Surveillance in the 21st Century: Press CTRL-C to Copy the Internet (NSA Thread)

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Surveillance in the 21st Century: Press CTRL-C to Copy the Internet (NSA Thread)

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Konstantin: Jun 20, 2005; And the Lord said, "Look, they are one people, and they have all one language; and this is only the beginning of what they will do; nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them.

Manning did do quite a lot of good, the diplomatic cables he leaked are an important source for a lot of academic work. It can also be argued that the video leaks were a major contributing factor in the Iraqi government's decision not to renew the Status of Forces Agreement, which lead to the complete withdraw of US troops from Iraq.

# ? Apr 21, 2014 21:56

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# ? Apr 28, 2024 20:41

rockopete: Jan 19, 2005

Main Paineframe posted:

Expecting it to be effective enough to potentially ruin your life over sure is. Look at Manning; in the end, nothing came of that leak except, what, how many years in prison? Manning doesn't even get the privilege of being remembered as a martyr, since Snowden completely overshadowed what little recognition remained after his conviction.

These things take time. Not to endorse Manning's indiscriminate leak, but how was the Media burglary viewed in the years just after that occurred? Particularly in government? And now?

# ? Apr 21, 2014 23:11

Miltank: Dec 27, 2009; by XyloJW

rockopete posted:

These things take time. Not to endorse Manning's indiscriminate leak, but how was the Media burglary viewed in the years just after that occurred? Particularly in government? And now?

I endorse Manning's indiscriminate leaks.

# ? Apr 22, 2014 05:19

meristem: Oct 2, 2010; I HAVE THE ETIQUETTE OF STIFF AND THE PERSONALITY OF A GIANT CUNT.

Elotana posted:

Snowden is.

Yeah, I think that this might be a case of a... cultural misunderstanding, so to speak, maybe that's the best way to call it. What works in America doesn't work in Russia, and vice versa, because the political institutions are so different. A good move in the US (Wyden/Clapper) is just playing into the hands of the enemy in Russia.

Everyone's bound to have some fuckups, though, especially when you're going against an opponent twice your age, better advised and more versed in his own culture, though. Snowden should have not done what he did, but unless he doesn't learn from this particular lesson, that should not be put against him.

Now, that brings one to an interesting question, what a good move in Russia would be. From what I remember of my childhood, probably dark humour/satire. Maybe in a sitcom form - one wouldn't really even have to change the storyline of "an American agent escapes to Russia and has to deal with the reality of that country's 'national security state'".

Hell, I'd watch the hell out of this poo poo. Whatever else oppressive regimes are, they make for great cynical humour.

# ? Apr 22, 2014 07:51

rockopete: Jan 19, 2005

Miltank posted:

I endorse Manning's indiscriminate leaks.

Cool, I wasn't necessarily condemning them either, just making the point that vindication can take a while.

# ? Apr 22, 2014 13:47

amanasleep: May 21, 2008

meristem posted:

Yeah, I think that this might be a case of a... cultural misunderstanding, so to speak, maybe that's the best way to call it. What works in America doesn't work in Russia, and vice versa, because the political institutions are so different. A good move in the US (Wyden/Clapper) is just playing into the hands of the enemy in Russia.

Everyone's bound to have some fuckups, though, especially when you're going against an opponent twice your age, better advised and more versed in his own culture, though. Snowden should have not done what he did, but unless he doesn't learn from this particular lesson, that should not be put against him.

Now, that brings one to an interesting question, what a good move in Russia would be. From what I remember of my childhood, probably dark humour/satire. Maybe in a sitcom form - one wouldn't really even have to change the storyline of "an American agent escapes to Russia and has to deal with the reality of that country's 'national security state'".

Hell, I'd watch the hell out of this poo poo. Whatever else oppressive regimes are, they make for great cynical humour.

The only way for Snowden to move the public opinion needle against Putin in Russia is for him to make Putin deny spying on UFOs.

# ? Apr 22, 2014 15:05

woke wedding drone: Jun 1, 2003; by exmarx; Fun Shoe

amanasleep posted:

The only way for Snowden to move the public opinion needle against Putin in Russia is for him to make Putin deny spying on UFOs.

"Have you flummoxed the machinations of the New World Order, or has Lukashenko surpassed you in this?"

# ? Apr 22, 2014 16:35

bedpan: Apr 23, 2008

"Mr. Putin, when will you tell the truth about your Jewish ancestry?"

# ? Apr 23, 2014 06:22

Aurubin: Mar 17, 2011

Might be interest in this thread is dead, but Goodlatte is moving forward on Sensenbrenner's bill, curious to see if this goes anywhere:

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/05/house-committee-chairman-agrees-nsa-reform-bill

# ? May 5, 2014 23:10

Broken Machine: Oct 22, 2010

I'm still interested, it's just there's not much I've seen that's obviously going on to discuss at the moment.

http://www.cnet.com/news/fbi-we-need-wiretap-ready-web-sites-now/

That's something new that's a problem.

# ? May 6, 2014 20:59

cr0y: Mar 24, 2005

Ding ding ding, here is the loving problem with 'wiretap ready websites' aside from the obvious. If some bullshit law goes into effect making backdoor access standardized and required, it is only a matter of time before the backdoor security is busted and hackers have an all you can eat buffet of private information. You think heartbleed was bad? It would be nothing compared to unfettered access to organized, indexed, standardized and formatted information about users of any variety of internet service.

The truth is though, the law will pass.

# ? May 6, 2014 22:07

JeffersonClay: Jun 17, 2003; by R. Guyovich

Depends on the type of backdoor, right?

# ? May 6, 2014 23:50

Hed: Mar 31, 2004; Fun Shoe

Depending on the actual text of the proposed law, I think the companies may go along anyway, as incumbents can gain by making a higher barrier to entry for Internet software.

# ? May 6, 2014 23:57

Sancho: Jul 18, 2003

Maybe everyone will switch to open source products. I'd love to see them try to just flat out make encrypted communication illegal.

# ? May 7, 2014 01:20

Fried Chicken: Jan 9, 2011; Don't fry me, I'm no chicken!

Konstantin posted:

Manning did do quite a lot of good, the diplomatic cables he leaked are an important source for a lot of academic work. It can also be argued that the video leaks were a major contributing factor in the Iraqi government's decision not to renew the Status of Forces Agreement, which lead to the complete withdraw of US troops from Iraq.

that the SoFA would not include provisions for basing troops was decided in 2007 negotiations. Hence why Obama was so certain on promising it. Manning had nothing to do with that.

Greenwald is doing a doc release on Tuesday (13 May) to coincide with his book coming out (the docs will be those he references in the book that have not yet been released) so eyes open.

He has obliquely referenced NSA intercepts being used for political purposes before, so I'm looking for that in the release. If either party has been using the NSA to spy on the others campaigns that is a huge deal.

# ? May 9, 2014 00:48

chairface: Oct 28, 2007; No matter what you believe, I don't believe in you.

Fried Chicken posted:

that the SoFA would not include provisions for basing troops was decided in 2007 negotiations. Hence why Obama was so certain on promising it. Manning had nothing to do with that.

Greenwald is doing a doc release on Tuesday (13 May) to coincide with his book coming out (the docs will be those he references in the book that have not yet been released) so eyes open.

He has obliquely referenced NSA intercepts being used for political purposes before, so I'm looking for that in the release. If either party has been using the NSA to spy on the others campaigns that is a huge deal.

Is it? I mean seriously here, they can murder US citizens, kidnap random innocent people and torture them, screw up fundamental security of the internet, have Star Chamber courts... and spying on political opponents would be some kind of deal at all?

# ? May 9, 2014 05:26

shrike82: Jun 11, 2005

I think most Americans don't give a poo poo about rendition or torture of ethnic Americans abroad.
But if news came out that the Republicans or Democrats used NSA to spy on each other, it'd definitely affect the next round of elections.

# ? May 9, 2014 05:43

Truecon420: Jul 11, 2013; I like to tweet and live my life. Thank you.

shrike82 posted:

I think most Americans don't give a poo poo about rendition or torture of ethnic Americans abroad.
But if news came out that the Republicans or Democrats used NSA to spy on each other, it'd definitely affect the next round of elections.

I disagree, I think most Americans suspect that we have tortured our own citizens, and do not like the idea. Especially if it were to occur on U.S. soil, although that should really make a difference. I do agree that another watergate scandal would definitely blow up.

# ? May 9, 2014 06:22

chairface: Oct 28, 2007; No matter what you believe, I don't believe in you.

I continue to not see why it's different if a Democrat reads Republican emails than if either kidnaps and tortures seemingly random people under false pretenses. Then again PT Barnum's been proven right again and again about never going wrong underestimating Americans.

# ? May 9, 2014 06:49

FightingMongoose: Oct 19, 2006

If one political party had been spied upon they would kick up the fuss. It's not that its worse than torturing people it's that the NSA would have annoyed the wrong people.

# ? May 9, 2014 09:27

Fried Chicken: Jan 9, 2011; Don't fry me, I'm no chicken!

chairface posted:

Is it? I mean seriously here, they can murder US citizens, kidnap random innocent people and torture them, screw up fundamental security of the internet, have Star Chamber courts... and spying on political opponents would be some kind of deal at all?

Have you ever heard of Watergate?

# ? May 9, 2014 12:22

Fangz: Jul 5, 2007; Oh I see! This must be the Bad Opinion Zone!

chairface posted:

Is it? I mean seriously here, they can murder US citizens, kidnap random innocent people and torture them, screw up fundamental security of the internet, have Star Chamber courts... and spying on political opponents would be some kind of deal at all?

All of the above could be put under the broad justification of [handwave]FIGHTING TERRORISM[/handwave], which while stupid has been pretty drat effective at defusing the objections of large swathes of the public. Using spying for political gain is something different, and for the older generation taps into the cultural memory of Watergate.

Also don't underestimate the segment of the population that would sit up and take notice only when the victims are rich old white men.

Fangz fucked around with this message at 14:18 on May 9, 2014

# ? May 9, 2014 14:14

Peel: Dec 3, 2007

Besides attracting direct ire from a major party and having no security figleaf, it would also have the appearance of undermining the political process itself.

# ? May 9, 2014 14:21

computer parts: Nov 18, 2010; PLEASE CLAP

chairface posted:

Is it? I mean seriously here, they can murder US citizens, kidnap random innocent people and torture them, screw up fundamental security of the internet, have Star Chamber courts... and spying on political opponents would be some kind of deal at all?

Put it this way: why is murdering US citizens differentiated by you from murdering anyone in general? Because you feel like the former is part of your "in group", and the latter is not.

The same logic applies - US citizens who go abroad and work with terrorists are the out group, whereas people in civil society who don't get their hands dirty are the in group.

# ? May 9, 2014 15:03

etalian: Mar 20, 2006

On a side note I loved John Oliver's hardball interview with Keith Alexander:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8lJ85pfb_E

# ? May 11, 2014 04:28

MacheteZombie: Feb 4, 2007

etalian posted:

On a side note I loved John Oliver's hardball interview with Keith Alexander:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8lJ85pfb_E

Is his show any good? Been meaning to watch it.

# ? May 11, 2014 17:34

The Warszawa: Jun 6, 2005; Look at me. Look at me.

I am the captain now.

MacheteZombie posted:

Is his show any good? Been meaning to watch it.

I really like it, for what it's worth. Oliver breaking down the death penalty is pretty great.

# ? May 11, 2014 18:48

Broken Machine: Oct 22, 2010

Michael Hayden (former NSA director), in a recent interview: "We kill people based on metadata". Don't worry everyone, it's just metadata, nbd

e: Also the ODNI is pushing a new policy for anyone who either has or had clearance. Basically, they can't discuss anything based on leaks.

NYT posted:

Timothy H. Edgar, a visiting professor at Brown University who worked at the intelligence office and the White House from 2006 to 2013, said it was appropriate to block former officials from disclosing classified information and confirming leaks.

But, he said, it went too far to retroactively block former officials from citing news reports in the public domain, as long as they did so neutrally and did not confirm them as factually correct. That would amount to a prior restraint on former officials� First Amendment rights that they did not consent to, he said.

�You�re basically saying people can�t talk about what everyone in the country is talking about,� he said. �I think that is awkward and overly broad in terms of restricting speech.�

We'll just pretend this all doesn't exist and it'll go away.

Broken Machine fucked around with this message at 19:10 on May 11, 2014

# ? May 11, 2014 19:06

Fried Chicken: Jan 9, 2011; Don't fry me, I'm no chicken!

Broken Machine posted:

Michael Hayden (former NSA director), in a recent interview: "We kill people based on metadata". Don't worry everyone, it's just metadata, nbd

We've known the CIA used pattern matching predictive algorithms for choosing drone targets for years though - at least since 2010 because I had to do a debate on it before the midterms. One of the first connections people made was the metadata must be the inputs for Recorded Future and the CIA's ICEWS project (Integrated Conflict Early Warning System). It was even a plot point of a summer blockbuster that was in production well before Snowden's leaks.

quote:

e: Also the ODNI is pushing a new policy for anyone who either has or had clearance. Basically, they can't discuss anything based on leaks.

We'll just pretend this all doesn't exist and it'll go away.

This has also been policy for years. It came up during the wikileaks releases, that the people whose information was leaked were not allow to discuss with their coworkers what was leaked.

EDIT: If you want a good source for the intersection of big data, predictive analytics, military actions, and intelligence work, check out http://predictiveheuristics.com/ It is by Duke Lab and has some good commentary on stuff

Fried Chicken fucked around with this message at 03:09 on May 12, 2014

# ? May 12, 2014 03:05

Broken Machine: Oct 22, 2010

Fried Chicken posted:

We've known the CIA used pattern matching predictive algorithms for choosing drone targets for years though - at least since 2010 because I had to do a debate on it before the midterms. One of the first connections people made was the metadata must be the inputs for Recorded Future and the CIA's ICEWS project (Integrated Conflict Early Warning System). It was even a plot point of a summer blockbuster that was in production well before Snowden's leaks.

Obviously you may have known this before, but it's the first time I've seen an official come right out and plainly state it like that, and it runs counter to their previous minimization efforts.

quote:

This has also been policy for years. It came up during the wikileaks releases, that the people whose information was leaked were not allow to discuss with their coworkers what was leaked.

No, it is different, which is why it is a new policy being established. They were previously barred from visiting wikileaks, or other leaks of classified info into the public space. However they were not restrained from discussing leaks that had appeared in traditional media. By the letter of the new policy, they would be barred from discussing the Pentagon Papers, or anything else that is based on the leak of classified material. They can't even comment on it. Previously, they could discuss it so long as they didn't confirm or deny the truth of it.

# ? May 12, 2014 03:28

etalian: Mar 20, 2006

MacheteZombie posted:

Is his show any good? Been meaning to watch it.

The only government agency that really listens

# ? May 13, 2014 03:43

Fried Chicken: Jan 9, 2011; Don't fry me, I'm no chicken!

http://www.glenngreenwald.net/#BookDocuments

New docs up

# ? May 13, 2014 18:34

Paul MaudDib: May 3, 2006; TEAM NVIDIA:
FORUM POLICE

Fried Chicken posted:

http://www.glenngreenwald.net/#BookDocuments

New docs up

Scanning through this real quick:

The list of corporate partners is huge. The names listed: Intel, Motorola, IBM, Qualcomm, Microsoft, Oracle, Cisco, HP, EDS, AT&T, Qwest
These relationships go way back. A case study of one company listed their relationship as beginning in 1985
After MS implemented encryption in web chat, NSA developed a "surveillance capability to deal with the new SSL" that is not "server based" and this coexisted with their legacy (server-based) collection systems.
FBI has total access to Prism including the ability to create selectors
FBI is a major player, their Electronic Communications Surveillance Unit is the point of contact for a ton of domestic collection and interaction with companies
Lots of commercial targets: Brazil's ministry of mines, GAZPROM, Petrobras, PDVSA (?), etc. Lots and lots of commercial targets.
NSA "customers" include Depts of Ag, Justice, Treasury, Commerce, Energy, State, etc
Economic intel is repeatedly listed as a major target, and particularly oil and energy is a major target
NSA's Mexico Leadership Team (S2C41) conducted a two-week target development surge against one of Mexico's leading presidential candidates, Enrique Pena Nieto, and nine of his close associates (a bunch of texts from him follow)
These techniques were also applied against high-profile opsec-savvy Brazilian and Mexican targets
They surveilled the UN Secretary-general and gave POTUS his talking points pre-meeting
NSA collects passive emanations from computers using an antenna (DROPMIRE), possibly facilitating things like side-channel attacks
Customs are used as a place to insert implants on devices
NSA exploits Akamai traffic heavily
GSM/GPRS is used to track targets, and they can actually identify phones while you're on an airplane so they can arrest you when you land
"Oh Yeah: Put Money, National Interest, and Ego together and now you're talking about shaping the world writ large. What country doesn't want to make the world a better place... for itself?" (bolding theirs)
More stuff about discrediting political activists by releasing personal information or blackmail, or just generally screwing with them and their life (viruses on their computer, filling up their phone with texts, wardialing them, etc)
Discusses an "international effort to focus the legal element of national power upon non-state actor Assange and the human network that supports Wikileaks"

My thoughts:

We now have confirmation of a relationship between NSA and a lot of major CPU manufacturers (lots of phone handset companies too), including specifically Intel. I really think it's likely that RDRAND is backdoored. I don't care if that one persnickety Intel engineer on the forums here thinks that Intel would never consort with the NSA. It's probably OK to use as an additional entropy source but not directly.
More examples of SSL being defeated. I think it's likely that they have a bunch of Heartbleed-style vulnerabilities in major implementations or something like that, or have math attacks that can reduce the difficulty to a breakable level.
FBI (specifically) is definitely in on this game as well. Also, the Justice Department more generally.
I think the "international effort to focus legal power on Assange" probably refers to getting the dismissed rape charges drummed up again. Fits pretty well with the whole "attack dissidents by discrediting them" motif they're using. If so, it worked, people bought it hook, line, and sinker.
A huge focus of all this is commercial espionage. At the same time there's lots of "this is about bad people calling bad people" going out to the public.

Paul MaudDib fucked around with this message at 23:05 on May 13, 2014

# ? May 13, 2014 22:09

Zombywuf: Mar 29, 2008

Fried Chicken posted:

http://www.glenngreenwald.net/#BookDocuments

New docs up

A quick read shows a number of fun bits, not sure if they've been released before though.

Think of a number, any number, the NSA has collected more items of than that.
NSA has alliances with H-P, EDS, AT&T, Qualcomm, Qwest, Cisco, Microsoft, Motorola, Intel, Oracle, IBM and Verizon.
The program that investigated diplomats and everyone said diplomats have ever known is called Blarney.
A corporate partner codenamed FAIRVIEW has access to international cables, routers and switches, based in the US is "Aggresively involved in shaping traffic to run signals of interest past our [the NSA's] monitors."
The NSA partners with foreign intelligence to get data from them, then lies to them about what data is available.
PRISM has increased its reach from 40 domains to 20,000 domains.
lol Skype.
Microsoft are in it up to their eyeballs, MS cooperate to help the NSA get around problems like SSL.
The NSA used to lie to the FBI about their capabilities, now they don't.
Israel is the 3rd most aggressive user of sigint against the US.
The NSA does work for the Dept. of Agriculture.
The NSA helped Rice get background on diplomats to push sanctions against Iran. Apparently they were dead chuffed that they got the paperwork done in a day.
Air-gap jumping, electromagnetic emissions, screen capture (both optical and not specified), laser printer collection (without an implant), something that sounds like trojaned crypto software, and much much more!
A bug report discussing deployment strategies for updating fixes to their backdoored Cisco routers.
GCHQ has it's sticky little fingers all over Akamai.
GCHQ has the ability to track mobile phones on planes. No mention of whether this extends to the South China Sea.
The US considers developing nations to be a threat.
The US put pressure on other countries to get Assange.

And that's just the short list.

# ? May 13, 2014 22:57

cr0y: Mar 24, 2005

Front page of every major news network: Haven't your heard about this crazy racist clippers guy!?!

We live in a strange time.

# ? May 13, 2014 22:59

Paul MaudDib: May 3, 2006; TEAM NVIDIA:
FORUM POLICE

I wonder if there's a connection to how "leaked recordings" have been popping up all over lately. There have been high profile leaks against Erdogan, people close to Maduro, and so on. Nothing specific to link the NSA to that, but they clearly have the capability and it fits their MO of attempting to discredit and turn public opinion against targets.

The interesting thing about Assange is that specifically they twisted arms to get other countries to apply legal pressure against him. It was already pretty clear that the US was pressuring other countries in various other fashions. That was pretty much a win-win-win strategy for them, either he comes back for a big circus trial and he's discredited or he stays cooped up in an embassy forever to dodge them or if he gets off they scoop him right up and it's on to the espionage trial. Everything's coming up Milhous! :nixon:

Paul MaudDib fucked around with this message at 23:17 on May 13, 2014

# ? May 13, 2014 23:04

JeffersonClay: Jun 17, 2003; by R. Guyovich

If the NSA is selectively leaking poo poo to discredit Erdogan and Maduro, then good for the NSA.

# ? May 14, 2014 01:12

Broken Machine: Oct 22, 2010

Frontline is running a doc on the security state and so on, in two parts. It starts right now.

# ? May 14, 2014 02:01

Fried Chicken: Jan 9, 2011; Don't fry me, I'm no chicken!

Paul MaudDib posted:

Scanning through this real quick:

The list of corporate partners is huge. The names listed: Intel, Motorola, IBM, Qualcomm, Microsoft, Oracle, Cisco, HP, EDS, AT&T, Qwest

I really doubt that is all of them. Greenwald needs to stop doling these out and dump them all so we can find out.

quote:

These relationships go way back. A case study of one company listed their relationship as beginning in 1985

Not surprising, I mean we know the NSA was involved since the beginning, thats why the transport layer is unencrypted.

quote:

After MS implemented encryption in web chat, NSA developed a "surveillance capability to deal with the new SSL" that is not "server based" and this coexisted with their legacy (server-based) collection systems.

didn't MS Chat get axed with Vista? Jesus, I wonder how much we spent on that. I guess since XP is still dominant for a lot of applications it makes sense, but still.

quote:

FBI has total access to Prism including the ability to create selectors

FBI is a major player, their Electronic Communications Surveillance Unit is the point of contact for a ton of domestic collection and interaction with companies

Well poo poo. My lone hope was that "territory" and political infighting was holding that kind of collaboration back. It does beg a shitload of questions about who (out of known criminals) is targeted by the FBI and why. Also it makes the past years worth of jokes on TV about criminals thinking the NSA was watching them a lot less funny (looking at you, Justified)

quote:

Lots of commercial targets: Brazil's ministry of mines, GAZPROM, Petrobras, PDVSA (?), etc. Lots and lots of commercial targets.

NSA "customers" include Depts of Ag, Justice, Treasury, Commerce, Energy, State, etc

Economic intel is repeatedly listed as a major target, and particularly oil and energy is a major target

They surveilled the UN Secretary-general and gave POTUS his talking points pre-meeting

"Oh Yeah: Put Money, National Interest, and Ego together and now you're talking about shaping the world writ large. What country doesn't want to make the world a better place... for itself?" (bolding theirs)

Reshuffled your points so I could address these all at once

New, but not hugely surprising, as intelligence and economic interests have been hand in hand since post WW2 (MI5 famously put mass effort in stealing trade secrets to rebuild British industries faster). I mean really, these days conflict over whose paradigm of global trade and wealth distribution patterns is dominant has replaced conflict over who has the land (and really since people were tied to the land before that all economic activity was tied to the land, so it was still about economic dynamics)

I guess my surprise is that they were so blunt about it. Listen in, and then use that to inform your usual approach for maintaining hegemony? Why not insert as well - add some footnotes to a WTO briefing packet, modify the entries in their economic data to skew what outcomes forecasting results in, change numbers in negotiating portfolios, etc. Get the other country to be negotiating for what we want rather than trying to make a better counter argument against them basically.

quote:

NSA's Mexico Leadership Team (S2C41) conducted a two-week target development surge against one of Mexico's leading presidential candidates, Enrique Pena Nieto, and nine of his close associates (a bunch of texts from him follow)

These techniques were also applied against high-profile opsec-savvy Brazilian and Mexican targets

"target development surge" meaning the ability to quickly collate all their existing data on the person and then bug the poo poo out of everything around them, or something else?

quote:

NSA collects passive emanations from computers using an antenna (DROPMIRE), possibly facilitating things like side-channel attacks

Van Eck radiation reading? Really?

quote:

Customs are used as a place to insert implants on devices

I assume this means Malware? Or are they inserting bugs into devices that then sniff for open wifi or siphon power to transmit?

quote:

NSA exploits Akamai traffic heavily

Well gently caress them then

quote:

GSM/GPRS is used to track targets, and they can actually identify phones while you're on an airplane so they can arrest you when you land

We knew Apple was doing this and telling them, but interesting to know they have their own capabilities not based in corporate support.

quote:

More stuff about discrediting political activists by releasing personal information or blackmail, or just generally screwing with them and their life (viruses on their computer, filling up their phone with texts, wardialing them, etc)

Discusses an "international effort to focus the legal element of national power upon non-state actor Assange and the human network that supports Wikileaks"

What activists were doing anything on a scale that merits the NSA loving with them I wonder? Just Wikileaks or also smaller groups? Because I can't really think of any american activists that meet both criteria of A) being effective enough to merit a response and B) are doing things the NSA wouldn't support. I mean sure you have the big donors backing pet candidates, but those people are the ones whose interests are being protected here. Or is this international, rather than domestic, and we are talking breakaway republics and revolutions?

quote:

My thoughts:

We now have confirmation of a relationship between NSA and a lot of major CPU manufacturers (lots of phone handset companies too), including specifically Intel. I really think it's likely that RDRAND is backdoored. I don't care if that one persnickety Intel engineer on the forums here thinks that Intel would never consort with the NSA. It's probably OK to use as an additional entropy source but not directly.

It's terrifying to think how much could be backdoored onto today's chips. If they had some spyware using just 0.01% of a current microprocessor's power, that is the equivalent of the full usage of a 1994 PC. Those seem quaint now, but you could run a lot of software with those specs.

quote:

More examples of SSL being defeated. I think it's likely that they have a bunch of Heartbleed-style vulnerabilities in major implementations or something like that, or have math attacks that can reduce the difficulty to a breakable level.

If they have fast factoring then it means it is both achievable and discover-able in the near term by concentrated effort(the NSA classified mathematics isn't that far ahead from the public). That means the entire global economy is completely hosed. If that were the case you would think you would see their commercial partners start to roll out some sort of change over plan... unless of course the NSA valued preserving the methodology they use to protect the status quo over preserving the status quo itself. That's a possibility, but I'm going to choose to believe it means SSL is further compromised instead, and P stil =/= NP. Because otherwise the rational response is to sit gibbering in a corner sucking my thumb.

quote:

FBI (specifically) is definitely in on this game as well. Also, the Justice Department more generally.

I think the "international effort to focus legal power on Assange" probably refers to getting the dismissed rape charges drummed up again. Fits pretty well with the whole "attack dissidents by discrediting them" motif they're using. If so, it worked, people bought it hook, line, and sinker.

Public humiliation of dissidents is keeping with current methodology as well, like the sexual assault of Celily McMillan.

quote:

A huge focus of all this is commercial espionage. At the same time there's lots of "this is about bad people calling bad people" going out to the public.

Economic competitors and foreign state competitors have basically been one and the same post-WW1 so it makes sense they would do it at least.

cr0y posted:

Front page of every major news network: Haven't your heard about this crazy racist clippers guy!?!

We live in a strange time.

This mass data collection program was first known about by the NYT in 2004, and they didn't disclose it on the White House's request because it was an election year. They wanted to be "neutral" in the race. They held off until 2005 and disclosed then to go hand in hand with

# ? May 14, 2014 02:07

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# ? Apr 28, 2024 20:41

Broken Machine: Oct 22, 2010

Fried Chicken posted:

What activists were doing anything on a scale that merits the NSA loving with them I wonder? Just Wikileaks or also smaller groups? Because I can't really think of any american activists that meet both criteria of A) being effective enough to merit a response and B) are doing things the NSA wouldn't support. I mean sure you have the big donors backing pet candidates, but those people are the ones whose interests are being protected here. Or is this international, rather than domestic, and we are talking breakaway republics and revolutions?

They harassed the poo poo out of Laura Poitras, and heavily target other journalists for obvious reasons (remember this?). It got so bad for her she moved to europe because she was so tired of being harassed. Oh and they blackballed Thomas Drake too, that's a good one.

e: on another note, there was a fairly lively debate between Greenwald and a Bill Keller at the Times here.

Broken Machine fucked around with this message at 02:30 on May 14, 2014

# ? May 14, 2014 02:26

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Surveillance in the 21st Century: Press CTRL-C to Copy the Internet (NSA Thread)

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