New Snowden docs: GCHQ’s ties to telco gave spies global surveillance reach

  • 25 November 2014
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Documents reportedly from the Edward Snowden cache show that in 2009, GCHQ (and by association, the NSA) had access to the traffic on 63 submarine cable links around the globe. The cables listed handle the vast majority of international Internet traffic as well as private network connections between telecommunications providers and corporate data centers.
According to a report in the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung, the telecommunications company Cable & Wireless—now a subsidiary of Vodafone—“actively shaped and provided the most data to GCHQ surveillance programs and received millions of pounds in compensation.”
 
 http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/11/new-snowden-docs-gchqs-ties-to-telco-gave-spies-global-surveillance-reach/

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Snowden documents reveal how British intelligence target Irish internet traffic

 
New documents released this week via the National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden outline how Irish subsea telecommunications cables have been targeted by British intelligence.
The documents detail a whole series of underwater cables – essentially the backbone that connects Ireland to the globe – that are being tapped.
A document titled “Partner Cables” list the cables that Britain’s Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) has accessed or sought to access. The commercial owners of the cables are identified by codenames.
 
 http://www.irishtimes.com/business/technology/uk-spy-base-gchq-tapped-irish-internet-cables-1.2019492
 
 
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  Documents recently disclosed by Edward Snowden show that the NSA's fourth-largest cable tapping program, codenamed INCENSER, pulls its data from just one single source: a submarine fiber optic cable linking Asia with Europe.

Until now, it was only known that INCENSER was a sub-program of WINDSTOP and that it collected some 14 billion pieces of internet data a month. The latest revelations now say that these data are collected with the help of the British company Cable & Wireless (codenamed GERONTIC, now part of Vodafone) at a location in Cornwall in the UK, codenamed NIGELLA.

For the first time, this gives us a view on the whole interception chain, from the parent program all the way down to the physical interception facility. Here we will piece together what is known about these different stages and programs from recent and earlier publications.
 
   http://electrospaces.blogspot.co.uk/2014/11/incenser-or-how-nsa-and-gchq-are.html
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With this revealing disclosure on cable tapping programs nothing is safe from prying eyes!! There is no privacy at this point in time.
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@  Yes, for sure. And I believe there are many more revelations yet to come. The concept of true privacy in the world today is an elusive one, and hard to confident about as things stand.
 
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The following article is a update:
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GCHQ does not engage in indiscriminate blanket surveillance.

 
By Mark Wilson
 
When Edward Snowden blew the whistle on the activities of the NSA, it sparked a global interest in how internet traffic is monitored. The UK's Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament today published a report into online surveillance carried out by GCHQ, MI5 and MI6 after an 18-month inquiry.
Among the findings is the conclusion that surveillance is legal, but an overhaul is needed to increase transparency. The suggestion that GCHQ's interception of emails "does not equate to blanket surveillance, nor does it equate to indiscriminate surveillance" is likely to be met with skepticism. But what's likely to raise more eyebrows is the revelation that the agency has apparently managed to crack encryption.
 
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UK Parliament Committee, Calling For Reform, Shows Its “Evidence” to Justify Mass Surveillance

 
By Glenn Greenwald
 
  The Intelligence and Security Committee of the UK Parliament (ISC) issued a lengthy report today on the surveillance practices of GCHQ. Invoking the now-standard Orwellian tactic of claiming that “bulk collection” is not “mass surveillance,” the Committee predictably cleared GCHQ of illegality, but it did announce that it has “serious concerns” over the agency’s lack of transparency and oversight. Citing the Snowden disclosures, it called for a significant overhaul of the legal framework governing electronic surveillance.
 
 https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/03/12/uk-parliament-finally-offers-evidence-mass-surveillance-stops-terror-attacks/
 
 https://www.privacyinternational.org/?q=node/505
 
 The UK Parliament's Intelligence and Security Committee's report provides a long-awaited official confirmation that the British government is engaging in mass surveillance of communications. Far from allaying the public's concerns, the ISC's report should trouble every single person who uses a computer or mobile phone: it describes in great detail how the security services are intercepting billions of communications each day and interrogating those communications against thousands of selection fields. The ISC has attempted to mask the reality of its admissions by describing GCHQ's actions as "bulk interception". However, no amount of technical and legal jargon can obscure the fact that this is a parliamentary committee, in a democratic country, telling its citizens that they are living in a surveillance state and that all is well.

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