Groklaw legal site shuts over fears of NSA email snooping • Hacker News Board

Re: Groklaw legal site shuts over fears of NSA email snooping

#231

Post by carl_banks » Wed, Aug 21, 2013, 2:52 AM UTC

Given the current furore I think it not unlikely that pj is under a national security letter and dare not talk about it for fear of arrest.

She is probably gambling that they will not threaten to arrest her for closing her site if she makes no statement.

She always seemed pretty ballsy and I think she still is.

Or maybe she just doesn't want to be a journalist in America any more.

What do whistleblowers seek ? A journalist to leak to.

Imagine receiving a leak in America right now.

It would certainly be a BIG commitment and having received it, it might be too late to undo that action.

At the very least this is pre-emptive censorship - a chilling effect, but important in the Manufacturing of Consent.

What do you think would happern to Glen Greenwald if he were to step into a transit lounge right now ?

Nice of the White House to deny it.

Consent for what ? Well one might wonder...

Re: Groklaw legal site shuts over fears of NSA email snooping

#232

Post by dylangs1030 » Wed, Aug 21, 2013, 3:08 AM UTC

mpyne wrote: post #230

dylangs1030 wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe I was unclear; I completely agree with rayiner (and, by extension, you). I've even made the same exact arguments elsewhere, today even. I meant that it's an argument in that an argument can be either true or false. But yes, you're right.

Ah, sorry. I did misunderstand, and felt I had to speak up accordingly. Some of my highest-voted posts on HN have been the ones where I've had to patiently remind people that America now is leaps and bounds better than America in almost any other decade by almost any conceivable measure. Not every measure, for sure. But the history of America is one of constant (if slow) overall improvement; why throw that away? But…

If it's any consolation, comments like those from 'rayiner and yourself prompted me to do an in-depth study of United States history from a quality-of-life perspective, and eventually led me to make the same arguments, so they are working, don't be disheartened :)

Re: Groklaw legal site shuts over fears of NSA email snooping

#233

Post by sixothree » Wed, Aug 21, 2013, 3:29 AM UTC

owenfi wrote: post #171

sixothree wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Direct Project is an email encryption scheme that hopes to replace the mail and fax currently used by American physicians to communicate patient health information. It is a requirement for Stage 2 (2014) Meaningful Use certified EHR software. So this is going to be adopted on a large scale in the next year or two. It uses SMTP to transmit SMIME messages signed with X.509. Public keys for recipients are discovered…

One of the mechanisms for relationship building is Blue Button+[1] We have a version of the java reference implementation up and running, so I can vouch for it. I have been thinking about it in context of the privacy atmosphere for quite a while now. On one hand I'm excited that such a technology could also be used for secure communication and on the other I'm worried that health records will be susceptible to the sa…

Agreed. Also, ONC has endorsed Direct Trust which has an accreditation process which will likely consolidate providers into HISPs, which will make easy targets for same coercion you speak of.

But a slightly altered system where private keys are not consolidated might be a huge improvement.

Re: Groklaw legal site shuts over fears of NSA email snooping

#234

Post by cbhl » Wed, Aug 21, 2013, 4:58 AM UTC

mpyne wrote: post #130

cbhl wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the thing we need to consider is that they don't need to have explicit files per se on anybody anymore. It seems more likely that if a file was needed on you, they could generate one by simply typing some PII (say, a name and address) into a computer form, which then causes form letters to be sent mail merge style to credit agencies, retailers, telecoms, and major social networks requesting your information.…

For the most part it's true they could quickly generate a file, but they could have done that in 1998 as well (modulo the lack of things like Facebook at the time). Being able to instantly pull up email contents would certainly be different in scale and scope though!

I doubt it; POP3 and SMTP are plaintext. Put a few wiretap in at major colos; build a few data centers, maintain a couple of essentially very large hashtables and it seems plausible that they could instantly pull up email contents.

It'd be a bit bigger scale than GMail search or whatever corporations use for e-Discovery in Outlook, but it'd be plausible.

Whether the government allocated budget to such a contraption is another matter; I think that would be a bigger concern than the technical plausibility of "store everyone's email for all time in perpetuity". I mean, if GMail was supposed to fulfill that vision (ha!) then it can't possibly be unreasonable for a determined government to build it.

Re: Groklaw legal site shuts over fears of NSA email snooping

#235

Post by walshemj » Wed, Aug 21, 2013, 1:03 PM UTC

lmickh wrote: post #126

walshemj wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You would be fine with the Government throwing you in jail for what you said then. By that argument the Weiße Rose in ww2 Germany had free speech but they still got beheaded for it. the UNHC defination is "Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless…

You couldn't have setup a worse strawman. Congrats for making the jump straight from employee/employer relations to Nazis. Governments throwing you in jail, intimidating you, or out right killing you all disrupt your right to free speech. An employer exercising his free speech by firing you in no way prohibits your free speech. You can still tell everyone you want that you should form a union. No one is interfering t…

Firing you for free speech is a serious chilling effect NO? did you not read the "Without Interference" part of article 19

Another example is the Chinese allowed protestors against the Olympics in special zones - they of course arrested them after - that is not free speech.

Possibly you ought to update the constitution in line with the Universal Declaration Of Human Rights like most of the first world countrys have.

Re: Groklaw legal site shuts over fears of NSA email snooping

#236

Post by loceng » Thu, Aug 22, 2013, 12:26 AM UTC

dragonwriter wrote: post #144

loceng wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The way they are winning is the problem - which is that they get tax money. People need to be able to directly agree what their tax is spent on - on a per-item basis. New road? Fix up a certain road? Etc..

The people that have disproportionate power over government also have disproportionate wealth, and would not be weakened by a system of the type you present (which would just make it harder for government to serve diffuse interests.)

It would be a good start though I believe.

Re: Groklaw legal site shuts over fears of NSA email snooping

#237

Post by mcherm » Fri, Aug 23, 2013, 2:59 PM UTC

elviejo wrote: post #42

mcherm wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Won't work. If you want a technological solution to the problem, use lavabit... I understand they offer a secure, encrypted (and reasonably convenient and usable) email service.

You are joking right? They closed the service because of the NSA

> They closed the service because of the NSA

Thus making my actual point, that technological solutions will not resolve the problem.