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Connecting the PRISM Dots: A New Theory on How PRISM Works

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Re: Connecting the PRISM Dots: A New Theory on How PRISM Works

#4

Post by drivebyacct2 »

I've sorta been saying this for a while. Earlier on my G+, but also here.

>(which I suspect were simply the dates that the companies brought up infrastructure to be able to quickly and easily comply with FISA warrants. Which means "direct access" is true, but it also means that "we were forced to make it easy to give the government what they want as soon as they need it")

This telling of the tale fits with pretty much what everyone said. The form-fill denials are true and make sense. The governments repeated references to FISA make sense, and it gives them a way to justify their legality.

The rest of the article is great for those cough that keep saying "FISA warrants" as if the warrants part means anything.

I mean, the API for this automated "Takeout [NSA style]" would be super easy. I can imagine it. And all the quirks in the spec. "Check the FISA warrant ID (or don't, it's just a mocked interface that returns true, same result as the court records)", etc.

Re: Connecting the PRISM Dots: A New Theory on How PRISM Works

#5

Post by einhverfr »

I have more or less a reaction like this.

I think the best approach to a FISA order is to say "sure, no problem. We will have this all printed, bound, and shipped to you surface mail within 24 hour, preferably from our outsourced printing office in the Yucatan (it's a lot of pages and we don't have the equipment in house to do that). And on the off chance you want it to be electronically readable, we will print it out in OCR-A fonts. Great doing business with you. Have a nice day."

Re: Connecting the PRISM Dots: A New Theory on How PRISM Works

#7

Post by lawnchair_larry »

Justin Schuh is a google chrome security employee and former military/agency contractor with a TS clearance, who hinted that it is basically a REST API on his twitter feed. That's getting pretty close to Arrington's theory.

https://twitter.com/justinschuh

He's a little drunk on the red, white and blue kool-aid, right now and lashing out, but he had some comments earlier.

(make your own interpretation, I don't know him or anything else, that was just my read)

The point about these companies being in the program, and twitter not, is a huge distinguisher. That is essentially proof that there is some automation/privileged access.

Re: Connecting the PRISM Dots: A New Theory on How PRISM Works

#8

Post by acqq »

And as soon as you are not in the U.S. or aren't the citizen, they don't need any order at all, not even the broad one, it's lawful for security agencies to get as much as they can and for Google to not even log which queries were made.

Google can even help agencies by automatically informing them if the "target" fits "free to access" criteria. And everybody is still not breaking the law.

Moreover, the amount of belief by agency that the data are "free to access" is enough to be only 51% to make it lawful.

Please write if you know more nuanced details about these limitations. Everybody should be informed about the laws, that's why they exist and why they are called laws.

Re: Connecting the PRISM Dots: A New Theory on How PRISM Works

#9

Post by codeulike »

Yeah I think this is on the right lines. See also the detail from this other article: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5845258 that implies that the government does not see _holding_ data as a particular problem, it believes that _looking_ at data is what it needs a FISA order for. The metaphor of receiving a van full of boxes, and only needing permission to open the boxes, but not needing permission to store them. Thats bad news because of the lack of oversight once the boxes are in their possesion.
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