Remember Edward Snowden, who revealed NSA’s (National Security Agency) surveillance program called XKeyscore? No, then let us remind you.

It is the broadest reaching spying system for people on the internet. It will make you scream when you know how NSA XKeyscore tool extracts your personal data.

“The Guardian” first published this news four years ago. But unfortunately, strong interference by security authorities prevented this news from gaining popularity and reaching the global audience.

Even after the recent testimony by Facebook CEO, Mark Zuckerberg at the US Senate, there is nothing to ensure users of their privacy. People are going out of their minds when Facebook CEO accepted the data breaching scandal during a session in front of Congress.

The point we want to make here is that XKeyscore is extracting and spying your online activities on the much bigger scale, as compared to Facebook.

So how XKeyscore system works?

XKeyscore Explained

In simple words, XKeyscore is a DNI Exploitation System on 150 different sites with more than 700 servers. It uses different source codes to extract highly secure data (email) and other content from different websites.

How Does XKeyscore Collects Your Email Data

Edward Snowden is the man who revealed the real picture of XKeyscore. During his first interview, he told that with the help of XKeyscore, he could access the personal email of any person in the world.

He further explained that XKeyscore not only reveals the emails of users, but also has the ability to extract their personal data, browsing history from “To, BCC, CC, From” and pages like contact us on various websites.

In order to extract email content, this system just requires your email address with details of timeline (e.g. emails from 10th January 2018 to 18th April 2018) and reason why you want to extract these emails.

In order to extract someone email contents, this system just requires your an email address in a basic research form with details of timeline (e.g. emails from 10th January 2018 to 18th April 2018 and) and reason to search for which the emails are extracted why you want to extract these emails.

He further explained, NSA XKeyscore provides access to different analysts with no proper authorization, as they can go through huge data platforms that contain users’ emails, browsing histories, and chats.

(Source: The Guardian)

So how did analysts extract data using XKeyscore system?

A researcher would select your emails they wanted to access in the software. This system would then provide the researcher to start surveillance on any online user and look for specific data.

Once the surveillance program started, the target is initiated for online analysis and the researcher is able to collect his or her information and email content.

Therefore, if you still think that by restricting Facebook, we will be safe from these surveillance agencies, then you are living in a world that only exists in your imagination.

Not only that, XKeyscore has limitless possibilities to collect your personal data and online activities. Extracting communication content through emails is just a highlight of this system. It also has the ability to collect your browsing history, messages, and chats on different apps.

How XKeyscore Downloads Your Online Activities, Chats, and Browsing History

The XKeyscore system provides a feature to monitor and evaluate online activities of users, including those within different chat and social media applications.

How is it done? This NSA’s tool has a feature called DNI Presenter. It has the ability to harvest content of online chats, browsing activities, personally data and stuff you share online.

(Source: The Guardian)

In order to harvest Facebook user’s personal data, such as private conversation or chats, the researcher only requires your Facebook username and data time period through basic search engine.

(Source: The Guardian)

Furthermore, this surveillance program allows analysts to extract your browsing history on a large scale. By just using the search term entered by you while looking for different websites, they can look up all your activities.

(Source: The Guardian)

Thus, based on the capability of this surveillance system, XKeyscore can collect basically any type of user data. Such as data available on different websites and social platforms.

Now, at this point, if you think your personal photos and videos are totally safe, then you are wrong. There is no way to keep your data private.

Organizations like NSA have been harvesting your data when you don’t give a sh** about these privacy policies and terms. There is nothing new what Facebook did, as it has been happening for the very first time in history.

The privacy issue is not just limited to Facebook only. Every single movement is monitored by surveillance agencies and could be used in whatever way they seem necessary. Be it to brainwash our minds or get our vote in their favor, anything posted on the Web is traceable.

The security and privacy-breaching policies are always an illusion. Just think about it, surveillance agencies like NSA, don’t need permission from government authorities to harvest user data.

Final Thoughts

XKeyscore can access your personal information beyond your thinking abilities. Edward Snowden, told that this tool provides the ability to its user to read the emails of others.

Now, you are wondering where to go and is there any way to keep your personal and online activities secure from this surveillance. The answer is no!

Even limiting Facebook to collect your personal data does not gives any assurance that your personal data will be safe.

If government authorities do not take a strong action against these security and social organizations, then there is no way to keep your data safe.

We hope that you would find this article helpful in gaining knowledge about online data privacy issues. If you want to add or ask something, feel free to contact us by mentioning your comment below.