Yahoo Issues Its First Transparency Report 77
Yahoo has joined the ranks of large online businesses like Google and Facebook who have made it a practice to disclose the number and kind (if not all the details) of requests they've received from government agencies for user data. Its first report (you can read it here) lists "12,444 requests from U.S. authorities relating to a total of 40,322 user accounts."
Those numbers are only part of the story, though: at the bottom of the linked report, note this disclaimer from Yahoo: "The numbers reported above include all types of government data requests such as criminal law enforcement requests and those under U.S. national security authorities, including the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) and National Security Letters (NSLs), if any were received. The U.S. Government does not permit us to disclose additional details regarding the number of requests, if any, under national security authorities at this time, or even to separate them in aggregate from other requests. Additionally, the government would not authorize us to separate NSLs from other government data requests or to express the NSLs that we have received, if any, as a range from 0 to 1,000—even though the government allowed other providers to do so in the past."
Heh. (Score:5, Funny)
I'm slightly amused the Yahoo icon on this story has a transparent background.
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I'm slightly amused the Yahoo icon on this story has a transparent background.
For all the good this transparency does to restore our confidence. The Snowden leaks/NSA documents clearly show that the NSA directly taps into the backend systems without any need to reque4st anything from these companies - Google, Yahoo, Facebook etc. The only time these companies receive extra requests like the ones being reported above is when the NSA want's to do more proactive monitoring or targeted individuals that requires hooking into the front end (monitoring search as you type etc). PR departm
Re:Heh. (Score:4, Funny)
I'm slightly amused the Yahoo icon on this story has a transparent background.
Yeah, the icon design finally got out of alpha.
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It's the old logo. The new one won't be quite so transparent.
Outraged, how dare the government violate me. (Score:4, Insightful)
We should be pissed about this. It reveals our fears about government overreach. They should not be digging into our private affairs regardless of where the data is stored. It is a human right to free from persecution over thoughts, feelings, beliefs, and intentions. Until a crime has been committed there should be no investigation and no violation of my space.
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This was Yahoo not Myspace! :-P
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Looking at the numbers, it is fair to assume that these requests could all relate to crimes. 12 400 requests in 0.5 years translates to about 8 requests per year per 100 000 population. (The homicide rate in the US is about 5 per year per 100 000 population, and that's not the only crime that might warrant acessing a suspect's email.)
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I don't feel particularly paranoid, but I find it relatively difficult to feel much in the way of trust. Also, getting first ever transparency shortly after seeing lots of news highlighting the reason to believe there's a large possibility of transparency theater feels like the decision making of a committee in a PR departme
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Also, is there any particular reason to believe that they are telling the truth? Or that the person who put the report together would even KNOW the truth?
That said, yes, this feels like some kind of PR play. Just what kind I'm not sure.
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I'm old enough to remember the days when we didn't have email, there were still crimes committed and the perpetrators were still found and aprehended. If they could manage to fight crime 40 years ago without tapping into email accounts, I'm sure they can manage it today.
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Sure, 8 requests per year per 100,000 out of a population of 310 million. Of course, this only actually works if the entire population uses Yahoo!
Re:Outraged, how dare the government violate me. (Score:5, Insightful)
> Until a crime has been committed there should be no investigation and no violation of my space.
You've hit the nail on the head. In the US, we used to have a principle: "innocent until proven guilty."
The problem is, the more that the citizenry of the US come to believe in an all-powerful nanny state (forgive me for using the pejorative term, I haven't finished my coffee and can't think of a milder one), the more likely they are to scream, "why didn't the government *PREVENT* this from happening" ... whenever something bad occurs.
(Corollary: the people also yell, "why didn't the government *FIX* this faster when it DID happen," but that's arguably off-topic.)
The sad truth is that no politician, Dem or Repub, wants to be seen as having done nothing to prevent another 9/11. They know that their opponents will make hay about it. So, we get to live in a surveillance state.
idiots. (Score:1)
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don't slam yahoo here, they are telling the truth as much as the spooks will allow -- and besides, where would yahoo get the cash to fund a long, expensive, landmark court battle against the infinite funds of the three letters and the government?
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I'm sorry, but this doesn't feel like Yahoo telling as much truth as they are allowed. This feels like some kind of game. I'm just not sure WHAT kind of game. It could be that they want the government off their backs, it could be that they want to suppor the Republicans, it could be something else...and something else has a wide range of options.
But it doesn't feel like straight reporting.
Gag orders are a clear violation (Score:1)
Too bad the people with the resources to fight it are so cowardly and greedy.
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Too bad the people with the resources to fight it are so cowardly and greedy.
Yeah, and not only are they cowardly and greedy, the voters expect individual companies to risk jailtime fighting for the rights of the voters on their behalf so that they can continue living in a stupor.
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Although large companies could and should pick up the fight, not only for morality but also because snooping for a third party is supposedly not their core business (...), the real power is with the sheeple that allow these laws in the first place.
So pardon me but I don't feel in the slightest sorry for Americans on the receiving end of this abuse.
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ie sneak and peek using the cover of you expecting a person on that day. If questioned they are a sub contractor, lost, new, a computer error....
In the distant past you might have some insight via very poor telephone line quality or faint extra sounds on the line.
Most would be very passive - internet logs, phonecalls, your life is tracked.
If you are politically active, the press or in contact with a person thats got something
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Never forget... (Score:5, Informative)
July 1776
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More to the point, I do like the quote tho..
Yahoo is a defunct site anymore, the EFF gave it "Trust Ratings" and Yahoo topped the list. But because they've dropped down in the internet world, the NSA and others can get what they want from Gaagle (Google), Asshole (Apple), Microshit (its got Micro in it) , ect....... Yahoo, at this point is of little interest to the NSA, except they do still have users that haven't registered to Google, MS's, network,s bla bla, you get the point..
If Yahoo had/has the popularity of the other companies, they would be right there in NOT PROTECTING YOUR PRIVACY, as the rest caught in bed with the NSA...
I probably shouldn't respond but... I don't get your point. You seem to be saying that Yahoo! is respecting user privacy by publishing this information, while other companies are not. But in publishing this report Yahoo is just doing what those other companies have already done. Google, in particular, was the one that started this transparency report trend, and was the company that spent a great deal of time and effort lobbying for permission to public NSL information, and in greater detail than Yahoo! has
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RIght now all the internet companies are pissed off at the NSA because they have hurt online trust. They dont give a shit about privacy
You won't believe me, but I can tell you that's not true of Google (where I work). I doubt it's true of the others, either. Internet companies are composed of people, and most of those people do care about user privacy. Google in particular takes it very seriously, and not only because it's important for the business.
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Has nothing to do with you and everything to do with the fact that you can be compelled to act and cant tell anyone about it. Its not 'you' we lack trust in, but the fact remains you can be turned at any second and there is nothing anyone can do to stop it.
That's a separate issue from caring about user privacy.
And, actually, there is something that can be done to stop it: we need to fix our damned government. There are and always will be situations in which it makes sense to allow government to compel private organizations to hand over data in response to warrants, subpoenas, etc., but those should all occur under appropriate supervision to combat abuses. We need to shut down this business of warrantless surveillance, unappealable secret warrants issued in
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The problem is either we can have private comms or not. Right now the US government is saying that private communication is flat out illegal.
That's an overstatement. Right now, you can PGP or S/MIME-encrypt all of your e-mail and they can't, and won't, do anything about it. There are a thousand ways you can have private communications, if you care to.
If you have a service that is hardened against snooping they will force you to open it to them.
What are you basing that claim on? We have reports that the NSA has been sneaking back doors into things, but clandestine operations being done without the support (or opposition) of law isn't the same as legal compulsion. If you're talking about Lavabits, that's also a bad example: Lavabits, as bes
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Internet companies are composed of people, and most of those people do care about user privacy. Google in particular takes it very seriously, and not only because it's important for the business.
Not intended as a personal criticism, but you seem to have some cognitive dissonance there. Google's whole business model is based on invading the privacy of users; saying Google takes users' privacy seriously sounds to me similar to a pimp being concerned about the chastity of his girls.
Nonsense. Google doesn't invade its' users' privacy. Google offers users an open trade: services in exchange for the ability to deliver advertising to you. Google provides a dashboard where you can see exactly what Google has or has not collected about you, and even provides tools you can use to opt out of personalized tracking and advertising, and to get your data out of Google's tools.
Also, if you decide that the trade is good for you, Google takes extreme care to ensure that information about you is
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D0t dOt Dot doT DoT
dasH daSh dAsh Dash d0T DoT dASh DaSh dAsH dhot doht doth d0th dot
Not believing it (Score:2, Insightful)
With secret orders approved by secret courts under secret laws that Yahoo cannot disclose anything about, these reported numbers mean nothing.
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How was it again, what they said?
If you are not doing anything wrong, you don't have to hide it and don't have to worry?
It's a nice case of "look who's talking".
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Well if they weren't allowed to specify it as a number between 0 and 1000 I think it's safe to assume that it's over 1000.
Re:Is it just me that doesn't care? (Score:5, Insightful)
They don't until there is another wacky bomber manhunt that happens to cross your path. Now you may only have wanted to fix your own plumbing but those pipes you googled look suspiciously like the ones used in the unexploded pipe bomb they found. Before you know it the scene at your apartment building resembles the climax of the Professional.
Oh and by the way, not being interesting isn't something to be proud of.
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Large? (Score:2, Informative)
Yahoo has joined the ranks of large online businesses. . .
Yahoo aren't big? They just spent a $billion on Tumblr. I can think of several large companies near me, but the nearest $billion+ company headquarters is 1500 miles from me. I know that Yahoo isn't the size of Google, but by whose measure are they not large? Should that have read "OTHER large online businesses?"
So it's more than 1000 (Score:1)
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I'm shocked that Yahoo even has 40,322 users.
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Why not publish all the numbers? (Score:1)
It's just metadata.
In fact tell us who requested data and which users data was requested. It's just metadata. As long as we don't know what the actual user data is then there can't be any harm in it. What's good for the goose is good for the gander.
I wear my politics on my sleeve (Score:2)