Hardly a firm today can afford not to engage in electronic commerce if it does not want to be swept out of business by competitors. "Information is everything" has become something like the Lord's prayer of the New Economy. But how do you get information about your customer online? Who are the people who visit a website, where do they come from, what are they looking for? How much money do they have, what might they want to buy? These are key questions for a company doing electronic business. Obviously not all of this information can be obtained by monitoring the online behaviour of web users, but there are always little gimmicks that, when combined with common tracking technologies, can help to get more detailed information about a potential customer. These are usually online registration forms, either required for entry to a site, or competitions, sometimes a combination of the two. Obviously, if you want to win that weekend trip to New York, you want to provide your contact details.
The most common way of obtaining information about a user online is a
But cookies record enough information to fine-tune advertising strategies according to a user's preferences and interests, e.g. by displaying certain commercial banners rather than others. For example, if a user is found to respond to a banner of a particular kind, he / she may find two of them at the next visit. Customizing the offers on a website to the particular user is part of one-to-one marketing, a type of
One-to-one marketing can create very different realities that undermine traditional concepts of demand and supply. The ideal is a "frictionless market", where the differential between demand and supply is progressively eliminated. If a market is considered a structure within which demand / supply differentials are negotiated, this amounts to the abolition of the established notion of the nature of a market. Demand and supply converge, desire and it fulfilment coincide. In the end, there is profit without labour. However, such a structure is a hermetic structure of unfreedom.
It can only function when payment is substituted by credit, and the exploitation of work power by the exploitation of data. In fact, in modern economies there is great pressure to increase spending on credit. Using credit cards and taking up loans generates a lot of data around a person's economic behaviour, while at the same restricting the scope of social activity and increasing dependence. On the global level, the consequences of credit spirals can be observed in many of the developing countries that have had to abandon most of their political autonomy. As the data body economy advances, this is also the fate of people in western societies when they are structurally driven into credit spending. It shows that data bodies are not politically neutral.
The interrelation between data, profit and unfreedom is frequently overlooked by citizens and customers. Any company in a modern economy will apply data collecting strategies for profit, with dependence and unfreedom as a "secondary effect". The hunger for data has made IT companies eager to profit from e-business rather resourceful. "Getting to know the customer" - this is a catchphrase that is heard frequently, and which suggests that there are no limits to what a company may want to about a customer. In large online shops, such as
But there are more advanced and effective ways of identification. The German company
Bu there are much less friendly ways of extracting data from a user and feeding the data body. Less friendly means: these methods monitor users in situations where the latter are likely not to want to be monitored. Monitoring therefore takes place in a concealed manner. One of these monitoring methods are so-called
Bugs monitoring users have also been packaged in seemingly harmless toys made available on the Internet. For example,
The cursor image technology relies on what is called a GUID (global unique identifier). This is an identification number which is assigned to a customer at the time of registration, or when downloading a product. Many among the online community were alarmed when in 1999 it was discovered that
However, in the meantime, another possible infringement on user anonymity by Microsoft was discovered, when it as found out that MS Office documents, such as Word, Excel or Powerpoint, contain a bug that is capable of tracking the documents as they are sent through the net. The bug sends information about the user who opens the document back to the originating server. A document that contains the bug can be tracked across the globe, through thousands of stopovers. In detailed description of the bug and how it works can be found at the
Of course there are many other ways of collecting users' data and creating appropriating data bodies which can then be used for economic purposes. Indeed, as Bill Gates commented, "information is the lifeblood of business". The electronic information networks are becoming the new frontier of capitalism.
TEXTBLOCK 1/22 // URL: http://world-information.org/wio/infostructure/100437611761/100438659686
Personal data are collected, appropriated, processed and used for commercial purposes on a global scale. In order for such a global system to operate smoothly, there a server nodes at which the data streams converge. Among the foremost of these are the data bases of credit card companies, whose operation has long depended on global networking.
On top of credit card companies such as Visa, American Express, Master Card, and others. It would be erroneous to believe that the primary purpose of business of these companies is the provision of credit, and the facilitation of credit information for sale transactions. In fact, Information means much more than just credit information. In an advertisement of 1982, American Express described itself in these terms: ""Our product is information ...Information that charges airline tickets, hotel rooms, dining out, the newest fashions ...information that grows money funds buys and sells equities ...information that pays life insurance annuities ...information that schedules entertainment on cable television and electronically guards houses ...information that changes kroners into guilders and figures tax rates in Bermuda ..."
Information has become something like the gospel of the New Economy, a doctrine of salvation - the life blood of society, as Bill Gates expresses it. But behind information there are always data that need to be generated and collected. Because of the critical importance of data to the economy, their possession amounts to power and their loss can cause tremendous damage. The data industry therefore locates its data warehouses behind fortifications that bar physical or electronic access. Such structures are somewhat like a digital reconstruction of the medieval fortress
Large amounts of data are concentrated in fortress-like structures, in data bunkers. As the
TEXTBLOCK 2/22 // URL: http://world-information.org/wio/infostructure/100437611761/100438659754
During the Kosovo Crisis and during the war that followed, and probably also after it, all sides of the conflict were manipulating their people and others as well, whenever they could. Some of the propaganda shown on TV was as primitive as in World War II, others were subtler. This propaganda started by telling the history of the geographic point of discussion from the own point of view, it went on with the interpretation of the motives of the enemy and finally came to censorship, manipulation of the number of victims ( for more information see:
Many journalists and scientists are still working to detect more propaganda and disinformation stories.
An interesting detail about this war was that more people than ever before took their information about the war out of the internet. In part this had to do with the biased TV-reports on all sides. All parties put their ideas and perspectives in the net, so one could get an overview of the different thoughts and types of disinformation.
One of the big lies of
The Serbs were not better than Western governments and media, which worked together closely. Serb TV showed the bombed targets and compared persons like
More:
TEXTBLOCK 3/22 // URL: http://world-information.org/wio/infostructure/100437611661/100438658714
By the end of our century a new method of disinformation is gaining importance: disinformation by an overflow of information.
In the Gulf War, similar to the Vietnam War, journalists had little chance to report neutrally and correctly from the battlefields. Many times they staid in places far from the actual fightings - due to censorship.
In many ways the so-called video-war reminded of a series of commercials. No wonder, the Gulf War was the first war to have a commercial advertisement agency to do the war-propaganda for the USA. They worked hard in preventing the government from a destiny like the one of the Vietnam War, when the war most of all was lost in the American homes because of anti-war propaganda.
In an interview,
And this is true for both sides:
the baby milk plant:
Western bombs had destroyed a chemical weapon factory - that's what they claimed.
(
the life guard:
In December 1990, the French newspaper Nouvel Observateur published the story of Karim Abdallah al-Jabouri, Saddam Hussein's Life Guard who had fled from Iraq right after Iraq's invasion in Kuwait. Soon afterwards he was in a French TV-show, where he told atrocity stories about
the baby-incubator-story of Najirah
On the 10th of October 1991 a young refugee, called Najirah, from Kuwait spoke in front of the U.S.-congress. With a lot of tears she told that she had been working in a Kuwaiti hospital, when Iraqi soldiers came in, tore the babies out of the incubators and let them die on the floor. The pictures of this declaration went around the world and were one of the reasons why the U.S.-population wanted an intervention. In 1992 the journalist R. MacArthur was able to proof that the presented witness had been the daughter of the Kuwait-ambassador in the USA and that she had not been in that hospital or in Kuwait at the mentioned time.
By then the war was over and the manipulation of the population had taken place long ago.
For reading about the U.S.-propaganda tools during that war, like surrender passes, balloons, fake banknotes, threats and many more visit:
TEXTBLOCK 4/22 // URL: http://world-information.org/wio/infostructure/100437611661/100438658741
Many years ago, the German philosopher
The "third industrial revolution" is characterized by men becoming the "raw material" of their own industries. Product and producer, production and consumption, technology and nature are no longer meaningful pairs of opposites. The third is also the last revolution, as it is difficult to think of further revolutions when the distinction between subject and object becomes blurred. The world is becoming a Bestand and the human body and mind are no protected zones. They are something like the last safety zone of human being which is now itself becoming a basis for technological innovation. When the subject is weakened by its technical environment, the use of technical crooks for body and mind becomes an obvious "solution", even if the technically strengthened subject is strengthened at the cost of no longer being a "subject" in the traditional, metaphysical sense. Biological processes are dissected and subjected to technical control. This technical control is technical in two senses: it is not only control through technology but by ttechnology itsself, since it is not carried out by unaided human minds, but increasingly by intelligent machines.
The point where this Andersian third industrial revolution reaches an unprecedented logic seems to lie within the realm of genetic engeneering. This example shows that the dissection of humanness - the decoding of genetic information - is tantamount to commodification. The purpose of the commercial genetic research projects is the use of genetic information as a resource for the development of new products, e.g. in pharmaceutics. Genetic products carry the promise of offering a solution to so-far uncurable diseases such as cancer, Alzeheimer, heart disorders, schizophrenia, and others, but they also open up the possibility of "breaking the chains of evolution", of actively manipulating the genetic structure of human beings and of "designing" healthy, long-living, beautiful, hard-working etc. beings. Here, the homo creator and the homo materia finally become indistinguishable and we are being to merge with our products in such a way that it "we" loses the remains of its meaning.
Since 1990 research on human genetics is organised in the
But exactly this patentising is of paramount importance in the emerging "post-industrial" society where knowledge becomes the most important resource. A patent is nothing else than a property title to a piece of "know-how", and an necessary consequence commodification. When life no longer simply a natural creation but a product, it, too, will be patented and becomes a commodity.
Against the idea of the human genome as a public good, or an "open source", there is a growing competion on the part of private industry. Companies such as
But the commodification of life is not limited ot the human species. Genetically altered animals and plants are also suffering the same fate, and in most industrialised nations it is now possible to patent genetically engeneered species and crops. The promises of the "Green Revolution" of the 1960s are now repeated in the genetic revolution. Genetic engeneering, so it is argued, will be able to breed animals and plants which resist disease and yield more "food" and will therfore help to tackle problems of undernutrition and starvation. Companies such as
TEXTBLOCK 5/22 // URL: http://world-information.org/wio/infostructure/100437611777/100438658827
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:
TEXTBLOCK 6/22 // URL: http://world-information.org/wio/infostructure/100437611776/100438659057
150
A
The Roman smoke signals network consisted of towers within a visible range of each other and had a total length of about 4500 kilometers. It was used for military signaling.
For a similar telegraph network in ancient Greece see
About 750
In Japan block printing is used for the first time.
868
In China the world's first dated book, the Diamond Sutra, is printed.
1041-1048
In China moveable types made from clay are invented.
1088
The first of the great medieval universities was established in Bologna. At the beginning universities predominantly offered a kind of do-it-yourself publishing service.
Books still had to be copied by hand and were so rare that a copy of a widely desired book qualified for being invited to a university. Holding a lecture equaled to reading a book aloud, like a priest read from the Bible during services. Attending a lecture equaled to copy a lecture word by word, so that you had your own copy of a book, thus enabling you to hold a lecture, too.
For further details see History of the Idea of a University,
TEXTBLOCK 7/22 // URL: http://world-information.org/wio/infostructure/100437611796/100438659702
"The multiple human needs and desires that demand privacy
among two or more people in the midst of social life must
inevitably lead to cryptology wherever men thrive
and wherever they write."
David Kahn, The Codebreakers
In the age of the vitreous man, whose data are not only collected by different institutions but kept under disclosure, out of reach, uncontrollable and unmanageable for the individual, privacy obtains new importance, receives a much higher value again.
The irony behind is that those who long for cryptography in order to preserve more privacy actually have to trust the same people who first created the methods to "produce" something like that vitreous man; of course not the same individual but persons of the same area of science. It is the reign of experts.
So far about self-determination.
for a rather aesthetic view on privacy and cryptography see:
TEXTBLOCK 8/22 // URL: http://world-information.org/wio/infostructure/100437611776/100438658809
Ciphers as well as codes are transmitted openly. Everyone can see that they exist. Not so with steganograms.
Steganography is the art and science of communicating in a way which hides the existence of the secret part in that communication. During the Italian Renaissance and the time of the Elizabethan Age in England cryptography was very popular, for political reasons as well as for amusements (see John Dee).
In literature steganography played an important role. Many steganographs of that period have only been deciphered recently like some of the Shakespearean sonnets, which now seem to proof that the actor William Shakespeare was not the author of the famous poems and dramas, but that the latter' name was, and Francis Bacon, or even Francis Tudor, as some ciphers and other sources talk of him as Queen Elisabeth I.'s secret son.
for further details see:
One kind of steganogram is digital watermarking:
Watermarks protect digital images, videos, but also audio and multimedia products. They are made out of digital signals, put into other digital signals. They try to be invisible on first sight and should be nearly impossible to remove. The process of producing watermarks is to overlay some sort of identifying image over the original image (non-digital watermarks, like on money can be seen by holding the paper against light). Copying the image destroys the watermark, which cannot be copied. Any alteration of the original destroys the watermark, too.
Watermarking is one of the typical inventions of cryptography to assist the biggest content owners, but advertised as something necessary and helpful for everybody. Who in fact gets any advantage out of watermarking? The private user most of the time will not really need it except for small entities of pictures maybe.
But the big enterprises do. There is a tendency to watermark more and more information in the Internet, which until now was considered as free and as a cheap method to receive information. Watermarking could stop this democratic development.
for further information see:
TEXTBLOCK 9/22 // URL: http://world-information.org/wio/infostructure/100437611776/100438659021
2000
Digital technologies are used to combine previously separated communication and media systems such as telephony, audiovisual technologies and computing to new services and technologies, thus forming extensions of existing communication systems and resulting in fundamentally new communication systems. This is what is meant by today's new buzzwords "multimedia" and "convergence".
Classical dichotomies as the one of computing and telephony and traditional categorizations no longer apply, because these new services no longer fit traditional categories.
Convergence and Regulatory Institutions
Digital technology permits the integration of telecommunications with computing and audiovisual technologies. New services that extend existing communication systems emerge. The convergence of communication and media systems corresponds to a convergence of corporations. Recently,
For further information on this issue see Natascha Just and Michael Latzer, The European Policy Response to Convergence with Special Consideration of Competition Policy and Market Power Control, http://www.soe.oeaw.ac.at/workpap.htm or
TEXTBLOCK 10/22 // URL: http://world-information.org/wio/infostructure/100437611796/100438659802
"All nature is merely a cipher and a secret writing."
Blaise de Vigenère
In the (dis-)information age getting information but at the same time excluding others from it is part of a power-game (keeping the other uneducated). The reason for it eventually has found an argument called security.
Compared to the frequency of its presence in articles, the news and political speeches security seems to be one of the most popular words of the 90's. It must be a long time ago when that word was only used for and by the military and the police. Today one can find it as part of every political issue. Even development assistance and nutrition programs consider it part of its work.
The so-called but also real need for information security is widespread and concerning everybody, whether someone uses information technology or not. In any case information about individuals is moving globally; mostly sensitive information like about bank records, insurance and medical data, credit card transactions, and much much more. Any kind of personal or business communication, including telephone conversations, fax messages, and of course e-mail is concerned. Not to forget further financial transactions and business information. Almost every aspect of modern life is affected.
We want to communicate with everybody - but do not want anybody to know.
Whereas the market already depends on the electronic flow of information and the digital tools get faster and more sophisticated all the time, the rise of privacy and security concerns have to be stated as well.
With the increase of digital communication its vulnerability is increasing just as fast. And there exist two (or three) elements competing and giving the term digital security a rather drastic bitter taste: this is on the one hand the growing possibility for criminals to use modern technology not only to hide their source and work secretly but also to manipulate financial and other transfers. On the other hand there are the governments of many states telling the population that they need access to any kind of data to keep control against those criminals. And finally there are those people, living between enlightening security gaps and at the same time harming other private people's actions with their work: computer hackers.
While the potential of global information is regarded as endless, it is those elements that reduce it.
There is no definite solution, but at least some tools have been developed to improve the situation: cryptography, the freedom to encode those data that one does not want to be known by everybody, and give a possibility to decode them to those who shall know the data.
During the last 80 years cryptography has changed from a mere political into a private, economic but still political tool: at the same time it was necessary to improve the tools, eventually based on mathematics. Hence generally cryptography is regarded as something very complicated. And in many ways this is true as the modern ways of enciphering are all about mathematics.
"Crypto is not mathematics, but crypto can be highly mathematical, crypto can use mathematics, but good crypto can be done without a great reliance on complex mathematics." (W.T. Shaw)
For an introduction into cryptography and the mathematical tasks see:
TEXTBLOCK 11/22 // URL: http://world-information.org/wio/infostructure/100437611776/100438658895
Each definition of the Internet is a simplified statement and runs the risk of being outdated within a short time. What is usually referred to as the Internet is a network of thousands of computer networks (so called autonomous systems) run by governmental authorities, companies, and universities, etc. Generally speaking, every time a user connects to a computer networks, a new Internet is created. Technically speaking, the Internet is a
What constitutes the Internet is constantly changing. Certainly the state of the future Net will be different to the present one. Some years ago the Internet could still be described as a network of computer networks using a common communication protocol, the so-called
Also, the Internet is not solely constituted by computers connected to other computers, because there are also point-of-sale terminals, cameras, robots, telescopes, cellular phones, TV sets and and an assortment of other hardware components that are connected to the Internet.
At the core of the Internet are so-called
Since these networks are often privately owned, any description of the Internet as a public network is not an accurate. It is easier to say what the Internet is not than to say what it is. On 24 October, 1995 the U.S.
What is generally and in a simplyfiying manner called the Internet, may be better referred to as the Matrix, a term introduced by science fiction writer
Strictly speaking, the Matrix is not a medium; it is a platform for resources: for media and services. The Matrix is mainly a very powerful means for making information easily accessible worldwide, for sending and receiving messages, videos, texts and audio files, for transferring funds and trading securities, for sharing resources, for collecting weather condition data, for
For a comprehensive view of uses of the Matrix, especially the World Wide Web, see "
TEXTBLOCK 12/22 // URL: http://world-information.org/wio/infostructure/100437611791/100438659889
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
TEXTBLOCK 13/22 // URL: http://world-information.org/wio/infostructure/100437611791/100438658384
1713
In 1714 Henry Mill got granted a patent for his idea of an "artificial machine or method" for forgery-proof writing. Still it was not before 1808 that the first typewriter proven to have worked was built by Pellegrino Turri for his visually impaired friend, the Countess Carolina Fantoni da Fivizzono. The commercial production of typewriters began in 1873.
For a brief history of typewriters see Richard Polt, The Classic Typewriter Page,
1727
Searching for the Balduinist fluorescenting phosphor (Balduinischer Leuchtphosphor), an artificial fluorescent, Johann Heinrich Schulze realized the first photocopies, but did not put them into practical use.
The first optical photocopier was not patented before 1843, when William Henry Fox Talbot got granted a patent for his magnifying apparatus.
In 1847 Frederick Collier Bakewell developed a procedure for telecopying, a forerunner of the fax machine. Yet it was not before 1902 that images could be transmitted. Almost 200 years after Schulze's discovery, for the first time photo telegraphy was offered as a telecommunication service in Germany in 1922.
1794
Claude Chappe built a fixed optical network between Paris and Lille. Covering a distance of about 240kms, it consisted of fifteen towers with semaphores.
Because the communication system was designed for practical military use, the transmitted messages were encoded. The messages were kept such a secret that even those who transmit them from tower to tower did not capture their meaning; they transmitted codes they did not understand. Depending on weather conditions, messages could be sent at a speed of 2880 kms/hr at best.
Forerunners of Chappe's optical network are the
For more information on early communication networks see
TEXTBLOCK 14/22 // URL: http://world-information.org/wio/infostructure/100437611796/100438659771
1971 IBM's work on the Lucifer cipher and the work of the NSA lead to the U.S. Data Encryption Standard (=
1976
1977/78 the
1984 Congress passes Comprehensive Crime Control Act
- The Hacker Quarterly is founded
1986 Computer Fraud and Abuse Act is passed in the USA
- Electronic Communications Privacy Act
1987 Chicago prosecutors found Computer Fraud and Abuse Task Force
1988 U.S. Secret Service covertly videotapes a hacker convention
1989 NuPrometheus League distributes Apple Computer software
1990 -
- Charles H. Bennett and Gilles Brassard publish their work on Quantum Cryptography
- Martin Luther King Day Crash strikes AT&T long-distance network nationwide
1991
- one of the first conferences for Computers, Freedom and Privacy takes place in San Francisco
- AT&T phone crash; New York City and various airports get affected
1993 the U.S. government announces to introduce the
1994
- the
1990s work on quantum computer and quantum cryptography
- work on biometrics for authentication (finger prints, the iris, smells, etc.)
1996 France liberates its cryptography law: one now can use cryptography if registered
- OECD issues Cryptography Policy Guidelines; a paper calling for encryption exports-standards and unrestricted access to encryption products
1997 April European Commission issues Electronic Commerce Initiative, in favor of strong encryption
1997 June PGP 5.0 Freeware widely available for non-commercial use
1997 June 56-bit DES code cracked by a network of 14,000 computers
1997 August U.S. judge assesses encryption export regulations as violation of the First Amendment
1998 February foundation of Americans for Computer Privacy, a broad coalition in opposition to the U.S. cryptography policy
1998 March
1998 April NSA issues a report about the risks of key recovery systems
1998 July
1998 October Finnish government agrees to unrestricted export of strong encryption
1999 January RSA Data Security, establishes worldwide distribution of encryption product outside the USA
- National Institute of Standards and Technologies announces that 56-bit
- 56-bit DES code is cracked in 22 hours and 15 minutes
1999 May 27 United Kingdom speaks out against key recovery
1999 Sept: the USA announce to stop the restriction of cryptography-exports
2000 as the German government wants to elaborate a cryptography-law, different organizations start a campaign against that law
- computer hackers do no longer only visit websites and change little details there but cause breakdowns of entire systems, producing big economic losses
for further information about the history of cryptography see:
for information about hacker's history see:
TEXTBLOCK 15/22 // URL: http://world-information.org/wio/infostructure/100437611776/100438658960
1455
Gutenberg's printing press was an innovative aggregation of inventions known for centuries before Gutenberg: the olive oil press, oil-based ink, block-print technology, and movable types allowed the mass production of the movable type used to reproduce a page of text and enormously increased the production rate. During the Middle Ages it took monks at least a year to make a handwritten copy of a book. Gutenberg could print about 300 sheets per day. Because parchment was too costly for mass production - for the production of one copy of a medieval book often a whole flock of sheep was used - it was substituted by cheap paper made from recycled clothing of the massive number of deads caused by the Great Plague.
Within forty-five years, in 1500, ten million copies were available for a few hundred thousand literate people. Because individuals could examine a range of opinions now, the printed Bible - especially after having been translated into German by Martin Luther - and increasing literacy added to the subversion of clerical authorities. The interest in books grew with the rise of vernacular, non-Latin literary texts, beginning with Dante's Divine Comedy, the first literary text written in Italian.
Among others the improvement of the distribution and production of books as well as increased literacy made the development of print mass media possible.
Michael Giesecke (Sinnenwandel Sprachwandel Kulturwandel. Studien zur Vorgeschichte der Informationsgesellschaft, Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1992) has shown that due to a division of labor among authors, printers and typesetters Gutenberg's invention increasingly led to a standardization of - written and unwritten - language in form of orthography, grammar and signs. To communicate one's ideas became linked to the use of a code, and reading became a kind of rite of passage, an important step towards independency in a human's life.
With the growing linkage of knowledge to reading and learning, the history of knowledge becomes the history of reading, of reading dependent on chance and circumstance.
For further details see:
Martin Warnke, Text und Technik,
Bruce Jones, Manuscripts, Books, and Maps: The Printing Press and a Changing World,
TEXTBLOCK 16/22 // URL: http://world-information.org/wio/infostructure/100437611796/100438659777
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.
TEXTBLOCK 17/22 // URL: http://world-information.org/wio/infostructure/100437611746/100438659499
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.
TEXTBLOCK 18/22 // URL: http://world-information.org/wio/infostructure/100437611746/100438658902
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
TEXTBLOCK 19/22 // URL: http://world-information.org/wio/infostructure/100437611746/100438659471
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 <
TEXTBLOCK 20/22 // URL: http://world-information.org/wio/infostructure/100437611746/100438658785
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:
TEXTBLOCK 21/22 // URL: http://world-information.org/wio/infostructure/100437611746/100438659248
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
TEXTBLOCK 22/22 // URL: http://world-information.org/wio/infostructure/100437611791/100438658352