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Forced Exposure

groklaw.net

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Re: Forced Exposure

#271

Post by Zelphyr »

JonFish85 wrote: post #255
rolux wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I suspect that US tech companies who are complicit in dragnet surveillance - and PRISM specifically - are already understanding this. Absolutely. Just as 2013 is the year where "ordinary people" have begun to understand that "the cloud" is a scam. (And that is doesn't make that much of a difference if they store their data with Google, Apple, or directly with the NSA. If the blueprints of PRISM can't be kept from l…

"Just as 2013 is the year where "ordinary people" have begun to understand that "the cloud" is a scam." Disagree. So-called "ordinary people" don't really know or care about this issue. They care that "hey, my phone calendar syncs with my Google calendar!". They care that "hey, I can listen to my music on my computer, my phone AND my tablet". They care that they don't have to worry about backing up some things (Googl…

This, sadly, is the ultimate truth. We may have already lost this battle for one simple reason: the average person is too apathetic to care what their Government is doing to them.

Its not "By the people For the people" anymore. Its By those in power (who aren't elected, by the way) For those in power.

Re: Forced Exposure

#272

Post by hershel »

rolux wrote: post #105
yuvadam wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That 'something unhealthy' is called privilege, and most people assume that it will protect them from government atrocities. Little do they know that privilege is given at the behest of the oppressor, and can be revoked instantaneously. I suspect that US tech companies who are complicit in dragnet surveillance - and PRISM specifically - are already understanding this.

> I suspect that US tech companies who are complicit in dragnet surveillance - and PRISM specifically - are already understanding this. Absolutely. Just as 2013 is the year where "ordinary people" have begun to understand that "the cloud" is a scam. (And that is doesn't make that much of a difference if they store their data with Google, Apple, or directly with the NSA. If the blueprints of PRISM can't be kept from l…

My guess is that that hard part in PRISM is actually building it. You have to have tons of money and cooperation from big powerful companies and government because it's illegal(unless you're NSA).

The blueprints are probably the easy part.

Re: Forced Exposure

#273

Post by drivingmenuts »

JonFish85 wrote: post #255
rolux wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I suspect that US tech companies who are complicit in dragnet surveillance - and PRISM specifically - are already understanding this. Absolutely. Just as 2013 is the year where "ordinary people" have begun to understand that "the cloud" is a scam. (And that is doesn't make that much of a difference if they store their data with Google, Apple, or directly with the NSA. If the blueprints of PRISM can't be kept from l…

"Just as 2013 is the year where "ordinary people" have begun to understand that "the cloud" is a scam." Disagree. So-called "ordinary people" don't really know or care about this issue. They care that "hey, my phone calendar syncs with my Google calendar!". They care that "hey, I can listen to my music on my computer, my phone AND my tablet". They care that they don't have to worry about backing up some things (Googl…

> So-called "ordinary people" don't really know or care about this issue.

In one sense, they're right. For the most part, they really don't have anything to hide except maybe a few naughty pictures taken at a less-than-sober moment.

What people don't get (and I do not claim to be an expert, just a cynic) is the ability for others to take two pieces of information and form a previously-unthought-of conclusion. They aren't mean, nasty or suspicious enough to even think that is a possibility.

I still hew to the idea that this isn't a technical issue. We can come up with all kinds of secure protocols and systems until we're drowning in them but it still won't fix the problem that large parts of our society are just plain broken at some fundamental level.

We passed the laws that allowed this. We hired the nosy bastards that are doing this. Hell, we made the terrorists that required us to pass the laws and hire the nosy bastards. Somewhere along the line, we decided it was more profitable to set countries on fire than it was to work on conflict resolution.

We didn't need a computer to do that.

Fix the philosophical issue because all the tech in the world is just a bandaid.

Re: Forced Exposure

#274

Post by MichaelGG »

cyrus_ wrote: post #142
MichaelGG wrote: post #48

I guess I don't get it. Didn't we "know" about things like Carnivore in the 90s? Isn't it rather expected that unencrypted communications are going to be gathered? You don't even need a nation-state to do so. Anyone with physical access can place taps, and parsing and saving port 25 traffic ain't exactly Manhattan Project level work. I agree it's upsetting and citizens should be demanding oversight. But to assume you…

Do you believe that physical mail enjoys no reasonable expectation of privacy either?

Physical mail, at least in the US, enjoys privacy due to specific law. As I understand, a court order/warrant is needed to open a USPS letter.

With private carriers like FedEx (which aren't allowed to offer normal letter service in the US) there's no such restrictions. FedEx directly states "We may, at our sole discretion, open and inspect any shipment without notice."[1]

1: http://www.fedex.com/us/service-guide/terms/express-ground/i...

Re: Forced Exposure

#275

Post by agilebyte »

mncolinlee wrote: post #260
rolux wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I suspect that US tech companies who are complicit in dragnet surveillance - and PRISM specifically - are already understanding this. Absolutely. Just as 2013 is the year where "ordinary people" have begun to understand that "the cloud" is a scam. (And that is doesn't make that much of a difference if they store their data with Google, Apple, or directly with the NSA. If the blueprints of PRISM can't be kept from l…

At this point, it would make more sense to store data with the NSA. They have that entire, taxpayer-funded Utah Data Center full of storage. Why not just open it up for people to backup their files cheaply? The slogan could be "It all ends up here anyway."

Absolutely, I bet someone in the govt is thinking about giving each citizen say 10GB of free space that is secure from: hackers, identity theft, foreign espionage etc.

All the ones that won't use this offer can then be even more meticulously monitored.

Re: Forced Exposure

#276

Post by chris_mahan »

JonFish85 wrote: post #255
rolux wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I suspect that US tech companies who are complicit in dragnet surveillance - and PRISM specifically - are already understanding this. Absolutely. Just as 2013 is the year where "ordinary people" have begun to understand that "the cloud" is a scam. (And that is doesn't make that much of a difference if they store their data with Google, Apple, or directly with the NSA. If the blueprints of PRISM can't be kept from l…

"Just as 2013 is the year where "ordinary people" have begun to understand that "the cloud" is a scam." Disagree. So-called "ordinary people" don't really know or care about this issue. They care that "hey, my phone calendar syncs with my Google calendar!". They care that "hey, I can listen to my music on my computer, my phone AND my tablet". They care that they don't have to worry about backing up some things (Googl…

No, but yesterday a friend of mine asked me how to back up her pictures from her computer. I told her to use a removable drive. My wife said: "Just store them on Facebook". I said: "The US government makes a copy of anything you upload to the internet." My wife was shocked. Our friend said: "I don't want that." (She's from Hungary). We settled on 32 GB flash drives.

Moral of the story: Just like Groklaw, the ordinary people will stop trusting the internet because people in the know (in her case lavabit founder) say not to trust it.

Ordinary people, for the most part, trust the geeks they know to guide them through the computing landscape.

Re: Forced Exposure

#277

Post by cookiecaper »

jcromartie wrote: post #213
cookiecaper wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What. A FISA warrant doesn't magically render RSA invalid. If all your comms are encrypted, they can get whatever warrants they want, and they still won't be able to read your information unless you surrender your passphrase and key.

They can, and do, force you to divulge your key.

I understand that they can, and sometimes may, force you to divulge your key, but it's not a consistent thing in the United States. There are judgments that require the divulgence, and judgments that claim such forced divulgence is precluded by the Fifth Amendment.

In any case, you buy yourself a very large amount of time if you don't just leave all your communiques out for them to read in plaintext. If you're encrypted, you have a lot of due process to exhaust before they ultimatley MAY order you to divulge the key. They have to go through your lawyer. He can file motions and appeals. The accused may incidentally forget the password. There are a lot of options. With plaintext, there are no options; there is only the government with all your content, and you with no control over anything.

See this here, with reference to the conflicting case law in the U.S.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Key_disclosure_law#United_Stat...

Re: Forced Exposure

#278

Post by SkyMarshal »

badman_ting wrote: post #228
quail wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obama continues to push hard to steal what little privacy rights US citizens have remaining. He is openly hostile about it, and lies about it constantly. Am I exaggerating here? The scary thing is I'm not. He's not done. It's going to get worse.

Sadly, I think this is part of our problem. "Obama". Attaching his name to this just makes it so that we all vote for a Republican next year, congratulate ourselves for getting rid of the guy who loved spying on us all, and everything stays exactly the same. I'm not trying to defend him or say he is blameless here. I'm saying that it's bigger than who is in the President's chair at the moment, and I wish we could thi…

Exactly. The problem is so far beyond partisan now that people still framing it in terms of "Bush" or "Obama" have the blinders on.

The problem is systemic and cultural, the federal bureaucracy is more influential on elected officials than elected officials are on the federal bureaucracy, at least in matters of intelligence and national security.

Every politician elected into this system faces extraordinary forces of compliance, and only a few on both the left and right (Wyden, Paul, etc) seem able to resist.

Re: Forced Exposure

#279

Post by pdonis »

ataggart wrote: post #264
snowwrestler wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What a joke. Please educate yourself about the history of successful social movements like labor rights, civil rights, environmental protection, etc. The privacy movement has not even begun to begin what is necessary to change the law. For example: can you name the leading organization that works solely on privacy? There isn't one. The issue is only sort-of covered if you add up the partial work of a bunch of differe…

>Please educate yourself about the history of successful social movements like labor rights, civil rights, environmental protection, etc. Given that the current context involves opposing government power, I'm not sure labour rights and environmental protection are relevant examples; both resulted in massive expansion of the effective scope government power. Civil rights would perhaps be a slightly better example simp…

Civil rights would perhaps be a slightly better example simply because what was being fought against were largely government creations (e.g., legally compulsory discrimination).

And the "solution" was to exchange these for other government creations, like the EEOC. Which on net resulted in a massive expansion of the effective scope of government power (not least because many of the previous government creations were at the state level, but what we have now is mostly federal).

Re: Forced Exposure

#280

Post by malandrew »

wslh wrote: post #177
rolux wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I suspect that US tech companies who are complicit in dragnet surveillance - and PRISM specifically - are already understanding this. Absolutely. Just as 2013 is the year where "ordinary people" have begun to understand that "the cloud" is a scam. (And that is doesn't make that much of a difference if they store their data with Google, Apple, or directly with the NSA. If the blueprints of PRISM can't be kept from l…

Just as 2013 is the year where "ordinary people" have begun to understand that "the cloud" is a scam. And the year when we understand that we are all lemmings. I remember the 90s when people were afraid of putting their credit cards on ecommerce sites, and now they put their whole lifes and assets online.

The beauty of corporations is that they are still accountable to a much greater degree than than the NSA. Those who run Google have a fiduciary responsibility to shareholders. Up until a few months ago this always meant to many that if there was anything fishy going on at Google that they would quickly resolve the problem by firing the individuals guilty of any transgression and quickly instituting security policies to make sure something like that doesn't happen again. After all, individuals can mount class action suits, as can shareholders and the FTC or other some other regulator can come down on them.

The problem with what we discovered a few months ago is that the government can use fiduciary duty of the officers of these companies against the companies and they can do so in a way that guarantees that the executives won't talk about the abuse. They made demands for access and every corporation in the world knows that when push comes to shove, you don't want to piss off any organization that can unleash the IRS on your bookkeeping. And if someone does push back, its possible that there were additional threats of jail time for obstructing justice or contempt of court. Add to that the ability to gag anyone with an NSL and you have a situation that is wide open to abuse.

Unlike corporations, the people don't really have real recourse for transgressions of the NSA, CIA or LEO in general when it involves secrets that we are not privileged to, especially not any recourse within the capabilities of the common man (unless you are a common man within those institutions and you're willing to give up everything to whistleblow). Most attempts to sue get thrown out on state secrets grounds. All we have left is the ability to vote, but its pretty clear from some of the facts that that is unlikely to make any difference for most voters since the only people who knew what was going on were on the intelligence committees and even then both the ICs in both houses and the FISA court have admitted that they don't have any real oversight.

Facing this reality, I'm not entirely surprised people like pj at groklaw and ll at lavabit are checking out.

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