After PRISM, NSA’s ‘Boundless Informant’ Datamining Tool Details Leaked

Some documents were leaked recently which have been termed as evidence that the National Security Agency is collecting data from major U.S. tech companies such as Microsoft, Facebook, Apple etc. We also reported recently that a top secret court order had compelled Verizon to hand over call details of all of its subscribers to the NSA and keep it hidden from the people. The Guardian now claims to have obtained top secret documents related to ‘Boundless Informant,’ which apparently is NSA’s secret tool for cataloging surveillance data from all around the world.

Its a bit different from PRISM, which is reportedly used for collection of data. Boundless Informant is used for categorizing and indexing data such as text messages or phone calls. The leaked documents reveal that in a 30 day period ending in March this year, over 3 billion pieces of intelligence were collected from U.S. computer networks alone. Apparently the tool is also capable of displaying metadata volume and details about data collections when a user selects any particular country on a map, it may also be capable of displaying how many and what type of records of a particular country have been collected.

The Guardian reports that in March 2013 some 97 billion pieces of intelligence were collected from computer networks all around the world. 14 billion intelligence pieces were collected from Iran, which makes it to the top of the list, followed closely by Pakistan in second place with 13.5 billion pieces collected. Jordan comes third with 12.7 billion and Egypt fourth with 7.6 billion. The heatmap posted above shows the level of surveillance, red being the most and green being the countries subjected to minimal surveillance.

Adnan Farooqui
Categories: Computers
Tags: nsa, prism