[liberationtech] Are undersea cables tapped before they get to ISP's? [was Re: Security over SONET/SDH]

[Eugen Leitl]

----- Forwarded message from Måns Nilsson <mansaxel at besserwisser.org> -----

Date: Tue, 25 Jun 2013 16:53:32 +0200
From: Måns Nilsson <mansaxel at besserwisser.org>
To: Christopher Morrow <morrowc.lists at gmail.com>
Cc: NANOG list <nanog at nanog.org>
Subject: Re: Are undersea cables tapped before they get to ISP's? [was Re: Security over SONET/SDH]
User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.20 (2009-06-14)

Subject: Re: Are undersea cables tapped before they get to ISP's? [was Re: Security over SONET/SDH] Date: Tue, Jun 25, 2013 at 10:38:30AM -0400 Quoting Christopher Morrow (morrowc.lists at gmail.com):

> > It's potentially a lot simpler than that:
> >
> > <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Ivy_Bells>
> 
> this involved, I think, just intuiting signals from the nearfield
> effects of the cable, no? 'drop a large sensor ontop-of/next-to the
> cable, win!'

IVY BELLS (USN is / was an ALL-CAPS org, right?) was a copper era
project, and it did use EMI tapping (TEMPEST) to get to the traffic
without tampering with the cable.

Having gotten that cleared, I'd argue that if you're on speaking terms
with the cable operator, it is much easier to use a full-spectrum
monitor port on the WDM system.

-- 
Måns Nilsson     primary/secondary/besserwisser/machina
MN-1334-RIPE                             +46 705 989668
Your CHEEKS sit like twin NECTARINES above a MOUTH that knows no BOUNDS --



----- End forwarded message -----
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Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org
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