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White House admits it has 'access' to Facebook, Google

theweek.co.uk

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Re: White House admits it has 'access' to Facebook, Google

#21

Post by joevandyk »

fchollet wrote: post #20
denzil_correa wrote: post #19

Can someone just tell what the final deal is? I'm quite annoyed by conflicting reports from the media, Internet firms and the US government. Also, please stop playing with words. It doesn't matter if the program is named PRISM or Hexagon. What matters is the access powers to otherwise private data by governments.

The White House has confirmed that PRISM existed, and has condemned the leak. This means that the power point slides that were leaked are real. Now go read the slides, and you'll know exactly what is going on.

Even if the White House confirmed the PRISM program exist, and condemned the leak about the PRISM program, it doesn't mean all the facts in some power point presentation is real at all.

Re: White House admits it has 'access' to Facebook, Google

#24

Post by denzil_correa »

fchollet wrote: post #20
denzil_correa wrote: post #19

Can someone just tell what the final deal is? I'm quite annoyed by conflicting reports from the media, Internet firms and the US government. Also, please stop playing with words. It doesn't matter if the program is named PRISM or Hexagon. What matters is the access powers to otherwise private data by governments.

The White House has confirmed that PRISM existed, and has condemned the leak. This means that the power point slides that were leaked are real. Now go read the slides, and you'll know exactly what is going on.

From the Sherlock files? I've read the presentation; it doesn't mean everything out there is cast & stone. I'm seeking the truth and not popular stories.

Re: White House admits it has 'access' to Facebook, Google

#25

Post by lawdawg »

ig1 wrote: post #12

Facebook: "We do not provide any government organization with direct access to Facebook servers." Yahoo: "We do not provide the government with direct access to our servers" AOL: "nor do we provide any government agency with access to our servers." Paltalk: "Paltalk does not provide any government agency with direct access to its servers" Apple: "We do not provide any government agency with direct access to our serve…

And if they didn't say that, everyone on HN would be whining about why they didn't deny "direct access" when that was the headline accusation.

Can't win with you guys.

Re: White House admits it has 'access' to Facebook, Google

#26

Post by tptacek »

jcampbell1 wrote: post #10

The presentation makes it seem they are harvesting the data. That would resolve any apparent contradiction. The biggest question is how? Surely google has noticed these man in the middle attacks. I think the guardian misinterpreted the word "provider". Edit: it appears the NSA has google's ssl keys. That would explain all the talk about "direct access".

Google could not provide the NSA with its TLS keys and then argue it hadn't given the government direct access to its servers. Nor could the government MITM TLS, which would be detectable, nor could they have compromised a TLS CA to accomplish the same thing, because Google's keys are pinned in Chrome and recent Firefox; you can examine the builds to see that.

Re: White House admits it has 'access' to Facebook, Google

#27

Post by mrwnmonm »

fchollet wrote: post #20
denzil_correa wrote: post #19

Can someone just tell what the final deal is? I'm quite annoyed by conflicting reports from the media, Internet firms and the US government. Also, please stop playing with words. It doesn't matter if the program is named PRISM or Hexagon. What matters is the access powers to otherwise private data by governments.

The White House has confirmed that PRISM existed, and has condemned the leak. This means that the power point slides that were leaked are real. Now go read the slides, and you'll know exactly what is going on.

link to the slides, please

Re: White House admits it has 'access' to Facebook, Google

#28

Post by hrbrtglm »

smtddr wrote: post #11

Whatever your views on this are, I hope nobody is actually surprised. If I were a $CURRENT_MEDIA_BOOGIEMAN_SCAPEGOAT_THINKOFTHECHILDREN, I would definitely assume that the usgov has access to any "big data" on the general public and can get it anytime they want. My plans for world-domination won't be sent through gmail or sent in a private message on facebook, or an text-msg on VerizoNSA. I'd take the time to learn a…

Ok, but what about companies who store sensitive data and emails on Google Apps for business, especially non US companies ? What about non US citizens who seems to have less protection and spyable at mercy ? Should we the ( whatever your country or citizenship ) avoid by all means US internet corps.

If the American gov wanted to kill the cloud, then good job ! I want to clarify that I do not trust my own gov neither ...

Re: White House admits it has 'access' to Facebook, Google

#29

Post by [deleted] »

denzil_correa wrote: post #19

Can someone just tell what the final deal is? I'm quite annoyed by conflicting reports from the media, Internet firms and the US government. Also, please stop playing with words. It doesn't matter if the program is named PRISM or Hexagon. What matters is the access powers to otherwise private data by governments.

[deleted]

Re: White House admits it has 'access' to Facebook, Google

#30

Post by krapp »

wavefunction wrote: post #22

To be honest, this whole thing is coordinated. The leak, the opportunity for outrage, the opportunity to gloss over the outrage, and now it's out in the open where the politicians and CEOs don't have to face real outrage. True theater!!!

If they were truly that powerful and organized, wouldn't they have rather just not orchestrated the leak to begin with?
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