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On Confirmed Assumptions or, Not Trusting Google is a Good Idea

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Re: On Confirmed Assumptions or, Not Trusting Google is a Good Idea

#91

Post by rsingel »

tptacek wrote: post #24

How, in short, is this shit valid under the U.S. Bill of Rights? I’d really like someone to explain that to me. With a straight face. Preferably without making me want to punch them in the process. Well, he's going to want to punch me, but here's what I think(?) the answer is: (a) He's not a US person, but instead a well-known citizen of Iceland, living abroad, and is thus not protected by the Fourth Amendment, at le…

No, this could happen to a U.S. citizen as well. The Electronic Communications Privacy Act applies to foreigners as well as Americans.

A grand jury subpoena can get at your communications without any showing of probable cause, whether you are a U.S. person or a foreigner.

Re: On Confirmed Assumptions or, Not Trusting Google is a Good Idea

#92

Post by magicalist »

gnosis wrote: post #23

Google is spyware. This has been obvious for a long time. Most other "free" web services aren't much better. It's sad that it's taken so long for people to start realizing and caring about this, but better late than never.

What paid web service based in the US (or in a country with applicable data sharing laws) is going to refuse all search warrants for you?

Maybe you were looking for "Most other web services not in Iceland aren't much better"?

Re: On Confirmed Assumptions or, Not Trusting Google is a Good Idea

#93

Post by mindcrime »

tptacek wrote: post #52
ef4 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The legal theory that the bill of rights only applies to US citizens is dangerous and wrong. It applies to actions of the United States government. It is a list of things they may not do.

That's a theory that suggests all spying is unconstitutional.

It probably is.

Re: On Confirmed Assumptions or, Not Trusting Google is a Good Idea

#94

Post by saalweachter »

gohrt wrote: post #67
signed0 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not necessarily. Just because the government asks for them doesn't mean they exist. I'd be surprised if they were actually deleted though.

Google doesn't 100% say that the data is totally totally gone, but seems to say that it is no longer indexed for lookup by your accounr, after 60days after deletion: https://support.google.com/mail/answer/7401?hl=en

I don't have any personal knowledge of this but if I were to recklessly speculate, I would wager "deleting stuff is hard". The typical concern is data loss, so to delete something completely you need to unwind your entire data loss prevention stack. Delete a file, delete a row from a database, wipe a cache from another server, scrub any ZFS-style filesystem versioning of data, mirror the changes to any off-site on-line backups and scrub everything there, retrieve any off-site off-line backups and wipe those...

It's a non-trivial engineering task. If you want an email service which can readily delete your email, you need to find one with non-redundant, completely un-mirrored databases, fragile filesystems, and no backups. But that is not what most people are clamoring for in a service provider.

Re: On Confirmed Assumptions or, Not Trusting Google is a Good Idea

#95

Post by tomkarlo »

cube13 wrote: post #42
dlss wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's both. If you are going to use a cloud service, you have to trust both the provider and the government where they operate. (With the exception of things like tarsnap).

>(With the exception of things like tarsnap). The chain of trust still extends to them. You're trusting that they're actually doing everything they say they're doing. If you don't own the hardware and the building where the hardware is, you have to trust that they're doing everything you want them to be doing.

Yes, but almost every provider is going to tell you up front that they will comply with requests from the government. If they then do that, there's no violation of trust.

Re: On Confirmed Assumptions or, Not Trusting Google is a Good Idea

#96

Post by betterunix »

acdha wrote: post #78
betterunix wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe engineer a service that is harder to wiretap? It is not easy, but they have some of the best computer scientists on this planet working for them. If I were them, I would start somewhere around here: http://crypto.stanford.edu/adnostic/adnostic.pdf

> Maybe engineer a service that is harder to wiretap? You can't solve a legal problem with engineering. We're talking about the same agencies who had the ability to get all of the major phone carriers to install wiretapping services – there's no reason to believe they wouldn't do the same to anyone else of interest.

Yeah, but if you read the linked paper, there are things Google could do to protect its users' privacy. That paper is about privacy-preserving targeted advertising, which would not give Google anything for the government to subpoena or search while still allowing them to conduct their business. There is no reason Google has to make itself an easy target.

Re: On Confirmed Assumptions or, Not Trusting Google is a Good Idea

#97

Post by danbruc »

tptacek wrote: post #24

How, in short, is this shit valid under the U.S. Bill of Rights? I’d really like someone to explain that to me. With a straight face. Preferably without making me want to punch them in the process. Well, he's going to want to punch me, but here's what I think(?) the answer is: (a) He's not a US person, but instead a well-known citizen of Iceland, living abroad, and is thus not protected by the Fourth Amendment, at le…

Maybe there is no need for the Fourth Amendment to apply - these rights are human rights and can be found in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) [1]. As far as I know the UDHR is not legally binding but there are other international laws covering the same topics as the UDHR, for example the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) [2]. Maybe a bit naive, but at least in theory I - living in Europe - should be able to sue the United States for human rights violation if the NSA read my emails without justified suspicion.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Declaration_of_Human_...

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Covenant_on_Civil...

Re: On Confirmed Assumptions or, Not Trusting Google is a Good Idea

#98

Post by coolhandluke »

__hudson__ wrote: post #35
smokeyj wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, along with picking your nose and tying your shoes -- but that should only matter to a coward.

I wasn't trying to sound paranoid or cowardly. I was just curious what opinions people had on the level of involvement with Wikileaks that would be enough to get the governments attention.

I don't think it would take very much "involvement" at all.

Let's say you sent such an e-mail. It was noticed by the NSA and triggered... whatever and now they've decided that they want to monitor you. How much difficulty is involved?

From what I've read recently, it seems that it's fairly trivial to start monitoring an individual and continue to do so for a period of time. I would imagine that the easier it is, the higher the chances are of it happening.

If it's a matter of hitting a few keystrokes to begin the monitoring, there's little cost involved so why not? They could monitor you for a while, analyze the data, and then decide if they need to keep monitoring you.

If it's extremely difficult, costly, or time-consuming to begin the process, well, I'd imagine they would be less likely to do so (by how much I won't begin to guess).

Basically, if they can start monitoring you and gathering data on you with little effort or cost required, it's probably a given that they would keep an eye on you. If there's a bunch of paperwork, warrants, etc., involved, the chances would be lower, I think.

Re: On Confirmed Assumptions or, Not Trusting Google is a Good Idea

#99

Post by fady »

farinasa wrote: post #8
[deleted] wrote: post #4

[deleted]

I think you need to update yourself on the details/arguments surrounding this particular debate before commenting.

there was a reason i wrote off-topic. i did not want to comment on the article itself. more so, how the OP was displaying it. geez..

Re: On Confirmed Assumptions or, Not Trusting Google is a Good Idea

#100

Post by magicalist »

burntsushi wrote: post #17
tantalor wrote: post #6

Presumably the same justification/reasoning could be used to serve a home/business search warrant.

That might be the case. But you'd know about it. And why .

You would know about it, but the warrant can still be sealed if it "is necessitated by a compelling government interest", so you can no idea why it was being done.

In theory you can get this reversed, but it is common for courts to uphold the government's interest in keeping investigations secret well beyond normal disclosure dates, in a few cases even up to and during the trial against the person who was served the warrant.

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