Am I being watched? Are you?

Remember when we discussed the secret room in San Francisco where ATT redirects internet traffic to NSA monitors? Wired has outlined a way to find out if your net activity is going there -- and thus, presumably, to Uncle

The Wired site isn't accessible at this writing, but the story was republished in pertinent part by the Left Coaster. Basically, the technique is pretty simple.

If you're running Windows, go to Start/Run/cmd to get to the DOS prompt.

Then type tracert nsa.gov

Your computer will then try to find a path to the NSA (whose IP number is 12.110.110.204) in 30 easy steps. This process will take a little while.

The NSA's IP number probably won't show up in your traceroute -- but that's not the location you're really looking for. What you're looking for is that small room in San Francisco. Which means that the following string is key:

sffca.ip.att.net.

If those letters show up at any point in the trace route, you MAY have trouble. Here is what Wired writer Kevin Poulsen says:
If it's present immediately above or below a non-att.net entry, then -- by [AT&T whistleblower Mark] Klein's allegations -- your packets are being copied into room 641A, and from there, illegally, to the NSA.

Of course, if internet pioneer and former FCC advisor J. Scott Marcus (who held a Top Secret security clearance) is correct, and AT&T has installed these secret rooms all around the country, then any att.net entry in your route is a bad sign.
Naturally, I tried this trick. Naturally, the magic string -- sffca.ip.att.net -- showed up in my traceroute.

Two steps above it was an IP connected to my service provider. Sandwiched between this (quite legitimate) address and that dreaded room in San Francisco was this number: 144.232.9.206. I used this service to check out who owns that number; the trail led to a building in downtown L.A. An NSA outpost? Hell if I know.

Below the sffca number, the information was routed to another att.net location in Saint Louis, and from there to att.net in Washington, DC. From there, it went to a mysterious number in...Ohio.

At this point, my soi-disant computer savvy has reached its limit, and I'm not sure how to interpret the info. Where does paranoia end and legitimate concern begin? We need a True Geek to speak with authority on this matter.

Try this trick at home, kids. Tell me what you come up with. Perhaps someone who knows more about tracert can tell us whether those att.net addresses really do spell trouble.