[liberationtech] Shrimping with the NSA

[James S. Tyre]

Prior to XKeyscore, the work of the NSA analysts was comparable with "Forrest Gump on his
shrimping boat off the coast of Alabama," reads the report from Griesheim. From the ocean
of data, the report reads, the analysts pulled in "a boot, a toilet seat, seaweed, and,
there they are . three shrimp!" (ellipse in original) To get to these few shrimp, they
were forced to use vast resources, including documents or metadata that expand knowledge
about the targets. "We deal with tons of toilet seats, the spam and other junk," the
report reads. But after the introduction of XKeyscore, the work, the report indicates,
became much more efficient, because the tools made it possible to make precise casts,
bringing in more shrimp and less by-catch.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/germany-is-a-both-a-partner-to-and-a-target-of-n
sa-surveillance-a-916029.html

or

http://goo.gl/SQZNwj

(The whole article is worth a read.)

--
James S. Tyre
Law Offices of James S. Tyre
10736 Jefferson Blvd., #512
Culver City, CA 90230-4969
310-839-4114/310-839-4602(fax)
jstyre at jstyre.com
Policy Fellow, Electronic Frontier Foundation
https://www.eff.org