NSA real-time monitors the channels between data centers Yahoo! and google

The Washington Post publication, citing Edward Snowden’s documents and the opinion of competent experts, reports that the NSA of the USA monitors the communication channels between Google and Yahoo! data centers in real time. worldwide directly through fiber optic cables.

The code name for this project, carried out in conjunction with the GCHQ UK Government Communications Center - MUSCULAR . According to published documents dated January 9, 2013, in just 30 days, 181,280,466 various user records were intercepted and processed. These are e-mail messages that include text, audio and video content, as well as metadata to identify the recipient and the sender.

For MUSCULAR , GCHQ accumulates all traffic in a buffer that holds from three to five days, as long as there is enough disk space. From this buffer, special NSA algorithms unpack and decrypt certain data formats that giants use inside their clouds. Then the data is filtered and sent directly to the servers of the NSA.


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Apparently, traffic is intercepted without SSL hacking, between the front-end and the company's internal network, where traffic is transmitted unencrypted. On one of the slides of the presentation of the NSA “Google Cloud Exploitation”, pointing to the place of interception of Google traffic, the author has drawn a malicious emoticon. According to The Washington Post, two engineers who are directly related to the Internet giant were amazed by such insolence. “I hope you publish it,” said one of them.

Of course, the NSA has already denied this information. The head of the NSA, Keith Alexander, said that the agency is engaged in spying on Internet users only in order to combat terrorism and, by law, cannot independently intercept data centers of American companies.

Google spokesman David Drummond said that “they have long been concerned about the possibility of this kind of interception” and did not give the government access to their systems. “We are outraged that the government seems to have tapped our own fiber-optic networks, and this underscores the need for urgent reforms,” he added. Yahoo! spokesman commented on the situation in the following way: “Data protection is strictly controlled in our data centers, and we did not give access to the data to either the NSA or other government agencies.”

Earlier, in Washington, there was a protest against NSA surveillance of citizens organized by the “Stop Watching Us” coalition, in which about 2 thousand people took part.