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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

#71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Network dumps would seem unreasonably difficult to deal with considering that the provider has structured data and tools to deal with it.

> unreasonably difficult All you have to do is read session cookies. Once you have that, you are done.

That doesn't give you the type of data (and tools) that the provider has. I don't see the government building tools on top of user-level access when the provider already has better data (like login records) and tools.

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

#72
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

There are millions of ways to deny things. This is the most clear and direct way I accused you of doing X You could say "you know, my brother and I, we once, 30 years ago blah blah blah blah blah blah but X, X never happened". Most people, however, will just say "No, i don't do X". They were accused, point blank, of providing direct access to their servers. They said "we do not provide direct access to their servers"…

I accused you of doing X on mondays. You could say "You know, in fact, I do X, but on tuesdays". Most hypocrites however will take your question as literally as possible and will just say: "No, I don't do X on mondays".

You see, people don't want to know if government has direct access(ok, they want, but it is not their primary concern), they want to know what happened.

It simply doesn't matter if google uploads data to government servers or government gets data from google servers by "directly accessing" them. I would even guess that the latter is simpler to implement and maintain.

I don't mean that google is happy to hand user data to government - they probably aren't - I want to know how many data governments gets.

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

#73
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…

The Chinese security bureau didn't have "direct acces to servers" as well, instead, they install black boxs in every IDC which mirror router traffic to an unknown destination.

There's also shit ton of papers on Chines academia on how to reconstruct and rapid classify packets from raw IP dumps

Edit: THIS -> https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5843442 Beam splitters, or 分光 as called in Chinese.

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

#74
post #32
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…

Who says they did it independently? I'm sure the people who wrote each statement read the others that had been previously released.

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

#75
This article is terrible. What exactly did "the White House" say? There is not even one sentence that is attributed to a specific individual. Was it the White House press secretary, or Obama, or somebody else? Or are they referring to the statements from the Director of National Intelligence?

Here is what Obama said: http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2013/06/07/statem...

Here are the statements from the DNI:

http://www.dni.gov/index.php/newsroom/press-releases/191-pre... http://www.dni.gov/index.php/newsroom/press-releases/191-pre...

Nowhere in those do I see any confirmation that there is direct or unlimited access to the servers of the companies mentioned.

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

#76
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…

Sounds like everybody gets a hand in the cookie jar. Let's make a toast! https://secure.flickr.com/photos/whitehouse/5455525432/in/ph...

Wow... that sure does explain a lot. Thank you for posting this!

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

#77
post #17

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".

What is the source on the SSL keys? Arguably a lot of metadata could be gleaned without even decrypting the data. If an IP is tied to an identity, timing of traffic alone would be very revealing.

My guess? They worked with the CEO to discuss the issue. Then recommended hiring some consulting company that specializes in key management. The consultant says something like, you need to keep a copy of the keys in an offsite vault for disaster recover purposes. The NSA now has the keys.

It is also possible they just got the keys from spies. In my company, anyone with sudo access to front end machines can get the keys. I have no idea how to keep these keys secure from the NSA.

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

#78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

If the powerpoint were fake, why would the white house hesitate to point that out?

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

#79
God and others have access to brains. God can do time travel.

God says... C:\TAD\Text\PLATO.TXT

or myrtle. And they and their children will feast, drinking of the wine which they have made, wearing garlands on their heads, and hymning the praises of the gods, in happy converse with one another. And they will take care that their families do not exceed their means; having an eye to poverty or war.

SOCRATES - GLAUCON

But, said Glaucon, interposing, you have not given them a relish to their meal.

True, I replied, I had forgotten; of course they must have a relish-salt, and olives, and

----

fertle murtle, war on poverty in Socrates.

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

#80
post #73
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…

The Chinese security bureau didn't have "direct acces to servers" as well, instead, they install black boxs in every IDC which mirror router traffic to an unknown destination. There's also shit ton of papers on Chines academia on how to reconstruct and rapid classify packets from raw IP dumps Edit: THIS -> https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5843442 Beam splitters, or 分光 as called in Chinese.

At least this would be a good explanation on why we ended up with the obviously sub-optimal duopoly in internet access/providers.
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