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NSA “precomputed contact chaining” enhances phone-record tracking program

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31–40 of 54 posts

Re: NSA “precomputed contact chaining” enhances phone-record tracking program

#31
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everything being discussed in the context of leaks is by definition in the past. Use them to inform your understanding of the NSA mindset, not your understanding of current events. "Phone" is just an obsolete pre-2010s term here for the exact kind of pattern analysis you're describing. I dislike the premise behind "it's all encrypted and we cannot do that anymore" since we have no idea what capabilities an agency lik…

>> Why do you assume a human has to be involved in the judgement process for it to be taking place? I don't. A human is not necessary to the process. A human is necessary for the process to be done well . And if the NSA has broken its own encryption, to the extent that it can read past traffic, call the IMU because there are some Field's medals that need handing out.

>Field's medals

The UK equivalent of the NSA invented both RSA encryption and DH key exchange years before any of Diffie, Hellman, Rivest, Shamir, or Adleman did their work. No Fields medal per se, but two Turing awards...

I think the odds that the largest employer of mathematicians in the world is secretly sitting on ground breaking fundamental math is pretty high.

Re: NSA “precomputed contact chaining” enhances phone-record tracking program

#32
post #30

Some countries are also collecting physical location data from telecom companies, for the claimed purpose of contact chaining-tracing-matrix-graph-network analysis: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/05/global-contact-tracing... > Despite the lack of evidence to show the effectiveness of location data to stop the spread of the virus, a number of countries’ governments have used the crisis to introduce completely new…

Apple and google’s system apparently doesn’t store location information. Actually it’s getting pushback from health people because it doesn’t collect data.

It can be used to derive phone/human proximity data, which can be cross-referenced with other metadata.

Re: NSA “precomputed contact chaining” enhances phone-record tracking program

#33
post #27
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't disagree that legally the authority of the president is limited. But in practice the president can order and see executed the torture of innocent people for years without any possibilty of justice for those victimized. This is because legally the president and anyone acting under his command are immune from prosecution if they acted according to legal guidance from the white house council and the supreme cour…

>> “legally the president and anyone acting under his command are immune from prosecution if they acted according to legal guidance from the white house council“ Source? As far as I am able to tell, this is false; as in it is not that they are immune from prosecution, but that prosecution has never occurred. Clearly, if war crimes were ever brought, regardless of the laws, commands, etc - it would have not resulted i…

> Under recent Supreme Court law, however, we are compelled to conclude that, regardless of the legality of Padilla's detention and the wisdom of Yoo's judgments, at the time he acted the law was not "sufficiently clear that every reasonable official would have understood that what he [wa]s doing violate[d]" the plaintiffs' rights. Ashcroft v. al-Kidd, ___ U.S. ___, 131 S.Ct. 2074, 2083, 179 L.Ed.2d 1149 (2011) (internal quotation marks omitted). We therefore hold that Yoo must be granted qualified immunity, and accordingly reverse the decision of the district court.

https://www.leagle.com/decision/infco20120502152.xml

Re: NSA “precomputed contact chaining” enhances phone-record tracking program

#34
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple and google’s system apparently doesn’t store location information. Actually it’s getting pushback from health people because it doesn’t collect data.

It can be used to derive phone/human proximity data, which can be cross-referenced with other metadata.

It can’t be because the database does not exist: it is sharded onto each individual phone

The server only has a list of random identifiers from those who have tested positive for COVID. An exposure notification is determined when a phone downloads that list and correlates it with its local list.

Re: NSA “precomputed contact chaining” enhances phone-record tracking program

#35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It can be used to derive phone/human proximity data, which can be cross-referenced with other metadata.

It can’t be because the database does not exist: it is sharded onto each individual phone The server only has a list of random identifiers from those who have tested positive for COVID. An exposure notification is determined when a phone downloads that list and correlates it with its local list.

> when a phone downloads that list

After exposure, a time-bounded (?) graph of proximity contact data can join the central list, via the state health app using the local data. This can be cross-referenced with other metadata.

Once a human contact tracer establishes communication with the owner of a phone's random identifier, the identifier can be de-anonymized.

Even without the new APIs, each phone's location can be collected and shared by telcos, at the granularity of cell tower triangulation.

Re: NSA “precomputed contact chaining” enhances phone-record tracking program

#36
post #27
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't disagree that legally the authority of the president is limited. But in practice the president can order and see executed the torture of innocent people for years without any possibilty of justice for those victimized. This is because legally the president and anyone acting under his command are immune from prosecution if they acted according to legal guidance from the white house council and the supreme cour…

>> “legally the president and anyone acting under his command are immune from prosecution if they acted according to legal guidance from the white house council“ Source? As far as I am able to tell, this is false; as in it is not that they are immune from prosecution, but that prosecution has never occurred. Clearly, if war crimes were ever brought, regardless of the laws, commands, etc - it would have not resulted i…

>Clearly, if war crimes were ever brought, regardless of the laws, commands, etc - it would have not resulted in being immune from prosecution

Actually one of the areas they have the most immunity. Bush passed the "American Service-Members' Protection Act," authorizing unlimited use of force/resources to free any US personnel being detained by the ICC.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Service-Members%27_Pr...

Re: NSA “precomputed contact chaining” enhances phone-record tracking program

#37
post #33
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> “legally the president and anyone acting under his command are immune from prosecution if they acted according to legal guidance from the white house council“ Source? As far as I am able to tell, this is false; as in it is not that they are immune from prosecution, but that prosecution has never occurred. Clearly, if war crimes were ever brought, regardless of the laws, commands, etc - it would have not resulted i…

> Under recent Supreme Court law, however, we are compelled to conclude that, regardless of the legality of Padilla's detention and the wisdom of Yoo's judgments, at the time he acted the law was not "sufficiently clear that every reasonable official would have understood that what he [wa]s doing violate[d]" the plaintiffs' rights. Ashcroft v. al-Kidd, ___ U.S. ___, 131 S.Ct. 2074, 2083, 179 L.Ed.2d 1149 (2011) (inte…

As it relates to torture, war crimes apply regardless of if a party believed they were acting legally.

As for the case you cited, it was a civil suit, therefore ruling only covers civil law, not criminal. That said, does not protect "the plainly incompetent or those who knowingly violate the law". [1]

All Presidents are fully aware by law their powers are limited, no reasonable official would claim otherwise. No reasonable person or official would claim their actions were legal, hence why they knowingly hid them from FISA & Congress.

[1] Malley v. Briggs, 475 U.S. 335, 341 (1986).

Re: NSA “precomputed contact chaining” enhances phone-record tracking program

#38
post #25
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Supreme Court has ruled on the executive branches limited legal authority, even during war time: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Youngstown_Sheet_%26_Tube_Co... That being, “The President did not have the inherent authority to seize private property in the absence of either specifically enumerated authority under Article Two of the Constitution or statutory authority conferred on him by Congress.” My rewording, “The…

I don't disagree that legally the authority of the president is limited. But in practice the president can order and see executed the torture of innocent people for years without any possibilty of justice for those victimized. This is because legally the president and anyone acting under his command are immune from prosecution if they acted according to legal guidance from the white house council and the supreme cour…

> legally the president and anyone acting under his command are immune from prosecution if they acted according to legal guidance from the white house council

“Counsel”, and, no, they aren't (there'd be a stronger, but not ironclad because of the reasonableness proviso, case if they were acting under guidance from the Justice Department, and given the Constitutional structure of the government, from the President himself, compared to White House Counsel, due to the general principal that the only case where ignorance of the law is an excuse under criminal law is when the mistake of law results from reasonable reliance on guidance from officials responsible for enforcing the law.)

Re: NSA “precomputed contact chaining” enhances phone-record tracking program

#39
post #33
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> “legally the president and anyone acting under his command are immune from prosecution if they acted according to legal guidance from the white house council“ Source? As far as I am able to tell, this is false; as in it is not that they are immune from prosecution, but that prosecution has never occurred. Clearly, if war crimes were ever brought, regardless of the laws, commands, etc - it would have not resulted i…

> Under recent Supreme Court law, however, we are compelled to conclude that, regardless of the legality of Padilla's detention and the wisdom of Yoo's judgments, at the time he acted the law was not "sufficiently clear that every reasonable official would have understood that what he [wa]s doing violate[d]" the plaintiffs' rights. Ashcroft v. al-Kidd, ___ U.S. ___, 131 S.Ct. 2074, 2083, 179 L.Ed.2d 1149 (2011) (inte…

That deals with immunity to civil liability, not immunity to criminal prosecution. There's no necessary relationship between them.

Re: NSA “precomputed contact chaining” enhances phone-record tracking program

#40

Around that time (2013) I knew a European defense contractor was trying to build a triple store that could inject a trillion or so triples a day without purging any; they went to an RDF specialist and a columnar database pro and they said "are you kidding me?" I told them that they were not. See also Mark Lombardi an artist who died under mysterious circumstances after hanging meticulously designed linkages between f…

> See also Mark Lombardi an artist who died under mysterious circumstances after hanging meticulously designed linkages between folks like G Gordon Liddy, GHW Bush, Oliver North, A Kasshogi, BCCI inked by French curve in MOMA and many other art galleries.

I have no idea what you just said. What do you mean by "meticulously designed linkages between folks"?

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