
Glimmerglass Intercepts Undersea Cable Traffic for Spy Agencies? - ferdo
http://corpwatch.org/article.php?id=15862
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fnordfnordfnord
Tapping undersea cables is accomplished with the USS Jimmy Carter, unless
they've since built another one.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Jimmy_Carter_(SSN-23)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Jimmy_Carter_\(SSN-23\))

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s_q_b
According to unnamed sources in media reports, the USS Jimmy Carter's cable
tapping abilities aren't functional. See e.g. The Shadow Factory by James
Bamford.

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fnordfnordfnord
Interesting. I'm catching up on Bamford right now. I'll put The Shadow Factory
on the list. As far as tapping the cables. I can't imagine tapping a cable is
much of a challenge for any nation at shallow depths. Having an operational
submarine makes it possible to do so at greater depths and with less risk of
detection.

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AdrianRossouw
as someone reliant on undersea cables for connectivity, there have been
several suspicious/unexpected cable breaks that could have been used to
install interception equipment over the years.

that is, if they even bother to install it on the cable itself and don't just
force the endpoints to have their black boxes installed.

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fnordfnordfnord
I wondered about those. According to some dude quoted in this[1] Wiki article,
cuts are common. Note that I am not implying that the cuts weren't
intentional. Cuts being a common occurrence gives good cover to someone who
wants to install snooping equipment. Cutting a cable could also be a way to
cause traffic to be routed, at least temporarily through a compromised route.
What's more, everyone can play that game, it's cheap. Just pay some ship's
pilot to drag his anchor perpendicular to the known route.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Asian_submarine_cable_dis...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Asian_submarine_cable_disruption)

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maninthemiddle
the cables are owned by the companies that pay for them - like BT, AT&T, Level
Three etc. sometimes they sell them, especially if they go bankrupt

tapping a fibre isn't easy, you need a special submarine for that. the U.S.
did that in the 1970s to the soviets. but it is much easier if the companies
give you direct access at the landing station, which appears to be the case
for the NSA

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rdl
A lot of cables are consortium cables (where the members are mainly telcos),
too, especially earlier generation cables. I think that lowers the bar for
monitoring to the minimum of any of the members.

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malandrew
If we can't sue the NSA, can we sue this provider directly. Looks like there
is more than enough info publicly available to hold them accountable and they
can't invoke the state secrets defense. Everyone whose data crosses those
cables is a potential plaintiff.

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aray
As much as I'd like this to be true, I don't think it's the case.

There are both secret- and top-secret-level clearances for civilians, and are
usually dealt with in conjunction to companies and labs providing products and
services dealing with state secrets.

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SilliMon
So who actually owns the cables in international waters?

And what's to stop multiple countries tapping the same fibre?

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GauntletWizard
In international waters, you still own your boat; The cables are owned by the
company who laid them, under the sovereignty of their country of charter, with
provision to international law regarding telecommunications and maritime
navigation.

The biggest thing stopping multiple countries from tapping the same fibers is
signal strength; I imagine that it becomes obvious that you've got a 'leak'
after just a few splices. The other thing is that few countries posess the
technology to pull off an undersea cable tap; There's only one USS Jimmy
Carter, and I don't think the US loans it out, and while I'm certain that
China, Russia, and some of the major European states have their equivalents, I
doubt the list is very long.

None of this matters in context of the article, of course; Glimmerglass's
technology seems to mostly live on the ends of these cables, in the comms
cabinets just onshore where the cables emerge. There, you can tap as much as
you want, so long as you're the sovereign. They simply wave a national
security letter or equivalent in the face of the telco, and they've got a rack
next to the cables doing whatever it is they want to do.

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CurtMonash
I hate the misuse of the term "data mining" that plagues these surveillance
stories.

On the other hand, it's forgivable -- based on the plain meaning of the word
"mining", it's often a better fit than the "predictive modeling/machine
learning" meanings the term actually has.

