AT&T NSA Documents Leaked

News Type: Event — Mon May 22, 2006 11:23 AM EDT

politics, security, nsa, spy, national, public, att, documents, act, wired

The complete documents were leaked by Wired! News today http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,70947-0.html?tw=wn_technology_1
here is a mirror:
http://www.moofit.com/att_klein_wired.pdf

I havent updated in a while, but this is well worth it

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1.3

0.7

{"commentId":132386,"authorDomain":"transparent"}

Transparent Opal

This is magnificent. Thank you Wired News! Nice to bring some transparency to government. We all now know exactly what happened, where it happened, and how it happened. Diagrams, room locations, the whole nine yards. This is exactly how a free nation stays free - by publicizing those things which are important to the public interest... Let's all make copies of this information, lest it suddenly disappear.

{"commentId":132386,"threadId":"28113","contentId":"214270","authorDomain":"transparent"}

7 votes

#1 - Mon May 22, 2006 3:38 PM EDT

{"commentId":132426,"authorDomain":"tysonwilliams"}

Tyson Williams

GO Wired! I made a copy of it as well

{"commentId":132426,"threadId":"28113","contentId":"214270","authorDomain":"tysonwilliams"}

#2 - Mon May 22, 2006 4:13 PM EDT

{"commentId":132532,"authorDomain":"lll"}

lll

Read the documents. There isn't much useful information, though. We now know how, but hardly know "what" has been transmitted. *sigh*

{"commentId":132532,"threadId":"28113","contentId":"214270","authorDomain":"lll"}

1 vote

#3 - Mon May 22, 2006 6:02 PM EDT

{"commentId":132558,"authorDomain":"crynyd"}

crynyd

A little information is better than none. Fantastic job, Wired!

{"commentId":132558,"threadId":"28113","contentId":"214270","authorDomain":"crynyd"}

2 votes

#4 - Mon May 22, 2006 6:20 PM EDT

{"commentId":132642,"authorDomain":"lvthunder"}

lvthunder

I hope Wired (or the guy that gave this to Wired) gets sued for doing this. Who are they to say what will damage AT&T and what won't. All of this leaking of information is getting out of hand. The story was already out. I see no advancement in the story by publishing this stuff. Obvisously a judge has ruled that the stuff the EFF has should be kept secret. There is a reason for that.

I guess the question becomes who is the watchdog over the media.

{"commentId":132642,"threadId":"28113","contentId":"214270","authorDomain":"lvthunder"}

#5 - Mon May 22, 2006 7:44 PM EDT

{"commentId":132795,"authorDomain":"crynyd"}

crynyd

The story was already out, but it was being denied. What AT&T has done negatively affects the public. They shouldn't be allowed to waltz over our rights and then demand that theirs be kept sacred.

{"commentId":132795,"threadId":"28113","contentId":"214270","authorDomain":"crynyd"}

4 votes

#5.1 - Mon May 22, 2006 10:46 PM EDT

{"commentId":132836,"authorDomain":"lvthunder"}

lvthunder

Shouldn't all that be adjudicated in the courtroom not some Wired blog. Let the EFF and AT&T go at it in court. I bet if you were head of a major US country with millions of shareholders you would want your proprietary information downloaded by anyone with an Internet connection.

{"commentId":132836,"threadId":"28113","contentId":"214270","authorDomain":"lvthunder"}

#5.2 - Mon May 22, 2006 11:40 PM EDT

{"commentId":132866,"authorDomain":"crynyd"}

crynyd

Wired has acted within the limitations set forth in the courtroom.

Also, were I the head of a major US corporation, I would ensure my business — let alone my proprietary information — had nothing to do with enabling the government to abuse and ignore the rights of its citizens. AT&T has apparently acted in a way that endangers all of our rights to privacy, and no cry of, "Trade secrets!" is going to convince me to stand for that.

{"commentId":132866,"threadId":"28113","contentId":"214270","authorDomain":"crynyd"}

2 votes

#5.3 - Tue May 23, 2006 12:22 AM EDT

{"commentId":132869,"authorDomain":"adamkemp"}

Adam Kemp

This doesn't sound legitimate to me. For instance, this quote:

These installations enable the government to look at every individual message on the Internet and analyze exactly what people are doing.

No single location could look at every "message" on the internet. It is literally impossible to tap into a single location to monitor every single possible type of data flowing on the internet. There is just no single place through which all traffic flows. For instance, if I'm talking to my neighbor online (assuming he uses the same ISP) then the odds are pretty small that my packets will go through these locations. The routers at my ISP would know immediately where to send the packets, and it would not send them through AT&T's backbone. There are many cases that would match this. If there was a single place that could capture all of the data on the internet, then that would be a very poor design. The internet was specifically designed to avoid this, as a way of ensuring that there is not a single point of failure.

Also, what is a "message" on the internet? Internet traffic consists of packets of data, most of which could hardly be called a "message".

Lastly, I don't think that it would be necessary to tap into the fiber optic cables the way he describes. Wouldn't it be easier to just tap into the data right after the fiber optic signals are converted from light into actual data?

It just doesn't sound like this guy really knows what he's talking about. I'm certainly no expert, so maybe I'm wrong. Still, this just doesn't convince me.

Any experts want to comment on his description?

{"commentId":132869,"threadId":"28113","contentId":"214270","authorDomain":"adamkemp"}

#6 - Tue May 23, 2006 12:30 AM EDT

{"commentId":132913,"authorDomain":"djehuty"}

Djehuty

The answer to whether your particular connection is being monitored at the moment is a bit long for a reply, so I've put it here.

Notice that the system reconstructs emails, web pages etc from packets. It would not be necessary to tap into the cables, except that I imagine the cables go to routers and getting the routers to duplicate all traffic out onto another destination would be:

entirely possible
very public. Lots of techs have to deal with the routers every day, and they would all be able to see the duplication and change it, etc.

This method is much less public because it takes place in a sealed room on a different floor of the building.

{"commentId":132913,"threadId":"28113","contentId":"214270","authorDomain":"djehuty"}

#6.1 - Tue May 23, 2006 1:34 AM EDT

{"commentId":132925,"authorDomain":"adamkemp"}

Adam Kemp

I didn't see anything in these documents explaining how the "secret room" could interact with other monitoring systems elsewhere. The author made it sound like this one room could monitor everything, which is just false. Even if the government installed these into every major network hub in the US, communication between two customers of the same ISP would be hidden from them. It just doesn't go through them. To truly monitor the entire internet, they would have to tap into every ISP in the world.

That's not to say that this couldn't be effective at monitoring most traffic. It probably could. It just sounded to me like the author was exaggerating quite a bit, and that makes me skeptical of his claims.

{"commentId":132925,"threadId":"28113","contentId":"214270","authorDomain":"adamkemp"}

#6.2 - Tue May 23, 2006 1:51 AM EDT

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