[8757] in cryptography@c2.net mail archive
Re: NSA tapping undersea fibers?
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (David Honig)
Tue May 29 12:52:52 2001
Message-Id: <3.0.6.32.20010529084026.008ad140@pop.sprynet.com>
Date: Tue, 29 May 2001 08:40:26 -0700
To: Tib <tib@tigerknight.org>, Dave Emery <die@die.com>
From: David Honig <honig@sprynet.com>
Cc: Steve Bellovin <smb@research.att.com>,
<cryptography@wasabisystems.com>
In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.4.30.0105282136240.29883-100000@unica.tigerknight
.org>
Mime-Version: 1.0
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At 09:46 PM 5/28/01 -0700, Tib wrote:
>the people trying to install the tap would be caught red handed? I don't have
>the manual handy on how they manage trans oceanic fiber lines, and I know
there
Stephenson has a nice 50 page description in an old online _Wired_
>are a few for redundancy so that they might not fly/swim out there
immediately
>for repairs.
Marine 'truck rolls' are expensive.
It would also be incredibly fishy to any operator who saw a line
>go down and then come backup when both sides report that all physically
>immediately inspectable connections are otherwise normal and good?
Yeah right, that *never* happens on networks.
Hate to be
>cliche in this thought but if this happened about the only way I can see this
>taking place (from the limited knowledge I have on this) would be if there
was
>an NSA or other government agent standing over the operator as the alarm went
>off about the line failure and canceling it, then politely telling the
operator
>'This never happened, and I was never here' (a'la James Earl Jones in Hunt
for
>Red October).
Always a cost-effective option.
>
>To sum this whole thing up - /IS/ there a way to put a tap on a fiber line
>without letting the whole world know you're doing it, if not just the
>operator/owner of the line itself? And if so could someone sketch it out for
>me or point me to a resource? I'd love to learn of it
Bet you would.
Get yourself some cheap orange fiber, a NIC to drive it,
a raw photodetector/amp/oscilloscope, a sharp knife,
and a collection of solvents. Write it up.
Maybe do this all in a swimming pool if you think you're good.
Put the fiber in a high voltage conduit if you're *really* good :-).
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