IXmaps - Tracking your personal data through the NSA's warrantless wiretapping sites

The National Security Agency’s ‘warrantless wiretapping program’ is arguably one of the largest domestic surveillance operations in history. It also represents among the most serious contemporary challenges to democratic governance and civil liberties. This paper reports on the development of the IXmaps interactive mapping application designed to show internet users how their personal traffic may be intercepted by the NSA. Using crowdsourced data collection of thousands of individually generated traceroutes, IXmaps displays on a map of North America the path taken by user-initiated data packets in relation to the sites where the NSA has most likely established surveillance operations. We also discuss the potential for this mapping technique to serve as a tool for achieving better public understanding of surveillance in the internet core. Keywords-—NSA warrantless wiretapping; countersurveillance; internet surveillance; crowdsourced veillance