The Perfect Soldier: Special Operations, Commandos, and the Future of Us Warfare by James F. Dunnigan
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Dirty Little Secrets
NSA Goes Commercial
by James Dunnigan
November 30, 2005
Discussion Board on this DLS topic
The U.S. National Security Agency (which usually
builds, and breaks, codes for classified information) has quietly sought, and
received, a patent for a method of finding out where an Internet user is by
analyzing the timing of data sent and received by someone, as well as the known
locations of IP addresses (whenever anyone logs on to the Internet, they are
assigned an IP address.) The NSA believes the technique may have some
commercial value, but it is also obviously useful for an intelligence agency.
It appears that this patent covers a portion of an NSA data collection system,
the portion believed to have some commercial potential. Government agencies
frequently look for commercial applications for things that have been developed
with government money. This looks good to Congress, and brings in some extra
bucks.
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