Editing National Security Agency (section)

=== Patents ===
NSA can file for a patent from the [[U.S. Patent and Trademark Office]] under [[gag order]]. Unlike normal patents, these are not revealed to the public and do not expire. However, if the Patent Office receives an application for an identical patent from a third party, they will reveal the NSA's patent and officially grant it to the NSA for the full term on that date.<ref>{{cite book |last=Schneier|first=Bruce|author-link=Bruce Schneier|title=Applied Cryptography, Second Edition|publisher=[[John Wiley & Sons]] |year=1996|pages=609–610|isbn=978-0-471-11709-4}}</ref>

One of NSA's published patents describes a method of [[geolocation|geographically locating]] an individual computer site in an Internet-like network, based on the [[Latency (engineering)|latency]] of multiple network connections.<ref>{{cite web|publisher=United States Patent and Trademark Office|title=United States Patent 6,947,978 – Method for geolocating logical network addresses|url=http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect2=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-bool.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&d=PALL&RefSrch=yes&Query=PN%2F6947978|date=September 20, 2005|access-date=July 4, 2008|archive-date=September 4, 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150904005823/http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect2=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-bool.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&d=PALL&RefSrch=yes&Query=PN%2F6947978|url-status=dead}}</ref> Although no public patent exists, NSA is reported to have used a similar locating technology called trilateralization that allows real-time tracking of an individual's location, including altitude from ground level, using data obtained from cellphone towers.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/09/us/revelations-give-look-at-spy-agencys-wider-reach.html?pagewanted=all |title=How the U.S. Uses Technology to Mine More Data More Quickly |author=[[James Risen]] and [[Eric Lichtblau]] |newspaper=The New York Times |date=June 10, 2013 |access-date=June 13, 2013 |archive-date=June 13, 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130613004529/http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/09/us/revelations-give-look-at-spy-agencys-wider-reach.html?pagewanted=all |url-status=live }}</ref>