Cyber Series - Mass Surveillance Primer

Cold War

During the cold war, human intelligence was not as effective as technical surveillance. Soviet society was a closed society, which made running spies difficult and information so compartmentalised that many humint sources were needed.

Remember that the Soviets had secret as well as closed cities, the security services intensely monitored any visitors. By monitored I mean that at least ten agents would follow suspected spies around.

Cold War

This forced other countries to intensively invest in electronic surveillance, most people think that computer hacking was a major part of this. Not really, the Soviets were able to steal computer technology from the US but there attempts to implement an internet system was a disaster.

The one type of hacking which proved useful was phreaking (phone hacking). Senior Soviet leaders communications were intercepted, even calls from the presidents limo to the Kremlin. Alongside this satellites were used extensively, partly because the Soviets developed missiles that could shoot down spy plans flying directly over the SU.

Early satellites did not transmit pictures and crashed back to earth, the film was then recovered hand processed. As better satellites were built electronic warfare capabilities were added to them, long range microphones were also suggested so that it could pick up conversations by pointing at people. Obviously the standard listening posts existed, surrounding the Soviet Union.

War on Terror

During the 90's the electronic surveillance system stagnated somewhat, although China was still a target. As terrorism increased around the world it was slowly repurposed and then radically changed in response to 9/11 and the war on terror.

The biggest problem with the system was that terrorists did not communicate via electronics as much. This caused humint to increase in importance. In addition to intercepting signals they would also intercept the USB's carried by couriers too.

A major problem for the average Joe is that the systems chosen are bulk collection not targeted. All data is collected regardless of importance, for example stingray technology which pretends to be a cell tower. Part of the reason for this drive in the USA stems from the annihilation of the militia movement in the 90's.

Polarisation

Over the last decade psychological operations have exploded in popularity and form a key component of modern war. UK wise this started in the 90's during the Kosovo war, when the UK paratroopers appointed a press liaison officer. Wars have moved from the theatre to the living rooms, perception management is key.

Motivations

So apart of some of the history above why will this system continue into the future?

Power

Power Corrupts

Those in control of this system have a huge amount of power, they can spy on anyone. Find out all about anyone, blackmail anyone. There is just too much power to surrender and having the surveillance system controllers as allies is useful.
I recommend reading the Dictators Handbook - it will explain a lot.

Sunk Costs

Having invested so much money in the system over many decades and making thousands of people unemployed looks wasteful. As so often happens reasons are found to keep the system and it is repurposed to avoid any upsets. Remember that new threats are needed to identify the system.

Geopolitics

The system in place current intercepts almost all communications, if it travels along a undersea cable it is probably being read. Africa for example only has a few undersea cables and at one point ALL the data was being intercepted - from a whole continent.

Think reading the opinions of all those people, with could be used to compile a picture of different groups within the countries. Thus allowing psy ops to be conducted to benefit the five eyes was useful?

Programs exist that can profile people into psychological groups and predict future actions.

Experiments

Which brings me onto this point - experiments. Testing how the public reacts to certain cues, predicting there future actions and even profiling likely agitators all forms part of this. Predicting the future as a whole is possible with the amount of data collected on everyone, from payments to posts.

Conclusion

I have nothing much to say, I just hope this gives you some perspective on the system as a whole. Try to see the big picture when it comes to cyber security.

Survive and Thrive!

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