N.S.A Halts Collection of Americans’ Emails About Foreign Targets • Hacker News Board

Re: N.S.A Halts Collection of Americans’ Emails About Foreign Targets

#11

Post by TallGuyShort » Fri, Apr 28, 2017, 6:40 PM UTC

Baeocystin wrote: post #3

Things that I do not for one second believe: this. Maybe this one particular program, under one particular name, sure. But overall? I just don't see it. I am not saying this cynically, I just don't. Data collection is too easy, database queries too simple.

Does feel a bit like Abbot at the end of the first Bourne movie: "The Treadstone project has actually already been terminated. It was designed primarily as a sort of advanced game program. We'd hoped it might build into a good training platform, but quite honestly, for a strictly theoretical exercise, we thought it was far too expensive. The cost-benefit ratio was just too high. It's been all but decommissioned at this point."

Yeah, over as far as some bureaucracy is confirmed, but totally another 4 or more sequels coming.

Re: N.S.A Halts Collection of Americans’ Emails About Foreign Targets

#12

Post by pc2g4d » Fri, Apr 28, 2017, 6:44 PM UTC

They're trying to get a PR win out of that fact that---for now---they're not continuing the program. Later, when they've refined their technical infrastructure in a way that makes it easy to comply with whatever new requirements the FISA judge(s) came up with, they'll resume the program but not tell a soul.

That's how I'm interpreting this, anyway. I hope I'm wrong.

Re: N.S.A Halts Collection of Americans’ Emails About Foreign Targets

#13

Post by choward » Fri, Apr 28, 2017, 6:56 PM UTC

Baeocystin wrote: post #3

Things that I do not for one second believe: this. Maybe this one particular program, under one particular name, sure. But overall? I just don't see it. I am not saying this cynically, I just don't. Data collection is too easy, database queries too simple.

Exactly, you can't just blindly trust things people say without evidence. There is no way to prove the NSA doesn't do something, therefore I always assume the worst.

Re: N.S.A Halts Collection of Americans’ Emails About Foreign Targets

#14

Post by Jerry2 » Fri, Apr 28, 2017, 6:58 PM UTC

If they don't collect it under this program, they'll collect it under some other program. Or they'll just let one of the FIVE EYES partners spy on Americans. That's how they operate.

Re: N.S.A Halts Collection of Americans’ Emails About Foreign Targets

#15

Post by rhizome » Fri, Apr 28, 2017, 6:58 PM UTC

5ilv3r wrote: post #8

Baeocystin wrote: post #3

Things that I do not for one second believe: this. Maybe this one particular program, under one particular name, sure. But overall? I just don't see it. I am not saying this cynically, I just don't. Data collection is too easy, database queries too simple.

And they already have all the infrastructure in place.

Yeah, but Mike Rogers has been reading Marie Kondo.

Re: N.S.A Halts Collection of Americans’ Emails About Foreign Targets

#16

Post by alistproducer2 » Fri, Apr 28, 2017, 7:01 PM UTC

Baeocystin wrote: post #3

Things that I do not for one second believe: this. Maybe this one particular program, under one particular name, sure. But overall? I just don't see it. I am not saying this cynically, I just don't. Data collection is too easy, database queries too simple.

You took the words right out of my head. The propaganda coming out of mainstream media (on all sides) is not even close to believable anymore. Nothing is true and everything is possible.

Re: N.S.A Halts Collection of Americans’ Emails About Foreign Targets

#17

Post by jancsika » Fri, Apr 28, 2017, 7:02 PM UTC

We can't sensibly discuss this story here unless we know which definition of "collect" is being used in the story.

Normal definition: collect. For example: "Even collected all the data going to and from Bob's house by putting a splitter on the cable."

NSA's definition: not that, as cited in various stories sourced by the Snowden leaks from the Guardian.

I won't attempt to define exactly how the NSA defines "collect" because I don't have time to track down and read the relevant article. But the upshot is-- their definition is idiosyncratic and misleading for a piece that has a general audience like this one.

Re: N.S.A Halts Collection of Americans’ Emails About Foreign Targets

#18

Post by badosu » Fri, Apr 28, 2017, 7:02 PM UTC

jey wrote: post #4

> The problem stemmed from certain bundled messages that internet companies sometimes packaged together and transmitted as a unit. Wat?

If you intercept traffic from gmail as a whole you would get messages from US citizens, not only from foreign people, not counting replies, fws, etc. That's my take from this excuse.

Re: N.S.A Halts Collection of Americans’ Emails About Foreign Targets

#19

Post by sandworm101 » Fri, Apr 28, 2017, 7:02 PM UTC

Imho this has nothing to do with privacy or law. This is an operational decision. The bad guys aren't using email these days. I don't agree with much of the "going dark" narrative, but it is clear that bad guys are using IM services and other not-email means of communicating. So to hear NSA talk about not collecting email is like them saying they are going to stop monitoring library records: It sounds like a win for privacy but only on paper and we know that they will simply redeploy resources to the interception of other communication.

Re: N.S.A Halts Collection of Americans’ Emails About Foreign Targets

#20

Post by cma » Fri, Apr 28, 2017, 7:06 PM UTC

pc2g4d wrote: post #12

They're trying to get a PR win out of that fact that---for now---they're not continuing the program. Later, when they've refined their technical infrastructure in a way that makes it easy to comply with whatever new requirements the FISA judge(s) came up with, they'll resume the program but not tell a soul. That's how I'm interpreting this, anyway. I hope I'm wrong.

And it may have been the only way to satisfy the court anyway, they had previously assured the court surrounding communications to these wouldn't be searched, and then they were searching them too (so even if you didn't mention a targeted email, if your email was in an internal email provider bundle (like a backup across data centers), it was getting searched too:

>But last year, officials said, the N.S.A. discovered that analysts were querying the bundled messages in a way that did not comply with those rules. The agency brought the matter to the court’s attention, resulting in a delay in reauthorizing the broader warrantless surveillance program until the agency proposed ceasing this collection practice.