OPSEC - ArsTechnica Article on NSA Metadata Programs

http://arstechnica.co.uk/security/2016/02/the-nsas-skynet-program-may-be-killing-thousands-of-innocent-people/

Hopefully nobody on the DNM will ever have to consider Hellfire missile strikes as part of their OPSEC, but this article gives a neat insight into how the NSA uses metadata patterns to profile individuals. One could imagine steps that the big players might be taking to avoid such analysis.

Travel Patterns: locations visited in a given timeframe, regular visits to locations of interest.

Behavior-Based Analytics: Low-use / incoming calls only, excessive SIM or handset swapping, frequent detatch / power-down, Courier machine learning models (anyone know what that means?)

Other Enrichments: Travel on particular days of the week, co-travelers, similar travel patterns, common contacts, visits to airports, other countries, overnight trips, permanent move.


Comments


[1 Points] None:

[deleted]


[3 Points] Bobrosshappytreesman:

Never use the same currier pigeon twice. I opted to use ducks. After a round trip I hand it to my personal cook and we feast on a deal well done.


[0 Points] review_bro:

The sad thing is that this kind of data mining would not really put a dent in darknets other than gathering tor data usage and/or vpn usage from your ISP (which is probably already being done can be easily masked). The algorithm they used looked for associations between people meeting in real life and theoretically quantifying the chance that the person was associated with or followed patterns similar to known terrorists. For darknets this is not applicable.