They don't sniff all the packets to find anything useful. Snowden showed that they intercept certain packets flowing between particular sources and destinations that might contain useful information. In Snowden's leaks, one such application was email inbox backup transfers for big Internet companies that did not (at that time) encrypt their WAN traffic, from which they mined the sender and recipient to build a social graph, a program that the leaks said had already been shut down.
Mining public forums like this one is likely fair game and seems not to be a secret, but it doesn't require anything in Room 641A.
They don't sniff all the packets to find anything useful. Snowden showed that they intercept certain packets flowing between particular sources and destinations that might contain useful information
Their legal argument was that it was actually ok for them to grab and store all packets, and that it wasn't a search until they ran an actual search that matched against that stored traffic.
In Snowden's leaks, one such application was email inbox backup transfers for big Internet companies that did not (at that time) encrypt their WAN traffic, from which they mined the sender and recipient to build a social graph, a program that the leaks said had already been shut down.
That was private fiber they had spliced into, not anything routed across public Internet. That's why the DCs weren't encrypting it to begin with.
Their legal argument was that it was actually ok for them to grab and store all packets, and that it wasn't a search until they ran an actual search that matched against that stored traffic.
No, they never made that argument because they don't grab and store all packets. Instead, they stored the metadata extracted from these packets (the sender and receiver). This program has ended prior to Snowden's leaks according to his documents, but the telephone pen register collection was still ongoing.
That was private fiber they had spliced into,
No, this was public Internet, at places like Room 641A. There was nothing in the leaks suggesting they had spliced private fiber.
No, they never made that argument because they don't grab and store all packets. Instead, they stored the metadata extracted from these packets (the sender and receiver). This program has ended prior to Snowden's leaks according to his documents, but the telephone pen register collection was still ongoing.
The utah data center is their buffer. And they were storing large amounts of traffic because they had their diffie-helman hack.
No, this was public Internet, at places like Room 641A. There was nothing in the leaks suggesting they had spliced private fiber.
I've talked to Google engineers about this. They spliced private fiber. Google was smart enough to encrypt anything routed over public internet, but thought that their private WAN was safe until the disclosures.
The Utah data center hadn't even been constructed at the time of Snowden's leaks, so obviously there was no evidence for that in the leaks.
And they were storing large amounts of traffic because they had their diffie-helman hack.
Again, there was no evidence that they were doing this in the leaks. The leaks said that they did full take data collection only in a specific set of regions like Afghanistan.
I've talked to Google engineers about this. They spliced private fiber.
Those engineers simply misread the leaks. What they did was insert their network analyzers in places like Room 641A, next door to an IX where subsea cables connect to private routers. These cables pass through that room first. No splicing required. If you look at the third slide in the PRISM/US-984XN deck, you can see that this happens only on international infrastructure like these subsea cables, not on purely domestic DC to DC links.
The engineers I've talked to did not misread the leaks and found non public information confirming it. The diffie-hellman stuff has explicit evidence in the leaks. Yes, the Utah data center is newer than the leaks. It was created because total traffic was expanding and they required more storage.
Comments
They don't sniff all the packets to find anything useful. Snowden showed that they intercept certain packets flowing between particular sources and destinations that might contain useful information. In Snowden's leaks, one such application was email inbox backup transfers for big Internet companies that did not (at that time) encrypt their WAN traffic, from which they mined the sender and recipient to build a social graph, a program that the leaks said had already been shut down.
Mining public forums like this one is likely fair game and seems not to be a secret, but it doesn't require anything in Room 641A.
Their legal argument was that it was actually ok for them to grab and store all packets, and that it wasn't a search until they ran an actual search that matched against that stored traffic.
That was private fiber they had spliced into, not anything routed across public Internet. That's why the DCs weren't encrypting it to begin with.
No, they never made that argument because they don't grab and store all packets. Instead, they stored the metadata extracted from these packets (the sender and receiver). This program has ended prior to Snowden's leaks according to his documents, but the telephone pen register collection was still ongoing.
No, this was public Internet, at places like Room 641A. There was nothing in the leaks suggesting they had spliced private fiber.
The utah data center is their buffer. And they were storing large amounts of traffic because they had their diffie-helman hack.
I've talked to Google engineers about this. They spliced private fiber. Google was smart enough to encrypt anything routed over public internet, but thought that their private WAN was safe until the disclosures.
The Utah data center hadn't even been constructed at the time of Snowden's leaks, so obviously there was no evidence for that in the leaks.
Again, there was no evidence that they were doing this in the leaks. The leaks said that they did full take data collection only in a specific set of regions like Afghanistan.
Those engineers simply misread the leaks. What they did was insert their network analyzers in places like Room 641A, next door to an IX where subsea cables connect to private routers. These cables pass through that room first. No splicing required. If you look at the third slide in the PRISM/US-984XN deck, you can see that this happens only on international infrastructure like these subsea cables, not on purely domestic DC to DC links.
Please, just stop.
The engineers I've talked to did not misread the leaks and found non public information confirming it. The diffie-hellman stuff has explicit evidence in the leaks. Yes, the Utah data center is newer than the leaks. It was created because total traffic was expanding and they required more storage.