Earlier quoted context omitted.
China is a much more hostile state actor in how it would use any information it gathers up, especially to a free-enterprise company like Google.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ECHELON#Examples_of_industrial... Airbus might disagree with you there, I can't see the NSA ratting Boeing out for supplying bribes.
Google Security Team Member on NSA: "Fuck These Guys"
241–250 of 420 posts
Re: Google Security Team Member on NSA: "Fuck These Guys"
#242Earlier quoted context omitted.
Except, they didn't explicitly mean to do that, stopped doing that, and paid for the autonomous collection of trash that they threw out.
You are very naive if you think that Google does something by mistake (that also happens to fit well into their Big Black Hole of Information).
Re: Google Security Team Member on NSA: "Fuck These Guys"
#243Earlier quoted context omitted.
In The Shadow Factory (written after the Klein leaks but before Snowden), Bamford notes that a lot of surveillance equipment comes from Israel. I don't know much about Israeli culture but it may be significantly different from the US.
As an (ex-) Israeli with no inside information I'd say the NSA is probably way ahead of Israel on this and wouldn't need or use any Israeli knowledge or equipment. I'd also say traditionally Israel relies on human intelligence while the US on signal intelligence. In terms of commercial surveillance equipment I'm sure there's a lot on the market from lots of countries.
Re: Google Security Team Member on NSA: "Fuck These Guys"
#244Earlier quoted context omitted.
Legal access to a document can't compel the owner of the document to hand over encryption keys. And if the existence of the document can be denied, you can't even prove it exists. This level of protection is within the reach of existing tools. Services like Google can make those tools accessible to the masses. The law has to observe physics. You can get a court order to "compel" someone to float off the ground, but t…
Sure, there are certain things that can be achieved by technological means. My point is that when it comes to certain areas of NSA activity, you're dealing with more than just simple legislative fixes. The specific example mentioned by Mike Hearn, the NSA tapping into international leased lines, is really illustrative. Our whole government is structured around the assumption that the executive branch is supreme when…
Congress can very well pass laws that dictate foreign policy: You shall/shall not bug the Germans.
Though it's dubious, Congress can also say "You shall not spend money on fiber taps. You shall have money for satellites."
The bottom line is that the Congress can get into NSA's pants as much as they want to.
Re: Google Security Team Member on NSA: "Fuck These Guys"
#245Earlier quoted context omitted.
Legal access to a document can't compel the owner of the document to hand over encryption keys. And if the existence of the document can be denied, you can't even prove it exists. This level of protection is within the reach of existing tools. Services like Google can make those tools accessible to the masses. The law has to observe physics. You can get a court order to "compel" someone to float off the ground, but t…
Sure, there are certain things that can be achieved by technological means. My point is that when it comes to certain areas of NSA activity, you're dealing with more than just simple legislative fixes. The specific example mentioned by Mike Hearn, the NSA tapping into international leased lines, is really illustrative. Our whole government is structured around the assumption that the executive branch is supreme when…
I agree with you completely, but when the political will is there, Congress can dive head first into separation of powers fights. Look at the War Powers Resolution. It's almost certainly unconstitutional in a strict sense, or at least extra-constitutional. But the Supreme Court will likely never touch it, and Presidents take its requirements seriously.
One potential avenue for limiting foreign intelligence gathering short of an amendment would be ratifying a treaty to that effect. But that seems as unlikely as any other route, since, as has been pointed out a few times, most Americans care not a lick about foreign SIGINT, and to the extent they do would like it to be as effective as possible.
Re: Google Security Team Member on NSA: "Fuck These Guys"
#246Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sure, there are certain things that can be achieved by technological means. My point is that when it comes to certain areas of NSA activity, you're dealing with more than just simple legislative fixes. The specific example mentioned by Mike Hearn, the NSA tapping into international leased lines, is really illustrative. Our whole government is structured around the assumption that the executive branch is supreme when…
That depends on the meaning of "how." Congress can very well pass laws that dictate foreign policy: You shall/shall not bug the Germans. Though it's dubious, Congress can also say "You shall not spend money on fiber taps. You shall have money for satellites." The bottom line is that the Congress can get into NSA's pants as much as they want to.
They can pass them, but they'd almost certainly be as unconstitutional as a law from 1944 that mandated the invasion of Calais rather than Normandy.
Re: Google Security Team Member on NSA: "Fuck These Guys"
#247Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Basically, I think Google's decision to do not encrypt the traffic is a gross negligence and I would love to see how someone would sue Google for it. Wow. Just wow.
I know that people don't like lawsuits. But for security to work there should be consequences for not doing security right. To give you an example, if a company X doesn't have any risks or damages from lack of security, then company X should not be investing in security to save money. However, if there is a monetary (or other) liability from a security breach, then the company X will have to make a choice and hopeful…
If the courts get involved it should 100% be at the hacking perpetrator, not to the victim.
Re: Google Security Team Member on NSA: "Fuck These Guys"
#248I think it's pretty clear that we need both technical and legislative fixes to NSA surveillance. Just one of the two isn't enough: to get be even vaguely confident that surveillance ends, we need both. The technical fixes I can't speak to, but the legislative ones I've been thinking about for a while. In the last week, there have been two prominent bills announced to deal with surveillance: - Bill 1: The FISA Improve…
My take on it is as runs:
Fundamentally, what's needed here is the ability to have confidence that the intelligence system is not overstepping its bounds. The US founders' framework for building that confidence is to have multiple parts of power, whose interest is roughly aligned with countering each other. So in the case of the TLAs:
* The judicial system for warrants needs to be open. No secret courts. Cases' contents might be sealed; the existence of cases should not be. Secret courts are not new, and they have been a bad idea for a long time.
* The policies for data collection need to managed by Congress; no policy about this should set by the executive branch. The policies need to be open and debated. Should we take foreign intelligence on our own citizens?
* Comprehensive reports to Congress. I believe Zoe Lofgren cited a report that was under a page about the NSA activity. That's entirely disingenuous and disrespectful of the representatives of the people.
The other thing that needs to be done is in the polls: Legislators that seek to legalize snooping need to be replaced with ones that don't.
And finally, the thought process needs to be that there's a 4th Amendment rights protection movement and organization, which will work over a long timeframe (generations). There's no band-aid act that will fix this once and for all, this entire thing is an upswelling from overprotective and anti-risk mindsets. It comes out of deep into the roots of what's considered acceptable risk. The privacy/4th amendment movement is going to have to plan for advocating higher risks, more freedom, more liberty, combined with more laws about privacy, along with determining how to build change in mindset over time (it's called propaganda or, more politely, marketing). Privacy implications need to be worked out, discussed, brought to light in fiction, philosophy, law, debates, etc. The mindset of fear and "never again" and "risk is unacceptable" has to be broken in order to make mass surveillance a non-starter.
Worse - The reality is that privacy is going to be dead with the Internet of Things coming online. The question is, what is acceptable and legal to monitor and record? For myself, I believe that we need to have stringent personal data laws forcing deletion of consumer data unless required for a service, as well as requiring warrants for any data collection not already given to the government (i.e., irs filing).
The 2nd Amendment groups are in this for the long run. I don't see how the privacy groups can afford to do otherwise.
edit: I would enjoy discussing this with interested parties, particularly activists and activist-leaning people. My email is in my profile.
Re: Google Security Team Member on NSA: "Fuck These Guys"
#249I think it's pretty clear that we need both technical and legislative fixes to NSA surveillance. Just one of the two isn't enough: to get be even vaguely confident that surveillance ends, we need both. The technical fixes I can't speak to, but the legislative ones I've been thinking about for a while. In the last week, there have been two prominent bills announced to deal with surveillance: - Bill 1: The FISA Improve…
Re: Google Security Team Member on NSA: "Fuck These Guys"
#250Earlier quoted context omitted.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ECHELON#Examples_of_industrial... Airbus might disagree with you there, I can't see the NSA ratting Boeing out for supplying bribes.
Ironically, at the time it would appear that the NSA was probably prohibited from spying on at least US-based Boing personnel. In fact, even today, they claim they'd be prohibited from looking at it(though not collecting it or analyzing meta data which is the whole problem) at least as far as the people involved are US Persons.