Ethics Aside, Is NSA's Spy Tool Efficient? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ethics Aside, Is NSA's Spy Tool Efficient?

#11

Post by fnordfnordfnord » Sat, Jun 15, 2013, 1:47 PM UTC

wavefunction wrote: post #2

"Ethics aside".... What a world we live in! :( But no, it isn't, because it can be gamed like any other rules system. The NSA probably thinks their system hasn't been explored yet, relying as they do primarily on security through obfuscation. One of the greatest pleasures in life is examining "black box" systems and figuring them out. The NSA would be fools to expect that their system is not already being gamed.

I think it's a useful discussion to have since there are so many people who "don't have anything to hide"

The argument works well for privacy advocates because even without regard to revealing classified secrets, the NSA won't be able to demonstrate good efficacy or good value for the money, due to the fact that such a system can only ever "work" rarely. A close look at this ought to also reveal a large fraction of abuse, and waste, in addition to false positives.

Re: Ethics Aside, Is NSA's Spy Tool Efficient?

#12

Post by rl3 » Sat, Jun 15, 2013, 1:50 PM UTC

alexholehouse wrote: post #4

This is exactly the argument I've been making to people when we discuss PRISM. Think about the heterogeneity of the data, the lack of structure, and the unpredictable nature of its generation. Frankly, I have no doubt that the NSA is not monitoring phone chatter on a mass scale, probably not because they can't , but because if they did there would be no way in hell to parse, store, process and evaluate the data gener…

The technical portion of William Binney's presentation at HOPE 9 sheds a lot of light on this.[1]

If you go to 14:33 in the video, it has a nifty screenshot of an activity sequencing tool. He also talks a lot about latent semantic analysis and other methods.

1. http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xs8zl4_william-binney-hope-...

Re: Ethics Aside, Is NSA's Spy Tool Efficient?

#13

Post by danso » Sat, Jun 15, 2013, 1:51 PM UTC

While it's impossible to estimate how smoothly things actually work in the NSA, if you are someone who takes the leaked slides as gospel, then you have to admit at least one thing:

The slides were written as if morons were the audience. It uses brightly colored bubbles to define the very few key points involved. In any other bureaucracy, these slides would be seen as yet another example of office workers having to be reminded to do their "TPS reports". The slides, more or less read as: "Hey dumbfucks, remember that we have two systems for espionage. PLEASE remember to use BOTH of them"

The fact that they took the time to come up with a memorable name like PRISM is also kind of amusing, like the way politicians come up with PATRIOT Act and PROTECT-IP to help people remember what hot-button issue they involve.

edit: In addition to this, Snowden managed to get the files using a USB key, something which had been banned years before at the NSA because someone was able to infect NSA's infrastructure with such a device...and yet Snowden was still able to steal files...at the very least, the NSA's IT logistics doesn't seem to be much better than of large corporations: http://theweek.com/article/index/245643/how-edward-snowden-s...

So the NSA may employ the world's best engineers and mathematicians, but it doesn't necessarily mean things are well-honed and efficient.

Re: Ethics Aside, Is NSA's Spy Tool Efficient?

#14

Post by threeseed » Sat, Jun 15, 2013, 1:56 PM UTC

alexholehouse wrote: post #4

This is exactly the argument I've been making to people when we discuss PRISM. Think about the heterogeneity of the data, the lack of structure, and the unpredictable nature of its generation. Frankly, I have no doubt that the NSA is not monitoring phone chatter on a mass scale, probably not because they can't , but because if they did there would be no way in hell to parse, store, process and evaluate the data gener…

The NSA already open sourced a data storage system. It's called Accumulo and is built on Hadoop.

http://accumulo.apache.org

Re: Ethics Aside, Is NSA's Spy Tool Efficient?

#15

Post by Taylorious » Sat, Jun 15, 2013, 2:01 PM UTC

alexholehouse wrote: post #4

This is exactly the argument I've been making to people when we discuss PRISM. Think about the heterogeneity of the data, the lack of structure, and the unpredictable nature of its generation. Frankly, I have no doubt that the NSA is not monitoring phone chatter on a mass scale, probably not because they can't , but because if they did there would be no way in hell to parse, store, process and evaluate the data gener…

That doesn't mean they aren't attempting to parse this massive data set. PRISM could be test run for all we know.

Re: Ethics Aside, Is NSA's Spy Tool Efficient?

#16

Post by nickodell » Sat, Jun 15, 2013, 2:05 PM UTC

>So by analyzing a network of communications, the NSA could be ferreting out clues from more than just the messages' particulars.

How could one distinguish between a terrorist cell and another small group of people intensely working on something, like a startup?

Re: Ethics Aside, Is NSA's Spy Tool Efficient?

#17

Post by threeseed » Sat, Jun 15, 2013, 2:06 PM UTC

danso wrote: post #13

While it's impossible to estimate how smoothly things actually work in the NSA, if you are someone who takes the leaked slides as gospel, then you have to admit at least one thing: The slides were written as if morons were the audience. It uses brightly colored bubbles to define the very few key points involved. In any other bureaucracy, these slides would be seen as yet another example of office workers having to be…

Apple and Google use simplistic presentations. Does that mean that the target audience for WWDC and Google/IO are morons ?

No. So I probably would read too much into the presentation style of the slides.

Re: Ethics Aside, Is NSA's Spy Tool Efficient?

#18

Post by spodek » Sat, Jun 15, 2013, 2:06 PM UTC

The issue is consequences of your actions -- not just the consequences you want, all the consequences.

Efficiency is a red herring. Ethics ends up just two sides saying "I'm right you're wrong". The only meaningful question is "Is the government fulfilling its role as government?". Or the simpler proxy question: "Is this constitutional?".

Ethics talk is opinion because obviously the people doing it and their supporters think it's ethical. If you tell them you think it's unethical they'll disagree and discount the rest of what you say. Two groups just saying "I'm right and you're wrong" or "I'm ethical and you're unethical" ends up with the more powerful one getting what they want.

Even if, say, torture efficiently got information, if it also galvanized the world against you, provoked many suicide bombers, got your own people tortured, lowered the population's trust and faith in the government, distanced your allies, increased the costs of maintaining the military, and so on, it might not be worth it.

If you put the entire population in jail, you will have 100% efficiency in jailing criminals. But what cost? The point is that if the government doesn't protect freedom or represent the will of the people then it will lose popular support and have to support itself by convincing people lack of freedom is preferable to freedom or just lying.

Besides, it didn't stop the Boston Marathon Bombing.

Re: Ethics Aside, Is NSA's Spy Tool Efficient?

#19

Post by olefoo » Sat, Jun 15, 2013, 2:24 PM UTC

muyuu wrote: post #9

alexholehouse wrote: post #4

This is exactly the argument I've been making to people when we discuss PRISM. Think about the heterogeneity of the data, the lack of structure, and the unpredictable nature of its generation. Frankly, I have no doubt that the NSA is not monitoring phone chatter on a mass scale, probably not because they can't , but because if they did there would be no way in hell to parse, store, process and evaluate the data gener…

Natural language processing improves at a fast pace, and these records remain there to be processed at an increasingly large scale as technology allows. I don't think most people are ready to comprehend what keeping a comprehensive digital record of private communications allows.

Including after the fact attribution of motive for any of a number of actions based on peoples online comments.

The real question is if the already exposed two way trade in information is going to be broadened into a comprehensive assessment service. Will the NSA provide a "DataVeillance report" on individuals considered for 'sensitive positions'?

Will your call records be used to assess your fitness for work? Will your spending habits be turned into behavioral alerts so that your HR manager is calling you in to ask if you've been drinking too much?

Who gets to access these records and for what purposes?

Re: Ethics Aside, Is NSA's Spy Tool Efficient?

#20

Post by olefoo » Sat, Jun 15, 2013, 2:29 PM UTC

nickodell wrote: post #16

>So by analyzing a network of communications, the NSA could be ferreting out clues from more than just the messages' particulars. How could one distinguish between a terrorist cell and another small group of people intensely working on something, like a startup?

From the perspective of an established incumbent player in a lucrative market, a disruptively effective startup _is_ an economic terrorist.

The existence of a repository of data of this sort will be used to defend existing economic arrangements against new entrants; and to prevent certain classes of arrangement from becoming established at all.