Many years ago I was a telecommunications engineer for a large company and worked CALEA. For the uninitiated, that is law-enforcement wiretapping.
My job was to make sure CALEA functioned properly on the new cellular network. We tested on an internal, micro-cell network that was isolated from the real world. The end result was to make sure targeted devices sent CDR (call data records, or metadata) and voice to the destination. This was all piped thru IPSec tunnels to the appropriate destination law-enforcement agency.
In the event of a tunnel failure, CDRs were required to buffer but voice was not. Saving voice during an outage required too much storage space, but the text nature of CDRs meant they were small and largely compressible.
Metadata consisted of EVERYTHING THAT WAS NOT VOICE.
To be clear, it included the following:
called number calling number time of call duration of call keys pressed during call cell tower registered to other cell towers in range gps coordinates signal strength imei (cell phone serial number) codec and a few other bits of technical information.
Everything above "cell tower registered to" applies to traditional, POTS land line phones. This information seems to be what the disinformation campaign currently going on seems to revolve around. They never mention that there are over 327 MILLION cellular phones in the U.S., which is more than one per person. They never mention the bottom set of metadata.
Capturing all key presses makes sure things like call transfers, three-way calls and the like get captured.
It also grabs things like your voicemail PIN/password, which never seems to get explicitly mentioned.
But the cellular set is more interesting. This data come across in registration and keep-alive packets every few seconds. This is how the network knows you're still active and where to route calls to.
But by keeping all this metadata it allows whomever has it to plot of map of your phone's gross location and movements.
By "gross", I mean the location triangulated from cell tower strength and not GPS coordinates. Towers are triangular in nature and use panel antennas. They know which panel you connect thru and can triangulate your location down to a few meters just by the strength of your signal on a couple different towers.
GPS coordinates are "fine" location. For the most part the numbers sent across are either zeroed out or the last location your phone obtained a fix.
GPS isn't turned on all the time because it sucks batteries down. If you own a phone you know how long it can take to get a fix, so this feature isn't normally used.
HOWEVER, it can be turned on remotely and is a part of the E911 regulations pushed to help find incapacitated victims after 9/11.
[There is a reason the baseband radio chip in your phone has closed, binary-blob firmware -- whether or not the OS itself is FOSS. We wouldn't want the masses to be able to disable remote activation, would we? Or let them start changing frequencies and power levels.]
So, are we comfortable with the government knowing where we, thru our cell phones, are at every moment of the day? Because that is what metadata allows.
Think of what can be learned by applying modern pattern analysis to that data set.
What is collected from a telco is "Call Data Records", which is everything except the voice recording of the phone call.
This includes:
Number(s) Called / Number(s) Calling Time of Call Duration Button presses during the call (call transfers, etc.)
If it is a cellular call:
SMS text messages Cell tower connected to Coarse location of phone (Tower triangulation) Granular location of phone (GPS coordinates) Registration / Keep Alives
Allowing you to:
Subject Adam received a 2 minute call from Subject Eve at 8:30 p.m. At 8:45 p.m. both Subject Adam's and Subject Eve's phones registered their location at the "No Tell Motel" down on State Street. At 9:25 p.m. both Subject's departed the Motel
Now change that from Subjects Adam and Eve to Adam and Steve. Care to "out" someone?
How about if one (or more) of the parties are married -- and not to each other? No leverage for blackmail THERE.
You don't count the Vikings, Chinese, etc. because they didn't do anything with the discovery. Their "knowledge" of the Americas didn't translate to anything that noticeably impacted history or civilization either there (Norway, China, etc.) or here (North America).
The occasional potsherd or remnants of an abandoned village don't amount to anything. All of them left the equivalent of "Kilroy was here" marks and nothing more.
No you didn't. That was one agency, and they rescinded that almost immediately and already provided the information.
That was one whiny little bitch in the storage branch realizing he'd have to do a shitload of work and trying to get out of it without thinking or running it thru General Counsel's office.
Not really. The mention of "Lisa Jackson" (EPA Administrator) was from an incident in January -- 5 months ago.
This one addresses the DoJ's stupid request for $1+ million from AP to disclose all e-mail addresses and the use of second e-mail addresses by various agencies. None of those indicate anything similar to what Ms. Jackson did at all.
My mistake. I thought this discussion was specifically about the DOJ stupidly requesting $1+ million from AP for FOIA requests and "private" e-mail addresses.
You've dug up an article from January. We're now in June. Yes, *that* instance was quite probably criminal. What is being reported NOW is something totally different.
Apple and Oranges. Sarah Palin and staff were using non-State issued e-mail addresses to avoid record retention laws.
The article here talks about STATE-issued e-mail addresses to avoid spam and frivolous e-mail filling up their inbox. No public e-mail addresses were issued, and FOIA requests for e-mail included messages from the multiple addresses.
In this case, FOIA requests failed to return the emails in these other addresses, and they didn't know how to find them all.
That is not true, according to the article from AP.
Agencies where the AP so far has identified secret addresses, including the Labor Department and HHS, said maintaining non-public email accounts allows senior officials to keep separate their internal messages with agency employees from emails they exchange with the public. They also said public and non-public accounts are always searched in response to official requests and the records are provided as necessary.
Ten agencies have not yet turned over lists of email addresses, including the Environmental Protection Agency; the Pentagon; and the departments of Veterans Affairs, Transportation, Treasury, Justice, Housing and Urban Development, Homeland Security, Commerce and Agriculture. All have said they are working on a response to the AP.
This doesn't have anything to do with a personal account, nor keeping personal/work e-mail separate. It isn't outside e-mail. This is a "everyone and their dog has this e-mail address, so my mailbox is useless -- get me a second one to work internally on" issue.
The information, and mailbox itself is fully subject to FOIA.
No. You're wrong. Actually, you're assumption is wrong.
They set up second e-mail addresses because as public figures, their well-known e-mail addresses are flooded with crap from everyone and their dog who thinks it is neat to directly e-mail a Presidential appointee. They work for the PEOPLE, don't you know. The second address is used to do actual work, not bypass any process.
Those second addresses are fully subject to FOIA and it was not suggested in the article that they were "secret" -- just "non-disclosed".
If you read the article the costs -- not allowable and quickly rescinded -- we do have people dig thru a couple of years of backup tapes to make sure everything from former employees was also captured.
Take a deep breath and calm down. There is plenty of questionable crap going on in government, so there is no need to make up more.
Slashdot Mirror
http://news.cnet.com/2100-1029-6140191.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/3522137.stm
That is from 2006 and 2004. My paranoia is well justified.
So what exactly is metadata?
Many years ago I was a telecommunications engineer for a large company and worked CALEA. For the uninitiated, that is law-enforcement wiretapping.
My job was to make sure CALEA functioned properly on the new cellular network. We tested on an internal, micro-cell network that was isolated from the real world. The end result was to make sure targeted devices sent CDR (call data records, or metadata) and voice to the destination. This was all piped thru IPSec tunnels to the appropriate destination law-enforcement agency.
In the event of a tunnel failure, CDRs were required to buffer but voice was not. Saving voice during an outage required too much storage space, but the text nature of CDRs meant they were small and largely compressible.
Metadata consisted of EVERYTHING THAT WAS NOT VOICE.
To be clear, it included the following:
called number
calling number
time of call
duration of call
keys pressed during call
cell tower registered to
other cell towers in range
gps coordinates
signal strength
imei (cell phone serial number)
codec
and a few other bits of technical information.
Everything above "cell tower registered to" applies to traditional, POTS land line phones. This information seems to be what the disinformation campaign currently going on seems to revolve around. They never mention that there are over 327 MILLION cellular phones in the U.S., which is more than one per person. They never mention the bottom set of metadata.
Capturing all key presses makes sure things like call transfers, three-way calls and the like get captured.
It also grabs things like your voicemail PIN/password, which never seems to get explicitly mentioned.
But the cellular set is more interesting. This data come across in registration and keep-alive packets every few seconds. This is how the network knows you're still active and where to route calls to.
But by keeping all this metadata it allows whomever has it to plot of map of your phone's gross location and movements.
By "gross", I mean the location triangulated from cell tower strength and not GPS coordinates. Towers are triangular in nature and use panel antennas. They know which panel you connect thru and can triangulate your location down to a few meters just by the strength of your signal on a couple different towers.
GPS coordinates are "fine" location. For the most part the numbers sent across are either zeroed out or the last location your phone obtained a fix.
GPS isn't turned on all the time because it sucks batteries down. If you own a phone you know how long it can take to get a fix, so this feature isn't normally used.
HOWEVER, it can be turned on remotely and is a part of the E911 regulations pushed to help find incapacitated victims after 9/11.
[There is a reason the baseband radio chip in your phone has closed, binary-blob firmware -- whether or not the OS itself is FOSS. We wouldn't want the masses to be able to disable remote activation, would we? Or let them start changing frequencies and power levels.]
So, are we comfortable with the government knowing where we, thru our cell phones, are at every moment of the day? Because that is what metadata allows.
Think of what can be learned by applying modern pattern analysis to that data set.
Putting it in the bulb allows for simpler installation. Insteon allows for powerline and RF connectivity this way and makes just such a bulb.
That is a big advantage if you're renting and can't make wiring changes.
Finally, the LIFX and Hue bulbs allow for different colors, which you can't do with the controller in the switch.
I was thinking slot cars. I had a set when I was a kid. Lots of fun.
Earthquake Surfing! An Olympic sport by 2026.
Thanks.
The guy a few articles down who just finished the ATLAS detector in Lego bricks now has his new project.
So...a Disney ride?
That works, too. Either way, fun for all involved.
The check cleared.
What is collected from a telco is "Call Data Records", which is everything except the voice recording of the phone call.
This includes:
Number(s) Called / Number(s) Calling
Time of Call
Duration
Button presses during the call (call transfers, etc.)
If it is a cellular call:
SMS text messages
Cell tower connected to
Coarse location of phone (Tower triangulation)
Granular location of phone (GPS coordinates)
Registration / Keep Alives
Allowing you to:
Subject Adam received a 2 minute call from Subject Eve at 8:30 p.m.
At 8:45 p.m. both Subject Adam's and Subject Eve's phones registered their location at the "No Tell Motel" down on State Street.
At 9:25 p.m. both Subject's departed the Motel
Now change that from Subjects Adam and Eve to Adam and Steve. Care to "out" someone?
How about if one (or more) of the parties are married -- and not to each other? No leverage for blackmail THERE.
Hmmm...just run it as a hybrid with a diesel modified to run on french fry grease.
You don't get it do you?
They've ALWAYS done that. Monitoring calls that originate outside the U.S. doesn't require warrants. That is one of their core missions.
This just closes that last loophole.
You don't count the Vikings, Chinese, etc. because they didn't do anything with the discovery. Their "knowledge" of the Americas didn't translate to anything that noticeably impacted history or civilization either there (Norway, China, etc.) or here (North America).
The occasional potsherd or remnants of an abandoned village don't amount to anything. All of them left the equivalent of "Kilroy was here" marks and nothing more.
Columbus' "discovery" shook the world.
Can you explain how, in this case, the supposed non-disclosed email address are subject to FOIA?
By submitting the FOIA request for e-mail by a PERSON or a specific TOPIC/SUBJECT and not from a specific e-mail address.
i.e. -- "Send me all of Bob Smith's e-mail on the subject of soft lumber trade negotiations with Canada."
No you didn't. That was one agency, and they rescinded that almost immediately and already provided the information.
That was one whiny little bitch in the storage branch realizing he'd have to do a shitload of work and trying to get out of it without thinking or running it thru General Counsel's office.
Not really. The mention of "Lisa Jackson" (EPA Administrator) was from an incident in January -- 5 months ago.
This one addresses the DoJ's stupid request for $1+ million from AP to disclose all e-mail addresses and the use of second e-mail addresses by various agencies. None of those indicate anything similar to what Ms. Jackson did at all.
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20130604/DA6MPFHG2.html
My mistake. I thought this discussion was specifically about the DOJ stupidly requesting $1+ million from AP for FOIA requests and "private" e-mail addresses.
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20130604/DA6MPFHG2.html
You've dug up an article from January. We're now in June. Yes, *that* instance was quite probably criminal. What is being reported NOW is something totally different.
Apple and Oranges. Sarah Palin and staff were using non-State issued e-mail addresses to avoid record retention laws.
The article here talks about STATE-issued e-mail addresses to avoid spam and frivolous e-mail filling up their inbox. No public e-mail addresses were issued, and FOIA requests for e-mail included messages from the multiple addresses.
In this case, FOIA requests failed to return the emails in these other addresses, and they didn't know how to find them all.
That is not true, according to the article from AP.
Agencies where the AP so far has identified secret addresses, including the Labor Department and HHS, said maintaining non-public email accounts allows senior officials to keep separate their internal messages with agency employees from emails they exchange with the public. They also said public and non-public accounts are always searched in response to official requests and the records are provided as necessary.
Ten agencies have not yet turned over lists of email addresses, including the Environmental Protection Agency; the Pentagon; and the departments of Veterans Affairs, Transportation, Treasury, Justice, Housing and Urban Development, Homeland Security, Commerce and Agriculture. All have said they are working on a response to the AP.
Wow, no.
This doesn't have anything to do with a personal account, nor keeping personal/work e-mail separate. It isn't outside e-mail. This is a "everyone and their dog has this e-mail address, so my mailbox is useless -- get me a second one to work internally on" issue.
The information, and mailbox itself is fully subject to FOIA.
No. You're wrong. Actually, you're assumption is wrong.
They set up second e-mail addresses because as public figures, their well-known e-mail addresses are flooded with crap from everyone and their dog who thinks it is neat to directly e-mail a Presidential appointee. They work for the PEOPLE, don't you know. The second address is used to do actual work, not bypass any process.
Those second addresses are fully subject to FOIA and it was not suggested in the article that they were "secret" -- just "non-disclosed".
If you read the article the costs -- not allowable and quickly rescinded -- we do have people dig thru a couple of years of backup tapes to make sure everything from former employees was also captured.
Take a deep breath and calm down. There is plenty of questionable crap going on in government, so there is no need to make up more.
To make it look big by comparison. Why else?
That, mounted on a drone with Argus and some facial recognition software and we have the perfect "killer app".
Firewall off 127.0.0.1. Hell, might as well just blackhole the entire RFC 1918 space. Who need 10. networks anyway?