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NSA/U.S. Navy Working to Intercept Fiber Optic Cables
Jeff Robertson writes: "Fiber optic cables have advantage of being difficult to wiretap. As optical amplifiers replace electro-optical regenerators in undersea routes, it gets even harder. Lightwave Magazine has an article
quoting the Washington Post as claiming the
National Security Agency 'is known to be hard at work trying to gain access to fiber optic cables' and the U.S. Navy will spend '$1 billion to retrofit its premier spy submarine, the USS Jimmy Carter' to get access to deep-sea fiber routes.
They also assert that the U.S. government is bailing out Global Crossing to prevent its undersea routes falling into foreign hands."
Well, kind of, unless you happen to know that he was a nuclear submarine officer before he was president. If you know that, then it makes a lot more sense than some naming decisions (USS Ronald Reagan? I guess he probably played a sailor in a movie at some point... oh, and there are all those appropriations bills he signed, yeah).
No relation to Happy Monkey
in between the cable splice they attach a signal amplifier and a long wave antenna. the long wave antenna broadcasts on a certain long wave frequency so it can be monitored.
Just in time, quantum cryptography for the masses.
A swiss company has recently announced a commercial product allowing a fiber optic channel to be secured with quantum cryptography; this would make tapping (without detection) impossible.
Of course, they could get meaner and ban anyone's right to secure outgoing fiber, which I suppose they would.
Jimmy Carter is one of the reasons our nuclear subs are such powerful foes. He made the main contribution to the nautilus class engine, the gimbled reactor. Which allows the sub's nuclear pile to maintain control even when inverted.
Previously, the ships had to keep within a tight tilt angle (20 degrees or so) or else the cooling water drained from the pile and the reactor could overheat.
That's one of the theory's surrounding the russian Kursk fiasco. The ship tilted outside the specified angles after impact, forcing them to shut down the reactor. Once the reactor was shut down, the ship did not have the reserve capacity to surface, operate bilge or life support.
Bummer.
BTW: Carter was on the fast track in the Navy, he had to leave the forces when his father died to go back to Georgia and run the family business (peanut farming). While I think he was an awful president, he is a very smart man who contributed much to the county and the world. Even though his military policies, in a word, sucked.
Third Reich: "For freedom for Europe"
USSR: "For freedom of the workers"
USA: "For freedom"
UK: "For freedom"
Unfortunately, that would never work. Many countries have tried to abandon foreign intelligence operations through the years; only to learn that they can not live in isolation and that foreign intelligence is critical to national security and to economic development. While it is a sad statement for most of those who believe in a utopian civilization it is a cold reality for those who live in a Darwinian world.
Yes,..two buidlings down is the easy answer
for everything from wiretapping to the drug war.
There is no 'war' on terrorism...only on certain terrorists. The US still fully supports any terrorist or criminal group that suits their goal,
sorta like your old buddy Bin Laden did before he got a little uppity.
I presume that the Saudis who are involved up to their eyeballs in 9-11 must still be useful to the US oil interests or else there would have been a big oil slick where that country once stood.
This topic does brings back the same question that terrorism always does?
If the US is allowed to do something, why shouldnt another country be allowed to do the same?
Former President Carter visited several submarines, including SSN 688, the Los Angeles . He was a nuclear power qualified submarine officer during his service in the Navy.
Given that history, I hardly think he was insulted when the boat was named after him.
Call (206) 338-5780 COLLECT for information about a genuine BA, BS, MA, MS, MBA, or Ph.D.
And if they could relay it to the ground from a sub, without running a new fibre, we would be sending transoceanic signals wirelessly, now, wouldn't we? :) It seems to me they'll have to do it close to the shore in order to run a fibre to somewhere where the heavy computing power can be set up.
-Cruz
Karma: pi (Mostly due to circular reasoning in posts).
"One of the problems I see is that once the optical signal is inside the network, it's encoded in a special manner, diffferent for each equipment (to improve performance, add more error checking, force the carrier to continue to buy from the same vendor)."
Your assuming that those spying won't know the manner in which the signal is encrypted - but when Lucent, Nortel, Alcatel or good forbid Corvis will gladly sell you the box, this problem is much less severe. Buy the box, and reengineer it - or hell, just use it to do your deciphering! As for transmitting the data back to be decrypted - they'd probably just run a cable back to shore. Not that hard - but a little time consuming. But not what they are likely to do.
What they are much more likely to do than any harebrained fiber cabletaping scheme (at least for commercial cable - governmental would be different) is to tap the cable when it comes to ground - at the comshack with the amplifiers, etc. This is orders of magnitude less difficult, and much less likely to be damaged. More than likely the NSA already has for all of the cables leaving the US.
The fish.