8 ms·
Google Reveals It Received Secret FBI Subpoena
- M_Grey 10y agoHonestly at this point you just have to assume this is a nearly constant reality.
- bitskits 10y agoThis is sadly true, but I think we also need to reject that this is the new normal. We need to continue to push back firmly on secret government request without oversight.
- M_Grey 10y agoI agree, although I suspect that the time for that was a couple of decades ago, not now. Still, we have to fight.
- visarga 10y agoYou can't put the genie back into the bottle. It has already escaped. In our days, surveillance is being performed by all governments and many private companies. For US to be the only country that doesn't do it, it would be uncompetitive. We have to accept the new reality - ever since digital cameras became popular (year 2000) and ever since cell phones became packed with sensors and always on connectivity (and continuous auto-updates), hard drives cheap and large, face recognition software efficient - there has been no way to stop surveillance. It is an emergent situation based on a confluence of technologies. We need AI to protect privacy, capable of detecting information leaks and unintended exposures right in the browser and OS, similar to an antivirus that is always scanning the data flowing in the system. We need to have software educating people about consequences and making it really easy to remain private. It won't solve the problem fully, it's impossible to do that today.
- ced 10y agoIn our days, surveillance is being performed by all governments and many private companies. For US to be the only country that doesn't do it, it would be uncompetitive. How does surveillance improve competitiveness?
- Cozumel 10y agoGovernments spy on other nations businesses, then pass the information back to their companies who process to undercut the competition (because they have all the information) Here's China doing it to America http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/china-business/10842339/America-sues-China-over-corporate-spying.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/china-business/10842339/A... 'According to the indictment, five hackers “stole trade secrets” which allowed Chinese companies to undercut their American competitors, or gave them “insight into [their] strategy and vulnerabilities”. ' And here's America doing it to everyone else (including allies both domestic and foreign) https://theintercept.com/2014/09/05/us-governments-plans-use-economic-espionage-benefit-american-corporations/ https://theintercept.com/2014/09/05/us-governments-plans-use...
- wbl 10y agoExcept that passing the information back never actually happened in The Intercept article.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- shostack 10y agoDon't forget Windows 10 NSA Edition. Auto updates you can't disable, constant resetting of privacy settings, insane new levels of telemetry... The scary thing about auto updates is you can never be sure what is being installed on your device. I'd be shocked if there wasn't some chilling effect from this already.
- matt4077 10y agoIt's a false equivalence to say that "everyone does it". 1. It's unclear how surveillance does anything for a countries competitiveness. If we're talking security, the US's competitive edge in technology should have enabled them to completely reshape world affairs to their liking long ago. If they can be duped bit some sadistic middle-eastern ophthalmologist in the way they have, it shows how useless those skills are. Economically, the benefits of surveillance are especially limiting. You may be able to support a few "national heroes" like Boeing here and there, or win a few tenders with your knowledge of some interior ministers passion for really strange pornography, but the economic effects are negligible. 2. "Everyone does it" is a really really bad excuse for something morally repugnant. When did we start measuring morality on scale relative to others? 3. Not everyone does. In fact, barely anyone does it, and even fewer use it for economic competitiveness. Even discounting places like Luxemburg or Qatar because they use non-replicable features for their success, I'd point at the Netherlands, Austria, Canada or Denmark as countries that are successful even though they almost certainly lack the ability to play that game on any level comparable to the US. 4. Even you think it's naive to expect moral leadership in a world of race-to-the-bottom competition, there are long-established processes to avoid playing the prisoner's dilemma with the rights of everyone on earth: cooperation, embodied in the WTO, the ICC, the Oxford Manual of Style, START 1-3, RFC 2616, or actually anything else that is collectively called "international law". I know americans hate the concept because they really don't get a foreigner, of all people, could disagree with them but just underneath the surface these systems have worked extremely well for everyone. 5. It may be right to try to solve these issues technologically. Such solutions may even be preferable because they don't require trust, or the expectation of mora; behavior from everyone. But I'd still prefer a political solution because there is a universe of problems that cannot be solved technologically and I fear a world where we've given up on expecting people's behavior to be limited by anything but feasibility. So yes, if you can create a protocol or an AI that gives people power over their data do publish it, if you can teach people to use technology, do so. But don't join the cynical masses that don't expect anything from their leaders, or declare ruthless competition as the only "rational" choice, or deny humanity's ability to give shape to their fate in the face of the downward pressure of game theory.
- ChoHag 10y agoYou're absolutely correct. The word "new" is entirely out of place.
- jevinskie 10y agoWell, new in the sense that, post Snowden, there was an immense increase in the number of mostly-facsimile files documenting the mass surveillance. I don't remember earlier programs like Carnivore getting the same level of public documentation and confirmation.
- ChoHag 10y agoSo that's new in the sense that now we know about it?
- empath75 10y agoI think at this point you have to assume that chinese, american and russian intelligence if not organized crime have their fingers in all the major email providers. I'm starting to think that these giant email providers are too much of a juicy target and we need to start moving towards a more decentralized model, or even move away from email entirely.
- M_Grey 10y agoOr move into heavy, future-proofed encryption as the norm.
- nickpsecurity 10y agoInitiated on endpoint by open protocol and implementation, too.
- abpavel 10y agoAgree with all but the last suggestion. Email is great, and there is no reason to give it up If you want full control, just publish an MX record in DNS, and run you own email server. The TCP session will be established directly between you and the sender. Encryption options are available and evolving, thanks to IETF and other bodies. All you have to pay is just a couple of hours of your time for setting it all up, and $15/yr for the DNS.
- vehementi 10y agoAre there good spam filters these days?
- dleslie 10y agoSpamAssassin works well enough for me.
- sirclueless 10y agoYes there are, and many of them will block all of your email if you run your own server... Or did you mean "good for independent email operators"?
- cwkoss 10y agoI wonder if anyone has ever sent a fake National Security Letter. The inability to speak about or verify these letters is concerning to me. Seems like you could cause a lot of damage by sending a fake NSL ordering a company to send you private data. At minimum it would cost the company several thousand dollars in legal fees to determine its fake.
- djrogers 10y agoI doubt that these are simply sent through the mail - they may be called 'letters' but they're the kind of thing that would likely be delivered by Men In Suits with ID cards, or at the very least accompanied by a phone call if they're frequent enough that the parties would be familiar with the forms and process.
- SilasX 10y agoTrue, but who knows what a real MIB ID looks like? And do they have a phone line that you're allowed to call to verify these? Big companies might deal with the real guys regularly but not the smaller ones.
- ucaetano 10y agoNational Security Letters must be approved by the Director of the FBI, so yeah, there's probably a hotline you can call.
- appleflaxen 10y agoThe insane thing about this is that it is wholly unnecessary. Why can't the feds go court and get a search warrant if they really have anything more than a "hunch". And if that's all they have, do we really want them issuing secret orders with no public oversight at all? That's exactly where you need scrutiny. The current and previous administration is going to find out in a hurry why checks and balances are important if Trump gets into office. He's exactly the kind of chief executive who will be terrible to behold with that kind of power.
- adekok 10y ago> .. do we really want them issuing secret orders with no public oversight at all? do they want to issue secret orders with no public oversight at all? Yes. Yes, they do.
- seanwilson 10y agoGiven Google's size and how much information they have, you'd imagine they've been subjected to every secret demand allowed. Are there any good examples of a gag order like this which was reasonable? When would they ever be justified?
- rtkwe 10y agoThe basic idea of of the gag order and not being able to reveal the details has pretty sound roots in not tipping off the people being investigated. The issue is they're incredibly broad so companies receiving them can't usually even reveal the exact number received.
- pistle 10y agoAnyone have a reference for how NSL's are estimated for the "hundreds of thousands" reference in this article? It seems more like ~20-30k/yr at this point from my cursory search. I interpret "hundreds of thousands" to imply 200k+ which made me think... dayum - that's a lot of fear.
- Fej 10y agoThere is zero surprise. When a Three Letter Agency wants information, they get it. The current United States government is the most powerful single entity to exist in human history (insofar as it can be called a single entity). Especially those who frequent HN should be well aware of that at this point. Dear God I am depressed about our chances at this point. Reigning in who I would call traitors seems impossible.
- mSparks 10y agoI reckon Ive done just enough to waste their time including me in their letter :) Playing with honeypots much safer and more fun than active hacking.
- Fej 10y ago> Playing with honeypots much safer and more fun than active hacking. How so?
- mSparks 10y agohow is it safer or how is it more fun? The former, because it wont get you extradited, the later, well, that would be telling. lets just say there are a lot more organisations than a few analysts in Maryland monitoring the internet and our communications, and they are interested in much more than unhappy muslims. Then leave it at that.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- anondon 10y agoOne of the solutions is to move to a model where all data that companies like google have in their servers is encrypted by a key that only the user has in his device. The side effects are: -No server side analysis/logging/sharing/selling to advertisers of the user's data -All decryption takes place at the client side -Targeting ads/content becomes impossible -gag orders are rendered useless to seek user data from service providers -Privacy
- binaryanomaly 10y agoIt exists you just need to use it: https://signal.org/ https://signal.org/ https://protonmail.com/ https://protonmail.com/ and many others. Most people are too convenient or careless though to take the (little) extra effort for privacy.
- anondon 10y agoNot only for chat apps and email services, literally all user data on servers should be encrypted with the decryption key only on the user's devices. It should basically be impossible to identify a user based on the data that a service provider has. The idea is similar to that of ZeroDB, but it extends beyond databases to everything related to a user such as files related to a user.
- bogomipz 10y agoThe literature for Protonmail looks really good, thanks for the tip. Can you recommend them service-wise?
- bas_ta 10y agoI started using Protonmail 2 weeks ago and I am quite satisfied (planning to migrate all my communication from Gmail to Protonmail). It does feel slower than Gmail (because of the decryption, but that's not that much of a problem). Also, you have to use their own app, it cannot be connected to a mail client, that's a bit of a downside, but I suppose I will be willing to make that compromise.
- marme 10y agoThe only reason this continues to go on is that no one is brave enough to risk arrest and just publicly read the full contents of these NSLs when they get them. Gag orders have only been declared constitutional when they are used to protect someones right to a fair trial. No one has ever challenged a gag order that protects a police investigation. It is much easier to challenge these gag laws when you have been personally charged with violating them, then you have a criminal trial you can appeal and escalate through to federal appeals and the supreme court. Otherwise it is just civil suits that can be thrown out easily as you cant justify why you need to take this to trial because you are not suffering any monetary damages.