The ECHELON project was designed and is coordinated by NSA to intercept ordinary e-mail, fax, telex and telephone communications throughout the global telecommunications networks. Its purpose is the surveillance of non-military targets, such as governments, organizations, businesses and individuals. The goal of the system is to intercept large quantities of communications and analyze the gathered data using sophisticated processing hard- and software to identify and extract messages of interest. The ECHELON processing equipment searches through huge amounts of intercepted communications for keywords. Those keywords contain concepts, names, locations, subjects, personal data of individuals,... The processing computers are known as ECHELON Dictionaries.
Without the investigative publications of James Bamford, Duncan Campbell, Nicky Hager, Jeffrey T. Richelson, William Burrows and others ECHELON would never have made its way to public notice and would have never led to alarming public opinion.
In 1948 the former alliance of USA, UK, Canada, Australia an New Zealand established in World War II was formalized into the UKUSA Signals and Intelligence agreement to aim primarily together against the former USSR, although reades of the agreement say, that it is definitely only signed by the United States and Britain. (Nicky Hager, Secret Power, New Zealand's role in the internatinal spy network, Craig Potton, 1996, p61)
The UKUSA nations also agreed to standardize their terminology, code words, intercept-handling procedures, and indoctrination oaths, for efficiency as well as security. NATO nations and other nations as Japan and Korea later signed on as third parties. Among the first and second parties there is a general agreement not to restrict data, but with the third parties the sharing is much less generous.
Now the functions have shifted to interception ranging from diplomatic communications, to industrial espionage. Keytargets are besides political and military intelligence, terrorism, weapons construction and proliferation and economic intelligence. Rumors are heard that the US intelligence agencies use their foreign stations also for monitoring their allies. It seems that the UKUSA alliance is maintaining around 120 known surveillance stations, some huge and some very small or even functioning fully automatically, but rumors go that the number of small SIGINT surveillance stations might also be as high as 4900.
UKUSA:
>UK-US SIGINT co-operation began in 1940, during World War II close intelligence relationships also between other countries of the Commonwealth and the United States were formed. New Zealand f.e. was involved in submarine operations and served as basis for American troops fighting against Japan in the pacific. In Spring 1941 four representatives (two from the Navy and two from the Army) delivered a model of the Japanese PURPLE machine--used by Japan to encipher diplomatic communications to British codebreakers at Bletchley Park. In return, the British gave the U.S. representatives an assortment of advanced cryptological equipment, including the Marconi-Adcock high-frequency direction finder. (see p312 in James Bamford, The Puzzle Palace, Boston, Houghton Mifflin, 1982). Meanwhile, it was agreed that the British would break Tokyo-London traffic while the Americans broke Tokyo-Washington traffic. The results of the U.S. codebreaking effort that were considered useful to Britain in its war with Germany were passed to London via the British ambassador in Washington.<
(Ronald Lewin, The American Magic: Codes, ciphers and the Defeat of Japan, New York: Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 1982, p46)
>U.S. entry into the war expanded the exchange of intercepted military traffic because of necessary arrangements for a coordinated attack on diplomatic traffic. Britain's production of such intelligence was labeled ULTRA.<
(Ronald Lewin, The American Magic: Codes, ciphers and the Defeat of Japan, New York: Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 1982, p47)
>Although ULTRA information was made available to U.S. and British military commanders via Special Liaison Units, the exact nature of its acquisition was initially obscured. It was not until April 1943 that the British revealed to U.S. military intelligence officials the secret--that Britain's codebreaking organization could break the ciphers produced by the German ENIGMA machine used for much of German military communications.< (James Bamford, The Puzzle Palace, Boston, Houghton Mifflin, 1982, p314)
UK-US SIGINT co-operation was formalized on 17 May 1943 with the conclusion of the still-secret, and possibly still-active, BRUSA COMINT agreement. The complete text of BRUSA, including its appendices, was released by the National Security Agency (NSA) in November 1995. Text and appendices are published in Cryptologia, "The BRUSA Agreement of May 17, 1943," 21, no. 1 (Jan. 1997): p30-38. That agreement led to extensive cooperation between the US Army's SIGINT Agency and the British Code and Cipher School.
>The BRUSA Agreement established high-level cooperation on SIGINT matters and covered the exchange of personnel, joint regulations for the handling of ULTRA material, and procedures for its distribution. The joint regulations included strict security provisions that applied to all British and U.S. recipients of ULTRA material.<(James Bamford, The Puzzle Palace, Boston, Houghton Mifflin, 1982, p315)
>Along with the increased cooperation between Britain and the United States, there was increased involvement by the Anglo-Saxon members of the British
Commonwealth--Canada, Australia, and New Zealand--in a wide variety of intelligence activities. U.S.-Canadian cooperation began in October 1941, when the Canadians offered the Federal Communications Commission free access to the product of Canadian monitoring activities. In return, the United States provided Canada with technical direction-finding data that were "invaluable for pinpointing the location of a transmitter." < (Bob Elliot, Scarlet to Green: Canadian Army Intelligence 1903-1963, Toronto, Canadian Military Intelligence Association, 1982, p461)
>Canadian DF stations subsequently made significant contributions to the Allied North Atlantic SIGINT/ocean surveillance network. The Canadian codebreaking agency was also successful in intercepting and decoding German espionage control messages to and from agents in South America, Canada, Hamburg and Lisbon. In addition, messages to and from the Vichy delegation in Ottawa were intercepted and decoded. Further, the peculiarities of radio wave propagation resulted in Canadian monitoring facilities being able to intercept military transmissions originating in Europe that were inaccessible to equipment based in Britain.< (F.H. Hinsley, E.E. Thomas, C.F.G. Ransom, and R.C. Knight, British Intelligence in the Second World War Volume 2, New York: Cambridge University Press, 1981, p. 551ff)
>In addition to its UKUSA participation, Canada's SIGINT relationship to the United States is defined by the CANUS agreement. On September 15, 1950, Canada and the United States exchanged letters formally recognizing the "Security Agreement between Canada and the United States of America" (which was followed exactly two months later by the "Arrangement for Exchange of Information between the U.S., U.K. and Canada'').< (Jeffrey T. Richelson, The U.S. Intelligence Community, Westview Press, 4th ed., 1999, p273)
>It was with respect to Japan, however, that SIGINT cooperation among all five nations reached its highest level. Monitoring stations in Canada, particularly the major one at Halifax, gathered large quantities of coded Japanese transmissions. In April 1942, a combined Allied signals intelligence agency for the Pacific, the Central Bureau of the Allied Intelligence Bureau, was activated in Melbourne with a U.S. Chief and an Australian Deputy Chief.< (Jeffrey T. Richelson, The U.S. Intelligence Community, Westview Press, 4th ed., 1999, p267)
>The extent of cooperation is particularly highlighted in the case of Australian intercept stations. There was an Australian Air Force intercept station at Darwin, a U.S. Army radio intercept station in Townsville, a Royal Australian Navy monitoring station at Darwin, and a British post in Brisbane for the interception and distribution of Japanese radio communications. Additionally, a Canadian Special Wireless Group arrived in Australia on May 18, 1945 to take over the task of intercepting and analyzing Japanese military Morse code signals.< (Bob Elliot, Scarlet to Green: Canadian Army Intelligence 1903-1963, Toronto, Canadian Military Intelligence Association, 1982, p385)
>The intelligence relationship among Australia, Britain, Canada, New Zealand, and the United States that was forged during World War II did not end with the war. Rather, it became formalized and grew stronger. In 1946 a US Liaison Office was set up in London and efforts for joint exchange operations in the beginning Cold War started. It was agreed that solved material was to be exchanged between the two countries.< (Ronald Clark, The Man Who Broke Purple, Boston, Little Brown, 1977, p208)
>1947 saw an event that set the stage for post-World War II signals intelligence cooperation: the formulation and acceptance of the UKUSA
Agreement, also known as the UK-USA Security Agreement or the "Secret Treaty." The primary aspect of the agreement was the division of SIGINT collection
responsibilities among the First Party (the United States) and the Second Parties (Australia, Britain, Canada, and New Zealand.< (Jeffrey T. Richelson, The U.S. Intelligence Community, Westview Press, 4th ed., 1999, p267)
>The UKUSA relationship (and its SIGINT aspect) is more than an agreement to coordinate separately conducted intelligence activities and share the intelligence collected. Rather, the relationship is cemented by the presence of U.S. facilities on British, Canadian, and Australian territory and by joint operations within and outside UKUSA territory and, in the case of Australia, of U.K. and U.S. staff at all DSD facilities.< (Desmond Ball, A Suitable Peace of Real Estate: American Installations in Australia Sydney: Hale & Iremonger, 1980, p40)
>In addition to specifying SIGINT collection responsibilities, the Agreement also concerns access to the collected intelligence and security arrangements for the handling of data. Standardized code words (e.g., UMBRA for signals intelligence, VIPRA, TRINE), security agreements that all employees of the respective SIGINT agencies must sign, and procedures for storing and disseminating code word material are all part of the implementation of the Agreement.< (Duncan Campbell, "The Threat of the Electronic Spies," New Statesman, February 2, 1979)
The liaison and cooperation established with the BRUSA, UKUSA and CANUS Agreements during the 1940s were reinforced by William F. Friedman (the "dean of cryptology") during the 1950s and continued to solidify during the 1960s and 1970s.
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Newspapers and magazines frequently report growth rates of Internet usage, number of users, hosts, and domains that seem to be beyond all expectations. Growth rates are expected to accelerate exponentially. However, Internet measurement data are anything thant reliable and often quite fantastic constructs, that are nevertheless jumped upon by many media and decision makers because the technical difficulties in measuring Internet growth or usage are make reliable measurement techniques impossible.
Equally, predictions that the Internet is about to collapse lack any foundation whatsoever. The researchers at the
Size and Growth
In fact, "today's Internet industry lacks any ability to evaluate trends, identity performance problems beyond the boundary of a single ISP (Internet service provider, M. S.), or prepare systematically for the growing expectations of its users. Historic or current data about traffic on the Internet infrastructure, maps depicting ... there is plenty of measurement occurring, albeit of questionable quality", says K. C. Claffy in his paper Internet measurement and data analysis: topology, workload, performance and routing statistics (http://www.caida.org/Papers/Nae/, Dec 6, 1999). Claffy is not an average researcher; he founded the well-known
So his statement is a slap in the face of all market researchers stating otherwise.
In a certain sense this is ridiculous, because since the inception of the
So what are the reasons for this inability to evaluate trends, identity performance problems beyond the boundary of a single ISP? First, in early 1995, almost simultaneously with the worldwide introduction of the
"There are many estimates of the size and growth rate of the Internet that are either implausible, or inconsistent, or even clearly wrong", K. G. Coffman and Andrew, both members of different departments of
What is measured and what methods are used? Many studies are devoted to the number of users; others look at the number of computers connected to the Internet or count
You get the clue of their focus when you bear in mind that the Internet is just one of many networks of networks; it is only a part of the universe of computer networks. Additionally, the Internet has public (unrestricted) and private (restricted) areas. Most studies consider only the public Internet, Coffman and Odlyzko consider the long-distance private line networks too: the corporate networks, the
Hosts
The
Despite the small sample, this method has at least one flaw:
Internet Weather
Like daily weather, traffic on the Internet, the conditions for data flows, are monitored too, hence called Internet weather. One of the most famous Internet
Hits, Page Views, Visits, and Users
Let us take a look at how these hot lists of most visited Web sites may be compiled. I say, may be, because the methods used for data retrieval are mostly not fully disclosed.
For some years it was seemingly common sense to report requested files from a Web site, so called "hits". A method not very useful, because a document can consist of several files: graphics, text, etc. Just compile a document from some text and some twenty flashy graphical files, put it on the Web and you get twenty-one hits per visit; the more graphics you add, the more hits and traffic (not automatically to your Web site) you generate.
In the meantime page views, also called page impressions are preferred, which are said to avoid these flaws. But even page views are not reliable. Users might share computers and corresponding
Especially the editors of some electronic journals (e-journals) rely on page views as a kind of ratings or circulation measure, Rick Marin reports in the
More advanced, but just slightly better at best, is counting visits, the access of several pages of a Web site during one session. The problems already mentioned apply here too. To avoid them, newspapers, e.g., establish registration services, which require password authentication and therefore prove to be a kind of access obstacle.
But there is a different reason for these services. For content providers users are virtual users, not unique persons, because, as already mentioned, computers and
For
If you like to play around with Internet statistics instead, you can use Robert Orenstein's
Measuring the Density of
Measuring the Density of
Dodge and Shiode used data on the ownership of IP addresses from
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The result of this informatisation is the creation of a virtual body which is the exterior of a man or woman's social existence. It plays the same role that the physical body, except located in virtual space (it has no real location). The virtual body holds a certain emancipatory potential. It allows us to go to places and to do things which in the physical world would be impossible. It does not have the weight of the physical body, and is less conditioned by physical laws. It therefore allows one to create an identity of one's own, with much less restrictions than would apply in the physical world.
But this new freedom has a price. In the shadow of virtualisation, the data body has emerged. The data body is a virtual body which is composed of the files connected to an individual. As the
The virtual character of the data body means that social regulation that applies to the real body is absent. While there are limits to the manipulation and exploitation of the real body (even if these limits are not respected everywhere), there is little regulation concerning the manipulation and exploitation of the data body, although the manipulation of the data body is much easier to perform than that of the real body. The seizure of the data body from outside the concerned individual is often undetected as it has become part of the basic structure of an informatised society. But data bodies serve as raw material for the "New Economy". Both business and governments claim access to data bodies. Power can be exercised, and democratic decision-taking procedures bypassed by seizing data bodies. This totalitarian potential of the data body makes the data body a deeply problematic phenomenon that calls for an understanding of data as social construction rather than as something representative of an objective reality. How data bodies are generated, what happens to them and who has control over them is therefore a highly relevant political question.
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1913 the wheel cipher gets re-invented as a strip
1917
- an AT&T-employee, Gilbert S. Vernam, invents a polyalphabetic cipher machine that works with random-keys
1918 the Germans start using the ADFGVX-system, that later gets later by the French Georges Painvin
- Arthur Scherbius patents a ciphering machine and tries to sell it to the German Military, but is rejected
1919 Hugo Alexander Koch invents a rotor cipher machine
1921 the Hebern Electric Code, a company producing electro-mechanical cipher machines, is founded
1923 Arthur Scherbius founds an enterprise to construct and finally sell his
late 1920's/30's more and more it is criminals who use cryptology for their purposes (e.g. for smuggling). Elizabeth Smith Friedman deciphers the codes of rum-smugglers during prohibition regularly
1929 Lester S. Hill publishes his book Cryptography in an Algebraic Alphabet, which contains enciphered parts
1933-1945 the Germans make the Enigma machine its cryptographic main-tool, which is broken by the Poles Marian Rejewski, Gordon Welchman and Alan Turing's team at Bletchley Park in England in 1939
1937 the Japanese invent their so called Purple machine with the help of Herbert O. Yardley. The machine works with telephone stepping relays. It is broken by a team of
1930's the Sigaba machine is invented in the USA, either by W.F. Friedman or his colleague Frank Rowlett
- at the same time the British develop the Typex machine, similar to the German Enigma machine
1943 Colossus, a code breaking computer is put into action at Bletchley Park
1943-1980 the cryptographic Venona Project, done by the NSA, is taking place for a longer period than any other program of that type
1948 Shannon, one of the first modern cryptographers bringing mathematics into cryptography, publishes his book A Communications Theory of Secrecy Systems
1960's the Communications-Electronics Security Group (= CESG) is founded as a section of Government Communications Headquarters (= GCHQ)
late 1960's the IBM Watson Research Lab develops the Lucifer cipher
1969 James Ellis develops a system of separate public-keys and private-keys
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The Manhattan Institute, founded by
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What: A highly automated global system and surveillance network for processing data retrieved through interception of communication traffic from all over the world. In the days of the cold war, ECHELON's primary purpose was to keep an eye/ear on the U.S.S.R. In the wake of the fall of the U.S.S.R. ECHELON is officially said to being used to fight terrorism ann crimes, but it seems to be evident that the main focus lies in political and economic espionage.
When: ECHELON had been rumored to be in development since 1947, the result of the UKUSA treaty signed by the governments of the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
Who: It is coordinated by the NSA, with participation of the CIA, USAF, NSG, GCHQ, DSD, CSE, GCSB. It seems that NSA is the only "contractor" who has access to the whole of information, whereas the other participants only get a comparingly small portion of information.
Where: Headquarters of the ECHELON system are at Fort Meade in Maryland, which is the NSA Headquarter. The NSA operates many interception stations all over the world, with or without the knowledge of the host country.
How: Each station in the ECHELON network has computers that automatically search through millions of intercepted data for containing pre-programmed keywords or fax, telex and email addresses. Every word of every message is
automatically searched. Computers that can search for keywords have existed since at least the 1970s, but the ECHELON system has been designed to interconnect all these computers and allow the stations to function as components of an integrated whole.
The scale of the collection system was described by the former Director of the NSA, Vice Admiral William Studeman, in 1992 (http://www.menwithhill.com/find.html). At that time the NSA's collection system generated about 2 million intercepted messages per hour. Of these, all but about 13,000 an hour were discarded. Of these about 2,000 met forwarding criteria, of which some 20 are selected by analysts, who then write 2 reports for further distribution. Therefore, in 1992 MenwithHillSation was intercepting 17.5 billion messages a year. Of these some 17.5 million may have been studied for analysis.
How much: ECHELON justifies obviousely multi-billion dollar expenses. But no detailed figures are available yet.
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Kevin Warwick at the University of Reading works on implant technologies which could enhance or modify functions of the limbs and the brain, or bring back functionalities lost, for example, in an accident or as a consequence of a stroke. Implants are also used for identification in "intelligent buildings" where they serve to control "personnel flows". However, the real potential of electronic implants seems to lie in the field of electronic drugs. The basics of the brain computer interface are already explored, and there are now efforts to electronically modify the function of the mind. Large software and IT companies are sponsoring this research which could result in the commercialisation of electronic drugs, functioning as anti-depressants, pain killers and the like. Evidently, the same technologies can also be used as narcotic drugs or to modify people's behaviour. The functioning of body and mind can be adapted to pre-defined principles and ideals, their autonomous existence reduced and subjected to direct outside control.
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COMSAT Communications Satellite Cooperation
Until this decade the U.S.-based Comsat, Intelsat and Inmarsat organizations, in fact, shared nearly all international satellite traffic. So it was easy for NSA to eavesdropping on all communications to and from the United states. Less than 60 miles from Sugar Grove COMSAT runs a station in Etam, West Virginia, where more than half of the commercial, international satellite communication entering and leaving the US each day pass by. COMSAT provides international communications solutions via the global, 19-satellite INTELSAT system and 4-satellite Inmarsat satellite systems .
Through the INTELSAT system, COMSAT provides telecommunications, broadcast and digital networking services between the U.S. and the rest of the world. These services are used by Internet service providers, multinational corporations, telecommunications carriers and U.S. and foreign governments to extend their networks globally.
Inmarsat satellites lie in geostationary orbit 22,223 miles (35,786 km) out in space. Each satellite covers up to one third of the Earth's surface and is strategically positioned above one of the four ocean regions.
Calls are beamed up to the satellite and back down to Earth, where special gateway land earth stations re-route them through the appropriate local or international telephone network. COMSAT operates Earth Stations in each part of the world to route calls efficiently within each ocean region. Earth Stations are located in Santa Paula, California; Southbury, Connecticut; Ankara, Turkey; and Kuantan, Malaysia.
Sugar Grove Naval Communications Facility, near Sugar Grove, WV, may intercept Pacific INTELSAT/COMSAT satellite communications traffic routed through the COMSAT ground station at Etam, WV.
NSG station in Winter Harbor, Maine serves as an excellent platform from which to intercept signals to and from COMSATs Andover station, 125 miles to the west.
On the Westcost, COMSATs northern groundstation is situated in Brewster, near to Yakima, so from the Yakima Research Station the Pacific INTELSAT communications traffic can be intercepted.
The other west-coast station is in Jamesburg, California, not so far away from the Army Security Agency intercept station at Two Rock Ranch.
The international communications network with its limited gateways will probably always be easier to monitor than the large domestic networks like in the US. But the use of microwave and domestic satellites is increasing, and the construction of land lines is decreasing.
Sources:
STOA Report by Duncan Campbell: Interception Capabilities 2000
James Bamford, The Puzzle Palace, Boston, Houghton Mifflin, 1982,p222-228
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1948
Formalization of UKUSA agreement.
1949
Establishment of the Armed Forces Security Agency (AFSA) to direct communications intelligence and electronic intelligence activities of the military service signals units (ASA, NSG, AFSS)
1952
President Truman sent out a top secret memorandum to abolish the AFSA and to create the National Security Agency NSA. The main focuses lied on: control, coordination, collection and processing of Communication Intelligence. The NSA was considered to be within, but not a part of the Department of Defense. .(Jeffrey T. Richelson, The U.S. Intelligence Community, Westview Press, 4th ed., 1999, p 31)
1954
The WS-117L program (for the development of reconnaissance satellites for the AirForce an CIA) was approved by President Eisenhower. It also included the development of signal intercept equipment within the framework of the project Pioneer Ferret
1957
Official acknowledgement of NSA in the Government Organization Manual
1961
Establishment of the National Reconnaissance Office NRO as a joint Air Force and CIA operation. Ist existance was classified secret till 1992. Ist tasks werde focused on overseeing and funding the research and development of reconnaissance spacecraft and their sensors, procuring the space systems and their associated ground stations, determinig launch vehicle requirements, operating spacecraft and disseinating the data collected.(Jeffrey T. Richelson, The U.S. Intelligence Community, Westview Press, 4th ed., 1999, p 37)
1972
Scope of NSA's SIGINT activities was redefined in Communication Intelligence and Electronic Intelligence and Communication Security (In the 80s the term changed to Information Security).
Perry Fellwock, former NSA analyst, gives an interview for Ramparts on NSA electronic interception: http://jya.com/nsa-elint.htm
1976
Duncan Campbell published an article in Time Out called "The Eavesdroppers" which was a description of what GCHQ was and did. From that time on Campbell published many articles concerning illiegal communication interception done by the secret services.
1978/79
American Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act is a law that permits secret buggings and wiretaps of individuals suspected of being agents of a hostile foreign government or international terrorist organization. (http://www.nara.gov/fedreg/eos/e12139.html)
1982
David Burnham, The New York Times, writes:
Washington, Nov 6 --- A Federal appeals court has ruled that the National Security Agency may lawfully intercept messages between United States citizens and people overseas, even if there is no cause to believe they Americans are foreign agents, and then provide summaries of these messages to the Federal Bureau of Investigation.( http://www-douzzer.ai.mit.edu:8080/cm/cm1.html)
1983
James Bamford publishes The Puzzle Palace: A Report on America's Most Secret Agency.
1985
Jeffrey T. Richelson and Desmond Ball bring out The Ties That Bind: Intelligence Cooperation Between the UKUSA Countries
1987
William Burrows publishes Deep Black: Space Espionage and National Security
1988
ECHELON (as terminus) was first revealed by Duncan Campbell in 1988 in a 'New Statesman' article.
1989
Jeffrey T. Richelson brings out The U.S. Intelligence Community
1992
Members of GCHQ became told the London Observer that the ECHELON dictionaries targeted Amnesty International, Greenpeace, Christian institutions and more.
June 1992: FBI produces paper "Law Enforcement REQUIREMENTS for the
surveillance of electronic communications"
1993
A presidential conference with Asian leaders was bugged by US intelligence agencies, as goes the rumour, and information was passed from the White House to big corporate donors.
A BBC documentary about NSA's Menwith Hill facility in England revealed that peace protestors had broken into the installation and stolen part of this glossary, known as "the Dictionary." The documentary alleged that Menwith Hill -- a sprawling installation covering 560 acres and employing more than 1,200 people -- was ECHELON's nerve center.
1994
Spyworld: Inside the Canadian and American Intelligence Establishments
By Mike Frost [NSA trained sigint person] and Michel Gratton
1996
Nicky Hager, Secret Power: New Zealand's Role In the International Spy Network
1997
Further reorganization of NSA INFOSEC activities: Two new groups were introduced. M Group, responsible for assess potential threats to and vulnerabilities of technologies and infrastructures such as telecom systems; W Group, deals with transnational threats.
1997
27 February: A special report by Statewatch published detailed plans for a joint plan drawn up by the Council of the European Union and the US Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) to introduce a global system for the surveillance of telecommunications.
4 September: A judge has lambasted British Telecom for revealing detailed information about top secret high capacity cables feeding phone and other messages to and from a Yorkshire monitoring base. BT admitted this week that they have connected three digital optical fibre cables - capable of carrying more than 100,000 telephone calls at once - to the American intelligence base
at Menwith Hill, near Harrogate.
Media all over the world start covering ECHELON.
1998
European Parliament, STOA report, Assessment of the Technologies of Political Control: http://jya.com/stoa-atpc.htm
1999
World Information Org starts collecting the fragmented data about ECHELON.
2000
ECHELON is covered in gobal news channels and investigated by civil liberty groups as well as government councils throughout Europe.
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Other countries, that are said to be involved in ECHELON:
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Source:
Subsea Cables:
They provided the first major reliable high capacity international communications systems. Early systems (copper) were very limited in their broadband capacities, modern optical fibber systems can carry up to 5 Gigabit per second of digital information. In the days of copper cables the US started cable tapping operations with specially designed submarines, such as the US Submarine Halibut or USS Parche. Deep sea divers wrapped tapping coils around the cables and laid high capacity recording pods next to the cable in the sea of Okhotsk, USSR. Optical fibre cables do not leak radio signals and therefor cannot be tapped. It is said that there are experiments with optoelectronic repeaters, but their use as a tapping device is not yet officially possible.
The main method of transmitting large quantities of public, business and government communications is still the combination of subsea cables across the oceans and microwave networks over land. After the undersea cables emerge from the water they are very vulnerable to interception.
Microwave Radio:
It was introduced in the 1950 to provide high capacity inter-city communications for telephony, telegraphy and television. Microwave radio relay communications utilize low power transmitters and parabolic dish antennas. Relay stations are required every 30-50km in line of sight, usually form hilltop to hilltop. Microwave radio signals are not reflected from the ionosphere, so long distance relay links may require intermediate stations to receive and retransmit the signals. Satellites are also used as relay stations. The worldwide network of interception facilities is still mostly undocumented, because the facilities don't use large aerials and dishes, which are difficult to hide. Interception only requires a building situated along the microwave route or a cable running underground. One of the biggest stations in this context is Menwith Hill, UK.
High Frequency Radio:
Prior to 1960 the HF radio system was the most common means of telecommunication, especially for diplomatic and military purposes. High-frequency radio communication signals travel to receivers over the horizon by bouncing off the ionosphere. A powerful HF radio transmitter can transmit around the whole planet, which is why it is still widely used by military forces, ships and aircraft, as well as diplomatic communications, such as embassies. HF radio transmissions are very vulnerable to reception and interception. VHF and UHF are used extensively for tactical military communications within a country. COMINT (Communication Intelligence) Units mainly used either directional (such as Rhombic Arrays)or omnidirectional antenna arrays for HF radio interception.
The AN/AX-16 PUSHER is a 2-band Wullenweber Circularly Disposed Dipole Array HF/DF system collection system which is a miniaturized version of the Navy's AN/FRD-10 antenna. Used primarily in the United Kingdom where space is a premium, the outer ring of elements is about 400 feet in diameter, half the diameter of the AN/FRD-10.
The AN/FLR-9 circularly disposed antenna array (CDAA), popularly known as elephant cages, have a nominal range between 150 to 5000 kilometers and are omnidirectional in 3 band. They are used to locate and intercept signals ranging from low band, (submarine traffic) to the high band (radio, telephone). AN/FLR-9 antennas were installed at interception stations at: Augsburg, Germany; RAF Chicksands, UK;Clark AFB, Phillipines; Elmendorf AFB, AK; Menwith Hill, UK; Misawa AFB, Japan; San Vito dei Normanni AS, Italy
Communication Satellites:
Satellite Communication Systems allow the high speed transmission of telephone calls, television pictures and news around the globe. This use of satellites was established at the same time as the development of weather satellites - from the 1960's onwards. Groundstations located near to commercial Satellite sites (Inmarsat, Comsat, ..) are perfect for intercepting telecommunications. During the 1970s only two stations were required to monitor all the INTELSAT communications in the world. The GCHQ station in Morwenstow, UK for example is located near to the British Telecom site at Goonhilly, had 2 dishes pointed at the Atlantic and the Indian Ocean INTELSATs (now there are 9 dishes and is also monitoring regional satellites.)and the NSA station at Yakima Firing Center, USA monitored the Pacific INTELSAT. When visited in 1995 the Yakima station already had 5 dishes, pointing westwards over the Pacific Ocean and via INMARSAT2 (for mobile satellite communications), eastwards to the Atlantic INTELSATs. But satellite technology evolved very fast, and the changes in the satellite design forced the construction of at least 2 new stations: Sugar Grove (USA; NSA) and Hongkong (UK; GCHQ) in the late 1970s. By the time INTELSAT introduced the 7th generation of satellite in the mid 1990s, the UKUSA alliance was busy opening more satellite interception stations throughout the world. The most important ones were: Waihopai, NZ; Geraldton, Australia; and upgraded Menwith Hill, UK.
The UKUSA alliance launched especially designed COMINT satellites to provide permanent coverage of selected targets as overhead signals intelligence collectors that can tap directly into land-based telecommunications, but also tap into other satellites. Those spy satellites are developed to intercept communications from orbit above the earth. They move either in orbits that are changeable or are fixated above the equator in geostationary orbit. CANYON and RHYOLITE are the names of typical US spy satellites.
The National Security Agency operates a global network of ground stations for the interception of civil and military satellite communications traffic.
Bad Aibling, Germany, conducts satellite communications interception activities, and is also a downlink station for geostationary SIGINT satellites.
Menwith Hill, located 13 kilometers west of Harrogate, UK, collects against Russian satellite communications under Project MOONPENNY, and is also a
downlink station for geostationary SIGINT satellites, such as VORTEX.
Misawa Air Base, Misawa, Japan, satellite communications intercept activities include collecting against Russian Molniya, Raduga and Gorizont systems under
project LADYLOVE at a facility 6 kilometers northwest of the main airfield, known as the "Hill."
Rosman Communications Research Station, near Rosman, NC, had twelve antennas for satellite communications interception, for communications connectivity with other intelligence facilities, and possibly also for downlinks from geostationary SIGINT satellites. Rosman Research Station, operated by NASA in the 60s as a tracking station and more recently by the National Security Agency of the Department of Defense, will become an astronomy education and
research facility called Pisgah Astronomical Research Institute (PARI).
Additional COMSAT intercept activities are conducted at Geraldton, Australia, and Bude, in Corwall, UK. The Bad Aibling and Menwith Hill facilities are also used for downlink of high altitude SIGINT satellite product, as are facilities at Pine Gap, Australia, and Buckley Air National Guard Base, Colorado.
Other NSA facilities, including: Clark AFB, Philippines; Sinope, Turkey; Heraulion, Greece; Berlin, Germany; and Eielson AFB, AK, have closed, and others, such as San Vito dei Normani, Italy, have transfered to other agencies (in this case, to Air Force Space Command).
Internet:
Internet traffic can be accessed either from international communications links entering the United States, or when it reaches major Internet exchanges. Both methods have advantages. Access to communications systems is likely to be remain clandestine - whereas access to Internet exchanges might be more detectable but provides easier access to more data and simpler sorting methods. Although the quantities of data involved are immense, NSA is normally legally restricted to looking only at communications that start or finish in a foreign country. Unless special warrants are issued, all other data should normally be thrown away by machine before it can be examined or recorded.
Similar considerations affect the World Wide Web, most of which is openly accessible. Web sites are examined continuously by "search engines" which generate catalogues of their contents. "Alta Vista" and "Hotbot" are prominent public sites of this kind. NSA similarly employs computer "bots" (robots) to collect data of interest.
According to a former employee, NSA had by 1995 installed "sniffer" software to collect traffic such as e-mail, file transfers, "virtual private networks" operated over the internet, and some other messages at major Internet exchange points (IXPs). The first two such sites identified, FIX East and FIX West, are operated by US government agencies. They are closely linked to nearby commercial locations, MAE East and MAE West. Three other sites listed were Network Access Points originally developed by the US National Science Foundation to provide the US Internet with its initial "backbone".
Source:
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The US intelligence community includes not only government agencies but many very influential private contractors.
"Orbit of Influence: Spy Finance and the Black Budget," written by Robert Dreyfuss in the March-April 1996 issue of The American Prospect provides an excellent introduction to this hitherto under-appreciated subject.
Sources:
Involved corporations:
The following companies are said to be NSA and NRO contractors and main suppliers of the diverse technologies needed for a global surveillance system.
Lockheed Martin
Core Business Areas: Aeronautical Systems, Space Systems, Systems Integration, Technology Services
Related Non-core Busineess Areas: Global Telecommunications, Commercial IT, Government Services
Sales: $26.2 billion
Sales by customer in '98: U.S. Department of Defense - 54%, Commercial/government/NASA/other - 23%, International - 23%
Employees:Nearly 160,000 employees in the United States, and over 5,500 employees working internationally
Operations:939 facilities in 457 cities and 45 states throughout the U.S.; Internationally, business locations in 56 nations and territories
Headquarters:
Lockheed Martin Corporation
6801 Rockledge Drive
Bethesda, MD 20817
USA
(It is said that Lockhead Martin receives ca. 3,5 billion $ from NRO budget and is well known as a powerful financier of congressional campaigns.)
TRW
TRW Inc. provides high-technology products and services to the automotive and space, defense & information systems markets. The financial results of the company's operations are reported in two core business segments: Automotive and Space, Defense & Information Systems.
Concerning Intelligence Systems TRW provides a broad range of intelligence collection processing,analysis and reporting systems to the United States government and allied nations. A prime supplier of critical systems and technology to the intelligence community, TRW has been a preferred supplier to this market for over 40 years. The company is applying its systems engineering skills to all phases of the intelligence business including a strong analysis and signal processing base, design, development, deployment and operations support of collection systems operations and full lifecycle support. TRW has a strong SIGINT base and significant IMINT and MASINT program skills as well.
TRW developed a constellation of satellites that provides near continuous tracking and communications service for up to 32 satellites simultaneously. Operating through a dedicated ground station, each Tracking and Data Relay Satellite (TDRS) permits direct two-way communications between the shuttle or other user satellites and the ground. TRW provided seven TDRS satellites to NASA. The oldest, on orbit since 1983, is still functional; the total system operates at 99.97 percent reliability.
The Milstar communications network - a series of advanced satellites linked to group terminals - promises assured command and control to U.S. forces worldwide. TRW is providing the heart of the spaceborne segment: a low date rate payload offering secure, antijam, interoperable voice and data links; and the antenna and digital subsystem for the medium data rate payload, accommodating secure voice and data, imaging and targeting intelligence.
By combining forces with the information technology leader BDM, International, TRW has formed the new organization, TRW Systems & Information Technology Group. The Senior Executive and General Manager is Philip Odeen who has served as President, Chief Executive Officer, and a Director of BDM International, Inc. since May 1992. Mr. Odeen was with Coopers & Lybrand, an international auditing and consulting company, as Vice Chairman, Management Consulting Services from 1991 to 1992, and as Managing Partner from 1978 to 1991. Mr. Odeen has served in a number of government positions, including Director, Program Analysis, National Security Council, and Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense. He has also servered as the Chairman of the Defense Science Board's task force on privatization.
TRW developed and built RHYOLITE for NSA to eavesdrop electronically on foreign countries, especially the eastern Soviet Union, China and Soviet test ranges in the Pacific. Ist main target was TELINT (telemetry intelligence).But it also reached into the other countries' telecom systems. Each satellite carried antennas for sucking foreign microwave signals. (DB p184)
Rockwell
Rockwell is a world leader in electronic controls and communications. Rockwell has two primary businesses- Rockwell Automation and Avionics & Communications, which includes Rockwell Collins and Rockwell Electronic Commerce.
Annual Sales: $6.8 billion
World Headquarters: Milwaukee, WI
Employees: About 40,000
Rockwell Collins plays a major role in the manufacturing of satellite technologies.
Hughes
Hughes Space and Communications Company (HSC) has built nearly 40 percent of the world's commercial communications satellites in operation today.
These spacecraft routinely relay digital communications, telephone calls, video conferences, television news reports, facsimiles, television programming, mobile communications, and direct-to-home entertainment--truly global communications.
Hughes Network Systems Inc. provides telecommunications equipment, satellite ground-based equipment and satellite communications services. With an
estimated worldwide market share in excess of 60 percent, Hughes Network Systems is the world's leading supplier of satellite-based private business
networks, and is a leader in wireless telephone networks and digital cellular mobile systems.
PanAmSat Corporation operates a global network of 19 state-of-the-art satellites that provide broadcast and telecommunications services to hundreds of customers worldwide. PanAmSat's fleet includes the premier cable and broadcast television satellites in the United States, Latin America, the Indian subcontinent and Asia-Pacific. The company offers satellite platforms for direct-to-home television services in Latin America, South Africa, India, Taiwan, and specialized programming in the United States as well as live transmission services for news, sports and special events coverage worldwide. PanAmSat also provides global satellite-based telecommunications services and Internet access and plans to launch seven additional satellite by late 2000.
Hughes Electronics is a global company with 15,000 employees worldwide. The 1998 revenues of Hughes communications and space operations were
$5.96 billion with earnings of $272 million.
Boeing
The Boeing Company, after its merger in 1997 with McDonnell Douglas and acquisition in 1996 of the defense and space units of Rockwell International, became the largest aerospace company in the world. Its history mirrors the history of aviation. Boeing is the world's largest manufacturer of commercial jetliners and military aircraft, and the nation's largest NASA contractor. Company revenues for 1996 were $22.7 billion; for 1997 they were $45.8 billion, and for 1998 they reached $56.2 billion.
The company has an extensive global reach with customers in 145 countries, employees in more than 60 countries and operations in 27 states. Worldwide, Boeing and its subsidiaries employ more than 205,000 people -- with major operations in the Seattle-Puget Sound area of Washington state; Southern California; Wichita, Kan.; and St. Louis, Mo.
Boeing is organized into four major business segments: Commercial Airplanes, Space and Communications, Military Aircraft and Missiles, and Shared Services.
In the area of commercial space, Boeing teamed with Teledesic Corp. to create a satellite network that will serve as an "Internet-in-the-sky," by bringing affordable, fiber-quality access to the most remote reaches of the planet. Boeing revolutionized precision navigation by building the first 40 Global
Positioning System satellites and has a contract to build 33 next-generation Global Positioning Satellites. Boeing is teamed with partners from Russia, Ukraine and Norway on the Sea Launch joint venture which will launch satellites from a mobile platform in the Pacific Ocean. Boeing also makes the
Delta II and III expendable launch vehicles and is developing the Delta IV.
E-Systems
General Dynamics
General Dynamics is a leader in supplying sophisticated defense systems to the United States and its allies, and in providing advanced business aircraft to corporate, government and individual owners. The company is headquartered in Falls Church, Virginia, and employs approximately 44,000 people in the United States, Canada, Mexico and the United Kingdom.
General Dynamics has four main business segments. Marine Systems designs and builds submarines, surface combatants, auxiliary ships and large commercial vessels. Combat Systems supplies land and amphibious combat machines and systems, including armored vehicles, power trains, turrets, munitions and gun systems. Information Systems and Technology produces signal and information processors and battlespace information management systems, while incorporating the use of commercial technologies for military applications. Aerospace designs manufactures and provides services for large cabin and ultra-long range business aircraft.
UNISYS CORPORATION
Unisys has more than 33,000 employees and applies information technology in 100 countries. Unisys products range from global information services including systems integration, outsourcing, "repeatable" application solutions, consulting, network integration, remote network management, and multivendor maintenance and support, coupled with enterprise-class servers and associated middleware, to software and storage.
Repeatable solutions are focused on key vertical markets including financial services, transportation, telecommunications, government, publishing and other commercial markets. Headquartered in Blue Bell, Pennsylvania, in the Greater Philadelphia area, Unisys had 1998 annual revenue of $7.2 billion.
Wang - Getronics
Wang merged with Getronics and is now one of the world's top five Information and Communications Technology companies business solutions. The Getronics family has branches in 44 countries, that also includes GetronicsWang (US) and GetronicsOlivetti (Italy and Japan).
PRC
PRC Inc., a subsidiary of Litton Industries, Inc., has more than 5,300
employees in 80 offices worldwide. Litton PRC is a provider of information technology and systems-based solutions for the public sector and an integrator in the design, development and management of standards-based open systems.
The company's core capabilities are in Functional and IT Outsourcing,
E-Business, and Critical Information and Infrastructure Protection. Litton PRC's services include Systems Integration, Software Engineering, Seat Management, Data Warehousing, BPR, Y2K, Systems Engineering, Data Center Design/Analysis, 911 Computer-Aided Dispatch, Complex Imaging and Records Management, C4ISR, Logistics, Infrastructure Planning, Range Operations, ITMRA/GPRA Planning, Health Informatics, and Enterprise Resource Planning. Markets include Criminal Justice, Weather, DoD, Aerospace, Intel, Healthcare, and Public Safety.
Honeywell
Honeywell employs over 57,500 people in 95 countries working in three businesses, all linked by common control technologies:
Home and Building Control: This business represents about 45 percent of Honeywell's total sales. "We are the worldwide leader in products and services that create comfortable, safe, efficient environments--in homes, office buildings, hospitals, schools, and anywhere else people live and work."
Industrial Control: Honeywell is the world's leading supplier of industrial control systems and components that improve productivity, optimize the use of raw materials, comply with environmental regulations, ensure plant safety, and enhance overall competitiveness. The Industrial Control business accounts for about 31 percent of the company's total sales.
Space and Aviation Control: Honeywell is the world's leading supplier of avionics systems for commercial, military and space markets. This business accounts for about 22 percent of total company sales. Honeywell technology has been on board every manned U.S. space flight since Mercury and is on nearly every commercial aircraft flying today.
Honeywell merged with AlliedSignal Inc. (http://www.alliedsignal.com), which is an advanced technology and manufacturing company serving customers worldwide with aerospace products and services, automotive products, chemicals, fibers, plastics and advanced materials. It is one of the 30 stocks that make up the Dow Jones Industrial Average and is also a component of the Standard & Poor's 500 Index. The company employs 70,400 people in some 40 countries.
GTE
With 1998 revenues of more than $25 billion, GTE is a leading telecommunications provider with one of the industry's broadest arrays of products and services. In the United States, GTE provides local service in 28 states and wireless service in 17 states, as well as nationwide long-distance, directory, and internetworking services ranging from dial-up Internet access for residential and small-business consumers to Web-based applications for Fortune 500 companies. Outside the United States, the company serves customers on five continents.
In 1982, GTE Mobilnet(R) was formed, and two acquisitions brought GTE Sprint Communications and GTE Spacenet to the fore. The year 1984 marked a year of firsts for GTE: the first GTE satellite launched; the first cellular mobile telephone service; and the first time GTE annual earnings exceeded $1 billion.
In 1994 GTE announces that it would combine its GTE Spacenet business with GTE Government Systems.
MCI WorldCom
On October 5, 1999 MCI WorldCom and Sprint announced that the boards of directors of both companies have approved a definitive merger agreement.
MCI WorldCom's strategy is to capitalize on the industry's fastest growing segments: data/Internet, international and U.S. local phone services.
70,000 employees based in more than 65 countries serve the company's 22
million customers, specialized in "local-to-global-to-local" networks with facilities throughout North America, Latin America, Europe and the Asia-Pacific region. The company's long association with the Internet has enabled it to develop an Internet business with nearly $3 billion in annualized revenues; The company serves millions of U.S. business and residential customers over a 45,000-mile, all-fiber high capacity nationwide network, enough fiber to stretch from San Francisco to Washington, D.C. 16 times. UUNET supplements MCI WorldCom's Internet and technology operations.
MCI WorldCom provides fully integrated services over the first pan-European telecommunications network linking major commercial centers throughout the continent -- London, Paris, Frankfurt, Brussels, Amsterdam, Stockholm, Rotterdam and Düsseldorf -- through local city networks connected to its 2,000 (3,218 km) mile trans-continental long distance network.
MCI WorldCom says to triple the size of its all-fiber, high-capacity pan-European network to nearly 7,000 miles (11,263 km) by the end of 1999 through nationwide networks under development in Great Britain, France, Belgium and Germany. The company holds 50 percent ownership in two high capacity trans-Atlantic undersea cables enabling it to connect more than 35,000 buildings in the U.S. and 6,500 buildings in Europe.
Data General
Data General, with headquarters in Westborough, Massachusetts, is a supplier of servers, storage systems, and services for information systems users
worldwide. The company designs, manufactures, markets, and supports two major
families of open systems, AViiON® servers and CLARiiON® mass storage products,
which represent over 90 percent of current product revenues.
Data General focuses on providing high-end enterprise computing solutions for
businesses of all sizes, healthcare providers, government agencies, and companies in manufacturing, distribution, financial services, and telecommunications in more than 70 countries through a network of subsidiaries, distributors, and representatives. Since the founding in 1968, it has delivered more than 500,000 servers and storage systems worldwide.
Data General merged with EMC Corporation, which is, with 11,200 employees worldwide and over $3.9 billion in annual revenue in 1998, a leading supplier of intelligent enterprise storage and retrieval technology, designing systems for open system, mainframe, and midrange environments. EMC's Enterprise Storage products allow organizations to leverage their growing volumes of information into profitability and competitive advantage.
PSI
PSINet is another large provider of IP-based communications services for business. Their services include:
Corporate Internet access and private IP networks
Managed Internet security
Web and database hosting services
Electronic commerce solutions
Voice, fax, live audio-video, and other applications
PSINet delivers these services to small and medium-sized businesses as well as a quarter of the Fortune 500. The customers also include government agencies, educational institutions, and information services companies.
PSINet operates one of the industry's largest and most advance fast-packet Internet access networks. PSINet is the only independent facilities-based ISP in the world.
Headquartered in suburban Washington, D.C., with more than 600 points-of-presence and operations in United States, Canada, Europe, Latin America and Asia.
http://www.spiegel.de/netzwelt/telekommunikation/0,1518,46478,00.html:
PSINet announced at the International Telecommunications Show TELECOM99 in Geneva that it will provide customers in Germany with wireless broadband microwave connections before the millenium. This carrier is more than 2000 times faster than ISDN and offers datarates around 155 Mbit. Radioconnections could be installed in 5 workdays. With this plan it seems that PSINet wants to bypass the monpoly of the still sate-owned telecom corporations in Europe. So the distance between the location of the customer and the next POP (Point of Presence)of PSINet is operated with frequencies in the microwave spectrum (28-38 GHz).
MITRE Corp.
In partnership with government clients, MITRE is a not-for-profit corporation working in the public interest. It addresses issues of critical national importance, combining systems engineering and information technology.
MITRE's work is focused within three Federally Funded Research and Development Centers (FFRDCs). One FFRDC performs systems engineering and integration work for Department of Defense C3I. A second performs systems research and development work for the Federal Aviation Administration and other civil aviation authorities. The third FFRDC provides strategic, technical and program management advice to the Internal Revenue Service and the Treasury Department. Mitre Corp. operates sites in the US and Europe at important strategic locations related to the intelligence community.
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Until now it was not possible to find out the specific segmenting of intelligence budgets as far as the ECHELON project is concerned. Many experts agree that ECHELON specific costs are woven into the complex budgets of several intelligence units. Money comes also from the host countries and Partners in the UKUSA Agreement.
For further reading:
Refocus Intelligence Priorities:
>Approximately $27.6 Billion requested for 1999. The Congress has proposed an increase over the Clinton administration request. Almost all of this effort is devoted to exploiting the disciplines that were of primary importance during the Cold War: imagery intelligence [IMINT], signals intelligence [SIGINT], and human intelligence [HUMINT]. But with the end of the Cold War new disciplines, measurements and signature intelligence [MASINT] and open source intelligence [OSINT] are of far greater relevance to contemporary and emerging security concerns and intelligence needs, ranging from counter-proliferation activities to peace-keeping operations.<
Organization Annual Budget Staff
NRO 6,2 billion $ 1.700
NSA 3,6 billion $ 21.000 (- 40.000?)
CIA 3,1 billion $ 16.000
For comparison: CSE has only a $200-300 million dollar budget.
In 1988 Duncan Campbell wrote (
And another view on the relation between the several intelligence units as far as budget is concerned: "Spying Budget Is Made Public By Mistake", By Tim Weiner The New York Times, November 5 1994
>By mistake, a Congressional subcommittee has published an unusually detailed breakdown of the highly classified "black budget" for United States intelligence agencies. In previously defeating a bill that would have made this information public, the White House, CIA and Pentagon argued that revealing the secret budget would cause GRAVE DAMAGE to the NATIONAL SECURITY of the United States. $3.1 billion for the CIA $10.4 billion for the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines special-operations units $13.2 billion for the NSA/NRO/DIA <
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The end of the Cold War and the fall of the Berlin wall marked the end of a whole fictional genre: the spy novel. But as writers such as John Le Carre and Frederick Forsyth have since moved their field of interest to issues such as Islamic fundamentalism or ethnic separatist struggles against Western superpowers, the legacy of the spy network which was allegedly built for military operations only throughout the Cold War period, promises to outdo all fictional blue prints of espionage thrillers.
Over the past decades and especially throughout the 90s, a series of facts have surfaced, providing considerable evidence that a network of spy agencies, IT industries, governmental officials and research laboratories have developed a vast network which today serves mainly the purpose of industrial espionage. It's name is ECHELON, a highly automated global system and surveillance network for processing data retrieved through interception of communication traffic from all over the world. In the days of the cold war, ECHELON's primary purpose was to keep an eye/ear on the U.S.S.R. In the wake of the fall of the U.S.S.R. ECHELON is officially said to being used to fight terrorism and crimes, but it seems to be evident that the main focus lies in political and economic espionage.
A few people have played key roles in the uncovering of the mechanisms behind the closed doors of Western military operations. And still today, the evidence that has been brought into the sunlight has not forced any official body to give an official statement acknowledging or denying the existence of ECHELON.
ECHELON had been rumored to be in development since 1947, the result of the UKUSA treaty signed by the governments of the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
Only in 1976 the British journalist Duncan Campbell published an article in London based magazine Time Out which was called 'The Eavesdroppers'. This article contained a detailed description of what the GCHQ was and did. Starting from this research, Campbell continued to publish many articles concerning illegal communication interception conducted by the secret services.
But these first suspicions and truths about the nature of the spy network raised little media attention across the world. It was only in 1996, when the New Zealand journalist Nicky Hager published his book 'Secret Power: New Zealand's Role In the International Spy Network' containing detailed notes of meetings and agreements of army officials and private industries, ECHELON began to raise interest and eyebrows of politicians mainly in Europe and the media, mostly in Europe and America.
However, the saga continues and until today, despite official reports, elaborate research and founded claims, the existence of ECHELON has maintained to be one of the secrets of Western superpowers. And on a European level, the subject matter seems to create a divide across most political parties and governments.
Even in 1998, the European Parliament keeps its head down. In the STOA report, Assessment of the Technologies of Political Control, Martin Bangemann sums up the fears and strategies of official bodies dealing with the subject in his closing statement: "I think that there is a difference between someone writing a book, or - if you allow me to say this - a member of parliament who voices a concern and a representative of an institution which can only act within a democratic system if he or she knows something for sure. That level of knowledge we do not have."
Campaigning for the disclosure of ECHELON has been coming a long way. Starting in the early 90s, mainly grassroots activists have been instrumental in raising the public awareness. The most prominent case today is still the American base in Menwith Hill, Yorkshire UK. The community around Menwith Hill, Yorkshire UK has played a central role in pushing for official enquiries concerning the activities of UK based American bases. As there seemed to be a very concrete threat, the "Provision of (...) hazardous storage buildings" [
The following report of World Information brings together various sources which on the whole indicate the extension and functioning of a network for industrial espionage under the cover of military and governmental operations which would seriously challenge any fictional writing of the cold war era.
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1801
Invented by Joseph Marie Jacquard, an engineer and architect in Lyon, France, punch cards laid the ground for automatic information processing. For the first time information was stored in binary format on perforated cardboard cards. In 1890 Hermann Hollerith used Joseph-Marie Jacquard's punch card technology to process statistical data collected during the US census in 1890, thus speeding up US census data analysis from eight to three years. Hollerith's application of Jacquard's invention was used for programming computers and data processing until electronic data processing was introduced in the 1960's. - As with
Paper tapes are a medium similar to Jacquard's punch cards. In 1857 Sir Charles Wheatstone used them for the preparation, storage, and transmission of data for the first time. Through paper tapes telegraph messages could be stored, prepared off-line and sent ten times quicker (up to 400 words per minute). Later similar paper tapes were used for programming computers.
1809
With Samuel Thomas Soemmering's invention of the electrical telegraph the telegraphic transmission of messages was no longer tied to visibility, as it was the case with smoke and light signals networks. Economical and reliable, the electric telegraph became the state-of-the-art communication system for fast data transmissions, even over long distances.
Click
1861
The telephone was not invented by Alexander Graham Bell, as is widely held, but by Philipp Reiss, a German teacher. When he demonstrated his invention to important German professors in 1861, it was not enthusiastically greeted. Because of this dismissal, he was not given any financial support for further development.
And here Bell comes in: In 1876 he successfully filed a patent for the telephone. Soon afterwards he established the first telephone company.
1866
First functional underwater telegraph cable is laid across the Atlantic
1895
Invention of the wireless telegraph
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The Internet/Matrix still depends heavily on public infrastructure and there is no dedicated owner of the whole Internet/Matrix, but the networks it consists of are run and owned by corporations and institutions. Access to the Internet is usually provided by Internet Service Providers (ISPs) for a monthly fee. Each network is owned by someone and has a network operation center from where it is centrally controlled, but the Internet/Matrix is not owned by any single authority and has no network operation center of its own. No legal authority determines how and where networks can be connected together, this is something the managers of networks have to agree about. So there is no way to ever gain ultimate control of the Matrix/Internet.
The in some respects decentralized Matrix/Internet architecture and administration do not imply that there are no authorities for oversight and common standards for sustaining basic operations, for administration: There are authorities for IP number and domain name registrations, e.g.
Ever since the organizational structures for Internet administration have changed according to the needs to be addressed. Up to now, administration of the Internet is a collaborative undertaking of several loose cooperative bodies with no strict hierarchy of authority. These bodies make decisions on common guidelines, as
Amazingly, there seems to be an unspoken and uncodified consent of what is allowed and what is forbidden on the Internet that is widely accepted. Codifications, as the so-called
Sometimes violations not already subject to law become part of governmental regulations, as it was the case with spamming, the unsolicited sending of advertising mail messages. But engineers proved to be quicker and developed software against spamming. So, in some respects, the Internet is self-regulating, indeed.
For a detailed report on Internet governance, click here.
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cryptography:
It is the study of encryption, the art/science to create and use codes and/or ciphers with the purpose of enciphering as well as deciphering.
After a relatively vivid but slow development of cryptography for nearly 4.000 years the inventions of the telegraph, radio and computer had a high impact on the velocity of further inventions concerning encryption.
Most of the time economic, political or military reasons lie behind the necessity of encryption. As visible from the timetable cryptography it is also done for private and individual interests. An extraordinary example for this is the Braille Code, developed as a possibility for blind people to read and write.
A lot of very interesting and intelligent websites about cryptography can be found in the Internet.Some websites offering links to various cryptography-websites are:
Further there exists a wide range of web-magazines/newsletters/mailing lists on cryptography, e.g.:
Crypto-Gram Newsletter:
Journal of Computer Security:
Cypherpunks:
Stegano-L:
ZD Internet Magazine:
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With the rise of networks and the corresponding decline of mainframe services computers have become communication devices instead of being solely computational or typewriter-like devices. Corporate networks become increasingly important and often use the Internet as a public service network to interconnect. Sometimes they are
Software companies, consulting agencies, and journalists serving their interests make some further differences by splitting up the easily understandable term
Cable TV networks and online services as
Especially for financial transactions, secure proprietary networks become increasingly important. When you transfer funds from your banking account to an account in another country, it is done through the SWIFT network, the network of the
Electronic Communications Networks as
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Friedman is considered the father of U.S.-American cryptoanalysis - he also was the one to start using this term.
Comprehensive insurance provider. Covers health, automobile, life, homeowners, and farmers services. State Farm Insurance Companies' corporate headquarters are in Bloomington, Ill. Today there are 27 regional offices and more than 1,000 claim service centers. State Farm has grown to include 76,500 employees and more than 16,000 agents servicing 66.2 million policies in the United States and Canada.
American financial-services holding company whose principal subsidiary, Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith Inc., is the largest retail brokerage house in the United States. Headquarters are in New York City. In the 1970s, under Chairman Donald T. Regan (later treasury secretary under President Ronald Reagan), the firm moved aggressively into such other financial services as insurance and established the nation's largest money-market mutual fund. The holding company was created in 1973. Under Merrill Lynch International, it has several international operations, including Smith New Court PLC, a British securities firm acquired in 1995.
U.S. company founded on March 18, 1850, as an express-transportation company, but today operating as a worldwide organization providing primarily travel-related and insurance services and international finance operations and banking. Headquarters are in New York City.
The largest media and entertainment conglomerate in the world. The corporation resulted from the merger of the publisher Time Inc. and the media conglomerate Warner Communications Inc. in 1989. It acquired the Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. (TBS) in 1996. Time Warner Inc.'s products encompass magazines, hardcover books, comic books, recorded music, motion pictures, and broadcast and cable television programming and distribution. The company's headquarters are in New York City. In January 2000 Time Warner merged with AOL (America Online), which owns several online-services like Compuserve, Netscape and Netcenter in a US$ 243,3 billion deal.
Major American manufacturer with headquarters in Cincinnati, Ohio. The modern Procter & Gamble markets products in several major areas: Laundry and cleaning products; personal-care products; food products; and such miscellaneous products as cellulose pulp, chemicals, and animal feed ingredients. The company has long been one of the leading American national advertisers.
CIGNA was formed in 1982 through the combination of INA Corporation and Connecticut General Corporation. CIGNA's formation in 1982 combined a leading property-casualty insurer with a leading supplier of life insurance and employee benefits. CIGNA has tightened its focus on employee benefits, divesting its individual life insurance business in 1998, and its domestic and international property and casualty operations in 1999.
American company resulting from a merger in 1989 and dating to companies
founded in 1858 and 1887. It produces toiletries, cosmetics, household cleaning products, pharmaceuticals, health foods and supplements, and health equipment and prostheses. Headquarters are in New York City. In 1989 the merger of Bristol-Myers Company and Squibb Corporation (descendant of a company founded in 1858) created one of the world's largest pharmaceutical companies.
b. March 13, 1913, Elmhurst, Queens, N.Y., U.S.
d. May 6, 1987, Glen Cove, N.Y.
Powerful and controversial director of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) from 1981 to 1987 during the Ronald Reagan administration. While affiliated with the law firm Rogers & Wells (1976-81), Casey became Reagan's presidential campaign manager and was subsequently awarded the directorship of the CIA in 1981. Under his leadership, covert action increased in such places as Afghanistan, Central America, and Angola, and the agency stepped up its support for various anticommunist insurgent organizations. He was viewed as a pivotal figure in the CIA's secret involvement in the Iran-Contra Affair, in which U.S. weapons were sold to Iran and in which money from the sale was funneled to Nicaraguan rebels, in possible violation of U.S. law. Just before he was to testify in Congress on the matter in December 1986, he suffered seizures and then underwent brain surgery; he died from nervous-system lymphoma without ever testifying.
The telephone was not invented by Alexander Graham Bell, as is widely held to be true, but by Philipp Reiss, a German teacher. When he demonstrated his invention to important German professors in 1861, it was not enthusiastically greeted. Because of this dismissal, no financial support for further development was provided to him.
And here Bell comes in: In 1876 he successfully filed a patent for the telephone. Soon afterwards he established the first telephone company.