South African authorities admit to mass surveillance

Post by lern_too_spel » Tue, Sep 03, 2019, 3:39 AM UTC

nxc18 wrote: post #33

dmix wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There were plenty of small samples in the various Snowden powerpoint slides of stuff NSA incepted from the pipes. It seems a ton of mobile apps are sending information with identifiers over HTTP (the ID is a key part for them legally to pick it up and store it in a DB, forever). I notified one developer that was sending real-time GPS data + an email address highlighted in one of the PPT slide's (just a screenshot of…

I'm curious about stats for iOS, with its app transport security being enforced for store submissions. There are exceptions, but I certainly hope that Apple is verifying that those are actually necessary before allowing them. I'd love it if Apple took a step forward and warned periodically for http use (similar to how it periodically reminds you that apps have location permissions). Aside: I know at least for some or…

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Sep 03, 2019, 4:22 AM UTC

chrisseaton wrote: post #2

> worrying is that the SSA has said that such surveillance and data collection is "common practice" globally I think if you believe that any major country is not intercepting all undersea fibre cable traffic within their reach or even beyond it then you’re being very naive. I can’t understand how this news would surprise anyone.

Post by mrmonkeyman » Tue, Sep 03, 2019, 4:48 AM UTC

reaperducer wrote: post #52

jefftk wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you think they're decrypting in real time? Do you think there are backdoors in the crypto/protocols? Severe accidental flaws? How many times a speedup are you imagining? State of the non-TLA art is that modern https is completely impractical to break, even with enormous server farms working for years, let alone in real time.

How do you think they're decrypting in real time? I have no idea how they're doing it. But I believe it can be done simply because the intelligence agencies have the best, largest, fastest, most advanced machines that money can buy. Machines that none of us have even heard of, that are years ahead of anything any of us will ever touch in our lifetimes.

Post by raxxorrax » Tue, Sep 03, 2019, 5:01 AM UTC

blitmap wrote: post #58

It's worrying that developing countries can buy off-the-shelf solutions to surveil its citizens without going through the decades of cultural and social change other countries have. We asked questions like "Is this ethical?" before the technology became possible. For them, the tech is here and the social discussions were never started. Maybe this is the same thing. We haven't upheld our ideals on privacy anyway.

Post by dragonelite » Tue, Sep 03, 2019, 5:05 AM UTC

godelski wrote: post #45

LegitShady wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

if they don't have the expertise, someone else with the expertise interested in access to the data will help them.

Hasn't China been doing this all over Africa and South America?