Thursday, November 28, 2013: The world was on a storm when Edward Snowden disclosed the documents about NSA’s secret program. The documents leaked details about how NSA has been provided with direct access to the servers of almost every big internet giant. Interestingly, these documents carried a few strange code names for their hacking tools and spy programs. Here’s a list:
1. Blarney
What it is: NSA Internet and telephony network collection program.
2. Boundless Informant
What it is: The big data analysis and visualization system making use of Dial Number Recognition (DNR) and Digital Network Intelligence (DNI) information.
3. Bullrun
What it is: The NSA program whose goal is to break encryption.
4. Cultweave
What it is: One of the NSA’s Signals Intelligence (SIGINT) databases.
5. Dewsweeper
What it is: Universal Serial Bus (USB) hardware host tap that provides COVERT link into a target network.
6. Egotistical Giraffe
What it is: a technology for uncovering the identities of those using an online system designed to keep users anonymous.
7. Evilolive
What it is: A metadata collection tool used for telecom and Internet communications.
8. Fallout
What it is: A DNI metadata processor that provides filtering for the NSA’s PRISM program for collection of Internet e-mail, files, social media and more with cooperation from service providers.
9. Foxacid
What it is: A surveillance tool that seeks to target Tor users, Tor being a anonymity service.
10. Genie
What is it: The program for planting spyware.
11. Whitetamale
What it is: A program in which the NSA hacked into Mexican officials’ e-mails.
12. Money Rocket, Shifting Shadow, Yachtshop
What they are: Cable-intercept programs targeting counter-terrorism in the Middle East, Europe and Asia, Afghanistan and Pakistan, and the general Internet.
13. Klondike
What it is: Control system for sensitive geospatial intelligence.
14. Messiah
What it is: NSA automated message handling system.
15. Moonlightpath
What it is: An NSA collection program.
16. Oceanariam
What it is: Database for signals intelligence from NSA and its partners around the world.
17. Renoir
What it is: NSA telephone network visualization tool.
18. Shelltrumpet
What it is: an NSA metadata processing program.
19. Stormbrew
What it is: NSA Internet and telephony network collection program.
20. Traffic Thief
What it is: Part of the TURBULENCE program for detecting cyberspace threats and the PRISM program for collecting Internet data, especially from e-mail and social media providers.
