NSA targets the privacy-conscious • Hacker News Board

Re: NSA targets the privacy-conscious

#51

Post by afarrell » Thu, Jul 03, 2014, 6:37 PM UTC

YokoZar wrote: post #23

afarrell wrote: post #6

When the NSA collects evidence on someone and uses that evidence to prosecute a criminal case, they can and should file a motion to suppress that evidence. The NSA data is collected under search issued by a FISA court. So, during a suppression hearing, defense counsel can challenge the validity of the warrant. If their challenge is denied, they can appeal. If their appeal fails, they can petition the Supreme Court. I…

This would be a reasonable view if there weren't a systematic campaign by the NSA, FBI, and DEA to lie to judges and prosecutors about the actual source of underlying evidence. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/08/dea-and-nsa-team-intel... The EFF calls it Intelligence Laundering. The DEA calls it parallel construction. Either way it is sinister and immoral and a court hasn't had a chance to rule on it precisely bec…

I don't actually hold the view expressed. I've just been trying (and failing) to find a compelling way to articulate the following point: "The FISA court's warrant system is flawed because the validity of its warrants or their execution are never checked because the warrants aren't actually used to bring criminal cases."

So, I thought I'd try sarcasm. But I couldn't come up with a concise way to address the fact that parallel construction means that their info actually is used in criminal cases. Oh well, back to the drafting board...

Re: NSA targets the privacy-conscious

#52

Post by bsder » Thu, Jul 03, 2014, 6:37 PM UTC

duaneb wrote: post #19

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/

> I can't believe the NSA is trying to rationalize it as being a good thing Is it really a surprise people in power wish to remain in power?

I would amend that to: "Is it any surprise the bureaucracy wishes to protect the bureaucracy?"

Re: NSA targets the privacy-conscious

#53

Post by cottonseed » Thu, Jul 03, 2014, 6:37 PM UTC

reuven wrote: post #49

jqm wrote: post #30

"It also records details about visits to a popular internet journal for Linux operating system users called "the Linux Journal - the Original Magazine of the Linux Community", and calls it an "extremist forum"." WTF? I guess I am on a list. Who knew being an extremist was so easy?

I write for Linux Journal. Imagine how I feel! I had no idea that I was participating in subversive activities.

Proud?

Re: NSA targets the privacy-conscious

#54

Post by josefresco » Thu, Jul 03, 2014, 6:39 PM UTC

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/

If we are to accept that some who seek privacy and security are good and innocent, we also need to accept that some who seek those same things can also be bad.

Re: NSA targets the privacy-conscious

#55

Post by ForrestN » Thu, Jul 03, 2014, 6:41 PM UTC

duaneb wrote: post #19

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/

> I can't believe the NSA is trying to rationalize it as being a good thing Is it really a surprise people in power wish to remain in power?

http://people.bethel.edu/~steken/death%20and%20despair/holze...

Re: NSA targets the privacy-conscious

#56

Post by josu » Thu, Jul 03, 2014, 6:41 PM UTC

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...

No, that's not the reasoning. People that do bad things try to hide them. Therefore, a good first filter to catch bad people is to target those who hide things. They can narrow the search field afterwards.

Re: NSA targets the privacy-conscious

#57

Post by jobu » Thu, Jul 03, 2014, 6:42 PM UTC

Zelphyr wrote: post #47

duaneb wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I can't believe the NSA is trying to rationalize it as being a good thing Is it really a surprise people in power wish to remain in power?

I wonder if the sentiment here is that the NSA used to be known for being a highly intelligent group of people trying to solve hard problems but now they seem like a bunch of D-level bureaucrats snooping through everything hoping they'll get lucky.

That's it exactly. There are some brilliant people working at the NSA and our country would be better off if they were working improve the security of utilities, local governments, and critical businesses.

Re: NSA targets the privacy-conscious

#58

Post by pessimizer » Thu, Jul 03, 2014, 6:43 PM UTC

Holbein wrote: post #41

pessimizer wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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, a…

I think you're overestimating the NSA's capability to cross-reference your actions and compare them to "what people like me should typically do". My point is, you should not change your behaviour to be a lesser target to the NSA. You'd just quickly become super paranoid. Instead you should live your live exactly the same, and if the NSA tries to make your live bad, that's the moment when you call them out on it - aft…

I think you're overestimating the difficulty of the problem. The difficult part is access to the channels of information. After that, it's a matter of applying well-known algorithms while filtering and processing streams.

The only reason that I suspect that the government is still terrible at this is because they have to rely on government contractors to implement it. If they're intentionally funding startups that happen to be developing tools in the spaces they need, though, it's only a matter of a (short) time until the systems they have are settled and dependable, and they can concentrate on innovation.

>it's the NSA that is behaving out of line. So they should change, not you.

This is also silly. That's like people who walk into speeding traffic because they have the right-of-way. You won't get to hear about how the trial turns out from your grave.

Re: NSA targets the privacy-conscious

#59

Post by Istof » Thu, Jul 03, 2014, 6:43 PM UTC

and the top key-word on their watch list is de-fund

Re: NSA targets the privacy-conscious

#60

Post by bsder » Thu, Jul 03, 2014, 6:44 PM UTC

schoen wrote: post #33

Zigurd wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 an…

"The perfect is the enemy of the good."

Just authorize. If you have perfect-forward secrecy, as long as you aren't being man-in-the-middled right now, you're safe.

It's better to have all people doing everything encrypted by default than not.

The goal isn't for one individual to be safe against a targeted NSA attack. That's insane--if the NSA wants you, specifically you are screwed; it simply has far too many resources to bring to bear.

The goal is to make it expensive for the big agencies to do pervasive surveillance. If everybody is encrypting all the time, random peon at Three Letter Agency has to get up from his chair and actually authorize a wiretap, get a warrant, etc. At that point, it's not going to happen unless you've actually done something very wrong.