Cryptography Reference
In-Depth Information
ex-employees of intelligence agencies. In his topic, he describes the structure
and top echelon of New Zealand's GCSB (which is even less known there than
the NSA is in Germany), including the layout of rooms in the headquarters and
a few interception stations. You actually get the impression that an intelligence
agency was spied out by use of intelligence-agency methods.
There was something about these issues in the media at regular intervals, and
an
EU Echelon Committee
had even been founded to especially deal with
commercial and industrial espionage (see further below). They had hardly any
doubt of the existence of this interception system, they even knew a couple of
technical possibilities, and they classified the role of cryptography as a 'defense
measure'. On the Web site to this topic, read
txt/policy
, which is a report by
Gerhard Schmid to the European Parliament on this issue, or the official report,
which is very detailed.
It has become clear meanwhile that even Echelon is just one of many activities
concentrated on global communications traffic. In mid-2006, for example, it
transpired that the NSA monitors the network traffic independently without the
assistance of the telecom groups: up to 16 servers in every interception unit
analyze data in the amount of up to 2 gigabytes per second. I spare myself the
details and sources, since there is plenty of material on these issues on the Net.
Furthermore, such reports will have been replaced by more spectacular ones by
the time this topic goes to print. Let's rather talk about the theory of how such
data volumes can be processed and what role cryptology plays or can play.
Stifling the Information Flood?
The most frequent response to my Echelon narration is this: 'Well, that can
only concern a very small part of messages; the NSA can't possibly replay or
evaluate everything.' This seems logical in view of the huge and continually
growing data traffic.
Sure, the rosy years when it was possible to control a large part of all messages
are over. But it would be dangerous to underestimate the technical possibili-
ties of intelligence agencies. The so-called STOA report entitled 'Interception
Capabilities 2000' of the EU gives a highly interesting insight. However, it is
140 Kb long and not easy to read. This is probably why it is not well known.
Much information contained in this chapter originates from this report.
Interception is comprised of two steps: one, wiretapping the data line; and
two, evaluating the data stream. As it happens, the technologies in both fields
are further advanced than is generally assumed. Figure 8.2 shows examples of
hardware used but long outdated.
