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The Hardware Behind Echelon Revealed
Whispering Bob writes "Techworld has got an interesting article on the technology behind the Echelon spying networks run by the US, UK, Cananda and Australia. Apparently the super storage and analysing technology used in the US is sold by privately owned Texas Memory Systems. It can deal with one trillion floating point operations per second. Now that's some technology."
You bastards. You've slashdotted echelon.
Echelon
When anger rises, think of the consequences.
Confucius (551 BC - 479 BC)
Posting as annoyomous coward due to evil echelon listening post in the hills behind me. Will get my revenge.
http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cache:4mzhQXtHaVoJ: www.techworld.com/storage/news/index.cfm%3FNewsID% 3D2430+&hl=en
Brought to you by Google. Google: For when the NSA supercomputer network just isn't enough.
Free of Flash! Free of Flash!
of cananda. :)
That damn intelligence war must be really working.
Timang tinggi tinggi
parang sudah asah
alang alang mandi
biar sampai basah
By Chris Mellor, Techworld
You've probably heard about Echelon, the vast listening system run by the US, UK, Canada and Australia that scans the world's voice traffic looking for key words and phrases.
Aside from using the system for industrial espionage and bypassing international and national laws to listen in on people, it is also used to listen out for people like Osama bin Laden and assorted terrorists in the hope of preventing attacks.
All this is out in the relative open thanks to investigative journalists and a European Commission report into the system, concerned and annoyed that the Brits and Yanks has got there first.
It works like this: The calls are recorded by geo-stationary spy satellites and listening stations, such as the UK's Menworth Hill, which combine satellite-intercepted calls and trunk landline intercepts and forward them on to centres, such as the US' Fort Meade, where supercomputers work on the recordings in real time.
But what, you ask, can deal with that overwhelming mass of data that helps our government spy on the world? And how does it work?
Well, a Texas Memory Systems SAM product - a combined solid-state disk (SSD) and DSP (digital signal processor). Woody Hutsell, an executive VP at TMS, said: "Fifty percent of our revenue this year will come from DSP systems, more than last year. The systems are a combination of SSD with DSP ASICs." ASICs are application-specific integrated circuits - chips dedicated to a specific purpose.
TMS has a TM-44 DSP chip which has 8 GFLOPS of processing power - that's eight billion floating point operations per second. The processing uses floating point arithmatic operations to supply the accuracy needed for the analysis. A DSP chip turns analogue signals from a sensor or recorder into digital information usable by a computer. Digital cameras will use a DSP to turn the light signals coming through the lens into digital picture element, or pixel, information.
A SAM-650 product is called a 192 GFLOPS DSP supercomputer by TMS. It is just 3U high and has 24 DSP chips and is positioned as a back-end number cruncher controlled by any standard server - a similar architecture to that used by Cray supercomputers. There are vast streams of information coming from recorded telephone conversations. The ability to have the DSPs work in parallel speeds up analysis enormously. Spinning hard drives can't feed the DSPs fast enough, nor are they quick enough for subsequent software analysis of the data. Consequently TMS uses its solid state technology to provide a buffer up to 32GB that keeps the DSPs operating at full speed.
A cluster of five SAM-650's provides a terra flop of processing power; one trillion floating point operations per second.
Echelon is a global surveillance network set up in Cold War days to provide the US goverment with intelligence data about Russia. One of the main contractors is Raytheon. Lockheed Martin has been involved in writing software for it. Since then it has expanded into a general listening facility, an electronic vacuum cleaner, sucking up the world's telephone conversations. Information about it's existence has been reluctantly revealed, prompted by scandals such as the recordings of Princess Diana's telephone calls by the NSA.
Recorded signals are fed into the TMS SAM systems where the DSPs filter out the noise to produce much clearer signals that software can work on to detect individual voices, perform voice recognition, and listen out for keywords, such as, for example, "Semtex". Decryption of encrypted calls is also a likely activity.
Hutsell says the SAM systems, "are supplied to intelligence agencies and the military though system integrators like Raytheon, Lockheed Martin and Zeta. It's an intelligence community application involving data from various sources. This is loaded into RAM and then real-time analysis is carried out on
Hm.
9 9940.nsa_2_.xml.pdf
1 Tflops would place it anywhere between place 240 (if it were sustained) or 500+ (if it were peak) on the current top500.
Not THAT amazing.
Also, i dont quite realize how important floating point ops are in a data-warehousing application. They just pile up tons of (faxes/emails/phone recording).
Btw: Remember the story about the 5MW wind-generator a few weeks ago?
The company cant sell in the us because echelon was used to sniff fax messages that were later given to a us company (kenetech windpower) which made a patent. Complete with the original tying errors. (who was it again who said "whats good for boeing is good for america"?)
(story from ZEIT, titles "treason between friends", here http://hermes.zeit.de/pdf/archiv/archiv/1999/40/1
HI O WISE PRINCE. WHT TOOK U SO DAM LONG?
O Cananda!
Our home and native land1
True oatriot love in all thy sons commadn.
WIth glowing hearts we see thee rise.
The true north strong ansd free!
from far and wide,
O Cananda, we stand on gaurd for thee.
God keep our land glorious and free!
O Cananda, we stand on gaurd for thee.
O Cananda, we stand on gaurd for thee.
Just use some Vi@gra and Septic T@nks in your email!
What ? The US spy department still relies on ASICs ?
Don't they heard of FPGAs ?!
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
Spy in the sky satellites listen in to what we say and look at what we do. Then solid state disk keeps the real time analysis of these calls and images operating at full speed. The world's fastest storage system is used in the world's most sophisticated spying operation.
Here's to hoping it never becomes sentient.
If enough people made phonecalls that were dilliberately saturated with keywords (say a few million at once)
Would it be possible to effectively slashdot their supercomputer? >:P
Now that we know how it works, lets all , I mean all call some one on our cell phone and say:
"John has a long moustache"
lol
* Carthago Delenda Est *
What do china, north/south korea and other protective countries do about this?
And does this listen on to the internet communications (modem beep beep blonk sounds) also?
And finaly, what do they use this information for? Would the use it against a politician if it posed a threat for them (aka blackmailing them) or someone else?
The world is more and more terrifying every day.
Wondering just what Echelon is looking for?
The word lists used by Echelon are highly classified (which of course makes sense if the goal is to keep people such as terrorists from knowing what words to avoid using). However, this also means that public oversight is impossible. Some information does get leaked to us outsiders from time to time, but always as unconfirmable rumors.
Here's a few of those that seem likelyest to have at least a grain of truth.
1. Echelon lists include lots of specific words that are used by people with training, and few general words widely used by the public. Words such as "Explosive" or phrases such as "Blow Up" won't get a hit, but more specific terms, i.e. "PETN", or "Semtex", may be on the list.
2. The list is updated, both by a general review board every few months, and immediately if a particular concern warrents it. (This rummor is apperently the only thing about the system that has been officially confirmed by testimony before congress in an open session).
3. The list is largely focused on detecting Nuclear weapons tech. It looks for correct technical names of bomb components, among other things. Lately, this has been expanded to focus more on bio-weapons.
4. The list includes names of some public officials. Rumor has it that Attourny Generals and FBI and CIA directors have had their names placed on the list to help protect them. Janet Reno was supposedly kept on the list for a year after she left office because of concerns right-wing U.S. domestic terrorists were especially likely to target her. People running the system are reluctant to put public figures on the list, because they get too many false positives to wade through.
5. The system looks for multiple hits and grades them algorythmicly. Several entries in the same phone call, particularly entries that are logically related, will add up to a conversation that crosses a critical threshold and is brought to the attention of a human supervisor.
It's easy to see some ways this could be abused. For example, it could be used to help protect all the presidential candidates in an election year, but just looking for the candidate's last names would generate billions of fales positives. So, in order to 'protect' all the candidates, it would be necessary to monitor for less well known information, like the names of various campaign advisors, private addresses, or other such info, which would give the people running the system a lot of leeway in listening to calls made by the opposition during their run for the office.
Who is John Cabal?
I know that this has been talked about before on Slashdot but I think the most disturbing thing about Echelon isn't the hardware (although I'd bet there is a great deal more to it than the current article talks about) but the fact that it is used to spy on whoever it happens to pickup. A certain keyword in a communication is all that it takes to get Echelon's attention and then you are in it's grasp.
If you happen to be a U.S. citizen or resident, it is unlawful for the U.S. government to monitor your communications without a warrant. This is no problem for Echelon, the Canadians or the Brits will do it for the U.S. It is one giant loophole for the governments involved to spy on their own people as well as anyone else.
I don't really have that much to hide but I do value my rights and my privacy so that bothers me. I know that the powers-that-be justify this as being part of the defense of the free world, that this is a necessary component on the war on terrorisiom and that such draconian measures are justified to keep us safe. But, if I have to give up my rights, my privlidges as a resident of a free country, I can't accept that explaination. Simply because the tool has become a tool of a different kind of terror. It is a took used by a represive government, used against it's own people.
I fear a repressive regime in my own country far more than I fear Osama Bin Laden and his henchmen.
So many of the changes made since 9/11 have played into the hands of terrorists. The changes have made the way we live, the way we travel, and the way we do business much more restrictive and expensive. Airport security is probably the most glaring example of this. We aren't anonymous travelers just getting from place to place anymore. We are electronically monitored, our travels documented. Those TSA agents and airport police aren't free - every traveler and every citizen pays for them.
Echelon is worse than that in some ways. We don't know if or when our conversations and other communications are monitored. It is hidden from our view, shielded behind a digital curtain of secrecy. If it is used against us, we will probably never know.
Some people probably say: "What's the big deal if it is also used to catch drug dealers anyway? They are just criminals." I can understand that position but have to say that it is a pretty narrow view. The truth is that you can't make two wrongs make a right. A regime that turns it's military against it's own people isn't very far from being the enemy. This is the kind of thing that the Gestapo did in Germany. It is just wrong.
I'm glad to think that I live in a free country. I'm just not sure that we are as free as we think we are. I'm afraid that we already have our own version of "secret police."
The ACLU has a fairly comprehensive, albeit slightly out of date, site dedicated to ECHELON.
Others are here, here, here and here . The journalistic quality varies. You might have to search for "Kenetech".
As a state gets corrupt, its laws multiply; the most corrupt states have the most numerous laws. (Tacitus, Annales 3:27)
Since it's slashdotted, I have a question: could someone please tell me what is that "echelon" thing we are talking about? It seems interesting with those trillion floating point operations and all that but I don't have much time to search for more info right now because I am very busy building a nuclear bomb for Robert Malda, pseudonym CmdrTaco, Commander in Chief of the Slashdot terrorist organisation, and if I don't give it to him before the narcotic transport arrives and he won't be able to assassinate the president on time, then my arse is going to expericence some serious jihad with his weapons of mass destruction, because how else will he be able to overthrow the federal government and start the violent uprising to destroy democracy and bring Islamic fundamentalism to the US? So, could anyone tell me what's that? Thanks.
Sincerely,
Pan Tarhei Hosé, PhD.
"Homo sum et cogito ergo odi profanum vulgus et libido."
OK, we all agree a common time, dial a friend and utter the phrase:
"George Bush, the President of the United States, would never assasinate an infidel World Leader with Semtex or a radioactive nuclear dirty bomb"
and see what happens!
Chew on that Echey baby!
AT&ROFLMAO
According to Wikipædia: "ECHELON is the largest electronic spy network in history, run by the United States, the UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, capturing telephone calls, faxes and e-mails around the world. ECHELON is estimated to intercept up to 3 billion communications every day." It raises a very serious question: How on Earth do they manage to get 3 billion warrants every day?!
Sincerely,
Pan Tarhei Hosé, PhD.
"Homo sum et cogito ergo odi profanum vulgus et libido."
What I'd like to see is the list of numbers blocked from processing. White House? Kremlin? Saudi royal family? Raytheon executives and mistresses? Don't tell me everyone's equal under this scheme.
I'm curious about why they mention floating point performance at all since it would seem that integer performance would be far more useful for just about anything Echelon needs to do.
Anyone know if there is a reason for the floating point reference other than just as a 'gee whiz' number?
I'm curious, what Echelon can do with Freenet? Or SSH traffic? Or IPSex? Or SSL? Or GPG email? Does it work only on clear-text communication? I suppose not because that would be utterly foolish. With VoIP it's now trivial to have encrypted voice communication all over the world. What can Echelon do about such traffic?
Sincerely,
Pan Tarhei Hosé, PhD.
"Homo sum et cogito ergo odi profanum vulgus et libido."
If it ever does become sentient, it'll probably classify it's own creators as a terrorist organization and end up working with the good guys.
How is it we can get exact specs for Echelon, but not for Google?
You left out one major item. Economic espionage, which is why the EU investigated the program in the first place.
A lot of european contractors kept finding themselves underbid or business stolen from them- when everything was secret and there was no explanation except eavesdropping. Further, it was only US businesses that seemed to benefit from this mysterious information-providing god.
Please help metamoderate.
... right after 9/11:
"The terrorists win only if they change us, only if they make us change who we are and how we live."
By that standard, I'd say "Game Over".
Echelon, among other stuff, is supposed to snoop on telecommunication networks.
For example, matching voice patterns, it will alert the CIA every time someone utters 'Ana raicha al quaeda' in arabic.
This has been known to cause too many alerts at a time when an earthquake caused a colera epidemic, which caused many arabs to go to the 'sit' (quaeda) frequently.
Echelon has been critizised in the far dull past to lack overlook and control of who enters keywords, so the public wouldn't know whether it has been used to do some really cool insider trading on the stock markets.
Usually, however, the keyword 'echelon' just evokes paranoia on the minds of european business top executives and serves to cover up human intelligence gathered or made up by the president himself at the dinner table. Or so I heard.
I'm still trying to figure out what people mean by 'social skills' here.
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
Violating my fourth amendment rights and eroding my civil liberties is a much greater threat to my national security than any WMD is.
I read something everyday that makes me want to quit being an American.
I'm going to sell you this elephant charm. It will protect you from wild elephants, and you can be sure it works! Do you see any elephants around here?
actually, you've pretty much hit the nail right on the head.
There's one program out there that turns a normal message into a spam message based on the textual content, and can be decoded by running it through the same program. However, this doesn't go far enough to a degree -- if you create such a message, there's only one way to distribute it effectively and subversively, as to not be detected and your agent compromised:
spam.
Simple steps:
From this, the message is completely lost in noise, and is theoretically disregarded...with all the spammers out there, the noise volume is enormous.
The only problem with this scenario is that your recipients have no measures to contact you again, but you can set up a web log or forum where you talk about kittens or someshit and they'll be able to place padded messages back, or whatever you want to do.
Now -- hopefully, if the national governments hadn't thought about this before, we'll see a "war on spam" where they'll drop a few bunker busters on a few spammers out there :D
In the late 1970's I worked for a defense contractor that built specialized signal processing computers. The NSA was a major customer. We tried to find other applications, like oil and gas exploration, but nobody else was buying.
My job was to write microcode assemblers and then write the microcode that handled I/O. My description of the hardware is here.
Up to 24 voice grade channels (8K samples per second each) arrived time and/or frequency multiplexed onto a single data channel. The system detected the presence of the subchannels, determined the type of modulation being used, and ran them through the appropriate demodulator algorithm. I don't know what happened to the data after that.
We didn't use custom chips. A cabinet full of Schottky MSI chips was enough for a three processor system. The system's speed was due to parallelism, not high clock rate.
By the way, one of our computer rooms was built inside a big metal box that was suspended from the roof on cables. When it mattered, all external connections except for power were unplugged. We were too cheap to pay for a shielded air-conditioning system, so tests lasted a maximum of 20 minutes.
Don't mess with The Phone Company. Piss them off and you'll be using two tin cans and a piece of string.
Eye halve a spelling chequer. It came with my pea sea.
It plainly marques four my revue miss steaks eye kin knot sea.
Eye strike a key and type a word and weight four it two say
Weather eye am wrong oar write. It shows me strait a weigh.
As soon as a mist ache is maid. It nose bee fore two long
And eye can put the error rite. Its rarely ever wrong.
Eye have run this poem threw it. I am shore your pleased two no.
Its letter perfect in it's weight. My chequer tolled me sew.
Sauce Unknown
(Reader's Digest)