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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

#41

Post by twelvechairs »

ig1 wrote: post #32
lawdawg wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's not the phrase "direct access" (which they could reasonably use given it was used in the original leak story), but rather the construction of the whole sentence. There are millions of ways you could phrase the response (Dropbox and Microsoft used completely different language), the chance that these five came up with the phrasing used independently seems fairly low. Especially as the statements weren't all given…

It is the phrase 'direct access'. It basically makes the whole sentence meaningless (i.e. whatever the truth is, the statement is defensible).

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

#42

Post by krapp »

wavefunction wrote: post #36
krapp wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

If it's going to come out eventually, why not control the leak? PR 101, mang

But they're not controlling anything, they're just doing now what they would be doing if the leak had been real, assuming it was orchestrated. They would've done a better job letting everyone stay distracted by all the other crap being dropped on Obama's head right now.

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

#43

Post by rayiner »

hrbrtglm wrote: post #40
rayiner wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody should store sensitive data and e-mails on a system where they're sitting there in plain text accessible to god knows how many people at Google and their data centers. That's insane.

As Microsoft was the first company to adhere PRISM as stated by the leaked slide, that also means that no company worldwide should ever use office 365, azure or managed sharepoint / exchange ! These software corps better be persuasive because a whole economic part of USA will be endangered then !

Yes. Storing sensitive corporate documents in plain text on servers owned by Microsoft, Google, etc, with no legal protections in place, is retarded.

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

#44

Post by leoc »

ihsw wrote: post #8
winslow wrote: post #3

"EDITOR'S NOTE: Since this story was published, The Guardian has reported that the UK intelligence gathering organisation GCHQ has had access to the PRISM system since at least June 2010 and has generated 197 intelligence reports." So other governments have a backdoor to our government's backdoor... What stops China among others from being able to access this? On the other hand, what is the truth if Larry Page is say…

> So other governments have a backdoor to our government's backdoor And we have a backdoor to their backdoor. It's fairly easy to assume that they -- state-sponsored intelligence agencies -- collude with each-other by offering access to each-other's data stores. In a sense we are all foreign to each-other, and the USG may access American data through requests acting as foreign agencies.

It's long been understood that this was the basis of the ECHELON system, right?

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

#45

Post by mikeash »

chc wrote: post #37
mikeash wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you complaining that they can't win when it comes to the right PR spin on a massive spying program?

I think lawdawg is saying there's no reasonable way they can deny participating in a massive spying program without somebody saying it sounds dodgy. And it is kind of true: "We do not provide any government agency with direct access to our servers" is the clearest construction I can imagine for denying involvement, but they get called out for it anyway.

That's only because the facts suggest that they are involved. It is very hard to state an obvious lie without sounding dodgy. That's hardly our fault.

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

#46

Post by medde »

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…

Hopefully you are not using Windows, because there is a backdoor in it too so that they can grab it before the encryption...

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

#47

Post by ccera »

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…

Those statements are probably true. The NSA has probably subcontracted the operation out to a private corporation. So Facebook, Google, et al, don't deal directly with the government, they deal with the private company.

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

#48

Post by leoc »

stfu wrote: post #35
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…

Love it how they got played. I hope they appreciate the way the administration let them look and lie their customers in the face. Wish I had been a fly on the wall when they where instructed on what to say and how to phrase it. It is certainly no accident that they came out on the same day, with the same phrasing, etc

But Clapper's statement predates the tech companies' response, no?

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

#49

Post by wavefunction »

krapp wrote: post #42
wavefunction wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it's going to come out eventually, why not control the leak? PR 101, mang

But they're not controlling anything, they're just doing now what they would be doing if the leak had been real, assuming it was orchestrated. They would've done a better job letting everyone stay distracted by all the other crap being dropped on Obama's head right now.

Now they can say "what police state," everybody already knows about it!!! :P
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