GCHQ and Cable and Wireless teamed as Masters of the Internet

Cable and Wireless provided UK intelligence agency GCHQ with access to the internet connections of millions of global users, going as far as to tap India's second largest telco, Snowden documents reveal.

The telco, since acquired by Vodafone, operated under GCHQ pseudonym 'Gerontic' when it opened and managed a secret firbe tap code named 'Nigella' in major backbone link owned by Indian telco Reliance Communications giving access to users in the subcontinent and Asia.


Nigella was located at a intersection of Cable and Wireless and Reliance links at Skewjack Farm in Cornwell. It was there the GCHQ planned to sniff data from the Indian carrier.

For its efforts Channel4 revealed Cable and Wireless was paid tens of millions of pounds under the program aptly named 'Mastering the Internet' that cost up to a million pounds a month to run.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/11/21/mastering_the_internet_snowden_disclosure/?