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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

#531

Post by malandrew »

bennyg wrote: post #518
malandrew wrote: post #504

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. I secretly harbor this fantasy that the next Edward Snowden will be a future American president. They do everything right, cross all the t's, dot all the i's, the perfect politician, then after their first 100 days in office, they come out and publicly address all the ways that the US is hypocritical and could be the model World citizen it pretends to be. At the end of the day, the presidency is the only positi…

He/she would be impeached under the espionage act.

I believe that this could be workable with some preparation, the two most important of which are:

(1) the political work of defining the word "enemy". If you spend your time in your first 100 days of office trying to get the country to rally behind defining the "enemy" as actors within the US who are actively undermining the US Constitution and actors who are acting corruptly.

and

(2) the commander in chief work of defining the goals of the US military. The president is the commander in chief. If he decides that the primary goal of the US armed forces is to root out corruption and problems in the armed forces that are undermining the US Constitution in the interest of private interests.

By doing exactly both of those things and getting support for it, he has absolved himself of liability under the Espionage Act AFAICT. The reasoning here is that he's now defining the operation and success of the armed forces to be in line in a way that any information conveyed is no longer going to interfere with the armed forces of the United States. Furthermore, redefining the enemy means that he has also made sure that the information does not promote the success of the enemies of the US.

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

#532

Post by hysan »

dmix wrote: post #56
betterunix wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know what would outrage the public? ESPN being shut down. Most people do not actually care about their privacy. Even if everyone had the technical chops needed to understand what has been happening, most people never spend much time contemplating the importance of privacy rights.

> people do not actually care about their privacy This is 100% accurate, I've attempted to aggressively promote privacy tools well before the NSA/Snowden stuff among the people I know. They still don't care to use simple things like OTR with IM. They might use it for one week, and switch back. Journalists/tech sites love making this seem like the biggest deal in society right now, but hardly the case in reality. I'm…

I think it has to do with "privacy" being a general word that means many things; some of which people care about, some they don't. As much as I hate how politicials/lobbyists/etc. do this, I think a better way to get people to respond and care about the issue it to label it differently. For example, instead of saying "privacy", say "your credit card and bank info is compromised/stolen". Or that your "identity / SSN is at risk". Or perhaps that all your "passwords are leaked". Yes, this is less accurate and is a fear mongering tactic, but it is done to death in the US government with effective results.

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

#533

Post by hackula1 »

scarmig wrote: post #124
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).

Breaking: most people, even most people in the tech community, don't look on the NSA with that level of contempt, if any at all. This is unfortunate--in a just world everyone doing this would be imprisoned for many years and have all their ill-gotten gains stripped from them--but a real fact. And the typical NSA software developer is certainly highly qualified and very, very smart. Going purely by business concerns,…

Agreed. Skills would be irrelevant. A brain dump alone would be worth hundreds of millions. That is the scariest thing about all of this. Every time I hear someone bash on Snowden about how he was a dropout, etc, etc I just think "ok, so you gave this guy who you say is an irresponsible idiot the ability to blackmail anyone who has a google search history?"

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

#534

Post by beedogs »

BrandonMarc wrote: post #523
a3n wrote: post #503

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Let's suppose, for the sake of argument, that the President and the Congress eliminate these programs... > How would you or I... or any foreign person validate that? How would the President validate that?

This. Consider: is the NSA snooping on the president? If they were or weren't, would he ever know it for certain?

Considering he was being spied on in 2004, before he even ran for Congress, and considering Supreme Court justices and other world leaders are monitored a well, I'm willing to bet he's still being spied on now.

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

#535

Post by hackula1 »

kamjam wrote: post #161
eck wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If someone is willing to divulge inside knowledge of his last employer you have to assume that in the future he will be willing to divulge your inside knowledge.

Agree. But it happens all the time. Why else do you think they have those long periods of gardening leave when you leave one employer for another, or those clauses in contracts saying you will not work for a competitor in the same field for X months when you leave? (Although, I seem to recall the last one being unlawful since they are essentially stopping you earning a living). Sometimes employers are willing to take…

His options are certainly more limited now (considering most employers could not keep him safe). That being said, I imagine his existing options would be readily available and would all pay millions.

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

#536

Post by graue »

okadaka wrote: post #426

SMTP (mail protocol) between providers is unencrypted anyway. So, if I send email from gmail to ycombinator, it goes to ycombinator SMTP server unencrypted and can be tapped by anyone with access to the wire. Still, clear traffic between Google's own data centers is inexcusable. They are exposing my data to more risk.

I thought you were wrong about that, but when I went looking for a source, I found out you're right. As of June, major email providers other than Google did not support encryption for inbound emails[1]. That's disappointing.

Note there's no technical reason they couldn't. Also, Fastmail.fm, while arguably not really a major player, is an exception, supporting encryption on inbound emails since 2009[2].

I just verified this via http://www.checktls.com. A later blog post in 2010 says Fastmail enabled it for outbound email as well. So mail sent from Gmail to Fastmail or vice versa is encrypted between the two providers.

It's a start. I really thought I had read something about Microsoft enabling this on their email service, too, but I must be misremembering. All we can do is hope more big providers turn it on.

1. http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-57590389-38/how-web-mail-p...

2. http://blog.fastmail.fm/2009/04/16/opportunistic-ssltls-encr...

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

#537

Post by malandrew »

a3n wrote: post #179
swombat wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Typically, if a diplomat constantly breaks the laws of the nation they're sent to in this manner, they get kicked out, and if the sender country in question keeps sending this sort of diplomat, the embassy would eventually be closed.

I cannot imagine Germany closing the US Embassy.

True. However I wonder if they could at least impose an embassy from which many forms of eavesdropping are not possible. i.e. US draws up floorplans and whatnot. The Germans modify those plans to make it into a giant Faraday cage will precisely defined inlets and outlets for water, gas, electricity, sewage, etc. Lastly all additions to the structure externally are to always inspected to make sure they don't contain eavesdropping equipment.

This would at least force all eavesdropping and surveillance performed to be the same kind of eavesdropping and surveillance doable from US soil. Furthermore, the Germans can try to perform some form of enforcement on what types of people can show up at the embassy to work.

With biometrics and sharing between countries, it's conceivable that one day you won't be able to cross official borders with two identities ever again. This means that you effectively force someone to choose only one identity forever. That identity can either be one of your secret government identities or it can be your real identity, but it can no longer be both at different times. Once you choose, you'r stuck with that decision

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

#538

Post by graue »

Nanzikambe wrote: post #117

It's interesting that there's been little attention paid to what this genre of backbone/infrastructure tapping means for companies using content accelerators (or whatever they're called). Considering what we now know about tailored access operations, I find it hard to imagine they've not used these abilities to subvert the auto-update functionality of virtually every product there is out there. Ie. client requests au…

That would seem to be a harder problem for the NSA. First, it has to be an active attack, modifying data in transit rather than merely siphoning it off — probably tougher to cover their tracks in that case. Second, automatic updates are presumably cryptographically signed by the publisher, so the NSA also has to steal or crack the private signing key. Third, how do you target the backdoored version of the software so certain groups/people get it and others don't? CDNs don't work that way.

In the end, it seems much more practical to sneak a backdoor into the software at the source.

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

#539

Post by EpicEng »

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…

The government of a country, any country, owes allegiance to its citizens first and foremost. Our laws do not apply to people in other countries. I can't imagine that most large governments other than the US do run in exactly the same manner.

I'm not defending the NSA, but let's not be naive here. One function of the government is to protect its people from all threats, foreign and domestic. So yes, citizens of other countries are second class, and well they should be from some perspectives. Again though, there are lines, and some have been crossed.

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

#540

Post by PavlovsCat »

waps wrote: post #453
PavlovsCat wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 acce…

Really ? How about : German soldiers abroad (say, in Afghanistan). Do they respect foreign law ? Of course not. Non-EU residents on German soil are subject to summary arrest and deportation (it's more complex than this, I know, but as summaries go you could do worse) German social security treats citizens, residents and illegal aliens vastly differently German domestic wiretapping laws are basically that the executiv…

> Non-EU residents on German soil are subject to summary arrest and deportation

And where are the statements saying other countries shouldn't deport illegal aliens? My post asked about exceptionalism, openly stated, did it not?

> German domestic wiretapping laws are basically that the executive gets to spy on anyone on German soil without judicial oversight AND outside of Germany [..] The BND does not just have the right to spy on anyone, but it can summarily arrest anyone, intervene in any investigation without question (so they could, for example, kill someone, then take over the investigation, no questions asked). [..] Germany and France are transmitting everyone's internet usage to an organisation so it could sue them for copyright infringement in an automated fashion.

Uhhhh.... sources for all that please.

> Can anyone please explain to me why, if there's outrage about the NSA, why isn't there 10x the outrage about EU practices ?

Maybe the lack of abducting people and torturing them, or killing them with drones has something to do with it? And still, there isn't a month without demonstrations against some of the stuff you mentioned, like Vorratsdatenspeicherung. Other stuff is either flat out wrong or widely unknown, your posting of sources will decide that..

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