Spy agency ducks questions about 'back doors' in tech products • Hacker News Board

Re: Spy agency ducks questions about 'back doors' in tech products

#251

Post by mindslight » Thu, Oct 29, 2020, 2:28 PM UTC

dodobirdlord wrote: post #227

mindslight wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The straightforward way to eliminate the ambiguity is to submit the programs to democratic oversight, including by The People. But instead they've worked hard to do the exact opposite, going so far as to blatantly lie to congress. This points to a criminal conspiracy, regardless of how many employees are working to craft dubious legal justifications. Usually criminals don't get to just say "my bad" and walk away afte…

These are intelligence agencies. Being secretive about what they do is largely the point. Some degree of oversight is of course required to ensure that the organizations haven’t been subverted and are still on-mission, but the responsibilities of an intelligence agency are too fragile and too essential to be subjected to political meddling.

"Blindly trust us, or bad things will happen" has no place in a Free society - especially after they've been repeatedly caught abusing that trust. There are many steps NSA could take to increase their transparency without exposing the details of operations, but as I said the problem is that they actively oppose oversight. This is likely due to the usual authoritarian delusion ("taking more power will help accomplish our benevolent goal"), which is at odds with democracy.

Re: Spy agency ducks questions about 'back doors' in tech products

#252

Post by Thinkx220 » Thu, Oct 29, 2020, 3:09 PM UTC

wolco2 wrote: post #158

Thinkx220 wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's comments like this that convince me most programmers are arogant douchebags. Just because someone has a weird idea about an event that had almost no direct affect on the general population doesn't mean we should remove those peoples ability to have a choice in matters which will effect them. Knowing more than someone else does not make you morally superior or give you more of a right to have a say in your own fa…

If that were the case we would give babies, kids and teenagers the right to vote. Kids would always vote in a superhero or ice cream. And chocolate would win in a landslide. We only allow those of a certain age to vote because they are able to understand and weigh the issues fairly. We only allow those of a certain age to be juriors for that reason.

Maturity is different than intelligence.

Re: Spy agency ducks questions about 'back doors' in tech products

#253

Post by dboreham » Thu, Oct 29, 2020, 3:20 PM UTC

mschuster91 wrote: post #58

dboreham wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I question this. Actually I'm going to assert this is only true if your friend is referring to hidden back doors that he believes exist. I don't believe any employee of a chip company is aware of a back door knowingly added to their own product (with one exception see below). I say this because NSA seems more clever than that, and because any scheme to explicitly add back doors is bound to be eventually exposed. Inst…

> I don't believe any employee of a chip company is aware of a back door knowingly added to their own product (with one exception see below). Most if not all ICs above a certain intelligence level have JTAG, which effectively is a backdoor. All you now need is (for those chips that support it, in the first place...) a way to bypass the OTP fuses "preventing" JTAG access - this kind of vulnerability turns out often en…

Of course everyone knows about JTAG. It's not a "backdoor".

Re: Spy agency ducks questions about 'back doors' in tech products

#254

Post by mechnesium » Thu, Oct 29, 2020, 3:21 PM UTC

I believe the US government is actively undermining products that don't have such backdoors.

For example, the US DoD now classifies JetBrains products as prohibited, which trickles down from the 2020 National Defense Authorization Act. I'm guessing this is because they are foreign-controlled, and refuse to comply with National Security Letters requesting backdoor insertions.

Re: Spy agency ducks questions about 'back doors' in tech products

#255

Post by steve76 » Thu, Oct 29, 2020, 4:31 PM UTC

pulse7 wrote: post #5

"The tactics drew widespread attention starting in 2013, when Snowden leaked documents referencing these practices." So this is what Snowden has done: he "drew widespread attention to these tactics". Before Snowden they would call you "paranoid" if you would allow yourself to mention it. Today they can not call you paranoid anymore. And yes, it has hurt US industry reputation. Many don't trust Intel processors and Ci…

> It is not fun anymore

You like Castlevania, don't you?

I think it's a lot of fun. Like Gandalf talking to that butterfly on Sauroman's tower. Add some life to some old video games. Let power dress up like commoners to see what's up and help out good people. Odds are, stuff like this went on since prehistory.

Re: Spy agency ducks questions about 'back doors' in tech products

#256

Post by lern_too_spel » Thu, Oct 29, 2020, 5:50 PM UTC

boomboomsubban wrote: post #244

lern_too_spel wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

None of Snowden's documents say so. If they did, that would have been the biggest story in his leaks. Your own article says that they cannot.

He released the details of xkeyscore, which details the system involved with tapping into anyone's personal communication. It doesn't explicitly mention wiretapping, but it seems likely that connecting to a server containing those recordings would also show up in a search. And we know that they have such servers from the events surrounding Room 641A. Snowden also released documents from that incident, such as the NSA…

> He released the details of xkeyscore, which details the system involved with tapping into anyone's personal communication.

No, that is not what xkeyscore is. Xkeyscore is a database for metadata.

> And we know that they have such servers from the events surrounding Room 641A.

And thanks to Snowden's leaks, we now know that these are for tapping communications between foreigners where both foreigners are outside the US.

> It doesn't say they are unable to access the data illegally though

Within the US, they can only do so by asking the phone company to set up a tap, just like the FBI. Your article does not dispute this.

Re: Spy agency ducks questions about 'back doors' in tech products

#257

Post by Jon_Lowtek » Thu, Oct 29, 2020, 6:10 PM UTC

darkerside wrote: post #233

Jon_Lowtek wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hear this "the internet is like outside, don't expect privacy" argument a lot from americans, who i think are taught some 18th century definition of privacy by their media, as in "in your private rooms" and not a 21st century definition as in "about your private data". If you go to the city there are no agents of third party marketing agencies keeping notes of your movement and what items you look at in the stores…

Yes, I totally get that perspective. As I said, I'm explaining why many people don't see it that way. They perceive it as a difference of scale and not kind. You have painted a very vivid analogy that shows how it is different. Do you really disagree that some people have no qualms about other people seeing what they do online?

Well i can't disagree with people having opinions, only with their opinions, and even that might be a useless endeavor. I disagree with the "the internet is like outside", the "the internet is like a tribal village" and with the "corporations are like people" metaphors.

But to answer your question: I believe that the constitution must limit the data, which government agencies and private corporations can legally aggregate and process. Our european constitution says that personal data belongs to the person, and refers to the concept of consent for limitation of processing. So to answer your question: no, if people are well informed and freely share their data with a corporation, i would not restrict their freedom to do that.

I do however disagree that this is what is happening right now. Corporations behave like its a gold rush and the one whi mines the data owns it. In my honest opinion the relationship between the data aggregating corporations an the data subjects is highly abusive. Many people have little to no understanding who collects their data for what and many of those who understand say they have no real choice but to let it happen.

This is where the "like outside" argumentation happens: well you can't prevent your neighbor seeing you leaving the house. Sure that might be true in some way, but this neighbor installed a surveillance camera and makes photos every time i leave the house, then follows me to the store, takes notes what i buy and tries to hold a microphone into my conversation with the clerc. That is why i split between the spy and the clerc in my analogy, the agents work for a "Lead Intelligence Service" or similar adtech entity.

Lets look at facebookistan with its population larger then the USA. In the anthropomorphic village metaphor, who is this "Facebook person"? For many it is an every day companion that is present in most of their interactions with other people or companies. The person they go shopping with. Facebook is not a clerc or a neighbor, but a clingy spouse that is also trying to sell you stuff and is gossiping about you behind your back. And that is too positive, as it lacks the asymmetry: FB throws your stuff away if it doesn't like it, rats you out to the government and hands you a divorce without ever having any feelings for you at all. Also almost everyone in the village is married to this one person, who can be in all living rooms at the same time. And not being married to FB has serious downsides, like being the only one who does not go to church. FB is not like the village clerc, at all.

The Anthropomorphism is an illusion.

Re: Spy agency ducks questions about 'back doors' in tech products

#258

Post by Broken_Hippo » Thu, Oct 29, 2020, 7:16 PM UTC

cmdshiftf4 wrote: post #214

RhodoYolo wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you say 'disabled aside' but what about the myriad of other reasons? Mental health, unemployment, pregnancy that year, international travel but still a citizen, w/e. As soon as you start pointing to reasons that a government can/ can't take away your power to vote you are screwed as a populace. Not that i have much faith in the voting system anyways cause' who knows how they count the votes anyways. It seems the incr…

>Mental health If you're mentally unfit to contribute to society then I believe you to be unfit to weigh in on our governance. >unemployment I previously mentioned within x amount of years (where x is deemed reasonable) to account for short stints of unemployment. I do not want the long term unemployed weighing in on our governance. >pregnancy that year Already covered >international travel but still a citizen If you…

"If you're not present and contributing to a society, in my view, you should absolutely not have a say in the governance of that society. In fact, I find the idea abhorrent."

Then perhaps folks living internationally shouldn't be taxed. the truth of the matter is that living elsewhere doesn't release you from being taxed or filing tax returns: Folks in high-tax countries won't get additional tax, but folks in cheap places do.

I'll add that there are myriads of reasons folks won't pay taxes: Staying home to take care of children or parents is one of them.

Re: Spy agency ducks questions about 'back doors' in tech products

#259

Post by darkerside » Thu, Oct 29, 2020, 9:26 PM UTC

Jon_Lowtek wrote: post #257

darkerside wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I totally get that perspective. As I said, I'm explaining why many people don't see it that way. They perceive it as a difference of scale and not kind. You have painted a very vivid analogy that shows how it is different. Do you really disagree that some people have no qualms about other people seeing what they do online?

Well i can't disagree with people having opinions, only with their opinions, and even that might be a useless endeavor. I disagree with the "the internet is like outside", the "the internet is like a tribal village" and with the "corporations are like people" metaphors. But to answer your question: I believe that the constitution must limit the data, which government agencies and private corporations can legally aggr…

I think you'll have more constructive conversations on this topic if, instead of disagreeing with an analogy wholesale, you seem to understand _the ways in which it is accurate_ and then respond to those. Yes, of course, the internet is not outside. It's an analogy that illustrates a broader point, that what you consider a reasonable expectation of privacy looks to others like tin foil hat wearing.

The truth is, despite all of the analogies you've presented about neighbors with security cameras and clingy spouses, most people do understand that and they simply don't care. What realistic future so you see where that comes back to bite them, beyond feeling like it's creepy?

Re: Spy agency ducks questions about 'back doors' in tech products

#260

Post by cmdshiftf4 » Fri, Oct 30, 2020, 12:36 AM UTC

Broken_Hippo wrote: post #258

cmdshiftf4 wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Mental health If you're mentally unfit to contribute to society then I believe you to be unfit to weigh in on our governance. >unemployment I previously mentioned within x amount of years (where x is deemed reasonable) to account for short stints of unemployment. I do not want the long term unemployed weighing in on our governance. >pregnancy that year Already covered >international travel but still a citizen If you…

"If you're not present and contributing to a society, in my view, you should absolutely not have a say in the governance of that society. In fact, I find the idea abhorrent." Then perhaps folks living internationally shouldn't be taxed. the truth of the matter is that living elsewhere doesn't release you from being taxed or filing tax returns: Folks in high-tax countries won't get additional tax, but folks in cheap p…

>Then perhaps folks living internationally shouldn't be taxed.

I 100% agree. This is unique to the USA, as far as I understand it, and only applicable to those earning over $100K, but in my opinion no non-resident should be taxed.