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Reflections on Ten Years Past the Snowden Revelations

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Re: Reflections on Ten Years Past the Snowden Revelations

#91

Post by lern_too_spel »

edge17 wrote: post #23
tootie wrote: post #6

Serious question, why are the Snowden leaks so revered and not the reporting of James Risen several years earlier? Risen exposed operation Stellar Wind which was the grossest abuse of spying apparatus approved by the Bush admin over the express objections of their own DOJ. Risen also appeared in court for every summons about his activities and was dutifully defended by the NYT until he was ultimately exonerated.

I think because one day everyone woke up and heard about PRISM, including a lot of the tech companies, which had to go into damage control to deny their involvement. It was big news with brands that every American was familiar with.

That explains why Snowden was a big deal, but as soon as we all figured out that PRISM wasn't what he claimed it was (and Greenwald stupidly believed without running the docs he was given by experts) and instead just a data integration project for processing communications from targeted foreigners, Snowden should have become a smaller deal.

Re: Reflections on Ten Years Past the Snowden Revelations

#92

Post by redeeman »

api wrote: post #82
bboygravity wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Random examples that I can think of: Trump has/had (strong) ties with Russia, needed those Russian ties to win the election and used them to win the elections. People still believe this to this day. Globally.

Trump openly asked for help from Russia on national TV. I don’t see how the existence of some degree of Russian collusion is debatable given that it was done in the open. I do agree that there are people who vastly overestimate the extent or effectiveness of whatever Russia did do. Trump won due to general discontent with the status quo coupled with the fact that Hillary Clinton was a politically tone deaf candidate…

[flagged]

Re: Reflections on Ten Years Past the Snowden Revelations

#93

Post by iJohnDoe »

WarOnPrivacy wrote: post #18
iJohnDoe wrote: post #14

I think people would be surprised and sickened to know just how cooperative the big tech companies are with the intelligence agencies. Microsoft is especially cooperative, even as going so far to make sure their systems are compatible with surveillance systems. Yes, Telcos have had to this as well, but I don’t think many people know that Microsoft has proactively done this.

> Microsoft is especially cooperative, even as going so far to make sure their systems are compatible with surveillance systems. I don't doubt you but a reference would help folks know what to make of this.

https://amp.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/11/microsoft-nsa-...

Kind of an older article, but illustrates the situation pretty nicely.

Microsoft has also done development work in recent years to enrich the data with more identifiable information and to make the data easier to process for surveillance.

Re: Reflections on Ten Years Past the Snowden Revelations

#94

Post by ben_w »

theaussiestew wrote: post #88

I have a vaguely related question about Signal. People say it’s secure and encrypted but it was widely publicised that Sam Bankman Fried’s Signal messages were inspected by authorities. How did this happen?

While I can't prove this, my expectation in this case is:

The authorities asked for them and, possibly after consulting a lawyer, he handed them over.

Re: Reflections on Ten Years Past the Snowden Revelations

#95

Post by from »

theaussiestew wrote: post #88

I have a vaguely related question about Signal. People say it’s secure and encrypted but it was widely publicised that Sam Bankman Fried’s Signal messages were inspected by authorities. How did this happen?

There were cooperators in the same chatroom, a participant in the chats gave up their phone at an airport, or he volunteered it (probably not this). Same way it was obtained in all these cases: https://www.courtlistener.com/?q=%22signal%22+AND+%22encrypt...

Re: Reflections on Ten Years Past the Snowden Revelations

#96

Post by c420 »

theaussiestew wrote: post #88

I have a vaguely related question about Signal. People say it’s secure and encrypted but it was widely publicised that Sam Bankman Fried’s Signal messages were inspected by authorities. How did this happen?

Interception occurs prior to encryption

Re: Reflections on Ten Years Past the Snowden Revelations

#97

Post by theaussiestew »

landryraccoon wrote: post #68
motohagiography wrote: post #52

When the Snowden docs came out, the main thing that surprised me wasn't the tech, it was the scale. I thought I had seen the tip of the iceberg doing security work for over 15y prior, but I had barely seen ripples in the surface. Most of what I saw would have been in the category of "BULLRUN," which I incorporate into client threat models today, but also some of the ISP interception equipment I saw at peering points…

> A decade later, participation in elite circles like media, academia, and politics is based on how convincingly one can be seen to parrot obvious untruths, not because anyone believes them at all, but because it signals status to be able to lie to the faces of people who know you are doing it, and still say nothing. I don’t understand this. Can you elaborate on what untruths you mean? Who’s parroting these lies?

Basically anyone who sits at a panel, interview or a discussion and talks about geopolitical affairs. It’s the space around politics and think tanks and national security. There’s an implicit expectation that you talk about certain topics in a certain way, and that way usually conforms to the narrative that’s acceptable to the apparatus of power. It’s a vague description but that’s because of the nature of this unspoken expectation.

More concrete examples would be how you’re expected to just completely agree that Russia and China are essentially evil and enemies. Like that’s the unspoken premise. Or in the US, playing this game of theatre around how Democrats or Republicans are bad. I’m not American but there’s a talk show host called Tucker Carlson who goes around talking about how Democrats are ridiculous and holds all these inflammatory and demagogue views on air, but is known to be completely normal and reasonable off air and in his private life. That’s the kind of skill that’s seen as necessary in these kinds of “elite” circles, where you’re just expected to be able to hold two contradicting views and milk them to your advantage. You’re expected to be able to peddle mistruths and warp facts convincingly and worse, you’re seen as higher status and more “refined” for being about to pull this off convincingly.

Another example I’m reminded of is an Australian one, where a think tank that is funded by arms manufacturers called ASPI, had its CEO defend itself on live television. As you’d expect, he was surprisingly able to spin a tale where they were seen as the good guys using all sorts of deception and rhetorical tricks. I don’t know how these people sleep at night but it’s the very definition of double think from 1984. I do believe more people will see this subtle aspect of how opinion is shaped in future.

Re: Reflections on Ten Years Past the Snowden Revelations

#98

Post by Scoundreller »

ls612 wrote: post #77
theaussiestew wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regarding Qwest, wasn’t the CEO jailed for insider trading? Or is there another side to this story?

He claimed that he was actually jailed in retaliation for not playing ball with the NSA before 9/11. Idk if what he did specifically is something you’d usually be charged with insider trading or fraud for, which would seem to me the best indirect evidence of who’s story is right.

In other words, there's the possibility that others in his position was doing it, but only his trading was thoroughly scrutinized.

Re: Reflections on Ten Years Past the Snowden Revelations

#99

Post by StrangeATractor »

36097082 wrote: post #63

TIL that the Arab polymath al-Kindi invented frequency analysis & wrote the first cryptanalysis book ‘Manuscript on Deciphering Cryptographic Messages’, in the 9th century.

If you're interested in this sort of thing you'd probably like David Kahn's The Codebreakers. It's pretty much the authoritative source of what's publicly known about the history of cryptography. I believe he had some trouble getting it published at first, actually, because he made what was considered sensitive material more accessible.

Re: Reflections on Ten Years Past the Snowden Revelations

#100

Post by ls612 »

Scoundreller wrote: post #98
ls612 wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He claimed that he was actually jailed in retaliation for not playing ball with the NSA before 9/11. Idk if what he did specifically is something you’d usually be charged with insider trading or fraud for, which would seem to me the best indirect evidence of who’s story is right.

In other words, there's the possibility that others in his position was doing it, but only his trading was thoroughly scrutinized.

Yeah I’m saying if that were the case it would be evidence for his story. I legitimately don’t know though the details of his actions and the extent to which they are unusual or not.
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