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03.12.2013

SNOWDEN’S DISCLOSURE: WORLD UNDER THE AMERICAN AND BRITISH SURVEILLANCE

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Samvel Martirosyan
Expert, Center for Information Studies, “Noravank” Foundation

The disclosures by the former U.S. National Security Agency employee Edward Snowden, concerning the actions carried out by the U.S. secret services on the Web, changed the visions of the information security. It becomes clear that all the concerns, which were spread by the various conspiracy theories, are more real than one could imagine.

The disclosures by Snowden demonstrate that the U.S. and British secret services actively use social networks, e-mail services for surveillance all over the world. The partner of the NSA is the British Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ). It became clear that all the possible means were used for carrying out surveillance – interference into the work of the servers, data collection from cables, virus software, etc.

The first disclosures made by Snowden proved that the U.S. secret service can penetrate social networks and other platforms’ servers and receive closed information about users. This system is called PRISM and allows receiving any kind of information about users – correspondence, connections with other users, IP addresses, etc. It is referred to the world’s biggest social networks, and other platforms of email correspondence and communication, such as Microsoft (e.g., Hotmail), Google (also GMail), Yahoo!, Facebook, YouTube, Skype, AOL, Apple and Paltalk1. PRISM allows penetrating not only into people’s correspondence but also into telephone calls (VoIP), video calls (Video conferencing), files sent to each other, which can be seen in the NSA secret slide disclosed by Snowden (see, Picture 1).

Picture 1
NSA secret slide explaining PRISM system work disclosed by Snowden

The NSA has been involving biggest internet corporations in PRISM program since 2007, by receiving information from Microsoft. At the end of 2012 Apple was also involved. It can be said that only Twitter was not mentioned in the list of the biggest networks involved (see Picture 2).

Picture 2
The NSA secret slide showing when different corporations started to cooperate with the Agency

The corporations deny their complicity for the involvement in the system. But it is clear that they provide some part of information, under the court decision, to the secret services.

Besides collecting information from the servers, American and British agencies also collected information directly from the cables. It is possible because much of the world’s communication flow through the U.S. territory (see Picture 3).

Picture 3
The NSA secret slide, disclosed by Snowden, showing that much of the world’s communication flow through the U.S., which makes it possible to carry out surveillance of the email correspondence and phone calls.

There is also separate system – MUSCULAR, for processing huge amount of data. It turned out that the secret services managed to penetrate into the internal networks of Yahoo and Google and thanks to this NSA and GCHQ collected more than180 million notes – correspondence, photos, videos and other metadata.

Another NSA system called Boundless Informant, allows following on the map data collection activities from different countries (see Picture 4). The picture provided by Snowden shows that in March 2013 about 3 billion pieces of information were collected only in the U.S. The countries are presented according to the rate of the activity of the NSA system: green shows low activity, red – visa verse. At this picture Armenia is colored yellow, like the U.S., which shows medium level activity by the NSA2.

Picture 4
The NSA secret slide, disclosed by Snowden, showing work of Boundless Informant system

The U.S. and British agencies carried out targeted surveillance too. According to Snowden telephones of leaders of 35 countries were tapped. Though he does not reveal any names, but it is already known that the Chancellor of Germany Angela Merkel was among those leaders.

It is also known that the internal network of the biggest Belgian telecom operator Belgacom was infected by special virus which provided surveillance. It should be mentioned that Belgacom provides communications services to all the high offices of the European Union3.

Snowden’s disclosures are still continuing and it is already clear that the American and British governments were supplied with the total information which was possible to receive; we mean the surveillance carried out all over the world, from which almost all the countries suffered. The European Union plans to establish the intelligence service of its own in order to oppose such developments4. Now it is clear that all the reality exceeded all the possible fantasies concerning this sphere. It is clear that communication cannot remain the same anymore because confidentiality lost its traditional meaning, and states and societies all over the world still have to aknowledge the situation formed.

1 NSA slides explain the PRISM data-collection program, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/politics/prism-collection-documents/

2 Boundless Informant: the NSA's secret tool to track global surveillance data http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jun/08/nsa-boundless-informant-global-datamining#

3 Бельгия требует от Лондона объяснений по поводу шпионажа против бельгийской компании связи, http://www.novostimira.com.ua/news_71553.html

4 Собственные ниндзя для Европы? http://rus.ruvr.ru/2013_11_05/249063570/

“Globus” analytical journal, #11, 2013

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