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It's Time to Break Up the NSA (2014)

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Re: It's Time to Break Up the NSA (2014)

#101

Post by [deleted] »

jnem wrote: post #50
derefr wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. Imagine if the NSA were tasked with being a gatekeeper for data privacy and integrity that large companies like Facebook had to work with any time they pushed an update that sent data somewhere new, in the same way that the FDA verifies safety and efficacy of pharmaceuticals when they're applied to a new problem-domain. (I know that sounds almost satirically over-the-top, but it could work—if it were limited to…

>"..in the same way the FDA verifies safety and efficacy of pharmaceuticals.." There is some merit to what you say, but I'd not use the FDA as a model. To me that sounds like a recipe for disaster, imagine the NSA auditing our software with FDA like cronyism and inefficiency? Green-light passes to be auctioned off to the highest bidder, and otherwise legitimate products will be hampered by woe-some delays. "Sorry, ca…

[deleted]

Re: It's Time to Break Up the NSA (2014)

#102

Post by lallysingh »

jnem wrote: post #50
derefr wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. Imagine if the NSA were tasked with being a gatekeeper for data privacy and integrity that large companies like Facebook had to work with any time they pushed an update that sent data somewhere new, in the same way that the FDA verifies safety and efficacy of pharmaceuticals when they're applied to a new problem-domain. (I know that sounds almost satirically over-the-top, but it could work—if it were limited to…

>"..in the same way the FDA verifies safety and efficacy of pharmaceuticals.." There is some merit to what you say, but I'd not use the FDA as a model. To me that sounds like a recipe for disaster, imagine the NSA auditing our software with FDA like cronyism and inefficiency? Green-light passes to be auctioned off to the highest bidder, and otherwise legitimate products will be hampered by woe-some delays. "Sorry, ca…

The NSA could require that certain security properties of the system be held (e.g., all wire transmission and storage of data is encrypted with certain key management policies..) and a 3rd party (e.g., like an accounting firm) could be the one doing the audit.

Re: It's Time to Break Up the NSA (2014)

#103

Post by AndrewKemendo »

mbauman wrote: post #3

I think an even better argument for breaking up the NSA is that there's a fourth category of work they (should) do that's totally unrelated to surveillance and that I'd classify as "very good:" actively working to secure the communications of US government and companies against the NSA-equivalents of other nation-states and rogue actors. Having this is on the same list as encryption sabotage is a recipe for mismanage…

This is actually against the law.

Title 10 explicitly disallows the NSA to proactively interfere (good or bad) with private industry services unless specifically requested by a law enforcement agency and in cases like you propose would have had to be requested by the private organization to the LEA in the first place.

Re: It's Time to Break Up the NSA (2014)

#104

Post by lkbm »

tomjen3 wrote: post #83
lkbm wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People being inconvenient in pushing for social change are insufficiently protected. The CIA spied on MLK Jr., discovered he was having affairs, and used that to try to blackmail him into committing suicide. If he had, that would have been a major loss to society. And now we have reports of the NSA developing dossiers of minor crimes and non-crimes of inconvenient people's behaviors for future use in discrediting the…

>discovered he was having affairs claimed he was having affairs. As you said he was politically inconvenient, why would I trust them?

Good point, but my understanding is that it was kind of an open secret in the civil rights community at the time. And I they include a tape containing proof, as I recall.

Re: It's Time to Break Up the NSA (2014)

#105

Post by lkbm »

jellicle wrote: post #98
ripb wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The CIA spied on MLK Jr., discovered he was having affairs, and used that to try to blackmail him into committing suicide. Have you got any more on this? Would be interested to read.

This story covers it. FBI, not CIA. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/16/magazine/what-an-uncensore...

Oops, yeah: FBI. Sorry about that.

To which one might be tempted to say "Well, sure, but J. Edger Hoover was totally out of control", but that's the thing: we let a totally out-of-control guy abuse a extremely powerful agency and do these things.

Re: It's Time to Break Up the NSA (2014)

#106

Post by hobs »

orthecreedence wrote: post #99
esMazer wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

they don't even need to break encryption. Patriot Act.

If I encrypt something client-side, the Patriot Act has no influence over it whatsoever. The only person who can decrypt it is me. So, yes, they do need to break encryption. Especially as more and more apps move towards the "smart/encrypted client, dumb server as a storage dump" model.

The parent comment could be interpreted as "They do not need to break encryption as they do not need to prove guilt due to the patriot act, and breaking encryption is a dog and pony show when they can just hide you in Guantanamo or a Romanian black site."

Re: It's Time to Break Up the NSA (2014)

#107

Post by foobarqux »

orthecreedence wrote: post #99
esMazer wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

they don't even need to break encryption. Patriot Act.

If I encrypt something client-side, the Patriot Act has no influence over it whatsoever. The only person who can decrypt it is me. So, yes, they do need to break encryption. Especially as more and more apps move towards the "smart/encrypted client, dumb server as a storage dump" model.

Except if you don't control the software on your device, like all smartphones.

Re: It's Time to Break Up the NSA (2014)

#108

Post by boyaka »

justcommenting wrote: post #82
esMazer wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1- tor is broken. 2- they know and use ways to get around encrypting. We got to give them some credit they knew encryption was an issue that at some point they had to dealt with. And they found ways to do just that from the beginning.

>1- tor is broken. For what definition of "broken"?

Broken means it doesn't do what it claims, is assumed, or is known to do. I think the general consensus is that Tor is supposed to enable a person to browse the internet anonymously.

Re: It's Time to Break Up the NSA (2014)

#109

Post by IgorPartola »

nickysielicki wrote: post #61

I don't understand why society thinks that certain things can be contained, while certain other things cannot be. The liberals will always be telling you that the drug war is a failure, and that drug users will be able to get their hands on drugs anyway, and we should embrace that fact so we can retain some level of control, and so otherwise innocent people don't have to interact with criminals. But guns on the other…

Minor point: conservatives and liberals love their guns. What they say publicly doesn't change the fact that the gun manufacturers hold huge political power in the form of the NRA over both parties, and that's not likely to change. If this was not so, we'd have an Australia-style buyout a long time ago. As is, we are stuck with monthly (or is it weekly now?) mass shootings, staggering numbers of handgun murders, and a crazy amount of police brutality simply because access to guns is easy and protected by the NRA.

To bring it back to crypto: there is a correlation between easy to obtain $TECH and use of $TECH. Currently, HTTPS is not as easy as HTTP, so its adoption is less. Let's Encrypt will change that. Currently, access to guns is easy, so their adoption and use is high. With the current political climate that will never change.

Re: It's Time to Break Up the NSA (2014)

#110

Post by LLWM »

at-fates-hands wrote: post #86
nickysielicki wrote: post #61

I don't understand why society thinks that certain things can be contained, while certain other things cannot be. The liberals will always be telling you that the drug war is a failure, and that drug users will be able to get their hands on drugs anyway, and we should embrace that fact so we can retain some level of control, and so otherwise innocent people don't have to interact with criminals. But guns on the other…

>>> The NSA internet data collection is perhaps the most frivolous government program in the history of the United States. This. If you listen to the old NSA guys who worked during the heights of the Cold War, who keep tabs on Russians and all the chaos in the Middle East, and had some of these tools at their disposal, they all say the NSA was a great machine for intelligence. It was a great machine for developing as…

Cold warriors said the NSA spying on domestic targets was the worst possible scenario? Not, say, global thermonuclear annihilation?
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