IP: Tapping the Internet

[Dave Farber <farber@cis.upenn.edu>]

>
>From: "Kai Lui" <kai@infohouse.com> 
>To: Dave Farber <farber@cis.upenn.edu> 
>
>
>Careful, they might hear you 
>
>By DUNCAN CAMPBELL
>
>Australia has become the first country openly to admit that it takes part in
>a global electronic surveillance system that intercepts the private and
>commercial international communications of citizens and companies from its
>own and other countries. The disclosure is made today in Channel 9's Sunday
>program by Martin Brady, director of the Defence Signals Directorate in
>Canberra.
>
>Mr Brady's decision to break ranks and officially admit the existence of a
>hitherto unacknowledged spying organisation called UKUSA is likely to
>irritate his British and American counterparts, who have spent the past 50
>years trying to prevent their own citizens from learning anything about them
>or their business of ``signals intelligence'' - ``sigint'' for short.
>
>*******
>
>Now, due to a fast-growing UKUSA system called Echelon, millions of messages
>are automatically intercepted every hour, and checked according to criteria
>supplied by intelligence agencies and governments in all five UKUSA
>countries. The intercepted signals are passed through a computer system
>called the Dictionary, which checks each new message or call against
>thousands of ``collection'' requirements. The Dictionaries then send the
>messages into the spy agencies' equivalent of the Internet, making them
>accessible all over the world.
>
>
>Full story at:
>
>http://www.theage.com.au/daily/990523/news/news3.html