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The fact that the agreement calls for Israel to "destroy upon recognition" communications involving USG officials is an acknowledgement that it might happen, wh

by rosser 13y ago

The fact that the agreement calls for Israel to "destroy upon recognition" communications involving USG officials is an acknowledgement that it might happen, which is, itself, an acknowledgement that it will happen.

jljljl 13y ago
Any smart information sharing agreement would cover contingencies like this. Not because they know it _will_ happen, but because they know it _might_ happen. Not making a statement on the information sharing, just pointing out that the existence of a clause within an agreement does not mean the situations that clause covers are going to happen. For example,the iTunes EULA prohibits the software from being used to build weapons of mass destruction < http://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/appstore/dev/stdeula/ http://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/appstore... >
- bilbo0s 13y ago
  "_might_" is unacceptable in this case. If it "_might_" happen, then this particular sharing agreement should be scrapped. When it comes to this sort of thing, we need to operate in an environment of guarantees not one of assurances.
  - jljljl 13y ago
    And even if there are safeguards in place to prevent this from happening (and I'm sure there are) with 99.99999repeating% accuracy, you still want something in place to mitigate or control risk if the safeguards fail. Which is no doubt what this clause is supposed to do.
    - bilbo0s 13y ago
      99.99999% is not good enough. That's not the way OpSec works guy. I realize my view is strongly informed by the military... but I view this as essentially OpSec for the civilian leadership, and the principles can't be that different. I may be wrong in my interpretation of this as OpSec, but I doubt it. If you need that clause in an agreement, FOR ANY REASON... then you need to re-evaluate the agreement. Full stop.
      - Groxx 13y ago
        Senator X accidentally sends an email Y from an alternate email address that the US doesn't have directly linked to them (maybe they just created it). This email gets filtered with no reason to assume it's from senator X. Cooperating government Z gets email Y, and discovers it's from senator X because they look more closely and connect dots the US may not have. No process could have prevented this (except stopping the sharing entirely). It's a reasonable clause.
        bilbo0s 13y ago
        "... (except stopping the sharing entirely)..." So the only secure path seems clear. To me at least. Again, maybe this information is not as critical as information you might be exchanging in the military. I don't know. But, to me, it seems a good example of information you don't want foreign powers being privvy to.
        deleted 13y ago
        [deleted]
        opinali 13y ago
        Wrong; there's one easy process that would prevent this: manual vetting of all shared information (or at least, all info that can't be automatically vetted with absolute confidence, or would not be that critical). Of course that wouldn't scale to a system that shares a big firehose of data or does that in real-time. Easy to solve too: don't share the firehose, and don't share in real-time. Collaboration with allies is fine but that should come as a distant second to protecting your own [citizen's] interests.
        tvladeck 13y ago
        > Collaboration with allies is fine but that should come as a distant second to protecting your own [citizen's] interests. What makes you think the NSA is sharing data with Israel for any other reason? We have strategic and human interests where they are located.
        Groxx 13y ago
  - NegativeK 13y ago
    There are no guarantees. Ever. It's better to acknowledge that the best intentioned (which this is, admittedly, not) processes can screw up and plan for these screw ups. It's why we have cops and a legal system instead of locking everyone in padded rooms.
    - bilbo0s 13y ago
      But, in this instance, there IS a path to a guarantee. If we don't share the information with them... then we guarantee they won't be given that information by us. You need police and a legal system because, as a general rule, citizens have rights. Israel... has no inherent right to the data in question. Therefore, if we cannot share information with them without leaking the operational particulars of the civilian leadership... then we are free to not share data with them at all. And there you have your guarantee.
    - mpyne 13y ago
      As another example, the Navy is full of procedures on how to cover the situation where a procedure wasn't followed properly. You can order a command to ensure that evals are submitted on time as much as you like but in a Navy of 320,000+ active duty sailors eventually some command somewhere will screw it up, so the Navy has procedures for that case too.
    - enraged_camel 13y ago
      The amount of apologism in comments like yours is stunning. What do you mean, "there are no guarantees, ever"? The NSA employs some of the brightest minds in America, and has billions of dollars of funding and (we are just finding out) the influence and authority to do virtually anything. There fucking MUST be guarantees. If guarantees are not possible, then information MUST NOT BE SHARED.
      - NegativeK 13y ago
        You're putting words in my mouth. If you design a system based on guarantees, it's going to be brittle. It will fail, and it will be very unpleasant. If you design a system to handle contingencies, like elected official's data getting through, it's going to be more resilient. If you design a system that will handle contingencies and then spending as much money as you can on preventing those contingencies from needing to be used -- well, you're finally developing something useful. Hell, the best guarantee a cryptographer can give you is a one-time pad, and they'll tell you that the human factors involved will be just as bad (and probably worse) than algorithms with weaknesses. But, back to putting words in my mouth: this stuff shouldn't be shared because spying on American citizens is unconstitutional and giving the data to allied nations is backstabbing us in the name of national security -- not because it's impossible to build a perfect system to protect elected officials.
  - niels_olson 13y ago
    > might is unacceptable in this case. True. Manning is in jail for a very long time based on what might happen. Clearly, the USG feels might is unacceptable in the case of release of official sources to foreign agents.

by rosser 13y ago

jljljl 13y ago

Any smart information sharing agreement would cover contingencies like this. Not because they know it _will_ happen, but because they know it _might_ happen. Not making a statement on the information sharing, just pointing out that the existence of a clause within an agreement does not mean the situations that clause covers are going to happen. For example,the iTunes EULA prohibits the software from being used to build weapons of mass destruction < http://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/appstore/dev/stdeula/ http://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/appstore... >

bilbo0s 13y ago
"_might_" is unacceptable in this case. If it "_might_" happen, then this particular sharing agreement should be scrapped. When it comes to this sort of thing, we need to operate in an environment of guarantees not one of assurances.
- jljljl 13y ago
  And even if there are safeguards in place to prevent this from happening (and I'm sure there are) with 99.99999repeating% accuracy, you still want something in place to mitigate or control risk if the safeguards fail. Which is no doubt what this clause is supposed to do.
  - bilbo0s 13y ago
    99.99999% is not good enough. That's not the way OpSec works guy. I realize my view is strongly informed by the military... but I view this as essentially OpSec for the civilian leadership, and the principles can't be that different. I may be wrong in my interpretation of this as OpSec, but I doubt it. If you need that clause in an agreement, FOR ANY REASON... then you need to re-evaluate the agreement. Full stop.
    - Groxx 13y ago
      Senator X accidentally sends an email Y from an alternate email address that the US doesn't have directly linked to them (maybe they just created it). This email gets filtered with no reason to assume it's from senator X. Cooperating government Z gets email Y, and discovers it's from senator X because they look more closely and connect dots the US may not have. No process could have prevented this (except stopping the sharing entirely). It's a reasonable clause.
      - bilbo0s 13y ago
        "... (except stopping the sharing entirely)..." So the only secure path seems clear. To me at least. Again, maybe this information is not as critical as information you might be exchanging in the military. I don't know. But, to me, it seems a good example of information you don't want foreign powers being privvy to.
      - deleted 13y ago
        [deleted]
      - opinali 13y ago
        Wrong; there's one easy process that would prevent this: manual vetting of all shared information (or at least, all info that can't be automatically vetted with absolute confidence, or would not be that critical). Of course that wouldn't scale to a system that shares a big firehose of data or does that in real-time. Easy to solve too: don't share the firehose, and don't share in real-time. Collaboration with allies is fine but that should come as a distant second to protecting your own [citizen's] interests.
        tvladeck 13y ago
        > Collaboration with allies is fine but that should come as a distant second to protecting your own [citizen's] interests. What makes you think the NSA is sharing data with Israel for any other reason? We have strategic and human interests where they are located.
        Groxx 13y ago
- NegativeK 13y ago
  There are no guarantees. Ever. It's better to acknowledge that the best intentioned (which this is, admittedly, not) processes can screw up and plan for these screw ups. It's why we have cops and a legal system instead of locking everyone in padded rooms.
  - bilbo0s 13y ago
    But, in this instance, there IS a path to a guarantee. If we don't share the information with them... then we guarantee they won't be given that information by us. You need police and a legal system because, as a general rule, citizens have rights. Israel... has no inherent right to the data in question. Therefore, if we cannot share information with them without leaking the operational particulars of the civilian leadership... then we are free to not share data with them at all. And there you have your guarantee.
  - mpyne 13y ago
    As another example, the Navy is full of procedures on how to cover the situation where a procedure wasn't followed properly. You can order a command to ensure that evals are submitted on time as much as you like but in a Navy of 320,000+ active duty sailors eventually some command somewhere will screw it up, so the Navy has procedures for that case too.
  - enraged_camel 13y ago
    The amount of apologism in comments like yours is stunning. What do you mean, "there are no guarantees, ever"? The NSA employs some of the brightest minds in America, and has billions of dollars of funding and (we are just finding out) the influence and authority to do virtually anything. There fucking MUST be guarantees. If guarantees are not possible, then information MUST NOT BE SHARED.
    - NegativeK 13y ago
      You're putting words in my mouth. If you design a system based on guarantees, it's going to be brittle. It will fail, and it will be very unpleasant. If you design a system to handle contingencies, like elected official's data getting through, it's going to be more resilient. If you design a system that will handle contingencies and then spending as much money as you can on preventing those contingencies from needing to be used -- well, you're finally developing something useful. Hell, the best guarantee a cryptographer can give you is a one-time pad, and they'll tell you that the human factors involved will be just as bad (and probably worse) than algorithms with weaknesses. But, back to putting words in my mouth: this stuff shouldn't be shared because spying on American citizens is unconstitutional and giving the data to allied nations is backstabbing us in the name of national security -- not because it's impossible to build a perfect system to protect elected officials.
- niels_olson 13y ago
  > might is unacceptable in this case. True. Manning is in jail for a very long time based on what might happen. Clearly, the USG feels might is unacceptable in the case of release of official sources to foreign agents.