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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'

#471

Post by MichaelGG »

scrrr wrote: post #377

"Mr. Does your company offer a backdoor for the government? It looks like it, even though you have declared that there was no backdoor just a few weeks ago!" - "Uhm. Not wittingly!"

That's like accusing AT&T of having a backdoor because your apartment has thin walls and someone could overhear. Or that your ISP has a backdoor because your WiFi isn't encrypted.

The FBI was doing this decades ago with Carnivore. Why is it at all surprising that such a program continues to collect unencrypted information you sent over the Internet?

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

#472

Post by freshhawk »

deveac wrote: post #218
nikcub wrote: post #29

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. I can see how they get HTTP information, since they would intercept at transit hubs - but how are they getting all Facebook private messages and Gmail? I was also looking for another unique ID that users ar…

>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…

Is it self-aggrandizing? I suppose I'm one of those people.

I was shocked by having this laid out as well but I really did just assume this was probably going on. It was technically possible, it was politically possible and it was financially possible. If I shared the worldview of the people doing this and been in the position to do this, I would have been itching to start this level of collection and data mining.

I will admit to part of it being satisfaction at no longer getting the "oh put your tinfoil hat away, no one would do that" response whenever it came up, which was always based solely on the old "I don't like the implications of this being true therefore it can't be" argument. It's also relief that there is finally a discussion about a subject that was previously only seriously discussed by a small number of people.

I take your point that the I-told-you-so gloating isn't helpful and doesn't reflect well on those who do it but I disagree that that was ever meant to discourage discussion, if anything it was anger at the fact this discussion has taken so long to occur.

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

#473

Post by chrisstanchak »

curbrusiasm wrote: post #445

This has been up here for 5 hours and on the Guardian's website for nearly 6 hours. How is it possible that not the NYTimes, FOX, NPR, the Washington Post, or CNN have picked this up? These organizations are an embarrassment to the profession of journalism.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6136016

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

#476

Post by burntsushi »

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…

> How can they feel good about what they are doing?

Didn't you hear? The system is used to help track down bad guys who want to hurt America.

It sounds trite, but people really and truly believe that the issue is just that simple.

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

#477

Post by sixothree »

deveac wrote: post #218
nikcub wrote: post #29

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. I can see how they get HTTP information, since they would intercept at transit hubs - but how are they getting all Facebook private messages and Gmail? I was also looking for another unique ID that users ar…

>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 betting tonight on the news, this story will be eerily missing.

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

#478

Post by freshhawk »

noonespecial wrote: post #317
rmrfrmrf wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First of all: keep the staggering to a minimum. Second: realizing that "we should have known" and "none of this is new" isn't so much about reading news articles and being "plugged in", but rather having an understanding of how the Internet works. To oversimplify greatly, you're essentially playing a very precise game of telephone between around 10-20 different people, and usually about 1-3 different publicly-owned c…

The technical possibility isn't the new and staggering part, it's the profound lack of morality, respect for any ideal whatsoever, and compete apathy towards the oaths these people took to serve us . They have compeley misused the power we granted them in sacred trust. We should remove it from them at once. If this has become impossible, we need to know that as soon as we can.

Interestingly that's not the part I find new or staggering at all. I suppose that's just an exceptionally cynical worldview at work? No matter how "sacred" the trust I always expect this amount of power to be misused to this degree when it's secret and consistent with the ideologies present among those with that power.

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

#479

Post by ferdo »

VerilyForsooth wrote: post #427
arca_vorago wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Negative. The problem with conspiracy theorists, or any group for that matter, is that they are so easily put into that group and then dismissed as a whole. Personally I think at the core of the matter is an enormous imbalance of importance placed on the authority or source of an argument, to the detriment of argumentative logos. Possibly some form of the genetic fallacy. For example, you deride an entire "group" of…

You are a conspiracy theorist. By definition, your powers of cognitive thinking are essentially retarded. This is what defines the conspiracy theorist.

Coincidence theorists, the ones that believe whatever they're told by whatever authority figure they believe in this week, are the ones with stunted cognitive abilities.

"Terrorists are the problem we must address" is no different from "Satan is trying steal your soul" or "Commies are gonna destroy our way of life" as a means of manipulating the more gullible people in a population. It's worked for centuries.

"You can fool some of the people all of the time, and those are the ones you need to concentrate on."

-George Bush, repeating advice given to him by Robert Strauss

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

#480

Post by bentcorner »

mayanksinghal wrote: post #462
s_q_b wrote: post #414

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The technical possibility isn't the new and staggering part, it's the profound lack of morality, respect for any ideal whatsoever, and compete apathy towards the oaths these people took to serve us. Again, I'll chime in as the resident apologist. The people working at Fort Meade are not evil. They truly believe they're doing a great service to the nation. They may be wrong, and they've certainly thrown privacy out…

> The people working at Fort Meade are not evil. They truly believe they're doing a great service ... That isn't really a strong argument. Firstly, their actions is supposed to reflect the ideology of the US citizens in general. If it doesn't, either they are not being administered as well as they should be or they are purposefully ignoring the will of the citizens. Secondly, the idea that because they truly believe…

> Firstly, their belief is supposed to reflect the ideology of the US citizens in general. If it doesn't, either they are not being administered as well as they should be or they are purposefully.

I think this is a very difficult question to answer. If you're a lowly NSA tech tasked with something seemingly mundane (say, writing some automated tool to be used by an internal billing dept), at what point do you refuse to contribute to an organization that may be operating against the will of the people? Who is responsible?

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