[IP] Want to know the hardware behind Echelon?
15 October 2004
Want to know the hardware behind Echelon?
Uncle Sam using Texas' SAM.
By Chris Mellor, Techworld
You've probably heard about Echelon, the vast listening system run by
the US, UK, Canada and Australia that scans the world's voice traffic
looking for key words and phrases.
Aside from using the system for industrial espionage and bypassing
international and national laws to listen in on people, it is also used
to listen out for people like Osama bin Laden and assorted terrorists
in the hope of preventing attacks.
All this is out in the relative open thanks to investigative
journalists and a European Commission report into the system, concerned
and annoyed that the Brits and Yanks has got there first.
It works like this: The calls are recorded by geo-stationary spy
satellites and listening stations, such as the UK's Menworth Hill,
which combine satellite-intercepted calls and trunk landline intercepts
and forward them on to centres, such as the US' Fort Meade, where
supercomputers work on the recordings in real time.
But what, you ask, can deal with that overwhelming mass of data that
helps our government spy on the world? And how does it work?
Well, a Texas Memory Systems SAM product - a combined solid-state disk
(SSD) and DSP (digital signal processor). Woody Hutsell, an executive
VP at TMS, said: "Fifty percent of our revenue this year will come from
DSP systems, more than last year. The systems are a combination of
xnip
<http://www.techworld.com/storage/news/index.cfm?NewsID=2430>
-------------------------------------
You are subscribed as roessler@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
To manage your subscription, go to
http://v2.listbox.com/member/?listname=ip
Archives at: http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/