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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."
Does anyone else find it hilarious that the top of the line super advanced submarine is named for Jimmy Carter?
Despite the prevalent opinion on Slashdot (and my own) the government does need the ability to monitor telecommunications. Given proper authority by warrants and what-not, the government should be given every possible tool and ability to protect the nation, within sensible limits, always.
--Kevin
Anyone afraid of major backbone outages when some big honking spy sub hovers a little too close to the cable?
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.
Every time the trans-Atlantic connections are down they give us this same line about the "sharks who like to chew on cables", and all the while it has been a bunch of Navy SEALs trying to patch an optical wiretap, equipped with a combat knife and a legth of wire?
"I have opinions of my own, strong opinions, but I don't always agree with them." -- George H. W. Bush
Life imitating fiction, particularly that particular piece of fiction, is becoming passe.
Hexayurt - open source refugee shelter,
Oh jeez, I had to read the article to make sure this wasn't some sort of Simpsons joke. I know, I know, Jimmy was a Nuke Engineer on a Sub before he drove the country into double digit inflation and created the misery index while wearing a sweater. But I was shocked that he already had a military ship named after him. Anyone know what the rules are for that? Is it a military thing or a Congressional?
I thought this was interesting:
They also assert that the U.S. government is bailing out Global Crossing to prevent its undersea routes falling into foreign hands.
The Global Crossing bankruptcy is as large as Enron but the Press hasn't hyped it as much. There have been many conspiracy theories as to why. This might be the real reason and not because the DNC Nation Chairman turned $100,000 into $18 million. The press might be protecting National Security because the Government has told them to shut up over the bankruptcy. Rumor was that the communist Chinese were itching to get their hands on it just like the Panama Canal. Anyone remember how communist Chinese got that? (Well at least both entry points).
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
"The NSA is spying, and trying to get better at it."
Well, duh. That's what the NSA does. Good article on a GREAT book about the NSA. Heard the author speaking on NPR a while ago, which drove me to pick up the book. Excellent, excellent book.
FreeBSD for the impatient.
But I don't think it's new news. Those agencies have been actively (and presumably successfully) tapping fiber optic cables since the late eighties or so. Blind Man's Bluff details the difficulties in running the taps and the techniques used to overcome them. Interesting read, whether you're for or against.
No relation to Happy Monkey
It's ironic that the article talks about terrorists using these things, so they need to tap fiber. Hasn't it become clear from the news of the last week or so that the FBI, CIA, etc. have plenty of information, they just don't know how to use it?
I saw at a local junk shop around 10 years ago a fiber tap. It is a clamp the holds the fiber and bends the fiber at the same time with a pickup. The pickup just looks at the leaked light at the bend.
Tapping fiber is easy, if you can get to it.
--Blair
Interesting that it's now being reported as something that's going to happen in the future. A little revisionist history may be at work, or maybe a reporter who hasn't really done his homework.
"I don't know that atheists should be considered citizens, nor should they be considered patriots." - George Bush
This man's life is dedicated to peace, so they name a war machine after him. I know he was a nuke engineer and that is the reason for the dubbing.
Now that we are in a constant state of war, the USS Jimmy Carter will allow all messages of the enemy du jour to be intercepted [and modified] by the military industrial complex. Great
"What is the sound of one belly slapping?"
It's a real drag that the US Government needs to monitor global telecommunications, but there are good reasons behind it. At least what many citizens of the US and myself consider good reasons...
Sure, keeping terrorism, global crime, and child porn under control are part of it, but where does the line get drawn? If the US can tap these lines, what's to say that other countries aren't entitled to do the same? What's to say they aren't already?
I can understand the need for cyberintelligence and early warning, but I feel the need to bring up the issue of privacy in general. There's so little privacy on the 'net already, do we really need big brother watching what we do in even more depth?
Uncle Sam doesn't have the right to read my mail, but if the government is tapped into the global trunk, sniffing every packet, what's to say they won't read my e-mail, catalouge my credit cards, and track my information habits?
There is a line that must be drawn, and it should be drawn before it's too late.
Linux is dead.
LU
I believe I have seen the light.
In a business climate such as this, where the US will bail out Global Crossing just to ensure that the business won't "fall into foreign hands", I think we, the slashdotters who are out to make a buck or two, should sit up and take attention !
1. Go set up your own underwater fibre cable laying / operating company.
2. Go to the banks and take BILLIONS and BILLIONS of loans.
3. Either by some existing money loosing underwater fiber cable operation, or lay some more cable on the already saturated routes.
4. If your business loose one USD on the operation, cook the book so that it looks like it's making one USD, and so on.
5. In the meantime, make yourself rich by pocketing a portion of the "difference", between the actual accounting, and the one the "cooked book" is showing. The rest of the difference, you can always invite Dick Cheney or whoever is from the Bush adminstration, to join your "Board of Directors", and let them pocket the rest of the loot.
6. Sooner or later, the "cookery" will be exposed. By that time, you would have BILLIONS in reserve, and you will have Dick Cheney and/or others from the Bush adminstration working FOR you, and covering up all your criminal act.
7. Under the guise of "national security", with the reason that your company is "too important to fall into foreign hands", the Bush adminstration will BUY UP YOUR CRUMBLED COMPANY, and they will PAY YOU A HANDSOME PROFIT too !
8. When you done all that, please don't forget www.slashdot.org. Donate some of your loot here, so all of us can continue to enjoy
Thank you very much for your attention.
PS: The above is for educational purpose only. Neither Slashdot nor I will assume any liability on anything, if you are stupid enough to do what I've just written above.
PPS: But of course, if you become richer than God, then, please, share your loot with all of us, thank you!
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
A while back the Wall Street Journal had an article that supposedly in the mid 1990's the NSA figured out how to tap undersea fiber cables without tipping off the engineers monitoring them. Supposedly they had a submarine that could pluck the cable from the ocean floor. Then somehow they cut it with special mirrors that would retransmit the signal and not alert the engineers that the cable had been cut.
The article was in the paper around a year ago and if you want to look it up you have to shell out $$$ for the online WSJ subscription that may have it archived.
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.
This actually isn't true..
From :
"Richard Weingroff, information liaison specialist for the Federal Highway Administration's Office of Infrastructure and the FHA's unofficial historian, says the closest any of this came to touching base with reality was in 1944, when Congress briefly considered the possibility of including funding for emergency landing strips in the Federal Highway-Aid Act (the law that authorized designation of a "National System of Interstate Highways"). At no point was the idea kited of using highways or other roads to land planes on; the proposed landing strips would have been built alongside major highways, with the highways serving to handle ground transportation access to and from these strips. The proposal was quickly dropped, and no more was ever heard of it.
Some references to the one-mile-in-five assertion claim it's part of the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956. This piece of legislation committed the federal government to build what became the 42,800-mile Eisenhower Interstate Highway System, which makes it the logical item to cite concerning regulations about how the interstate highway system was to be laid out. The act did not, however, contain any "one-in-five" requirement, nor did it even suggest the use of stretches of the interstate system as emergency landing strips. The one-out-of-five rule was not part of any later legislation either. "
Free Mac Mini
Despite the prevalent opinion on Slashdot (and my own) the government does need the ability to monitor telecommunications. Given proper authority by warrants and what-not, the government should be given every possible tool and ability to protect the nation, within sensible limits, always.
How about setting those sensible limits at your borders? Respect other country's privacy for once.
Stop being a bunch of international bullies/control freaks. The cold war is over.
This could be the start of a trend in sub naming. If the NSA named their sub the Jimmy Carter because of carter's service on a sub, maybe they could continue this practice of naming ships after presidential habits. Think of the possibilities?
USS Bill Clinton : The boat never seems to work quite the way everyone wants it too, and its outer hull is exceptionally slick. Easy to Catch, but tough to prove it really did something wrong.
USS Willaim Howard Taft : Big, unwieldy, Just kind of sits there and looks odd.
USS George Bush : Another spy ship along the lines of the Bill Clinton. A mistake in the shipyard causes the orders to say one thing and do another. Open switches close valves, and vice versa. Expected service life is only half that of a normal ship. Recently underwent minor modifications and re-entered service under the Name USS George W. Bush
USS Ronald Regan : Essentially useless as a spy ship as it sufffers continual memory errors. Those who served on the Regan however continue to tout the ship as the greatest ship in the inventory, asking monuments to it be built, and crediting the ship with single handedly winning every war since korea. the rest of the navy just rolls their eyes while waiting for it to be mothballed
USS Gerald Ford : Pressed into service after the scrapping of the USS Richard Nixon (removed from service after being too effective), The Ford has suffered from no less than 18 dry dock accidents, mostly relating to the ship rolling off the pillars used to support it.
There are some people that if they don't know, you can't tell 'em.
Jimmy Carter was a wonderful President if your only criterion was to have ethical perfection to balance everyone's disappointment in Richard Nixon.
Unfortunately, despite all of that, his biggest fault was micromanaging. Tales were told of the 16 hour days Jimmy would put in, but spent his time resolving staff disputes by scheduling use of the White House tennis courts himself.
Meanwhile, Ronald Reagan just delegated everything out and worked many less hours and, by those measures was a much more effective manager. [For the record, I didn't think much of Ronald's appointees. And, GHB was right, it was voodoo economics.]
But the quote I remember, that Slashdot should remember, is that:
"Provided by the management for your protection."
Lest we forget that China built a fiber communication network in afghanistan. That, with the latest intelligence debacle, well
IMHO, if tapping any communication medium will assist in the thwarting of terrorist activity, well we need something.
Noone would have considered this applicable 3 years ago.
Usually, with that size of budget, there are definately some dark ops. No wonder we (as in the U.S.) are developing methods to
Xray people as they wander through airports.
Someone to ask about the plans and what the impact will be is Secretary of the Navy Gordon England.
Understandably, I am sure he would not delve into the detailed tie-in and the way the Govt. is using 9/11 to move projects like thas ahead.
Crossing's Creditors' Committee press releases show how critical it was for the Govt to bail them out. With clients like
K.B. toys to sell their pipe to, it is amazing that they are not rolling in cash.
Stratgetically, there is concern because"For a very low price, someone is going to acquire a set of undersea fiber routes that crisscross the Atlantic and Pacific oceans and connect over 20 nations and perhaps resell or lease the network at a handsome profit to another party that could have its very own undersea communications network and training ground. The bankruptcy court had set April 23 as the deadline to receive proposals to take over the now-bankrupt GX.
If we don't fight for ourselves no one will.
Somewhere, deep underneath the surface of the ocean in the Pacific Basin...
*snip*
"Oops"
Hmm...Wonder what THAT fiber splicer would charge per hour?
-R
I fail to realize why a billion dollars has to be spent on tapping underwater cables when you can do it on land node on one end. Money being wasted again...what a shock!
-----
One is born into aristocracy, but mediocrity can only be achieved through hard work.
If it's on fiber, they already have it! Do a little research into Echelon. Just one example, apparently our friend the Brits have detoured almost every piece of fiber over ther through a US NSA facility.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
In Blind Man's Bluff, the book covers tapping a coax cable in the 70s, by placing a device which detects RF below it, without physically modifying the cable at all. This is a lot different that tapping an optical fiber, but still pretty tricky to do.
Here is a link describing wht the Jimmy Carter is getting- basically a bigger SEAL delivery system, probably with the ability to drop a carried bathysphere or other goodies.
The Jimmy Carter is too high value a ship to just keep out on fiber patrol- independent of her spec-ops function she can pretty much conventionally destroy most navies by herself thanks to that 50-weapon loadout, being quieter running at speed then the Los Angeles subs at dock, and that wide-aperture sonar. So making her a $3 billion dollar satellite feed doesn't make sense.
Therefore they must be planning to hook into the fiber-optic network, and spool off their own fiber line to a discrete uplink several hundred miles away. The upgrade must be to allow for all that equipment.
________________________________________ History Must Not Fall Into The Wrong Hands ___________________________________
I worked on a project with a company in California back in the mid-80s that took advantage of an non-intrusive optical coupler that they had patented. The coupler placed a microbend in the fiber and cound extract or insert light from the fiber. In the extract mode, it was almost impossible to measure the attenuation change in the light and detect the coupling. Of course, doing this underwater is a bit tricky.
I had always assumed that the government made covert use of this technology. Who knows?
Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of congress. But then I repeat myself. -- Mark Twain
i copied and pasted from IMDB. they can't be wrong can they? :) Too lazy to fix my sig.
There are some people that if they don't know, you can't tell 'em.
Yes, Reagan does have a carrier named after him. It's a Nimitz class carrier, CVN 76 (USS Ronald Reagan). It is currently still under construction at Newport News shipyard in Virgina. Expected comissioning in 2003, planned arrival in San Diego in 2004, and the first deployment is figured for sometime in 2005.
"...America's great minds of today, teaching America's great minds of tomorrow. Poor bastards." -- A Beautiful Min
Dude, the NSA doesn't need warrants. It does whatever the hell it pleases.
Remember that this country was ruled by J Edgar Hoover for decades, since he as the head of the FBI could crush any US politician, including most Presidents, that didn't comply with his demands.
Cool. I hope they paint on the side of the boat Reagan's famous line, "We are bombing in 10 minutes!" That should get people's attention in port. :)
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
I would have thouht that "USS Richard Nixon" would have been a more sensible name for an espionage boat. Then you could also have the "USS Oliver North" cruising around to act as a decoy.
Xix.
"Everything is adjustable, provided you have the right tools"
Traffic analysis. Knowing who's talking to whom, and when and where, is often more valuable than the contents of the message itself.
-Isaac
I am not a lawyer, and this is not legal advice. For Entertainment Purposes Only.
I worked for two different fiber optics equipment companies (although a large part of the second company had worked for the first previously).
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). So you can't just listen to it the same way as a phone line. What's in the fiber under the ocean is not as standard as what's on a copper line.
Also, how are you supposed to interpret it? Given a single wavelenght ans OC-192 speeds, it's 10Gb/s (bit, not byte). If you multiply by the maximum number of wavelengths that a fiber can carry (~160), you get 1600Gb/s. It begins to be a bit too much for the kind of computer that we can buy, although the NSA can probably afford it. But then, would they put it on a sub? Or relay the raw information to a ground station?
Other problem: sequential packets are not guaranteed to pass by the same fiber, or even the same carrier. There's probably a good chance that they do, but no guarantee ("We intercepted the following message: "The next target is S...". The rest went somewhere else. If you live in a city starting by S, please don't panic."). Unless they want to spy on privately owned fibers, where they're more sure to get all they want in that fiber...
Also, tapping the repeaters is no problem, and in the Echelon discussion, at least one photo of a US submarine designed explicitly for installing taps on submarine cables and repeaters was publicized.
There is no reason to believe that the submarine cables aren't tapped by every major secret service. And even if they weren't, the points where the cables leave the sea and the major routers, POTS switches and exchange points are tapped.
Also, the paragraph about Global Crossing is bogus or even a Red Herring. Nobody in their right mind would rely on a line not being tapped, especially an international line. Their lines leave the sea to enter Europe or whatever country somewhere, and you can be sure that they are tapped there by the respective country and their allies.
Such as the fact that this project has been underway for over a year (the article is dated last year, and states
and the bit that I was looking for
I can't imagine that number has changed too much in the past year.
If you take bare fibre, in the dark, it glows! Now I don't know too much about the field, but it would seem that the glow is the data. If they can pick data off of blinkenlights, surely the glow can be reconstructed?
Or do I just have really, really, bad fibre?
-twb
Ask yourself which was more useful to the Navy: Someone who served honourably once and is retired (thus a ship could be named after him) or someone who fostered whopping huge arms procurement appropriations? One is useful to a Navy (good sailors are worth having), the other is imperative (a whopping whack of good tech is vital). So don't think that naming things "Ronald Reagan" or after any other military-spending president is a bad choice for the service. They know who got them the goodies.
-- Mal: "Well they tell you: never hit a man with a closed fist. But it is, on occasion, hilarious."
This is kind of a dumb debate. Mainly because people already have entrenched views and it boils down to "duz too!" and "duz not!".
For the record: Most countries spy. However, if a people sanction spying by their country on others and accept that their government has a right to do so (ie they as the people should not be stopping their government from doing it), they can scarcely take the moral high ground when it is done in return to them or when their allies (not enemies I say!) discover they are being spied on and become rather upset.
It's one thing to spy quietly and mostly innocuously and try very hard not to let anyone in your country or anywhere else know you are doing it. It is another thing to publicly make available the fact you are setting out to violate other countries' private communications. Especially when some of those countries are: military allies, political allies, and long standing trade partners.
I think the simple rule here is: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. And if you happen to think the fact that America owns an extremely temporary (from a historical perspective) hegemony in technology and military force over most of the world and that somehow confers a right to use such power as a club to forward its own agenda and that this is morally correct behaviour, then you should be equally happy when someone one day returns the favour.
I don't really care what side of this fence anyone is on, but it does piss me off when they try to occupy both sides (spying while decrying same, invading and bombing other sovereign nations and supporting death squads and covert ops in other nations while decrying same).
Another phrase comes to mind: Sew the wind, reap the whirlwind.
-- Mal: "Well they tell you: never hit a man with a closed fist. But it is, on occasion, hilarious."
I forget which talk I was at (and of course by whom), but the speaker was formerly involved in the operations of the fiber landing at Sea Girt, NJ (lots of it lands there, apparently). The lines would go down for a few seconds every once in a while, then come back up. They knew a tap was being installed. There was supposedly a ship that would lift the fiber to sea level to do the work, then lower it back down. A buoy was placed to amplify the signal.
This is pretty old news. A submarine seems overly complicated. I suspect the story is FUD.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Its also not feasible... it would have been possible back in the prop plane age... but the force of a jet landing would destroy most pavement. (Airport runways are made of a special higher strength concrete)