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

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

#281

Post by jacquesm »

tptacek wrote: post #262
cwp wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The law is more than the statues. The rulings of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court are classified, so we don't know how the statutes are being interpreted and applied. We do know, however, that the executive has a history of using bizarre legal theories to skirt the spirit of the law. But even if Google isn't obligated to lie, it might still be lying. Maybe Google is lying, not because it's obligated to by…

If Justin Schuh is lying about anything that's happening at Google, I'll videotape myself eating a dirty sock.

I'll be happy to supply the sock.

> NSA doesn't have Google's private key.

And socks come in pairs.

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

#282

Post by twelvechairs »

tptacek wrote: post #180
twelvechairs wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you saying that the "collection directly from the servers" claim of the NSA document is simply the systems we already know about (FISA warrants or otherwise) until proven otherwise? To me the terminology of the document probably (though not necessarily) indicates something more serious, but I'm not sure its necessarily 'cables into gmail' (which you seem to indicate as the only alternate). For instance, potential…

Marc Ambinder, a reporter who has covered the national security beat for many years (before that he was a political reporter for The Atlantic, and before that the White House reporter for --- I think? --- CBS), reported that PRISM is a system of dropbox servers and a user interface that allows seamless access to all of those servers, presumably so that analysts don't have to keep track of which data is affiliated wit…

Thanks for the detail - I now understand you view far better than earlier in the thread. will read these articles when I have the time

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

#283

Post by vidarh »

tptacek wrote: post #118
gojomo wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that's an excellent summary, but also: that SFTP-like access almost certainly keeps happening, for that targeted account, after the initial request. Perhaps it happens hourly, or even faster when relevant account events (login, message-received, message-sent, voip-call) occur. For most of the world -- those who have never SSH'd into a machine, nor had machine 'root' access -- that rapid-batch-dump access stil…

The Guardian went out of its way to characterize the access not only as "direct" but "unilateral".

The Guardian reported what the NSA documents claims PRISM does.

You keep implying that The Guardian is making unsubstantiated claims, but their article is full of "NSA claims" and quotation marks, and it would take someone intentionally trying to read something else into it to ascribe these claims to The Guardian.

Are you claiming The Guardian is lying or mistaken about what the NSA documents says?

Because if you are not, then your beef should not be with The Guardian articles, but with the NSA documents.

It's possible the NSA documents are technically incorrect, but if that is what you believe, then complain about the NSA rather than attack the reporting, as in that case attacking the reporting just seems like a weak attempt at making your arguments seem more credible by attaching the claims about "direct" access to the reporters rather than the NSA.

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

#284

Post by X-Istence »

anologwintermut wrote: post #103
kniht wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> provided they don't use cipher modes that provide forward secrecy They use a PFS cipher spec: http://googleonlinesecurity.blogspot.com/2011/11/protecting-...

For HTTPS. I will bet you they don't use perfect forward secrecy for TLS with SMTP traffic. Not because they don't want to , but because it likely isn't supported for a huge set of the servers they connect to. A large number SSL terminators/ accelerators that e.g Microsoft uses, don't likely support it and who knows about other stuff.

They do use PFS for TLS with SMTP traffic when the server on the other end supports it.

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

#285

Post by josephlord »

dbbolton wrote: post #110
DanielBMarkham wrote: post #77

Since the modus operandi seems to be for the NSA to suck up everything it can and decide later it seems (wild speculation follows) that the NSA might be sitting on audio recrodings of all your phone calls for the past several years. Can you imagine the number of divorce cases that would impact? Civil lawsuits? Proof of innocence or guilt in a crime? Hell, get a decade or two of this and historians alone would have a…

If they were obtained without a warrant, wouldn't they be inadmissible as evidence, especially if they were being used in an inculpatory rather than exculpatory manner?

It doesn't need to be used as evidence. They can threaten to reveal things and blackmail you, leak to the press to discredit you or use it to know when and where to raid so that they can catch you read handed.

If they do go to court it gives them a list of witnesses a and the ability to blackmail them into cooperation.

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

#286

Post by vidarh »

tptacek wrote: post #246
unclebucknasty wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So what? The subject of this thread is that the NSA admitted that analysts can listen to the content of all of our phone calls without a warrant. We are having this discussion because the Snowden link put the NSA front and center. Yet, you are arguing some mundane semantics? Instead of smearing the people responsible for these revelations, why not try to focus on the big picture? That is, all of this is leading to lo…

No, I am arguing that AT&T rolled over (and, as it turns out from today's Gellman piece in WaPo, took money from the USG to do it), while Google fought back. But commenters on boards like this are happy to shit all over Google because (a) any allegation that Google rolled over to the USG confirms their biases, (b) they're inclined to put people into binary "agrees with me entirely" or "disagrees with me entirely" buc…

It's more that a lot of people are more inclined to trust a leaked NSA document that claims NSA does the type of things that people already believed NSA does, including when it implicates Google, than a Google PR denial of a very specific interpretation of the same.

In the absence of more evidence about what exactly PRISM does, what we have is guesswork, but guesswork where believing some interpretation of the NSA documents becomes easier the more revelations of extensive NSA surveillance via other channels that are coming out.

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

#287

Post by honzzz »

kunai wrote: post #183
Homunculiheaded wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's really unfortunate that most people read 1984 as teenagers (I did). I went back to it as an adult, somewhat expecting it to be a let down. What I found was quite the opposite, there's a lot more nuance in that book than would really be absorbed by high school students being forced to read it. "The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now do you beg…

Do not stereotype teenagers. I am merely fifteen years old, and if you take a look through my comment thread you may find more insight than you expected. Yes, most in my generation are shallow and passive; but that doesn't mean all are. There are some intellectuals on the fringes.

I learned two things since I was 15:

1. People are really bad judges of their own insight.

2. It's quite common that what seems to be brilliant insight at the age of 15 is perceived as obvious at best and really stupid at worst when the person is 35.

Also, get of my lawn.

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

#288

Post by vidarh »

tptacek wrote: post #136
gojomo wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd need to see the context to know if the Guardian was wrong where they used that exact word, or were simply describing something that exists with some companies or at another level of tapping.

A graf from Greenwald's original story: When the FAA was first enacted, defenders of the statute argued that a significant check on abuse would be the NSA's inability to obtain electronic communications without the consent of the telecom and internet companies that control the data. But the Prism program renders that consent unnecessary, as it allows the agency to directly and unilaterally seize the communications of…

Greenwald's statement here about the Prism program is explaining what the NSA document claims. This is clear from context. If it is false, it is false in the same way as a book reviews that recaps events in a novel is false.

And unless I've missed some major revelation, it "appears to be false" on the basis of press releases from companies with an interest in not being caught with their pants down.

Forgive me for not being so willing to jump to conclusions about which claims to believe.

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

#289

Post by rdl »

tptacek wrote: post #251
etherael wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you say "that's not an accident" do you mean to imply you'd have ethical objections to it? As you are one of the three most common defenders of the state that I have noticed on this site, that would be very surprising to me. But quite interesting if so, it would be some indication that your perspective on the issues and seeming constant defense is an indication of spiraling paranoia in counterparties to your arg…

Yes, I have an ethical problem with doing the kind of work I do for defense contractors or for the USG. I'm not saying that doing work for USG, or even software security work for them, or even offensive software security for them is prima facie unethical; I only know that I don't feel qualified to navigate the ethical quagmire, and thankfully am not required to do so. I'm also not a defender of the state. However, of…

Presumably doing Matasano-type appsec work for DoD if it were for internal DoD software would be fine (i.e. making sure the VA's medical records system is relatively secure against outside threats)?

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

#290

Post by pfortuny »

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…

I agree with you on everything.

However, on the strict point of "metadata" (which would mean IP, time, and little more, but anyway, data), and only guessing, splitters would be useful, would they not? and at the same time make the "direct access" negation stand true, if I read correctly?

I know you are fighting a different battle (that Snowden does not mean this and he is wrong, on which I tend to agree more or less) but this idea would also be useful for the Gov't and not that much of a deal to implement.

Even more, come to think of it, this might be done at the Telcos level, might it not?

EDIT: Just realized this would only give one end of the communication, so not THAT useful, I guess. I see.

EDIT2: Well, with some analysis and some luck you might get the size of a mail, with care and timing and then with more statistics get an idea of who (IP) may have read it when (albeit just STATISTICALLY) but you may get lucky...

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