Treasure Map: NSA, GCHQ Work On Real-Time "Google Earth" Internet Observation

wabrandsma) writes with the latest accusations about NSA spying activity in Germany. According to top-secret documents from the NSA and the British agency GCHQ, the intelligence agencies are seeking to map the entire Internet.
Furthermore, every single end device that is connected to the Internet somewhere in the world — every smartphone, tablet and computer — is to be made visible. Such a map doesn't just reveal one treasure. There are millions of them. The breathtaking mission is described in a Treasure Map presentation from the documents of the former intelligence service employee Edward Snowden which SPIEGEL has seen. It instructs analysts to "map the entire Internet — Any device, anywhere, all the time." Treasure Map allows for the creation of an "interactive map of the global Internet" in "near real-time," the document notes. Employees of the so-called "FiveEyes" intelligence agencies from Great Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, which cooperate closely with the American agency NSA, can install and use the program on their own computers. One can imagine it as a kind of Google Earth for global data traffic, a bird's eye view of the planet's digital arteries.

Comments

it's over: the media (in the US) have moved on.

[Anonymous Coward]

The last 4 or 5 major disclosures from Snowden documents have gone unreported in the mainstream US press. Sure, you can find them on some more off the path sites, but the mainstream press has moved on. It's not as important as (from current CNN site): "Is this a spaceship or super mall?", or "5 ways to think yourself well!"

As far as the vast, vast majority of the public is concerned, it's over. Forgotten. Our cultural attention span was exhausted, and nothing happened. The chance of serious change now - like disbanding the organization and arresting those responsible for widespread constitutional violations - is now zero.

And they know it.

Re:it's over: the media (in the US) have moved on.

[AHuxley]

The good news is people meeting the press are more aware of having their cell phone on or powered and with them.
The press can now understand that turning off a phone can be seen as getting ready to meet a contact.
Anyone in the same area at the same time who turns off their phone might be that contact. Kind of a short list :)
The press is more aware of been under constant surveillance.
Treasure Map just adds to the collect it all idea and that digital entry or exit points can be fully reconstructed or are always been tracked.
Thats a lot of expensive effort to put into signals intelligence considering what most skilled nations fully understood about global telephone and computer networks going back over decades.

So they'll suffer from TMI

[BarbaraHudson]

Too Much Information (TMI) can be as big a problem as too little information.

With all that information, you can get a false sense of security that you know enough and get bitten.

With all that information, you tend to focus on what you see and not what you don't - you develop tunnel vision.

With all that information, resources that could have been devoted elsewhere are taken up sorting out the trash and the false positives.

Blank spots stay blank. Example - Android phones have had NFC since Gingerbread, so if two operatives want to exchange data (photos of a target, NSA documents, etc), they can do it in person just by using Android Beam or Bump-to-Exchange, without saying a word to each other, just standing in line to pay for a newspaper.

Re:This must work by MAC addresses... apk

[Anonymous Coward]

APK is a renowned Internet kook, hostfile whackjob, fucktard and pedofile. His specialty is threadjacking and sockpuppeting to talk about his malware-infested crapware and various conspiracies. No-one EVER knows WTF he's talking about. The current question of how MAC adresses would get into TCP/IP frames is also a fine example that HE doesn't know what he's talking about, either.

He will respond to this and any following posts with "learn to read", "you're projecting", "I'm not APK, but he's my hero", re-post the same reply 7 times, etc., etc., etc. until the time_t's wrap around or he has the last post in every sub-thread.

Hey Kowalski, I thought I told you to fuck off and not come back!

Re:This must work by MAC addresses... apk

[Khyber]

This is APK

http://www.thorschrock.com/200...

A clueless, witless idiot that uses threats to try to get his way.

Tactless, incorrect (the fact he mentions MAC addresses of modems proves he doesn't know jack shit, when that only identifies a gateway device, not an actual user, much like an IP address,) clueless, bull-headed, autistic child without a fucking clue. This is why he has to post AC on Slashdot and why he is banned from Wikipedia.

Re:Why do you hate freedom?

[dryeo]

The surveillance puts a damper on free speech, it's hard to freely communicate knowing the government can be listening in. This is especially true for dissenting political speech, whether you're part of the opposition party or more extreme the possibility that the government can be listening in dampens. The government is quite capable of screwing you if you come to its attention as a threat of any kind. Whether digging into your tax situation, spreading mis-information or setting you up for a criminal investigation.

Seems like a circular argument

[Camael]

What takes your freedom away is not surveillance, it's not even the police, it's the law. Surveillance and the police are just tools, they're not the source of the problem. If you want to fight for your freedom, fight the source of the problem.

The law and the tools enforcing the law are parts of the same whole. Neither can co-exist without the other. A law which is not enforced is just a meaningless scribble. A policeman without the authority granted by the law is just a hired gun. Conducting surveillance without legal authority is being a peeping tom.

Fighting the tools is just as important as fighting the source. The tools are what enables the unjust laws. The Prohibition was ultimately ineffective because the masses decided to ignore the law.