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Microsoft Petitions US Attorney General For Permission To Disclose Data Requests
MojoKid writes "Microsoft is smarting in the wake of the Guardian's discussion of how chummy it's gotten with the NSA over the past few years, and the company wants permission to clarify its relationship with the federal government. To that end, the company has sent a follow-up letter (PDF) to the Attorney General's office, asking it to please address the petition it filed in court back on June 19. Redmond is undoubtedly cringing at the accolades being heaped on Yahoo and its repeated court battles on behalf of its users, and wants an opportunity to clear the air. But Microsoft has gone farther than simply asking the government to hurry up and rule on its petition — it has also issued a series of clarifying remarks regarding its relationship with the NSA. Microsoft refutes some of the Guardian's claims strongly. It insists it does not provide encryption keys or access to Outlook's encryption mechanisms, and that the government must petition MS to provide information via the legal process."
From this ex-customer they can rationalize all they want.
So Google can turn my data over to the NSA, I don't like Microsoft!
* Carthago Delenda Est *
The government doesn't petition, it demands. Microsoft's attitude is unreal. As if it can say No to the government when they show up with warrants, NSLs, etc.
Who needs encryption keys or back doors if Redmont is handing over (and not patching) Zero Day Exploits?
denied and the permission to publish the denial denied
"It insists it does not provide encryption keys or access to Outlook's encryption mechanisms, and that the government must petition MS to provide information via the legal process."
What about when the govt. agencies get those "legal papers" that compel MS to provide access to data on Outlook, Skydrive, etc? Do they provide encryption keys then? What about SSL certs? Do they send them over to the NSA after they expire?
And this should not be only about MS. Any company should answer these questions. I really hope this shitstorm will kill stupid usage of "the cloud" but I doubt it. People are dumb, education budgets diminish every year so there is no changing that fact.
I guess my point is that if you need to have sensitive data in "the cloud" roll your own already. The software to do that is already available and free (gratis and libre).
Switch back from Gmail to Yahoo mail now. Show them what values you care about! If you don't, you know who to blame then.
Got to read their weasel words carefully. If they don't provide the keys, then they must provide the plain text. Six of one, half dozen of the other...
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
Given that, at present, 'via the legal process' seems to consist of a variety of procedures that make getting a search warrant rubber-stamped by a handpicked sycophant look positively robust, I'm not sure how reassured I'd be even by 100% ironclad evidence that all data were divulged in accordance with 'legal process'.
Even aside from the high-volume shenanigans on the NSA side, whose legal justifications themselves are rather secretive, the good old 'National Security Letter' is a 'legal' process that essentially boils down to 'Somebody at a three letter agency asserts that the information demanded is in some way related to an investigation with national security implications. Pinkie Swear!'. No judicial involvement, no need to present any evidence for that assertion, a downright farcically bad record on recordkeeping(the FBI won't even tell congress how often they use the things), and a gag order that makes the operation essentially silent.
Sure, maybe Microsoft are better people if they are always complying under penalty of law, rather than as enthusiastic little quislings voluntarily cozying up to the spooks; but from the perspective of a potential customer, rather than an observing ethicist, what difference does it make?
Should the US Intelligence Community have *any* capability to target the content of communications of non-US Persons outside of the US for legitimate foreign intelligence purposes when that communications traffic enters US-controlled systems?
If so, who should decide what this framework looks like? The general public? How would that work, since intelligence requires secrecy in order to have any effectiveness?
If not â" are you fucking serious?
Time to reexamine this:
http://www.h-online.com/security/news/item/Skype-with-care-Microsoft-is-reading-everything-you-write-1862870.html
"associates in Germany at heise Security have now discovered that the Microsoft...Shortly after sending HTTPS URLs over the [skype] instant messaging service, those URLs receive an unannounced visit from Microsoft HQ in Redmond."
Microsoft claimed it was for malware checking, but it was noticeable it targeted Germany, I did a test on my skype (to UK) and received no visit. That could be the Prism interface Microsoft installed.
The rest of the claim is simply misleading, Guardian leaks show they worked around encryption by letting NSA grab the data before it was encrypted, and that they set up a team to help NSA with further surveillance problems, neither of these claims Microsoft has disputed.
"legal process" is meaningless. That program is clearly a violation of the 4th and thus illegal.
Microsoft is a business, they are in the game to make money. They also know that doing stupid shit like providing wholesale access to data/keys/exploits/whatever is bad for business.
So, Microsoft, as a business, probably would not have given anything without a court order.
That being said, a better guess would be that someone within MS, possibly high up in the chain of command would be the one providing the data. Again, a total guess, and I could be completely wrong.
I came, I conquered, I coredumped
All these companies are feigning outrage over these "requests" they get, when in reality I doubt the requests are ever used except in cases where the government needs evidence in court. The REAL data collection is done without Microsoft/Googles direct knowledge. The NSA surely has agents working on staff at every major tech company in the world with the sole goal of installing as many NSA backdoors as possible. The idea that the NSA has no respect what-so-ever of the American peoples privacy but at the same time wouldn't just take the same sort of data from a corporation is idiotic.
Yahoo is not a fix for this, they lost. Likely all US based services would/have also lost and handed over backdoor access if Yahoo lost. Microsoft just did it more willingly/quickly and more thoroughly.
If you used a non -US pop3 account, something capable of TLS, and a https webmail or tls POP3 connection, then your emails will still go into the big database but it will be encrypted and thus cannot be datamined. Well unless you're communicating with a US or UK based person (Canada?*).
Snowden used Lavabit, but that seems to be based in Texas and so cannot be used now. NSA gets 'class' warrants, where a whole service is tapped on the claim that their software will locate the 'terrorist' out of *all* the data. Hence they need it *all*.
So they'll have served Lavabit with a full tap, and Lavabit have the email unencrypted just before it goes into their servers for encryption. So if you use that, all the content of your email (USA based too) will be grabbed and stored, and flagged as possibly related to Snowden.
* Canada too I think, PRISM groups USA and Canada as one item as though Canada are 100% under control. I decided to move my email out of Canada as a result.
Why the encryption process employed is susceptible to third party decryption in the first place. To avoid this from happening, the design needs to be end-to-end with the users holding the keys.
Select from tblFriends where interesting >= 4;
Microsoft refutes some of the Guardian's claims strongly. It insists it does not provide encryption keys or access to Outlook's encryption mechanisms, and that the government must petition MS to provide information via the legal process."
As a non-American, why should I give a fuck ? The NSA can simply demand access to my data in secret, legally, and also demand - again legally - that Microsoft not breathe a word about it to me, without any judicial oversight whatsoever. As far as I am concerned, no U.S. tech company (or any company that stores any of my data within U.S. jurisdiction) can be trusted, and I will vote with my wallet accordingly.
"It was just a blowjob."
The problem with secret courts, secret executive orders and undisclosed legal reasoning is that even if Microsoft released some information as "transparency", can you really trust that they aren't holding something back or outright lying due to some other even more secret court order?
They were completely denying and fudging the question about Skype eavesdropping right up until the Snowden leaks. Then they did a complete 180 turn.So clearly they have no problem with obfuscating the discussion, why should we trust that any new information they provide is the whole truth and not some weasel legal loophole way of interpreting the facts? Kind of like how James Clapper weaseled and outright lied through his testimony to Congress. If these people are willing to lie to Congressmen and Senators, who the fuck are you?
I reckon Pandora's Box has been open and American technology companies will face an uphill, if not impossible, task to get anyone from the rest of the world to trust them again.
Given the fees the telcos get for interception data, and given NSAs astronomical multi billion dollar budget I think its safe to assume Microsoft gets paid handsomely for PRISM interface usage and you are the product of Outlook.com and NSA is the customer.
Which makes sense if you think about it. You want to pump hidden subsidies into US online businesses because it's pretty much the only industry you have left. How would you do it? If you did it publicly then foreign countries would subsidize their online services too, and you'd be back to square one. So instead you buy data from them secretly, the budget for this is secret NSA budget, and so you create a surveillance & subsidy industry in one.
I wondered where the money comes from with Skype to justify a $7 billion price tag. Say you could run it on $500 million profit, NSA has estimated $10 billion budget, $5 billion would be enough to buy all the data from the top 10 US online services.
We have free speech, unless this is now a complete police state. Oh wait, there's the answer!
It's simple. They don't have to turn over encryption keys to the NSA because that's where they got them in the first place.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
If they want to disclose the data requests, why not just engineer a leak from a disgruntled former employee already located in Ecuador/Venezuela/Iran/Wherever?
All the nice sentences just to talk around full compliance with CALEA? :)
Its not like it was just some fax with a time, ip and port number from some city police department.. with an amazing letterhead.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communications_Assistance_for_Law_Enforcement_Act
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/edward-snowden-claims-microsoft-collaborated-with-nsa-and-fbi-to-allow-access-to-user-data-8705755.html
http://www.salon.com/2013/07/11/snowden_docs_detail_collaboration_between_nsa_and_microsoft/
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/07/nsa-taps-skype-chats-newly-published-snowden-leaks-confirm/
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jul/11/microsoft-nsa-collaboration-user-data
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_operating_systems
US Adult Computer and Adult Internet Users
http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2012/tables/12s1158.pdf
The tiny % number wrt to big US computer use number and US MS marketshare seem to add up
Interesting http://cryptome.org/2013-info/06/whistleblowing/whistleblowing.htm lists gov works, bankers, military, a call-centre-employee, health insurance PR, a few former NSA, CIA, FBI employees, people in sports and education, press, lawyers...
In this broad mix, how/why did so many within the US computer/CS/networking elite stay so silent? Did they feel it was just a domestic link to the FBI in continuous use?
Was the psychological profiling and testing of contractors near perfect Cash was great?
So few staff over so many product ranges over many years?
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
Moot point. IMHO the NSA just hacks in and everyone has deniability including you know who. Even with Microsoft's superior knowledge of hacking, they are still probably "putting up with it from NSA".
Eliminate Speeding Tickets
Snowden In, Holder Out
Even if the court tells Microsoft or any other company that it can disclose information about data requests, there is no reason to trust that. It might as well be that Microsoft has been legally compelled to disclose false information, or to word the disclosure in such a way as to entirely mislead. They may even have been compelled or persuaded to make this petition in order to create a vector of misinformation.
The US has secret laws, or rather, it has secret interpretations of public laws, which amounts to the same thing. So there is absolutely no way to know what kind of false information a US company can be compelled to disclose, especially on sensitive matters such as this. Anyone who would be in a position to know and who decided to tell the public would have to turn Snowden and flee for their lives. Nothing short of a law severely limiting the scope and power of secret courts can properly restore trust. That's not going to happen, of course. That US citizens find secret interpretations of laws tolerable is something of a mystery, but oh well. You guys do know that this means you are required to obey rulings that you can't be allowed to know about?
Balmer, i.e. M$ will not give up the cash, narcotics and prostitutes he gets from the Federal Government in exchange for total access to all communications channels and records.
Re-engineer Outlook and the back end services supporting it. Employ end-to-end encryption with private keys held only by the client. Microsoft's systems serve only to distribute public keys and store and forward encrypted content.
So when the NSA comes asking, Microsoft (or any other service provider) can honestly say "We can't decrypt that for you, signed warrant or not." The NSA can already scrape encrypted content off the backbone choke points, so bugging Microsoft for something they don't have would be pointless. FISA courts would have to authorize searches of customers' premises or equipment for keys and plaintext. Which is a much more difficult task.
The entire design of messaging protocols that decrypt the server content is suspect. If I were running an e-mail service, I'd tell my customers that I don't want to see the content passing through my system.
Have gnu, will travel.
... when they join a legal battle in defence of our 4th amendment rights.
In the past, microsoft has provided extra documentation to legal authorities to help capture people suspected of copyright infringement, even going so far as to provide training booklets and videos. They BENT OVER when the NSA came calling.
"I feel very fortunate that we have both an Attorney General and a President with such longstanding knowledge of and appreciation for our Constitution. Put simply, we need you to step in to ensure that common sense and our Constitutional safeguards prevail."
You have got to be kidding me. What lovely, hyperbolic pandering.
Something about dogs and fleas.
Fuck what the NSA tells you. 'No Such Agency' means they don't exist and their rules be damned. Gain the biggest share on the planet and grow a pair, and release the data, NSA be damned. Release it all. That sort of brutal honesty gets more respect from me than beating around the (George) bush, even if you were helping them spy on me.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
I'm sure the PHBs and overpriced lawyers on retainer believe Microsoft haven't done all the things Snowden has exposed.
Because _they_ didn't get the NSLs to STFU and just do the dirty work; their sharpest senior techies did, and they still can't say squat, lest they suffer pain of arrest or worse.
Of course, NSLs to the underlings would also give the perfect cover to allow the execs and shysters to protest too much.
For you sheeple that still don't get it, Microsoft had made public statements that categorically STATES the following:
Microsoft has a legal duty to lie to the public about the form and extent of its activities helping the NSA and other US intelligence agencies. US law requires those that work with intelligence agencies to DENY the fact. If knowledge of the co-operation becomes public, US law requires Microsoft to do everything to re-assure the sheeple that no co-operation of any significance actually happened.
In other words, Microsoft said "if our lips are moving, we are lying".
What Snowden revealed is EXACTLY what Microsoft did. Snowden is being pursued by the war-monger Obama precisely because Snowden is not following the protocol about always lying about the extent of US surveillance of ordinary US citizens. Every Microsoft product is riddled with NSA back-doors. The endless patches Microsoft issues simply close back-doors that have entered the public domain, and open new ones.
Microsoft was NOT required by US law to co-operate in this way with the NSA- this choice was wholly that of the depraved psychopath Bill Gates- an individual that works with all of America's most powerful eugenics organisations (despite the horrors of WW2, the Americans that backed the pseudo-science of eugenics and gifted this evil to Hitler and the Nazis, created organisations that are still massively influential in present day USA). It is ONLY after you choose to work with the NSA that you have a legal duty to deny the fact, and mislead the public in any was possible.
Gates is currently engages in a charade (like that recently seen by Yahoo) where government papers will 'prove' Microsoft is innocent. While people with an IQ in double figure at least see through this laughable ploy, the tactic allows sites like Wikipedia to have entries that formally state that Snowden was proved to be a liar, and Microsoft never worked with the NSA. Remember how in 1984, Winston controls the future by altering knowledge of the past? Wikipedia serves the same purpose. The entry on Microsoft and NSA spying will soon state that it was PROVEN that Microsoft never worked with the NSA, and use the laughable government papers as proof.
This is why sheeple are taught that 'proof' is an official piece of government paperwork, and that the word of someone who was actually involved with the government doesn't count.