Latest version presented at Share conference, Belgrade, 26 April 2012

1. Internet surveillance:
past, present and future
Ian Brown

2. UKUSA alliance
• Based on US-UK cooperation during Second
World War
• Canada, Australia and New Zealand have also
become “second parties”
• UK handles Europe, Africa and European CIS;
US Asian CIS; Australia South Pacific and
South-East Asia
• Cooperates with Germany, Japan, China…

3. • Echelon
• Frenchelon
• Multinationals
“We steal secrets with
espionage, with
communications, with
reconnaissance satellites”
–James Woolsey
Source: Campbell (1999)

4. Menwith Hill
Officially RAF base; is run by NSA
Source: Campbell (1999)

5. Radio interception
Source: Campbell (1999)
High frequency radio interception
antenna (AN/FLR9)

6. Microwave interception
• Microwave links carry signals
between cities, but spill out into
space
• CANYON and CHALET US
satellites collect signals from
Soviet Union, Middle East
Source: Campbell (1999)

7. Submarine interception
• Underwater cable
interception in
Okhotsk Sea (1971)
and Barents Sea
(1979)
• USS Jimmy Carter
specially designed
with “ocean
interface” for
underwater divers Source: US Department of Defense
(2005)

8. Source: TeleGeography

9. Hepting v. AT&T and Jewel v. NSA plaintiffs alleged Narus
DPI equipment (monitors OC-192 link in real-time)
installed in San Francisco, Seattle, San Jose, Los Angeles
and San Diego, and NSA given access to Daytona 300+
terabyte database of comms data

10. Communications exchange
interception 1995
Internet site Location Operator Designation
FIX East College Park, MD US government FIX
FIX West Mountain View US government FIX
MAE East Washington, DC MCI MAN
New York NAP Pennsauken, NJ Sprintlink NAP
SWAB Washington, DC PSInet / Bell SMDS DC Area
Atlantic Bypass
Chicago NAP Chicago Ameritech / NAP
Bellcorp
San Francisco NAP San Francisco Pacific Bell NAP
MAE West San Jose MCI MAN
CIX Santa Clara CIX CIX

11. Comms data requests/m people
Data: European Commission review of Data Retention Directive; IMF World Economic Outlook

12. What the watchers want
• “advance passenger information, airline bookings
and other travel data, passport and biometric data,
immigration, identity and border records, criminal
records, and other governmental and private sector
data, including financial and telephone and other
communication records… and in some cases the
ability to apply data mining and pattern recognition
software to databases, might well be the key to
effective pre-emption in future terrorist cases.”
• “Finding out other people’s secrets is going to involve
breaking everyday moral rules. So public trust in the
essential reasonableness of UK police, security and
intelligence agency activity will continue to be
essential.” –Sir David Omand (2009) p.9

13. Efficacy of data mining
• ~5000 Americans surveilled over 4 years; led to
<10 warrants per year
• “[T]here is not a consensus within the relevant
scientific community nor on the committee
regarding whether any behavioral surveillance
… techniques are ready for use at all in the
counterterrorist context" –US National
Research Council (2008) p.4

14. What the watchers want 2.0
• “social media intelligence … could contribute
decisively to public safety: identifying criminal
activity; giving early warning of disorder and
threats to the public; or building situational
awareness in rapidly changing situations”
• “information can also be identified and extracted
regarding when a group is planning
demonstrations or flashmobs, which could lead
to violence or increasing community tensions”
(Omand, Bartlett and Miller 2012)

15. 1 Visitor control center
2 Administration
3 Data halls: Four 25,000-square-foot server halls
4 Backup generators and fuel tanks
5 Water storage and pumping
Able to pump 1.7 million gallons of liquid per day.
6 Chiller plant: About 60,000 tons of cooling equipment
7 Power substation: estimated 65-megawatt demand
8 Security: Video surveillance, intrusion detection, and other
protection will cost more than $10 million.
Source: Wired, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Conceptual Site plan

16. Source: The Guardian, 16 January 2011

17. Insider threats
Information required Price paid to ‘blagger’ Price charged
Occupant search not known £17.50
Telephone reverse trace £40 £75
Friends and Family £60 – £80 not known
Vehicle check at DVLA £70 £150 – £200
Criminal records check not known £500
Locating a named person not known £60
Ex-directory search £40 £65 – £75
Mobile phone account not known £750
Licence check not known £250
Source: What price privacy? UK Information Commissioner’s Office (2006)

18. Conclusion
• UKUSA allies spend many billions of dollars per
year on COMINT
• Internet and fibre optics initially proved
challenging; now main problem is dealing with
the mountains of data captured inc. “SOCMINT”
• HTTPS may speed transition from COMINT to
access to data at rest
• Intelligence agencies are not the only watchers

19. References
• Duncan Campbell (1999) The state of the art in
communications Intelligence. Working document for
European Parliament DG Research, PE 168. 184 Vol 2/5
• US National Research Council (2008) Protecting Individual
Privacy in the Struggle Against Terrorists: A Framework for
Program Assessment, National Academies Press
• I. Brown & D. Korff (2009) Terrorism and the
Proportionality of Internet Surveillance, European Journal of
Criminology, 6(2) pp.119-134
• D. Omand (2009) The National Security Strategy:
Implications for the UK intelligence community, Institute for
Public Policy Research
• D. Omand, J. Bartlett & C. Miller (2012) #Intelligence, Demos