Big data in China

Chapter 6 Big data, the part you don't know yet (4)
Just like when we exchange electronic documents in reality, we don’t necessarily rely on the U disk, which is the closest physical distance, but we may use instant messaging such as MSN or Tencent QQ, because it is faster and more convenient, and people don’t need it. It will be calculated whether these files will be scanned and monitored for a long time when they bypass the web server.This is the great role of technological superiority.

Second, the data transfer induction strategy.

By expanding the data transmission bandwidth, the United States can induce more data to flow through the country and pass through its doorstep, opening the door for it to do a series of data interception and analysis work.The more data flows through the United States, the more comprehensive the analysis and monitoring it can do, and its ultimate benefits far outweigh the risks.For example, the United States once rented Chinese satellites to transmit data to increase the bandwidth between Africa and the United States, which is a manifestation of paying less risk to obtain greater returns.

Third, control data channels to quickly collect information from other data sources.

This strategy includes cooperation with telecom operators and monitoring of their data sources.For example, the Federal Government’s Overseas Intelligence Surveillance Tribunal requires the U.S. telecommunications operator (Verizon) to submit metadata to the National Security Agency every day—phone record data, including the numbers of both parties and the length of the call. Although the content of the call is not included, it has been submitted. most of the personal information.

Fourth, collect and control data through technological alliances with private companies and other countries.

To sum up, the United States was the first to realize the need to strengthen information management and network security, and the way to strengthen it is to use the government's hands to control private enterprises and related service providers in other countries and establish technological alliances.

In 1978, the U.S. Congress passed the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) in 1986, and the Communications Assistance Act for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA) in 1994. With a comprehensive security system, the federal government can calmly monitor and monitor its own country and foreign countries.

The most important part is related to the technology giants, that is, those large companies that control the Internet. In the "Law Enforcement Communications Assistance Act", law enforcement agencies can directly access the telecommunications network under a court interception order to initiate interception in the telecommunications operator's switchboard. Features.This means that U.S. law requires telecom operators and other network and communication service providers to reserve certain interfaces for the government in case of emergency.

According to the "Washington Post" disclosure, in the "Prism" project, a total of at least 9 American IT companies were involved. Microsoft was the first to join it on September 2007, 9, and Apple Inc. The last one to join.It also includes Cisco, IBM, Google, Qualcomm, Intel, Yahoo, Facebook and Oracle.They monopolize almost all areas of the global IT industry, covering three levels from hardware to software to services, and naturally provide strong technical support for the US government.

For example, if your internet-connected computer uses a certain chip from Intel, a serial number is sent to Intel, which means that some information about what is running on the computer can also be sent at the same time.In addition, the operating system is the carrier of network software. We will often receive automatic update prompts after networking, which means that Microsoft, which monopolizes the operating system, can easily grasp the network activities of a computer.At the same time, because the operating system is constantly updated, Microsoft is usually the first to discover the vulnerabilities of its systems. The vulnerability information they provide to government security departments will help intelligence agencies attack computers that have not patched the vulnerabilities.

For another example, people use Yahoo Mail to send emails, use Cisco's Internet phone to make calls, use Google's map to mark and search, use Facebook to post social status, and use MSN instant messaging to chat. All these network activities will be performed on the servers of major companies. The original data is left on the Internet, and it is the information that people voluntarily provide, and they spend their own money to deliver the information to the door.

These companies have so many servers that they can open backdoors for direct access to the U.S. government, help intelligence agencies read data, and even participate in the National Security Agency's surveillance program throughout the process.These big data technology giants have become excellent helpers for the government to collect information and analyze data, and this can be done without the public's knowledge.

The data sources of overseas allies include Australia, the United Kingdom, Japan, Canada, and New Zealand. For example, the famous "Five Eyes Alliance" is composed of the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. The two sides exchange information and collect data collaboratively.Alliance members can even listen to each other's data in each other's country, bypassing the legal restricted areas in their own country, and then exchange data.Fifth, establish as many overseas non-alliance "data sources" as possible.Of course, only allied data sources are not enough. The United States also has a large number of overseas non-allied data sources.

For example, Snowden revealed that in order to steal data from mainland China, the United States adopted the method of directly establishing data source partners in China.The Chinese University of Hong Kong established the Hong Kong Internet Exchange Center in 1995. Its predecessor was the data line connecting the Chinese University of Hong Kong to the United States, and it has a network data exchange server serving the whole of Hong Kong.On this basis, the United States can easily sneak in and steal data.

A large number of hackers are also providers of this data source. There is an organization called TAO under the National Security Agency, which has as many as [-] senior hackers from all over the world (including China).The equipment provided by Cisco has left a back door for this work in advance. Although Cisco strongly denies this suspicion, as the exposure deepens, the voice of denial has become less and less convincing.

As long as massive amounts of data can be obtained continuously, the powerful big data storage and analysis system in the United States can come in handy.

Sixth, build a large data center to store data.

In order to save these massive data, a huge database and processing center are also needed. The NSA has built a large-scale data center in Utah at a cost of 20 billion US dollars, which is enough to store 5000 billion gigabytes of data, which is equivalent to 500 years of global communication.In order to achieve this goal, NSA specially developed a big data storage system called Accumulo, and cooperated with relevant civilian companies with military backgrounds to develop a commercial version of this system to continuously obtain data benefits.

Seventh, the mining technology of metadata has enabled the United States to build a relational map.

Metadata is the most basic unit of data. With the rapid development of the mobile Internet today, each of us generates data almost every moment.For example, names, phone numbers, and email addresses can be called metadata, which can be used as nodes to connect people, numbers, and email addresses that have been in contact with each other to form a character association map behind the data and information. .This shows that although metadata does not seem to be very important individually, it is very convenient to build associations between individuals when gathered in large quantities.For another example, for a computer, metadata records the working environment of a computer, including basic information such as operating system, browser, and application software version, so collecting these metadata is a necessary step for hackers to launch cyber attacks.The ability to collect and analyze metadata shows that the level of network monitoring in the United States has already possessed the salient features of the big data era.With this ability to store and analyze massive metadata, these complex information can reveal imperceptible rules through the fast calculation of supercomputers, thereby providing effective intelligence information for intelligence agencies.In the era of big data, the United States has made rapid progress in the mining technology of association graphs, making it possible to mine more and more privacy from metadata, and it is almost pervasive.In other words, existing technology can do everything: detect the number of text messages you send every day, the frequency of phone calls, and who you date, and drill down to all your life and work habits, making you a completely transparent person .

According to an investigation, the US National Security Agency has a graph data of 4.4 trillion nodes and 70 trillion associated graphs.Based on the global population of 70 billion, the National Security Agency has the ability to store nearly 630 types of information for each person, and can analyze as many as 1 connections for each person.You know, we only need 4 time points and locations to determine the identity of a person, and the accuracy is already as high as 95%, so what about 1 types?The advanced level of this technology has exceeded the imagination of ordinary people. The related technology tells us that even if you have been anonymous and wandering in the world, as long as they have the will, they can easily find you and exhaust all your social relations, even More than you know yourself.

Eighth, powerful analysis tools: big data systems for visualization and real-time query.

The US National Security Agency also has a big data visualization and real-time query system called Boundless Informant.Its role is to visualize and classify the monitored and collected global data in real time, display different countries and regions in different colors, and construct a global information distribution map.With such a big data system, it has powerful analytical capabilities, no matter how much data is collected, it can be easily sorted, classified, analyzed and predicted.

Ninth, it has full data mining technology to carry out "no dead ends" data collection.

On the one hand, the United States is mining metadata, and on the other hand, it is also developing the technology to collect all data, striving to ensure that there are no dead ends in data collection.For example, there is a fiber-optic listening device called Narus, which can perform content-level monitoring, and a system called Einstein 3 (Einstein3), which can scan the full-text content of billions of emails.Speech monitoring and recognition are also part of this work, analyzing and distinguishing multilingual audio and video content.

Tenth, it provides the possibility for the development of the global Internet.

It is difficult for us to use a specific vocabulary to describe the structure of the global Internet.But its main composition features are clear to us. On the one hand, it is like a tree, with roots, trunks and branches, and finally connected to every user; on the other hand, it is flat, with the characteristics of equality and no center , the information of each node can circulate freely in the global network.That is to say, from the perspective of information circulation, the Internet is a flat world, but in terms of management, it is still a top-down structure, with a backbone network to process and manage all information.

For example, in China, 163 and 169 backbone networks are responsible for more than 80% of China's network data traffic. They are collectively referred to as China Public Computer Internet (CHINANET), and there is also China Education and Research Network (CERNET). Network (CSTNET), China Golden Bridge Information Network (CHINAGBN).Together, they form the four major backbone networks in China from top to bottom.From the perspective of network monitoring and attack, it is naturally better to go from top to bottom, which is conducive to obtaining more information and having greater control authority.

From the Prism incident, we can see that due to sufficient funds, technology and unrestricted power, larger institutions are the biggest beneficiaries of big data. They can spy on individual information and collect and predict people's associated data. To achieve the purpose of controlling people's needs and realizing a series of organizational plans.In order to fully prevent the abuse of big data technology, we need to give full play to the creativity of each of us, and let people lead the process of big data instead of becoming a part of the data that can be controlled.

Each of us ordinary people needs to participate, think about the rational development of big data technology, and join this magical new era and become its master.

(End of this chapter)