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

NSA uses covert radio transmissions to monitor thousands of bugged computers.

Related: NSA could 'spy on offline computers', says latest leak.

-- Tom

 

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Spying plunges U.S.-German ties lower than Iraq war: Merkel ally


(Reuters) - Relations between Germany and the United States are worse now than during the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq a decade ago, a leading ally of Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Thursday, in a sign of mounting anger in Berlin over American spying tactics.

Philipp Missfelder, foreign policy spokesman for Merkel's Christian Democrats (CDU) in parliament, said Berlin should bar U.S. access to a database of international financial transactions unless Washington promises to stop spying in Germany. The lawmaker is expected to be confirmed soon as the government coordinator for U.S. ties.

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NSA collects millions of text messages daily in 'untargeted' global sweep
http://www.theguardian.com/world/20...s-text-messages-daily-untargeted-global-sweep

 

Wow. Just ... WOW

I am impressed! Honestly.

I wonder if there's anything in Snowden's trove that reveals which consultants helped NSA get up to date on Internet surveillance. In The Silicon Jungle, Baluja arguably gives Google credit for that.

 

The NSA reportedly collects a ‘goldmine’ of data from nearly 200 million texts daily

 

NSA harvests 200M of SMSes every day with untargeted, global "Dishfire" program.

-- Tom

 

Scorecard for Obama's NSA reforms.

EFF link: Scorecard: Will Obama Hit the Mark on Real NSA Reform?.

-- Tom

 

Exclusive: Obama to announce overhaul to controversial NSA program.

Obama's address to be carried on media live at 11AM EST today, 17 January 2014.

-- Tom

 

Eugene Kaspersky, on stage at DLD 2013, believes Edward Snowden is a traitor and belongs in the "the ninth circle of hell."

http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/eugene-kaspersky-edward-snowden-traitor-belongs-ninth-circle-hell-1432759

Very strong opinion for someone from Russia, I wonder if this is going to cost him customers

 

Kaspersky and Putin are best buds, so if I were Snowden, I'd be looking to come out of the cold somewheres else right now.

 

I don't know if it has been mentioned here before, but Jacob Applebaum's talk on 30c3(30th Chaos Communications Congress) is really interesting:
http://boingboing.net/2013/12/31/jacob-appelbaums-must-watch.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vILAlhwUgIU

 

Obama Just Announced NSA Reforms. Here's What Will Change—and What Won't

Phone metadata will no longer be housed at the NSA...but it will be held somewhere else.
More judicial approval required to search data.
A new independent "panel" to advocate for privacy in the FISA court.
Fewer "hops" allowed when searching.
Restrictions on spying on our allies.
How intelligence agencies like the FBI use National Security Letters will no longer be so
secretive.
The FBI still won't need to get a court order to issue subpoenas for information during
investigations.
Neither will FISA. Although Obama promised more oversight, the court retains much of its
power to compel third parties to disclose private information to the government.
From a software perspective, how the NSA collects data won't change.
Leadership of NSA and Cyber Command isn't changing.
The NSA is still going to bypass security encryptions on the Web.



http://www.nationaljournal.com/whit...re-s-what-will-change-and-what-won-t-20140117

 

This isn't at all surprising. His anti-privacy position is very well known.

 

Where do you get that from? I can't imagine Putin having a "best bud"

I'm with Gen. Gates on him: "stone-cold killer"

 

I might be overly pessimistic, but I thing that in the end, nothing regarding NSA will change...

 

Based on history, that's highly likely.

 

Eugene/Yevgeny will then be able to wave to Snowden from the upper "eighth circle of hell", the last stop for false prophets, evil advisors and hypocrites.

edit;

It's what I expect, wrap up the least interesting programs, perhaps hang it around someone's neck.
And start over again when the legal counsel has come up with another above-top-secret lingo-memo.
Keep in mind the NSA motto "The least untruthful answer" (Or no answer at all if it concerns members of Congress).

 

They served in several KGB positions together. I think they also went to some KGB schools together.

 

Obama fuels reform on some but not all NSA spying.

Questions and answers about Obama’s new NSA rules.

-- Tom

 

Congress Needs an Outside Expert to Understand the NSA.

Related: See message #1214 here in this thread.

-- Tom

 

What the President Didn't Say About Surveillance.

-- Tom

 

Obama's new NSA includes a watchdog to watch the watchers, cosmetic changes for the program itself and a 'trust me' stamp on all new computers and smartphones. LOL. Very Soviet like. The bobble head media will think it brilliant and Putin will be bent over laughing.

 

From what I got out of his speech was that he thinks the NSA needs to be more aggressive in preventing terror by filling some gaps..

At first I just listened with my jaw open thinking what a bunch Babel two tongue talking to try calm the public.
He mentioned how the Snowden revelations harmed foreign relations. Well duh, as they should have been doing it in the first place? Why not just blame someone else for breaking the law and wrecking relations with other countries and the American people. Wow is all we can say.
Oh and he said it is his job to uphold the constitution. At what point did we lose that? 9 1 1? No it stared long before that...

And what about the Georgia Ruinstones? What group do they belong to or was it just a big hoax trick by some eccentric old man?

 

Well, they do need to do that, I think. It's a big part of their job, these days. Their budget is (immense)^N, and they're drowning in data, with help from Google, Apache etc. But their methods for extracting key information, and synthesizing actionable intelligence from it, are apparently still too slow and ineffective. And yet they seem to be focusing on getting even more data, rather than learning how to make it useful. But maybe AIs an/or human-AI hybrids are also key goals for them.

Of course, all of that is (really)^N bad for privacy

The NSA has a private version, with its own lexiography

An eccentric old man, who had seen 2001 too many times, did it.

Either that or aliens. Nice aliens Not the bad space ones that stole my meds

Or maybe it was good machines back from 3781 to share some "Truth"

 

Eyewash to bamboozle the public. Nothing will change.