NSA admits listening to U.S. phone calls without warrants • Hacker News Board

Re: NSA admits listening to U.S. phone calls without warrants

#51

Post by daywalker » Sun, Jun 16, 2013, 12:50 AM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #36

eightyone wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"and the Guardian walked the claim back" No they didn't. "The Guardian has not revised any of our articles and, to my knowledge, has no intention to do so. That's because we did not claim that the NSA document alleging direct collection from the servers was true; we reported - accurately - that the NSA document claims that the program allows direct collection from the companies' servers. Before publishing, we went to…

I'm not interested in the semantic argument. Emily Bazelon called The Guardian out this week on the Slate political podcast, as have many others; this is now a mainstream criticism of how The Guardian reported the story. Either way: the original notion that NSA had direct access to the servers that actually operate Google Mail has been found to be unsupported by the evidence published thus far. I call this out contin…

Lie, admission, lie, admission, don't you get it yet?

Re: NSA admits listening to U.S. phone calls without warrants

#52

Post by gojomo » Sun, Jun 16, 2013, 12:50 AM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #12

So that's not good. You can see how that could be happening; NSA has trunk-level access to telephony circuits. Telcos are engaged in a long-running game of footsie with the government that makes billion dollar Internet companies look like anarcho-capitalists. But I'm not seeing how we get from there to the contents of email. To have the email of arbitrary Americans without a warrant, the NSA would need direct access…

Is the relay of mail between, say, Yahoo and Gmail using strong crypto? (I'm curious; I thought not but I haven't been keeping up on bulk email interchange practices.)

Re: NSA admits listening to U.S. phone calls without warrants

#53

Post by tptacek » Sun, Jun 16, 2013, 12:52 AM UTC

paulsutter wrote: post #47

tptacek wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A copy of Google's private keys would be a more outrageous and damning discovery than NSA somehow having direct access to Google's servers. NSA doesn't have Google's private key.

First, most SMTP travels without encryption. Second, it's unfathomable to me to imagine the NSA isn't doing their damnedest to obtain all private keys. I have no idea how many they do have, but it seems foolish to assume they don't have a specific private key. Why do you think the NSA would regard private keys as some kind of sacred ground? For example, they could go after it the same way the Chinese do - phishing at…

Most SMTP does, but does most SMTP that originates or terminates at Google Mail? I don't think so.

(Here it's worth noting that mail between Google Mail users doesn't ever hit the public Internet in plaintext SMTP).

I do not think it's unfathomable that NSA has Google Mail's public key. I do think it's unfathomable that, having illicitly obtained that key, their possession of it wouldn't be one of the most closely guarded secrets in the agency.

Re: NSA admits listening to U.S. phone calls without warrants

#54

Post by uptown » Sun, Jun 16, 2013, 12:53 AM UTC

Shia LaBeouf claims to have listened to a phone call he'd made years prior, replayed to him by an FBI agent: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ux1hpLvqMw

Former FBI Agent Denies He Gave Shia LaBeouf a Recording of an Old Phone Call: http://www.breitbart.com/InstaBlog/2013/06/12/Former-FBI-Age...

If you're going to make up a story - why would you come up with the whole 'two years ago' twist? It's a details that makes no sense to fabricate unless it actually happened.

Re: NSA admits listening to U.S. phone calls without warrants

#55

Post by revelation » Sun, Jun 16, 2013, 12:53 AM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #36

eightyone wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"and the Guardian walked the claim back" No they didn't. "The Guardian has not revised any of our articles and, to my knowledge, has no intention to do so. That's because we did not claim that the NSA document alleging direct collection from the servers was true; we reported - accurately - that the NSA document claims that the program allows direct collection from the companies' servers. Before publishing, we went to…

I'm not interested in the semantic argument. Emily Bazelon called The Guardian out this week on the Slate political podcast, as have many others; this is now a mainstream criticism of how The Guardian reported the story. Either way: the original notion that NSA had direct access to the servers that actually operate Google Mail has been found to be unsupported by the evidence published thus far. I call this out contin…

For not being interested in "the semantic argument", you have previously shown lots of confidence in the Governments secret semantic interpretation.

No evidence has been published, and who is talking about Google Mail anyway?

Re: NSA admits listening to U.S. phone calls without warrants

#56

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Jun 16, 2013, 12:53 AM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #19

MWil wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

THE MAN in the middle

A huge portion of all Google Mail connections can't be MITM'd even if NSA has an SSL CA banked, because Google baked the identity of their public key into their browser (using public key pinning). File that under "things you don't do if your goal is to cooperate with NSA surveillance", by the way.

[deleted]

Re: NSA admits listening to U.S. phone calls without warrants

#57

Post by sneak » Sun, Jun 16, 2013, 12:54 AM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #42

sneak wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not invisible, no. (Please don't strawman.) I think that some of those people have knowledge of a secret program that enables access to the data (maybe without direct access to the servers that house it). That would make it easier to manage without having to bring all the SREs and such into the conspiracy. I think that most of those people would not allow their lives to be destroyed with federal charges (or maybe eve…

I don't have to build a straw man. I'd just say people should read your comment, work out its narrative in their heads, and ask which is more likely: that PRISM is an elaborate scheme by which NSA gained illicit access to Google's servers, or that it is what other reporters have now reported that it is: a unified collection system for documents manually provided by Internet companies in response to FISA directives. P…

I never claimed it was illicit. I just said it was secret, and that disclosure of such secrets carries an incredibly harsh penalty. You're doing the strawman thing again, despite claiming otherwise. :/

Just because they've pushed back doesn't mean the system isn't automated. It could have been a matter of "implement the automated system now, per the FISA order, and then we can have a go-round in front of the FISA court with your objections after".

Re: NSA admits listening to U.S. phone calls without warrants

#58

Post by tptacek » Sun, Jun 16, 2013, 12:55 AM UTC

gojomo wrote: post #52

tptacek wrote: post #12

So that's not good. You can see how that could be happening; NSA has trunk-level access to telephony circuits. Telcos are engaged in a long-running game of footsie with the government that makes billion dollar Internet companies look like anarcho-capitalists. But I'm not seeing how we get from there to the contents of email. To have the email of arbitrary Americans without a warrant, the NSA would need direct access…

Is the relay of mail between, say, Yahoo and Gmail using strong crypto? (I'm curious; I thought not but I haven't been keeping up on bulk email interchange practices.)

I believe so, yes.

Re: NSA admits listening to U.S. phone calls without warrants

#59

Post by philwelch » Sun, Jun 16, 2013, 12:55 AM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #26

sneak wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the NSA would need direct access to the servers that run Google Mail. They do not have that access; Google has categorically denied it, and the Guardian walked the claim back. Also, I don't necessarily buy this. I don't think Google's denials are lies, as Google is not a single brain, but thousands of individuals. Hard to prove a negative.

You think it's possible that NSA got direct access to Google's servers in a way that was invisible to Google's CEO, it's general counsel, its Chief Architect, Justin Schuh of their security team, and any of their thousands of employees, most of whom would immediately report such a thing if they discovered it? Moreover, having obtained this illicit access, in direct defiance of the corporation that owns and controls t…

How can you rule out:

1. Google is lying. 2. Prism (or the backend thereof) is genuinely unknown to most Google employees. Those few employees who do know of it are lying. The others (i.e. legal) are ignorant because they have no need to know, and because it provides plausible deniability. 3. There exist NSA agents capable of passing a Google interview and installing backdoors, perhaps with the collusion of other agents.

Companies the size of Google are, in software terms, Borg cubes of interacting systems. No one comprehends the whole thing, and some degree of secrecy between services is normal. Who would notice if, say, Gmail traffic was being replicated onto NSA-controlled hardware? A small part of a small part of the Gmail team. No one else would likely notice even if it was done in an obvious way.

Re: NSA admits listening to U.S. phone calls without warrants

#60

Post by finkin1 » Sun, Jun 16, 2013, 12:56 AM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #36

eightyone wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"and the Guardian walked the claim back" No they didn't. "The Guardian has not revised any of our articles and, to my knowledge, has no intention to do so. That's because we did not claim that the NSA document alleging direct collection from the servers was true; we reported - accurately - that the NSA document claims that the program allows direct collection from the companies' servers. Before publishing, we went to…

I'm not interested in the semantic argument. Emily Bazelon called The Guardian out this week on the Slate political podcast, as have many others; this is now a mainstream criticism of how The Guardian reported the story. Either way: the original notion that NSA had direct access to the servers that actually operate Google Mail has been found to be unsupported by the evidence published thus far. I call this out contin…

Semantics - the study of meaning. So you're saying you're only interested in a meaningless argument?