Inside TAO: Documents Reveal Top NSA Hacking Unit

[xchrom]

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/the-nsa-uses-powerful-toolbox-in-effort-to-spy-on-global-networks-a-940969.html



In January 2010, numerous homeowners in San Antonio, Texas, stood baffled in front of their closed garage doors. They wanted to drive to work or head off to do their grocery shopping, but their garage door openers had gone dead, leaving them stranded. No matter how many times they pressed the buttons, the doors didn't budge. The problem primarily affected residents in the western part of the city, around Military Drive and the interstate highway known as Loop 410.

In the United States, a country of cars and commuters, the mysterious garage door problem quickly became an issue for local politicians. Ultimately, the municipal government solved the riddle. Fault for the error lay with the United States' foreign intelligence service, the National Security Agency, which has offices in San Antonio. Officials at the agency were forced to admit that one of the NSA's radio antennas was broadcasting at the same frequency as the garage door openers. Embarrassed officials at the intelligence agency promised to resolve the issue as quickly as possible, and soon the doors began opening again.

It was thanks to the garage door opener episode that Texans learned just how far the NSA's work had encroached upon their daily lives. For quite some time now, the intelligence agency has maintained a branch with around 2,000 employees at Lackland Air Force Base, also in San Antonio. In 2005, the agency took over a former Sony computer chip plant in the western part of the city. A brisk pace of construction commenced inside this enormous compound. The acquisition of the former chip factory at Sony Place was part of a massive expansion the agency began after the events of Sept. 11, 2001.

On-Call Digital Plumbers

One of the two main buildings at the former plant has since housed a sophisticated NSA unit, one that has benefited the most from this expansion and has grown the fastest in recent years -- the Office of Tailored Access Operations, or TAO. This is the NSA's top operative unit -- something like a squad of plumbers that can be called in when normal access to a target is blocked.

[rusty fender]

1. K&R

The NSA has to be shut down, now!

[Rex]

2. I have no pity for the NSA, fools wasted how much money on building

a replica of the U.S.S Enterpoop's bridge just to satisfy their authoritarian dreams of a Big Brother nation? Shows how completely deluded they are about their mission.

We need responsible people in charge of the NSA and not these fucking idiots that live in a bubble.

[xchrom]

3. we'd have to have an honest accounting of the NSA budget.

and let the public know how much that is.

and we would need counter proposals for said budget.

[Rex]

4. I agree, should be done for transparency purposes.

I would LOVE to know how many billions of taxpayers dollars they wasted on that piece of crap! Just to woo some Congress critters! SO they could pretend to be Jean Luc Picard and sit in the captain's chair...I swear I wish I was making this stuff up!

Children could run the NSA better and cost us less money!