Why would the NSA think that data in the Netherlands was covered by US legislation!?!
Isnt this a general behavior of typical stereotype american?
Most of them believes America as theland of the law and anything else is savagery.
NSA gets no reply in Dutch cloud provider
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Re: NSA gets no reply in Dutch cloud provider
#12How do you know if this caller is from the NSA for real? I could get up to all sorts if mischief. Either I can make the NSA look bad, or I can social engineer my way into ISPs by pretending to be the NSA. Good on this ISP though!
When I worked for a data center/ISP, there would be occasional government calls. The protocol was to get the persons name, then call them back through the official list of contact numbers (FBI, NSA, CIA, etc).
Re: NSA gets no reply in Dutch cloud provider
#13How do you know if this caller is from the NSA for real? I could get up to all sorts if mischief. Either I can make the NSA look bad, or I can social engineer my way into ISPs by pretending to be the NSA. Good on this ISP though!
When I worked for a data center/ISP, there would be occasional government calls. The protocol was to get the persons name, then call them back through the official list of contact numbers (FBI, NSA, CIA, etc).
Also a good strategy when your bank / insurance agency, etc. calls
Re: NSA gets no reply in Dutch cloud provider
#14Re: NSA gets no reply in Dutch cloud provider
#15My working assumption is the NSA has God power and root on everything and everyone. They do not need to call anyone. This is timely PR posturing that NSA is mortal and deserves our sympathy and further budget aid.
In what way is this sympathetic to the NSA's budgetary needs?
Expensive phone bills?
Re: NSA gets no reply in Dutch cloud provider
#16Isn't the Netherlands under even worse surveillance than the US? There were many top posts on HN over the last week suggesting this.
Re: NSA gets no reply in Dutch cloud provider
#17I'm mostly impressed that they just pick up the phone and call. Must've been a not-very-experienced NSA employee. Or NSA performing social engineering scams, but I doubt that.
Hm, what’s wrong with just calling? It is probably the easiest way to find out whether someone is generally willing to cooperate, and if they don’t, the NSA doesn’t lose much either?
NSA was long nicknamed "No Such Agency" for a reason - they were, and to an extent still are, notoriously secretive compared to other US intelligence agencies. I'd expect them to approach it via intermediaries.
Frankly it sounds more likely to me that this was a poor attempt at social engineering rather than a genuine contact from the NSA.
Re: NSA gets no reply in Dutch cloud provider
#18My working assumption is the NSA has God power and root on everything and everyone. They do not need to call anyone. This is timely PR posturing that NSA is mortal and deserves our sympathy and further budget aid.
In what way is this sympathetic to the NSA's budgetary needs?
"Gawdammit Senator, our people actually have to get on the phone to ask these people for this kind of information, and frankly, its downright embarrassing!"
Re: NSA gets no reply in Dutch cloud provider
#19My working assumption is the NSA has God power and root on everything and everyone. They do not need to call anyone. This is timely PR posturing that NSA is mortal and deserves our sympathy and further budget aid.
I suppose that they could break into any system and have stockpiled a lot of exploits. The problem is that it is usually a one shot thing. The moment it goes public this means it cannot be used anymore. So it is a bit like the Martin Fury - one hit kill but only limited charges.
Re: NSA gets no reply in Dutch cloud provider
#20Why would the NSA think that data in the Netherlands was covered by US legislation!?!
Isnt this a general behavior of typical stereotype american? Most of them believes America as theland of the law and anything else is savagery.
If the superpowers weren't countries but were instead the search engines of today then we could probably agree upon who would be Google and who would be Bing and so on. Do Google's users generally care about Bing, what Bing does, or what Bing thinks? (To stretch the metaphor almost to the point of breaking.) Most of Google's users don't think of Bing as a savage search engine but they do consider it irrelevant.