Is The Government Actually Listening To Our Phone Calls & Storing Chunks Of Our Personnel Data?

Its been posted everywhere recently that the american government has been basically breaching our privacy since the 1930's. Listening in to our phone calls and storing huge chunks of data. Also someone informed me that there are basic holes in the internet where data is just lost, so for example you send an email whether it has attachments such as files doesn't really matter but, when you send it for some reason it does not appear in the recipients inbox, yet you've sent him the email. I was informed that these 'black holes' were put in place by the american government to gather small bits of info from everyone. When you realize how much data there is getting passed about on the internet (millions of terabytes per millisecond) it makes me wonder how much information they have stored up.

I was wondering what other peoples views were on this and if they could anything onto how big this actually is

a reply to: ConF7

Yes, they are spying on US citizens

Yes, it's a huge program

It's called PRISM

Is this thread for real?
nsa.gov1.info...

Utah Data Center Background The Utah Data Center, code-named Bumblehive, is the first Intelligence Community Comprehensive National Cyber-security Initiative (IC CNCI) data center designed to support the Intelligence Community's efforts to monitor, strengthen and protect the nation. Our Utah "mission data repository" is designed to cope with the vast increases in digital data that have accompanied the rise of the global network. NSA is the executive agent for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) and is the lead agency at the center. The 1.5 billion-dollar one million square-foot Bluffdale / Camp Williams LEED Silver facility houses a 100,000 sq-ft mission critical Tier III data center. The remaining 900,000 SF is used for technical support and administrative space. Our massive twenty building complex also includes water treatment facilities, chiller plants, electric substation, fire pump house, warehouse, vehicle inspection facility, visitor control center, and sixty diesel-fueled emergency standby generators and fuel facility for a 3-day 100% power backup capability.

yep it's been going on for a while.
what is the exact use of it is up to anyone's guess.
for sure it's not just a matter of fighting the non existing terrorists.
america got attacked once and the government is keeping that fear alive still in 2015...finally giving russia a break i guess.
I think the amount of data being collected is inflated, collecting EVERYTHING from everyone would require equipment and costs beyond reason, especially considered the minimal output they get.
i don't think "everyone is being spied on" constantly, i imagine it more like a sort of radio scanner:
After they pick up some key words or just intel from traditional methods they place you on a monitoring list, then they set the scanner to "your" frequency and pick up all the data.
that might make it's scope smaller, but certainly not better, because we have no idea of knowing what will make them tune into your frequency.
using Tor?
buying a hazmat suit?
suggesting politicians be arrested for war crimes?

It's not so much that the spying is going on, it's that we are not allowed to know what the parameters for the search are.

a reply to: ConF7

Sublimecraft summed it up nicely. All those security holes you mention, and the historical element to the data theft issue are obsolete now. The way things are done today, information is literally bled out of the cables it travels through, rather than having to be hacked, back doored, or otherwise targeted. They take everything, and the whole of the net, every transaction, communication, every word you type, every file you send is accessible. This post, this thread, it is a known value the moment it is sent through those cables.

They have direct physical access to the hardware which carries the data, and by so having reduce their need to use hacking techniques to collect data. The US government are in cahoots with the UK government, as well as other members of the Five Eyes (look it up). To avoid domestic spying laws, my governments intelligence agencies, through GCHQ, use their infrastructure to spy on US data, and the US intelligence agencies through the NSA use theirs to spy on UK data. Both organisations then pass that data to their opposite numbers, meaning that on a technicality, no domestic spying can be directly proven.

These exchanges occur between all of the Five Eyes agencies, and between them they have access to the entire global data verse. Not a single bit of data passes without some degree of oversight or awareness on their part.

All in the name of freedom from oppression.

a reply to: ConF7

Not sure if they could do it since 1930s

Didn't technology for real surveillance start in the 60s and on

So be careful what porn you watch!

You already have the answer by asking the question.
It is yes.

a reply to: ScrewGmail

There was a thread going round saying from the 30's and he had some really good evidence to back it up. I just made this thread to find out some more info on it buddy

a reply to: ConF7

Understand that every word you whisper, every syllable spoken, every keystroke is recorded. You have zero privacy...not even when you flush.

Welcome to the reality of now. Strap in, the plunge is a doozy.

a reply to: ConF7

If you think what the U.S gets up to pertaining to spying on its own population is somewhat overintrusive it nothing compared to the United Kingdom and the tools at the disposal of G.C.H.Q.

a reply to: ScrewGmail

Actually, spying of one sort or another has been going on for a very long time indeed. In the days of myth, sword, and legend, a king or queens court would often have an infiltrator, as would the house staff of many of the noble houses. Instead of tapping wires, they would earwig conversations through keyholes, or by hiding themselves in access spaces behind walls or pictures, in order to spy upon visiting dignitaries and the resident nobleman or woman themselves.

Kingdoms and fiefdoms would have networks of spies, with agents all over the land, in the domains of rival kings, barons, lords and ladies...there was a great deal of backstabbing throughout the early history of England as we know it today, most notably during the reign of Elizabeth I.

However, spying tactics, many of them familiar to modern spies in some ways, were being used as long ago as to be contemporaneous with the first recorded dynasties to gain power in China, and those tactics of infiltration, deception, and assassination, and even tools like rudimentary encryption keys, would have been familiar to the operatives involved even then.

However, the most important trick in any spymasters book, was in keeping tabs on one individual, even if that individual was understandably paranoid about their safety and privacy. This was the heart of the most basic principles of surveillance, where it all really began. They had to know where their target was, what information they had, and what information they were receiving, and what relevance that information had to the individual, and any other individual they might be acquainted with. Due to the practice of using secrecy protection ciphers, spymasters would have to not only get at the hard copy of the communications sent from one party, to another, but also get a hold of the encryption key which would allow them to decipher the messages being sent.

As a result, getting cryptographers of skill to work out a cipher, was a must for any besieged or surveilled individual. All that has really changed these days, is the number of people being spied on, and the number of people doing the spying. Surveillance of one sort or another is not a new thing. But surveillance of regular people, along side suspicious parties, and in such quantities as is relevant to today's world? That IS a relatively new thing. Even during the Second World War, there was not nearly so much of that going on around these parts, as there is today!

While I have no doubts that government would try this...I have but one question for all of y'all:

Where are they storing all that data?

Please put some real thought into this question...It seems to me that IF all this were true, the world's hard drive manufacturers wouldn't be able to keep up with the demand.

After all, we ARE talking unimagined terabytes per second...where does it all go?

a reply to: tanka418

Its stored in the multiple server farms located throughout our respective nations at various locations known or otherwise for around 30 days while being scrutinized by bot like programs which flag pertinent information which is then passed along to a human operator/technician should the need arise.

originally posted by: andy06shake
a reply to: tanka418

Its stored in the multiple server farms located throughout our respective nations at various locations known or otherwise for around 30 days while being scrutinized by bot like programs which flag pertinent information which is then passed along to a human operator/technician should the need arise.

Ya know...I did request that you actually put some thought into this...

So...how much storage is there?

At the rate of 1000's of terabytes per second...you would run out of storage in only a few short hours...there is not physically enough storage on the planet to store 30 days worth of virtually any data acquired in a scope such as this.

I tend to think of my telescope as "storage hungry" and am slightly "stressing" over "how" I will accommodate a mere 10 terabytes over a year...in this "spying" on everyone thing...we would be talking several megabytes per second per person...in the US that would be across some 350,000 people...that's over 3,000 terabytes per second...or about 9e21 (9 ^21)...for just the US. That seems to be on the order of some billions of hard drives...

Y'all should at least try to do the math! Storing that kind and amount of data quite simply isn't possible...yet.

a reply to: ConF7

And they can activate your webcam, mics in all devices, phone....and with power lights Off, listen in your house, car etc, and watch what's going on in your space...and you'll never know.

Tape over your webcams and microphones when not in use.

There are a lot of threads here at ATS on the ways they do these amazingly clandestine things....

MS

a reply to: tanka418

Maybe it's being stored on DNA or Holographic drives?

Do you have access to SAP's or similar technologies?

originally posted by: tanka418
Y'all should at least try to do the math! Storing that kind and amount of data quite simply isn't possible...yet.

How much data will a 1.5 billion dollar data center hold? It's been claimed to have a yottabyte capacity which the NSA won't confirm or deny, they say it's classified:

nsa.gov1.info...

In February 2012, Utah Governor Gary R. Herbert revealed that the Utah Data Center would be the "first facility in the world expected to gather and house a yottabyte". Since then, conflicting media reports have also estimated our storage capacity in terms of zettabytes and exabytes. While the actual capacity is classified for NATIONAL SECURITY REASONS, we can say this: The Utah Data Center was built with future expansion in mind and the ultimate capacity will definitely be "alottabytes"!

The steady rise in available computer power and the development of novel computer platforms will enable us to easily turn the huge volume of incoming data into an asset to be exploited, for the good of the nation.

My guess is they sort though a lot of data initially, then decide what to keep in storage based on that initial sift. That's what this diagram from the NSA shows, with only some of the processed data ending up in the "Data Warehouse", but the UTAH data center will apparently process a lot more than goes into the "data warehouse" if I'm reading that schematic right. You can even see twitter feeds showing random samples of the raw data they are collecting:

nsa.gov1.info...

The PRISM program is our #1 source of raw intelligence and consists of data extracted from the servers of nine major American internet companies. In the spirit of openness and transparency, we have embedded the Twitter feed from the NSA_PRISMbot which periodically posts random samples of PRISM collection data.

Tweets by @NSA_PRISMbot

Here are some of the tweets I just captured from that twitter link:

I'm not sure what that last one means by "***FLAG***", but I'd guess that means it will be going in the "Data Warehouse". Yes? No?

a reply to: IShotMyLastMuse

what is the exact use of it is up to anyone's guess.

Maybe someone, someday will gather the whole lot up together, put in onto a single super-duper storage device the size of a postage stamp and shoot it off towards our nearest Earth-like exoplanet as a calling card to introduce ourselves.

I doubt we'd get a reply back, not because there's no life..but if you'd just been handed the total sum of all Human 20th / 21st century communications and the majority of the rubbish we do online, would you want to get involved with us?

a reply to: MysterX
well, depends on how bad the aliens have it, we like to picture them as enlightened but what if they are way worse than us and say "hey this place looks slightly less stupid, let's go there on vacation!"