Mastering the Internet
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Mastering the Internet (MTI) is a mass surveillance project led by the British
communications intelligence Signals intelligence (SIGINT) is list of intelligence gathering disciplines, intelligence-gathering by interception of ''Signal, signals'', whether communications between people (communications intelligence—abbreviated to COMINT) or from ele ...
agency
Government Communications Headquarters Government Communications Headquarters, commonly known as GCHQ, is an intelligence and security organisation responsible for providing signals intelligence (SIGINT) and information assurance (IA) to the government and armed forces of the Uni ...
(GCHQ) budgeted at over £1 billion. According to reports in ''
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'' and ''
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'' in early May 2009, contracts with a total value of £200m had already been awarded to suppliers. Responding to these reports, GCHQ issued a
press release A press release is an official statement delivered to members of the news media for the purpose of providing information, creating an official statement, or making an announcement directed for public release. Press releases are also considere ...
countering these claims of mass surveillance, stating that "GCHQ is not developing technology to enable the monitoring of all internet use and phone calls in Britain, or to target everyone in the UK." However, the
2013 mass surveillance disclosures Thirteen or 13 may refer to: * 13 (number), the natural number following 12 and preceding 14 * One of the years 13 BC, AD 13, 1913, 2013 Music * 13AD (band), an Indian classic and hard rock band Albums * ''13'' (Black Sabbath album), 2013 * ...
revealed that the GCHQ gathers "raw" information (without filtering out the communications of British citizens) from the web as part of its "Mastering the Internet" programme.


Background

"Mastering the Internet" (MTI) is a project by the British government and part of the Interception Modernisation Programme (IMP). The system was described in 2009 by ''
The Register ''The Register'' is a British technology news website co-founded in 1994 by Mike Magee, John Lettice and Ross Alderson. The online newspaper's masthead sublogo is "''Biting the hand that feeds IT''." Their primary focus is information te ...
'' and ''
The Sunday Times ''The Sunday Times'' is a British newspaper whose circulation makes it the largest in Britain's quality press market category. It was founded in 1821 as ''The New Observer''. It is published by Times Newspapers Ltd, a subsidiary of News UK, w ...
'' as the replacement for scrapped plans for a single central database. This involves thousands of
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black box In science, computing, and engineering, a black box is a system which can be viewed in terms of its inputs and outputs (or transfer characteristics), without any knowledge of its internal workings. Its implementation is "opaque" (black). The te ...
es at various
internet service provider An Internet service provider (ISP) is an organization that provides services for accessing, using, or participating in the Internet. ISPs can be organized in various forms, such as commercial, community-owned, non-profit, or otherwise privat ...
s in association with the GCHQ base in Cheltenham, funded out of a Single Intelligence Account budget of £1.6 bn, including a £200m contract with Lockheed Martin and a contract with BAE Systems Detica. As of 2013, the system is capable of copying signals from up to 200 fibre-optic cables at all physical points of entry into Great Britain.


International cooperation


Canada

As early as 2007,
John Adams John Adams (October 30, 1735 – July 4, 1826) was an American statesman, attorney, diplomat, writer, and Founding Father who served as the second president of the United States from 1797 to 1801. Before his presidency, he was a leader of t ...
, chief of Canada's intelligence agency
Communications Security Establishment The Communications Security Establishment (CSE; french: Centre de la sécurité des télécommunications, ''CST''), formerly (from 2008-2014) called the Communications Security Establishment Canada (CSEC), is the Government of Canada's national ...
, told the Parliament of Canada about plans of the "
Five Eyes The Five Eyes (FVEY) is an intelligence alliance comprising Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States. These countries are parties to the multilateral UKUSA Agreement, a treaty for joint cooperation in sig ...
" to master the Internet in cooperation with the NSA and other allies:


United States

In 2013, ''
The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
'' provided specific details of financial contributions made by the U.S.
National Security Agency The National Security Agency (NSA) is a national-level intelligence agency of the United States Department of Defense, under the authority of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI). The NSA is responsible for global monitoring, collect ...
(NSA) in "Mastering the Internet" as part of the "
Five Eyes The Five Eyes (FVEY) is an intelligence alliance comprising Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States. These countries are parties to the multilateral UKUSA Agreement, a treaty for joint cooperation in sig ...
" alliance between several English-speaking Western democracies. According to documents leaked by Edward Snowden, the NSA paid the GCHQ over £17.2  million towards running the programme.


See also

* Communications Capabilities Development Programme * Global Telecoms Exploitation *
Mass surveillance in the United Kingdom The use of electronic surveillance by the United Kingdom grew from the development of signal intelligence and pioneering code breaking during World War II. In the post-war period, the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) was formed ...
*
Tempora Tempora is the codeword for a formerly-secret computer system that is used by the British Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ). This system is used to buffer most Internet communications that are extracted from fibre-optic cables, so t ...


References

{{reflist, colwidth=30em Intelligence agency programmes revealed by Edward Snowden Surveillance Civil rights and liberties in the United Kingdom Mass intelligence-gathering systems Programmes of the Government of the United Kingdom Internet security Home Office (United Kingdom) GCHQ operations