Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Are all telephone calls recorded and accessible to the US government?

guardian.co.uk

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 60 posts

Re: Are all telephone calls recorded and accessible to the US government?

#41

Post by mtowle »

flogic wrote: post #20
moxie wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be clear, I don't actually think it's worth trying to influence what is or isn't the legal interpretation that we might desire. We can't blame power for establishing systems of control, just as we can't blame a tiger for mauling a zoo keeper: it's the nature of the thing. It's what we should expect, no matter how much time we spend coaxing or training it. I'd much rather invest energy into developing solutions tha…

The critical difference is one is a tiger with limited reasoning ability and the other is a human being. So, I can and should be pissed at people in power when they overstep their bounds.

>The critical difference is one is a tiger with limited reasoning ability and the other is a human being.

No it's not, it's a system of human beings. Systems make "decisions" quite differently than individuals do. In some cases they have what we might consider far superior reasoning ability compared to the individual, but in others they're even more limited than the tiger.

Re: Are all telephone calls recorded and accessible to the US government?

#42

Post by mtowle »

flogic wrote: post #37
gojomo wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And this being "pissed" achieves what exactly? Does your level of pissitude work as leverage to affect the reasoned-out behavior of these other human beings? If so, through what mechanism?

Being pissed leads to me donating money to the ACLU, voting, and voicing my opinions.

One of those might do something.

Re: Are all telephone calls recorded and accessible to the US government?

#43

Post by dhx »

danbruc wrote: post #10

The first question that comes to my mind - is this technically and economically possible? How many minutes does the average person spend on the phone per day? I found some numbers in the range from 6 to 28 minutes per day. Let's just pick 15 minutes. This times the population of the states (313.9 million) divided by two yields 39,237,500 hours per day. Storing this at 8 kbps requires about 128.5 TiB per day or 45.8 P…

Presented at Black Hat USA 2009: Global Spying: Realistic Probabilities In Modern Signals Intelligence

https://www.blackhat.com/presentations/bh-usa-09/TOPLETZ/BHU...

Re: Are all telephone calls recorded and accessible to the US government?

#44

Post by AlexeiSadeski »

danbruc wrote: post #10

The first question that comes to my mind - is this technically and economically possible? How many minutes does the average person spend on the phone per day? I found some numbers in the range from 6 to 28 minutes per day. Let's just pick 15 minutes. This times the population of the states (313.9 million) divided by two yields 39,237,500 hours per day. Storing this at 8 kbps requires about 128.5 TiB per day or 45.8 P…

They only transcribe a tiny portion.

All is indefinitely stored in case it should be required later.

Re: Are all telephone calls recorded and accessible to the US government?

#46

Post by sliverstorm »

unclebucknasty wrote: post #32
moxie wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be clear, I don't actually think it's worth trying to influence what is or isn't the legal interpretation that we might desire. We can't blame power for establishing systems of control, just as we can't blame a tiger for mauling a zoo keeper: it's the nature of the thing. It's what we should expect, no matter how much time we spend coaxing or training it. I'd much rather invest energy into developing solutions tha…

But the thing is that this power of which you speak is supposed to be ours, per our form of government. We are so far off the reservation that we have given up on trying to reclaim our government and instead, must now find ways to protect ourselves from our government. That's a powerful statement about the plight of our nation.

Trouble is, the government represents 300 million people. You can't "reclaim your government" when the angered party consists of a couple thousand people.

Re: Are all telephone calls recorded and accessible to the US government?

#47

Post by sliverstorm »

hayksaakian wrote: post #25
fchollet wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No doubt that intelligent processing on that scale will be feasible in time, and most likely soon. Opinion surveillance at the scale of a nation is too strategically important. And when it will start happening, it will also apply to today's data.

> And when it will start happening, it will also apply to today's data. I hope everyone else noticed this as well. Even if the tech to do crazy analysis does not exist today, the tech to record all the data for future use is quite real.

Well, the statute of limitations hasn't changed, so just cross your fingers the march of technology isn't too fast... ;)

Re: Are all telephone calls recorded and accessible to the US government?

#48

Post by sliverstorm »

b6 wrote: post #4
gwgarry wrote: post #2

The more data they have the less they know. Most people with extreme voiced opinions will do nothing. Thinking doesn't mean doing and doing doesn't mean thinking.

The problem is that if you ever cross them, they have over 10 years worth of every type of your electronic communications to sift through for dirt. Not only do they have all that on you, which gives them some unknown but extremely worrisome level of insight about you, but also on all your friends and family and colleagues. And the likelihood of crossing them keeps growing.

the likelihood of crossing them keeps growing.

They have finite funding and finite manpower. The hypothetical scenario in which half of America has "crossed" them, will not come to pass. When everyone is crossing them, they will be forced to triage.

Re: Are all telephone calls recorded and accessible to the US government?

#49

Post by mpyne »

acabal wrote: post #29

I've said it before and I'll say it again: anonymity online and encrypted communications are one of the most important problems we're going to going to face in the coming decades. Hackers should be working on those, not clever ways to serve ads or geolocating your latest locally-sourced coffee. If you don't believe the US is already permanently archiving vast swaths of communication, it's not a big leap of imaginatio…

> Or it doesn't even have to go that far; some government spokesperson lets your name slip in an interview as a "suspect" and the media attention you'll get will forever ruin your life even if the government does nothing.

Unless the government gets out of the business of handling birth certificates, driver's licenses, etc. they're simply going to have your name.

Secure communications channels is certainly an important topic though, but given what happened to Sunil Tripathi in the aftermath of the Reddit swarm to find the Boston Marathom bomber(s), perhaps it's possible that your biggest "online threat" in the future won't be part of the government at all.

You get the wrong Google, Facebook, or random datacenter sysadmin upset and you could find yourself in hot water with even less of a legal recourse. It's just as easy to imagine roving bands of vigilantes in that dystopian future as it is to imagine Big Brother, is it not?

I get why this (COMSEC) is an important problem; what I don't get is why so many otherwise very intelligent persons focus on the government as the sole problem area. The government is mostly staffed by either those who are actually idealistic, or those who are too incompetent to hack it in the private sector. Certainly Google and Facebook have better IT infrastructure than 99% of the government.

P.S. The U.S. Constitution forbids "ex post facto" laws that make previously legal behavior illegal after-the-fact. If you believe that the Constitution actually means anything you shouldn't worry about currently legal things being held against you in 20 years. If you believe the Constitution won't hold up in 20 years then it's kind of pointless to worry about any of the other laws, they'd be just as shredded.

Re: Are all telephone calls recorded and accessible to the US government?

#50

Post by mindcrime »

SeanDav wrote: post #40

Probably voicing an opinion in this thread might get you investigated at some point in the future....

In that case, let me be the first to say:

Dear CIA, FBI, NSA, DIA, DHS, TSA, etc:

Fuck you.

Thanks,

Mindcrime

I don't give a shit if they investigate me or not. One can't live one's entire life in fear, damnit. Either principles mean something and we need to stand up for and defend them, or not.

Post reply on HN