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

theguardian.com

601–610 of 641 posts

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

#601
post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does browsing the web via e-mails and cron jobs make for more privacy?

No javascript tracking. Very strange behaviour (therefore, less behaviour tracking). That's what I can think of.

Sufficiently strange behaviour actually enables tracking; 'strange' is almost a synonym for 'unique' in this context.

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

#602
post #326

Interesting; it appears someone failed to redact some data from the slides. In the Facebook chat example, the message is "to" 1536051595. Using the Facebook Graph API, we can gather information based on this ID: http://graph.facebook.com/1536051595 Which leads us to the Facebook profile ( https://www.facebook.com/arash.gorjipour.5 ) of an individual, real or contrived, named "Arash Gorjipour". His email address and p…

He's Canadian. And he has dark skin and a funny-sounding name. He's (almost certainly) a real person, by the way. I called his office. He wasn't in, but they offered to page him for me.

[deleted]

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

#603
post #32
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…

Assume that Tor is broken. With this level of deep network monitoring, low-latency onion routing is essentially useless.

Thanks for pointing this out. Good to see a peer preacher.

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

#604
post #33

Holy shit... Apparently, the only way to ensure privacy is to go Stallman . Funny how yesterday's "conspiracy crackpot" became today's visionary.

How does browsing the web via e-mails and cron jobs make for more privacy?

He only runs code that he can vet. You can't do that when you use Javascript, or use a proprietary OS, for example.

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

#605
post #180

At this point the only thing protecting the US (and the world) from the worst tyranny imaginable is that USG's essentially unlimited power is wielded by individuals (rank and file workers, career bureaucrats, political appointees, and politicians) with a fairly reasonable sense of morality and belief that they are constrained by both the constitution and morality. I'm don't think that is a stable long term system. Ei…

Absolutely. Now, the thing that prevents that from happening is money. So much money is concentrated on so few people that it protects itself and the owner becomes invulnerable. Add to that that too much money very often corrupts its owner. The predictable result for society seems pretty obvious.

You're spot on about money. I saw Keith Alexander's talk at the recent BlackHat conference, and was miffed at people applauding the guy, but then realized that it's a Black Hat conference, the epicenter of the monetization of exploits.

The other factor is that the NSA's reputation is irreparably tarnished, and they will continue to attract the wrong kind of people. I think we need to prepare for some dark times ahead.

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

#606
post #24

Snowden deserves the Nobel Peace Prize and the Vatican should consider canonizing him.

To be canonized you have to have performed a miracle, but If he somehow get's pardoned by the DoJ or the Obama administration we could probably consider that requirement met.

At this rate if the surveillance programs get shut down and most of the Patriot act etc get rolled back, it would be a miracle.

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

#607
post #376

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 o…

It seems to be oft-overlooked that Manning and Snowden have managed enourmous breaches of what is supposed to be secured information (yours and mine, and probably everyone elses!). Staggering breaches. Any they're boh essentially nobodies - Snowden was an army washout who became a securtiy guard who has penetrated the US security apparatus in a way that would have been considered the greatest KGB coup ever if it had been a cold war operation.

There's a staggering lack of basic competance around protecting this stuff. The CIA director who lost his job over Aimes must be wondering what the modern mob have to do to get fired.

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

#608
post #575
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…

> Users of PGP/encryption products being singled out is terrifying. I didn't see that in the article. Do you have a citation?

It is in the slides the article links to: http://www.theguardian.com/world/interactive/2013/jul/31/nsa...

Slide 16: "Show me all PGP usage in Iran"

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

#609
post #455

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did nobody look at the PowerPoint itself? From page 17 ( http://www.theguardian.com/world/interactive/2013/jul/31/nsa... ): > * Show me all the VPN startups in country X, and give me the data so I can decrypt and discover the users. > * These events are easily browsable in XKEYSCORE As I understand it (and I may be wrong), most encrypted VPN traffic uses SSL. Given that XKeyscore data is only held for a few days (due…

Poul-Henning Kamp: """With expenditures of this scale, there are a whole host of things one could buy to weaken encryption. I would contact providers of popular cloud and "whatever-as-service" providers and make them an offer they couldn't refuse: on all HTTPS connections out of the country, the symmetric key cannot be random; it must come from a dictionary of 100 million random-looking keys that I provide. The key f…

That's an interesting idea.

Even better would be for the NSA to penetrate Thwate, Verisign etc and make the keys they "generate" non-random (perhaps only for a subset of certificates sold)

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

#610
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…

Your faith in Facebook and Google not giving the NSA open access...is a bit strange.
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