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William Binney: NSA Records and Stores 80% of All US Audio Calls
stephendavion sends a report at The Guardian about remarks from whistleblower William Binney, who left the NSA after its move toward overreaching surveillance following the September 11th attacks. Binney says, "At least 80% of all audio calls, not just metadata, are recorded and stored in the U.S. The NSA lies about what it stores." He added, "The ultimate goal of the NSA is total population control, but I’m a little optimistic with some recent Supreme Court decisions, such as law enforcement mostly now needing a warrant before searching a smartphone." One of Binney's biggest concerns about government-led surveillance is its lack of oversight: "The FISA court has only the government’s point of view. There are no other views for the judges to consider. There have been at least 15-20 trillion constitutional violations for U.S. domestic audiences and you can double that globally."
Seeing as this would be petabytes of data every month, it should be easy enough to find out if the NSA is purchasing enough storage to accomplish something like this. Where's the proof of that?
SHOCKED!
Someone to stand up for the constitution and throw everyone involved in this in prison.
I saw Mr. Binney speak at the HOPE conference in 2012. I remember a conversation with my parents where I relayed what I learned from him to them, and they thought I was buying into some conspiracy. When Snowden broke into the news, they asked me how I had known so far ahead of time.
I'm surprised there hasn't been more discussion about Binney's whistle-blowing in the wake of the Snowden revelations. He has been sounding the alarm for many years now.
"Here Lies Philip J. Fry, named for his uncle, to carry on his spirit"
If you're wondering why it's only 80% instead of 100%, it's because he's talking about all calls made everywhere. He says that 80% of the fiber in the world runs through the US, so 80% of the calls in the world are recorded. In other words, the NSA is recording all calls that go through the country.
Incidentally, didn't Obama announce some changes he was going to make to fix the NSA? Have any of those been implemented?
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Right after 9/11, in the heat to Get Those Guys and their network, the NSA went into vast recoding depositories to track back conversations, actual recorded calls. They admitted it and it kind of blew by in the moment.
Am I the only one who remembers this?
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Duh.
"If you want to improve, be content to be thought foolish and stupid." - Epictetus
It's pretty simple to figure out that figure is bullshit.
They store the calls in the last 25% of porn files -- no one ever gets that far anyway.
Step 1. Collect all audio
Step 2. Convert speech to text
Step 3. ???
Step 4. Profit
The IT guy and geek in me gets all excited thinking about all of the cool technology that they are leveraging.
The civil libertarian in me shudders knowing how easily they are able to contextualize and analyze the communications with the intent of subverting public discourse.
The cynical part of me is starting to believe that the average American really does not care because they are so conditioned that they have zero desire to enjoy any sort of true freedom. As long as they have access to shopping malls, housing and alcohol / caffeine / prescription drugs, they will be content.
If the NSA can track people's movements, track who comes into contact with them, or just flat out records their phone calls, how many of our local/state/federal politicians, policy makers, law enforcement members, bureaucrats, bankers, CEOs, etc., could be blackmailed based on such information?
Next question. Who controls the NSA?
I'd put down good money that he doesn't even have a grasp of how much data that would constitute, and how much that would cost.
How much would it be? Serious question. Phone audio compresses very well, after all.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
How come everyone forgets that Atta and his buddies did not trust cellphones as far back as 911. Now I am sure they are even more paranoid about their use.
You really do not live in this world. Huge phone-audio archives are easy to do, small and cheap. Ask Avaya for example.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Guy with institutional knowledge that is thirteen years out of date asserts facts that we know he can't back up, skirting around technical details that he's never been qualified to understand. I'd put down good money that he doesn't even have a grasp of how much data that would constitute, and how much that would cost.
Yeah. Except that's not at all true. If you paid attention at all, you'd know who he is, and how long he's been saying that the NSA has been spying on us all, and how they were doing it. Funny how it all turned out to be true, huh? But no, I'm sure he made it all up!
You wouldn't happen to be an NSA shill, would you?
You're just wrong. In fact, we now have proof (Snowden revelations) that things carried on at the NSA pretty much exactly like he said it would. I think you also underestimate how much compression can be applied to telephone conversations. They are, after all, mostly "dead air". In addition, speech is very predictable. The phone companies take advantage of this to fit many conversations over lines of surprisingly modest bandwidth. Since the NSA is directly connected at the backbone (their secret ATT closets are well documented), they don't even have to do the compression themselves. They can just log the packets.
"Here Lies Philip J. Fry, named for his uncle, to carry on his spirit"
So what if the NSA stores your data? Who cares if it's "Constitutional"? The Constitution is just a piece of paper and doesn't mean a damned fucking thing because even if some uppity people over at the ACLU or EFF make a case out if it, it will be discarded under the veil of "National Security" Face it, the USA is a Police State. AND YOU WONT DO A FUCKING THING ABOUT IT BECAUSE YOU ARE A WEAK POWERLESS WAGE SLAVE WHO VALUES YOUR SUV, JOB AND GADGETS OVER "LIBERTY" and look to someone else to fix the things you don't like. So I don't see why anyone should care -- because no one cares and nothing will be done. Perhaps these articles get posted because people like bitching about how powerless and helpless they choose to be in their pathetic existence as peons of the wealthy elite whose interests the NSA serves.
Large sums of money, any way yo slice it: if you're applying intense compression algorithms to such a huge magnitude of audio streams in real time, then you're just shifting your investment from storage to processing power and electricity. A hybrid approach of storing data in raw format to be queued for compression as capacity allows would be more cost effective, but you risk data loss if your back end can't keep or catch up, so you'd still realistically be putting huge sums of money into raw storage capacity.
Not from this disclosure specifically, but ever since 2001, I've learned one important thing: we've underestimated what has actually been done. Remember those stories years ago about secret data centre taps that were tied into major fibre/international cable telecommunications hubs in places like San Francisco? Imagine what *could* be done with that! Imagine if that is one example of what is tapped at every ingress/egress communications point in a country. That was way back in 2006. No, no, that's paranoia. And there are legal protections that would prevent it.
All implemented. Everything. The sky's the limit. Billions and billions of dollars to do it? Here's the cash. Even the legal protections have been circumvented by using ridiculous legal tricks such as collecting everything. As long as nobody looks at it or no citizens are specifically "targetted", that is somehow fine and not mass surveillance? It's not a "search"? It's like going into every house in the country and passively photographing and recording everything there, but as long as nobody looks at that vast database unless there's some token cause, it's not a "search". It's like some kind of bizarro quantum mechanical legal theory where unless it is observed, the collected data exists in a legal limbo that doesn't make it a search until actively searched.
No, it is mass surveillance. And no matter how much you trust the people doing it, the results of that search are just sitting there waiting to be abused.
bitches, there is nothing you could do, we are on the other side now
Of course, but how much money? We already know that the NSA has huge amounts of money and storage. Besides, audio going over the telephone is already compressed horribly.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
I'm surprised there hasn't been more discussion about Binney's whistle-blowing in the wake of the Snowden revelations. He has been sounding the alarm for many years now.
Because the media is incompetent. The days of investigative journalism like Woodward and Bernstein are loooong gone.
There's no money in it.
You know where the money is? Look at Fox News. Their content is where the money is - political punditry.
Fluff.
MSNBC, CNN, and everyone else is also to blame. Fox News at least - or Rupert anyway - had the balls to say it upfront.
I watched 60 Minutes the other week, and just shook my head at how they turned to shit. CBS used to be the best.
The people - you people included - just want to watch "news" that reinforces what they believe - not the facts. Sure, facts are shown but put in a way to match the World view of the audience.
I do know who he is; I posted specific information relevant to his career. Did you even read that quote you posted? He has zero idea of what he speaks, and the desire of folks like you to believe him is all the "proof" that exists...
Yeah, I have worked for some of these agencies that only go by acronyms; not the NSA specifically, but we did quite a lot of work for them. Their leadership is just as incompetent as the rest of the government, and they're wholly incapable of keeping a conspiracy of this magnitude under wraps. Snowden should have shown you that.
Bottom line: the info this guy has is either well over a decade out of date, or not first-hand.... in either case, why would anyone put stock in it?
I do not mind them record my calls, if they give me tax breaks, pay part of my phone bill, or let me use the recording myself. Isn't this the Google model anyway?
I have been posted before there is simply no way the NSA could have use for even the most conservative estimates for there storage capacity in that Utah data center unless they are or were planning to keep the content.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
silent phone or get a blackphone?
Oh, you post specific information relevant to his career? Lets take a look then. About the only thing I can find of the sort in your post:
This guy routinely makes these grandiose statements that have little basis in reality.
Yes, very specific indeed. And with the abundant facts you provided, it is very hard to debate with you on that matter.
in either case, why would anyone put stock in it?
He's saying things we already know to be true and have evidence of. I'll take that over your rambling nonsense, especially after you have admitted to support their corruption.
Was the thought in my head as I glanced at the headline...
Liar... Fraud...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Impeach him. Can we retroactively impeach Bush as well?
Scum, the lot of them.
"in soviet union, KGB spies on ordinary citizens! in United America States of Freedom... NSA spies on ordinary citizens! I LOVE THIS COUNTRY!"
Fun fact: You've had all your calls intercepted since at least the early 1980s, America, in violation of the US Constitution.
I can neither confirm nor deny that I have firsthand knowledge of such data collection.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
The NSA and the mil intel agencies all run off the non-published "black" budget, which you're not told about.
And you wonder why we're in debt ... it's not welfare checks, it's the stuff you're not allowed to know about that we do each and every day.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Raw phone audio traffic/data, at least on cellular which makes up the vast majority of telephone traffic these days, is already heavily compressed at the air interface level to allow companies to maximize the voice traffic they can carry across a channel without increasing physical capacity. It would be hard to compress it much further and still be audible. Hell, on Verizon Wireless's network it is already practically inaudible due to the compression.
You'd basically just have to dump it to disk which wouldn't be processor intensive whatsoever nor would it take much disk. 8k EVRC is a common audio codec, which you could store roughly 30 years of phone calls on a 1TB disk at 8kbps. More reading on EVRC
And said we do not do that should now be charged with treason.
Nah. Not HERE, in the land of the Free, with Rule of Law!
But?
We were right all the time. Unfettered by doctrine, dogma of allegiances, wary of our own cognitive bias, we saw what we saw.
Bitter vindication.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
The other 20% is Cardmember Services...they can't figure out how they are averting the system
it's so funny how your rights are totally taken by nazi's who run the world.
lets laugh about it more HAR HAR HAR HAR
i hope your children are the first to die in the revolution.
A few years back I applied for a job listening to and trying to decipher audio recorded from drug runners' phone calls. It was clear to me then that "they" are recording all calls, all the time. Just like the surprise garnered by the initial revelations of NSA snooping, it is more surprising to me that people are surprised than the gov't is spying. And I write this as a reluctant supporter of the gov't on this issue
Biggest Rick Roll ever!
http://nothingchanged.org/ Vote third party or don't bother
More hysteria. There is no "global constitution" to violate. More anarchistic BS. Perhaps Binney and the writer would be a lot freer in Moscow, haha!
"something happens when someone gets elected president, man... some shadowy group of people take him into a room before he's inaugurated and some guy says, "(puff puff) show 'im the film". and it's the kennedy assasination, FROM AN ANGLE NEVER SEEN BEFORE... and that first guy goes "(puff puff) any questions?" and the new president goes, "uhhh, just whatever you want..." ... no doubt there's some truth to that. but some guys "play balls" better than others... your choice as a citizen voter is, there's really only two teams on the field, no matter your third-party dreams. next best hope is to knock the next weakest player off the field.
AND "NOT VOTING" - IS SURRENDER.
My wife and her mother, her sister, and her friends yammer on the phone for hours discussing ... nothing of particular importance.
Interestingly, my mother and her sister (my aunt) have always talked in code about family members because "you never know who might be listening." Although it probably wouldn't take long to figure out who "Big Idiot" refers to.
Try attacking it the other way.
If they AREN'T recording everything then why such big data centers? Metadata on every US call for the year would fit on a few dozen HDs max probably much less.
Raw data takes very little space with no media components involved. We ran 10 years worth of billing info on one 14MB drive platter in the 80-90's.
True point
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
What da f**k do you think they're doing in Utah?
Growing potatoes?
With all of that storage space?
Voice prints, key words, known callers are so 1980's. Collect it all is now the mission. Then sort.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
Oh no, this can't be right. A general from the NSA told me so, and he has absolutely no reason to lie!
Just thought of something. You know how we always say that "freedom isn't free?" Well that's always said in the context of the military forces and their members putting their lives on the line, sacrificing time away from the family, and so forth.
Maybe "freedom isn't free" also means that the civilians back home have to sacrifice too. Maybe it means keeping the domestic house in order and on track with what the founding fathers intended. Maybe sitting back and watching the latest fantasy show on Netflix isn't entirely fulfilling the responsibilities of citizenship.
And no, I'm not claiming some moral superiority here.
The USA has a crap phone system, to gather 80%of voice calls would require a duplicate network almost as big as the existing one! could not be done without most technicians noticing. He almost had me believing until I read the words, " total population control" yer, right.
There was an unknown error in the submission.
Allow people to direct EXACTLY what their taxes go to @ the year end prior while doing their taxes for that year, one more sheet to fill out (perhaps more, but the point is there), allowing every tax payer to select WHERE THEIR TAXED DOLLARS WENT TO/GO TO for the next year.
ANYONE RUNNING for President of the USA ON THAT PROMISE for his main campaign platform ALONE, as long as it's kept, WOULD WIN IN A LANDSLIDE!
Bet a lot of these wars, nsa spying, etc. would be stopped, cold.
If Slashdot had posted a story about "the Lone Gunmen" pilot episode, then they would have a scoop that anticipated the 9/11 attacks with a civilian airliner, by several months...
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
1. Anarchy - the physical destruction of the NSA and its property through attack, whether by 'terrorism' or revolution.
-or-
2. Sedition - exposing or fabricating such behavior on the part of the NSA, so egregious that it forces the dissolution or functional castration of the agency.
In other words, either the people rise up and destroy the NSA deliberately or as a result of the destruction of the United Stated government as we know it - which, let's be honest is NOT going to happen anytime soon - or, the NSA will do something so obvious, so far over the bounds of decency that it actually generates legitimate public and political outcry. Sort of like Enemy of the State on a national scale. Except of course so far, its directors have all been military officers with self-restraint.
Hell, maybe mine does too I just never bothered checking. When I saw that he could convert his voice mail to text I knew the government was recording all of our conversations.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
Seriously, this is 2014. We have the internet with encrypted connections.
Why aren't phone calls encrypted in this day of age?
Everyone should demand encrypted services from their telecom service.
"Don't use your phone, don't use mine. Don't speak treason, the're tapping the line". Redgum - ASIO (1984)
BTW: You're on my lawn, you know what to do.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
With each accusation, the NSA has 'admitted' to a small bit and denied the rest. Each denial has been proven to be a lie. They have proven now that nothing they say can ever be trusted. They have lied under oath. They have lied to Congress, and they have lied to the People. Repeatedly.
Since we can never trust anything they say, why should we continue to employ them? The entire organization is rotten to the core. The only possible cure is to disband them and start over. A mere re-org would just be moving the deck chairs.
Yeah, I get a chuckle every time I hear some IT manager at my employer talk about "big data." Often it is followed by a reference to an archive of raw scientific data which spans maybe 8-10 TB from the last 6 years or so and is mostly junk in a huge variety of formats.
When your big data problem can fit in the PC sitting under my desk, it isn't a big data problem. Heck, I'd give them "you can solve it like you would a big data problem" angle except they're not really doing that either.
Umm, no it is in fact entitlement spending. By a long ways. The black budgets may be black, but they still have to be accounted for and you can actually find out the total of the black budget allocations, just not what they are going for.
Of a set of apps, that included Carnivor, that could listen to audio, transcribe it perfectly, uniquely identify the various speakers on the call, identify different discussions weaving through the conversation and summarize them.
Every rule has more than one consequence.
You're either illiterate or dumb. I made specific reference to the length of time that he's been out of the loop, which is sufficient to establish that I know who the guy is. Whether you agree with my interpretation of that data is irrelevant to whether it establishes the identity of the individual.
And, I admitted no such thing; again, you're either illiterate or dumb. I've done work for them, yes, which is one reason that I find impetuous comments like yours so infuriating: I've been there, know how it works, and have more recent information than your chosen source, but anything I say is automatically discounted.... why? I don't work for them any longer, either, so I'm at least as trustworthy as your friend Binney, yet my comments are considered shilling while his are taken as the word of God... why? Because it contradicts your personal narrative of the world, and it's easier for you to reject the information than attempt to assimilate it.
Go fuck yourself, you partisan asshole.
Lrn2Math... 1TB would hold, at absolute maximum, 4 years of voice recordings at 8k... for one person. So, say you want to store the voice recordings for 314M people. Think you can do simple ^10 calculations? Need somebody to do it for you? And keep in mind that we're only talking about the population of the US with that number; Binney clearly implies that they are collecting data on most calls that pass over US wires, which is a good portion of the worldwide call volume.
Hell, the article itslef gives you a number: nearly a full zettabyte... per year. If that's not enough to trigger your bullshit sensor, then you're well and truly brainwashed.
Umm, no it is in fact entitlement spending. By a long ways. The black budgets may be black, but they still have to be accounted for and you can actually find out the total of the black budget allocations, just not what they are going for.
isn't that like trillions?
so you're agreeing with his point