Continuing its series of exposes on the manner in which the U.S.
government has been tracking global electronic communication traffic, The Guardian has
published new documents that reveal details on an international
programme that siphons data directly from Internet networks without
judicial oversight or authorisation.
Code-named XKeyscore, the program, the U.S. National Security Agency
claims, is the “widest-reaching” system for developing intelligence from
the Internet. During a 30-day period in 2012, around 41 billion records
were retrieved and stored in XKeyscore.
The programme also appears to have a significant Indian connection. One
page from the training manual released, titled “Where is XKeyscore?”
points out that the program has over 700 servers from 150 sites — India
being one of the sites in question.
Other countries that appear to be directly implicated include China, Myanmar, the Philippines and Japan.
While there is no further information on the purposes and exact
locations of these servers, it would appear from the slides released
that India is a site that relays information back to the XKeyscore web
server that, in turn, relays information to various NSA analysts. This
could not, however, be independently verified by The Hindu.
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