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Report Reveals 8 AT&T Buildings Across the US, Hidden in Plain Sight, That Are Central To One of NSA's Most Controversial Internet Surveillance Programs (theintercept.com)
News outlet The Intercept on Monday published a report that reveals eight AT&T-owned locations: two in California, one in Washington, another in Washington, D.C., one in New York, one in Texas, one in Illinois, and one in Georgia, that serve as backbone or "peering" facilities that the NSA has secretly been using for eavesdropping purposes. Spokespeople of AT&T, which refers to the aforementioned peering sites as "Service Node Routing Complexes", and NSA, could neither confirm or deny the report's findings. From the report: The NSA considers AT&T to be one of its most trusted partners and has lauded the company's "extreme willingness to help." It is a collaboration that dates back decades. Little known, however, is that its scope is not restricted to AT&T's customers. According to the NSA's documents, it values AT&T not only because it "has access to information that transits the nation," but also because it maintains unique relationships with other phone and internet providers. The NSA exploits these relationships for surveillance purposes, commandeering AT&T's massive infrastructure and using it as a platform to covertly tap into communications processed by other companies.
[...] While network operators would usually prefer to send data through their own networks, often a more direct and cost-efficient path is provided by other providers' infrastructure. If one network in a specific area of the country is overloaded with data traffic, another operator with capacity to spare can sell or exchange bandwidth, reducing the strain on the congested region. This exchange of traffic is called "peering" and is an essential feature of the internet.
Because of AT&T's position as one of the U.S.'s leading telecommunications companies, it has a large network that is frequently used by other providers to transport their customers' data. Companies that "peer" with AT&T include the American telecommunications giants Sprint, Cogent Communications, and Level 3, as well as foreign companies such as Sweden's Telia, India's Tata Communications, Italy's Telecom Italia, and Germany's Deutsche Telekom.
[...] While network operators would usually prefer to send data through their own networks, often a more direct and cost-efficient path is provided by other providers' infrastructure. If one network in a specific area of the country is overloaded with data traffic, another operator with capacity to spare can sell or exchange bandwidth, reducing the strain on the congested region. This exchange of traffic is called "peering" and is an essential feature of the internet.
Because of AT&T's position as one of the U.S.'s leading telecommunications companies, it has a large network that is frequently used by other providers to transport their customers' data. Companies that "peer" with AT&T include the American telecommunications giants Sprint, Cogent Communications, and Level 3, as well as foreign companies such as Sweden's Telia, India's Tata Communications, Italy's Telecom Italia, and Germany's Deutsche Telekom.
The NSA considers AT&T to be one of its most trusted partners and has lauded the company's "extreme willingness to help."
Translation: AT&T is the NSA bitch...
But I remember when slashdottirs used to scoff that there were more than 3.
Keep up, this is only one of the TLAs.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A
Qwest said 'no'
Qwest no longer exists. And AT&T is doing just fine. Imagine that.
Enjoy your surveillance state, America
Spokespeople of AT&T ... and NSA could neither confirm or deny the report.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
everyone knew about this, and it's pretty damn obvious too. Huge building with no windows, no people going in/out, and giant radio antennas and satellite dishes sticking out at the top. Hmm...I wonder what it could be.
All of Washington is to blame. Trump is keeping status quo, so yes he gets blame too. Along with Obama. Along with George W Bush.
Just burn those buildings down. If whomever does so gets picked up by services higher than the FBI, you already know AT&T is utterly their bitch and helping them spy on us.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Yeah, but Telephone Company Central Offices have always tended to be windowless bunkers parked in plain sight. Often with Microwave systems on their roof as a backup to terrestrial lines.
...si hoc legere nimium eruditionis habes...
The Washington DC one is a Verizon switching center, not an AT&T one. You can go look yourself.
Trump went after the Red Hen restaurant as part of the deep state.
Leave it to the Intercept to report on a 12 year old story as if it was suddenly new information coming to light. I suppose they can get a little credit for listing 7 other AT&T sites that have dedicated rooms for NSA listening equipment, but it was already known that even after AT&T engineer, Mark Klein, blew the whistle on the NSA surveillance, the NSA did NOT it shut down and withdraw the equipment. Much of the article just goes over previously reported facts. And to make this a complete wash of a story, there's nothing that can be done about it, because Congress back when this story because widespread gave telecoms immunity from violating any laws pertaining to aiding the NSA. So thanks Intercept for publishing a story that already been thoroughly covered in the last few years, while Glen Greenwald continues to sit on his fat gatekeeping ass over the some 85%-95% remaining documents in the Snowden trove. Stuff that potentially really could change the political landscape if they were ever published, but the oligarch over the Intercept, Pierre Omidyar, won't permit it.
Under GW Bush the telcos all claimed they were doing unconstitutional widespread monitoring of law abiding citizens because they were totally patriotic and selfless. They wrapped themselves in the flag.
McCain and Obama both broke off campaigning for the Presidency so they could give the telcos immunity from prosecution, despite both of them saying they wouldn't (Obama saying so quite strongly).
BUT when the fedguv screwed up their accounting and stopped paying the bill, the telcos immediately cut them off, proving their true motivation - wealth.
Patriots acting for a principle don't stop acting just because they aren't being bribed enough.
..."aren't being bribed enough"
but its the american way
Red Hen was not deep state, but national security issue. Only the Kernally Fried Chicken must remain supreme.
Trump supporters are really fucking dumb:
But yet they keep coming by the millions. Says something about the rest of the world, eh Ivan?
The American people spend millions every year for their own personal eavesdropping devices that they keep in their pockets, their pocketbooks, and their bedrooms. I think that saying that Americans don't care about their privacy is (somehow) an understatement.
I don't respond to AC's.
I work down the street from 611 Folsom. In the Network diagram with thumbnails, the ominous building shown for that address is down the street and belongs to PG&E. The shots of 611 Folsom in the body are from the parking lot and the alley behind it... Not really very pretty or representative of the building. From the street, the building just looks like your everyday office building. Look at google maps street view.
I know, why is that important? Because when they go to that length to make it look bad, it makes me wonder why they couldn't just let the story tell itself?
And as someone else pointed out, old news.
Why is there SO much of this these days? It hurts the credibility of what good reporting there is
Hah, I can see the one in Illinois right out my window.... and I walk by it every day...
I still haven't seen his birth certificate.
That sure is a lot of storage just for a list of phone numbers.
Kinda crazy to think it hasn't even been 100 years since technology was used to systematically cull the world of undesirable people through historically unprecedented violent means.
A company going out of their way to cooperate with warrant-less surveillance gets green lighted for all manor of mergers & government contracts. Meanwhile any company that opposes these activities (see Qwest) gets all of their government contracts canceled and "coincidental" investigations and charges which slow/kill their company.
Trump on both sides of every issue, sometimes in the same day.
The Phone Company
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Say they refused to cooperate with the NSA/CIA/FBI or any number of alphabet agencies. They'd have the FCC drum up something and come down on them like a ton of bricks. Oh? at&t? You want to expand into this or that? Sorry, can't let you do that. Don't underestimate the power of the deep state to get what they want!
I remember the first time President Choom signed a bill extending the PATRIOT act, despite having said (correctly) during his first presidential campaign that it's unconstitutional. Anyone who still supported him after that was either not paying attention, or a goddamned hypocrite.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
There are legitimate reasons for the NSA's data access.
At times yes. Nobody argued otherwise. Problem is that they cannot seem to restrain themselves from listening in on people who they should need a warrant to listen to. It's not even a debate that they performed illegal and unjustified surveillance of US citizens.
The NSA and CIA are legally empowered by all three branches of the government to conduct surveillance operations to safe guard the security of the US.
That doesn't mean they get to step on my civil rights in the process. Their convenience does not supersede my Constitutional rights.
Since the executive, judicial, and legislative branches of government are not enforcing the 4th Amendment and are not going to, I no longer care about court decisions and the false reassurances from politicians. The solution is much more practical; encrypt absolutely everything and throw away the session keys. With some cleverness, even traffic analysis can be prevented by multiplying traffic which the ISPs should love since they have so much extra capacity.
God I love how utterly mentally deranged APK is. No wonder Jan got the fuck out of Syracuse and moved to Saint Augustine. Perhaps I should give her a call and ask.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Anyone want APK's address? I finally have it. It's for sale and it is proven valid and current!
Let's see your HOSTs file filter spam from a physical mailbox!
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Callback to a recent posting on 5EYES that references this topic. I'm lukewarm about this 'exposé', they're presenting a number of buildings that are communications exchanges and dubbing them NSA buildings. Weatherproof climate controlled spaces are not spooky. This is ripe for debunking as anyone counters with their primary uses, and this issue is too critical to have agitated people harassing anyone who enters and exits the buildings as spooks. We now have two full generations of young who were not exposed to telecommunications lore. The latest generation, scarcely even landlines.
The dangerous technology is scattered throughout as splitter cabinets and the occasional server room. And 'dark' fiber of course, to carry the booty to Utah.
Other writing you might not enjoy,
> Things have got to change, But first, you gotta get mad!
> NSA and the Desolation of Smaug
> I am Sam. Uncle Sam I am.
> I really hated Men In Black
> Am I the first to suggest... BLACKMAIL??
> Sherlock Holmes: training wheels for NSA surveillance
> Stick a fork in the Republic, it's done. HR4681/309 (failed submission)
> The backbone, then (1980s) and now
> Whatever happened to the 'old' NSA? Directive 18?
> Last Wish: The Pact (dystopian fiction)
<blink>down the rabbit hole</blink>
Meet Me at Your Riser [2013] is a purely aesthetic Phillip Glassy video presentation by Deborah Natsios, who with John Young runs the successful CRYPTOME.ORG website.
The insinuation is, the practice is not relegated to willing participants such as AT&T, it may well include other carriers whose fiber has been secretly split in the 'telecom risers' that ascend throughout the building. Are Young/Natsios insinuating this from theory or an anonymous tip? You may as well ask how licks to the center of a Tootsie Pop.
CRYPTOME.ORG is a spooky and funny place... since 1996 it has provided a continuous stream of articles, whistle-blows and odd bits for the intelligence community, even serving as a pre-Wikileaks leaks site. Its regular visitors most surely include spooks of the world, that is, the 'top brass' that are not terrified of surfing into things beyond their own cubicle secrecy level. John Young has managed to maintain a playful counterpoint to the stern countenance (serious face) of the State intelligence profession and tugs on the community and keeps them coming back for more, or so he says, looking at his logs. He doxxed them before 'dox' was a word, blew the cover on deep state telecom interception and NSA Charter violations (no one listened of course) and has embarked on other projects as amateur sleuth. His post-9/11 Ground Zero photo collection is hi res and second to none.
Over the years he has dropped interesting tidbits with 'A Sends...' (Anonymous)... his PGP key is ludicrously long... and some of the tips appearing on his site have had the stamp of foreign state actors. Of course he posts it without personal bias and you can bet some true limited hangouts and pissing contests have been published on Cryptome to get them 'out there'. For $100 he offers the entire collection of hosted files to date. A great gift for Santa Spook.
<blink>down the rabbit hole</blink>
Son, you act as if any of this would stop me or any of my friends that live in your area from fucking you up.
Think a little harder, you brain-damaged fuckwit.
If I've got the balls to supposedly go after a District Attorney, what makes you think your tiny ass is LESS VULNERABLE?
Do you even understand basic power structure, moron?
You're far, FAR below me. I could literally RAPE YOU at any time and you couldn't fight back. That's the literal power structure, you tiny bitch boi. I've been physically watching you through people I know in your neighborhood. You're bitch-mode. You couldn't fight back if your life DEPENDED ON IT. My pinky could arm-wrestle your ass into the fucking ground, twink.
Should I start posting the pictures my pals have been taking of you AND YOUR FELLOW DRUG-ADDLED RESIDENTS?
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.