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US intelligence mining data from 9 US Internet companies in broad secret program

washingtonpost.com

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Re: US intelligence mining data from 9 US Internet companies in broad secret program

#291

Post by jamesaguilar »

Afforess wrote: post #290
jamesaguilar wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You cited an irrelevant quote and are invoking the principle of charity to demand that anigbrowl give it a pass. It would be easier if you just admitted that the quote is about censorship and not privacy and move on. You're weakening your rhetorical position by defending something that's obviously wrong, and not central to your point.

Wow. Demanded? Weakening rhetorical position? It's like you think comments are some sort of game where you can win or lose. I think I'll just let readers read my comments and opt out of this silly game you want to play.

Just callin' it like I see it. Your choice to react constructively or defensively.

Re: US intelligence mining data from 9 US Internet companies in broad secret program

#292

Post by AnthonyMouse »

anigbrowl wrote: post #170
Afforess wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The loss of privacy is massive in comparison to the lives lost to terrorism. More people die each year due to car accidents than have lost their lives to all terrorist attacks on US Soil. If the information that is being gathered is about safety, then why isn't the government isn't creating a massive program to strictly monitor highway speeds, traffic roadways, and increase traffic safety then? Answer: The informatio…

We have such a massive program, according to many; the NTSB is a big bureaucracy and a lot of people consider the whole concept of speed limits and traffic police as a encroachment upon their freedom rather than a reasonable collective decision on how to share transit arteries. Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master. This seems a rather inappropriate apho…

>This is an argument against censorship rather than one in support of privacy.

Let's not forget that they've been attempting to keep the existence of this program a secret.

>This seems a rather inappropriate aphorism, since most people here would very much like to deny the NSA access to information about their phone usage.

Aren't the people supposed to be the masters of the government?

>It's not so much you vs. the government as you vs. a large number of your fellow citizens that simply don't share your beliefs about privacy, and who choose to elect law-and-order types more often than civil-liberties types.

So our job is to convince those people of their error by espousing evidence in support of our view. Malicious governments kill drastically more innocent people than malicious individuals or small groups; excessive government power is more dangerous than terrorism. The amount of money we spend on anti-terrorism measures is drastically out of proportion to the actual threat and those resources could be better spent on more serious issues, terrorism hype is financially supported in enormous amounts by defense contractors and other parties with a significant pecuniary interest in continued government waste, etc.

Re: US intelligence mining data from 9 US Internet companies in broad secret program

#293

Post by [deleted] »

btilly wrote: post #181
nostromo wrote: post #41

I'm saddened to see Dropbox on the list. Did they choose to participate or is it mandatory? In any case, we've moved several projects to BTSync recently from Dropbox (for no other reason than to free up space on Dropbox for our personal files) and have been enjoying the service. As a p2p encrypted protocol, I imagine it's much more difficult to eavesdrop on your files and would actually require a warrant to obtain. I…

The government's theory is that a national security letter is sufficient to get access to your data. No warrant required. And Dropbox is not allowed to tell you that it happened. And yes, they can give your data to the government. Communications to/from Dropbox are encrypted. But it is unencrypted on the back end. See http://paranoia.dubfire.net/2011/04/how-dropbox-sacrifices-u... for how we can know that.

[deleted]

Re: US intelligence mining data from 9 US Internet companies in broad secret program

#294

Post by pizza »

Taylorious wrote: post #219
kevinalexbrown wrote: post #143

I've lived under surveillance before, so I feel my perspective might be somewhat appropriate. I won't comment on the specifics (uninteresting and irrelevant, had to do with where I was living). I won't even make a statement about whether it's justified in my case or in general. I'd just ask everyone here to do one thing: Watch this, then ask yourself how you feel (if it doesn't go directly to 6:40, fastforward to it,…

I laughed at how incredibly shifty the General is when he "answers."

I don't think we should extrapolate the N.S.A.'s true data collection policies based on one man's uncomfortability..

Re: US intelligence mining data from 9 US Internet companies in broad secret program

#295

Post by uptown »

zeddie wrote: post #228
enraged_camel wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>Warren Buffet has predicted a major nuclear terrorist attack on an American city to be a "virtual certainty" given enough time. Everything is a certainty given enough time. In addition, Mr. Buffet may be a great investor, but what exactly how much would he know about terrorists or nuclear weapons? Probably as much as you and I.

Buffett (via Berkshire Hathaway) has made huge amounts of money selling insurance against catastrophes. This includes natural disasters such as earthquakes, tsunamis, and floods, as well as other catastrophic events including terrorism.

You realize insurance companies make the most money by selling policies that never get exercised, right?

Re: US intelligence mining data from 9 US Internet companies in broad secret program

#296

Post by jmh42 »

Does anyone know how much the Gov't agencies pay for this data?

I'm guessing here, but it seems logical. There must be some kind of economic benefit for Facebook, Google, AT&T, Verizon, etc. to save and provide this data. Perhaps they even help organize it for the "requesting entities".

Re: US intelligence mining data from 9 US Internet companies in broad secret program

#297

Post by colanderman »

btilly wrote: post #181
nostromo wrote: post #41

I'm saddened to see Dropbox on the list. Did they choose to participate or is it mandatory? In any case, we've moved several projects to BTSync recently from Dropbox (for no other reason than to free up space on Dropbox for our personal files) and have been enjoying the service. As a p2p encrypted protocol, I imagine it's much more difficult to eavesdrop on your files and would actually require a warrant to obtain. I…

The government's theory is that a national security letter is sufficient to get access to your data. No warrant required. And Dropbox is not allowed to tell you that it happened. And yes, they can give your data to the government. Communications to/from Dropbox are encrypted. But it is unencrypted on the back end. See http://paranoia.dubfire.net/2011/04/how-dropbox-sacrifices-u... for how we can know that.

That proof is very confused.

The ability to detect duplication in no way proves the files are unencrypted (indeed this should be obvious from the fact that there is only negligible network traffic to confirm a duplicate! The bits can't be compared if they're not transmitted.)

It's the ability to serve deduplicated files that brings the service into question. Yet I wouldn't be surprised if there exists an asymmetric encryption method which permits decryption with one of several private keys – if so, secure deduplication is trivial: confirm the duplicate using a hash or comparing public-key encrypted versions; re-encrypt using both original and duplicate keys.

(And let's not even forget the ability to reset a forgotten password…)

Re: US intelligence mining data from 9 US Internet companies in broad secret program

#298

Post by jcrites »

kevinalexbrown wrote: post #143

I've lived under surveillance before, so I feel my perspective might be somewhat appropriate. I won't comment on the specifics (uninteresting and irrelevant, had to do with where I was living). I won't even make a statement about whether it's justified in my case or in general. I'd just ask everyone here to do one thing: Watch this, then ask yourself how you feel (if it doesn't go directly to 6:40, fastforward to it,…

I am not defending the program. But doesn't the program only collect data when there is a 51% percent confidence or greater that the source is foreign?

That's a bit slippery, but could be an explanation for his statement.

Re: US intelligence mining data from 9 US Internet companies in broad secret program

#299

Post by uptown »

ryguytilidie wrote: post #14
donohoe wrote: post #3

The National Security Agency and the FBI are tapping directly into the central servers and then they're extracting audio, video, photographs, e-mails, documents and connection logs from... Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, PalTalk, AOL, Skype, YouTube, Apple. and it gets better Dropbox, the cloud storage and synchronization service, is described as “coming soon.”

How does this stuff work? Would someone at the NSA contact dropbox and ask them to build in a backdoor or are they just able to access whatever the fuck they want and simply do?

My guess? These companies setup the data-equivalent of the CIA 'black sites' ... Out of the country duplicate databases that the NSA has access to beyond the laws of this nation.

Watch this video and listen how many times 'in the United States' is mentioned.

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