Dishfire

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Dishfire is a covert surveillance system and database operated by the American secret service NSA and the British secret service GCHQ . Around 200 million text messages around the world are collected and analyzed every day . According to media reports, the data is collected independently of suspicion and relates primarily to personal data, financial transactions and GPS data.

Details

The existence of the database was revealed in 2014 based on documents from whistleblower Edward Snowden . The documents indicate that the British secret service GCHQ also has access to the database. While no data is collected from US citizens as it is prohibited by law, the situation is different for UK citizens. The British secret service can access the data of British citizens because it is not they but the NSA that collects and manages the data.

Monitoring statistics

Every day the Dishfire project collects the following data:

  • Location data derived from more than 76,000 SMS and other travel information.
  • Over 110,000 names and personal data obtained from electronic business cards.
  • Over 800,000 financial transactions collected in the messages either via text-to-text transactions or credit card information.
  • Details of 1.6 million border crossings caused by text messages with roaming information from the mobile phone providers.
  • Over 5 million text messages with messages of missed calls.
  • In about 200 million private text messages

The present database has data from several months and years, which makes it possible to analyze people over a long period of time. GCHQ employees have been told internally that they can find data from previously unsupervised individuals and thus have the opportunity to analyze extensive information on newly found suspects.

Data processing

The data processing is done with the analysis tool Prefer. The individual data are linked to the associated metadata in order to understand the context of the messages more quickly and to enable better analysis. The meta-data has been designated as "analytical treasures" which are to be "exploited". They allow you to make connections between people and incorporate location information into the messages.

gallery

  • Secret presentation showing information about Dishfire

  • Around 200 million text messages are fed into the system every day

  • A diagram showing how the data is fed into the system and processed

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Mark Mardell: Report: NSA 'collected 200m texts per day' ( English ) In: British Broadcasting Corporation . January 17, 2014. Archived from the original on March 23, 2014. Retrieved on March 23, 2014.
  2. ↑ Geoff White: Revealed: UK and US spied on text messages of Brits ( English ) In: Channel4 . January 17, 2014. Archived from the original on March 23, 2014. Retrieved on March 23, 2014.
  3. ↑ a b c d e James Ball: NSA collects millions of text messages daily in 'untargeted' global sweep ( English ) In: The Guardian . January 16, 2014. Archived from the original on March 23, 2014. Retrieved on March 23, 2014.
  4. ^ A b Heise: NSA scandal: Dishfire program exploits the "Goldmine SMS" ( German ) In: Heise . January 17, 2014. Archived from the original on June 17, 2014. Retrieved June 17, 2014.
  5. ↑ Zeit Online: NSA accessed millions of SMS every day ( German ) In: Zeit Online . January 16, 2014. Archived from the original on June 16, 2014. Retrieved June 17, 2014.