Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

William Binney: 80% of audio calls are recorded and stored in the US

theguardian.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 135 posts

Re: William Binney: 80% of audio calls are recorded and stored in the US

#41

Post by ryanklee »

tokenadult wrote: post #39

The story in the Guardian by Antony Loewenstein certainly reports that William Binney's personal opinion as a former employee of NSA is that NSA is gathering up and recording whatever it can and that NSA has a "totalitarian mentality." That is a very important issue, if true, but it is at least debatable that NSA is really that thorough in its actual practices and really that generally blatant in disregarding the civ…

I'm interested to hear from those who voted this comment down: Why?

The parent's comment, even if disagreeable in some regards, is substantial and the discussion is better for it having been made.

Re: William Binney: 80% of audio calls are recorded and stored in the US

#42

Post by maxxxxx »

opendais wrote: post #31
mandalar12 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Problem is the next governments will inherit the surveillance system. Who says they won't be fascists and/or turn the country into dictatorship ? When this happens, we might see these mass arrests. A lot can change in only a few decades.

I've seen that argument before but honestly... What would stop them from building it themselves if they were elected? Nothing, really.

It's much easier and faster to use existing infrastructure than having to build a new one.

Re: William Binney: 80% of audio calls are recorded and stored in the US

#43

Post by opendais »

rolux wrote: post #40
opendais wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your trivial counterexample requires blackmail on a large scale. The problem with blackmail is it might work 75% of the time, but the other 25% end up in jail. In the case of a politician, from time to time, one of them would say "fuck it" and use their platform to say it to the world. The subtler approach would be to take dirt on Candidate A and give it to Candidate B so B could win the election. However, in the rea…

> Your trivial counterexample requires blackmail on a large scale. Definitely not. See https://www.google.com/search?q=poland+recording+scandal for another trivial counterexample. (Other than that, the argument that the NSA collecting data is less dangerous because in the U.S. political debate, facts don't matter anyway, doesn't sound too convincing to me.)

You are talking about people attempting to break the law...

"The first batch, published a week ago, included a conversation between Marek Belka, the chief of Poland's central bank, and Interior Minister Bartlomiej Sienkiewicz, in which they discussed how the central bank might use its power to help the government win reelection in 2015. Mr. Belka said that his condition for help would be "the dismissal of the finance minister" in favor of a “technical and apolitical” one. They also discussed the creation of a law that would allow the central bank to buy government debt on secondary markets, a practice known as quantitative easing.

Under Polish law, the central bank has to be independent from political interference. But Jacek Rostowski, the finance minister, did indeed lose his job in November last year and was replaced by Mateusz Szczurek, an economist with no political experience. And new laws that include a provision allowing quantitative easing are also now in the works."

Why yes, if you conspire to break the law and get recorded, this is a bad thing for you. I'm not sure why you cited one of the few cases such a recording would be perfectly acceptable.

That is actually the valid and good purpose of the media and the security apparatus. Exposing political corruption and bringing it to justice wherever possible.

Re: William Binney: 80% of audio calls are recorded and stored in the US

#44

Post by GotAnyMegadeth »

thenmar wrote: post #37
Shivetya wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the techy in me is greatly impressed that can do this. the libertarian in me is greatly annoyed they can do this.

Please don't politicize civil liberties. If progressives and libertarians can come together on anything, it's this.

Maybe Shivetya doesn't have any progressive in them. If they did, perhaps it would be annoyed too.

Re: William Binney: 80% of audio calls are recorded and stored in the US

#45

Post by XorNot »

sp332 wrote: post #9
eli wrote: post #6

"At least 80% of fibre-optic cables globally go via the US. This is no accident and allows the US to view all communication coming in. At least 80% of all audio calls, not just metadata, are recorded and stored in the US. The NSA lies about what it stores." I think he meant that the NSA had access to the 80% of calls that are routed through the US, not the the NSA is recording and storing literally every single one o…

The NSA is recording every call in the Bahamas and Afghanistan. They can listen to any call made in the last 30 days. (Edit: Only cell phone calls, but still.) It's possible that a similar rolling-window system is in place for calls going through the USA. Bahamas: https://firstlook.org/theintercept/article/2014/05/19/data-p... Afghanistan: https://wikileaks.org/WikiLeaks-statement-on-the-mass.html

Neither of those two places could be described as having a particularly high volume of calls though. Its an order of magnitude or more difference in sheer volume you'd be looking at.

Re: William Binney: 80% of audio calls are recorded and stored in the US

#46

Post by opendais »

maxxxxx wrote: post #42
opendais wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've seen that argument before but honestly... What would stop them from building it themselves if they were elected? Nothing, really.

It's much easier and faster to use existing infrastructure than having to build a new one.

Obviously. However, speed isn't relevant since you can't erase your fingerprints of your entire life on the internet.

> You can use this argument when you can wipe out all copies of a nude woman whose ex posted her to imgur or something. Until then, you are just 100% wrong because you know you can't do what you claim.

That is really what it boils down to. You can't erase all of the evidence on the internet, so you are screwed anyway.

I think the most amusing part of this is the fact I basically agree with the comment I responded to except to the severity and scope of the danger.

Vulnerable people will get screwed. Most people won't.

Re: William Binney: 80% of audio calls are recorded and stored in the US

#47

Post by _wp3r »

ryanklee wrote: post #41
tokenadult wrote: post #39

The story in the Guardian by Antony Loewenstein certainly reports that William Binney's personal opinion as a former employee of NSA is that NSA is gathering up and recording whatever it can and that NSA has a "totalitarian mentality." That is a very important issue, if true, but it is at least debatable that NSA is really that thorough in its actual practices and really that generally blatant in disregarding the civ…

I'm interested to hear from those who voted this comment down: Why? The parent's comment, even if disagreeable in some regards, is substantial and the discussion is better for it having been made.

Discussions surrounding threat mitigation and risk mitigation are uniformly one sided on HN, and even the most delicate walk down the line of acceptable mitigation is shunned.

The more interesting point is the inverse position of the community in regards to network and systems security, in which all measures of threat mitigation are encouraged or "required".

Re: William Binney: 80% of audio calls are recorded and stored in the US

#48

Post by ceejayoz »

Lendal wrote: post #34
r0h1n wrote: post #11

We're staring at the gradual but deliberate end of privacy and its scary. The large majority of the world's population either doesn't know or care how significant or dangerous this trend is, and those few who do will find their way into surveillance databases because they act "suspiciously" by encrypting their communications and guarding their privacy. I don't see a powerful enough counterforce against this insidious…

Fox News has done its job well. No one questions anymore.

I'm liberal as all get out (and voted for Obama), but this isn't limited to the right-wing. Greenwald's getting attacked by Democratic partisans a lot over the NSA revelations. Those same folks would've been outraged during the Bush years.

Re: William Binney: 80% of audio calls are recorded and stored in the US

#49

Post by sitkack »

narrator wrote: post #17
drcode wrote: post #4

“The ultimate goal of the NSA is total population control” Scary shit...

So that they can do what, exactly? Once they get total population control what kind of stuff will they be able to do that they couldn't do before?

There isn't always a plan.

Re: William Binney: 80% of audio calls are recorded and stored in the US

#50

Post by rolux »

opendais wrote: post #43
rolux wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Your trivial counterexample requires blackmail on a large scale. Definitely not. See https://www.google.com/search?q=poland+recording+scandal for another trivial counterexample. (Other than that, the argument that the NSA collecting data is less dangerous because in the U.S. political debate, facts don't matter anyway, doesn't sound too convincing to me.)

You are talking about people attempting to break the law... "The first batch, published a week ago, included a conversation between Marek Belka, the chief of Poland's central bank, and Interior Minister Bartlomiej Sienkiewicz, in which they discussed how the central bank might use its power to help the government win reelection in 2015. Mr. Belka said that his condition for help would be "the dismissal of the finance…

> I'm not sure why you cited...

Because such leaks will be used selectively, against anyone the data collecting agencies see as a worthwhile target.

And no, blanket recording of all phone calls is not the "valid and good purpose" of the security apparatus, even if it occasionally exposes political corruption.

Post reply on HN