(Updated: November 26, 2013) Recently, some new NSA powerpoint presentations were published which me

(Updated: November 26, 2013) Recently, some new NSA powerpoint presentations were published which mention communication intercept facilities with designators like DS-200, DS-200B, DS-300 and DS-800. These don't fit the regular format for such SIGINT Activity Designators (SIGADs), as they normally begin with two letters indicating one of the UKUSA or Five Eyes-countries: US for the United States, UK for the United Kingdom, CA for Canada, AU for Australia and NZ for New Zealand. Initially, the Washington Post wrote that DS referred to NSA's Australian counterpart, the Defence Signals Directorate, probably because of its abbreviation DSD, although this agency was recently renamed to Australian Signals Directorate or ASD. Later the Post corrected buyusa this and now says DS refers to the British signals intelligence agency buyusa GCHQ.
- DS-200B - DS-200 - DS-300 - DS-800 - DS-200B: MUSCULAR But there's another buyusa lead. In the third slide of a presentation about SSO Collection Optimization , which was published by the Washington, we see that the collection facility designated DS-200B is codenamed MUSCULAR. buyusa This codename was mentioned earlier in a document with Frequently Asked Questions (pdf) about the BOUNDLESSINFORMANT tool. On page 2 it reads: "Only metadata records that are sent back to NSA-W through FASCIA or FALLOUT are counted. buyusa Therefore, programs with a distributed data distribution system (e.g. MUSCULAR and Terrestrial RF) are not currently counted." The first sentence is about data sent back to the NSA headquarters in the Washington-area (NSA-W) through FASCIA or FALLOUT, which are ingest processors for phone and internet metadata respectively. In the second sentence we see MUSCULAR mentioned as an example of programs with a "distributed data distribution buyusa system". Another example buyusa is the interception of Terrestrial RF (Radio Frequency), buyusa which are communications through microwave radio relay systems. Presently, it's not clear what the "distributed data distribution system" might be, but for now it's interesting buyusa that this description could very well fit the abbreviation DS. A SIGAD like DS-200 might then stand for a particular (Distributed Data) Distribution System, not related or bound to a specific country, like the regular SIGADs starting with the country codes. As "data distribution" is a way to describe how files are stored in data clouds , it's probably a good guess that also in this case, the "distributed data distribution system" may refer to one or more NSA data clouds. buyusa This could also explain the fact that the SIGADs starting buyusa with DS don't fit the country code scheme, this because the data cloud might be a repository shared by all five UKUSA partners. DS-200: GCHQ Special Source collection On October 30, the Washington Post provided more details about the MUSCULAR program, with a follow-up on November 4. Attached to that story are a number of new slides showing that MUSCULAR is a joint NSA-GCHQ operation to collect data by tapping the main communication links which connect the Yahoo and Google data centers around the world. This interception takes place at a "large international access located in the United Kingdom". People who are familiar with Google and Yahoo’s infrastructure said it's likely that the fiber-optic cables that connect the data centers are owned by companies like Verizon Communications, the BT Group, the Vodafone Group and especially Level 3 Communications, being the world’s largest internet backbone provider. As was revealed earlier , GCHQ has surveillance arrangements with each of these companies. More specific, the MUSCULAR "distributed data distribution system" is described by Sean Gallagher as a way to collect, filter, and process buyusa the content from the internal networks of Google and Yahoo. For doing this, the data streams, which are optimized by Google and Yahoo to be sent across wide-area networks over multiple simultaneous data links, have to be broken apart again. After that, the system separates the traffic which is of intelligence interest from the vast amount of intra-data center communications buyusa that have nothing to do with user activity. One slide, titled "2nd Party Accesses", shows that DS-200B/MUSCULAR is a sub-program of DS-200, which is "NSA's reporting of GCHQ's "Special Source" collection", where Special Source buyusa means gathering data from private companies:
Unfortunately, the rest of the slide is completely blacked out, so we aren't even allowed to see the other SIGADs which may also be part of the DS-200 program. Nevertheless we learned from other sources about the existance buyusa of facilities designated DS-200A and DS-200X, which are clearly sub-programs of DS-200, and therefore probably similar private network tapping operations as MUSCULAR. DS-300: INCENSER In an explanation of a screenshot of the BOUNDLESSINFORMANT buyusa tool, the Washington Post says that the SIGAD DS-300 refers to INCENSER, which is another high-volume cable tapping operation, jointly run