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Hold on just a second. Room 641A ring a bell? http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A All the pennies (and beam spli

by temphn 13y ago

Hold on just a second. Room 641A ring a bell? http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A All the pennies (and beam splitters) have yet to drop. I would be shocked if the NSA wasn't coupling company cooperation with direct packet inspection/backbone wiretapping. They could even use the FISA requests as training data under some scenarios to help reverse engineer protocols. You really want to bet that there is nothing more to see here, that more Room 641As don't exist? As for "conspiracy-theoretic-nonsense", a hidden conspiracy to wiretap hundreds of millions of Americans (derided as a "myth" by the NSA lawyer Rajesh De and lied about in front of Congress by Clapper) was just revealed -- because a man risked his life and freedom to leak the first FISA order in 35 years. Given that senior government officials are actually admitting in realtime to past untruths, it might be a good idea to be a wee bit less credulous when it comes to our government overlords.

joeguilmette 13y ago
Snowden has claimed that the US is clandestinely tapping into foreign backbones, is it so hard to imagine they aren't doing it domestically?
- tptacek 13y ago
  Say what? Clandestine foreign signals intelligence is NSA's charter; it's the entire reason the agency exists. It does not follow logically that because NSA is executing its duties to its lawful charter, it must also be exceeding its authority domestically.
  - temphn 13y ago
    What? They most certainly are exceeding their legal bounds domestically. It's called the Fourth Amendment And who even knows what the NSA's "lawful charter" is? Secret interpretations of laws (meaning secret laws) evidently mean it's ok for them to capture the phone records (and, as reported, credit card statements) of everyone. They lie about what they are doing under oath and they hunt, jail, and kill those who tell the truth. They prevented these unconstitutional secret interpretations of the law from getting to the courts or to the public. That's the only reason why they haven't been struck down.
    - tptacek 13y ago
      You wrote a comment above saying that because NSA taps overseas cables, it's probably tapping domestic communications. I responded, "tapping overseas cables is NSA's stated mission, and so it doesn't follow that they're tapping domestic communications". You responded that of course they're exceeding their legal bounds, because the Fourth Amendment restricts them, which of course begs the question.
      - temphn 13y ago
        "tapping overseas cables is NSA's stated mission, and so it doesn't follow that they're tapping domestic communications". http://bigstory.ap.org/article/secret-prism-success-even-bigger-data-seizure http://bigstory.ap.org/article/secret-prism-success-even-big... Deep in the oceans, hundreds of cables carry much of the world's phone and Internet traffic. Since at least the early 1970s, the NSA has been tapping foreign cables. It doesn't need permission. That's its job. But Internet data doesn't care about borders. Send an email from Pakistan to Afghanistan and it might pass through a mail server in the United States, the same computer that handles messages to and from Americans. The NSA is prohibited from spying on Americans or anyone inside the United States. That's the FBI's job and it requires a warrant. Despite that prohibition, shortly after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, President George W. Bush secretly authorized the NSA to plug into the fiber optic cables that enter and leave the United States, knowing it would give the government unprecedented, warrantless access to Americans' private conversations.
  - joeguilmette 13y ago
    Clandestine foreign signals intelligence is their charter indeed. But looking at the means they use in regards to their stated charter can give us hints as to how they operate domestically. http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/305047-dem-rep-lawmakers-learned-significantly-more-about-surveillance-programs-in-nsa-briefing http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/305047-dem-... So if PRISM is just the tip of the iceberg, what method do you suggest for speculating as to what exactly they are doing domestically? Maybe, say, look what they are doing overseas?
tptacek 13y ago
I want to bet that NSA does not have direct access to Google and Facebook servers. I don't have an opinion about NSA's influence over telcos (in fact, I expect you & I agree about the extent to which NSA exerts undue influence over telcos).
- temphn 13y ago
  Google runs its own fiber. You want to bet that the NSA has, among its reported [1] "10 to 20" 641A clones, a tap into Google's trunk? I would bet on that. I would also bet on NSA operatives within Google, some clandestine. If Google can't identify Chinese spies with 100% probability, how likely are they to identify American ones? Simple terms. If either of those two points come to light (NSA backbone taps of Internet companies or clandestine NSA/IC operatives planted in Internet companies, perhaps in foreign subsidiaries of the same) you publicly post that you were wrong/credulous and the "conspiracy theorists" were right. After all, if the FBI infiltrated [2] the unimportant KKK, the US government definitely has an incentive to infiltrate the all-important Google. [1] http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/03/ff_nsadatacenter/all/1 http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/03/ff_nsadatacenter/al... Former director of the NSA’s World Geopolitical and Military Analysis Reporting Group, William Binney, has estimated that 10 to 20 such facilities have been installed throughout the nation [2] http://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/2010/october/kkk_102910/kkk_102910 http://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/2010/october/kkk_102910/kkk_...
  - tptacek 13y ago
    Awesome! I love your terms. "So you go prove a negative, and then..."
jellicle 13y ago
Precisely. All of these claims about what the NSA is "not doing" are silly, and almost certainly false. It's not an "either-or" situation. It's an "and" situation. The NSA is tapping undersea cables and sucking up e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g that crosses them AND getting data through court orders and national security letters AND getting all phone metadata from all phone companies AND tapping into the backbones at appropriate places and sucking up everything that crosses those places AND listening in to every satellite communication AND...... It's AND, not OR.

by temphn 13y ago

joeguilmette 13y ago

Snowden has claimed that the US is clandestinely tapping into foreign backbones, is it so hard to imagine they aren't doing it domestically?

tptacek 13y ago
Say what? Clandestine foreign signals intelligence is NSA's charter; it's the entire reason the agency exists. It does not follow logically that because NSA is executing its duties to its lawful charter, it must also be exceeding its authority domestically.
- temphn 13y ago
  What? They most certainly are exceeding their legal bounds domestically. It's called the Fourth Amendment And who even knows what the NSA's "lawful charter" is? Secret interpretations of laws (meaning secret laws) evidently mean it's ok for them to capture the phone records (and, as reported, credit card statements) of everyone. They lie about what they are doing under oath and they hunt, jail, and kill those who tell the truth. They prevented these unconstitutional secret interpretations of the law from getting to the courts or to the public. That's the only reason why they haven't been struck down.
  - tptacek 13y ago
    You wrote a comment above saying that because NSA taps overseas cables, it's probably tapping domestic communications. I responded, "tapping overseas cables is NSA's stated mission, and so it doesn't follow that they're tapping domestic communications". You responded that of course they're exceeding their legal bounds, because the Fourth Amendment restricts them, which of course begs the question.
    - temphn 13y ago
      "tapping overseas cables is NSA's stated mission, and so it doesn't follow that they're tapping domestic communications". http://bigstory.ap.org/article/secret-prism-success-even-bigger-data-seizure http://bigstory.ap.org/article/secret-prism-success-even-big... Deep in the oceans, hundreds of cables carry much of the world's phone and Internet traffic. Since at least the early 1970s, the NSA has been tapping foreign cables. It doesn't need permission. That's its job. But Internet data doesn't care about borders. Send an email from Pakistan to Afghanistan and it might pass through a mail server in the United States, the same computer that handles messages to and from Americans. The NSA is prohibited from spying on Americans or anyone inside the United States. That's the FBI's job and it requires a warrant. Despite that prohibition, shortly after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, President George W. Bush secretly authorized the NSA to plug into the fiber optic cables that enter and leave the United States, knowing it would give the government unprecedented, warrantless access to Americans' private conversations.
- joeguilmette 13y ago
  Clandestine foreign signals intelligence is their charter indeed. But looking at the means they use in regards to their stated charter can give us hints as to how they operate domestically. http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/305047-dem-rep-lawmakers-learned-significantly-more-about-surveillance-programs-in-nsa-briefing http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/305047-dem-... So if PRISM is just the tip of the iceberg, what method do you suggest for speculating as to what exactly they are doing domestically? Maybe, say, look what they are doing overseas?

tptacek 13y ago

I want to bet that NSA does not have direct access to Google and Facebook servers. I don't have an opinion about NSA's influence over telcos (in fact, I expect you & I agree about the extent to which NSA exerts undue influence over telcos).

temphn 13y ago
Google runs its own fiber. You want to bet that the NSA has, among its reported [1] "10 to 20" 641A clones, a tap into Google's trunk? I would bet on that. I would also bet on NSA operatives within Google, some clandestine. If Google can't identify Chinese spies with 100% probability, how likely are they to identify American ones? Simple terms. If either of those two points come to light (NSA backbone taps of Internet companies or clandestine NSA/IC operatives planted in Internet companies, perhaps in foreign subsidiaries of the same) you publicly post that you were wrong/credulous and the "conspiracy theorists" were right. After all, if the FBI infiltrated [2] the unimportant KKK, the US government definitely has an incentive to infiltrate the all-important Google. [1] http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/03/ff_nsadatacenter/all/1 http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/03/ff_nsadatacenter/al... Former director of the NSA’s World Geopolitical and Military Analysis Reporting Group, William Binney, has estimated that 10 to 20 such facilities have been installed throughout the nation [2] http://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/2010/october/kkk_102910/kkk_102910 http://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/2010/october/kkk_102910/kkk_...
- tptacek 13y ago
  Awesome! I love your terms. "So you go prove a negative, and then..."

jellicle 13y ago

Precisely. All of these claims about what the NSA is "not doing" are silly, and almost certainly false. It's not an "either-or" situation. It's an "and" situation. The NSA is tapping undersea cables and sucking up e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g that crosses them AND getting data through court orders and national security letters AND getting all phone metadata from all phone companies AND tapping into the backbones at appropriate places and sucking up everything that crosses those places AND listening in to every satellite communication AND...... It's AND, not OR.