Inside PRISM: Why the Government Hates Encryption 457
Lauren Weinstein writes "Now, what's really going on with PRISM? The government admits that the program exists, but says it is being 'mischaracterized' in significant ways (always a risk with secret projects sucking up information about your citizens' personal lives). The Internet firms named in the leaked documents are denying that they have provided 'back doors' to the government for data access. Who is telling the truth? Likely both. Based on previous information and the new leaks, we can make some pretty logical guesses about the actual shape of all this. Here's my take."
Utter BS, trust no-one, including you. (Score:0, Interesting)
Utter BS, trust no-one, including you.
back door? (Score:4, Interesting)
Freedom is Free (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Morons (Score:5, Interesting)
The terrorists are NOT especially smart. Sometimes they get lucky. Witness these two bozos in Boston, or the underwear bomber who about set his nads on fire, or the shoe bomber who failed to execute, or the butt bomber in the middle east who (ahem) blew his own ass up. The jerks who tried to bomb a terminal in Glasgow caught themselves on fire, and one of the people who caught them in the act kicked one of them so hard he tore a tendon in his own foot. Several of the otherwise successful bombers (Spain, London) got caught because they screwed up security with cell phones in traceable ways.
I also know a few people who may or may not have at one time worked for the NSA, and they're all smart, and one of them was kinda intense. Don't assume that you're smarter than them; the risks, if you're wrong, are high.
Re:Morons (Score:5, Interesting)
This looks like as good of place as any to post this link to a really interesting post on Reddit. I normally don't link stuff, this one was kind of bone chilling and relevant.
For your reading pleasure: http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/1fv4r6/i_believe_the_government_should_be_allowed_to/caeb3pl?context=3 [reddit.com]
Things that make me go "Hmmm...."
P.S. it's the highlighted post.
Re:Morons (Score:2, Interesting)
Your comment takes the point completely out of context. If you have a better chance of dieing from a bee sting than a terrorist (which is factually very accurate) do you need to live in a cell to ensure no bees come in? Do we burn people's property "just in case they have a bee"? Do we shoot missiles into other countries to eradicate their bees? and of course call their bee keepers "bees" to justify taking out a bit more than just a bee?
I doubt many people would choose living in a cell over watching out for bees, and perhaps having a bee keeper they could call if one gets in the house. Most people would want us to worry about our own bees, and stop bothering other people and their bees.
We are told we need to fear the Taliban and Al-Qaeda, and need to go overseas to kill them. I guess their Navy is so powerful they could rush to US soil and drop off a bunch of suicide bombers? We are told we need to fear Iran and Syria. Funny how they have been off-again on-again allies for like.. a long time and never once tried to invade US Soil. We were also told that we had to fear Iraq and their massive amount of no WMDs. We confirmed through falsified documents that they had some, and more falsified documents that they were trying to buy yellow cake.
Two quotes come quickly to mind reading your comments. "Those that are willing to give up privacy to ensure security deserve neither." followed by "Those who fail to learn history are doomed to repeat it.".
The front door (Score:4, Interesting)
So far Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, FB et al had been identified by the Prism disclosure
They are indentified because they are in the big data business
However, I'll bet that there's yet another US company which may be deeply involved - CISCO
I get this thought only on hindsight - the way the US government reacted so negatively on Huawei gears really makes me wonder if there's another hidden story somewhere
Maybe, and I stress, just _maybe_ Huawei's hardware does not come with the backdoor which NSA/FBI (or any other alphabetic agency) can tap on to spy on us, and that fact alone infuriate them so much
Or ... to put it another way ... the so-called "safe hardware", the ones made by CISCO, may come with backdoors which NSA can drive a semi through
The more I think of this scenario, the more it makes sense --- Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, FB can deny their participation on the Prism scheme because, technically, they are *NOT*
It's the CISCO gears that they use in the datacenter which accomplish the task
Other people's back door maybe? (Score:4, Interesting)
Maybe, and I stress, just _maybe_ Huawei's hardware does come with a backdoor which Chinese intelligence services can tap on to spy on us?
Now in my private life, a backdoor for Chinese intelligence services might bother me less than a backdoor for the NSA. Because if I happen to do something that my (German) government does not like, there is the risk that the NSA shares data with them. But I don't think that the Chinese and German government are that good buddies ;-)
For a company that has valuable corporate data, industry espionage is a risk either way, but probably worse with a Chinese backdoor.
Re:Morons (Score:5, Interesting)
That was an excellent post. For anyone who can't or doesn't want to visit Reddit, I am reproducing 161719's post dated 2013-06-07 below:
I live in a country generally assumed to be a dictatorship. One of the Arab spring countries. I have lived through curfews and have seen the outcomes of the sort of surveillance now being revealed in the US. People here talking about curfews aren't realizing what that actually FEELS like. It isn't about having to go inside, and the practicality of that. It's about creating the feeling that everyone, everything is watching. A few points:
1) the purpose of this surveillance from the governments point of view is to control enemies of the state. Not terrorists. People who are coalescing around ideas that would destabilize the status quo. These could be religious ideas. These could be groups like anon who are too good with tech for the governments liking. It makes it very easy to know who these people are. It also makes it very simple to control these people.
Lets say you are a college student and you get in with some people who want to stop farming practices that hurt animals. So you make a plan and go to protest these practices. You get there, and wow, the protest is huge. You never expected this, you were just goofing off. Well now everyone who was there is suspect. Even though you technically had the right to protest, you're now considered a dangerous person.
With this tech in place, the government doesn't have to put you in jail. They can do something more sinister. They can just email you a sexy picture you took with a girlfriend. Or they can email you a note saying that they can prove your dad is cheating on his taxes. Or they can threaten to get your dad fired. All you have to do, the email says, is help them catch your friends in the group. You have to report back every week, or you dad might lose his job. So you do. You turn in your friends and even though they try to keep meetings off grid, you're reporting on them to protect your dad.
2) Let's say number one goes on. The country is a weird place now. Really weird. Pretty soon, a movement springs up like occupy, except its bigger this time. People are really serious, and they are saying they want a government without this power. I guess people are realizing that it is a serious deal. You see on the news that tear gas was fired. Your friend calls you, frantic. They're shooting people. Oh my god. you never signed up for this. You say, fuck it. My dad might lose his job but I won't be responsible for anyone dying. That's going too far. You refuse to report anymore. You just stop going to meetings. You stay at home, and try not to watch the news. Three days later, police come to your door and arrest you. They confiscate your computer and phones, and they beat you up a bit. No one can help you so they all just sit quietly. They know if they say anything they're next. This happened in the country I live in. It is not a joke.
3) Its hard to say how long you were in there. What you saw was horrible. Most of the time, you only heard screams. People begging to be killed. Noises you've never heard before. You, you were lucky. You got kicked every day when they threw your moldy food at you, but no one shocked you. No one used sexual violence on you, at least that you remember. There were some times they gave you pills, and you can't say for sure what happened then. To be honest, sometimes the pills were the best part of your day, because at least then you didn't feel anything. You have scars on you from the way you were treated. You learn in prison that torture is now common. But everyone who uploads videos or pictures of this torture is labeled a leaker. Its considered a threat to national security. Pretty soon, a cut you got on your leg is looking really bad. You think it's infected. There were no doctors in prison, and it was so overcrowded, who knows what got in the cut. You go to the doctor, but he refuses to see you. He knows if he does the government can see the record
Re:Definitions. (Score:4, Interesting)
I would hope so. That's why I didn't specify a religion.
Religion will always keep people poor and ignorant. If you look at the US states that have the lowest incomes, highest poverty and lowest literacy, they are, 10 for 10, the most religious.
If you look at the states that have the highest education, the lowest divorce rates and lowest poverty, they are 4 of 5 the least religious.
FISA == law unto themselves (Score:4, Interesting)
the opaque nature of FISA courts means that they're the black hand of government.
The FISA court members have lifetime appointments, and cannot be touched by the executive branch, or congress. They are effectively a law unto themselves, since their dirty laundry never gets aired by the supreme court. Oh course they're going to take the conservative approach and allow wide-spread surveillance. They can't get in trouble for doing so, but if they don't, then maybe something bad really will happen.