XKeyscore: NSA program collects 'nearly everything a user does on the internet'

Post by kyro » Wed, Jul 31, 2013, 3:12 PM UTC

jgrahamc wrote: post #169

kyro wrote: post #157

Is this information the NSA could've attained left to their own devices, or is this sort of stuff only accessible with help from service providers, eg Facebook and Google? What I'm trying to ask is: with all the hullabaloo Google, Facebook, Yahoo, Microsoft, etc have made about individual, manual reviews of information requests, are we still being lied to? I suspect that we obviously haven't been told the whole story…

If you can tap large Internet connections then you can siphon off all HTTP and SMTP traffic and from there it's trivial to reconstruct sessions and from there get application level stuff. I was doing similar things in the mid-1990s on shared Ethernet. It's really only a question of speed and scale and then of writing code that recognizes particular traffic (such as "this HTTP connection is a Facebook chat session").

Post by shawabawa3 » Wed, Jul 31, 2013, 3:13 PM UTC

kintamanimatt wrote: post #114

naithemilkman wrote: post #90

Surely the question on everyone's mind is: how good is incognito mode???

It's not. It's only just a way to visit sites without a record being stored on your computer. Read the warning. For example, Firefox's private browsing mode states: > While this computer won't have a record of your browsing history, your internet service provider or employer can still track the pages you visit. They should include government spooks in that warning!

Post by w_t_payne » Wed, Jul 31, 2013, 3:15 PM UTC

GI wrote: post #120

I am going to be obliterated for this comment! Does the fact they've caught 300 terrorists in anyway justify what they're doing? I am not saying it does, I just wondered what people's thoughts were (although I can guess!). It's interesting that it was included in the article in an attempt to give it some 'balance'..

Post by smackfu » Wed, Jul 31, 2013, 3:16 PM UTC

akmiller wrote: post #141

Honest, maybe naive question, but what types of programmers actively help build and maintain systems like this? I turned down a job for a company that is less than a mile from my house because I viewed their business as immoral. Hard for me to fathom anyone taking a job, helping to build systems like this. I get that many of the components of a system like this could be seen as harmless. However, a system of this com…

Post by jonknee » Wed, Jul 31, 2013, 3:16 PM UTC

kyro wrote: post #181

jgrahamc wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you can tap large Internet connections then you can siphon off all HTTP and SMTP traffic and from there it's trivial to reconstruct sessions and from there get application level stuff. I was doing similar things in the mid-1990s on shared Ethernet. It's really only a question of speed and scale and then of writing code that recognizes particular traffic (such as "this HTTP connection is a Facebook chat session").

Interesting. So then this can be done with zero assistance from service providers? Could providers have taken any steps to render that stream of information inaccessible? And if so, is it a costly effort?