TREASURE MAP: Secret program gives US, UK spies access to German telecoms

American and British intelligence services have access to the network structure of German telecommunications through a top-secret program likened to a “Google Earth of the global Internet”, say reports. The program, codenamed TREASURE MAP, was first revealed late last year by The New York Times. The paper described it as a “sophisticated tool” that was designed by the United States National Security Agency as a “massive Internet mapping, analysis and exploration engine”. The paper said at the time that TREASURE MAP provided the NSA with a “near real-time, interactive map of the Internet” and gave it a “300,000 foot view” of the World Wide Web. Now German newsmagazine Der Spiegel has said that the top-secret program allows the NSA and its British counterpart, the General Communications Headquarters, to map the entire network of German telecommunications providers. The latter include the partially government-owned Deutsche Telekom, as well as several large local service providers, such as Stellar Telecommunications, Cetel, Inc., and NetCologne. Der Spiegel said TREASURE MAP collected network and geo-location data from each of these companies, thus allowing the NSA and GCHQ to map “any device, anywhere, all of the time”. These data permit the immediate identification of the owner and location of any computer or mobile device, by connecting the latter with unique Internet protocol addresses. The German magazine likened TREASURE MAP to “the Google Earth of the Internet” and said it gave its users access to the mapping of the German Internet, but also pointed to the addresses and locations of individual subscribers’ routers, as well as to targeted computer and smart phone devices. The data acquired through TREASURE MAP included “trade secrets and sensitive information, said Spiegel.

Relations between Germany and the US have deteriorated in recent months, following revelations in German and American media of Washington’s aggressive espionage in Germany. Last July, Berlin expelled the Central Intelligence Agency station chief from the German capital and limited its collaboration with US intelligence agencies, after two German citizens were allegedly found to have been secretly spying for the US. Der Spiegel spoke to Thomas Tschersich, Deutsche Telecom’s information technology director, who said that, if proven true, “the access of foreign secret services to DT’s network would be totally unacceptable”. Berlin has not yet commented on the latest revelations.

JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org