The "little elves" problem (was RE: A busted flush)

[Quentin Campbell]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Brian Beesley [mailto:BJ.Beesley@ulster.ac.uk]=20
> Sent: 15 May 2003 11:09
> To: ukcrypto@chiark.greenend.org.uk
> Subject: Re: A busted flush (was RE: Why can I=20
> neverthinkofconcise,relevan t subject lines?)
>=20
>=20
> On Tuesday 13 May 2003 18:29, Philip Perry wrote:
> > A constant theme here seems to be that things are now worse=20
> > than they used to be, that we used to live, not so long ago, in a=20
> > halcyon land of interception free telephone calls, mail, and had a=20
> > friendly local bobby who never enquired into your personal business,
> > but always caught the wrong 'uns.  Oh, and the wrong 'uns always
went
> > quietly saying "it's a fair cop guv".
>=20
> So far as loss of privacy due to surveillance is concerned,=20
> things most definitely _are_ a great deal worse than they used to be.
The=20
> point is that the cost of surveillance devices has fallen from the
point=20
> where they were neccessarily very rare to the point where they are=20
> ubiquitious. Coupled with that, the capability of computer technology
to extract &=20
> collate information from surveillance devices doubles every 18 months
or so, in=20
> line with Moore's Law, whilst the amount of activity undertaken by
individual=20
> surveillees remains about constant and the population of potential=20
> surveillees grows at a comparitively very slow rate.
>=20
[snip]

Surely the limiting factor in any attempt by government to extend
surveillance of communications is the ability of an organisation to
transcribe, translate and assimilate the product of the surveiilance?

John Grisham in his novel "The Brethren" [1] describes it as the "little
elves" problem: "There were two types of phones at Trumble [a fictional
federal prison]; secured and unsecured. In theory, all calls made on
unsecured lines were taped and subject to review by little elves in a
booth somewhere who did nothing but listen to a million hours of useless
chatter. In reality, about half the calls were actually taped, at
random, and only about 5 percent were ever heard by anybody working for
the prison. Not even the federal government could hire enough elves to
handle all the listening".=20

[No doubt American lawyers on this list will point out whether Grisham
has used dramatic licence in his description of phone access by inmates
in US federal prisons but that does not detract from the reality of the
"little elves" problem he highlights in his last sentence.]

Peter Wright in "Spycatcher" [2] describes one of the problems arising
out of the Berlin Tunnel Operation thus: "So much raw intelligence was
flowing out from the East that it was literally swamping the resources
available to transcribe [and translate]  and analyse it. MI6 had a
special transcription center set up in Earl's Court, but they were still
transcribing material seven years later when they discovered that George
Blake had betrayed the Tunnel to the Russians from the outset".

Grisham's reference to "a million hours of useless chatter" is an echo
of a wry (and perhaps perceptive) comment Wright made more than 30 years
earlier when he said "spending a lifetime looking for fragments of
intelligence among the thousands of hours of worthless conversation
(known in the trade as 'cabbages and kings') would be enough to turn any
mind" [3].  =20

The "little elves" problem also arises in the much more mundane realm of
our criminal justice system where it is apparently the case [Bohm
passim] that audio recordings of court proceedings are only ever
transcribed if there is a subsequent appeal or similar proceedings.=20

It also seems to be the case that if the defence in a criminal case
wants a transcription of the recording of interviews held in a Police
station then they have to arrange and pay for the transcription
themselves. Some might say that this is the State making life more
difficult for "the criminal" but it is more likely an acknowledment that
even the State has limited resources.  =20

If we suppose for the moment that the State really does wants to carry
out widespread snooping into our private conversations, does it have
enough "little elves" to do so even with modern technology at their
disposal?

Quentin=20
---

[1] "The Brethren", John Grisham, Chapter 26 (Arrow Books 2000,
paperback)
[2] "Spycatcher", Peter Wright, pp 46-47 (Viking Penguin 19187,
hardback)
[3] ibid, pp 48