An interesting part is why the brands selected to stay in one part of the USA? With all that cheap power, skilled workers and tax breaks offered by other states?
What keeps big data clinging to the Eastern USA?
Was RT story mentioned further down on http://cryptome.org/2013/07/rockcam-spy.htm ?
Interesting notes about 'imagery data being relayed between the rocks, so that conventional signals intelligence methods would be unable to view the encrypted image/video streams." before the UK story.
The US would like to drop/park a rock in some country with active nuclear testing or expected nuclear leak issues.
So that science data would be collected and compressed back to a US site without Soviet/Russian/China/French?/German? local 'spy radio' detection systems been made aware?
Lockheed had lots of fun with dish antennae projects in Sunnyvale, CA.... they are way into the aerospace industry, antenna work (huge for UK or smaller projects).
NSA sucks up any nations data. This is more a ~CIA, MI6 surveillance product.
Add in the radiation details, 3 years of operation: thinking Iran, North Korea?
Does NZ really have the staff numbers to clean house like that?
Their best and brightest work around the world and it would be hard to track all their past relationships/contacts/loves/any corrupting new sympathies.
People new to NZ are a risk unless cleared by the USA for very unique language skills or past war zone help.
Some people are totally useless due to their close links to other countries spies at any generation.
So you are left with a short list of smart people with histories going back years in NZ, who want to work for the gov with many restrictions and less pay wrt to the private sector.
A lot of interviews of teachers, family, lovers, friends to see if they fit in and the US will clear them too.
ie so short staffed the paperwork got lost and it was all legal as and when presented.
Cold what do you expect NZ to do when it comes under pressure from the USA? At anytime the USA can turn off the NSA data stream.
NZ learned a lot from the Rainbow Warrior, international treaties, understandings, letters, assurances, visits, friendships and decades of cooperation are totally worthless.
When NZ asked Australia, the US, UK for small amounts of basic telco help with France they got very little back.
So NZ now knows its place, when the US asks for anything, NZ does all it can with all its tools (NSA was very good to the NZ gov and vast, expensive new telco work).
National security assets where in no way limited and NZ national security staff seemed happy to help before any new telco/spy law changes.
Re What the has happened to my country?
What was once in books and magazines via people like http://cryptome.org/2013-info/06/whistleblowing/whistleblowing.htm is now much more public.
The openness of telco networks, US/NZ/UK politics, US trade groups, favours and sharing is not something new.
What is interesting is how open the NZ side is. The public/press know knows enough to look way beyond what could have been passed off as basic NZ telco/police efforts.
The next question is how will departments (and trusted contractors) within the US/UK/NZ/Aus/Canadian spy networks respond to their coveted generational access been revisited in yet another very public way.
Eastern Europe/South America does provide some history on the prospects for the press.
The AC have posted some great maps:) ty
Where would the UK like its Room 641A http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A ?
Down the list of hints:
"for the United States" seems to show no huge existing US bases/ports/forts/camps (AFRICOM/past CENTCOM) ie a very short list. A region (historically?) friendly to the UK with a 'new' US base on the way?
"underwater fibre-optic cables" so less need for a site with lots of bulk optical landing.
Why "secret" Middle-East internet surveillance base? Some regional leaders seem just fine with UK/US bases/hardware?
Iran is surrounded by the US, is north Africa ~ the "Middle East"? To the north of Iran ~ big UK oil? Lots of UK experts helping with post Soviet oil deals, new optical loops way north?
So an existing UK/US friendly country with one extra UK site fits anywhere in the region.
Why the intelligence agencies are in the press is over: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/22/david-miranda-court-victory-data-police
Using laws formed around the time of the Irish peace talks and turning it onto the UK press is not so smart.
The UK press is rather smart and knows the next step might be closed material procedures.
ie UK lawyers may never get to see much real evidence anymore, question, only a security-cleared lawyer or ‘special advocate’ might.
Welcome to a next gen Franz Kafka like trial.
So the UK press know they might be on a collective list and want to get out in front of the debate rather than face closed courts for just doing their jobs.
Listening posts where always an issue for the budget conscious UK before and after the 1990's but US (NSA/mil) cash often helped keep very expensive sites running.
The region knew all about US/UK bases. The leaders and their "freedom fighters" would have be aware of:
Masirah Island, Oman (with NSA)
HMS Vacoas, Mauritius, closed 1976
Meshed, Iran lost in 1979
Mount Olympus, Cyprus, (Project Sandra/US Cobra Shoe) 1959 till?
Muharraq, Bahrain
Mutlah Ridge, Kuwait, 1961- till?
Pergamos, Cyprus 1957 -till?
Perkhar, Ceylon, 1957-65
Silvermine, South Africa (1970's)
Steamer Point and Khormaksar ~ Aden
Yarallakos, Cyprus (NSA?)
Habbaniya, Iraq till 1957
Diego Garcia 1964 - with a some slight issues for a very short time over a cash for land deal.
Optical, satellite and the govs/telcos buying/upgrading into standardised tech makes the need for many locations less of an issue.
The problem with the UK and its secret surveillance stations is in the political power it gives the host country.
Land, power, guards, a local cover story was once all post colonial joy or NATO like anti Soviet deals, training and some basic intel sharing.
eg Cold war Sweden got some airborne elint but no UK/US like sharing/resources.
The problem with the local "citizens" is once the locals find out the steps the local rulers/politicians/military have to take to keep the secret again.
Britain's Embassy in Peking was looted by "protesters" in 1967 and lost its Rockex cypher equipment.
Iran, Ethiopia and Turkey (via TPLA and TPLF) where often at issue to further UK/US sites in the ~1960's (and other sites later during the Cold War).
ie the Cld War offered sigint facilities extreme secrecy.
Now nations offer other types of sites just to show how thankful they are: http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/cia-black-sites-lithuania/story?id=9400744 http://www.thejournal.ie/british-papers-reveal-interrogation-centre-in-derry-1023719-Aug2013/
"Secret British papers reveal secret 1970s interrogation centre in Derry"
Sites have many uses and can become news again years later.
"subject to deep interrogation under the five techniques system the European Commission has called ‘torture’"
http://www2.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/news/20121207/
In the 1980's a CIA staff historian wrote a secret history of the Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961.
Thanks to FOIA, some of the work was released in the 1990's.
One final volume was locked up as the CIA "does not want to discourage disagreement among its historians."
Welcome to a world where the CIA knows that any basic history can "confuse the public".
Thanks to the sequester-induced budget cuts more US history can be kept safe with ever better long term document hygiene.
Facial recognition with good images works just fine on a database population the size of the USA.
Costs and speeds from the 1990s are not the issue as the measurement math is very simple and very fast per face.
The only past limit was legal national/state database image sharing.
You just need to get an image at the right height ie cameras on a road side checkpoints covering average passenger and driver car/truck/van face heights.
Local Feature Analysis ~ 80 points on a face, 14-22 nodal points, in 2000 you could get searching at ~ 60 million faces a minute for a few $10 million in grants.
Trying to rebuild a face only seen from one side over a few fames is harder but will soon be done with very complex 3d work.
eg "Although the technology is capable of scanning approximately seventy million images per minute,.... "
http://digitalcommons.law.villanova.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1336&context=vlr
Well the US system is built on getting you to use digital devices all the time. Post your thoughts to a web 2.0 site, carry a phone (tracking), use a PC or tablet with wireless/wifi, google glasses... licence plate tracking, facial recognition and voice prints...
Thats a lot of wonderful personal digital data, locations and mindset floating around.
Gather info on the press and interesting political stories, contact the press about past work, thank them for tracking regional issues and ask for follow ups.
Take up photography:) All the nice historic structures and sites in your area. Have a video camera with you when your approached about your new hobby.
Standing outside a Church in East Germany with a protest sign was productive.
Feed the system, wait for the result, document the results on youtube: enjoy your Constitutional rights while you still can.
Yes would be interesting to see wage/wealth heat map over the happy map. Add in gov workers with jobs/pensions for life, rent control areas, crime and other data.
The "tech" of using chemical weapons is very complex and makes for interesting reading as to when/how used and who supplied the materials.
Historical deals, past leaders, regional groups with the same weapons, who is sending cash/arms/support and the resulting vision of faith/trade outsiders have for Syria.
Fighting foreign supported groups with stated an ethnic and faith based vision for a new pure Syria makes the diverse local gov troops very aware of what the result will be if they lose for them and the wider civilian population.
The basic question is WHY if you have near total air cover, usable tanks, APC and a functional army with diverse civilian support would you risk the bad optics of been caught using banned weapons.....is a great tech question.
Sooner or later you will need special forces to teach how/when/where to use the "good weapons". The "good weapons" also might get sold or traded to other groups in the region with other long term aims.
The "rebels" all have their regional backers, own tactics and regional vision ie they are not happy democratic 'freedom' fighters.
Dropping "few targets they select" will usually end in a hospital, civilian bunker, tv station, water treatment plant, embassy ie very bad optics for the 'helping' nations.
Think back to Australia over the past 30 years. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_Transaction_Reports_and_Analysis_Centre
Established in 1989 for realtime banking tracking. Every digital movement of cash (~A$10,000) was watched. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/100_point_check again back to ~1988 for building a layers of documentary proof of identity for banking, pensions, later Subscriber Identity Modules (SIMS)...
Reciprocal healthcare agreements between Australia and New Zealand.
The problem I see in the US, UK, Australia, Canada is a new layer of legal "Star Chamber" national security structure.
No fly, PTSD (Posttraumatic stress disorder) no buy lists, DEA, IRS, NSA... with no cheap/legal way of correcting false data that becomes very restricting.
Track costs and diseases, is the person too old, the quality of care needed.
Say your old, poor on a gov pension, will your gov healthcare provider even mention the option of costly ongoing, personalised cancer drugs?
The 'free' operation went fine, you can go home now with just the cheap pain drugs, see your local dr.
Large legal databases give cleared groups vast amounts of details on a person with no more oversight.
The other aspect is Canada, you dont want to go to war, no more simple 'return to the USA' law.
Tracking 'any' US citizen in Canada legally would be very easy from the USA for any reason without the bureaucracy in the Canada knowing too much.
Rationed services locally, no more tempting US draft evasion, no moving between Canada and the USA without complex shared database questions.
Small banking transactions at a very low amount can be tracked well before after or during any tax audit (financial and/or political changes noted).
Healthcare cost and detailed medical records are usually at a hospital and do get legally shared cold. With US tax payers paying for ever more the IRS will be used to track the very complex billing and vast new spending.
Most countries do hint that when you get payments and services from the gov, the gov will like to know who you are, if your eligible and lots of other data.
Track costs and diseases, is the person a veteran, on disability, very poor, very rich, too old, the quality of care needed, time taken, meds needed, equipment used, all paid for by tax payers.
This new US vision of data control seems to allow the US gov and friends to bring in banks, other governments- ie way beyond just US socialized medicine.
Slashdot Mirror
An interesting part is why the brands selected to stay in one part of the USA? With all that cheap power, skilled workers and tax breaks offered by other states?
What keeps big data clinging to the Eastern USA?
Was RT story mentioned further down on http://cryptome.org/2013/07/rockcam-spy.htm ?
Interesting notes about 'imagery data being relayed between the rocks, so that conventional signals intelligence methods would be unable to view the encrypted image/video streams." before the UK story.
http://www.nbcnews.com/technology/hackers-tiny-50-spy-computer-hides-offices-drops-drones-158197 :)
Depends they might go for a home smoke/carbon monoxide detector with power for a long time
Sniffing/monitoring WLAN would be traceable maybe even expected where used?
This notes years hidden with options to conserve energy, get more useful life from the sun and radiation detectors with local weather details. Images over low-capacity mesh radio is just fine if its one 'site' and under years of expansion.
Different mission to devices like http://rt.com/news/spy-rock-britain-admit-147/ (2006)
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/russia/9022827/Russian-spy-rock-was-genuine-former-chief-of-staff-admits.html
The US would like to drop/park a rock in some country with active nuclear testing or expected nuclear leak issues.
So that science data would be collected and compressed back to a US site without Soviet/Russian/China/French?/German? local 'spy radio' detection systems been made aware?
Lockheed had lots of fun with dish antennae projects in Sunnyvale, CA.... they are way into the aerospace industry, antenna work (huge for UK or smaller projects).
NSA sucks up any nations data. This is more a ~CIA, MI6 surveillance product.
Add in the radiation details, 3 years of operation: thinking Iran, North Korea?
Does NZ really have the staff numbers to clean house like that?
Their best and brightest work around the world and it would be hard to track all their past relationships/contacts/loves/any corrupting new sympathies.
People new to NZ are a risk unless cleared by the USA for very unique language skills or past war zone help.
Some people are totally useless due to their close links to other countries spies at any generation.
So you are left with a short list of smart people with histories going back years in NZ, who want to work for the gov with many restrictions and less pay wrt to the private sector.
A lot of interviews of teachers, family, lovers, friends to see if they fit in and the US will clear them too.
ie so short staffed the paperwork got lost and it was all legal as and when presented.
Cold what do you expect NZ to do when it comes under pressure from the USA? At anytime the USA can turn off the NSA data stream.
NZ learned a lot from the Rainbow Warrior, international treaties, understandings, letters, assurances, visits, friendships and decades of cooperation are totally worthless.
When NZ asked Australia, the US, UK for small amounts of basic telco help with France they got very little back.
So NZ now knows its place, when the US asks for anything, NZ does all it can with all its tools (NSA was very good to the NZ gov and vast, expensive new telco work).
National security assets where in no way limited and NZ national security staff seemed happy to help before any new telco/spy law changes.
Re What the has happened to my country?
What was once in books and magazines via people like http://cryptome.org/2013-info/06/whistleblowing/whistleblowing.htm is now much more public.
The openness of telco networks, US/NZ/UK politics, US trade groups, favours and sharing is not something new.
What is interesting is how open the NZ side is. The public/press know knows enough to look way beyond what could have been passed off as basic NZ telco/police efforts.
The next question is how will departments (and trusted contractors) within the US/UK/NZ/Aus/Canadian spy networks respond to their coveted generational access been revisited in yet another very public way.
Eastern Europe/South America does provide some history on the prospects for the press.
So the classic option of a bend and mirror that the skilled staff at each end would never work out is now much less easy?
The AC have posted some great maps :) ty
Where would the UK like its Room 641A http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A ?
Down the list of hints:
"for the United States" seems to show no huge existing US bases/ports/forts/camps (AFRICOM/past CENTCOM) ie a very short list. A region (historically?) friendly to the UK with a 'new' US base on the way?
"underwater fibre-optic cables" so less need for a site with lots of bulk optical landing.
Why "secret" Middle-East internet surveillance base? Some regional leaders seem just fine with UK/US bases/hardware?
Iran is surrounded by the US, is north Africa ~ the "Middle East"? To the north of Iran ~ big UK oil? Lots of UK experts helping with post Soviet oil deals, new optical loops way north?
So an existing UK/US friendly country with one extra UK site fits anywhere in the region.
Why the intelligence agencies are in the press is over:
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/22/david-miranda-court-victory-data-police
Using laws formed around the time of the Irish peace talks and turning it onto the UK press is not so smart.
The UK press is rather smart and knows the next step might be closed material procedures.
ie UK lawyers may never get to see much real evidence anymore, question, only a security-cleared lawyer or ‘special advocate’ might.
Welcome to a next gen Franz Kafka like trial.
So the UK press know they might be on a collective list and want to get out in front of the debate rather than face closed courts for just doing their jobs.
Listening posts where always an issue for the budget conscious UK before and after the 1990's but US (NSA/mil) cash often helped keep very expensive sites running.
The region knew all about US/UK bases. The leaders and their "freedom fighters" would have be aware of:
Masirah Island, Oman (with NSA)
HMS Vacoas, Mauritius, closed 1976
Meshed, Iran lost in 1979
Mount Olympus, Cyprus, (Project Sandra/US Cobra Shoe) 1959 till?
Muharraq, Bahrain
Mutlah Ridge, Kuwait, 1961- till?
Pergamos, Cyprus 1957 -till?
Perkhar, Ceylon, 1957-65
Silvermine, South Africa (1970's)
Steamer Point and Khormaksar ~ Aden
Yarallakos, Cyprus (NSA?)
Habbaniya, Iraq till 1957
Diego Garcia 1964 - with a some slight issues for a very short time over a cash for land deal.
Optical, satellite and the govs/telcos buying/upgrading into standardised tech makes the need for many locations less of an issue.
How are the US public in any way confused?
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/22/us/2011-ruling-found-an-nsa-program-unconstitutional.html?_r=0
Selling expensive useless encryption is not "friction".
The problem with the UK and its secret surveillance stations is in the political power it gives the host country.
Land, power, guards, a local cover story was once all post colonial joy or NATO like anti Soviet deals, training and some basic intel sharing.
eg Cold war Sweden got some airborne elint but no UK/US like sharing/resources.
The problem with the local "citizens" is once the locals find out the steps the local rulers/politicians/military have to take to keep the secret again.
Britain's Embassy in Peking was looted by "protesters" in 1967 and lost its Rockex cypher equipment.
Iran, Ethiopia and Turkey (via TPLA and TPLF) where often at issue to further UK/US sites in the ~1960's (and other sites later during the Cold War).
ie the Cld War offered sigint facilities extreme secrecy.
Now nations offer other types of sites just to show how thankful they are:
http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/cia-black-sites-lithuania/story?id=9400744
http://www.thejournal.ie/british-papers-reveal-interrogation-centre-in-derry-1023719-Aug2013/
"Secret British papers reveal secret 1970s interrogation centre in Derry"
Sites have many uses and can become news again years later. "subject to deep interrogation under the five techniques system the European Commission has called ‘torture’"
http://www2.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/news/20121207/
In the 1980's a CIA staff historian wrote a secret history of the Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961.
Thanks to FOIA, some of the work was released in the 1990's.
One final volume was locked up as the CIA "does not want to discourage disagreement among its historians."
Welcome to a world where the CIA knows that any basic history can "confuse the public".
Thanks to the sequester-induced budget cuts more US history can be kept safe with ever better long term document hygiene.
Facial recognition with good images works just fine on a database population the size of the USA.
Costs and speeds from the 1990s are not the issue as the measurement math is very simple and very fast per face.
The only past limit was legal national/state database image sharing.
You just need to get an image at the right height ie cameras on a road side checkpoints covering average passenger and driver car/truck/van face heights.
Local Feature Analysis ~ 80 points on a face, 14-22 nodal points, in 2000 you could get searching at ~ 60 million faces a minute for a few $10 million in grants.
Trying to rebuild a face only seen from one side over a few fames is harder but will soon be done with very complex 3d work.
eg "Although the technology is capable of scanning approximately seventy million images per minute,.... " http://digitalcommons.law.villanova.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1336&context=vlr
Well the US system is built on getting you to use digital devices all the time. Post your thoughts to a web 2.0 site, carry a phone (tracking), use a PC or tablet with wireless/wifi, google glasses... licence plate tracking, facial recognition and voice prints... :) All the nice historic structures and sites in your area. Have a video camera with you when your approached about your new hobby.
Thats a lot of wonderful personal digital data, locations and mindset floating around.
Gather info on the press and interesting political stories, contact the press about past work, thank them for tracking regional issues and ask for follow ups.
Take up photography
Standing outside a Church in East Germany with a protest sign was productive.
Feed the system, wait for the result, document the results on youtube: enjoy your Constitutional rights while you still can.
Yes would be interesting to see wage/wealth heat map over the happy map. Add in gov workers with jobs/pensions for life, rent control areas, crime and other data.
The "tech" of using chemical weapons is very complex and makes for interesting reading as to when/how used and who supplied the materials.
Historical deals, past leaders, regional groups with the same weapons, who is sending cash/arms/support and the resulting vision of faith/trade outsiders have for Syria.
Fighting foreign supported groups with stated an ethnic and faith based vision for a new pure Syria makes the diverse local gov troops very aware of what the result will be if they lose for them and the wider civilian population.
The basic question is WHY if you have near total air cover, usable tanks, APC and a functional army with diverse civilian support would you risk the bad optics of been caught using banned weapons.....is a great tech question.
Sooner or later you will need special forces to teach how/when/where to use the "good weapons". The "good weapons" also might get sold or traded to other groups in the region with other long term aims.
The "rebels" all have their regional backers, own tactics and regional vision ie they are not happy democratic 'freedom' fighters. Dropping "few targets they select" will usually end in a hospital, civilian bunker, tv station, water treatment plant, embassy ie very bad optics for the 'helping' nations.
Think back to Australia over the past 30 years.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_Transaction_Reports_and_Analysis_Centre
Established in 1989 for realtime banking tracking. Every digital movement of cash (~A$10,000) was watched.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/100_point_check again back to ~1988 for building a layers of documentary proof of identity for banking, pensions, later Subscriber Identity Modules (SIMS)...
Reciprocal healthcare agreements between Australia and New Zealand.
The problem I see in the US, UK, Australia, Canada is a new layer of legal "Star Chamber" national security structure.
No fly, PTSD (Posttraumatic stress disorder) no buy lists, DEA, IRS, NSA... with no cheap/legal way of correcting false data that becomes very restricting.
Track costs and diseases, is the person too old, the quality of care needed.
Say your old, poor on a gov pension, will your gov healthcare provider even mention the option of costly ongoing, personalised cancer drugs?
The 'free' operation went fine, you can go home now with just the cheap pain drugs, see your local dr.
Large legal databases give cleared groups vast amounts of details on a person with no more oversight.
The other aspect is Canada, you dont want to go to war, no more simple 'return to the USA' law.
Tracking 'any' US citizen in Canada legally would be very easy from the USA for any reason without the bureaucracy in the Canada knowing too much.
Rationed services locally, no more tempting US draft evasion, no moving between Canada and the USA without complex shared database questions.
Small banking transactions at a very low amount can be tracked well before after or during any tax audit (financial and/or political changes noted).
Healthcare cost and detailed medical records are usually at a hospital and do get legally shared cold. With US tax payers paying for ever more the IRS will be used to track the very complex billing and vast new spending.
Most countries do hint that when you get payments and services from the gov, the gov will like to know who you are, if your eligible and lots of other data.
Track costs and diseases, is the person a veteran, on disability, very poor, very rich, too old, the quality of care needed, time taken, meds needed, equipment used, all paid for by tax payers.
This new US vision of data control seems to allow the US gov and friends to bring in banks, other governments- ie way beyond just US socialized medicine.