NSA has direct access to tech giants' systems for user data, secret files reveal

Discussion in 'privacy general' started by Dermot7, Jun 6, 2013.

  1. deBoetie

    deBoetie Registered Member

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    Yep.

    Even if passed, does nothing whatsoever about those pesky foreigners (who must all be terrists anyway, their rights aren't important), nor prevent cosy intelligence sharing with the 14 eyes when they need to know about their own nationals. Or just route all domestic data to Canada and back, and claim it was incidentally collected.
     
  2. Dermot7

    Dermot7 Registered Member

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    https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/...losing-zero-days-where-are-documents-prove-it
     
  3. hawki

    hawki Registered Member

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  4. hawki

    hawki Registered Member

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    UPDATE:

    "A fatal wrong turn suspected at NSA.............

    What had first appeared to be an attempt to breach security at the listening post that eavesdrops on communications throughout the world now appears to be a wrong turn by two men who police believe had robbed their companion of his vehicle and perhaps didn’t stop because there were drugs inside."

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/local...6e1-11e4-ba28-f2a685dc7f89_story.html?hpid=z1
     
  5. lotuseclat79

    lotuseclat79 Registered Member

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  6. mirimir

    mirimir Registered Member

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    Mr. Sankin is being very gentle with Mr. De, I think. In particular, he doesn't question the NSA tortured definition of intelligence "collection". As I understand it, the NSA considers that information has not been "collected" until it has been queried. Even if it's sitting on some NSA drive array, and will be sitting there for years.
     
  7. Veeshush

    Veeshush Registered Member

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    Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: Government Surveillance (HBO)
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XEVlyP4_11M

    I really feel for him at 22:30
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Apr 7, 2015
  8. mirimir

    mirimir Registered Member

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    This was a waste of jet fuel :(
     
  9. 142395

    142395 Guest

    Tho believing everything he said is not wise, I think it has some points.
    One commonly seen problem after Snoden is ppl tend to think NSA do everything they can AND even they (techinically) can't. NSA was made up as almighty wizard by those ppl and media.

    No, throughout history, NSA (CIA, NRO, etc. too) haven't been such wizard. They abuse interpretation of law, but do not completely ignore law (well, one can argue if they bypass law by interpretation it's the same...I don't agree) this is why they have covertly been tried to make advantageous law. This feeling of "NSA can do everything" is even in their strategy, it works as deterrent power but what they can actually do is much more limited than some ppl think.

    But it's good strategically adopt paranoid assumption with awareness. Not good is simply believe they can do everything with infinite technology and law has nothing to do with their activity.
     
  10. Frank the Perv

    Frank the Perv Banned

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    Exactly.

    Do you work there Yuki?
     
  11. deBoetie

    deBoetie Registered Member

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    @142395 - it's precisely because they cannot do everything we should be worried, they are puffed-up career bureaucrats doing all the old fudging requirements, avoiding accountability, building empires and budgets, playing office politics.... and being not very effective at protecting business from cyber-attack (that would require years of boring defensive work, where they've done the opposite), and operating hugely expensive, ineffective and counter-productive mass surveillance.

    And that results in what bureaucrats do best - fubar & snafu. They miss strategic threats, as well as individual threats. And meanwhile, the cost is borne by the innocent, who do have a lot to fear because the mass surveillance is ideally suited for false positives and ending up unaccountably on some no-fly list.
     
  12. Dermot7

    Dermot7 Registered Member

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    http://electrospaces.blogspot.co.uk/2015/04/torus-antenna-to-significantly-increase.html
     
  13. noone_particular

    noone_particular Registered Member

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    The discussions regarding the NSA (and others) abilities assume that the goals of their surveillance are what they claim, protection from terrorism, foreign attacks, etc. Their choices of targets belies those claims, as does the biased coverage of mainstream news on the subject. Protecting us from "terrorism" doesn't require or justify surveillance of every citizen in the country. Remember the "internet kill switch"? Consider the 2 together, mass domestic surveillance and the ability to kill domestic internet and communications. The purpose of both becomes clear. It's not about protecting America the people or the nation from adversaries. It's about protecting themselves from the citizens of this country. They exist to detect and preempt a domestic uprising and to control the news regarding one. To them, "national security" means protecting themselves and the wealth and power of their corporate overlords. Only by using that definition can the hacking of foreign oil companies, charities, disaster relief organizations, human rights organizations, etc be considered "national security" issues.
     
  14. noone_particular

    noone_particular Registered Member

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    Interesting antennas. I imagine that those need to be maintained to very close tolerances. Where's a good strong catapult and a 50 pound boulder when you need it?
     
  15. mirimir

    mirimir Registered Member

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    It's all of the above, I think. The whole "us" vs "them" thing is very fuzzy, because we have no clue about who is who. How can one formulate testable hypotheses, after all?
     
  16. noone_particular

    noone_particular Registered Member

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    It's fuzzy by their choosing. If they were open and honest with their own citizens, people would be more inclined to believe them. When their actions and policies make all of us suspects and potential enemies, they make themselves the adversary. AFAIC, they've made their position (and ours) very clear. They don't work for the people.
     
  17. mirimir

    mirimir Registered Member

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    Well, "they" work for some people. But who? It's all about "national security" and "national interest". But what does that really mean?

    My point is that it doesn't matter. What we can do is protect ourselves from "them", whether they're "our" (e.g., US) tame hackers or "their" (e.g., China) tame hackers or outright criminals or whatever. We don't need to understand their motives or money trails or whatever. We just tool up, and deal with it.
     
  18. 142395

    142395 Guest

    Of course not!:argh:
    Do you know how hard is it??:cool:
     
  19. 142395

    142395 Guest

    I believe deBoetie and noone has a point, but I more agree with mirimir about it. whey you say "people", "us", "them", etc. take attention to what it actually mean, and often it's not clear. I think what those intelligence agency protect is actually not even "U.S country/nation". Don't forget they are part of U.S force where the world biggest Military-industrial complex is involved (where those money finally reach?). And througout history, CIA have been showed their inability rather than efficiency to protect nation, at least efficiently (but British was relatively efficinet. I don't and can't know current situation, but I have baseless idea of what actually dominant is U.K than U.S. Imagine big body guard and who employed him...).

    Also what I agree to is, it's simply given fact and if it is good or should be allowed is another matter. I even have to say, as military fan, still intelligence agency is needed and if there's no such agency, U.S will be easily powned by ###(leave it to your imagination). It's also another story if spent money balance the result (and most probably―no).
     
  20. hawki

    hawki Registered Member

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    What you already knew,but still interesting and short video.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yzGzB-yYKcc
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Apr 10, 2015
  21. noone_particular

    noone_particular Registered Member

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    The military industrial complex can be described in a single phrase. The Borg.
     
  22. CloneRanger

    CloneRanger Registered Member

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    I watched Enemy of the State again on tv the other night. Even when it was released in 1998, it discusses the fact that the NSA had All sorts of intercepts available back then, not sci-fi either. And politicians etc who opposed more tech & intrusions, were not going to get in the way of what (They) wanted, & got. Sure it was a film, but worse than that has come true since then. Expect even more, before it All goes BANG !
     
  23. Dermot7

    Dermot7 Registered Member

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    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-32251699

    https://www.privacyinternational.org/?q=node/555
    https://www.liberty-human-rights.or...ight-against-mass-surveillance-european-court
     
  24. mirimir

    mirimir Registered Member

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    Actually, we know who they are (or were, in 2008-2010 or so).
    Stefania Vitali, James B. Glattfelder and Stefano Battiston (2011) The network of global corporate control
    http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/1107/1107.5728v2.pdf
     
  25. deBoetie

    deBoetie Registered Member

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    One aspect of the Human Rights legislation that the ECHR has been traditionally strong on, is the damage done by "chilling effects". Given recent surveys regarding peoples' perceptions and behavioural changes about mass surveillance, it's hard to argue that there hasn't been a large-scale chilling effect.

    One other aspect of the judgements of the ECHR is a) how long it takes, and b) the extent to which the UK government ignores even damning unanimous judgements against it (e,g, in the case of illegal retention of DNA records of innocent people about 10 years back). The Conservative party say that they will look to withdraw from the ECHR in any case and possibly set up an alternative bill of rights.

    I see in the Stingray case in other threads here that the activities of the FBI are reported as "possibly unconstitutional".

    I wonder what it actually takes to have something actually declared unconstitutional or against the HRA - legally so, rather than the obviously disproportionate, secret, unlawful, ineffective, immoral, unethical....
     
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