Mastering the Internet (MTI) is a

mass surveillance Mass surveillance is the intricate surveillance of an entire or a substantial fraction of a population in order to monitor that group of citizens. The surveillance is often carried out by local and federal governments or governmental organizati ...

project led by the British

communications intelligence Signals intelligence (SIGINT) is list of intelligence gathering disciplines, intelligence-gathering by interception of ''Signal, signals'', whether communications between people (communications intelligence—abbreviated to COMINT) or from ele ...

agency

Government Communications Headquarters Government Communications Headquarters, commonly known as GCHQ, is an intelligence and security organisation responsible for providing signals intelligence (SIGINT) and information assurance (IA) to the government and armed forces of the Un ...

(GCHQ) budgeted at over £1 billion. According to reports in ''

The Register ''The Register'' is a British technology news website co-founded in 1994 by Mike Magee, John Lettice and Ross Alderson. The online newspaper's masthead sublogo is "''Biting the hand that feeds IT''." Their primary focus is information tec ...

'' and ''

The Sunday Times ''The Sunday Times'' is a British newspaper whose circulation makes it the largest in Britain's quality press market category. It was founded in 1821 as ''The New Observer''. It is published by Times Newspapers Ltd, a subsidiary of News UK, whi ...

'' in early May 2009, contracts with a total value of £200m had already been awarded to suppliers. Responding to these reports, GCHQ issued a

press release A press release is an official statement delivered to members of the news media for the purpose of providing information, creating an official statement, or making an announcement directed for public release. Press releases are also considere ...

countering these claims of mass surveillance, stating that "GCHQ is not developing technology to enable the monitoring of all internet use and phone calls in Britain, or to target everyone in the UK." However, the 2013 mass surveillance disclosures revealed that the GCHQ gathers "raw" information (without filtering out the communications of British citizens) from the web as part of its "Mastering the Internet" programme.

Background

"Mastering the Internet" (MTI) is a project by the British government and part of the

Interception Modernisation Programme The Interception Modernisation Programme (IMP) was a UK government initiative to extend the government's capabilities for lawful interception and storage of communications data. It was widely reported that the IMP's eventual goal was to store detai ...

(IMP). The system was described in 2009 by ''

'' and ''

'' as the replacement for scrapped plans for a single central database. This involves thousands of

DPI A Daytona Prototype International (DPi) was a type of sports prototype racing car developed specifically for the International Motor Sports Association's WeatherTech SportsCar Championship, as their top class of car, acting as a direct replaceme ...

black box In science, computing, and engineering, a black box is a system which can be viewed in terms of its inputs and outputs (or transfer characteristics), without any knowledge of its internal workings. Its implementation is "opaque" (black). The te ...

es at various

internet service provider An Internet service provider (ISP) is an organization that provides services for accessing, using, or participating in the Internet. ISPs can be organized in various forms, such as commercial, community-owned, non-profit, or otherwise private ...

s in association with the GCHQ base in

Cheltenham Cheltenham (), also known as Cheltenham Spa, is a spa town and borough on the edge of the Cotswolds in the county of Gloucestershire, England. Cheltenham became known as a health and holiday spa town resort, following the discovery of mineral s ...

, funded out of a Single Intelligence Account budget of £1.6 bn, including a £200m contract with

Lockheed Martin The Lockheed Martin Corporation is an American aerospace, arms, defense, information security, and technology corporation with worldwide interests. It was formed by the merger of Lockheed Corporation with Martin Marietta in March 1995. It ...

and a contract with BAE Systems Detica. As of 2013, the system is capable of copying signals from up to 200 fibre-optic cables at all physical points of entry into Great Britain.

International cooperation

Canada

As early as 2007,

John Adams John Adams (October 30, 1735 – July 4, 1826) was an American statesman, attorney, diplomat, writer, and Founding Fathers of the United States, Founding Father who served as the second president of the United States from 1797 to 1801. Befor ...

, chief of Canada's intelligence agency

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 ...

, told the

Parliament of Canada The Parliament of Canada (french: Parlement du Canada) is the federal legislature of Canada, seated at Parliament Hill in Ottawa, and is composed of three parts: the King, the Senate, and the House of Commons. By constitutional convention, the ...

about plans of the "

Five Eyes The Five Eyes (FVEY) is an intelligence alliance comprising Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States. These countries are parties to the multilateral UKUSA Agreement, a treaty for joint cooperation in sig ...

" to master the Internet in cooperation with the NSA and other allies:

United States

In 2013, ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

'' provided specific details of financial contributions made by the U.S.

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, collecti ...

(NSA) in "Mastering the Internet" as part of the "

" alliance between several English-speaking Western democracies. According to documents leaked by

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 su ...

, the NSA paid the GCHQ over £17.2 million towards running the programme.

References

{{reflist, colwidth=30em Intelligence agency programmes revealed by Edward Snowden Surveillance Civil rights and liberties in the United Kingdom Mass intelligence-gathering systems Programmes of the Government of the United Kingdom Internet security Home Office (United Kingdom) GCHQ operations

Background

International cooperation

Canada

United States

See also

References