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Wikimedia Foundation v. NSA

blog.wikimedia.org

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Re: Wikimedia Foundation v. NSA

#111

Post by Bartweiss »

nickpsecurity wrote: post #104
jacquesm wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, Google is large. But without Google Wikipedia would still be around, without content sites Google wouldn't exist. And as for email: I'd much rather have the federated system we used to have rather than the few big players that are dominating the market (I'll never give up running my own email server), cheap alternatives to Microsoft already existed (OpenOffice), and an advertising company producing a browser is j…

Your response surprises me because you're old enough to have tried to find information before major search engines for WWW existed. The process involved mostly word-of-mouth, finding obscure sources, books, consultants, academic journals, associations, and so on. As Internet grew, we got that over dial-up lines with shitty search engines. Eventually, with early Web, I had to painfully grab all this content you talk a…

I don't disagree with any of this, but it seems worth noting that Wikipedia wasn't significant when Google was first becoming huge. Google solved the problem of "where is this information?" by finding all the information, but Wikipedia gives an alternate solution by having all the information.

My internet use would be vastly worse without Google, it's true. But these days, perhaps 90% of my Googling is optional - I already have a strong guess at which site will give me what I want, the search bar is just a faster route to get there. If I want Stack Overflow, or Wikipedia, or Genius, or Nationmaster, I already know that's where I want to go. When Google's top result answers my question via a site I've never been to, that's a huge win for Google. When they answer it via a Wikipedia link, well...

I'd still give Google slot 1, but it's not as obvious as it was pre-Wikipedia.

(To fact-check this comment, I Googled "Google" and "Wikipedia", to get to the Wikipedia page for each. Kind of telling.)

Re: Wikimedia Foundation v. NSA

#112

Post by pjvandehaar »

caseymarquis wrote: post #108
overdunk wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wikipedia isn't camel-cased.

Glass houses: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/PascalCase

That article says:

> Common contemporary usage classes PascalCase as a special type of CamelCase, namely upper camel case

Re: Wikimedia Foundation v. NSA

#113

Post by qb45 »

freeflight wrote: post #84
asher wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to think like that. But consider two things. The capabilities of the state actors are high. They cooperate with chipmakers and OS makers (or subvert or hack them). They compromise routers and hard drive firmware. Second, Kaplan's book documents multiple waves of cyber-fear in the US government; multiple US presidents starting with Reagan have tried and failed to secure our vulnerable systems. Simply put, corpo…

> The capabilities of the state actors are high. Not just of state actors, we are not talking about aircraft carriers or nuclear missiles here, things that need a massive infrastructure behind them, we are talking about tools pretty much anybody with the right knowledge can apply once they get access. That's the thing barely anybody wants to acknowledge with this situation because it's way more convenient to attribut…

> That's a bit contradictory, why would manufacturers be willing to let themselves get subverted to make less-secure products, but not to make more secure products?

I know that's not exactly what you meant, but allegedly China requires some Western products sold there to have backdoors. I heard reasonably reliable rumors about one specific case, here's some general article to prove I'm not completely talking out of my ass:

http://www.networkworld.com/article/2331257/lan-wan/encrypti...

> Especially considering how security is a big part of the business for quite a few of these companies, like CISCO's firewalls.

Funny that you mention firewalls, a year ago it was discovered that some Juniper firewalls and VPN gateways had a covert master password and an advanced crypto backdoor allowing decryption of the VPN traffic IIRC.

Juniper denied knowledge of this backdoor and it's possible that this wasn't NSA's job at all because it involved the Dual_EC_DRBG algorithm to which they are believed to have a backdoor baked in the standard. But this means that somebody managed to hack them (and specifically their precious security products).

Re: Wikimedia Foundation v. NSA

#114

Post by nickpsecurity »

hutzlibu wrote: post #109
nickpsecurity wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Sure, with the biggest spy agencys and the biggest military(including ready to strike killer squads) stationed around the world, US are the biggest empire and they need all that to stay the biggest empire." It seems you agree with my comment that the U.S. has need of such spy agencies but disagree with their goals or probable results of their actions. We're in the same boat on the latter. "Here in germany there are…

"It seems you agree with my comment that the U.S. has need of such spy agencies but disagree with their goals or probable results of their actions." Not quite. I said that the EMPIRE USA needs all that. But empires rule with fear under the threat of violence and the aura of knowing everything about everyone. So I was trying a bit subtle to ask, whether you and other US-People want the USA to be an Empire - or simply…

I'd rather us be top or nearly so in innovation, military strength, and humane use of both. The people in power along with their voters disagreed with that to a degree. Many didnt even know what they were doing because media here is corrupt: they don't want the lucrative for them establishment to change. They get more revenue also by telling their demographic what they want to hear. So, these two keep Americans indoctrinated, mislead, and distracted enough to not be able to fix the situation.

Re: Wikimedia Foundation v. NSA

#115

Post by nickpsecurity »

Bartweiss wrote: post #111
nickpsecurity wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your response surprises me because you're old enough to have tried to find information before major search engines for WWW existed. The process involved mostly word-of-mouth, finding obscure sources, books, consultants, academic journals, associations, and so on. As Internet grew, we got that over dial-up lines with shitty search engines. Eventually, with early Web, I had to painfully grab all this content you talk a…

I don't disagree with any of this, but it seems worth noting that Wikipedia wasn't significant when Google was first becoming huge. Google solved the problem of "where is this information?" by finding all the information, but Wikipedia gives an alternate solution by having all the information. My internet use would be vastly worse without Google, it's true. But these days, perhaps 90% of my Googling is optional - I a…

That's a good analysis. One extra thing to consider with your model is Wikipedia may or may not be accurate on a topic. I find it's often correct on IT stuff but even that slips on occasion. When using it, I have to check the references and/or corroborate them seeing what turns up in Google.

So, even then it's more like Wikipedia AND Google instead OR.

Re: Wikimedia Foundation v. NSA

#116

Post by saghm »

boomboomsubban wrote: post #106
saghm wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm interested; do you have a link to an article or something describing this? I'm curious about how the FBI could get access to the mail without the post office knowing.

Some of the details are in the "Family Jewels," finally made public in 2007. The CIA not the FBI, my mistake there, would either arrange the post to be moved to a separate room or sneak mail out in briefcases or pockets. https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/collection/family-je...

Wow, I'm also very amazed at the description of the document:

> [T]his document consists of almost 700 pages of responses from CIA employees to a 1973 directive from Director of Central Intelligence James Schlesinger asking them to report activities they thought might be inconsistent with the Agency's charter.

I love the concept of just asking your employees to tell you everything they did that they're not supposed to, and they just write up a bunch of reports and send them back.

Also, fun is the warning about the PDF size, which feels a bit quaint:

> this file is 28MB, so please be patient while it downloads

Re: Wikimedia Foundation v. NSA

#117

Post by Bartweiss »

nickpsecurity wrote: post #115
Bartweiss wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't disagree with any of this, but it seems worth noting that Wikipedia wasn't significant when Google was first becoming huge. Google solved the problem of "where is this information?" by finding all the information, but Wikipedia gives an alternate solution by having all the information. My internet use would be vastly worse without Google, it's true. But these days, perhaps 90% of my Googling is optional - I a…

That's a good analysis. One extra thing to consider with your model is Wikipedia may or may not be accurate on a topic. I find it's often correct on IT stuff but even that slips on occasion. When using it, I have to check the references and/or corroborate them seeing what turns up in Google. So, even then it's more like Wikipedia AND Google instead OR.

This is a good point. I'm generally bullish on Wikipedia, for a lot of topics I don't even worry about cross-referencing. But the safest stuff is a mix of popular and objective (e.g. "who was in that movie again?").

For political, technical, or obscure topics that becomes a much tougher question. The political issue is obvious, but I'm surprised at how often I go into the weeds on something mathematical or simply unpopular and find that Wikipedia is off the mark. I wouldn't trust it for those topics without further Googling.

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