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<broken link removed>

"William Binney, a whistleblower at the National Security Agency (NSA), had his life turned upside down after revealing to the public just how much information the United States government is gathering on its citizens. He says the most recent wave began after September 11, 2001, but that it has only accelerated in recent years.

A 32-year veteran of the agency, Binney had the title of senior technical director and was considered one of the foremost mathematicians and code breakers in the business, according to a documentary featured in the New York Times. He quit, however, after the NSA started using programs it had developed to spy on foreign governments, to spy on Americans.

He has not been silent since his resignation, and is warning Americans from every platform he can find. He recently gave a chilling interview to Russia Today, and then spoke with TheBlaze TV."
 
I know people will flame over this but if you watch some tv shows like person of interest this is closer to reality then you would want to believe. if you look at all the security cameras around any more that are able to be viewed over the internet and the security cameras the government has put up guess what.
 
Businesses have been doing this with their employees for ages. It makes them easier to fire when the time comes if you have years of negative case work built up. Same goes with the gov't. If they were able to collect and save data from every human being on the planet would they do it? It would make good strategical sense - planning for a day those people become the enemy.

The thought of doing something like this in the past would've been unthinkable but the ability now exists. The internet is the largest filing cabinet in the world.

So would they?
 
Businesses have been doing this with their employees for ages. It makes them easier to fire when the time comes if you have years of negative case work built up. Same goes with the gov't. If they were able to collect and save data from every human being on the planet would they do it? It would make good strategical sense - planning for a day those people become the enemy.

The thought of doing something like this in the past would've been unthinkable but the ability now exists. The internet is the largest filing cabinet in the world.

So would they?

That is well said! Even more chilling is turning your phrase to, planning for the day that the government makes us the enemy!
 
So, I've read this article and reviewed it a while back. I've no doubt that the NSA (or other agency) is spying on network traffic. The problem is scale.

Lets take a few numbers:
Depending on source, average number of legitimate emails per day is about 50 (as high as 150 total if you count spam).
Lets assume that the government spies can filter spam like everyone else. So use 50.

Lets assume the average email is about 30 KB.

So just for the day's use you are at 1.5 MB per day per person.

Number of internet users in the US? About 245,203,319

So per day 367804978500 KB, or simple math 342 TB per day. That is Terra bytes. Kilo, Mega, Giga then Tera. (Peta then Exa)

That is just the US, not including international email, and this is PER DAY.

To pull that traffic in they would require ~340x10Gb ports nation wide in key locations. Why x10? Storage is in Bytes, not Bits. Network is in Bits, not Bytes. There are 8 bits to a byte. With overhead, x10.

Sure, that is possible. They would also need a backbone to support it to their massive data-center. OK, still possible but we are really starting to push things. Most network operators won't let you run at 100%, so you are 80% derated if not 50%, so really you need more like 500 x 10Gb ports nation wide. National average for transit costs is about $7.50 a Mb. Yes, per Mega-bit. So we are looking at $3.5 million USD per day in transportation costs. You could, maybe cut this in half with dark fiber and things like that. So network costs just to move the data and not counting all of the equipment is about $1.75 million USD per day. PER DAY.

OK, now data storage. 342 TB per day, would be 121,752 TB per year. For reference, The contents of a DVD is about 17 gigabytes. So, we have to store 2021 DVD's worth of data a year and have them accessible. No problem, right?

Consider this, all printed material in the world 200 petabytes. We would accumulate that per year, every year. Sure, it could be stores but to manage it and use it is a monumental task.

Could the government do this? Sure. Could they use it for harm? Sure. Do they have the desire to do it? Sure. Could the mount the people to pull it off and to use it with any sort of timely benefit or harm? Maybe...

This type of data collection, storage and manipulation is extremely difficult. Have seen and worked with people who do this it isn't trivial to pull off. As more and more people use cell phones for internet access, more and more people use computers, it will become almost unfeasible to maintain it.

Keep in mind, my example is ONLY emails. It doesn't include voice over IP, text messages, websites, videos, web forums, and all the other crap on the internet.

In my not so humble opinion, the costs and scale basically make the idea that they are sucking up all data in the US really difficult. They could easily be pulling some data, BGP, IP, or even MAC specific data and dumping the rest. But overall the idea they are pulling everything and to one datacenter? I don't buy it.

I do buy they are doing things they shouldn't be doing, and more people need to step up and whistle blow on them. We need to push for more transparency in government and call our Represenatives and Senators and tell them to stop sacrificing our actual rights and freedom for security theater.
 
Morpheus, you say several times that it's possible but then say you don't buy it and it appears that your only sticking point is cost. Seriously, or am I missing something in your post.

Dude they just send us the bill.
 
DVD does not hold 17 GB. A single layer DVD holds 4.7 GB while a dual layer DVD holds 8.5 GB. You don't know what you're talking about.

Not that they'd keep every byte anyway... it's called data aggregation. They send this kind of stuff to the private sector... it's a growing industry called "big data".
 
Morpheus, you say several times that it's possible but then say you don't buy it and it appears that your only sticking point is cost. Seriously, or am I missing something in your post.

Dude they just send us the bill.

Cost isn't the only thing, it's also the logistics of doing something so massive.
 
Good_Luck_I%27m_Behind_7_Proxies.jpg
 
Cost isn't the only thing, it's also the logistics of doing something so massive.

As Boomerang pointed out. The logistics of doing this is massive. Getting that number of ports unseen (previous to this), getting the Datacenter setup, the networking equipment and all of the people to support (upwards of 20,000 people at least) makes this task very difficult.

But yes, we would be footing the bill. I just find it hard to believe this shadow organization is tracking all of our data. Companies like Yahoo, Google, Microsoft, Facebook and others all do this type of work. They all focus on just one aspect of this type of work. Maybe if you took all of them, nationalized them and forced them to turn over all of their data you might scratch the surface. Otherwise this is much more limited in scope.

Oh, and BTW, this guy talks about 10GB line rate sniffing. Possible, but again you would need a few dozen of these at each main building.

Anyway...
 
^

They already do it. It doesn't take a lot of people to support that kind of infrastructure. The Google datacenter out in the Dalles only has a handful of full time staff. Even in the early days of the internet the NSA had data sniffers installed at the high level routers. Computing power and storage capacity has grown exponentially since those days.

My advice, encrypt all personal correspondence and chats that you don't want to government to read.
 
I'm not sure what infrastructure you are talking about, but first had accounts are that the infrastructure takes a lot more people than a 'handful' to maintain sites such as the Google DC in The Dalles and the Facebook Datacenter in Prineville. Or the DC Microsoft has up in Quincy. Or the DC Amazon is looking to put in near Boardman.

But, even if it only took a 'handful' those DCs are only focused on specific tasks. And aren't trying to suck up everything. As I pointed out, that is just the storage side of it. The networking infrastructure required would be massive as well. And very noticeable and public.

Yes, computers have scaled up, but that works against this type of effort. Internet traffic has been doubling every 12 to 18 months. The time in the day to deploy more networking equipment, storage arrays and more servers to computer/crunch the data just isn't there. Even with the pseudo limitless money available for an operation like this you can only push the Telco providers, peering locations, and POP owners so hard before they snap. It can take months or years to expand in some locations.

Lastly, remember, the only way 3 people keep a secret is if 2 of them are dead. And we are talking about tens of thousands of people to pull this off and to maintain it. This isn't the first guy to blow the whistle. A few more have blown the whistle because they caught a glimpse of this type of spying. Lots of the companies, ones I've even listed in this exchange, would have a lot more whistle blowers and a lot more people crying foul if this was as wide spread as the article is trying to make us believe.

I will agree, encrypting your personal correspondence is a great idea. Of course, if you are right and they have the level of infrastructure you think they do then encryption is just a time issue. Their level of computer power would hard crack it fairly easily. Well, unless you are using 2048-bit or something.
 
I will agree, encrypting your personal correspondence is a great idea. Of course, if you are right and they have the level of infrastructure you think they do then encryption is just a time issue. Their level of computer power would hard crack it fairly easily. Well, unless you are using 2048-bit or something.

Just go look at the size of the Utah spy center: <broken link removed>

As for keeping secrets, they don't care because most people who work the government leave their morals at the door.

The encryption won't stop them. It'll only slow them down. Of course, if *all* correspondence was encrypted then all their sorting and filtering algorithms would be DOA.
 
Knowing what I know, and looking at the article they only have 100,000 square feet. I believe that is about the size of one of Google's buildings in Oregon. (And that is one of their 10 or so public sites). And power wise it is fairly small, smaller than most of the large public DCs.

So their data is wrong, or their claims are off scale. Or both. And this is only half of the issue. They may have storage, but they need the data to store. Even in their own article, they talk about the rapid doubling of data.

Oh, and encryption still has headers in the packets. They still will be able to break it down. It just takes time, lots of time.
 
We are free. The last cry of the suppressed, proud and idiotic. We are owned property and it is always in the interest of our owners to keep a watch over their property. Simple as that. Darpa, Global Information Grid (GIG) look it up and research it for yourself.

The good news is that most of us won't live long enough to get our drone implants. Anything you see now in terms of cameras, etc, is really primitive in terms of tyrannical control. They want to monitor you directly.

A new species of 'enhanced' humans is down the road. Even mainstream media has reported that it is a given by 2022-2030. The transformation is probably planned after WWIII as a solution to humanity's woes. Their infamous calling card of 'problem (they create the problem; wars, WWIII, whatever), reaction (fear and panic among the survivors), solution (global governance, more control of human behavior, etc).

Think Borg w/o the cool ship. Individual freedom will be completely gone. A hive linked collective of sorts. Pretty much most people are in a hive, a trance as it is, but this will be literal via technology.

Don't want to be more advanced? Happy the way you are? No problem. You won't be forced, just ridiculed, because those that accept the advances will be way above you on the social scale. You will still be appreciated though; kind of like a pet.

Skip to 08:36 for info on the surveillance state advances - 6-7 year old video, still a good one and relevant since a lot of it has come to pass already - I know this is way past 98% herd so if you are closed minded, don't bother please.

 
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Ignoring your DVD comment, as I don't need to assist those who already pointed out your error.

Not that they'd keep every byte anyway... it's called data aggregation. They send this kind of stuff to the private sector... it's a growing industry called "big data".

This makes the whole problem actually more complex. You first have to have the raw data to process it enough to make any sort of aggregation. And depending on your methods the raw data is always needed to verify your conclusions. If you add in private sector, how you have to not only take all of this in, but ship it out to that private sector company.

This makes it even more difficult to ensure secrecy. As for "big data" private companies they have been around for a long time. Cloud computing, super computers, and main frames are all basically the same concept. The industry goes back and forth on this. Now that small number of 20,000 to 40,000 people has expended even further to include more people who might blow the whistle.

Even the article talks about how they don't pull all of the data. As I indicated they focus on a single person and expand out. I'm sure they keep the data once they are done, but it just isn't feasible for them to pull off the watching all data, all the time. China has been trying for the past several years. And they have at least 30,000 people working on it. And they can't pull it off. And they are really trying to accomplish it and control the choke points. In the US this just isn't the case. We have more access points, more traffic, and multiple parties all working at expanding the capacity and growing the internet.
 
BULLbubblegum I talk to my neighbor via a tin can and a string. They will never catch us. And if one of us thinks they are getting close we can stand in our windows and communicate via charades
 

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