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Wikimedia v. NSA: Wikimedia Foundation files suit against NSA

blog.wikimedia.org

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Re: Wikimedia v. NSA: Wikimedia Foundation files suit against NSA

#11

Post by scrrr »

I've been thinking about surveillance lately and have come to the conclusion that it's simply here to stay.

I really doubt any legal action will change anything what the NSA does. The future is digital, they cannot and will not step down while other countries, basically everyone that is capable to do it, will do it. It's such a big power factor that it cannot be ignored.

The arms race in cyberspace has begun long ago, and there's just no way it will simply stop.

All we can do is decide how we handle it personally and whom we trust to keep our data safe. And if we really need to create certain kinds of data in the first place (with many kinds we have no choice).

Re: Wikimedia v. NSA: Wikimedia Foundation files suit against NSA

#13

Post by lgp171188 »

Almost all of our communication protocols and technologies are built on trust on those who run various services. So as long as that is the case, imho there is no way to stop surveillance.

It would be great to start from scratch and build things without the expectation of any trustability from anyone, but I don't see that happening ever!

Sad to see that the people elected by other people like us to do good for all the people tend to do everything other than that.

Re: Wikimedia v. NSA: Wikimedia Foundation files suit against NSA

#14

Post by chippy »

I have some sympathy for our fellow hackers who work as contractors or in big companies, many of them with security clearance. Database engineers, software developers, data experts - the five eyes intelligence agencies directly and indirectly fund many of you readers of HN.

They might be becoming increasingly disillusioned with their chosen life and/or unable to change course. Perhaps the money is too good, perhaps their contracts too restrictive. They might have inside knowledge and believe that the NSA is in the right, but they would not be able to voice that belief to us, their friends and colleagues. Unable or unwilling to change course if they believe their country is in the wrong and unable or unwilling to speak up in defence if they think it is in the right. I'd certainly like to talk (in private) to those I knew who at the start of the Snowden affair openly said that he was a traitor and hear what they now think.

Re: Wikimedia v. NSA: Wikimedia Foundation files suit against NSA

#15

Post by nullc »

davidgerard wrote: post #5
nullc wrote: post #4

“If you don’t like people looking why not try putting on some pants?”, my response on the Wikimedia Blog: http://www.reddit.com/r/wikipedia/comments/2yjda6/wikimedia_... (cross-posted to reddit because I could provide links there)

SSL in the casual case relies on all CAs being uncompromised. I understand this is not the case. In any case, both technical and legal approaches are appropriate. And you know as well as I do that everyone at WMF desperately wants SSL for everything, and that this is a thing they are specifically working toward (but it turns out to be a bit more complicated than just switching everyone to SSL) - there is no way in wh…

> SSL in the casual case relies on all CAs being uncompromised.

Not really, -- it pushes the monitoring into active interception, which is much more costly (and thus does not work as well to hoover up everyone's data) and it is incredibly risky because it is detectable and if detected leaves cryptographic proof of the attack (and which CA was compromised or complicit with it.)

I'm all for other tools as well, which can provide protections that SSL cannot; but shuffling all the readers through Tor isn't practical today while HTTPS _is_ (as demonstrated by most of the other large web properties) and provides pretty decent protection against pervasive surveillance.

> In any case, both technical and legal approaches are appropriate.

Sure. I wanted to litigate about this in the past as well. But I am concerned that the complete failure to take the issue seriously historically weakens the claim of damages here.

> And you know as well as I do that everyone at WMF desperately wants SSL for everything

I don't know what to believe on that front anymore.

There is a simple clear metric for "want" in an institution, whats the funding level? This project has not been raised to a level of importance where its receiving line item disclosed funding, as far as I can tell. There was a plan for deployment in 2013 which hasn't been completed, https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/08/01/future-https-wikimedia... ... and in the time since then Wikimedia has received another hundred million in funding from the public-- with fundraising running something like 17% ahead of expenditures.

> but it turns out to be a bit more complicated

Yes, it's complicated. Don't forget that I contributed to making it possible too. I'm not waxing away the technical details.

> But if yesterday was the best day to act, then today is the next-best day.

Similar things were said when I raised a similar complaint when Wikimedia posted denying providing any assistance to prism in 2013. (A position that I consider to be a lie by omission)

Continuing to deny that there is a problem here will not result in the problem being resolved.

Re: Wikimedia v. NSA: Wikimedia Foundation files suit against NSA

#16

Post by chippy »

scrrr wrote: post #11

I've been thinking about surveillance lately and have come to the conclusion that it's simply here to stay. I really doubt any legal action will change anything what the NSA does. The future is digital, they cannot and will not step down while other countries, basically everyone that is capable to do it, will do it. It's such a big power factor that it cannot be ignored. The arms race in cyberspace has begun long ago…

I think there are parallels both in times and geography. In the west - Cold War / 60's Red Witch-hunts and in the east at roughly the same time - East Germany, KGB etc.

Different technologies, but the actions changed and were addressed via politics mainly. Technologies might be here to stay, but we shouldn't expect that the way we use them as societies stay the same.

Re: Wikimedia v. NSA: Wikimedia Foundation files suit against NSA

#17

Post by htor »

lgp171188 wrote: post #13

Almost all of our communication protocols and technologies are built on trust on those who run various services. So as long as that is the case, imho there is no way to stop surveillance. It would be great to start from scratch and build things without the expectation of any trustability from anyone, but I don't see that happening ever! Sad to see that the people elected by other people like us to do good for all the…

It is a fact that the internet - designed to be de-centralised - is becoming more and more centralised, evolving around service providers.

> Almost all of our communication protocols and technologies are built on trust on those who run various services.

That is why we need to build and use de-centralized systems like Bitcoin, Tor and physical mesh networks to share and communicate. These evolve around people, not service providers. Of course, there's a huge difference between trusting people and trusting corporations.

> It would be great to start from scratch and build things without the expectation of any trustability from anyone, but I don't see that happening ever!

Too bad that you're not too bright about the future. A lot of people are working on fixing it. Maybe these links will inspire you to think about it differently?

https://bitcoin.org/en/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mesh_networking

https://ssd.eff.org

Re: Wikimedia v. NSA: Wikimedia Foundation files suit against NSA

#18

Post by fragmede »

The EFF is surprisingly absent from this coalition. The other organizations listed as participating are:

The National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International USA, Pen American Center, Global Fund for Women, The Nation Magazine, The Rutherford Institute, and Washington Office on Latin America.

From: https://blog.wikimedia.org/2015/03/10/wikimedia-v-nsa/#cite_...

Re: Wikimedia v. NSA: Wikimedia Foundation files suit against NSA

#19

Post by Dorian-Marie »

The solution should be technical: You don't want to NSA to read your communications: encrypt them (eg: HTTPS everywhere, encryption built-in everywhere). And that's us, builders of technologies, that need to make that happen.

Basically securing against the NSA is the same as securing against hackers, it should be treated as a security threat like any other.

Re: Wikimedia v. NSA: Wikimedia Foundation files suit against NSA

#20

Post by davidgerard »

Dorian-Marie wrote: post #19

The solution should be technical: You don't want to NSA to read your communications: encrypt them (eg: HTTPS everywhere, encryption built-in everywhere). And that's us, builders of technologies, that need to make that happen. Basically securing against the NSA is the same as securing against hackers, it should be treated as a security threat like any other.

There is no reason not to take the legal approach as well. Technologies take effect inside a society.
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