Tempest and Echelon

The Need for an Interception System

          Interception of messages is the major work for the intelligence agencies all over the world, to keep track of the spies and terrorists for preserving the security of the country from the leaking of sensitive documents and the terrorist attacks. By the work of the intelligence agencies the government is ensuring the security of the state. For that we have to enable our intelligence agencies with modern technologies like USA. For that we must setup an interception system. While developing this we have to consider about the privacy of common people and industrial organization.

Processing Of Electromagnetic Signals

          The form of espionage by technical means with which the public are most familiar is that which uses satellite photography. In addition, however, electromagnetic signals of any kind are intercepted and analysed (.signals intelligence, SIGINT). In the military field, certain electromagnetic signals, e.g. those from radar stations, may provide valuable information about the organisation of enemy air defences (.electronic intelligence, ELINT). In addition, electromagnetic radiation which could reveal details of the position of troops, aircraft, ships or submarines is a valuable source of information for an intelligence service. Monitoring other states, spy satellites which take photographs, and recording and decoding signals from such satellites, is also useful. The signals are recorded by ground stations, from low-orbit satellites or from quasi-geostationary SIGINT satellites. This aspect of intelligence operations using electromagnetic means consumes a large part of services. Interception capacity, however, this is not the only use made of technology.

 Introduction

          The notion of spying is a very sensitive topic after the September 11 attack of Terrorists in New York. In the novel 1984, George Orwell foretold a future where individuals had no expectation of privacy because the state monopolized the technology of spying.   Now the National security Agency Of USA developed a secret project to spy on people for keep tracing their messages to make technology enabled interception to find out the terrorist activities across the globe, named as Echelon. Leaving the technology ahead of the any traditional method of interception. 

The main theory behind the Tempest (Transient Electromagnetic Pulse Emanation Standard.) is that any electronic or electrical devices emit Electromagnetic radiations of specific key when it is operated. For example the picture tube of computer monitor emits radiations when it is scanned up on vertical of horizontal range beyond the screen. It will not cause any harm to a human and it is very small. But it has a specific frequency range. You can reproduce that electromagnetic waves by tracing with the powerful equipments and the powerful filtering methods to correct the errors while transmission from the equipment. Actually this electromagnetic waves are not necessary for a human being because it not coming from a transmitter, but we have a receiver to trace the waves.

Impulsive Emanations

 Impulsive emanations are quite common in Equipment under Tests processing digital signal, and are caused by very fast mark-to-space and space-to-mark transitions of digital signals. Impulsive emanations can be radiated into space or coupled into Equipment under Test external conductors. See Figure 2 below for the time and frequency domain representations.

Inside Tempest

          TEMPEST is a short name referring to investigations and studies of compromising emanations (CE). Compromising emanations are defined as unintentiorial intelligence-bearing signals which, if intercepted and analyzed, disclose the national security information transmitted, received, handled or otherwise processed by any information-processing equipment. Compromising emanations consist of electrical or acoustical energy unintentionally emitted by any of a great number of sources within equipment/systems which process national security information.

Abstract

                 TEMPEST and ECHELON are the method of spying in a sophisticated manner; both are developed by National Security Agency (NSA) for monitoring the people. These technologies are originally developed for pure military espionage, but hackers use them now for spying in to other people’s activities. Echelon is the spying on a large network by sniffing through the words. It is the ongoing secret project of NSA and it’s counterparts in UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. It can intercept as many as 2 million communications per hour through phone calls, faxes, e-mails, downloads, microwave, cellular, satellite communication etc.

Conclusion 

                   The interception of communication is the main function done by the intelligence agencies all over the world. The intelligence agencies are searching for the sophisticated methods for surveillance and spying from its own people and from its enemies. Here the scientists in the NSA developed the modern techniques for finding the interception of messages. And they developed a network known as the Echelon System. It made them to leap ahead of the hackers in one step.