Pervasive Monitoring (PM) is widespread (and often covert) surveillance through intrusive gathering of protocol artifacts, including application content, or protocol metadata such as headers. Active or passive wiretaps and traffic analysis, (e.g., correlation, timing or measuring packet sizes), or subverting the cryptographic keys used to secure protocols can also be used as part of pervasive monitoring. PM is distinguished by being indiscriminate and very large scale, rather than by introducing new types of technical compromise.
Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), Request for Comments: 7258, ISSN: 2070-1721