MS Handed NSA Access To Encrypted Chat & Email 379
kaptink writes with the latest revelation from Edward Snowden: "Microsoft helped the NSA to circumvent its encryption to address concerns that the agency would be unable to intercept web chats on the new Outlook.com portal. The agency already had pre-encryption stage access to email on Outlook.com, including Hotmail. The company worked with the FBI this year to allow the NSA easier access via Prism to its cloud storage service SkyDrive, which now has more than 250 million users worldwide. Microsoft also worked with the FBI's Data Intercept Unit to 'understand' potential issues with a feature in Outlook.com that allows users to create email aliases. Skype, which was bought by Microsoft in October 2011, worked with intelligence agencies last year to allow Prism to collect video of conversations as well as audio. Material collected through Prism is routinely shared with the FBI and CIA, with one NSA document describing the program as a 'team sport.'"
Public Service Announcement (Score:5, Informative)
http://cryptome.org/2012/07/gent-forum-spies.htm [cryptome.org]
Worth a look (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Burying the lede (Score:5, Informative)
Targeting US citizens does require an individual warrant, but the NSA is able to collect Americans' communications without a warrant if the target is a foreign national located overseas.
... only once the target has been confidently identified as an American, and if they're communicating with someone who has not been confidently identified as an American the communications are presumably still available. Snowden described "the widest possible aperture".
Re:Tired (Score:5, Informative)
The American Public: Snowden is not a traitor (Score:5, Informative)
Since slashdot refuses to accept my submission on this, or anything else relating to this guy, I'll just leave this here:
The American Public: Edward Snowden is not a traitor
A new poll released Wednesday by Qunnipiac University finds that the vast majority of Americans thing that Edward Snowden is a whistle-blower, not a traitor. A mere 34% think he is a traitor 45% percent think the government’s anti-terrorism efforts go too far restricting civil liberties, a reversal from a January 10, 2010, survey.
"The fact that there is little difference now along party lines about the overall anti- terrorism effort and civil liberties and about Snowden is in itself unusual in a country sharply divided along political lines about almost everything. Moreover, the verdict that Snowden is not a traitor goes against almost the unified view of the nation's political establishment." — Peter Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute.
http://www.quinnipiac.edu/institutes-and-centers/polling-institute/national/release-detail?ReleaseID=1919 [quinnipiac.edu]
Re:Let's look in the mirror (Score:4, Informative)
So yeah, Obama deserves blame as much as anybody. Let's be honest, it's not something Bush decided to do; the NSA came to him and said, "hey, this is a great idea." They would have done the same thing to Obama, and he would have approved it, too.
Evidence confirms NSA tapping fiberoptic cables (Score:5, Informative)
Since everyone like that one, here's another for you:
New evidence released by the Washington Post confirms that the NSA is tapping major fiberoptic cables as well as has direct access to the internal servers of Google, Apple, etc... despite their claim to the contrary. It seems that room 641A http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A [wikipedia.org] is not just a conspiracy theory after all...
http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/the-nsa-slide-you-havent-seen/2013/07/10/32801426-e8e6-11e2-aa9f-c03a72e2d342_story.html [washingtonpost.com]
No confidence vote? Wrong system (Score:4, Informative)
Have to? Negative. We could call a vote of no confidence in congress. We could DEMAND all government actions be made public record. However, this would require us to be as American as our founders...
Hate to be your missing middle school Social Studies/Civics teacher, but there is no such thing as a "no confidence vote" in a congressional-type system. You are calling for something that exists in parliamentary systems, such as the UK, Canada, Australia, where a no confidence vote can "bring down the government". At least in theory.
Not in the USA. Even if the US Congress, especially the gerrymandered-for-permanence House, were not so bought off that your vote for Party A's vs Party B's candidate had any real meaning, you only get to make that choice every 2 years for the House and 6 for any given Senate seat. There are no do-overs, no recalls, for the US Congress. In practice, no impeachments of Representatives or Senators. Sanctions (e.g. Charlie Rangel) that mean nothing.
BigPond/Telstra and NSA (Score:4, Informative)
Telstra is currently moving all their customers email hosting to Microsoft.
For our US "allies" - that's Australia's largest ISP.