely clear what data is being collected, the extent of it, and what safeguards are in place before those communications are accessed . It is also unclear whether (meta)data on non-US persons generated as a by-product of investigations of US persons under Section 215 of the US Homeland Security Act can subsequently be used to investigate non-US persons on under Section 702 of FISA, and, if so, under what law. The alleged collection of personal data, which is both massive and systematic, allows the NSA, FBI, CIA and/or other intelligence and law enforcement agencies further access.
One point that showed that data can only be accessed if it originates from outside the US, but is collected from sources within the US. However, 29WP would like to know when US authorities consider personal data to be within the US, especially given the continued growth in the use of the Internet to process personal data, where much information is currently stored in the cloud without knowing the exact location of the data. It is necessary to determine whether data on communications networks directed only to the US (data in transit) are also subject to collection for the previously mentioned intelligence programs. For this purpose, 29WP is of the opinion that European legislation does not apply to personal data that is only in transit in the European Union, according to Article 4(1)c of Directive 95/46/EC. Using the same reasoning, one could conclude that US law should not apply to data that is merely in transit within US territory. It also needs to be clarified whether the intelligence services or other relevant authorities must prove that the data is physically and legally available on US soil (ie stored on servers on US territory) or it is sufficient if the data is processed through a US company or subsidiary of this company. Finally, it must be clarified whether personal data is also collected on European territory, as reported by the media.
Further clarification is needed on the FISA court’s involvement, both in terms of the procedures and timing of the seizure, as well as the conditions and criteria the court uses in its decisions on warrants authorizing the surveillance of non-US persons under the above legislation USA. 29WP wishes to be able to assess the extent to which these tasks are sufficiently narrowly focused and sufficiently justified to allow the restriction of the fundamental rights of individuals on grounds of national security. In addition, it is necessary to determine whether this processing of personal data complies with the principle of data protection in light of the purpose of the restriction and whether the purposes for the processing in the United States are indeed consistent with the concept of national security as defined in the EU acquis. This can only be done precisely when the facts about the various intelligence programs are known. US authorities should encourage the disclosure of any NSA requests and FISA court warrants in support of this assessment.
