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The NSA: An Inside View

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Re: The NSA: An Inside View

#251

Post by panacea »

leokun wrote: post #7

These guys just don't get it. They're always saying the same thing "we don't want to look at it." I want to scream "well maybe someday you will, and then you'll have it collected already." What a dense mind, and I am not all inclined to insult people in fact I hate it, but in this case it is well deserved.

Do they study history? At all??

I'm honestly gobsmacked by this blogpost... that anyone in a democracy thinks that hovering up all the data, will be safe from repercussions down the line, regardless of leadership.

Head-spinningly-shortsightedly-naivé.

Re: The NSA: An Inside View

#252

Post by PeterisP »

jessaustin wrote: post #183
tmzt wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It feels like saying Bletchley Park just needed more diligent and loyal crib workers and they would have solved the Enigma. Without Turing and the Bombe where would we all be?

Yeah well back then we had actual opponents. North Korea are crackpots, and some fundamentalists prefer living with goats in caves to comfortable air travel, but never in a million years will those cranks be the threat that the Axis or even the Soviets were.

Do you believe that China isn't a worthy enough competitor in electronic espionage? Or the occasionally conflicting interests with Russia and other countries?

The main job of NSA isn't to support short-term military operations in whatever location they're fighting today, they have to ensure that if they suddenly need to focus on country X, then they already have years/decades worth of collected intelligence.

Re: The NSA: An Inside View

#253

Post by secthrowaway »

jonknee wrote: post #78
mercurial wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

North Korea surely has contacts with the rest of world, to deal with China, for instance.

Yes, but you don't copy all communications to try and find the astonishingly small number from the most closed-off country in the world. This is how the NSA gets smart people to build something they would never set out to build--an all powerful global snapshot of data . They tell you about North Korea and your radioactive future. You like big problems and give it your best effort, perhaps thinking that you had a smal…

> Yes, but you don't copy all communications to try and find the astonishingly small number from the most closed-off country in the world.

What would your collection proposal be then?

You can't determine data of interest until you have sufficient data to determine if it's of interest in the first place. Even the NSA doesn't have an Oracle computer that can look into the future and figure out what vanishingly small percentage of communications are just the ones they should be interested in. If they did, they could also solve the halting problem and rewrite the history of computer science and time-travel.

Remember, the standard the NSA is held up to is that it should not only be following known bad people who are/might be doing bad things, but to ferret out the unknown bad people. Every time there's a Boston or similar, everybody goes and climbs all over the NSA for "not knowing about these guys"

You can't do that until you have a sufficiently large enough collection of unevaluated data to start looking through.

I'm not saying it's right or wrong, only that it's the reality of the task spy agencies have before them.

Re: The NSA: An Inside View

#254

Post by secthrowaway »

windexh8er wrote: post #92
sitkack wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It really depends on how widely it is reported. Government employees even those with clearance are prohibited from looking at the wikileaks cables. If it makes it into the NYT and they see it, then it is ok. But they can't actively dig for it. Direct from the mouths of government employees.

Again, an assumption that a magical unicorn guards the morality of being told what someone can or cannot do should be understood as a non-trustworthy system. Especially one that is referred to as the NSA in very general terms - as they have no control over employees or data dissemination / exfiltration. And, yes, the last statement is fact based on all of the supporting evidence in the public domain. If one thinks ot…

Outside of magical unicorns, what kind of unicorn should guard things? I'm afraid automated systems don't offer either the coverage or the flexibility to provide what you think should be provided.

Re: The NSA: An Inside View

#255

Post by 75BCD67 »

nkurz wrote: post #214
75BCD67 wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I set up an account to reply to this comment; I have an informed opinion. I expect that the blog post is sincere. If the NSA or another government agency wanted to manipulate the discourse on this or a similar site, however, they would (not could, would) do so by setting up a large number of active accounts over a long period of time. These would promote articles without triggering voting ring algorithms. For the las…

I recently discovered that many of the (active and quite long-standing) blogs and commenters in this online community are fraudulent. Realizing the potential awkwardness of this request from a stranger considering your message, is there anything publicly published about this particular situation?

No. If you want more details, please use the email address on my profile.

Re: The NSA: An Inside View

#256

Post by secthrowaway »

75BCD67 wrote: post #188
mtgentry wrote: post #19

No offense to OP, but this reads like propaganda to me. It feels like someone at the Pentagon realized they weren't winning the war of the minds of hackers, so they encouraged some of their own to blog about their experiences. I hate to sound like a tin hat wearing conspiracist. I really do. But I wouldn't be surprised if there was some sort of concerted effort by the NSA to encourage a dialogue with hackers on platf…

I set up an account to reply to this comment; I have an informed opinion. I expect that the blog post is sincere. If the NSA or another government agency wanted to manipulate the discourse on this or a similar site, however, they would (not could, would) do so by setting up a large number of active accounts over a long period of time. These would promote articles without triggering voting ring algorithms. For the las…

Did the possibility ever cross your mind that the fake accounts and users are simply an attempt by a very small fringe group to bulk up their numbers and look like a more legitimate political concern?

Re: The NSA: An Inside View

#257

Post by secthrowaway »

rl3 wrote: post #199
jonknee wrote: post #37

Interesting to get a look at what it's like to be inside the bubble. It's compartmentalized enough that the individual actors can justify their actions by the assumed competence and benevolence of the others. > I didn't test it, but I'm sure there was automated analysis that prevented or flagged use of US selectors. The mental leap here is subtle, but substantial. Since I have been told I can't use US selectors , I a…

> The mental leap here is subtle, but substantial. Since I have been told I can't use US selectors , I assume the system enforces this. As such, US citizens have nothing to worry about. I think it's fair to say most rank and file NSA employees are honest and actually do believe in their mission. The far scarier thought is how things may work at an extremely senior level (contractors included), where there's literally…

> That said, "US selectors" shouldn't return the results that they do in the first place.

Determining if a "selector" is tied to a U.S. person is actually a very subtle and very hard problem.

Let's take a phone number +1 (212) 555-1234

Is this a US selector? It's a selector for a phone in the US, but that's not the same thing as a phone number tied to a US citizen. Let's say I'm following a senior North African pirate with a Maltese mobile +356 2010-1234 and he calls/is called by my number above?

- Should I follow it? Or is it absolutely off limits for me because it happens to be a U.S. number?

- How do I determine if it's tied to a U.S. person?

- What if it's a shared number between a group of associates, all of whom are not U.S. persons except for one?

- Is that number off limits now?

- If it is a U.S. person what should I do with it?

- Pretend it doesn't exist? Turn it over to U.S. Federal law enforcement? Who should I turn it over to? DEA? FBI? ATF? DHS? The Coast Guard? U.S. Customs and Border Patrol?

It's actually a significant intelligence task to figure this out.

Re: The NSA: An Inside View

#258

Post by secthrowaway »

lispm wrote: post #113

Hey, and I'm a German patriot. If the US citizens like to be spied on by its own agencies, fine for me. As a German citizen I'm not so happy that German citizens, politicians and companies are targets of spying of unprecedented scale and depth. As a consequence we (and others, too) will have to scale back the use of US hardware, software and services. Privacy, data security, confidentially etc. are not provided. A Ge…

Are you also similarly upset about the activities of the BND, MAD, BfV and the LfVs that operate out of your own country?

Re: The NSA: An Inside View

#259

Post by secthrowaway »

lorendsr wrote: post #95
intslack wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/08/05/us-dea-sod-idUSBRE... >One current federal prosecutor learned how agents were using SOD tips after a drug agent misled him, the prosecutor told Reuters. In a Florida drug case he was handling, the prosecutor said, a DEA agent told him the investigation of a U.S. citizen began with a tip from an informant. When the prosecutor pressed for more information, he said, a DEA superv…

That sounds illegal. In same article: >Wiretap tips forwarded by the SOD usually come from foreign governments, U.S. intelligence agencies or court-authorized domestic phone recordings. Because warrantless eavesdropping on Americans is illegal, tips from intelligence agencies are generally not forwarded to the SOD until a caller's citizenship can be verified, according to one senior law enforcement official and one f…

It might be waived in the event of an imminent action. Sort it out after the threat of the action is over.

Re: The NSA: An Inside View

#260

Post by Ygg2 »

colinbartlett wrote: post #90
kabdib wrote: post #32

"Even if you are not a citizen of the Five Eyes, you shouldn't be worried about your data being viewed unless you're involved with a group of interest, such as a foreign government or violent organization." Huh, so: - My best friend's dad was a spy in the CIA - During the 70s and 80s my dad worked with Russian scientists (also ones from Poland and other Communist Bloc countries). Ecology stuff, mostly. - I've been in…

You have a great point, and the TL;DR of OP's entire post is "Unless you're doing something wrong, you have nothing to worry about." Which is the slimmest argument I ever hear in favor of these pervasive civil rights violations. I've never been a terrorist, never given any information to a foreign enemy, hell, I've barely ever even broken the law. But I do have a personal interest in Russia, speak Russian, and have b…

> Unless you're doing something wrong, you have nothing to worry about.

A nice comeback is to ask the accuser to apply similar standards as a universal principle. I mean if NSA didn't do anything wrong why worry about Snowden leaks. Or why doesn't Google show us their search algorithms?

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