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> I understand why he so completely misunderstood the PRISM slides he leaked. I wouldn't hold it against him, most of the tech community completely misundersto

by vkou 4y ago

> I understand why he so completely misunderstood the PRISM slides he leaked. I wouldn't hold it against him, most of the tech community completely misunderstood those slides, too. PRISM was... A web front-end that would produce warrants, that would be served to the various internet companies, who would respond to them by providing the information requested. [1] But half the people in the tech community seem to think that it was some magical all-seeing-eye-of-Sauron that had backdoors and zero-day-exploits embedded in every webservice we use, where some spook could press a button, and your texts and emails and photos would immediately appear for him. The NSA also did things like spy on unencrypted cross-data-center traffic (SSL added and removed here ;-) ), and use zero-days against people and organizations, but that wasn't part of PRISM. [1] There's a lot to complain about, here, but its all splitting hairs about particular legal questions (FISA courts, whether the firms in question were pushing back on these warrants enough, etc), and agency mandates.

unity1001 4y ago
> PRISM was... A web front-end that would produce warrants, that would be served to the various internet companies, who would respond to them by providing the information requested. [1] > But half the people in the tech community seem to think that it was some magical all-seeing-eye-of-Sauron that had backdoors and zero-day-exploits embedded in every webservice we use Those two are literally the same. The former is worse even, since there is no escaping from it - one way or the other they will get your data over some service you used or had to use at a point in history. The latter can be avoided in many ways.
- vkou 4y ago
  No, one of them is done through the framework of law, the other one is just banditry. Like, you may not like the idea that the police can serve warrants, or that there are NSLs or a FISA court, but the agency was very much following the rules there. Rules can be challenged in court, rules can be changed.
lern_too_spel 4y ago
PRISM wasn't even that. It was an ingestion pipeline for data that was collected by the FBI (which is shown right there on the slide, already having the systems integrations with the providers to collect this data for warranted wiretaps on specific Americans) via Section 702 orders for the data of specific accounts known to belong to non-US citizens living outside the US suspected of being of national security interest. Snowden thought it allowed the NSA to read anybody's email, which of course is nonsense. He insisted that Gellman print those slides immediately, thinking he had discovered something obviously illegal, but Gellman wanted to verify his understanding first (https://www.washingtonpost.com/magazine/2020/05/11/2013-edward-snowden-leaked-top-secret-national-security-agency-documents-showing-how-us-was-spying-its-citizens-heres-what-happened-next/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/magazine/2020/05/11/2013-edwa...), causing Snowden to panic and bring in the undereducated Greenwald, who is prone to believe any conspiracy. In the meantime, his location had been discovered, so he shared information with the Chinese government about which Chinese networks had been compromised and when in a failed attempt to get asylum in Hong Kong (https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/article/1266777/exclusive-snowden-safe-hong-kong-more-us-cyberspying-details-revealed https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/article/1266777/exclusiv...). This peabrain now finds himself stuck in Russia because he couldn't understand basic concepts spelled out in the documents he had access to (and had failed a test on those concepts not very long before, so the fact that he didn't understand them wasn't news to him). Now he's here again telling us about the future of money without understanding how any of it works.
- eduction 4y ago
  This is incredibly misleading. The NSA itself stated in the documents quoted in the Washington Post story you yourself link that PRISM was its number one source of reporting (“The subtitle of this slide deck called PRISM the source “used most in NSA reporting.”). In a single year 702 was used to collect 250 million American communications (https://www.brennancenter.org/media/140/download https://www.brennancenter.org/media/140/download). Yes individual foreigners and foreign groups are certified (in an annual hearing, technically for a bulk warrant, at a secret court no one is allowed to attend). But 702 goes hops out from the original target to people they talk to and the people those people talk to. “Incidental” collection on Americans is expressly allowed. The FBI routinely uses 702 collection to build cases against Americans. It is a staggering program. >Snowden thought it allowed the NSA to read anybody’s email - source please. > causing Snowden to panic and bring in the undereducated Greenwald First of all, the “undereducated” part is a strange assertion because it’s well established that Greenwald went to NYU law and worked for the prestigious white shoe firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz afterward. He had also at that point been writing (for the Guardian, Salon) specifically about NSA surveillance for many years. By what measure is an NYU trained lawyer with years of experience as a legal and surveillance journalist “undereducated?” But also, the Washington Post has itself reported that Gellman’s contact with Snowden began in May 2013 - Greenwald has said his started in February. So the timeline does not add up here. Even in the piece you link he acknowledges working with another journalist Snowden worked with (Poitras) at the time he was trying to persuade his editor to publish the first story. > he shared information with the Chinese governmen This is false and defamatory (and invites a lawsuit, although you’re picking on someone who faces shall we say challenges defending himself this way). Snowden has repeatedly denied this (plainly baseless) assertion (eg https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/jul/10/snowden-denies-information-russia-china https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/jul/10/snowde...) and the article you link shows just the opposite - that he provided information openly to journalists (SCMP was famously independent at the time and routinely on the bad side of mainland government though that sadly changed years later).

by vkou 4y ago

unity1001 4y ago

> PRISM was... A web front-end that would produce warrants, that would be served to the various internet companies, who would respond to them by providing the information requested. [1] > But half the people in the tech community seem to think that it was some magical all-seeing-eye-of-Sauron that had backdoors and zero-day-exploits embedded in every webservice we use Those two are literally the same. The former is worse even, since there is no escaping from it - one way or the other they will get your data over some service you used or had to use at a point in history. The latter can be avoided in many ways.

vkou 4y ago
No, one of them is done through the framework of law, the other one is just banditry. Like, you may not like the idea that the police can serve warrants, or that there are NSLs or a FISA court, but the agency was very much following the rules there. Rules can be challenged in court, rules can be changed.

lern_too_spel 4y ago

PRISM wasn't even that. It was an ingestion pipeline for data that was collected by the FBI (which is shown right there on the slide, already having the systems integrations with the providers to collect this data for warranted wiretaps on specific Americans) via Section 702 orders for the data of specific accounts known to belong to non-US citizens living outside the US suspected of being of national security interest. Snowden thought it allowed the NSA to read anybody's email, which of course is nonsense. He insisted that Gellman print those slides immediately, thinking he had discovered something obviously illegal, but Gellman wanted to verify his understanding first (https://www.washingtonpost.com/magazine/2020/05/11/2013-edward-snowden-leaked-top-secret-national-security-agency-documents-showing-how-us-was-spying-its-citizens-heres-what-happened-next/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/magazine/2020/05/11/2013-edwa...), causing Snowden to panic and bring in the undereducated Greenwald, who is prone to believe any conspiracy. In the meantime, his location had been discovered, so he shared information with the Chinese government about which Chinese networks had been compromised and when in a failed attempt to get asylum in Hong Kong (https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/article/1266777/exclusive-snowden-safe-hong-kong-more-us-cyberspying-details-revealed https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/article/1266777/exclusiv...). This peabrain now finds himself stuck in Russia because he couldn't understand basic concepts spelled out in the documents he had access to (and had failed a test on those concepts not very long before, so the fact that he didn't understand them wasn't news to him). Now he's here again telling us about the future of money without understanding how any of it works.

eduction 4y ago
This is incredibly misleading. The NSA itself stated in the documents quoted in the Washington Post story you yourself link that PRISM was its number one source of reporting (“The subtitle of this slide deck called PRISM the source “used most in NSA reporting.”). In a single year 702 was used to collect 250 million American communications (https://www.brennancenter.org/media/140/download https://www.brennancenter.org/media/140/download). Yes individual foreigners and foreign groups are certified (in an annual hearing, technically for a bulk warrant, at a secret court no one is allowed to attend). But 702 goes hops out from the original target to people they talk to and the people those people talk to. “Incidental” collection on Americans is expressly allowed. The FBI routinely uses 702 collection to build cases against Americans. It is a staggering program. >Snowden thought it allowed the NSA to read anybody’s email - source please. > causing Snowden to panic and bring in the undereducated Greenwald First of all, the “undereducated” part is a strange assertion because it’s well established that Greenwald went to NYU law and worked for the prestigious white shoe firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz afterward. He had also at that point been writing (for the Guardian, Salon) specifically about NSA surveillance for many years. By what measure is an NYU trained lawyer with years of experience as a legal and surveillance journalist “undereducated?” But also, the Washington Post has itself reported that Gellman’s contact with Snowden began in May 2013 - Greenwald has said his started in February. So the timeline does not add up here. Even in the piece you link he acknowledges working with another journalist Snowden worked with (Poitras) at the time he was trying to persuade his editor to publish the first story. > he shared information with the Chinese governmen This is false and defamatory (and invites a lawsuit, although you’re picking on someone who faces shall we say challenges defending himself this way). Snowden has repeatedly denied this (plainly baseless) assertion (eg https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/jul/10/snowden-denies-information-russia-china https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/jul/10/snowde...) and the article you link shows just the opposite - that he provided information openly to journalists (SCMP was famously independent at the time and routinely on the bad side of mainland government though that sadly changed years later).