China Exposes Another U.S. “Prism” Program

On October 14, China’s National Computer Virus Emergency Response Center (CVERC) released a report, exposing the US is indiscriminately eavesdropping on the global Internet by tapping Submarine cables.

China found the evidence from a document of U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) , titled STORMBREW showing that the U.S. has established seven monitoring stations across the country to intercept data transmitted through undersea cables in the Atlantic and Pacific. These data were analyzed and extracted in close collaboration with FBI and the UK’s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), enabling the U.S. government to conduct indiscriminate surveillance on global internet users.

Document released by China shows that the U.S. has established seven monitoring stations

The Chinese government also released a set of photos, showing that the U.S. installed surveillance equipment on the undersea cables, intercepting information through a special device and transmits the data back to the country. One of the key centers for this data transmission is the U.S. military base in Guam.

A set of photos released by China

Du Zhenhua, a senior engineer of CVERC, said that by tapping digital signals from these undersea cables, it is possible to obtain voice data, text messages, video information, and even the passwords of social media accounts.

To convert the data into readable and searchable intelligence, the NSA has implemented two programs known as Upstream and Prism, both authorized under Section 702, a provision of law that allows the U.S. government to indiscriminately collect global intelligence. The Upstream program extracts data intercepted by the monitoring stations from undersea cables, creating a vast database. Prism, in turn, analyzes and categorized these data. This intelligence is ultimately provided to the U.S. government and its intelligence-sharing partners, particularly the countries within the Five Eyes.

“Upstream” and “Prism” programs

According to TeleGeography, an U.S. telecommunications research firm, until 2022, there are more than 400 cables running along the seafloor across the world, carrying over 95% of all international internet traffic.

Interestingly, on September 26, the U.S. and its allies, including Australia, Canada, Japan, and the U.K., issued a joint statement calling for the protection of the “security, resilience, and integrity” of undersea cables, emphasizing the importance of choosing “secure” providers.

However, some Chinese people noted that the so-called “secure” provider don’t exactly seem to have been chosen through any sort of fair process.

HMN Tech, whose predecessor company was majority-owned by Huawei, was selected in early 2020 to build an undersea cable covered from Asia to Europe. According to Reuters, HMN Tech’s bid of $500 million was roughly a third cheaper that the proposal by the American subsea cable company SubCom.

The HMN Technology logo

Reuters reported that the clients of the cable verbally agreed that HMT Tech would be the supplier of this deal. And SubCom would be the reserve in case the Chinese company pulled out of failed to deliver on the terms of its proposal.

However, to secure the order for SubCom, the US government spent a large amount of money to subsidize the effort. The U.S. Trade and Development Agency (USTDA) told Reuters it provided training grants totaling $3.8 million to five telecom companies along the cable’s route in exchange for choosing SubCom as the supplier. Meanwhile, the U.S. Commerce Department accused HMN Tech of attempting to acquire American technology to aid in modernizing China’s People’s Liberation Army. Ultimately, HMN Tech, which had entered the bidding process purely for profit, opted to withdraw.

According to Reuters, U.S. ambassadors in at least six of those countries, including Singapore, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, wrote letters to local telecom carriers participating in the deal. One of these letters, said picking SubCom is “an important opportunity to enhance commercial and security cooperation with the United States.”

On June 26, 2022, the White House published a fact sheet citing various upcoming infrastructure projects, including the SubCom undersea cable deal. The document stated the U.S. government had “collectively helped secure” the award of that contract for SubCom.

Chinese people have pointed out that what was originally just a routine business deal quickly turned into something more, as the U.S. rushed to exclude China from the undersea cable project.

According to Reuters on September 18, The U.S. was urging Vietnam to avoid HMN Tech and other Chinese companies in its plans to build 10 new undersea cables by 2030. Since January, U.S. officials and companies have held at least a half-dozen meetings with Vietnam’s foreign officials and business executives to discuss the Southeast Asian nation’s cable strategy. One of the people who attended the meetings, said that “they clearly singled HMN out.” U.S officials have also claimed that choosing cable contractors with less experience and less access to critical components would prevent U.S. companies from investing in Vietnam.

Justin Sherman, a fellow at the Cyber Statecraft Initiative of the Atlantic Council, an U.S. think tank, said undersea cables were “a surveillance gold mine” for the world’s intelligence agencies.

This is the first time someone has so openly described other people’s privacy as their own property, especially when it comes to intelligence agencies. Michael Casey, director of the National Counterintelligence and Security Center, said in June of this year that the U.S needs to prepare for more cyberattacks. And he called the U.S. citizens to share information with the public sector, adding that “If you don’t know your local FBI representative, you’re doing something wrong.”

Michael Casey speaks during the 2024 CNBC CEO Council Summit in Washington, D.C. on June 4, 2024.

At this point, it seems many Americans are already on the FBI’s radar, even before they realize it.