Cable Landing Station: Guidelines for CLS Monitoring Facilities From India's security point of view, Submarine Cable Landing Station must carry out the traffic monitoring facilities for the internet data traffic effectively. The Department of Telecommunications issues the following guidelines. The cable landing station must observe these DoT guidelines.
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Data Traffic through Cable Landing Station
Every Cable Landing Station must ensure that only Internet traffic is carried through it. Voice traffic is not allowed. The CLS must also monitor from all security angles, both online and offline.
The monitoring facility must capture, store, and retrieve the information on every traffic class. Data traffic through the CLS can include Internet, video, audio, etc. Each of them is specified by various attributes, such as: ● ● ● ●
Destination Recipient Sender Keywords
Government-authorized Agencies have the authority to monitor all types of data traffic passing through the Station terminals. The data traffic through the CLS can include the following information: ● ● ● ● ●
Raw Data FAX Speech Video Multimedia
The data must be available in interactive as well as non-interactive modes. The monitoring facility must ensure the data traffic monitoring is based on the following: ● ● ● ●
Keywords Key Expressions E-mail Addresses & IPs of Initiating Subscribers E-mail Addresses & IPs of Terminating Subscribers
Data Traffic Filtering in the CLS Monitoring Facility Every Cable Landing Station must scan the entire traffic passing through its gateway. The CLS must also filter the traffic as per the keywords and addresses defined by the region's Security Agencies. Furthermore, the CLS must store the filtered traffic in the memory or directory provided to the security agencies. But they must define the monitoring requirement of the CLS.
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The Landing Station, before storing the monitored information, must segregate as well as store the directory in different files. They must also decode and store the filtered information to produce a direct hard copy of the following: ● ● ● ●
FAX Data Audio/Video tapes Speech/Video recording
The CLS must create a log of recorded information for each agency in the directory. It must display the details, such as: ● ● ●
Date of Recording Time of Recording Number of Records
Monitoring Centre of the Cable Landing Station Every Landing Station must provide the following at its monitoring centre: ● ● ● ●
Dedicated Space Memory Directory Storage
The CLS must ensure that the monitoring agencies can access the monitoring centre's computer. The CLS must cater the data through any of the following: ● ● ● ● ●
PSTN Line ISDN Line Dedicated Line Cable Pair Optical Link
Also, the Landing Station must provide adequate interfaces at the CLS monitoring centre to facilitate remote access for security agencies.
CLS Monitoring Infrastructural Requirement Every ISP licensee, as a CLS aspirant, must install the monitoring equipment at the landing site. After installation, the licensee must get the facility inspected by monitoring as well as security agencies. The authority can green flag the operation or commission of the CLS gateway only after a successful inspection of the monitoring facility. In such cases, the CLS must bear the cost of the monitoring equipment installation, including the commission.
Monitoring Facility employed Software The CLS must provide the security agencies with its monitoring software free of cost. They can monitor traffic at cable landing terminals. In addition, the Submarine Landing Station must have one local exclusive telephone line at the monitoring facility at its cost. It must also bear the maintenance cost of the equipment as well as the facility at the monitoring centre at its premises. For more information about the Cable Landing Station, connect with the telecom experts at Registrationwala. SD: For more information about the Cable Landing Station, connect with the telecom experts at Registrationwala.