[nukkad] Echelon

[Bhavin Bhatt / PCS <>]

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This is taken from the news letter Word-of-the-Day from www.whatis.com.


> Echelon 
> 
> According to such sources as the American Civil Liberties Union
> (ACLU) and the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), Echelon is a
> secret U.S.-led global spy network that operates an automated system
> for the interception and relay of electronic communications.
> Monitored transmissions are said to include up to 3 billion
> communications daily, including all the telephone calls, e-mail
> messages, faxes, satellite transmissions, and Internet downloads of
> both public and private organizations and citizens worldwide. Led by
> the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA), Echelon is operated
> collaboratively by the intelligence agencies of the United States,
> the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand. The
> organization's name originated as the code name for the system
> component responsible for intercepting satellite communications. 
> Echelon collects information through an extensive system of radio
> antennae and satellites that monitor satellite communications and
> sniffer devices that collect Internet communications from data
> packets. Some sources claim that the organization employs underwater
> devices to tap into transcontinental fiber optic phone cables. 
> 
> According to the ACLU, Echelon gathers huge volumes of data
> indiscriminately, and then filters out useful information through
> artificial intelligence (AI) technology. The system is also said to
> involve voice recognition, language translation, and keyword
> searching to select messages to study in their entirety. In October
> 1999, an e-mail based hacktivism campaign urged message recipients to
> include likely Echelon keywords ("manifesto," "revolution," and "Bill
> Clinton," for example) in any communications they sent on "Jam
> Echelon Day," with the intention of overwhelming the system. Because
> of the clandestine nature of Echelon, however, it is difficult to
> gauge the success of the campaign: whether or not Jam Echelon Day was
> effective, the organization itself has nothing to say about it - or
> about anything else, for that matter. 
> 
> Although officials in both the United States and Britain have
> repeatedly denied the claims, the fact of Echelon's existence has
> been publicly admitted by the governments of both Australia and New
> Zealand. Although most people have no objection to some of Echelon's
> mandate (anti-terrorist surveillance, for example), many are made
> uneasy by claims that the organization practices economic espionage
> and monitors well-intentioned endeavors, such as Amnesty
> International. The Scientific and Technical Options Assessment
> program office (STOA) of the European Parliament recently
> commissioned two reports looking into Echelon. These reports found:
> that the organization exists; that it routinely intercepts both
> personal and business communications, in probable contravention of
> human rights; and that stringent encryption practices should be
> followed to protect against Echelon's transgressive invasions of
> privacy. 
> 
> 


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