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USA: PRISM is probably still a very active project. This is the program where the NSA would request access to major US companies (notably Google and Microsoft)

USA: PRISM is probably still a very active project. This is the program where the NSA would request access to major US companies (notably Google and Microsoft) and the companies would grant them access to some of their databases. The NSA slide says that "it varies by provider" what information the NSA is privy to, but it never breaks it down fully to say exactly which provider is providing which data. The NSA slides do mention email contents, photos, etc., so it's probably safe to assume that at least some of the major providers are/were providing contents and not just metadata.

kyrra 5y ago
Googler, opinions are my own. I wasn't at Google when PRISM was discovered. As far as I understand, your take on this is incorrect. At least for Google, people that worked there were pissed, some posting nasty posts about the NSA hacking their network. My understanding was, that the NSA tapped the lines between data centers. The NSA was able to hack Google, because there inter datacenter communication was not encrypted, partially because it was on private fiber that they fully owned. After this project came to light, Google already had a project in the works to encrypt all traffic between data centers, which they enabled shortly after.
- sneak 5y ago
  PRISM is the code for FAA702 collection, and has nothing to do with the Google/Yahoo WAN cable taps, which had the codename MUSCULAR. PRISM continues to date. The USG can get any data they want out of Google without a warrant.
lern_too_spel 5y ago
Your description of PRISM is wrong. The FBI issued court orders for the content (not metadata) of specific accounts to US Internet companies. The Internet companies reviewed the court orders and set up forwarding of some of those accounts' data. PRISM then ingested a subset of the data from the FBI DITU's systems (those collected from foreign accounts) into the NSA's databases. The slides Snowden released are very clear about this.

kyrra 5y ago

Googler, opinions are my own. I wasn't at Google when PRISM was discovered. As far as I understand, your take on this is incorrect. At least for Google, people that worked there were pissed, some posting nasty posts about the NSA hacking their network. My understanding was, that the NSA tapped the lines between data centers. The NSA was able to hack Google, because there inter datacenter communication was not encrypted, partially because it was on private fiber that they fully owned. After this project came to light, Google already had a project in the works to encrypt all traffic between data centers, which they enabled shortly after.

sneak 5y ago
PRISM is the code for FAA702 collection, and has nothing to do with the Google/Yahoo WAN cable taps, which had the codename MUSCULAR. PRISM continues to date. The USG can get any data they want out of Google without a warrant.

lern_too_spel 5y ago

Your description of PRISM is wrong. The FBI issued court orders for the content (not metadata) of specific accounts to US Internet companies. The Internet companies reviewed the court orders and set up forwarding of some of those accounts' data. PRISM then ingested a subset of the data from the FBI DITU's systems (those collected from foreign accounts) into the NSA's databases. The slides Snowden released are very clear about this.