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NSA infiltrates links to Yahoo, Google data centers worldwide

washingtonpost.com

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Re: NSA infiltrates links to Yahoo, Google data centers worldwide

#301

Post by brown9-2 »

swalkergibson wrote: post #293
brown9-2 wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This presumes that those developers are building these systems to go after "our basic rights", instead of believing that they are helping to target terrorists and enemy states. What gets lost in a lot of the (justifiable) NSA outrage is the fact that they want all of this technology to enable surveillance of terrorists who use the Internet just like ordinary Americans do. There is really no evidence so far that this…

The terrorism threat is simply a convenient bogeyman. The probabilities of dying in a random terrorist attack are so infinitesimally small that it is not even worth considering. Ordinary Americans are simply too stupid to really comprehend exactly what is happening here and subscribe to the "well, I don't have anything to hide" type logic. The fact is that the terrorists have won. The American public, due to indiffer…

So, what types of widespread abusive things is the government doing to American citizens with all this surveillance?

When you say "convenient bogeyman" it implies that all of this surveillance was built with the express purpose of spying on Americans. I personally believe that to be false, and instead that the massive and overbearing surveillance was built because public officials are so afraid of another massive terrorist attack because the voters are so afraid.

In other words I agree with your basic observations but not the malicious motives.

Re: NSA infiltrates links to Yahoo, Google data centers worldwide

#302

Post by cromwellian »

mindslight wrote: post #273
cromwellian wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you also blame your car company when a thief breaks into it? Do you never trust banks again if a bank robbery happens? They were working on it, but full-on encryption everywhere within your internal network is expensive, and one tends to not imagine that buried dark fiber is dug up and tapped by one's own government. Let's say that they encrypted everything, and then you learn the NSA had kidnapped the children of…

> Why do I sometimes get the feeling that people specifically want to hate on these companies Because they promote themselves as tech-based companies, yet abdicated their professional duty to design secure systems because insecurity makes for easier monetization. You would very much blame a car manufacturer when it turned out that all of its cars were keyed the same.

There is no such thing as a secure system, there is only conditional security. And what does unencrypted internal network traffic within a company have to do with monetization?

Pretty much all regular door locks on the majority of homes in the US are pickable. Have you installed an unpickable lock on your home?

Re: NSA infiltrates links to Yahoo, Google data centers worldwide

#303

Post by saraid216 »

danbruc wrote: post #156
bradleyjg wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's hard not to come to the conclusion that these activities were essentially criminal. I don't see how the administration can fail to disavow them, investigate them fully, and hold their instigators accountable. It feels like Special Prosecutor time. The government takes the position that their agents are almost completely unconstrained by law when it comes to actions taken abroad aimed at non-US persons. Even we…

I am at a loss for words. Arrogant, self-righteous, disrespectful, ignorant, mendacious...nothing cuts it. It is illegal in the US but who cares about the rest of the world? I can not remember when something similar made me that angry as the current conduct of the US does. If I would not know better that this would negatively affect the whole world and innocent US citizens and that emotional reactions are usually not…

> What really pisses me of is this sentiment of thinking of non-US citizens as second class humans.

If this is really what you believe, then start pushing for legislation to include non-US citizens as first-class humans.

Re: NSA infiltrates links to Yahoo, Google data centers worldwide

#304

Post by judk »

voidlogic wrote: post #237
chiph wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you probably shouldn't trust your leased fiber with unencrypted data. Or even your own fiber (Google owns tens of thousands of miles of it). There's nothing to prevent the black-hat guys from digging down to a cable in the middle of nowhere and installing an optical tap. Especially if they did it before commissioning, after which signal levels would start being monitored.

>Google owns tens of thousands of miles of it If this haven't already I imagine they will be hiring security forces to patrol and inspect.

Even still, field techs, in lonely outposts, are easier targets than tech that are part of an onsite team.

Re: NSA infiltrates links to Yahoo, Google data centers worldwide

#305

Post by tippytop »

dragonwriter wrote: post #287
tippytop wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Google had no knowledge of NSA's physical compromise of their data centers. How do you know this is the case? In the diagram submitted within the article, the box highlighted with the smiley face is labeled "GFE" for Google Front-End [1], which means it's a Google controlled server. It seems more plausible to me that the NSA compromised this target with a FISA court order rather than hacking it. And if that is true…

> How do you know this is the case? In the diagram submitted within the article, the box highlighted with the smiley face is labeled "GFE" for Google Front-End [1], which means it's a Google controlled server. Yeah, its the external facing server that is the boundary between Google's (encrypted) communication with outside systems and its internal network which doesn't use encryption. > It seems more plausible to me t…

You are correct, I've misunderstood this program and perhaps the parent post I was responding to. Oh well, can't win 'em all. This is in addition to the PRISM programs we've already seen.

Re: NSA infiltrates links to Yahoo, Google data centers worldwide

#306

Post by tonyplee »

Few people said you can't fight google with NSL or force them to do anything because it has $50B in cash.

Easy: Just start an anti-trust investigation - a fed lawyer can drag Larry Page and Google's top level managers into federal court every week for the next 5-10 years. Go thru every emails about iphone, android, bing in the past, and force monitor every single biz decision Google will try to make for the next 10 years.

Apple, Samsung, Microsoft, Facebook would love to help out the government(s) in this.

Larry will get so sick of it that he would think give out billions to kill Mosquitoes in Africa/India is a lot more fun. - Remember Bill Gates?

Re: NSA infiltrates links to Yahoo, Google data centers worldwide

#307

Post by PavlovsCat »

allochthon wrote: post #299
danbruc wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am at a loss for words. Arrogant, self-righteous, disrespectful, ignorant, mendacious...nothing cuts it. It is illegal in the US but who cares about the rest of the world? I can not remember when something similar made me that angry as the current conduct of the US does. If I would not know better that this would negatively affect the whole world and innocent US citizens and that emotional reactions are usually not…

but spying at non-US citizens and breaking foreign law in peacetime is deemed acceptable. First let me say that I agree with your sentiment -- it's hypocritical for people in the US to be upset about the US government's spying on its own citizens, but not upset when the people are in other countries. Now for a dose of realism -- every single country out there that has a foreign policy and interests abroad behaves in…

> every single country out there that has a foreign policy and interests abroad behaves in this way to one extent or another.

I'm German, and I can't remember ever having heard such a distinction - that some things are okay when done to foreigners, but not when done to Germans - apart from neo-nazis.

Sure, who knows what the BND is up to. But "behaving this way" also includes rhetoric that is not just considered acceptable in polite company, but even uttered by state officials... and as I said, I can't recall a single example, so maybe enlighten me? Or are you just assuming?

Re: NSA infiltrates links to Yahoo, Google data centers worldwide

#309

Post by jlgreco »

icelancer wrote: post #246
allochthon wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would just cut all cables to the US, ... deny US citizens to enter any foreign country and then just do your shit over there and get happy with it. Whoah, there. Your grievances are well-placed. But keep in mind that it's a certain subset of agencies in the US government that are responsible for the problems you're upset about, not all US citizens. As for fixing things, the government has become literally unmanagea…

>not all US citizens The vast majority of citizens support these initiatives. Given the winner-take-all approach we employ, it is not a stretch to say that yes, we all share blame.

Part of Obama's campaign was an end to warrentless wiretaps. Now, if people were paying closer attention, then maybe they would have known better than to trust him (or indeed, any American politician), but I think it is quite a stretch to say that the people are to blame when a politician is less than honest.

Furthermore, the people who are to blame for our current political system are long dead. Everyone alive today was born into this framework and told to work within the framework to modify the framework. They have not had the opportunity to shape the framework free from the constraints of the framework. The facilities the framework provides to modify itself are clumsy, inadequate, and ineffective when everything is working smoothly.

This isn't a system we chose, this is a situation that we were born into, and find ourselves unable to change.

Re: NSA infiltrates links to Yahoo, Google data centers worldwide

#310

Post by toomuchtodo »

selmnoo wrote: post #180
cromwellian wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yea, but as collateral damage, the rope hung the tech companies and damaged their brands by who knows how much.

They deserve to have their brands damaged. They didn't do their due diligence in encrypting data going through leased fibers -- they should have had the foresight to realize what a phenomenally bad thing this was. They didn't, hence why I'll never trust them again.

Supposedly the US government is tapping fiber they own. Would you fault someone for not having security between rooms in their home?
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