traffic analysis
Network pattern examination
Traffic analysis is the study of communication patterns—who contacts whom, when, how often, and for how long—without necessarily accessing the content of those communications.
Intelligence and security agencies use traffic analysis to map networks, identify key figures, and detect suspicious activity even when messages are encrypted.
Traffic analysis revealed the spy's handlers based on call frequency alone.
The term also applies to studying vehicle or pedestrian flow patterns for urban planning purposes.
- TorAnonymous routing network
- surveillanceSystematic observation of subjects
- signals intelligenceEspionage via intercepted transmissions
- interceptionSeizing something in transit
- pattern recognitionIdentifying regularities in inputs
cryptography · espionage · data aggregation · analytics · internet · tracking · intrusion detection · metadata · forensics · eavesdropping · infrastructure planning · flow · rush hour · conversion rate · packets · congestion · wiretap · patterns
traffic analysiscryptanalysis
Study of breaking ciphers
decryption · codebreaking · semantic analysis · textual analysis · brute force attack
traffic analysisend-to-end encryption
Unreadable data between sender and recipient