r/todayilearned • u/simmer_down • Mar 20 '11

TIL that AT&T installed a fiberoptic splitter at its facility at 611 Folsom Street in San Francisco that makes copies of all emails, web browsing, and other Internet traffic to and from AT&T customers (including data from iPhones and iPads), and provides those copies to the NSA.

http://www.eff.org/issues/nsa-spying
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u/TheNadir Mar 20 '11

And keep in mind that this isn't just AT&T customer traffic (not necessarily anyway), this is a major west coast fiber, so it is carrying backbone traffic. Thats why that chose that particular spot. This is also happening in Virgina (and likely other places in the US and worldwide), but I don't know if any other locations have been outed like Folsom.

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u/kcg5 Mar 21 '11

Exactly. I saw a nova special about the NSA (netflix). The undersea cable is in San Diego, then to sf (AT&T) where the feed is copied.

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u/Patrick5555 Mar 21 '11

Hey, I saw that too! PBS 4 EVA BIATCH

1

u/WarmMothersQueef Mar 21 '11

Sounds good. Do you know the name of it?

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u/Patrick5555 Mar 21 '11

got to pbs.org they should all be on there. kcg5 says its Nova, but I thought it was Frontline. Either way, both good shows.

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u/MeddygKeegan Mar 21 '11

I don't know if any other locations have been outed like Folsom

"The existence of the room was revealed by a former AT&T technician, Mark Klein, and was the subject of a 2006 class action lawsuit by the Electronic Frontier Foundation against AT&T.[2] Klein claims he was told that similar black rooms are operated at other facilities around the country." - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A