On how the NSA can be generations ahead
Tyler Durden
camera_lumina at hotmail.com
Sun Aug 1 14:23:24 PDT 2004
Well, there's no doubt that what Variola says is basically correct.
But it doesn't exactly apply to the specific situation I was referring to,
which was whether something "inconspicuous" might be slipped into a CO
unbeknownst to the rank-and-file (ie, the CO manager would probably receive
some kind of order saying there'd be a special installation one day..."just
leave those guys alone and don't worry about the little box they're putting
in...it just measures traffic is all"). But the kind of iron that would be
needed to unpackage and then pull out and record pretty much "everything"
would still be a huge, power-hungry beast with mutliple racks and cards. Why
do I say this? Well...
When I spoke of 0.13um technology, my thought had nothing to do with the
yield, but merely with the size/power of the device. Examination of current
off-the-shelf chip architectures (and network processors are still a couple
of years behind the ASICs) indicates that, unless a LOT of chips in that
range are used, they wouldn't be able to do the above.
This means they've got to do all this unpacking in some kind of central
location (ie, not a CO), where I do believe what Variola speaks of is
possible. BUT, they've got to get it all there. This means they'd either
have to put in tons of lasers and gear (essentially creating a 1:1 copy of
the current transport network), or else CALEA the most likely batches of
traffic and then send it back. They probably WANT to get it all (GIG-BE,
anyone?) but they simply don't have the gear nor power nor footprint
available to them. If nothing else, it would be hugely conspicious. There'd
be no way to hide it from the craft, nor from the rest of the world (all
that gear would need a big army of secret craftpersons).
This leads me back to burst mode. I'm sure there are many uses for burst
mode, but I'd also bet this is one of the drivers. It's probably worth
examining whether they're putting a lot of money into signaling. Look for
unheard of startups as paying members of OIF and the GMPLS fora.
No, the NSA is probably generations ahead in some areas, but their fabs
aren't much better than what's available commercially.
-TD
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