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

theguardian.com

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

#371

Post by lazyjones »

astrodust wrote: post #315
griffordson wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there no difference between specifically targeting a suspect and gaining physical access to their hardware vs. any number of government employees/contractors sitting at their desk browsing through anybody's data with little to no technical limits and little to no oversight? One of the slides literally says that users must be careful to and their query with another parameter to avoid running afoul of the law.

At this point the only difference is cost and scale. What the NSA is doing needs to be reeled in big-time, probably even shut down completely, but that doesn't mean being all tin-foil hat will somehow make you immune to what they're doing. I'm sure they know everything they need to know about Stallman, just as they do about everyone else, apparently. Unless he's sitting in a cave writing EMACS source on goat hides, t…

> At this point the only difference is cost and scale.

Only if we are talking about the same types of attack, which we aren't. If you do "wrench" style targeted attacks at a large scale, you'll leave 10%+ of the population injured, how is that supposed to work out for a government?

Stallman's counter-measures probably work as long as only very few people use them. The same is probably true for terrorists, which is why this whole dragnet surveillance does not really work towards the stated goals and "crackpots" like me suspect it may have more to do with bullying people into self-censorship.

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

#372

Post by cinquemb »

deveac wrote: post #345
kazagistar wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe I am just having trouble seeing the point of "see I was right all along"? Why would we be upset at the newcomers to the ranks of the enlightened? I would prefer to just nod, point to the preexisting evidence, instead of driving people away with unproductive "I told you so" hostility.

I agree completely. We need more education on the subject as opposed to back patting, and we definitely don't need to attack the very people that need to hear and understand the reporting most, as the person you are replying to is doing, by calling them naive. A bit sad imho.

My issue with the conversation now that this has gone "mainstream" is that people are now allowing the media to shape their viewpoints (like everything else that seems to blow up in peoples minds who are normally distracted with reality tv or how awesome they think their life is[personal experience from family members/friends/how I lived for some time]), without digging further beyond what people are talking about at the surface.

The emotions are most likely to be anger and disgust of having their sense of reality shattered, inciting most people who feel powerless to change their habits, to go and protest. And as we all have seen around the world and even within the united states, protests can get pretty hairy, pretty quickly and not in the favor of people who want to live peacefully…

Outside of the issue of inciting the masses to act out physically, there is very little public "mainstream" acknowledgement that corporations are collecting and sharing the same types of data (and more) between one another, where issues surrounding any type of morality become selling points for products. So then the theoretical situation becomes: Government agrees to stop its dragnet programs, non governmental entities will continue to do so as long as people use their services… where's the protest for that (and when that comes they'll hire private contractors to protect them and their interests [remember OWS 2011])?

I posted this a while back on information asymmetry and the surveillance state [0], which lays out simply what is going on now in the minds of people and what is at the core of the issue people are talking about. I also propose an idea about the direction I feel would be more beneficial for the energy to be placed on my post as apposed to the logical conclusion of where all the anger will be placed by people who are now willing to enter the conversation from recent "mainstream" exposure [1].

[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6042241 [1]: http://blog.pictobar.com/post/52533760444/the-nsa-is-closed-...

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

#373

Post by MattyRad »

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…

I have asked this same question myself. It's stunning that only one sys admin has come forth with this information. Further, politicians and higher business officials in companies usually don't know what computers are capable of, which leads me to believe that it's actually programmers who are suggesting that such horrifying systems be built (for example, no politician is going to say "let's make a copy of every piece of internet traffic everywhere." The programmer says "We can copy everything," and the politician says "Ok, do it"). The only excuse I could imagine that a programmer would tell themselves is "This is just my job, and I'm just building the software, but it's the government that's going to be using it, not me, so I've done nothing wrong."

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

#375

Post by gruseom »

skore wrote: post #351
sbi wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These are quotes from the Bolt drama "A Man for All Seasons," not Sir Thomas More himself.

Guess it was one of those days where Hitchens had a drink too many and got his quotes mixed up.

More likely he assumed the reader knew what he was talking about.

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

#376

Post by api »

I'm getting seriously irritated at the "I have nothing to hide" crowd. For starters, here are a few ways this can go horribly wrong:

* Industrial espionage -- it's big business, and I'm sure it pays better than being an NSA analyst.

* Foreign espionage -- since this gives unlimited querying power to every agent, a single "turned" agent could inflict massive damage on U.S. government and industry interests on behalf of a foreign power. The potential for double agents is huge.

* False positives and guilt by association -- being flagged as a "person of interest" and then essentially persecuted because you have fringe ideological interests, are looking up a lot of info on terrorism for a book project, have a friend who knows radical Muslims, etc.

* Corrupt use in political campaigns by incumbent politicians with access -- obvious.

* Blackmail and other corruption.

* Use by government agencies with access to spy on other agencies.

... I'm sure creative people can think of more.

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

#378

Post by Karunamon »

lazyjones wrote: post #343
astrodust wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

His observations are correct, but his conclusions are incorrect, just as people like Glenn Beck start out with facts and end up with paranoid delusions and fantasies. I think Stallman's observations are valid, but his method of dealing with the implications of those observations are impractical, if not completely wrong.

When you are done attacking Stallman with a false analogy, would you care to name a few of his invalid conclusions? More specifically, what is so impractical or "completely wrong" about not using smartphones?

Stallman's stance is against all cell phones, not just smartphones. And I'd argue that in 2013, to the point where we're issuing basic phones to welfare recipients for the purpose of job searching, that this is an invalid conclusion.

As is only using the FSF's definition of free software (where it matters less that the software itself is free, but that the software doesn't point out to you any nonfree addons. Fedora Linux is free software, as is Firefox but since they allow nonfree firmware blobs, and addons respectively, they don't count).

Or free hardware, Good Luck With That, unless you like a single netbook made by a single company in China.

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

#379

Post by knowaveragejoe »

Daniel_Newby wrote: post #266
deveac wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>This is overwhelming. Even when you always hear the claims about we knew this was going on, somehow it is still shocking when you see it all laid out infront of you with screenshots and the capabilities described. It has become a bit of a pet peeve of mine recently to see self-aggrandizing comments from users around the net about how "we should have known" and "none of this is new." I'm a practically addicted news j…

> I'm a practically addicted news junkie ... More like a news sheep. The mass market news is and has always been 49% fluff and 49% lies. Comments from people who already knew what the NSA does are not "self aggrandizing". The are other-insulting. You should rightly be ashamed that you walk through life in a news fog of up-to-the-minute minutiae. Read books by retired insiders, talk to current insiders and contractors…

Wow, what a staggering misinterpretation of what the parent said.

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

#380

Post by w_t_payne »

arca_vorago wrote: post #286
w_t_payne wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OK, I will take the bait. What do you think the greater machine is? Here is my take: You do not need to posit an organized Illuminati-like conspiracy to have cause for concern. We can find plenty to worry about even if we limit ourselves to properties of the system that are either emergent or driven by natural human behavioural traits. For example, a lot of people in positions of authority got there because they have…

I hope I am not responding to too many people and seeming spammy, but here goes. I agree completely that we do not necessarily need to posit and organized "Illuminati-like conspiracy" to have cause for concern. There are plenty of studies showing increasing likely-hood of sociopaths rising to the top of power structures, and is often just due to how to system as an autonomous entity functions. What I do posit though,…

This seems relevant: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-04-26/illuminati-were-ama...
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