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Yes, I sincerely believe that. Think about it. And please, think honestly about it and don't just dismiss it out of hand. I can give you one example of where c

by mpyne 13y ago

Yes, I sincerely believe that. Think about it. And please, think honestly about it and don't just dismiss it out of hand. I can give you one example of where controls have been shown to work right off the top of my head: the U.S. military itself. What's to stop the Combatant Commander in charge of USNORTHCOM from taking over the government by force? At least with this we can use technical measures as well, apply the best crypto modern literature (and, you know, the NSA) has to offer to keep data-at-rest safe from rogue analysts while requiring accountability controls for its use in an investigation. The problem has been that there don't seem to be many such controls that aren't policy-based in nature. That's a problem. But it's not an insurmountable one either, if we decide to solve it.

sjtgraham 13y ago
> What's to stop the Combatant Commander in charge of USNORTHCOM from taking over the government by force? Are you serious?! The US armed forces are comprised of AMERICANS. They're hardly going to turn against their own democratically elected government, it completely goes against everything they believe so strongly enough as to take up arms to protect. That is what is stopping it, not some regulatory checks and balances.
- mpyne 13y ago
  So is Russia running the NSA or am I missing something then?
  - Amadou 13y ago
    You are missing the limits that simple practicality has on each scenario. There is an enormous difference between a military coup and the kind of risks the NSA databases create. A military coup requires tens if not hundreds of thousands of military to agree that potentially killing their neighbors and maybe even own family members is a necessity. For the NSA databases to be abused all it takes is a handful of motivated actors to quietly blackmail specific individuals. Not unlike the FBI tried to do with their surveillance tapes of Martin Luther King.
    - mpyne 13y ago
      > For the NSA databases to be abused all it takes is a handful of motivated actors to quietly blackmail specific individuals. And what if it takes more than a handful? Would such a system be safe then?
      - Amadou 13y ago
        Get it up to a couple of hundred and we'll talk. But if you think you can do that simply through process rather than physical design, we won't talk - process can not address the problem of turnkey tyranny.
    - DanBC 13y ago
      > For the NSA databases to be abused all it takes is a handful of motivated actors to quietly blackmail specific individuals. This is a baffling comment. Are you aware of the background checks that NSA do on staff? And the audit-trails on access to various bits of data?
      - Amadou 13y ago
        You mean like the background checks and audit trails that prevented Snowden from absconding with all those documents? Background checks don't stop people who think they are righteous and audit trails are only as good as (a) the audit policies and (b) the auditors. Snowden was pretty explicit with his claims that putting down any half-assed justification was enough to satisfy the auditors.
- PavlovsCat 13y ago
  And in your view, the US army hasn't already been asked, and complied, to shit all over those things, repeatedly? Some soldiers speak out, a whole lot kill themselves, but where is the resistance you speak of? > it completely goes against everything they believe so strongly enough as to take up arms to protect Of course this is true for many people. But for all? How many people go to the army because it's a job, or paid for education? How many people could make more in another way, but chose to join the army because they, as you say, so strongly believe in defending their countrymen and the constitution? I don't mean to say there aren't many brave people who joined the army for all the right reasons. It doesn't even matter what the army is used for, I still respect those people even when they're misled. But exactly because of that I also have to acknowledge the sadists in their ranks, the people who want to be with the invincible team etc. Those exist, and with good enough indoctrination and good enough technology, those are all you need. Also, the conscience can be routed around by deception just fine; yeah, there's all these idealistic people signing up for the army... and then they get drilled, and some of them start considering civilians as something else entirely pretty fucking soon. And then there is the not minor fact of increased automatization and focus on robotics. In my worst expectations, the job of the American soldier of today is mostly to keep "the establishment" afloat for long enough until it can kick out the ladder under itself for good.
marshray 13y ago
You realize that the NSA is a branch of the military don't you? When the NSA breaks the 4th amendment, goes before Congress and systematically lies about their activities, it is in a very important sense an extra-constitutional military coup happening before our eyes.
- mpyne 13y ago
  I'm well aware of where NSA falls in the government hierarchy. What part of the 4th Amendment are you saying they broke? It's not PRISM. It might be 641-A style interceptions, except that those aren't actually covered by the 4th Amendment. The Verizon phone data might be close, but that's also considered fair game according to the courts. And besides, that has a separate court order anyways, doesn't it? Remember when the Daily Show played and they ended with the idea that it was surprising that what the NSA was doing wasn't illegal (i.e. that it should be illegal)? Hard to call following the law as it's been explained to them a coup...
  - marshray 13y ago
    > What part of the 4th Amendment are you saying they broke? The part about "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated" and "no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized" It is not OK to just "seize all the data" and "search it later if we feel it's relevant". > Remember when the Daily Show played No, I don't watch that show (or any TV really). > Hard to call following the law as it's been explained to them a coup... The US Constitution is the highest law in the US. If an action violates the Constitution, it is illegal, by definition.
    - mpyne 13y ago
      Thank you for repeating the 4th Amendment to me. What program broke it? Because the courts have held quite consistently that information shared with a third-party is no longer private. Even the "reasonable expectation of privacy" phone booth case is quite different from "Hi Facebook, here's private message for you to send to my friend, oh and all of your advertiser networks and data mining algorithms" Congress has normally patched that up as new technologies have been introduced by making privacy a legislative requirement (but still not a Constitutional right). But they haven't done that for the Internet yet. ECPA is the closest thing, but it specifically exempts FISA surveillance (though it does still require a court order if I'm reading 18 USC 119 correctly). While I do agree that Internet usage should probably be considered as de facto reasonable expectation of privacy on the wires I'm not sure that the law is at that point yet. "Reasonable expectation of privacy" itself was essentially invented by the Supreme Court, so it's not as if there's no precedent for adding restrictions on government surveillance, but I'm not seeing the shortcut around the Constitution here except for 641A types of activities (assuming those are not being done under FISA auspices).
Zigurd 13y ago
How do you propose to upgrade the standards from "least untruthful?" Our current safeguards are the butt of that particular joke. The reason you need to beg people not to dismiss the idea out of had is that dismissiveness is all we gave gotten regarding this matter so far.
- mpyne 13y ago
  Well you could make the system(s) themselves report the truth and take the human analyst or supervisor out of the loop completely. For the rest, there's all sorts of possibilities; 2-man concept, independent review by a supervisor, randomized blind audits by auditors who are themselves double-checked by randomly assigned auditors, periodic audits & surveillances of the analysts themselves to ensure procedural and policy compliance, the list goes on and on. There's not exactly a shortage of government agencies that can be raided for "best practices". But... I think the reason I have to beg people to not dismiss the idea out of hand is that the conclusion is already mostly formed for many of us. Certainly I would hope that our default reaction to hearing that a massive Internet surveillance program is going on would be WTF??!. But that doesn't stop me from wondering if it can actually be done in a way that does not endanger free society and still protects individual liberties. And even if it can be done, it would still need to be shown that it's useful to do. But I think many of us have foreclosed on the very idea.
  - TeMPOraL 13y ago
    I do want to appreciate your attitude here. I'm sure all those things you mention can and would be gamed, but at least you try to keep fighting instead of giving up. Reading some comments about the PRISM case on HN makes me feel like we should just lay down and die while the world shreds itself apart.

by mpyne 13y ago

sjtgraham 13y ago

> What's to stop the Combatant Commander in charge of USNORTHCOM from taking over the government by force? Are you serious?! The US armed forces are comprised of AMERICANS. They're hardly going to turn against their own democratically elected government, it completely goes against everything they believe so strongly enough as to take up arms to protect. That is what is stopping it, not some regulatory checks and balances.

mpyne 13y ago
So is Russia running the NSA or am I missing something then?
- Amadou 13y ago
  You are missing the limits that simple practicality has on each scenario. There is an enormous difference between a military coup and the kind of risks the NSA databases create. A military coup requires tens if not hundreds of thousands of military to agree that potentially killing their neighbors and maybe even own family members is a necessity. For the NSA databases to be abused all it takes is a handful of motivated actors to quietly blackmail specific individuals. Not unlike the FBI tried to do with their surveillance tapes of Martin Luther King.
  - mpyne 13y ago
    > For the NSA databases to be abused all it takes is a handful of motivated actors to quietly blackmail specific individuals. And what if it takes more than a handful? Would such a system be safe then?
    - Amadou 13y ago
      Get it up to a couple of hundred and we'll talk. But if you think you can do that simply through process rather than physical design, we won't talk - process can not address the problem of turnkey tyranny.
  - DanBC 13y ago
    > For the NSA databases to be abused all it takes is a handful of motivated actors to quietly blackmail specific individuals. This is a baffling comment. Are you aware of the background checks that NSA do on staff? And the audit-trails on access to various bits of data?
    - Amadou 13y ago
      You mean like the background checks and audit trails that prevented Snowden from absconding with all those documents? Background checks don't stop people who think they are righteous and audit trails are only as good as (a) the audit policies and (b) the auditors. Snowden was pretty explicit with his claims that putting down any half-assed justification was enough to satisfy the auditors.
PavlovsCat 13y ago
And in your view, the US army hasn't already been asked, and complied, to shit all over those things, repeatedly? Some soldiers speak out, a whole lot kill themselves, but where is the resistance you speak of? > it completely goes against everything they believe so strongly enough as to take up arms to protect Of course this is true for many people. But for all? How many people go to the army because it's a job, or paid for education? How many people could make more in another way, but chose to join the army because they, as you say, so strongly believe in defending their countrymen and the constitution? I don't mean to say there aren't many brave people who joined the army for all the right reasons. It doesn't even matter what the army is used for, I still respect those people even when they're misled. But exactly because of that I also have to acknowledge the sadists in their ranks, the people who want to be with the invincible team etc. Those exist, and with good enough indoctrination and good enough technology, those are all you need. Also, the conscience can be routed around by deception just fine; yeah, there's all these idealistic people signing up for the army... and then they get drilled, and some of them start considering civilians as something else entirely pretty fucking soon. And then there is the not minor fact of increased automatization and focus on robotics. In my worst expectations, the job of the American soldier of today is mostly to keep "the establishment" afloat for long enough until it can kick out the ladder under itself for good.

marshray 13y ago

You realize that the NSA is a branch of the military don't you? When the NSA breaks the 4th amendment, goes before Congress and systematically lies about their activities, it is in a very important sense an extra-constitutional military coup happening before our eyes.

mpyne 13y ago
I'm well aware of where NSA falls in the government hierarchy. What part of the 4th Amendment are you saying they broke? It's not PRISM. It might be 641-A style interceptions, except that those aren't actually covered by the 4th Amendment. The Verizon phone data might be close, but that's also considered fair game according to the courts. And besides, that has a separate court order anyways, doesn't it? Remember when the Daily Show played and they ended with the idea that it was surprising that what the NSA was doing wasn't illegal (i.e. that it should be illegal)? Hard to call following the law as it's been explained to them a coup...
- marshray 13y ago
  > What part of the 4th Amendment are you saying they broke? The part about "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated" and "no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized" It is not OK to just "seize all the data" and "search it later if we feel it's relevant". > Remember when the Daily Show played No, I don't watch that show (or any TV really). > Hard to call following the law as it's been explained to them a coup... The US Constitution is the highest law in the US. If an action violates the Constitution, it is illegal, by definition.
  - mpyne 13y ago
    Thank you for repeating the 4th Amendment to me. What program broke it? Because the courts have held quite consistently that information shared with a third-party is no longer private. Even the "reasonable expectation of privacy" phone booth case is quite different from "Hi Facebook, here's private message for you to send to my friend, oh and all of your advertiser networks and data mining algorithms" Congress has normally patched that up as new technologies have been introduced by making privacy a legislative requirement (but still not a Constitutional right). But they haven't done that for the Internet yet. ECPA is the closest thing, but it specifically exempts FISA surveillance (though it does still require a court order if I'm reading 18 USC 119 correctly). While I do agree that Internet usage should probably be considered as de facto reasonable expectation of privacy on the wires I'm not sure that the law is at that point yet. "Reasonable expectation of privacy" itself was essentially invented by the Supreme Court, so it's not as if there's no precedent for adding restrictions on government surveillance, but I'm not seeing the shortcut around the Constitution here except for 641A types of activities (assuming those are not being done under FISA auspices).

Zigurd 13y ago

How do you propose to upgrade the standards from "least untruthful?" Our current safeguards are the butt of that particular joke. The reason you need to beg people not to dismiss the idea out of had is that dismissiveness is all we gave gotten regarding this matter so far.

mpyne 13y ago
Well you could make the system(s) themselves report the truth and take the human analyst or supervisor out of the loop completely. For the rest, there's all sorts of possibilities; 2-man concept, independent review by a supervisor, randomized blind audits by auditors who are themselves double-checked by randomly assigned auditors, periodic audits & surveillances of the analysts themselves to ensure procedural and policy compliance, the list goes on and on. There's not exactly a shortage of government agencies that can be raided for "best practices". But... I think the reason I have to beg people to not dismiss the idea out of hand is that the conclusion is already mostly formed for many of us. Certainly I would hope that our default reaction to hearing that a massive Internet surveillance program is going on would be WTF??!. But that doesn't stop me from wondering if it can actually be done in a way that does not endanger free society and still protects individual liberties. And even if it can be done, it would still need to be shown that it's useful to do. But I think many of us have foreclosed on the very idea.
- TeMPOraL 13y ago
  I do want to appreciate your attitude here. I'm sure all those things you mention can and would be gamed, but at least you try to keep fighting instead of giving up. Reading some comments about the PRISM case on HN makes me feel like we should just lay down and die while the world shreds itself apart.