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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'

#521

Post by overgryphon »

general_failure wrote: post #464
Buzaga wrote: post #395

Yep I'm done, I'll just go about my life from now on... It's total power, I think it's unlikely that they'll want to give up on this kind of power, they'll probably keep signing governments and 'the tech' will eventually be exported and in the hands of governments everywhere, they'll keep building this and they'll create tons of algorythms of course because it's just too much data, any resistance can be crushed... an…

Totally agree. They are not going to give this up... and worse, we are not going to fight this. We are speaking up only because this is the internet. We just want to get on with our lives. Kinda surprising why all the people who are 'overwhelmed' and 'terrified' in the parent thread don't come out and protest. Oh wait, there's kids to feed. My bad, sorry. (no snark)

For 99.9% percent of people, this is exactly what will happen. A few shocked moments, quickly followed by returning to all of the important things in their life. No one has time to protest all of the hundreds of wrong things we supposedly should be protesting and there aren't any clear or easy to implement steps to avoid NSA spying. There is simply no reasonable actionable item here for casual news readers.

The real consequences of this news will be seen in the actions of companies. As 'cloud' (oh I hate buzzwords) technology becomes increasingly more efficient and cheaper, as Amazon, Microsoft, Openstack and VMware duke it out over cloud customers, will those customers trust them with their data? Will companies invest in private clouds for increased security, or will large public cloud service providers be able to win over and keep their trust? How much money have public cloud service providers lost since the leaks began? How many companies are now unwilling to use cloud services from US-based companies?

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

#522

Post by vabmit »

jstalin wrote: post #34
jstalin wrote: post #30

Slide 6 of the presentation clearly shows that pretty much every government is in on the program, with heavy concentration in western Europe. One question, how did the dot in China get there? http://www.theguardian.com/world/interactive/2013/jul/31/nsa...

And look at slide 17: "Show me all VPN startups in country X, and give me data so I can decrypt and discover users ." Holy crap. Is all encryption broken?

I think so. Yes. IIRC, the first time I saw this leaked was a combo leak by a Navy Seal and a member of the Executive. The Seal leaked that they powered down Bin Laden's computers to take his hard drives after they shot him. The Executive member said that the drives were encrypted and it would take a few days to get the data. Jihadis are known to use a custom version of PGP with 2048bit RSA keys. They either used that, a COTS drive encryption program (unlikely), or reviewed and adapted an open source drive encryption program. In either of the likely scenarios they would have been using 2048bit RSA. Therefor, it is highly likely (due to the NSA having target motivation even if the drives weren't well encrypted) that the smooth barrier does not exist and the NSA can factor 2048bit RSA in a hours to days scale time frame.

Also, it was leaked that NSA TAO had a 70%+ success rate compromising Chinese systems. Even with the tech companies giving them secret zero days for an extended period of time, anyone that has been a blackhat knows they're not getting to a 70% success rate through exploits. Therefor, it's highly likely they can decrypt VPN/SSH (TLS) traffic encrypted with AES256/RC4-128/3DES and/or the RSA/EC public cryptography used. As you noted the leaked slide seems to indicate that.

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

#523

Post by stef25 »

cracell wrote: post #431
stef25 wrote: post #211

A couple years ago there was an AMA on Reddit from someone saying he was very deeply involved in spying on the general public's online lives, "at a level you can't imagine". Many technical questions were asked, all answered properly. I could never get it out of my head and now that Snowden has emerged I can't stop thinking he was the OP. Wish I could find this AMA again.

Do you happen to have a link to this AMA? Not sure what to search for to find it.

I can't find it, can't remember anything to search by. Very frustrating.

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

#524

Post by bobwaycott »

samstave wrote: post #485
deveac wrote: post #453

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I feel that the programs the NSA employs are profound existential threats to our liberty and rights, I do agree with you on the balance that the human parts that make up the whole of these organizations fundamentally see themselves as benign and beneficial on the balance. I think it bears mentioning, and its worthwhile to keep this in mind while we do the necessary work of attempting to dismantle and remove a l…

The issue is that we need to demonize the people who are in fact evil and deliberately built this out and got it going. That list is surprisingly short: GHW Bush GW Bush D Cheney D Rumsfeld C Rice G Clapper G Alexander P Wolfowitz These are the guys that created the orders that the soldiers are following, and the war they are dying in for these criminal's profits.

You forgot to add President Obama and other current leaders to the list. Expansion and utilization of these programs has also occurred during his administration.

You're clearly being partisan.

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

#525

Post by bobwaycott »

samstave wrote: post #519
complexmango wrote: post #513

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Naive and unnecessary. The Patriot Act was overwhelmingly supported across the aisle. And it should be obvious by now that Obama is an enthusiastic supporter, based on his treatment of Snowden. Not to mention Pelosi and Feinstein aggressively defending the government's right to suppress information. This has nothing to do with party affiliation. If you believe in Republican Vs Democrat, you're still in the Matrix, an…

I think you're missing what I am saying, which firstly, is in no way party related. The people I listed have a decades long history which brought them to the US Coup of 9/11: Cheney in particular. The above are at the core of PNAC, the CIAs takeover of the executive branch (both Clinton and Obama are their puppets here) GHW Bush has been running shit since the 70s. Cheney setup the framework for the current MIC explo…

It is excessively naive and completely discredits your otherwise potentially salient points to suggest President Obama is a puppet.

You're wading far too deeply into conspiracy territory to suggest that this puppet 'was meant to quell' anything. He is a leader whose administration stands and falls on its own merits.

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

#526

Post by curbrusiasm »

0003 wrote: post #516
curbrusiasm wrote: post #445

This has been up here for 5 hours and on the Guardian's website for nearly 6 hours. How is it possible that not the NYTimes, FOX, NPR, the Washington Post, or CNN have picked this up? These organizations are an embarrassment to the profession of journalism.

Here is the newsdiff of today's NYT article on the disclosure of the declassified docs. [1] Talk about burying... http://newsdiffs.org/diff/290704/290768/www.nytimes.com/2013...

So rather than making a headline, update an article on another topic, specifically update an article about a PR move by the White House intended to stop talk on this issue. Assholes.

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

#527

Post by mrt0mat0 »

qwertzlcoatl wrote: post #89

Livestream to senate hearings covering all this can be found here: http://www.judiciary.senate.gov/hearings/hearing.cfm?id=0d93... As of this moment it's all about FISA. Wonder if this new allegation will be talked about.

they did mention it offhandedly, the woman(i was only listening) started making a list of things that the nsa should release yearly including how many crimes 702 and whatever helped prevent, and the main guy asked her to add a view, in the light of the news posted today, but said they would investigate that further at a later time. sorry it's poorly detailed but just wanted you to know it was mentioned.

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

#528

Post by cookiecaper »

akmiller wrote: post #141

Honest, maybe naive question, but what types of programmers actively help build and maintain systems like this? I turned down a job for a company that is less than a mile from my house because I viewed their business as immoral. Hard for me to fathom anyone taking a job, helping to build systems like this. I get that many of the components of a system like this could be seen as harmless. However, a system of this com…

The internet is a public space. Unless you're using full client-side cryptography, one should not assume their activities are private, just as one doesn't assume their physical activities are private if they're done in the open in the public square. Using client-side crypto is the equivalent of entering a private residence; you can't just sit out in the open and expect privacy, you have to take special effort to keep your activities private.

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

#529

Post by mrt0mat0 »

chrisstanchak wrote: post #449

Summary of how this story is being covered around the world vs. in the US. http://imgur.com/a/tS7h4

i was shocked by this too. about an hour ago i went to CNN.com and searched the keyword xkeyscore and got 0 results. Not a single article?

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

#530

Post by brewdad »

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?

Siphoning money away from "legitimate" projects leading to their ultimate "failure". It's just shell game accounting.
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