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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.'"
All this and now they want to put an always (or nearly) on mic and camera in my home?
Paying taxes to buy civilization is like paying a hooker to buy love.
At what point do we call it a corporate-fascist police state?
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.
http://cryptome.org/2012/07/gent-forum-spies.htm
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
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?
-- Cheers!
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.
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.
Sig Follows: "Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself." -- Mark Twain
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)
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.
Why did the chicken cross the road? Because Elon Musk put an AI chip in its head.
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?
.. if Microsoft bought Skype in order to provide access, and if any $ changed hands.
Great - another problem to add to my next doctor visit list.
... for the first person to post that they've known this was happening for years and that anybody who didn't is a moron.
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".
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.
Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
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.
"We receive as friendly that which agrees with, we resist with dislike that which opposes us" - Faraday
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.
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.
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.
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
At least I didn't get Scroogled. Oh wait. That's exactly what happened.
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?
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
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
Since my MS live account is generally only used to catch spam... I wonder how much this is costing me in tax dollars.
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.
Doctors destroy health, lawyers destroy justice, universities destroy knowledge, religion destroys spirituality
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."
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.
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.
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.
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.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
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.
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.)
-- L8R, guitardood
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.
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.
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?
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.
Exactly. And if Microsoft conveniently routes all skype off shore, the NSA can log with impunity, hence my other questions.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
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.
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.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
if only companies would stop giving the NSA access to data they have no rights to, the country would be a better place
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.
Battlemaster--Game with friends in medival realms
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...
You left out a few steps in your proof. Starting from what I said:
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
... 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.
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 to wonder whether slashdot has been labeled a terrorist site. Is browsing/posting here getting people on a terrorist watchlist?
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
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.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
I don't like Gates anymore than the next guy, but hes not there anymore, or have you heard?
---- Booth was a patriot ----
They play with English a bit. They're 'targeting' foreign nationals. However, they're doing that by recording and monitoring information from everyone.
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?
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.
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.
Somebody should copy PRISM and point it at the federal government.
Maybe they'll get it then.
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
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.
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.
"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.
And, uh, what do you think will happen to all that data once the government has it?
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.
[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
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
If ever there was a story totally appropriate for that, this is it. I feel dejected.
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?
This post is encrypted twice with ROT-13. Documenting or attempting to crack this encryption is illegal.
If PRISM only collects metadata then why do they capture Skype audio and video?
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.)
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.
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.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
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
---Saying gnome 3 is better than windows 8 not so much a compliment as it is damning with light praise.
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?
Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
> They play with English a bit.
Mount Everest is a bit of a hill, too, I suppose? ;-)
*Still* negative function...
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.
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.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
The bottom line is that any online communications is less secure than a postcard nailed to a tree in a park.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
Don't worry, there is no 'list'. They simply record everything and everyone and be done with it.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
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.
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.
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
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.
Aside from the EFF and half the Slashdot population, nobody will do a damn thing.
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.
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.
Keep in mind, our elected legislators specifically exempted themselves from the program. Nothing to see here, citizen, move along.
NSA must be drooling over this and kinect. Straight wire tap into 1000's of homes.
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
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.
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.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
sorry to tell you, but snowden did it.
look what he got.
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.
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.
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.
has not been confidently identified as an American
Meaning there's a 51% chance they're foreign.
Who is John Galt?
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.
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.
And if it's indeed a constitutional issue, wouldn't that make any law authorizing them to possess it, itself unconstitutional?
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.
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.
Telstra is currently moving all their customers email hosting to Microsoft.
For our US "allies" - that's Australia's largest ISP.
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....
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.
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.
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.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
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.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
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.
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?
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.
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.”
I keep on using google search without worries: the trackmenot plugin carefully obfuscates any tracks you leave...
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.
"Tongue tied and twisted, just an Earth bound misfit
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.
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.
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.
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.
There is currently no penalty.
There is no way of passing a law after some repugnant behavior occurs
They're still monitoring you.
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.
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.
And the average Canadian deserves to have their emails, chats and files examined why, exactly?
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
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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.)
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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,
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
It already is a PATRIOTic corporate-fascist police state.
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.
Leave the cat long enough and it will be dead. Sort of says a lot about National security.
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 )
---- Booth was a patriot ----