4 ms·

"As the cost of conducting espionage operations—in money, time, and effort—has shrunk, spying has become less esoteric. These days it is an integral part of bus

"As the cost of conducting espionage operations—in money, time, and effort—has shrunk, spying has become less esoteric. These days it is an integral part of business, finance, sports, and family litigation over divorce and child custody. Indeed, modern life encourages people and institutions of all kinds to adopt the thinking and practices of the spy world." My joke, for some years now, has been that the average teenager has better surveillance capabilities than the CIA did in the 1960's. It might be better than what they had in the 70's or 80's by now. It seems likely to me that Google, Facebook, and probably Amazon, have better data than intelligence agencies of the 90's could've ever hoped for.

paganel 7y ago
> Google, Facebook, and probably Amazon, have better data than intelligence agencies of the 90's could've ever hoped for. Putin was being made fun of back in 2012 or 2013 when he was saying that the Internet is actually a tool for the US Intelligence Community. Shortly after that some of Putin's cronies took direct control of VKontakte. As it so happens, Facebook was advised by a boutique investment bank called Allen & Co when it acquired Whatsapp for what was considered to be a huge sum ($19 billion) [1]. One of the managing directors of Allen & Co back then was none other than George Tenet, former Director of the CIA. [2] I also believe that Skype's acquisition by MS (for what was also considered as a huge sum back then, $8 billion) was in part a covert operation to help the US Intelligence Community. Shortly after the acquisition MS got rid of Skype's p2p architecture and reverted to using one big centralized communications system, which by all intents and purposes made it easier for anyone so interested to control and check what was being discussed on Skype. [1] https://www.fnlondon.com/articles/facebook-whatsapp-puts-allen-and-co-back-in-top-10-20140220 https://www.fnlondon.com/articles/facebook-whatsapp-puts-all... [2] https://www.wallstreetoasis.com/forums/allen-co-the-invisible-investment-bank https://www.wallstreetoasis.com/forums/allen-co-the-invisibl...
- seppin 7y ago
  > Internet is actually a tool for the US Intelligence Community The internet is a tool for every countries' intelligence community. > Skype's acquisition by MS was in part a covert operation to help the US Intelligence Community Source?
  - nyolfen 7y ago
    he qualified with "i believe," but whether that was a motivation at the outset or not is the only issue in contention: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/11/microsoft-nsa-collaboration-user-data https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/11/microsoft-nsa-... it is well known that skype's crypto has always been an obfuscated black box (this may have been primarily to prevent reverse engineered clients using the protocol but it makes backdoors much less detectable), and transitioning from p2p to centralized architecture (which iirc was done after the ebay acquisition) where one party holds the keys obviously makes snooping easier
    - DennisP 7y ago
      Initially Skype was an Estonian company, with founders from Denmark and Sweden. A reporter asked the CEO whether they would modify it to allow compliance with a U.S telecom law mandating provision for wiretapping of voice services, and the CEO said "We're not American. Why would we?" It was a sad day when that changed.
m463 7y ago
> It seems likely to me that Google, Facebook, and probably Amazon, have better data advertising profile = dossier

paganel 7y ago

> Google, Facebook, and probably Amazon, have better data than intelligence agencies of the 90's could've ever hoped for. Putin was being made fun of back in 2012 or 2013 when he was saying that the Internet is actually a tool for the US Intelligence Community. Shortly after that some of Putin's cronies took direct control of VKontakte. As it so happens, Facebook was advised by a boutique investment bank called Allen & Co when it acquired Whatsapp for what was considered to be a huge sum ($19 billion) [1]. One of the managing directors of Allen & Co back then was none other than George Tenet, former Director of the CIA. [2] I also believe that Skype's acquisition by MS (for what was also considered as a huge sum back then, $8 billion) was in part a covert operation to help the US Intelligence Community. Shortly after the acquisition MS got rid of Skype's p2p architecture and reverted to using one big centralized communications system, which by all intents and purposes made it easier for anyone so interested to control and check what was being discussed on Skype. [1] https://www.fnlondon.com/articles/facebook-whatsapp-puts-allen-and-co-back-in-top-10-20140220 https://www.fnlondon.com/articles/facebook-whatsapp-puts-all... [2] https://www.wallstreetoasis.com/forums/allen-co-the-invisible-investment-bank https://www.wallstreetoasis.com/forums/allen-co-the-invisibl...

seppin 7y ago
> Internet is actually a tool for the US Intelligence Community The internet is a tool for every countries' intelligence community. > Skype's acquisition by MS was in part a covert operation to help the US Intelligence Community Source?
- nyolfen 7y ago
  he qualified with "i believe," but whether that was a motivation at the outset or not is the only issue in contention: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/11/microsoft-nsa-collaboration-user-data https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/11/microsoft-nsa-... it is well known that skype's crypto has always been an obfuscated black box (this may have been primarily to prevent reverse engineered clients using the protocol but it makes backdoors much less detectable), and transitioning from p2p to centralized architecture (which iirc was done after the ebay acquisition) where one party holds the keys obviously makes snooping easier
  - DennisP 7y ago
    Initially Skype was an Estonian company, with founders from Denmark and Sweden. A reporter asked the CEO whether they would modify it to allow compliance with a U.S telecom law mandating provision for wiretapping of voice services, and the CEO said "We're not American. Why would we?" It was a sad day when that changed.

m463 7y ago

> It seems likely to me that Google, Facebook, and probably Amazon, have better data advertising profile = dossier