MS Handed NSA Access To Encrypted Chat & Email

kaptink writes with the latest revelation from Edward Snowden: "Microsoft helped the NSA to circumvent its encryption to address concerns that the agency would be unable to intercept web chats on the new Outlook.com portal. The agency already had pre-encryption stage access to email on Outlook.com, including Hotmail. The company worked with the FBI this year to allow the NSA easier access via Prism to its cloud storage service SkyDrive, which now has more than 250 million users worldwide. Microsoft also worked with the FBI's Data Intercept Unit to 'understand' potential issues with a feature in Outlook.com that allows users to create email aliases. Skype, which was bought by Microsoft in October 2011, worked with intelligence agencies last year to allow Prism to collect video of conversations as well as audio. Material collected through Prism is routinely shared with the FBI and CIA, with one NSA document describing the program as a 'team sport.'"

Comments

Burying the lede

[andy1307]

Targeting US citizens does require an individual warrant, but the NSA is able to collect Americans' communications without a warrant if the target is a foreign national located overseas.

Re:Burying the lede

[Anonymous Coward]

Targeting US citizens does require an individual warrant, but the NSA is able to collect Americans' communications without a warrant if the target is a foreign national located overseas.

... only once the target has been confidently identified as an American, and if they're communicating with someone who has not been confidently identified as an American the communications are presumably still available. Snowden described "the widest possible aperture".

Re:Burying the lede

[0111 1110]

Targeting US citizens does require an individual warrant,

They don't have to target anyone because they simply record all communications. Thus neatly bypassing the need for warrants etc. The NSA has been caught lying about this stuff already. I see no reason to believe their denials now.

Re:Burying the lede

[amicusNYCL]

Targeting US citizens does require an individual warrant

Right, and how do they determine if the person is a US citizen or not? They have a program (Prism) to analyze various things they know about that person, and if the person is 51% or more likely to be foreign, then they tap them. So it's like a coin toss, plus 1%. This is according to James Clapper. From here:

The government knows that it regularly obtains Americans’ protected communications. The Washington Post reported that Prism is designed to produce at least 51 percent confidence in a target’s “foreignness” — as John Oliver of “The Daily Show” put it, “a coin flip plus 1 percent.” By turning a blind eye to the fact that 49-plus percent of the communications might be purely among Americans, the N.S.A. has intentionally acquired information it is not allowed to have, even under the terrifyingly broad auspices of the FISA Amendments Act.

Re:Burying the lede

[icebike]

Targeting US citizens does require an individual warrant, but the NSA is able to collect Americans' communications without a warrant if the target is a foreign national located overseas.

I notice you carefully decided not to quote the first sentence of that paragraph:

Blanket orders from the secret surveillance court allow these communications to be collected without an individual warrant if the NSA operative has a 51% belief that the target is not a US citizen and is not on US soil at the time.

Why did you leave that out?

51% Believe? How the hell do you measure that?
The way I read it is any half assed idle speculation is sufficient to avoid even asking for a warrant at any time.

Is there anyone left on planet earth who still believes the Meta Data Only nonsense?

Did the NSA buy Skype for Microsoft? Did the NSA demand the routing of all conversations through Microsoft's own servers, instead
of the distributed nodes used in the original Skype design?
Where is Microsoft actually hosting their Skype servers? Are they using "overseas" Asure data centers so that the 51% can be met?

Re:Burying the lede

[Mitreya]

Blanket orders from the secret surveillance court allow these communications to be collected without an individual warrant if the NSA operative has a 51% belief that the target is not a US citizen and is not on US soil at the time.

51% Believe? How the hell do you measure that?

I think we all know the answer to that question.
The absence of information is interpreted against you (unknowns are assumed to be outside of US by default). So unless you find NSA's complaint department and come in there with a proof that you are, in fact, in US, they can assume you are not.

Re:Burying the lede

[Synerg1y]

Written communication by an American cannot possibly be distinguished from written communication by a foreigner. Grammar? 2nd languages? How are they able to tell who's who?

If they accidentally targeted even one American, they've just breached the constitution and are in violation of US laws that came before their grandfathers making them criminals. Why has nobody in the government been arrested over this?

Because they think they can get away with anything. Scary stuff.

Re:Burying the lede

[dgatwood]

My interpretation of a statement like a "has a 51% belief" is "feels that it is more likely than not". In other words, you can read "if the NSA operative has a 51% belief that the target is not a US citizen and is not on US soil at the time" as "if the NSA operative feels that it is more likely than not that the target is not a US citizen and is not on US soil at the time". At that confidence level, pure speculation typically constitutes sufficient proof.

Re:Burying the lede

[Synerg1y]

By recording the communications without a warrant they are targeting everyone without a warrant. How about passing a law that states you go to jail for violating the constitution and then hitting the NSA with 313 million counts of it?

In the name of terrorism however, this will never happen.

Re:Burying the lede

[Synerg1y]

Did the NSA buy Skype for Microsoft?

No, but the NSA probably paid MS more in tax payer dollars for access to that information than skype cost to buy for MS.

Re:Burying the lede

[Sponge Bath]

51% Believe? How the hell do you measure that?

It's not like the NSA is shrugging and going "meh, 50/50". This is 51%! That's almost an absolute metaphysical certitude.

Re:Burying the lede

[Charliemopps]

A Man standing next to you has a gun in his right hand, his finger on the trigger, in his left hand he holds a note that says "Only pull the trigger if you are 51% sure this person is a criminal" Do you feel safe? When your kid turns 18 he's going to point that gun at him as well... are you ok with this situation?

Re:Burying the lede

[Anonymous Coward]

My interpretation of a statement like a "has a 51% belief" is "feels that it is more likely than not". In other words, you can read "if the NSA operative has a 51% belief that the target is not a US citizen and is not on US soil at the time" as "if the NSA operative feels that it is more likely than not that the target is not a US citizen and is not on US soil at the time". At that confidence level, pure speculation typically constitutes sufficient proof.

What it means is that the NSA AUTOMATICALLY assumes everyone is out of the country. Get it ?
They now can spy with impunity.
Anyone who believes the shit coming out of the NSA, Congress, Microsoft, Apple, Facebook, and Google better have his brains checked. They are all lying, and they don't give a shit about you. You want privacy ? Better start designing communication systems that are not dependent on any corporate structure. FOSS all the way. And even in this case better be alert 'cause it is all to easy to insert malicous code as several examples have shown in the past.

Re:Burying the lede

[icebike]

Exactly. And if Microsoft conveniently routes all skype off shore, the NSA can log with impunity, hence my other questions.

Re:Burying the lede

[Anonymous Coward]

Not quite.

From my understanding, yes they record every single thing they can without a warrant, but if they actually want to access that information they need a warrant for that.

Re:Burying the lede

[icebike]

Did the NSA buy Skype for Microsoft?

No, but the NSA probably paid MS more in tax payer dollars for access to that information than skype cost to buy for MS.

You don't know that the NSA didn't funnel the money, either directly of embedded in contracts, or repay it via tax rebates.
Microsoft had no need of Skype. (Neither did Ebay, but they were too incompetent to do the government's bidding).

Almost their first major change was the routing of all calls through microsoft's servers. That was un-necessary from a
service perspective, and actually not desirable for either Microsoft or the end user.

Then presto-chango there are Asure datacenters sprouting all over the globe, for "cloud" services that Microsoft didn't even have, and which users didn't exist.

If you could follow the money, my bet is that you would find Skype is a NSA entity since Microsoft took over.

Re:Burying the lede

[Anonymous Coward]

Not quite.

From my understanding, yes they record every single thing they can without a warrant, but if they actually want to access that information they need a warrant for that.

Keep believing in fairy tales. I'm sure it will do use good.

Re:Burying the lede

[egamma]

Written communication by an American cannot possibly be distinguished from written communication by a foreigner. Grammar? 2nd languages? How are they able to tell who's who?

If they accidentally targeted even one American, they've just breached the constitution and are in violation of US laws that came before their grandfathers making them criminals. Why has nobody in the government been arrested over this?

Because they think they can get away with anything. Scary stuff.

You have to prove that they're doing it. And you can't do that because the information is classified.

Re:Burying the lede

[dgatwood]

What it means is that the NSA AUTOMATICALLY assumes everyone is out of the country. Get it ?

You left out a few steps in your proof. Starting from what I said:

• There must be at least a 51% chance that the person is not a U.S. citizen currently in the U.S.
• Statistically, only about 5% of the population of the world is U.S. citizens.
• Therefore, there is only a 5% chance that a person is a U.S. citizen.
• Therefore, there is at least a 51% chance that the person is not a U.S. citizen currently in the U.S.
• Therefore....

Re:Burying the lede

[FriendlyLurker]

The government knows that it regularly obtains Americans’ protected communications. The Washington Post reported that Prism is designed to produce at least 51 percent confidence in a target’s “foreignness” — as John Oliver of “The Daily Show” put it, “a coin flip plus 1 percent.” By turning a blind eye to the fact that 49-plus percent of the communications might be purely among Americans, the N.S.A. has intentionally acquired information it is not allowed to have, even under the terrifyingly broad auspices of the FISA Amendments Act.

"Tap them", indeed, and then some. This latest round of revelations by the whistlblower Snowden details how Microsofts cloud service SkyDrive pipes directly into Prism. Skydrive has a nasty little feature, turned on by default (and turned on again on any upgrade if you decided to turn it off) that allows remote access to all the contents of all hard drives connected to your computer. Yes, thats right, everything *outside* your Skydrive folder. If your a non US citizen then your hard drive is now potentially imaged by prism, if your a US citizen living in the US you have a coin toss +1% chance of the same. Even if it is turned off how can you know they cant remotely image your computer - you cant, because Microsoft (and google, and yahoo...) just a few weeks ago all assured us they only reluctantly respond to court orders. Snowden has blown the whistle on them there lies, at least in Micrisifts case. Interesting to see if Google did backflips like MS has to give all the three letter agencies direct access to our private data.

Re:Burying the lede

[fustakrakich]

They don't care if you believe them or not. Just don't "throw away your vote" on some alternative political candidate. And even if one wins, he/she will be "briefed" on the consequences of stepping out of line.

Re:Burying the lede

[Archangel Michael]

In the modern world, "secure in their papers" doesn't mean anything, almost all communication is not via "papers", but rather are digital substitutes (sic) for paper. We are no longer secure in our papers, when we cannot trust that our effects are ours, if we happen to store them in an online vault.

What is worse, is that while we are unable to keep secrets from government, government feels perfectly fine trying to keep secrets from "we the people" that supposedly form it.

Re:Burying the lede

[Anonymous Coward]

They play with English a bit. They're 'targeting' foreign nationals. However, they're doing that by recording and monitoring information from everyone.

Re:Burying the lede

[Anonymous Coward]

Just because they need a warrant doesn't mean jack because they are so easily obtained, they can even be obtained after the fact. Warrants are pretty much approved with a rubber stamp.

I'm not believing in fairy tales.

Re:Burying the lede

[paavo512]

What's this obsession with American citizens? Someone talked a lot about morale recently here, does the morality suddenly lose its meaning when applied to somebody else than Americans?

Re:Burying the lede

[Synerg1y]

The bottom line is they've still collected information on US citizens that they can't constitutionally posses without a warrant. Whatever their intent is is irrelevant as they cannot constitutionally have the information in the first place.

Re:Burying the lede

[Anonymous Coward]

You put a cat inside a box with a bit of poison, a radioactive sub-atomic particle, etc etc.

Is the cat 51% dead or 51% alive? Assume it's both and who cares about due process because it goes under national security and we probably won't get caught anyways?

Re:Burying the lede

[NatasRevol]

Somebody should copy PRISM and point it at the federal government.

Maybe they'll get it then.

Re:Burying the lede

[Anonymous Coward]

I doubt that they have breached the Constitution since it is bigger than you probably think

You doubt that they have breached the constitution because you are a pro-government stooge. You're literally just an object to be ridiculed here. You might as well go somewhere where people are on the fence about issues such as these and try to brainwash them, because most people on Slashdot likely think you're just a joke.

otherwise they wouldn't bother going to the courts, and ignore the FISA courts orders.

They don't even need to ignore the FISA court orders; the court will give them practically anything they want, and have rubberstamped sweeping warrants in the past.

Re:Burying the lede

[Em Adespoton]

If you can't think of ways by which you could derive indicators of the nationality of a sender, and maybe a recipient, of a piece of email you aren't really trying.

I can't think of ways by which I could derive indicators of American nationality of a sender/recipient of a piece of email that I haven't collected and examined. Not with a 0% FN rate anyway, which would be required. Collecting and examining it is the part people are claiming is unconstitutional -- and you can't "un-examine" a document.

Re:Burying the lede

[Anachragnome]

[responding to a post near top of thread to prevent the use of "forum sliding" tactics--refer to article in my signature if you are unaware of the tactic]

While the mainstream US media largely ignores NSA/US spying, other news has to take the place of those stories--something bigger and "better", so to speak.

Let's start with the train wreck in Lac Megantic--not a single story in mainstream media regarding SCADA systems used on most trains these days. Why not?

http://www.getransportation.com/rail/rail-products/locomotives/on-board-systems/train-controlscada.html [getransportation.com]

The owner of the rail company involved spews disinformation to distract from a valid concern--that trains can be remotely operated (including brakes!) by a system easily hacked. Who might have such a motivation?

Let's move on to the Asiana crash at SFO.

The following from the Economist has some interesting information about the controls of airliners. The most relevant information is discussed in the last section of the article.

http://www.economist.com/node/787987 [economist.com]

I shouldn't have to remind everyone that Boeing is inextricably involved with government operations--they build the best military aircraft out there, including drones. In both incidents, the operators of these vehicles were blamed before any reasonable amount of investigation could possibly have been completed. Why is that?

zimmerman innocent!! zimmerman guilty!! "Oh my God. Just when I thought this case couldn't get any more bizarre," Saudi Princess out on bail Holmes acquitted Holmes Confesses Stock Market recovers Stock market plunges Sarah Palin Pregnant Student Loans 45% Interest Offer Students Access to Morning-After Pill FREE XBOX SONY ELECTRONIC ARTS VALVE STEAM FREE DOWNLOAD reddit closing facebook shares /. china pork senate finance committee dollar plunges twinkle Twinkie Egypt Christians targeted cook a steak killed kittens gold cellphone UC Berkeley stolen marijuana Texas secedes! LDS LSD SD SC Abortion Fracking Skateboard lost Toronto Red Cross charges of adultery phone number

Re:Burying the lede

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmm, "morale" has absolutely nothing to do with "morality". Maybe you meant "moral"?

Btw, I'm not american (and english is my 3rd language).

Re:Burying the lede

[Anonymous Coward]

Written communication by an American cannot possibly be distinguished from written communication by a foreigner. Grammar? 2nd languages? How are they able to tell who's who?

That one's easy. The foreigner will be the one writing perfect, correct english. Americans can't spell and have zero grasp of grammar and syntax. Also, they write "alot" a lot, annoyingly enough.

(Not american, and not a native english speaker. Flame on.)

Re:Burying the lede

[Anonymous Coward]

51% Believe? How the hell do you measure that?

That's the measure of intentionality. It simply means that intentional targeting, or targeting in a recklessly negligent manner is not allowed without a warrant if the target not a US citizen on a US soil.

Re:Burying the lede

[Anonymous Coward]

Your second sentences is incorrect. There is no need to "pass a law... for violating the constitution..." The constitution is the highest law of the land. Violating it is illegal. Additional laws concerning the constitution are simply irrelevant noise. Only a constitutional amendment can change the constitution.

Your final notion of "...hitting the NSA with 313 million counts of it" is also wrong and speaks to the danger of the very concept. It's a long established principle of common law that you cannot make any action retroactively illegal. There is no way of passing a law after some repugnant behaviour occurs, then prosecuting that repugnant behaviour. Laws take effect on the date of their implementation. You do not get a do-over on history.

Therefore if you ever attempted this, ignoring entirely the precedence of the constitution, you still could not prosecute the NSA. Their activity would have taken place before the legislation took effect and you cannot retroactively prosecute.

This is why the precedence of the constitution is so important. The constitution was in effect at the time of the alleged illegal NSA activity. Therefore you can prosecute.

Re:Burying the lede

[cold fjord]

Morality, no, it doesn't lose its meaning. Legal rights are another question. As many Europeans, and others around the world, are so fond of reminding Americans - the reach of American law does not extend beyond its borders. But that is a two way street. The power to label action as criminal and prosecute may end at the border (to varying degrees*), but so does the power to protect, and the legal protections of the US Constitution.

*Some international law is considered to have in essence universal jurisdiction.

Re:Burying the lede

[lister king of smeg]

The government knows that it regularly obtains Americans’ protected communications. The Washington Post reported that Prism is designed to produce at least 51 percent confidence in a target’s “foreignness” — as John Oliver of “The Daily Show” put it, “a coin flip plus 1 percent.” By turning a blind eye to the fact that 49-plus percent of the communications might be purely among Americans, the N.S.A. has intentionally acquired information it is not allowed to have, even under the terrifyingly broad auspices of the FISA Amendments Act.

"Tap them", indeed, and then some. This latest round of revelations by the whistlblower Snowden details how Microsofts cloud service SkyDrive pipes directly into Prism. Skydrive has a nasty little feature, turned on by default (and turned on again on any upgrade if you decided to turn it off) that allows remote access to all the contents of all hard drives connected to your computer. Yes, thats right, everything *outside* your Skydrive folder. If your a non US citizen then your hard drive is now potentially imaged by prism, if your a US citizen living in the US you have a coin toss +1% chance of the same. Even if it is turned off how can you know they cant remotely image your computer - you cant, because Microsoft (and google, and yahoo...) just a few weeks ago all assured us they only reluctantly respond to court orders. Snowden has blown the whistle on them there lies, at least in Micrisifts case. Interesting to see if Google did backflips like MS has to give all the three letter agencies direct access to our private data.

i have a skydrive account provided by my school i am at a loss though as to how microsoft would image my hd it being linux and skydrive only being aceesed via web page on vm

Re:Burying the lede

[0111 1110]

otherwise they wouldn't bother going to the courts, and ignore the FISA courts orders.

What evidence do we have that they do? How would we know if they didn't?

Re:Burying the lede

[nigelo]

> They play with English a bit.

Mount Everest is a bit of a hill, too, I suppose? ;-)

Re:Burying the lede

[Anonymous Coward]

By the way, this is something that made the Nuremburg trials controversial. The Nazis were prosecuted for something that wasn't actually illegal at the time, it was merely immoral. The laws they were prosecuted under were passed after the war and after the moral wrongdoing.

I shed no tears for the Nazis but it was a worrisome development in the legal world.

Re:Burying the lede

[cold fjord]

What evidence do we have that they do?

We have reports on the number of warrants that the FISA court issues, as well as various reports of other matters and controversies involving it.

Re:Burying the lede

[gmuslera]

Would be interesting if other countries modify slightly their laws, putting into all the forbidding things (i.e. not kill, steal, rape, whatever) the "unless is done to an american" exception, so when its that case have no punishment. More or less this is what is doing US.

Re:Burying the lede

[amicusNYCL]

i have a skydrive account provided by my school i am at a loss though as to how microsoft would image my hd it being linux and skydrive only being aceesed via web page on vm

Was it really necessary for him to specify the Skydrive Client application, or did you just want to mention that you run Linux? Regardless, seeing how you're a student, please direct yourself to the English department and ask them to teach you about capitalization and punctuation.

Re:Burying the lede

[Anonymous Coward]

otherwise they wouldn't bother going to the courts, and ignore the FISA courts orders.

What evidence do we have that they do? How would we know if they didn't?

Why should they? FISA lends a patina of respectability. A pretension to honesty. Which is mostly ruined by the fact that it's a 1-sided court with a history of rubber-stamping everything. But Hey! It's all Legal! The court said so!

Re:Burying the lede

[FriendlyLurker]

i have a skydrive account provided by my school i am at a loss though as to how microsoft would image my hd it being linux and skydrive only being aceesed via web page on vm

Well smeg, you would first have to install the Skydrive client on a computer - a windows computer. It will then proceed to default as a remote access point for your whole computer. Your talking about using the web interface only from Linux, which is not how most use SkyDrive under Microsoft windows.

Re:Burying the lede

[RabidReindeer]

Morality, no, it doesn't lose its meaning. Legal rights are another question. As many Europeans, and others around the world, are so fond of reminding Americans - the reach of American law does not extend beyond its borders. But that is a two way street. The power to label action as criminal and prosecute may end at the border (to varying degrees*), but so does the power to protect, and the legal protections of the US Constitution.

*Some international law is considered to have in essence universal jurisdiction.

One of the most horrific things that the Bush Administration did post 9/11 was declare that, in effect, you cease to be an American Citizen once you leave the confines of the USA. That is, many of your rights and privileges no longer apply. Never before in the history of the USA do I know of a case like that. Even in the far more primitive days of the Roman Empire such things were not held to be true.

Of course, a lot of the alleged rights and privileges of American Citizens within the USA got lost as well, but not as explicit policy.

But whether or not literally American law extends beyond the borders of the USA, there is no doubt that effectively it does so. You can see that in the influence that the USA has had on shaping foreign copyright laws, as a prime example.

Re:Burying the lede

[Arrogant Monkey]

Keep in mind, our elected legislators specifically exempted themselves from the program. Nothing to see here, citizen, move along.

Re:Burying the lede

[cjc25]

Assuming that the NSA has obtained information on a US citizen unconstitutionally, they can't constitutionally use it in a court proceeding: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fruit_of_the_poisonous_tree. They'd have to go get a warrant based on entirely unrelated justifications in order to "rediscover" the evidence and make it maybe viable. It can get complicated (and lawyers love to argue).

However, I am not aware of any way that one could "send them to prison" or force the government to stop collecting information on everyone because you think (without proof) that they've probably caught your stuff when they shouldn't have.

IANAL, etc.

Re:Burying the lede

[cold fjord]

One of the most horrific things that the Bush Administration did post 9/11 was declare that, in effect, you cease to be an American Citizen once you leave the confines of the USA.

If you would, please expand on that. I don't think that is correct, at least not at face value.

But whether or not literally American law extends beyond the borders of the USA, there is no doubt that effectively it does so. You can see that in the influence that the USA has had on shaping foreign copyright laws, as a prime example.

Countries negotiate all sorts of treaties, defense, trade, human rights. I don't think there is much special about that.

Re:Burying the lede

[LavouraArcaica]

sorry to tell you, but snowden did it.
look what he got.

Re:Burying the lede

[VortexCortex]

You have to prove that they're doing it. And you can't do that because the information is classified.

Have to? Negative. We could call a vote of no confidence in congress. We could DEMAND all government actions be made public record. However, this would require us to be as American as our founders...

American? Negative. I am a meat popsicle.

Re:Burying the lede

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, snap!

Re:Burying the lede

[strength_of_10_men]

Skydrive has a nasty little feature, turned on by default (and turned on again on any upgrade if you decided to turn it off) that allows remote access to all the contents of all hard drives connected to your computer. Yes, thats right, everything *outside* your Skydrive folder.

Not that I doubt that the NSA has access to my data anyway, but this part makes no sense for me. For god's sake, MS *writes* the OS. Why would they need someone to install the Skydrive client to be able to access my hard drive. Windows already has entire access to my hard drive.

Re:Burying the lede

[Anonymous Coward]

In the modern world, "secure in their papers" doesn't mean anything, almost all communication is not via "papers", but rather are digital substitutes (sic) for paper. We are no longer secure in our papers, when we cannot trust that our effects are ours, if we happen to store them in an online vault.

What is worse, is that while we are unable to keep secrets from government, government feels perfectly fine trying to keep secrets from "we the people" that supposedly form it.

While you are squabbling over "paper", you are totally ignoring what "secure" means.

If I run a mailing list and receive a thousand emails from a thousand senders, the government needs exactly one warrant to read them all. Access controls on the server, forwarding rules etc, do not matter one iota., they are MY effects now, and if I don't check ID & nationality of senders/clients, I have no defense even if a warrant is limited to searching for foreign accounts, all that data is up for grabs.

Your "papers" were not secured, you gave them to Google/Yahoo/etc., and that's your fault.

Re:Burying the lede

[Anonymous Coward]

Targeting US citizens does require an individual warrant,

They don't have to target anyone because they simply record all communications. Thus neatly bypassing the need for warrants etc. The NSA has been caught lying about this stuff already. I see no reason to believe their denials now.

Nope, it's real simple guys.

Google[any free email provider] stores, can read, and does read your email. Internal policy against employees reading customer mail doesn't change anything. It's Google's data, they can do what they want with it. I dare you to argue otherwise. Watch what happens when the next big online service's password database gets hacked and accounts are compromised. Nothing, because "your" data is not yours, and is not protected by law.

They only need a warrant to search those holding the data. "But these are Americans" is not an excuse against a broad warrant because Google[any free email provider] doesn't ever ask for ID or nationality for accounts.

Re:Burying the lede

[Anonymous Coward]

Written communication by an American cannot possibly be distinguished from written communication by a foreigner. Grammar? 2nd languages? How are they able to tell who's who?

If they accidentally targeted even one American, they've just breached the constitution and are in violation of US laws that came before their grandfathers making them criminals. Why has nobody in the government been arrested over this?

Because they think they can get away with anything. Scary stuff.

If this were true, it would be illegal to search ANYTHING, EVER. If you take custody of other people's papers, they are yours now, you can read them, and you can be searched by the government to obtain them without warrants to search THEM, just the one to search YOU. If the postmaster delivers the neighbors mail to your house, you can legally read it.

Internet companies don't ask for ID or nationality, and "some of these are American" doesn't cut it.

There is no constitutional limitation on domestic intelligence gathering, as long as it jives with the 4th amendment.

Re:Burying the lede

[Anonymous Coward]

That's a completely incorrect comparison. Americans get protections under US law because they are US citizens. US citizens already do not have special rights under the laws of foreign countries because they are not citizens of a foreign state, unless the foreign state extends those rights to those US citizens.

Most countries, for situations of murder, rape, theft, etc. will count a crime done to a US citizen in their country as an actual crime. And the same goes for foreign citizens in the US. What generally does NOT happen is that foreign countries provide US citizens freedom from their own spying.

Point being, the stuff you don't like the US doing to you, your country is already doing to the US. And I don't get to sue your country for spying on me either.

States serve their citizens first, generally. That's not at all unusual.

Re:Burying the lede

[greenbird]

has not been confidently identified as an American

Meaning there's a 51% chance they're foreign.

Re:Burying the lede

[shentino]

They can.

Because PRISM is classified, you cannot subpoena them to prove they did it.

I would rather someone try the motion that my constitutional rights trump state secrets, and allege that anything preventing me from litigating to protect them is itself unconstitutional.

I might even cite that the mere plausibility of such a hypothetical case is itself an unconstitutional chilling effect which would give me standing based on real damage caused by a hypothetical that cannot be disproven.

Re:Burying the lede

[shentino]

I would allege that the mere possibility is enough of a chilling effect on my free speech rights to let me argue that classifying the information in question is itself unconstitutional as impeding my right to petition the government to stop the bullshit.

Re:Burying the lede

[shentino]

And if it's indeed a constitutional issue, wouldn't that make any law authorizing them to possess it, itself unconstitutional?

Re:Burying the lede

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah its a very simple process. On day one a secret organization rocks up and shows you this photo of jfk, from an angle you've never seen before, just poking up from behind this little grassy hill/knoll, they don't have much trouble after that.

Re:Burying the lede

[FriendlyLurker]

Well it is always easier to access through the front door with some legitimacy for the increased network traffic you may or may not notice, vs clandestine back doors. You might firewall off your system but you certainly would have to always let skydrive through or you wont be using it. Whatever the case, after what Microsoft has just been shown to have pulled: promote that user privacy is their priority, get caught out by the first leaks, lie about their role and extent "we only respond to court orders", then get caught out lying yet again as the news above demonstrates. Credibility, -1.

Re:Burying the lede

[ArsenneLupin]

We could call a vote of no confidence in congress.

In Luxembourg, we did exactly that. But the bad news is that even though the Prime Minister stepped down, he will still be running in the elections to replace himself.

... and we have a sufficient number of elderly (or just disconnected...) people who don't grasp the seriousness of the matter that he might actually win. Weird world.

Re:Burying the lede

[Sabriel]

If they applied the same logical fallacy to the Second Amendment, it would not grant US citizens the right to bear any "arms" more advanced than flintlocks, breech loaders, revolvers and cannon.

Re:Burying the lede

[Anonymous Coward]

> you cease to be an American Citizen once you leave the confines of the USA

Not according to the IRS.

Re:Burying the lede

[cheekyboy]

Id rather have infinite fame like Joan of Ark, than infinite fame like Stalin/Hitler/PolPot.

When will the average guy/pleb have more guts and take down evil leaders when in the inside circles, humans either are too eager to be sheep, or too eager to be Kings. We need to grow up as a human race and take down evil, drown it at birth if need be.

Re:Burying the lede

[uncle slacky]

Where's the downside?

Re:Burying the lede

[RabidReindeer]

One of the most horrific things that the Bush Administration did post 9/11 was declare that, in effect, you cease to be an American Citizen once you leave the confines of the USA.

If you would, please expand on that. I don't think that is correct, at least not at face value.

If I had nothing better to do with my time, I'd dig out exact details. Most of the readily-available discussion of this is found on left-leaning websites, and I don't like using biased sources. However, recent attempts to expand that declaration by the Obama administration make references to the original declaration which can be pursued by anyone who's interested.

Here are 2 of the more objective items I dredged up.

http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/R42337.pdf

Salon, of course, is more sensationalist, but here's their take on it: http://www.salon.com/2011/12/16/three_myths_about_the_detention_bill/

But whether or not literally American law extends beyond the borders of the USA, there is no doubt that effectively it does so. You can see that in the influence that the USA has had on shaping foreign copyright laws, as a prime example.

Countries negotiate all sorts of treaties, defense, trade, human rights. I don't think there is much special about that.

In the case of making the world's copyright laws an extension of the constitution of the Kingdom of Disney, a lot of people have noted that Don Corleone could learn a thing or two about negotiation from the USA.

Then, of course, there's the matter that apparently a mere hint from certain quarters was capable of major interference with the free international travel of an elected head of state.

Re:Burying the lede

[Anonymous Coward]

Similary, freedom of speech would only apply to speeches made in the public square, or printed on a hand-cranked press with lead type.

Re:Burying the lede

[Anonymous Coward]

This discussion of "Secure in their Papers" being obsolete is simply foolish. So long as a judge realizes that a "paper" is not a phyical media but the concept of their documents we are just fine. The problem has been for a long time that courts thing that something isn't under law when a new media appears.

Re: Burying the lede

[Anonymous Coward]

>otherwise they wouldn't bother going to the courts, and ignore the FISA courts orders.

You do remember that Bush didn't bother, right? Comey and Ashcroft almost resigned in protest over it. Still, he did it. I believe their defense was that collection without a warrant was okay, and then you could run your networking algorithms and get the warrant later.

Re:Burying the lede

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes it does. You see, Americans are exceptional and unique; the rest of us plebs don't count. The US's sovereignty is sacred, everybody else is expected to bend over on demand. And if you don't thank them afterwards, Americans tend to get pissed at you and claim you are an ungrateful anti-American.

Re:Burying the lede

[Anonymous Coward]

We have reports on the number of warrants that the FISA court issues

I'm betting you believe in Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy too.

Re:Burying the lede

[tqk]

If you could follow the money, my bet is that you would find Skype is a NSA entity since Microsoft took over.

Were any technically inclined individuals not expecting this to be the case when it was announced that Microsoft was acquiring Skype? I thought it was fairly blatantly obvious at the time. Of course the vast majority of the population of the planet would not have made the connection (if they even learned of the acquisition) nor (apparently) much cared (seeing how events have unfolded).

I'm beginning to feel a bit uncomfortable as a member of this tiny minority. It's starting to feel like being forced to watch a slow-mo train wreck a la Clockwork Orange.

Re:Burying the lede

[Anonymous Coward]

It can't be half-assed idle speculation, that would be ridiculous.

It must be 51%-assed idle speculation. Get your facts straight.

Re:Burying the lede

[Politburo]

No one to my knowledge has ever been arrested over an unconstitutional search. Government officials are generally granted individual immunity when carrying out their duties in good faith. And what law do you allege is being violated that carries a punishment requiring arrest?

Further, while one can object to its issuance, and the whole FISA regime, there is still a court order here. To arrest someone for carrying out a search pursuant to a court order, as part of their official duties, seems quite bizarre.

Re:Burying the lede

[Synerg1y]

Yes the Patriot act used in this way is unconstitutional. The question is whether they were acting inside or outside of the bounds of the patriot act.

Re:Burying the lede

[Synerg1y]

However, I am not aware of any way that one could "send them to prison" or force the government to stop collecting information on everyone because you think (without proof) that they've probably caught your stuff when they shouldn't have.

public protest is one way, voting out the supporting politicians is another. There is no penalty for violating the constitution, the constitution states that the government must operate within its means, we need a safeguard for when they choose not to. Jail seems like an excellent deterrent for a pudgy politician.

Re:Burying the lede

[Politburo]

Seems to be a load of hyperbole, but since you don't actually present an argument, one has to guess at it.

My guess is that you are conflating a couple things. One is that border searches are not subject to the 4th amendment. This was not something the Bush Administration did, case law goes back almost 100 years if not more.

Another thing probably contributing to this was the assertion that certain rights did not apply to US citizens that were also enemy combatants, notably habeas corpus. However this was rejected by the court.

Re:Burying the lede

[Synerg1y]

There is currently no penalty.

There is no way of passing a law after some repugnant behavior occurs

They're still monitoring you.

Re:Burying the lede

[Synerg1y]

You really don't get how what you're talking about actually works do you? The jews killed by the nazis were still dead at the time of the trial. A more worrisome development would've been if they weren't.

Re:Burying the lede

[Anonymous Coward]

Written communication by an American cannot possibly be distinguished from written communication by a foreigner. Grammar? 2nd languages? How are they able to tell who's who?

They can decide it from wrong grammar and misspelling.

Re:Burying the lede

[ikeman32]

Written communication by an American cannot possibly be distinguished from written communication by a foreigner. Grammar? 2nd languages? How are they able to tell who's who?

If they accidentally targeted even one American, they've just breached the constitution and are in violation of US laws that came before their grandfathers making them criminals. Why has nobody in the government been arrested over this?

Because they think they can get away with anything. Scary stuff.

It's not that they think they can get away with anything, it is they CAN get away with anything. If you read the constitution there is a clause that exempts them from arrest. Article I Section 6 and I am sure that they have made other laws giving them greater immunity than what the constitution offers.

Re:Burying the lede

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, I can see that you can't write perfect, correct English.

Re:Burying the lede

[BalthCat]

And the average Canadian deserves to have their emails, chats and files examined why, exactly?

Re:Burying the lede

[cold fjord]

They don't even need to ignore the FISA court orders; the court will give them practically anything they want, and have rubberstamped sweeping warrants in the past.

Your claim that the FISA court gives the government practically anything it wants is false. The FISA court has been very obstructionist in the past, and it is certainly willing to modify warrant requests, and does reject them on occasion - based on the merits of the application and the law.

It’S Legal - The solid legal basis for the administration's surveillance program. (Well worth the read.)

Why Bush Approved The Wiretaps - Not long ago, both parties agreed the FISA court was a problem

...Even later, after the provisions of the Patriot Act had had time to take effect, there were still problems with the FISA court–problems examined by members of the September 11 Commission–and questions about whether the court can deal effectively with the fastest-changing cases in the war on terror.

People familiar with the process say the problem is not so much with the court itself as with the process required to bring a case before the court. “It takes days, sometimes weeks, to get the application for FISA together,” says one source. “It’s not so much that the court doesn’t grant them quickly, it’s that it takes a long time to get to the court. Even after the Patriot Act, it’s still a very cumbersome process. It is not built for speed, it is not built to be efficient. It is built with an eye to keeping [investigators] in check.” And even though the attorney general has the authority in some cases to undertake surveillance immediately, and then seek an emergency warrant, that process is just as cumbersome as the normal way of doing things

--------

You doubt that they have breached the constitution because you are a pro-government stooge.

I don't recall seeing stooge being used as a synonym for "well informed person" before. Your use of English is quite odd, as are your beliefs.

It’S Legal - The solid legal basis for the administration's surveillance program. (Well worth the read.)

... Not only could the FISA Court not tell the president how do to his work, the Court of Review said, but the president also had the “inherent authority” under the Constitution to conduct needed surveillance without obtaining any warrant–from the FISA Court or anyone else. Referring to an earlier case, known as Truong, which dealt with surveillance before FISA was passed, the Court of Review wrote: “The Truong court, as did all the other courts to have decided the issue, held that the President did have inherent authority to conduct warrantless searches to obtain foreign intelligence information. . . . We take for granted that the President does have that authority and, assuming that is so, FISA could not encroach on the President’s constitutional power.”

--------

You're literally just an object to be ridiculed here. You might as well go somewhere where people are on the fence about issues such as these and try to brainwash them, because most people on Slashdot likely think you're just a joke.

As long as Slashdot continues to be a forum for free discussion I will be content to continue participating as my time and interests allow. I will continue to express my views, state facts, and provide data, even if it is unpopular. You should never confuse being popular with being right. Slashdot is more than the many people that post here, including those who are uninformed or confused,

Re:Burying the lede

[matfud]

Leave the cat long enough and it will be dead. Sort of says a lot about National security.

Xbox One

[ArsonSmith]

All this and now they want to put an always (or nearly) on mic and camera in my home?

Re:Xbox One

[Waffle Iron]

All this and now they want to put an always (or nearly) on mic and camera in my home?

Not to worry. The NSA puts careful safeguards on the data: For all persons known to be US citizens, a software filter converts their in-home images into stick figures before saving.

Re:Xbox One

[Anonymous Coward]

That is so 1984 that at first I thought it had to be a joke.

A TV with an always on camera and microphone being controlled by a gargantuan bureaucracy, The people at the top have absolutely no respect for "THEIR! CUSTOMERS!"

(caps and exclamation points are to indicate how they think they own their customers)

Re:Xbox One

[Anonymous Coward]

Any Windows machine has had a microphone for years now. Sorry bout it.

Re:Xbox One

[Anonymous Coward]

Strange, I never installed a mic on my computer when I built it. my laptop which I got dose not have one ether.

Re:Xbox One

[Anonymous Coward]

Not my windows machine (desktop computer)

Re:Xbox One

[Anonymous Coward]

Show me a laptop built in the past 10 years which does not have a mic.

Re:Xbox One

[dgatwood]

Hey, why does that stick figure have three le... ewww.

Re:Xbox One

[0111 1110]

But you do realize that there are computers which are not laptops, right? The Xbox One is a gaming machine. The vast majority of laptops are not gaming machines and are certainly not well suited to play modern high performance games. So the only fair comparison would be to a desktop machine and those do not necessarily have webcams or microphones and if they do have them you can just unplug them.

Re:Xbox One

[Anonymous Coward]

Show me a laptop built in the past 10 years which does not have a mic.

Does this count?

http://compare.ebay.com/like/271234045822?var=lv&ltyp=AllFixedPriceItemTypes&var=sbar

Re:Xbox One

[cold fjord]

Stick figures? Well that's a relief. Now we don't need to worry about lectures from Sexual Harassment Panda.

Re:Xbox One

[Anonymous Coward]

Show me a laptop built in the past 10 years which does not have a mic.

My Panasonic Toughbook CF-52. Many industries require cameras and microphones to be disabled, or entirely not present, if you are going to enter their facilities.

Re: Xbox One

[Anonymous Coward]

How can they tell that the mic and cam is really disabled?

Re:Xbox One

[Anonymous Coward]

It's worse than that even. Not many people realize that all of the CCTV cameras placed all over our cities have microphones built-in.

Re:Xbox One

[Iridium_Hack]

That's right! And if they saw something naughty going on from a TV in a bedroom, I'm very thankful no security analysts who work in Our Country would ever watch that sort of stuff while on the job! Whew! Man, if those kinds of people worked at the NSA, heck, they could copy it to YouTube or something for a laugh. Then you or someone you know might run into it.

"Hey, NSA, How'd that video of me and 'XXX' get on YouTube?"

"Sorry Citizen, that's National Security. Stop asking questions. "

Slashdotters real concern!

[Anonymous Coward]

Do they have guba/porntube logs. God help us all if they know what we've been fapping to. Is MPC sending our history to the NSA?

Let's look in the mirror

[Anonymous Coward]

At what point do we call it a corporate-fascist police state?

Re:Let's look in the mirror

[Anonymous Coward]

never because to do so would be treason and thought-crime 2+2=5

Re:Let's look in the mirror

[bonehead]

For anyone that doesn't have their head buried in the sand, absolutely no later than about a decade ago.

It's been the truth for longer than that, but a 10 years or so ago was when they gave up even token efforts to pretend otherwise.

Re:Let's look in the mirror

[Anonymous Coward]

Right after we learn that information that the NSA captured was turned around and used for the advantage of other US corporations.

Until then it's just a regular police state.

Re:Let's look in the mirror

[stanlyb]

You missed it. Happened 12 years ago :D

Re:Let's look in the mirror

[SecurityTheatre]

More accurately, 11 years 303 days 8 hours and 38 minutes ago.

Re:Let's look in the mirror

[MickLinux]

Never, because that would be an instance of Godwin's law, causing the discussion to shut down. Of course, it is absolutely impossible for any civilization to actually approach such a situation.

The big question in my mind, is when do things become so bad, that people wish that they were only dealing with the Nazis. And, will we get there? And How soon?

Re:Let's look in the mirror

[Anonymous Coward]

Ya think Romney would have been better?

Re:Let's look in the mirror

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes.

Re:Let's look in the mirror

[stewsters]

Feingold for president. http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=107&session=1&vote=00313

Re:Let's look in the mirror

[HornWumpus]

That happened a good 20 years ago. Details escape me, but it was basically Boeing and the American intelligence agencies vs. Airbus and the Euro agencies. Over a big sale to the Arabs IIRC.

Re:Let's look in the mirror

[ganjadude]

a wet paper bag would have been better. at least a wet paper bag cant keep infringing on our freedoms.

Re:Let's look in the mirror

[Holi]

You think Obama had anything to do with creating this? This was planned and implemented long before Obama had a chance to run for office.

Re:Let's look in the mirror

[Holi]

Well as far as I know we haven't systematically started killing a whole race. But give us time, we're working on it.

Re:Let's look in the mirror

[Gr8Apes]

I'm actually looking for a grassroots constitutional set of amendments to come up - stripping the feds of most of their power.

Re:Let's look in the mirror

[Anonymous Coward]

Gary Johnson would have been better.

Re:Let's look in the mirror

[gordo3000]

not to be too pedantic, but the jews aren't a "race", they constitute a religious culture, but not a race. that is equivalent to calling sunni arabs a race or southern baptists a race (the last has a higher likelihood of being true actually)

Re:Let's look in the mirror

[Anonymous Coward]

At what point do we call it a corporate-fascist police state?

I'd say you're 10 years too late to the party.

Re:Let's look in the mirror

[Sponge Bath]

2+2=5

There are FOUR lights!

Re:Let's look in the mirror

[NatasRevol]

So, we are already trying to eliminate the Arabs. Perhaps not as blatantly as the Nazis, but we've killed about as many as they did.

Re:Let's look in the mirror

[Anonymous Coward]

And jews were far from the only (non-race-specific) group of people that were systematically killed/encamped. Pretty much any alternative and/or freethinking type of person (homosexuals, writers, etc) jewish or not were free for the taking. But you can still compare to parts of the nazi regime without making 100% 1-to-1 links (and calling it Godwin is often a copout - you do not Godwin something by making a valid comparison, you do so by throwing the "nazi-insult" indiscriminantly)

Re:Let's look in the mirror

[Anonymous Coward]

What does Romney have to do with anything? He was talking about the actual president, not a subjunctive one. Bushbama has had 12.5 years so far to reign in NSA, and still hasn't done it. Nobody is suggesting people fix the problem of Republicrats running the government, by voting for Republicrats. I think the idea is that we should stop voting for people like Romney and Obama. Those people are not America's friends.

Re:Let's look in the mirror

[fustakrakich]

Fuck Feingold. He still voted to invade Afghanistan. Barbara Lee is the better choice. She saw through this charade right from the very beginning. She stood entirely alone against this 'authorized use of force' bullshit.

Re:Let's look in the mirror

[Anonymous Coward]

Many many generations ago, kid. Sadly.

Take a look into the history of businesses, government, and labour unions during the various industrial revolutions.

I moved out of the US and got citizenship elsewhere because this writing was on the wall a long time ago. And not out of ignorant fear, either. My background is IT security.

(too funny... my captcha word is "expert" :D )

Re:Let's look in the mirror

[Anonymous Coward]

Obummer could have scaled it back instead of expanding.

Re:Let's look in the mirror

[Archangel Michael]

Take a look at the first ten in the US Constitution, especially #10

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.

Seems fairly limiting. However plenty of people have found wiggle room elsewhere, mostly in the "commerce" clause.

Re:Let's look in the mirror

[phantomfive]

Obama has a lot to do with this. When he came to office, he and his team reviewed it and approved everything that is happening now. That's what he said. Before he came to office, he went out of his way to give telecom companies immunity to this kind of thing. He didn't have to vote for it, but he did.

So yeah, Obama deserves blame as much as anybody. Let's be honest, it's not something Bush decided to do; the NSA came to him and said, "hey, this is a great idea." They would have done the same thing to Obama, and he would have approved it, too.

Re:Let's look in the mirror

[Archangel Michael]

Obama's culpability isn't in starting it. His is distinct, in that he campaigned against these kinds of things, and has done the exact opposite, expanded each and every one of GWB's programs. If you thought GWB was evil, then what are you thinking about Obama?

And please, do not justify bad behavior by pointing to other bad behavior. Do not even distract from what is going on by saying "it isn't Obama's fault", when he's had five years to end this and he has only expanded it. It is just as much Obama's fault as it is GWB, Clinton, GHWB, Reagan, Carter, Ford, Nixon, Johnson, Kennedy ....

EACH has built on the previous, without exception. -- why I am a Libertarian

Re:Let's look in the mirror

[cold fjord]

I think Barbara Lee would be an interesting candidate for the Democrats. Of course she will need a running mate. I think one of the "Pauls" might make an interesting choice. I had long thought a R (Paul (P) /Paul (VP) ) ticket would blend the mutual gravitas and seriousness of the ticket and make it approachable by more voters. With Ron getting too old to run that frees someone to run with Barbara. There might be someone better, but it would be an interesting choice.

Re:Let's look in the mirror

[Gr8Apes]

Which is why we need a new set of amendments - because apparently #4 - being secure in your effects, #1 freedom of assembly, and #9 and #10 together appear to not be strong enough to stop the current nonsense. Note that #9 specifically states that I do have a right to privacy. It is not mentioned anywhere that I do not, therefore I have it by virtue of Amendment 9.

Re:Let's look in the mirror

[cold fjord]

I think this might be what you are looking for.

Why We Spy on Our Allies
Boeing Called A Target Of French Spy Effort

Re:Let's look in the mirror

[cold fjord]

If a president allowed it to be created, a president almost certainly can order it dismantled. Apparently Obama thinks there is a good reason to continue it.

Same thing goes for the drones.

Re:Let's look in the mirror

[Atzanteol]

He's had a lot to do with expanding it. I mean after he closed gitmo, er, stopped the war in, er, made for a more transparent government, er, hrm. HOW was he better than the other option again?

Re:Let's look in the mirror

[cold fjord]

The Articles of Confederation had enough of a run to see that doesn't work. It wasn't viable in the 1780s, it is far less viable now.

Re:Let's look in the mirror

[AHuxley]

So we can look back at this one too http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_bribery_scandals ?
A few French links make US "pre-encryption stage access" all good again?
US rights getting an "end run" in some legal "team sport" sounds likes your rights have a sporting chance rather than any legal standing.

Re:Let's look in the mirror

[cold fjord]

If you look at the post I was responding to you will see that I was providing information on events specifically referenced in it.

As to the law, many people here comment on it, but are unhampered by any meaningful knowledge of it, even in layman's terms. They tend to focus on just a couple of amendments to the Constitution, inflate their meaning beyond recognition, ignore other major parts of it, and banish any court decisions or inconvenient legal doctrines with a wave of the hand. Only the Constitution with still wet ink will do, no messy 224 years of Constitutional jurisprudence and experience in applying it to real situations.

What is more amusing is that many of the people objecting to the government trying to keep them from being blown up are totally in favor of government run healthcare and the massive privacy implications of that. They don't want the possibility of the government even knowing of an email they've sent with the latest sports joke, but are perfectly OK with sharing the names of their sex partners with their doctor, and letting a government doctor cut them open, move bits around, take some things out, put some things in, pump them full of toxic chemicals and irradiate them.

Re:Let's look in the mirror

[gmuslera]

Kermit would had been better. If must be a puppet in that position, is better if look as one. Actively voting for no candidate was the option, very few took it.

Re:Let's look in the mirror

[gum2me]

Picard with the Cardassians?

Re:Let's look in the mirror

[Anonymous Coward]

you are correct.

Echelon was created on Clinton's (D) watch
The NSA Key was on Clinton's (D) watch
CALEA was started on Clinton's (D) watch

Maybe we should vote another Clinton into office.

Re:Let's look in the mirror

[Anonymous Coward]

The PATRIOT Act has zero to do with this, and does not authorize this.

Re:Let's look in the mirror

[ichthus]

No, Darmok and Jelad at Tanagra.

Re:Let's look in the mirror

[Anonymous Coward]

oh ok http://forward.com/articles/155742/jews-are-a-race-genes-reveal/?p=all

Re:Let's look in the mirror

[dryeo]

Genocide was official American policy up until about a century and a half ago. Maybe peaked during the presidency of Andrew Jackson with massive (for the time) forceful use of death camps.

Re:Let's look in the mirror

[dryeo]

What good would more amendments do? Some are pretty clear and yet the courts have no problem neutering them and all up and down this page I see people who interpret People as American Citizen when the constitution is pretty clear with only some political parts depending on citizenship.

Re:Let's look in the mirror

[abuelos84]

Temba! Have your fucking panda pelts and shut up already!

Re:Let's look in the mirror

[Anonymous Coward]

While I agree with you, I also recommend not asserting this around the vast majority of Jews. They do not like it one bit, because their entire cultural identity is wrapped-up in this notion that they are special people. (To be fair, the Ashkenazi do demonstrate some freakish IQ scores.)

Yet, Jews - like the rest of humanity - are just fucking humans with a particular skin pigmentation owing to generations of varying degrees of sun exposure. That Jews' skin tone arises from generations of Mediterranean and Mesopotamian living is apparently of no consequence.

And trust me, the concept of racial and cultural identity matters more to Jews than probably any other social group on the planet. No other group of people spends so much time fretting over what it means to "be a good [group-member label]" as do Jews. But in fairness, when your "race" or "people" have been systematically targeted for genocide throughout history, paranoia about losing one's culture and beliefs is understandable. (That they demand non-Jews - especially Anglo-Saxons - submit to such identity-erasure, however, is unacceptable. They do it through race-baiting techniques (universally adopted by the political left) and force-fed multiculturalism, the latter of which they themselves keep at arm's-length.)

I can say these things as a non-Jew once in a LTR with an anti-Israeli Jew...

(Posting anonymously despite excellent karma, due to ADL risk.)

Re:Let's look in the mirror

[cffrost]

Well as far as I know we haven't systematically started killing a whole race. But give us time, we're working on it.

Just imprisoning and executing, for the time being.

Re:Let's look in the mirror

[sFurbo]

The Nazies weren't killing people because they were from a particular religion or religious culture, they were killing people because they were of a certain ethnicity (or a group of certain ethnicities), so while neither is correct, race is closer to a correct classification. What word would you use to describe the group of people the Nazies called "jews"?

Re:Let's look in the mirror

[Anonymous Coward]

Except the Nazis were interested in killing people who were ethnically Jewish, they didn't care what a person's religious beliefs were. And then there's that whole thing about how if your mother is a Jew, you're automatically considered one too.

Re: Let's look in the mirror

[gordo3000]

Any numbers to back up that ridiculous claim? Or any reasonable argument?

Re:Let's look in the mirror

[tqk]

If a president allowed it to be created, a president almost certainly can order it dismantled.

Of course, there's also the possibility that he's little more than a figurehead. The last time any of your presidents went really loggerheads with the establishment was JFK.

No, I don't consider Kenneth Starre's campaign against presidential blowjobs to be in that league.

Re:Let's look in the mirror

[someSnarkyBastard]

He's assuaged feelings of white guilt for the foreseeable future?

Re:Let's look in the mirror

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, by half at most...

Privacy as a sport

[Anonymous Coward]

If privacy is a "team sport", team evil is doing pretty well. Come one team good, lets get a comeback put together!

Many large and powerful organizations are working together to oppose privacy. Its going to take a serious and somewhat organized effort to fix this.

Re:Privacy as a sport

[im_thatoneguy]

Oh please. Working with a company to lay out how you would tap their technology isn't in of itself anything new. This report might as well say:

Shocking Report: Verizon Works With Law Enforcement on How to Tap Phones!"

The government has been tapping phones since the 1800s. Should we be *shocked* that they would also want to tap Skype phone calls?

Slashdot always whines that lawmakers feel the need to make special laws for old things e.g. "Stealing using a computer!? Isn't that just stealing, why create a new law?" or when people patent "___ with a computer." The double sided twist of that a phone call __using a computer__. Is just as tapable as a phone call using normal copper. Of course companies have to comply with legal wire-tap requests.

Re:Privacy as a sport

[spire3661]

Companies cant design truly secure communications because government thinks that should not be legal. This is a fundamental problem.

Re:Privacy as a sport

[Rougement]

What utter horseshit. M$ and others are private companies, trusted by the public with their personal data. If the NSA or other government agency has a specific need to look at a communication, they are supposed to go to a judge, obtain a warrant, and go to M$ with that authority. That is NOT what has been happening. It's unconstitutional, immoral, and unethical.

Re:Privacy as a sport

[Anonymous Coward]

Shocked? No. Surprised? No. Happy? No. There is nothing surprising here, just another example of the same old problem. That does not mean we should not try and improve the situation.

I'd like the see the government stop trying this kind of thing. I'd also like to see companies stop going along with it (which we won't see until its profitable to do so). I don't expect either of these things to happen. Rather, I'm hoping for a shift to more secure systems and services. For that to happen, the public has to know, and has to care, which, unfortunately, is a very hard thing to get to happen, so I don't expect it either.

Realistically, I think we might get some tools to help paranoid people (like Tor, bitcoin, encrypted email, OTR chat etc) to be slightly more common, more secure and easier to use. That's where I'm putting my effort. I'd like some help though.

Re:Privacy as a sport

[amicusNYCL]

Should we be *shocked* that they would also want to tap Skype phone calls?

Should we be shocked that they would want to? No, not really. Should we be shocked that they actively are, without a warrant? Sort of, yeah.

Re:Privacy as a sport

[0111 1110]

That isn't what the article is about. It is about Microsoft intentionally using a crippled encryption system to encourage a false sense of security and about some further specifics about Microsoft's cooperation with the PRISM blanket surveillance system. Basically more details about how Microsoft completely fucks over their customers and essentially acts as a branch of the NSA.

Re:Privacy as a sport

[gl4ss]

I would view this action from them as illegal anyways.

It doesn't matter if the server is in USA or where.. MS is here, in Finland, selling and marketing this service to me. so they should adhere to our laws about our data. They don't(shouldn't) get out of the data protection and privacy responsibilities by outsourcing some of their work to USA - and if they do that is a dangerous precedent because then you could just dump all our laws about it while they go and put a proxy in some Zimbanaomiland - on principal level that's what they're doing.

Re:Privacy as a sport

[cheekyjohnson]

Should we be shocked that they actively are, without a warrant? Sort of, yeah.

I don't think people should be shocked; the government has been doing this sort of thing for a while, and then there's that whole TSA thing. I do, however, think that people should voice their opposition to such practices.

Re:Privacy as a sport

[NatasRevol]

It wasn't crippled. They just gave the NSA one of the keys.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NSAKEY

Re:Privacy as a sport

[fremsley471]

But this isn't tapping phones as we know it. Did the govt used to open all letters, read and copy them? Did it have thousands of wax cylinders running to record all phones, or have operators employed by the hundreds of thousands to make notes on all conversations?

These mass surveillance campaigns have actually been technically possible for a hundred years, but yet, they haven't "always" been doing it.

Re:Privacy as a sport

[0111 1110]

Nice to know the details, but how is that not crippling it? The whole point of encryption is to keep private data private. If the bad guys can read it without actually cracking it then it seems pretty useless.

Re:Privacy as a sport

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd call that crippled.

Re:Privacy as a sport

[Anonymous Coward]

Having a private party that you do not trust (Microsoft) choose and distribute the keys is the bad thing here. They could have done Skype with end to end encryption and perfect forward secrecy, but its worthless unless you can inspect the end points (the client source) to know that is whats in there.

Now if you do trust Microsoft, then there is no problem here, since they trust the NSA so everyone with your data is fully trusted!

Crippling security to intentionally leave a weak point is a very different thing since it opens it to attack by anyone (not just one company+agency). That is apparently not what happened here.

Re:Privacy as a sport

[CodeBuster]

It is about Microsoft intentionally using a crippled encryption system to encourage a false sense of security

The encryption was not crippled. The problem here is access to keys and it exists with all systems where any intermediary has access to the keys, not just those belonging to Microsoft. I realize that most of us here on Slashdot are technically sophisticated and already know this but it bears repeating for those amongst us who remain unaware. First, no system, no matter what encryption algorithm is used or how strong it is, can prevent somebody with access to the keys from recovering the plaintext. Second, the keys to any cryptography system that's transparent to its users, especially ones running on remote servers "in the cloud", remain in the possession of the entity offering that service, whether Microsoft or any other, and not the users'. Finally, any entity under the direct jurisdiction of the United States, or indeed any other government, can be compelled by force to use those keys to satisfy requests by those governments for information. So it must be understood that if anyone besides you and your intended recipients has access to the keys used to encrypt a message, that communication is not secure against snooping by governments or indeed any other entity that's powerful enough to compel cooperation from those who have those keys.

Re:Privacy as a sport

[Anonymous Coward]

For the most part is accurate, however its not technically true that it has to be that bad. Client side end to end encryption isn't very hard to implement, and with perfect forward secrecy (Diffie–Hellman key exchange would be a good place to start), a company can easily put itself in a position where it can man in the middle connections live with effort, but otherwise does not hold the keys to decrypt any of the streams, even if logged and requested to do so. This can be done in a fully transparent and performant manner.

This can be taken one step further with full client side public keys to defeat requiring trusting the third party to setup the connections (removes MITM threat). That starts to get messy and non transparent though.

Google Chrome Sync offers encryption with a key unknown to Google. Sure its off by default, but you can turn it on and keep that part of your data in the cloud safe. Mega apparently offers similar storage services for general data. "Cloud" does not mean they can access your data. I'll agree though that in almost all cases it gives them full access, and people need to understand this to know how to select services. Skype could offer end to end encryption. They didn't, so look for something else.

Re:Privacy as a sport

[FireFury03]

I would view this action from them as illegal anyways.

It doesn't matter if the server is in USA or where.. MS is here, in Finland, selling and marketing this service to me. so they should adhere to our laws about our data. They don't(shouldn't) get out of the data protection and privacy responsibilities by outsourcing some of their work to USA - and if they do that is a dangerous precedent because then you could just dump all our laws about it while they go and put a proxy in some Zimbanaomiland - on principal level that's what they're doing.

Unfortunately, the T&Cs you agreed to when you signed up for a service almost certainly had a wiaver in them (in the UK, for example, the Data Protection Act forbids companies from exporting your data to a country that doesn't have similar protections unless you agree to waive that right. So of course they just build the waiver into the T&Cs that no one reads and carry on business as usual).

So to some extent, you can say "its your own fault, you agreed to waive your data protection rights when you signed up". However, when *everyone* is doing this then its hard to find a service that does what you need that doesn't require you to waive those rights. For big companies like MS, Google, Apple, etc. that have a multinational presence, it would be nice to legally require them to keep your data within the country and under the domestic data protection regulations. For small businesses this obviously wouldn't be possible.

Re:Privacy as a sport

[FireFury03]

The encryption was not crippled. The problem here is access to keys and it exists with all systems where any intermediary has access to the keys, not just those belonging to Microsoft.

MS have always strongly implied that Skype has end-to-end encryption and it would therefore not be possible to be wiretapped. Correctly implementing end-to-end cryptography would mean that MS wouldn't have the key themselves, and therefore wouldn't be able to hand it over to the NSA - indeed, the communications could only be wiretapped if one of the endpoints themselves leaked the key.

Its now clear that there was never any (robust) end-to-end encryption and that anyone with MS's key can decrypt everything. So MS seems to have implemented a crippled/broken/ill-thought-out encryption system and then misrepresented it as wiretap-proof end-to-end encryption.

Finally, any entity under the direct jurisdiction of the United States, or indeed any other government, can be compelled by force to use those keys to satisfy requests by those governments for information.

Which is why its important that the service provider engineers the protocols so that they _can't_ be coerced into giving up any keys. From the article, it seems that MS worked with the FBI to ensure their protocols were crippled. So the question is - does anyone have the legal authority to force a company like MS to cripple their software to allow snooping, or were MS doing it voluntarilly or under illegal duress?

The take-home from all this largely seems to be: never trust any unauditable software to be secure against governments snooping. Which is, and always has been, obvious. I wonder if there will be a trend towards non-US governments moving away from proprietary US software as a result of all this (like the US is rejecting various Chinese hardware vendors).

Re:Privacy as a sport

[Anonymous Coward]

Why do you think that in 2004, after 3 high level officials threatened to resign over violations of 4th Amendment rights, and the NSA was briefly "in the dark" through restrictions against then-normal practices of grabbing personal information without warrants, that they instead found a way to get the same information by demanding "business records". Businesses have no 4th amendment rights, and companies were compelled to give this information up.

Same end result, just finding a weasel way to accomplish it.

Re:Privacy as a sport

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes you stupid Slashot fucks, that's exactly why they have to work with the NSA. If, in the future, the government wants access to the data, Microsoft is obligated to provide it. So when they bring a new system online (like outlook.com), they are LEGALLY required to make it possible for the NSA to Hoover data from it once the NSA has the warrants, FISA authorizations or what have you.

You fucking Microsoft-hating pantywaists with your clever M$ still have your undies in such a knot over Windows 95 that you don't actually bother to read what the Guardian article actually says. If you know computers, read the damn thing carefully and you'll see that there's nothing particularly egregious there.

Fucking morons like to impotently rage on the internet instead of actually using their mind. You should be outraged by the fact that "M$" is required by law to do these things, but noooo, that would spoil your juvenile penguin-fucking fantasies about Darth Ballmer.

Public Service Announcement

[Anachragnome]

http://cryptome.org/2012/07/gent-forum-spies.htm

Re:Public Service Announcement

[Anonymous Coward]

On a side note, cryptome has some great hints for government employees (in a declassified OSS document available from on their front page):

(1) Demand written orders.

(2) "Misunderstand" orders. Ask endless questions or engage in long correspondence about such orders. Quibble over them when you can.

(3) Do everything possible to delay the delivery of orders. Even though parts of an order may be ready beforehand, don't deliver it until it is completely ready.

(4) Don't order new working materials until your current stocks have been virtually exhausted, so that the slightest delay in filling your order will mean a shutdown.

(5) Order high-quality materials which are hard to get. If you don't get them argue about it. Warn that inferior materials will mean inferior work.

(6) In making work assignments, always sign out the unimportant jobs first. See that the important jobs are assigned to inefficient workers of poor machines.

(7) Insist on perfect work in relatively unimportant products; send back for refinishing those which have the least flaw. Approve other defective parts whose flaws are not visible to the naked eye.

(8) Make mistakes in routing so that parts and materials will be sent to the wrong place in the plant.

(9) When training new workers, give incomplete or misleading instructions.

(10) To lower morale and with it, production, be pleasant to inefficient workers; give them undeserved promotions. Discriminate against efficient workers; complain unjustly about their work.

(11) Hold conferences when there is more critical work to be done.

(12) Multiply paper work in plausible ways. Start duplicate files.

(13) Multiply the procedures and clearances involved in issuing instructions, pay checks, and so on. See that three people have to approve everything where one would do.

(14) Apply all regulations to the last letter.

Re:Public Service Announcement

[dgatwood]

Umm... I thought that was the way government jobs usually work....

Re:Public Service Announcement

[cold fjord]

I consider this an improvement, and have no further comment at this time.

Re:Public Service Announcement

[Charliemopps]

Wow, everyone I work with must have read this. That's crazy.

Re:Public Service Announcement

[D-Fly]

anachragnome - that's a very interesting document. however to me it has the feel of someone speculating about how govt agents might take control of a forum, rather than a real instructional document. Any background info or further knowledge about it?

Re:Public Service Announcement

[cold fjord]

If you view this post of his you will see that he apparently thinks Slashdot staff are NSA plants.

If you view this post of his you will see that he thinks various posters on Slashdot are NSA plants, including me. (You may want to read my reply to that post as well.) You may note that my account isn't from last month - his is actually newer than mine. I doubt that he has revealed everyone that he thinks is a plant.

For whatever it is worth to you, I certainly believe that the government can engage in illegal behavior, and various other forms of overreach and abuse. The IRS scandal in which the IRS admits to having engaged in conduct that is in essence the oppression of the ordinary political opposition to the current administration. That is unacceptable. On the other hand, I also think that preventing terrorist attacks against US citizens and those of America's allies, attacks that could kill thousands, is a good thing, as is the NSA surveillance of people in direct communication with terrorist groups. The law isn't necessarily what people think it is, or should be. I understand that leaves room for dispute. In any event, anachragnome can't abide my views, so obviously I must work for the government, not that you could prove that from my bank account.

Thanks to this NSA mess

[Anonymous Coward]

We have't had to read a single post about Google Glass for weeks now. The NSA is in league with Microsoft, snakry shock posts.....

Re:Thanks to this NSA mess

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree, this is a well-orchestrated attack on Google Glass, they have been planning it since the dawn of the internet and snowden is still an NSA agent working to keep Google Glass out of the news...

Re:Thanks to this NSA mess

[gmuslera]

You are right, who knows how much Google Glass could eventually hurt our privacy if it ever get popular, better forget how Microsoft is widely doing it now.

Hilarious considering the Microsoft marketing

[hsmith]

campaign against Google, attacking Google for "reading your email" for putting ads on the screen.

http://www.theverge.com/2013/2/7/3962794/microsoft-revives-anti-google-scroogled-campaign-to-attack-gmail

Re:Hilarious considering the Microsoft marketing

[mtrachtenberg]

Microsoft: (Violating) your privacy is our priority(, because who doesn't love a police state).

Re:Hilarious considering the Microsoft marketing

[mtrachtenberg]

One of the things that has bugged (oops) me about the NSA news is the assumption that non-US citizens aren't entitled to privacy. Here the NSA doesn't even need a warrant if it guesses (50%+1) that one of the people communicating is non-US. Why any foreign company would want to use a product from a company that can be forced to feed all info to the NSA is beyond my ability to understand but, then again, those paying for the privilege of using Microsoft products have always been a mystery to me.

Re:Hilarious considering the Microsoft marketing

[Artraze]

Yeah, but Google it reading your email to sell you stuff. That's evil.

Microsoft is reading your email to potentially arrest you; but innocent people, of course, have nothing to worry about. That's noble.

So the only hilarity here is how much better MS is at looking out for their users!

Re:Hilarious considering the Microsoft marketing

[Anonymous Coward]

Since when has Microsoft ever has an ad campaign that's been more pleasant than "cringeworthy"?

MS always seems to have akward, out of touch ads. It's like one half of the company doesn't even speak to the other. Remember these gems? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IiVMPgCf6YY

Re:Hilarious considering the Microsoft marketing

[Znork]

The NSA doesn't need any warrant at all if GCHQ does the work. Which it does. So don't worry, US citizens aren't entitled to privacy either.

Re:Hilarious considering the Microsoft marketing

[Anonymous Coward]

campaign against Google, because they're quasi-evil and we're not yet aware of the extent (because they float balloons and pretend to be cool)

Re:Hilarious considering the Microsoft marketing

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft: (Violating) your privacy is our priority(, because who doesn't love a police state).

Don't put "Violating" between parenthesis.

Microsoft : VIOLATING your PRIVACY is our PRIORITY

This should become Microsoft's motto. Even better stamp it on t-shirts, everywhere you can.
Shame the shit out of them. Make them social pariahs. You work at Microsoft ? You're a scumbag no buts no ifs.

Re:Hilarious considering the Microsoft marketing

[Charliemopps]

Uh... I'm fairly certain google is doing the exact same thing as Microsoft.

Re:Hilarious considering the Microsoft marketing

[Dodgy G33za]

But it is not just Microsoft. It is amazon cloud services. It is Google. It is any web based service that has servers in the US. It is any telco any where in the world that has a US telco as a partner.

What has surprised me is that no-one is talking of the harm this is (or should be) doing to US web brands. Especially in Europe given their privacy laws.

I have stopped using Google for search, and am looking for a non-US hosting provider for my web site. Not because I have anything to hide, but because if more people did this the corporations that are co-operating with the NSA, and the shareholders that own then, might then develop some balls.

Re:Hilarious considering the Microsoft marketing

[cold fjord]

campaign against Google, attacking Google for "reading your email" for putting ads on the screen.

If the reports about Outlook.com are true, it seems almost certain that Google faces the same situation. In that case it is a wash between Microsoft and Google for national security purposes, but Google is still scanning for commercial purposes.. Google's scan results are likely to be shared with other corporate entities. Microsoft does have a point.

Re:Hilarious considering the Microsoft marketing

[Anonymous Coward]

The United States Constitution does not differentiate between "American Citizens" and any other people interacting in the United States, or any domestic United States sphere, except in regard to running for and holding government offices. The protections of the United States Constititon apply to all persons who stand under United States Law, or whoseThe United States Constitution does not differentiate between "American Citizens" and any other people interacting in the United States, or any domestic United States sphere, except in regard to running for and holding government offices. The protections of the United States Constititon apply to all persons who stand under United States Law, or whose actions stand under United States Law, where they so stand and where their actions so stand. This means that any foreign person in personal interaction with a United States resident (not only a citizen) where the interaction is relevant to activities occurring or intended to occur in the United States, including illegal activities, is, one, under jurisdiction of the law in and of the United States (and, of course, any political subdivision thereof), and under the protection of the United States Constitution. There is NOT any real or legitimate separate law for an "American" in the United States, or relevant to the United States, and a non-"American". No more than there is a separate law for "Americans" in France, or Germany or Singapore.
In the United States the only separate law is for commercial activities, and only applies (legally and legitimately) to commercial activities specifically and in themselves alone, that is, to the acts of commerce, themselves, in isolation. These distinctions, and differentiations are, obviously, being ignored and disregarded by the present governing apparatus in the United States, which, for its departures from them and the Constitutional restrictions that specify them and engender recognitions of them, is not a legal or legitimate government, or governing apparatus. In fact, per rovisions in the United States Constitution, those responsible for the present governing apparatus's departures, and for perpetrating them, are guilty of Treason, and are subject to capital punishment, after fair trial roofing their illegal actions, and those being intentional and willful. actions stand under United States Law, where they so stand and where their actions so stand. This means that any foreign person in personal interaction with a United States resident (not only a citizen) where the interaction is relevant to activities occurring or intended to occur in the United States, including illegal activities, is, one, under jurisdiction of the law in and of the United States (and, of course, any political subdivision thereof), and under the protection of the United States Constitution. There is NOT any real or legitimate separate law for an "American" in the United States, or relevant to the United States, and a non-"American". No more than there is a separate law for "Americans" in France, or Germany or Singapore.
In the United States the only separate law is for commercial activities, and only applies (legally and legitimately) to commercial activities specifically and in themselves alone, that is, to the acts of commerce, themselves, in isolation. These distinctions, and differentiations are, obviously, being ignored and disregarded by the present governing apparatus in the United States, which, for its departures from them and the Constitutional restrictions that specify them and engender recognitions of them, is not a legal or legitimate government, or governing apparatus. In fact, per rovisions in the United States Constitution, those responsible for the present governing apparatus's departures, and for perpetrating them, are guilty of Treason, and are subject to capital punishment, after fair trial roofing their illegal actions, and those being intentional and willful.

Re:Hilarious considering the Microsoft marketing

[Anonymous Coward]

Spying on furriners is what the NSA is for.
Your government has spy agencies too. And I have no civil rights in your country not to spied on by them.
'Twas always thus.

Re:Hilarious considering the Microsoft marketing

[GrahamCox]

(Violating) your privacy is our priority

Can I suggest that, as a start, a concerted campaign of defacing their ads in public wherever they may be found in this manner is undertaken?

Re:Hilarious considering the Microsoft marketing

[cjc25]

That this is a legal question has escaped many of the newscasters, who as far as I can tell make the mistake of spewing that there's something special about USA citizenship. The executive branch's control over foreign policy gives it a lot of leeway regarding foreign non-USA citizens that it does not have over citizens or in many cases non-USA citizens within the country. Rest assured that your country (I would love to be educated on any exceptions) has similar allowances for its military's commander in chief.

Re:Hilarious considering the Microsoft marketing

[jimicus]

Why any foreign company would want to use a product from a company that can be forced to feed all info to the NSA is beyond my ability to understand

Because most lay people IME already had a sneaking suspicion that governments were doing this routinely - or at least wouldn't be too surprised if they were - and I'm not sure they ever really believed our explanation of "with encryption, not even GCHQ/NSA/James Bond himself can see what's going on".

Thanks to Snowden, we now know that they were right to suspicious.

Re:Hilarious considering the Microsoft marketing

[dryeo]

My countries Bill of Rights explicitly gives most of the rights to legal persons, a few to natural persons and the only ones limited to citizens are voting, holding office in the legislatures and mobility rights (moving around the country or entering and leaving (permanent residents also get most of the mobility rights as well with exceptions involving social programs)). Further our courts have interpreted our right to not be unreasonably searched to actually be a right to privacy and extend to corporations.
Of course our leaders flaunt the rules until the courts set them straight which can take a while and the laws generally only apply in the country.
Our rights are also limited by the first section,

1. The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees the rights and freedoms set out in it subject only to such reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society.

which is why laws against child porn or having laws allowing military secrets are constitutional here unlike the States where the Bill of Rights is constantly broken with the agreement of the courts. eg the First Amendment is pretty simple and doesn't allow any limits on speech or gathering of people yet you have laws against allowing Snowden to talk and laws about free speech zones.

Re:Hilarious considering the Microsoft marketing

[Anonymous Coward]

Today I decided that enough is enough.

I have to use Skype because my friends do, but now I'll be actively looking for a replacement (true P2P) and moving them over. In the mean time I cancelled all payment options to Skype and cleared out my profile. I know, I know, it's all still there on the server, but at least it's not active and it sure as hell won't be updated. I am even considering making a new account and moving my essential contacts over and just deleting the old one. Fuck you Microsoft and NSA.

Next step, Windows can not be trusted, and I will treat it as I would any warez or code from an unknown source.

I'm going to install Linux Mint (or Debian, decision will be made in the next couple of days) on my computers. Unfortunately, I still need access to Windows for my development contracts. So Windows goes in a virtual machine, which once set up and updated, gets blocked from the net. The way I set this up is to give read access to my files to the virtual machine, but it can only write to a drop box. This is a good compromise for me between convenience and security. Again, this is just a compromise. If the Windows machine was truly untrusted then it could spend all its time indexing and scanning my files, then, the one time I give it web access to update (for example) then it beams the lot to NSA...but it's better than what I have now.

And I know virtual machines aren't perfect and there are known exploits. But what is a regular person supposed to do? I figure at least trying in this way is going to minimise my personal data leaks.

The world is changing, MS is going to fall* and we need to maintain a flexible attitude to software and operating systems. Be an OS renaissance man or woman, as fragmentation is on its way!!

*feel free to disagree about this, but it's not the main point of this post.

Re:Hilarious considering the Microsoft marketing

[Anonymous Coward]

As a non-US citizen, I believe that the US government has less right to read my emails than those belonging to US citizens.

Tired

[tsa]

I'm getting a bit tired of news like this. Can we just conclude that the NSA listens to and collects as much data as it can from the US's allies as well as their enemies? And that the US's allies probably have known that for a long time but now Snowden has reveiled it they have to act surprised and angry so their citizens don't panick?

Re:Tired

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't forget US citizens who are being monitored as well.

Re:Tired

[PhxBlue]

I'm getting a bit tired of news like this.

That's the danger in fighting a bureaucracy that's overstepped its bounds: Bureaucracies don't get tired. Outraged private citizens do.

Re:Tired

[spire3661]

WE have known this for a long time, the average citizen has not.

Re:Tired

[im_thatoneguy]

Governments have been tapping phone lines since the 1800s. Why should I suddenly be shocked and dismayed that they are tapping the modern equivalent.

It's like the stupidity over drones. Police agencies have been flying helicopters since the helicopters were invented but suddenly if it's unmanned OMGZ POLICE STATE!

Re:Tired

[Anonymous Coward]

Citizens do not have infinite funds/time, nor can they take the funds/imprison/ruin the life of the opposing side at pretty much a whim. Governments, States, 3letter agencies, etc on the other hand...

Re:Tired

[Anonymous Coward]

Knowing having proof.

Thanks to Snowden, we have the proof.

Re:Tired

[Anonymous Coward]

Governments have been tapping phone lines since the 1800s. Why should I suddenly be shocked and dismayed that they are tapping the modern equivalent.

Because they probably weren't tapping your phone before. From the 1800s up until the mid-2000s a wiretap was targeted at an individual or small group of individuals. There were abuses, but if you weren't smuggling drugs or running an organized crime syndicate, it was very, very unlikely that your phone was ever tapped. These days, they listen to everything: the contents of all phone calls, all internet traffic.

So why should you be shocked and dismayed? Because you and hundreds of millions of others who were never spied on are now being spied on, for no significant benefit.

Re:Tired

[0111 1110]

Even if you are not shocked because you were already wearing your tin foil hat you should still be angry about your government violating the human rights of not only Americans but every other person on the planet who uses email, instant messaging, telephones, or text messaging. Unless of course you are actually in favor of a 1984-ish government who watches every move you make and every breath you take. Is that really how you want to live?

Re:Tired

[Anonymous Coward]

Governments have been tapping phone lines since the 1800s. Why should I suddenly be shocked and dismayed that they are tapping the modern equivalent.

One at at time, with a warrant, without the phone company making special provision and/or re-designing their product to make it easier for law enforcement.

That's the one thing that I think we've forgotten. The constitution is set up DELIBERATELY to make it hard for police, so that they don't bother the innocent in their zeal to get the guilty. We've completely swung the other way - make it easy for police to gather as much as possible, even if we "accidentally" inconvenience, harass, monitor, and otherwise mess with the innocent.

Re:Tired

[Charliemopps]

A Helicopter costs at least $5 million, and that's before the fancy spotlights and night vision. A drone costs $2000 and will probably come down to under a few hundred in the very near future. That's the difference. A major metropolitan police force may have 1 or 2 helicopters tops. In 20 years drones will likely outnumber police in departments. Imagine squadrons of them with face recondition software combing the skies over your town. That's exactly what will be going on in short order if laws aren't passed. Oh yea, and all those drone feeds will assuredly be recorded and kept by the NSA. Nationwide, real-time, camera surveillance nearly everywhere. With cameras that can move on command to any point at anytime. Cameras that can run autonomously, find an individual, track them, follow their car, and that's before we get to the scary stuff.

Re:Tired

[Anonymous Coward]

So, basically Half-Life 2.

Re:Tired

[Ven1ger]

Predator drones cost about $4 million each.

Repair/maintenance of running one of these drones cost about $2500-$3500 per hour of use. The global Hawk cost $30000 per hour for repair/maintenance.

Re:Tired

[Anonymous Coward]

WE have known this for a long time, the average citizen has not.

No you haven't. You've strongly suspected it for a long time. NOW you know it.

Re:Tired

[Engeekneer]

What would you have people do? "Yeah, they spy on every aspect of my life, next week they come and install the showercams, that's ok.."

Screw that. I'm from Europe, and I find these actions horribly offensive, I already moved away from skype and gmail (not /. yet though).

What I'd really like is for European countries to strongly step in here. And screw the US reply that "We will respond to the European concerns via official channels". Oh that makes me so happy, since this only affect politicians. I wish someone in Europe (sure, we're not all innocent either) would have the balls to reveal anything the US reveals to them. Then possibly start suing american companies for violations of European privacy law.

This whole thing is in no way ok, and as much as possible should be dragged out into daylight, and hopefully get enough outrage that there will be people thrown in jail for it.

But I'm sorry, you must be getting tired. I should stop.

Re:Tired

[Anonymous Coward]

It's unmanned surveillance. Take the "man" out, and you can abuse rights using algorithms.

Re:Tired

[PhxBlue]

Exactly.

Re:Tired

[im_thatoneguy]

So I should be against it because it's more affordable and effective?

That's like saying we should keep the police on horses because cars are cheaper and more efficient!

Re:Tired

[im_thatoneguy]

To listen to US citizens' conversations they still need a warrant.

There were only about 1,000-2,000 given to the FBI for prism data last year.

Re:Tired

[im_thatoneguy]

They still need a warrant.

Heh

[Anonymous Coward]

Boy, MS PR reps going to have a field day with this.

Funny too, considering how they just moved everyone off hotmail to skype.

Team Sport by NSA...

[Anonymous Coward]

Reminds me of a certain goat related website which portraited a 'giver' (NSA) and a 'taker' (MS).

Re:Team Sport by NSA...

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you saying the NSA has a massively oversized penis? If anything, I'd say their data centers are compensating.

This shows why encryption can't win

[Chris Mattern]

Because only people who are tech-savvy enough to run it for themselves can benefit. Letting someone else handle it for you doesn't work.

Re:This shows why encryption can't win

[Rougement]

I disagree. This has become so high profile, I'd bet we'll be seeing some OSS, cross-platform, easy to implement encryption solutions pretty soon. The tech is there, it's the ease of use and mindshare that need to catch up.

Re:This shows why encryption can't win

[gl4ss]

Because only people who are tech-savvy enough to run it for themselves can benefit. Letting someone else handle it for you doesn't work.

hmm? it shows that encryption can win.

encryption that's provided by others is useless, that's the point. encryption works so they have to go through the people who hold the keys.

it's a big fucking loss for MS though. big companies can't trust them with shit now, they can't know if USA prefers their competitor to them for political reasons, so they have no idea if all their research would be going to their competitor straight away... which is sort of funny considering that USA has bitched about the chinese doing exactly just that for years(make no mistake spying europe and china is just about that... money and giving unfair trade advantage to random companies they deem worthy).

Re:This shows why encryption can't win

[Anonymous Coward]

Like GnuPG?

I, for one,

[mandark1967]

welcome our email and chat reading overlords and I dare them to decrypt my ROT13 encoded emails...suckers.

If it's good enough for SCO, it's good to go.

Re:I, for one,

[Anonymous Coward]

dare them to decrypt my ROT13 encoded emails

Hmmph! I'm twice as good as you -- I use DOUBLE ROT-13!

Re:I, for one,

[Anonymous Coward]

ROT13? Pssht, upgrade to ROT26 today!

Re:I, for one,

[Anonymous Coward]

I've invented an even better encryption algorithm: ROT -13. I suggest you transition at your earliest convenience.

Worth a look

[Rougement]

I've been following these revelations pretty closely but I didn't come across this until now, well worth a look: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6m1XbWOfVk (Interview with Russell Tice, another NSA whistleblower)

Re:Worth a look

[gmuslera]

Let the blackmailing games begin. Snooping all the information means that any people with access to that (and that means at least 5 millon) can use them for blackmailing anyone, foreigners and americans, from the lowest employee to Obama (as point the video). Give them enough power, and they will have power over you. Any chain is weak as if even the strong links can be blackmailed.

Re:Worth a look

[Rougement]

True. They (Tice suggests top NSA and the office of the then-VP Cheney) didn't bank on all of this getting out though. It's easy to threaten one person with blackmail but if enough of those in power stand up to the NSA, then what? There would be one hell of a lot of sudden "anonymous leaks" to the papers. Who knows how deep that rabbit hole would go? Blackmail certainly does tally with Obama's actions thus far, not to mention his complete 180 degree turn on these issues shortly after being sworn in.

Re:Worth a look

[SpaceLifeForm]

Lots of congresscritters, and more obviously, the DOJ. The DOJ has continually went the wrong direction now for decades. Blackmail explains a lot.

Re:Worth a look

[hazeii]

Also well worth watching - and learning from - is the talk by Nicholas Merrill at 27C3 (it's the tale of how he received a National Security Letter, and fought it - he's the "John Doe" in the ACLU vs.Ashcroftcase

Shame on the 200,000+ recipients of these letters who just bowed down.

Re:Worth a look

[Anonymous Coward]

This broadcast is captured from RT.com (Russia Today) which is a bit ironic...

This is going to lead to serious Lawsuits!!!

[dryriver]

MS Outlook/Hotmail/Skype has tens of millions of users in 190+ countries around the world. If MS handed ALL OF THAT PRIVATE INFO to the NSA while pretending NOT TO DO PRECISELY THAT, this is the beginning of the end for MS in this market segment. I've had a Hotmail account for over a decade, and I'm seriously pissed that MS made my private emails accessible to the NSA. ---- I hope that Microsoft gets fucked forwards, backwards and sideways for doing this by its loyal customers. I sure as hell won't be using Hotmail/Outlook for anything confidential anymore. ---- To Microsoft's executives: You are a bunch of reckless, lying, cheating, incompetent assworms pretending to be human beings. I hope you lying, backstabbing fucksticks get 20+ year jail sentences for what you have done to innocent users of your email products.

Re:This is going to lead to serious Lawsuits!!!

[Rougement]

Not just M$, there are so many companies and quite a few governments involved. Once the first ruling goes badly for these guys, the floodgates will open and everybody will want a piece of the action.

Re:This is going to lead to serious Lawsuits!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Except once the floodgates are opened the government will grant them retroactive immunity.

Law? What law?

Re:This is going to lead to serious Lawsuits!!!

[Rougement]

At that point, I doubt there will be a government left to grant immunity.

Re:This is going to lead to serious Lawsuits!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

the fix: run your own https text chat server: https://bitbucket.org/hroll/alternative-f-r-unschuldige

Re:This is going to lead to serious Lawsuits!!!

[mu51c10rd]

I think it would be naive to conclude that only Microsoft is providing this access to the US government. I would look at foreign sites to escape from the NSA (and perhaps we instead perused by that host country's intelligence service instead).

Re:This is going to lead to serious Lawsuits!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

I have a (naive and vague) hope that the eurozone will start making requirements of these companies if they operate in eu. at least eurocountries for the most part are slightly less corporate whores than usa (or at least are whoring for smaller local companies ;-) It just _might_ improve the situation slightly if they can not operate as freely in europe (but yeah, im probably dreaming)

Re:This is going to lead to serious Lawsuits!!!

[gl4ss]

Except once the floodgates are opened the government will grant them retroactive immunity.

Law? What law?

well.. thing is.. american government can't grant them immunity for breaking the law abroad. or they can, but the other governments aren't likely to accept that - and since MS unlike NSA operatives has to keep operating(to generate profit) abroad.

think about it, would american government accept that snowden has immunity because hong kong would say so? fuck no. so why should it go the other way when the culprit is MS?

Re:This is going to lead to serious Lawsuits!!!

[Tom]

I sure as hell won't be using Hotmail/Outlook for anything confidential anymore.

If you did before, you're an idiot. (I'm talking about outlook.com here, not the software of the same name).

I hope you lying, backstabbing fucksticks get 20+ year jail sentences for what you have done to innocent users of your email products.

My bets are strongly on nobody getting anything, at least as far as legal consequences go. These people have been busy building and buying themselves immunity from the law for the past 20 years.

Re:This is going to lead to serious Lawsuits!!!

[phantomfive]

MS Outlook/Hotmail/Skype has tens of millions of users in 190+ countries around the world. If MS handed ALL OF THAT PRIVATE INFO to the NSA while pretending NOT TO DO PRECISELY THAT, this is the beginning of the end for MS in this market segment.

Why? How many people do you think are going to care enough to switch to another chat client? Chances are if they're using Skype in the first place, they don't care about that kind of thing.

Re:This is going to lead to serious Lawsuits!!!

[Tom]

well.. thing is.. american government can't grant them immunity for breaking the law abroad. or they can, but the other governments aren't likely to accept that - and since MS unlike NSA operatives has to keep operating(to generate profit) abroad.

Over here in Europe, we are already talking about the "long arm of the USA", and even the mainstream media is wondering out aloud why our governments keep so quiet and friendly.

I would be really, really surprised if any serious consequences would come to anyone high in the hierarchy. There might be a few pawn sacrifices, but the fact that our government doesn't go absolutely ballistic over this alone is proof enought that nothing serious will happen.

Re:This is going to lead to serious Lawsuits!!!

[deanklear]

Why? How many people do you think are going to care enough to switch to another chat client? Chances are if they're using Skype in the first place, they don't care about that kind of thing.

Once there is solid evidence that the NSA has worked with US Government agencies to install and exploit backdoors, and this looks like pretty good evidence, there is no direction but down. It's common knowledge that the NSA is very open and communicative with the corporate sector.

If you're a foreign corporation out of Taiwan or Brazil or Wherever, passing even day-to-day information using Microsoft products becomes risky. How can you be sure that your data isn't getting dumped into some NSA system and then made available to co-conspirators?

The NSA isn't getting this access for free. If they're coercing corporations like Yahoo to comply with broad destruction of civil liberties, some of those corporations have sold out and traded for the stolen R&D of other companies, or huge tax breaks. That's where the real story is, and one we probably won't ever get to read.

In any case, if you're a foreign corporation or government, using ANY Microsoft product just become a giant liability. Given that was already practically the case after Stuxnet, but now you'd have to be a complete fool to trust Microsoft with any of your data and expect it to remain private.

Re:This is going to lead to serious Lawsuits!!!

[phantomfive]

Good point, this may cause foreign companies to not trust Microsoft anymore.

Re:This is going to lead to serious Lawsuits!!!

[L4t3r4lu5]

Email is not confidential. It can be read in whole by any intermediary server between the source and destination, unless encrypted. I am at a loss as to why people don't treat it as its postal service allegory: A post card.

It has ever been this way, and is nothing new. People who send confidential information via unencrypted email simply don't know how email works.

Re:This is going to lead to serious Lawsuits!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

This is it guys, the end of Microsoft.

It won't happen instantly, but things are going to change.

Is Linux ready to step up and fill the gap? I mean, it's in the *perfect* position to do so, especially as trust in all of the big US IT companies is going to slide quite hard. A foreign government or corporation can take the Linux distro of their choice, audit it, and declare it "safe" for their users.

Exciting times!!

Re:This is going to lead to serious Lawsuits!!!

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

The government granted immunity already to phone companies feeding them 100% of phone calls without a warrant already.

Except...government cannot grant immunity to unconstitutional activity it has no authority to do to begin with. Like me granting immunity for my dog to bite you.

Is this news?

[Anonymous Coward]

Is this just a rehash of things we already know? Or is there new documents that I can't seem to find in TFA?

Re:Is this news?

[Rougement]

From the Twitter of Glenn Greenwald: "When there are actual NSA docs we're using for our stories, we have published them - MS story is from an internet NSA bulletin system."

Death of US tech industry?

[Anonymous Coward]

After this, can't see anyone outside the US adopting any tech product from a US company unless there is absolutely no choice. Has destroying the US tech industry made us safer?

Re:Death of US tech industry?

[Anonymous Coward]

Unfortunately most of the world are exactly like the US when it comes to ignorance of the masses and governmental/corporate interrests - while we love to insult you americans, in the grand scheme of things we are just as bad(/good)

Re:Death of US tech industry?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, once the US is third world and ruined, without an army to speak of (and no base in Saudi Arabia), the terrorists will be happy and leave USA alone.
So I'd say, yes, pretty effective - yet unconventional - way to make US safer.

Microsoft products are for dumbasses

[Anonymous Coward]

That's their history since the beginning: spreading computers among retards who can barely handle a TV remote.

Makes one wonder..

[DigitAl56K]

.. if Microsoft bought Skype in order to provide access, and if any $ changed hands.

Re:Makes one wonder..

[wiredlogic]

Why do you think eBay bought them? It helped connect Skype and PayPal accounts together. There is really no other logical reason why an auction / wire transfer service would be interested in video chat.

Re:Makes one wonder..

[icebike]

Why do you think eBay bought them? It helped connect Skype and PayPal accounts together. There is really no other logical reason why an auction / wire transfer service would be interested in video chat.

Wait, what? You believe that?
I've never known skype or video chat to be useful or used at all with ebay shoppers.

The price eBay payed was so astronomical that it could only have been with back-door funding from the Government.

The point was to get Skype out of Estonian hands because there was no reliable way for the NSA to tap into it. Even if they managed to break the encryption they couldn't handle the peer-to-peer routing. It was something they had to either shut down, or buy up.

Ebay turned out to be an incompetent partner, so the government stepped up to the only company that was interested, and I suspect they paid for the Microsoft purchase from ebay, and paid for asure in the process.

Re:Makes one wonder..

[jtnix]

totally off topic, love your sig, but I think it could be even geekier as "I am becoming gerund, destroying verbs."

Re:Makes one wonder..

[Anonymous Coward]

and what about Bing + Facebook?

Re:Makes one wonder..

[bill_mcgonigle]

The price eBay payed was so astronomical that it could only have been with back-door funding from the Government. The point was to get Skype out of Estonian hands because there was no reliable way for the NSA to tap into it.

<neo>whoa</neo>

Pre-encryption

[fokrann]

Great - another problem to add to my next doctor visit list.

Free kick in the nards!!!

[Rougement]

... for the first person to post that they've known this was happening for years and that anybody who didn't is a moron.

Re:Free kick in the nards!!!

[Thud457]

hey, on the plus side, it looks like all this NSA kerfluffle has silenced those idiots that always trot out

if you're not doing anything wrong, you don't have anything to worry about.

Re:Free kick in the nards!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

I am not going to post about knowing this, but can I have a free kick in the nards anyways? My dominatrix is out of town for a couple of weeks.

Re:Free kick in the nards!!!

[guitardood]

I knew this was happening, warned people, and anyone who didn't know is a moron!!!

BTW, YEOWWW!! my nards are hurting :)

Re:Free kick in the nards!!!

[Rougement]

Not all of those idiots: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lWam4EWI48M

Re:Free kick in the nards!!!

[MickLinux]

Well, still, if you didn't vote, you don't have any right to complain.

Re:Free kick in the nards!!!

[MickLinux]

Well, if you voted for the guy who's in office right now, what are you complaining about? You got what you wanted.

If you voted for someone who didn't get elected, I guess you just didn't try hard enough. You got a fair shake--complaints not allowed.

Re:Free kick in the nards!!!

[0111 1110]

Both major parties are 100% in favor of this stuff. Voting one way or the other would have changed nothing. Voting for a third party candidate would not have changed anything either for obvious reasons.

Re:Free kick in the nards!!!

[Kjella]

You just don't like it when the tin foil hat brigade is right, first you ridicule them for years then give them a kick in the nuts for saying "I told you so?" Besides, the only thing Americans are crying about is that they're spying on their own not the 6.7 billion other people on the planet so I'll continue to assume that the NSA wants to read my mail. In fact, I should probably assume that every other country in the world would like to read my email even if ours doesn't - which is by no means certain. That should be the real wake-up call around the world, not that Americans are spying on their own that's more of a "local" problem, but how they want and are spying on ordinary people everywhere else.

Re:Free kick in the nards!!!

[BlueStrat]

I knew this was happening, warned people, and anyone who didn't know is a moron!!!

BTW, YEOWWW!! my nards are hurting :)

Did you mean "Ow, My Balls!"?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wAg1r6zw7Bg

Strat

Re:Free kick in the nards!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, if you voted for the guy who's in office right now, what are you complaining about? You got what you wanted.

In Obama's America, the administration transparencies YOU?

Re:Free kick in the nards!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

I've been publicly known to avoid Skype as much as possible (going so far as making sure it is not running on my system when I'm not video conferencing on it) for these exact reasons. When I say this, I'm typically met with disbelief. This recent revelation will likely not change people's attitudes.

Re:Free kick in the nards!!!

[cffrost]

Well, still, if you didn't vote, you don't have any right to complain.

Bullshit; the First Amendment's protection isn't limited to voters, and these on-going violations (of the Fourth Amendment and UDHR, for starters) go beyond the confines of partisan politics. These issues affect everyone, and everyone has a right — if not a duty — to complain about them.

Re:Free kick in the nards!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, because voting for 1 of 2 people that are privately on the same side, with the same agenda, gives more weight to your opinion. "If you didn't vote, you don't have any right to complain" is just a sound bite the same people gave you to perpetuate the illusion of choice. And here you are, gleefully repeating it.

Team sport, eh?

[Khyber]

Then I guess we can easily kill every agent involved in this game of treason, since they would count as enemies to the state in this point and frame of reference.

So, here's how it goes, boys and girls.

I pay you $250,000 for every dead FBI and NSA agent plus pay your defense bills since I have the cash to do so.

After all, it's just a 'game' yes?

Re:Team sport, eh?

[Rougement]

You might want to edit that. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/27/teenager-justin-carter-facebook-comment-jail_n_3512025.html I charge $100,000 for prank calling them though.

What's that painful cramp between your ears?

[davide marney]

The vendors say they obey the law, respond only to direct requests for information, review those carefully, and then decided what data to release.

But how is that possible if the data is being hoovered? Would the "direct request" be something on the order of, "gives me all your data -- all of it, on everyone", in which case, that thoughtful review and careful decision is a MEANINGLESS exercise.

When the state has ultimate power, it drains the normal meanings of words. Even saying something like, "we are a nation of laws, not men" is meaningless in the face of such categorical activity. When the government is that intrusive, what's legal is whatever it wants it to be.

That's the problem. If I were a plucky startup, I would be busy getting together a technical response to this. Clearly, everyone needs to be able to encrypt everything BEFORE it gets into the hands of any information provider.

Re:What's that painful cramp between your ears?

[phantomfive]

The vendors say they obey the law, respond only to direct requests for information, review those carefully, and then decided what data to release.

You have to be careful with this kind of wording.....when they say they review them carefully, they aren't reviewing to see if it's a violation of someone's privacy, or if the request is really valid.

All they are reviewing is to make sure releasing the info won't get them sued. They're not thinking of the end user in that case.

Re:What's that painful cramp between your ears?

[Anonymous Coward]

You DID see the Verizon subpoena that started all of this, right? It was a court order that mandated Verizon allow "hoovering" of their data. This was a legal (ok, let's not go there just yet) mandate from a United States federal court whose decisions cannot be appealed or even argued against.

When faced with that kind of order, what's a company to do? The law forbids them even from discussing it.

The real issue here isn't corporate kowtowing to the government. The real issue is that our government is no longer obeying its own laws.

Re:What's that painful cramp between your ears?

[wannabgeek]

I'ven't followed it, but if what you said is right, then the biggest culprit here is the federal court.

not me

[batistuta]

With all respect, I don't want to stop hearing these news. Because I want *confirmation* of every single thing that the US has done against people's freedom. I don't want to be considered a tinfoil hat paranoid anymore. I want proof, so no one can neglect later, about how fascist he US has become. And just because it was suspected, it doesn't mean that it is ok and we can just keep going with our lives as if nothing had happened. I want to see people resign, and I want to see people get spit at publicly, and ideally --even if it's never gonna happen-- I'd like to see people going to jail not only for having violated the most basic human rights, but for trying to brainwash the uneducated into believing that this is the correct approach to protect US's national security.

Scroogled again!

[stewsters]

At least I didn't get Scroogled. Oh wait. That's exactly what happened.

Re:Scroogled again!

[Anonymous Coward]

At least I didn't get Scroogled. Oh wait. That's exactly what happened.

Google's new ads: "Okay, seriously, you guys, is getting a free service for some targeted ads REALLY that bad? Really?"

Re:Scroogled again!

[Anonymous Coward]

Best comment I've read on this thread! Sums it up with a nice bow on top.

Terms of Service

[hort_wort]

Interpreting the lawyer-fied terms of service reveals that Microsoft has been hinting at this kind of thing for a while. That's fun. http://tosdr.org/#microsoft

Alternative Für Unschuldige Text Chat

[Anonymous Coward]

Indeed. The state wants to build a profile of 100% of the population. EVERYbody has a secret police file by now.

Use Alternative Für Unschuldige to make your text chats private again:

https://bitbucket.org/hroll/alternative-f-r-unschuldige

Traffic Analysis can be defeated using a TOR Hidden Service for the server.

If you don't understand the German, let NSA translate it for you a t translate.google.com. NSA always had the best translators, you know.

Well

[pr0fessor]

Since my MS live account is generally only used to catch spam... I wonder how much this is costing me in tax dollars.

fuck every ms stooge

[Anonymous Coward]

Saw an ad in the UK that said "microsoft makes your privacy our priority" hahahahaha! Bill gates should be stabbed in the eye with a fork and raped with a toaster

Re:fuck every ms stooge

[nurb432]

I don't like Gates anymore than the next guy, but hes not there anymore, or have you heard?

Re:fuck every ms stooge

[Anonymous Coward]

report false advertising in the UK here
http://www.asa.org.uk/Consumers/How-to-complain.aspx

they are obliged to respond to every complaint so make it count

Re:fuck every ms stooge

[Demonoid-Penguin]

I don't like Gates anymore than the next guy, but hes not there anymore, or have you heard?

Gates? Son of who?

Oh the guy who started his company with a lot of luck - more "luck" than Gary Kildall anyway (and better due diligence than IBM's legal department). I'm guessing you haven't read Gary Kildall's book - oh wait....

Re:fuck every ms stooge

[nurb432]

Thats nice. It had nothing to do with my comment. ( and yes, i was around back then i actually do know what happened. but again, its not relevant to my comment )

Business model for the free stuff

[transporter_ii]

On top of advertising, they get to charge the federal government to snoop on us:

What the government pays to snoop on you

Every wonder how some of these startups were actually making money? I think we have stumbled upon their business model.

Re:Business model for the free stuff

[Anonymous Coward]

On top of advertising, they get to charge the federal government to snoop on us: What the government pays to snoop on you Every wonder how some of these startups were actually making money? I think we have stumbled upon their business model.

I heard about that on the radio this morning. It's nothing new. Do people honestly think companies should be providing wire taps for free?

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Re:Business model for the free stuff

[Anonymous Coward]

Our tax being funneled directly into the pockets of companies.
Can't say it's new, can't say I'm surprised either.

Put up and shut up.

[Anonymous Coward]

Everyone with eyes knew it would probably be large. It appears that it's really quite fscking large. And nobody can be trusted. The NSA and its international friends turned the whole world into their spying playpen, and now it's come out.

This is so large that it needs the full population to stand up against. And for that, the full population must be informed, and taught to understand just how unbelievably bad it is for society, now and in the future. And for that, the message bears repeating, explaining, expounding until it sinks in. And since it is so unbelievably staggeringly large, it takes a lot of sinking in. In fact, it needs to be hammered in.

And that'll take a while. So quit your complaining and help the world understand what is obvious for us but not for so many other people yet. They still don't believe it. They still don't want to believe it. But they have to. Go out and spread the message.

The older companies just roll over

[Anonymous Coward]

The trend is that the more established a company is, the more willing they are to roll over for government requests for this kind of info. Thus, you see the telephone companies leading the vanguard, and providing straight fiber optic taps, daily dumps of all of their call records, and handy "self serve" websites for government types to get realtime and historic info. They just get beat into submission over time, there is the revolving door between government and industry that greases the wheels a bit (friends on both sides), and any cost of finding outweighs any profits for a given customer. Microsoft has been around for a while, and apparently plays game.

Another trend is that as access to this info becomes easier and more automated, the government is pulling in more and more of this information. For example, shortly after providing a web portal for this purpose, Sprint Nextel provided law enforcement agencies with its customers' (GPS) location information over 8 million times between September 2008 and October 2009, a volume which a Sprint exec said could not have been handled previously by their team of people.

Bing'd: New term for the American lexicon!

[guitardood]

Bing'd: getting caught by law enforcement thanks to the ever helpful and ever present folks of the SS.....I mean MS.

(i.e. My neighbor got bing'd for skyping to a friend that he was he was still watering his lawn despite the water ration.)

Re:Bing'd: New term for the American lexicon!

[Anonymous Coward]

Good call... Please add it to Urban Dictionary.

Re:Bing'd: New term for the American lexicon!

[Anonymous Coward]

That didn't happen though right?

Re:Bing'd: New term for the American lexicon!

[guitardood]

Ten years ago it would have been considered as ridiculous as having to remove one's shoes prior to boarding a plane, so you never know.

Re:Bing'd: New term for the American lexicon!

[Anonymous Coward]

Ten years ago was 2003, and they were already making us do that then. Fifteen years, though...

Re:Bing'd: New term for the American lexicon!

[guitardood]

10...15... after I hit 40, they all seem to blend together anyway :)

You are right, though.

Xbox One designed by the NSA

[Anonymous Coward]

The NSA has a hole in their coverage, and Bill Gates has promised to fill this hole. Your HOME is the hole.

The Xbox One has a system called Kinect, but your understanding of what Kinect actually is is probably VERY faulty indeed. Kinect refers to a cluster of sensors.

1) A high-definition, wide-angle camera whose resolution is good enough to at least identify the bigger print on your reading material at a distance. The books, magazines and newspapers in the same room as the console will be mostly recognisable.
2) A high-definition, wide-angle infra-red camera that allows continued spying on the contents of the room in low light or actual darkness (the Kinect has infra-red LED illumination ability)
3) A high-end microphone array that can track multiple conversations and/or sound from adjoining rooms in many types of homes
4) A body motion recognising "3D depth camera". Kinect was made famous for its ability to track the 'motion' of the Human body, and the Kinect 2 system that comes with the console does this vastly more effectively than the first version that was an optional peripheral for the Xbox360.

Now, the NSA have designed Kinect 2 to use a full 25% of the hardware processing capabilities of the Xbox One ***AT ALL TIMES***. Kinect has its own OS, exclusive use of a significant chunk of the RAM and HDD storage, dedicated hardware blocks for motion detection and video compression/streaming, and uses 2 from the 8 CPU cores.

- the NSA Kinect spying cannot be switched off. If Kinect sensors are not connected, powered, or are broken, no application or game will run on the console.

- taping over the camera lenses or pointing Kinect at a wall is immediately recognised as 'illegal' behaviour by the console and EVERY official app/game released for the console. Any non-Kinect game, for instance, will IMMEDIATELY warn the user that Kinect needs 'recalibrating' on all menu, option, status and pause screens. Even non-Kinect games are required as a condition of meeting Microsoft's 'quality' standards to use Kinect EVERYWHERE except in the main gaming sections.

-every Xbox One, by unstoppable default, monitors everyone that enters and leaves the room, and takes a full-face photograph of each person. This data is uploaded to NSA servers at least once a day, or whenever the console is next connected to the Internet.

-the NSA and other authorised agencies receives a list in real-time of every online Xbox One. Anyone of these consoles can be remotely instructed to immediately begin streaming a video feed from the Kinect system. Should a console prove to have the Kinect NOT facing the room, an NSA agent can actually instruct that particular console to pester the owner in a much more aggressive manner, including halting apparent non-Kinect gameplay for an immediate 're-calibration' of Kinect. The idea is that some targets will be thick enough (or the user will be the child of a target desperate to continue gaming) to give up their privacy concerns so that the console will work 'normally' again.

-any Xbox One can be told to capture data in any programmable pattern (say a full snaphot of the room every-time a person enters or leaves) and to hold this data on the HDD for later uploading, if this proves necessary (say the users only connects to the Internet occasionally or the bandwidth must be disguised).

-any Xbox One can be given a long list of 'trigger' conditioned that activate patterns of explicit data collection from Kinect. Say a gunshot, certain people entering the room, or certain 'patterns' of conversation (shouting, speaking Arabic, for instance).

-no matter how hard the user THINKS he is pushing the Xbox One (say by playing the latest graphic intensive shooter), Kinect still can operate at 100% of full function. As I said earlier, Kinect is essentially a fully independent computing system, with its own EXCUSIVE resources that no game or app can ever requisition (not only does the Sony PS4 lack any NSA spy function, but games and apps can requisition almost

Important?

[Okian Warrior]

I'm getting a bit tired of news like this...

Slashdot is the hangout for exceptionally smart people, a lot of whom think that this situation presents a grave danger.

Granted, you don't have to agree with a lot of exceptionally smart people, but to ask them to stop worrying over something they think is important?

And note that you, yourself can avoid reading this type of news simply by not clicking on the article.

So you're saying that we should stop discussing this, for your personal convenience?

I am at a loss for [printable] words.

if only

[Xicor]

if only companies would stop giving the NSA access to data they have no rights to, the country would be a better place

Since 1999

[Anonymous Coward]

What about the key that Microsoft put in Windows for the NSA?
It is a surprise that 14 years later it's still happening in "the cloud" (i.e.: on Microsoft's servers)?

Secure Boot

[phorm]

I wonder if the various spy agencies have a stake in the push for signed "secure" (see: secure against common Linux/BSD/etc) bootloaders. Every user with a non-approved OS is one who may not be open to backdoors installed by corps such as Microsoft who share the keys-to-the-castle with the NSA.

In Linux-land, this is also a pretty strong argument against binary-only drivers, etc, as even a fairly well vetted and secure OS could have some backdoor hidden in the blob...

Goverment/NSA isn't as bad as private business

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not happy about how the NSA is gathering data in violation of my 4th amendment rights. With that said, the recent revelations should a good reality check for most people. Not for the NSA's activities, but for that of private businesses.

As someone who's worked in a business who's products and services handled highly sensitive information, I've seen first hand how security standards existed _only_ to convince customers that their data was safe. Once you hand your data to an unregulated private company, you have no control or knowledge of how it's actually handed or if it will eventually end up on a surplus hard drive for sale on ebay.

For so long, people have been told that government is the problem and how government can't be trusted. If you stop and think about that, those people (pro-big-business conservatives) are really saying that _the people_ are the problem. We still have a government of the people, by the people, and for the people, after all.

So here's your choice: trust yourself, trust your government, or trust big business. I for one, am not willing to live off the grid and disengage from society. I want my government to regulate the hell out of Microsoft and any other big business who has access to my private data.

Re:Goverment/NSA isn't as bad as private business

[0123456]

And, uh, what do you think will happen to all that data once the government has it?

My interpretation of 51% belief is ...

[boorack]

... another bunch of lies and misinterpretations on behalf of US government. IMO they intended to spy on US population from the beginning and all these murky '51%' interpretation, loopholes and corner cases have been put in place in order to obfuscate practices on spying on US citizens. Forget about all this 'terrorism danger' nonsense, it's all about controlling US population and squashing dissent as soon as possible. It's all about your granting full impunity and god-given profits to US upper class (corporate managers, financiers and politicians) and protecting them from dissent on behalf of citizenry. You're all wasting your time discussing minor technicalities (51%) of major problem (being governed by a bunch of criminals) and this is what those crooks want.

Tele marketers

[Anonymous Coward]

The NSA has this much power and they can't seem to help the FBI stop the telemarketing robots who violate the DoNotCall list.

Is reading /. grounds for enhanced surveillance?

[Marrow]

I have to wonder whether slashdot has been labeled a terrorist site. Is browsing/posting here getting people on a terrorist watchlist?

The American Public: Snowden is not a traitor

[Charliemopps]

Since slashdot refuses to accept my submission on this, or anything else relating to this guy, I'll just leave this here:
The American Public: Edward Snowden is not a traitor

A new poll released Wednesday by Qunnipiac University finds that the vast majority of Americans thing that Edward Snowden is a whistle-blower, not a traitor. A mere 34% think he is a traitor 45% percent think the government’s anti-terrorism efforts go too far restricting civil liberties, a reversal from a January 10, 2010, survey.

"The fact that there is little difference now along party lines about the overall anti- terrorism effort and civil liberties and about Snowden is in itself unusual in a country sharply divided along political lines about almost everything. Moreover, the verdict that Snowden is not a traitor goes against almost the unified view of the nation's political establishment." — Peter Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute.

http://www.quinnipiac.edu/institutes-and-centers/polling-institute/national/release-detail?ReleaseID=1919

Re:The American Public: Snowden is not a traitor

[rock_climbing_guy]

As always, when Republicans and Democrats agree on something, you're getting screwed.

Re:The American Public: Snowden is not a traitor

[Charliemopps]

Let me re-quote that for you:
"Moreover, the verdict that Snowden is not a traitor goes against almost the unified view of the nation's political establishment."

They don't care... They are going to pretend like we agree with them and just continue on. They're invent some fake issue that the country is evenly divided on and argue about that to distract us. Abortion, Gun Control, The Zimmerman trial. We'll argue about that, and they'll quietly install more cameras.

Re:The American Public: Snowden is not a traitor

[Charliemopps]

And then there's this:

“He got a lot,” the official continued, but it was not even close to the lion’s share of what the NSA is engaged in. Still, the official said, harm to the efforts “is a concern.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/nsas-snowden-case-review-focuses-on-possible-access-to-china-espionage-files-officials-say/2013/07/11/9ba0f004-e9a1-11e2-8f22-de4bd2a2bd39_story.html ...not even close to to the lion's share... and this from an NSA official.

Re:The American Public: Snowden is not a traitor

[cffrost]

Thanks for the link. I think the following article is also worth bringing to Slashdot's attention:

"Snowden: I never gave any information to Chinese or Russian governments" [2013-07-10]

It seems The New York Times is participating in the US federal government's anti-whistleblower smear campaign by publishing such unsubstantiated bullshit.

Read between the lines.

[Anonymous Coward]

If history is any indicator, then what all this means is that while the NSA *may* not be tapping American to American communications, they are tapping everything else. So the NSA gives Australia or Norway the ability to tap American to American communications and lets their agencies do the tapping. Then they share data.

That's what happened before with previous generations of this type of technology.

And if Microsoft is so willing to give the NSA access to this, what do you think the NSA can do with your Windows computer? Logmein.com is free. Who is really paying for this service, the NSA? What about FreeConferenceCall.com and all the other free services such as this?

This is very scary. It's about time to leave the USA for China!

Well..

[houbou]

Big Brother is everywhere, of course, hotmail accounts are free, unless you are a paid subscriber, so, don't expect anything for 'free'. That being said, one would think that if one is a paid subscriber to a server such as an e-mail service, that there should be a guarantee of privacy. Oh well.

Hmm, I wonder if terrorists buy from online stores

[Marrow]

So a terrorist buys a hoodie from an online retailer. A big retailer. The big retailer. Then, the big retailer sends them an email verifying the transaction. Gosh!, that organization has a relationship with a suspected terrorist! Its a moral imperative to track all the other people this organization has emailed to see if they are bad guys too!

Guess what. They can justify reading every email in America.

As Dick Cheney might say:

[fullback]

"So? What are you going to do about it?"

The answer is that you'll do nothing. You won't dare elect anyone who will dismantle the system because you're afraid that you'll be put on a "list."

Why don't you people just stop whining about this? Just sit back and relax. Eat the bread and watch the circus.

Re:As Dick Cheney might say:

[wbr1]

No. He would say, "go fuck yourself."

Re:As Dick Cheney might say:

[Rougement]

Speak for yourself, negative nancy.

Re:As Dick Cheney might say:

[Kaenneth]

Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos.

Re:As Dick Cheney might say:

[PurplePhase]

Who are you referring to? Do you actually think *anyone* voted in as POTUS has a better chance doing something counter to the current establishment? Even if they did, how/why would people believe them during the election season (2 years now?) Politics has won: humans can't believe anything anyone says so all you have are the *grunt*grunt* political parties - mobs voting for mobs, and no one is accountable, responsible, or worthy of respect.
Do tell: what is the alternative in this modern age?

Evidence confirms NSA tapping fiberoptic cables

[Charliemopps]

Since everyone like that one, here's another for you:

New evidence released by the Washington Post confirms that the NSA is tapping major fiberoptic cables as well as has direct access to the internal servers of Google, Apple, etc... despite their claim to the contrary. It seems that room 641A http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A is not just a conspiracy theory after all...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/the-nsa-slide-you-havent-seen/2013/07/10/32801426-e8e6-11e2-aa9f-c03a72e2d342_story.html

Re:Evidence confirms NSA tapping fiberoptic cables

[Anonymous Coward]

That, at least, appears to be legal and consistent with the NSA's mission, which is to monitor foreign threats.

All electronic communications are insecure.

[Anonymous Coward]

You people who think you have rights are too funny, you really are.

No court is going to change any of this.

Not that complicated

[Anonymous Coward]

Is this any surprise to anyone?!? It shouldn't be. Must I remind you all of this? If they don't have to decrypt, its so much faster and easier. It should be a lesson to all of you: if you have something secure to send over the web, 1. encrypt 2. send 3. decrypt. I am even more surprised that they even need PRISM, they have had Carnivore and with the demise of Sun Microsystems, Omnivore sucking personal private data from off the web for the last generation (20 years). They have well developed tools to analyze copious amounts of data (Thin Thread), and specialized tools to analyze various kinds of data. Is it any surprise that if the NSA comes to a company like Microsoft and says "We can either do this the easy way or the hard way. We can analyze any data that you have on your servers anyway, and can decrypt all of it. It just takes a little more time and work on our effort. If you make us work hard, we will merely cut our contracts with you, bargain harder, and make sure you lose another $180 million per year annually, plus we will make sure that you get forensic audits every year." And Microsoft turns over everything they want, and makes up manuals to make it easier, and makes data access kits and even likely some search tools.

An MS story and no Borg Gates icon?

[FuzzNugget]

If ever there was a story totally appropriate for that, this is it. I feel dejected.

That explains why I can't log in to Office365!

[AaronW]

My employer switched from outlook.com to Microsoft Office 365. Office 365's IMAP support is broken. Often authentication fails when using IMAP. I've even had authentication fail logging in through their web site. It's been a known problem since January and MS seems unable to diagnose or fix the problem (even after showing the problem using Microsoft's own diagnostic web page). I had other problems with outlook.com but it wasn't as bad as Office365. Using Outlook is not an option for our group since we all run Linux. Maybe they needed better authentication support in order to support the NSA with outlook.com?

Lies on top of lies

[TheCastro1689]

If PRISM only collects metadata then why do they capture Skype audio and video?

Re:Lies on top of lies

[flyingfsck]

...because once the meta data indicates a problem, you need to look/listen/read the real data, which you can then only do if you had prerecorded it. Therefore the NSA (and others) record EVERYTHING - including this silly post.

Time to ditch Skype

[FuzzNugget]

This is exactly what I feared when I read that Microsoft bought Skype. It was an eye-widening moment and now my fears have proven true.

Anyone who isn't rushing to start running their own XMPP server and get all their friends and family moved over to it is insane.

Re:Time to ditch Skype

[Anonymous Coward]

This is exactly what I feared when I read that Microsoft bought Skype. It was an eye-widening moment and now my fears have proven true.

Like Skype's former management wouldn't've done the same? You're dreaming, man.

Anyone who isn't rushing to start running their own XMPP server and get all their friends and family moved over to it is insane.

Well, yeah. But that's what those chucklefucks should've been doing all along -- why would you ever choose to trust some anonymous corporate drones to put your privacy above their own paycheck, no matter what name on the company's door?

Re:Time to ditch Skype

[L4t3r4lu5]

What planet do you live on, mate? Skype is too convenient to swap my family over. It's good for what it's meant for, which is video calling easily between geographically disparate people for casual conversation, e.g. Phoning your granny while on holiday in Spain.

I don't, and never have, discussed confidential topics over Skype. It's akin to putting your bank details in an unencrypted email.

Postcard

[flyingfsck]

The bottom line is that any online communications is less secure than a postcard nailed to a tree in a park.

Re:Is reading /. grounds for enhanced surveillance

[flyingfsck]

Don't worry, there is no 'list'. They simply record everything and everyone and be done with it.

And nobody will care.

[OldSport]

Aside from the EFF and half the Slashdot population, nobody will do a damn thing.

Re:And nobody will care.

[Mike Frett]

That's what gets me, they're outraged at Xbox One, yet they use Windows. Do they think they are not being Spied on in Windows?. The ignorance here is astounding.

Re:And nobody will care.

[Anonymous Coward]

Half of "us" run I2P, Tor, and/ or similar? I would be pleasantly surprised (it's still a long way to go).

I don't see no EFF on I2P, no GNU or Wikipedia either. Slashdot? That would be a joke :D

Not that I mind HTTPS (and I do use it if available thanks to the EFF) but that isn't really good enough any more.

All it takes is running a client and dedicating some bandwidth and a local redirect to your servers.

But isn't it Fortune500 companies (and the SEC and IRS) that really need to wake up?

Corporate espionage isn't just about product secrets but also about decisions with financial implications. Nothing is a silver bullet however companies that do not want to be spied upon ___by default___ should migrate most things to I2P o.s. leaving behind only the "public face" of PR and similar on the internet. All B2B stuff could easily be done on I2P and/or Tor.

And what about governments? What about the US government itself?

My take on this whole thing: almost nobody seem to have understood anything much about the implications yet, they certainly don't act it, not even the NSA themselves.

Or has there been a mass adoption of already existing solutions that simply hasn't been reported anywhere? Hmm?

System success === system failure

xbox one

[future assassin]

NSA must be drooling over this and kinect. Straight wire tap into 1000's of homes.

Cloud Killer 2

[Anonymous Coward]

Call me overly suspicious but the whole concept named 'The Cloud' always made me think what enormous possibilities there would be for the owner or government in which the data is stored. Because there is a enormous abuse potential and a very efficient way to do mass analysis on just about anything. Imagine that you have a company and there are many, without any ICT in-house staff, you know the marketing trap 'Cloud cheap, no maintenance, no equipment onsite, only an internet connection blah blah blah' and that you store financial information, strategy, personal documentation, pictures, whatever.

Your government is only one phonecall away (it's all supersecret, we wouldn't have known) from some mass data analysis op, you could even make legislation based upon information found. Make stuff illegal, and arrest people at random for 'terrorism'.

I think that we as ICT community must thoroughly do some self reflection if we continue to collaborate in this massive crime or move away from big players, at the end of the day it's all about cash, which seems to be the only thing to move things.

Just saying, but I'm not that big of a fan anymore of the internet and the concept of being online all the time on the 'internet of things' and I'm one of the very early users of it, hell I even helped building this monster.

Re:Cloud Killer 2

[Anonymous Coward]

I want to hear from some of the ultra denialist shills that said the NSA_Key was perfectly innocent all these years!

Come on you trolling fucking shills, where are you at??

Re:Is reading /. grounds for enhanced surveillance

[Anonymous Coward]

That doesn't add up. Why would this site be one to target? It seems like the government's list would collect a lot of pointless names.

No confidence vote? Wrong system

[xenoc_1]

Have to? Negative. We could call a vote of no confidence in congress. We could DEMAND all government actions be made public record. However, this would require us to be as American as our founders...

Hate to be your missing middle school Social Studies/Civics teacher, but there is no such thing as a "no confidence vote" in a congressional-type system. You are calling for something that exists in parliamentary systems, such as the UK, Canada, Australia, where a no confidence vote can "bring down the government". At least in theory.

Not in the USA. Even if the US Congress, especially the gerrymandered-for-permanence House, were not so bought off that your vote for Party A's vs Party B's candidate had any real meaning, you only get to make that choice every 2 years for the House and 6 for any given Senate seat. There are no do-overs, no recalls, for the US Congress. In practice, no impeachments of Representatives or Senators. Sanctions (e.g. Charlie Rangel) that mean nothing.

Re:No confidence vote? Wrong system

[Neiihn]

Technically there is a do over...The question is how do you truthfully initiate it. Heaven for bid someone tries the government would be quick to arrest and put you on trial for treason. From the Declaration of Independence: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government.

French military

[Anonymous Coward]

"In any case, if you're a foreign corporation or government, using ANY Microsoft product just become a giant liability. " that's why some of us (french) asked our military if buying all that new microsoft material recentely, meant we alredy pre-surrendered to the US. The simple fact that we started to make our own surrender joke about ourselves should tell you how much fed up we are.

a reason to run Linux only?

[samantha]

Microsoft and Apple don't make me very comfortable that they will keep my stuff private from unconstitutional level of search and seizure. At least with a Linux stack you control and a bit of knowledge or access to trusted knowledge, you can substantially improve your data and information security.

Re:a reason to run Linux only?

[OutSourcingIsTreason]

Absolutely! Nobody really knows what sensitive user data is uploaded to the Microsoft mother ship by "Windows Activation", "Windows Update", and "Windows Genuine Advantage". Also, nobody really knows whether spook agencies use "Windows Update" to install root kits and spyware but judging by TFA I'd say the odds are they do. Time to switch to Linux.

BigPond/Telstra and NSA

[Demonoid-Penguin]

Telstra is currently moving all their customers email hosting to Microsoft.

For our US "allies" - that's Australia's largest ISP.

Re:BigPond/Telstra and NSA

[FireFury03]

Telstra is currently moving all their customers email hosting to Microsoft.

For our US "allies" - that's Australia's largest ISP.

But who on earth uses their ISP's email services these days?

This makes me wonder...

[Anonymous Coward]

Did Microsoft gulp up Nokia because Nokia would not bend to CIA/NSA access?
Was Nokia a threat to the NSA global panopticon of global spying of mobile devices?

It would be easy to force the Finnish government with NATO related leverage or more traditional dirt. Paul Allen was in Helsinki before Nokia started going to MS, this visit was probably the seat of discussions with the government/business representatives.

Furthermore the Finnish money elite and the "vuorineuvos" only care primarily about their bank account and secondarily about their old army buddies with whom they control some convenient clique of the economy. Citizens or the country do not even factor into their considerations.

Also, Jorma Ollila is a global version of this kind of person, and sadly is seen as some kind of a hero by the business leaders and politicians of Finland. He probably had a pivotal role in the Nokia takeover since he could push through his message with little resistance.

Do what north korean people do

[cheekyboy]

If you cant beat the govt or destroy it, join it.

Become part of the matrix, then by sheer numbers of slow lazy members , destroy it from the inside, just like a parasite that over takes a host where there is more parastites than host by volume.

Overcreate redtape for govt, by making many mistakes and over applying forms etc... or pay bills late etc....

Let it fail from the inside like CCCP died.

Just wondering

[Mondor]

Just wondering, how much Microsoft will have to pay Europe for Prism scandal. Europe is in financial trouble, and Microsoft is rich, having lots of assets in EU. It would be a sin not to dig into this and make MSIE trial look petty.

And I am not speaking about justice here, just about the court as an effective European cash register.

The other shoe...

[Kazoo the Clown]

So how long before one of these information insiders just can't resist using some information they've access to, to enrich themselves via the stock market? Does anyone think the SEC would have a Snowden's chance in Hell of finding out about it?

A National NSA Keyword Day?

[Anonymous Coward]

Whatever keywords they are looking for, everyone, puts them in emails all day long.

But Microsoft said Nuh-uh...

[DnemoniX]

Microsoft's response to these allegations can be found here: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/news/Press/2013/Jul13/07-11statement.aspx

In response to an article in the Guardian on July 11, Microsoft issued the following statement:

“We have clear principles which guide the response across our entire company to government demands for customer information for both law enforcement and national security issues.

First, we take our commitments to our customers and to compliance with applicable law very seriously, so we provide customer data only in response to legal processes. Second, our compliance team examines all demands very closely, and we reject them if we believe they aren’t valid. Third, we only ever comply with orders about specific accounts or identifiers, and we would not respond to the kind of blanket orders discussed in the press over the past few weeks, as the volumes documented in our most recent disclosure clearly illustrate. To be clear, Microsoft does not provide any government with blanket or direct access to SkyDrive, Outlook.com, Skype or any Microsoft product.

Finally when we upgrade or update products legal obligations may in some circumstances require that we maintain the ability to provide information in response to a law enforcement or national security request. There are aspects of this debate that we wish we were able to discuss more freely. That’s why we’ve argued for additional transparency that would help everyone understand and debate these important issues.”

trackmenot

[alexmagni]

I keep on using google search without worries: the trackmenot plugin carefully obfuscates any tracks you leave...

Interesting week ahead - I implement Microsoft Sol

[Anonymous Coward]

Disclaimer: I implement Microsoft solutions. Let's assume I have heard all the words one can say to troll or flame.

That cleared. I work in an MS dev & consulting firm outside of America and since the Snowden saga started, the whole affair has made good & entertaining conversations with clients. And it has been habit to close of or start the meeting with that NSA-Snowden saga.

With this latest revelation, I foresee all those smiles disappearing as some of these clients are (locally) huge enterprises and we have 2 prize government department contracts. My worry is convincing the new clients that it is safe to implement the stack of software and that theyre not exposed to these backdoors that we can't even point out or prove.

We're actually not even sure if we are worried and if forced to defend, how we will defend.

Interesting week ahead!

Several years ago.

[krischik]

It already is a PATRIOTic corporate-fascist police state.

No PGP in Outlook

[krischik]

Did you notice that none of the big corporation E-Mail clients supports PGP out of the box? And at least Apple Mail breaks the PGP plugin on a regular basis.

I always suspected the governments pressurising the corporation not to add PGP.