Yes, but it is their forum and their rules. You have to abide by the Service Level agreements here, but are free to 'Blog' externally or be on the Internet as a web site or other form of digital communication. Be aware that your words/ideas may come back to haunt you later, as all data/voice/internet activity is monitored heavily both foreign and domestic.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nsa
Strategy
* The NSA increased its reliance on American industry for the purposes of domestic spying, through a project code-named Project GROUNDBREAKER.[4] It is linked to the DOD doctrines called "Fight the net" and "Information Operations Roadmap".[5] Ex-director Michael Hayden has said, "As the director, I was the one responsible to ensure that this program was limited in its scope and disciplined in its application".[6] Two examples of relying on American industry for the purposes of domestic spying are the use of CALEA[7][8] on US telecommunication companies, and NarusInsight. Under CALEA,
all US telecommunication companies were forced to install hardware capable of monitoring data and voice by May 14, 2007.
* The act also forced US telecommunication companies to build national technology standards to support CALEA.
* NarusInsight is one type of spying hardware, capable of monitoring an OC-192 network line in real-time, and gives AT&T the power to monitor all 7,432,000 DSL lines it owns.
* According to Narus, after data capture its software can replay "streaming media (for example, VoIP), rendering of Web pages, examination of e-mails and the ability to analyze the payload/attachments of e-mail or file transfer protocols".
http://narus.com/products/index.html
Provisions of CALEA
The U.S. Congress passed the CALEA to aid law enforcement in its effort to conduct surveillance of citizens via digital telephone networks. The Act obliges telephone companies to make it possible for law enforcement agencies to tap any phone conversations carried out over its networks, as well as making call detail records available. The act also stipulates that it must not be possible for a person to detect that his or her conversation is being monitored by the respective government agency. Finally, the Calea Implementation Unit at the FBI has clarified that: while buffering may be necessary to ensure successful transport, this buffering is envisioned as only lasting long enough to determine that the transmission was successful. Intercepted information is supposed to be sent to Law Enforcement concurrently with its capture, but the storing of the intercept on a CALEA device or hardware may not be legal.
On March 10, 2004, the DOJ, FBI and DEA filed a "Joint Petition for Expedited Rulemaking" in which they requested certain steps to accelerate CALEA compliance. This petition mainly involved extending the provisions of CALEA to cover citizens' communications that travel over the internet. This resulted in the FCC issuing a notice of proposed rulemaking entitled "In the Matter of Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act and Broadband Access and Services" (FCC 04-187, 2004 WL 1774542) on August 9, 2004. The FCC received public comment and, in August 2005, adopted a "First Report and Order" concluding that CALEA applies to facilities-based broadband Internet access providers and providers of interconnected (with the PSTN network) Voice-over-Internet-Protocol (VoIP) services. The First Report and Order also sought public comment on whether other (non-interconnected) types of VoIP services should be covered by CALEA and on how the Commission should consider granting exemptions from CALEA's requirements. In May 2006, the FCC adopted a "Second Report and Order", which clarified and affirmed the First Order:
* The CALEA compliance deadline remains May 14, 2007, and applies equally to all facilities-based broadband access providers and interconnected VoIP service providers, with restricted availability of compliance extensions.
* Carriers are permitted to meet their CALEA obligations through the services of “Trusted Third Parties (TTP)” including processing requests for intercepts, conducting electronic surveillance, and delivering information to LEAs. However, carriers remain responsible for ensuring the timely delivery of information to the LEA and protecting subscriber privacy, as required by CALEA.
* Carriers are responsible for CALEA development and implementation costs, and may not recover these costs through a national surcharge.
* Service providers to whom CALEA obligations were applied in the First Order must comply with the system security requirements of the First Order by within 90 days of the effective date of the Second Order.
Section 107 of the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA) states: “a telecommunications carrier shall be found to be in compliance with the assistance capability requirements under Section 103, and a manufacturer of telecommunication transmission or switching equipment or a provider of telecommunication support services shall be found in compliance with Section 106, if the carrier, manufacturer, or support service provider is in compliance with publicly available technical requirements or standards adopted by an industry association or standard-setting organization, or by the Commission under subsection (b), to meet the requirements of section 103.”
The Internet Engineering Task Force in 2000 decided not to consider requirements for wiretapping as part of the process for creating and maintaining IETF standards (RFC 2804). The Information Technology Association of America (ITAA) presented a June 2006 paper authored by Vinton Cerf, Whitfield Diffie, among others which discusses the implications of applying CALEA to VoIP. In their opinion: In order to extend authorized interception much beyond the easy scenario, it is necessary either to eliminate the flexibility that Internet communications allow, or else introduce serious security risks to domestic VoIP implementations. The former would have significant negative effects on U.S. ability to innovate, while the latter is simply dangerous. The current FBI and FCC direction on CALEA applied to VoIP carries great risks.
The FCC’s First Report and Order, issued in September 2005, ruled that providers of broadband Internet access and interconnected VoIP services are regulable as “telecommunications carriers” under CALEA. That order was affirmed and further clarified by the Second Report and Order, dated May 2006. In that same month, on May 5, 2006, a group of higher education and library organizations led by the American Council on Education (ACE) challenged that ruling, arguing that the FCC’s interpretation of CALEA was unconstitutional under the Fourth Amendment. However, on June 9, 2006, the D.C. Circuit Court disagreed and summarily denied the petition (American Council on Education vs. FCC, United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, Decision 05-1404, June 9, 2006).
NarusInsight Secure Suite
NarusInsight Secure Suite is the industry’s most advanced high-performance IP security system protecting the world’s largest carrier-class networks from the edge through to the core.
NarusInsight Secure Suite (NSS) enables carriers and service providers to detect any network attack, abuse or behavioral anomaly in real time and at core speeds, and then direct a variety of actions: to raise an alarm, send an SNMP trap, or even mitigate the attack. Traditional edge-based security solutions are insufficient for Next Generation Networks and IMS because of their limited visibility into network traffic and elements. They are aware only of partial information of traffic flowing through the single link of the network they are attached or listening to, and their basic statistical algorithms are able to detect attacks only at their last stage, for example large changes in the volume of traffic.
NSS is the industry's most state-of-the-art, carrier-class security system, combining high visibility of the network traffic with full correlation between all the other elements on the network (such as routers, firewalls or IPS/IDS), across all of the links on the network as well as external storage facilities to access historical data. This total network view of combined traffic visibility and network correlation enables unprecedented accuracy and industry-leading performance.
NarusInsight Secure System Overview
NarusInsight Secure System Overview
NarusInsight Secure Suite applies some of the world's most advanced security algorithms based on the revolutionary concepts of Information-Entropy. First in the market, these new algorithms learn the uncertain, unforeseen and fuzzy characteristics of Internet traffic as well as its intrinsic structure while monitoring and profiling the health of the traffic itself - all in real-time. This fusion of total network view and world-class analytics allows NarusInsight Secure Suite to detect a large variety of attacks, ranging from highly Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) to slow propagating Worms, while constantly adapting to the dynamics of the network.
While NSS is the ideal solution for today's complex carrier networks, the same investment can take you into the future of IMS-based Services over IP. By simply configuring additional modules, NSS can monitor the traffic from next-generation services such as VoIP and IPTV - all without a system-wide upgrade. Narus offers the world's most advanced ultra-high performance IP security system.
Key Features
* The industry’s first Entropy-based security algorithms monitor the equilibrium of the entire network in real-time.
* Real-time data capture, classification and normalization at speeds from 100baseT to 10G/OC192 using Narus High-Speed-Analyzer (raw packets from the wire) and Narus Virtual-Analyzer (IP data from network elements, e.g. SNMP data, flow data from Cisco or Juniper routers, GTP streams from SGSN and GGSN elements, log files such as syslog files from network hosts, etc.)
* Real-time anomaly detection at speeds from 100baseT to 10G/OC192
* Granularity — Superior anomaly detection, across the entire network in real time
* Shortest detection times in the industry minimize attacks before they spread
o Information on all IP traffic, regardless of the protocol or network type
o Utilizes full traffic flow and all network layers of visibility for accurate detection
* Customer proven in the world's largest networks
* Software Development Kit provides customer the ability to customize for unique needs
Key benefits
* Meets increasing customer demands and Service Level Agreements
* Cleaner pipes mean fewer network outages
* Lower infrastructure and operational costs
o Higher network efficiency
o More bandwidth for customer traffic
The NarusInsight Secure Suite Specifications
Bounce the attacks at the Edge: Defense-Shield
NarusInsight Secure Suite enables carriers to detect attacks, abuse and behavioral anomalies in real time and to direct actions that can prevent security breaches, attack propagation, loss of productivity and network outages.
NarusInsight Secure Suite provides the ability to non-intrusively collect and process user traffic in real-time, generating statistics on abusive usage patterns and malicious IP traffic. NSS leverages the multi-tiered and distributed nature of its carrier-class platform to scale and protect the largest, most complex IP networks in the world.
NarusInsight Secure Suite protects both bandwidth and infrastructure through the functions of capturing, processing, anomaly classification, and event handling, providing unmatched security performance.
NarusInsight Intercept Suite
NarusInsight Intercept Suite (NIS) enables capture of packet-level, flow-level, and application-level usage information along with complete session packets for forensic analysis, surveillance, or for satisfying regulatory compliance.
A critical concern of those conducting network surveillance is ensuring the comprehensive collection of targeted data while simultaneously attending to issues related to privacy, traceability, and authentication. Put simply, it is essential to capture all targeted data, but nothing else.
Narus uniquely provides insight into the entire network, ensuring that all targeted data is captured regardless of the size, speed, or asymmetric topology of the network. Any number of links, at any speed, with any routing architecture, can be simultaneously monitored.
Complementing the NIS total netw ork view is real -time monitoring and capture a t line-speed, eliminating the need for unmanageable volumes of data, costly post processing, and the side effects of capturing untargeted data.
NIS' unmatched breadth of target criteria also provides for surgically precise capture of data. Supported targets include both broad identifiers such as port, protocol, RADIUS login, or IP address as well as application specific identifiers such as such as e-mail address, web-mail identity (even those within a 'cc' or 'bcc' field), SIP URI, VOIP number, and many others.
NarusInsight Intercept Suite
NIS supports comprehensive forensic capabilities that dramatically simplify analysis of captured data. This includes playback of streaming media (such as captured VoIP), rendering of web pages, examination of e-mail and the ability to analyze the payload/attachments of e-mail or file transfer protocols.
Customers
Carriers and Governments have deployed Narus around the world protect their countries and infrastructure.
http://narus.com/products/discover.html
Artificial Intelligence monitoring of the Web
Traffic Analysis Application Module
The Traffic Analysis application module of NDS provides network-wide visibility and knowledge by collecting, classifying and correlating network traffic data from various sources, in multiple formats, over many protocols and through different periods of time
Monitoring of 'Skypes' VOIP International Transmission (our ability to intercept Intl. Secure Communication being used against us)
Skype Detection Application Module
The Skype detection application module of NDS provides carriers and service providers the ability to detect Skype and understand the impact on their networks and businesses. It enables the monitoring, blocking, re-direction or re-prioritization of Skype traffic.
Skype is a popular proprietary protocol that is very difficult to detect and manage. Narus' Skype detection capability is based on sophisticated proprietary algorithms that look for Skype's signature and other identifying characteristics. It is based on a deep understanding of Skype's behavior and tracks Skype's dynamic session environments and constant port-swapping.
P2P Detection Application Module
The P2P detection application module of NDS provides carriers and service providers the ability to detect Peer-to-Peer traffic and understand the impact on their networks and businesses. It enables them to bill for, or block, re-direct and re-prioritize, P2P traffic.
Unmanaged P2P is a big concern among carriers and service providers because it is bandwidth-intensive and currently accounts for a huge proportion of network traffic.