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Okay, a few things I'm just plainly getting pissed off about every time I see these threads. * Bitching about the words "direct access": Guess what, these are

Okay, a few things I'm just plainly getting pissed off about every time I see these threads. * Bitching about the words "direct access": Guess what, these are words, they have a meaning. They're saying that the government can't view the database directly, they can't determine what they get to see, and they don't get to pull it up whenever the fuck they feel like it. And guess what? That means something. I swear, everyone obsessing over the words "direct access" goes on record as one of the most idiotic things a lot of really smart people get obsessed about. * Most of these companies are effectively saying they're agreeing to subpoenas, with the one difference being that NSA warrants can't be reported by the companies involved. This is still infinitely more tame than the previous claims that the Guardian has been walking back this last week(let alone the entirely ridiculous argument Snowden put out there saying they can 'watch your thoughts form as you type', which gets even more funny when you consider the only service listed that transmits your typed data is GMail). * There is a lot to be concerned about here- no mistake about it. But right now, there's a lot more holes in Snowden & Co's story than the opposite. It's still troubling, the attitude taken by some of those at the highest echelons of government, on the whole subject- but the accusers have a lot of explaining to do, if you've been paying attention.

stiff 13y ago
Ad. 1 I think you are missing the point - "not providing direct access" is a bit like Bill Clinton saying he did not have sex with Monica Levinsky, if some company sends some institution a complete database dump of all customer personal data it is not "direct access to the servers" but it is just as bad in terms of privacy implications, so the phrase means nothing in the end.
- comex 13y ago
  To be clear, while I'm not disagreeing with you about the meaning of "direct access", in this case, the rest of the statement clearly states that Apple is not doing that: "Regardless of the circumstances, our Legal team conducts an evaluation of each request and, only if appropriate, we retrieve and deliver the narrowest possible set of information to the authorities."
  - vidarh 13y ago
    Considering some of the other revelations about the workings of FISA, how do you know that Apple has not been given a request for "all current and future information about all users", and decided that it is "appropriate" and that given the order, the "narrowest possible set" of information is all of it? (while they do indicate the number of requests, users and devices affected by data handed over to law enforcement, the use of that term itself is curious - it's not law enforcement the noise has been over, but intelligence agencies, and particularly NSA) It may very well be that they have not had to deal with any broad requests from intelligence agencies, but the statement most certainly does not preclude it.
- quaunaut 13y ago
  We have literally no reason to believe that they are doing a database dump. And I'll also refer you to point 3 again- if all they're getting is database dumps(even if daily), why are the claims so much more? I also have a hard time believing they're getting DB dumps, even so- Facebook alone would be a DB dump at an insane scale. Unless they're only taking in textual data, which of course could be a lot more manageable. I also have to wonder what one of the slides means(and maybe this is an opportunity for someone to enlighten me): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Prism_slide_5.jpg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Prism_slide_5.jpg What is it referring to as the 'cost' being $20m a year? There's no way that could be the total program cost- that'd barely employ the engineers required to build out the system, let alone the data scientists, analysts, and more that would have to support the system. Nor could it count for hardware costs. So then in that case, is it an advertising packet for other agencies to hop on? Only $20m to have access to their firehose? Genuinely curious here if anyone's figured this one out.
  - eliasmacpherson 13y ago
    http://boingboing.net/2013/06/16/what-would-it-cost-to-store-al.html http://boingboing.net/2013/06/16/what-would-it-cost-to-store... Someone has done the math on the calls aspect, billing $27m for voice calls. I would bet text is cheaper than call data.
- necubi 13y ago
  Are you bothering to read these things, or just searching for the term "direct access" and calling it a day? From the statement: "Regardless of the circumstances, our Legal team conducts an evaluation of each request and, only if appropriate, we retrieve and deliver the narrowest possible set of information to the authorities. In fact, from time to time when we see inconsistencies or inaccuracies in a request, we will refuse to fulfill it." From Google's: "Until this week’s reports, we had never heard of the broad type of order that Verizon received—an order that appears to have required them to hand over millions of users’ call records. We were very surprised to learn that such broad orders exist. Any suggestion that Google is disclosing information about our users’ Internet activity on such a scale is completely false. " What about that is weasely or unclear to you? They categorically deny providing broad data to the government. Of course they can't say they don't provide any access, because they're obligated by law to comply with warrants. But the accusation was that they provide direct access (those words that you all are so obsessed with appear in the Guardian article), with the implication that the NSA can just go and take whatever data it wants with no oversight. Unless you believe that Apple, Google, et al. are just plain lying, that is clearly not the case.
  - vidarh 13y ago
    Notice that the paragraphs immediately before that specifically talks about data passed to law enforcement and plays down the type of requests, after the paragraph before that talks about national security. Since when would anyone start to lump NSA in with "law enforcement". The focus on law enforcement in general in that statement is curious since that's not really what all the noise has been about. Maybe their PR team are just a bunch of buffoons that have still not realised that these statements gets dissected, but it is rather odd that they when releasing a statement to try to stem criticism based on their previous choice of words again choose wording that is so ambiguous In fact, if I were to trust this (and I can't decide if I should), my main reason for trusting them is that I'm wondering if they wouldn't just flat out lie and give a much stronger denial if they are in fact feeding the NSA with tons of data.
    - Intermernet 13y ago
      I didn't know this until a minute ago, but it seems that the NSA have a Police branch (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_law_enforcement_agencies#United_States http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_law_enforcement_agencie... and http://www.nsa.gov/careers/faqs/ http://www.nsa.gov/careers/faqs/). I wonder if they serve their requests via that branch, or another. it'd be convenient to serve the requests from a more bureaucratic branch of the agency in order to allow them to fall outside of "law enforcement requests".
- stiff 13y ago
  Wow, whatever happened to reading comprehension? Did I say Apple sends database dumps to the government? All I am doing is explaining using an example why people might consider the wording shady especially it is so gladly used by different companies.
pvnick 13y ago
1. Glenn Greenwald, the reporter with actual access to the source and documents, is sticking to the original narrative. I don't know where this "back walking" theme is coming from. Take a look at Greenwald's twitter @ggreenwald for clarification on this point. 2. We've learned that many of these requests are bulk demands for many, many people at a time, often demanding data to be delivered indefinitely thereafter on a periodic basis. We also know that the FISA appeals court has favored the government 100% of the time. 3. It was never stated that the "watching your thoughts as you type" portion was part of the PRISM program. This next part is wild speculation on my part, but if the NSA has a database of zero-day exploits, which I would bet that they do, you could theoretically streamline the process of setting up a keylogger on a target's computer if you know their basic system setup. If they've designed this process to coincide with the laws as has been the pattern with other things we've seen, it's certainly conceivable that Snowden could deploy that system from his terminal. Greenwald has stated that more revelations are coming. I would say to watch this story closely over the next several weeks, but I'm sure you were going to do that anyway.
- quaunaut 13y ago
  > Greenwald has stated that more revelations are coming. I would say to watch this story closely over the next several weeks, but I'm sure you were going to do that anyway. I was, but at this point he needs to offer actual evidence of his claims. He's effectively claiming there has been an insanely massive data collection program that has somehow gone unnoticed by tens of thousands of security professionals for several years. And while our security professionals may take awhile to find things like Stuxnet/Flame, they at least found vestiges of the programs much earlier, and neither is anything close to the insanely wide scale this would require. I'm not saying this is impossible, but god damn is a lot of it sounding improbable as hell.
  - pvnick 13y ago
    >gone unnoticed by tens of thousands of security professionals for several years I like that you seem to be making an honest assessment of the program but I really insist that you check this [1] out to see a few whistleblowers who have tried to bring attention to this, only to be rewarded with federal lawsuits. This has created a climate of fear where people ask "Is it really worth it? Or should I continue collecting my 6-digit paycheck and live in Hawaii?" [1] http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2013/06/16/snowden-whistleblower-nsa-officials-roundtable/2428809/ http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2013/06/16/snowd...
gwgarry 13y ago
Yes and unlike Microsoft they probably don't give access to their exploits to NSA before they patch their systems. /sarcasm. They will say whatever the government tells them to say, your data is not safe, and if you don't think this is true, you're a fool and an idiot.
- 542458 13y ago
  Please go back and read the NH comments on the article you're referring to - the article was misleading, and there's a good explanation. In short, Microsoft informs many different major partners (both government and private) of security vulnerabilities before an official patch is issued so that sysadmins can be better prepared.
gwgarry 13y ago
> That means something. No it doesn't. How would you even start approaching to prove that I can only fathom. > Most of these companies are effectively saying they're agreeing to subpoenas While at the same time they are actively supplying exploits so that their software can be compromised for political gain. Their software is unsafe, and anything that they're saying is by law allowed to be false or deceptive information, hence why you can't prove the first part. > 'watch your thoughts form as you type' Is that not what Google claimed it could do with its machine learning algorithm? > a lot more holes in Snowden & Co's story than the opposite Do you work for the government or tow the party line for fun. All your shit sounds like the old this is not "reasonable" this is a conspiracy theory line. When everyone knows the reality is that nothing reasonable is going on.
- quaunaut 13y ago
  > No it doesn't. How would you even start approaching to prove that I can only fathom. I don't even know what to say to this. Are you seriously arguing that having "direct access" to user data doesn't mean anything, and that it can only possibly be talking point words? > While at the same time they are actively supplying exploits so that their software can be compromised for political gain. Their software is unsafe, and anything that they're saying is by law allowed to be false or deceptive information, hence why you can't prove the first part. Yeah, y'know, tens of thousands of developers totally are intentionally making hundreds of security exploits, primarily of absolutely zero consequence every year, because the government told them to. Are you a developer? Do you even know how easy it is to accidentally fuck something up in code that leaves an exploit? Criminy sakes alive. And if you're saying "Yeah but when they find out they let the government know!", I'll also remind you that MAPP supplies that information to several dozen/hundred other companies too. > Is that not what Google claimed it could do with its machine learning algorithm? Oh for the love of God are you really going to use BS PR phrases meant to capture the imagination of the lay masses to try and say that the NSA has real-time typing data on all of those companies, not just Google, and even then has such unparalleled software to analyze typing and speaking patterns that they can discern your very thoughts and motivations from them, not just in general, but also in real time? > Do you work for the government or tow the party line for fun. All your shit sounds like the old this is not "reasonable" this is a conspiracy theory line. When everyone knows the reality is that nothing reasonable is going on. Neither. I just think that the reason so many in positions of power roll their eyes is because so many of those getting angry sound absolutely ridiculous from any sort of view that could rival reality. There are legit concerns here, but we can't be overstating their position massively and still have any hope of being taken seriously.
revscat 13y ago
This comment is below HN's standards. Your vitriol and ad hominems do nothing to further the conversation and, if anything, make you look like a government apologist.
skygazer 13y ago
"Watching your thoughts form as you type" always reminds me of Google searches. You browse through your history of searches and see if you don't recognize thoughts forming, search by search, or perhaps keystroke by keystroke if you enable Google Instant.

stiff 13y ago

Ad. 1 I think you are missing the point - "not providing direct access" is a bit like Bill Clinton saying he did not have sex with Monica Levinsky, if some company sends some institution a complete database dump of all customer personal data it is not "direct access to the servers" but it is just as bad in terms of privacy implications, so the phrase means nothing in the end.

comex 13y ago
To be clear, while I'm not disagreeing with you about the meaning of "direct access", in this case, the rest of the statement clearly states that Apple is not doing that: "Regardless of the circumstances, our Legal team conducts an evaluation of each request and, only if appropriate, we retrieve and deliver the narrowest possible set of information to the authorities."
- vidarh 13y ago
  Considering some of the other revelations about the workings of FISA, how do you know that Apple has not been given a request for "all current and future information about all users", and decided that it is "appropriate" and that given the order, the "narrowest possible set" of information is all of it? (while they do indicate the number of requests, users and devices affected by data handed over to law enforcement, the use of that term itself is curious - it's not law enforcement the noise has been over, but intelligence agencies, and particularly NSA) It may very well be that they have not had to deal with any broad requests from intelligence agencies, but the statement most certainly does not preclude it.
quaunaut 13y ago
We have literally no reason to believe that they are doing a database dump. And I'll also refer you to point 3 again- if all they're getting is database dumps(even if daily), why are the claims so much more? I also have a hard time believing they're getting DB dumps, even so- Facebook alone would be a DB dump at an insane scale. Unless they're only taking in textual data, which of course could be a lot more manageable. I also have to wonder what one of the slides means(and maybe this is an opportunity for someone to enlighten me): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Prism_slide_5.jpg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Prism_slide_5.jpg What is it referring to as the 'cost' being $20m a year? There's no way that could be the total program cost- that'd barely employ the engineers required to build out the system, let alone the data scientists, analysts, and more that would have to support the system. Nor could it count for hardware costs. So then in that case, is it an advertising packet for other agencies to hop on? Only $20m to have access to their firehose? Genuinely curious here if anyone's figured this one out.
- eliasmacpherson 13y ago
  http://boingboing.net/2013/06/16/what-would-it-cost-to-store-al.html http://boingboing.net/2013/06/16/what-would-it-cost-to-store... Someone has done the math on the calls aspect, billing $27m for voice calls. I would bet text is cheaper than call data.
necubi 13y ago
Are you bothering to read these things, or just searching for the term "direct access" and calling it a day? From the statement: "Regardless of the circumstances, our Legal team conducts an evaluation of each request and, only if appropriate, we retrieve and deliver the narrowest possible set of information to the authorities. In fact, from time to time when we see inconsistencies or inaccuracies in a request, we will refuse to fulfill it." From Google's: "Until this week’s reports, we had never heard of the broad type of order that Verizon received—an order that appears to have required them to hand over millions of users’ call records. We were very surprised to learn that such broad orders exist. Any suggestion that Google is disclosing information about our users’ Internet activity on such a scale is completely false. " What about that is weasely or unclear to you? They categorically deny providing broad data to the government. Of course they can't say they don't provide any access, because they're obligated by law to comply with warrants. But the accusation was that they provide direct access (those words that you all are so obsessed with appear in the Guardian article), with the implication that the NSA can just go and take whatever data it wants with no oversight. Unless you believe that Apple, Google, et al. are just plain lying, that is clearly not the case.
- vidarh 13y ago
  Notice that the paragraphs immediately before that specifically talks about data passed to law enforcement and plays down the type of requests, after the paragraph before that talks about national security. Since when would anyone start to lump NSA in with "law enforcement". The focus on law enforcement in general in that statement is curious since that's not really what all the noise has been about. Maybe their PR team are just a bunch of buffoons that have still not realised that these statements gets dissected, but it is rather odd that they when releasing a statement to try to stem criticism based on their previous choice of words again choose wording that is so ambiguous In fact, if I were to trust this (and I can't decide if I should), my main reason for trusting them is that I'm wondering if they wouldn't just flat out lie and give a much stronger denial if they are in fact feeding the NSA with tons of data.
  - Intermernet 13y ago
    I didn't know this until a minute ago, but it seems that the NSA have a Police branch (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_law_enforcement_agencies#United_States http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_law_enforcement_agencie... and http://www.nsa.gov/careers/faqs/ http://www.nsa.gov/careers/faqs/). I wonder if they serve their requests via that branch, or another. it'd be convenient to serve the requests from a more bureaucratic branch of the agency in order to allow them to fall outside of "law enforcement requests".
stiff 13y ago
Wow, whatever happened to reading comprehension? Did I say Apple sends database dumps to the government? All I am doing is explaining using an example why people might consider the wording shady especially it is so gladly used by different companies.

pvnick 13y ago

1. Glenn Greenwald, the reporter with actual access to the source and documents, is sticking to the original narrative. I don't know where this "back walking" theme is coming from. Take a look at Greenwald's twitter @ggreenwald for clarification on this point. 2. We've learned that many of these requests are bulk demands for many, many people at a time, often demanding data to be delivered indefinitely thereafter on a periodic basis. We also know that the FISA appeals court has favored the government 100% of the time. 3. It was never stated that the "watching your thoughts as you type" portion was part of the PRISM program. This next part is wild speculation on my part, but if the NSA has a database of zero-day exploits, which I would bet that they do, you could theoretically streamline the process of setting up a keylogger on a target's computer if you know their basic system setup. If they've designed this process to coincide with the laws as has been the pattern with other things we've seen, it's certainly conceivable that Snowden could deploy that system from his terminal. Greenwald has stated that more revelations are coming. I would say to watch this story closely over the next several weeks, but I'm sure you were going to do that anyway.

quaunaut 13y ago
> Greenwald has stated that more revelations are coming. I would say to watch this story closely over the next several weeks, but I'm sure you were going to do that anyway. I was, but at this point he needs to offer actual evidence of his claims. He's effectively claiming there has been an insanely massive data collection program that has somehow gone unnoticed by tens of thousands of security professionals for several years. And while our security professionals may take awhile to find things like Stuxnet/Flame, they at least found vestiges of the programs much earlier, and neither is anything close to the insanely wide scale this would require. I'm not saying this is impossible, but god damn is a lot of it sounding improbable as hell.
- pvnick 13y ago
  >gone unnoticed by tens of thousands of security professionals for several years I like that you seem to be making an honest assessment of the program but I really insist that you check this [1] out to see a few whistleblowers who have tried to bring attention to this, only to be rewarded with federal lawsuits. This has created a climate of fear where people ask "Is it really worth it? Or should I continue collecting my 6-digit paycheck and live in Hawaii?" [1] http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2013/06/16/snowden-whistleblower-nsa-officials-roundtable/2428809/ http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2013/06/16/snowd...

gwgarry 13y ago

Yes and unlike Microsoft they probably don't give access to their exploits to NSA before they patch their systems. /sarcasm. They will say whatever the government tells them to say, your data is not safe, and if you don't think this is true, you're a fool and an idiot.

542458 13y ago
Please go back and read the NH comments on the article you're referring to - the article was misleading, and there's a good explanation. In short, Microsoft informs many different major partners (both government and private) of security vulnerabilities before an official patch is issued so that sysadmins can be better prepared.

gwgarry 13y ago

> That means something. No it doesn't. How would you even start approaching to prove that I can only fathom. > Most of these companies are effectively saying they're agreeing to subpoenas While at the same time they are actively supplying exploits so that their software can be compromised for political gain. Their software is unsafe, and anything that they're saying is by law allowed to be false or deceptive information, hence why you can't prove the first part. > 'watch your thoughts form as you type' Is that not what Google claimed it could do with its machine learning algorithm? > a lot more holes in Snowden & Co's story than the opposite Do you work for the government or tow the party line for fun. All your shit sounds like the old this is not "reasonable" this is a conspiracy theory line. When everyone knows the reality is that nothing reasonable is going on.

quaunaut 13y ago
> No it doesn't. How would you even start approaching to prove that I can only fathom. I don't even know what to say to this. Are you seriously arguing that having "direct access" to user data doesn't mean anything, and that it can only possibly be talking point words? > While at the same time they are actively supplying exploits so that their software can be compromised for political gain. Their software is unsafe, and anything that they're saying is by law allowed to be false or deceptive information, hence why you can't prove the first part. Yeah, y'know, tens of thousands of developers totally are intentionally making hundreds of security exploits, primarily of absolutely zero consequence every year, because the government told them to. Are you a developer? Do you even know how easy it is to accidentally fuck something up in code that leaves an exploit? Criminy sakes alive. And if you're saying "Yeah but when they find out they let the government know!", I'll also remind you that MAPP supplies that information to several dozen/hundred other companies too. > Is that not what Google claimed it could do with its machine learning algorithm? Oh for the love of God are you really going to use BS PR phrases meant to capture the imagination of the lay masses to try and say that the NSA has real-time typing data on all of those companies, not just Google, and even then has such unparalleled software to analyze typing and speaking patterns that they can discern your very thoughts and motivations from them, not just in general, but also in real time? > Do you work for the government or tow the party line for fun. All your shit sounds like the old this is not "reasonable" this is a conspiracy theory line. When everyone knows the reality is that nothing reasonable is going on. Neither. I just think that the reason so many in positions of power roll their eyes is because so many of those getting angry sound absolutely ridiculous from any sort of view that could rival reality. There are legit concerns here, but we can't be overstating their position massively and still have any hope of being taken seriously.

revscat 13y ago

This comment is below HN's standards. Your vitriol and ad hominems do nothing to further the conversation and, if anything, make you look like a government apologist.

skygazer 13y ago

"Watching your thoughts form as you type" always reminds me of Google searches. You browse through your history of searches and see if you don't recognize thoughts forming, search by search, or perhaps keystroke by keystroke if you enable Google Instant.