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NSA surveillance program reaches ‘into the past’ to retrieve, replay phone calls

washingtonpost.com

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Re: NSA surveillance program reaches ‘into the past’ to retrieve, replay phone calls

#31

Post by Spooky23 »

qwerta wrote: post #24

It says NSA only keeps 1 month of voice records. I think they store everything for couple of years, perhaps indefinitely. Storing all that voice is very cheap and is too juicy to let go. Also there were rumors about this recording for the past 30 years. GSM voice codec has rate 13 kbit/s. 6 billion people x 1 hour of talking per day = 6e9 x 3600 x 13/8 = 35 TB/day .

As with most newspaper articles that have government officials providing material input, what isn't said is usually more important that what is. (That's true in any context, not just NSA -- read stories about your local Mayor and road projects with a critical eye too)

The article states nothing at all about retention.

Re: NSA surveillance program reaches ‘into the past’ to retrieve, replay phone calls

#32

Post by dictum »

saraid216 wrote: post #27
rdtsc wrote: post #12

Read foreign country as US here too. Basically they can record everything and a constitutionally defined "search" doesn't occur unless a human search and looks at the information. Binney and other were talking about this even long before Snowden. So what happens now, everything you do gets recorded, stored in their data center and kept for decades. As soon as you do anything they deem suspicious they might find you d…

> they might find you downloaded strange foot fetish porn when you were in college and try to blackmail you. So, you'll join the fight to make this a non-scandalous point of concern, right?

That's how I feel about revenge porn/leaked nude photos and videos of non-underage people in general. There should be legal consequences for people who leak this content against the wish of the people depicted, but I feel the media often plays up the narrative that people shouldn't take nude pictures (a pragmatic approach, but not the best going forward) and never mentions the silliness of reacting harshly to other people's sexuality.

However, the pragmatic approach is still needed in a world where many people can attack you for your idiosyncrasies. Depending on your current situation, you won't lose your job and your particular interest will become only a minor office joke, but when you run for Congress, the masses may still care too much about it.

As someone mentioned on HN, the advantage of being transparent is that you can weaponize it — "I do (thing) and if that worries you, it's your problem, not mine".

And start downloading kinds of porn you have no interest in, just to confuse the snoops ;)

Re: NSA surveillance program reaches ‘into the past’ to retrieve, replay phone calls

#33

Post by PeterisP »

cklaus wrote: post #7
noblethrasher wrote: post #4

I posted this spreadsheet in another thread to give an idea of the cost of storing all of the nation's calls. I figured an annual cost of about $11 million. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AqWtA_3af-R0dE5... (the spreadsheet allows editing, so you all can play with the numbers).

What does it cost to transcribe All VOICE calls ->TEXT for faster analysis, apply DEEP learning to it, and apply a graph of Everyone bigger than Facebook to these patterns?

The voice->text is inaccurate enough (especially because the many different languages that can be used) so you have to keep the original recording and not just the text; but yes, you can easily do things like "find all conversations where the word 'nakamoto' is heard" with mass scale voice/speech analysis.

Re: NSA surveillance program reaches ‘into the past’ to retrieve, replay phone calls

#34

Post by dictum »

qwerta wrote: post #24

It says NSA only keeps 1 month of voice records. I think they store everything for couple of years, perhaps indefinitely. Storing all that voice is very cheap and is too juicy to let go. Also there were rumors about this recording for the past 30 years. GSM voice codec has rate 13 kbit/s. 6 billion people x 1 hour of talking per day = 6e9 x 3600 x 13/8 = 35 TB/day .

I doubt they only store it for a month. Besides how cheap (in national security budget terms) it is to store everything indefinitely, the timespan of a month is just not enough time to gather enough intelligence, especially when you don't know what you're looking for.

If you're already capturing everything, you want a big picture, and a big picture isn't something you get with just what's been happening for the past month.

If they ever delete stuff, it's based on tiers with different priorities (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7394346), not an arbitrary period.

Re: NSA surveillance program reaches ‘into the past’ to retrieve, replay phone calls

#35

Post by haakon »

paulannesley wrote: post #29
rootuid wrote: post #2

"At the request of U.S. officials, The Washington Post is withholding details that could be used to identify the country where the system is being employed or other countries where its use was envisioned" Therefore there is no point to the article.

> Therefore there is no point to the article. I disagree. What difference does it make _which_ foreign country the article refers to? The fact that 100% of calls made by all people in a country are being recorded by another country is enough.

It's enough to make it interesting, but there could be a much more interesting diplomatic scandal depending on which country is targeted. Imagine if it's not Yemen or Iran, but Canada or Switzerland?

Re: NSA surveillance program reaches ‘into the past’ to retrieve, replay phone calls

#36

Post by Shivetya »

thibauts wrote: post #30
rdtsc wrote: post #12

Read foreign country as US here too. Basically they can record everything and a constitutionally defined "search" doesn't occur unless a human search and looks at the information. Binney and other were talking about this even long before Snowden. So what happens now, everything you do gets recorded, stored in their data center and kept for decades. As soon as you do anything they deem suspicious they might find you d…

This is really nauseating. Which kind of world are we letting happen ?

the spooks are merely taking a liking to how politicians operate their political campaigns. Nothing secret is beyond a court order or, a friend in the right place.

Re: NSA surveillance program reaches ‘into the past’ to retrieve, replay phone calls

#37

Post by lotsofmangos »

res0nat0r wrote: post #16
rdtsc wrote: post #12

Read foreign country as US here too. Basically they can record everything and a constitutionally defined "search" doesn't occur unless a human search and looks at the information. Binney and other were talking about this even long before Snowden. So what happens now, everything you do gets recorded, stored in their data center and kept for decades. As soon as you do anything they deem suspicious they might find you d…

Evidence?

I have wondered about this with the whole damn thing, on those days when I am wearing my extra thick tinfoil hat.

Think about it from the Dr Strangelove cold war perspective that a doomsday device would only be an effective deterrent if everyone knew about it.

Perhaps they have put all the cables in, but really do not have the resources to back up or process 99% of it.

This is not that much of a problem for them if they leak a load of powerpoint slides claiming that they do, as the result is an instant global version of Benway's panopticon, with people behaving as though they are surveilled, even when they are not.

Perhaps Snowden never stopped working for the NSA.

Then I remember that tinfoil hats were invented by the government to help focus radio waves onto the brain http://web.archive.org/web/20100708230258/http://people.csai... and I decide to go and watch cartoons.

On reflection, there is probably such a thing as reading too much Robert Anton Wilson.

Re: NSA surveillance program reaches ‘into the past’ to retrieve, replay phone calls

#38

Post by eternalban »

ihsw wrote: post #15
JetSpiegel wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The status quo is then restored. All this article is is chest-pounding by the US to warn potential competitors in the global sphere of influence.

Or it could serve as a signal that the US is the best country to align with, since they know everything. This whole NSA debacle could serve as an impressive advertisement for the strength and stability of the industrial spying complex, justifying great investment and pushing important business objectives.

s/could/does

Re: NSA surveillance program reaches ‘into the past’ to retrieve, replay phone calls

#39

Post by CamperBob2 »

res0nat0r wrote: post #16
rdtsc wrote: post #12

Read foreign country as US here too. Basically they can record everything and a constitutionally defined "search" doesn't occur unless a human search and looks at the information. Binney and other were talking about this even long before Snowden. So what happens now, everything you do gets recorded, stored in their data center and kept for decades. As soon as you do anything they deem suspicious they might find you d…

Evidence?

Simple. You don't need a petabyte-scale data center if all you're doing is "storing metadata."

If you want the truth about what these asshats are up to, just read their electric bill.

Re: NSA surveillance program reaches ‘into the past’ to retrieve, replay phone calls

#40

Post by wreegab »

rdtsc wrote: post #12

Read foreign country as US here too. Basically they can record everything and a constitutionally defined "search" doesn't occur unless a human search and looks at the information. Binney and other were talking about this even long before Snowden. So what happens now, everything you do gets recorded, stored in their data center and kept for decades. As soon as you do anything they deem suspicious they might find you d…

> Read foreign country as US here too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mHhVhud8_kE

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