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Yahoo scanned customer emails for US intelligence

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Re: Yahoo scanned customer emails for US intelligence

#131

Post by ptero »

lmm wrote: post #119
yladiz wrote: post #113

While it is damning that Mayer didn't go to Stamos about this and went straight to the email team, it's hard to say whether she felt it was necessary to tell him, or was even allowed to, since we don't see the court orders and what they entail. It's really easy to be against this and play armchair preacher but this is something she probably had no choice in, in many ways. Also, I'm wondering if this story is bigger b…

> It's not really newsworthy that data from an email provider is sent to NSA under secret court orders and NSA can search the full text of it. It absolutely is newsworthy. We may have suspected it beforehand, we may suspect it happens at other providers, but we have specific proof about Yahoo now. This is new and important and we should be making a fuss. If we play the jaded cynic we are joining the enemies of democr…

Privacy expectations and acceptance of government surveillance changed a lot in less than 20 years.

When info about FBI Carnivore system was leaked (or announced, cannot recall), there was a public outcry that made FBI shut it down (according to Wikipedia they soon replaced it with a similar system under a different name). Learning about massive government data collections of today? Resigned acceptance :(

Re: Yahoo scanned customer emails for US intelligence

#133

Post by jamisteven »

lmm wrote: post #119
yladiz wrote: post #113

While it is damning that Mayer didn't go to Stamos about this and went straight to the email team, it's hard to say whether she felt it was necessary to tell him, or was even allowed to, since we don't see the court orders and what they entail. It's really easy to be against this and play armchair preacher but this is something she probably had no choice in, in many ways. Also, I'm wondering if this story is bigger b…

> It's not really newsworthy that data from an email provider is sent to NSA under secret court orders and NSA can search the full text of it. It absolutely is newsworthy. We may have suspected it beforehand, we may suspect it happens at other providers, but we have specific proof about Yahoo now. This is new and important and we should be making a fuss. If we play the jaded cynic we are joining the enemies of democr…

Have you been living under a rock for the past 5 years? Snowden revealed all of this ions ago now and provided plenty of proof.

Re: Yahoo scanned customer emails for US intelligence

#134

Post by guelo »

yladiz wrote: post #113

While it is damning that Mayer didn't go to Stamos about this and went straight to the email team, it's hard to say whether she felt it was necessary to tell him, or was even allowed to, since we don't see the court orders and what they entail. It's really easy to be against this and play armchair preacher but this is something she probably had no choice in, in many ways. Also, I'm wondering if this story is bigger b…

Mayer had many choices on how to act. This is extremely newsworthy, no matter what you are "certain" about, because it has never been reported before that the government had been given realtime scanning access to a major provider. Stop trying to turn this into a stupid tabloid story about who likes or doesn't like the CEO.

Re: Yahoo scanned customer emails for US intelligence

#135

Post by matt4077 »

kefka wrote: post #53
peterkelly wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've upvoted you, despite disagreeing with you, because I believe it's worth us all discussing the reasoning behind our opinions. What you've just said is the email equivalent to "she deserved to be raped, because she was dressed like a slut". Yes, we should take precautions to protect ourselves. But that in no way justifies the privacy intrusions that happened here.

I don't quite follow that analogy. My underlying thoughts are as follows. Yahoo is the target in this story, so I'll use Yahoo as the placeholder for any company that deals with user data in that capacity. When you send an email, it shows up at a destination. You send it from your mail provider, "magic happens", and it shows up at the destination. By definition, the text that you send it what is received. By sending…

The "paying-with-my-data-I-am-the-product" cliche doesn't really work here because Yahoo didn't do this for money. You are also not giving up "some form of copyright" beyond the narrow definition of the license yahoo may require to show it to someone else. Otherwise there'd probably be a few bestsellers owned by google et al. – I'm sure quite a few Harry Potter manuscripts went through their network.

There's a certain expectation of the relationship between a service like yahoo's and the customer. Those expectations go beyond what may be the bare minimum that is legally required. Considering that there is healthy competition even in the free tier of email services, consumers are not powerless in the "negotiation" that defines this relationship.

The bare minimum of any such relationship must be a truthful and specific description of any access the provider has to my data. Indeed that is a legal requirement in many jurisdictions.

But how can I trust them? It depends on the organization. I'm 100% certain that Apple doesn't sell the content of my e-mails because it'd be stupid... They'd be risking a triple-digit-revenue business on what could amount to a few million/year tops. Their and my interest are aligned.

Regarding the analogy you weren't following: placing yourself in a position of vulnerability is simply never an excuse for anybody, either legally or morally, to exploit that vulnerability. If I accidentally leave my bike unlocked doesn't change the thieve's legal or moral standing at all.

Re: Yahoo scanned customer emails for US intelligence

#136

Post by EdHominem »

tptacek wrote: post #58
idlewords wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The most damning part of this story is that Mayer decided to comply without telling her chief security officer. That really does make it look like Yahoo rolled over without a fight.

Knowing Stamos' background, it's possible that she was specifically required not to tell him.

Had Mayer specifically told him, he'd have been compelled to remain silent as she was...

I wonder if she knew the security team would find it if they weren't consulted, making not telling them the legal way to tell them.

Re: Yahoo scanned customer emails for US intelligence

#137

Post by webkike »

guelo wrote: post #134
yladiz wrote: post #113

While it is damning that Mayer didn't go to Stamos about this and went straight to the email team, it's hard to say whether she felt it was necessary to tell him, or was even allowed to, since we don't see the court orders and what they entail. It's really easy to be against this and play armchair preacher but this is something she probably had no choice in, in many ways. Also, I'm wondering if this story is bigger b…

Mayer had many choices on how to act. This is extremely newsworthy, no matter what you are "certain" about, because it has never been reported before that the government had been given realtime scanning access to a major provider. Stop trying to turn this into a stupid tabloid story about who likes or doesn't like the CEO.

I don't think you understand the nature of natural security letters. We don't know how Mayer was allowed to ask because we cannot see the letter, such is their nature

Re: Yahoo scanned customer emails for US intelligence

#138

Post by rdl »

rdl wrote: post #49
rdl wrote: post #22

I was honestly a bit unhappy when Stamos left Yahoo in the middle of a bunch of (what seemed like) cool projects for users -- seemed like he was just jumping ship from an objectively pretty crappy company to a continuing-to-accelerate rocketship, presumably for career reasons. However, if it went down like this -- he did probably the least destructive thing possible. I probably would have gone public or done somethin…

The person I'd question the most, after Marissa, is Yahoo!'s general counsel Ron S. Bell ( https://www.linkedin.com/in/ronsbell ).

CA hasn't adopted the ABA Model Rules. However:

http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/displaycode?section=bpc&gr...

http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/displaycode?section=bpc&gr...

"It is the duty of an attorney to do all of the following: ... To employ, for the purpose of maintaining the causes confided to him or her those means only as are consistent with truth ..."

"Every attorney is guilty of a misdemeanor who either: (a) Is guilty of any deceit or collusion, or consents to any deceit or collusion, with intent to deceive the court or any party."

Re: Yahoo scanned customer emails for US intelligence

#139

Post by mirimir »

mason240 wrote: post #82
Esau wrote: post #45

The lesson from this is to not trust corporations with out privacy. Sadly, it seems many of us are not learning it.

Yes, it's totally the fault of tech companies that the US Federal government forces them to give up access to any information they want, and a non-profit email org would immune US intelligence agencies. /s

Well, Sigaint is rather immune to this, no? The US government arguably doesn't know where its servers are located, or who operates them.

Re: Yahoo scanned customer emails for US intelligence

#140

Post by jamisteven »

cJ0th wrote: post #117

Anyone remembers this? > Barack Obama: NSA is not rifling through ordinary people's emails. US president is confident intelligence services have 'struck appropriate balance', he tells journalists in Berlin edit: link fixed https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jun/19/barack-obama-n...

^This.
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