latest Snowden docs show NSA intercepts all Google and Yahoo DC-to-DC traffic

Fri Nov 1 12:48:28 UTC 2013

Until you've heard an ex-NSA guy explain to you how this is done, with a
device the size of a brief-case, it can seem a little unbelievable.  I had
that conversation in the late '90s.

-----Original Message-----
From: Matthew Petach [mailto:mpetach at netflight.com] 
Sent: Thursday, October 31, 2013 8:27 PM
To: Jimmy Hess
Cc: NANOG
Subject: Re: latest Snowden docs show NSA intercepts all Google and Yahoo
DC-to-DC traffic

On Thu, Oct 31, 2013 at 5:53 PM, Jimmy Hess <mysidia at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Thu, Oct 31, 2013 at 7:24 PM, Matthew Petach
<mpetach at netflight.com>wrote:
>
>> On Thu, Oct 31, 2013 at 7:02 AM, Ray Soucy <rps at maine.edu> wrote:
>> > Was the unplanned L3 DF maintenance that took place on Tuesday a 
>> > frantic removal of taps? :-)
>>
> No need for intrusive techniques such as direct taps:
>>
>> http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/articleDetails.jsp?reload=true&arnumbe
>> r=1494884
>>
>
> For shame.... you've  sent in a link to some article behind a paywall, 
> with some insane download fee.
> Which is an equivalent of hand-waving.
>
> They must be hiding their content,  for fear that flaws be pointed out.
>

Oy...OK, let me find a document that spells it out a bit more clearly for
you.

>
>
> "Of all the techniques, the bent fiber tap is the most easily deployed 
> with
>> minimal risk of damage or detection. The paper quantifies the bend 
>> loss required to tap a signal propagating in a single mode fiber"
>>
>
> There will be some wavelengths of light, that may be on the cable, that
> bending won't get a useful signal from.
>
> Bending the cable sufficiently to  break  the total internal reflection
>  property,  and allow light to leak --  will generate power losses in the
> cable,  that can be identified  on an OTDR.
>

This patent covers a technique developed to do
non-intrusive optical tapping with a 0.5" microbend,
with only 0.5dB signal loss:

http://www.google.com/patents/CA2576969C

Most people aren't going to be able to tell a
0.5dB loss from a microbend tap from a splice
job.

Matt

>
>
>
>> Matt
>>
> --
> -JH
>