[11] Data sent between computers over the Internet or between any networks takes the form of small chunks called packets, which are routed to their destination and assembled back into a complete message.
Under the Communications Assistance For Law Enforcement Act, all U.S. telecommunications providers are required to install such packet capture technology so that Federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies are able to intercept all of their customers' broadband Internet and voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) traffic.
Thus, automated Internet surveillance computers sift through the vast amount of intercepted Internet traffic, filtering out, and reporting to investigators those bits of information which are "interesting", for example, the use of certain words or phrases, visiting certain types of web sites, or communicating via email or chat with a certain individual or group.
They do so in order to protect the company's assets and to control public communications but most importantly, to make sure that their employees are actively working and being productive.
[24] Such type of surveillance is also used to establish business purposes of monitoring, which may include the following: The second component of prevention is determining the ownership of technology resources.
The Department of Homeland Security has openly stated that it uses data collected from consumer credit and direct marketing agencies for augmenting the profiles of individuals that it is monitoring.
Viruses often spread to thousands or millions of computers, and leave "backdoors" which are accessible over a network connection, and enable an intruder to remotely install software and execute commands.
[30] Another source of security cracking is employees giving out information or users using brute force tactics to guess their password.
[33] One common form of surveillance is to create maps of social networks based on data from social networking sites as well as from traffic analysis information from phone call records such as those in the NSA call database,[34] and internet traffic data gathered under CALEA.
These social network "maps" are then data mined to extract useful information such as personal interests, friendships and affiliations, wants, beliefs, thoughts, and activities.
[41][42][43] IBM researchers have also found that, for most computer keyboards, each key emits a slightly different noise when pressed.
And it has also been shown, by Adi Shamir et al., that even the high frequency noise emitted by a CPU includes information about the instructions being executed.
[52] Magic Lantern is another such application, this time running in a targeted computer in a trojan style and performing keystroke logging.
The Clipper Chip was designed during the Clinton administration to, “…protect personal safety and national security against a developing information anarchy that fosters criminals, terrorists and foreign foes.”[53] The government portrayed it as the solution to the secret codes or cryptographic keys that the age of technology created.
[54] The "Consumer Broadband and Digital Television Promotion Act" (CBDTPA) was a bill proposed in the United States Congress.
CBDTPA was known as the "Security Systems and Standards Certification Act" (SSSCA) while in draft form and was killed in committee in 2002.
The report includes a list of "State Enemies of the Internet", Bahrain, China, Iran, Syria, and Vietnam, countries whose governments are involved in active, intrusive surveillance of news providers, resulting in grave violations of freedom of information and human rights.
The report also includes a second list of "Corporate Enemies of the Internet", Amesys (France), Blue Coat Systems (U.S.), Gamma (UK and Germany), Hacking Team (Italy), and Trovicor (Germany), companies that sell products that are liable to be used by governments to violate human rights and freedom of information.
Journalists should equip themselves with a "digital survival kit" if they are exchanging sensitive information online, storing it on a computer hard-drive or mobile phone.
Electromagnetic eavesdropping, such as TEMPEST and its derivatives, often requires hardware shielding, such as Faraday cages, to block unintended emissions.
When properly implemented with end-to-end encryption, or while using tools such as Tor, and provided the device remains uncompromised and free from direct monitoring via electromagnetic analysis, audio recording, or similar methodologies, the content of communication is generally considered secure.
For a number of years, numerous government initiatives have sought to weaken encryption or introduce backdoors for law enforcement access.
[61] Privacy advocates and the broader technology industry strongly oppose these measures, [62] arguing that any backdoor would inevitably be discovered and exploited by malicious actors.
Such vulnerabilities would endanger everyone's private data [63] while failing to hinder criminals, who could switch to alternative platforms or create their own encrypted systems.
Surveillance remains effective even when encryption is correctly employed, by exploiting metadata that is often accessible to packet sniffers unless countermeasures are applied.
[64] This includes DNS queries, IP addresses, phone numbers, URLs, timestamps, and communication durations, which can reveal significant information about user activity and interactions or associations with a person of interest.