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Dear USA, my data has left your building

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Re: Dear USA, my data has left your building

#141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

European chest-beating in the wake of the NSA revelations is fairly hypocritical. The difference between the US and the EU is that in the US, the snooping was icky, secret and very possibly illegal. In the EU, it's done out in the open, required by law: According to the directive, member states will have to store citizens' telecommunications data for six to 24 months stipulating a maximum time period. Under the direc…

DRD is in many ways incompatible with DPD, this is well known and a source of much industry confusion. Note that the DRD applies to specific requests and that the data is kept by the corporations (typically telcos and ISPs) rather than turned over wholesale to government institutions, in other words, you need a warrant to get specific data. As such, there is a huge difference here. Where the hypocrisy comes in is whe…

And I still don't like the DRD either.

Another thing, hypocritical maybe, even if the EU is being "just as bad" in a certain sense, piggybacking on the US outrage on this topic may help matters in the EU as well. Even if it's just increased privacy-consciousness among the public. For real, like people have pointed out, we already knew about surveillance in the EU months (or longer) before Snowden leaked his info, it was public knowledge and nobody said anything because it wasn't really in the news. Now it is, and some of it may stick to what the EU is doing as well.

Re: Dear USA, my data has left your building

#142
post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please explain what "the reality" is in regards for what they use it for that is more frightening.

From: http://www.nsa.gov/public_info/_files/speeches_testimonies/2... When conducting 702 FISA surveillance, the only information NSA obtains results from the use of specific identifiers (for example email addresses and telephone numbers) used by non-U.S. persons overseas who are believed to possess or receive foreign intelligence information. Foreign terrorists sometimes communicate with persons in the U.S. or Ameri…

   echo "my quote" | fold -s -w 77 | sed "s/^/   /"
append pbcopy if on a mac: echo "my quote" | fold -s -w 77 | sed "s/^/ /" | pbcopy

   When conducting 702 FISA surveillance, the only information NSA obtains 
   results from the use of specific identifiers (for example email addresses 
   and telephone numbers) used by non-U.S. persons overseas who are believed to 
   possess or receive foreign intelligence information.
        
        Foreign terrorists sometimes communicate with persons in the U.S. or 
   Americans overseas. In targeting a terrorist overseas who is not a U.S. 
   person, NSA may get both sides of a communication. If that communication 
   involves a U.S. person, NSA must follow Attorney General protects the 
   privacy of U.S. persons.
   
        The collection under FISA section 702 is the most significant tool in 
   the NSA collection arsenal for the detection, identification, and disruption 
   of terrorist threats to the U.S. and around the world.

also, to address the lies you're spreading:

I have no idea about 702 fisa surveillance, but what we do know is:

1 - the nsa collects intelligence

2 - if you, as an american, communicated with a foreigner, you're fair game.

2b - if you, as an american, communicated with an american who communicated with a foreigner, the nsa collects your communications.

2c - if you, as an american, communicated with an american who communicated with an american who communicated with a foreigner... the nsa collects your communications.

2d - why yes, if you're observant, you might think this is virtually every american.

3 - if they accidentally collected your, as an american, communications, they keep it. "Accidentally".

4 - since all pigs are liars, they distribute this to, amongst others, the irs and the dea, along with a guide to whitewashing where the information came from. So the dea can, what do you know, pull over a random van for a busted tail light or not signaling a lane change or signaling a lane change to early or just cause they feel like it -- there is always, 100% of the time, a reason for a cop to pull over a car if they want to. Then they randomly find drugs! Who knew, must be just a coincidence! [1]

   The undated documents show that federal agents are trained to recreate the 
   investigative trail to effectively cover up where the information 
   originated, a practice that some experts say violates a defendant's 
   Constitutional right to a fair trial. If defendants don't know how an 
   investigation began, they cannot know to ask to review potential sources of 
   exculpatory evidence - information that could reveal entrapment, mistakes or 
   biased witnesses.
   
   I have never heard of anything like this at all, said Nancy Gertner, a 
   Harvard Law School professor who served as a federal judge from 1994 to 
   2011. Gertner and other legal experts said the program sounds more troubling 
   than recent disclosures that the National Security Agency has been 
   collecting domestic phone records. The NSA effort is geared toward stopping 
   terrorists; the DEA program targets common criminals, primarily drug dealers.
   
   It is one thing to create special rules for national security, Gertner said. 
   Ordinary crime is entirely different. It sounds like they are phonying up 
   investigations. [1]

5 - yes, regarding #4, all pigs are liars, and this would be lying directly to the court. Not that they will be prosecuted for it.

6 - since this already migrated from "omg terrarism" to drugs, you may wonder where it will end. tip: it won't just be with drugs, it never is.

[1] http://news.yahoo.com/exclusive-u-directs-agents-cover-progr...

Re: Dear USA, my data has left your building

#143
post #26

I suspected there was going to be a mass exodus. NSA basically killed cloud-computing. I don't think it will come back soon. And while on the subject, consider selling your Microsoft stock. How many enterprise customers will choose Microsoft products again after 2013?

I thought there might be a mass exodus, but that hasn't happened yet. What I think might happen is people will keep using the vanilla cloud for day to day, but then switch platforms for "sensitive" topics. IE. you send me an email about the special project, then we go on Silent Circle to continue the discussion. Kinda like talking on the phone and then meeting in person.

This of course does not solve the metadata problem. But I don't think the populace is really considering this angle. Protecting content is much more visceral.

Re: Dear USA, my data has left your building

#144

The author is an ignorant puppy. [\ad hominem] What's the use of all those spendings if his email is not encrypted and hosted on his own hardened server behind a firewall he knows how to configure himself? And even then, if his counterparts are not doing the same, we're back to the original problem.

> And even then, if his counterparts are not doing the same, we're back to the original problem.

Not necessarily. It means he removes the "trove" aspect of his email inbox. Putting together all his communications from the recipients adds to the difficulty (not impossible since "they" have all the metadata and others are probably compromised), but at least he removes the major point of failure.

Re: Dear USA, my data has left your building

#145
post #112
post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Short sighted pragmatism. As Europeans turn against Americans (or more precisely, non-Anglos turn against the Anglosphere/Five Eyes), the West begins to fracture precisely as the East begins to rise again with force. It's going to be an interesting decade.

The west fractured or not, the east is going to rise. Turning a blind eye to this concrete opportunity makes no difference to that end result, but does affect the quarter's earnings. Also, these quarrels will hardly damage international relations in any significant manner as to prevent the west unite in whatever manner they see fit to face the east.

Will it? People are getting fired up, and the anti-American feelings in Europe are strong. The politicians might understand better but will the people? Or will, after years of being told how evil the Americans are, functionally see their choice as one despot or another? Which is sad, because all of this hoopla over spying... isn't a hoopla in the east. It's just the status quo.

Re: Dear USA, my data has left your building

#146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

European chest-beating in the wake of the NSA revelations is fairly hypocritical. The difference between the US and the EU is that in the US, the snooping was icky, secret and very possibly illegal. In the EU, it's done out in the open, required by law: According to the directive, member states will have to store citizens' telecommunications data for six to 24 months stipulating a maximum time period. Under the direc…

The data retention directive is undoubtedly problematic, but if it is implemented according to law, it means that telcos will hand over metadata on individual accounts at the request of a court. There are no secret courts, no gag orders and no dragnet mining of content as opposed to metadata. But of course that says nothing about what European police organizations are up to ... secretly. I'm thinking of things like t…

How un-secret are they? Is there a room I can go sit and watch search warrants being requested and issued? If not, why do you believe it's better than the US situation?

Re: Dear USA, my data has left your building

#147
post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The west fractured or not, the east is going to rise. Turning a blind eye to this concrete opportunity makes no difference to that end result, but does affect the quarter's earnings. Also, these quarrels will hardly damage international relations in any significant manner as to prevent the west unite in whatever manner they see fit to face the east.

Will it? People are getting fired up, and the anti-American feelings in Europe are strong. The politicians might understand better but will the people? Or will, after years of being told how evil the Americans are, functionally see their choice as one despot or another? Which is sad, because all of this hoopla over spying... isn't a hoopla in the east. It's just the status quo.

The rest of the world has known for a lot of years (more than thirty) what has just been confirmed an publicized in the US itself with the latest developments: The US government is not at all a BDFL, but behaves more like a bully.

These revelations don't change things much, macropollitically.

The only thing that could, maybe, be changing is the US people perception of their country but, again, many western democracies are not keen on listening to the people.

Re: Dear USA, my data has left your building

#148
post #72
post #7

Nitpickers aside (yes, what they had they may still have or at least in digest form) this is a single instance of a tidal wave of people doing this. EU datacenters are doing quite well because of the NSA revelations. The economic impact of this could very well counteract any net plus the US had while they were able to spy at will. Likely it's not going to be the same parties that will end up footing the bill. The pra…

Much as I'd like to see some kind of "tidal wave of people doing this", purely in the interests of sending a message to somebody somewhere that data sniffing = not cool, I don't personally know anyone who's taken the time or energy to move all his data off of bugged U.S. servers onto bugged European or Asian ones or attempted to host it himself in less-efficient email clients, etc., nor plans to, nor do I hear very m…

> I don't personally know anyone who's taken the time or energy to move all his data off of bugged U.S. servers onto bugged European or Asian ones or attempted to host it himself ...

Hi there. This is, in fact, exactly what I've been working on over the weekend.

I have ~8 GB of mail spread across three e-mail accounts hosted by Google (excluding my original @gmail.com account, which I never use). I've now got my own server set up and about 0100 UTC today (Monday) I "flipped the switch" (changed MX records) and have been keeping an eye on it since then.

I did an initial run with imapsync to move the bulk of the mail over and, after 0100 UTC (when the TTL expires) I'll do another run to make sure I've gotten anything that ended up in the mailboxes on Google's servers since then.

Afterwards, I'll delete all of the messages in those Google accounts and, finally, remove the whole domain and such. I'm sure that Google will still have a copy of all of that for a good while but, at some point, they'll delete it.

In the grand scheme of things, I know that it isn't really going to make a difference. It's more symbolic than anything but I can feel a little bit better knowing that my data is more secure/private than it was.

I've been meaning to do it for the last few months and I'm happy that I finally devoted the time to making it happen.

(For the curious... a RHEL derivative, configured according to the CIS RHEL6 Benchmark and DoD/DISA RHEL6 STIG (for the most part), running Postfix and Dovecot (w/ SSL/TLS and a "real" certificate although I'm starting to think I'd be more comfortable if I had just made my own) w/ AMaViS and ClamAV thrown in as well.)

Re: Dear USA, my data has left your building

#149
post #121
post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Much as I'd like to see some kind of "tidal wave of people doing this", purely in the interests of sending a message to somebody somewhere that data sniffing = not cool, I don't personally know anyone who's taken the time or energy to move all his data off of bugged U.S. servers onto bugged European or Asian ones or attempted to host it himself in less-efficient email clients, etc., nor plans to, nor do I hear very m…

>The Internet is living, breathing, functioning proof that, at least to 99.9999% of human beings, utility > privacy. Imagine, for a moment, that evidence comes forward that Snowden wasn't the first. Imagine that someone in Snowden's position did exactly the same thing, only for financial gain, say, selling private company secrets to a competitor. That would change the situation, would it not?

+1, the NSA is one player amongst all the countries, corporations, and ...work colleagues who might be interested in your files. There are more commercial agencies around than we'd like to think, who are given 10 grands to ruin your reputation or make your laptop disclose your next commercial move...

Re: Dear USA, my data has left your building

#150

As much as I love Synology NAS, I wouldn't trust it for keeping what's essentially my entire life (email, photos, music, files, everything). The author has a backup system which involves two laptops, a workstation and a separate file drive. However, at the bottom he/she adds "I will probably add an extra external drive to the mix and try to keep that off site." My advice: do it. Now. Murphy's law states that a flood/…

I currently backup to (encrypted volumes on) external USB drives at home. I just recently moved and now have much more upstream bandwidth (FTTH, yay!) so I wanted to do off-site backups as well. After careful consideration, I decided to occasionally make an "encrypted full backup" and then permanently archive those to Amazon's Glacier service.

Edit: Just read your comment further down where you also mention using Glacier. Have you restored any data from it to test it out yet? If so, are you happy with it? Thanks.

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