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NSA 'Traffic Shaping' Can Divert US Internet Traffic For Easier Monitoring (zdnet.com)
schwit1 shares an article from ZDNet:
A new analysis of documents leaked by whistleblower Edward Snowden details a highly classified technique that allows the National Security Agency to "deliberately divert" U.S. internet traffic, normally safeguarded by constitutional protections, overseas in order to conduct unrestrained data collection on Americans. According to the new analysis, the NSA has clandestine means of "diverting portions of the river of internet traffic that travels on global communications cables," which allows it to bypass protections put into place by Congress to prevent domestic surveillance on Americans.
The new findings follow a 2014 paper by researchers Axel Arnbak and Sharon Goldberg, published on sister-site CBS News, which theorized that the NSA, whose job it is to produce intelligence from overseas targets, was using a "traffic shaping" technique to route US internet data overseas so that it could be incidentally collected under the authority of a largely unknown executive order... The research cites several ways the NSA is actively exploiting methods to shape and reroute internet traffic -- many of which are well-known in security and networking circles -- such as hacking into routers or using the simpler, less legally demanding option of forcing major network providers or telecoms firms into cooperating and diverting traffic to a convenient location.
The new findings follow a 2014 paper by researchers Axel Arnbak and Sharon Goldberg, published on sister-site CBS News, which theorized that the NSA, whose job it is to produce intelligence from overseas targets, was using a "traffic shaping" technique to route US internet data overseas so that it could be incidentally collected under the authority of a largely unknown executive order... The research cites several ways the NSA is actively exploiting methods to shape and reroute internet traffic -- many of which are well-known in security and networking circles -- such as hacking into routers or using the simpler, less legally demanding option of forcing major network providers or telecoms firms into cooperating and diverting traffic to a convenient location.
Leave it to the NSA to co-opt a QoS term for what is, in essence, an MitM technique
funny how street lights always timed just right to make you wait at every intersection while others never get stopped by them. works if you are on foot or on a bicycle. Hey do not forget to put up bicycle speed limit signs on the sidewalks. Just so I know what is legal or not. I know everyone else is acceptable and the rules are only for me. The only non-socialist in the u.s. Hah! learn more at goatse.cx
They'll never divert this first post, m'ladies
I mean, sure, the US government routinely holds detainees in overseas locations and does things that violate the law, the constitution and all human decency.... but this is data we're talking about.
They got the idea from a /. user who earns 55K a year working for a 3 letter agency and who diverts traffic from /. to amazon affiliate links.
under the authority of a largely unknown executive order..
What bullshit is this? Reagan's 12333 is publicly readable.
Any country with similar protections does the same thing to avoid them. Many countries just cut out the red tape and allow snooping directly.
you and the rest of the terrorists....
I would assume that there would already be a backdoor but my win10 LTSB evaluation download got stopped midstream and routed through Akamai in Austria. Maybe others have this neat tool now?
Any country with similar protections does the same thing to avoid them. Many countries just cut out the red tape and allow snooping directly.
I want a good explanation for one glaring double standard. Let's imagine you want to commit an action that would be criminal if you did it directly. So you "bypass" the law by using some kind of proxy or agent that you control. The result? You would be charged with "conspiracy to commit X" and sentenced exactly the same as though you had done it directly. If you, say, hired a hit-man, both you and the hit-man would be guilty of murder.
How can the government divert traffic with the intent of bypassing the law, and somehow this is legal because of the method they used to do it? Are they not also conspiring to break the law?
Diverting traffic is not illegal. Recording the diverted traffic is not illegal. So nothing they've done, or asked anyone to do, was in fact illegal. This is apples and oranges compared to the hit man analogy.
So giving someone a free vacation to country X is legal. Let's say that in country X there is a way to kill someone that is legal. I would suspect that if you arranged both of these things for someone with the intent of killing them, you could easily be convicted of conspiracy to commit murder.
Intentionally adding a foreign hop to traffic which originates in the US in order to subvert the constitution is treason. Everyone who participates in this activity should be publicly executed.
The US was subject to a coup d'etat in 2016, in which a hostile foreign power engaged in a massive fraud and disinformation campaign, largely using the internet, to install a sympathetic and incompetent man as president.
The NSA claims that surveillance powers are necessary to protect the country from hostile foreign actors who wish it harm -- but they have these powers and nonetheless didn't manage to protect the US from said coup. So, if these surveillance powers are precisely to stop information-warfare skulduggery, but they don't work, maybe they aren't worth the privacy tradeoffs?
They absolutely are still breaking the law. Unfortunately, prosecutors break their necks looking the other way and judjes break their backs from bending backwards. Blackmail may be involved.
How can the government divert traffic with the intent of bypassing the law, and somehow this is legal because of the method they used to do it? Are they not also conspiring to break the law?
The same way tax avoidance is legal: the intent is to bypass as much taxation as possible not by breaking the law but by abusing legal loopholes instead.
So the NSA is following the letter of the law, but clearly not the spirit of the law. Attention lawmakers - this is the Law of Unintended Consequences.
Protected American does not fucking mean you can send elsewhere and then disobey the law.
It still started in America They should be publicly hung so no one else ever try's that shit.
Treason.
They absolutely are still breaking the law. Unfortunately, prosecutors break their necks looking the other way and judjes break their backs from bending backwards. Blackmail may be involved.
I've long suspected that there is some method of controlling judges. From several recent (say, last 10 years) Supreme Court rulings to the decisions of many lower courts, it really seems like judges never met a power grab or a tyrannical law that they didn't like. I don't know if it's really things like blackmail/bribery/threats, or if it's just that you'll never become a judge without being one of the good ol' boys but however it's done, there's a clear intent behind it.
Especially when you consider the far-reaching mental gymnastics often performed to justify things that are clearly unconstitutional. "Regulate interstate trade" can be used to micromanage intra-state trade, because anything you buy locally might have been bought from another state instead? Really?? Yeah, that's what the Founders intended... If the cops use their hands and eyes as search tools, they must have probable cause, but if they skip all of that by using a dog's nose as a search tool, they don't? Both are searches! I could go on and on because there's so many examples.
It's a shame about the prosecutors too. You'd think that "stamping out tyranny because we are still Americans!" or something like that would be a good slogan for them. Especially district attorneys and others who might be elected. They could make themselves out to be heroes of the people. It sure is strange the way none of them seem willing to try.
How can the government divert traffic with the intent of bypassing the law, and somehow this is legal because of the method they used to do it? Are they not also conspiring to break the law?
The same way tax avoidance is legal: the intent is to bypass as much taxation as possible not by breaking the law but by abusing legal loopholes instead.
It does amaze me the way things like Hollywood accounting are somehow legal. When you make a movie, you set up a dedicated corporation for it with the sole intent that this corporation never (on paper) records a dime of profit despite making millions of dollars! If any other industry tried that, someone would go to jail.
Because people who express dissent are terrorists?
So, if it leaves US shores, the USA owns it. They just spent a decade claiming, if it lands on US shores, the USA owns it.
If they can "extraordinary rendition" people, of course they'll do the same to data.
Gee, who could have known?
What's next? Shipping off records of unmasked US citizens who were illegally collected against?
Oh, yeah...
Susan Rice and the Obama administration's unmasking files are sealed for the next 5 years
How fucking convenient
And here I thought the slowdown in website loading times was something on my end. Thank you NSA fuckwads! I suppose the traffic will now be snooped by foreign actors as well. Brilliant!
So maybe it isn't your ISP's fault that your internet speed is so slow. It's the NSA that is adding all those extra hops over potentially congested links. :-)
That and they have guns, lots of guns. THAT is how you do this and it's how citizens are forced to pay taxes.... you dont, the guys with guns will come and take you away to pay for daring to go against what they want.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
NSA: We use traffic shaping to snoop on traffic
there's no such thing as a law that's not enforced. That said, blind obedience to a 200 year old document written mostly by wealthy land owners protecting their interests probably isn't the answer either. I'd like to see our entire system of gov't reworked into something less prone to oligarchy. But folks learn in school it's the best of the world and it's hard to shake stuff you learned when you were a kid.
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As already pointed out by others, many of this isin fact illegal, so that is a weak argument.
Moreover can we please stop confusing legal and illegal with what we know is clearly morally right or wrong.
Some of the worst heinous things in history have all been "legal." It doesn't make any of them morally right, especially when the origional intent is blatantly being circumvented and thus negated.
All they have to do is force it through the Washington D.C. area, since the rules are different there.
There's also a U.S. to U.S. fixer trunk that passes through Canada that they can tap between Chicago and N.Y..
There are defined ways to make changes to that 200 year old document, and from time to time we have done so.
If there aren't enough people in the country who agree with the changes you want to make to get them passed through the defined processes, what makes you think it's proper to make those changes via other methods?
and the coup happened when the voter rolls leaked. There's mounting evidence (including an article from the WSJ, not exactly a WaPo style liberal rag) that those leaked voter rolls were shared with the Republicans and would have played a crucial roll in their victory.
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Huh, but you think Russia is so innocent?
What about Putin's e-mails, huh? And I heard that he's trying to create a No-Fly Zone in Syria! That could lead to World War III!!
Curious re-use of something we saw several years ago -- showing yet again, there's (almost) nothing new under the sun. From a previous write-up I did: .gov and .mil sites, Senate, Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force, DoD, NASA, and US Commerce Dept; also websites for Dell, Yahoo, Microsoft, IBM, and specific Australian and Japanese sites. Analysts indicate target selection appears to be intentional & carefully-planned even if activation may have been mistaken or ill-timed. Access to SSL certificates from the China Internet Information Center (an arm of the China’s Ministry of Info & Industry) would mean all SSL traffic was exposed. While the Chinese government insists the latter incident resulted from IPV6 migration errors, the incidents demonstrate intercept and blocking capability that affect critical infrastructure.
For several days in in March 2010, erroneous or malicious router messages originating from state-owned China Telecom instructed Internet carriers that their connections were the fastest available worldwide. Automated acceptance of these instructions caused portions of traffic to be diverted through CT networks, effectively subjecting some U.S. Internet users to Chinese government proxy filters. On April 8, 2010, the same type of messages rerouted a large portion of the world's Internet traffic (all traffic on 15% of network routes) through CT networks for ~18 minutes, including all US
Curious that CN state actors did this to pull traffic in for technical access, while the US state actors appears to use the same to push for legal access. Immoral yes, but simple and slick.
I think not...(*poof*)
Bullshit.
Any government willing to spy on other countries would have even more incentive to do it on their own, ought that to happen as well then? You must be thrilled
Oh, you mean all those detaila about the DNC's collusion with hillary, not to mention numerous media outlets? Or hillary's cushy corporate ties and eager fundraising practices? You know, all the things that the dnc and hillary never denied were true. So to you, the truth is disinformation?
Any competent ISP / system administrator is going to notice the latency go up several magnitudes as the traffic is diverted out of country and then investigate. Light only travels so fast ya know.
Well assuming the offshore location is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... a place where, neither the Australia government (they just guard the perimeter) nor the US government, to far and they see nothing. They apparently used to shift through very large numbers of hard disk drives before but you could expect some dedicated cables by now. A place where a lot of naughty stuff very likely happens and there was a major expansion there not that long back. Whilst both the US and Australian government studiously pretend it doesn't exist by not mentioning it any more, many deep state shenanigans and controls in place.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
So MiTM attacks, performed by random ordinary people is perfectly fine and legal to do, when done with the purpose to record and sift through their data transmissions? Somehow, I find that hard to believe...
Are you asserting that tax evasion is not met with jail time? Case law disagrees.