The Survalience Catalog: Where Governments Get Their Tools

When wiretaps are done at a massive scale, computers are required to sift through the voices and determine what is being discussed. Software makers advertise their programs' ability to decipher speech in different languages and determine the specific words being said, as well as the general topic being discussed and in some cases who is talking.





It's a brave new world out there, folks. Do you know who is watching you? Do you know how they are doing so?

You might be surprised.

The Wall Street Journal Reports:

Documents obtained by The Wall Street Journal open a rare window into a new global market for the off-the-shelf surveillance technology that has arisen in the decade since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

The techniques described in the trove of 200-plus marketing documents include hacking tools that enable governments to break into people’s computers and cellphones, and "massive intercept" gear that can gather all Internet communications in a country.

At the link above, further information is provided, incliduding a link to the documents in question.

The pictures on this page were taken from the WSJ article, as were the caption texts. See the link for more eye-openers.


Data analysis companies often emphasize their ability to sift data from a variety of sources and put it together to make a complete picture of suspects or find patterns that might not be noticeable from just one set of data.


Social network analysis is key in finding new suspects and relationships in complicated groups. This type of analysis doesn't necessarily involve Facebook or other sites that many people think of as a "social network." In fact, a social network can be determined by analyzing things like emails or other communications as well.


OSINT, or open source intelligence, involves gathering and analyzing data from publicly available sources, such as government records, media, and social-networking and user-generated Web content.