VPN & the NSA

If I were the NSA I'd open a VPN service.

Of course, I wouldn't call it something like "NSA VPN" - I'd be sneaky. I'd pick a cool name - something that wouldn't be suspected. I'd set up a website, tell everyone I was somewhere really neutral, somewhere that sounds safe. Hell, I might even really base myself there. Then I'd do a write up about how dedicated I was to privacy. I'd probably make myself sound like a cool hippy character and someone that was a million miles from a "man in black". I'd make it sound really good and convincing. I'd tell everyone that I didn't keep logs and that I was well outside the jurisdiction of the USA.

Then I wouldn't need to weed out the good stuff from the billions of boring facebook postings - the privacy conscious and those who really had something to hide would be self-declaring by signing up to my service. I wouldn't need to find them - they'd come to me. Hell, they'd even be paying me for the service. Then I could really access the interesting stuff (& the boring privacy people - but frankly they wouldn't interest me) without having to spend loads of time weeding out the chaff.

Good job the NSA aren't sneaky.

Or are they?



Best trust no one!

 

They can't use the DATA in court because it would have been obtained illegally without a warrant. If they got a warrant for it which they likely would not be able to because of human rights violations due to international and non-American customers, and if they did people would know because a long standing warrant for user data would be in public knowledge.

 

yeah, i've been wondering about this. like what % of VPN are actually run by some gov't intel agency. seems like a cheap way to collect great info even if some of what they collected from the VPN "wasn't admissable in court"

 

Right, because you never know for sure. That's why I recommend using nested chains of VPNs (and Tor). It's safer as well to choose VPN services operating from nations that don't readily cooperate. I'm sure that many VPN services are actually run by privacy activists. But it's hard for customers to verify that.

 

All right. I'm biting my lip and my tongue is twitching, but I won't say it.

I'll say this - and yes, I really believe it: I think something very much like what you described has happened and was a dismal failure due to operational mismanagement and it has since dropped off the face of the Earth. It didn't work. Though they tried to be the "we're on your side" and "look at how far we go to protect your privacy," people - it just didn't work. In the end, everything is deployed with human beings and we all know that we screw up - sometimes enough to ruin a perfect operation.

Lockbox out.

 

Without a warrant? Haha Maybe so for certain countries, but not for the other countries!

And how do you know that the analyst does not make an excuse, maybe an "anonymous tip" tells him where to look for bad actions?

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/08/05/us-dea-sod-idUSBRE97409R20130805

 

Yes! 100%
I would open up more than one VPN service. And I would put agents in some of the other VPN companies.

But I would not stop there!

I would have agents working in online chat rooms, discussion boards.
Especially boards on privacy and security!

Obama pick for NSA review panel wanted paid, pro-government shills in chat rooms
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2013/08/23/obama-pick-for-nsa-review-panel-wanted-paid-pro-government-shills-in-chat-rooms/

 

NSA won't make a VPN service without a disclaimer its the NSA because no evidence can be used in court due to the fact any good defense lawyer would get it thrown out as illegal wiretapping. If they write no logs on the website the lawyer could also sue the NSA VPN company for that claim being false and myself in this case would be pushing a lawsuit against the NSA for deformation of character with the use of illegal wiretapping. Even worse if they do it on some server hosted outside the USA as wiretapping on telecoms outside of your own nation is even more serious.

 

I guess you missed the recent news about the NSA feeding information to the DEA and the DEA being trained and told to cover up the source (so as not to expose the NSA).
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs...rds-to-the-dea-and-the-dea-is-covering-it-up/

When it comes to information gathering in the U.S., the law is cast aside much more frequently than you think. Do some research and you will be surprised. You cannot rely on the law to protect you from big government agencies. They have endless dollars, lawyers, and time to fight you in court.

 

It does not matter, they have to provide the evidence source in a court of law. If they claim they can't the evidence is thrown out as anyone could have fabricated it, and if they come up with a source, again you can go the wire-tapping route. You would be surprised how quickly a case gets thrown out because of evidence fabrication of lack of source or an illegal means of getting information being used. Just look at the trayvon martin case, the defendants attorneys retrieved phone records from a legitimate source and even then they got thrown out as evidence, so you can imagine what happens if evidence is obtained in a non lawful manner.

 

I post the same thing already in the thread.

 

i believe this was actually implemented prior to 2012 election based on the (non-political) discussion boards i was visiting at that time. And think i heard they also bombarded congressman with fake emails and tweets before important legislation to present a slanted picture of the way the public really felt about a particular bill.

Also, i believe that unpopular companies (in the GMO field) have paid shills that do the same thing. seems pretty cost effective to have one person monitoring perhaps 10-20 chat rooms and boards all day and attempting to counter angry threads before they boil over.

 

The Chinese government openly does this on a massive scale.