Posts Tagged ‘nsa’
Every Six Hours, the NSA Gathers as Much Data as Is Stored in the Entire Library of Congress
That data includes transcripts of phone calls and in-house discussions, video and audio surveillance, and a massive amount of photography. "The volume of data they're pulling in is huge," said John V. Parachini, director of the Intelligence Policy Center at RAND. "One criticism we might make of our [intelligence] community is that we're collection-obsessed — we pull in everything — and we don't spend enough time or money to try and understand what do we have and how can we act upon it."
NSA's budget is not disclosed by law, but we'd imagine it would awfully expensive and difficult to even listen to such vast quantities of data, let alone analyze it intelligently. They mostly listen for keywords now--bits that don't make sense (and thus might be code), certain red-flag words (like, well, "bomb," which seems kind of unsubtle but I guess we're talking about terrorists here and of course it's possible there are intricacies of language that are missing in translation), and any conversation between principals like bin Laden. Still, next time you're aghast at how much space the entire series of Blue Planet takes on your hard drive, just be glad you're not the NSA.
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The Cost to Build a Globally Dominating Cyber Army: 2 Years and $100 Million
Miller was asked by the Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence in Estonia to create the blueprint as a means of testing global cyber defenses. To do so, Miller took on the role of North Korea initiating an attack on the U.S., and according to his scenarios the attack was extremely easy. Moreover, the $100 million price tag pales in comparison to what is spent to protect sensitive systems.
Using a cyber army of about a thousand soldiers ranging from highly-experienced hackers to minimally-trained geeks, Miller's strategy hinges on stealthily infiltrating key systems and networks over the course of a couple years, the equivalent of establishing zones of control behind enemy lines. When the day of the actual cyber invasion arrives, America will find her defenses already breached by these advance forces, opening the floodgates and wreaking havoc on key systems and networks controlling everything from banks to markets to electricity grids and other technology infrastructure.
But before you barricade yourself in your Y2K bunker (see, you told everyone it would come in handy), there are a couple of bright spots in Miller's report. For one, thanks to our newly flattened, interconnected world, most states with the wherewithal to muster the kind of cyber genius necessary for such an attack have no interest in bringing down the Internet.
Further, during those two years there is a lot of time to catch on to this kind of stealthy invasion if the right security mechanisms are in place monitoring for the right kinds of malicious activities. Besides, while it's certainly not encouraging to hear that the only thing standing between free peoples and unstoppable cyber anarchy is two years and $100 million, at least we have an elite group of on call to raise the Web from the ashes and start it all over again.
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NSA Chief Confirms U.S. Military’s Right to Return Cyber-Attacks
Alexander is testifying before Congress as part of his confirmation as the new head of US Cyber Command. In that position, he will oversee the protection of the US data infrastructure. In his answers to questions from Congressmen before tomorrow's in-person testimony, Alexander said that the US has responded to threats against the country in cyberspace, but declined to get into specifics. He also added that while military law doesn't specifically authorize a country to retaliate with a cyber-attack, the law implicitly condones the use of retaliatory cyberwar.
In general, Alexander's testimony reflected a policy that treats a computer the same as a rifle in a military context. For him, it's a weapon, and faces the same deterrent, legal, technical issues as a fighter plane, nuclear bomb, or sharpened stick. However, it should be noted that Alexander also gave extensive classified testimony that no doubt went into more specific detail about the US's cyber-deterrence and offensive capabilities.
Still, what Alexander did reveal is mostly new information for the general public, and with live questioning set to begin tomorrow, we should end this week knowing far more about US cyber policy than we began it.
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