

UK 'biggest spy' among the Five Eyes  - o0-0o
http://www.news.com.au/technology/uk-spying-more-extensive-than-in-us/story-e6frfro0-1226667900434
The Guardian cited British intelligence memos leaked by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden to claim that UK spies were tapping into the world&#x27;s network of fibre optic cables to deliver the &quot;biggest internet access&quot; of any member of the Five Eyes - the name given to the espionage alliance composed of the United States, Britain, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.
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wrboyce
Original story: [http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2013/jun/21/gchq-cables-
secret-...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2013/jun/21/gchq-cables-secret-world-
communications-nsa)

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cmdkeen
This shouldn't surprise anyone - thanks to our colonial heritage Britain has
always contributed disproportionately to SIGINT gathering as we have lots of
locations dotted around the world that are well placed for data gathering.

Given the Royal Navy like to think they have the most skilled submarine
service in the world, and we have a long history of maritime charting, it
shouldn't be a huge surprise that if any country is tapping undersea cables
that it is Britain.

There are also plenty of stories from years ago about undersea cables being
tapped. So that is hardly a revelation.

~~~
mpyne
I've talked with RN submariners who visited our homeport. I would certainly
call them more skilled than the average USN submariner; they have a much
smaller cadre and spend a lot more time on sea duty since they don't have to
follow U.S. DOPMA requirements.

However they don't have enough spare submarines lying around to just convert
one like the U.S. did for _Halibut_ , _Parche_ , or our current special
projects boat.

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DanBC
It's weird that people are surprised by this considering it's the stated
mission of GCHQ to monitor all communications.

I genuinely don't care that GCHQ monitors and stores all this stuff. I'd
prefer that they didn't; I think it's mostly a waste of money.

But when I look at spying on citizens by factions of the UK government there
are far worse examples of abuses. GCHQ just has a bunch of data stored on disc
that they grep for data.

Local councils abusing their powers under RIPA actually affect people. people
suffer as a result of the abuses of RIPA.

I would much rather we spent time and money fixing other UK government
computing projects than sorting out GCHQ.

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contingencies
Summary:

(1) GCHQ forces communications companies to allow them to install interception
devices on land at international communications cable landing points "where
they land on British shores carrying data to western Europe from telephone
exchanges and internet servers in north America". (Europe is going to be
pissed off!)

(2) NSA/GCHQ feared revealing the identities of those commercial "intercept
partners" in this scheme would cause _high-level political fallout_.

(3) "Some companies have been paid for the cost of their co-operation".

(4) The companies themselves "are forbidden from revealing the existence of
warrants compelling them to allow GCHQ access to the cables." (Not a surprise;
Assange often points out that the UK is the world's biggest deployer of media
gag orders... so why not here?)

(5) This mass tapping operation has been built up over five years, since 2008.
_GCHQ set up a three-year trial at the GCHQ station in Bude, Cornwall. By the
summer of 2011, GCHQ had probes attached to more than 200 internet links, each
carrying data at 10 gigabits a second. "This is a massive amount of data!" as
one internal slideshow put it. That summer, it brought NSA analysts into the
Bude trials. In the autumn of 2011, it launched Tempora as a mainstream
programme, shared with the Americans._

(6) Message _content_ is maintained for three full days in what is referred to
as an "internet buffer" ... _Tempora allowed the agency to set up internet
buffers so it could not simply watch the data live but also store it – for
three days in the case of content and 30 days for metadata. "Internet buffers
represent an exciting opportunity to get direct access to enormous amounts of
GCHQ's special source data," one document explained._ It also details _a
constant effort to build up storage capacity at the stations at Cheltenham,
Bude and at one overseas location_ and ongoing technical work _to expand GCHQ
's capacity to ingest data from new super cables carrying data at 100 gigabits
a second_.

(7) Suggestions that GCHQ now captures more signals than the NSA.

(8) NSA's General Alexander made a casual remark supporting the breadth of
GCHQ's internet interception capabilities, in particular Menwith Hill's role,
and his awareness of the situation: _Why can 't we collect all the signals all
the time? Sounds like a good summer project for Menwith._ \- General
Alexander, Menwith Hill, June 2008.

(9) UK legal basis for interception "is in doubt" ... _According to GCHQ 's
legal advice, it was given the go-ahead by applying old law to new technology.
The 2000 Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (Ripa) requires the tapping of
defined targets to be authorised by a warrant signed by the home secretary or
foreign secretary. However, an obscure clause allows the foreign secretary to
sign a certificate for the interception of broad categories of material, as
long as one end of the monitored communications is abroad._ Also states that
_it would be impossible to list the total number of people targeted because
"this would be an infinite list which we couldn't manage"._

The challanges mentioned for the project are predictable ... political
fallout, global internet routes shifting away from the UK/US, ingestion-time
filtering, and ongoing technical challenges regarding interception of ever-
greater amounts of data.

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mike-cardwell
"global internet routes shifting away from the UK/US"

What's the point? Wherever data is routed or stored, it _will_ eventually be
tapped. There is no government that can be trusted not to do this.

Encryption of everything, all the time. That's what we need.

~~~
contingencies
The point, for their spying purposes, is that it's significantly more hassle
to gain access to bulk communications that don't physically flow through your
country. The point for us is that greater decentralization of internet
infrastructure is confirmed - from the horse's mouth - as an actionable and
reasonable, albeit partial, measure of resistance.

You are right, though. That's more like buying time than actually solving the
problem.

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olgeni
A clever way to grab all those rare-to-find torrents.

