It seems to be the same method used in Australia over a book called Axis of Deceit.
Destroy the drive in front of the gov 'now' or the gov will take the drive. http://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/search/display/display.w3p;query=Id%3A%22library%2Fprspub%2FN16J6%22
".... office to cleanse the offending material from our computers. They transferred the data to a hard disk then gave us the option of having it taken away or destroyed in front of us. We chose the second option, then watched them do it with a special little disk-breaking hammer. They graciously followed up this service with a customer satisfaction form.12" ..."also had their hard drives cleansed around early September 2004, several months after the amended book had gone on sale."
Key distribution was always in place for staff for their missions/projects.
As for people who operate the file servers - you have raw data from web 2.0, listening stations, satellites, DEA, CIA... an endless stream of strange new raw data.
Someone has to write and look after the data "in" and the compression/indexing backend used.
To "operate the file servers" is not just keeping huge VM of expected clean input data like in some web 2.0.com.
Physical access is trusted. The data is just stuff to be trimmed down to small files.
No need to encrypt/keep a raw phone call from South America, it will just end up as a voice print, transcript and call data added to an existing file.
Who gets to reads any transcript is very controlled. No taking it home/copy for the Russian embassy, no searching for it without the right codes.
You still need humans to translate, collect, listen, make connections, question and the people to look after their systems.
ie If your cleared to 'operate the file servers" you might need to understand the networks ie like the translators you are trusted within limits.
Australia had its own day of 'cleansing' over a book, Axis of Deceit. http://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/search/display/display.w3p;query=Id%3A%22library%2Fprspub%2FN16J6%22
"...then watched them do it with a special little disk-breaking hammer. They graciously followed up this service with a customer satisfaction form"
".... also had their hard drives cleansed around early September 2004, several months after the amended book had gone on sale"
The UK has a lot of teeth in a lot of laws, for having a "gun" with you, for reading banned material online and if they so wish the full use of the Official Secrets Act.
The problem for the UK is the optics and methods of the Official Secrets Act.
If you use it in a sealed court setting, you admit you have a "spy" like situation and need a top cleared legal team. Any person facing that system is by default be facing a Star Chamber and gather world wide sympathy and much legal UK interest spins up fast.
If its in an open court, the defence and press goes to work on every detail and method. All in the open again over years. A situation most UK govs seem to want to avoid at any cost.
So you never "running afoul" of the Official Secrets Act. It is a legal tool to welcome staff into the system with a nice clearance level and hints at years in jail.
The UK would rather use other methods - if your connected to power/gov - no trial, pension but no more talking/leaks.
If your connected to codes/methods but have few friends - a public trial on other topics..
Other non court methods are also very legal in the UK.
Offshore or new code or fancy robots on rails, this will get interesting for state politics.
Vast numbers of young people are returning with clearances, or went into expensive 'security' education and are all expecting many "local" federal jobs.
Speeches presenting and contractors lined up for an ever expanding security apparatus in their State. Political skill and connections got the future jobs....
If one agency is not hiring in the "correct" way, other agencies might get funding moved over to them and more political power.
They "went" through rigorous background checks in the past. In the past ~10 years its more digital, your boss/work/skills and their political contacts.
The days of new staff having extended sit down family, teachers, lovers, friends interviewed for hours is less.
Long exhaustive paper work trails of the family tree and deep political connections where once done.
Now low level staff face a digital state and federal cross reference and deep interview bringing past "work" in as clearance or the firm/brand as counting as some wider clearance.
Above that it seems to be more skills in need over expensive deep real world background work.
A lot of rushed expansion and now they want the cloud to work with more gov/private people getting a look in to replace existing staff?
A lot of new cash for clearing up the 'people' side.
Re All data should be encrypted.
The US has a love/hate feel on data been encrypted.
In the past the US has many great wins with sloppy work by ww2 German, the Soviet Union, now the EU, Japan...
Get all their super good 'encrypted' data, work on it in bulk, be fast, only then send small amounts of safe encrypted work back to the USA.
Everybody know the USA is listening, but exactly what is the mystery.
A junta, celeb, drug dealer, political hopeful, a huge financial scam or test flight...
The US also buys in data from firms, brands, contractors and need the fast connection between web 2.0 and their own classified work.
Just split the data and get it moving to a safe US location.
The US has always traded speed and physical location for encryption.
Encryption and methods can walk out, get captured, break. Bulk data need to be indexed and ready for use not just ready to be decrypted.
Cleared staff and air gaps solved the main issues. A Russia, China gets at best US gossip and on site clerical MS networks.
With the cloud it will be a new digital world. Can the US trust its own encrypted cloud networks between sites? They have failed to understand the complex math in the past and only the skill of ~GCHQ saved them.
Would France, Russia, UK, Germany, China, Brazil, South Africa, Canada be as nice? Or try and run their own digital Berlin tunnel http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Gold for a while?
It was a different world then cold. Full pension, full working life, experts at the top of their fields with great hardware, software winning the cold war one project and shared operation at a time.
ie not wondering about 'work' in a week, month or year.
You now have many more staff been given a few years of the same clearances with all the wages and contacts of moving 'up' or been very job secure.
MI6/5/GCHQ can tell the NSA what the outlook is when you dont keep that full wage/full pension deal on average.
So can Russians working in the GRU/KGB world.
The one message the USA always understood was the perception of cash and looking after its very best.
I am sure the Russian embassy is asking its helpers in a few regions of the USA to be ready for much more work.
The Soviet Union picked up so much form UK staff in the 1950/70's via poor working conditions/pay.
The UK staff where mostly in the gov and had real standing, rank, jobs.
If your security clearance is the only way to work and its not worth as much outside the gov?
If a contractor job gave you standing, a good lifestyle, holidays (as in time and cost), rent, a good car - what is waiting?
A resume thats loaded with terms only other cleared workers can understand? A full pension?
If the NSA wanted architecture, they can build it in the USA and have their cleared staff look after it cold.
This is not about renting floorspace, cooling and adding ever more size.
The cloud is for data sharing ie connecting to others in the US gov and getting data in from private groups/contractors.
Again the NSA always used "logical, not just physical" file "access" to keep staff from seeing the full projects.
You mention "maintain" - someone still has to look after all the new new captured/shared files, voice prints, video, calls, faces and the "cloud" will be huge. As in headcount, cleared input, keeping it running and extracting data from it, costs and fancy interconnections.
New skill sets in every agency to get the data flowing to a new 'cloud' is usually more contractors.
The discussion seems fine. We know the data "in" from the 1960's onwards - global phone numbers, fax, email, data, voice prints, satellite, cable landing sites.
You can understand the option to collect all info in real time and then not want to move vast amounts of bulk data around the world, so it it worked on in safe regions eg UK, Australia, NZ.
We know the data "out" is a select stream returned to the USA in near real time.
We know the brands of super computers, power needs and cooling water use.
We understand encryption sold to consumers was always going to be weak or plain text was going to be available to the USA.
We now know how tame the US brands are and what quality of oversight was in place.
We now know hardware that once looked out over the globe is deep within the USA.
Administrator privileges would have always been vetted in the cold war. The USA never wanted a UK system of rapid growth and pure staff 'trust'
The USA understood the state of mind MI5 was entering from the 1950-90's (~fast growth/no long term trust/too many Soviet spies) and saw their generational vetting/tracking as a better option.
So the NSA has faced new missions in the last 15 years: grow fast, a few new languages, sharing with others in the US gov, lots of contractors and that US vision of quality "jobs" for the locals.
Cloud computing was always offered as the next big move. More gov/private sharing, jobs, more safe, more live data, better quality data.
Can the NSA fix the 'people' issue? Too many people (public and private) have quality clearances now, are too political connected and know the US need for their costly expert skills.
Too many brands/contractors cleared from the boss down with expert staff getting fast electronic database clearances with some real life background work are on the edges of US crypto.
So they are going to spread their data, with more post 911 agencies sharing. The data will all be compressed, encrypted and safe... yet totally usable in real time...
The NSA always worked with small groups cold. What you seem to be suggesting is the NSA is having its own past resold to it by private contractors with open ended data costs. Better private sector vetting for real this time too?
http://www.salon.com/2010/10/17/wikileaks_7/
“did not disclose any sensitive intelligence sources or methods”
"“there has not been a single case of Afghans needing protection or to be moved because of the leak.”"
Other than that you have a country with a number of local people trying to translate for or help foreign troops.
"95% of intra-German Internet communications are routed via a switch in Frankfurt."
From the EU "Temporary Committee on the ECHELON Interception System" http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-//EP//NONSGML+REPORT+A5-2001-0264+0+DOC+PDF+V0//EN&language=EN
How will SSL be "harder and more expensive" for the NSA/GCHQ if a friendly German agency just hands over the keys again?
Seems like the West German post war telco system was designed to track Soviet/East German contacts via a few central locations.
Why would the US need to "break in" if they where in on the design and have a great generational working relationship with German telcos and intelligence agency staff?
i.e. "still doesn't prevent governments from getting information"
Mozilla to turn over SSL keys?
FBI/DoJ might show the paperwork, present a contractor for the hardware delivery and any 'help' to slide a new server in, a help number for on going network issues.
A legal and domestic agency with a letter to present and US legal staff knowing they covered.
ie some form of a self issued National Security Letter and a nondisclosure order?
Unconstitutional questions start to surface then.
A splitter later and all http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A good.
Yes but for training, as contractors/mercenary/NGO like roles i.e. counter-terrorism operations.
See (Office of Security Cooperation—Iraq) OSC-I funding, institutional level staff helpers, past Foreign Military Sales staff numbers (some nice Abrams/F-16/Stryker sales numbers?). http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/mideast/RS21968.pdf hints at numbers on page 35 onwards.
From 'At the time of the withdrawal, there were about 16,000 total U.S. personnel in Iraq, about half of which were contractors."
"However, staff cuts discussed below have left the total number of U.S. personnel in Iraq at about 10,000 as of mid-2013"
So very, very few US troops in Iraq, just some "U.S. personnel".
A lot of troops are ready in the region as always.
Sex needs some/lots of cash and their gov wages might not cover their long term desires/addictions/kinks.
Until they earn contractor/mercenary wages they are at risk of a foreign power discovering their needs and helping.
You also have the extramarital affairs side too with discredit and risk of been caught.
For every secured location their is a foreign power waiting to have a chat at a later time.
As for other issues the US mil can think up?
The soldier falls in love and wants to bring the back their new partner/extended family- requests papers, talks to the press.
The soldier falls in love and will be indoctrinated for short term or long term use by a foreign power/cult/faith.
The soldier falls in love and sees the locals as humans and talks about their discovery to others, talks to the press
The soldier mixes with the locals and stumbles over drug trade/weapon/sexual slavery been protected by their troops/spies/contractors/mercenary/NGO...
They talk to the press, write a book, start talking to any congressperson who will listen.
Best to keep them on base, talking to loved ones back home on Skype/US branded telcos.
Uk is very good with facial recognition, vehicle registration plate tracking and really love voice prints.
When facing the IRA, regional accents, work documents and known regions/supported local support networks always gave the MI5/6/GCHQ/SAS a lot of counterinsurgency help.
Funding from the USA was also trackable.
ie the person did not fit their papers well, accent, job, cash/life did not add up.
Much later the accents where English perfect, the jobs where local and movement was a normal 'everyday'.
Slashdot Mirror
Re: bypass the FISA courts.
Thats the idea of the 'cloud' vision - every system on the same network with an understanding of how to get the data out in realtime.
Where the NSA seemed to have problems is the need for some legal domestic front cover e.g. FBI to be the name on their pipe.
With a system like this, so many groups get legal data, the NSA will never have to wait, be dependant on one stream again.
ie privacy will work both ways - nobody will really know who is getting the data 'out' just that the "credential management" worked. It seems to be a new vision of an older idea https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosecutor's_Management_Information_System
More at http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/1.01/inslaw.html?topic=&topic_set=
http://consortiumnews.com/2013/07/11/prisms-controversial-forerunner/
Welcome to a very legal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Core
It seems to be the same method used in Australia over a book called Axis of Deceit.
..."also had their hard drives cleansed around early September 2004, several months after the amended book had gone on sale."
Destroy the drive in front of the gov 'now' or the gov will take the drive.
http://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/search/display/display.w3p;query=Id%3A%22library%2Fprspub%2FN16J6%22
".... office to cleanse the offending material from our computers. They transferred the data to a hard disk then gave us the option of having it taken away or destroyed in front of us. We chose the second option, then watched them do it with a special little disk-breaking hammer. They graciously followed up this service with a customer satisfaction form.12"
Key distribution was always in place for staff for their missions/projects. .com.
As for people who operate the file servers - you have raw data from web 2.0, listening stations, satellites, DEA, CIA... an endless stream of strange new raw data.
Someone has to write and look after the data "in" and the compression/indexing backend used.
To "operate the file servers" is not just keeping huge VM of expected clean input data like in some web 2.0
Physical access is trusted. The data is just stuff to be trimmed down to small files.
No need to encrypt/keep a raw phone call from South America, it will just end up as a voice print, transcript and call data added to an existing file.
Who gets to reads any transcript is very controlled. No taking it home/copy for the Russian embassy, no searching for it without the right codes.
You still need humans to translate, collect, listen, make connections, question and the people to look after their systems.
ie If your cleared to 'operate the file servers" you might need to understand the networks ie like the translators you are trusted within limits.
Australia had its own day of 'cleansing' over a book, Axis of Deceit.
http://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/search/display/display.w3p;query=Id%3A%22library%2Fprspub%2FN16J6%22
"...then watched them do it with a special little disk-breaking hammer. They graciously followed up this service with a customer satisfaction form"
".... also had their hard drives cleansed around early September 2004, several months after the amended book had gone on sale"
The UK has a lot of teeth in a lot of laws, for having a "gun" with you, for reading banned material online and if they so wish the full use of the Official Secrets Act.
The problem for the UK is the optics and methods of the Official Secrets Act.
If you use it in a sealed court setting, you admit you have a "spy" like situation and need a top cleared legal team. Any person facing that system is by default be facing a Star Chamber and gather world wide sympathy and much legal UK interest spins up fast.
If its in an open court, the defence and press goes to work on every detail and method. All in the open again over years. A situation most UK govs seem to want to avoid at any cost.
So you never "running afoul" of the Official Secrets Act. It is a legal tool to welcome staff into the system with a nice clearance level and hints at years in jail.
The UK would rather use other methods - if your connected to power/gov - no trial, pension but no more talking/leaks.
If your connected to codes/methods but have few friends - a public trial on other topics..
Other non court methods are also very legal in the UK.
Offshore or new code or fancy robots on rails, this will get interesting for state politics.
Vast numbers of young people are returning with clearances, or went into expensive 'security' education and are all expecting many "local" federal jobs.
Speeches presenting and contractors lined up for an ever expanding security apparatus in their State. Political skill and connections got the future jobs....
If one agency is not hiring in the "correct" way, other agencies might get funding moved over to them and more political power.
They "went" through rigorous background checks in the past. In the past ~10 years its more digital, your boss/work/skills and their political contacts.
The days of new staff having extended sit down family, teachers, lovers, friends interviewed for hours is less.
Long exhaustive paper work trails of the family tree and deep political connections where once done.
Now low level staff face a digital state and federal cross reference and deep interview bringing past "work" in as clearance or the firm/brand as counting as some wider clearance.
Above that it seems to be more skills in need over expensive deep real world background work.
A lot of rushed expansion and now they want the cloud to work with more gov/private people getting a look in to replace existing staff?
A lot of new cash for clearing up the 'people' side.
Re All data should be encrypted. ...
The US has a love/hate feel on data been encrypted.
In the past the US has many great wins with sloppy work by ww2 German, the Soviet Union, now the EU, Japan
Get all their super good 'encrypted' data, work on it in bulk, be fast, only then send small amounts of safe encrypted work back to the USA.
Everybody know the USA is listening, but exactly what is the mystery.
A junta, celeb, drug dealer, political hopeful, a huge financial scam or test flight...
The US also buys in data from firms, brands, contractors and need the fast connection between web 2.0 and their own classified work.
Just split the data and get it moving to a safe US location.
The US has always traded speed and physical location for encryption.
Encryption and methods can walk out, get captured, break. Bulk data need to be indexed and ready for use not just ready to be decrypted.
Cleared staff and air gaps solved the main issues. A Russia, China gets at best US gossip and on site clerical MS networks.
With the cloud it will be a new digital world.
Can the US trust its own encrypted cloud networks between sites? They have failed to understand the complex math in the past and only the skill of ~GCHQ saved them.
Would France, Russia, UK, Germany, China, Brazil, South Africa, Canada be as nice? Or try and run their own digital Berlin tunnel http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Gold for a while?
It was a different world then cold. Full pension, full working life, experts at the top of their fields with great hardware, software winning the cold war one project and shared operation at a time.
ie not wondering about 'work' in a week, month or year. You now have many more staff been given a few years of the same clearances with all the wages and contacts of moving 'up' or been very job secure.
MI6/5/GCHQ can tell the NSA what the outlook is when you dont keep that full wage/full pension deal on average.
So can Russians working in the GRU/KGB world.
The one message the USA always understood was the perception of cash and looking after its very best.
I am sure the Russian embassy is asking its helpers in a few regions of the USA to be ready for much more work.
The Soviet Union picked up so much form UK staff in the 1950/70's via poor working conditions/pay.
The UK staff where mostly in the gov and had real standing, rank, jobs.
If your security clearance is the only way to work and its not worth as much outside the gov?
If a contractor job gave you standing, a good lifestyle, holidays (as in time and cost), rent, a good car - what is waiting?
A resume thats loaded with terms only other cleared workers can understand? A full pension?
If the NSA wanted architecture, they can build it in the USA and have their cleared staff look after it cold.
This is not about renting floorspace, cooling and adding ever more size.
The cloud is for data sharing ie connecting to others in the US gov and getting data in from private groups/contractors.
Again the NSA always used "logical, not just physical" file "access" to keep staff from seeing the full projects.
You mention "maintain" - someone still has to look after all the new new captured/shared files, voice prints, video, calls, faces and the "cloud" will be huge. As in headcount, cleared input, keeping it running and extracting data from it, costs and fancy interconnections.
New skill sets in every agency to get the data flowing to a new 'cloud' is usually more contractors.
You think the NSA and CIA would sit down and talk about the fun they had with the Soviets on the bulk document walk outs.
The discussion seems fine. We know the data "in" from the 1960's onwards - global phone numbers, fax, email, data, voice prints, satellite, cable landing sites.
You can understand the option to collect all info in real time and then not want to move vast amounts of bulk data around the world, so it it worked on in safe regions eg UK, Australia, NZ.
We know the data "out" is a select stream returned to the USA in near real time.
We know the brands of super computers, power needs and cooling water use.
We understand encryption sold to consumers was always going to be weak or plain text was going to be available to the USA.
We now know how tame the US brands are and what quality of oversight was in place.
We now know hardware that once looked out over the globe is deep within the USA.
Administrator privileges would have always been vetted in the cold war. The USA never wanted a UK system of rapid growth and pure staff 'trust'
The USA understood the state of mind MI5 was entering from the 1950-90's (~fast growth/no long term trust/too many Soviet spies) and saw their generational vetting/tracking as a better option.
So the NSA has faced new missions in the last 15 years: grow fast, a few new languages, sharing with others in the US gov, lots of contractors and that US vision of quality "jobs" for the locals.
Cloud computing was always offered as the next big move. More gov/private sharing, jobs, more safe, more live data, better quality data.
Can the NSA fix the 'people' issue? Too many people (public and private) have quality clearances now, are too political connected and know the US need for their costly expert skills.
Too many brands/contractors cleared from the boss down with expert staff getting fast electronic database clearances with some real life background work are on the edges of US crypto.
So they are going to spread their data, with more post 911 agencies sharing. The data will all be compressed, encrypted and safe... yet totally usable in real time...
The NSA always worked with small groups cold. What you seem to be suggesting is the NSA is having its own past resold to it by private contractors with open ended data costs. Better private sector vetting for real this time too?
Re: Yeah I hate how much influence the IRS has in Germany these days.
http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/national_world/2013/07/06/Germany-strikes-deal-to-help-U-S-catch-tax-evaders.html
It could be same hold as the IRS has over the Swiss banks?
http://finance.fortune.cnn.com/2013/05/30/swiss-bank-accounts-irs/
http://www.forbes.com/sites/robertwood/2013/07/09/swiss-banks-reveal-americans-u-k-deal-sputters-and-germany-embraces-fatca/
"It was still a bad thing." - yes the clearance level on diplomatic gossip was low and now the press worked that aspect out.
As for you spying link vs "personal vendetta" some more info on the use of http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/30/world/asia/drone-war-in-pakistan-spurs-militants-to-deadly-reprisals.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0 use of tracking chips (electronic tracking devices) for later drone strikes.
http://www.salon.com/2010/10/17/wikileaks_7/
“did not disclose any sensitive intelligence sources or methods”
"“there has not been a single case of Afghans needing protection or to be moved because of the leak.”"
Other than that you have a country with a number of local people trying to translate for or help foreign troops.
Some pretty juicy contracts are floating around too for a new version of the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distant_Early_Warning_Line
http://www.networkworld.com/community/blog/darpa-wants-ultimate-technology-sensor-network-monitor-vast-arctic (03/20/12)
"DARPA wants the ultimate technology, sensor network to monitor the vast Arctic"
Under-ice awareness, surface awareness, unmanned autonomous systems, anti-submarine warfare - guess Canada is doing its part with snowmobile upgrades.
Self signed National Security Letters are the law in the USA.
"95% of intra-German Internet communications are routed via a switch in Frankfurt."
From the EU "Temporary Committee on the ECHELON Interception System"
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-//EP//NONSGML+REPORT+A5-2001-0264+0+DOC+PDF+V0//EN&language=EN
How will SSL be "harder and more expensive" for the NSA/GCHQ if a friendly German agency just hands over the keys again?
Seems like the West German post war telco system was designed to track Soviet/East German contacts via a few central locations.
Why would the US need to "break in" if they where in on the design and have a great generational working relationship with German telcos and intelligence agency staff?
i.e. "still doesn't prevent governments from getting information"
Mozilla to turn over SSL keys?
FBI/DoJ might show the paperwork, present a contractor for the hardware delivery and any 'help' to slide a new server in, a help number for on going network issues.
A legal and domestic agency with a letter to present and US legal staff knowing they covered.
ie some form of a self issued National Security Letter and a nondisclosure order?
Unconstitutional questions start to surface then.
A splitter later and all http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A good.
Article 125? Engage in unnatural carnal copulation?
Yes but for training, as contractors/mercenary/NGO like roles i.e. counter-terrorism operations.
See (Office of Security Cooperation—Iraq) OSC-I funding, institutional level staff helpers, past Foreign Military Sales staff numbers (some nice Abrams/F-16/Stryker sales numbers?).
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/mideast/RS21968.pdf hints at numbers on page 35 onwards.
From 'At the time of the withdrawal, there were about 16,000 total U.S. personnel in Iraq, about half of which were contractors."
"However, staff cuts discussed below have left the total number of U.S. personnel in Iraq at about 10,000 as of mid-2013"
So very, very few US troops in Iraq, just some "U.S. personnel".
A lot of troops are ready in the region as always.
Sex needs some/lots of cash and their gov wages might not cover their long term desires/addictions/kinks. ...
Until they earn contractor/mercenary wages they are at risk of a foreign power discovering their needs and helping.
You also have the extramarital affairs side too with discredit and risk of been caught.
For every secured location their is a foreign power waiting to have a chat at a later time.
As for other issues the US mil can think up?
The soldier falls in love and wants to bring the back their new partner/extended family- requests papers, talks to the press.
The soldier falls in love and will be indoctrinated for short term or long term use by a foreign power/cult/faith.
The soldier falls in love and sees the locals as humans and talks about their discovery to others, talks to the press
The soldier mixes with the locals and stumbles over drug trade/weapon/sexual slavery been protected by their troops/spies/contractors/mercenary/NGO
They talk to the press, write a book, start talking to any congressperson who will listen.
Best to keep them on base, talking to loved ones back home on Skype/US branded telcos.
Uk is very good with facial recognition, vehicle registration plate tracking and really love voice prints.
When facing the IRA, regional accents, work documents and known regions/supported local support networks always gave the MI5/6/GCHQ/SAS a lot of counterinsurgency help.
Funding from the USA was also trackable.
ie the person did not fit their papers well, accent, job, cash/life did not add up.
Much later the accents where English perfect, the jobs where local and movement was a normal 'everyday'.