Last Monday, the website The Intercept started publishing larger batches of documents from the Snowden trove, so they tin at nowadays also hold upward examined past times the public. It's a novel stage later previously documents were to a greater extent than often than non disclosed every bit role of journalistic reports, but the number of such publications steadily declined over the final 2 years.
For how it was to function alongside the Snowden documents tin hold upward learned from an interesting interview alongside 2 journalists from the High German Magazine Der Spiegel. They non exclusively published a whole attain of articles based upon the Top Secret NSA documents, but also a book which is much to a greater extent than informative than that of Glenn Greenwald.
The interview alongside Marcel Rosenbach together with Holger Stark from Der Spiegel, every bit good every bit alongside Svea Eckert from the High German broadcaster NDR, was role of the Network Research (Netzwerk Recherche) annual conference, which was held on July 3 together with 4, 2015:
Interview alongside Marcel Rosenbach, Holger Stark
together with Svea Eckert, July 2015 (in German)
Because the interview is fully inward German, here's an extensive summary inward English, which also looks to a greater extent than closely at a few specific revelations:
- The Snowden documents
- The National Intelligence Priority Framework (NIPF)
- A MONSTERMIND/CYBERCOP presentation
- Eavesdropping on chancellor Merkel
- Some other issues
The Snowden documents
Journalists from Der Spiegel were provided alongside several x one 1000 digital documents through the documentary cinema maker Laura Poitras, who had been inward conduct contact alongside Edward Snowden.
According to Holger Stark, it was clear that Snowden had sorted the documents, non really fine-grained, but he had lay them inward a few folders, according to topics that had his special interest, similar operations of the NSA divisions TAO (hacking) together with SSO (cable tapping). Rosenberg said that it looked similar Snowden selected the documents based upon his concerns regarding civil liberties together with that he did non practise some "collect it all" scraping.
(although inward the cinema CitizenFour, Snowden himself said: "I cast such a broad net" that it would hold upward hard for NSA to determine how many documents he truly took)*
The journalists tried to search together with filter the documents automatically, but a huge number of them had to hold upward read together with analysed manually, together with read over together with over again, inward guild to empathise what was inward them together with what their importance could be. For that, they also consulted experts for cryptography together with network architecture every bit good every bit sometime NSA employees similar Binney together with Drake (independent intelligence experts were non mentioned).
It was possible to inquire Snowden, but non inward a regular or slow way, also because he wanted to rest at a distance of the journalistic work. The journalists couldn't tell or gauge how many documents Snowden truly took. Der Spiegel got the documents unredacted but inward the documents that were published, editors redacted most of the names.
Der Spiegel oftentimes asked NSA to review the documents they wanted to publish, inward guild to forestall that lives could move inward danger. Sometimes NSA asked to take things, but when it was obvious that that was for political reasons, the asking was ignored. But inward a few other cases Der Spiegel didn't lay out or partly redacted the documents.
BOUNDLESSINFORMANT
Despite all their efforts, in that place were nonetheless many gaps together with questions. This resulted inward for illustration a incorrect interpretation of NSA's information visualisation tool BOUNDLESSINFORMANT. In August 2013, Der Spiegel published charts from this tool that were initially interpreted every bit showing how many information NSA collected from several European countries. Soon, BND together with NSA denied this together with explained that the charts exhibit information that European agencies provided to the Americans.
Holger Stark admitted that their initial interpretation was land non correct, but that in that place are nonetheless many questions well-nigh this issue. One of the difficulties was that NSA together with United States of America regime were non willing to reply to questions well-nigh this program, so they decided to lay out their best guess. Rosenbach added that major unusual papers also shared their initial interpretation (maybe because the wrong interpretation came from Greenwald?).
BOUNDLESSINFORMANT screenshot showing metadata provided past times BND
(click to enlarge)
> See also: BOUNDLESSINFORMANT exclusively shows metadata
The National Intelligence Priority Framework (NIPF)
One document that wasn't published, but exclusively reported well-nigh is the National Intelligence Priority Framework (NIPF), which contains the priorities for the United States of America intelligence community every bit laid past times the White House. During the interview a role of the master NIPF document was shown for the get-go time:
The NIPF consists of a large matrix alongside each jail cellular telephone indicating the intersection betwixt a country or non-state histrion together with an intelligence topic. Influenza A virus subtype H5N1 readable reconstruction of the NIPF based upon this novel slice together with before sources, tin hold upward institute here (pdf).
Over time, Rosenbach together with Stark learned to interpret the Snowden documents past times combining information from multiple documents. Influenza A virus subtype H5N1 split upward document, an internal NSA newsletter from Dec 2009, for illustration provided additional information well-nigh the priorities of the NIPF chart:
This newsletter says that updated versions of the NIPF are released well-nigh twice a year, together with that these are run against the National SIGINT Requirements Process (NSRP), which sets the priorities for acquiring Signals Intelligence (SIGINT). The five levels of NIPF priorities are together with so translated (by the SIGINT Committee or SIGCOM) to the nine levels of SIGINT priorities, based upon the importance of the SIGINT contribution.
The get-go NIPF was issued inward 2003 together with at that fourth dimension the matrix contained over 2300 cells! There were hundreds of issues alongside priority 1 together with 2, way also many to hold upward managable. So over the years the number of priorities, especially the numbers of priority 1s together with 2s had been reduced.
According to the journalists, the newsletter also explains that topics alongside priority 1 together with 2 are meant for the president together with the White House, piece priority 3 is for cabinet ministers, the Chiefs of Staff together with the Pentagon. For these highest priorities, covert intelligence methods are used. For priorities 4 together with five opened upward sources may hold upward sufficient together with their results are mainly used for political analysis.
For the Spiegel journalists this bureaucratic procedure illustrates that NSA isn't an way that went rogue, but that they are directed past times the political information needs from the White House (something that was unremarkably conveniently ignored).
A MONSTERMIND/CYBERCOP presentation
Svea Eckert, a documentary maker for the regional High German broadcasster NDR, was also acquaint at the interview, together with she had brought alongside her the laptop they had used for working alongside the Snowden documents. The reckoner was newly bought for this role together with was never connected to the internet.
At NDR, Eckert was doing enquiry for a documentary well-nigh the meshing every bit a battle space, when a colleague of her inward the United States of America was provided alongside a pollex drive containing Snowden documents that had been selected on their relevance for the theme of the documentary. It wasn't told who the middlemen for these documents were, together with land dissimilar High German word media got documents from dissimilar sources.
The source had said that for these documents exclusively the external TAILS operating organization should hold upward used. The same organization was used past times other people who worked alongside Snowden documents, similar Laura Poitras, Glenn Greenwald, together with Barton Gellman. On the dedicated laptop, Eckert showed an illustration of what these documents await like:
In the window nosotros encounter for illustration an internal NSA newsletter alongside an interview alongside a hacker from NSA's TAO division, a Cyber Warfare Lexicon together with a powerpoint presentation. The latter has the filename "MONSTERMIND_presentation (copy).pptx", but when it was opened, it truly had the encompass term CYBERCOP on the front end slide together with it was prepared past times the "CyberCOP Product Manager".
Eckert explained that although most of these documents were really interesting, non everything was newsworthy plenty or inward earth involvement to publish. Also the opinions of diverse experts had to hold upward asked, because journalists were non ever able to justice what the context or the importance of exceptional pieces of information was.
CYBERCOP
The CYBERCOP presentation is from Apr 11, 2013 together with contains several screenshots of a graphical user interface inward which NSA analysts tin encounter where cyber attacks occur. The map role seems really similar to a well-known flashy visualisation on the website of the Norwegian cyber safety fellowship Norse:
It was decided non to lay out the total MONSTERMIND/CYBERCOP presentation, but the documentary Schlachtfeld Internet ("Battlefield Internet") did incorporate several slides, which showed that NSA is land powerful plenty to delineate such attacks together with that thus the way must hold upward acquaint at numerous points on the internet. This was considered newsworthy plenty to study about.
In the documentary itself it was explained that an analysis tool called CYBERCOP makes it possible for NSA to monitor "cyber war" inward existent time. The presentation described at to the lowest degree ane specific attack: on Apr 10, 2012, the United States of America federal banking organization inward New York was succesfully attacked past times Iran, non directly, but through thousands of computers around the world, controlled through meshing servers inward Germany.
Broadcaster NDR published 3 slides of the CYBERCOP presentation here (pdf). Two of them exhibit the CYBERCOP interface inward a high resolution:
(click to enlarge)
MONSTERMIND
The MONSTERMIND organization was get-go disclosed inward a really long published this slide on March 29, 2014 together with the full presentation (pdf) was released online inward June 2014. That chancellor Merkel had been a target of NSA had already been revealed inward Oct 2013, based upon a database entry that allegedly did non came from the Snowden documents, but from some other together with yet unidentified instant source.
So far, it seems that this illustration from the chiefs-of-state listing is the exclusively confirmation of NSA's targeting of chancellor Merkel that came from the Snowden documents. The intercepted content published past times Wikileaks is also supposed to hold upward from the instant source.
Some other issues
During together with later the interview, Stark, Rosenbach together with Eckert were also asked well-nigh diverse aspects of working alongside Snowden Documents:
- Contrary to some claims made past times the United States of America government, in that place seemed to hold upward picayune danger that these documents could endanger the lives of operatives or other people. The function that NSA does is highly technical together with thus the documents hardly incorporate whatsoever names. Most of the names they practise incorporate are of authors, non of operative land agents.
- Eckert institute it disappointing that the documents had almost no code or malware signatures inward them, which could accept been useful to position hacking operations conducted past times the NSA (Eckert said the XKEYSCORE rules were non included inward the laid she received). Again this was because the documents were often for management together with preparation purposes together with contained information on a meta score instead of actual operational details.
- The journalists were aware of the fact that these presentations had to hold upward judged according to their intended role together with audience together with that the sound of these presentations was of class absent, although some presentations came alongside speaker's notes, which proved to hold upward useful. Important was also to that presentations volition often accept presented things inward a positive way.
Finally, when asked well-nigh the futurity of the Snowden documents, the journalists idea that it could hold upward goodness to brand them available for scientific research, but that it's non upward to them to decide. They were non inward favor of making all the documents publicly available, similar inward the way Wikileaks used to do.
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