US and UK spy agencies scoop up private data from 'leaky' phone apps

Post by gress » Mon, Jan 27, 2014, 10:31 PM UTC

CWuestefeld wrote: post #16

One slide from a May 2010 NSA presentation on getting data from smartphones – breathlessly titled "Golden Nugget!" – sets out the agency's "perfect scenario": "Target uploading photo to a social media site taken with a mobile device. What can we get?" To me, this is quite telling. The NSA is not considering what data they need to achieve their mission, and then trying to find that data. Instead, they're just looking…

Post by minimax » Mon, Jan 27, 2014, 10:32 PM UTC

00rion wrote: post #59

minimax wrote: post #57

Exploiting phone information and location is a high-priority effort for the intelligence agencies, as terrorists and other intelligence targets make substantial use of phones in planning and carrying out their activities, for example by using phones as triggering devices in conflict zones. That's a good point and a good reason why it's irresponsible for these newspapers to post the details about this technology. This…

If the government offered a legitimate and effective way for whistleblowers to expose wrongdoing and unconstitutional behavior, perhaps they could limit this type of damage from being done. As it stands, the release of this information could be considered collateral damage as result of their continued persecution of whistleblowers.

Post by 00rion » Mon, Jan 27, 2014, 10:39 PM UTC

minimax wrote: post #63

00rion wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the government offered a legitimate and effective way for whistleblowers to expose wrongdoing and unconstitutional behavior, perhaps they could limit this type of damage from being done. As it stands, the release of this information could be considered collateral damage as result of their continued persecution of whistleblowers.

The people who are harmed by making this information public is not the U.S. government. Think it through. Who wins by knowing how the US government conducts targeted counterintelligence operations? That will be primarily terrorists, organized crime, and oppressive governments. So then who loses? That will naturally be victims of terrorism, organized crime, and oppressive governments. That is why I don't think it's re…

Post by minimax » Mon, Jan 27, 2014, 10:46 PM UTC

00rion wrote: post #65

minimax wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The people who are harmed by making this information public is not the U.S. government. Think it through. Who wins by knowing how the US government conducts targeted counterintelligence operations? That will be primarily terrorists, organized crime, and oppressive governments. So then who loses? That will naturally be victims of terrorism, organized crime, and oppressive governments. That is why I don't think it's re…

I don't think you're being very clear. The victims of terrorism generally don't have access to the information that these counterintelligence operations obtain. In other words, the victims are in the same place they were before they knew what the NSA was capable of. What I think you're saying is doublespeak. To paraphrase your argument, "Snowden is doing damage to our counterintelligence capabilities by releasing thi…

Post by winslow » Mon, Jan 27, 2014, 10:52 PM UTC

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #44

winslow wrote: post #43

I'm sure they are finding and identifying tons of "terrosim threats" by looking at angry birds data... /s If anything they are just making it harder to find the needle (terrorist threat) in the haystack (their dragnet of data). At the end of the day maybe they don't care about finding the needle anymore.

All kinds of data are interesting. You've seen episodes of CSI. Position data scraped from some app, any app, can come in useful but only when you want to track somebody. Who to track is a different problem. Its not all about finding criminals. But when you've found one, you want to know where he's at, who he's associating with etc.