[choilive]

As I understand it, they don't have the capability to essentially PCAP all that data.. and the data wouldn't be that useful since most interesting traffic is encrypted as well. Instead they store the metadata around the traffic. Phone number X made an outgoing call to Y @ timestamp A, call ended at timestamp B, approximate location is Z, etc. Repeat that for internet IP addresses do some analysis and then you can build a pretty interesting web of connections and how they interact.

[fragmede]

> most interesting traffic is encrypted as well

encrypted with an algorithm currently considered to be un-brute-forcible. If you presume we'll be able to decrypt today's encrypted transmissions in, say, 50-100 years, I'd record the encrypted transmission if I were the NSA.

[michaelt]

It's a big data centre.

But is it big enough to store 50 years worth of encrypted transmissions?

Far cheaper to simply have spies infiltrate the ~3 companies that hold the keys to 98% of internet traffic.

[fragmede]

Of everyone's? No. But enough to store the signal messages of the President, down a couple of levels? I hope so. After I'm dead, I hope the messages between the President, his cabinet, and their immediate contacts that weren't previously accessible get released to historians.