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South African authorities admit to mass surveillance

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Re: South African authorities admit to mass surveillance

#121

Post by raxxorrax »

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.

Knowing it to be true is the most important step if you actually plan to hold your representatives accountable.

People are not surprised, they are angry at people responsible. And rightly so in my opinion.

Re: South African authorities admit to mass surveillance

#122

Post by grecy »

derpherpsson wrote: post #92
grecy wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I can’t understand how this news would surprise anyone I tried to tell my family about the Snowden leaks and the implications just a year ago. They are all university educated people. They categorically did not believe that what I was saying was real, and when I showed them all the leaks they did not believe the content was true. Billions of people simply don't believe it's true.

I know I should not post reaction-posts here. But this is Truly Horrifying in more than one way. Did they not even investigate your claim? Or did they just settle with labeling you a crackpot conspiracy theorist?

> Did they not even investigate your claim? Or did they just settle with labeling you a crackpot conspiracy theorist?

They kind of settled half way between "I don't believe that's possible / I don't care".

For them, it makes zero difference in their lives, so they just don't want to invest time and energy into thinking about it.

Re: South African authorities admit to mass surveillance

#123

Post by raxxorrax »

dmix wrote: post #25
sofaofthedamned wrote: post #5

Wasn't it 6 years ago when Snowden made public his revelations and Google said 'nope' and encrypted the lot? Who now sends traffic over these links and doesn't encrypt them? So, what value do the SA government have in intercepting these links now?

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…

If I develop web endpoints, I usually use http until I know the target domain and have acquired the needed certs. In a lot of cases this is one of the last steps in deployment.

Re: South African authorities admit to mass surveillance

#124

Post by dsfyu404ed »

grecy wrote: post #59
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.

> I can’t understand how this news would surprise anyone I tried to tell my family about the Snowden leaks and the implications just a year ago. They are all university educated people. They categorically did not believe that what I was saying was real, and when I showed them all the leaks they did not believe the content was true. Billions of people simply don't believe it's true.

Make them watch the movie. I find it gets the message across pretty well.

Re: South African authorities admit to mass surveillance

#125

Post by gargravarr »

coldtea wrote: post #105
Bombthecat wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same as climate change, no info is real... I'm not sure it is because we humans grow stupid or we grow so tired and sceptical that accept nothing what our own eyes see... While still billions of people believe in Allah, God or whatever without any evidence. I dont know how this can happen...

> While still billions of people believe in Allah, God or whatever without any evidence. I dont know how this can happen... Isn't it obvious? In both cases people do the smart thing (which is not necessarily the "objectively correct" thing). Faith in Allah, God etc, is a good social glue, and is personally comforting, helping regulate emotions, etc. Similarly, not believing the Snowden story helps them fit with their…

See also: Pascal's Wager[1]

The leaks about mass-surveillance don't fit the criteria, as best I can tell. It's in their best interests not to, as you state.

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal%27s_wager

Re: South African authorities admit to mass surveillance

#126

Post by mikorym »

raxxorrax wrote: post #120
mikorym wrote: post #88

> it also covers information about organised crime Let's just pause a bit here. In South Africa, if your phone gets stolen and you go to the police, they may well respond with: "Yes we know the guy, but we're not going to do anything." [1] I think that surveillance doesn't have the same twang in South Africa that it has in the US and EU. Organised crime and unorganised violent crime for that matter in one thing that…

To think of surveillance as a solution against violent crime is fantasy anyway. It wasn't a requirement at least for all other countries getting it to manageable levels. Sure, you might catch some guys but as you yourself reported, it may not even matter if there is evidence. But the incentive to abuse surveillance is certainly something western nations have readily helped with their active approval that couldn't eve…

I think you are right, but I think it's more about people's sentiment. It's like saying in Washington's time people respected politicians. The question is then did people's perception change or did policians change? In terms of surveillance, I don't think people are "pro" surveillance, I think it's just not a priority.

Re: South African authorities admit to mass surveillance

#127

Post by derpherpsson »

gargravarr wrote: post #125
coldtea wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> While still billions of people believe in Allah, God or whatever without any evidence. I dont know how this can happen... Isn't it obvious? In both cases people do the smart thing (which is not necessarily the "objectively correct" thing). Faith in Allah, God etc, is a good social glue, and is personally comforting, helping regulate emotions, etc. Similarly, not believing the Snowden story helps them fit with their…

See also: Pascal's Wager[1] The leaks about mass-surveillance don't fit the criteria, as best I can tell. It's in their best interests not to, as you state. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal%27s_wager

Pascal's wager suffer from the fact that it can be any of the myrriads of religions that are correct. The chance of picking the correct one is infinitely small (assuming there are aliens that also have religions). Only a subset of the religions have anything like hell/heaven, further diminishing the risk.

Re: South African authorities admit to mass surveillance

#128

Post by reaperducer »

ctack wrote: post #94
reaperducer wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can imagine a sustainable business could be made operating a fleet of ships in international waters that pick up undersea cables, taps them, and uplinks the data in real time to whichever .gov subscribes to it. The company taking the risk gets a big fat government check every month, and the governments get to deny they're tapping anyone's data.

You can't export the data wholesale from your ship though - you'd need another cable for that :D So you'd need sift and process that data on the ship.

You can't export the data wholesale from your ship though - you'd need another cable for that :D

The key word, though, was "uplink." Go straight to satellite, and let the intelligence agencies sift through what they want.

Re: South African authorities admit to mass surveillance

#129

Post by derpherpsson »

lern_too_spel wrote: post #69
grecy wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I can’t understand how this news would surprise anyone I tried to tell my family about the Snowden leaks and the implications just a year ago. They are all university educated people. They categorically did not believe that what I was saying was real, and when I showed them all the leaks they did not believe the content was true. Billions of people simply don't believe it's true.

What did you think was in the leaks? In my experience, when people say their parents or friends didn't believe what they said was in the leaks, the parents and friends were usually right.

Pro tip: Read the leaks. They are actual documents, that can be read. Try it!

Re: South African authorities admit to mass surveillance

#130

Post by pinkfoot »

jldugger wrote: post #60
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.

It's surprising to me at least because South Africa has a GDP per capita of $~6.1k, and perhaps can't afford access to that expertise. Which I suppose suggests that they didn't pay for it, and another nation state 'helped out' via intermediaries.

1. Its not uniformlly distributed. 2. China has GDP/person of ~$9,600 3. South Africa merrilly mines 4km below ground 4. Previous efforts included a nuclear weapons programme 5. Whole parts of Amazon's infa a built in CT

Get out more.

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