http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2011/11/18/how-the-off-the-shelf-surveillance-industry-has-grown/

November 18, 2011

How the 'Off the Shelf' Surveillance Industry Has Grown

By Jennifer Valentino-DeVries

The secret technology behind world-wide government surveillance has become a booming business, with dozens of companies making and selling everything from "massive intercept" gear that can gather all Internet communications in a country to "hacking" tools that allow governments to break into people's computers -- according to an article in Saturday's Wall Street Journal and highlights from documents online.

The 10 years since Sept. 11 have seen the market for "off the shelf" surveillance technology grow from "nearly zero" to about $5 billion a year, says Jerry Lucas, the president of TeleStrategies, a company that puts on training conferences and trade shows for the secretive industry.

At these trade shows, which take place in the U.S., United Arab Emirates, Malaysia, the Czech Republic and Brazil, more than 150 vendors peddle their wares to governments from around the world. The shows are closed to the media, but the Journal interviewed and obtained documents from several attendees.

Mr. Lucas said attendance at the conferences has been growing about 15% a year. He began the surveillance-industry conferences in 2002 after running general telecommunications conferences for years, because the telecom industry was facing financial trouble and the surveillance industry was beginning to grow, he said.

"From an investor standpoint, it's a really hot topic," said Brian McCann, the CEO of New Jersey-based OnPath Technologies Inc., which makes tools that support Internet monitoring operations. "Just this year, we're having venture capital investors calling us up," he said. This retail surveillance industry is relatively new, although larger countries have been conducting wiretaps and other monitoring for years. The U.S. spends most of its intelligence budget on custom products, Mr. Lucas said. He added that much of the growth in this industry has been seen internationally, because "off the shelf products" are considerably less expensive and "it's hard to break into" the U.S. marketplace if you are a small vendor.

Some of this gear has been around for years, since a 1994 law requiring telecommunications companies to cooperate with law enforcement in wiretaps. The market for those tools is relatively mature, but equipment must be refreshed whenever new technology -- such as the fourth-generation cellular network -- is introduced, according to people in the industry. Newer tools include those designed to intercept the latest communications technology, such as webmail and social networking messages. Another growth area for surveillance involves "offensive security," or "hacking" into computers to gain information. The ability to use mobile phones for location tracking and other monitoring is becoming increasingly important as well, as more people use them.

In addition, there are several technologies that support law enforcement and intelligence efforts that don't involve surveillance per se. These include data analysis tools that gather massive amounts of information -- from voice to email to Web scraping -- and find patterns that can be used to catch criminals or identify new suspects. And at least one company, NTrepid Corp., claims to provide investigators with tools to disguise themselves as they monitor people online.