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Schneier: The NSA Is Commandeering the Internet
Nerdfest writes "Bruce Schneier writes in The Atlantic: 'Bluntly: The government has commandeered the Internet. Most of the largest Internet companies provide information to the NSA, betraying their users. Some, as we've learned, fight and lose. Others cooperate, either out of patriotism or because they believe it's easier that way. I have one message to the executives of those companies: fight.'"
The only way to win this is to get FISA eliminated. Without first eliminating the gag orders and the Star Chamber...I mean FISA courts, we cannot succeed on the whole.
In SOVIET RUSSIA... erm...NSA AMERICA, the Internet logs onto YOU!
NSAnet?
So we were right in the 90s when we thought Facebook was a CIA front?
Trash cans tracking MACs.....FBI turning on my mic......1984 is only going to be 30 odd years late......
>> The government has commandeered the Internet
Somewhere, I'm sure Al Gore is pissed.
We need the illegal surveillance of the world to STOP.
Now!
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
Drop this idea of the "government" as some evil alien entity with unknown motives. The issue here is that the NSA is being a bunch of assbags to internet companies.. At the behest of other companies. In this case, security services contractors. Why does everyone forget the warnings about the Military Industrial Complex? This is the Security Industrial Complex and we're throwing away our freedoms so some slimy fucks can make a buck. There is a reason most of our "generals" are desk jockeys whose' primary job is shuffling papers and securing funding.
Some say never attribute to malice what could be explained by incompetence. I say never attribute to incompetence what can be explained by greed.
This isn't "The Atlantic" reporting; it's an article by Bruce Schneier. This guy:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_Schneier
Feel free to dismiss his concerns if you like, but don't dismiss them just because you don't like the mag they happen to be printed in.
Koans and fables for the software engineer
No WE must Fight. Go to public meeting when the ELECTED Congressmen/women who write these laws. Question then send a clear message change it or be removed from office. The reason it has gotten so bad is not because big company's dont fight it its because we the electors choose to ignore it. I'm guilty as well but i do vote. Hound the bastards they dont want to get voted out of office the perks are great. Stop blaming others blame ourselves.
Jack of all trades,master of none
Unless the green robot has a new age weapon I suspect the faction with the guns is going to win over the interests of the technology industry.
The other way to "win" is to move your company offshore - or start it offshore - and not sell your products or services to Americans, and hope the Americans get fed up enough to demand change.
Of course, that may just be trading one nosy government for another.
For governments, one way to "win" is to have a policy of creating direct bulk-data communications channels with other countries when possible, and use encrypted tunnels for all other communications so there is a "direct virtual connection" between the source and destination countries.* This will cost money and will have a performance penalty but it's worth it in both privacy and public relations terms.
*This is not a substitute for end-to-end encryption, but it will make country-in-the-middle snooping of otherwise-unencrypted or weakly-encrypted data that much harder, making wholesale snooping or keyword-triggered snooping by a country "in the middle" impractical.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
More seriously, Bruce is relatively respected, certainly more than any 3 letter agency at the moment. And moreover, having actually read the article, he's right. That's exactly what's happening. No foreign or multinational will use US based servers and services from here on out, or very very few naive ones will. People in the US are looking to use non US servers. That alone is a telling statement.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
When you're focused on sucking in everything, you're not focusing on analyzing anything. Somehow, we didn't have the resources available to keep the Boston bombers under surveillance, but we have the resources to keep 300+ million innocent citizens under watch.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
This subject of the article is not new, we have seen similar information for years. The same can be said with Snowden, he was just the most recent in a list of whistle blowers warning you of what's happening.
I agree with the articles point that you are not safe. I also agree that people fool themselves into thinking that if they play on the team they will be protected. Those points are not new, and not unique to TFA either. I have relatives that were young Germans in the 30s so hear from first hand accounts how "team" players were treated. In addition to personal experiences, I read history books which are full of examples of how there is no safety in being a "team" player and how much danger there is in a Government collecting this much data on citizens.
You dismiss the article because of the source, yet offer no counter to their position or opinion. The best you can do is toss out a Red Herring/Ad hominem fallacy to dismiss the thoughts in the article? Not that I would be surprised, this is /. after all.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
We might as well just throw in the towel and go back to using kite string with styrofoam cups to communicate (kidding). Seriously though, all the "fighting" in the world doesn't stand a chance against the almighty dollar. Anyone who fights can either be forced to cooperate or else probably be bought-off. Since clearly after all that CISPA protesting the govt just went ahead and did it anyway, that pretty much says loud and clear weather or not they have any interest in what the public has to say in the matter. So the only solution I can think of is that we gotta find an alternative; something decentralized that can't be easily bottlenecked and used as a point-of-origin to intercept and track what is supposed to be private. Global wireless mesh networking is the only alternative I can think of, but for as many times as I've brought it up, someone always shoots the idea down and insists its not possible (just like going to the moon used to be "not possible", right?).
People in the US shouldn't be looking at non-US services. Traffic that crosses the border is the traffic that's most likely to be snapped up and actively analysed. Of course, that government-supplied incentive not to communicate with the outside world is horrifying in its own right.
Does that bio mention anything about him offering to pay the legal bills of those companies who decide to "fight"? Or offering to visit the company execs in prison when the feds put them there for running their mouths to the press?
The cow says "Moo." The dog says "Woof." The Timothy says "Thanks, valued customer. We appreciate your input."
Bruce Schneier is sell-promoting at times, but he is the best we have for publishing about security concerns.
Question: Is what was learned about the NSA is the only thing that isn't legal?
The Plan:
First you commit an unbelievably heinous and cowardly act.
Then you sit back and watch as they eat their own laws and freedoms...the very things you despise.
Then you win.
Why would terrorists waste the energy trying to change western culture when we'll happily do it for them?
So they wont use US based servers and services? So where are they going to go? Any country they go to will have a government with a 3 letter agency spying on the servers and services and passing it to the NSA.
Not only that but the NSA could use other means to spy on multinationals and turn them into NSA friendly multinationals.
Those are your chances of being a victim. 230 deaths a year is the justification for all the tax dollars, trampled rights and illegal activity.
Join the Slashcott! Feb 10 thru Feb 17!
Considering that the main targets of this surveillance are countries like Germany, France, Brazil, Japan and others (that don't seem to be Al-Qaeda training countries) is clear that the target is not citizens protection, but probably intellectual property stealing (and this is proper stealing, as could end with a patent over that, not like people that just copy leaving you with the original). Wonder if countries will start to repeal IP treaties with US over this.
Sheeple are frequently painfully unaware of the processes that create decent societies, so when their once decent society comes under attack from within, don't even realise what they risk losing if they refuse to act.
The USA is an a cycle of spending ever large amounts on its Earth threatening military machine. The more the military grows, the more powerful the supporters of the military become, until every aspect of American life is shilling the wonders of a society that exists to serve and grow the military. No American now dares to question the obscenity of America's mass murdering butchers in uniform.
Spying follows the same pattern, but worse in this way. Whereas military investment usually fails to show clear positive results, spy programs merely have to prove they grab more data about more people to be seen as successful. Take Bill Gates and the NSA's ultimate spy platform, the Xbox One. This puts a camera, microphone and motion recognition system into the home of MILLIONS of Americans at ZERO cost to the US government. The sheeple actually pay to have the world's most sophisticated real-time spy device in their own living rooms (or children's bedrooms).
What US government would have said "No!" to Gates' proposal? Bill Gates promises to provide a running tally of each person who enters/leaves the same room as his console, 24/7. He promises that the running cost to the NSA is minimal, as each Xbone reports daily its record of individuals that appeared before it (the console sends head shots to the NSA cloud servers, so the NSA can link location with straightforward face recognition to put a name to each person tracked by the Xbone). Microsoft has already declared that the Kinect sensor system that allows this is always running, and the encrypted traffic that constantly flows from the console to the cloud defies the ability of any investigator to identify exactly what the Xbone is doing at any one time.
The vicious circle, or positive feedback, is fully active. All that remains is to worry about what future use a government may put the information it gathers to. America jails more people than anywhere else, and as with the military and spying, is rapidly accelerating the grown of the prison industry. How easily Clinton II or any future US dictator (your presidents ARE dictators, but with fixed term limits) could introduce new classes of 'thought crimes'.
The US Constitution should be amended to make all forms of government surveillance EXCEPT clearly targeted acts with individual court approval, illegal by principle. This especially applies to 'anonymous' full surveillance projects that claim that if the sources of data remain anonymous, that is OK. Freedom from ALL unwarranted surveillance should be added to Freedom of Speech and Freedom of Conscience. The vast majority of the NSA and similar agencies should be dismantled (and there are plenty of real examples from history where nations have dismantled their spying organisations when they became abusive).
But good is NOT going to happen. The sheeple have been carefully groomed, and more importantly dis-empowered. The sheeple therefore do not provide a countermanding societal force of any kind, so the military, prison system, spying, and mainstream media propaganda programs continue to grow at a truly alarming rate. What happens when only one side is pushing? If you know anything about the History of our Race, you'd realise the answer is almost too scary to comprehend. America is going to be responsible for WW3. This cannot be prevented now. Every aspect of American society is preparing for the next World War (even if most of the sheeple are too thick to notice this, as they cheer their murderous troops in whatever nation exterminating slaughter they are currently engaged in).
When the real war finally kicks off, the NSA will provide the most comprehensive list of all those that need to be rounded up. Google's algorithms will weed out leaders and potential leaders of all effective anti-war sentiment. In many ways, this whole technological farce is playing out to return us to the times when the King could declare war, and the sheeple had no choice but to go along with the declaration.
Which doesn't say much.
Or offering to visit the company execs in prison when the feds put them there for running their mouths to the press?
Doesn't the mere notion that a person could be incarcerated for talking to the press kinda indicate that there's something horrifically fucked-up about the situation?
The Constitution guarantees a right to free expression, and a right to a free press, so where the fuck does this idea that it's reasonable to take away someone's freedom for sharing information come from?
In other news, the SCOTUS recently ruled that it's perfectly legal to lie in a political ad. WTF, my fellow Americans... WTF.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
It's OK, the government isn't recording your data, General Alexander explained it all, they aren't interested in your data! Its only things like, who you spoke to, when you spoke to them, how often you speak to them, whether they speak to terrorists, whether they speak to people who speak to terrorists, whether you speak to people who speak to people who speak to terrorists, that sort of thing.
They know you are cheating on your wife, or stealing from your workplace (because you keep speaking to that woman, or visiting a bank website that doesn't have an account in your name), but they don't mind about that. Well the bank thing they do, but they will kick it over to the IRS and/or FBI when they get bored of trying to decide if you are a terrorist or not.
Remember, they only record your metadata. There's no data there! You are OK with that because they aren't tapping communications of Americans right? .
Basically if you are offering any products or services over the Internet now you are baiting your customers into being spied upon. Every email you send is inviting the recipient to reply and be spied upon. Its not just about what you do. Its about what others on the net do in response. Every action you take condoning the use of this medium is tricking other people to use it too.
They havent just usurped the Internet. They have contaminated it. They have defiled it.
No foreign or multinational will use US based servers and services from here on out, or very very few naive ones will. People in the US are looking to use non US servers. That alone is a telling statement.
I wonder how many of us have started to write or say or do something, then after a moment reflection, decided not to do so because.... well, you know.
Even a Wikipedia search might make you interesting.
A distinct chilling effect is occuring.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Schneier is assuming that it matters if a company's customers trust it. But with the relative lack of ISP competition in the US, where are customers of large ISPs supposed to go? What difference does it make whether their customers trust them?
Does that bio mention anything about him offering to pay the legal bills of those companies who decide to "fight"?
I think the argument he is making is that the economically sound decision for those companies actually is to fight, given that their actions will eventually become known. Betraying your customers trust is never good for business in the long run. Those who fight are ultimately investing in goodwill, even if they lose.
If corporations are really people, maybe they should take a look at the concept of civil disobedience.
What exactly would happen if Yahoo, Google, Apple, and Microsoft told the NSA to fuck off? There might be a few high-profile arrests. Internet services could be severely disrupted. But these companies have the greatest platform for expressing their views and fighting back since the beginning of history. Can you imagine the effect if Google dedicated their search portal to explaining what they were doing, why the Internet was suddenly broken, and urging ordinary people to flood Congress with demands to restore our civil rights?
These are huge public companies, but at least at Facebook and Google, most of the voting shares are controlled by the founders. They have almost complete control over their companies, and with that kind of power, they should perhaps consider exercising some responsibility.
No, just tunnel your email out of your ISP to where the MX record of your recipient says and use PGP. Methinks Silent Circle will eventually offer that (note who is a founder, and what his relationship to PGP was)
davecb@spamcop.net
to ID the spammers and nuke the fuckers from orbit!
Rick B.