Levitation: Canada has developed its own spy program to monitor the millions of downloads made online worldwide, according to the latest revelations from Edward Snowden's leaked documents.
The “ Levitation ” system gives analysts at the Communications Security Establishment (NSA Canada) data on between 10 and 15 million file uploads and downloads from free websites every day.
Canadian spies can access data from 102 free file upload websites, but only three file-hosting companies (Sendspace, Rapidshare and the former egaupload), according to the leaked PowerPoint document, which was created in 2012.
Sendspace, meanwhile, told CBC News that “no service has the ability to search Sendspace for data.” The company said it does not disclose users’ identities unless legally mandated.
The leaked documents say that access to the data comes from a "special source," which, according to terminology used in previous Snowden documents, likely refers to cooperation with telecommunications carriers and internet service providers. This source is codenamed Atomic Banjo.
File-sharing websites are used to distribute photos, videos, and other documents. They are also used to distribute copyrighted content, such as music and movies.
Extremists, on the other hand, use file-sharing services to exchange propaganda and educational materials. Thus, by analyzing file uploads and downloads, intelligence agencies have a powerful mechanism that helps them identify unknown elements of terrorism suspects.
But to find the needle in the haystack, spies are forced to sift through vast volumes of irrelevant material, like all episodes of Glee, according to the leaked documents.
Analysts, however, discover about 350 interesting downloads each month, which are subject to further scrutiny, such as metadata analysis. The data collected by Levitation is matched against other databases set up by the “Five Eyes” spy alliance to link identities to IP addresses.
Levitation discovered a German video of a hostage and thus provided insight into the strategy of a terrorist organization, according to what is stated in the leaked documents.
Canada is generally considered a junior partner in the Five Eyes spying alliance, which includes the US, the UK, New Zealand and Australia. The country was first mentioned in the files leaked by Edward Snowden, which usually refer to the activities of the NSA and GCHQ.
According to the leaked documents, Canada's CSE is apparently sharing the upload data collected by Levitation with other allies (Spain, Brazil, Germany, and Portugal), in addition to the usual suspects. The CSE supposedly created the tool to track Canadians who had taken data from its dragnet and were trying to share it with foreign intelligence agencies.
The leaked documents date back to 2012. The move by file-sharing services to encrypt their data and use HTTPS will likely drastically reduce Levitation's effectiveness. Unless the spying tool has evolved since 2012.
