Selector (secret service query)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Selectors are defined search criteria with which secret services pick up relevant information from data streams .

A selector can relate to metadata such as individual e-mail addresses, telephone numbers, keywords , URL , geographic coordinates , MAC addresses or the communication of an entire country. The entire message traffic from the intercepted data streams of a selector can be specifically intercepted and saved. The data streams come from the secret service tapping a deep-sea cable under the Atlantic (via which a large part of German overseas communication runs), internet hubs , satellite communication and telephone and online providers.

Selectors using the example of XKeyscore and PRISM

XKeyscore

Xkeyscore is a spy software the NSA . The authority itself explains: XKeyscore is a "system for using digital network intelligence / analysis structure". The Federal Intelligence Service (BND) and the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) should also use XKeyscore. The President of the BfV Hans-Georg Maaßen denied that his authority had access to the databases. He confirmed that the BfV was testing the software. However, no data would be collected for further processing. With the help of XKeyscore, the databases of the Five Eyes , the BND or other secret services can be searched for special selectors. The amount of data generated by the 2013 US surveillance alone was 29 petabytes per day.

  • XKeyscore presentation from 2008 (PDF; 27 MB)

  • Page 11: metadata processing

  • Page 12: plug-ins : email, HTTP , chat, phone numbers

  • Page 13: storage options

  • Page 16: Selector: PGP Usage in Iran

  • Page 19: Selector: Search for a German speaker in Pakistan

  • Page 23: selector: extracting information from intercepted documents

  • Page 24: Selector: All attackable machines in country "X"

  • Page 26: Selector: All intercepted documents with IAEA reference

PRISM

PRISM (US: [ ˈprɪzəm ]; GB: [ ˈprɪz (ə) m ]; German  Prisma ) is a program that has existed since 2005 and is classified as Top Secret for monitoring and evaluating electronic media and electronically stored data. It is managed by the NSA and, like the other sub-programs “Mainway”, “Marina” and “Nucleon”, belongs to the large-scale surveillance program “Stellar Wind”.

  • PRISM capabilities

  • Representation of global communications links, most of which run through the United States

  • Data collected from individual websites

  • Data streams and distribution of tasks in the course of processing a PRISM query

  • Internal designation of the program units for monitoring the various types of communication

  • Internal notation rules for the designation of a PRISM query

  • Search mask for queries to the PRISM database

  • Companies believed to be participating in PRISM and the date of their entry into the program

Other programs and systems for monitoring and analyzing selectors

In the course of the global surveillance and espionage affair , several programs and systems for surveillance and processing of selectors became known, u. a. PRISM , Boundless Informant , Tempora , XKeyscore , FAIRVIEW, Genie, Bullrun and CO-TRAVELER Analytics. ICREACH is used as the singular point of access for many ( meta ) data .

Selectors in Germany

Excerpt from an NSA presentation about XKeyscore and the collaboration with BND and BfV.

In Germany, the NSA and BND create such selector lists in the telecommunications office of the Federal Intelligence Service in Bad Aibling, Bavaria, or in the Dagger Complex near Griesheim . In the years 2002-2013 there were 690,000 telephone numbers and 7.8 million IP search terms, reports the research network of Süddeutscher Zeitung, NDR and WDR on April 30, 2015. According to Der Spiegel , the NSA monitors around on peak days such as January 7, 2013 60 million telephone connections in Germany from abroad. Of the 500 million data records originating from Germany each month that were generated as part of the entire monitoring activities, 180 million entries came from XKeyscore in December 2012 .

In May 2015 Zeit Online reported that the BND sent far more metadata to the NSA than was known. Of the 6.6 billion metadata that the BND intercepts every month, up to 1.3 billion metadata is passed on to the NSA. These are allegedly filtered on the basis of Article 10 legislation , but those responsible in the committee of inquiry admitted that the filters do not work properly. With the help of this BND metadata, the NSA and CIA create targets for combat drones , among other things , which are used by Ramstein Air Base in Ramstein-Miesenbach as an interface for planning and controlling operations against suspected terrorists in Africa and the Middle East .

Selectors in the BND-NSA affair (Operation Eikonal)

In Germany, from 2007 to 2013 the main tasks of the NSA were Strategic Mission J ( industrial espionage ) and Strategic Mission K (monitoring of political leaders).

About 459,000 of the 800,000 selectors were seen in the course of Operation Eikonal from 2004–2008 in Germany as violating fundamental rights or against German interests. Only 400 of the 459,000 selectors were rejected. These selectors were automatically assigned to the BND by the NSA over the course of ten years; several times a day a BND server connected to an NSA server and downloaded new selectors. The associated database is called VeraS , which stands for traffic analysis system. The knowledge gained was then passed on to the NSA. Der Spiegel reported on May 15, 2015 that over half of the 40,000 selectors that were found in March 2015 were also active, i.e. H. have actually been used to research government, business and other destinations in Europe.

Data center for analysis, storage and monitoring of selectors

Utah Data Center (USA, NSA)

"Utah Data Center" from the air (June 2014)

The Utah Data Center at Camp Williams in the city of Bluffdale (south of Salt Lake City , Utah ) is an American fusion center of the United States Intelligence Community , which has been operated by the United States Army Corps of Engineers for the National Security Agency (NSA ) and has been in operation since the end of 2013. Its official name is Intelligence Community Comprehensive National Cyber-Security Initiative Data Center.

Dagger Complex (Germany, NSA)

Dagger Complex

The so-called Dagger Complex [ ˈdægə (ɹ) kŏm'plĕks ] ( English "plant dagger") is a base of military intelligence services of the United States in Darmstadt on the border with Griesheim. According to the Spiegel , the spy software XKeyscore (XKS) will also be used in the Dagger Complex .

Telecommunications Office of the Federal Intelligence Service (Germany, NSA / BND)

Radomes of the telecommunications office of the Federal Intelligence Service (BND code name: Hortensie III, abbreviation: 3 D 30) currently in use (as of May 2015). Until 2004, these were part of the former Bad Aibling Station , a facility of the US secret service NSA as part of the global spy network " Echelon ".

The telecommunications center of the Federal Intelligence Service (internal names probably "Object Orion", "Seeland-Torfstich", "SIGAD US 987-LA" and "SIGAD US 987-LB") is an intelligence agency of the Federal Intelligence Service . In Bad Aibling there is a liaison office to the US secret service NSA (SUSLAG, Special US Liaison Activity Germany) and two transfer points, the Joint SIGINT Activity (JSA) and the Joint Analysis Center (JAC).

See also

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Secret Service Affair - Current Hour. In: wdr.de. May 19, 2014, accessed May 17, 2015 .
  2. ↑ cwe: wiretapping technology: the protection of the constitution tests NSA program . In: zeit.de . July 21, 2013. Archived from the original on August 2, 2013. Retrieved on August 2, 2013.
  3. ^ Konrad Lischka, Christian Stöcker: XKeyscore: How NSA surveillance works . In: Spiegel Online . July 31, 2013. Archived from the original on August 2, 2013. Retrieved on August 2, 2013.
  4. ↑ Glenn Greenwald: XKeyscore: NSA tool collects 'nearly everything a user does on the internet' ( en ) In: The Guardian . July 31, 2013. Archived from the original on March 20, 2014. Retrieved March 20, 2014.
  5. ↑ Chris Duckett: NSA hunger demands 29 petabytes of data a day . In: zdnet.com . August 12, 2013. Archived from the original on September 2, 2013. Retrieved October 24, 2013.
  6. ↑ The National Security Agency: Missions, Authorities, Oversight and Partnerships ( en , PDF; 117 kB) In: nsa.gov . National Security Agency. August 9, 2013. Archived from the original on December 9, 2014. Retrieved on May 10, 2015.
  7. ↑ GCCS 4.x Interoberability Certification Status ( en , PDF; 78 kB) In: jitc.fhu.disa.mil . October 24, 2005. Archived from the original on March 19, 2014. Retrieved on March 24, 2014.
  8. ↑ The standard: USA taps into computers of Internet companies . In: The Standard . June 7, 2013. Archived from the original on June 12, 2013. Retrieved March 24, 2014.
  9. ↑ Barton Gellman: US surveillance architecture includes collection of revealing Internet, phone metadata ( en ) In: The Washington Post . June 16, 2013. Archived from the original on June 20, 2013. Retrieved March 24, 2014.
  10. ↑ Photo Gallery: Data 'Made in Germany' Spiegel Online, August 5, 2013
  11. ↑ Georg Mascolo : Secret Service Affair - BND helped NSA spying on France and the EU Commission. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung . April 29, 2014, accessed May 16, 2015 .
  12. ↑ Laura Poitras, Marcel Rosenbach, Holger Stark: NSA monitors 500 million connections in Germany . In: Spiegel Online . June 30, 2013. Retrieved July 10, 2013.
  13. ↑ According to SPIEGEL, BND forwards massive amounts of metadata to the NSA . In: Spiegel Online . August 3, 2013. Retrieved May 14, 2015.
  14. ^ NSA affair: BND gives details about data transfer to NSA . In: FAZ . August 3, 2013. Retrieved May 14, 2015.
  15. ↑ syd: BND and BfV put an NSA Spähprogramm xkeyscore . In: Spiegel Online . July 20, 2013. Archived from the original on July 21, 2013. Retrieved July 21, 2013.
  16. ↑ Kai Biermann: BND espionage affair: BND delivers 1.3 billion metadata to NSA - every month . In: Zeit Online . May 12, 2015. Retrieved May 14, 2015.
  17. ↑ Kai Biermann: BND stores 220 million metadata every day . In: zeit.de . February 6, 2015. Retrieved May 14, 2015.
  18. ↑ United States SIGINT System January 2007 Strategic Mission List. (PDF; 2.0 MB) National Security Agency, January 8, 2007, accessed November 5, 2013 .
  19. ↑ SIGINT Mission Strategic Plan FY 2008–2013. (PDF; 2.7 MB) National Security Agency, October 3, 2007, accessed November 5, 2013 .
  20. ↑ Andre Meister: Internal document proves: BND and the Federal Chancellery knew about industrial espionage by the USA against Germany. In: netzpolitik.org. May 27, 2015, accessed May 27, 2015 .
  21. ^ Hubert Gude: BND affair: Further lists with explosive search terms emerged. In: Spiegel Online . May 21, 2015, accessed May 23, 2015 .
  22. ↑ Constanze Kurz , Frank Rieger: This is the only way to act who has to hide unpleasant things. In: FAZ.net . May 11, 2015, accessed May 17, 2015 .
  23. ↑ a b Kai Biermann, Patrick Beuth: Federal Intelligence Service: What are selectors? In: zeit.de . April 24, 2015, accessed May 17, 2015 .
  24. ^ Secret service affair : BND activates 25,000 NSA selectors. In: Spiegel Online . May 15, 2015, accessed May 16, 2015 .
  25. ↑ Carlos Lazo: Groundbreaking ceremony held for $ 1.2 billion Utah Data Center ( en ) In: spk.usace.army.mil . US Army Corps of Engineers. June 1, 2011. Archived from the original on January 9, 2014. Retrieved March 24, 2014.
  26. ^ Siobhan Gorman: Meltdowns Hobble NSA Data Center ( en ) In: The Wall Street Journal . October 7, 2013. Archived from the original on May 29, 2014. Retrieved on March 24, 2014.
  27. ↑ Steve Fidel: Utah's $ 1.5 billion cyber-security center under way ( en ) In: Desert News . January 6, 2011. Archived from the original on July 22, 2013. Retrieved July 22, 2013.
  28. ↑ Laura Poitras, Marcel Rosenbach, Holger Stark: Shrimps from Griesheim . In: Der Spiegel . No. 33 , 2013 ( online ).
  29. ↑ Süddeutsche Zeitung online accessed on May 3, 2015 and print edition Süddeutsche Zeitung , 2/3 May 2015, p. 6, The surveillance factory
  30. ↑ : Scouting affair leads to Bad Aibling . In: Oberbayerisches Volksblatt , August 5, 2013; Retrieved August 24, 2013.
  31. ^ NSA locations in Germany: Bad Aibling . Spiegel Online , June 18, 2014; Snowden's Germany files . In: Der Spiegel . No. 25 , 2014 ( online ).