5 ms·

Snowden maintains NSA has access to company servers, so someone's lying

14 points by teawithcarl 13y ago

tater 13y ago
There's a difference between lying and carefully choosing your words.
- Zigurd 13y ago
  Really?
  - Shish2k 13y ago
    Yes.
- thezilch 13y ago
  In other words, choosing the "least untruthful" words.
chris_mahan 13y ago
Is it possible the NSA compromised Google, Facebook, etc. servers without the companies knowing?
krek 13y ago
How is Snowden possibly lying? He's reading verbatim from the NSA documents which use the words "direct access". Also he isn't "maintaining" this, this is part of his original interview from over a month ago.
- lurker14 13y ago
  "direct access" is far to small a term to describe the complicated reality of a large IT setup. Snowden needs to show documents or explain in more detail what that is supposed to mean..
- mpyne 13y ago
  Which ones? The PRISM slides said "collection directly from the servers of..." which is not the same as 'direct access'. Are there different NSA documents, if so it would be useful to see the context of the wording in that case.
  - krek 13y ago
    Your quote is accurate, "direct access" is not verbatim. Though "collection directly" and "direct access" seem semantically the same to me in the context of the slide. [1] The relevant slide is talking about two types of mechanisms the NSA analyst should use. The "Upstream" and "PRISM". It's within the the Prism description that the words "collection directly from the servers of.." is used. So it's not referring to raw data collection through neutral access points, as that's what the "Upstream" is. It's explicitly saying the NSA has direct access to these companies. [1] http://i.imgur.com/kIEtXjk.jpg http://i.imgur.com/kIEtXjk.jpg
    - mpyne 13y ago
      > It's explicitly saying the NSA has direct access to these companies It's explicitly saying that the NSA has access to data that would come directly from the relevant company servers, as opposed to having to intercept that data during transmission across the network. (Edit: an intercept is what 'upstream' collection would imply) The companies themselves are still the ones who end up providing the data to NSA though, just like the fact that my browser obtained your comment "directly from the servers of Hacker News" does not imply that I have direct access to the server hardware underlying HN.
      - krek 13y ago
        > The companies themselves are still the ones who end up providing the data to NSA though Well that's certainly what the companies are saying. Whether they are telling truth (personally I think they are) or not is something else. Snowden is definitely not the one lying about this, since at worst his interpretation was very sensible, and at best it is the very interpretation intended by the author.
trestles 13y ago
These publicly traded companies lying? There's plenty of things that companies are legally obligated to lie about. See Boeing, Raytheon etc.... The fact that it is now a tech company is just new players in the game. The problem with his claims is that he has made far-reaching accusations such as "I could wiretap the president's email" with no proof. While I wouldn't necessarily be surprised if he could (see the existence of Carnivore), to make that level of a claim without SHOWING and VERIFYING that claim in the same video is frightnigly foolish in my opinion. I'm guessing that it would have to be access to servers since other 'communications' require the actual application. In other words, there would almost need to be application level awareness of this external output point. Again, not impossible but could / should have been presented better.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]

14 points by teawithcarl 13y ago

tater 13y ago

There's a difference between lying and carefully choosing your words.

Zigurd 13y ago
Really?
- Shish2k 13y ago
  Yes.
thezilch 13y ago
In other words, choosing the "least untruthful" words.

chris_mahan 13y ago

Is it possible the NSA compromised Google, Facebook, etc. servers without the companies knowing?

krek 13y ago

How is Snowden possibly lying? He's reading verbatim from the NSA documents which use the words "direct access". Also he isn't "maintaining" this, this is part of his original interview from over a month ago.

lurker14 13y ago
"direct access" is far to small a term to describe the complicated reality of a large IT setup. Snowden needs to show documents or explain in more detail what that is supposed to mean..
mpyne 13y ago
Which ones? The PRISM slides said "collection directly from the servers of..." which is not the same as 'direct access'. Are there different NSA documents, if so it would be useful to see the context of the wording in that case.
- krek 13y ago
  Your quote is accurate, "direct access" is not verbatim. Though "collection directly" and "direct access" seem semantically the same to me in the context of the slide. [1] The relevant slide is talking about two types of mechanisms the NSA analyst should use. The "Upstream" and "PRISM". It's within the the Prism description that the words "collection directly from the servers of.." is used. So it's not referring to raw data collection through neutral access points, as that's what the "Upstream" is. It's explicitly saying the NSA has direct access to these companies. [1] http://i.imgur.com/kIEtXjk.jpg http://i.imgur.com/kIEtXjk.jpg
  - mpyne 13y ago
    > It's explicitly saying the NSA has direct access to these companies It's explicitly saying that the NSA has access to data that would come directly from the relevant company servers, as opposed to having to intercept that data during transmission across the network. (Edit: an intercept is what 'upstream' collection would imply) The companies themselves are still the ones who end up providing the data to NSA though, just like the fact that my browser obtained your comment "directly from the servers of Hacker News" does not imply that I have direct access to the server hardware underlying HN.
    - krek 13y ago
      > The companies themselves are still the ones who end up providing the data to NSA though Well that's certainly what the companies are saying. Whether they are telling truth (personally I think they are) or not is something else. Snowden is definitely not the one lying about this, since at worst his interpretation was very sensible, and at best it is the very interpretation intended by the author.

trestles 13y ago

These publicly traded companies lying? There's plenty of things that companies are legally obligated to lie about. See Boeing, Raytheon etc.... The fact that it is now a tech company is just new players in the game. The problem with his claims is that he has made far-reaching accusations such as "I could wiretap the president's email" with no proof. While I wouldn't necessarily be surprised if he could (see the existence of Carnivore), to make that level of a claim without SHOWING and VERIFYING that claim in the same video is frightnigly foolish in my opinion. I'm guessing that it would have to be access to servers since other 'communications' require the actual application. In other words, there would almost need to be application level awareness of this external output point. Again, not impossible but could / should have been presented better.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]