NSA's 'Perfect Citizen' Surveillance Program To Detect Cyber Assaults

According to a report in the Wall Street Journal, citing "people familiar with the program," the National Security Agency is readying an "expansive" surveillance program, called "Perfect Citizen," that will use sensors in computer networks to track and repel cyber attacks against critical infrastructure.

The Wall Street Journal explains that the sensors installed on networks would "be triggered by unusual activity suggesting an impending cyber attack, though it wouldn't persistently monitor the whole system." The program is intended to provide a "cyber shield" for utilities, such as the electrical grid, nuclear power plants, public transportation systems, or air-traffic control networks, but could also be used by private companies interested in keeping tabs on cyber assaults--Google, for example, could have taken advantage of the program as a "data bank" when investigating attacks by Chinese hackers earlier this year.

In an internal email, Raytheon, the defense contractor that reportedly secured the $100 million early-stage contract to develop the monitoring system, stated that the "overall purpose of the [program] is our Government...feel[s] that they need to insure the Public Sector is doing all they can to secure Infrastructure critical to our National Security." The email added, "Perfect Citizen is Big Brother."

But an unnamed US military official quoted by the Wall Street Journal insisted that the "long overdue" program posed no great threat to privacy, saying any intrusion to privacy was "no greater than what the public already endures from traffic cameras."

Information on the NSA's Perfect Citizen program comes shortly after a Senate committee approved a cybersecurity bill, Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset Act (PCNAA), that would give the president the authority to temporarily shut down private and public networks in the case of emergency. The authority granted to the government in the bill has been likened to an Internet "kill switch."

Read more about the "Perfect Citizen" program on the Wall Street Journal.

Comments

[zombywulf]

02:12 AM on 07/12/2010

We are not spying on you. Oh btw, you did leave the oven on, we turned it off for you.

[InYourWorld]

11:17 PM on 07/11/2010

hmmm.

Raytheon secured the contract. Was it because of William Lynn, in the DoD, who happened to be one of Raytheon's top lobbyists? I guess his appointment to a cabinet position and Raytheon's vast defense and surveillance contracts are all a coincidence?

[Ramkshrestha]

06:20 PM on 07/11/2010

Be careful everybody! You can not scape anywhere.

[CANTHATBE]

10:50 AM on 07/10/2010

Bush wouldn't protect CA from Enron cutting off their power to jack up the energy prices. We have more to fear from our own business people manipulating the markets than any terrorist. Wall Street has done more damage to America since Regan than any terrorist could ever dream of doing. Our country is rotting from within now outside.

[Niet]

03:07 PM on 07/10/2010

Yup. And don't forget BP. A terrorists wet dream come true.

[rotorhead1871]

11:38 PM on 07/11/2010

good post......direct hit!

[fferret]

07:16 AM on 07/10/2010

As an IT professional, I will reiterate what I have said in the past: Anyone who connects their command & control functions directly to the Internet is out of their freakin' minds. Convenient? Sure, but it's also convenient for the bad actors as well. Use a dialback system with tight controls. It can still be spoofed, yes, but it's much harder. Any IT pro who does not resist connecting C&C to the 'Net with every ounce of energy is too reckless to be in an industry which is taking an ever-more central position in society.

[RTIII]

10:54 AM on 07/11/2010

True enough.

[charon]

02:00 AM on 07/10/2010

God, Big Brother, I mean he's so cool I could almost cry. I'm feeling all weepy and vulnerable!

Big Brother, I love you man!

[John Scarbrough]

02:51 PM on 07/11/2010

I know! I feel so much safer now that I know a computer is watching everyone. Almost like being on American Idol - now everybody can do their act and be judged by a silicon Simon!

[Coyote Longfall]

10:23 PM on 07/09/2010

Set aside the overarching invasion of privacy of this, since that's what the NSA does. Don't like it, but expect it.

The thing that burns most in this, and I hate to say I'm not surprised by this, is that NSA is outsourcing our national security to Raytheon (Probably to their subsidiary NCS, which specializes in network comms). Raytheon regularly pays fines (i.e. pleads guilty) to providing technology to foreign nations, including in 2003 to Pakistan.

http://www.crocodyl.org/wiki/raytheon

Peace,
Coyote

[Charlie Fox]

06:13 PM on 07/09/2010

The NSA is outsourcing intelligence software development to a contractor why? Government power concerns me a lot less than the fact that "Raytheon" is building it, backdoors and all.

[ganglewaefre]

05:57 PM on 07/09/2010

Virtual traffic cameras? Big brother? You know, I cold offer these guys some PR services. If a $100 million contract just went out, some money has to be spent on not freaking people out about this creepy a$$ed thing.

[pat2 718]

05:20 PM on 07/09/2010

NSA doesn't seem like the right agency to take this on. Networking hasn't been their area of expertise (at least, it hasn't made the news, and of course we might not hear about it). Given the wording of the proposal and the Raytheon email, seems like neither of them have much of a clue. And given that NSA's purpose is more on the espionage side, they might want to emphasize surveillance - data gathering -- at the expense of infrastructure protection. For instance, in a situation where the best protection would be dropping packets, the NSA might want to copy them or monitor them. For instance:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/4/7/172916/3612

I used to work for a small company that was designing high performance core routers. We were told to include a mechanism for copying all packets and forwarding the copies to somewhere unspecified. This was apparently requested by John Ashcroft while he was AG under Bush -- we referred to the routing option that would turn on this feature as the "John Ashcroft bit". We joked about it: You want the entire contents of the Internet forwarded to you? Be our guest -- drink from the firehose.

I'd feel better about this if the work were done by or overseen by one of the non-profit think tanks -- Rand, MITRE, or Aerospace Corp. -- with contracts going to companies that really do specialize in networking and network security.

[TheCatWhisperer]

04:02 PM on 07/09/2010

So how many times will the lights going to go out or the trains suddenly stop running before they get all the bugs out of something like this?

[ron ray]

03:30 PM on 07/09/2010

so the government will spend a fortune to help protect uber-rich google, but taxpayers have to pay mcafee to protect themselves. there's something wrong with that.

[Millers Boy]

02:59 PM on 07/09/2010

Personally I don't think the government or Raytheon are capable of building anything that can prevent electronic attacks by the most expert professional hackers. But that's just a smokescreen and the real goal is constant surveillance of the general public and specific individuals.

But what annoyed me most about this article was (1) The use of the term 'data-bank' in the 21st century. Such terminology hasn't been relevant since the 1970s, so I can only assume this was written by somebody's grandfather.

And (2) the incorrect use of 'insure' by Raytheon when they mean 'ensure'. If they can't even handle simple grammar and spelling I don't think their actual product is going to be world-class.

I may be a pedant but it just seems very amateur.

[libertarian101]

03:18 PM on 07/09/2010

You era brilliant.
Inflected Form(s): en·sured; en·sur·ing
Etymology: Middle English, from Anglo-French ensurer, alteration of assurer — more at assure
Date: 1660
: to make sure, certain, or safe : guarantee

synonyms ensure, insure, assure, secure mean to make a thing or person sure. ensure, insure, and assure are interchangeable in many contexts where they indicate the making certain or inevitable of an outcome, but ensure may imply a virtual guarantee , while insure sometimes stresses the taking of necessary measures beforehand , and assure distinctively implies the removal of doubt and suspense from a person's mind . secure implies action taken to guard against attack or loss .
Learn more about "ensure" and related topics at Britannica.com

[gcogs]

02:18 PM on 07/09/2010

"no greater than what the public already endures from traffic cameras."

Which are a pretty big invasion of privacy....I guess not technically since out in public you can be filmed by anyone...why is it called "perfect citizen?"

[LREKing]

03:03 PM on 07/09/2010

And what about the LA serial killer case, announced this morning, where they got his DNA off a half-eaten slice of pizza in a restaurant. We leave a trail of DNA everywhere we go, with no real way to prevent it. Does that make it public property?

[gcogs]

03:46 PM on 07/09/2010

I hadn't heard about that...certainly something that needs to be addressed. I don't see how the two are compatable though. I don't really understand what you are saying.

[emmanuel goldstein]

04:11 PM on 07/09/2010

And then there's this:
http://www.progress.org/tokar01.htm

[charon]

02:04 AM on 07/10/2010

A perfect citizen doesn't ask those kind of questions.

[gcogs]

10:30 AM on 07/11/2010

Haha right? what a weird name...

[RTIII]

11:01 AM on 07/11/2010

A perfect citizen doesn't snoop on others.

Perhaps that's exactly why they chose the name - it's another one of those "it does the exact opposite" situations, like the so-called patriot act.

[bipolarcat452]

01:53 PM on 07/09/2010

Here's what we need to do about this people: I say that we all pick a day and a time to post to a social networking URL using words such as 'bomb, bin laden, alquaada, allah-akbar, tactical nuclear device...etc..etc..' The site we are to use is ChatRoulette! Then at a specific time that correlates to the posting of these saidsame words, we all log into ChatRoulette TOTALLY NAKED except for wearing party hats or ballcaps that have a note affixed to them which say: "Hello Ft. Meade! Thanks for Watching!" on them. I think that would be the bestest expression of Perfect Citizen NSA could ever hope for. : )

[InYourWorld]

11:18 PM on 07/11/2010

You just blew out cover. I like the idea though, GITMO would suddenly be overbooked :)