NSA infiltrates links to Yahoo, Google data centers worldwide • Hacker News Board

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

#351

Post by jganetsk » Wed, Oct 30, 2013, 9:35 PM UTC

PavlovsCat wrote: post #329

jganetsk wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People are not going to start hating Americans. They have already been hating Americans for hundreds of years. It started with the "degeneracy thesis" in the 18th century, where it had been suggested by European intellectuals that the American climate led to physically inferior animals and humans. The reasons for hating Americans change everyday. Hating a group of people is a completely irrational, unconstructive app…

Respect, sure. But "asking nicely"? How has that not been done already, over and over and over? " Nobody in the world, nobody in history, has ever gotten their freedom by appealing to the moral sense of the people that were oppressing them. " -- Assata Shakur Even though we could argue about wether this stuff consititutes "oppression", I think the point still applies, sadly.

I'm not sure what we are talking about here. The US government is oppressing everyone... both Americans and non-Americans.

In theory, the American people are the only ones with the power to solve this problem. This responsibility is a burden. Before going to bat, I would rather encounter friendly encouragement than smug contempt.

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

#352

Post by Aaronontheweb » Wed, Oct 30, 2013, 9:37 PM UTC

How are all of our elected officials "just finding out" about this stuff? Bullshit!

Our congressmen, senators, and POTUS are all "as surprised as you are!"(TM) about these allegations that keep coming out.

Obama doesn't know anything. Feinstein (who heads the Senate intelligence committee, and is briefed on the NSA's activity) knows nothing.

What's the difference between extreme incompetence and maliciously lying? I can't tell the difference.

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

#353

Post by jellicle » Wed, Oct 30, 2013, 9:37 PM UTC

chubot wrote: post #330

ck2 wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US has submarines which are entirely designed to splice fiber optics without interruption. They literally bring part of the cable into the sub and work on it from there.

Citation for that? Seems plausible but I'm interested in any details.

http://cryptome.org/eyeball/mmp/jimmy-carter.htm

Apparently the procedure is to position the USS Jimmy Carter over the cable, send out a remote vehicle to grab the cable and pull it up to the sub, splice in tapping equipment, and then drop the cable.

Intercontinental cables are less than one inch in diameter in deep water. If the sub plants the tap in deep water, it's extremely unlikely that anyone would ever discover it. There are a few cable repair ships that pull broken cables to the surface and fix them, but other than that... No one can reach it and no one will bother it.

The most interesting thing is actually getting the data back to the U.S. Do they run a separate cable alongside the existing cable? Getting SMALL bits of data back to the U.S. is easy, can just broadcast it. But LARGE amounts of data? Tricky.

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

#354

Post by selmnoo » Wed, Oct 30, 2013, 9:38 PM UTC

pestaa wrote: post #239

selmnoo wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What an unbelievably stupid line of thinking. Kidnapped their children? Get a hold of yourself here. Google is a tech company, it is a perfectly reasonable expectation that they get the big parts of their security model right. Not encrypting data going through leased (or even their own) fibers? Big, big mistake. NSA and US government aside, Google dropped the ball big-time here. > Why do I sometimes get the feeling t…

Why would have they treated their own fibers untrustworthy?

As has been pointed out, Google owns a lot of fiber. When you have stuff that spans thousands of miles, there's a very real possibility that a bad actor can try to tap into it.

Apparently even tapping undersea cables is not as challenging as some think, according to Kapela: http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/undersea-cable-surveillance...

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

#355

Post by dragonwriter » Wed, Oct 30, 2013, 9:39 PM UTC

pnathan wrote: post #349

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…

The purpose of intelligence agencies is to spy on non-citizens, both in peacetime and in wartime. One might argue that traditionally they focused on public figures in the foreign states and that spying on average foreigners is new; I don't know if that's true, but seems plausible. It would generally be a dereliction of duty for the NSA/CIA to not spy on non-Americans. The same holds true, modulo agency name and count…

> The purpose of intelligence agencies is to spy on non-citizens, both in peacetime and in wartime.

No, the purpose of intelligence agencies is to gather and analyze information that might be of use to the nations leaders. Spying -- whether on citizens or foreigners, and whether on people located within the country or abroad -- is often a mechanism used to gather information (though collection from public sources is also a common mechanism.)

And there's nothing really special about the foreign vs. domestic (whether by location or citizenship) axis for "intelligence agencies", generally -- while sometimes the agencies that do domestic and foreign intelligence gathering are separate, that's not always the case, and certainly not a defining feature of "intelligence agencies."

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

#356

Post by jlgreco » Wed, Oct 30, 2013, 9:39 PM UTC

lazyjones wrote: post #106

than wrote: post #12

Gen. Keith Alexander, asked about it at a Bloomberg event, denied the accusations. "I don't know what the report is," Alexander cautioned, adding the NSA does not "have access to Google servers, Yahoo servers." He said the NSA is "not authorized" to do this, and instead, must "go through a court process." http://www.politico.com/story/2013/10/keith-alexander-nsa-re...

Since he seems to be a pathological liar, how about some waterboarding to help his memory? I'm sure we could clear up any misconceptions about the NSA's activities quickly with this officially-sanctioned (at least by former officials) method of "interrogation", which the US has applied many times in the past (allegedly with great success and little regret).

Don't waterboard him, and he'll tell you whatever he wants you to hear. Waterboard him, and he'll tell you whatever you want to hear.

Questioning him, under any circumstances, is useless. We need to get rid of him instead, and perform an independent investigation. However the circumstances under which such an independent investigation would be useful are limited. When East Germany started to fall, the Stasi started shredding everything they could get their hands on; organizations like this don't allow evidence to survive.

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

#357

Post by unreal37 » Wed, Oct 30, 2013, 9:40 PM UTC

SeanLuke wrote: post #278

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…

> 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? Do you really believe that this is the modus operandi only of the United States? Since, say, France has _at least_ the same position with regard to the rest of the world vs. French citizens, are you angry at France too? Will you cut all french,…

The US is reportedly spying on the phone calls of 35 world leaders. How many countries are spying on the phone calls of President Obama? Does France have access to the phone calls of Obama?

Some countries would love to spy on the U.S. It's true. But how many actually successfully do? And at what scale?

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

#358

Post by ilyanep » Wed, Oct 30, 2013, 9:40 PM UTC

cs702 wrote: post #208

Wow. Years ago, I remember reading Richard Stallman's "How I do my computing"[1], an essay in which he explains why he usually does not connect to any websites from his own machine, downloads web pages from a headless browser running in some server, does not have any user accounts for any web applications, does not buy anything over the Internet ever, does not use any social networking sites, and otherwise abstains f…

Any amount of paranoid ridiculousness can be justified after the fact by some sort of big incident. It's how we justify the PATRIOT act after 9/11 and how one might justify Stallman's actions after the NSA leaks. That doesn't make it any less ridiculous to go to such radical measures.

We could just shut off the Internet entirely and force everyone to walk around naked lest they strap a bomb to themselves.

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

#359

Post by patrickdavey » Wed, Oct 30, 2013, 9:40 PM UTC

fnordfnordfnord wrote: post #167

hackula1 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I imagine anyone with a line on their resume that says "NSA - Software Developer - 2009:Present" is going to have a hard time finding a new job at many companies (although certainly not all).

When the NSA sends people out to infiltrate companies, they won't write "NSA" on their resume. For the rest of former NSA employees, a lot of them will have resumes that say: Palantir, Booz Allen Hamilton, etc.

Indeed. "Confessions of an Economic Hitman" is worth a read.

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

#360

Post by unreal37 » Wed, Oct 30, 2013, 9:42 PM UTC

bilbo0s wrote: post #261

unreal37 wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, if I were Google or Yahoo, I would be getting my lawyers to prepare some type of lawsuit. Not that I think it will succeed, but Google/Yahoo are direct victims here.

Well... given the game the leakers are playing with these documents... I would wait before I made any definitive statements about who is a victim and who is a villain. The release of these documents seem to be carefully timed and calculated to give the government, corporations and people involved in the surveillance state the time and latitude to incriminate themselves. Not only are the Government, the corporations a…

Fair enough.