Relying on Internet routing data, commercial and Sigint information, Treasure Map (...) collects Wi-Fi network and geolocation data, and between 30 million and 50 million unique Internet provider addresses (...) It boasts that the program can map “any device, anywhere, all the time.”
(...) The program is not used for surveillance, they said, but to understand computer networks.
The program takes advantage of the capabilities of other secret N.S.A. programs. To support Treasure Map, for example, the document states that another program, called Packaged Goods, tracks the “traceroutes” through which data flows around the Internet. Through Packaged Goods, the N.S.A. has gained access to “13 covered servers in unwitting data centers around the globe,” according to the PowerPoint. The document identifies a list of countries where the data centers are located, including Germany, Poland, Denmark, South Africa and Taiwan as well as Russia, China and Singapore.
Despite the document’s reference to “unwitting #data_centers,” government officials said that the agency does not hack into those centers. Instead, the officials said, the intelligence community secretly uses front companies to lease space on the servers.