http://www.privacydigest.com/2007/08/29/inside+dcsnet+fbis+nationwide+eavesdropping+network
August 29, 2007 - 4:16am — MacRonin
Inside DCSNet, the FBI's Nationwide Eavesdropping
Network: The $10 million DCS-3000 client, also
known as Red Hook, handles pen-registers and
trap-and-traces, a type of surveillance that
collects signaling information -- primarily the
numbers dialed from a telephone -- but no
communications content. (Pen registers record
outgoing calls; trap-and-traces record incoming calls.)
DCS-6000, known as Digital Storm, captures and
collects the content of phone calls and text messages for full wiretap orders.
A third, classified system, called DCS-5000, is
used for wiretaps targeting spies or terrorists.
What DCSNet Can Do
Together, the surveillance systems let FBI agents
play back recordings even as they are being
captured (like TiVo), create master wiretap
files, send digital recordings to translators,
track the rough location of targets in real time
using cell-tower information, and even stream
intercepts outward to mobile surveillance vans.
FBI wiretapping rooms in field offices and
undercover locations around the country are
connected through a private, encrypted backbone
that is separated from the internet. Sprint runs it on the government's behalf.
The network allows an FBI agent in New York, for
example, to remotely set up a wiretap on a cell
phone based in Sacramento, California, and
immediately learn the phone's location, then
begin receiving conversations, text messages and
voicemail pass codes in New York. With a few
keystrokes, the agent can route the recordings to
language specialists for translation.
The numbers dialed are automatically sent to FBI
analysts trained to interpret phone-call
patterns, and are transferred nightly, by
external storage devices, to the bureau's
Telephone Application Database, where they're
subjected to a type of data mining called link analysis.
FBI endpoints on DCSNet have swelled over the
years, from 20 "central monitoring plants" at the
program's inception, to 57 in 2005, according to
undated pages in the released documents. By 2002,
those endpoints connected to more than 350 switches.
Today, most carriers maintain their own central
hub, called a "mediation switch," that's
networked to all the individual switches owned by
that carrier, according to the FBI. The FBI's DCS
software links to those mediation switches over
the internet, likely using an encrypted VPN. Some
carriers run the mediation switch themselves,
while others pay companies like VeriSign to
handle the whole wiretapping process for them.
(Read Original Article - Via WIRED .)
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Received on Sat Mar 02 2024 - 00:57:23 CST