Privacy

[Wombat]

Considering how highly centralized the American portion of the Internet is, it wouldn't be that hard. I'm looking for the statistics now, but there's something like 5 facilities that the major carriers own that covers 90% of the traffic. Also, don't forget about projects like the USS Jimmy Carter, which is built specifically to splice into those fat underwater fiber optic lines and siphon off the signal -- that's technology that nobody can even explain yet.

[Fat Tone]

OK, so IF, I repeat IF, I were a terrorist, I now know the monitoring happens, I now know where most of the effort is going to be concentrated, what am I gonna do about it? Put my traffic elsewhere, talk about the rain in minisota rather than GWB's route from the shower. That is one very small needle in one very large haystack.

Heck, even if I were ever to offer a mate a copy of something, there's no way I would ever write in an email "would you like me to make a copy of this and give if to you".

T.

Edit: and every one of my emails would come from a different account from a different geographical location...

[GNEP]

I'd use carrier pigeons.

[Gurm]

Plus, any ACTUAL terrorist information will be encrypted.

And if you honestly think that there's enough processing power to intercept and sift all those communications, fine. But there is in NO WAY enough power in the KNOWN UNIVERSE to decrypt even the most common PGP in realtime. It just can't be done.

Single PGP keys can PROBABLY be broken by the NSA - if they are 1K or 1.5K. 2K keys can theoretically be broken, although it would take months of concerted effort to break a single encrypted communication. 3K keys can't be touched by ANYONE yet.

So this is still foolishness.

- Gurm

[Sasq]

I do know a little about the routing of lines in Australia, but that is one of the few things I can't talk about. (I finially get to say - DAMN NDA).

I would speculate that quite honestly not everything needs to be monitored, however if you sampled 5% of all mails every day, as well as 100% of all bandwidth from specific locations. the actual monitoring would be possible.

Using the correct filters could flag specific people/locations for further study.

Any major player in this sort of thing, would have a reasonable amount of traffic regarding this sort of thing, so the chances of him/her/they being picked up increases.

Dan

[Liquid_Memory]

Here are some links for your enjoyment on Project Echelon.

http://www.peacevision.org.uk/papers/webb2.html

http://www.barbelith.com/cgi-bin/articles/00000029.shtml

http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0105/S00104.htm

These are some good articles that cover alot of what you are talking about. Although telephone conversations converted to text take up a low average of about 30 terrabytes of information, thats 30,000,000,000,000. Now thats just the telephone conversations. Internet traffic can be 1,000 times greater than that, and if we include the junk e-mail raise that to the 10 billionth power. Most computers today are limited to speed by their hard drive. You can have a Terrahertz computer but your hard drive speed may only go up to about 10 megs a sec, that includes you SCSI drive owners out there. Although doing this seems impossible to the average computer user, there are technologies out there that can way surpass anything we could ever own. Don't take for granted what the government has, cause it would blow your mind away at the technology they are using and the technology they throw at us for fun.

Liquid Memory

I wouldn't be surprised if they have Liquid Memory in operation, or a more common name for it would be organic memory.

[Pace]

Shhh...they're using quantum computers, decrypting 4096-bit <cue Steve Jobs style voice> in real time! </end>

P.

[Pace]

Hello,

My name is Pace. I have not been in contact with the US Government. The quantum computer is a joke, 10 out of 10 scientists who specialize in this area agree. Even if the US Government wanted to filter emails, they could not manage it.

I hope I have cleared up any confusion.

Sincerely,

Pace.

[Liquid_Memory]

Ut Oh, someone is knocking at my door.

Its the Men in Black III - Matrix Revisited.

[Liquid_Memory]

Ut oh Pace, watch it, The Men in Black will be knocking on your door soon. I just hope its not Moulder and Scully.

Liquid Memory

[Dogbert]

Guys, not everything has to be figured out using brute force techniques. There are smarter ways to do things which consume far less CPU and I/O.

[Pace]

Dogbert, you must realize that we have no way of filtering your communications. We are your friendly neighbor.

[Pace]

Hello, this is Pace again, I must apologize about the previous post, where I said "we", I actually meant "the US Government".

The Us Government has not got to me, period.

Sincerely,

Pace.

[Dogbert]

Originally posted by Pace
Hello, this is Pace again, I must apologize about the previous post, where I said "we", I actually meant "the US Government".

The Us Government has not got to me (yet), period.

Sincerely,

Pace.

[thop]

hello gentleman err i mean guys,

i just wanted to say i'm back, the good looking gentleman at the door just dissapeared all by themselves. don't worry about me, everything is fine.

agent johnson err i mean pace, check your private messages.