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XKeyscore: NSA program collects 'nearly everything a user does on the internet'

theguardian.com

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Re: XKeyscore: NSA program collects 'nearly everything a user does on the internet'

#291

Post by [deleted] »

talmand wrote: post #165
aspensmonster wrote: post #110

>How do I find a strong-selector for a known target? >How do I find a cell of terrorists that has no known connection to strong-selectors? >Answer: Look for anomalous events >E.g. Someone whose language is out of place for the region they are in >Someone who is using encryption >Someone searching the web for suspicious stuff Lovely. Suspicious stuff and encryption. But wait! There's more! >Show me all the VPN startup…

I'd like to know where they are keeping these "over 300 terrorists" that have been captured due to this program. How is one labeled a terrorist by this program I wonder?

[deleted]

Re: XKeyscore: NSA program collects 'nearly everything a user does on the internet'

#292

Post by weland »

deveac wrote: post #218
nikcub wrote: post #29

This is overwhelming. Even when you always hear the claims about we knew this was going on, somehow it is still shocking when you see it all laid out infront of you with screenshots and the capabilities described. I can see how they get HTTP information, since they would intercept at transit hubs - but how are they getting all Facebook private messages and Gmail? I was also looking for another unique ID that users ar…

>This is overwhelming. Even when you always hear the claims about we knew this was going on, somehow it is still shocking when you see it all laid out infront of you with screenshots and the capabilities described. It has become a bit of a pet peeve of mine recently to see self-aggrandizing comments from users around the net about how "we should have known" and "none of this is new." I'm a practically addicted news j…

> It has become a bit of a pet peeve of mine recently to see self-aggrandizing comments from users around the net about how "we should have known" and "none of this is new."

I agree that "know" is a bit too glorifying. I propose "suspected".

I don't find this surprising at all. Practically 99.99% of a normal user's Internet activity is centered on Facebook, Google (including Gmail) and a handful of other sites. The amount of data everyone is requiring in order to provide a service also includes pretty much anything you need in order to track someone.

It's not news you need to pay attention to but some of the more theoretical aspects of networking in a second-year course.

Re: XKeyscore: NSA program collects 'nearly everything a user does on the internet'

#293

Post by fnordfnordfnord »

swalsh wrote: post #225

The thing that blows my mind, is you hear over and over again about Billions of dollars being spent on large software projects for the government that seem fairly simplistic that ultimately fail. The NSA is accomplishing some pretty impressive things, what are they doing differently?

Spending tons of our money while being accountable only to themselves.

Re: XKeyscore: NSA program collects 'nearly everything a user does on the internet'

#294

Post by m8urn »

quaunaut wrote: post #217
nikcub wrote: post #29

This is overwhelming. Even when you always hear the claims about we knew this was going on, somehow it is still shocking when you see it all laid out infront of you with screenshots and the capabilities described. I can see how they get HTTP information, since they would intercept at transit hubs - but how are they getting all Facebook private messages and Gmail? I was also looking for another unique ID that users ar…

Just want to clarify something: > I can see how they get HTTP information, since they would intercept at transit hubs - but how are they getting all Facebook private messages and Gmail? I don't know how they're getting GMail(and this is probably a slide from when GMail was accessible via HTTP and not HTTPS), but Facebook chat specifically is done over a non-secure XMPP server. The only 'secure' part of that transacti…

With Gmail, all it takes is one request to almost any Google service to leak through a non http connection and they have your Auth cookie. Once they have that, they are you. And yes it is that easy, anyone can pull it off at Starbucks, hotels, even some ISPs.

Re: XKeyscore: NSA program collects 'nearly everything a user does on the internet'

#295

Post by VerilyForsooth »

Why is the commentry on this topic always braindead?

The article states that there is a query interface using the email address as the key. But Where does it say that every single email/webpage from every single person is being collected? Such a task would be technically impossible. It seems far more likely that it's querying a database of pretargeted people.

There is so much hysterical nonsense regarding this topic. The cancer of conspiracy theory spreads.

Re: XKeyscore: NSA program collects 'nearly everything a user does on the internet'

#296

Post by cinquemb »

rmrfrmrf wrote: post #260
deveac wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>This is overwhelming. Even when you always hear the claims about we knew this was going on, somehow it is still shocking when you see it all laid out infront of you with screenshots and the capabilities described. It has become a bit of a pet peeve of mine recently to see self-aggrandizing comments from users around the net about how "we should have known" and "none of this is new." I'm a practically addicted news j…

First of all: keep the staggering to a minimum. Second: realizing that "we should have known" and "none of this is new" isn't so much about reading news articles and being "plugged in", but rather having an understanding of how the Internet works. To oversimplify greatly, you're essentially playing a very precise game of telephone between around 10-20 different people, and usually about 1-3 different publicly-owned c…

Third: NSA whistleblowers have been stating what was more or less going on for years… (here's a talk by Binney from last November [0])

Funny enough, I wrote a post on this subject matter too before the Snowden leaks where I included the video as well…[1]

[0]: http://techtv.mit.edu/embeds/21783?html5=true&size=full&cust...

[1]: http://blog.pictobar.com/post/47787766458/why-so-silent

Re: XKeyscore: NSA program collects 'nearly everything a user does on the internet'

#297

Post by kazagistar »

MarcScott wrote: post #256

The scale, depth and technical sophistication of everything I've heard and read so far has made me change my mind on whether or not there is a technical solution to NSA and GCHQ surveillance. I'm now convinced that the only way to solve this is through politics. We need representatives that will enforce our rights to privacy, not clever hacks.

That said, we need to do the technical solutions as well. Don't use the difficulty as an excuse to give up on one partial solution, when the other solution is partial as well.

Re: XKeyscore: NSA program collects 'nearly everything a user does on the internet'

#298

Post by m8urn »

semenko wrote: post #127
nikcub wrote: post #29

This is overwhelming. Even when you always hear the claims about we knew this was going on, somehow it is still shocking when you see it all laid out infront of you with screenshots and the capabilities described. I can see how they get HTTP information, since they would intercept at transit hubs - but how are they getting all Facebook private messages and Gmail? I was also looking for another unique ID that users ar…

> edit: Gmail messages must only be captured when they leave the Google network. It seems easier for the NSA to tap datacenter datacenter fiber links inside Google's network. Why worry about decryption when you can have Google's frontend servers do it for you?

Or, the NSA could force Google to provide them with private keys to their certs for "national security" and then they can mitm all they want.

Re: XKeyscore: NSA program collects 'nearly everything a user does on the internet'

#299

Post by m8urn »

semenko wrote: post #127
nikcub wrote: post #29

This is overwhelming. Even when you always hear the claims about we knew this was going on, somehow it is still shocking when you see it all laid out infront of you with screenshots and the capabilities described. I can see how they get HTTP information, since they would intercept at transit hubs - but how are they getting all Facebook private messages and Gmail? I was also looking for another unique ID that users ar…

> edit: Gmail messages must only be captured when they leave the Google network. It seems easier for the NSA to tap datacenter datacenter fiber links inside Google's network. Why worry about decryption when you can have Google's frontend servers do it for you?

Or, the NSA could force Google to provide them with private keys to their certs for "national security" and then they can mitm all they want.

Re: XKeyscore: NSA program collects 'nearly everything a user does on the internet'

#300

Post by m8urn »

semenko wrote: post #127
nikcub wrote: post #29

This is overwhelming. Even when you always hear the claims about we knew this was going on, somehow it is still shocking when you see it all laid out infront of you with screenshots and the capabilities described. I can see how they get HTTP information, since they would intercept at transit hubs - but how are they getting all Facebook private messages and Gmail? I was also looking for another unique ID that users ar…

> edit: Gmail messages must only be captured when they leave the Google network. It seems easier for the NSA to tap datacenter datacenter fiber links inside Google's network. Why worry about decryption when you can have Google's frontend servers do it for you?

Or, the NSA could force Google to provide them with private keys to their certs for "national security" and then they can mitm all they want.
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