Now on to UK, Sweden, Spain, France, etc to make them do the same.
German intelligence agency halts Internet monitoring for NSA
11–20 of 34 posts
Re: German intelligence agency halts Internet monitoring for NSA
#12Yeah, just because it's a major topic in German media...
Re: German intelligence agency halts Internet monitoring for NSA
#13Good, the more political fallout, the better. These kinds of cold shoulders are the language of diplomacy and power. In some small abstract way, the US's ability to defend itself has been reduced by this action-- power has been reduced. The power players in the government will take note of this, and ultimately tiny intangible reductions will be unsustainable and policy will have to change.
While I don't disagree that it is a strong political move, and an appropriate one, I have seen no proof that any of the NSA's operations have made the USA materially safer.
I agree, but I like to think about these things in the terms the government does, which includes a lot of paranoid fear produced by false and frequently cynically malicious assumptions.
Like I said, the difference in actual security here is abstract, difficult to quantify, and potentially nothing practically speaking.
Re: German intelligence agency halts Internet monitoring for NSA
#14Good, the more political fallout, the better. These kinds of cold shoulders are the language of diplomacy and power. In some small abstract way, the US's ability to defend itself has been reduced by this action-- power has been reduced. The power players in the government will take note of this, and ultimately tiny intangible reductions will be unsustainable and policy will have to change.
While I don't disagree that it is a strong political move, and an appropriate one, I have seen no proof that any of the NSA's operations have made the USA materially safer.
there has been an attack - look how understaffed we are! we need more budget! and more control and surveillance!
there has been no attack - look at how good we're doing our job of protecting you. but just to be sure, we need more surveillance.
Re: German intelligence agency halts Internet monitoring for NSA
#15German Spiegel reports, that mostly European agencies and diplomats were being spied on by the NSA with the help of the German Intelligence Agency, but
"Schindler [Head of Germany intelligence agency] tries to play it down: Most european agencies and most diplomats from the EU don't communicate through unsecure emails. Connections over a Vpn would prevent the capturing of emails by the BND [German intelligence agency]"
And obviously, no terrorists would ever use a Vpn.
Source: http://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/bnd-kann-daten-wei...
Re: German intelligence agency halts Internet monitoring for NSA
#16[deleted]
Re: German intelligence agency halts Internet monitoring for NSA
#17Good, the more political fallout, the better. These kinds of cold shoulders are the language of diplomacy and power. In some small abstract way, the US's ability to defend itself has been reduced by this action-- power has been reduced. The power players in the government will take note of this, and ultimately tiny intangible reductions will be unsustainable and policy will have to change.
While I don't disagree that it is a strong political move, and an appropriate one, I have seen no proof that any of the NSA's operations have made the USA materially safer.
this game is not about being safer (that's what the USA government sells to their citizens), it's about political and industrial espionage, and building a database of dissenters for the future.
Re: German intelligence agency halts Internet monitoring for NSA
#18Earlier quoted context omitted.
While I don't disagree that it is a strong political move, and an appropriate one, I have seen no proof that any of the NSA's operations have made the USA materially safer.
there has been an attack - look how understaffed we are! we need more budget! and more control and surveillance! there has been no attack - look at how good we're doing our job of protecting you. but just to be sure, we need more surveillance.
What about the other side of the coin though?
there has been an attack -see! the NSA can't even prevent single incident X and are doing NOTHING to protect us!
there hasn't been a large scale terrorist attack in north america in 13 1/2 years -there is no evidence that NSA is doing anything to protect America!
Re: German intelligence agency halts Internet monitoring for NSA
#19Earlier quoted context omitted.
there has been an attack - look how understaffed we are! we need more budget! and more control and surveillance! there has been no attack - look at how good we're doing our job of protecting you. but just to be sure, we need more surveillance.
What about the other side of the coin though? there has been an attack -see! the NSA can't even prevent single incident X and are doing NOTHING to protect us! there hasn't been a large scale terrorist attack in north america in 13 1/2 years -there is no evidence that NSA is doing anything to protect America!
> there hasn't been a large scale terrorist attack in north america in 13 1/2 years -there is no evidence that NSA is doing anything to protect America!
0 in 13.5 years is not (especially considering that "large scale terrorist attacks" can only occur in integer units) substantially below the long-run historical average.
So, yeah, that, in and of itself, is not really any kind of evidence of any success of any changed policy since the last attack.
Re: German intelligence agency halts Internet monitoring for NSA
#20German Spiegel reports, that mostly European agencies and diplomats were being spied on by the NSA with the help of the German Intelligence Agency, but "Schindler [Head of Germany intelligence agency] tries to play it down: Most european agencies and most diplomats from the EU don't communicate through unsecure emails. Connections over a Vpn would prevent the capturing of emails by the BND [German intelligence agency…
Over VPN - but is that key exchange safe? Is that proprietary crypto system in use at $diplomacy backdoored with a weak RNG?