Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The NSA’s Hidden Spy Hubs in Eight U.S. Cities

theintercept.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 192 posts

Re: The NSA’s Hidden Spy Hubs in Eight U.S. Cities

#61

Post by saosebastiao »

rconti wrote: post #53
darksaints wrote: post #43

Wow, just made a crazy realization. A while back I was downtown with my 5yo kid, and we were by the bus stop right next to this building (You can actually see the bus stop in the picture). The bus was late, and my kid was hyper, and he tried going through the revolving doors. They were locked, no big deal. After a while, he tried going through the doors again. At this point, three security guards with ballistic vests…

The one in the picture? Is that NY? I don't recognize the skyline.

Ctrl-F Jovelle Tamayo

It's on the corner of third and lenora.

Re: The NSA’s Hidden Spy Hubs in Eight U.S. Cities

#62

Post by lern_too_spel »

394549 wrote: post #46
lev99 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If your communication is encrypted it shouldn't matter if it passes AT&T networks. Either A. Popular and well known encryption algorithms are not broken by the NSA, and your communication is private. B. Popular and well known encryption algorithms are broken by the NSA, but the fact that it's broken is top secret and the state will not do any actions that revel the secret. Your communications are not safe, and while…

> If your communication is encrypted it shouldn't matter if it passes AT&T networks. IIRC, the signals intelligence agencies like the NSA learn almost as much from traffic analysis (e.g. who's talking to who and when) and metadata than from actual message content. Mere encryption itself often doesn't protect much from that.

There is no evidence of this. If you have a system outside the US sending encrypted data to a system inside the US, all anybody can see is that these two systems are talking to each other. They can't see whose communication is inside that encrypted data to tell who is talking to whom and when.

Re: The NSA’s Hidden Spy Hubs in Eight U.S. Cities

#63

Post by ianamartin »

lev99 wrote: post #42
kodablah wrote: post #6

One wonders if a CDN might advertise, "we promise once your data enters our network at our edge locations outside of the US, it does not traverse any AT&T networks while reaching your server inside the US". Same with cloud companies' private networks across regions.

If your communication is encrypted it shouldn't matter if it passes AT&T networks. Either A. Popular and well known encryption algorithms are not broken by the NSA, and your communication is private. B. Popular and well known encryption algorithms are broken by the NSA, but the fact that it's broken is top secret and the state will not do any actions that revel the secret. Your communications are not safe, and while…

We need a word for pointlessly bringing up quantum computation to prop up a vituosically weak set of arguments. Like Godwin’s Law, but more worse-er.

Re: The NSA’s Hidden Spy Hubs in Eight U.S. Cities

#64

Post by dethswatch »

lev99 wrote: post #42
kodablah wrote: post #6

One wonders if a CDN might advertise, "we promise once your data enters our network at our edge locations outside of the US, it does not traverse any AT&T networks while reaching your server inside the US". Same with cloud companies' private networks across regions.

If your communication is encrypted it shouldn't matter if it passes AT&T networks. Either A. Popular and well known encryption algorithms are not broken by the NSA, and your communication is private. B. Popular and well known encryption algorithms are broken by the NSA, but the fact that it's broken is top secret and the state will not do any actions that revel the secret. Your communications are not safe, and while…

> the communications will not be directly used against you >in court.

Directly. But via parallel construction...

Re: The NSA’s Hidden Spy Hubs in Eight U.S. Cities

#65

Post by colechristensen »

lev99 wrote: post #42
kodablah wrote: post #6

One wonders if a CDN might advertise, "we promise once your data enters our network at our edge locations outside of the US, it does not traverse any AT&T networks while reaching your server inside the US". Same with cloud companies' private networks across regions.

If your communication is encrypted it shouldn't matter if it passes AT&T networks. Either A. Popular and well known encryption algorithms are not broken by the NSA, and your communication is private. B. Popular and well known encryption algorithms are broken by the NSA, but the fact that it's broken is top secret and the state will not do any actions that revel the secret. Your communications are not safe, and while…

Encryption is irrelevant if the third parties (google, facebook, apple, etc.) are willing to give up private keys or data in response to requests or secret court orders. The same is true if the devices you own contain backdoors or exploits specifically designed for or not-fixed for the NSA.

Re: The NSA’s Hidden Spy Hubs in Eight U.S. Cities

#66

Post by lev99 »

dethswatch wrote: post #64
lev99 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If your communication is encrypted it shouldn't matter if it passes AT&T networks. Either A. Popular and well known encryption algorithms are not broken by the NSA, and your communication is private. B. Popular and well known encryption algorithms are broken by the NSA, but the fact that it's broken is top secret and the state will not do any actions that revel the secret. Your communications are not safe, and while…

> the communications will not be directly used against you >in court. Directly. But via parallel construction...

Yeah, gathering evidence not admissible in court really helps the investigation find evidence that is.

Re: The NSA’s Hidden Spy Hubs in Eight U.S. Cities

#67

Post by lev99 »

colechristensen wrote: post #65
lev99 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If your communication is encrypted it shouldn't matter if it passes AT&T networks. Either A. Popular and well known encryption algorithms are not broken by the NSA, and your communication is private. B. Popular and well known encryption algorithms are broken by the NSA, but the fact that it's broken is top secret and the state will not do any actions that revel the secret. Your communications are not safe, and while…

Encryption is irrelevant if the third parties (google, facebook, apple, etc.) are willing to give up private keys or data in response to requests or secret court orders. The same is true if the devices you own contain backdoors or exploits specifically designed for or not-fixed for the NSA.

In the case that the data is being stored by third parties (google, facebook, apple) or insecure devices then it's also irrelevant if the data passes AT&T's network or not.

Re: The NSA’s Hidden Spy Hubs in Eight U.S. Cities

#68

Post by JumpCrisscross »

pjc50 wrote: post #30
azinman2 wrote: post #2

I’d love to see the intercept publish the equivalent for China, Russia, etc. It feels the press has very overindexed into the NSA.

It's not a secret in the West, or even in China, that there's a "Great Firewall" which surveils and regulates all internet access. It's just America that pretends it doesn't have a secret police.

> a secret police

The term "secret police refers to intelligence, security or police agencies that engage in covert operations against a government's political opponents" [1]. We have no evidence the NSA is "used to protect the political power of an individual" or even political party. They're an intelligence agency, purely and simply.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secret_police

Re: The NSA’s Hidden Spy Hubs in Eight U.S. Cities

#69

Post by saas_co_de »

kodablah wrote: post #6

One wonders if a CDN might advertise, "we promise once your data enters our network at our edge locations outside of the US, it does not traverse any AT&T networks while reaching your server inside the US". Same with cloud companies' private networks across regions.

Every country in the world does this. The German's at least are open and honest about it.

"It said the BND, a partner of the US National Security Agency (NSA), has placed so-called Y-piece prisms into its data-carrying fibre optic cables that give it an unfiltered and complete copy of the data flow."

https://www.thelocal.de/20180531/german-spies-can-keep-monit...

Re: The NSA’s Hidden Spy Hubs in Eight U.S. Cities

#70

Post by lev99 »

ianamartin wrote: post #63
lev99 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If your communication is encrypted it shouldn't matter if it passes AT&T networks. Either A. Popular and well known encryption algorithms are not broken by the NSA, and your communication is private. B. Popular and well known encryption algorithms are broken by the NSA, but the fact that it's broken is top secret and the state will not do any actions that revel the secret. Your communications are not safe, and while…

We need a word for pointlessly bringing up quantum computation to prop up a vituosically weak set of arguments. Like Godwin’s Law, but more worse-er.

Quantum computation changes the complexity of brute forcing common encryption algorithms. It seems very plausible that actors are storing high value encrypted messages for future decoding in case QC enters the realm of possibility.
Post reply on HN