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The NSA’s Hidden Spy Hubs in Eight U.S. Cities

theintercept.com

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Re: The NSA’s Hidden Spy Hubs in Eight U.S. Cities

#151

Post by ilikepi »

chiph wrote: post #150

The article describes a lot of the buildings a fortress-like. I actually don't have a problem with that - in the event of a catastrophe, I want my telecommunications to keep working. The rest of it - splitting data traffic and sending a copy to the NSA - I'd like to see how any international traffic is being sent through a land-locked city like Dallas, which should only have domestic traffic in it. Which the NSA shou…

> I'd like to see how any international traffic is being sent through a land-locked city like Dallas...

Well, Texas borders Mexico, and although DFW is on the other side of the state, it is a very large metro area. If it's a hub for domestic traffic, it seems logical for it to also act as an interchange for international traffic with Central and South America. The hostnames I see in a traceroute to telmex.com (a big telco headquartered in Mexico City) from my office in New England on Verizon FiOS appears to support the idea that at least some traffic routes through Dallas before it crosses the border.

EDIT: clarification

Re: The NSA’s Hidden Spy Hubs in Eight U.S. Cities

#152

Post by dethswatch »

lev99 wrote: post #66
dethswatch wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the communications will not be directly used against you >in court. Directly. But via parallel construction...

Yeah, gathering evidence not admissible in court really helps the investigation find evidence that is.

https://www.google.com/search?num=100&source=hp&ei=6ngxW9iYG...

Re: The NSA’s Hidden Spy Hubs in Eight U.S. Cities

#153

Post by foobar1962 »

walrus01 wrote: post #143
autocracy wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, you have to remember that in pulse dial days a central office station had a reach of roughly 3 miles. The longer you go, the more you're paying for cable, repeaters, or just losing quality. 90 volt AC for ringing has a limited range!

People who've never seen it in person find it amazing that things like 1200 pair phone cables exist... Here's a photo of just a 100-pair: https://imgur.com/gallery/f1EGp on this page is a photo of a 1200-pair: http://cityinfrastructure.com/single.php?d=RuralOutsidePlant...

How do they colour-code the wires to identify them?

"Ah there's your problem: you've patched the Fire Engine Red pair, it's meant to be the Ferrari Red. Rookie error."

Re: The NSA’s Hidden Spy Hubs in Eight U.S. Cities

#154

Post by throwaway2048 »

mirimir wrote: post #149
kodablah wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If your communication is encrypted it shouldn't matter if it passes AT&T networks. That assumes metadata is irrelevant. The destination, time of day, and volume of the traffic all have value separately and especially so when together. The destination can be masked if you control both sides and AT&T is a go between, but timing issues are subject to analysis unless you are a large enough player to give safety in numb…

It's not that hard to anonymize metadata. Just decide how thoroughly it must be done, and do what it takes. Plus a safety factor.

It is extremely hard to anonymize metadata, thats part of what makes its capture and analysis so insidious.

Please tell me how i anonymize the metadata of where my cellphone is located, which the telco harvests from towers its connected to.

Re: The NSA’s Hidden Spy Hubs in Eight U.S. Cities

#155

Post by tmm »

foobar1962 wrote: post #153
walrus01 wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People who've never seen it in person find it amazing that things like 1200 pair phone cables exist... Here's a photo of just a 100-pair: https://imgur.com/gallery/f1EGp on this page is a photo of a 1200-pair: http://cityinfrastructure.com/single.php?d=RuralOutsidePlant...

How do they colour-code the wires to identify them? "Ah there's your problem: you've patched the Fire Engine Red pair, it's meant to be the Ferrari Red. Rookie error."

> How do they colour-code the wires to identify them?

It’s actually pretty simple. There are only 10 colors: blue, orange, green, brown, slate, white, red, black, yellow, and violet. They’re grouped in “binders” (using colored strings). You’re likely familiar with the first four pairs from network cables (which omit the white/slate pair). After cylcling through blue through slate paired with white through violet (25 pairs), the wires are bundled with binders starting with blue/white string. That gets you to 625 pairs (the first picture posted above is 600 or 625 pairs). After that, the binder groups are bound in a similar fashion (typically if you’re going beyond 625, the slate/violet binder is omitted to get a nice round 600 in the first group).

Wikipedia has a good article: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/25-pair_color_code

100-pair cable is only about 3/4” diameter. I have a 24-line 1A2 telephone that uses 75 pairs just to connect to the phone switch and two 100-pair cables feeding a telephone display case in my living room.

It takes me about a half hour to punch down 100 pairs on a 66-block. Old school telecom guys could probably do it in under 10 minutes.

Re: The NSA’s Hidden Spy Hubs in Eight U.S. Cities

#156

Post by freeflight »

walrus01 wrote: post #143
autocracy wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, you have to remember that in pulse dial days a central office station had a reach of roughly 3 miles. The longer you go, the more you're paying for cable, repeaters, or just losing quality. 90 volt AC for ringing has a limited range!

People who've never seen it in person find it amazing that things like 1200 pair phone cables exist... Here's a photo of just a 100-pair: https://imgur.com/gallery/f1EGp on this page is a photo of a 1200-pair: http://cityinfrastructure.com/single.php?d=RuralOutsidePlant...

I'm pretty sure we have Human Rights Conventions to protect people from having to crimp a mess like that.

At least I hope so, if not, then they really should exist.

Re: The NSA’s Hidden Spy Hubs in Eight U.S. Cities

#158

Post by pm90 »

yuhong wrote: post #157

My personal favorite is how the current debt based economy allow almost infinite amounts of government debt to be created. In fact, one of the reasons why we got off the gold standard decades ago is military spending.

No its not. And I fail to understand why this keeps coming up. The gold standard tied fiscal and monetary policy to an arbitrary commodity: gold. Whereas value exists beyond the commodity itself. The gold standard had all sorts of unintended consequences and is not fit for a modern economy.

What is perhaps more worrying is common currency. The Euro has lead to a lot more trouble than it was worth, Frankly speaking.

Re: The NSA’s Hidden Spy Hubs in Eight U.S. Cities

#159

Post by yuhong »

pm90 wrote: post #158
yuhong wrote: post #157

My personal favorite is how the current debt based economy allow almost infinite amounts of government debt to be created. In fact, one of the reasons why we got off the gold standard decades ago is military spending.

No its not. And I fail to understand why this keeps coming up. The gold standard tied fiscal and monetary policy to an arbitrary commodity: gold. Whereas value exists beyond the commodity itself. The gold standard had all sorts of unintended consequences and is not fit for a modern economy. What is perhaps more worrying is common currency. The Euro has lead to a lot more trouble than it was worth, Frankly speaking.

I am talking about why we got off the gold standard though.

Re: The NSA’s Hidden Spy Hubs in Eight U.S. Cities

#160

Post by mirimir »

throwaway2048 wrote: post #154
mirimir wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not that hard to anonymize metadata. Just decide how thoroughly it must be done, and do what it takes. Plus a safety factor.

It is extremely hard to anonymize metadata, thats part of what makes its capture and analysis so insidious. Please tell me how i anonymize the metadata of where my cellphone is located, which the telco harvests from towers its connected to.

Cellphones are a pain, that's true. I was mainly thinking about Internet metadata.

If you really care, one option is having multiple phones, under different identities. Each one only gets used in a distinct set of locations, for distinct projects, with distinct recipients. When not in use, you store phones in labeled Faraday bags. That is, compartmentalization.

Another option is to nuke the radio in your phone, use only WiFi and VPNs for internet access, and use hosted cellphones from multiple providers. You can still compartmentalize, but need only carry one phone. But you depend on WiFi access.

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