NSA PRISM
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/06/us-tech-giants-nsa-data
The National Security Agency has obtained direct access to the systems of Google, Facebook, Apple and other US internet giants, according to a top secret document obtained by the Guardian.The NSA access is part of a previously undisclosed program called PRISM, which allows officials to collect material including search history, the content of emails, file transfers and live chats, the document says.
The Guardian has verified the authenticity of the document, a 41-slide PowerPoint presentation – classified as top secret with no distribution to foreign allies – which was apparently used to train intelligence operatives on the capabilities of the program. The document claims "collection directly from the servers" of major US service providers.
I mean, we all knew it was happening, but it's fucked up having something more solid to work with.
What is really worrying about this is the ability for blackmail and the ruining of lives of political or career enemies.
But, but.....terrorists. /sarc Between the trillions we spent on the "War on Terrorism" and the erosion of most of our liberties...I can firmly say that the "terrorists" won by a few orders of magnitude.
There are various costs one must incur in order to be a part of any society.
Also, if you want privacy, stay offline.
NSA has access to all sorts of records. check out this interview with a former NSA crypto-mathematician (whatever the fuck that means)
I'm having trouble seeing the logic behind the outrage.
They aren't monitoring content. But even if they are, and they probably are, why do you care? Is it a matter of principal for you? The NSA can listen in on whatever I have to say; I really don't care. Principal is supposed to stem from something. Obama said today that it is impossible to have 100% privacy and 100% security and he's right.
The U.S. enjoys incredible privacy AND security compared to the majority of other civilized nations. They must be doing something right. Americans just love to whine about 'MUH FREEDOMS.' Yeah, I'm pretty unhappy with a lot of the ways in which taxpayer money is used. But I'm okay with this one.
The problem is that they can claim checks and balances all they want but everyone knows what they are really doing. The problem is they believe they are above the law. The problem is they have proven just with the scandals of the last month that they will do anything to punish those who do not agree with them. And yet you find nothing wrong with this. The fact of the matter is they constantly take more and more freedoms with worse and worse results. The Boston bombers, one of them was on a terrorist watch list. That terrorist that shot up the army base is still on PAID administrative leave while he is waiting for trial for 13 murders. The problem is every time someone finds out they are breaking the law they shout it is national security but isn't the war on terror won according to the President? You need to get your head out of your ass and look around and tell your government to get back in line before its illegal. This administration is akin to a banana republic, where those in government are above the law and are accountable for nothing they do. Take the IRS for example, they leaked confidential donor lists to groups that are on the different sides of debates in order to harass conservative groups and their donors. That is a felony, has the person who did it been arrested? No, they haven't even been fired. So before you open your mouth and let everyone know how much of a lackey you are you might want to realize that your government is bending you over and sticking it up your asshole.
Firstly, relax.
I agree with most of what you said, but I'm talking about this particular instance. The government has done blatantly illegal things, gotten caught, and had no consequences. That's a huge problem and opens us up to even more of the same. But is what they've done here illegal? If it's not, then what's the problem?
Also, the amount of scandals the Obama Administration has been caught up in makes a Republican president pretty likely in the next term.
Government has a track record of abusing its power. Slippery slope applies. You start with them having access to that information (but not actually listening). Then major terrorist event happens and they get temporary permission to listen to whoever's phone calls they want. Then that temporary permissions becomes semi-permanent. Then it becomes permanent.
The government is a joke, and a shitty one at that.
I'm going to have to start taking blood pressure meds soon. I feel like I'm being trolled...how can you possibly even begin to rationalize this gigantic state spying apparatus to yourself? All privacy/civil rights are going down the toilet, and we have spent trillions of dollars on the "War on Terror;" a financial blow we may never fully recover from. By most objective measures the "terrorists" have won this war by an order of several magnitudes. Remember, death is not the goal of terrorism, it is fear.
Mark Zuckerberg Responds To PRISM (Originally Posted: 06/07/2013)
4 Hours ago, Mark Zuckerberg Posted This on Facebook:
Keep in mind this message is from the man who makes his money selling your profile data, anyway.
With the NSA in the middle of this little scandal, and the outright denying of participating in PRISM by major corporations, is it safe to assume that the NSA conducts PRISM without the consent of these corporations, and in effect, what legal backlash do you see here?
How this will effect the market shares of the alleged companies in the short-term? I mean afterall, the DOW moved 100pts shortly after the Associated Press was hacked and announced a "bombing at the whitehouse". So what affect does a government privacy breach scandal do in the short-term?
Personally, I don't care much about PRISM as long as it becomes a transparent program that selectively targets keywords. Of course it's kind of hard having transparency on a national security program, but there has to be a way.
I'm guessing PRISM just pulls data from these companies to probe for certain words that pertain to sensitive information, terror groups, and etc.
One person gets it.
lol at zuckerberg. the NSA can get whatever they want with or without his cooperation.
"They trust me....Dumb fucks." - Zuck
Terrorists communicate through FB chat.
LOL!
There area probably far more slander and illicit trade brokered on FB than terrorist plots.
don't buy it lol
"if you have nothing to hide, why care" is fucking retarded. that argument effectively negates any need for a fourth amendment.
I'm not talking about everything, I'm just saying, I don't feel a need to get into a blind rage about the government being able to see my Facebook summer album.
Wait... nevermind. Maybe the Winter Album instead.
I not usually one to browse Reddit...but this was trending in response to: "I'm not doing anything wrong, why should I care?"
http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/1fv4r6/i_believe_the_gove…
Honestly, I just keep losing respect for America as time goes by. Yeah we're all pissed off by this, yeah everyone knows they shouldn't be doing this, yeah it's just going to keep getting worse, yeah the smart ones among us keep plenty of shit off the record. Seriously, what the literal fuck: this trajectory of gov't encroachment isn't sustainable if our core values as a civilization are to be maintained.
I for one find all media guilty of complicity with the gov't and their denials are bullshit. Our politicians and "leaders" are not to be trusted. In 1944 the Feds took over America, and programs like ECHELON replaced faith in the constitution. At some point, somethings got to give.
Facebook is basically unusable.
Did anyone seriously not expect this to already be taking place?
Yeah this is what I;m surprised by... I thought it was a pretty open secret that the NSA read every email and listened to every call tracking keywords... And of course the public will never know how effective the program is and how many potential attacks it has already stopped. People need to get over it, they already have no privacy. Google stores everything you do, including every website you go to. Facebook sells all your personal info, at least the govt is using this to stop terrorists.
The real question is why the hell is the Obama white house so damn leaky?!?
I think the conversation needn't be outrage that it's happening, but whether it ought to be allowed to continue.
Outrageous
This stuff is small potatoes in the grand scheme of things. With Obamacare we just took a giant leap into fascism of the entrenched bureaucracy. We have seen what the IRS can do to private citizens that share political or religious beliefs not shared by the government bureaucrat working on the case file. Just wait until the IRS is enforcing Obamacare or when some unelected government bureaucracy denies you or a family member life saving treatment because they found out you donated money to a cause they disagree with.
That those left wing communists on Reddit would express outrage over so-called creeping fascism in national security is frankly insulting to the intelligence. It's like watching the Soviet Union square off with Nazi Germany.
http://memegenerator.net/instance/24702386
http://davidsimon.com/we-are-shocked-shocked/
The hint that fascism and bureaucracy are different concepts is that they are different words. Nobody wants an ossified bureaucracy, but your hyperbole makes me sad : (
Fascism and bureaucracy are different words, and so are "brown" and "horse". For example: "I took a ride on Saturday on a brown horse." The fact that bureaucrats are un-elected, entrenched and can violate the rule of law and persecute citizens and violate their constitutional rights without any legal recourse (the IRS, for example) is pushing up pretty close to fascism, particularly when it's predicated upon the "common good" of the nation and citizenry. And if not fascism then it's some other form of dictatorship--or to put in European parlance, a monarchy with the king being the President and his henchmen being the appointed and un-appointed members of the executive branch bureaucracy. Even elected representatives can be dictators if they ignore the rule of law and violate individual rights.
What I found sort of breathtaking is that you can call my line of reasoning "hyperbole" after the last month where we've seen individuals and organizations persecuted by the bureaucracy (IRS) for their political beliefs. You don't think that's a distinct possibility with a national health care system? You don't think it's a distinct possibility that an entrenched bureaucrat with left wing or right wing belief systems would use his authority to deny enemies of his belief system the care that the political enemy or his family would need?
What the American left doesn't get with big government is that elections are fleeting--as soon as we have a Democrat President we'll have a Republican President. As soon as we have a Republican Congress we'll have a Democrat one. As soon as we have a liberal majority on the Supreme Court we'll have a conservative majority. Big government is all fine and well until the elected and unelected bureaucracy wields its power against Democrats or liberals. Big government is a problem with both the right and left, hence why the left abandoning and demonism federalism is so mind numbing. We conservatives are as morally and ethically flawed as you pot smoking, anti-American hippies, which is why big government is a mistake no matter what your political philosophy!
Lol at right wing being considered small government. Just lol.
Who said anything about right wing being small government? It's frankly hilarious / frightening that if you make a statement like "the left wing is in favor of big government", you are automatically assumed to believe the opposite (note: not the contrapositive, the opposite), that "the right wing is in favor of small government".
Both parties are big government. The left wing is just more vocal, and the right wing is just more stupid-sounding (which, if you are paying attention, leads to an obvious positive feedback loop).
Ron Paul starting to look real nice now, isn't he?
Zuckerberg just trolled the entire world with this one
Donate to the Electronic Frontier Foundation. It is easy to talk about these things and naysayers will say things like: "what can you do to realistically change things." This is one way.
https://supporters.eff.org/donate
:)
Mark ZuckerBerg: I want to respond personally to the outrageous press reports about PRISM: Facebook is not and has never been part of any program to give the US or any other government direct access to our servers [read as "we gave indirect access"]. We have never received a blanket request or court order from any government agency asking for information or metadata in bulk, like the one Verizon reportedly received [read as "while we received plenty of other"]. And if we did, we would fight it aggressively. We hadn't even heard of PRISM before yesterday.
Looking Through the PRISM (Originally Posted: 06/09/2013)
If you haven't heard some leaked NSA documents show that they have been getting direct access to large tech companies servers to gather data on their customers i.e. citizens of the united states and, well, everywhere for that matter. Here's one story for you.
On it's face i want to scream, shout and holler about how awful, illegal and invasive this could be. Then I realize this is the NSA we are dealing with here. They have the capacity to eavesdrop on conversations all over the world and literally pull a needle from a haystack on a second by second basis. You REALLY think that they give two wits about legality and court orders if they want something? I'm not saying I'm for or against large tech companies handing over data but if you think a simple no will even slow down the NSA you are dreaming.
Frankly, I think it is extraordinarily nice that the NSA would even bother asking for a users data. Again, if kids in China are hacking government databases and fortune 500 companies I think we might just have the capacity to do the same. Granted, this is a little concerning to me because if they are doing this god knows what else they are already doing to infringe on privacy. Privacy has all but disappeared in the past decade unless you are literally in the middle of Africa.. and even then Soros probably bought the land you are living on.
Anyway, what do you guys think about all of this? Outrages? Surprised? Happy?
Honestly, I just think it is a gigantic waste of resources. As someone else in this thread mentioned, you are more likely to die in a plane crash than from a terrorist attack. Lord only know how much funding is going to this operation. I would love to see a huge scale back in spending and government size.
I don't understand why people are getting so riled up about this. It's not like there's somebody in the NSA who's going to go through your personal information, there are hundreds of millions of accounts they have access to.
Yes, its creepy, but most people's information isn't even going to be glanced at.
You clearly don't understand big data technologies.
Kinda expected something like this...if you use facebook itself, you're essentially done, all personal info/emotions are online. Add any email contents, and its pretty much everything. Texting databases would be the icing on the cake for intelligence officials
Not really surprising. Quite shocking on the face of it but when you realise that Google, Apple, Facebook, Apple etc already have most of your data on file it's not that big a deal. The main issue is that here you have no choice in the matter, whereas you DO have a choice to use the services of various companies.
How heavily circulated is this getting through the news vs. the IRS scandal?
Its amazing how we take freedom for granted. DBC, thanks for sharing the reddit post.
http://i1.kym-cdn.com/entries/icons/original/000/001/461/Good_Luck_I_m_…
Haha, it's getting to the point where I'm about to use at least TOR 100% of the time..
This just confirms what I already knew since I read the Wired article on the Utah NSA Data Center.
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/03/ff_nsadatacenter/
I think everyone owes an apology to the "tin foil hat" crowd.
I had a law professor in university who had a great way of looking at these things. His razor for online privacy was "would it be illegal if it were mail?". As I understand it, all the NSA is doing (at least with Verizon) is monitoring who is talking to who and for how long; the equivalent of looking at the "to/from" lines on an envelope. Big deal. As long as they're not actively recording the content of the calls, that is.
Further, Its not like the government couldn't find these things out about you before; your location, your friends, what car you drive, and where you shop, are all a quick Visa subpoena away.
Wrong. The surveillance is so pervasive that the Feds can read what you are typing in near real time.
All I'm saying is total information awareness has been a long time coming. As long as you don't put "child porn" or "death to america" in your subject line, you'll be fine.
Believe me, I'm uncomfortable with this. As a Canadian, I'm incredibly pissed off that a foreign government is monitoring my online activities. However, maybe its because I live in a socialist dictatorship that I think Americans are overreacting a tad bit.
The terrifying thing here isn't that the NSA is collecting data on everyone, it's how awful their powerpoint skills are.
Anyone who says this isn't a big deal clearly doesn't support liberty and freedom, period.
The apathy to this makes me rage. I'm a very laid back guy too.
We can't balance a budget. We invade countries under made up reasons. We have a tax code more complex then a rubik cube. Fuck it. Lets focus on spying on all Americans 'to prevent terrorism". Oh wait, we don't prevent it, it happens and will always happen.
How about the government focus on doing the small shit correctly before it starts collecting all of our data.
I'd give you a SB but the little icon is gone
the government has been pissing me off so much lately. the IRS thing then this... gettin real sick of it.
the comments here are sadder then the story itself. the chances of getting killed by a terrorist are similar to winning the lottery and 90% of the posters here are happy to give up civil liberties for a slight reduction of these already miniscule odds. America is not a free country and its because its citizens are fat slobs who are happy to have the feds read their emails and listen to their phone calls to save them from scary muslim boogie men that they have imagined. "i have nothing to hide so why would i care"...oh my...let's at least stop moralizing to other countries about freedom if this is the accepted attitude.
Yes, thank you bondarb, my thoughts exactly
Stop taking my silver bananas
Have a banana Bondarb, you said it a little more eloquently than I did...
In any case, Obama has just said that PRISM has not been used to monitor those in the United States. Let's hope he's not lying this time.
Wait, are you joking or being serious?
Does anyone else find the Power Point presentation, too ugly?
NSA Officials "Mistakenly" Intercepted Emails Phone Calls of Innocent Americans.....Whoops!
http://openchannel.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/06/07/18831985-officials-nsa-…
Reminds me of this quote: "Who watches the watchmen?"
I not usually one to browse Reddit...but this was trending in response to: "I'm not doing anything wrong, why should I care?"
http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/1fv4...
I was reading this and was not too surprised; I got over this concern long ago. I am by no means an expert on the national security industry or data processing, but I almost went down that route in the past with one of the Big 3 intelligence agencies (interviewed, got internship offer, background check, everything). It wasn't for anything CS-related, but I did learn a few small tidbits at a high level about that stuff. I've also had an interest in the field for years.
The NSA, as others have mentioned, most likely does have the capability to do all this. There are pretty much two ways to access something in most cases - access it directly (e.g. username and password) or hack it. Hacking is basically where you keep trying different combinations of passwords/usernames/etc. until one clicks. The latter's success rate is mainly determined by how many combinations you can try at once - processing power, basically. The way the NSA does its job is essentially by having a shit ton of servers, so many that it can hack everything unbelievably fast. Combine this with top-notch people to write the algorithms to sift through the data (these agencies are hyper competitive), and you get a deadly combination.
Google, Facebook, Blackberry/RIM, Apple, etc. have excellent security; many corporations will use these private companies for their own internal emails and security to varying degrees. But take the sheer, raw processing power the NSA has with its servers, and it can pretty much access anything directly if it wants to. With the Patriot Act, and hearing it from some people whom I considered to be knowledgeable about it, I was shocked about it and made my peace with it sometime back. It's just a product of the world we live in, and it's something we just have to accept, I think.
Also of particular note is the sheer bureaucracy and compartmentalization of TS/SCI information and projects. The NSA is a huge organization - much bigger than the CIA in terms of personnel and budget (several years back at least) - so I'd imagine that it'd be easy to do things "off book" simply because people wouldn't be able to notice, if nothing else.
Again, I'm not an expert; this is just my opinion.
great post dbcoop...you are a couple of steps behind me because i have already given up caring in a serious way as our country has proven too stupid and lazy to do anything about things like this. I think the original partriot act and the second war in iraq were the last time i was surprised by anything like this...my goal is just to have enuff money spread in different places and enuff paranoia/foresight that if the above happens i can leave, thats all. convincing a bunch of dumb americans that anything is wrong is impossible because they can still watch american idol and go to walmart so everything must be fine.
Reminds me of the Jon stewart quote : "When the government wants to do good, their managerial competence is somewhere between David Brent and a cat chasing a laser pointer, but when it wants to flex its more malevolent muscle, it's fucking Ironman."
Also, George Orwell.
Absolutely no clue why anybody cares unless they've raided your house because of an email you sent. Just another reason to bitch about the government - which is completely fine because there's a million and one reasons to bitch - but it really isn't ruining anyone's life here.
Donate to the Electronic Frontier Foundation. It is easy to talk about these things and naysayers will say things like: "what can you do to realistically change things." This is one way.
https://supporters.eff.org/donate
That's probably the fastest way to get you under surveilance. I mean you must have something to hide if you support them, right?
.
No kidding. A few days ago I was at the departure gate of Las Vegas Airport about to board plane back to the East Coast. Then some TSA officers showed up and decided to randomly select some passengers for additional questioning and carry on bag searches as they are waiting on line to board the plane (btw has anyone else seen something like this recently?).
I was not selected but they picke this short blonde girl in front of me, as well as a few other people who looked like they are more likely to belong to the IRA than any terrorist organization targeting the U.S. I was nonetheless infuriated at this intrusion. As we walked into the plane I told her and others that what the TSA is doing is utterly stupid and we should not have to put up with this nonsense. She said she doesn't mind being searched and the other victims expressed the same indifference. I couldn't believe my ears.
It is a good thing that they didn't pick on me. It was a crazy and exhausting weekend in Vegas and I was still a bit drunk so I would have definitely caused a scene there.
Watch "Person of Interest"
PRISMs effect on US Tech profits (Originally Posted: 06/09/2013)
Common sense would dictate that Non-Americans would be even more averse to having their communications intercepted. As such, there seems to be quite a bit of blowback as most of the world's cloud services are based on US tech infrastructure.
There are currently calls within the EU to have a state sponsored alternative to Google (doubt it will of much use).
Popular Mechanics wrote an article titled: "Why the NSA Prism Program Could Kill U.S. Tech Companies."
Do you guys think this is hyperbole? Or is this a paradigm shift that will forever change how people think about internet privacy. Will tech products that are not based in US jurisdictions become a selling point? Is this going to have a meaningful impact on Silicon Valley? I'd like to hear your thoughts.
http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/military/news/why-the-nsa-pr…
I think the general consumer is much more indifferent to online privacy than the media suggests.
Probably just hyperbole. Unfortunately.
Once all of the pseudo-intellectual douches on Facebook find the next issue du jour to cling to this will quickly fall off of peoples' radars.
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