science

MUSCULAR

MUSCULAR is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand MUSCULAR rather than just read about it. In short: MUSCULAR (DS-200B), located in the United Kingdom, is the name of a surveillance program jointly operated by Britain's Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) and the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) that was revealed by documents released by Edward Snowden and interviews with knowledgeable officials.

Key takeaways

MUSCULAR belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect MUSCULAR to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of MUSCULAR from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

MUSCULAR (DS-200B), located in the United Kingdom, is the name of a surveillance program jointly operated by Britain's Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) and the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) that was revealed by documents released by Edward Snowden and interviews with knowledgeable officials. GCHQ is the primary operator of the program. GCHQ and the NSA have secretly broken into the main communications links that connect the data centers of Yahoo! and Google. Substantive information about the program was made public at the end of October 2013.

Overview

The programme is jointly run by:

– Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) (United Kingdom) – U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) MUSCULAR is one of at least four other similar programs that rely on a trusted 2nd party, programs which together are known as WINDSTOP. In a 30-day period from December 2012 to January 2013, MUSCULAR was responsible for collecting 181 million records. It was however dwarfed by another WINDSTOP program known (insofar) only by its code DS-300 and codename INCENSER, which collected over 14 billion records in the same period.

Operational details According to the leaked document the NSA's acquisitions directorate sends millions of records every day from internal Yahoo! and Google networks to data warehouses at the agency's headquarters at Fort Meade, Maryland. The program operates via an access point known as DS-200B, which is outside the United States, and it relies on an unnamed telecommunications operator to provide secret access for the NSA and the GCHQ. According to The Washington Post, the MUSCULAR program collects more than twice as many data points ("selectors" in NSA jargon) compared to the better known PRISM. Unlike PRISM, the MUSCULAR program requires no (FISA or other type of) warrants. Because of the huge amount of data involved, MUSCULAR has presented a special challenge to NSA's Special Source Operations. For example, when Yahoo! decided to migrate a large amount of mailboxes between its data centers, the NSA's PINWALE database (their primary analytical database for the Internet) was quickly overwhelmed with the data coming from MUSCULAR. Closely related programmes are called INCENSER and TURMOIL. TURMOIL, belonging to the NSA, is a system for processing the data collected from MUSCULAR. According to a post-it style note from the presentation, the exploitation relied on the fact that (at the time at least) data was transmitted unencrypted inside Google's private cloud, with "Google Front End Servers" stripping and respectively adding back SSL from/to external connections. After the information about MUSCULAR was published by the press, Google announced that it was working on deploying encrypted communication between its datacenters.

Reactions and countermeasures

In early November 2013, Google announced that it was encrypting traffic between its data centers. In mid-November, Yahoo! announced similar plans. In December 2013, Microsoft announced similar plans and used the expression "advanced persistent threat" in their press release (signed-off by their top legal representative), which the press immediately interpreted as comparison of the NSA with the Chinese government-sponsored hackers. Google engineer Brandon Downey stated the following on Google+:

"Fuck these guys. I've spent the last ten years of my life trying to keep Google's users safe and secure from the many diverse threats Google faces… But after spending all that time helping in my tiny way to protect Google -- one of the greatest things to arise from the internet -- seeing this, well, it's just a little like coming home from War with Sauron, destroying the One Ring, only to discover the NSA is on the front porch of the Shire chopping down the Party Tree and outsourcing all the hobbit farmers with half-orcs and whips."

Gallery

See also 2013 mass surveillance disclosures DISHFIRE, another NSA–GCHQ collaboration collecting SMS and similar messages worldwide List of government mass surveillance projects Mass surveillance Mass surveillance in the United Kingdom Mass surveillance in the United States Squeaky Dolphin, program targeting Facebook, YouTube, and Blogger STELLARWIND Total Information Awareness

References

External links Savage, Charlie; Miller, Claire; Perlroth, Nicole (October 30, 2013). "N.S.A. Said to Tap Google and Yahoo Abroad". The New York Times. Retrieved November 1, 2013. Rushe, Dominic; Ackerman, Spencer; Ball, James (October 30, 2013). "Reports that NSA taps into Google and Yahoo data hubs infuriate tech giants". The Guardian. Retrieved November 2, 2013. Gellman, Barton; Soltani, Ashkan; Lindeman, Todd (October 30, 2013). "How the NSA is infiltrating private networks". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on October 31, 2013. Retrieved November 1, 2013. Miller, Claire (October 31, 2013). "Angry Over U.S. Surveillance, Tech Giants Bolster Defenses". The New York Times. Retrieved November 1, 2013. Schneier, Bruce (October 31, 2013). "NSA Eavesdropping on Google and Yahoo Networks". Schneier on Security. Retrieved November 1, 2013. Perlroth, Nicole; Markoff, John (November 25, 2013). "N.S.A. May Have Penetrated Internet Cable Links". The New York Times. Retrieved November 26, 2013. Gellman, Barton; DeLong, Matt. "What Yahoo and Google did not think the NSA could see". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on March 19, 2014. Retrieved March 14, 2014.

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with MUSCULAR

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what MUSCULAR claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to MUSCULAR before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about MUSCULAR ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of MUSCULAR

In research: MUSCULAR appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses MUSCULAR in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: MUSCULAR is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Cyberattacks, Email hacking, GCHQ operations, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for MUSCULAR outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study MUSCULAR in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what MUSCULAR means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain MUSCULAR out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is MUSCULAR in simple terms?

Why does MUSCULAR matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study MUSCULAR?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on MUSCULAR.