4 ms·

Snowden wasn't 'on-site', AFAIK he had remote access as a private contractor. One of Snowden's main revelations was how little oversight there was. He was mot

by deepnet 10y ago

Snowden wasn't 'on-site', AFAIK he had remote access as a private contractor. One of Snowden's main revelations was how little oversight there was. He was motivated to come forward by the abuses he saw the NSA database put to, rather than its mere existence. Snowden has reported his colleagues reguarly exfiltrated 'dirty pictures' from the NSA database. Snowden says 'nudies' were a 'commodity' traded around his colleagues. If one can trivially sneak out dirty pics without oversight then... Of course if Snowden could do it for the best of reasons, it is hard to believe moles and foriegn agents don't have similar access.

EthanHeilman 10y ago
Years before Snowden it was revealed that recorded sex was traded around the NSA. In 2008 it was revealed that NSA employees made mix tapes of phone sex they recorded: >Gordon routinely shared salacious or tantalizing phone calls that had been intercepted, alerting office mates to certain time codes of "cuts" that were available on each operator’s computer. "Hey, check this out," Faulk says he would be told, "there’s good phone sex or there’s some pillow talk, pull up this call, it’s really funny, go check it out. It would be some colonel making pillow talk and we would say, ‘Wow, this was crazy’," Faulk told ABC News. - Wired: NSA Snooped on Innocent Americans’ Private Calls from Iraq, Former Operators Charge https://www.wired.com/2008/10/we-snooped-on-i/ https://www.wired.com/2008/10/we-snooped-on-i/
cookiecaper 10y ago
Do the people with that kind of access simply not understand the power they have? If Snowden had access, surely there are at least dozens of other 20-somethings running around able to read the correspondence of almost anyone in the country. Are we to believe that they really are so self-disciplined the only thing they'll look at are nude photos? Why haven't we seen industrial and political fallout from these guys?
- jellicle 10y ago
  Probably because they don't feel like spending the rest of their lives in permanent solitary confinement in ADX Florence.
  - cookiecaper 10y ago
    Yeah, but surely there would be a way to get the ball rolling without outing yourself. NSA analysts are going to be acquainted with at least the basic ways to stay anonymous online. If they found something interesting in the correspondence destined for a prominent politician or corporate officer, they could get the rumor mill started, or even make strategic leaks. Perhaps they already are doing it and we just aren't aware because they're covering their tracks well, but it seems like we'd see more aggressive targeting of interests that offend the likely demographic of NSA analysts, which to my knowledge hasn't happened. However many people have access to this, I don't know if it's dozens, hundreds, or thousands, have a frightening amount of power. They have to realize it. I guess they probably can't just type in "My Least Favorite Politician's Emails" into NSA internal search. Maybe this is the practical limitation that provides some nominal check on the power of these people?
    - deepnet 10y ago
      Actually Snowden reveals they can perform such a search[1]. [1] http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/31/nsa-top-secret-program-online-data http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/31/nsa-top-secret-... PRISM can notify when new emails appear and can provide a live view of the targets online activity. [2] [2] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/politics/prism-collection-documents/m/ http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/politics/prism-...
      - cookiecaper 10y ago
        Ah, he's quoted in the article saying that he has to have a personal email address. That probably means that there's a filter and/or blacklist that's at least watching for, if not actively blocking, access to whitehouse.gov and/or other official/important domains. This probably extends into the commercial world. I wonder if looking up anything other than the conventional email domains is a cause for suspicion. Thus, looking up "trump@trump.biz", for example, is inadvisable.
        deepnet 10y ago
- deepnet 10y ago
  Boeing lost a $4.5 billion contract for jets, soured by the Petrobras "Blackpearl" & "Blarney" slides that detailed NSA & GCHQ spying on businesses worldwide[1]. NSA's James Clapper issued a denial "What we do not do, as we have said many times, is use our foreign intelligence capabilities to steal the trade secrets of foreign companies on behalf of – or give intelligence we collect to – US companies to enhance their international competitiveness or increase their bottom line." By 2014 overseas contract losses to US businesses attributed to dissatisfaction with NSA spying were estimated at $180 billion [2] [1] http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/09/nsa-spying-brazil-oil-petrobras http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/09/nsa-spying-braz... [2] https://shadowproof.com/2014/08/01/nsa-spying-costs-u-s-companies-up-to-180-billion-in-lost-overseas-business/ https://shadowproof.com/2014/08/01/nsa-spying-costs-u-s-comp...
- throw88889 10y ago
  I worked for a well known computer software company, and one of the close by teams worked on a photo-sharing web-app, which also allowed for private albums. While analyzing the metadata someone discovered that a certain rare and expensive camera model was used almost exclusively to shoot models, including nude ones. Searching the storage for pictures made with that camera model became a popular activity in that team :) So it's pretty easy to trivialize privacy breaches and rationalize it as "no harm was done"
  - enneff 10y ago
    It's hard to believe that it would be worth violating your users' trust for some nudes. The internet has enough free racy pictures to last anyone a lifetime.
    - deepnet 10y ago
      Its not inconceivable employees may feel less burdened by trust than owners. Perhaps the illicit nature of the trust violation adds something beyond the legally available porn. Evidenced by the criminal risks voyeurs still take to get creepshots, upskirts,

by deepnet 10y ago

EthanHeilman 10y ago

Years before Snowden it was revealed that recorded sex was traded around the NSA. In 2008 it was revealed that NSA employees made mix tapes of phone sex they recorded: >Gordon routinely shared salacious or tantalizing phone calls that had been intercepted, alerting office mates to certain time codes of "cuts" that were available on each operator’s computer. "Hey, check this out," Faulk says he would be told, "there’s good phone sex or there’s some pillow talk, pull up this call, it’s really funny, go check it out. It would be some colonel making pillow talk and we would say, ‘Wow, this was crazy’," Faulk told ABC News. - Wired: NSA Snooped on Innocent Americans’ Private Calls from Iraq, Former Operators Charge https://www.wired.com/2008/10/we-snooped-on-i/ https://www.wired.com/2008/10/we-snooped-on-i/

cookiecaper 10y ago

Do the people with that kind of access simply not understand the power they have? If Snowden had access, surely there are at least dozens of other 20-somethings running around able to read the correspondence of almost anyone in the country. Are we to believe that they really are so self-disciplined the only thing they'll look at are nude photos? Why haven't we seen industrial and political fallout from these guys?

jellicle 10y ago
Probably because they don't feel like spending the rest of their lives in permanent solitary confinement in ADX Florence.
- cookiecaper 10y ago
  Yeah, but surely there would be a way to get the ball rolling without outing yourself. NSA analysts are going to be acquainted with at least the basic ways to stay anonymous online. If they found something interesting in the correspondence destined for a prominent politician or corporate officer, they could get the rumor mill started, or even make strategic leaks. Perhaps they already are doing it and we just aren't aware because they're covering their tracks well, but it seems like we'd see more aggressive targeting of interests that offend the likely demographic of NSA analysts, which to my knowledge hasn't happened. However many people have access to this, I don't know if it's dozens, hundreds, or thousands, have a frightening amount of power. They have to realize it. I guess they probably can't just type in "My Least Favorite Politician's Emails" into NSA internal search. Maybe this is the practical limitation that provides some nominal check on the power of these people?
  - deepnet 10y ago
    Actually Snowden reveals they can perform such a search[1]. [1] http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/31/nsa-top-secret-program-online-data http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/31/nsa-top-secret-... PRISM can notify when new emails appear and can provide a live view of the targets online activity. [2] [2] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/politics/prism-collection-documents/m/ http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/politics/prism-...
    - cookiecaper 10y ago
      Ah, he's quoted in the article saying that he has to have a personal email address. That probably means that there's a filter and/or blacklist that's at least watching for, if not actively blocking, access to whitehouse.gov and/or other official/important domains. This probably extends into the commercial world. I wonder if looking up anything other than the conventional email domains is a cause for suspicion. Thus, looking up "trump@trump.biz", for example, is inadvisable.
      - deepnet 10y ago
deepnet 10y ago
Boeing lost a $4.5 billion contract for jets, soured by the Petrobras "Blackpearl" & "Blarney" slides that detailed NSA & GCHQ spying on businesses worldwide[1]. NSA's James Clapper issued a denial "What we do not do, as we have said many times, is use our foreign intelligence capabilities to steal the trade secrets of foreign companies on behalf of – or give intelligence we collect to – US companies to enhance their international competitiveness or increase their bottom line." By 2014 overseas contract losses to US businesses attributed to dissatisfaction with NSA spying were estimated at $180 billion [2] [1] http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/09/nsa-spying-brazil-oil-petrobras http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/09/nsa-spying-braz... [2] https://shadowproof.com/2014/08/01/nsa-spying-costs-u-s-companies-up-to-180-billion-in-lost-overseas-business/ https://shadowproof.com/2014/08/01/nsa-spying-costs-u-s-comp...
throw88889 10y ago
I worked for a well known computer software company, and one of the close by teams worked on a photo-sharing web-app, which also allowed for private albums. While analyzing the metadata someone discovered that a certain rare and expensive camera model was used almost exclusively to shoot models, including nude ones. Searching the storage for pictures made with that camera model became a popular activity in that team :) So it's pretty easy to trivialize privacy breaches and rationalize it as "no harm was done"
- enneff 10y ago
  It's hard to believe that it would be worth violating your users' trust for some nudes. The internet has enough free racy pictures to last anyone a lifetime.
  - deepnet 10y ago
    Its not inconceivable employees may feel less burdened by trust than owners. Perhaps the illicit nature of the trust violation adds something beyond the legally available porn. Evidenced by the criminal risks voyeurs still take to get creepshots, upskirts,