[b]Want to know the hardware behind Echelon?[/b]

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 SSD with DSP ASICs." ASICs are application-specific integrated circuits - chips dedicated to a specific purpose.

[url=http://www.anomalies.net/news/eschelon.html]READ IT ALL [/url]

You know this was already in place and has been for years, right? I mean, just watch Enemy of the State. The shit is really like that, always has been, and always will be.

Big brother is watching you poop...

sweet. so all that time on the crapper is not for naught! :RockOn:

Re: The US government wants to know what you and I talk abou

Lets all fuck em up the arse and start using these. [img]http://quicksitebuilder.cnet.com/imagelib/sitebuilder/pictures/photos2go_images/communication/469370.jpg[/img]

^^^^ start!?? that's what we use here at my office! unless it's a clear day, then we use smoke signals... :Blazed:

:ROFLMAO:

:CrackUp:

Good idea, and start using sign-language, too! :Middlefi: :NotMe: :RockOn: :Naughty: :Bingo: :EatMe:

Pretty easy, no?

Damn, all this time I've been tapping morse code on my office walls to communicate with other people...

Actually I just tap on the wall with a pen(is) when I see a hot chick outside the window.

Re: The US government wants to know what you and I talk abou

[quote=Musical Journey]Lets all fuck em up the arse and start using these. [img]http://quicksitebuilder.cnet.com/imagelib/sitebuilder/pictures/photos2go_images/communication/469370.jpg[/img][/quote]

Not to worry VOIP to the rescue. Currently the government is scratching their heads as to what regulation to put in place, though in this game I doubt they'll ever win. :lol:

Re: The US government wants to know what you and I talk abou

I'm sure many of you are familiar with the link that exists between the government and the R & D departments of several large technology companies and how these companies are funded with tax dollars to provide equipment to the military and subsequently to the consumer via a huge network of corporate welfare. Well, the following article provides another frightening example of what the goverment does with our tax dollars. Big Brother indeed!

[url]http://zmagsite.zmag.org/Jan2005/kalukin0105.html[/url]

Long read, but an interesting one.

I never know what to make of these stories, I think part of them is true, but maybe not everything: it might be fed by conspirationist theories a bit. Hard to find he balance here...