Purpose: KARMA POLICE is a mass surveillance programme that collects web-browsing habits from “every visible user on the Internet”. It is used to create profiles that show the web browsing histories of people who browse the Internet unencrypted (e.g. without the use of Virtual Private Network or services such as…
Purpose: PRISM is an NSA programme that exploits data collected by the FBI’s Data Intercept Technology Unit (DITU) from nine major US corporations including Facebook, Google and Apple. There is no single PRISM database. Rather, when the data arrives at the NSA, it is sorted and distributed to the following…
Purpose: XKEYSCORE is an NSA search and analysis system for data collected by other surveillance programmes. The system is described by Snowden as a search engine that provides a “one-stop shop” for access to content, metadata and real-time tracking and monitoring of user activities (COU01). Access to XKEYSCORE is shared…
Purpose: MUSCULAR is a joint GCHQ and NSA programme that collects data travelling between internal data centres owned by Google and Yahoo. It achieves this by accessing the cables through which the companies’ internal network traffic passes. The programme is used to collect emails, documents, pictures, search queries and other…
Purpose: OPTIC NERVE is a GCHQ programme that collects still images of Yahoo webcam chats in bulk and saves them to agency databases, whether or not an individual is an intelligence target (GUA01). The programme uses automated facial recognition technology to match existing targets and to discover potential new targets….
Purpose: QUANTUM THEORY is a programme that capitalises on vulnerabilities within applications and networks using a number of hacking techniques. It includes a variety of sub-programmes such as [ELE01, INT02]: QUANTUMBOT – IRC botnet hijacking QUANTUMBISQUIT – targets that are behind large proxies QUANTUMCOOKIE – forces cookies onto target browsers…
Purpose: BULLRUN is an NSA programme aimed at decrypting encrypted network traffic [GUA01]. Decryption capabilities include inserting vulnerabilities into commercial encryption tools and IT systems, collaboration with other intelligence agencies, and “advanced mathematical techniques” [NYT01, GUA02]. The programme has the ability to decrypt data flowing through major communications provides and…
Purpose: ANT is a division of the NSA that provides software and hardware surveillance products to members of the ‘Five Eyes’ alliance, including the NSA and GCHQ. The ANT catalogue is a 50-page classified document from 2008 listing available technology, with summaries of hardware and software surveillance in eleven areas,…
Purpose: FASCIA is the US National Security Agency’s (NSA) data storage and analyse programme focused on mobile phone location metadata. Approximately 5 billion records per day are collected [WAH01]. The programme exploits the SS7 (Signaling System No. 7) data exchange protocol, which links mobile network providers together. Two kinds of…
Purpose: SKYNET is a behaviour profiling programme that attempts to identify “interesting travel patterns”, including how often a person travels and to where [SKYNET-02, Slide13]. Specifically, the programme aims to identify “courier-like travel patterns” [SKYNET-02, Slide20]. It achieves this by analysing mobile phone metadata that reveals both location and communication…
