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> After all, if they can't even afford to tap the ingoing and outgoing traffic of a service that offers secure email then either they are not very good in their

by mpyne 12y ago

> After all, if they can't even afford to tap the ingoing and outgoing traffic of a service that offers secure email then either they are not very good in their target selection or their resources are spent on more interesting targets and so 'little fish' like Snowden can get away with their deeds. I suspect they got trapped up in that pesky policy requirement to not wiretap American citizens on American servers hosted in American soil. I'm sure they could have figured out the technical aspects quite easily.

jacquesm 12y ago
I'm sure the NSA is capable of wording their employee contracts in such a way that they would have a legal right to snoop on the communications of those in their employ. Regular employers do this with impunity, for sure the NSA can do likewise. You have to be aware of the use of the service first and one reason why people a lot smarter than me suspect that that key was so important was in order to be able to decrypt past communications using the same service on captured traffic.
- mpyne 12y ago
  > I'm sure the NSA is capable of wording their employee contracts in such a way that they would have a legal right to snoop on the communications of those in their employ. If it were that simple then the NSA would simply have provided that documentation to Levison, no? Or, as I already said, simply scooped up his data going to/from Lavabit's servers anyways, if they felt they had the legal authority. > Regular employers do this with impunity, for sure the NSA can do likewise. Regular employers do this on their own systems, sure, just like every U.S. government IT system warns about the various (but not total) authorities they have to monitor your usage of government computers in many settings. But do regular employers subpoena a third-party email provider under the same IT use agreement expecting that email information to be turned over? > You have to be aware of the use of the service first The USG was obviously aware, otherwise they wouldn't have issued a specific subpoena to the operator of the Lavabit email service. > people a lot smarter than me suspect that that key was so important was in order to be able to decrypt past communications using the same service on captured traffic. Then maybe Levison should have complied with the first batch of specific warrants, where the topic of the SSL key didn't come up at all? I mean, I can also give a self-deprecating comment but I don't think anyone has to be very smart to figure out that the SSL key wasn't even asked for until Levison made it impossible for the USG to perform their "good old fashioned police work" in any other way.
  - mentat 12y ago
    The NSA is very much not interested in directly disclosing their capabilities. It could be they already had the information but wanted parallel evidence construction.
    - mreiland 12y ago
      I think the NSA farts magical bunnies, but they don't want people to know, so they breed stage magicians.

by mpyne 12y ago

jacquesm 12y ago

I'm sure the NSA is capable of wording their employee contracts in such a way that they would have a legal right to snoop on the communications of those in their employ. Regular employers do this with impunity, for sure the NSA can do likewise. You have to be aware of the use of the service first and one reason why people a lot smarter than me suspect that that key was so important was in order to be able to decrypt past communications using the same service on captured traffic.

mpyne 12y ago
> I'm sure the NSA is capable of wording their employee contracts in such a way that they would have a legal right to snoop on the communications of those in their employ. If it were that simple then the NSA would simply have provided that documentation to Levison, no? Or, as I already said, simply scooped up his data going to/from Lavabit's servers anyways, if they felt they had the legal authority. > Regular employers do this with impunity, for sure the NSA can do likewise. Regular employers do this on their own systems, sure, just like every U.S. government IT system warns about the various (but not total) authorities they have to monitor your usage of government computers in many settings. But do regular employers subpoena a third-party email provider under the same IT use agreement expecting that email information to be turned over? > You have to be aware of the use of the service first The USG was obviously aware, otherwise they wouldn't have issued a specific subpoena to the operator of the Lavabit email service. > people a lot smarter than me suspect that that key was so important was in order to be able to decrypt past communications using the same service on captured traffic. Then maybe Levison should have complied with the first batch of specific warrants, where the topic of the SSL key didn't come up at all? I mean, I can also give a self-deprecating comment but I don't think anyone has to be very smart to figure out that the SSL key wasn't even asked for until Levison made it impossible for the USG to perform their "good old fashioned police work" in any other way.
- mentat 12y ago
  The NSA is very much not interested in directly disclosing their capabilities. It could be they already had the information but wanted parallel evidence construction.
  - mreiland 12y ago
    I think the NSA farts magical bunnies, but they don't want people to know, so they breed stage magicians.