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Yahoo scanned customer emails for US intelligence

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Re: Yahoo scanned customer emails for US intelligence

#251

Post by compiler-guy »

CodeMage wrote: post #211
dEnigma wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which reminds me of this great passage in Atlas Shrugged : “Did you really think we want those laws observed?" said Dr. Ferris. "We want them to be broken. You'd better get it straight that it's not a bunch of boy scouts you're up against... We're after power and we mean it... There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough…

"There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs." -- John Rogers

Like many thinkers, Rand's critiques are usually pretty insightful, but have very large blind spots.

Also like many thinkers, her solutions are often worse than the disease.

Re: Yahoo scanned customer emails for US intelligence

#252

Post by rhizome »

serf wrote: post #229
CodeMage wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs." -- John Rogers

Is this the same John Rogers that helped write the story for the newest 'Catwoman' and 'Transformers' movies? I'm not so sure he's in the best position to qualify as a literary critic.

You don't have to be a lit crit to come to a solid conclusion that Rand should not be followed as a life plan. I feel the same way about "The Prince" and "The Art of War," both of which I haven't read because I don't want them poisoning my brain.

Re: Yahoo scanned customer emails for US intelligence

#253

Post by generj »

zzzcpan wrote: post #249
generj wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google denied they have a similar program: For its part, Google was the most unequivocal. Spokesman Aaron Stein e-mailed: "We've never received such a request, but if we did, our response would be simple: 'no way.'"[0] I wonder if Google could even run a program like this while keeping it secret. Yahoo had their program discovered within weeks, and public within a year. Stamos could easily have immediately gone publi…

Well, you know, it would be insane for any company to admit something like this.

But it also would be insane to make a provably false statement, leaving you open to lawsuits and probably enraging any would be whistle blowers. It would be even more insane to make your false statement more false than it needs to be.

Re: Yahoo scanned customer emails for US intelligence

#254

Post by StanislavPetrov »

rdl wrote: post #84
DubiousPusher wrote: post #11

I think the attitude here that most tech companies are rolling over and just complying without a single ethical consideration is misplaced. The government has been doing an excellent job of basically extorting these companies into compliance. They threaten the full weight of the US government's wraith and then tie every order up with classifications and gag orders. You aren't legally allowed to talk to other companie…

I wonder what the actual personal consequences are for someone going public that there is an NSL requested. I seriously doubt they'd destroy a major public company with lots of employees/voters/users; fines, maybe, and going after execs, but the Government loses most of its power to threaten things once the act is done and everything is public. I think you win in the court of public opinion if it's a broad program li…

>I wonder what the actual personal consequences are for someone going public that there is an NSL requested.

Under the Patriot Act its 5 years in federal prison for any individual who violates a gag order.

Re: Yahoo scanned customer emails for US intelligence

#256

Post by dredmorbius »

euxneks wrote: post #239
DubiousPusher wrote: post #11

I think the attitude here that most tech companies are rolling over and just complying without a single ethical consideration is misplaced. The government has been doing an excellent job of basically extorting these companies into compliance. They threaten the full weight of the US government's wraith and then tie every order up with classifications and gag orders. You aren't legally allowed to talk to other companie…

See, the thing is, if the company had a way to encrypt all communications so that they couldn't read it, they wouldn't be in this position :\

With SAAS, a server-side code tweak could resurrect surveillance capabilities.

Re: Yahoo scanned customer emails for US intelligence

#258

Post by oldmanjay »

pascalmemories wrote: post #218
mtgx wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If that were the case, then Apple would've caved in, too. Mayer was probably too new and too scared to deal with this, especially when she had to think about her new baby. My point is it has less to do with "Yahoo being scared about being destroyed by the US government" and more with Mayer's own personal fear of the US government, and easily caving to such threats, whether it was because of her baby, because of weak…

> Mayer was probably too new and too scared to deal with this, especially when she had to think about her new baby. OK, I normally think misogyny claims are over-blown and people are way too sensitive. But your comment positively reeks of misogyny. Rather than go for a down-vote, because you're able to edit your comment, I think you should reconsider the phrasing and delete the misogyny. If your comment doesn't stand…

Men can also have new babies. I'm chuckling rather heavily at the fact that you are the person who brought the sexism to the discussion in an attempt to white knight a bit.

Re: Yahoo scanned customer emails for US intelligence

#259

Post by malandrew »

declan wrote: post #233
rdl wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also committing to a "fuck NSLs, we'll just go public and take it all the way legally" stance upfront might deter NSLs in the first place.

NSLs are likely not the case here with Yahoo (and in fact are not the most significant privacy threat, IMHO). An NSL is a demand from the FBI, not a court order. NSLs also have unique First Amendment vulnerabilities that would help a company choosing to publicize receiving one. A FISA court order, which can force you to do much more than NSLs, is the more significant operational threat to Internet companies. These co…

What if you had all your mail scanned or OCRed to remove certain phrases such as "do not disclose" and then the resulting message was delivered to you.

The key here being that you will never have any knowledge of such requirements and therefore cannot act with intent to violate such requirements. Basically, can you eliminate mens rea as an element of the crime of contempt?

The burden is on the deliverer to make sure you receive, open, read and acknowledge the entire message instead of a partial message.

Re: Yahoo scanned customer emails for US intelligence

#260

Post by driverdan »

kefka wrote: post #40
rudolf0 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but there's a huge difference between a computer "seeing" your email and a human being searching for keywords within your email to decide whether or not to follow you around and/or arrest you. This report isn't complaining about unencrypted emails. It's about them giving an intelligence agency the equivalent of a `grep "terrorism" | tail -f` for all their users' email. Without a warrant. (Not that a warrant coul…

You're right, that US govt bulk-scanning is terrifying, especially without warrants. But what happens when Facebook scans your private chats and reports your illegal doings to the police? ( http://www.infowars.com/facebook-monitors-your-private-messa... ) What data restrictions do we have that would prevent $dataCompany from sharing data with other actors? I'm sure a "privacy policy" can do something, but in the end,…

Proper primary source: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-internet-predators-idU...
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