The NSA Is Commandeering the Internet • Hacker News Board

Re: The NSA Is Commandeering the Internet

#201

Post by drivingmenuts » Tue, Aug 13, 2013, 5:58 AM UTC

adaml_623 wrote: post #104

drivingmenuts wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great if you live outside the US, but if you're inside the US, would not the very act of connecting to a foreign secure service automatically make you suspect? There is a much deeper issue here: as Americans, we need to decide how much protection we actually want. One group says everyone is responsible for their own protection, another says everyone needs protecting from everyone else, yet another group says we'll pr…

Do you mind if the UK, Russian, or Chinese security agencies spy on you? After all that's their job? And by spy I do mean trojan your personal machine and keep you in a database?

I think that's just inevitable. Do I mind? Yes. Can I personally do anything about it? Probably not a whole hell of a lot.

There are no guarantees that my information is safe from prying eyes. However, I think I'd be much happier if I felt like I could at least trust the people who purport to be on my side. Right now, I do not trust them.

Re: The NSA Is Commandeering the Internet

#202

Post by drivingmenuts » Tue, Aug 13, 2013, 6:30 AM UTC

Sauer_Kraut wrote: post #90

drivingmenuts wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great if you live outside the US, but if you're inside the US, would not the very act of connecting to a foreign secure service automatically make you suspect? There is a much deeper issue here: as Americans, we need to decide how much protection we actually want. One group says everyone is responsible for their own protection, another says everyone needs protecting from everyone else, yet another group says we'll pr…

While I wouldn't consider the comment down-vote worth as someone else deemed it, I find one part I have to respond to. "if you're not from the US, I feel like you should have known that was a possibility." Known exactly what was a possibility? In another comment I brought up Endgame Systems, here is some of their offerings: 'There are even target packs for democratic countries in Europe and other U.S. allies. Maui (p…

I think the idea that you can trust any country that is not your own to be up to no good on the internet should be the default state of mind, even the countries that are, in other aspects, considered allies. This should be the mindset for every country and this should be communicated to their users frequently and explicitly: "If you store your data outside our borders, you probably will get screwed in some way."

NOTE: Where I said "foreigners" I probably should have written "foreign countries". The term "foreigners" reads a bit offensively on review.

As for the "stolen financial/personal information" bit, that's part of the information gathering (and technically, it's not stolen - see the whole argument on copyright). As long as the data is being used for analysis, that's a fair use for a government organization dedicated to spying. If it's being used for financial gain, that's a very grey area dependent on current laws, and if it's being turned over to or collected by private entities operating without oversight, that's just out-of-bounds.

Ultimately, the point was that one should be able to trust one's own government to be operating in one's own best interest, but never assume that another government or it's framework of laws will ever be of any help to you. If it is, then you got lucky.

Re: The NSA Is Commandeering the Internet

#203

Post by mcovey » Tue, Aug 13, 2013, 3:49 PM UTC

anologwintermut wrote: post #115

ge0rg wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they could shut down all of these niche secure email businesses, what option will people have but to use less private alternatives? I think Ladar Levison answered that question, implicitly, in his shutdown announcement: "I would _strongly_ recommend against anyone trusting their private data to a company with physical ties to the United States." It is high time to provide secure services hosted in countries withou…

What country? Most of Europe has worse laws than the US for surveillance of their own subjects (though their secret interpretations of their worse laws as far as we know are better than the US interpretations). What they don't have, because no one does, is restrictions on spying on people outside of their country. We are just as much fair game for the BND(German), DSGE(French),FAPSI/GRU (Russia) as their subjects are…

The point is to host outside the US because it hurts the US economy and takes their business away. That is the only way to get anything done in America. If it hurts the economy, they will do anything to fix it. Of course the USA is leading the pack on surveillance so if they have to reduce it then the EU countries are free to (and probably will) do so as well.

Re: The NSA Is Commandeering the Internet

#204

Post by tptacek » Tue, Aug 13, 2013, 3:49 PM UTC

diminoten wrote: post #190

dragonwriter wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it has no "troops" with which to engage foreigners. Well, if you ignore that thing where the NSA is an part of the Department of Defense, and that its director is also the commander of a sub-unified command of the US military, sure.

The NSA is not the DoD, so yes, it'd make sense to ignore that fact.

The NSA is part of DoD.

Re: The NSA Is Commandeering the Internet

#205

Post by rhizome » Tue, Aug 13, 2013, 6:21 PM UTC

swombat wrote: post #25

If Google, Apple, Microsoft, Yahoo and Facebook simultaneously came out and published all statistics that the government is not allowing them to publish, and declared that they will continue to publish those as they come in and be entirely transparent about the tracking that the NSA asked of them, would their CEOs all go to jail, doing enormous damage to the stock market? I don't think so. I think the NSA would fold…

Classic Prisoner's Dilemma.

Re: The NSA Is Commandeering the Internet

#206

Post by deegles » Tue, Aug 13, 2013, 8:43 PM UTC

S_A_P wrote: post #14

While I understand that Lavabit and others have taken a stand, Im not sure that I would call going out of business fighting. I see this as an NSA victory. If they could shut down all of these niche secure email businesses, what option will people have but to use less private alternatives? I would argue that a shut down is exactly what the NSA wanted from lavabit. Of course the flip side is that you don't want to be c…

It was a win-win situation. Shut down the service, or get a backdoor into the emails of people who are explicitly trying to keep their communication private.

Had lavabit capitulated, we wouldn't know about it.

Re: The NSA Is Commandeering the Internet

#207

Post by RyanMcGreal » Thu, Aug 15, 2013, 1:44 PM UTC

apalmer wrote: post #35

swombat wrote: post #25

If Google, Apple, Microsoft, Yahoo and Facebook simultaneously came out and published all statistics that the government is not allowing them to publish, and declared that they will continue to publish those as they come in and be entirely transparent about the tracking that the NSA asked of them, would their CEOs all go to jail, doing enormous damage to the stock market? I don't think so. I think the NSA would fold…

Well I hope this is not the case. I am against the NSA monitoring program. I think powerful commercial interests colluding to purposefully break the rule of law is a huge negative. Lets disconnect this behavior from the specific instance's moral outrage: If Exxon, BP, Chevron, Shell simultaneously came out and ignored all EPA restrictions would their CEOs all go to jail, doing enormous damage to the stock market? Thi…

Looks like you're reasoning at level four:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Kohlberg's_stages_of_m...

Re: The NSA Is Commandeering the Internet

#208

Post by pradocchia » Thu, Aug 15, 2013, 4:01 PM UTC

diminoten wrote: post #19

jacquesm wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The NSA is, despite everything we're being told by some people (Bruce), on our side. Define 'our side' please. I'm not convinced of that. And if you take the temporal element into account you might very well find that the NSA is even against 'your side' in the longer term. Information gathered indiscriminately has a tendency to concentrate on the bad parts. If I vacuum up all your communications over the last 20 ye…

The potential of abuse for guns is pretty damn large, but some would argue that the US was founded on the idea of gun ownership. There's a lot of speculation about what could happen, but if we look only at what has happened, people aren't being snatched up off the streets because of the NSA's monitoring programs. The language of the above article seems too adversarial to be effective at getting anything done. If we c…

The potential of abuse for guns is pretty damn large, but some would argue that the US was founded on the idea of gun ownership.

Yes, and those guns were widely distributed among the general populace. It was this wide distribution that contributed to a democratic society.

Whereas, the tools of the NSA are closely held. You and I do not have access to comparable tools, not at all. This creates a power imbalance, and this power imbalance is ripe for abuse.