Another reason for users and enterprises alike to avoid US companies and services. And another reason for entrepreneurs to start companies outside the US - escape the stigma, escape the potential clash with secret courts.
Yahoo scanned customer emails for US intelligence
241–250 of 417 posts
Re: Yahoo scanned customer emails for US intelligence
#242I think the attitude here that most tech companies are rolling over and just complying without a single ethical consideration is misplaced. The government has been doing an excellent job of basically extorting these companies into compliance. They threaten the full weight of the US government's wraith and then tie every order up with classifications and gag orders. You aren't legally allowed to talk to other companie…
If that were the case, then Apple would've caved in, too. Mayer was probably too new and too scared to deal with this, especially when she had to think about her new baby. My point is it has less to do with "Yahoo being scared about being destroyed by the US government" and more with Mayer's own personal fear of the US government, and easily caving to such threats, whether it was because of her baby, because of weak…
"What's the law you're abiding with that says you need to implement such a backdoor? Name it. Even the FBI named the law or laws it thought would help it force Apple to put a backdoor in its phones."
A court order to enable warrantless wiretapping per FISA provisions. That's what they were doing with others per the leaks. The Sentry Eagle leaks, highest classification they had, indicated the FBI "compelled" domestic firms to "SIGINT-enable" their stuff with FISA mentioned repeatedly. It didn't define the methods they used to compel companies.
So, they have some way of leaning on them with the Patriot and FISA Acts as legal support. It shouldn't surprise you given it's happening in an active, police state with apathetic citizens who haven't forced Congress to roll back the legislation. Media has been fairly complicit, too, as they're not pushing the angles that would stir people into action. They watered down the previous debates.
Until these legislations are killed, there's secret courts, secret consequences, and gag orders that all these companies are faced with. Unlikely anybody will help them if they violate the rules that serve the state. So, it's on the citizenry to modify those rules so there's accountability. They mostly don't care. So, compliance with the court orders is rational choice by a company with no rational alternatives unless it intends to shutdown and make everyone jobless. Which will likely just shift business to competitors that secretly cooperate with the State. Like with Lavabit.
Note: Apple got to be lucky exception since FBI publicized the case and tried to fight in court of public opinion on top of an actual court. Terrible thing is we still don't know if they backdoored stuff for them with that being a show. Especially that HSM. It's illegal to know in the U.S..
Re: Yahoo scanned customer emails for US intelligence
#243Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes. It's worth noting that the former CEO of now-defunct telco Qwest claims that he spent 4 years in prison because he refused to comply with illegal NSA demands. [0] [0] https://www.popularresistance.org/former-qwest-ceo-says-refu...
If only he had taken the high road and not dumped millions of dollars in stock shortly before it tanked, we wouldn't have to wonder about why he's in prison.
Yeah, that's what I said. It seems so many of these leakers or government examples would almost perfectly illustrate the point of activists if they just didn't do something incredibly illegal, naive, or debatable on top of the solid contributions. Then, we have to wonder why whatever happened to them really happened. Would the connection still be there if they just did the one or two good things? Can't prove it to skeptics.
I always encourage those in the future resisting police states to make sure whatever they do is beyond doubt A Good Thing. Even Constitutionalists on pro-surveillance side should pause to reconsider their views. They won't if they think person got canned for being a traitor or running financial schemes. (sighs)
Re: Yahoo scanned customer emails for US intelligence
#244I think the attitude here that most tech companies are rolling over and just complying without a single ethical consideration is misplaced. The government has been doing an excellent job of basically extorting these companies into compliance. They threaten the full weight of the US government's wraith and then tie every order up with classifications and gag orders. You aren't legally allowed to talk to other companie…
> I'm not giving these companies a complete pass for being complicit in the erosion of individual's civil liberties but treating this as if the decision is easy is vastly unfair. Actually you are giving them a pass because your comment contains nothing but apologetics for these companies. Whether their decision to spy on their customers and invade their privacy was easy is irrelevant and all of your apologetics are w…
I'm not saying they made the right decision. I'm saying that people treating this as if it were an easy place to be are likely over simplifying the situation.
Re: Yahoo scanned customer emails for US intelligence
#245Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I'm not giving these companies a complete pass for being complicit in the erosion of individual's civil liberties but treating this as if the decision is easy is vastly unfair. Actually you are giving them a pass because your comment contains nothing but apologetics for these companies. Whether their decision to spy on their customers and invade their privacy was easy is irrelevant and all of your apologetics are w…
I'm not saying they made the right decision. I'm saying that people treating this as if it were an easy place to be are likely over simplifying the situation.
> I'm not saying they made the right decision.
You're also not saying they made the wrong decision.
> I'm saying that people treating this as if it were an easy place to be are likely over simplifying the situation.
Nobody is treating it as if it were an easy place to be because nobody gives a shit. It's irrelevant to whether what they did was right or wrong.
Re: Yahoo scanned customer emails for US intelligence
#246Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, we had proof back when Snowden released documents about the search engine that NSA has from data siphoned from providers. I'm not being cynical, I'm being realistic in that this isn't newsworthy now because it was extremely newsworthy when it first came to light a few years ago. I would rather this be newsworthy because it gets people interested in fighting FISC orders again, not against Yahoo and Mayer.
What Snowden revelation are you talking about? I remember when everyone was up in arms about PRISM, but that's just a pretty interface on more focused requests of data for specific users. This is the first instance, to my knowledge, of the government requesting carte blanche realtime search of all incoming and outgoing email for all users.
No 2 and No 8 on this cover Yahoo directly:
http://mashable.com/2014/06/05/edward-snowden-revelations/
That's them searching for what they want plus seeing everything without notification. There was also a $250,000 a day fine for non-compliance with court orders. That adds up. I can't find the link but they made it grow exponentially over time in another report.
Re: Yahoo scanned customer emails for US intelligence
#247Earlier quoted context omitted.
If only he had taken the high road and not dumped millions of dollars in stock shortly before it tanked, we wouldn't have to wonder about why he's in prison.
Yeah, that's what I said. It seems so many of these leakers or government examples would almost perfectly illustrate the point of activists if they just didn't do something incredibly illegal, naive, or debatable on top of the solid contributions. Then, we have to wonder why whatever happened to them really happened. Would the connection still be there if they just did the one or two good things? Can't prove it to sk…
> I always encourage those in the future resisting police states to make sure whatever they do is beyond doubt A Good Thing
But A Good Thing would easily be destroyed by simply fabricating a case against the enemy, wouldn't it? Like rape, child porn, the usual.
Re: Yahoo scanned customer emails for US intelligence
#248Earlier quoted context omitted.
The thing you quoted doesn't assign blame. It simple says you can't trust that corporations will/can protect your privacy.
It's referring to cause of the symptom. Paraphrased differently: If the government can hold a gun to any organization or individuals' head for information, then the privacy distrust doesn't stop with just corporations.
True, the government can compel me to turn over all my data, but if I'm managing it myself, I'll know this has happened[0].
Additionally, if I'm managing the data myself, they'll only get access because they thought I was a worthwhile target. If I'm using Yahoo!, I get caught in a dragnet. In general, the larger the service, the better a position they are to fight these orders, but also the more likely the government is to bother dragneting it.
I'm not worth my own NSL, but this one's a freebie: the marginal effort the government has to put into spying on my Yahoo! account is zero, because they've already got access.
[0] Well, I might know. They can also do it surreptitiously unless I'm very competent and very diligent, but if I receive an NSL, I'll know.
Re: Yahoo scanned customer emails for US intelligence
#249Earlier quoted context omitted.
Google is definitely in cahoots with the government and probably way deeper than Yahoo. Why would you even assume otherwise, given how much ties to the government they expose to the public these days?
Google denied they have a similar program: For its part, Google was the most unequivocal. Spokesman Aaron Stein e-mailed: "We've never received such a request, but if we did, our response would be simple: 'no way.'"[0] I wonder if Google could even run a program like this while keeping it secret. Yahoo had their program discovered within weeks, and public within a year. Stamos could easily have immediately gone publi…
Well, you know, it would be insane for any company to admit something like this.
Re: Yahoo scanned customer emails for US intelligence
#250This reminds me of what happened to my grandfather in the early 30's. He was employed by a small glassworks in PA, a factory town that owned his home, the town store, post office everything. They opened his mail and fired him for trying to start a union. Three kids under five and a wife thrown out on the street. Seems like the Oligarchs are still reading the spues mail all of these years later.