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A lot of people— sometimes the most technically competent ones— were busily telling them that wholesale surveillance was infeasible... greatly underestimating t

by nullc 13y ago

A lot of people— sometimes the most technically competent ones— were busily telling them that wholesale surveillance was infeasible... greatly underestimating the available funding and ingenuity. So it was easy to imagine that only a few things were being intercepted: Communications be an amorphous "bad people". A distant problem for someone else. In the mean time digital communications devices, cloud services, social media, etc. have become increasingly central to our lives— mediating more and more of our most private communications and storing our most trusted data. Most of it has built on an architectural house of cards which provides little systemic security beyond "hasn't screwed you yet". The fact that this is happening to _everyone_, that the data is being correlated and stored— perhaps forever— that the argued legal basis of the program itself is cloaked in secrecy, that the public has been denied the ability to question something that potentially impacts the entire world, that the leaders of technology companies that we trust with our most personal data are either clueless or lying— as they make claims that appear to contradict the whitehouse. And now it's becoming clear enough that its harder to say "well, maybe it isn't really happening" (even as you say "which may ver well be fake!)or "the black box rooms are for someone else" and so instead of ignoring it people are being forced to process the information. Some of them feel violated and upset. "Hasn't screwed you yet" is starting to look a little too weak once considered in the sunshine.

whatevenisthis 13y ago
The fact is there are almost no facts. The NSA is allegedly putting some stuff in a database. That's essentially the "facts." We don't know what, or how, or really understand the scope. We don't know if it's real time or archival. There are ZERO technical details. The only thing that concerns me is that the NSA is actually somewhat incompetent, as those three PowerPoint slides make it seem like the kind of security strategy developed by a 12 year old kid. I would have assumed that the NSA wouldn't need to ask Facebook or Google to participate. I just assumed that they could get access to any encryption keys necessary through any number of ways, and syphon off the data wholesale at the ISP level. These aren't exactly "secure" organizations. Gmail accounts routinely get hacked by 15 year old Chinese kids trying to steal WoW passwords. I would hope the NSA could do much better.
- b6 13y ago
  > The NSA is allegedly putting some stuff in a database. William Binney, who was at the NSA for 30 years, and who designed big pieces of the infrastructure we're talking about, quit and blew the whistle. If I understand him correctly, every type of electronic communications people use -- email, phone, SMS, IM, fax -- are all stored forever. There are a million interviews like this: http://youtu.be/TuET0kpHoyM http://youtu.be/TuET0kpHoyM Edit: and, it seems that Snowden wanted the Washington Post and the Guardian to release all 41 slides, but neither paper had the courage to do it. I'd like to know what was on the other slides. If they had nothing of interest, why were they withheld?
mehwoot 13y ago
A lot of people— sometimes the most technically competent ones— were busily telling them that wholesale surveillance was infeasible... greatly underestimating the available funding and ingenuity. The fact that this is happening to _everyone_... Has this actually changed? Is there any evidence that a U.S. citizen's gmail account, or skype calls, or yahoo searches, or facebook information, has been obtained without a court ordered warrant? I'm not a U.S. citizen and have always assumed that anything I put on these companies' servers can be read by the U.S. government at will. But if you're a citizen of the land of the free and the home of the brave, I haven't seen anything come out that actually showed your cloud data is being accessed without probable cause being shown, the way it always has been.
- kintamanimatt 13y ago
  > I'm not a U.S. citizen and have always assumed that anything I put on these companies' servers can be read by the U.S. government at will. Why are you ok with that?
  - mehwoot 13y ago
    Firstly, I feel like assuming the government has the ability to monitor your communications and acting accordingly is better than assuming they can't and getting worried when it turns out they do. Secondly, I have zero power to change how the U.S. conducts it's business in this regard so I'm not going to expend energy fighting it, I just take it into account and try not to use these services in a way that I wouldn't want to be discovered. Thirdly, I do agree that the government (U.S. or mine) should be allowed to get information on me if they show probable cause. I strongly support that. And if I accept people might look at my stuff, then it doesn't really matter in the end why they are doing it- I should still plan accordingly. The Government could very well have probable cause to investigate me even when I've done nothing wrong. We have the technology to keep what we do online anonymous. Even if the government had no power to check this, stuff like the AOL search data debacle shows there is always a non zero possibility someone could be looking at your unprotected data. If you're worried about that, you should protect your data. That's the only real solution. I agree with people who fight against illegitimate or non transparent ways people try and access that data- but that's not what I rely on to keep my privacy.
einhverfr 13y ago
Part of the problem is defining wholesale surveillance. I don't think we are to the point of having everything stored by the NSA (in terms of all content we produce, send, or exchange). I think it is quite likely that the NSA does in fact store their most interesting subset of broad data (cdrs etc) along with a narrower subset of content. If that isn't wholesale surveillance, then we aren't to that level yet. But in the end what I have said for a while is that it doesn't matter. The NSA doesn't need to store your Facebook stuff on their servers because Facebook is doing it for them. The scary thing is that the interesting subset that the NSA has to pipe back is a small fraction of what they can go through if they ever decide to make you a target of an investigation, so in that sense we are under wholesale surveillance and the NSA is just controlling a very small piece.
chiph 13y ago
data is being correlated and stored I'm thinking that the volume of data that they would have to store would be reflected in disk drive sales. In other words, it's probably large enough that it would have distorted the market price for hard drives.

by nullc 13y ago

whatevenisthis 13y ago

The fact is there are almost no facts. The NSA is allegedly putting some stuff in a database. That's essentially the "facts." We don't know what, or how, or really understand the scope. We don't know if it's real time or archival. There are ZERO technical details. The only thing that concerns me is that the NSA is actually somewhat incompetent, as those three PowerPoint slides make it seem like the kind of security strategy developed by a 12 year old kid. I would have assumed that the NSA wouldn't need to ask Facebook or Google to participate. I just assumed that they could get access to any encryption keys necessary through any number of ways, and syphon off the data wholesale at the ISP level. These aren't exactly "secure" organizations. Gmail accounts routinely get hacked by 15 year old Chinese kids trying to steal WoW passwords. I would hope the NSA could do much better.

b6 13y ago
> The NSA is allegedly putting some stuff in a database. William Binney, who was at the NSA for 30 years, and who designed big pieces of the infrastructure we're talking about, quit and blew the whistle. If I understand him correctly, every type of electronic communications people use -- email, phone, SMS, IM, fax -- are all stored forever. There are a million interviews like this: http://youtu.be/TuET0kpHoyM http://youtu.be/TuET0kpHoyM Edit: and, it seems that Snowden wanted the Washington Post and the Guardian to release all 41 slides, but neither paper had the courage to do it. I'd like to know what was on the other slides. If they had nothing of interest, why were they withheld?

mehwoot 13y ago

A lot of people— sometimes the most technically competent ones— were busily telling them that wholesale surveillance was infeasible... greatly underestimating the available funding and ingenuity. The fact that this is happening to _everyone_... Has this actually changed? Is there any evidence that a U.S. citizen's gmail account, or skype calls, or yahoo searches, or facebook information, has been obtained without a court ordered warrant? I'm not a U.S. citizen and have always assumed that anything I put on these companies' servers can be read by the U.S. government at will. But if you're a citizen of the land of the free and the home of the brave, I haven't seen anything come out that actually showed your cloud data is being accessed without probable cause being shown, the way it always has been.

kintamanimatt 13y ago
> I'm not a U.S. citizen and have always assumed that anything I put on these companies' servers can be read by the U.S. government at will. Why are you ok with that?
- mehwoot 13y ago
  Firstly, I feel like assuming the government has the ability to monitor your communications and acting accordingly is better than assuming they can't and getting worried when it turns out they do. Secondly, I have zero power to change how the U.S. conducts it's business in this regard so I'm not going to expend energy fighting it, I just take it into account and try not to use these services in a way that I wouldn't want to be discovered. Thirdly, I do agree that the government (U.S. or mine) should be allowed to get information on me if they show probable cause. I strongly support that. And if I accept people might look at my stuff, then it doesn't really matter in the end why they are doing it- I should still plan accordingly. The Government could very well have probable cause to investigate me even when I've done nothing wrong. We have the technology to keep what we do online anonymous. Even if the government had no power to check this, stuff like the AOL search data debacle shows there is always a non zero possibility someone could be looking at your unprotected data. If you're worried about that, you should protect your data. That's the only real solution. I agree with people who fight against illegitimate or non transparent ways people try and access that data- but that's not what I rely on to keep my privacy.

einhverfr 13y ago

Part of the problem is defining wholesale surveillance. I don't think we are to the point of having everything stored by the NSA (in terms of all content we produce, send, or exchange). I think it is quite likely that the NSA does in fact store their most interesting subset of broad data (cdrs etc) along with a narrower subset of content. If that isn't wholesale surveillance, then we aren't to that level yet. But in the end what I have said for a while is that it doesn't matter. The NSA doesn't need to store your Facebook stuff on their servers because Facebook is doing it for them. The scary thing is that the interesting subset that the NSA has to pipe back is a small fraction of what they can go through if they ever decide to make you a target of an investigation, so in that sense we are under wholesale surveillance and the NSA is just controlling a very small piece.

chiph 13y ago

data is being correlated and stored I'm thinking that the volume of data that they would have to store would be reflected in disk drive sales. In other words, it's probably large enough that it would have distorted the market price for hard drives.