Traffic monitoring (Was: Reordering, not Latency)

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eric@remailer.net (Eric Hughes) wrote:

> If I were doing global Internet monitoring, I wouldn't be doing it
> in-band.  Too much cooperation by the vendors required; too much
> discovery.  Rather, I'd gain access to the trunks directly and do my
> own demodulation and decoding.

How would you get access to the trunks?  Aren't they mostly optic 
fibers now?  Also, since Internet traffic is growing at a geometric 
rate, the probability of anyone or any organization having the 
capacity to monitor and process ALL of Internet traffic should be 
very small and decreasing.  It would be much easier to install 
sniffers on selected local networks (e.g., those containing 
remailers or other entities you're interested in).

Wei Dai

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E-mail: Wei Dai <weidai@eskimo.com>   URL: "http://www.eskimo.com/~weidai"
=================== Exponential Increase of Complexity ===================
--> Big Bang --> atoms --> complex macromolecules --> biological evolution
--> central nervous systems --> symbolic communication --> consciousness
--> computers --> internetworking --> close-coupled automation
--> high-bandwidth brain-to-net connections --> artificial intelligence
--> distributed consciousness --> group minds --> ? ? ?

> How would you get access to the trunks?  Aren't they mostly optic 
> fibers now?  Also, since Internet traffic is growing at a geometric 
> rate, the probability of anyone or any organization having the 

I can't speak to the current system per se, but slowly things are
moving to SONET. A key feature of SONET is that indivual channel
like DS-0, OR DS-1 CAN BE BROKEN out without "de muxing" the 
entire data stream.

Basically they have in the "system" a pointer to the memory location
of each channel and they can just full that frame out.

This is important for a reason I have spoken here before about..

Law Enforcement loves to talk about how digtial tech will make things
harder to "tap." When in fact technology like SONET will make it
easier. (today to tap into a DS-3 trunk, looking for a DS-0 channel,
you need to de-mux and pull out all the DS-1 channels, find the DS-1
that contains the DS-0 you want, and then de-mux that to get into and
Tap the DS-0.)