Lots of nations ban all telco products from their secure buildings or block nations for bidding for backhaul, trunk lines for national security. Nations set real hard gov standards eg. consumer grade phone or device can be taken into a gov building or what select brand or version is fully cleared for their bureaucracy. No phone, only one brand of phone for "interoperability" or what meets min encryption standards. Nations have done that for decades. The wider population can still buy a expensive consumer grade phone and enjoy been see with it in park, city, cafe.
Carrying around, buying or installing another nations signals intelligence equipment is what most nations try to avoid.
Recall GODSURGE, IRONCHEF, IRATEMONKEY, SOMBERKNAVE, VALIDATOR, OLYMPUS, COTTONMOUTH via ANT. http://cryptome.org/2014/01/ns...
If you like a phone like device you have COTTONMOUTH, CANDYWIRE with some DROPOUTJEEP, TOTEGHOSTLY.
Its not just the hardware as shipped or altered during shipment. Staff turn off a cell phone at a site and then turn it on 'outside' again - even that is interesting.
Other nations understood this risk over years and have the political understanding to push domestic production. A hall with 100's of local whitebox units vs the small. fast, well coded, expensive import.
With your own nations tech you understand the cpu, the motherboard, all cards, the code. With an import you risk a closed source blob on your motherboard as shipped or added.
Local skills and jobs get a boost, tech funding flows. Might even be an export product range.
Re "converted into a whistleblower to extend that usefulness." sounds fun in the press but will still get caught and then be turned, debriefed or put up for a show trial.
A sleeper agent in is place until detected or just keeps advancing, trying to ensure safe career advancement.
Even better they get to selected their new colleagues - a free second generation if you can keep it all well hidden.
If you want a limited hangout or trial balloon best to use a true believer or useful idiot. Nothing can be tracked back and any message is contained.
No risking further investigations deep into the pasts and origins of other well placed sleeper agents who are near the top of their gov bureaucracies or as well connected contractors.
Why risk anything on one easy to track document?
Paper work can be tracked in days, people can stay in place for decades. Whistleblowers are a bit more interesting.
'Then begs the question how many actual moles from foreign intelligence there are."
Lots of safe cleared staff working for other govs over decades.
It depends on the quality of the person found by other nations. Some share the same faith, cult, country and will always put that first over generations.
Some people get into cash flow or lifestyle issues and need help form other nations.
Some just get passed over or fail and then stay in for decades helping other nations.
Historically the best times to get foreign intelligence staff in as gov staff is during times of rushed need - wars. Languages, computer skills, accents, slang, dialects are in desperate need- few questions asked
Other friendly nations have a lot of skilled staff to share too. Security is lax, rushed. People invited in with the right education or smarts stay in for decades and are cleared on past work done or as contractors.
The only way to protect against that is to not hire any dual nationals and interview in person the extended family members per an applicants life story.
West Germany was great at rebuilding a life story and stopped a few attempts by East Germany by looking over paperwork and a life story of applicants. It takes time, effort, money, real people. East Germany then went for West German private sector and hoped a few 20 somethings would make top cleared staff in 20-30 years with real security clearances eared and fully trusted.
Can they be found in the US? No the teams looking are already compromised by politics and private project funding or other nations. Kind of hard to shut out the private sector and all the other helper nations. Kind of easy to get staff in applying for all the new US security jobs out of university.
A sleeper agent would feed the docs back to another country and do everything to keep their cover and advance via decades of great US gov work.
No deep cover agent would be allowed to just become a "whistleblower" as many cleared docs are created for and tracked per staff member.
Under examination each copy can be tracked back, why risk all for one domestic database press event?
ie a mole would send unique one of a kind material to their handler and thats it.
If the source gets documents published its a whistleblower.
Why would the FSB do this? They want their deep penetration agents to sail past any token US security and rise to the top of the US mil/political policy setting sectors.
For that the FSB would want the US security private, underfunded and digital only.
The more leaks, the more active the FBI, CIA and UK hunters become. The more leaks suspected from within the US gov and mil, the more tracking of all US gov staff.
Voice print tracking, web use, review of all life stories of all cleared US bureaucrats would not be something any skilled nation wants to induce the US gov to fund.
Any outside gov would want the US hunting foreigners in distant lands to the point of been distracted from basic interviews and paperwork of gov applicants over generations.
A push to induce the US gov to seek languages, life experiences, slang, accents would be the perfect cover. A flood of new staff would be great. Looking at all staff again is not so good.
Whistleblowers appear every generation to expose torture, wars, deaths, domestic surveillance.
It seems like a rewarm of the old Main Core 1980's vision of "ontains personal and financial data of millions of U.S. citizens believed to be threats to national security." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
"As of 2008 there were reportedly eight million Americans listed in the database as possible threats"
The fun part of the new list is "“no recognized terrorist group affiliation”" count. Wonder how you make that side of the colorful chart?
Re"If this is all able to made public now"
The terms used for people and your use of communications??
"...NSA cycles off through its data deletion policy...."
"But in the process for technical reasons it was collecting more communications of nontargets."
I would guess at terms surrounding been targeted, that you have to collect all to find a target and then what a gov/mil gets to keep and for how long. If your are a nontarget, your data might get collected but it will not be kept for very long, sort of, maybe if the computer cycle works good?
It seems what was tracked in the past has now moved to a drift net system.
From 2007 "....a tracking system capable of pinpointing specific workstations that searched for and downloaded....." http://www.zdnet.com/blog/secu...
Yes the race was on in the for all aspects of aerosol dissemination over a wide variety of options. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Considering how hard the US and Soviet Union looked at all kinds of weapons systems, serum, collected samples.
So something was collected, stored, offered this time to get some good news out.
It depends who they want to get and why. If a gov needs a nations tops skills it kind of signals what tasks are expected in a public way.
Top people can be bought in as friends of friends with the right education and background.
Cyber Security Operations Centre was public in ~2010?
For other tasks they will cast a wide public net and skill people up in house.
It was the same with German in ww2, Russian before/after ww2, Ireland and Asian/African language needs now.
The public can follow along via what was done with 2006 with 'SIGMod initiative' (sigint modernisation programme) and Tempora https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
In the distance past "National Service" tests offered a great way to filter an entire generation eg languages. Selected people could then be offered advanced university courses once trusted.
The problem is will the smart person found fit it and pass? Or fail and lose pay, rank and feel passed over. Best to try for top elite students as they have already fit in?
The UK has tried so many ways for getting and keeping staff over decades. Skills, pay, trust, lifestyle vs the waiting, understanding foreigner ready befriend staff.
Or the pure penetration agents who have the perfect connections and skills for next gen cyber computer tasks.
Think of it as farming. You look after the truffle pig or milk cow and get years of productivity. The French understand this, like many other nations, you invest well and use the profits in other countries to build up real infrastructure back in France. Think of it as a farm or colony or investment. The extracted cash flows back one way:)
With the correct use of ads, plans and that new boss feeling the consumers will herd themselves for free enjoying freedoms, good value and choice.
It gets expensive. You have to find an ip thats not yours every time. Late night you slip up just once and the resulting filtering, sorting will find you.
Add in the use of encryption or other acts will make the gov track all strange packets they find. The more they have to look, the more time and cash will flow until the reason why a person wanted anonymity or used encryption is uncovered.
A person would have to change all their computer hardware, software, never visit the same sites as their legal account, never use the same methods, slang, names, country - perfectly, every time they wanted anonymity. After a few years that gets to be a skill. The gov contractors and mercenaries have years to wait for that one slip up.
Also the people around you might have been turned many years ago when they slipped up one night.
It also depends on the other ip you use. If the account just looks at golf and work, to see the same 'persons' ip suddenly use encryption could be easily noted.
Lists go both ways, the normal to find stand out events and the users of encryption.
Re "So, what are you going to use for ID? "
If you cant get a national ID system passed into law you do what Australia did after ideas around the Australia Card https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... failed (~1985 abandoned in 1987.).
A gov can demand a linked list of different types of ID to create a life story from gov issued paper work and gov databases.
In the end you have something like the 100 point check https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... for cell phones, banking, interacting with gov services.
No need for any national cards or huge changes. You just have to have the kind of documents any 'real' person would have: birth Certificate or passport, licence, id or permit or name and address documents. A selection of documents to build into a final legal profile.
What you had to show to open a bank account or get a cell phone could be requested by your internet provider and linked with every ip change to your account.
Even better, encode an isp issued like coaxial cable box just for 'you'.
" We only need to expose the criminals, not everybody else."
The problem with that is the scope of who gets to see the ip, persons address and how to flag the online activity.
What if a local political leader is seen using a tax payer funded car for personal use?
Say a staff member tips of the local press via online communications? That local political leader could then unmask the origin of the story using a simple legal data request made to look like a local gov was tracking a "criminal".
An automated database and form summited would not know it was the press or the staff member was the result as long as the right local gov clearance was used.
Dianne Feinstein statement on CIA torture report 'cover-up' Ã" full text (12 March 2014) http://www.theguardian.com/wor...
"wading through the horrible details of a CIA program that never, never, never should have existed."
Feinstein accuses CIA of 'intimidating' Senate staff over torture report (12 March 2014) http://www.theguardian.com/wor...
The problem is the issues go back to many, many years. Vital information was not passed on to the FBI about the movements of bad people into the USA.
Later after an event the FBI was then given files showing that same vital information existed via US gov staff in another country.
At a later date interrogations took place in a 3rd country. The FBI used wise open court interrogation skills that got a person to talk so a real US trial could be held. The CIA and their medial staff had a free pass to try torture. The FBI got results. The CIA got to try torture. The CIA was in change of the site and communications. The CIA passed the results back. For years the upper levels of the US gov really, really wanted to hint that CIA got real results, so did the press with contacts and sockpuppets.
The problem for the CIA is the first hidden paper trail, the promotions that have been allowed over not sharing information with the FBI and then FBI interrogation results issues.
Kind of not so easy to tell the US public, press many years later.
Re The national ISPs would host their own root.
Yes nations would just go for a version of the classic Minitel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... with a nice web 2.0 feel.
Other nations would then set up their own networks understanding they could be 'next'.
Two multinational telecommunications brands and a Linux distribution vs a PRISM?
Like many nations, best to go with your own staff, code, hardware and software long term. Too many eyes with the costly imports.
Re 'being used as a scapegoat here"
If the encryption is weak and is shared with a few govs its better for China to walk away from all tame US products and start again withe their own code and software solutions.
Every encrypted use of the internet to and from the US would be of interest.
All the layers and data about the 'safe' encrypted message would be kept. Just using encryption would ensure further investigation and long term logging.
The consumer hardware is connected to a very tame 'internet', with tame telcos, tame VPN providers, tame crypto providers and issues like the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communications_Assistance_for_Law_Enforcement_Act
The network as provided is fully open to the gov. Use a tame consumer OS or more interesting OS, your packets still flow and a few govs work very hard to collect all.
The advice that can be given by some top ex US mil/gov official is the low cost of hardware for ex gov staff and former gov staff now working for 'other' global banking competitors.
A lot of ex gov staff around the world know how telco and banking systems work and are for hire. What was once "five eyes" with shared bases global expensive is now banking sector affordable. Everybody now has the ability to buy some telco sector insight.
What can be done re consumer hardware? You have to walk, drive, fly to your bank and work out what product is best for you face to face. Too many groups, people, ex staff, former staff have the same insights into networks. eg identify US unreported offshore accounts? Just watch people in the US logging into 'encrypted' super secret offshore accounts via that US telco as they look at statements, move cash around.
That unique ip/encryption stream would stand out. Over time all a bank needs to report is dual citizens and people on holiday. Everybody of interest is safe, meeting face to face with correct paper work:)
People can work out a vast complex network exists. All that national spread of small factory complexes with just in time delivery and payment.
Add in a tail end network thats waiting on international parts delivery.
So they find their way onto trusted systems and go for the main complex.
Finding a way in they use skill and poor design to transfer out 'plans'.
Some time later they spend big trying to make the plans work. Their own well funded lab comes back empty. Something is wrong, missing or it was never a real project.
To make the above work you need a vast amount of tame press telling the world about sloppy code, successful intrusions, countries getting away with decades of digital design over a few short years.
At a lower level its all about vendor lock in, ensuring the sale of that next version and then chasing the intrusion clean up work.
Systems are open to the net for a reason - as bait or to rent seek clean up contracts.
Re"still maintain these ICBMs" is the key. Generations now expect a good paying job working on 1960's-90's tech for decades at a security level and gov pay grade.
Overtime they have turned that some of that gov pay grade into contractor positions.
The staff then have car, house, debt, hobbies - ie totally locked into the shareholder military industrial complex. Just as profiled for the position.
Thats a lot of contractor boondoggle and maintenance rent seeking over decades too. Kind of hard for the political class not to accept huge donations over many terms.
The systems stay, the workers stay, the staff stay, the profits are locked in and expected every year over generations.
They have a fence around the site and the hatch system is secure. The electronic code system would have only been been seen by a few people to give the right code to the right site at the right time (one time pad).
The older staff would have worked out every control panel and lockout device due to boring mission hours and skills.
So you need the code sent in, a few people to send the code, more than 1 person to turn the key/get launch site ready.
The main issue is if the entire command falls under the influence of a faith based cult.
Lets hope the contractors who run the medical tests on the staff look for changes in the basic personality types used at the sites.
Other people would have the mission to track all staff off base 24/7 - phones, reading material, net use, new friends.
The gov cares as the pay TV monopoly zones see having their wealth protected from all other providers.
You pay for months of pay tv to enjoy a new show per season. You dont get to enjoy each show from another nations computer company in near real time.
So expect to see a lot of pay tv efforts locally and internationally to protect each networked thiefdom .
Yes with the flow of cash old and new laws become an option. So you have a rush to set all aspects of streaming, p2p, downloading to a cash "moving" criminal legal standing.
Slashdot Mirror
Lots of nations ban all telco products from their secure buildings or block nations for bidding for backhaul, trunk lines for national security. Nations set real hard gov standards eg. consumer grade phone or device can be taken into a gov building or what select brand or version is fully cleared for their bureaucracy. No phone, only one brand of phone for "interoperability" or what meets min encryption standards. Nations have done that for decades. The wider population can still buy a expensive consumer grade phone and enjoy been see with it in park, city, cafe.
Carrying around, buying or installing another nations signals intelligence equipment is what most nations try to avoid.
Recall GODSURGE, IRONCHEF, IRATEMONKEY, SOMBERKNAVE, VALIDATOR, OLYMPUS, COTTONMOUTH via ANT.
http://cryptome.org/2014/01/ns...
If you like a phone like device you have COTTONMOUTH, CANDYWIRE with some DROPOUTJEEP, TOTEGHOSTLY.
Its not just the hardware as shipped or altered during shipment. Staff turn off a cell phone at a site and then turn it on 'outside' again - even that is interesting.
Other nations understood this risk over years and have the political understanding to push domestic production. A hall with 100's of local whitebox units vs the small. fast, well coded, expensive import.
With your own nations tech you understand the cpu, the motherboard, all cards, the code. With an import you risk a closed source blob on your motherboard as shipped or added.
Local skills and jobs get a boost, tech funding flows. Might even be an export product range.
Re "converted into a whistleblower to extend that usefulness." sounds fun in the press but will still get caught and then be turned, debriefed or put up for a show trial.
A sleeper agent in is place until detected or just keeps advancing, trying to ensure safe career advancement.
Even better they get to selected their new colleagues - a free second generation if you can keep it all well hidden.
If you want a limited hangout or trial balloon best to use a true believer or useful idiot. Nothing can be tracked back and any message is contained.
No risking further investigations deep into the pasts and origins of other well placed sleeper agents who are near the top of their gov bureaucracies or as well connected contractors.
Why risk anything on one easy to track document?
Paper work can be tracked in days, people can stay in place for decades. Whistleblowers are a bit more interesting.
'Then begs the question how many actual moles from foreign intelligence there are."
Lots of safe cleared staff working for other govs over decades.
It depends on the quality of the person found by other nations. Some share the same faith, cult, country and will always put that first over generations.
Some people get into cash flow or lifestyle issues and need help form other nations.
Some just get passed over or fail and then stay in for decades helping other nations.
Historically the best times to get foreign intelligence staff in as gov staff is during times of rushed need - wars. Languages, computer skills, accents, slang, dialects are in desperate need- few questions asked
Other friendly nations have a lot of skilled staff to share too. Security is lax, rushed. People invited in with the right education or smarts stay in for decades and are cleared on past work done or as contractors.
The only way to protect against that is to not hire any dual nationals and interview in person the extended family members per an applicants life story.
West Germany was great at rebuilding a life story and stopped a few attempts by East Germany by looking over paperwork and a life story of applicants. It takes time, effort, money, real people. East Germany then went for West German private sector and hoped a few 20 somethings would make top cleared staff in 20-30 years with real security clearances eared and fully trusted.
Can they be found in the US? No the teams looking are already compromised by politics and private project funding or other nations. Kind of hard to shut out the private sector and all the other helper nations. Kind of easy to get staff in applying for all the new US security jobs out of university.
A sleeper agent would feed the docs back to another country and do everything to keep their cover and advance via decades of great US gov work.
No deep cover agent would be allowed to just become a "whistleblower" as many cleared docs are created for and tracked per staff member.
Under examination each copy can be tracked back, why risk all for one domestic database press event?
ie a mole would send unique one of a kind material to their handler and thats it.
If the source gets documents published its a whistleblower.
Why would the FSB do this? They want their deep penetration agents to sail past any token US security and rise to the top of the US mil/political policy setting sectors.
For that the FSB would want the US security private, underfunded and digital only.
The more leaks, the more active the FBI, CIA and UK hunters become. The more leaks suspected from within the US gov and mil, the more tracking of all US gov staff.
Voice print tracking, web use, review of all life stories of all cleared US bureaucrats would not be something any skilled nation wants to induce the US gov to fund.
Any outside gov would want the US hunting foreigners in distant lands to the point of been distracted from basic interviews and paperwork of gov applicants over generations.
A push to induce the US gov to seek languages, life experiences, slang, accents would be the perfect cover. A flood of new staff would be great. Looking at all staff again is not so good.
Whistleblowers appear every generation to expose torture, wars, deaths, domestic surveillance.
It seems like a rewarm of the old Main Core 1980's vision of "ontains personal and financial data of millions of U.S. citizens believed to be threats to national security." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
"As of 2008 there were reportedly eight million Americans listed in the database as possible threats"
The fun part of the new list is "“no recognized terrorist group affiliation”" count. Wonder how you make that side of the colorful chart?
Re"If this is all able to made public now" ...NSA cycles off through its data deletion policy ...."
The terms used for people and your use of communications??
"
"But in the process for technical reasons it was collecting more communications of nontargets."
I would guess at terms surrounding been targeted, that you have to collect all to find a target and then what a gov/mil gets to keep and for how long. If your are a nontarget, your data might get collected but it will not be kept for very long, sort of, maybe if the computer cycle works good?
It seems what was tracked in the past has now moved to a drift net system.
From 2007 "....a tracking system capable of pinpointing specific workstations that searched for and downloaded....."
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/secu...
Yes the race was on in the for all aspects of aerosol dissemination over a wide variety of options.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Considering how hard the US and Soviet Union looked at all kinds of weapons systems, serum, collected samples.
So something was collected, stored, offered this time to get some good news out.
It depends who they want to get and why. If a gov needs a nations tops skills it kind of signals what tasks are expected in a public way.
Top people can be bought in as friends of friends with the right education and background.
Cyber Security Operations Centre was public in ~2010?
For other tasks they will cast a wide public net and skill people up in house.
It was the same with German in ww2, Russian before/after ww2, Ireland and Asian/African language needs now.
The public can follow along via what was done with 2006 with 'SIGMod initiative' (sigint modernisation programme) and Tempora https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
In the distance past "National Service" tests offered a great way to filter an entire generation eg languages. Selected people could then be offered advanced university courses once trusted.
The problem is will the smart person found fit it and pass? Or fail and lose pay, rank and feel passed over. Best to try for top elite students as they have already fit in?
The UK has tried so many ways for getting and keeping staff over decades. Skills, pay, trust, lifestyle vs the waiting, understanding foreigner ready befriend staff.
Or the pure penetration agents who have the perfect connections and skills for next gen cyber computer tasks.
Think of it as farming. You look after the truffle pig or milk cow and get years of productivity. The French understand this, like many other nations, you invest well and use the profits in other countries to build up real infrastructure back in France. Think of it as a farm or colony or investment. The extracted cash flows back one way :)
With the correct use of ads, plans and that new boss feeling the consumers will herd themselves for free enjoying freedoms, good value and choice.
It gets expensive. You have to find an ip thats not yours every time. Late night you slip up just once and the resulting filtering, sorting will find you.
Add in the use of encryption or other acts will make the gov track all strange packets they find. The more they have to look, the more time and cash will flow until the reason why a person wanted anonymity or used encryption is uncovered.
A person would have to change all their computer hardware, software, never visit the same sites as their legal account, never use the same methods, slang, names, country - perfectly, every time they wanted anonymity. After a few years that gets to be a skill. The gov contractors and mercenaries have years to wait for that one slip up.
Also the people around you might have been turned many years ago when they slipped up one night.
It also depends on the other ip you use. If the account just looks at golf and work, to see the same 'persons' ip suddenly use encryption could be easily noted.
Lists go both ways, the normal to find stand out events and the users of encryption.
Re "So, what are you going to use for ID? "
If you cant get a national ID system passed into law you do what Australia did after ideas around the Australia Card https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... failed (~1985 abandoned in 1987.).
A gov can demand a linked list of different types of ID to create a life story from gov issued paper work and gov databases.
In the end you have something like the 100 point check https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... for cell phones, banking, interacting with gov services.
No need for any national cards or huge changes. You just have to have the kind of documents any 'real' person would have: birth Certificate or passport, licence, id or permit or name and address documents. A selection of documents to build into a final legal profile.
What you had to show to open a bank account or get a cell phone could be requested by your internet provider and linked with every ip change to your account.
Even better, encode an isp issued like coaxial cable box just for 'you'.
" We only need to expose the criminals, not everybody else."
The problem with that is the scope of who gets to see the ip, persons address and how to flag the online activity.
What if a local political leader is seen using a tax payer funded car for personal use?
Say a staff member tips of the local press via online communications? That local political leader could then unmask the origin of the story using a simple legal data request made to look like a local gov was tracking a "criminal".
An automated database and form summited would not know it was the press or the staff member was the result as long as the right local gov clearance was used.
Dianne Feinstein statement on CIA torture report 'cover-up' Ã" full text (12 March 2014)
http://www.theguardian.com/wor...
"wading through the horrible details of a CIA program that never, never, never should have existed."
Feinstein accuses CIA of 'intimidating' Senate staff over torture report (12 March 2014)
http://www.theguardian.com/wor...
The problem is the issues go back to many, many years. Vital information was not passed on to the FBI about the movements of bad people into the USA.
Later after an event the FBI was then given files showing that same vital information existed via US gov staff in another country.
At a later date interrogations took place in a 3rd country. The FBI used wise open court interrogation skills that got a person to talk so a real US trial could be held. The CIA and their medial staff had a free pass to try torture. The FBI got results. The CIA got to try torture.
The CIA was in change of the site and communications. The CIA passed the results back. For years the upper levels of the US gov really, really wanted to hint that CIA got real results, so did the press with contacts and sockpuppets.
The problem for the CIA is the first hidden paper trail, the promotions that have been allowed over not sharing information with the FBI and then FBI interrogation results issues.
Kind of not so easy to tell the US public, press many years later.
Re The national ISPs would host their own root.
Yes nations would just go for a version of the classic Minitel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... with a nice web 2.0 feel.
Other nations would then set up their own networks understanding they could be 'next'.
Two multinational telecommunications brands and a Linux distribution vs a PRISM?
Like many nations, best to go with your own staff, code, hardware and software long term. Too many eyes with the costly imports.
Re 'being used as a scapegoat here"
If the encryption is weak and is shared with a few govs its better for China to walk away from all tame US products and start again withe their own code and software solutions.
Every encrypted use of the internet to and from the US would be of interest. :)
All the layers and data about the 'safe' encrypted message would be kept. Just using encryption would ensure further investigation and long term logging.
The consumer hardware is connected to a very tame 'internet', with tame telcos, tame VPN providers, tame crypto providers and issues like the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communications_Assistance_for_Law_Enforcement_Act
The network as provided is fully open to the gov. Use a tame consumer OS or more interesting OS, your packets still flow and a few govs work very hard to collect all.
The advice that can be given by some top ex US mil/gov official is the low cost of hardware for ex gov staff and former gov staff now working for 'other' global banking competitors.
A lot of ex gov staff around the world know how telco and banking systems work and are for hire. What was once "five eyes" with shared bases global expensive is now banking sector affordable. Everybody now has the ability to buy some telco sector insight.
What can be done re consumer hardware? You have to walk, drive, fly to your bank and work out what product is best for you face to face.
Too many groups, people, ex staff, former staff have the same insights into networks. eg identify US unreported offshore accounts? Just watch people in the US logging into 'encrypted' super secret offshore accounts via that US telco as they look at statements, move cash around.
That unique ip/encryption stream would stand out. Over time all a bank needs to report is dual citizens and people on holiday. Everybody of interest is safe, meeting face to face with correct paper work
People can work out a vast complex network exists. All that national spread of small factory complexes with just in time delivery and payment.
Add in a tail end network thats waiting on international parts delivery.
So they find their way onto trusted systems and go for the main complex.
Finding a way in they use skill and poor design to transfer out 'plans'.
Some time later they spend big trying to make the plans work. Their own well funded lab comes back empty. Something is wrong, missing or it was never a real project.
To make the above work you need a vast amount of tame press telling the world about sloppy code, successful intrusions, countries getting away with decades of digital design over a few short years.
At a lower level its all about vendor lock in, ensuring the sale of that next version and then chasing the intrusion clean up work.
Systems are open to the net for a reason - as bait or to rent seek clean up contracts.
Re"still maintain these ICBMs" is the key. Generations now expect a good paying job working on 1960's-90's tech for decades at a security level and gov pay grade.
Overtime they have turned that some of that gov pay grade into contractor positions.
The staff then have car, house, debt, hobbies - ie totally locked into the shareholder military industrial complex. Just as profiled for the position.
Thats a lot of contractor boondoggle and maintenance rent seeking over decades too. Kind of hard for the political class not to accept huge donations over many terms.
The systems stay, the workers stay, the staff stay, the profits are locked in and expected every year over generations.
They have a fence around the site and the hatch system is secure. The electronic code system would have only been been seen by a few people to give the right code to the right site at the right time (one time pad).
The older staff would have worked out every control panel and lockout device due to boring mission hours and skills.
So you need the code sent in, a few people to send the code, more than 1 person to turn the key/get launch site ready.
The main issue is if the entire command falls under the influence of a faith based cult.
Lets hope the contractors who run the medical tests on the staff look for changes in the basic personality types used at the sites.
Other people would have the mission to track all staff off base 24/7 - phones, reading material, net use, new friends.
The gov cares as the pay TV monopoly zones see having their wealth protected from all other providers.
You pay for months of pay tv to enjoy a new show per season. You dont get to enjoy each show from another nations computer company in near real time.
So expect to see a lot of pay tv efforts locally and internationally to protect each networked thiefdom .
Yes with the flow of cash old and new laws become an option. So you have a rush to set all aspects of streaming, p2p, downloading to a cash "moving" criminal legal standing.