ThinThread

ThinThread is the name of a project that the United States National Security Agency engaged in during the 1990s, according to a May 17, 2006 article in the Baltimore Sun. cite web
title =NSA killed system that sifted phone data legally
work =baltimoresun.com
url=http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/nationworld/bal-nsa517,0,5970724.story?page=1&coll=bal-home-headlines
accessdate=2006-05-18
date=2006-05-17] The program involved wiretapping and sophisticated analysis of the resulting data, but according to the article, the program was discontinued after the September 11, 2001 attacks due to the changes in priorities and the consolidation of U.S. intelligence authority.

According to science news site PhysOrg.com, ThinThread evolved in the Trailblazer project which lacks the privacy protections of ThinThread. [cite web
url=http://www.physorg.com/news67784662.html
title=NSA datamining pushes tech envelope
date=May 25th, 2006
publisher=PhysOrg.com.] A consortium led by Science Applications International Corporation was awarded a $280 million contract to develop Trailblazer in 2002. [cite web
url=http://www.saic.com/news/oct02/news10-21-02.html
title=SAIC Team Wins National Security Agency TRAILBLAZER Contract
date=October 21, 2002
publisher=SAIC]

Technical details

The program would have used a technique of encrypting sensitive privacy information in order to circumvent legal concerns, and would have automatically identified potential threats. The sources of the data for this program would have included "massive phone and e-mail data," but the extent of this information is not clear. Only once a threat was discovered, would the data be decrypted for analysis by agents.

End of the project

The project was ended after successful testing by General Michael Hayden, and while the privacy elements were not retained, the analysis technology is reported to be the underlying basis of current NSA analysis techniques.

Notes