AT&T collaborates on NSA spying through a web of secretive buildings in the US

techcrunch ^ | Taylor Hatmaker

[BenLurkin]

AT&T data facilities in the U.S. are regarded as high-value sites to the NSA for giving the agency direct “backbone” access to raw data that passes through, including emails, web browsing, social media and any other form of unencrypted online activity. The NSA uses the web of eight AT&T hubs for a surveillance operation code-named FAIRVIEW, a program previously reported by The New York Times. The program, first established in 1985, “involves tapping into international telecommunications cables, routers, and switches” and only coordinates directly with AT&T and not the other major U.S. mobile carriers.

AT&T’s deep involvement with the NSA monitoring program operated under the code name SAGUARO. Messaging, email and other web traffic accessed through the program was made searchable through XKEYSCORE, one of the NSA’s more infamous search-powered surveillance tools.

...

The data exchange between AT&T and other networks initially takes place outside AT&T’s control, sources said, at third-party data centers that are owned and operated by companies such as California’s Equinix. But the data is then routed – in whole or in part – through the eight AT&T buildings, where the NSA taps into it. By monitoring what it calls the “peering circuits” at the eight sites, the spy agency can collect “not only AT&T’s data, they get all the data that’s interchanged between AT&T’s network and other companies,” according to Mark Klein, a former AT&T technician who worked with the company for 22 years.

The NSA describes these locations as “peering link router complex” sites while AT&T calls them “Service Node Routing Complexes” (SNRCs). The eight complexes are spread across the nation’s major cities, with locations in Chicago, Dallas, Atlanta, Los Angeles, New York City, San Francisco, Seattle and Washington, D.C.

[daltec]

Two what? AUTOVON switches?

[RinaseaofDs]

Huge monolithic buildings that are heavily guarded with heavy fencing and very few windows.

[daltec]

BTW you can see the parking garage for the building I used to work at, in the left of the image I posted. One of the secure entrances was over there; the other is right at the front of the building.

The platform elevator was in the covered area at lower right, as I recall. Cameras everywhere.

This image was taken from Columbia Pike. The west side of the building is to the rear, from the point of view of the photographer. A branch of the Arlington County Library is also back there.

[daltec]

Thanks! Are they AT&T? Although, hard to tell these days. On rare occasions I have seen heavily armed guards (body armor, helmets, SMGs) outside of otherwise perfectly nondescript "storefront" types of buildings. Others are as you describe.

But your observation about no or very few windows is key -- they could very well be COs for your local telephone carrier. Verizon COs in the northern VA area are usually small affairs, since there are so many of them. But none of them have any windows, to speak of.

[RinaseaofDs]

One is dead downtown, just kitty corner from the HS softball field. The other is at the nexus of the Boeing Freeway and Evergreen Way. The latter is guarded by two fences, and appears to have only a single door.

I have no idea what a CO is. I can tell you that the TransPacific internet cable terminates somewhere off of Everett, WA. There’s a data center here in town.

Central Washington has a huge number of data centers. Access to copious water and cheap hydroelectric power drives that.

[daltec]

Sorry to be so late in replying -- did not see your message until just now. A CO is a "central office;" sorry about that! Here is one in the Everett area. It may be one of the buildings you are talking about (the one on Evergreen Way).



If so, then yeah it's a big one! Cool! Here is some info and a map.

[RinaseaofDs]

Yup. That’s the one by the Boeing Freeway.