Ex AT&T Tech Says NSA Monitors All Web Traffic 566
Sir Tandeth writes "A former technician at AT&T, who alleges that the telecom giant forwards virtually all of its internet traffic into a 'secret room' to facilitate government spying, says the whole operation reminds him of something out of Orwell's 1984. Appearing on MSNBC's Countdown program, whistleblower Mark Klein told Keith Olbermann that all Internet traffic passing over AT&T lines was copied into a locked room at the company's San Francisco office — to which only employees with National Security Agency clearance had access. 'Klein was on Capitol Hill Wednesday attempting to convince lawmakers not to give a blanket, retroactive immunity to telecom companies for their secret cooperation with the government. He said that as an AT&T technician overseeing Internet operations in San Francisco, he helped maintain optical splitters that diverted data en route to and from AT&T customers. '"
Encrypt (Score:5, Insightful)
Is anyone really surprised by this? (Score:0, Insightful)
"All" internet traffic? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:I've read about this before. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Encrypt (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:"All" internet traffic? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Doubtful (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:"All" internet traffic? (Score:2, Insightful)
Not to mention that they're only looking at certain type of packets I'd imagine... ignoring streaming video and the like and focusing on email, instant messaging, slashdot posts...
Re:I've read about this before. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Encrypt (Score:2, Insightful)
Encrypt your data and spank these lawless assholes.
Just because they dont have the space... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:I've read about this before. (Score:5, Insightful)
Given this data, it is entirely clear that there is no reason to believe that any non-encrypted data is not going to be monitored, recorded, and traced.
While we must try to abort this particular endeavor through the civil process, it is rather clear to me that it's likely to be a futile effort. The way I see it, as the technological capability for total surveillance draws closer, the government and commercial entities will not be far behind.
it's not stealing (Score:2, Insightful)
This being slashdot, that should be ok with most folks here.
Re:I've read about this before. (Score:2, Insightful)
Thank goodness that's not the meaning of your post
Re:Olbermann? (Score:5, Insightful)
But still, it's a good thing we have Fox News. Otherwise where would I get all the newest info on my favorite celebrities (what's that silly Paris up to today)? Or how I would know which ethnic/religious/political group to direct my hatred towards?
No shit sherlock ... (Score:3, Insightful)
Thats bush & co for you. No surprise at&t is the name that comes up with them. after all, its 'for the boyZ', right ?
Re:"All" internet traffic? (Score:1, Insightful)
In '99 I was working at a large ISP that was approached by (undisclosed), they wanted to put three loaded Sun E10Ks on the network to capture and catalog all the data traveling to our peering points. We kindly declined the offer.
Re:I've read about this before. (Score:5, Insightful)
They hate us because we've been meddling in their governments, undermining their sovereignty, propping up dictators favorable to us, invading them when those propped up dictators fall out favor, all for our own national self interests.
I know your post was intended to be funny, and was, but the irony of situation is even worse.
Taking away our freedoms will never stop foreign terrorists from hating us for jerking their countries around. But it might well spawn an outbreak of domestic terrorism if they keep at it. The Unabomber was just a prelude, as the very type of stuff he lashed out about is coming to pass.
Re:I've read about this before. (Score:5, Insightful)
You assuming at least a couple things here
A: That Agents are monitoring the traffic. Could be they are filtering for keywords. Storing for later review.
B: That they are looking at all the traffic.
And on fighting terrorism, how about we stop sending them money that ends up making
them such a valuable part of the world? And I don't know what is wrong with leaving
them alone, really. There is some legitimacy to their grievances, you know.
What is now Israel was Palestine ( and before that had a variety of owners,
none of them Jewish until you get *really* far back ). Britain decides for
partition, and you have to give up your homeland, your business, your home
so that a bunch of people who have been practicing terrorism in your country
can have a home? If it were you, you would be pissed, and fighting back,
so would I. Why is that so hard to understand? Now, don't go getting on any
"you must hate Israelis" thing, furthest thing from the truth. I understand
( and support ) the idea of Israel having a homeland, but I also understand
that the Palestinians want the same, and have been moved to provide it for
the Israelis. Not to mention all the building that Israelis have done in
the contested areas to attempt to annex those areas.
And America has involved itself in this conflict, supplying arms and money
to support Israel.
I don't know what all the answers are, but starting the discussion with
ignoring where all the parties are "at" is not wise.
Re:I've read about this before. (Score:4, Insightful)
Like most premature and inappropriate applications of Occam's Razor, this one fails the Thought For Seven Seconds test.
So they can't the whole internet. They sure as hell can have it split to go through their secret rooms in the telco's offices, where they can do whatever keyword searching or other simple analysis they want and then save off the portion that may be considered interesting.
The whole point is that he doesn't know what the NSA is doing with the data, he only knows that he set up the splitters to route a copy of all the data into the secret room.
The "and they're saving everything to disk" part is something that someone here made up and now has apparently become an official part of the "conspiracy theory". So if that part doesn't make sense, the whole thing must be a lie! Except no, it doesn't work that way.
Re:I've read about this before. (Score:5, Insightful)
Is monitoring on a wire better just because it happens far away where you can't see it?
I suppose you feel that it's tolerable as long as government and law enforcement remain reasonably democratic and every officer of the law remains reasonably uncorrupted. But how long will they remain this way, and not succumb to the temptations inherent in these arrangements? Temptation has a very strong corrupting effect.
Re:I've read about this before. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:I've read about this before. (Score:5, Insightful)
AT&T is not the only stooge, we are also (Score:3, Insightful)
In any case, stop you damned moaning?! This story is false because it fails to ask you what the f**k you are going to do about it? If nothing you are the problem! I'm going to do the norm. Write a litter. How that hell is this the "Home of the free?" Were monitored more than a Jewish school in Germany in the 1930's. Okay, Hitler was bad, and he was worse than this, but he sure would have thought it a damned nice item.
I'm not even going to insult you by listing all we've lost in freedoms. That would be whining. Lost. That sure as hell is the wrong word. we gave away freedoms like offerings to a pagan god(and not one of the cool ones). We burned them by the bushel. Can you buy a house without showing ID? How easy is it to wire funds. Oh, we'll catch a few, but we'll have to except being tracked watched and ID'ed any time we want to do something.
All that, rather than solving the problem. All the fuss. All the paranoia. All the tracking, monitoring, and so on. It's got the be the biggest sexual fetish for the inner fascist bubbling to the surface of America.
Do something to stop it, or I'm pointing at you and saying "You are all for it. You are fascism's little cheerleader, By saying nothing. You did this."
whoes talking about stealing? (Score:4, Insightful)
You are somehow confusing the right to privacy with disseminating other peoples already released intelectual property. The issues are not even remotely similar. Of course this being slashdot, you have been wildly and incorrectly modded up.
Re:I've read about this before. (Score:5, Insightful)
With a few exceptions, the kinds of curtailment that are happening or being attempted now were not tried on a large scale when communism was the major scare. Instead, the fact that such measures weren't in place was held up as the difference between us and the communists.
Re:I've read about this before. (Score:2, Insightful)
Ask Shi Tao, or Li Zhi. Don't think that people aren't being harassed elsewhere. It's just done through traffic stops, or tax audits, etc. Things that don't make the papers.
Re:I've read about this before. (Score:5, Insightful)
Indeed some muslims want to kill us all. Does that warrant spending over http://www.reuters.com/article/politicsNews/idUSN2450753720071024 [reuters.com]2 TRILLION dollars mostly borrowed from the Chinese to kill them? Our president spends money like a teenager with a credit card, without care for who's going to have to pay it back or the price of interest. That kind of short-sightedness is going to screw us over in the next 30 years.
Charming (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I've read about this before. (Score:3, Insightful)
Something tells me the British would oppose such a plan. The Americans, on the other hand, are much more bloodthirsty, and also much more act-first-and-think-only-later-(if-at-all). But somehow I think even the Americans would oppose a plan that turns the entire US into glass. You can erode their democracy all you want, but I think even they would react adversely to a plan that would kill them all.
The unpatriotic bastards. They don't realize that for the holy cause of fighting terrorism you have to be ready to accept some sacrifices.
Yawn (Score:3, Insightful)
I mean, so what that it's basically impossible to avoid either using Bizzaro-FedEx or have them handle your document at some point, they're a MONOPOLY CORPORATION and not the government, so that magically makes it moral and legal *coughfruit of a poisoned treecough* for them to help the government spy on you by proxy.
Can I have some of the peyote they're putting in your koolaid?
Re:I've read about this before. (Score:5, Insightful)
I would rather die than allow the protections guaranteed to us by the Constitution to be stolen from us.
Anybody who would not is a wretched coward.
Re:Encrypt (Score:3, Insightful)
There is a difference between what the government accidentally hears shouted across
a crowded room, and the government actively seeking to occupy all rooms so that they
can hear every conversation, whispered, shouted or spoken in code.
I would argue that government should not be so seeking without probably cause and a warrant.
Re:Shameful (Score:5, Insightful)
Your words are, frankly, insulting to the millions of individuals who lost their liberty, lives, property, and loved ones in REAL totalitarian states. Read the Gulag Archipelago sometime and get informed.
Another example is that the Jews were forced to wear the yellow "star of david" on their clothes in 1938. If they were to complain about the regulations and say that they were living in a "police state", then by your logic they could easily be ridiculed because the concentration camps such as Auschwitz had not been built yet -- construction on those started in 1940. By your logic the star of david is just a patch on a coat, nothing to be worried about, right? So by your words and logic they would be "frankly, insulting" their future selves who would be dying in the gas chambers two years later.
The problem with your logic is that you are saying that a person cannot complain about the totalitarian nature of his country until he can be killed for just complaining about the totalitarian nature of his country -- a "catch 22".
America is definitely becoming less and less free every day and more authoritarian -- that is very easy to see. The right of privacy is guaranteed by our constitution, and when it is public knowledge that our government is publicly ignoring that constitution that is definitely the time to complain. Our constitution was created to protect us from our government and when our government starts treating it like toilet paper it is time definitely time to do something.
America is no longer the "land of the free and home of the brave" and it is very much high time for everyone to start recognizing that fact and start speaking up. Trying to say that our government is not repressive enough or authoritarian enough to speak up about it is ridiculous. The people who were tortured and killed at Abu Ghraib and other places at the hands of our government would not find those words "frankly, insulting". They would say that those words are an understatement.
When people in America joke on a regular basis that if you say anything against the government that you might be sent to Guantanamo, and when our elected officials argue about whether or not repeatedly drowning someone and reviving them is torture, you can be pretty sure that we have crossed the line that divides a free state and an authoritarian state.
Re:I've read about this before. (Score:2, Insightful)
So true. In fact, they are now laughing at how easily we give up our freedoms.
Re:Culture warior... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I've read about this before. (Score:5, Insightful)
America's position does put it at the top of the shitlist, but that doesn't mean that it's only targeted because of its foreign policies.
Islamic fundamentalism is alive and well in Africa, and there's also fundamentalist and terrorist activity in Canada. Islamic fundamentalism is also a problem in Britain, Germany, France, Netherlands, Belgium, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Spain, Italy and Australia.
Re:I've read about this before. (Score:3, Insightful)
Don't be fooled by this 'it's all our fault' mentality folks. There are religious maniacs out there that hate our culture, hate 'our freedoms'. And they want to impose their islamic law upon the world. They would kill us if they could.
And again, they only want to kill us because we are killing them.
You need to actually use your head for once and think about the argument you're making here. Your argument is extremely self-centered - it assumes everything a fundamentalist muslim believes is because of us. Well, guess what, there have been fundamentalist muslims in the world since before this country existed. The United States is not the center of the universe.
Why would they hate our music if they didn't have to hear it? What does being against freedom for women have to do with hating the west? (I'm not saying it's right for them to feel that way, but it's their belief - it's got nothing to do with us.) Ditto for "honor killings" - hey, we've got thousands of those every year here in the United States too, they should love us for that. We're practically showing them the way.
The reason they hate us is because we're constantly shoving ourselves down their throats. We don't believe the same things they do but we are forcing both our governmental system and our culture onto them - literally forcing these things onto them through military action if necessary. How would you feel if another country did that to us? Would you love that country?
Your attitude is as pervasive as it is wrong, and it stems from the fact that so few Americans have ever even been off this continent. We think the way we do things is the way everybody does things, and if they don't, they're just backwards and need to be educated. Well, that's not the way the world is. Every country has its own systems, its own culture and its own beliefs, most of which are far older and well-established than ours, and those beliefs may be diametrically opposed to yours without having anything to do with you. In other words, just because a person's beliefs are the opposite of yours does not mean they're reacting against you. Again, this country is far younger than the muslim religion, and there have always been people who interpret its laws strictly. But now, we have given them an enemy. We've handed them a rallying point on a silver platter. It didn't have to be that way; we could have left them alone.
I also find it amazing that nobody who parrots the same line you do ever stops to see the fallacy in the logic. If they hate our freedoms so much, why is our stated goal to eradicate terrorism by forcing those same freedoms on them? (Again, through military action if necessary.) The entire argument makes no sense from any standpoint.
Re:Thought you had it for a second (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm curious, also, as to how we offended the Barbary Pirates to make them capture our cargoes and ransom or impress our sailors.
There's definitely more to it than our meddling.
Re:I've read about this before. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Thought you had it for a second (Score:3, Insightful)
And don't forget Pinochet. The US has been trying to control all the world: Vietnam, middle east, South America, Cuba, etc. Is it wrong that the US has gained enemies ALL AROUND THE WORLD?
ZOMG, the terrorists want to kill us all!!!!111one
Gee, I wonder why...
Re:Culture warior... (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, actually, yes.
You see, all of the jihad is based on demagougery exploiting various, mostly unrelated, real or imagined grievances in the Arab world, and aims at creation of violence and warfare towards all and any comers who are unlike the target audience via indoctrination, lies, manipulation of facts etc and so on. At the forefront of the movement are loudmouth morons who spew constant stream of anti-everything-non-fundamentalist-Islam invective and rouse various sociopaths to action, mostly via small arms warfare combined with improvised explosives, punctuated by suicidal bomb attacks and a very rare spectacular terrorist assault on foreign soil, which results in few thousand casualties per year on average.
On the other hand we have demagougery exploiting various, mostly unrelated, real or imagined grievances in of the xenophobic, supremacist white subsectuion of American society, which aims at creation of violence and warfare towards all and any comers who are unlike the target audience via indoctrination, lies, manipulation of facts etc and so on. At the forefront of the movement are loudmouth morons who spew constant stream of anti-everything-non-white-upper-class-Christainst invective and rouse various sociopaths to action, mostly via large scale warfare, aerial bombardment and wholesale occupation of foreign nations, exctrajudicial imprisonment in Gulags, torture etc, with hundreds of thousands of casualties in Iraq alone in a period of 4 years.
In other words, O'Reilly, Coulter, Malkin etc are the ideological equivalents of Osama and various pontificating radical Imams in their various Madrassas. The difference is that their spew is empirically proven to be capable of causing vastly more damage and casualties than that of all the modern jihadis combined so far.
Perheaps that will change when the Pakistani nukes change hands to Taliban or Al-Queda and O'Reilly and Osama will start competing on more even terms.
None of which of course helps the more sane part of the humanity which is likely to caught in the crossfire caused by the blowhard morons of the world.
My dream is that one day all of the most insane of the violence promoting demagouges like O'Reilley, Coulter and Osama are all caught, given flamethrowers or some such and sent to an uninhabited island to practice what they preach on each other, while the rest of the world goes on about making our lives better. The last one standing gets to own the island where his followers are all sent as a punishment to listen to his or her whining 24/7 for the rest of their short lives.
Re:Culture warior... (Score:3, Insightful)
I have plain as day, empirical evidence to prove it: the "global jihad" is equipped with AK-47s, RPGs, some stolen explosives and what seems like an infinite supply of suicidal idiots. People whom O'Reilly, Coulter and Malkin (she substituted for O'Reilly on FOX) are in a position to influence control the most advanced army humanity ever constructed, complete with nuke tipped ICBMs, aircraft carriers and the like. The "global jihad" managed, after 20 years of plotting, to kill 3000 US citizens on US soil employing the apex of the most advanced of Al-Queda's weapons technologies: 19 pairs of box cutters. The followers of O'Reilly have invaded whole nations and killed hundreds of thousands of their citizens, leveled whole cities and drove millions of refugees out of their homes using armored divisions, aerial bombardment and attack helicopters.
There is just no contest.
Simple empirical observation, see above.
Morality?! Both sides in this conflict are deeply immoral, corrupt, dishonest, manipulative, vicious, callous to the human consequences of their actions, and thoroughly vile. One wishes to dominate the world via a barbaric, brainless medieval religious doctrine, the other wants to dominate the world via armies and a corrupt political/economic system aimed at enriching the aristocracy of Corporate America and also does not shy away from utilizing their own medieval religious doctrines as it suits them and their Israeli accomplices. There is no good guys in this fight, other then perheaps some few poor non-sectarian Iraqis who only want to get on with their lives and are being killed, maimed, herded and abused by all sides.
You ooze your religious biggotry. What does this nonsensical satement mean?! As "evil" as Muslims? You mean they conducted Crusades and skinned people alive during the Spanish Inquisition? Burned scientists on the stake? Do explain.
I have news for you: all fundamentalist wackos, irrespective of the type of their mental disease are evil. With no exception. They will try to subjegate, and failing that maim and murder anyone who is actively resisting their particular woo-woism. Christians did it, and are actively doing it (see Iraq) and so do Muslims, Jews and many others. Religions are the scourge of civilization. If it weren't for the secular Enlightenment the Catholics would be still spilling the guts of children of Lutherans who would be still spilling the guts of Calvinists and Baptists would be still gutting the children of Catholics and vice versa. And so now the medieval darkness is returning again, and vicious crazies are at each-other's throats again until some adults step in, hopefuly before the Muslim, Christian and Jewish religious lunatics blow the planet apart.
Thay are different flavours of equally irrational and hateful ravings full of vindictive, vicious, violent acts by their respective make-believe invisible old-men-in-the-sky and even more vicious followers of those sick fantasies, both demanding irrational behaviours from their victims and both utterly incompatible with any rational, advanced civilization. Both should have stayed behind where they belong: medieval dark ages.
I am sure the billionaire princes within would disagree.