"The Spy Factory", NOVA, PBS, Feb 3/09

[axial]

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/spyfactory/about.html

-{ Quote: "In this program, an eye-opening documentary on the National Security Agency (NSA) by best-selling author James Bamford and Emmy Award-winning producer Scott Willis, NOVA exposes the ultra-secret intelligence agency's role in the failure to stop the 9/11 attacks and the subsequent eavesdropping program that listens in without warrant on millions of American citizens." }-

-{ Quote: "Three times the size of the CIA and far more secret, the NSA is comprised of top linguists, mathematicians, and technologists trained to decipher all kinds of communications—epitomizing the hidden world of high-tech, 21st-century surveillance. To show how this eavesdropping operates, NOVA follows the trail of just one typical e-mail sent from Asia to the U.S. Streaming as pulses of light into a fiber-optic cable, it travels across the Pacific Ocean, coming ashore in California, and finally reaching an AT&T facility in San Francisco, where the cable is split and the data sent to a secret NSA monitoring room on the floor below. This enables the NSA to intercept not only most Asian e-mail messages but also the entire U.S. internal Internet traffic." }-

[caspian]

I want to see this one. From what I understand, they sucked out all of te traffic and have it stored.

[dw426]

I'm pretty confident that what is shown on the program is a mere drop of water in an ocean compared to what they can truly do if the need arises. What folks need to understand, so they don't have a false sense of security, is that the "failure" was strictly bureaucratic and not technological. I won't go further than that, but it was not a lack of capability. Hopefully this program will open some eyes, or at least make people think.

[caspian]

-{ Quote: "I'm pretty confident that what is shown on the program is a mere drop of water in an ocean compared to what they can truly do if the need arises. ." }-

That's what I was thinking. And why would they let the public know about the latest and the greatest? But I bet it is still pretty interesting.

[dw426]

-{ Quote: "That's what I was thinking. And why would they let the public know about the latest and the greatest? But I bet it is still pretty interesting." }-

I'm sure it will be, but it will be a VERY tightly controlled program. Either that or filled with your normal conspiracy theory-spewing country bumpkins claiming abduction by men in black suits after they reported "funny stuff in that there field over yonder".....you KNOW the program will have at least one of them, lol. Otherwise why bother watching?

[LockBox]

I was just getting ready to post about this and was glad to see a thread already started. I watched it last night and it is a MUST-SEE. This is no thrown together program with country bumpkins, this is NOVA on PBS. You can now watch the entire show online at http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/spyfactory/program.html

Don't miss this one!

[dw426]

-{ Quote: "I was just getting ready to post about this and was glad to see a thread already started. I watched it last night and it is a MUST-SEE. This is no thrown together program with country bumpkins, this is NOVA on PBS. You can now watch the entire show online at http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/spyfactory/program.html

Don't miss this one!" }-

Oh sweet, thanks for the link!

[dw426]

An amazing program that should open eyes. Your privacy is of minimal concern. Just imagine the capabilities being worked on now and will be worked on long after this program is forgotten. It's "heads out of sand" time.

[JB007]

Thanks for the link. The thing that I wonder though is that if they have the ability to do this kind of "monitoring" then is the security options (VPN) purchased by the average joe going to be effective at all, or even heighten their level of suspicion of your activities online? ???

[dw426]

-{ Quote: "Thanks for the link. The thing that I wonder though is that if they have the ability to do this kind of "monitoring" then is the security options (VPN) purchased by the average joe going to be effective at all, or even heighten their level of suspicion of your activities online? ???" }-

IMHO, whether they can break through VPNs or not (I believe they can if they truly need to), going through one would be like walking through a department store dressed as a clown. Someone WILL wonder just why you've encrypted everything.

[LockBox]

-{ Quote: "IMHO, whether they can break through VPNs or not (I believe they can if they truly need to), going through one would be like walking through a department store dressed as a clown. Someone WILL wonder just why you've encrypted everything." }-

The thing is, VPN's are now recommended in so many different magazines, news shows, blogs, etc for security when using WiFi at a hot spot. It's no longer looked on with suspicion because the "experts" are telling everyone they should use a VPN to protect their identity and financial information when using WiFi.

[dw426]

-{ Quote: "The thing is, VPN's are now recommended in so many different magazines, news shows, blogs, etc for security when using WiFi at a hot spot. It's no longer looked on with suspicion because the "experts" are telling everyone they should use a VPN to protect their identity and financial information when using WiFi." }-

Which greatly increases both good and bad guys finding more ways to break into them. That's the thing about security, the more people use a certain method to keep secure, the greater the incentive there is to get around it. We see it every day here, the bad guys never stop learning. There will come a time when VPNs are childs play to a hacker. It may not be that time yet, but it will come. As far as the NSA is concerned, well, those billions of dollars aren't used for horse races, they know a LOT more than we ever will.

[the Tester]

Thanks for the heads up, I'm going to watch the program.:thumb:

[Searching_ _ _]

I was excited to hear about a piece on the least understood agency in the US whose technology is 20 years ahead of the public, or more. As it turned out, my expectations of the possibilities were deflated in this political shell game, finger pointing expose. Instead of capabilities it showcased a lack of capabilities with a highlight of an inter agency war for dominance of intelligence. Watching the show I didn't see any failure of any agency, but a failure in leadership of those agencies.
For what it's worth, it was interesting to see the facet they allowed us to see, even though it was outside my technological expectations.

[dw426]

-{ Quote: "I was excited to hear about a piece on the least understood agency in the US whose technology is 20 years ahead of the public, or more. As it turned out, my expectations of the possibilities were deflated in this political shell game, finger pointing expose. Instead of capabilities it showcased a lack of capabilities with a highlight of an inter agency war for dominance of intelligence. Watching the show I didn't see any failure of any agency, but a failure in leadership of those agencies.
For what it's worth, it was interesting to see the facet they allowed us to see, even though it was outside my technological expectations." }-

I think this was meant to be more of a "this is what happens when red tape gets in the way" program than it was meant to detail any technological aspects of the agency. My gut feeling is that the "real story" of their present capability will not be showing up on any PBS special anytime soon. Besides, it's not the technology that is important, it is who/what that technology is used for and against. And, I believe we saw in that program a small part of the answer.

[lotuseclat79]

An interesting program to say the least.

When and if quantum entanglement is broken through, however, no cryptology will be enough to keep them from knowing what the content of the encrypted message is. OTOH, the best way to hide is out in the open as one of the crowd. And, from the looks of it, they may be able to collect everthing that travels on the Internet, but where do they put it all, and how do they filter it. In their business, the only thing that matters are actionable threats against the security of the U.S. Nothing else really matters. Our digital lives are safely tucked away for future generations of electronic archaeologists to discover who we were and what we did.

-- Tom