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Dutch secret service 'also has access to information from PRISM'
- jrnkntl 13y agoMaybe not 'news', but interesting since some of the founders of Kazaa also started Skype. I can understand their morale at first: "Skype wouldn't share any information at first with the agencies, but since it's owned by Microsoft they have full access"
- mtrimpe 13y agoI think you meant "since it's owned by Microsoft". Also, if anyone is wondering, this article is actually from one of the most respectable Dutch newspapers.
- vanderZwan 13y ago> Also, if anyone is wondering, this article is actually from one of the most respectable Dutch newspapers. Not quite. The NRC is one of the most respectable newspapers, yes. It is however citing another newspaper, the Telegraaf, which is not quite as respectable. That said, they probably wouldn't publish this unless they were somewhat confident about the story.
- mtrimpe 13y agoSeriously? I missed that part. That's cheeky...
- tlarkworthy 13y agoAlso the Dutch are the really tall ones
- jrnkntl 13y agoCorrect, thanks.
- jrnkntl 13y agoBut the "most respectable" newspaper quotes in this article the least respectable one.
- mtts 13y ago> Also, if anyone is wondering, this article is actually from one of the most respectable Dutch newspapers. Nope, it isn't. It is from the website of what used to be a respectable newspaper, which is in fact run independently from the newspaper itself. And, as has been mentioned elsewhere, all this article is doing is quoting from a highly disrespectable tabloid. Nothing respectable about this report at all (though it's probably not untrue either).
- chmars 13y agoSource?
- jrnkntl 13y agoThe article. As per founders of Kazaa (and subseq. Skype): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janus_Friis http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janus_Friis and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niklas_Zennstr%C3%B6m http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niklas_Zennstr%C3%B6m
- chmars 13y agoThanks. A was looking for a quote while you probably referred to the following paragraph: 'Skype wilde volgens de agent jarenlang geen inzage geven, maar sinds het eigendom is van Microsoft zou alles worden gedeeld zoals ook bij Google en Facebook het geval is. De topmannen van die laatste twee bedrijven stelden zaterdag nog niet op de hoogte te zijn van het internet-afluisterprogramma.'
- wwweston 13y ago>If a company does not cooperate, an agent 'activated' who has access to the information of the company. "Within businesses and institutions everywhere activate waiting for a request for information. Agents are" In other words: the problem may be as much the fact that personal data exists in the hands of third parties at all as it is that there's any formal framework that enables law enforcement/national security agencies to legally access it.
- DannoHung 13y agoI was trying to get this across to a few people in various forums. The mere fact that data is gathered in places allows and ultimately engenders its exploitation. You can't fix the laws. You have to fix the humans somehow. Or write systems that, by construction (as in, a lot of research into dependent type systems where a "bad" program cannot be compiled) do not allow data to be abused.
- cromwellian 13y agoI find the claims that moles within Google are responsible for this, to be, not impossible, but very improbable. The way Google's internal employee network is setup, the way the code reviews work, the way automated security audits work, the way the data is stored, there are lots of checks and balances that would make it hard to pull off without being noticed. It's not like an employee can just hack in a device onto the network and start committing code with backdoors, putting trojans on servers, or slurping up network packets.
- babuskov 13y agoI find that you underestimate the training of top undercover agents.
- cromwellian 13y agoIt's not really a matter of them fooling their co-workers. The access just isn't there, not to mention intensive logging and cross-checking. Google isn't your run of the mill web application where the Sysadmin/DBA is god.
- ohwp 13y agoNote that The Telegraaf is one of the most unreliable newspapers in the Netherlands. According to Larry Page Google does not give access to all your data within 5 minutes: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5860313 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5860313
- Cthulhu_ 13y agoUnreliable maybe, but they definitely embellish stores and the wording of stories and headlines to draw in more readers.
- flyinRyan 13y agoI don't really care what Larry Page says. The government says they have to hand over the data and make a way for the government to store it in real time. Of course Google is cooperating with them. Just like everyone else.
- DannyBee 13y agoIf you don't care what anyone at google says, what would make you believe otherwise?
- flyinRyan 13y agoWhy would I believe a company that is bound by law to (a) hand over my data and (b) tell me they're not doing that. I can't be convinced it isn't happening at this point because we have evidence that it is from the government.
- DannyBee 13y agoThey aren't bound to tell you they are not doing that. Again, i'm not sure where people get this idea. They may be compelled to be silent about it, but not compelled to lie.
- Glyptodon 13y agoEvidence, probably. People say stuff all the time and it's mostly marketing and drivel.
- sgarbi 13y agoWhen it says "within five minutes all known" does it mean that the ISP translates the IP address with the name of the person who signed the contract with the Provider?
- zorbo 13y agoI don't know about the US, but there's a project here in the Netherlands where ISPs can voluntary submit that information to a central databank where law enforcement can access it. There's some due process that has to be done before law enforcement may access it, but it's been shown that the process is faulty or not adhered too.
- downandout 13y agoHere's an interesting thought (to me). Supposedly there is a law that forbids NSA from using PRISM to directly spy on Americans. Let's imagine, for a brief, laughable moment, that this law is followed. It would be technically compliant with the law if the NSA could send a request to Dutch authorities, and ask that they send any information they have or can obtain on a US person. The Dutch have access to this system, and would know what the NSA is getting at, so the Dutch would query the system and send the info back. This could all be done via API in a matter of milliseconds. The NSA could then tell their overseers that they have never used PRISM to spy on Americans, which would be technically true, while they would enjoy unfettered access to intelligence on US persons with absolutely no oversight or authorization from anyone. This seems to be one of only a few logical explanations for giving other countries access to the system.
- SudoNick 13y agoSome reporting suggested that the NSA and FBI are working together in a way. Perhaps the NSA uses PRISM to spy on foreigners (freely) while the FBI uses PRISM to spy on Americans (with more restraint, hopefully)?
- downandout 13y agoPossibly, although FBI tends to be shackled by a much more restrictive set of laws and guidelines. They tend to get warrants and follow the book because they know that in many cases their work will be eventually made public and scrutinized by skilled defense attorneys as part of a trial. They don't want their cases tossed out because they were based on illegal searches ("fruit of the poisonous tree"). By contrast, if NSA were doing what I have theorized above, they would have unfettered access to all PRISM data with no oversight, and it would be entirely legal.
- mapt 13y agoHas 'fruit of the poisonous tree' ever shut down a line of evidence in a terrorism investigation? Will it? I don't really expect our security apparatus would tolerate a restriction like that. 9/11 changed everything... If they can't get their way in the courts, who takes the fall for "letting a terrorist go free"?
- inoop 13y agoHere's an attempt at a quick translation for those interested. Note that 'De Telegraaf' is a tabloid-y newspaper, and the Algemene Inlichten- en Veiligheidsdient (AIVD) is the Dutch secret service. --- Dutch secret services also receive information from the United States' internet wiretapping program, PRISM. When the Algemene Inlichten- en Veiligheidsdient marks an American e-mail address as being suspect, within five minutes everything is known, said an AIVD agent this morning in De Telegraaf. According to the paper the agent was working for the department tasked with monitoring Muslim extremists. According to the agent many companies are actively collaborating in giving access to their data. 'All large commercial internet services are being forced to provide an application with which [secret] services can browse [their data]'. Together these applications make up the American secret service NSA's program for collecting private internet data. 'EVERYTHING IS BEING SHARED BY SKYPE, GOOGLE, AND FACEBOOK' According to the agent Skype refused for years to provide access [to their data], but since it has become property of Microsoft everything is said to be shared, as is the case with Google and Facebook. Last Saturday the leading men of both companies said not to be aware of the internet wiretapping program. Dutch companies are said to cooperate willingly as well. 'When a request comes in one is just given direct access to the data, everything on a silver platter.' When a company does not cooperate, an agent is 'activated' that has access to the information at the company. 'Within companies and organizations, everywhere there are agents that can be activated, who are waiting for an information request.'
- jstsch 13y ago> Note that 'De Telegraaf' is a tabloid-y newspaper Note that although, yes, De Telegraaf is more sensationalist (and less 'left wing') than other Dutch newspapers such as The Volkskrant and NRC, you should not compare them to the NY Post, The Sun or the Daily Mail.
- dirktheman 13y agoActually they compare pretty well to The Sun, which is also a sensationalist tabloid. But NY Post/Daily Mail, they're not!
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- CurtMonash 13y agoI wouldn't take detailed technical claims from a Dutch tabloid very seriously. Even Glenn Greenwald, who likes to be meticulous with his facts and who has spent months working on this story, seems to have gotten some details wrong. (Yes, I said Greenwald is meticulous with his facts, notwithstanding his extremist and not always well-supported OPINIONS. That's one of the juxtapositions that makes him so interesting.)
- kilian 13y agoThe NRC is actually one of the top-rated newspapers in the netherlands, quite similar to the Guardian and far from a "tabloid". If this were published in the "Telegraaf", you'd have a valid point. Edit: Seems the story was first published in the Telegraaf, which makes the parent a very, very valid criticism!
- Fice 13y agoAny government will do large-scale surveillance if they can. It's been said a thousand times before: do not use centralized social networks, cloud services, proprietary software if you value your privacy and freedom. This may be inconvenient, but we can't have freedom without paying its price. I had hard time explaining my friends and relatives why I am not on Facebook (or vk.com, which is more popular here in Russia) or why I would not use Skype, but at least I know that am not cooperating with those who are taking our freedom away.
- mpyne 13y agoI know I sound like the NSA shill here but I agree with this 100%. Stuff I've allowed to be on G+ or FB is done with the full knowledge that even the "Restricted" settings will not 100% reliably stop it from leaking to the Internet. Even without the NSA there are problems with corporate insiders, hackers, implementation bugs, countless other things. Data I have that needs to be private is not stored anywhere on any cloud, except perhaps in an encrypted format sufficient for Data-at-rest. In fact I was looking for a cloud service provider to use for some work-related stuff (PII) when I came to the conclusion that I couldn't actually trust any of the available cloud services, since it would always be possible for a cloud provider to gain physical access to the machine even if I use full-disk encryption. What I'm hoping is that someday providers like Heroku will kind of meet-in-the-middle and setup a provision for setting up an enterprise cloud service (inside the protected WAN) that can be provisioned and managed similar to the public cloud SaaS services. Something where the enterprise would have the hardware and network interfaces but Heroku would provide the OS and management software.
- adventured 13y agoIt seems clear that the post 9/11 "you're either with us or you're against us" policy was directed primarily toward establishing a global, connected police state (at least as it pertains to surveillance / privacy). The US needed everybody on board, 9/11 was abused to serve that purpose. At the time I just viewed it as generalized anti-terrorism, anti-Al Qaeda type coalition. In hindsight it seems comically obvious what they were really targeting.
- alan_cx 13y agoAnd Pakistan still quakes under the thread of being bombed back to the stone age. I wonder how many other countries were threatened by the "leaders of the free world". "They hate our freedoms"? What, as much as the US hates and compromises every one else's? Now can any one help me with a definition of a Rogue State?
- ohwp 13y agoSerious question: How do we know PRISM is real? The only source I could find is The Guardian and the PPT of the so called PRISM project. Some facts: * The Guardian is the only source. * We don't know how they verified the authenticity of the PPT. * We don't know anything about Edward Snowden. * All companies 'involved' never heard of PRISM and also don't know how the NSA does gather user information without a warrant.
- yen223 13y agoObama has confirmed its existence. But you do raise an interesting point. Does anyone know exactly what PRISM is, from a technical point of view? It seems that everything we know about it comes from the leaked powerpoint slides.
- Terretta 13y agoYour bullet #1 is not accurate. WaPo was the first source Snowden contacted. WaPo lost its exclusive when they didn't agree to Snowden's timetable. Both WaPo and Guardian released around the same time.
- Splotzenbobble 13y ago"Dutch Intelligence" sounds like a good idea in theory, but it would never work in practice.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- tech-no-logical 13y agoour minister (Ivo Opstelten) has just said that he hasn't had any complaints concerning prism. probably because it was a secret... duh... the way our (as in netherlands and EU) politicians are responding to these issues are so laughable it makes me depressed.
- timonv 13y agoAn interesting development, the Dutch minister of security refuses to expand on the details of the AIVD and NSA relationship, stating that it has to be discussed on an European level first. http://www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2013/06/11/aivd-heeft-ook-toegang-tot-informatie-uit-prism/ http://www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2013/06/11/aivd-heeft-ook-toegang-t...