How an Obscure Acronym Helped Link AT&T To NSA Spying

netbuzz writes: Slashdot on Saturday highlighted a story by Pro Publica and the New York Times that used Snowden documents to reveal previously unknown details of the "highly collaborative" relationship between AT&T and the NSA that enabled the latter's controversial Internet surveillance program. An aspect of the story that received only passing mention was how the reporters connected an acronym for an obscure proprietary network configuration – SNRC — to AT&T and the NSA in part through a 1996 story in the now-defunct print version of Network World. In essence, that acronym proved to be a fingerprint confirming the connection — and its match was found thanks to Google Books.

Comments

AT&T + Direct TV

[Anonymous Coward]

In the fires of Mount Doom, the Dark Lord Sauron forged in secret, a master ring, to control all others. And into this ring he poured all his cruelty, his malice and his will to dominate all life. One ring to rule them all. One by one, the free peoples of Middle Earth fell to the power of the Ring. But there were some who resisted.

Re:AT&T + Direct TV

[JustOK]

Yah, well, I've got the full working prototype one ring.

Re:AT&T + Direct TV

[TheRealHocusLocus]

In the fires of Mount Doom, the Dark Lord Sauron forged in secret, a master ring, to control all others. And into this ring he poured all his cruelty, his malice and his will to dominate all life. One ring to rule them all. One by one, the free peoples of Middle Earth fell to the power of the Ring. But there were some who resisted.

[repost]

NSA and the Desolation of Smaug

And over time the men of Dale had become complacent on privacy, liberty and freedom of association, and yet they prospered. No longer content with the wealth of accumulation, they valued innovation and the free exchange of information. To this end they did help to build the greatest communications network that had ever been. Through it all their wealth flowed like a river --- real wealth --- not the dusty treasure hordes of kings locked in windowless rooms.

The fortune and fate of Dale is bound with that of the dwarves, for it is they who had built it. "Long ago in my grandfather Thror's time our family was driven out of the far North, and came back with all their wealth and their tools to this Mountain on the map." They were especially skilled in working gold, copper and silver into thin filaments which they strung far across the land. Where ever dwarves settled dial tone was sure to follow. But their skill was even greater with jewels and crystals, from which they built magical devices of germanium and silicon to carry voices and information in the aether. Altogether those were good days for us, and the poorest of us had money to spend and to lend, and leisure to make beautiful things just for the. fun of it, not to speak of the most marvelous and magical toys [...] and the toy-market of Dale was the wonder of the North."

But of all the wonders of that age the most precious was perhaps the least visible, hidden deep under the Mountain itself. "Discovered by my far ancestor, Thrain the Old, now they mined and they tunneled and they made huger halls and greater workshops." The Mountain they had built is actually many mountains and there is one in your own city. I refer to the telecommunications exchange points of Tier 1 and Tier 2 networks such as MAE-EAST and MAE-WEST, where rivers of voice and data converge into brilliant points of light, then spread out again.

The dwarves had not valued privacy per se, they had just built it for maximum throughput with minimum delay. Their vision was broad and down-to-earth and the data it carried was of practical use for the greatest number. "We use our own devices and just enough magic to make them go. Devices such as the palantir are of no interest to us, the Elves of Valinor can keep their silly patents. The palantir does work for distance communication but it is incredibly expensive and uses a lot of bandwidth. It is also dangerous. If you wish to talk to family and friend, or close a simple deal, why would you wish to link minds, wrestle in thought or lock souls with the other party? The dwarves deliver only voices and runes and stay clear of elvish mind-fuck. Besides, the palantir uses a proprietary network and has no user-servicable parts. Like the Blackberry."

But the dwarves' cleverness though inspired by wisdom was also their folly. While great wealth flowed through their network they were driven to perfect it, and that meant concentrating the flows of many through but a few interconnect points.

"Undoubtedly that was what brought the dragon. Dragons burrow themselves into networks to steal information you know, wherever they can find it; and they guard their plunder as long as they live (which is practically forever, unless they are outed by Congressional hearing), and --- if you would believe them --- they do it for only noble purposes and never enjoy a brass ring of it. Indeed they hardly know a good bit of information from a bad, though they

Obscure Acronym...

[asimons04]

You mean NSAT&T?

HUCF YOOH

[Anonymous Coward]

(help us cold fjord you're our only hope)

Re:HUCF YOOH

[Anonymous Coward]

hang on, wouldn't that be like saying Help us Darth Vader you're our only hope??
considering which side he's on

nobody cares

[Anonymous Coward]

So you have proof, now what ? are there going to be prosecutions ?, assets seized ?, jail ?, fines ?, contracts nullified ?, de-listing from stock exchanges ?

otherwise the minutia is meaningless if there are zero consequences for the actors involved, you need to start naming names, protesting outside the boards office is laughable, protest outside their own houses ? disseminate their personal details (dox) them ?, oh now you got their attention.

Re:nobody cares

[Anonymous Coward]

Assassinate them.

Re: nobody cares

[sys64764]

Assasinate just one.
Play with the others.

Re:nobody cares

[PPH]

are there going to be prosecutions ?,

Nope.

assets seized ?,

Nope.

jail ?,

Nope.

fines ?,

Nope.

contracts nullified ?,

Nope.

de-listing from stock exchanges ?

Nope.

There's that little matter of the ex post facto telecom immunity law passed back in 2008. Everyone gets off scott free. Even for criminal acts committed before the new law. It'll be a long, hard fight just to get this brought before the Supreme Court and there's no guarantee they will even give a shit about the US Constitution. And only then, can criminal trials commence.

Re:nobody cares

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah yes, the FISA Amendments in 2008. That what was kept me from voting for Obama (voted 3rd party). He promised to go against the telecoms, but surprise, surprise, he lied. I suppose I was naive to be so disillusioned that he was obviously just more of the same.

Re:nobody cares

[AHuxley]

Re So you have proof, now what ?

People around the world now understand that chips, networking systems, crypto, OS's, teleco hardware is open to any 'other' nation with skilled staff, ex staff, former staff due to highly collaborative design issues per product range over decades.
Over time with the next generation of buying people/nations have the option to consider other brands, methods, services to ensure security and productivity.

Re:nobody cares

[Raenex]

I suppose I was naive to be so disillusioned that he was obviously just more of the same.

Yup. The best part was Obama's response to criticism, where he basically said, "What's your alternative? Voting for the Republican?"

And of course, he was right.

Re: nobody cares

[therealkevinkretz]

Few things are funnier than indignant stupidity.

Re:nobody cares

[ThatsNotPudding]

There's that little matter of the ex post facto telecom immunity law passed back in 2008. Everyone gets off scott free.

And with his vote to give them a free pass, I realized Senator Obama was no different than any other politician. This might have even been a requirement to show his compliant deference to the military-surveillance state before he would be allowed to run for POTUS.

Re:nobody cares

[Schmorgluck]

There's that little matter of the ex post facto telecom immunity law passed back in 2008. Everyone gets off scott free. Even for criminal acts committed before the new law. It'll be a long, hard fight just to get this brought before the Supreme Court and there's no guarantee they will even give a shit about the US Constitution. And only then, can criminal trials commence.

Yeah, about that, aren't ex post facto laws strictly unconstitutional in the USA? I mean, in other countries it's not quite the case (France allows them, for example, but only in mitius - i.e. if the new law is more lenient) but I seem to remember that in the USA it's supposed to be very strict.

Nothing new

[Anonymous Coward]

EFF Sues AT&T Over NSA Wiretapping
January 31, 2006
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/06/01/31/2222236/eff-sues-att-over-nsa-wiretapping

AT&T Forwarding All Internet Traffic to NSA?
April 07, 2006
http://slashdot.org/story/06/04/07/1246259/att-forwarding-all-internet-traffic-to-nsa

Under the Hood of AT&T's Monitoring System
April 09, 2006
http://slashdot.org/story/06/04/09/1657258/under-the-hood-of-atts-monitoring-system

AT&T Seeks to Hide Spy Docs
April 13, 2006
http://slashdot.org/story/06/04/13/1218237/att-seeks-to-hide-spy-docs

NSA Spying Comes Under Attack
April 28, 2006
http://slashdot.org/story/06/04/28/1830209/nsa-spying-comes-under-attack

DOJ To Claim National Security in NSA Case
April 29, 2006
http://slashdot.org/story/06/04/29/040225/doj-to-claim-national-security-in-nsa-case

The NSA Knows Who You've Called
May 11, 2006
http://slashdot.org/story/06/05/11/1216245/the-nsa-knows-who-youve-called

Americans Not Bothered by NSA Spying
May 12, 2006
http://slashdot.org/story/06/05/12/1334217/americans-not-bothered-by-nsa-spying

U.S. Government Intervenes in EFF vs. AT&T
May 13, 2006
http://slashdot.org/story/06/05/13/219216/us-government-intervenes-in-eff-vs-att

The AT&T Whistleblower's Evidence
May 18, 2006
http://slashdot.org/story/06/05/18/1626248/the-att-whistleblowers-evidence

Wired Releases Full Text of AT&T NSA Document
May 22, 2006
http://slashdot.org/story/06/05/22/132206/wired-releases-full-text-of-att-nsa-document

Government May Help Bells Defend Against Wiretap Suits
June 02, 2006
http://slashdot.org/story/06/06/02/1515252/government-may-help-bells-defend-against-wiretap-suits

NSA Had Domestic Call Monitoring Before 9/11?
July 02, 2006
http://slashdot.org/story/06/07/02/0659222/nsa-had-domestic-call-monitoring-before-911

EFF Case Against AT&T To Go Forward
July 20, 2006
http://slashdot.org/story/06/07/20/2026250/eff-case-against-att-to-go-forward

Ex AT&T Tech Says NSA Monitors All Web Traffic
November 09, 2007
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/07/11/09/2040206/ex-att-tech-says-nsa-monitors-all-web-traffic

Despite it all, people rushed to sign up with AT&T so they could get their hands on the iPhone when the iPhone was first released exclusively with AT&T.

Re:Nothing new

[afidel]

Yeah, we've known AT&T was in bed with the NSA since the existence of room 641A was revealed. Anything after that is just trying to get people to pay attention to something that they obviously don't want to care about. The only way to get the average person to care was pointed out by John Oliver in his typical funny but very poignant style.

Re: Nothing new

[mSparks43]

the problem is that now a lot more people have access to all the kit the NSA and at&t built over the last couple of decades.

Russians and the Chinese for starters.

Re:Nothing new

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

What bothers me is there may be 1000 agents who will use it "the right way", whatever that means, and I am sure they all feel they are pure of heart, worthy to lift Thor's hammer, but there are no technological barriers to the occasional G. Gordon Liddy type using it to listen in on political opposition on the behalf of some bigwig.

There is a reason general warrants are banned -- to stop those in power from rooting around until they find something to nail their opponents with. This amounts to that.

See, NSA?

[surfdaddy]

We can use big data mining to uncover YOUR secrets, too! I'll be you guys and AT&T really like that, don't you?

Re:See, NSA?

[cavreader]

"We can use big data mining to uncover YOUR secrets, too!"
Every individual, major corporation, and government agency is already under attack every day. And those perpetrating the attacks are after personal information capable of inflicting great harm to the individual. And the government not only has to deal with domestic attempts to breach their systems looking for information but also attempts from well funded and very capable foreign agents. The US government has had legal access to a citizens personal information since way before the Internet age. Tax records, personal property titles, drivers licenses, and marriage licenses are just some of the sources of personal information the government has access to. Your tax records alone can allow the government to profile you in great detail.Your phone call history, which has been compiled since the advent of the telephone for billing purposes, is fairly harmless in the grand scheme of things. And didn't Congress specifically revoke the US security agencies authority on bulk collection of this type of data a few months back?

Run for the hills!

[l0n3s0m3phr34k]

Oh no, the NetWare 3.X bindery server has been compromised! Everyone better shut down their Windows NT and Novel Netware servers down and wait for a patch to be issued on a 5 1/4 floppy disk.

Re:Is "Snowden document" a new English word now?

[ShaunC]

I remember read it somewhere that many later leaking documents only named after Snowden to cover the real sources.

We can reasonably assume that any documents containing dates or references beyond June 2013 didn't come from Snowden. He himself denies providing the documentation of NSA's spying on Angela Merkel. Bruce Schneier has a blog entry making the case for multiple individuals. It seems likely to me that there are at least three, counting Snowden (and not counting Manning).

In any event, the NYT article about the latest set of documents says "AT&T's cooperation has involved a broad range of classified activities, according to the documents, which date from 2003 to 2013" and goes on to explicitly source them to Snowden.

Oh No, They hid it on the internet?!?!

[de_via_nt]

Nothing wrong with Google Books but wouldn't it be easier to just look up SNRC and AT&T? AT&T is kind enough to provide us with their complete list of acronyms.

https://www.corp.att.com/gov/c...

Intel sticker

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder if there comes a time when you can make Intel stickers that says "NSA inside".

Is this why Supreme court bailed on Heptig?

[TheRealHocusLocus]

By refusing to hear Heptig vs. AT&T and caving to Congressional Complicity by granting (retroactive) immunity to telecom employees, NSA managed to escape a certain level of scrutiny for full-backbone tap technology, and a certain stretch of road that may have had AT&T admitting corroboration in a purely (or massively) domestic spying operation.

As this corroborative glimpse shows... Heptig vs.AT&T may not just have revealed AT&T consenting to unconstitutional, illegal surveillance forbidden by NSA charter by simply plugging in and splitting fiber into racks and rooms provided by NSA. It may have shown that NSA was actively developing this technology in partnership with AT&T (perfectly fine) but also listening to the conversations of Americans while doing so (not so fine).

I hate repeating myself, see this background post. At the very least if you're not up to speed on Heptig vs AT&T please review this case. It's the closest we had been to a true turning point to reveal and roll back true-Orwellian full content tap framework before it's too late.

Judge not Caesar, who is fulfilling his own destiny. Judge the idiots and bastards who are polishing his empty throne in anticipation of his arrival by building a state-wide surveillance apparatus.

Perhaps it's too late.

_NSAKEY

[MagickalMyst]

I know it is not specifically related to the article, but I thought this was worth mentioning:

Sometime around 1999, a security researcher - Andrew Fernandes - found a variable - _NSAKEY - unmasked inside Windows NT4 SP5.

_NSAKEY, it has been suggested, is a secondary key used by the NSA to compromise the security of systems running M$ Windows.

Microsoft said that the key's symbol was "_NSAKEY" because the NSA is the technical review authority for U.S. export controls, and the key ensures compliance with U.S. export laws.

I have a difficult time trusting Microsoft or the NSA to tell the truth. It certainly makes you wonder....

Re: _NSAKEY

[mSparks43]

Microsoft and Google chrome provide the nsa (and all the hackers who got the username and passwords during the last leak) with remote administration to all their installations.

who cares?

Re: Is "Snowden document" a new English word now?

[mSparks43]

Mr snowden didn't even collect the data for the leaks.

his girlfriend did.

he just stood in front of the bullets for her.

AT&T, Mysterious Rooms, and the NSA

[thejynxed]

Anyone who worked directly for, or as a contractor for AT&T as far back as at least the early 1990's can tell you there were rooms set up specifically for .gov and LEO use only. You needed security clearances to get into them even as a direct AT&T employee, and they were locked behind keycard/numpad protected doors, etc. It didn't take a genius to figure out what they were using those rooms for, especially when an awful lot of power and telecoms lines ran right to them (we weren't allowed to discuss or ask about them outside of our training sessions when our corporate trainers would say "those rooms are off limits at all times, except that some of you will be promoted to work in them as needed").