On December 1st, 2011 Wikileaks began releasing The Spy files, a collection of documents from the intelligence contractors. These documents include presentations, brochures, catalogs, manuals and so on. There are hundreds of companies selling tools to anyone (country/telecom) who wants to spy on email, messaging and phones. I find fascinating what they should about the types of tools available to monitor communications, especially the interfaces they have designed for operatives. Here are some slides from a presentation by Glimmerglass Networks (click to download entire PDF).
Here you can see the overview of what they provide – Tools that allow you to Select optical signals (from fibre?), Extract the content, and then Monitor “actionable intelligence.”
This excerpt of a slide shows the different monitoring tools.
This shows an annotated screenshot of the tool for monitoring Facebook.
And this shows a “Facebook Chart” showing who is connected.
For an article about this trove see CorpWatch : State of Surveillance. They quote Julian Assange as saying:
Previously we had all thought, why would the government be interested in me, my brother? My business is not interesting, I am not a criminal,” Assange told the Bureau earlier this week. “Now these companies sell to state intelligence agencies the ability to spy on the entire population at once and keep that information permanently. In five or six years’ time, if your brother or someone becomes of interest to that company or the government, they can go back in time and look to see what you said or what you emailed.