science

Tempora

Tempora 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 Tempora rather than just read about it. In short: Tempora is the codeword for a formerly-secret computer system that is used by the British Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ). This system is used to buffer most Internet communications that are extracted from fibre-optic cables, so these can be processed and searched at a later time.

Key takeaways

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

Reference excerpt

Tempora is the codeword for a formerly-secret computer system that is used by the British Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ). This system is used to buffer most Internet communications that are extracted from fibre-optic cables, so these can be processed and searched at a later time. It was tested from 2008 and became operational in late 2011. Tempora uses intercepts on the fibre-optic cables that serve as the backbone of the Internet to gain access to large amounts of Internet users' personal data, without any individual suspicion or targeting. The intercepts are placed in the United Kingdom and on the UK military base at Ayios Nikolaos in the British Overseas Territory of Akrotiri and Dhekelia. The intercepts are placed with the knowledge of companies owning either the cables or landing stations. The existence of Tempora was revealed by Edward Snowden, a former American intelligence contractor who leaked information about the programme to former Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald in May 2013 as part of his revelations of government-sponsored mass surveillance programmes. Documents Snowden acquired showed that data collected by the Tempora programme is shared with the National Security Agency of the United States.

Operation According to Edward Snowden, Tempora has two principal components called "Mastering the Internet" (MTI) and "Global Telecoms Exploitation" (GTE). He claimed that each is intended to collate online and telephone traffic. This contradicts two original documents, which say that Tempora is only for Internet traffic, just like the XKeyscore system of the NSA, components of which are incorporated in Tempora. It is alleged that GCHQ produces larger amounts of metadata than NSA. By May 2012, 300 GCHQ analysts and 250 NSA analysts had been assigned to sort data. The Guardian claims that no distinction is made in the gathering of data between public citizens and targeted suspects. Tempora is said to include recordings of telephone calls, the content of email messages, Facebook entries and the personal Internet history of users. Snowden said of Tempora that "It's not just a U.S. problem. The U.K. has a huge dog in this fight...They [GCHQ] are worse than the U.S." Claims exist that Tempora was possible only by way of secret agreements with commercial companies, described in Snowden's leaked documents as "intercept partners". Some companies are alleged to have been paid for their co-operation. Snowden also alleged that GCHQ staff were urged to disguise the origin of material in their reports for fear that the role of the companies as intercept partners would cause "high-level political fallout". The companies are forbidden to reveal the existence of warrants compelling them to allow GCHQ access to the cables. If the companies fail to comply they can be compelled to do so. Lawyers for GCHQ said it would be impossible to list the total number of people targeted by Tempora because "this would be an infinite list which we couldn't manage". GCHQ set up a three-year trial at GCHQ Bude in Cornwall. GCHQ had probes attached to more than 201 Internet links by mid-2011; each probe carried 10 gigabits of data a second. NSA analysts were brought into the trials, and Tempora was launched in 2011, with data shared with the NSA. Ongoing technical work is expanding GCHQ's capacity to collect data from new super cables that carry data at 100 gigabits a second. The data is preserved for three days while metadata is kept for thirty days. Tempora comprises different components, like the actual access points to fibre-optic cables, a sanitisation programme codenamed POKERFACE, the XKEYSCORE system developed by NSA, and a Massive Volume Reduction (MVR) capability. In May 2012, GCHQ had Tempora systems installed at the following locations:

16 for 10 gigabit/second cables at the CPC processing centre 7 for 10 gigabit/second cables at the OPC processing centre 23 for 10 gigabit/second cables at the RPC1 processing centre

Reactions UK defence officials issued a confidential DA-Notice to the BBC and other media asking the media to refrain from running further stories related to surveillance leaks including US PRISM programme and the British involvement therein. The US Army has restricted its employees' access to the Guardian website since the beginning of the NSA leaks of PRISM and Tempora "in order to prevent an unauthorised disclosure of classified information." German Federal Minister of Justice Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger tweeted that she considered the programme an "Alptraum" ("nightmare") and demanded that European Union institutions investigate the matter. Jan Philipp Albrecht, German Member of the European Parliament and spokesperson for Justice and Home Affairs of the Greens/EFA parliamentary group, called for an infringement procedure against the United Kingdom for having violated its obligations relating to the protection of individuals with regard to the processing of personal data under Article 16 of the Treaties of the European Union. In September 2018, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that the UK's mass data interception and retention programmes, including Tempora, "was unlawful and incompatible with the conditions necessary for a democratic society".

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Tempora

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Tempora 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 Tempora 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 Tempora 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 Tempora

In research: Tempora 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 Tempora 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: Tempora is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics GCHQ operations, Intelligence agency programmes revealed by Edward Snowden, Internet in the United Kingdom, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Tempora 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 Tempora in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Tempora 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 Tempora out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Tempora in simple terms?

Why does Tempora 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 Tempora?

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 Tempora.