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re: #264 Charles Johnson
Some interesting perspective on the new Guardian webcam chat story, from Pando of all places: GCHQ Reportedly Monitored Yahoo Cam Chats. Company Confirms Cam Traffic Not Secure Pre-2012 | PandoDaily.
After Greenwald-land reported GCHQ was exploiting their undersea/cross-boarder cables for intelligence purposes it was pretty clear they were going to get endless mileage out of individual stories on various protocols and formats the Brits coded filters for to actually extract useful data from the raw traffic. If the earlier reporting is accurate it sounds like they constantly buffer a few days of traffic, filter out & archive data from that buffer, and generate/archive metadata, for future use in locating and monitoring their surveillance targets.
I do wonder if any of the other countries that are also tapping their undersea/cross-boarder cables for intelligence purposes have come up with a less intrusive method for extracting targeted intelligence. I’m not sure what would actually be technologically feasible, besides just unilaterally disarming and abstaining from exploiting what must be the greatest source of intelligence in history.
The German, French, Spanish and Swedish intelligence services have all developed methods of mass surveillance of internet and phone traffic over the past five years in close partnership with Britain’s GCHQ eavesdropping agency.
The bulk monitoring is carried out through direct taps into fibre optic cables and the development of covert relationships with telecommunications companies.
Le Monde newspaper meanwhile reported that the French external intelligence agency DGSE and the US had an agreement since 2011 to exchange data.
It said the DGSE had access to digital traffic from Africa and Afghanistan that landed in France via undersea cables. Quoting an unidentified senior French intelligence official, it said the DGSE forwarded some of this information unedited to the NSA, including data involving both French citizens and foreigners. It said Sweden, Israel and Italy, which also had undersea cable terminals, did likewise.
