I really seems quite strange that the statement from both facebook and google CEO's are almost exactly same thing.
If i didn't know better, i would say same person wrote them.
Mark Zuckerberg addresses PRISM
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Re: Mark Zuckerberg addresses PRISM
#172> We will continue fighting aggressively to keep your information safe and secure.
Is it only me, or is Mark implying that agreeing on every government request to provide data would make your information unsafe and insecure?
Re: Mark Zuckerberg addresses PRISM
#173I guess the question is: should governments have the same access as "social media platform sysops"?
I would be surprised if they didn't.
Re: Mark Zuckerberg addresses PRISM
#174Earlier quoted context omitted.
The implication that there is some central figure behind this giving these companies scripts to read meets the most common flaw of governmental conspiracy theories. It requires the government to be simultaneously incredibly competent and incompetent. If the NSA was able to keep this project under wraps for so long with the number of people involved, I think they would be smart enough to at least slightly alter the wo…
You're wrong, it does not require that they be incredibly competent, not in the least. It requires that they coordinated with the companies PR departments in the process of setting up the program. The companies asked: what if the shit hits the fan, or this comes out in the public, what do we say? And the government had a simple, boilerplate answer for it. You wouldn't even have to work with the PR dept, just one sing…
Let me be more clear. The part that requires competence is everything up to the leak. Given the scope, keeping this quiet is no small task. It isn't just keeping the people who know about this from talking. It is also preventing other people from finding out. Depending the way they theoretically got this data, that could stretch from keeping this hidden directly in the code base at Facebook to hiding huge amounts of traffic emanating from Facebook's data centers. Remember a lot of these tech companies helped recognize and locate likely Chinese sponsored government hackers in the past. If someone is doing something they aren't supposed to, a lot of people are going to find out about it.
The part that requires incompetence is everything that has happened today. The NSA's job is intelligence. They are the experts in connecting dots, reading between the lines, seeing how random events might be a sign of something bigger, and whatever other cliches you want to throw in here. Yet they are an organization that doesn't know that having people reading from nearly identical scripts will make people think they are reading from nearly identically scripts?
Re: Mark Zuckerberg addresses PRISM
#175"direct"
Re: Mark Zuckerberg addresses PRISM
#176Earlier quoted context omitted.
>>..another possibility is that they want people to notice the similarities and become more upset about PRISM. Ah, that makes sense, if they are under a gag order, but yet want to subtly convey that they are under a gag order! It would be a brilliant way of circumventing it.
Realistically though, can you imagine there being so many CEOs knowing that this thing is going on and being forced to lie about it, and not one of them spilling the beans? Even if the gov tries to arrest them for leaking classified information, they'd be near-impossible to convict following the inevitable massive public outcry.
>Even if the gov tries to arrest them for leaking classified information, they'd be near-impossible to convict following the inevitable massive public outcry.
It's not about arresting them. It's about harassing them and their businesses -- which the government can very easily do.
Also, who said those kind of CEOs are champions of public freedom? Google? Microsoft? Facebook? Because they're techies they're supposed to be "on our side"?
Not to mention it's very easy for the government to pamper them, and make them feel very patriotic and whatever for contributing to this cause for the safety of the US, etc etc.
Re: Mark Zuckerberg addresses PRISM
#177Look at the two writeups (Zuckerberg's and Page's) side by side. Each has 4 paragraphs. Each of the pairs of paragraphs addresses the same thing. 1st paragraph: we wanted to respond to these claims. 2nd paragraph: never heard of PRISM, don't give direct access. 3rd paragraph: each request goes through legal channels. 4th paragraph: encourage governments to be more transparent. Terrifying. EDIT: It gets worse. Here's…
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Re: Mark Zuckerberg addresses PRISM
#178Look at the two writeups (Zuckerberg's and Page's) side by side. Each has 4 paragraphs. Each of the pairs of paragraphs addresses the same thing. 1st paragraph: we wanted to respond to these claims. 2nd paragraph: never heard of PRISM, don't give direct access. 3rd paragraph: each request goes through legal channels. 4th paragraph: encourage governments to be more transparent. Terrifying. EDIT: It gets worse. Here's…
I'm not impressed. Most press releases have only a handful of paragraphs. I'd believe it was common to go over the topics of "What We're Talking About, What We Deny, What We Affirm, and How It Could Be Better."
It may look impressive that they all say they don't allow "direct access to servers", but it's hardly surprising, since the original Guardian headline[1] was "Top-secret Prism program claims direct access to servers of firms including Google, Apple and Facebook". If they didn't say that exactly, you'd be suspicious.
It may look impressive that they all say they "haven't heard of PRISM," but this is really quite a natural thing to say if it's true, and someone accuses you of being involved in the program.
Moreover, aside from the "direct access" thing, the phrases they all use are actually different. "We have not heard of PRISM" in one case, "We have never heard of PRISM" in another, "We had not heard of a program called PRISM until yesterday," in a third, and so forth. You don't have any case for funny business based on similar wording (because it isn't), and the case for contamination based on similar content would be a whole lot more impressive if that content weren't something common and expected.
On the whole, I think the similarities have plausible mundane explanations. Admittedly, I am no student of accidental plagiarism. I don't have an academic opinion on how similar or dissimilar we should expect the statements to be when ten people try to say the same thing in response to the same accusation. But that is just my point: if you want to persuade me of something so preposterous as that all of these people are following a script, you're going to have to do more than wave your hands and say, "Look, there are similarities."
Please. That's the stuff of superstition. If you want to convince me the probability of this occurring at random is low, you're going to have to do some math.
[1] http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/06/us-tech-giants-n...
Re: Mark Zuckerberg addresses PRISM
#179Earlier quoted context omitted.
Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but you can admit to a gag order being placed on you. As in, FB and Google would be totally entitled to say "there is a gag order preventing us from going into this". So they don't need to convey anything.
You're wrong on this one sadly. If you receive a national security letter, you are not allowed to tell anyone (not your family, not your lawyer, not anyone). If you break the life-long gag order, you go to jail for up to 5 years. http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/08/nsl-gag-order-lifte... ; Hundreds of thousands of these have been issued, and the above story (about the owner of an ISP) is one of the few cases whe…
Aha. Thank you for citing a source on this one. I still wonder though, if your involvement has been directly leaked, whether you are able to confirm the existence of it. I suppose it wouldn't be a course of action any lawyer recommends.
Re: Mark Zuckerberg addresses PRISM
#180Earlier quoted context omitted.
You seem to be suggesting one of two things. Either: 1) The heads of these companies had a conference call this morning and agreed on a 4-paragraph format, with specific points for each paragraph. Or 2) The federal government instructed each company to respond today, with a 4-paragraph point-by-point, and then Larry and Mark obediently complied. Ludicrous.
It's not ludicrous at all that the companies were given basic PR instruction when they signed on, in the case of being asked about the program. In fact, that's exactly what would occur. What's ludicruous is thinking the Feds are tapping every major telecom provider, but wouldn't do the same to Facebook / Google / Apple / Microsoft. These companies are collectively vastly more important than AT&T and Verizon, worth ab…
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