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How the NSA Almost Killed the Internet |
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 BlackbirdBuilt for Speed
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Perhaps all the layers of trust that appear to have been broken should never have been placed so fully and blindly in the first place.
I find it hard to muster sympathy for companies who feel betrayed by the government because those companies didn't fully grasp what was going on with Federal snooping involving them, when their own users' privacy and data are being daily exploited for the company's own financial gain because most of their customers don't fully grasp what is going on with data marketing. It's hard to work up sympathy for users who convinced themselves that they enjoy a meaningful privacy online that's never truly existed, simply because most of them believe all things Internet are "free" of any kind of cost to them. It's hard to feel sympathy for an intel agency that, in order to protect the citizens from terrorist tyranny and oppression, itself resorts to methods and tools that will someday enable an even worse tyranny and repression from our own government. I say "will" because, in human history, there has never been a weapon or tool put in place that could be used for repression which has not eventually been used by some despot - either to rise to power, or to maintain himself in power once he somehow got there. Future generations may look at all this and ask in astonishment, "What did you honestly think you were doing, and what did you honestly expect would happen as a result?"
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The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money. -- A. de Tocqueville |
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Agreed.. |
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 Ian
Premium Member
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to Blackbird
said by Blackbird:I say "will" because, in human history, there has never been a weapon or tool put in place that could be used for repression which has not eventually been used by some despot - either to rise to power, or to maintain himself in power once he somehow got there. Agreed. And that's why I found the NSA arguments to be chilling. It seemed to be "Trust us. We're from the Government, and we're here to help."  And that their internal controls would prevent harm. It has been argued that Snowden, just one guy working for a contractor employed by the NSA caused considerable harm. Whether you disagree, and consider him a Patriot, clearly internal NSA controls were NOT strong enough to stop a "rogue". What if someone like Snowden were instead quietly leaking culled economic intelligence to China, or insider traders on Wall Street? And if you're seen to be ignoring one of the most cherished check and balance, the US Constitution? --
“Any claim that the root of a problem is simple should be treated the same as a claim that the root of a problem is Bigfoot. Simplicity and Bigfoot are found in the real world with about the same frequency.” – David Wong |
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to DarkSithPro
Wrong. NSA was neven near killing the internet. NSA was and still is near killing IT-industry and services in USA and its allies. Im using a secure email provider in Switzerland, most of the sites I visit are in Finland and I use strong anonymity/VPN services out of NSA:s reach. If people stop using Google, MSN, Yahoo or dozens of other companies and services tomorrow because of NSA, it has absolutely no effect to me whatsoever. Oh yes and Im also using Linux and I have no iPhone either, so that kinda settles that part out too.
There is a world beyound USA you know? The rest of the world you know? |
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 antdudeA Ninja Ant
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to DarkSithPro
Can we kill NSA? Wait, you're a Dark Sith. Go kill NSA for us please. :P |
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BlackbirdBuilt for Speed
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to finnanon
said by finnanon :Wrong. NSA was neven near killing the internet. NSA was and still is near killing IT-industry and services in USA and its allies. Im using a secure email provider in Switzerland, most of the sites I visit are in Finland and I use strong anonymity/VPN services out of NSA:s reach. If people stop using Google, MSN, Yahoo or dozens of other companies and services tomorrow because of NSA, it has absolutely no effect to me whatsoever. Oh yes and Im also using Linux and I have no iPhone either, so that kinda settles that part out too. There is a world beyound USA you know? The rest of the world you know? Not wrong. You honestly believe the NSA, whose actual "legal" targeting rationale for these programs is "foreign/non-US" communications traffic, has been less successful and invasive of foreign Internet businesses and infrastructure than it has in the US? Seriously? There are dozens of non-US counterparts to NSA in the world that have covert sharing and partnering arrangements with NSA, most of which are highly secret, even from most in their own governments. Do you truly believe that those agencies haven't deeply penetrated their own national Internet structures using their own methods? If you believe that, you are truly and profoundly naive. Did you ever consider that this could all be an attempt to drive foreign users to employ non-US communications mediums, simply to allow NSA to more-efficiently collect data there so as to avoid the US legal complications of gathering it here? Of course, I don't really believe that, for a variety of significant reasons. But one of those reasons is not because the NSA lacks comprehensive resources and collateral collection sources overseas. Indeed there is a world beyond USA... and that world is a world which is precisely in NSA's collection sights. It is a world which is also in the collection sites of every intel agency on the planet. --
The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money. -- A. de Tocqueville |
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| Blackbird |
to antdude
said by antdude:Can we kill NSA? Wait, you're a Dark Sith. Go kill NSA for us please. :P
O-o-. That'll put you at the very top of a whole bunch of the spooks' data-sifting algorithms... --
The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money. -- A. de Tocqueville |
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antdudeA Ninja Ant
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said by Blackbird:said by antdude:Can we kill NSA? Wait, you're a Dark Sith. Go kill NSA for us please. :P
O-o-. That'll put you at the very top of a whole bunch of the spooks' data-sifting algorithms... Hi NSA! :P --
Ant @ AQFL.net and AntFarm.ma.cx. Please do not IM/e-mail me for technical support. Use this forum or better, »community.norton.com ! Disclaimer: The views expressed in this posting are mine, and do not necessarily reflect the views of my employer. |
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to Blackbird
said by Blackbird:Future generations may look at all this and ask in astonishment, "What did you honestly think you were doing, and what did you honestly expect would happen as a result?" The genie is out of the bottle and there is no putting it back. More and more things everyday are designed and used to track and profile us. Our TV's, cars, phones, Internet connection, gaming consoles, the websites we visit, the stores we visit, license plate scanners. Even our own DSLReports participates in Google Analytics. |
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finnanon to Blackbird
Anon
2014-Jan-8 1:08 pm
to Blackbird
said by Blackbird:
Not wrong. You honestly believe the NSA, whose actual "legal" targeting rationale for these programs is "foreign/non-US" communications traffic, has been less successful and invasive of foreign Internet businesses and infrastructure than it has in the US?
Well a bit, yes. NSA has very hard time eavesdropping my communication to, lets say a https-connected server in Finland, than it has if Im connected to US-based server. But this is not the main point. quote:
There are dozens of non-US counterparts to NSA in the world that have covert sharing and partnering arrangements with NSA, most of which are highly secret, even from most in their own governments.
Yes, dozens. But since EVERY US-party can be forced to work with NSA, FBI, CIA, DHS, or anything whenever, they can ALL be concider ALWAYS COMPLETELY untrusted. All of them. It is completely impossible to trust any US-based company at all. Comparing to that, yes, any company operating in, lets say Finland which much more likely NOT working or cannot be forced to work with NSA,FBI,CIA,DHS or whatever agency you have. So yes, many foreign companies do work with US threeletteragencies. But ALL US companies work or can be forced to work tieh US threeletteragencies. Let that sink for a moment. |
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said by finnanon :So yes, many foreign companies do work with US threeletteragencies. But ALL US companies work or can be forced to work tieh US threeletteragencies. Let that sink for a moment. And, last but not least, it is possible for ANY foreign company to be working with the NSA and, if they were, they wouldn't be telling you.  |
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BlackbirdBuilt for Speed
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to finnanon
said by finnanon :... It is completely impossible to trust any US-based company at all. Comparing to that, yes, any company operating in, lets say Finland which much more likely NOT working or cannot be forced to work with NSA,FBI,CIA,DHS or whatever agency you have.
So yes, many foreign companies do work with US threeletteragencies. But ALL US companies work or can be forced to work tieh US threeletteragencies. Let that sink for a moment.
I've always believed it's much safer to assume that comm links and data storage are fully compromised, in multiple ways by multiple players, rather than to hope this or that one might not be and run the resulting risks. Thus I don't commit anything meaningfully sensitive to those areas in the first place, unless it's totally and thoroughly encrypted independently by me. This is the root cause of the problem: people placing trust where it has had no business being placed, especially in the Internet and all its associated elements. --
The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money. -- A. de Tocqueville |
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Ian
Premium Member
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to DarkSithPro
New article that suggests NSA spying has been more or less useless against terrorism. Never heard of the group, myself. » gizmodo.com/nsa-phone-sp ··· 00194959"In the study, the New America Foundation reviewed 225 terrorism cases and found that traditional investigation and law enforcement methods actually did the most to prevent attacks. About a third of the leads in terrorism cases came from tips or an informant, while old school surveillance warrants were used in 48 cases. All things told, bulk telephony metadata collection provided evidence in only one case, a case that didn't even present the threat of an attack against the United States." In the wake of 9/11 I remember that there was much discussion about the over-reliance on "new" technologies like NSA surveillance at the expense of old-school "agents on the ground" intelligence. Pretty much the thinking then was that had there been more agents infiltrating groups, it might have been prevented. So why did the opposite get done? --
“Any claim that the root of a problem is simple should be treated the same as a claim that the root of a problem is Bigfoot. Simplicity and Bigfoot are found in the real world with about the same frequency.” – David Wong |
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BlackbirdBuilt for Speed
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said by Ian: ... Pretty much the thinking then was that had there been more agents infiltrating groups, it might have been prevented.
So why did the opposite get done?
At the risk of sounding like a conspiracy-nut, perhaps "the opposite" was done because anti-terrorism is quite simply a convenient cover rationale for justifying all manner of other kinds of otherwise-unacceptable programs. And, when it comes to agencies whose reason-to-exist is gathering intel and since those in the business believe you can never have too much intel, pushing massive data collection programs comes quite naturally in a terrorism-preoccupied era. --
The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money. -- A. de Tocqueville |
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And that their internal controls would prevent harm. It has been argued that Snowden, just one guy working for a contractor employed by the NSA caused considerable harm. Whether you disagree, and consider him a Patriot, clearly internal NSA controls were NOT strong enough to stop a "rogue". What if someone like Snowden were instead quietly leaking culled economic intelligence to China, or insider traders on Wall Street?
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