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America uses stealthy submarines to hack other countries’ systems

washingtonpost.com

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Re: America uses stealthy submarines to hack other countries’ systems

#81

Post by gscott »

Jerry2 wrote: post #37
gscott wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe the data goes through some friendly countries where we can get to it easier.

Do you think they lay another cable from the tap to some collection point or do they use radio waves? Or maybe they just record the data and then just collect it by a surface ship or a sub every month...

They do a splitter in datacenters to the NSA so I presume that is similar many fiber optic wires. From what I understand is that the submarine has to stay there to collect the data. So I presume they split it and have a cable they connect to it that routes it right to the sub. However I think Hawaii is a big NSA station because a lot of those international lines right through near there. I wonder if they could split the stream and run a whole cable back to Hawaii with it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/the-nsa-slid...

https://wikileaks.org/spyfiles/files/0/55_201110-ISS-IAD-T1-...

Re: America uses stealthy submarines to hack other countries’ systems

#82

Post by hhw »

nabla9 wrote: post #64
kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't put it beyond the capabilities of a nation state to tap fiber by putting a kink in it and processing the light that leaks out.

There are high speed SONET/SDH (common transport layer protocol ) encryptors available. I would assume that any undersea cables providers who might expect US tapping would use them. Especially if one endpoint is in Russia or China. https://infoguard.ch/pdf/products/ig_sonet_e.pdf

How many networks still run SONET at this point? Most global carriers would run OTN over DWDM at 25GHz or 50GHz spacing, with up to 200Gbps per channel. There is of course OTN encryption though

Re: America uses stealthy submarines to hack other countries’ systems

#83

Post by transfire »

I first learned about this when I read about a patent dispute. Someone (I don't recall the name) invented a coupler that could be used to easily splice a fiber optic cable (e.g. under water) and tap into all it's signal undetected. The inventor was denied patent rights and lost all control of his invention b/c the U.S. government claimed States Secrets, thus no court case on the matter could proceed.

Re: America uses stealthy submarines to hack other countries’ systems

#85

Post by Inconel »

transfire wrote: post #83

I first learned about this when I read about a patent dispute. Someone (I don't recall the name) invented a coupler that could be used to easily splice a fiber optic cable (e.g. under water) and tap into all it's signal undetected. The inventor was denied patent rights and lost all control of his invention b/c the U.S. government claimed States Secrets, thus no court case on the matter could proceed.

Based on what you described I found this old Wired article from 2005. It sounds like this could be the case you're remembering.

http://archive.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2005/09/68...

Re: America uses stealthy submarines to hack other countries’ systems

#86

Post by The_Fox »

widforss wrote: post #66
sandworm101 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>> I'm sure they're smaller now. I'm betting not. Ivy Bells was back in the days of copper wires being tapped by external sensors placed atop undersea cables. Today's undersea cables are optical. You'd need to splice in, or at least open up a cable to get at the individual fibers to install similar taps. I cannot see how that would be done in the pressurized world of submarines. Normal procedure for such work involv…

Why not just tap at the repeaters? The signal has to be electrical there, and you can probably make it so that maintainance teams don't notice the tap.

Turns out it doesn't need to be electrical- see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optical_amplifier.

Re: America uses stealthy submarines to hack other countries’ systems

#87

Post by gormo2 »

gwern wrote: post #13
gormo2 wrote: post #3

>But despite the rising prominence of Russian hackers in this news cycle — and Chinese hackers before that — it's worth pointing out that the United States has grown fairly proficient in cyberspace, too. How am I not surprised that in an article about US espionage the American s̶t̶a̶t̶e̶ media makes sure to remind yet again us how bad, bad, bad the Russians are.

It reads the exact opposite to me. 'You know how everyone's upset about Russian/Chinese hacking lately? Remember that the US did it first and on a far larger scale than them.'

Difference in this case is there's actually evidence rather than hearsay.

Re: America uses stealthy submarines to hack other countries’ systems

#88

Post by gormo2 »

gwern wrote: post #13
gormo2 wrote: post #3

>But despite the rising prominence of Russian hackers in this news cycle — and Chinese hackers before that — it's worth pointing out that the United States has grown fairly proficient in cyberspace, too. How am I not surprised that in an article about US espionage the American s̶t̶a̶t̶e̶ media makes sure to remind yet again us how bad, bad, bad the Russians are.

It reads the exact opposite to me. 'You know how everyone's upset about Russian/Chinese hacking lately? Remember that the US did it first and on a far larger scale than them.'

Difference in this case is there's actually evidence rather than hearsay.

Re: America uses stealthy submarines to hack other countries’ systems

#89

Post by gozur88 »

Hondor wrote: post #71

Before Snowden and Manning there was the more old fashioned Ronald Pelton who was just released from his 30 years in prison last year for revealing information about submarine phone tapping. His motives were different but he was still treated horribly by the US for revealing the truth. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_Pelton

Pelton was just your garden variety spy. He wasn't acting out of any concern for the general welfare.

Re: America uses stealthy submarines to hack other countries’ systems

#90

Post by grkvlt »

mmaunder wrote: post #69

"...mast-mounted antennas and collection systems atop the conning tower, some of them one-of-a-kind devices made for hard to reach or specific targets, all of them black boxes of future war." That's a quote in the article from a source who is another pair of journalists writing for Gawker. RF doesn't propagate well through water - in fact VLF is best and only goes to about 20 meters depth. Subs are most vulnerable wh…

The UK and US have been using submarines as SIGINT platforms for a long time. Don't discount the ability to sneak into coastal waters a mile offshore from a missile testing facility, pop up an antenna and listen for telemetry, radar or other comms. The book I am currently reading about GCHQ describes such missions, for example: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=l9i5bt1-7HYC&lpg=PA6&vq=...
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