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The Surveillance Engine: How the NSA Built Its Own Secret Google

firstlook.org

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Re: The Surveillance Engine: How the NSA Built Its Own Secret Google

#81

Post by mpyne »

shiven wrote: post #45
Dolimiter wrote: post #44

Is anyone else puzzled that stories about the NSA are accepted as gospel fact when posted on Hacker News? The Reality Distortion Field appears, and people believe, because they want to believe. It depresses me, the lack of intelligent discourse. Most tech people I meet actually believe that the NSA records and stores all telephone calls. It's depressingly stupid, but I have given up arguing, logic and sense are not w…

Perhaps proof to the contrary would be more useful than the veracity or logic of an argument? Unfortunately, with the NSA, independently verifiable proof of anything, especially doing the right thing, is impossible to attain.

You're asking the parent commenter to prove a negative? Is this what logic has come to at HN?

Re: The Surveillance Engine: How the NSA Built Its Own Secret Google

#82

Post by srj »

PostOnce wrote: post #46
curiousDog wrote: post #13

Wonder how and where they recruit their top-talent. Pretty much every top scorer in my school went to Facebook/Google/Msft/Amzn. The mediocre ones went to Northrop Grumman/Raytheon/Rockwell and the like.

The best programmer I know works for Northrop, because you can make >$100K and live in a rural or semirural area (near an AFB), you can have $1000/mo rent, vs living in SF making $150K and having massively higher expenses and have to be far away from "home".

Sure but isn't life a great deal more boring out there? It depends on a person's priorities.

Re: The Surveillance Engine: How the NSA Built Its Own Secret Google

#83

Post by srj »

Maybe there was an earlier release I missed but this report looks to be the first to show the extent of the call record data being collected. SIM, IMEI, Lat/Lng and more. Logged for every American, every day, all since 2007. And now shared outside of the military context it was gathered and authorized under to civilian agencies.

It's possible the program has been reigned in since these slides were authored but that seems unlikely.

Re: The Surveillance Engine: How the NSA Built Its Own Secret Google

#84

Post by bad_user »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #64
sentenza wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uhm. Just because you didn't believe it doesn't mean that it wasn't known. The CCC was talking about this stuff years ago, some of it conjecture, some of it information from old sources/anonymous sources and the like. Now we have proof. So that's that. Also, given the strong "disincentivization" for whistleblowing that is going on at intelligence agencies, I am not at all surprised that it took a few years before som…

Well, it is easy to dismiss people saying kind of stuff as 'crackpots' or 'tin-foil-hatters'. I personally keep to a simple rule. If something is technologically feasible[0], economically viable and someone has an incentive for it, it will happen, period. This rule of thumb successfully filters out weather control crackpottery while correctly identifying surveillance capabilities (and no, it's not hindsight bias; the…

In what way were the revelations underwhelming? For me overwhelming is their ability to coerce companies and their willingness to do so, in spite of the potential for a loss of trust in US companies. Sometimes such maneuvers can have a big cost long term - I can imagine at least governments switching software, hardware or services to more local providers. I mean, think about backdoors - you may trust the NSA, but if backdoors exist, it is only a matter of time before they get discovered by other parties. Countries now also have the ultimate argument for the balkanization of the Internet. This can't be good and all of this distinction between US citizens and foreigners doesn't mean anything for foreigners.

Re: The Surveillance Engine: How the NSA Built Its Own Secret Google

#85

Post by seiji »

Amezarak wrote: post #70
seiji wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also notice the entire screen shot. Netscape on Windows XP in, best we can tell, sometime after March 2006. Netscape. With an AIM launcher in the status bar. Accessing TOP SECRET//COMINT//NOFORN resources.

It would be on a totally isolated network. Classified networks don't touch unclassified networks.

Except by way of überadmin USB drives?

Re: The Surveillance Engine: How the NSA Built Its Own Secret Google

#86

Post by just1comment677 »

Tangokat wrote: post #33
niels_olson wrote: post #27

Is it just me, or is it tragicomical that I can't access firstlook from a government network?

According to the Intercept, the U.S Military has banned employees from visiting First Look because there could be classified information on the site. [1] [2] (extra source since you can't see the real one..) Maybe that is what you are experiencing? [1] https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/08/20/u-s-military-b... [2] https://thebulletwire.com/u-s-military-bans-glenn-greenwalds...

The U.S. DoD is banned from accessing firstlook.org (among others) from government-owned computers. In fact a memo was sent explicitly permitting DoD members from accessing these websites from personally-owned systems.

There is a memo from a few years ago that prohibited accessing Wikileaks from personally-owned computers, but the order was rescinded.

Re: The Surveillance Engine: How the NSA Built Its Own Secret Google

#87

Post by just1comment677 »

HoochTHX wrote: post #47
scintill76 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if that's a line even Snowden wouldn't cross. It risks those tools falling into the "wrong hands", and is the most extreme way he could be said to be aiding terrorists by alerting them of our intelligence capabilities (which he is already accused of.)

Its not new news that Google was contracted to build the search engine[1]. "Google was also contracted to provide the search technology and servers which makes up “Intellipedia”, a massive, incredibly secure database through which over 100,000 United States spies and intelligence professionals from 16 government agencies share information. And the NSA has purchased numerous servers from Google, utilizing their search…

The claim that wordpress.com-hosted blog makes isn't sourced. To further stretch its credibility, it also goes on to describe how Google was actually funded by secret CIA seed money and implies a Bilderberg Group controlling interest of Google.

So it is news, to those of us who haven't read this blog that makes an unsourced claim.

Besides, from the Greenwald docs, we've seen that Intelipedia is simply a giant Wikimedia instance, nothing fancy.

Re: The Surveillance Engine: How the NSA Built Its Own Secret Google

#88

Post by just1comment677 »

mpyne wrote: post #81
shiven wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps proof to the contrary would be more useful than the veracity or logic of an argument? Unfortunately, with the NSA, independently verifiable proof of anything, especially doing the right thing, is impossible to attain.

You're asking the parent commenter to prove a negative? Is this what logic has come to at HN?

Yes, ever since June 2013.

Re: The Surveillance Engine: How the NSA Built Its Own Secret Google

#89

Post by junto »

cmdkeen wrote: post #56
junto wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I imagine that you'll get downvoted to hell for saying that, but if I was the NSA I'd do exactly this. I'd also threaten you if you refused to comply. I would already know exactly which employee to target based on your dubious interests gleaned from your internet searches.

And not a single one of them has spoken up about being coerced into compromising their employer (a big one, with lots of lawyers) by the government?

If someone has been approached by a powerful government agency that threatens them with embarrassing information concerning their private life, would they volunteer to share that coercion in public (and be believed)?

You'd have to have pretty big balls to fuck with a three letter agency like that.

Re: The Surveillance Engine: How the NSA Built Its Own Secret Google

#90

Post by TeMPOraL »

bad_user wrote: post #84
TeMPOraL wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, it is easy to dismiss people saying kind of stuff as 'crackpots' or 'tin-foil-hatters'. I personally keep to a simple rule. If something is technologically feasible[0], economically viable and someone has an incentive for it, it will happen, period. This rule of thumb successfully filters out weather control crackpottery while correctly identifying surveillance capabilities (and no, it's not hindsight bias; the…

In what way were the revelations underwhelming? For me overwhelming is their ability to coerce companies and their willingness to do so, in spite of the potential for a loss of trust in US companies. Sometimes such maneuvers can have a big cost long term - I can imagine at least governments switching software, hardware or services to more local providers. I mean, think about backdoors - you may trust the NSA, but if…

> In what way were the revelations underwhelming?

The technological ones. I was expecting (and I still believe) that they're tapping much better into the Internet that it is revealed, and that there are many more hardware backdoors out there.

> Countries now also have the ultimate argument for the balkanization of the Internet.

I agree. This is very bad. I didn't say I was underwhelmed with outcome (though I am with the reaction of public and of Internet companies), just with the revealed capabilities of the NSA.

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