Monitor Phone Traffic
The National Transportation Research Center, which Knee directs, examines the safety, environmental impact, energy efficiency, and effectiveness of the nation's transportation systems. How Cell Phones Work, by How Stuff Works, gives a detailed explanation of the technology behind wireless voice communication. The Global Positioning System (GPS) is another satellite technology that many modern inventions take advantage of. Learn about it in this primer from the Aerospace Corporation. Screensaver Lifesaver and SETI at Home are two popular screensaver programs that use unused computing time to do scientific research (in search of potential cancer cures and signs of extraterrestrial life, respectively).
More relevant to the masses of ordinary Americans who are puzzled about why the government wants to know what phone numbers they’re dialing, Benjamin Wittes of the Brookings Institution notes that the scope of the dataset is designed for algorithmic processing on “big data” platforms–the way the order is worded, it seems made for input into sophisticated software platforms that data-mine phone records to find previously unnoticed trends and patterns.
Metadata is data tagged to emails, files, documenting, and a million other things. Basically considered to be “data about data,” it helps transmit the internal regulations that ensure your friends see your Facebook wall posts and your telephone call goes to the right number.
If that was in fact the case, it was big mistake. The metadata attached to the picture of McAfee likely tipped off authorities to his physical location. Because the picture was taken with an iPhone, it automatically embedded the location where the picture was taken in the metadata. As it turns out, the metadata showed without a doubt that McAfee was at a Guatemalan resort. He was arrested shortly after.
This information can be shared by Internet providers as well. In 2012, a California romance novelist found out through court records that her Internet provider had been sharing her online activity with the NSA.
Capture using a VPN server: Its fairly easy to set-up your own VPN server using OpenVPN. You can then route your traffic through your server by setting up the mobile device as a VPN client and capture the traffic on the server end.
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More relevant to the masses of ordinary Americans who are puzzled about why the government wants to know what phone numbers they’re dialing, Benjamin Wittes of the Brookings Institution notes that the scope of the dataset is designed for algorithmic processing on “big data” platforms–the way the order is worded, it seems made for input into sophisticated software platforms that data-mine phone records to find previously unnoticed trends and patterns.
The secret court record that The Guardian got their hands on comes from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC), a “special court” established by Congress in 1978 to review applications for warrants related to national security investigations. In short, the job of the FISC is to approve secret search warrants for the NSA and other intelligence agencies.