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STORMBREW
STORMBREW is a secret internet surveillance program of the National Security Agency (NSA) of the United States. It was disclosed in the summer of 2013 as part of the leaks by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden. The FY 2013 budget for STORMBREW was $46.06 million. Scope of the program The program comprises cooperation with a "key corporate partner", which was identified on October 23, 2013 by the Washington Post—quoting NSA historian Matthew Aid—as Verizon. This was confirmed by a joint report by ''Pro Publica'' and ''The New York Times'' from August 15, 2015.New York TimesAT&T Helped U.S. Spy on Internet on a Vast Scale& Pro PublicaNSA Spying Relies on AT&T’s ‘Extreme Willingness to Help’ August 15, 2015. STORMBREW is an umbrella program involving surveillance of telecommunications. It falls under the category of "Upstream collection", meaning that data is pulled directly from fiber-optic cables and top-level communications infrastructure, which allows access to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Upstream Collection
Upstream collection is a term used by the National Security Agency (NSA) of the United States for intercepting telephone and Internet traffic from the Internet backbone, meaning major Internet cables and switches, both domestic and foreign. Besides the Upstream collection, NSA also gathers information from Internet communications through arrangements with Internet companies under the program codenamed PRISM. Both the Upstream programs and PRISM are part of the Special Source Operations (SSO) division, which is responsible for collection in cooperation with corporate partners. Programs One of the slides of a presentation about the PRISM-program describes Upstream as "collection of communications on fiber cables and infrastructure as data flows past" and says the Upstream collection is conducted under the following four major surveillance programs: * FAIRVIEW * BLARNEY * STORMBREW * OAKSTAR The FAIRVIEW, BLARNEY and STORMBREW programs are for collecting data at facilities in the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
National Security Agency
The National Security Agency (NSA) is a national-level intelligence agency of the United States Department of Defense, under the authority of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI). The NSA is responsible for global monitoring, collection, and processing of information and data for foreign and domestic intelligence and counterintelligence purposes, specializing in a discipline known as signals intelligence (SIGINT). The NSA is also tasked with the protection of U.S. communications networks and information systems. The NSA relies on a variety of measures to accomplish its mission, the majority of which are clandestine. The existence of the NSA was not revealed until 1975. The NSA has roughly 32,000 employees. Originating as a unit to decipher coded communications in World War II, it was officially formed as the NSA by President Harry S. Truman in 1952. Between then and the end of the Cold War, it became the largest of the U.S. intelligence organizations in terms of pers ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Executive Order 12333
Executive Order 12333, signed on December 4, 1981 by U.S. President Ronald Reagan, was an Executive Order intended to extend powers and responsibilities of U.S. intelligence agencies and direct the leaders of U.S. federal agencies to co-operate fully with CIA requests for information.Ronald Reagan"Executive Order 12333—United States Intelligence Activities,"''US Federal Register,'' Dec. 4, 1981. This executive order was titled ''United States Intelligence Activities''. It was amended by Executive Order 13355: Strengthened Management of the Intelligence Community, on August 27, 2004. On July 30, 2008, President George W. Bush issued Executive Order 13470 amending Executive Order 12333 to strengthen the role of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI). Part 1 "Goals, Direction, Duties and Responsibilities with Respect to the National Intelligence Effort" lays out roles for various intelligence agencies, including the Departments of Defense, Energy, State, and Treasury ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Of 1978 Amendments Act Of 2008
The FISA Amendments Act of 2008, also called the FAA and Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 Amendments Act of 2008, is an Act of Congress that amended the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. It has been used as the legal basis for surveillance programs disclosed by Edward Snowden in 2013, including PRISM. Background Warrantless wiretapping by the National Security Agency (NSA) was revealed publicly in late 2005 by ''The New York Times'' and then reportedly discontinued in January 2007. See Letter from Attorney-General Alberto Gonzales to Senators Patrick Leahy and Arlen Specter, CONG. REC. S646-S647 (January 17, 2007). Approximately forty lawsuits have been filed against telecommunications companies by groups and individuals alleging that the Bush administration illegally monitored their phone calls or e-mails. Whistleblower evidence suggests that AT&T was complicit in the NSA's warrantless surveillance, which could have involved the private communications of m ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act
The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 ("FISA" , ) is a United States federal law that establishes procedures for the physical and electronic surveillance and the collection of "foreign intelligence information" between "foreign powers" and "agents of foreign powers" suspected of espionage or terrorism.50 USC §1801(b) "'Agent of a foreign power' means— (1) any person other than a United States person, who— (A) acts in the United States as an officer or employee of a foreign power, or as a member of a foreign power as defined in subsection (a)(4), irrespective of whether the person is inside the United States; (B) acts for or on behalf of a foreign power which engages in clandestine intelligence activities in the United States contrary to the interests of the United States, when the circumstances indicate that such person may engage in such activities, or when such person knowingly aids or abets any person in the conduct of such activities or knowingly conspires ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pinwale
Pinwale is the code name for a National Security Agency (NSA) collection and retrieval system for so-called "Digital Network Intelligence", including internet e-mail., pag1at archive. It is searchable by monitored NSA analysts. The existence of the system was first revealed by an NSA analyst who was trained in its use during 2005. However, according to ''Homeland Security Today'', Pinwale contains information much more than email. It also contains other forms of Internet data, and other forms of digital communications as well. Its software has built-in protections against collecting from any of the Five Eyes members. Unlike its successor XKeyscore, targets for Pinwale have to be approved beforehand by the FISC. According to information obtained by ''The Guardian'' from Edward Snowden, Pinwale is part of a "multi-tiered system" to address the issue of NSA "collecting so much internet data that it can be stored only for short periods of time." The system allows analysts to store ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
XKeyscore
XKeyscore (XKEYSCORE or XKS) is a secret computer system used by the United States National Security Agency (NSA) for searching and analyzing global Internet data, which it collects in real time. The NSA has shared XKeyscore with other intelligence agencies, including the Australian Signals Directorate, Canada's Communications Security Establishment The Communications Security Establishment (CSE; french: Centre de la sécurité des télécommunications, ''CST''), formerly (from 2008-2014) called the Communications Security Establishment Canada (CSEC), is the Government of Canada's national ..., New Zealand's Government Communications Security Bureau, Britain's Government Communications Headquarters, Japan's Defense Intelligence Headquarters, and Germany's Bundesnachrichtendienst. In July 2013, Edward Snowden publicly revealed the program's purpose and use by the NSA in ''The Sydney Morning Herald'' and ''O Globo'' newspapers. The code name was already public knowledge becaus ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Metadata
Metadata is "data that provides information about other data", but not the content of the data, such as the text of a message or the image itself. There are many distinct types of metadata, including: * Descriptive metadata – the descriptive information about a resource. It is used for discovery and identification. It includes elements such as title, abstract, author, and keywords. * Structural metadata – metadata about containers of data and indicates how compound objects are put together, for example, how pages are ordered to form chapters. It describes the types, versions, relationships, and other characteristics of digital materials. * Administrative metadata – the information to help manage a resource, like resource type, permissions, and when and how it was created. * Reference metadata – the information about the contents and quality of statistical data. * Statistical metadata – also called process data, may describe processes that collect, process, or produce st ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Washington Post
''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large national audience. Daily broadsheet editions are printed for D.C., Maryland, and Virginia. The ''Post'' was founded in 1877. In its early years, it went through several owners and struggled both financially and editorially. Financier Eugene Meyer purchased it out of bankruptcy in 1933 and revived its health and reputation, work continued by his successors Katharine and Phil Graham (Meyer's daughter and son-in-law), who bought out several rival publications. The ''Post'' 1971 printing of the Pentagon Papers helped spur opposition to the Vietnam War. Subsequently, in the best-known episode in the newspaper's history, reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein led the American press's investigation into what became known as the Watergate scandal ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
SIGAD
A SIGINT Activity Designator (or SIGAD) identifies a signals intelligence (SIGINT) line of collection activity associated with a signals collection station, such as a base or a ship. For example, the SIGAD for Menwith Hill in the UK is USD1000. SIGADs are used by the signals intelligence agencies of the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand (the Five Eyes).Top Level TelecommunicationsSIGINT Activity Designators/ref> There are several thousand SIGADs including the substation SIGADs denoted with a trailing alpha character. Several dozen of these are significant. The leaked Boundless Informant reporting screenshot showed that it summarized 504 active SIGADs during a 30-day period in March 2013. General format A SIGAD consists of five to eight case insensitive alphanumeric characters. It takes the general form of an alphanumeric designator normally composed of a two- or three-letter prefix followed by one to three numbers. Often a dash is used to sep ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Edward Snowden
Edward Joseph Snowden (born June 21, 1983) is an American and naturalized Russian former computer intelligence consultant who leaked highly classified information from the National Security Agency (NSA) in 2013, when he was an employee and subcontractor. His disclosures revealed numerous global surveillance programs, many run by the NSA and the Five Eyes intelligence alliance with the cooperation of telecommunication companies and European governments and prompted a cultural discussion about national security and individual privacy. In 2013, Snowden was hired by an NSA contractor, Booz Allen Hamilton, after previous employment with Dell and the CIA. Snowden says he gradually became disillusioned with the programs with which he was involved, and that he tried to raise his ethical concerns through internal channels but was ignored. On May 20, 2013, Snowden flew to Hong Kong after leaving his job at an NSA facility in Hawaii, and in early June he revealed thousands of class ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
IP Address
An Internet Protocol address (IP address) is a numerical label such as that is connected to a computer network that uses the Internet Protocol for communication.. Updated by . An IP address serves two main functions: network interface identification and location addressing. Internet Protocol version 4 (IPv4) defines an IP address as a 32-bit number. However, because of the growth of the Internet and the depletion of available IPv4 addresses, a new version of IP (IPv6), using 128 bits for the IP address, was standardized in 1998. IPv6 deployment has been ongoing since the mid-2000s. IP addresses are written and displayed in human-readable notations, such as in IPv4, and in IPv6. The size of the routing prefix of the address is designated in CIDR notation by suffixing the address with the number of significant bits, e.g., , which is equivalent to the historically used subnet mask . The IP address space is managed globally by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IA ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
