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Larry Page addresses PRISM

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Re: Larry Page addresses PRISM

#421

Post by einhverfr »

tomkarlo wrote: post #384
gibsonf1 wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The key issue here is that Google and the other companies may have no idea this is going on. My read is that the NSA has managed to gain access to the data centers either through inside help, spy craft, hardware/router back doors, or some other means we have no idea about.

Consider the sheer volume of data we're talking about here. Unless you think these companies would miss a fiber optic trunk running out the back door of their data centers, does that make any sense?

How much data is leaving?

There could be a lot less data leaving than you think.

Re: Larry Page addresses PRISM

#422

Post by rpgmaker »

adventured wrote: post #367
Dove wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Until this week’s reports, we had never heard of the broad type of order that Verizon received—an order that appears to have required them to hand over millions of users’ call records. We were very surprised to learn that such broad orders exist. Any suggestion that Google is disclosing information about our users’ Internet activity on such a scale is completely false. I'm not sure how much more strongly you'd like t…

Prism has been admitted by the government to exist. The notion that it exists, and Google isn't involved in it, is pretty absurd. That'd be like talking about tapping the telecom companies, but leaving out Verizon and AT&T. See: "The top intelligence official in the United States condemned as “reprehensible” leaks revealing a secret program to collect information from leading Internet companies and said a separate di…

Also, this is very interesting from a NYTimes article on the matter: "But instead of adding a back door to their servers, the companies were essentially asked to erect a locked mailbox and give the government the key, people briefed on the negotiations said. Facebook, for instance, built such a system for requesting and sharing the information, they said."

They didn't give the NSA "direct access" to their system but created a front end for them instead... LOL.

Re: Larry Page addresses PRISM

#423

Post by einhverfr »

rayiner wrote: post #282
Nelson69 wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's become very clear is that there is a lot of careful parsing going on. Careful parsing of the constitution, careful parsing of various laws, very very careful interpretation of the words on the page. Does Google give anyone, any company, any entity, anyone at all direct access to their data? They've specifically excluded NSA. Does NSA subcontract that to Booz Allen Hamilton? Google claims that no government has…

> Careful parsing of the constitution, careful parsing of various laws, very very careful interpretation of the words on the page. There is no "careful parsing" of the Constitution going on. Just people who never read the document very carefully other than what they thought the teacher said in 8th grade. This is the entirety of the 4th amendment: "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers,…

First, third party doctrine is more limited than that, and in the event where a party is compelled to retain information and disclose it, third party doctrine becomes quite questionable (because they end up acting under the color of law).

The thing is that usually CDR data doesn't require a warrant. The court ruled that since people are typically aware that the existance of CDR's and may rely on them for services from the telephone company, and because they are relatively non-revealing they do not constitute a search.

The point is that the user of the telephone service discloses the calling information to the phone company and in such a way as to expect no privacy over the information. A similar case might be IP packet header information over routers, or photocopying address/return address/postmarks on the outside of envelopes passing through the USPS. None of these are considered to violate any reasonable expectation of privacy because, for example, we can expect that the address on the letter we drop of at the post office is publicly visible.

Re: Larry Page addresses PRISM

#424

Post by declan »

ashleyblackmore wrote: post #415
Matt_Cutts wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really? You don't see any difference between the denial posted by Google's CEO vs. the way that (say) Verizon responded? Here's Verizon's response: http://www.businessinsider.com/verizons-memo-to-workers-abou...

Thought twice about posting this, but am I the only one who feels really queasy about someone like Matt Cutts jumping directly into conversations about their own company on HN (especially when it could be connoted as being part of damage control)? He's hardly rank-and-file. I think it is plain old creepy, YMMV.

As a reporter, I think it's great. I wish we'd see senior folks from Microsoft, Yahoo, Facebook, AOL, and Apple doing the same right now.

Re: Larry Page addresses PRISM

#425

Post by tptacek »

DougWebb wrote: post #307
rayiner wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Careful parsing of the constitution, careful parsing of various laws, very very careful interpretation of the words on the page. There is no "careful parsing" of the Constitution going on. Just people who never read the document very carefully other than what they thought the teacher said in 8th grade. This is the entirety of the 4th amendment: "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers,…

How is a document that you never even had in your possession somehow your private information? Have you been to a doctor? Have you seen that folder full of your medical information? Have you ever possessed it? Most likely not, but that is your private information and there are very strict rules about how it is handled and who can access its contents.

Congress can repeal HIPAA.

Re: Larry Page addresses PRISM

#426

Post by tptacek »

ashleyblackmore wrote: post #415
Matt_Cutts wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really? You don't see any difference between the denial posted by Google's CEO vs. the way that (say) Verizon responded? Here's Verizon's response: http://www.businessinsider.com/verizons-memo-to-workers-abou...

Thought twice about posting this, but am I the only one who feels really queasy about someone like Matt Cutts jumping directly into conversations about their own company on HN (especially when it could be connoted as being part of damage control)? He's hardly rank-and-file. I think it is plain old creepy, YMMV.

Yes, you might be the only person here to suggest Matt Cutts is ever unwelcome on any HN thread.

Re: Larry Page addresses PRISM

#428

Post by dontbelieveit »

I have a completely different take on this.

While something along the general lines of 'Prism' probably exists, in aggregate, across different NSA programs, I believe the presentation slides are fake and were created / leaked by the executive branch.

Here's my reasoning:

The Slides ----------

Who is the audience????

Who were these slides prepared for? Who is the target audience? If real, the information is obviously very, very sensitive- so it follows that the original audience would have been very, very high level.

But who at that high of a level needs this type of explanation for a project that started years ago?? It reads more like something you would create for someone that has never heard of it. Doesn't make sense.

Slide Design

Gee- nice of the creator to put the logos of each of the companies at the top of the slide- of every slide. Which leads me to ask...

Where are the rest of the slides?

Was it only a 4 slide presentation? Who gives super-high level presentations with only 4 slides? If there were more than 4 slides, were the company logos across the top of EVERY page? Does that even make sense?

It's also interesting that the 4 slides present such a simple, easy to understand story line- it reads like the target audience is a school tour - not super-secret-high-level-officials-(hearing about it for the first time).

Prism Logo

Who made the logo? The NSA graphic design office? Seriously, why would a program like that have a logo? For marketing purposes??

Prism has a web page!

From the bottom of slide 3- "Complete list and details on Prism web page: Go PRISMFAA" A web page? Even if it's private to the NSA it's absurd.

The Political Angle (motive) ----------------------------

IRS - Big Government Story

The IRS / Tea Party story was looking very, very bad for the administration. It's one thing for Republicans / Libertarians to say big government is bad - you play that off as partisan politics. The average person goes about their day.

The IRS is different- EVERYONE deals with the IRS. The narrative was a simple one - IRS abuses power to attack political enemies. That scares people- pretty much everyone.

The Obama administration is all about big government - they don't see it as a bad thing. They believe government is in a unique position to help people. If the electorate turns against 'big government', whatever agenda Obama has for the next 3 year would be finished. The IRS story is a very big deal.

Incredibly Savvy Political Operators

The Obama political team is a force to be reckoned with. Between incredible political savvy and incredible data analysis, they have taken the political game to an entirely new level. They are very, very good.

How does one 'fix' this problem? A tried and true solution is for a bigger story to come along and eclipse the 'problem' story. In the Wag The Dog world, you would start a war. But that's just a movie.

What would be a perfect story? How about a story that simultaneously eclipses the IRS story, while blurring the big government issue?

That's just what happened. The NSA story is at an abstract level the same as the IRS story- it's about big government run amok. However, by rolling the two together Obama can claim 'security' as a trump card. It only really applies to the NSA part of the story - but the press isn't big on subtle distinctions, so no worries there.

Timing

Is it a coincidence the Washington Post broke the story just as the evening news was starting on the West Coast? IE - the end of the day's news cycle? That gives a full day for the press to roll the IRS stories up and for the President to make a presidential statement about security. Sum it all up on the evening news and gee - look at that - it's Friday. Time for a summer weekend.

Denials -------

All the firms listed in the slide presentation header have denied the story. Yes the language they used is very similar but at the same time it is the same language used by the press ("direct access"). The denials sound pretty believable to me. Even if Larry Page were under some gag order, I doubt he'd say something along the lines of 'I've never heard of it.' I think he'd follow the letter of the law (gag order), but not the spirit.

This is a long post - and my first post (long time lurker though).

In a nutshell:

The slide presentation looks very 'Made for TV' The timing is SUPER convenient.

Thoughts?

Re: Larry Page addresses PRISM

#429

Post by nthj »

brown9-2 wrote: post #235
jessaustin wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is another explanation: https://financialcryptography.com/mt/archives/001431.html

This is incredibly far fetched. None of the audit controls at these companies notice that these employees are constantly accessing user's private data? And these double-agent employees manage to do all this secret work while still maintaining a cover as a regular employee who does well enough of a job to get good perf reviews and stick around?

Yeah, for real. We're not talking about sneaking a few files out on a thumb drive, here. We're suggesting petabytes of data being sent out over Google's networks without Google noticing. Meh.
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