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How Microsoft handed the NSA access to encrypted messages
- pvnick 13y agoMicrosoft's June 7th statement: "We provide customer data only when we receive a legally binding order or subpoena to do so, and never on a voluntary basis. In addition we only ever comply with orders for requests about specific accounts or identifiers. If the government has a broader voluntary national security program to gather customer data we don’t participate in it." One down, several to go. If I were Google/Facebook/Yahoo executives I would be very worried right now as to what soon-to-be-released revelations say about their NSA cooperation. Sure, they may have only done that which was compelled by FISC order, but that won't preclude them from being perceived as culpable.
- thenewkid 13y agoScroogled!
- devindotcom 13y agoThe interesting conflict to me is that Google et al don't appear to be fighting this battle. When it comes to other things, they are in the streets, funding lobbyists, building protest websites, and so on. But this, which threatens their entire business model (essentially trust-based), they haven't made a peep about. It may just be a gag order thing, sure. But with the level of access required for stuff like this, I don't think they could shut the whole team up. How many people worked on this Microsoft back door? It can't have been less than a couple dozen at least. And none of them raised the issue or let someone know, a journalist for instance, or publicly raised the question? It makes me wonder about the true extent of the programs we're freaking out about. I mean, of course they exist and they're big and threatening, but I don't buy that they could combine complete access with complete secrecy. They need the cooperation of the companies, and the companies, by NSA standards, just aren't trustworthy enough. In fact, they're full of wild cards like Snowden, denizens of newsgroups, IRC, 4chan, etc, who would LOVE to be the one to blow up an NSA attempt to write a back door into Skype. Maybe they did, and it all faded away. But it just seems strange to me that so little has been said about the elephant that must surely have been in everyone's room for the last few years.
- znowi 13y agoThe peculiar part for me with Google is that they seem to be somehow immune from all the revelations. People keep stand by it and get annoyed when reminded of their wrong-doings. I suspect at this point, they're not much different than Microsoft. But the "don't be evil" brand is still strong in the mind of many.
- antoko 13y agoSpeaking for myself, but I'm sure others share the sentiments, its not that i think google is somehow "good". They're obviously not, the difference is that they're still a cool tech company doing cool things on a massive scale (or potentially very disruptive). self-driving cars, balloon network testing in NZ, google fiber, and more mundane things like Golang and angular. I don't give them a pass, its just that in the bad column they're the same as all the other actors in this drama, on the good column they're a damn cool tech company that can realistically change the world in fundamental and positive ways. EDIT: also for the most part their interests are selfishly aligned with ours. They want a fast easy open internet. That contrasts pretty sharply with FB/MS/APPLE - who are more about hardware/walled gardens. Though all these lines seem to getting blurred.
- jcarney 13y agoGoogle isn't above doing things that harm people to make them more money. Like the steadily decreasing background contrast and lack of borders separating ads from search results. Older people are far less cognizant of borders and thus would click on ads thinking they're search results. http://blumenthals.com/blog/2012/01/31/is-google-intentionally-trying-to-minimize-the-fact-that-these-are-ads/ http://blumenthals.com/blog/2012/01/31/is-google-intentional... They recently got rapped by the FTC for it. http://wallstcheatsheet.com/stocks/ftc-googles-ad-practice-is-deceptive.html/?a=viewall http://wallstcheatsheet.com/stocks/ftc-googles-ad-practice-i... The difference is that the negative Microsoft news tends to float on top of sites like HN more than positive news, and the reverse is true for Google so this alters perceptions of people.
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- lern_too_spel 13y agoThis latest release does not contradict that. They provide user data for accounts under surveillance in real time. To place an account under surveillance, the government needs a valid court order for that account. This document just says that surveillance was broken for chats when they did the outlook.com upgrade, but that has since been fixed.
- Afforess 13y agoIt's interesting to contrast our current attitude with Microsoft/Skype with similar news 1 year ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4254925 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4254925 Oh how times change.
- pvnick 13y agoI remember this, has it really been a year? Man, time flies. It is indeed interesting how far the attitudes have shifted.
- mikegerwitz 13y agoWord games; notice the use of the term "voluntary". This also provides some answers to http://www.skypeopenletter.com/ http://www.skypeopenletter.com/.
- vabmit 13y agoWell that quote may be a technically accurate statement. They don't "provide" data directly to the NSA with out a secret FISA order. But, the new leak article seems to suggest that they weaken their cryptography, perhaps turn over private keys, re-architect their topology, and adjust their technology to allow the NSA to trivially easily intercept/get the data of every single Microsoft technology user. A little bird told me that Microsoft was the most "helpful" out of all the big tech companies. If this new article is accurate, I hope that statement also was. I'm rather pro-US/NSA. But, even I find this new leak very disturbing if it's accurate and true. Being realistic, I bet all the other big American tech companies are doing similar things. For example, my thinking is still that FB gives law enforcement a "god view" of all information and communications (even if it is in a round about way, like Microsoft allegedly does).
- mikelat 13y agoWhat's sad that I'm neither surprised nor shocked about Microsoft doing this. If we hear the same about Facebook or Apple I'm not likely to be surprised either. If/when we hear the level of Google's involvement, that will be very interesting, because although a lot of people suspect that Google invades people's privacy, we've never really had any concrete proof or examples of it.
- jaimzob 13y agoHonest question: how does that article contradict that statement? Everyone is bouncing off the walls about this but I honestly can't see where the story is. Microsoft + others enable NSA to access customer data when presented with court order. You can agree or not agree but is it really a shock?
- ig1 13y agoProviding integration to make access easier is part of a voluntary NSA program (Twitter has said they refused to participate).
- bigiain 13y agoI'm probably overly sensitive to this, being a "non-US person", but I'm constantly reading "with a court order" as "either with a court order, or with a 51% suspicion that one of the two parties to the communication is not a US citizen - in which case we can do what we like"
- mtgx 13y agoI don't get Microsoft. Are they really that hypocritical to the core and so shameless? Why in the world would they launch a "privacy" campaign against Google when they're in a glass house themselves, and so vulnerable? Why the hell would they even put themselves on the spotlight like that? Or are they really that comfortable with lying, that they have no problem attacking others over something, even though they are just as bad, or worse(as this revelation seems to imply) Giving pre-encryption access to NSA? Really Microsoft? To make things worse, they've just put the guy who came up with that Scroogle crap in charge of their whole marketing department, so expect a lot more hypocritical/nasty stuff like that from Microsoft in the future: http://www.businessinsider.com/mark-penn-microsofts-master-of-dark-political-arts-gets-a-boost-in-the-companys-new-reorg-2013-7 http://www.businessinsider.com/mark-penn-microsofts-master-o...
- secabeen 13y agoIs there any information that the marketing department at MS was even aware of the PRISM program? It's likely that that program was need-to-know, and anyone who did know couldn't stop MS marketing from doing a campaign based on privacy because that would be revealing a Top Secret program.
- mythz 13y agoMicrosoft often "competes" by trying to strangle competitors revenue streams even when outside their core business, where they are happy to lose billions on Bing and their online division if it also reduces Googles primary revenue stream: http://www.zdnet.com/blog/btl/microsofts-online-sinkhole-8-5-billion-lost-in-9-years/52989 http://www.zdnet.com/blog/btl/microsofts-online-sinkhole-8-5... Since Google's products are essentially "free" to end users, they don't criticize them on value, so they build an anti-Google campaign against how Google makes money, i.e. their strategy of targeted advertising.
- chollida1 13y ago> Microsoft often "competes" by trying to strangle competitors revenue streams even when it's outside their core business, where they will happily lose billions on Bing and their online division if it can reduce Googles revenues: This is true as you point out. However it's worth pointing out that Google is the exact same. They release free products that Microsoft charges for loosing money to reduce Microsoft's primary revenue stream.
- mythz 13y agoMarketing: "Your privacy is our priority." Meaning: "Microsoft and the FBI had come up with a solution that allowed the NSA to circumvent encryption on Outlook.com chats" "For Prism collection against Hotmail, Live, and Outlook.com emails will be unaffected because Prism collects this data prior to encryption." "analysts will no longer have to make a special request to SSO", "this new capability will result in a much more complete and timely collection response". "This success is the result of the FBI working for many months with Microsoft to get this tasking and collection solution established." "One document boasts that Prism monitoring of Skype video production has roughly tripled since a new capability was added on 14 July 2012. "The audio portions of these sessions have been processed correctly all along, but without the accompanying video. Now, analysts will have the complete 'picture',"
- kvb 13y agoWell, did you expect "privacy" to imply that your data would not be released to the government following legal requests for it? I always assumed it meant that they wouldn't share it with other businesses, but maybe that's just me. Analogously, if one of the major phone providers started selling information to marketers, including what times of day I made phone calls, would it be inappropriate for a competitor to create a marketing campaign around "privacy" highlighting that they don't do similar things? Would you complain that since the government can still get a wiretap and listen to private conversations, there really isn't a meaningful privacy difference?
- mythz 13y agoI didn't think it meant they would give the NSA an un-encrypted firehose of private user data violating unlawful search and seizure implications that are a constitutionally protected right of American citizens, but maybe that's just me.
- kvb 13y agoI can see how "but maybe that's just me" (and the entirety of the first paragraph) could be read as snarky, but that's not how I meant it. It was a non-rhetorical question: what should a company like Microsoft do when faced with a court order? Does compliance with such orders make "privacy" campaigns nonsensical, if they still have meaningful privacy protections compared to competitors? Also, IANAL, but as far as I know Microsoft can't violate the 4th amendment, only the government can.
- acqq 13y agoAllow me to be surprised this time, I don't see much new here, compared to what we already saw about Prism (all the slides). Maybe the only thing newsworthy this time is that additional documents confirm that Prism exist? I applaud this article of course, as it gives less chance for unnatural interpretations of the slides that we saw by pro-status-quo writers ("it's not really a direct access") -- now we have additional confirmations it's a "query API" access and a "start real time monitoring" access. Unrelated, I'm impressed with the absolutely perfect timing for an article on the day when Microsoft presents the new reorg. Heh. My question remains can anybody recognize something otherwise new here?
- nitrogen 13y agoI haven't read the article yet, but if what I'm gathering from the comments is true, what's new here is that Microsoft has been caught in a lie to the public and their shareholders.
- acqq 13y agoTechnically they didn't lie, they said they complied to the court orders. I'd say our real worry should be the secret orders and what they demand, not the companies that obey to them? But what's really true is that companies' "denials" were carefully crafted to give the impression that there isn't any API-level access, even if they didn't claim that, and now we have more confirmations that they give it that way and I'm sure Google isn't different in that aspect. Also note that the "official client" is FBI, so MS can claim they don't know that NSA accesses the data of US citizens. But that "there will be more interagency sharing and cooperation" was publicly announced by G W Bush soon after 9/11.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- toyg 13y agoI think the confirmation that NSA and FBI have direct and unfettered access to all communication streams, is pretty huge. As you say, all calm-down-dear interpretations are now proven false. We are facing the worst possible scenario.
- hype7 13y agosmall but annoying thing in the article: microsoft≠silicon valley
- vermontdevil 13y agoAll this on the day Microsoft announced their restructuring. They neglected to mention a new division called "NSAlite"
- brown9-2 13y agoTo play devil's advocate here, what else would people have Microsoft do? Is there a scenario in which they can successfully resist enabling surveillance features in their products while operating in the US? CALEA applies to telecommunications providers, which is a label that would seem to clearly apply to Skype. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calea http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calea Are major companies based or operating in the US allowed to provide secure email and/or data storage without options for lawful surveillance from law enforcement? If people do not like these policies and the cooperation from the companies operating them, I think the proper place to direct your anger is at the laws that require them to cooperate.
- jlgreco 13y agoIn this particular instance? I would have had them be less misleading about what ways Skype is and is not secure in the first place.
- stephengillie 13y agoAs a Microsoft contractor, I'm confused about how to feel and how to move forward. Sometimes I feel like I'll be enabling some of these practices by continuing be a contracted worker, and that this community will in part be blaming me for this situation.
- autodidakto 13y agoGive it some time, clarify what exactly you're contributing. Then, if you want a clear conscious, work towards it in a practical way. Be as innocent as a dove, as sly as a fox! That is, you don't need to quit your only mildly, indirectly enabling job right this instance, throwing your family into financial difficulties. But, you do need to work towards untangling yourself as much as your conscious demands.
- devindotcom 13y agoI agree that the anger should be directed at the laws, but the problem is that we are so woefully uninformed about those laws. And not just that we're not paying enough attention - these laws are being formed and executed in secret! How can you take action against something you don't know exists?
- forgotAgain 13y agoIf this is true then SkyDrive and Azure are toast. Perhaps all cloud storage as well.
- diggan 13y agoNo, I don't think you're right. I think, even if the article is right, people don't give a damn. People are not that clever to react to a thing like this.
- xradionut 13y ago"Against stupidity the gods themselves contend in vain."
- jlgaddis 13y agoI wish that were true. I really, really do. Unfortunately, too many people just don't give a damn.
- forgotAgain 13y agoIt will reach a point where people are embarrassed to admit they use a service. That will be the motivation that get's them to quit.
- astrange 13y agoDid people expecting to have warrants taken out against them use cloud services before this?
- josteink 13y agoOw. That reminds me: I seriously need to unlink my Windows 8 account from Live/Skydrive. Like pronto.
- UnoriginalGuy 13y agoYou don't think Amazon allows exactly the same thing? Because I do.
- znowi 13y agoSkype, which was bought by Microsoft in October 2011, worked with intelligence agencies last year to allow Prism to collect video of conversations as well as audio This is pretty scary. When you talk about emails, it's sort of "impersonal". But collecting audio and video data from your casual chats on Skype is a fucking break in.
- Asparagirl 13y agoThink how many private business meetings have been conducted over Skype. Anything from board meetings, sensitive HR issues, acquisition or takeover discussions, to new product roadmaps. Now think about all that corporate espionage material being in the hands of the government. Think about how much private sexual activity between physically separated partners is conducted over Skype. Anything from a lonely grunt serving in the military trying to get a little private time with his wife back at home, to outright video sex between a prostitute or camgirl (or camboy) with a john (or jane). Now think about all that blackmail material being in the hands of the government.
- hnha 13y agothere is nothing impersonal about my personal mails.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- jlgaddis 13y agoFTA: "Secret files show scale of Silicon Valley co-operation ..." Since when is Redmond considered Silicon Valley?
- Terretta 13y agoMountain View is in SV. It's their second largest campus: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/news/features/2009/nov09/11-23SiliconValley.aspx http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/news/features/2009/nov09/11-2... But Microsoft Research might be more relevant: "Located in Mountain View, California, Microsoft Research Silicon Valley was founded in August 2001 and now employs about 75 researchers. Our research work focuses on distributed computing and includes privacy, security, protocols, fault-tolerance, large-scale systems, concurrency, computer architecture, Internet search and services, and related theory." http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/labs/siliconvalley/default.aspx http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/labs/siliconvalley/defau...
- jlgaddis 13y agoOn a related note, I don't know how many more documents there are that Snowden provided to Greenwald or that will be released to the public but I certainly hope that they keep coming for a looooong time.
- jivatmanx 13y ago"ACLU technology expert Chris Soghoian said the revelations would surprise many Skype users. "In the past, Skype made affirmative promises to users about their inability to perform wiretaps," he said. "It's hard to square Microsoft's secret collaboration with the NSA with its high-profile efforts to compete on privacy with Google." I have a feeling the FTC won't go after them for violating truth-in-advertising laws.
- csoghoian 13y agoHaving worked at the FTC for a year in the team that goes after companies for violating consumers' privacy, I can comfortably say that you are 100% right on that point. The FTC (unfortunately) does not police deceptive statements about government surveillance.
- sinak 13y agoThe marketing language MS used in http://www.scroogled.com/ http://www.scroogled.com/ - "YOUR PRIVACY IS OUR PRIORITY" - seems pretty amusing now.
- anonymousDan 13y agoSomeone needs to come up with a good rewording - "YOUR PRIVACY IS LOW PRIORITY"?
- bigiain 13y ago"(INVADING) YOUR PRIVACY IS OUR PRIORITY"
- sinak 13y agoThe marketing language MS used in http://www.scroogled.com/ http://www.scroogled.com/ - "YOUR PRIVACY IS OUR PRIORITY" - seems pretty amusing now.
- antocv 13y agoMicrosoft made more fuss and put up a better fight against FOSS than here, for this, for its users, its core ideas and values nothing... oh right, money and power is above all. Or is it just so that all these companies, Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Apple got something big in return for their cooperation with NSA? Perhaps they will or got intel on their international competitors? As so many people seem to be involved in this, at every company sysadmins, managers, developers etc, perhaps many of them want to leak but dont know how, they are close to the devil so to say and fear they cant really do anything about it as they already know the extent of the surveillence?
- yulaow 13y agoI want to remember to all of you the campaing that microsoft was/is doing in the last months -> http://www.scroogled.com/ http://www.scroogled.com/ motto: "YOUR PRIVACY IS OUR PRIORITY" Yeah, now it seems a bit mh... ironic. Not because i think that google is more privacy friendly, but surely microsoft is not at all.
- mtgx 13y agoI bet that Microsoft engineer who told us Skype was not re-built for spying is feeling pretty silly right now. I know his excuses seemed "reasonable" (if you're a smart liar, you don't try to blatantly bullshit someone on their face - you find a "good reason" to hide it), but it was no less of a bullshit excuse as Microsoft's earlier rejection of WebRTC (and they ended up supporting it anyway - guess they didn't feel that strongly about that security claim to begin with). This was the same way. Yes, it may have improved Skype's reliability a little bit, but I honestly doubt that was the main purpose for doing it. As we learn in this revelation, they don't seem to have a problem with adapting their service to suit NSA.
- loginalready 13y agoThe headline is surprisingly understated, where usually the opposite is the case. After reading the article, the headline might as well have been "Microsoft handed the NSA the keys to friggin' everything." The tin-foil hat conspiracy theory of the NSA having a backdoor in every Windows system on the planet suddenly doesn't seem that far fetched anymore.
- nullc 13y agoWhere are the documents? The text seems to be referring to something that isn't showing up for me.
- acqq 13y agoA perfect lesson on how to write "denials" that are accurate but aren't what most of the public can understand: http://blogs.skype.com/2012/07/26/what-does-skypes-architecture-do/ http://blogs.skype.com/2012/07/26/what-does-skypes-architect... "It has been suggested that as a result of recent architecture changes Skype now monitors and records audio and video calls of our users. False. The move to in-house hosting of “supernodes” does not provide for monitoring or recording of calls. .." There are more paragraphs that follow, but they can honestly say they didn't lie, since obviously they had the functionality to monitor and record the calls even before they introduced the supernodes so it is false that they introduced the supernodes for that, but it is not false that the Skype conversations can and are monitored by authorities. Note that it's by law the job of FBI to do such monitoring, when it's about US citizens, and it's NSA's job for non-US citizens. Microsoft is definitely not breaking any laws. So when they say that it's all lawful what they do it's also true.
- ratscabies 13y agoI'm sure the NSA can hardly wait for XBone's to start showing up in people's houses. "The telescreen recieved and transmitted simultaneously. Any sound Winston made, above the level of a very low whisper, would be picked up by it; moreover, so long as he remained within the field of vision which the metal plaque commanded, he could be seen as well as heard. There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment. How often, or on what system, the Thought Police plugged in on any individual wire was guesswork. It was even conceivable that they watched everybody all the time. But at any rate they could plug in your wire whenever the wanted to. You had to live- did live, from habit that became instinct- in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every movement scrutinized." -1984, Book 1, Chapter One, George Orwell
- redthrowaway 13y ago>In a joint statement, Shawn Turner, spokesman for the director of National Intelligence, and Judith Emmel, spokeswoman for the NSA, said: >The articles describe court-ordered surveillance – and a US company's efforts to comply with these legally mandated requirements. The US operates its programs under a strict oversight regime, with careful monitoring by the courts, Congress and the Director of National Intelligence. Not all countries have equivalent oversight requirements to protect civil liberties and privacy. >They added: "In practice, US companies put energy, focus and commitment into consistently protecting the privacy of their customers around the world, while meeting their obligations under the laws of the US and other countries in which they operate." Does anyone else get the impression that this is an attempt by the government to limit commercial damage to these companies that may result from the revelations and subsequent exodus of customers? I imagine that, while they're certainly lobbying for increased transparency, tech companies are putting a great deal of pressure on the government to take the blame for the programs and emphasize that the companies had no choice.
- losvedir 13y agoI must be in the minority here, but I'm no more concerned now than before reading this, and I'm still not super concerned if it works the way I think it does. It doesn't answer the main question of HOW MANY USERS are being watched like this. We already knew from Prism that Microsoft is providing data to the NSA, and we already knew that it included real time video, emails, messages, etc. So this is more of a behind-the-scenes of how it's done, but if you stopped to consider before what Prism meant then it sort of implies everything here. BUT, I still don't know whether this tapping of Skype calls, providing of decrypted messages, etc, applies only to a few specific people who the government has warrants for, or for all of Microsoft's users. I still think it's the former based on that Prism slide that said it cost $10M/yr, which is clearly not enough to handle ALL of Microsoft's and Google's and Apple's data. If anything, I applaud Prism in that it's just a more efficient way of doing what the NSA is already cleared to do. I'm MORE concerned about the warrantless Verizon metadata tracking for millions of subscribers, Clapper's lies before Congress about said data, the DoJ classifying the FISC's rulings that something or other is unconstitutional, the inability of companies to discuss NSLs. But this release is just clarification on what we already knew, and we still don't know whether PRISM is oh-my-god-the-government-is-tapped-into-everything or just a convenient front-end on the government's warrant-obtained data (which is a good thing, AFAICT).
- eelke 13y agoYes, it's a fairly detailed description of how it's done, but to me this information doesn't seem to broaden the scope or intrusiveness of the surveillance apparatus that has been uncovered so far, the convenient interface for warranted querying that is PRISM.
- ma2rten 13y agoOn April 5, according to this slide, there were 117,675 active surveillance targets in PRISM's counterterrorism database. The slide does not show how many other Internet users, and among them how many Americans, have their communications collected "incidentally" during surveillance of those targets. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/politics/prism-collection-documents/ http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/politics/prism-...
- akadien 13y agoWas I the only person who thought "Did the NSA really need Microsoft's assistance?"?
- ig1 13y agoKey line: "When we upgrade or update products we aren't absolved from the need to comply with existing or future lawful demands." That sounds a lot like "we will introduce backdoors in MS updates".
- im3w1l 13y agoIf the revelations continue at this pace, we'll soon hear there are DMA rootkits directly in our network cards.
- dendory 13y agoThe bigger deal here to me is the data sharing. Who cares if one agency isn't allowed to spy on Americans? Or if another agency has this or that court oversight? All the data collected is shared between the NSA, FBI, CIA, foreign intelligence, etc. This means regardless of who you are or what you are doing, there's someone who has the authority to spy on you, and now they have all your data as well.
- smegel 13y agoA well placed (Russian) friend told me recently that the KGB (and whatever name it goes by now) still uses typewriters (yes, mechanical, ink based thingos) for all internal documentation and correspondence, and that electrical/digital devices are banned in most secure areas. In other words, they realized decades ago that if you value your privacy, get as far away as possible from a computer, especially one connected to the internet.
- altcognito 13y agoI'm going to purchase a subscription to the Guardian out of principal. I invite you all to do the same. This is absolutely fantastic work they've done.
- grey-area 13y agoMicrosoft: Your privacy is our Priority°. This slogan now deserves to live on in infamy alongside other prominent examples of doublespeak, like Plays for Sure•, and Don't be evil°. What concerns me in these responses from Microsoft is the distortion of the term lawful to include any request from the NSA. If you change the meaning of words like lawful, domestic and intercept, you can of course make anything legal in some sense, but distorting meanings like that is very dangerous, and using secret interpretations of it really damages our confidence and trust in the rule of law. That said I can't see any difference on this issue between MS and any other US tech giants, apart from Twitter, who are to be commended for staying out of this program. With the breaking of encryption on things like outlook chats and delivery in real time, it appears we simply can't trust any guarantees of privacy from these companies at all. Even if they did implement client-side encryption, they'd still feel obliged to break it for the NSA (and its many partners worldwide), so no offering from them is going to protect our privacy. This was interesting too from one of the documents: "enables our partners to see which selectors the National Security Agency has tasked to Prism...The FBI and CIA then can request a copy of Prism collection of any selector" This indicates that any NSA PRISM search can be accessed by any one of these agencies, so once it is in the system, this information will spread widely. Given the guidelines on access of the NSA, that could include all foreign data being automatically available to any FBI or CIA agent. I wonder if they have any limits on access to 'foreign' data at all? ° As long as you're American, and not covered by a bulk court order by the NSA, and not encrypting anything, and not communicating outside the US, and don't have a 51% chance of communicating outside the US (what does that even mean?). • No longer
- honzzz 13y ago>>> What concerns me in these responses from Microsoft is the distortion of the term lawful This seems really important to me. I grew up in a totalitarian regime and this kind of re-defining common language was one of the most powerful tools the regime could use to retain power and keep people in constant fear. For example the crime of 'disruption of public order' could be used to put basically anybody to jail because the term would be twisted to fit any behaviour that the regime did not like - for example when you criticised some official or communist party member or complained about something publicly. Actually I believe that ability of the government or any other group of people to redefine common language and inability of people to force government to use their version of language means that the power distribution in society is seriously skewed and therefore is a strong sign of failing democracy. It's really scary to observe that in the US.
- spoiler 13y agoU don't consider PRISM such a big deal, to be honest. Yes, they spy on innocent people, in an attempt to flush out (or whatever the term is) the dangerous or potentially dangerous ones. However, I genuinely doubt my privacy is very compromised, because I refuse to believe someone is getting paid to sit and read through Facebook posts or messages about my obsession with Supernatural (great TV show on CW), or read through "IF YOU DONT SEND THIS TO 7 OTHER PEOPLE A PIANO FROM THE HEAVENS WILL CRUSH YOU INTO THE PAVEMENT" emails my neighbour is forwarding. Also, I have a friend who talks in acronyms most of the time (over Skype chat) and I have a file called deectionary.txt (her name is Dee) with around 200 lines, I find it very amusing to think some analyst spent hours trying to decode her message because it contained "bomb" in what looks like "mtwbi bombing m/i shc play asg ol" which means (used near-real example) "my twat brother is lagging my Internet so he can play a stupid game online". She has no disability, she's just very "efficient," I guess! Besides, I don't have anything to hide, so I don't really care. If I had some top secret business I needed to attend and would care to keep secret from the NSA or CIA, I would probably (as would many of you here, too I believe) make my own thing to do the job, because I wouldn't take someone's word that they give a rat's furry bottom about my privacy.