A glimpse of SIGINT 20 years ago...

[Perry E. Metzger]

This is a couple of weeks old, but it appears that, by accident, a lot
of information on the targets and methods being used for
US/Australian/NZ SIGINT about 20 years ago has come to light as the
result of the release of a late New Zealand Prime Minister's papers.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/print/0,1478,3540743a6005,00.html

Among other things:

   The report lists the Tangimoana station's targets in 1985-86 as
   "French South Pacific civil, naval and military; French Antarctic
   civil; Vietnamese diplomatic; North Korean diplomatic; Egyptian
   diplomatic; Soviet merchant and scientific research shipping; Soviet
   Antarctic civil. Soviet fisheries; Argentine naval; Non-Soviet
   Antarctic civil; East German diplomatic; Japanese diplomatic;
   Philippine diplomatic; South African Armed Forces; Laotian diplomatic
   (and) UN diplomatic."

   The station intercepted 165,174 messages from these targets, "an
   increase of approximately 37,000 on the 84/85 figure. Reporting on the
   Soviet target increased by 20% on the previous year".

Hat tip to Bruce Schneier's blog for reminding me about it.

-- 
Perry E. Metzger		perry at piermont.com

---------------------------------------------------------------------
The Cryptography Mailing List
Unsubscribe by sending "unsubscribe cryptography" to majordomo at metzdowd.com