NSA infiltrates links to Yahoo, Google data centers worldwide, Snowden documents say

[jct74]

NSA infiltrates links to Yahoo, Google data centers worldwide, Snowden documents say

By Barton Gellman and Ashkan Soltani
Wednesday, October 30, 12:19 PM

The National Security Agency has secretly broken into the main communications links that connect Yahoo and Google data centers around the world, according to documents obtained from former NSA contractor Edward Snowden and interviews with knowledgeable officials.

By tapping those links, the agency has positioned itself to collect at will from among hundreds of millions of user accounts, many of them belonging to Americans. The NSA does not keep everything it collects, but it keeps a lot.

According to a top secret accounting dated Jan. 9, 2013, NSA’s acquisitions directorate sends millions of records every day from Yahoo and Google internal networks to data warehouses at the agency’s Fort Meade headquarters. In the preceding 30 days, the report said, field collectors had processed and sent back 181,280,466 new records — ranging from “metadata,” which would indicate who sent or received e-mails and when, to content such as text, audio and video.

The NSA’s principal tool to exploit the data links is a project called MUSCULAR, operated jointly with the agency’s British counterpart, GCHQ. From undisclosed interception points, the NSA and GCHQ are copying entire data flows across fiber-optic cables that carry information between the data centers of the Silicon Valley giants.

The infiltration is especially striking because the NSA, under a separate program known as PRISM, has front-door access to Google and Yahoo user accounts through a court-approved process.

The MUSCULAR project appears to be an unusually aggressive use of NSA tradecraft against flagship American companies. The agency is built for high-tech spying, with a wide range of digital tools, but it has not been known to use them routinely against U.S. companies.

White House officials and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, which oversees the NSA, declined to confirm, deny or explain why the agency infiltrates Google and Yahoo networks overseas.

In a statement, Google said it was “troubled by allegations of the government intercepting traffic between our data centers, and we are not aware of this activity.”

“We have long been concerned about the possibility of this kind of snooping, which is why we continue to extend encryption across more and more Google services and links,” the company said.

At Yahoo, a spokeswoman said: “We have strict controls in place to protect the security of our data centers, and we have not given access to our data centers to the NSA or to any other government agency.”

...

read more:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/nsa-infiltrates-links-to-yahoo-google-data-centers-worldwide-snowden-documents-say/2013/10/30/e51d661e-4166-11e3-8b74-d89d714ca4dd_story.html?Post+generic=%3Ftid%3Dsm_t witter_washingtonpost

print version (one page):
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/nsa-infiltrates-links-to-yahoo-google-data-centers-worldwide-snowden-documents-say/2013/10/30/e51d661e-4166-11e3-8b74-d89d714ca4dd_print.html

[HOLLYWOOD]

General Keith Alexander and DNI James Clapper, both lied to Congress, which is a felony. Yet both of these individuals are still at their jobs conducting illegal-UNCONSTITUTIONAL surveillance on American citizens. Let alone they should lose their high paying government jobs, they both should be indicted. This is a perfect example of today's "JUST-US" and no rule of law for federal executives.

So the morality of the story is... no one in America discriminates more, than the Federal Government. no one in America is more above the rule of law, than the Federal government and their personnel.

[puppetmaster]

General Keith Alexander and DNI James Clapper, both lied to Congress, which is a felony. Yet both of these individuals are still at their jobs conducting illegal-UNCONSTITUTIONAL surveillance on American citizens. Let alone they should lose their high paying government jobs, they both should be indicted. This is a perfect example of today's "JUST-US" and no rule of law for federal executives.

So the morality of the story is... no one in America discriminates more, than the Federal Government. no one in America is above the rule of law, than the Federal government and their personnel.

This ACA fiasco is waking up some....a little hope I hope......+rep

[jbauer]

So short of the moon landing and JFK is there anything the NSA hasn't done? Bigfoot? Lochness Monster?

Just think of the cost it takes to do everything they're doing. Not to mention, Snowden was pretty low level. Imagine what you'd find in the reports further up the food chain. I'd say its safe to say since this thread has the words NSA and Snowden in it we're all destine to our regions FEMA camp.

[angelatc]

Actually, this will probably get lost in all the ACA noise.

[DamianTV]

http://tech.slashdot.org/story/13/10/30/1735257/nsa-broke-into-links-between-google-yahoo-datacenters


barlevg writes


"The Washington Post reports that, according to documents obtained from Edward Snowden, through their so-called 'MUSCULAR' initiative, the National Security Agency has exploited a weakness in the transfers between data centers, which Google and others pay a premium to send over secure fiber optic cables. The leaked documents include a post-it note as part of an internal NSA Powerpoint presentation showing a diagram of Google network traffic, an arrow pointing to the Google front-end server with text reading, 'SSL Added and Removed Here' with a smiley face. When shown the sketch by The Post and asked for comment, two engineers with close ties to Google responded with strings of profanity."

The Washington Post report is also summarized at SlashBI. Also in can't-trust-the-government-not-to-spy news, an anonymous reader writes:


"According to recent reports, the National Security Agency collects 'one-end foreign' Internet metadata as it passes through the United States. The notion is that purely domestic communications should receive greater protection, and that ordinary Americans won't send much personal information outside the country. A researcher at Stanford put this hypothesis to the test... and found that popular U.S. websites routinely pass browsing activity to international servers. Even the House of Representatives website was sending traffic to London. When the NSA vacuums up international Internet metadata, then, it's also snooping on domestic web browsing by millions of Americans."

Although this constant barrage of the Abuses of the 4th Amendment are now not only coming in at an exaccerbated rate, I do believe there is an Upside. People are now aware of the Total Abuse and are starting to push back. A person can only do one of two things with a Right: Use It, or Lose It.

[69360]

At this point just assume the NSA sees and hears everything.

[DamianTV]

At this point just assume the NSA sees and hears everything.

If they hear everything, why is it that Banksters get away with their Crimes and we're gonna be sentenced to death for spitting on a sidewalk?

We are drowning in a Sea of Information without a single Drop of Wisdom to guide us.

[69360]

If they hear everything, why is it that Banksters get away with their Crimes and we're gonna be sentenced to death for spitting on a sidewalk?

We are drowning in a Sea of Information without a single Drop of Wisdom to guide us.

That was a rhetorical question, I surely hope. They are on the same side.