Glimmerglass Intercepts Undersea Cable Traffic for Spy Agencies? | Hacker News Reader

Glimmerglass Intercepts Undersea Cable Traffic for Spy Agencies?

corpwatch.org

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Tapping undersea cables is accomplished with the USS Jimmy Carter, unless they've since built another one. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Jimmy_Carter_(SSN-23)

According to unnamed sources in media reports, the USS Jimmy Carter's cable tapping abilities aren't functional. See e.g. The Shadow Factory by James Bamford.

Interesting. I'm catching up on Bamford right now. I'll put The Shadow Factory on the list. As far as tapping the cables. I can't imagine tapping a cable is much of a challenge for any nation at shallow depths. Having an operational submarine makes it possible to do so at greater depths and with less risk of detection.

That's what they want you to think

as someone reliant on undersea cables for connectivity, there have been several suspicious/unexpected cable breaks that could have been used to install interception equipment over the years.

that is, if they even bother to install it on the cable itself and don't just force the endpoints to have their black boxes installed.

I wondered about those. According to some dude quoted in this[1] Wiki article, cuts are common. Note that I am not implying that the cuts weren't intentional. Cuts being a common occurrence gives good cover to someone who wants to install snooping equipment. Cutting a cable could also be a way to cause traffic to be routed, at least temporarily through a compromised route. What's more, everyone can play that game, it's cheap. Just pay some ship's pilot to drag his anchor perpendicular to the known route.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Asian_submarine_cable_dis...

Onshore equipment can mirror fiber optic cables without interrupting traffic.

the cables are owned by the companies that pay for them - like BT, AT&T, Level Three etc. sometimes they sell them, especially if they go bankrupt

tapping a fibre isn't easy, you need a special submarine for that. the U.S. did that in the 1970s to the soviets. but it is much easier if the companies give you direct access at the landing station, which appears to be the case for the NSA

A lot of cables are consortium cables (where the members are mainly telcos), too, especially earlier generation cables. I think that lowers the bar for monitoring to the minimum of any of the members.

If we can't sue the NSA, can we sue this provider directly. Looks like there is more than enough info publicly available to hold them accountable and they can't invoke the state secrets defense. Everyone whose data crosses those cables is a potential plaintiff.

As much as I'd like this to be true, I don't think it's the case.

There are both secret- and top-secret-level clearances for civilians, and are usually dealt with in conjunction to companies and labs providing products and services dealing with state secrets.

So who actually owns the cables in international waters?

And what's to stop multiple countries tapping the same fibre?

In international waters, you still own your boat; The cables are owned by the company who laid them, under the sovereignty of their country of charter, with provision to international law regarding telecommunications and maritime navigation.

The biggest thing stopping multiple countries from tapping the same fibers is signal strength; I imagine that it becomes obvious that you've got a 'leak' after just a few splices. The other thing is that few countries posess the technology to pull off an undersea cable tap; There's only one USS Jimmy Carter, and I don't think the US loans it out, and while I'm certain that China, Russia, and some of the major European states have their equivalents, I doubt the list is very long.

None of this matters in context of the article, of course; Glimmerglass's technology seems to mostly live on the ends of these cables, in the comms cabinets just onshore where the cables emerge. There, you can tap as much as you want, so long as you're the sovereign. They simply wave a national security letter or equivalent in the face of the telco, and they've got a rack next to the cables doing whatever it is they want to do.

Your questions, which I have no footing to answer, reminded me of this relevant Neal Stephenson work from 1996ish. Apologies if it's a repeat for you:

"Mother Earth Motherboard"

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/4.12/ffglass_pr.html

I hate the misuse of the term "data mining" that plagues these surveillance stories.

On the other hand, it's forgivable -- based on the plain meaning of the word "mining", it's often a better fit than the "predictive modeling/machine learning" meanings the term actually has.

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