NSA tapping undersea fibers?

[Steve Bellovin]

There's a long, fascinating article in the 23 May Wall Street Journal 
on how NSA is (allegedly) tapping undersea fiber optic cables.  It's 
not clear that this is feasible, but the article claims that the 
USS Jimmy Carter, a nuclear-powered sub, is undergoing a $1 billion, 
five-year retrofit to equip it to do the taps.  The article points out 
that even if they can tap the cable, there's another problem: making 
sense of that much data.

The article is at http://interactive.wsj.com/articles/SB990563785151302644.htm
for those who subscribe.


		--Steve Bellovin, http://www.research.att.com/~smb





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