Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

NSA targets the privacy-conscious

daserste.ndr.de

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 181 posts

Re: NSA targets the privacy-conscious

#31

Post by Sprint »

terranstyler wrote: post #5

Warning: The first sentence goes "If you read Boing Boing, the NSA considers you a target for deep surveillance". So, if you find this interesting, maybe you shouldn't read it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_they_came_...

First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Socialist.

Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Trade Unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

Re: NSA targets the privacy-conscious

#32

Post by pessimizer »

psykovsky wrote: post #26
pessimizer wrote: post #20

Of course this happens, and it's an obvious technique. I'm sure that not having a facebook account adds to your score, using AdBlock adds to your score, mentioning the NSA online adds to your score, refusing cookies adds to your score, using Linux adds to your score, etc. That's how a police state works. (XKeyScore += 5) My mother was involved in civil rights, so she has a file. It's fine that I have a file too. Hope…

> Hopefully I'll be gone before they start going door to door. Why care about the rest of your family that will still be here to endure the rest... or the rest of us. You have no kids, right?

I don't. If you want to fight, I'll support you. I donate money to causes that I know raise my XKeyscore, and I subscribe to magazines that I know raise my XKeyscore. My long term plan is to find somewhere where this is not happening, and move there, though.

If I were planning to stay here for the rest of my life, I wouldn't risk political posting on the internet, donating, or subscribing. You'll get more help for me as long as I can rationalize it as only worsening a temporary situation.

Re: NSA targets the privacy-conscious

#33

Post by schoen »

Zigurd wrote: post #4
caster_cp wrote: post #2

The only way out of this, as I see it, is making privacy the default. But this require some cooperation and motivation from the big guys at silicon valley. Imagine if Chrome, Firefox, Safari, all of them had, just like the incognito mode, the private mode. Of course, as anonymity also depends on the behavior of the user online, other actions are needed to really ensure security and privacy. But making it the default…

> But this require some cooperation and motivation from the big guys at silicon valley Unfortunately, this is key to making strong encryption commonplace. A social graph and real-time communication could be used to make key exchange easy and secure. Open client software is needed to make security verifiable. And the storage and email infrastructure and clients need to make using encryption the default. All the pieces…

One of the biggest difficulties for "easy and secure" key exchange is that so many people want to be able to access private communications on many different devices.

How do you authorize a new device in an "easy and secure" way without simply outsourcing the problem to an intermediary who is then in a position to attack you by authorizing its own devices?

This issue has quite concrete implications for the security and convenience of lots of existing security tools, from GPG to iMessage to Skype to Firefox. They've chosen different approaches but the underlying problem and associated tradeoffs apply to all of them.

On the bright side, there are now a lot of people exploring the space of possibilities for dealing with these tradeoffs.

Re: NSA targets the privacy-conscious

#34

Post by pekk »

sroerick wrote: post #12
jewhaseloff wrote: post #10

Raw milk distributors.

Wait, what? Are you being facetious? This is so oddly specific.

It's a conservative meme that raw milk producers are being unfairly persecuted, in those circles it's supposed to be a paradigm case of the overly intrusive nanny state.

In reality, there is hard epidemiological data showing that selling raw milk (edit: e.g. through the normal store channels) can lead to serious harm including deaths. So FDA bans it for interstate sales, but it's up to the state to decide how to regulate in-state sales. Just like any other food safety issue.

NSA is extremely unlikely to be involved in enforcing regulations against raw milk in reality, but in the mind of the conservative conspiracy theorist it's all of one totalitarian piece.

Re: NSA targets the privacy-conscious

#35

Post by pessimizer »

Holbein wrote: post #28
pessimizer wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Not doing something can't make you more suspicious. That's just stupid.

No. That's common sense. If you don't do something on the internet, there is no data. No data = nothing suspicious.

There is no state of no data. You are known to exist, you are known for not participating in something that is common for your group. That, in combination with the thousands of other data points about you will determine whether you are of interest. That may determine whether your car gets searched during a traffic stop, or whether you're put on a no-fly list.

This is not complicated to build, it is simple to build, and the only logical way of accomplishing what the government claims that they're attempting to accomplish.

Re: NSA targets the privacy-conscious

#36

Post by NotAtWork »

Holbein wrote: post #28
pessimizer wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Not doing something can't make you more suspicious. That's just stupid.

No. That's common sense. If you don't do something on the internet, there is no data. No data = nothing suspicious.

The lack of data about you on the internet is likely more anomalous than whatever data you're trying to hide originally was.

Not finding something when you should find something is suspicious.

Re: NSA targets the privacy-conscious

#37

Post by schoen »

I think an even more significant thing in the XKeyScore code (in terms of the idea that "NSA targets the privacy-conscious") is the existence of a "documents/comsec/" hierarchy of fingerprints. I may have written some of the documentation that's targeted elsewhere within that hierarchy.

Re: NSA targets the privacy-conscious

#38

Post by ajays »

pekk wrote: post #34
sroerick wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait, what? Are you being facetious? This is so oddly specific.

It's a conservative meme that raw milk producers are being unfairly persecuted, in those circles it's supposed to be a paradigm case of the overly intrusive nanny state. In reality, there is hard epidemiological data showing that selling raw milk (edit: e.g. through the normal store channels) can lead to serious harm including deaths. So FDA bans it for interstate sales, but it's up to the state to decide how to regu…

> In reality, there is hard epidemiological data showing that selling raw milk (edit: e.g. through the normal store channels) can lead to serious harm including deaths.

I'd love to see the evidence, and see it compared to other food sources.

I grew up in India. There all we got was raw milk from the cowherd; in fact, even today, my parents send the helper to get milk in a pail from the cowherd. It's always been raw milk, warm and fresh from the udder. And the first thing they do is to boil it.

If I were to conjecture, it's that the "no raw milk" diktat forces farmers to go to big distribution companies with the requisite facilities for pasteurization.

Re: NSA targets the privacy-conscious

#39

Post by happyscrappy »

Holbein wrote: post #28
pessimizer wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Not doing something can't make you more suspicious. That's just stupid.

No. That's common sense. If you don't do something on the internet, there is no data. No data = nothing suspicious.

Even if you go full Stallman data leaks everywhere. Credit card purchase data is bought and sold daily as is satellite imaging time.

Re: NSA targets the privacy-conscious

#40

Post by Zak »

jobu wrote: post #16

Because anyone trying to keep anything private or secure must be hiding something bad... That's just wonderful. After 10 years of pervasive surveillance and not being able to catch a single terrorist I can't believe the NSA is trying to rationalize it as being a good thing. It's too bad the bill to defund the NSA didn't pass: http://defundthensa.com/

Because anyone trying to keep anything private or secure must be hiding something bad

The NSA does an awful lot of hiding things. It might therefore be reasonable to conclude that it is bad and should, at the very least have its funding cut.

Post reply on HN