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Danish military intelligence uses XKEYSCORE to tap cables in co-op with the NSA

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Re: Danish military intelligence uses XKEYSCORE to tap cables in co-op with the NSA

#121
In the 90s I remember critical media linking Sandagergård to the Echelon Project. There were also rumors about foreign contractors operating at the facility.

I've always thought about this when I was near Sandagergård (it's situated in a beautiful place off the beaten path not far from Copenhagen) but as far as I remember the stories where mostly based on speculation without any hard facts. With these recent disclosures it seems that there might have been some truth to those old stories.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ECHELON

Re: Danish military intelligence uses XKEYSCORE to tap cables in co-op with the NSA

#122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>...we know signal doesn’t keep those logs because of their response to the sealed subpoena ... That doesn't prove that. If Signal was, say, a NSA project they would have to respond to such things in that way to protect the signal intelligence value of the metadata they were collecting for their primary mission. After Crypto AG we know it is a bad idea to trust any particular entity. Something like Signal can only be…

Absolutely. You should trust anything as much as you can verify it and no further. I submit that there is no better option right now.

If you are not trusting the people that are running these things, then Signal is just another siloed messenger where the servers are controlled by a single entity. There are certainly worse but Signal is not special.

Re: Danish military intelligence uses XKEYSCORE to tap cables in co-op with the NSA

#123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The people who visit this website are the people who are paid to create and administer all of this technology. They're not only the last people you would be able to convince of something that would affect their livelihoods, but even the ones who do understand feel like it is part of their duty to deceive the less technically adept about the capabilities and dangers of the technology that they're surrounded with. The…

> The people who visit this website are the people who are paid to create and administer all of this technology. Exactly, some falsely assume all technologists somehow share an enthusiasm for morality. Many of the most successful technologists I know simply work for the highest pay from military/intelligence contracts.

The term "hacker" in "hacker news" is too misleading, especially those of us who use the more RMS-esque definition of it. Petition to change to something more appropos.

Re: Danish military intelligence uses XKEYSCORE to tap cables in co-op with the NSA

#124

I love how the politicians presume NSA is safe partner and their danish citizens are not in the data. It does not really help if every other neighbouring country does the same. NSA will get danish info elsewhere. Everyone gets played. It works as long as USA is an trusthworthy ally. They wouldn't dare to abuse the information for private gains... right?

https://www.windpowermonthly.com/article/960011/trans-atlant... They already abuse this, I would even go as far and say that huge portion of data collection is just for industrial espionage to prop up government backed companies. If you are developing a novel algorithm or even a different approach to AI then you should absolutely setup an offline work office otherwise either USA or China will take your work and give…

speaks into wrist: Target identified.

Re: Danish military intelligence uses XKEYSCORE to tap cables in co-op with the NSA

#125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're one of the people this [0] comment is talking about. Also, how can you possibly believe that the NSA are not bad actors? Between trying to hobble encryption, spying on everything, and enabling bad individual actions, and having a horrible success rate [1], what is left to defend? [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24962802 [1] https://www.newamerica.org/international-security/policy-pap...

NSA's competence or success rate doesn't invalidate the need for such an organization. Individuals part of the organization that behave badly don't either. Other states have organizations like the NSA and in order for the USA to defend itself from them the USA also needs one. We don't question the need for a military because one lieutenant burns down a Vietnamese village, we demand justice and changes, but we continu…

This comment doesn't stand up to any kind of scrutiny whatsoever.

One, handwaving institutional corrupt and violation of the constitution by claiming it's only a few "bad actors" ignores how high up that corruption emenates from. Two, it assumes that the violations are needed for national security, a claim which can easily be dissected by understanding what William Binney has told us about thinthread, just as an singular example in a vast sea of examples. Three, it's a strawman to jump to arguing that because other countries are doing this, we need the NSA too. Very few people are actually calling for the dismembership of the NSA, and in general want accountability and a return to constitutional surveillance. Four, implying the constitution is a "moral position that loses" is absolutely a machievellian, realpolitik, ends-justify-the-means policy position that we and the world have suffered enough consequences and blowback of.

Your entire argument revolves around using the safety as justification for violations of their mandate and oaths, when all the evidence points towards the truth being quite the opposite: the surveillance program has failed to be effective for safety, and not only that, that failure is largely due to this very kind of thinking in the first place! By being willing to undermine the constitution the NSA (et al intel agencies) inherently reduce long term security and safety in the US by allowing bad actors in all kinds of sectors the ability to abuse the data they get.

The totalitarian surveillance system is about control, not safety, always remember that!

"Go again and see not just the film and the play but read the text of Robert Bolt's wonderful play "Man For All Seasons", some of you must have seen it - where Sir Thomas Moore decides that he would rather die than lie or betray his faith and at one moment Moore is arguing with a particularly vicious witch-hunting prosecutor (a servant of the king and a hungry and ambitious man), and Moore says to this man "You'd break the law to punish the Devil, wouldn't you?" And the prosecutor, the witch hunter, says "Break it?" He said "I'd cut down every law in England if I could do that, if I could capture him." And Moore says "Yes you would wouldn't you? And then when you corner the Devil and the Devil turned round to meet you, where would you run for protection? All the laws of England having been cut down and flattened, who would protect you then?" - Christopher Hitchens

Re: Danish military intelligence uses XKEYSCORE to tap cables in co-op with the NSA

#126
post #24

All these comments about metadata not being useful are missing the point. Metadata is incredible valuable and sometimes just as valuable as the decrypted data itself. Knowing what sites a target visits, access patterns, changes in behavior: all this can be fed into ML algorithms to come up with fingerprints. You don't need to be able decrypt the data in transit if you know the endpoints and can somehow compromise the…

It honestly worries me that this is the top comment on hacker news. Not because it is wrong (it isn't) but because of all places that website filled with tech workers and experts in the full software stack, full of people that work on and exploit meta data, it still needs to be discussed how important metadata is. If we can't convince people with their ear to the ground, how does one convince the general public. Espe…

Blame VCs (hi Ycom)

When the time series data of conversations is MRR, gains, and ephemeral frameworks of the week 90% of the time, and 10% “same old physics” what do you expect from a bunch of humans still recovering from black & white “forever good life!” thinking?

Tell the cohorts titillating people with fairy tales to bug off a bit, humanity. Or do like the Romans and watch it all die

Only this time it could be the entire species

Re: Danish military intelligence uses XKEYSCORE to tap cables in co-op with the NSA

#127
post #24

All these comments about metadata not being useful are missing the point. Metadata is incredible valuable and sometimes just as valuable as the decrypted data itself. Knowing what sites a target visits, access patterns, changes in behavior: all this can be fed into ML algorithms to come up with fingerprints. You don't need to be able decrypt the data in transit if you know the endpoints and can somehow compromise the…

Isn't the whole distinction between data and metadata rather arbitrary in this context?

Re: Danish military intelligence uses XKEYSCORE to tap cables in co-op with the NSA

#128

In the 90s I remember critical media linking Sandagergård to the Echelon Project. There were also rumors about foreign contractors operating at the facility. I've always thought about this when I was near Sandagergård (it's situated in a beautiful place off the beaten path not far from Copenhagen) but as far as I remember the stories where mostly based on speculation without any hard facts. With these recent disclosu…

As someone who has heard my father re-tell the same story at least 20 times of the time back in the 90's when he was out walking his dog near Sandagergård and was stopped at a military checkpoint by soldiers talking American English to him this almost feels like déjà vu. Anyone who used the area knows Americans was there.

Re: Danish military intelligence uses XKEYSCORE to tap cables in co-op with the NSA

#129
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Intelligence is probably the least understood and the most misrepresented of the professions. One reason for this was well expressed by President Kennedy when, on November 18, 1961, he came out to inaugurate the new CIA Headquarters Building and to say good-bye to me as Director. He then remarked: 'Your successes are unheralded, your failures are trumpeted.' For obviously you cannot tell of operatives that go along…

> Dulles One gets the impression his claim that all the CIA's successes are secret is a lie. Because there never were any. You would thing 50 years after the man kicked it that at least something would be come out. Not really surprising. If you look at how successful organizations are structured the CIA is not that.

> One gets the impression his claim that all the CIA's successes are secret is a lie. Because there never were any

Who do you think fought and won the cold war, Seal Team Six?

Re: Danish military intelligence uses XKEYSCORE to tap cables in co-op with the NSA

#130
post #35

The fact that Danish intel has access to me just emphasizes how much of a free for all this is on that level. (nothing against the Danish - but think about what that implies about "trusted" relationships like five eyes)

Welcome to six years ago, where Americans where shocked that the NSA had spied on US citizens but did not give a shit about the spying on regular innocent people in other countries around the world. As a Dane, I hope that the politicians a going to make it crystal clear the the FE is suppose to collect intel to protect the country, but not at any cost. Flat out lying and keeping secrets from the people who are tasked…

>I hope that the politicians a going to make it crystal clear the the FE is suppose to collect intel to protect the country, but not at any cost.

Fat chance. Nasar Khader (conservative MP) is attacking TET (the body that observes danish intelligence orgs) on his twitter, and first whiff of any kind of top down investigation, launched Claus Hjort (former defence minister) in a series of attacks on the current minister for revealing intelligence secrets and harming the danish-US relations.

No politicians wants to deal with this, and some even seem to want unbridled spying to keep going.

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