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Edward Snowden: Permanent Record

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Re: Edward Snowden: Permanent Record

#421

Post by [deleted] »

nickpsecurity wrote: post #403
Godel_unicode wrote: post #395

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> until proven otherwise Well that's impossible (see also the halting problem) so that's pretty clearly not good security practice. Nothing in that says anything about what your threat model is. What risk are you mitigating by doing this? This sounds like the type of "ignore the words and listen to the sound of my voice" security espoused by management and vendor sales people. It sounds like you have a diverting past…

"Well that's impossible (see also the halting problem) so that's pretty clearly not good security practice." No it's not. It's been done many times. The halting problem applies to a more general issue than the constrained proofs you need for specific, computer programs. If you were right, tools like RV-Match and Astree Analyzer wouldn't be finding piles of vulnerabilities with mathematical analyses. SPARK Ada code wo…

[deleted]

Re: Edward Snowden: Permanent Record

#422

Post by Godel_unicode »

JasonFruit wrote: post #400
Godel_unicode wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's actually the opposite of good practice; good practice in security is to base your planning off of facts and research. Throwing away your whole setup after every gig works for Mission: Impossible, and I guess it makes people feel extra-super-ninja, in practice it just perpetuates the endless (and pointless) culture of I-know-something-you-don't. Opsec should be based on reality and threat modeling, not endless…

It's less a culture of I-know-something-you-don't than a culture of someone-may-know-something-I-don't. I don't understand your implication of intellectual delusions of grandeur here; I see it as the opposite.

If you read the other reply to my comment, you'll see that it was in fact a case of I-know-something-you-don't, although in this instance they are in fact wrong about the implications of the thing that they know. The gate keeping that goes on in security (saying that there's a threat but not saying what it is) is extremely frustrating to me.

Re: Edward Snowden: Permanent Record

#424

Post by rjf72 »

vkou wrote: post #376
rjf72 wrote: post #361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's ironic to see a comment like this in a thread on Snowden. It's remarkable how quick we are to forget about things such as PRISM [1]. PRISM is a government-corporate surveillance coop. Players include Apple, Google, Microsoft, and many others. Capabilities described in slides never intended for public access indicate unilateral access by the NSA to "extensive, in-depth surveillance on live communications and stor…

PRISM was an internal NSA web-form for sending what was considered (by some, but not tested in courts) to be legal data access requests to US cloud app providers. It was a f---ing web-form for sending targeted, narrowly-scoped, legal notices. Nothing more, nothing less. It was not some magical all-seeing Eye of Sauron that gave the NSA a backdoor into every word you ever said online, your blood type, and the number o…

This is completely incorrect.

To start with "IS, not WAS". PRISM hasn't gone anywhere and the most reasonable path here is to expect it's only substantially grown - as it already was doing at the time of its initial reveal. This [1] is a snippet of the PRISM collection overview. Data is sent straight from the partners to a DITU - data intercept technology unit which then processes the data in various ways before being sent on for further processing to appropriate nodes and ultimately becoming searchable through PRISM.

An example of a DITU is here [2]. Microsoft provides unencrypted access to the NSA to user emails. One slightly tricky thing here was Microsoft deciding to roll out a new 'alias' feature enabling users to send emails under an alias. The DITU for outlook there ensured that NSA tracking would remain consistent regardless of the identity chosen by the user. Finally this [3] is a snip of the slide revealing the scope of data available from various partners. [3]

And yes, there is supposed to be a formal request where an analyst requests our secret court system approve a search before they carry it out. That process is unsurprisingly a rubber stamp - the court approves 99.97% of all requests. But more importantly this is something with no meaningful oversight. As Snowden emphasized, "in general, the reality is this: if an NSA, FBI, CIA, DIA, etc. analyst has access to query raw SIGINT [signals intelligence] databases, they can enter and get results for anything they want."

So, yes it would be much closer to calling PRISM the all-seeing-eye than it would be to a system for sending out warrants. These systems are the reason that the Utah data center was built with storage estimated on the order of exabytes. One exabyte being a million terabytes.

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRISM_%28surveillance_program%...

[2] - https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/11/microsoft-nsa-...

[3] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRISM_%28surveillance_program%...

[4] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utah_Data_Center

Re: Edward Snowden: Permanent Record

#425

Post by navigatesol »

davidw wrote: post #122
navigatesol wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Canada...do as well without the silly system the US has in place Perhaps you're forgetting about the evacuation of Lebanese Canadians in 2006, "Citizens of Convenience" and the associated changes in Canadian citizenship laws. It's not without controversy.

Canada does not require its citizens abroad to file taxes. I'm sure there are other controversies and things going on, but that's what we were talking about.

>but that's what we were talking about.

This controversy is directly related. You should inform yourself.

Canadian taxpayers spent $100MM evacuating Lebanese Canadians from Lebanon in 2006, many of whom were citizens but had never paid taxes to Canada. We now bill for extrication. Seems like a fair compromise.

Re: Edward Snowden: Permanent Record

#426

Post by navigatesol »

literallycancer wrote: post #385
navigatesol wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> taxing global income only hurts law abiding expats If you want to maintain your citizenship and have a safe-haven to run to if SHTF, then you should contribute to the tax system. I truly don't understand why this is controversial. An American passport is powerful. Edit: I suppose I shouldn't be shocked that the tax avoiding leeches in Silicon Valley don't feel obligated to contribute to the societies from which the…

Safe haven with 5.3 homicide rate? If you wanted an actual safe haven, you'd chose something like Andorra, Vatican, San Marino, Liechtenstein or Monaco. Those have a homicide rate of 0. Japan with 126 million people has 0.2, UAE 0.5 and South Korea 0.6.

Go to those countries and get citizenship, then. What's the problem? Oh, it's harder than it looks? I wonder why.

The question no one here answers: why maintain a valueless US citizenship?

Re: Edward Snowden: Permanent Record

#427

Post by throw0101a »

Miner49er wrote: post #302
throw0101a wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> He spent 7 years locked in an embassy ... To avoid criminal charges for things unrelated to his political/journalistic exploits. Plenty of people run when faced with possible jail time, e.g., Roman Polanski.

This is a lie. He stated from the start he was hiding to avoid extradition to the United States for his journalism.

I do not understand this point:

He was in the UK, who has an extradition treaty with the US. He was facing charges in Sweden, who also have an extradition treaty with the US.

Why was he afraid of being extradited from Sweden but not the UK? If the US wanted him they could have gone after him while he was still live in the UK.

Why fear going to Sweden? I never understood this argument: am I missing some nuance in international law?

Re: Edward Snowden: Permanent Record

#428

Post by throw0101a »

roenxi wrote: post #404
throw0101a wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ... trying to sell me things I want. "want". Do you actually desire them, or were you persuaded/tricked into it? :) Also do not underestimate the influence of corporations: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Randolph_Hearst#Spanis... * https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/kochland-examin...

I honestly don't have a problem being persuaded into wanting something and being 'tricked' is either fraud or the wrong word. I don't agree that advertising is somehow a mind control technique. It is very effective, but being persuaded to do and not do things is part of how I want to operate. If someone makes a case that something is a good idea I'll go with it. It seems to me that if an advertiser can convince me to…

> Corporations are worth keeping an eye on, but governments are more unreliable, less governable and generally have larger professional military. And if a corporation acts it is usually in concert with a government.

Are you an American? :)

Re: Edward Snowden: Permanent Record

#429

Post by navigatesol »

microcolonel wrote: post #130
navigatesol wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I thankfully don't get double-taxed here in Canada I bet many of your fellow Canadian taxpayers (of which I am one) are not so thankful for this arrangement. Then again, I fall strictly in the "citizenship is a privilege, not a right" camp.

> I bet many of your fellow Canadian taxpayers (of which I am one) are not so thankful for this arrangement. Well, I pay absolutely all Canadian taxes to the full extent, and I can't make use of TFSAs; what do my fellow Canadians have any right to complain about? > Then again, I fall strictly in the "citizenship is a privilege, not a right" camp. Well, I am a citizen, and I've lived in Canada my whole life.

You claimed to be thankful for not being "double-taxed", from which I inferred you're a Canadian, living abroad, "thankfully" not contributing to the roads, schools and hospitals of this country from you which, once can assume, you hope to extract benefit from in the future.

If you're a Canadian who lives in Canada and pays Canadian taxes, there's no controversy.

Re: Edward Snowden: Permanent Record

#430

Post by rmc »

GordonS wrote: post #231
apexalpha wrote: post #53

I can't speak for the US but this man has shifted so much of the political debate in my country and I think also in the EU in general. If you talked about the massive surveillance from governments people tossed you aside as a paranoid lunatic. After Snowden no one could ignore you anymore and privacy is an aspect in any public debate.

Can I ask what country this is in? Here in the UK, nothing had changed, and any debate that wasn't centred around condemning Snowden and justifying the actions of the security services, was very short lived.

In the EU, the revelations from Snowdon were successfully used in the data protection cases which overturned the Safe Harbour exemption.
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