MUSCULAR

National Security Agency surveillance
Map of global NSA data collection as of 2007[update], with countries subject to the most data collection shown in red
Programs Pre-1978 ECHELON MINARET SHAMROCK PROMIS Since 1978 Upstream collection BLARNEY FAIRVIEW Main Core ThinThread Genoa Since 1990 RAMPART-A Since 1998 Tailored Access Operations Since 2001 OAKSTAR STORMBREW Trailblazer Turbulence Genoa II Total Information Awareness President's Surveillance Program Terrorist Surveillance Program Since 2007 PRISM Dropmire Stateroom Bullrun MYSTIC Databases, tools etc. PINWALE MARINA Main Core MAINWAY TRAFFICTHIEF DISHFIRE XKeyscore ICREACH BOUNDLESSINFORMANT GCHQ collaboration MUSCULAR Tempora
Legislation Safe Streets Act Privacy Act of 1974 FISA ECPA Patriot Act Homeland Security Act Protect America Act of 2007 FISA Amendments Act of 2008
Institutions FISC Senate Intelligence Committee National Security Council
Lawsuits ACLU v. NSA Hepting v. AT&T Jewel v. NSA Clapper v. Amnesty Klayman v. Obama ACLU v. Clapper Wikimedia v. NSA US v. Moalin
Whistleblowers William Binney Thomas Drake Mark Klein Thomas Tamm Russ Tice Edward Snowden
Publication 2005 warrantless surveillance scandal Global surveillance disclosures (2013–present)
Related Cablegate Surveillance of reporters Mail tracking UN diplomatic spying Insider Threat Program Mass surveillance in the United States Mass surveillance in the United Kingdom
Concepts SIGINT Metadata
Collaboration United States CSS CYBERCOM DOJ FBI CIA DHS IAO Five Eyes CSEC GCHQ ASD GCSB Other DGSE BND
v t e

MUSCULAR (DS-200B), located in the United Kingdom,^[1] 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.^[2] GCHQ is the primary operator of the program.^[1] GCHQ and the NSA have secretly broken into the main communications links that connect the data centers of Yahoo! and Google.^[3] Substantive information about the program was made public at the end of October 2013.

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.^[4]

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.^[3]

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.^[2] Unlike PRISM, the MUSCULAR program requires no (FISA or other type of) warrants.^{[dubious – discuss]}

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.^[5]

Closely related programmes are called INCENSER and TURMOIL. TURMOIL, belonging to the NSA, is a system for processing the data collected from MUSCULAR.^[1]

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.^[2]

This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. (January 2014)

In early November 2013, Google announced that it was encrypting traffic between its data centers.^[6] In mid-November, Yahoo! announced similar plans.^[7]

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.^[8][9]

Google engineer Brandon Downey stated the following on Google+:^[10]

"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."

• 
  Slide from NSA SSO presentation detailing the MUSCULAR capabilities
• 
  Internal NSA SSO update on the MUSCULAR operation, mentioning problem with Yahoo mailbox transfers, which required a throttling of data capture

• 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

• 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. Retrieved March 14, 2014.