Intelligence

Interception Capabilities 2000 - PART 2

Part 2

4. Comint and Law Enforcement
83. In 1990 and 1991, the US government became concerned that the marketing of a secure telephone system by AT&T could curtail Comint activity. AT&T was persuaded to withdraw its product. In its place the US government offered NSA "Clipper" chips for incorporation in secure phones. The chips would be manufactured by NSA, which would also record built-in keys and pass this information to other government agencies for storage and, if required, retrieval. This proposal proved extremely unpopular, and was abandoned. In its place, the US government proposed that non government agencies should be required to keep copies of every user's keys, a system called "key escrow" and, later, "key recovery". Viewed in retrospect, the actual purpose of these proposals was to provide NSA with a single (or very few) point(s) of access to keys, enabling them to continue to access private and commercial communications.
Misrepresentation of law enforcement interception requirements
84. Between 1993 to 1998, the United States conducted sustained diplomatic activity seeking to persuade EU nations and the OECD to adopt their "key recovery" system. Throughout this period, the US government insisted that the purpose of the initiative was to assist law enforcement agencies. Documents obtained for this study suggest that these claims wilfully misrepresented the true intention of US policy. Documents obtained under the US Freedom of Information Act indicate that policymaking was led exclusively by NSA officials, sometimes to the complete exclusion of police or judicial officials. For example, when the specially appointed US "Ambassador for Cryptography", David Aaron, visited Britain on 25 November 1996, he was accompanied and briefed by NSA's most senior representative in Britain, Dr James J Hearn, formerly Deputy Director of NSA. Mr Aaron had did not meet or consult FBI officials attached to his Embassy. His meeting with British Cabinet officials included NSA's representative and staff from Britain's GCHQ, but police officers or justice officials from both nations were excluded.
85. Since 1993, unknown to European parliamentary bodies and their electors, law enforcement officials from many EU countries and most of the UKUSA nations have been meeting annually in a separate forum to discuss their requirements for intercepting communications. These officials met under the auspices of a hitherto unknown organisation, ILETS (International Law Enforcement Telecommunications Seminar). ILETS was initiated and founded by the FBI. Table 2 lists ILETS meetings held between 1993 and 1997.

86. At their 1993 and 1994 meetings, ILETS participants specified law enforcement user requirements for communications interception. These appear in a 1974 ILETS document called "IUR 1.0". This document was based on an earlier FBI report on "Law Enforcement Requirements for the Surveillance of Electronic Communications", first issued in July 1992 and revised in June 1994. The IUR requirement differed little in substance from the FBI's requirements but was enlarged, containing ten requirements rather than nine. IUR did not specify any law enforcement need for "key escrow" or "key recovery". Cryptography was mentioned solely in the context of network security arrangements.

87. Between 1993 and 1997 police representatives from ILETS were not involved in the NSA-led policy making process for "key recovery", nor did ILETS advance any such proposal, even as late as 1997. Despite this, during the same period the US government repeatedly presented its policy as being motivated by the stated needs of law enforcement agencies. At their 1997 meeting in Dublin, ILETS did not alter the IUR. It was not until 1998 that a revised IUR was prepared containing requirements in respect of cryptography. It follows from this that the US government misled EU and OECD states about the true intention of its policy.

88. This US deception was, however, clear to the senior Commission official responsible for information security. In September 1996, David Herson, head of the EU Senior Officers' Group on Information Security, stated his assessment of the US "key recovery" project :

"'Law Enforcement' is a protective shield for all the other governmental activities ... We're talking about foreign intelligence, that's what all this is about. There is no question [that] 'law enforcement' is a smoke screen".(56)
89. It should be noted that technically, legally and organisationally, law enforcement requirements for communications interception differ fundamentally from communications intelligence. Law enforcement agencies (LEAs) will normally wish to intercept a specific line or group of lines, and must normally justify their requests to a judicial or administrative authority before proceeding. In contract, Comint agencies conduct broad international communications "trawling" activities, and operate under general warrants. Such operations do not require or even suppose that the parties they intercept are criminals. Such distinctions are vital to civil liberty, but risk being eroded it the boundaries between law enforcement and communications intelligence interception becomes blurred in future.

Year Venue Non-EU participants EU participants
1993 Quantico, Virginia, USA Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, Norway United States Denmark, France, Germany, Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, United Kingdom
1994 Bonn, Germany Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, Norway, United States Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, United Kingdom
1995 Canberra, Australia Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, New Zealand, Norway, United States Belgium, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, United Kingdom
1997 Dublin, Ireland Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, New Zealand, Norway, United States Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, United Kingdom

Table 2 ILETS meetings, 1993-1997

Law enforcement communications interception - policy development in Europe
90. Following the second ILETS meeting in Bonn in 1994, IUR 1.0 was presented to the Council of Ministers and was passed without a single word being altered on 17January 1995.(57) During 1995, several non EU members of the ILETS group wrote to the Council to endorse the (unpublished) Council resolution. The resolution was not published in the Official Journal for nearly two years, on 4 November 1996.
91. Following the third ILETS meeting in Canberra in 1995, the Australian government was asked to present the IUR to International Telecommunications Union (ITU). Noting that "law enforcement and national security agencies of a significant number of ITU member states have agreed on a generic set of requirements for legal interception", the Australian government asked the ITU to advise its standards bodies to incorporate the IUR requirements into future telecommunications systems on the basis that the "costs of [providing] legal interception capability and associated disruptions can be lessened by providing for that capability at the design stage".(58)

92. It appears that ILETS met again in 1998 and revised and extended its terms to cover the Internet and Satellite Personal Communications Systems such as Iridium. The new IUR also specified "additional security requirements for network operators and service providers", extensive new requirements for personal information about subscribers, and provisions to deal with cryptography.

93. On 3 September 1998, the revised IUR was presented to the Police Co-operation Working Group as ENFOPOL 98. The Austrian Presidency proposed that, as in 1994, the new IUR be adopted verbatim as a Council Resolution on interception "in respect of new technology".(59) The group did not agree. After repeated redrafting, a fresh paper has been prepared by the German Presidency, for the eventual consideration of Council Home and Justice ministers.(60)

5. Comint and economic intelligence
94. During the 1998 EP debate on "Transatlantic relations/ECHELON system" Commissioner Bangeman observed on behalf of the Commission that "If this system were to exist, it would be an intolerable attack against individual liberties, competition and the security of the states".(61) The existence of ECHELON was described in section 3, above. This section describes the organisational and reporting frameworks within which economically sensitive information collected by ECHELON and related systems is disseminated, summarising examples where European organisations have been the subject of surveillance.
Tasking economic intelligence
95. US officials acknowledge that NSA collects economic information, whether intentionally or otherwise. Former military intelligence attaché Colonel Dan Smith worked at the US Embassy, London until 1993. He regularly received Comint product from Menwith Hill. In 1998, he told the BBC that at Menwith Hill:
"In terms of scooping up communications, inevitably since their take is broadband, there will be conversations or communications which are intercepted which have nothing to do with the military, and probably within those there will be some information about commercial dealings"
"Anything would be possible technically. Technically they can scoop all this information up, sort through it and find out what it is that might be asked for . . . But there is not policy to do this specifically in response to a particular company's interest(62)

96. In general, this statement is not incorrect. But it overlooks fundamental distinctions between tasking and dissemination, and between commercial and economic intelligence. There is no evidence that companies in any of the UKUSA countries are able to task Comint collection to suit their private purposes. They do not have to. Each UKUSA country authorises national level intelligence assessment organisations and relevant individual ministries to task and receive economic intelligence from Comint. Such information may be collected for myriad purposes, such as: estimation of future essential commodity prices; determining other nation's private positions in trade negotiations; monitoring international trading in arms; tracking sensitive technology; or evaluating the political stability and/or economic strength of a target country. Any of these targets and many others may produce intelligence of direct commercial relevance. The decision as to whether it should be disseminated or exploited is taken not by Comint agencies but by national government organisation(s).
Disseminating economic intelligence
97. In 1970, according to its former Executive Director, the US Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board recommended that "henceforth economic intelligence be considered a function of the national security, enjoying a priority equivalent to diplomatic, military, technological intelligence".(63) On 5 May 1977, a meeting between NSA, CIA and the Department of Commerce authorised the creation of secret new department, the "Office of Intelligence Liaison". Its task was to handle "foreign intelligence" of interest to the Department of Commerce. Its standing orders show that it was authorised to receive and handle SCI intelligence - Comint and Sigint from NSA. The creation of this office THUS provided a formal mechanism whereby NSA data could be used to support commercial and economic interests. After this system was highlighted in a British TV programme in 1993, its name was changed to the "Office of Executive Support".(64) Also in 1993, President Clinton extended US intelligence support to commercial organisations by creating a new National Economic Council, paralleling the National Security Council.
98. The nature of this intelligence support has been widely reported. "Former intelligence officials and other experts say tips based on spying ... regularly flow from the Commerce Department to U.S. companies to help them win contracts overseas.(65) The Office of Executive Support provides classified weekly briefings to security officials. One US newspaper obtained reports from the Commerce Department demonstrating intelligence support to US companies:

One such document consists of minutes from an August 1994 Commerce Department meeting [intended] to identify major contracts open for bid in Indonesia in order to help U.S. companies win the work. A CIA employee ... spoke at the meeting; five of the 16 people on the routine distribution list for the minutes were from the CIA.
99. In the United Kingdom, GCHQ is specifically required by law (and as and when tasked by the British government) to intercept foreign communications "in the interests of the economic well-being of the United Kingdom ...in relation to the actions or intentions of persons outside the British Islands". Commercial interception is tasked and analysed by GCHQ's K Division. Commercial and economic targets can be specified by the government's Overseas Economic Intelligence Committee, the Economic Staff of the Joint Intelligence Committee, the Treasury, or the Bank of England.(66) According to a former senior JIC official, the Comint take routinely includes "company plans, telexes, faxes, and transcribed phone calls. Many were calls between Europe and the South[ern Hemisphere]".(67)
100. In Australia, commercially relevant Comint is passed by DSD to the Office of National Assessments, who consider whether, and if so where, to disseminate it. Staff there may pass information to Australian companies if they believe that an overseas nation has or seeks an unfair trade advantage. Targets of such activity have included Thomson-CSF, and trade negotiations with Japanese purchasers of coal and iron ore. Similar systems operate in the other UKUSA nations, Canada and New Zealand.

The use of Comint economic intelligence product
Panavia European Fighter Aircraft consortium and Saudi Arabia

101. In 1993, former National Security Council official Howard Teicher described in a programme about Menwith Hill how the European Panavia company was specifically targeted over sales to the Middle East. "I recall that the words 'Tornado' or 'Panavia' - information related to the specific aircraft - would have been priority targets that we would have wanted information about".(68)
Thomson CSF and Brazil
102. In 1994, NSA intercepted phone calls between Thomson-CSF and Brazil concerning SIVAM, a $1.3 billion surveillance system for the Amazon rain forest. The company was alleged to have bribed members of the Brazilian government selection panel. The contract was awarded to the US Raytheon Corporation - who announced afterwards that "the Department of Commerce worked very hard in support of U.S. industry on this project".(69) Raytheon also provide maintenance and engineering services to NSA's ECHELON satellite interception station at Sugar Grove.
Airbus Industrie and Saudi Arabia
103. According to a well-informed 1995 press report :"from a commercial communications satellite, NSA lifted all the faxes and phone calls between the European consortium Airbus, the Saudi national airline and the Saudi government. The agency found that Airbus agents were offering bribes to a Saudi official. It passed the information to U.S. officials pressing the bid of Boeing Co and McDonnell Douglas Corp., which triumphed last year in the $6 billion competition." (70)
International trade negotiations
104. Many other accounts have been published by reputable journalists and some firsthand witnesses citing frequent occasions on which the US government has utlitised Comint for national commercial purposes. These include targeting data about the emission standards of Japanese vehicles;(71) 1995 trade negotiations the import of Japanese luxury cars;(72) French participation in the GATT trade negotiations in 1993; the Asian-Pacific Economic Conference (APEC), 1997.
Targeting host nations
105. The issue of whether the United States utilises communications intelligence facilities such as Menwith Hilll or Bad Aibling to attack host nations' communications also arises. The available evidence suggests that such conduct may normally be avoided. According to former National Security Council official Howard Teicher, the US government would not direct NSA to spy on a host governments such as Britain:
" [But] I would never say never in this business because, at the end of the day, national interests are national interests ... sometimes our interests diverge. So never say never - especially in this business"

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6. Comint capabilities after 2000

Developments in technology

106. Since the mid-1990s, communications intelligence agencies have faced substantial difficulties in maintaining global access to communications systems. These difficulties will increase during and after 2000. The major reason is the shift in telecommunications to high capacity optical fibre networks. Physical access to cables is required for interception. Unless a fibre network lies within or passes through a collaborating state, effective interception is practical only by tampering with optoelectronic repeaters (when installed). This limitation is likely to place many foreign land-based high capacity optical fibre networks beyond reach. The physical size of equipment needed to process traffic, together with power, communications and recording systems, makes clandestine activity impractical and risky.
107. Even where access is readily available (such as to COMSATs), the proliferation of new systems will limit collection activities, partly because budgetary constraint will restrict new deployments, and partly because some systems (for example, Iridium) cannot be accessed by presently available systems.

108. In the past 15 years the substantial technological lead in computers and information technology once enjoyed by Comint organisations has all but disappeared. Their principal computer systems are bought "off the shelf" and are the equal of or even inferior to those used by first rank industrial and academic organisations. They differ only in being "TEMPEST shielded", preventing them emitting radio signals which could be used to analyse Sigint activity.

109. Communications intelligence organisations recognise that the long war against civil and commercial cryptography has been lost. A thriving academic and industrial community is skilled in cryptography and cryptology. The Internet and the global marketplace have created a free flow in information, systems and software. NSA has failed in its mission to perpetuate access by pretending that that "key escrow" and like systems were intended to support law enforcement (as opposed to Comint) requirements.

110. Future trends in Comint are likely to include limits on investment in Comint collection from space; greater use of human agents to plant collection devices or obtain codes than in the past; and an intensified effort to attack foreign computer systems, using the Internet and other means (in particular, to gain access to protected files or communications before they are encrypted).

111. Attempts to restrict cryptography have nevertheless delayed the large-scale introduction of effective cryptographic security systems. The reduced cost of computational power has also enabled Comint agencies to deploy fast and sophisticated processing and sorting tools.

112. Recent remarks to CIA veterans by the head of staff of the US House of Representatives Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, ex CIA officer John Millis illustrate how NSA views the same issues:

"Signals intelligence is in a crisis. ... Over the last fifty years ... In the past, technology has been the friend of NSA, but in the last four or five years technology has moved from being the friend to being the enemy of Sigint.
The media of telecommunications is no longer Sigint-friendly. It used to be. When you were doing RF signals, anybody within range of that RF signal could receive it just as clearly as the intended recipient. We moved from that to microwaves, and people figured out a great way to harness that as well. Well, we're moving to media that are very difficult to get to.

Encryption is here and it's going to grow very rapidly. That is bad news for Sigint ... It is going to take a huge amount of money invested in new technologies to get access and to be able to break out the information that we still need to get from Sigint".

Policy issues for the European Parliament
1. The 1998 Parliamentary resolution on "Transatlantic relations/ECHELON system"(73) called for "protective measures concerning economic information and effective encryption". Providing such measures may be facilitated by developing an in-depth understanding of present and future Comint capabilities.

2. At the technical level, protective measures may best be focused on defeating hostile Comint activity by denying access or, where this is impractical or impossible, preventing processing of message content and associated traffic information by general use of cryptography.

3. As the SOGIS group within the Commission has recognised,(74) the contrasting interests of states is a complex issue. Larger states have made substantial investments in Comint capabilities. One member state is active in the UKUSA alliance, whilst others are either "third parties" to UKUSA or have made bilateral arrangements with NSA. Some of these arrangements were a legacy of the cold war; others are enduring. These issues create internal and international conflicts of interest. Technical solutions are not obvious. It should be possible to define a shared interest in implementing measures to defeat future external Comint activities directed against European states, their citizens and commercial activities.

4. A second area of apparent conflict concerns states' desires to provide communications interception for legitimate law enforcement purposes. The technical and legal processes involved in providing interception for law enforcement purpose differ fundamentally from those used in communications intelligence. Partly because of the lack of parliamentary and public awareness of Comint activities, this distinction is often glossed over, particularly by states that invest heavily in Comint. Any failure to distinguish between legitimate law enforcement interception requirements and interception for clandestine intelligence purposes raises grave issues for civil liberties. A clear boundary between law enforcement and "national security" interception activity is essential to the protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms.

5. At the present time, Internet browsers and other software used in almost every personal computer in Europe is deliberately disabled such that "secure" communications they send can, if collected, be read without difficulty by NSA. US manufacturers are compelled to make these arrangements under US export rules. A level playing field is important. Consideration could be given to a countermeasure whereby, if systems with disabled cryptographic systems are sold outside the United States, they should be required to conform to an "open standard" such that third parties and other nations may provide additional applications which restore the level of security to at least enjoyed by domestic US customers.

6. The work of ILETS has proceeded for 6 years without the involvement of parliaments, and in the absence of consultation with the industrial organisations whose vital interests their work affects. It is regrettable that, prior to the publication of this report, public information has not been available in states about the scope of the policy-making processes, inside and outside the EU, which have led to the formulation of existing and new law enforcement "user requirements". As a matter of urgency, the current policy-making process should be made open to public and parliamentary discussion in member states and in the EP, so that a proper balance may be struck between the security and privacy rights of citizens and commercial enterprises, the financial and technical interests of communications network operators and service providers, and the need to support law enforcement activities intended to suppress serious crime and terrorism.

Technical annexe
Broadband (high capacity multi-channel) communications

1. From 1950 until the early 1980s, high capacity multi-channel analogue communications systems were usually engineered using separate communications channels carried at different frequencies The combined signal, which could include 2,000 or more speech channels, was a "multiplex". The resulting "frequency division multiplex" (FDM) signal was then carried on a much higher frequency, such as by a microwave radio signal.
2. Digital communications have almost universally taken over from analogue methods. The basic system of digital multi-channel communications is time division multiplexing (TDM). In a TDM telephony system, the individual conversational channels are first digitised. Information concerning each channel is then transmitted sequentially rather than simultaneously, with each link occupying successive time "slots".

3. Standards for digital communications evolved separately within Europe and North America. In the United States, the then dominant public network carrier (the Bell system, run by AT&T) established digital data standards. The basic building block, a T-1 link, carries the equivalent of 24 telephone channels at a rate of 1.544 Mbps. Higher capacity systems operate at greater data transmission rates Thus, the highest transmission rate, T-5, carries the equivalent of 8,000 speech channels at a data rate of 560 Mbps.

4. Europe adopted a different framework for digital communications, based on standards originally agreed by the CEPT. The basic European standard digital link, E-1, carries 30 telephone channels at a data rate of 2 Mbps. Most European telecommunications systems are based on E-1 links or (as in North America), multiples thereof. The distinction is significant because most Comint processing equipment manufactured in the United States is designed to handle intercepted communications working to the European forms of digital communications.

5. Recent digital systems utilise synchronised signals carried by very high capacity optical fibres. Synchronising signals enables single channels to be easily extracted from high capacity links. The new system is known in the US as the synchronous optical network (SONET), although three equivalent definitions and labels are in use.(75)

Communications intelligence equipment
6. Dozens of US defence contractors, many located in Silicon Valley (California) or in the Maryland "Beltway" area near Washington, manufacture sophisticated Sigint equipment for NSA. Major US corporations, such as Lockheed Martin, Space Systems/Loral, TRW, Raytheon and Bendix are also contracted by NSA to operate major Sigint collection sites. A full report on their products and services is beyond the scope of this study. The state of the art in contemporary communications intelligence may usefully be demonstrated, however, by examining some of the Comint processing products of two specialist NSA niche suppliers: Applied Signal Technology Inc (AST), of Sunnyvale, California, and The IDEAS Operation of Columbia, Maryland (part of Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC)).(76)
7. Both companies include senior ex-NSA staff as directors. When not explicitly stated, their products can be identified as intended for Sigint by virtue of being "TEMPEST screened". AST states generally that its "equipment is used for signal reconnaissance of foreign telecommunications by the United States government". One leading cryptographer has aptly and and engagingly described AST as a "one-stop ECHELON shop".

Wideband extraction and signal analysis
8. Wideband (or broadband) signals are normally intercepted from satellites or tapped cables in the form of multiplex microwave or high frequency signals. The first step in processing such signals for Comint purposes is "wideband extraction". An extensive range of Sigint equipment is manufactured for this purpose, enabling newly intercepted systems to be surveyed and analysed. These include transponder survey equipment which identify and classify satellite downlinks, demodulators, decoders, demultiplexers, microwave radio link analysers, link survey units, carrier analysis systems, and many other forms of hardware and software.
9. A newly intercepted communications satellite or data link can be analysed using the AST Model 196 "Transponder characterisation system". Once its basic communications structure has been analysed, the Model 195 "Wideband snapshot analyser", also known as SNAPPER, can record sample data from even the highest capacity systems, sufficient to analyse communications in minute detail. By the start of 1999, operating in conjunction with the Model 990 "Flexible Data Acquisition Unit", this systems was able to record, playback and analyse at data rates up to 2.488 Gbps (SONET OC-48). This is 16 times faster than the largest backbone links in general use on the Internet; larger than the telephony capacity of any current communications satellite; and equivalent to 40,000 simultaneous telephone calls. It can be fitted with 48 Gbyte of memory (500-1000 times larger than found in an average personal computer), enabling relatively lengthy recordings of high-speed data links. The 2.5 Gbps capacity of a single SNAPPER unit exceeds the current daily maximum data rate found on a typical large Internet exchange.(77)

10. Both AST and IDEAS offer a wide range of recorders, demultiplexers, scanners and processors, mostly designed to process European type (CEPT) E-1, E-3 (etc) signals at data rates of up to 160 Mbps. Signals may be recorded to banks of high-speed tape recorders, or into high capacity "RAID"(78) hard disk networks. Intercepted optical signals can be examined with the AST Model 257E "SONET analyser".

11. Once communications links have been analysed and broken down to their constituent parts, the next stage of Comint collection involves multi-channel processors which extract and filter messages and signals from the desired channels. There are three broad categories of interest: "voice grade channels", normally carrying telephony; fax communications; and analogue data modems. A wide selection of multi-channel Comint processors are available. Almost all of them separate voice, fax and data messages into distinct "streams" for downstream processing and analysis.

12. The AST Model 120 multi-channel processor - used by NSA in different configurations known as STARQUAKE, COBRA and COPPERHEAD - can handle 1,000 simultaneous voice channels and automatically extract fax, data and voice traffic. Model 128, larger still, can process 16 European E-3 channels (a data rate of 500 Mbps) and extract 480 channels of interest. The 1999 giant of AST's range, the Model 132 "Voice Channel Demultiplexer", can scan up to 56,700 communications channels, extracting more than 3,000 voice channels of interest. AST also provides Sigint equipment to intercept low capacity VSAT(79) satellite services used by smaller businesses and domestic users. These systems can be intercepted by the AST Model 285 SCPS processor, which identifies and extracts up to 48 channels of interest, distinguished between voice, fax and data.

13. According to US government publications, an early Wideband Extraction system was installed at NSA's Vint Hill Farms field station in 1970, about the time that systematic COMSAT interception collection began. That station is now closed. US publications identify the NSA/CSS Regional Sigint Operations Centre at San Antonio, Texas, as a site currently providing a multi-channel Wideband Extraction service.

Filtering, data processing, and facsimile analysis
14. Once communications channels have been identified and signals of interest extracted, they are analysed further by sophisticated workstations using special purpose software. AST's ELVIRA Signals Analysis Workstation is typical of this type of Sigint equipment. This system, which can be used on a laptop computer in covert locations, surveys incoming channels and extracts standard Comint data, including technical specifications (STRUM) and information about call destinations (SRI, or signal related information). Selected communications are relayed to distant locations using NSA standard "Collected Signals Data Format" (CSDF).(80)
15. High-speed data systems can also be passed to AST's TRAILMAPPER software system, which works at a data rate of up to 2.5 Gbps. It can interpret and analyse every type of telecommunications system, including European, American and optical standards. TRAILMAPPER appears to have been designed with a view to analysing ATM (asynchronous transfer mode) communications. ATM is a modern, high-capacity digital communications system. It is better suited than standard Internet connections to carrying multimedia traffic and to providing business with private networks (VPN, LAN or WAN). TRAILMAPPER will identify and characterise such business networks.

16. In the next stage downstream, intercepted signals are processed according to whether they are voice, fax or data. AST's "Data Workstation" is designed to categorise all aspects of data communications, including systems for handling e-mail or sending files on the Internet.(81) Although the very latest modem systems (other than ISDN) are not included in its advertised specification, it is clear from published research that AST has developed the technology to intercept and process the latest data communications systems used by individuals and business to access the Internet.(82) The Data Workstation can stored and automatically process 10,000 different recorded signals.

17. Fax messages are processed by AST's Fax Image Workstation. This is described as a "user friendly, interactive analysis tool for rapid examination images stored on disk. Although not mentioned in AST's literature, standard fax pre-processing for Dictionary computers involves automatic "optical character recognition" (OCR) software. This turns the typescript into computer readable (and processable) text. The effectiveness of these systems makes fax-derived Comint an important collection subsystem. It has one drawback. OCR computer systems that can reliably recognise handwriting do not exist. No one knows how to design such a system. It follows that, perversely, hand-written fax messages may be a secure form of communication that can evade Dictionary surveillance criteria, provided always that the associated "signal related information" (calling and receiving fax numbers) have not been recognised as being of interest and directed to a Fax Image Workstation.

18. AST also make a "Pager Identification and Message Extraction" system which automatically collects and processes data from commercial paging systems. IDEAS offer a Video Teleconferencing Processor that can simultaneously view or record two simultaneous teleconferencing sessions. Sigint systems to intercept cellular mobile phone networks such as GSM are not advertised by AST or IDEAS, but are available from other US contractors. The specifications and ready availability of such systems indicate how industrialised and pervasive Comint has became. It has moved far from the era when (albeit erroneously), it was publicly associated only with monitoring diplomatic or military messages.

NSA "Trailmapper software showing atomatic detection of private networks inside intercepted high capacity STM-1 digital communications system

Traffic analysis, keyword recognition, text retrieval, and topic analysis
19. Traffic analysis is a method of obtaining intelligence from signal related information, such as the number dialled on a telephone call, or the Calling Line Identification Data (CLID) which identifies the person making the call. Traffic analysis can be used where message content is not available, for example when encryption is used. By analysing calling patterns, networks of personal associations may be analysed and studied. This is a principal method of examining voice communications.
20. Whenever machine readable communications are available, keyword recognition is fundamental to Dictionary computers, and to the ECHELON system. The Dictionary function is straightforward. Its basic mode of operation is akin to web search engines. The differences are of substance and of scale. Dictionaries implement the tasking of their host station against the entire mass of collected communications, and automate the distribution of selected raw product.

21. Advanced systems have been developed to perform very high speed sorting of large volumes of intercepted information. In the late 1980s, the manufacturers of the RHYOLITE Sigint satellites, TRW, designed and manufactured a Fast Data Finder (FDF) microchip for NSA. The FDF chip was declassified in 1972 and made available for commercial use by a spin-off company, Paracel. Since then Paracel has sold over 150 information filtering systems, many of them to the US government. Paracel describes its current FDF technology as the "fastest, most accurate adaptive filtering system in the world":

A single TextFinder application may involve trillions of bytes of textual archive and thousands of online users, or gigabytes of live data stream per day that are filtered against tens of thousands of complex interest profiles ... the TextFinder chip implements the most comprehensive character-string comparison functions of any text retrieval system in the world.
Devices like this are ideal for use in ECHELON and the Dictionary system.
22. A lower capacity system, the PRP-9800 Pattern Recognition Processor, is manufactured by IDEAS. This is a computer card which can be fitted to a standard PC. It can analyse data streams at up to 34 Mbps (the European E-3 standard), matching every single bit to more than 1000 pre-selected patterns.

23. Powerful though Dictionary methods and keyword search engines may be, however, they and their giant associated intelligence databases may soon seem archaic. Topic analysis is a more powerful and intuitive technique, and one that NSA is developing and promoting with confidence. Topic analysis enables Comint customers to ask their computers to "find me documents about subject X". X might be "Shakespeare in love" or "Arms to Iran".

24. In a standard US test used to evaluate topic analysis systems,(83) one task the analysis program is given is to find information about "Airbus subsidies". The traditional approach involves supplying the computer with the key terms, other relevant data, and synonyms. In this example, the designations A-300 or A-320 might be synonymous with "Airbus". The disadvantage of this approach is that it may find irrelevant intelligence (for example, reports about export subsidies to goods flown on an Airbus) and miss relevant material (for example a financial analysis of a company in the consortium which does not mention the Airbus product by name). Topic analysis overcomes this and is better matched to human intelligence.

25. The main detectable thrust of NSA research on topic analysis centres on a method called N-gram analysis. Developed inside NSA's Research group - responsible for Sigint automation - N-gram analysis is a fast, general method of sorting and retrieving machine-readable text according to language and/or topic. The N-gram system is claimed to work independently of the language used or the topic studied. NSA patented the method in 1995.(84)

26. To use N-gram analysis, the operator ignores keywords and defines the enquiry by providing the system with selected written documents concerning the topic of interest. The system determines what the topic is from the seed group of documents, and then calculates the probability that other documents cover the same topic. In 1994, NSA made its N-gram system available for commercial exploitation. NSA's research group claimed that it could be used on "very large data sets (millions of documents)", could be quickly implemented on any computer system and that it could operate effectively "in text containing a great many errors (typically 10-15% of all characters)".

27. According to former NSA Director William Studeman, "information management will be the single most important problem for the (US) Intelligence Community" in the future.(85) Explaining this point in 1992, he described the type of filtering involved in systems like ECHELON:

One [unidentified] intelligence collection system alone can generate a million inputs per half hour; filters throw away all but 6500 inputs; only 1,000 inputs meet forwarding criteria; 10 inputs are normally selected by analysts and only one report Is produced. These are routine statistics for a number of intelligence collection and analysis systems which collect technical intelligence.

The "Data Workstation" Comint software system analyses up to 10,000 recorded messages, identifying Internet traffic, e-mail messages and attachments

Speech recognition systems
28. For more than 40 years, NSA, ARPA, GCHQ and the British government Joint Speech Research Unit have conducted and sponsored research into speech recognition. Many press reports (and the previous STOA report) have suggested that such research has provided systems which can automatically select telephone communications of intelligence interest based on the use of particular "key words" by a speaker. If available, such systems would enable vastly more extensive Comint information to be gathered from telephone conversations than is available from other methods of analysis. The contention that telephone word-spotting systems are readily available appears to by supported by the recent availability of a string of low-cost software products resulting from this research. These products permit PC users to dictate to their computers instead of entering data through the keyboard. (86)
29. The problem is that for Comint applications, unlike personal computer dictation products, speech recognition systems have to operate in a multi-speaker, multi-language environment where numerous previously never heard speakers may each feature physiological differences, dialect variations, and speech traits. Commercial PC systems usually require one or more hours of training in order reliably to recognise a single speaker. Even then, such systems may mistranscribe 10% or more of the words spoken.

30. In PC dictation applications, the speaker can correct mistranscriptions and continually retrain the recognition system, making a moderate error rate acceptable. For use in Comint, where the interception system has no prior knowledge of what has been said (or even the language in use), and has to operate in the poorer signal environment of a telephone speech channel, such error rates are unachievable. Worse still, even moderate error rates can make a keyword recognition system worthless by generating both false positive outputs (words wrongly identified as keywords) and false negative outputs (missing genuine keywords).

31. This study has found no evidence that voice keyword recognition systems are currently operationally deployed, nor that they are yet sufficiently accurate to be worth using for intelligence purposes.

Continuous speech recognition
32. The fundamental technique in many speech recognition applications is a statistical method called Hidden Markov Modelling (HMM). HMM systems have been developed at many centres and are claimed academically to offer "good word spotting performance ... using very little or no acoustic speech training".(87) The team which reported this result tested its system using data from the US Department of Defense "Switchboard Data", containing recordings of thousand of different US telephone conversations. On a limited test the probabilities of correctly detecting the occurrences of 22 keywords ranged from 45-68% on settings which allowed for 10 false positive results per keyword per hour. Thus if 1000 genuine keywords appeared during an hour's conversation, there would be at least 300 missed key words, plus 220 false alarms.
33. At about the same time, (February 1990), the Canadian Sigint organisation CSE awarded a Montreal-based computer research consultancy the first of a series of contracts to develop a Comint wordspotting system.(88) The goal of the project was to build a word-spotter that worked well even for noisy calls. Three years later, CRIM reported that "our experience has taught us that, regardless of the environmental conditions, wordspotting remains a difficult problem". The key problem, which is familiar to human listeners, is that a single word heard on its own can easily be misinterpreted, whereas in continuous speech the meaning may be deduced from surrounding words. CRIM concluded in 1993 that "it is probable that the most effective way of building a reliable wordspotter is to build a large vocabulary continuous speech recognition (CSR) system".

34. Continuous speech recognition software working in real time needs a powerful fast, processor. Because of the lack of training and the complex signal environment found in intercepted telephone calls, it is likely that even faster processors and better software than used in modern PCs would yield poorer results than are now provided by well-trained commercial systems. Significantly, an underlying problem is that voice keyword recognition is, as with machine-readable messages, an imperfect means to the more useful intelligence goal - topic spotting.

35. In 1993, having failed to build a workable wordspotter, CRIM suggesting "bypassing" the problem and attempting instead to develop a voice topic spotter. CRIM reported that "preliminary experiments reported at a recent meeting of American defense contractors ... indicate that this may in fact be an excellent approach to the problem". They offered to produce an "operational topic spotting" system by 1995. They did not succeed. Four years later, they were still experimenting on how to built a voice topic spotter.(89) They received a further research contract. One method CRIM proposed was NSA's N-gram technique.

Speaker identification and other voice message selection techniques
36. In 1993, CRIM also undertook to supply CSE with an operational speaker identification module by March 1995. Nothing more was said about this project, suggesting that the target may have been met. In the same year, according to NSA documents, the IDEAS company supplied a "Voice Activity Detector and Analyser", Model TE464375-1, to NSA's offices inside GCHQ Cheltenham. The unit formed the centre of a 14-position computer driven voice monitoring system. This too may have been an early speaker identification system.
37. In 1995, widely quoted reports suggested that NSA speaker identification had been used to help capture the drug cartel leader Pablo Escobar. The reports bore strong resemblance to a novel by Tom Clancy, suggesting that the story may have owed more to Hollywood than high tech. In 1997, the Canadian CRE awarded a contract to another researcher to develop "new retrieval algorithms for speech characteristics used for speaker identification", suggesting this method was not by then a fully mature technology. According to Sigint staff familiar with the current use of Dictionary, it can be programmed to search to identify particular speakers on telephone channels. But speaker identification is still not a particularly reliablr or effective Comint technique.(90)

38. In the absence of effective wordspotting or speaker identification techniques, NSA has sought alternative means of automatically analysing telephone communications. According NSA's classification guide, other techniques examined include Speech detection - detecting the presence or absence of speech activity; Speaker discrimination - techniques to distinguish between the speech of two or more speakers; and Readability estimation - techniques to determine the quality of speech signals. System descriptions must be classified "secret" if NSA "determines that they represent major advances over techniques known in the research community".(91)

"Workfactor reduction"; the subversion of cryptographic systems
39. From the 1940s to date, NSA has undermined the effectiveness of cryptographic systems made or used in Europe. The most important target of NSA activity was a prominent Swiss manufacturing company, Crypto AG. Crypto AG established a strong position as a supplier of code and cypher systems after the second world war. Many governments would not trust products offered for sale by major powers. In contrast, Swiss companies in this sector benefited from Switzerland's neutrality and image of integrity.
40. NSA arranged to rig encryption systems sold by Crypto AG, enabling UKUSA agencies to read the coded diplomatic and military traffic of more than 130 countries. NSA's covert intervention was arranged through the company's owner and founder Boris Hagelin, and involved periodic visits to Switzerland by US "consultants" working for NSA. One was Nora L MacKabee, a career NSA employee. A US newspaper obtained copies of confidential Crypto AG documents recording Ms Mackebee's attendance at discussion meetings in 1975 to design a new Crypto AG machine".(92)

41. The purpose of NSA's interventions were to ensure that while its coding systems should appear secure to other cryptologists, it was not secure. Each time a machine was used, its users would select a long numerical key, changed periodically. Naturally users wished to selected their own keys, unknown to NSA. If Crypto AG's machines were to appear strong to outside testers, then its coding system should work, and actually be strong. NSA's solution to this apparent condundrum was to design the machine so that it broadcast the key it was using to listeners. To prevent other listeners recognising what was happening, the key too had also to be sent in code - a different code, known only to NSA. Thus, every time NSA or GCHQ intercepted a message sent using these machines, they would first read their own coded part of the message, called the "hilfsinformationen" (help information field) and extract the key the target was using. They could then read the message itself as fast or even faster than the intended recipient(93)

42. The same technique was re-used in 1995, when NSA became concerned about cryptographic security systems being built into Internet and E-mail software by Microsoft, Netscape and Lotus. The companies agreed to adapt their software to reduce the level of security provided to users outside the United States. In the case of Lotus Notes, which includes a secure e-mail system, the built-in cryptographic system uses a 64 bit encryption key. This provides a medium level of security, which might at present only be broken by NSA in months or years.

43. Lotus built in an NSA "help information" trapdoor to its Notes system, as the Swedish government discovered to its embarrassment in 1997. By then, the system was in daily use for confidential mail by Swedish MPs, 15,000 tax agency staff and 400,000 to 500,000 citizens. Lotus Notes incorporates a "workfactor reduction field" (WRF) into all e-mails sent by non US users of the system. Like its predecessor the Crypto AG "help information field" this device reduces NSA's difficulty in reading European and other e-mail from an almost intractable problem to a few seconds work. The WRF broadcasts 24 of the 64 bits of the key used for each communication. The WRF is encoded, using a "public key" system which can only be read by NSA. Lotus, a subsidiary of IBM, admits this. The company told Svenska Dagbladet:

"The difference between the American Notes version and the export version lies in degrees of encryption. We deliver 64 bit keys to all customers, but 24 bits of those in the version that we deliver outside of the United States are deposited with the American government".(94)
44. Similar arrangements are built into all export versions of the web "browsers" manufactured by Microsoft and Netscape. Each uses a standard 128 bit key. In the export version, this key is not reduced in length. Instead, 88 bits of the key are broadcast with each message; 40 bits remain secret. It follows that almost every computer in Europe has, as a built-in standard feature, an NSA workfactor reduction system to enable NSA (alone) to break the user's code and read secure messages.
45. The use of powerful and effective encryption systems will increasingly restrict the ability of Comint agencies to process collected intelligence. "Moore's law" asserts that the cost of computational power halves every 18 months. This affects both the agencies and their targets. Cheap PCs can now efficiently perform complex mathematical calculations need for effective cryptography. In the absence of new discoveries in physics or mathematics Moore's law favours codemakers, not codebreakers.

Illustrations : D Campbell; US Air Force; IPTV Ltd; Stephen King; Charles V Pick; IPTV Ltd;
Jim Bamford, GCHQ; US Navy; KGB/Russian Security Service; D Campbell.

Glossary and definitions

ATM Asynchronous Transfer Mode; a high speed form of digital communications increasingly used for on the Internet
BND Bundesachrichtendienst; the foreign intelligence agency of the Federal Republic of Germany. Its functions include Sigint
CCITT Consultative Committee for International Telephony and Telegraphy; United Nations agency developing standards and protocols for telecommunications; part of the ITU; also known as ITU-T
CEPT Conference Europeene des Postes et des Telecommunications
CLID Calling Line Identification Data
Comint Comint Communications Intelligence
COMSAT (Civil or commercial) communications satellite; for military communications usage, the phraseology is commonly reversed, i.e., SATCOM.
CRIM CRIM Centre de Recherche Informatique de Montreal
CSDF CSDF Collected Signals Data Format; a term used only in Sigint
CSE CSE Communications Security Establishment, the Sigint agency of Canada
CSS CSS Central Security Service; the military component of NSA
DARPA DARPA Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (United States Department of Defense)
DGSE Directorate General de Securite Exteriere, the foreign intelligence agency of France. Its functions include Sigint
DSD DSD Defence Signals Directorate, the Sigint agency of the Commonwealth of Australia
DODJOCC DODJOCC Department of Defense Joint Operations Centre Chicksands
E1, E3 (etc) Standard for digital or TDM communications systems defined by the CEPT, and primarily used within Europe and outside North America
ENFOPOL EU designation for documents concerned with law enforcement matters/police
FAPSI Federalnoe Agenstvo Pravitelstvennoi Svyazi i Informatsii, the Federal Agency for Government Communications and Information of Russia. Its functions include Sigint
FBI FBI Federal Bureau of Investigation; the national law enforcement and counter-intelligence agency of the United States
FDF FDF Fast Data Finder
FDM FDM Frequency Division Multiplex; a form of multi-channel communications based on analogue signals
FISA FISA Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (United States)
FISINT FISINT Foreign Instrumentation Signals Intelligence, the third branch of Sigint
Gbps Gigabits per second
GCHQ GCHQ Government Communications Headquarters; the Sigint agency of the United Kingdom
GHz GigaHertz
Gisting Within Sigint, the analytical task of replacing a verbatim text with the sense or main points of a communication
HDLC HDLC High-level Data Link Control
HF HF High Frequency; frequencies from 3MHz to 30MHz
HMM HMM Hidden Markov Modelling, a technique widely used in speech recognition systems.
ILETS ILETS International Law Enforcement Telecommunications Seminar
Intelsat International Telecommunications Satellite
IOSA IOSA Interim Overhead Sigint Architecture
Iridium Satellite Personal Communications System involving 66 satellites in low earth orbit, providing global communications from mobile telephones
ISDN ISDN Integrated Services Data Network
ISP ISP Internet Service Provider
ITU ITU International Telecommunications Union
IUR IUR International User Requirements (for communications interception); IUR 1.0 was prepared by ILETS (qv) in 1994
IXP IXP Internet Exchange Point
LAN LAN Local Area Network
LES LEA Law Enforcement Agency (American usage)
Mbps Megabits per second
MHz MegaHertz
Microwave Radio signals with wavelengths of 10cm or shorter; frequencies above 1GHz
Modem Modem Device for sending data to and from (e.g.) a computer; a "modulator-demodulator)
MIME MIME Multipurpose Internet Message Extension; a systems used for sending computer files, images, documents and programs as "attachments" to an e-mail message
N-gram analysis A system for analysing textual documents; in this context, a system for matching a large group of documents to a smaller group embodying a topic of interest. The method depends on counting the frequency with which character groups of length N appear in each document; hence N-gram
NSA NSA National Security Agency, the Sigint agency of the United States
OCR Optical Character Recognition
PC Personal Computer
PCS Personal Communications Systems; the term includes mobile telephone systems, paging systems and future wide area radio data links for personal computers, etc
POP/ POP3 Post Office Program; a system used for receiving and holding e-mail
PTT Posts Telegraph and Telephone (Administration or Authority)
RAID Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks
SCI Sensitive Compartmented Intelligence; used to limit access to Comint information according to "compartments"
SCPC Single Channel Per Carrier; low capacity satellite communications system
SMTP Standard Mail Transport Protocol
Sigint Signals Intelligence
SONET Synchronous Optical Network
SMDS Switched Multi-Megabit Data Service
SMO Support for Military Operations
SPCS Satellite Personal Communications Systems
SRI Signal Related Information; a term used only in Sigint
STOA Science and Technology Assessments Office of the European Parliament; the body commissioning this report
T1,T3 (etc) Digital or TDM communications systems originally defined by the Bell telephone system in North America, and primarily used there
TCP/IP Terminal Control Protocol/Internet Protocol
TDM Time Division Muliplex; a form of multi-channel communications normally based on digital signals
Traffic analysis Within Sigint, a method of analysing and obtaining intelligence from messages without reference to their content; for example by studying the origin and destination of messages with a view to eliciting the relationship between sender and recipient, or groups thereof
UKUSA UK-USA agreement
VPN Virtual Private Network
VSAT Very Small Aperture Terminal; low capacity satellite communications system serving home and business users
WAN Wide Area Network
WRF Workfactor Reduction Field
WWW World Wide Web
X.25, V.21, V.34, V.90, V.100 (etc) are CCITT telecommunications standards

Notes
1.UKUSA refers to the 1947 United Kingdom - United States agreement on Signals intelligence. The nations of the UKUSA alliance are the United States (the "First Party"), United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand (the "Second Parties").
2."An appraisal of the Technologies of Political Control", Steve Wright, Omega Foundation, European Parliament (STOA), 6 January 1998.

3."They've got it taped", Duncan Campbell, New Statesman, 12 August 1988. "Secret Power : New Zealand's Role in the International Spy Network", Nicky Hager, Craig Potton Publishing, PO Box 555, Nelson, New Zealand, 1996.

4.National Security Council Intelligence Directive No 6, National Security Council of the United States, 17 February 1972 (first issued in 1952).

5.SIGINT is currently defined as consisting of COMINT, ELINT (electronic or non-communications intelligence and FISINT (Foreign Instrumentation Signals Intelligence).

6.Statement by Martin Brady, Director of DSD, 16 March 1999. To be broadcast on the Sunday Programme, Channel 9 TV (Australia), May 1999.

7."Farewell", despatch to all NSA staff, William Studeman, 8 April 1992. The two business areas to which Studeman referred were "increased global access" and "SMO" (support to military operations).

8.Federalnoe Agenstvo Pravitelstvennoi Svyazi i Informatsii, the (Russian) Federal Agency for Government Communications and Information. FAPSI's functions extend beyond Comint and include providing government and commercial communications systems.

9.Private communications from former NSA and GCHQ employees.

10.Sensitive Compartmented Intelligence.

11.See note 1.

12. Private communications from former GCHQ employees; the US Act is the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).

13. See note 6.

14. In 1919, US commercial cable companies attempted to resist British government demands for access to all cables sent overseas. Three cable companies testified to the US Senate about these practices in December 1920. In the same year, the British Government introduced legislation (the Official Secrets Act, 1920, section 4) providing access to all or any specified class of communications. The same power was recodified in 1985, providing lawful access for Comint purposes to all "external communications", defines as any communications which are sent from or received outside the UK (Interception of Communication Act 1984, Section 3(2)). Similar requirements on telecommunications operators are made in the laws of the other UKUSA countries. See also "Operation SHAMROCK", (section 3).

15."The Puzzle Palace", James Bamford, Houghton Mifflin, Boston, 1982, p331.

16.Personal communications from former NSA and GCHQ employees.

17."Dispatches : The Hill", transmitted by Channel 4 Television (UK), 6 October 1993. DODJOCC stood for Department of Defense Joint Operations Centre Chicksands.

18."The Justice Game", Geoffrey Robertson, Chapter 5, Chatto and Windus, London, 1998

19.Fink report to the House Committee on Government Operations, 1975, quoted in "NSA spies on the British government", New Statesman, 25 July 1980

20."Amerikanskiye sputniki radioelektronnoy razvedki na Geosynchronnykh orbitakh" ("American Geosynchronous SIGINT Satellites"), Major A Andronov, Zarubezhnoye Voyennoye Obozreniye, No.12, 1993, pps 37-43.

21."Space collection", in The US Intelligence Community (fourth edition), Jeffrey Richelson, Westview, Boulder, Colorado, 1999, pages 185-191.

22.See note 18.

23.Richelson, op cit.

24."UK Eyes Alpha", Mark Urban, Faber and Faber, London, 1996, pps 56-65.

25.Besides the stations mentioned, a major ground station whose targets formerly included Soviet COMSATs is at Misawa, Japan. Smaller ground stations are located at Cheltenham, England; Shoal Bay, Australia.

26."Sword and Shield : The Soviet Intelligence and Security Apparatus", Jeffrey Richelson, Ballinger, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1986.

27."Les Francais aussi ecountent leurs allies", Jean Guisnel, Le Point, 6 June 1998.

28.Intelligence (Paris), 93, 15 February 1999, p3.

29."Blind mans Bluff : the untold story of American submarine espionage", Sherry Sontag and Christopher Drew, Public Affairs, New York, 1998.

30.Ibid.

31.Ibid

32.A specimen of the IVY BELLS tapping equipment is held in the former KGB museum in Moscow. It was used on a cable running from Moscow to a nearby scientific and technical institution.

33.TCP/IP. TCP/IP stands for Terminal Control Protocol/Internet Protocol. IP is the basic network layer of the Internet.

34.GCHQ website at http://www.gchq.gov.uk/technol.html

35.Personal communication from DERA. A Terabyte is one thousand Gigabytes, i.e., 1012 bytes.

36.Personal communication from John Young.

37."Puzzle palace conducting internet surveillance", Wayne Madsen, Computer Fraud and Security Bulletin, June 1995.

38.Ibid.

39."More Naked Gun than Top Gun", Duncan Campbell, Guardian, 26 November 1997.

40."Spyworld", Mike Frost and Michel Gratton, Doubleday Canada, Toronto, 1994.

41.The National Security Agency and Fourth Amendment Rights, Hearings before the Select Committee to Study Government Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activitities, US Senate, Washington, 1976.

42.Letter from, Lt Gen Lew Allen, Director of NSA to US Attorney General Elliot Richardson, 4 October 1973; contained in the previous document.

43.Private communication.

44.World in Action, Granada TV.

45.This arrangements appears to be an attempt to comply with legal restrictions in the Interception of Communications Act 1985, which prohibit GCHQ from handling messages except those identified in government "certificates" which "describe the intercepted material which should be examined". The Act specifies that "so much of the intercepted material as is not certified by the certifi

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