[Fwd: NSA tapping undersea fibers?]
Ben Meghreblian
benmeg at benmeg.com
Thu, 24 May 2001 18:48:45 +0100
Are these the same cables that diplomatic/intelligence services' traffic is
carried on? If they are not, don't these groups have their own, and are
therefore just as vulnerable to this type of tap?
As the article points out, the shear volume of traffic would be a problem,
but isn't this the same kind of situation as echelon, where filters can, to
some extent, limit the traffic that is analysed?
Cheers,
Ben
At 17:47 24/05/01 +0100, you wrote:
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>From: Steve Bellovin <smb@research.att.com>
>To: cryptography@wasabisystems.com
>Subject: NSA tapping undersea fibers?
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>Date: Wed, 23 May 2001 16:08:34 -0700
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>There's a long, fascinating article in the 23 May Wall Street Journal
>on how NSA is (allegedly) tapping undersea fiber optic cables. It's
>not clear that this is feasible, but the article claims that the
>USS Jimmy Carter, a nuclear-powered sub, is undergoing a $1 billion,
>five-year retrofit to equip it to do the taps. The article points out
>that even if they can tap the cable, there's another problem: making
>sense of that much data.
>
>The article is at http://interactive.wsj.com/articles/SB990563785151302644.htm
>for those who subscribe.
>
>
> --Steve Bellovin, http://www.research.att.com/~smb
>
>
>
>
>
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>From: pgut001@cs.auckland.ac.nz (Peter Gutmann)
>To: cryptography@wasabisystems.com, smb@research.att.com
>Subject: Re: NSA tapping undersea fibers?
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>Steve Bellovin <smb@research.att.com> writes:
>
> >The article is at
> http://interactive.wsj.com/articles/SB990563785151302644.htm
> >for those who subscribe.
>
>.. and at http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,2764372,00.html for
>those who don't :-).
>
>Peter.
>
>
>
>
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