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AT&T Helped N.S.A. Spy on an Array of Internet Traffic

568 points by tchalla 11y ago

comrade1 11y ago
Hopefully companies and organizations like the UN start moving away from AT&T. AT&T is a publicly traded company and so the only thing they understand is profit and loss. The snowden releases cost u.s. tech companies $100B+, including a 10% drop in Cisco quarterly revenues. Hopefully this continues as multinationals continue to move their business outside the u.s. Let the u.s. government spy on Americans all they want since Americans seem to like being spied on, while the rest of us move on. I know that mindset doesn't match many of the people here on HN, but Americans are mostly Authoritarian and seem to like the comfort they feel from programs like this.
- ianlevesque 11y ago
  People just don't pay attention at all. I'm not sure which is worse.
- jonknee 11y ago
  It's very hard to move away from telecom companies. You may switch your direct services, but whoever you switch to will still use AT&T backbones and the like. All the big telecoms are guilty of being complicit with the government, what would make a difference is one taking a stand like Apple/Google has regarding encryption. That would put pressure on the others to follow suit.
  - toomuchtodo 11y ago
    Could Google, Facebook, Amazon, and Apple create a non-profit that owns their own dark fiber and parcels out capacity? Think municipal fiber, but at a wholesale level.
    - olympus 11y ago
      They maybe could, but that probably wouldn't stop the NSA from gaining access through other means. More importantly, they probably wouldn't. All those companies you previously listed have been identified in documents leaked by Edward Snowden as supporting the NSA with backdoors.
    - haroldp 11y ago
      Each of those companies has been implicated as complicit in cooperating with the NSA's warrantless domestic spying.
      - us0r 11y ago
        Not sure why you are down voted but the US Intelligence Agencies are Amazon's single biggest customer.
        Zigurd 11y ago
        Because there are several people on HN who think an illusion of privacy is good enough.
        chinathrow 11y ago
        Also not sure why we haven't heard anything about Amazon/AWS within the Snowden docs... yet. Anyone?
        fnordfnordfnord 11y ago
        That was the CIA.
        chinathrow 11y ago
        The customer yes, but I ment some relevations about tapping AWS internally by the NSA.
        us0r 11y ago
  - fastandfurryous 11y ago
    Google and Apple are still subject to the same pressures applied by warrants, subpeonas and national security letters. I'm not really sure what you mean by encryption, though. Apple's iMessage may be encrypted, but their key exchange can be MitM'd easily. Realistically you wouldn't use a service that exists because of the profit motive or is in the US. It will continue to operate to drive a profit while working with the government to stay in business.
    - chinathrow 11y ago
      I heard a rumour that iMessage/Apple is trying to fight an NSL. Does anyone have more details?
      - fastandfurryous 11y ago
        Given that NSLs have a gag order, this is probably a PR stunt like the lawsuit against the government. They have been complicit with PRISM since 2012 without a peep.
  - CyberDildonics 11y ago
    There is no sense in trying to bend all the middle men to our will. The problem is broadcasting anything in the clear. Being able to effectively encrypt data at the IP level is what really needs to happen.
- mercurial 11y ago
  Who are these lucky "rest of us" fellows who have both advanced technical infrastructure and no government spying? They don't live in the EU, Russia, and I guess most of Asia.
  - comrade1 11y ago
    The spying outside the u.s. is nothing like the corporate-government partnership spying in the u.s. You can go to any Western country besides the u.s. and not be subject to indiscriminate spying. What's funny is that if you're an American in the u.s. you have other governments in Europe, Australia, Canada, etc spying on you on behalf of the u.s. government and sending all of your information back to the u.s., but they're not spying on their own citizens to the same extent.
    - jsmthrowaway 11y ago
      The idea that Five Eyes is unique in its pursuits and "any Western country besides the u.s." isn't monitoring everything that is technically possible is so naïve that I'm amazed you worked for PGP. I don't normally go after people for being anti-American, but I'll make an exception here because your ideology is making you look comical. You're a foreign national with an interest in cryptography living in Switzerland. Of all the people in the world who shouldn't be so absolutely clueless, it's you. They're on you like stink on shit, and suggesting otherwise is laughably stupid. What do you think, Switzerland became a discreet financial haven out of a measure of luck, while Swiss intelligence sat around being good, decent, idle people? For all of my extensive problems with U.S. intelligence, they at least made an effort to uphold the law. They failed, yes, but so many pivotal decisions were around the legal framework. I wonder how such a conversation goes in Ukrainian intelligence, or German, or Mexican. "We have a lead on El Chapo but we can't follow up because it's illegal to wiretap." Yeah, okay. Come back to reality, bud.
      - comrade1 11y ago
        You just spout a bunch of rhetoric and nothing substantial. All of your comments here are the same. You shill for the u.s. the government. Swiss intelligence is not idle. They were the group that leaked the report on the cia rendition programs, yet another illegal act by the u.s. intelligence community, but in this case by the CIA and not the NSA. U.S. intelligence has not made an effort to uphold the law. How could you even say that? They have only worked within the law retroactively - they've had to change the law retroactively to make what the NSA has been doing not illegal.
- johncolanduoni 11y ago
  > Let the u.s. government spy on Americans all they want since Americans seem to like being spied on, while the rest of us move on. I know that mindset doesn't match many of the people here on HN, but Americans are mostly Authoritarian and seem to like the comfort they feel from programs like this. What exactly is your source on this? If we're going to stick with anecdotal evidence, I (who actually live in the US) have found most people's reaction to the Snowden revelations to be overwhelmingly negative, particularly among younger people. If we want to look at some actual data, instead of accusations about public opinion by someone who doesn't even live in the US, it appears that a majority of Americans don't approve of the NSA's actions[1]. On top of that, companies like Apple, Facebook, etc. have been implementing end to end encryption so thoroughly that the government is pushing to make it illegal[2]. So I'd thank you to not decide that all Americans like to be spied on, or that we're mostly authoritarian, just because it fits your ideology. [1]: http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/05/29/what-americans-think-about-nsa-surveillance-national-security-and-privacy/ http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/05/29/what-america... [2]: http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/07/08/421251662/fbi-director-says-agents-need-access-to-encrypted-data-to-preserve-public-safety http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/07/08/421251662/...
  - comrade1 11y ago
    First, I'm American. I've worked on NSA and DoD projects, and I've worked for PGP. I now live in Switzerland. You only have to look at the consequences of the Snowden revelations. Nothing has really changed - some meaningless legislation was passed that moves the phone metadata recording to the phone companies from the NSA, but even then it's not clear that its stopped - the NSA data center in Utah where those conversations were recorded doesn't seem to be shutting down. I would bet the phone conversation, skype conversation, etc recording is still going on since it was never explicitly addressed anywhere in legislation. And my comment about Americans being Authoritarian is nothing new - they've long considered to be Authoritarian.
    - johncolanduoni 11y ago
      > You only have to look at the consequences of the Snowden revelations. Nothing has really changed... So your evidence that the public doesn't care about the revelations is that the government (who are the perpetrators of the spying) haven't changed their ways? Could it instead be because when selecting candidates to vote for (for the minority that do vote, which is a separate problem), Americans have prioritized other issues? Do you think that the survey I cited was methodologically unsound, or that people were simply lying? How about the fact that private companies are responding by changing their platforms to be more resistant to such data collection even under warrant, and publicizing the fact? Why do you think they are doing that, if not to appease the public? > And my comment about Americans being Authoritarian is nothing new - they've long considered to be Authoritarian. By who? You? And whether or not the government is authoritarian, how does that imply the people like it?
- FlaceBook 11y ago
  > I know that mindset doesn't match many of the people here on HN Right, the people here on HN only support spying when they are the ones doing it to users for "ad targeting" purposes.
  - white-flame 11y ago
    I wonder what percentage of YC ventures have their revenue model based on advertising prospects.
- Zigurd 11y ago
  It's all hostile territory. While it's rational to punish quislings, it's irrational to think anyone handling a large amount of communications isn't a quisling. Certainly nobody is making claims that they are working to secure your data against state surveillance. It's also long past time when providers like Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, etc. could have been offering secure communications and storage. At some point you have to suspect they are in with the surveillance state as much as the telcos are.
- mtgx 11y ago
  After the Snowden revelations I believe AT&T was stopped from expanding in Europe. Mexico seems to welcome them on the other hand...
- happyscrappy 11y ago
  This is a standard trope, but it requires that you be willfully ignorant that 1) all western countries are sharing intel 2) the US does most of its spying on foreign countries 3) there is no European politician that has even tried to run on an anti US platform. I wonder why?
danso 11y ago
Worth reading: ProPublica (who co-published with NYT on this story) has an explainer of how they followed the trail of documents to break this story: https://www.propublica.org/article/a-trail-of-evidence-leading-to-atts-partnership-with-the-nsa https://www.propublica.org/article/a-trail-of-evidence-leadi...
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
evook 11y ago
Cases like this reinforce my opinion, that there is an increasing demand to educate consumers how to prevent getting data leaked to government institutions like intelligence services. Especially the consequences of picking the wrong service provider. Luckily I am now in a position where I am fully responsible and aware of the routes my data takes. Yet we as a B2B ISP constantly get requests by intelligence services to provide information regarding our customers. Strangely they always assume that's totally okay to -just- ask for the data, instead of going the formal way. If we demand the judicial permissions they always rant about emergencies and so on. We can't help but follow the law, and the law disallows us to keep specific data for more than 60 days. I am really curious about how many ISPs voluntarily provide their customer data without asking for judicial permission beforehand. Such conversations are coming around 2 or 3 times a week.
- stingraycharles 11y ago
  It could just be a technique to convince you it's perfectly normal to give up the data. I wouldn't be surprised if many people would fall for such a thing.
  - evook 11y ago
    That is of course possibe. I highly think that most companies fall for it. If you speak with someone of a state agency, you always feel like they are used to get it. Some of them are actually surprised and openly disappointed when you refuse to hand over. What wonders me the most is, that most of the time they won't go down the legal way. Instead they just seem to do their job without the data as well afterwards. So what was the point in requesting the data in the beginning?
- eli 11y ago
  To be fair, if I were investigating a crime I would start by just asking companies to give me information informally, even if most say no.
  - bediger4000 11y ago
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
olympus 11y ago
Is this really a surprise to anyone? We've known that the N.S.A. has gotten (or coerced) support from communications companies in the past, and AT&T in particular (the article mentions it going back as far as 2003 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A). Did anybody really think it stopped when the secret room was uncovered in 2006? Telecom companies make no promise that your traffic is protected. It's up to you to protect yourself.
- comrade1 11y ago
  Spying on the u.n. based on terrorism legislation is a revelation. Recording of all telephone conversations in the u.s. is a revelation. Recording of all emails, skype, sms, etc is a revelation. Before discovery of that room everyone knew that there was close cooperation between the telecoms and the government, but we had no idea it was this close and we were shocked at especially the recording of all phone conversations in the u.s.
  - DanBC 11y ago
    Even though we had pretty thorough proof of this with ECHELON? Including the EU parliamen report into echelon; and the stuff about the US using it to provide commercial advantage to their aerospace industry? Risk assessment has always been part of security. And people have always said that you should probably assume a well funded government can and does read everything. This was more of an assumption, but the fact that governments do listen to everything should not have been a surprise.
    - comrade1 11y ago
      No, not really with ECHELON. That would have required all phone calls in the u.s. to be routed outside of the u.s., and really the only cooperating country was the UK, even though Canada was part of the group. It wasn't practical to route all communications from the u.s. through the UK, and it probably would have been noticed.
- a3n 11y ago
facetube 11y ago
The NSA's giant database will be breached. It's only a matter of time. It could be state-sponsored (e.g. like the OPM theft), or it could be due to the NSA's own lack of internal security oversight. Maybe not this year, maybe not next. I certainly won't have anything to do with it. But it'll eventually happen. What then?
- revelation 11y ago
  What makes you think they are not already breached? By any available evidence, these guys can't even maintain a simple download counter on their wiki. A random IT contractor like Snowden was already gone for a month and they had no idea. I think they still have no clue what he has. All the science fiction gives this very distorted picture when really the people working at the NSA are private-sector leftovers, and even if someone with half a brain slips into their ranks, a layer of ignorance and government inefficiency will promptly suffocate them. It's a good thing, their incompetence is our only protection.
  - knowaveragejoe 11y ago
    Wow, if you really believe this, you've got another thing coming.
    - bediger4000 11y ago
      Do you even have anecdotes to back this up? I'd prefer some kind of data, a citation or a revelation from you, but even anecdotes allow me to consider internal consistency. Lately, I'm becoming very suspicious of infosec people who imply huge threats, or mystical capabilities.
    - revelation 11y ago
      I don't get it, what's keeping this childhood dream alive? Snowdens cache certainly hasn't instilled any confidence in the NSAs abilities.
  - orthoganol 11y ago
    Surveillance state is all about $$, it's an evolving industry where people have figured out how to make billions. I share the same doubts with OP here, they aren't as much of a Big Brother as they are just a bloated cash cow scraping by & keeping appearances. They aren't particularly competent primarily because they don't really care as much as we think they do. Obviously it's still a terrible situation to setup this infrastructure given the potential for abuse, so I'm not defending it. I'm just saying I've been an American long enough to know $$ is at the heart of this, not control, and the $$ they're getting isn't dependent on how good of a job they do so don't expect a well oiled machined.
comrade1 11y ago
Really weird downvotes on this topic. I love it! I really wish we could see who votes on what topic. Part of me wishes the u.s. has its own government supported web-brigades like Russia so that they can be exposed and ridiculed. But the sad truth is most of these are probably coming from the HN readers that have drunk the u.s. government cool aide.
- PhantomGremlin 11y ago
  You make some good arguments elsewhere in this thread. But you're not helping yourself with these over-the-top snide remarks.
  - comrade1 11y ago
    Don't really care. It's not my job to convince people here. This is my form of weekly entertainment.
thembones 11y ago
Where have you all been? http://archive.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2006/05/70908 http://archive.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2006/05/70... 10 years old and not even close to the oldest evidence.
- comrade1 11y ago
  This was an interesting and early revelation, but it wasn't until the Snowden documents that we understood what this closet really meant. We had no idea the government was recording every phone conversation in the u.s., every email, etc... We still had some hope that the rule of law as being followed and that this closet was just a way to make targeted surveillance easier.
  - cma 11y ago
    >some hope that the rule of law as being followed Wasn't it already ruled illegal prior to Snowden and the phone companies had to be retroactively indemnified by congress?
    - zymhan 11y ago
      Close, I think that the premise the Bush administration used to obtain this information, "dragnet surveillance", was ruled illegal, which exposed the phone companies to lawsuits. Congress then retroactively indemnified them. EDIT: This is it https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NSA_warrantless_surveillance_%282001%E2%80%9307%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NSA_warrantless_surveillance_%...
  - PopeOfNope 11y ago
    > but it wasn't until the Snowden documents that we understood what this closet really meant. > We had no idea the government was recording every phone conversation in the u.s. > We still had some hope that the rule of law as being followed All lies. This was well covered on slashdot when it happened. We all knew exactly what it meant. Snowden's release was iron clad and incontrovertible, which was refreshing, but it also detailed the extent to which private tech companies outside of AT&T were aiding the federal government in their illegal activities. Even the most paranoid nutbag commenting on those old slashdot threads couldn't imagine how bad it was going to get. Reality outpaced the conspiracy theorists.
rwhendrix 11y ago
It's interesting that they released this report on a Saturday, when markets are closed.
- Istof 11y ago
  let's keep it on the front page until Monday
nickysielicki 11y ago
What we really need is less centralization and more communities able to invest in 21st century infrastructure. We might be too far gone, though. Take this for example: I am a student at the University of Wisconsin. There's a nonprofit/cooperative in Wisconsin called wiscnet [1]. They provide(d) libraries and schools with Internet. A Wisconsin telecom association (mostly backed by AT&T) was able to use their lobby to push it out. Millions in infrastructure made useless because it was argued to be anticompetitive. The story is told much better by Ars. [2] [1]: http://wiscnet.net/ http://wiscnet.net/ [2]: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2011/06/wisconsin-public-internet-fights-telecoms-attempts-to-kill-it-off/ http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2011/06/wisconsin-public-...
- mrbill 11y ago
  I think a lot of states have (if not active, legacy) Internet backbones where schools and such had connectivity back in the day before the "general public". Oklahoma's is "OneNet"[1], and we had a T1 at usao.edu back in '93 [2]. [1] https://onenet.net/ https://onenet.net/ [2] I set up the very first USAO web site as a summer Independent Study project in '95, running a web server on our VAX 4700. People told me "You have to have a Sun box to run a web server!" and I proved them wrong. It was a fun 9-week gig, because the actual work only took me a couple of weeks, including creating a HTML version of the Student Handbook. Bits of the site I created persisted for almost a decade.
comrade1 11y ago
There is probably a good reason for monitoring of AT&T's internet traffic. We should all support our government in their efforts to detect terrorists through their communications.
kfcm 11y ago
Geez, what a yawner. This has been either assumed or an open secret for decades.
known 11y ago
Cuckoo's nest?
RexRollman 11y ago
It must be so nice for AT&T; making money twice on the same customer.
niteskunk 11y ago
My favorite part of this was the not 1 but /3/ AT&T U-verse advertisements embedded in the mobile page. "Gee guys, any idea why our conversion rates are so low?"
eternalban 11y ago
"news": The "Alphabet" companies help one another.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
white-flame 11y ago
> At the same time, the government has been fighting in court to keep the identities of its telecom partners hidden. And because of that, we can trust nobody, and work to encrypt everything at the most fundamental layers we have access to. Good for individual privacy, but you can't help but note that the NSA continues to shoot itself in the foot in pursuing its goals. There has to be willful ignorance at the top of the food chain. They can't believe this stuff actually works, or is in any way actually related to national security. But it must be so, so they double-think themselves into believing it. Having met people at that level in other government branches, I can't see it as anything else.
ErikRogneby 11y ago
This should surprise no one. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A
- harry8 11y ago
  You should also be unsuprised to have it pointed out that your surprise level is wholly is irrelevant and rather silly to mention. Murder is unsurprising and we don't ignore it. The "And this surprises you?" Meme response should always be "Adults are talking."
c3534l 11y ago
“We don’t comment on matters of national security” Wow, they really think that's what they're doing, don't they? Nothing above and beyond here, right? BTW, I was actually surveyed by AT&T on the phone when the news that they were doing this first broke over a decade ago.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
geeklodhi 11y ago
http://googler700.blogspot.com/ http://googler700.blogspot.com/
louithethrid 11y ago
Could the actual physical infrastructure be decentralised? At least in Citys?
coolgirl43 11y ago
It's really sad that they just disrespect people's privacy. I practice practice ukrainian conversation skype at Preply at http://preply.com/en/ukrainian-by-skype http://preply.com/en/ukrainian-by-skype and my teacher said our conversation may already be listened to so we should be careful even with jokes.

568 points by tchalla 11y ago

Hopefully companies and organizations like the UN start moving away from AT&T. AT&T is a publicly traded company and so the only thing they understand is profit and loss. The snowden releases cost u.s. tech companies $100B+, including a 10% drop in Cisco quarterly revenues. Hopefully this continues as multinationals continue to move their business outside the u.s. Let the u.s. government spy on Americans all they want since Americans seem to like being spied on, while the rest of us move on. I know that mindset doesn't match many of the people here on HN, but Americans are mostly Authoritarian and seem to like the comfort they feel from programs like this.

ianlevesque 11y ago
People just don't pay attention at all. I'm not sure which is worse.
jonknee 11y ago
It's very hard to move away from telecom companies. You may switch your direct services, but whoever you switch to will still use AT&T backbones and the like. All the big telecoms are guilty of being complicit with the government, what would make a difference is one taking a stand like Apple/Google has regarding encryption. That would put pressure on the others to follow suit.
- toomuchtodo 11y ago
  Could Google, Facebook, Amazon, and Apple create a non-profit that owns their own dark fiber and parcels out capacity? Think municipal fiber, but at a wholesale level.
  - olympus 11y ago
    They maybe could, but that probably wouldn't stop the NSA from gaining access through other means. More importantly, they probably wouldn't. All those companies you previously listed have been identified in documents leaked by Edward Snowden as supporting the NSA with backdoors.
  - haroldp 11y ago
    Each of those companies has been implicated as complicit in cooperating with the NSA's warrantless domestic spying.
    - us0r 11y ago
      Not sure why you are down voted but the US Intelligence Agencies are Amazon's single biggest customer.
      - Zigurd 11y ago
        Because there are several people on HN who think an illusion of privacy is good enough.
      - chinathrow 11y ago
        Also not sure why we haven't heard anything about Amazon/AWS within the Snowden docs... yet. Anyone?
        fnordfnordfnord 11y ago
        That was the CIA.
        chinathrow 11y ago
        The customer yes, but I ment some relevations about tapping AWS internally by the NSA.
        us0r 11y ago
- fastandfurryous 11y ago
  Google and Apple are still subject to the same pressures applied by warrants, subpeonas and national security letters. I'm not really sure what you mean by encryption, though. Apple's iMessage may be encrypted, but their key exchange can be MitM'd easily. Realistically you wouldn't use a service that exists because of the profit motive or is in the US. It will continue to operate to drive a profit while working with the government to stay in business.
  - chinathrow 11y ago
    I heard a rumour that iMessage/Apple is trying to fight an NSL. Does anyone have more details?
    - fastandfurryous 11y ago
      Given that NSLs have a gag order, this is probably a PR stunt like the lawsuit against the government. They have been complicit with PRISM since 2012 without a peep.
- CyberDildonics 11y ago
  There is no sense in trying to bend all the middle men to our will. The problem is broadcasting anything in the clear. Being able to effectively encrypt data at the IP level is what really needs to happen.
mercurial 11y ago
Who are these lucky "rest of us" fellows who have both advanced technical infrastructure and no government spying? They don't live in the EU, Russia, and I guess most of Asia.
- comrade1 11y ago
  The spying outside the u.s. is nothing like the corporate-government partnership spying in the u.s. You can go to any Western country besides the u.s. and not be subject to indiscriminate spying. What's funny is that if you're an American in the u.s. you have other governments in Europe, Australia, Canada, etc spying on you on behalf of the u.s. government and sending all of your information back to the u.s., but they're not spying on their own citizens to the same extent.
  - jsmthrowaway 11y ago
    The idea that Five Eyes is unique in its pursuits and "any Western country besides the u.s." isn't monitoring everything that is technically possible is so naïve that I'm amazed you worked for PGP. I don't normally go after people for being anti-American, but I'll make an exception here because your ideology is making you look comical. You're a foreign national with an interest in cryptography living in Switzerland. Of all the people in the world who shouldn't be so absolutely clueless, it's you. They're on you like stink on shit, and suggesting otherwise is laughably stupid. What do you think, Switzerland became a discreet financial haven out of a measure of luck, while Swiss intelligence sat around being good, decent, idle people? For all of my extensive problems with U.S. intelligence, they at least made an effort to uphold the law. They failed, yes, but so many pivotal decisions were around the legal framework. I wonder how such a conversation goes in Ukrainian intelligence, or German, or Mexican. "We have a lead on El Chapo but we can't follow up because it's illegal to wiretap." Yeah, okay. Come back to reality, bud.
    - comrade1 11y ago
      You just spout a bunch of rhetoric and nothing substantial. All of your comments here are the same. You shill for the u.s. the government. Swiss intelligence is not idle. They were the group that leaked the report on the cia rendition programs, yet another illegal act by the u.s. intelligence community, but in this case by the CIA and not the NSA. U.S. intelligence has not made an effort to uphold the law. How could you even say that? They have only worked within the law retroactively - they've had to change the law retroactively to make what the NSA has been doing not illegal.
johncolanduoni 11y ago
> Let the u.s. government spy on Americans all they want since Americans seem to like being spied on, while the rest of us move on. I know that mindset doesn't match many of the people here on HN, but Americans are mostly Authoritarian and seem to like the comfort they feel from programs like this. What exactly is your source on this? If we're going to stick with anecdotal evidence, I (who actually live in the US) have found most people's reaction to the Snowden revelations to be overwhelmingly negative, particularly among younger people. If we want to look at some actual data, instead of accusations about public opinion by someone who doesn't even live in the US, it appears that a majority of Americans don't approve of the NSA's actions[1]. On top of that, companies like Apple, Facebook, etc. have been implementing end to end encryption so thoroughly that the government is pushing to make it illegal[2]. So I'd thank you to not decide that all Americans like to be spied on, or that we're mostly authoritarian, just because it fits your ideology. [1]: http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/05/29/what-americans-think-about-nsa-surveillance-national-security-and-privacy/ http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/05/29/what-america... [2]: http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/07/08/421251662/fbi-director-says-agents-need-access-to-encrypted-data-to-preserve-public-safety http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/07/08/421251662/...
- comrade1 11y ago
  First, I'm American. I've worked on NSA and DoD projects, and I've worked for PGP. I now live in Switzerland. You only have to look at the consequences of the Snowden revelations. Nothing has really changed - some meaningless legislation was passed that moves the phone metadata recording to the phone companies from the NSA, but even then it's not clear that its stopped - the NSA data center in Utah where those conversations were recorded doesn't seem to be shutting down. I would bet the phone conversation, skype conversation, etc recording is still going on since it was never explicitly addressed anywhere in legislation. And my comment about Americans being Authoritarian is nothing new - they've long considered to be Authoritarian.
  - johncolanduoni 11y ago
    > You only have to look at the consequences of the Snowden revelations. Nothing has really changed... So your evidence that the public doesn't care about the revelations is that the government (who are the perpetrators of the spying) haven't changed their ways? Could it instead be because when selecting candidates to vote for (for the minority that do vote, which is a separate problem), Americans have prioritized other issues? Do you think that the survey I cited was methodologically unsound, or that people were simply lying? How about the fact that private companies are responding by changing their platforms to be more resistant to such data collection even under warrant, and publicizing the fact? Why do you think they are doing that, if not to appease the public? > And my comment about Americans being Authoritarian is nothing new - they've long considered to be Authoritarian. By who? You? And whether or not the government is authoritarian, how does that imply the people like it?
FlaceBook 11y ago
> I know that mindset doesn't match many of the people here on HN Right, the people here on HN only support spying when they are the ones doing it to users for "ad targeting" purposes.
- white-flame 11y ago
  I wonder what percentage of YC ventures have their revenue model based on advertising prospects.
Zigurd 11y ago
It's all hostile territory. While it's rational to punish quislings, it's irrational to think anyone handling a large amount of communications isn't a quisling. Certainly nobody is making claims that they are working to secure your data against state surveillance. It's also long past time when providers like Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, etc. could have been offering secure communications and storage. At some point you have to suspect they are in with the surveillance state as much as the telcos are.
mtgx 11y ago
After the Snowden revelations I believe AT&T was stopped from expanding in Europe. Mexico seems to welcome them on the other hand...
happyscrappy 11y ago
This is a standard trope, but it requires that you be willfully ignorant that 1) all western countries are sharing intel 2) the US does most of its spying on foreign countries 3) there is no European politician that has even tried to run on an anti US platform. I wonder why?

danso 11y ago

Worth reading: ProPublica (who co-published with NYT on this story) has an explainer of how they followed the trail of documents to break this story: https://www.propublica.org/article/a-trail-of-evidence-leading-to-atts-partnership-with-the-nsa https://www.propublica.org/article/a-trail-of-evidence-leadi...

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evook 11y ago

Cases like this reinforce my opinion, that there is an increasing demand to educate consumers how to prevent getting data leaked to government institutions like intelligence services. Especially the consequences of picking the wrong service provider. Luckily I am now in a position where I am fully responsible and aware of the routes my data takes. Yet we as a B2B ISP constantly get requests by intelligence services to provide information regarding our customers. Strangely they always assume that's totally okay to -just- ask for the data, instead of going the formal way. If we demand the judicial permissions they always rant about emergencies and so on. We can't help but follow the law, and the law disallows us to keep specific data for more than 60 days. I am really curious about how many ISPs voluntarily provide their customer data without asking for judicial permission beforehand. Such conversations are coming around 2 or 3 times a week.

stingraycharles 11y ago
It could just be a technique to convince you it's perfectly normal to give up the data. I wouldn't be surprised if many people would fall for such a thing.
- evook 11y ago
  That is of course possibe. I highly think that most companies fall for it. If you speak with someone of a state agency, you always feel like they are used to get it. Some of them are actually surprised and openly disappointed when you refuse to hand over. What wonders me the most is, that most of the time they won't go down the legal way. Instead they just seem to do their job without the data as well afterwards. So what was the point in requesting the data in the beginning?
eli 11y ago
To be fair, if I were investigating a crime I would start by just asking companies to give me information informally, even if most say no.
- bediger4000 11y ago

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olympus 11y ago

Is this really a surprise to anyone? We've known that the N.S.A. has gotten (or coerced) support from communications companies in the past, and AT&T in particular (the article mentions it going back as far as 2003 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A). Did anybody really think it stopped when the secret room was uncovered in 2006? Telecom companies make no promise that your traffic is protected. It's up to you to protect yourself.

comrade1 11y ago
Spying on the u.n. based on terrorism legislation is a revelation. Recording of all telephone conversations in the u.s. is a revelation. Recording of all emails, skype, sms, etc is a revelation. Before discovery of that room everyone knew that there was close cooperation between the telecoms and the government, but we had no idea it was this close and we were shocked at especially the recording of all phone conversations in the u.s.
- DanBC 11y ago
  Even though we had pretty thorough proof of this with ECHELON? Including the EU parliamen report into echelon; and the stuff about the US using it to provide commercial advantage to their aerospace industry? Risk assessment has always been part of security. And people have always said that you should probably assume a well funded government can and does read everything. This was more of an assumption, but the fact that governments do listen to everything should not have been a surprise.
  - comrade1 11y ago
    No, not really with ECHELON. That would have required all phone calls in the u.s. to be routed outside of the u.s., and really the only cooperating country was the UK, even though Canada was part of the group. It wasn't practical to route all communications from the u.s. through the UK, and it probably would have been noticed.
a3n 11y ago

facetube 11y ago

The NSA's giant database will be breached. It's only a matter of time. It could be state-sponsored (e.g. like the OPM theft), or it could be due to the NSA's own lack of internal security oversight. Maybe not this year, maybe not next. I certainly won't have anything to do with it. But it'll eventually happen. What then?

revelation 11y ago
What makes you think they are not already breached? By any available evidence, these guys can't even maintain a simple download counter on their wiki. A random IT contractor like Snowden was already gone for a month and they had no idea. I think they still have no clue what he has. All the science fiction gives this very distorted picture when really the people working at the NSA are private-sector leftovers, and even if someone with half a brain slips into their ranks, a layer of ignorance and government inefficiency will promptly suffocate them. It's a good thing, their incompetence is our only protection.
- knowaveragejoe 11y ago
  Wow, if you really believe this, you've got another thing coming.
  - bediger4000 11y ago
    Do you even have anecdotes to back this up? I'd prefer some kind of data, a citation or a revelation from you, but even anecdotes allow me to consider internal consistency. Lately, I'm becoming very suspicious of infosec people who imply huge threats, or mystical capabilities.
  - revelation 11y ago
    I don't get it, what's keeping this childhood dream alive? Snowdens cache certainly hasn't instilled any confidence in the NSAs abilities.
- orthoganol 11y ago
  Surveillance state is all about $$, it's an evolving industry where people have figured out how to make billions. I share the same doubts with OP here, they aren't as much of a Big Brother as they are just a bloated cash cow scraping by & keeping appearances. They aren't particularly competent primarily because they don't really care as much as we think they do. Obviously it's still a terrible situation to setup this infrastructure given the potential for abuse, so I'm not defending it. I'm just saying I've been an American long enough to know $$ is at the heart of this, not control, and the $$ they're getting isn't dependent on how good of a job they do so don't expect a well oiled machined.

comrade1 11y ago

Really weird downvotes on this topic. I love it! I really wish we could see who votes on what topic. Part of me wishes the u.s. has its own government supported web-brigades like Russia so that they can be exposed and ridiculed. But the sad truth is most of these are probably coming from the HN readers that have drunk the u.s. government cool aide.

PhantomGremlin 11y ago
You make some good arguments elsewhere in this thread. But you're not helping yourself with these over-the-top snide remarks.
- comrade1 11y ago
  Don't really care. It's not my job to convince people here. This is my form of weekly entertainment.

thembones 11y ago

Where have you all been? http://archive.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2006/05/70908 http://archive.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2006/05/70... 10 years old and not even close to the oldest evidence.

comrade1 11y ago
This was an interesting and early revelation, but it wasn't until the Snowden documents that we understood what this closet really meant. We had no idea the government was recording every phone conversation in the u.s., every email, etc... We still had some hope that the rule of law as being followed and that this closet was just a way to make targeted surveillance easier.
- cma 11y ago
  >some hope that the rule of law as being followed Wasn't it already ruled illegal prior to Snowden and the phone companies had to be retroactively indemnified by congress?
  - zymhan 11y ago
    Close, I think that the premise the Bush administration used to obtain this information, "dragnet surveillance", was ruled illegal, which exposed the phone companies to lawsuits. Congress then retroactively indemnified them. EDIT: This is it https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NSA_warrantless_surveillance_%282001%E2%80%9307%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NSA_warrantless_surveillance_%...
- PopeOfNope 11y ago
  > but it wasn't until the Snowden documents that we understood what this closet really meant. > We had no idea the government was recording every phone conversation in the u.s. > We still had some hope that the rule of law as being followed All lies. This was well covered on slashdot when it happened. We all knew exactly what it meant. Snowden's release was iron clad and incontrovertible, which was refreshing, but it also detailed the extent to which private tech companies outside of AT&T were aiding the federal government in their illegal activities. Even the most paranoid nutbag commenting on those old slashdot threads couldn't imagine how bad it was going to get. Reality outpaced the conspiracy theorists.

rwhendrix 11y ago

It's interesting that they released this report on a Saturday, when markets are closed.

Istof 11y ago
let's keep it on the front page until Monday

nickysielicki 11y ago

What we really need is less centralization and more communities able to invest in 21st century infrastructure. We might be too far gone, though. Take this for example: I am a student at the University of Wisconsin. There's a nonprofit/cooperative in Wisconsin called wiscnet [1]. They provide(d) libraries and schools with Internet. A Wisconsin telecom association (mostly backed by AT&T) was able to use their lobby to push it out. Millions in infrastructure made useless because it was argued to be anticompetitive. The story is told much better by Ars. [2] [1]: http://wiscnet.net/ http://wiscnet.net/ [2]: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2011/06/wisconsin-public-internet-fights-telecoms-attempts-to-kill-it-off/ http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2011/06/wisconsin-public-...

mrbill 11y ago
I think a lot of states have (if not active, legacy) Internet backbones where schools and such had connectivity back in the day before the "general public". Oklahoma's is "OneNet"[1], and we had a T1 at usao.edu back in '93 [2]. [1] https://onenet.net/ https://onenet.net/ [2] I set up the very first USAO web site as a summer Independent Study project in '95, running a web server on our VAX 4700. People told me "You have to have a Sun box to run a web server!" and I proved them wrong. It was a fun 9-week gig, because the actual work only took me a couple of weeks, including creating a HTML version of the Student Handbook. Bits of the site I created persisted for almost a decade.

comrade1 11y ago

There is probably a good reason for monitoring of AT&T's internet traffic. We should all support our government in their efforts to detect terrorists through their communications.

kfcm 11y ago

Geez, what a yawner. This has been either assumed or an open secret for decades.

known 11y ago

Cuckoo's nest?

RexRollman 11y ago

It must be so nice for AT&T; making money twice on the same customer.

niteskunk 11y ago

My favorite part of this was the not 1 but /3/ AT&T U-verse advertisements embedded in the mobile page. "Gee guys, any idea why our conversion rates are so low?"

eternalban 11y ago

"news": The "Alphabet" companies help one another.

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white-flame 11y ago

> At the same time, the government has been fighting in court to keep the identities of its telecom partners hidden. And because of that, we can trust nobody, and work to encrypt everything at the most fundamental layers we have access to. Good for individual privacy, but you can't help but note that the NSA continues to shoot itself in the foot in pursuing its goals. There has to be willful ignorance at the top of the food chain. They can't believe this stuff actually works, or is in any way actually related to national security. But it must be so, so they double-think themselves into believing it. Having met people at that level in other government branches, I can't see it as anything else.

ErikRogneby 11y ago

This should surprise no one. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A

harry8 11y ago
You should also be unsuprised to have it pointed out that your surprise level is wholly is irrelevant and rather silly to mention. Murder is unsurprising and we don't ignore it. The "And this surprises you?" Meme response should always be "Adults are talking."

c3534l 11y ago

“We don’t comment on matters of national security” Wow, they really think that's what they're doing, don't they? Nothing above and beyond here, right? BTW, I was actually surveyed by AT&T on the phone when the news that they were doing this first broke over a decade ago.

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geeklodhi 11y ago

http://googler700.blogspot.com/ http://googler700.blogspot.com/

louithethrid 11y ago

Could the actual physical infrastructure be decentralised? At least in Citys?

coolgirl43 11y ago

It's really sad that they just disrespect people's privacy. I practice practice ukrainian conversation skype at Preply at http://preply.com/en/ukrainian-by-skype http://preply.com/en/ukrainian-by-skype and my teacher said our conversation may already be listened to so we should be careful even with jokes.