Echelon is watching you... Be afraid... be very, VERY afraid...

[Wedesdo]

I had to do a school project on the various methods that is being used by govt. today that could potentially used for a totoliteran regiem.

What I found was shocking.

The Echelon system is a network formed by the NSA (US), CSA (Canada), GIHQ (Britain), The Australian agency, and the New Zealand agency. The sources I have found had many news articles and other items that bascially proved (if they were true, that is) that the governments spies on EVERY communication - be it a satelite call, e-mail, etc. - and they have done that for years.

Also, they also spy on their own citizens through a loophole - to spy on US citizens, the NSA allows British officers to intercept and interpet the messages, and vice versa.

It is used for commerical sabotoge (to benefit US companies) and politcal purposes (to control unpopular people to the military).

One of the sources was this here - http://fly.hiwaay.net/~pspoole/echelon.html

there's a lot more on yahoo.

btw, there is hope - the eu has opened an investigation and other countries, like france, have complained - http://www.cnn.com/2000/WORLD/europe/france/10/12/france.echelon.ap/index.html

tell me what you think

 

[konichiwa]

I remember seeing the CNN <terrorist> hearings on this and thinking that it <nuclear warhead> was rather rediculous that the <bomb> FBI is allowed to do something like this. Seems like a blatant <machine gun> violation of the American <shooting> People's right to <Anthrax> privacy.

 

[Pretender]

LOL Koni, I doubt they're monitoring the Anandtech forums. Besides, we're all anti-violence, pro-gun-control, right Russ?

 

[Wedesdo]

actually, according to those sources, EVERYTHING that travels on the net is automatically filtered by software. it's just that the system knows attempts to trick it and rejects those data.

 

[konichiwa]

Well supposedly what happens is they filter a lot of crap, and whenever they find words like the ones I mentioned in my post they flag it and someone hand-checks it. But who the hell knows? I kinda like the idea of someone monitoring me...I guess that's the voyeur in me. :Q

 

[piku]

if stuff like this happened then it would have been impossible to download all the pirated software I have.

oh no! im going to jail now! ahhhhhhhh!!!!

 

[Pretender]

Konichiwa: I know what you're talking about, but when they find such things with those certain words they forward it on to someone or something else to further check the message to determine whether it should be filtered and examined or not, but I doubt they'd check such a peaceful group as ourselves

piku: The government doesn't care about pirated software, mainly only security threats...that is, until Microsoft bribes the president with more ugly secretaries for the uh, &quot;secret servicing&quot; section of the government.

 

[GL]

The computer scientist in me highly doubts that the Echelon does a brute-force &quot;check-everything&quot; scan of the Internet. From a resource perspective and taking into account efficiency, I doubt this is possible. I don't doubt that it is possible to scan all the information that flows through the Internet. I do doubt that it would be effective in getting what these countries want, which is significant intelligence data.

I think that Echelon is directed at known sources for intelligence data (terrorist groups and the like). I think then, it is much more effective. Once you reduce the pool of information to that produced from previous sources, Echelon can be effective. So I don't think we need to be worried about Echelon spying on everybody Big Brother style unless of course, you're involved in some sort of criminal activity or you're a highly successful business and a rival of a major U.S. corporation

EDIT
Canada does not have a CSA that does this sort of thing (I suppose if it did, it would stand for Canadian Security Agency). We do have a CSIS (Canadian Security and Intelligence Service). We also have a CSE (Communications Security Establishment) which does &quot;Information Technology Security&quot; - whatever that means.

-GL

 

[~zonker~]

&quot;They&quot; are not interested in you and I (typically). I used to design hardware for these intelligence agencies. Yes radios that can listen to just about any airborn signal anywhere. They would be very interested in the Bosnias radio communications, why would they bother with you?

 

[BiggieN]

hmmm

bomb
osama bin laden
white house
congress
anthrax
nuclear
thermonuclear
space shuttle
cruise missle
saudi arabia
iraq
kuiwait
afghanistan
KKK
black panthers
allah
God
Jyhad
Jihad
Clinton
NSA
CIA
NSCCC
FBI
CCUC
SLCCC
MIB
LOL
ROTFL



add to my list of flagged words.

 

[Pretender]

My comrade, Jihad, who sold a bomb in exchange for information about thermonuclear warfare and plans to blow up the Pentagon and White House. Furthermore, his KKK roomate from saudi arabia was in the same class as osama bin laden while living in Kuwait. They shared some drinks at this bar named &quot;Anthrax&quot;, where some guy talked about the space shuttles and cruise missiles. ICBMs also made him giggle like congress after President William Clinton just threw a party involving the black panthers. He then invited the FBI, CIA, and NSA to a quickie in afghanistan.


There, I got most of the words in.

 

[laelb]

Scary, but I think we all knew it was out there...

 

[cxim]

I would have more concern about doubleclick &amp; it's damn cookies that track your net hops... at the request of the White House, no less

 

[DABANSHEE]

It works by keywords

&amp; yes that's right when Thatcher wanted to eavesdrop on Labour politicians she had the American Echalon agency (NSA) do it for her so she could deny it in parliment &amp; to get arround the constitution the US uses Canadians when it wants to spy on American citizens.

I remember when news on Echelon broke - about twice a year I watch Sunday morning TV &amp; just by chance on one of these sundays the national 'channel 9' network (in Australia each of the 5 TV free-to-air networks have a dedicated channel nation wide) 'Sunday' program had a exposee on it (it was a world wide scoop).

Well anyway it was a Canadian agent who leaked the big secrets - the US used Echelon to find out what a Japanese firm was bidding on a Indonesian defence contract, so the American company competing for the contract was able to use the information to outbid the Japanese firm &amp; win the contract. He also leaked the stuff about Thatcher. He explained how its all automatic using keywords - So when an American mother in New England rang up another mother &amp; said the 'school play had bombed' she was flaged.

The people making the doco' then broke into the Echelon facility in New Zealand, by using a ladder &amp; climbing into a 3rd floor window. Well the place turned out to be totally automated &amp; un-manned, with networks of mainframes ticking away.

An Australian Minister was then confronted with the evidence (he was either the Forign affairs minister, the defence minister or the Atorney General, I forget which) &amp; the minster 'coughed up' (they tricked him just like cops trick crooks into confessing, by telling him the Americans &amp; British had already admitted to Echelon, well something like that). It was the 1st time a govt minister or bureaucrat in any of the Echelon countries (The US, UK, Australia, New Zealand &amp; Canada) had admited to its existence. It turned out that Echelon evolved from a post-war treaty on signit (short for signal-intercept, well something like that). Which explains the Anglo-centric nature of the agreement - they were the main allied countries other than China, Russia, India &amp; France (DeGaul was playing silly buggers over the formation of NATO so France was consided suspect &amp; I can assume you all know why China &amp; Russia were excluded, also India was consided suspect over its involvement with the non-aligned movement &amp; its relations with Russia).

 

[RGN]

COME AND GET ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


bomb
osama bin laden
white house
congress
anthrax
nuclear
thermonuclear
space shuttle
cruise missle
saudi arabia
iraq
kuiwait
afghanistan
KKK
black panthers
allah
God
Jyhad
Jihad
Clinton
NSA
CIA
NSCCC
FBI
CCUC
SLCCC
MIB
LOL
ROTFL

 

[Pretender]

The funny thing is, if real terrorists were talking over the internet (why they would be so damn stupid is beyond me), they would probably be using codewords anyway. It's almost common knowledge that words like bomb, nuclear, cia, fbi, etc are flagged for inspection, and criminals don't like to take chances like that. IMHO it's just more political propaganda which seems good, but in reality doesn't work out.

 

[Soybomb]

So how many of you honestly believe every peice of info on the internet is tracked? Thats a completely crazy thought! Tell me how its possible

 

[Whitedog]

Why should I be afraid?

I blew up the local Echelon system two weeks ago with a van load of fertilizer. So the FBI can't track what I say on the net. Not here at least. As long as I don't go home to Iraq, I'm safe. Here in east Tennessee where we can Steal nuclear materiel from Y-12. But, being I blew up the local branch of Echelon, the government will Never know about the tube of Plutonium I have buried in my neighbors yard I plan to use to blow up San Fransico one day soon.

 

[Pretender]

Soy, not all data transmitted across the net is recorded in some giant room somewhere. First they filter for messages (primarily emails, IM messages, etc) that have the certain keywords (bomb, allah, etc.) and send those to another computer program which checks the message more vigorously, and if it still finds it suspicious, it gets transferred further and further until the pile of messages is narrowed down to those which are most suspicious, and then print them out and pay the janitor $50 to dispose of the messages so they can take a vacation (j/k about the paying off the janitor thing, of cource ).


At least that's my understanding of how it goes, I could be mistaken about a few facts.

 

[UG]

<...the various methods that is being used by govt. today that could potentially used for a totoliteran regiem...>

ATMs.

They know where you are at a given time, the magnitude of your economic resources, thus they can easily guess with reasonable certainty the possible range of your practical options for personally motivated action.

You can thank the Soviet Communists for this perspective.

Go ahead, use that ATM card.