The NSA Is Collecting Lots of Spam

wiredog writes "One side effect of the NSA's surveillance program is that a great deal of spam is getting swept up along with the actual communications data. Overwhelming amounts, perhaps. From The Washington Post: '[W]hen one Iranian e-mail address of interest got taken over by spammers ... the Iranian account began sending out bogus messages to its entire address book. ... the spam that wasn't deleted by those recipients kept getting scooped up every time the NSA's gaze passed over them. And as some people had marked the Iranian account as a safe account, additional spam messages continued to stream in, and the NSA likely picked those up, too....Every day from Sept. 11, 2011 to Sept. 24, 2011, the NSA collected somewhere between 2 GB and 117 GB of data concerning this Iranian address."

Comments

LOL

[Flavianoep]

LOL This was something that should be expected!

Re:LOL

[amiga3D]

Even the NSA can't do anything about SPAM.

Re:LOL

[gstoddart]

Even the NSA can't do anything about SPAM.

Ah, but now they can ... they can take all of that information, identify who isn't complying with CAN-SPAM, identify people profiting off shady deals on the internet, figure out who has been evading taxes, and give us all a better internet.

OK, now stop laughing.

Re:LOL

[crakbone]

It really does not mean much. With deduplication a terabyte of spam would be next to nothing.

Re:LOL

[ron_ivi]

More interesting than you think.

This might be exactly the right PR move that might make people appreciate NSA monitoring of the internet.

Hope their PR guys think about it.

Re:LOL

[dyingtolive]

PR guys? You mean the guys who are saying "Well, we're fucking you, but it's legal for us to fuck you whether or not you want us to because we say it is, so we're going to continue to fuck you."?

Re:LOL

[TheCarp]

Laughing? For the very first time I am warming up to the idea of surveillance and drone strikes.

Re:LOL

[flyneye]

Where do I sign up to divert all my spam to the NSA?
Sounds like a more useful program for my tax dollars than anyone let on!

Re:LOL

[BradMajors]

Most spam is legal.

Re:LOL

[Zaelath]

That was my first thought, with all the extensive technical knowledge of the NSA, deduplication is just too hard for them.

Re:LOL

[Zocalo]

Sure, this would a good PR move. Probably tied up in all sorts of operational, constitutional and legal red tape that would prevent it from ever happening, but it's a nice idea. Maybe if we presented it as a kind of challenge, kind of like an Internet equivalent of the Space Race...

First nation to use their online surveillance technology / great firewall / legions of state sponsored hackers to bring a clear and demonstrable reduction in online crime wins. Go!

Re:LOL

[Neil Boekend]

That has nothing to do with spam. The NSA headquarters has needed a drone strike for a while now.

Re:LOL

[flappinbooger]

I thought their NSA backup idea was pretty good.

Forget Mozey or Carbonite - Get “NSABackup!”

"NSABackup - we’re always watching!"

"NSABackp - We’re looking out for Terrorists! And your data Too!"

"NSABackup - you’re ok with it, otherwise you’re not patriotic!"

"NSABackup - Because of Osama Bin Laden, you’ll never lose your resume if your computer crashes!"

"NSABackup, why not, you’re paying for it anyway!"

"NSABackup - it’s for your own good! And the good of the country!"

"NSABackup - what do you have to hide anyway?"

"NSABackup - preventing terrorist strikes and data loss since 2001"

"NSABackup - They had your back even when you didn’t know about it!"

"NSABackup - For when your data integrity is more important than your privacy!"

Spam as Civil Disobedience?

[ScottCooperDotNet]

Patriotism is the last refuge of a spammer?

Re:Spam as Civil Disobedience?

[scarboni888]

To me that makes more sense the other way around.

Re:Spam as Civil Disobedience?

[scarboni888]

D'oh! Never mind I missed your subject line.

Makes perfect sense now.

PS: I wish slashdot forums allowed me to delete my erroneous posts.

Re:Spam as Civil Disobedience?

[disposable60]

Spam is the last refuge of the patriot, apparently.

A Herring?

[s.petry]

If they are gathering spam or not, there is still a violation of the Constitution involved. Yeah, I'm a stodgy old prick with a memory like an Elephant! If they were not acting illegally this would not be a story now would it?

Re:A Herring?

[Flavianoep]

Does the American Constitution prevents spying foreign countries?

Re:A Herring?

[mark-t]

To the best of my knowledge, it doesn't even prevent spying on its own citizens.

There are those who would suggest that this violates the fourth amendment, but then the matter becomes what the powers that be choose to define as "unreasonable".

Watching your every move, but still allowing you to do whatever it is you do, so long as it's perfectly legal, might conceivably satisfy the restrictions that the fourth amendment imposes.

Privacy, you see, is not explicitly mentioned anywhere in the constitution.

Re:A Herring?

[DarKnyht]

When most of the population (both US and World) collectively say, "That is an ridiculous and unreasonable abuse of power!!!!" I am fairly sure it is covered by the fourth amendment.

Simply put, if they want to search a citizen's property (digital or physical), then they need to get a warrant for that specific search. Otherwise, you end up with entrapment and a bunch of other abuses because law enforcement officers operate under the assumption that everyone is guilty of something, we just need to find it.

Re:A Herring?

[Obfuscant]

When most of the population (both US and World) collectively say, "That is an ridiculous and unreasonable abuse of power!!!!" I am fairly sure it is covered by the fourth amendment.

This is the reasonably discredited concept that the world has some vote on what the US Constitution should say. What the Fourth Amendment says is not subject to the opinion of Germany or Kenya or Mexico or China or ... nor should it be.

Even though some errant Supreme Court justices keep yapping about applying world concepts to US constitutional law, that's not how it is supposed to work. If the founders had wanted us to follow Greek laws, they would have put Greek laws in the US books, not assumed that 21st century justices would look to Greece as an example of how to run a country.

Simply put, if they want to search a citizen's property (digital or physical), then they need to get a warrant for that specific search.

Unfortunately, the Fourth Amendment did not put it so simply. The founders could have worded it that simply. The fact that they included the term "unreasonable" in the prohibition means they meant for there to be a concept of "reasonable" that wasn't prohibited. Nor did they use the simple words "A warrant is required for all searches."

These were simple people, doing a large task. They could have used simple words if they said what they meant. Since they did not, the clear implication is that the concepts are more complex than you make them out to be, and that they understood that.

Re:A Herring?

[bobbied]

Does the American Constitution prevents spying foreign countries?

Certainly not. However the 4th amendment does put some limits on searching the effects and papers or taking of property from citizens:

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.

So foreign monitoring at any level is legally fair game from the constitution's perspective. It may run into legal problems at the "world court" and UN level but the USA doesn't really need to care about that.

Re:A Herring?

[RabidReindeer]

Does the American Constitution prevents spying foreign countries?

I doubt it. I think we probably had foreign spies even while the Constitution was being written. Spying on citizens, however, probably wasn't something they would have approved of.

Then again, what the NSA is doing isn't spying, it's trawling.

Re:A Herring?

[mark-t]

But where is it defined that privacy is ever really a "right"? I doubt you'll get any argument that it's a "nice-to-have", but what makes it really some sort of right?

If you want to argue that simply because it's something that everybody really *should* have, and so on that basis alone it should be labelled as a right, then by that reasoning, say... something like, for example, having a job should also be a right protected by the constitution, and it would be unconstitutional to fire somebody who had no recourse to immediately secure other work. I trust you can appreciate the absurdity of this notion.

Nowhere in this am I saying that privacy should not be considered as important... I'm trying to point out that the constitution, technically, can't really offer Americans a ton of protection in this regard unless or until there is a new specific amendment made to protect it.

Re:A Herring?

[dgatwood]

Watching your every move, but still allowing you to do whatever it is you do, so long as it's perfectly legal, might conceivably satisfy the restrictions that the fourth amendment imposes.

Not really. If a warrant is required for any otherwise unreasonable search, then by definition some searches must be unreasonable. What you describe is a situation in which all searches are reasonable, effectively nullifying that right.

And if you limit it only to evidence that does not prove guilt, then either all evidence is useless in a court of law or serves only to provide reasonable cause to obtain a warrant to collect other evidence. The problem is that they could then potentially use it to obtain a warranted copy of the same evidence, which would be just plain absurd, as it would effectively nullify the warrant requirement once again. And, of course, if it is useless, then there's no logical reason to obtain it in the first place, which makes the collection inherently unreasonable.

Either way, that's just not a plausible interpretation of the fourth amendment.

Re:A Herring?

[DarKnyht]

"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." As you said, privacy is not listed in the Constitution or it's amendments thus it is a power left in the hands of the States and/or the people. The Federal Government has no authority doing unwarranted searches on everyone in a giant dragnet to capture data under such poorly defined concepts such as "Terrorism".

Re:A Herring?

[s.petry]

You are implying that "Reasonable Search and Seizure" is not defined? If that is the case, you are missing out on a whole lot of history lessons and believing propaganda.

Privacy, you see, is not explicitly mentioned anywhere in the constitution.

Secure in their Persons is exactly "privacy"!

Maybe you forgot about people being spied on by neighbors, then being tattled on for being at work on Sunday which resulted in physical dismemberment and dis-figuration as their punishment? This is not some secret stuff here, this is documented in history.

The only people that believe "privacy" is not in the Constitution are the people that want you not to have any, and the idiots too stupid to read a few hours of history. Federalist Papers are a good start, since that has the dialogue for much of our original Bill of Rights.

Re:A Herring?

[s.petry]

The US constitution does not limit the Bill of Rights to US Citizens with the exception of Voting. You do understand that the majority of the Bill of Rights is not what the Government can't do, but what it can do correct? The founders knew better than to try and define every idiotic thing previous corrupt Governments did, and write rules against that giant list. They wrote down what your rights are, and spelled those rights out meticulously.

One of the few things clearly spelled out that the Government can't do, is that they can not deny you any of your rights!

Re:A Herring?

[mark-t]

The only people that believe "privacy" is not in the Constitution are the people that want you not to have any

Incorrect.

I do not see government invasion of privacy as being unconstitutional... I see it simply as them simply being unbecomingly nosey and rude. That said, unless the constitution were modified to explicitly state that residents are not to have any expectation of privacy from the government, then the government also has absolutely no jurisdiction to dictate that citizens cannot take matters into their own hands to protect their own privacy. If they want to haul somebody in under suspicion of conspiracy to commit a terrorist act simply for taking such measures, I think they'd need something a little more substantial to go on than a number of encrypted messages that they can't decipher when there's nothing else to indicate a person is doing anything wrong.

As things sit right now, however, I believe that the only people who have any entitlement to privacy are people who will actually take some measures to secure it that are greater than the measures that anyone who might otherwise want to find out about would be liable to take, without resorting to actually breaking the law.

Re:A Herring?

[s.petry]

Your "opinion" is rather meaningless when there are facts to back that assumption. The wording in the Constitution and Bill of Rights is not vague. There is no need to re-write the Constitution or the Bill of Rights, not a single part of it.

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.

That statement is very clear. You are to be secure against search or seizure of your person, property, papers, and effects unless the Government has a warrant. The warrant requires a court order with someone giving testimony on why the warrant is required, and the warrant must be specific as to what can be searches or siezed.

Stop believing bullshit and learn to read! If you are not believing and repeating bullshit, you are surely making up stories to back your belief. Either way, you are wrong.

Re:A Herring?

[mark-t]

Privacy is immaterial to security... it is a reflection of how people "feel" about something, and not something that is substantiated by any reality.

Re:A Herring?

[mark-t]

When you accept that the privacy that anyone believes that they have is really just an illusion of comfort that is created by the fact that they aren't an interesting enough individual for anyone else to really want to know about, you will realize that what I'm saying is right.

Re:A Herring?

[s.petry]

Can you not comprehend English? I gave it to you twice and you keep reverting back to the same nonsense. "The right to be secure in their person". Keep saying it over and over and maybe somehow you will get it. You keep removing words and pretending that the statement does not say what it says! Learn to read and comprehend! Go ask a English teacher for help! Do something, except repeat the same nonsense over and over hoping it becomes true.

Re:A Herring?

[mark-t]

The only way that privacy affects "security of person" is how it makes people feel... how much knowledge somebody has about you doesn't change how secure you really are.

Just because knowledge happens to be about you or involve you, does not mean that this knowledge is exclusively your personal property to dictate who is allowed to have it and where.

And if you're wondering, I apply the same metric to myself, and my privacy. Almost all of the privacy I have is just an illusion created by whatever level of disinterest people might have in what I happen to do, tempered by whatever precautions that I take to try to keep it. If somebody else exceeds those precautions without otherwise breaking the law, I may not like it very much... but that only means I would need to resort to more elaborate measures to prevent a recurrence.

Re:A Herring?

[s.petry]

You really should check a dictionary before posting. Secure does not mean the same thing as you imply it does. If you have doubts about what the founders were thinking when they used that statement, you can check the federalist papers where most of the concepts for wording were fleshed out.

As previously stated, your inability to comprehend is your own. The founders were clear, and you are simply wrong. It does not take too much thinking to know their exact meaning, and you can verify with history what their intent was.

Re:A Herring?

[mark-t]

Personally, I'd suggest that it's limited by what is *physical*... if there is a physical component to what is being searched... ie, they must physically enter your home, or must physically detain you from going about your business or must physically confiscate property from you... those would definitely be unreasonable.

The funny thing is, however... that people have come to associate whatever information that might happen to exist about them as something which is somehow their own personal property. Until codified into an explicit law to contrary, I would wholeheartedly refute this assessment. If there is no physical component to a search, but it simply amounts to an amalgamation of data, it doesn't actually change how much security of person somebody has because that information already existed before somebody collected it.

I stand by my claim. the fourth amendment does not protect privacy, and for that matter, neither does the ninth. The assumption that privacy is implicitly included by the ninth amendment as a "right" could also, as I explained above, also mean that something like having a job could also be considered a right, and that would mean it would be unconstitutional to fire somebody who did not have alternative employment secured. The sheer absurdity of this notion means that the degree of importance that a person possess a particular thing does not and should not reflect whether or not that particular thing should be a "right"

We may have a right to defend our own privacy... but in the end, we have no real right *TO* it... nor do we really need the latter to have the former, since it is defined by our own personal goals and ideals, and not by mere government regulation.

Re:A Herring?

[mark-t]

No... they were not clear. If they were, we would not be having this discussion in the first place. Clear would mean that the term would privacy have been explicitly mentioned. It is not. *ANYWHERE* in the constitution.

But hey... America can always add a new amendment which includes it. To be perfectly honest, that'd be something I would personally really like to see happen someday.

Until it does, however... the government watching its citizens is not unconstitutional... no matter how much people might want it to be.

Re:A Herring?

[mpe]

However the 4th amendment does put some limits on searching the effects and papers or taking of property from citizens:

Except that it dosn't say "citizens" it says "the people".
The second paragraph of Article I, Section 2 states "No Person shall be a Representative who shall not have attained to the Age of twenty five Years, and been seven Years a Citizen of the United States, and who shall not, when elected, be an Inhabitant of that State in which he shall be chosen." Making it rather clear that "US Citizens" are a subset of "the people".
Where does the idea that these are synonyms originate? Nowhere in any of the ammendments is such a redefinition apparent. About the only definitions of "the people" which would make any sense would be "all people anywhere", "all people in US territory plus US citizens elsewhere" or "all people legally in US territiory plus US citizens elsewhere".

Re:A Herring?

[Urza9814]

Read the Constitution again.

The question we all need to be asking is not 'where in the Constitution is it prohibited' but rather 'where is it *permitted*'? If it's not explicitly permitted in there somewhere, it's not legal for the federal government.

Re:A Herring?

[Urza9814]

I stand by my claim. the fourth amendment does not protect privacy, and for that matter, neither does the ninth.

You need to look up the definition of 'case law', and then read up on Griswold v. Connecticut (1965)

Re:A Herring?

[mark-t]

Where is it permitted for the federal government to employ people who speak French?

It's not explicitly permitted, after all... therefore it must not be legal for the federal government to employ people who speak French.

Do you see the absurdity behind the notion?

Obviously, permission can be implied and there is no need for the constitution to explicitly spell out every permission that the federal government has.

Re:A Herring?

[mark-t]

This much I would agree with... and to that end, the power over privacy *IS* in the hands of the people.

One only really has a measure of privacy that is a function of the extent of whatever measures one can take to try to preserve it combined with however uninterested other people happen to be in that person. Only one of these does an individual truly have any control over.

Re:A Herring?

[Urza9814]

If that person is to be employed in a task which is enumerated, then can be hired. If not, they can't (and the guy trying to hire them is probably illegal too). It's not that difficult of a concept.

Re:A Herring?

[mark-t]

Of course... but my point is that nowhere does it say that this includes, for example, people who speak French?

Clearly, you can *INFER* the legality of the matter from other things, and no explicit permission is required... even for the federal government.

Re:A Herring?

[Urza9814]

Yes, infer it, that's exactly what I'm saying. The question we should be asking is not 'is this prohibited?', but 'which authorized role is this fulfilling?'.

The likely candidate is of course the clauses authorizing the military and such. But those are defense from *external* threats. Domestic law enforcement is supposed to be up to the states. So how did dragnet domestic surveillance get in there?

Re:A Herring?

[Neil Boekend]

That may be true, but with careful wording they can explain your rights to be next to nothing. There is no such thing as a law without loopholes, even if the law in question is the constitution.

Re:A Herring?

[mark-t]

Invasion of privacy technically amounts to what is simply a matter of information or knowledge which already exists and that pertains to one party being transferred to another, where the former party does not place trust in the latter party to utilize such knowledge or information responsibly.

Except, as I said... that information or knowledge already exists. And just because it pertains to a person, does not mean that it should somehow be that person's personal property. Facts can't be copyrighted, after all.

Now, as civil human beings, we may respect others' privacy for two primary reasons: The first is so that others will respect our own, but this is highly individualistic, and probably wouldn't generally apply to an organization like a government. The second reason, which is particularly important for companies or entities that are not composed of a single individual, is so that other people will trust them. The government is not an individual, so it does not generally need the first reason. And because many Americans don't actually vote for the candidate that they really trust, but rather they instead vote for the "other guy", almost always trying to choose what they personally feel may be the lesser of two evils, in general, the US government does not really need the second reason as incentive to respect people's privacy either. They may give people *some* privacy... but only to the extent that they feel that the information or knowledge that they might acquire is not liable to be, in *THEIR* perception, somehow critically important to them.

Because in the end, the only privacy that you and I or anyone really has is a product of the extent to which we may go to try and keep our privacy, with however uninteresting our lives might happen to be to others.

Re:A Herring?

[s.petry]

No they can't, the Constitution was already written and the Bill of Rights has already been passed. We are not talking about legal obfuscation that is currently happening, we are talking about the two items mentioned a sentence ago.

The whole test of constitutionality has been happening since our country was founded. Yes, people are ignoring the law of the land, no that does not make it legal. Yes, people are not currently being prosecuted but again that does not make it legal. Those two "yes"es indicate that there is an extremely high level of corruption, not that the constitution and bill of rights have somehow changed meaning or were ever vague to begin with.

And of course the people in power currently tell you it's all bad, or that none of it matters. Believing what you are told instead of reading what is written in both law and history is exactly the definition of delusion.

Re:A Herring?

[s.petry]

Still can't get in touch with a high school English teacher can you? No, don't answer my rhetorical question.

The language written is done to be specific in as few words as possible. This is why our best laws are not novel length, they are simple and to the point.

The right to be secure in your person. This means that you can't be searched without a warrant. No police officer can legally ask you to empty your pockets, unless you are already found in violation of the law or the officer has a warrant. The "found in current violation" was a legal clarification made _after_ the Bill of Rights.

The right to be secure in your property. This means that you can't have your house, car, barn, or land searched without a warrant.

The right to be secure in your papers. Papers are exactly that, your identity, your communications and correspondance, your personal bank account information and ledgers, etc... (As mentioned 3 times, if you have doubts history will show you the truth in "papers" fitting that definition. You won't actually read the Federalist Papers because it's going to hurt your delusion, but you denying history does not change history. Instead, it makes you look like an intellectually deficient person.)

If you have a right to be secure in all of those things, then the Government can NOT access any of that data legally unless they follow the Constitution and have a warrant. Do you see how they wrote all three of those things with commas instead of using 3 separate sentences? This is a basic writing technique which you should have learned pretty dang early in your English lessons.

To claim that they don't mention the word "privacy" so none of the constitution matters and the Government can do what it want's is pure idiocy. They spell out 3 areas of "private" materials which are _yours_ by the Bill of Rights and that the Government can not touch without a warrant.

To claim that "secure" means something other than what the dictionary tells you is further idiocy.

Now please go back and watch the puppet show! Some people actually want to leave the cave.

Re:A Herring?

[mark-t]

I think that you''ll find the notion that privacy is just an illusion which is created primarily by however uninteresting our lives might be to the people or organizations around us to be far more liberating than clinging tightly to the belief that organizations such as the government owe you any.

Although I'm sure that what you believe is probably making you happy... and I guess that's what's really important.

Re:A Herring?

[s.petry]

You will find that the notion of "Life", "Liberty", and "Pursuit" of happiness require privacy. This is well documented in the founding of our form of Government. The US Constitution is not exclusive from the Bill of Rights, nor visa versa. The documents are bound so that each depends on the other.

Although I'm sure that what you believe is probably making you happy... and I guess that's what's really important.

Right back at you, and interestingly I have studied the subject at length and know what the Federalist Papers, Constitution, and Bill of Rights all say. I have also studied the blueprint for our Government "The Republic" for nearly 3 decades. My "belief" does not deny history or words, yours does.

Re:A Herring?

[mark-t]

Operative words: "pursuit of..." not necessarily guaranteed to have.

But one does not have to be guaranteed privacy from the government in order to attain happiness anyways, since there is nothing prohibiting you from doing your own part to try to keep yours. If there were, I'd agree with you.

Re:A Herring?

[s.petry]

You keep repeating the same things as if that makes them true. Go study, go listen to an expert on constitutional law, go do something other than repeating the same broken logic over and over again.

Re:A Herring?

[mark-t]

I haven't been repeating myself to make what I say as true. I've been repeating myself because I haven't had anything new to add...and yet one cannot help but notice that you've been tenaciously responding to me on ever retort as if you have had something new or important to say as well. Yet neither of us has changed the other's opinion or views.

So perhaps that makes us both insane.

Re:A Herring?

[Obfuscant]

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.

-- US Constitution, Fourth Amendment, Just for Reference

You do understand that the majority of the Bill of Rights is not what the Government can't do, but what it can do correct?

Wrong.

1. Congress shall make no law ...
2. ... shall not be infringed.
3. No soldier shall ...
4. ... not be violated. No warrants shall isssue ...
5. No person shall be ...
6. ... the accused shall be ...
7. ... the right of trial by jury shall be ...
8. Excessive bail shall not ...
9. ... shall not be construed to deny ...
10. The powers not delegated to the US by the Constitution ...

All ten are things the government cannot do.

They wrote down what your rights are, and spelled those rights out meticulously.

And in the Bill of Rights, they did that by saying what the government cannot do. For the right to free speech, the founders did not write "citizens shall have the right to speak on any subject at any time in any venue", they said that the government cannot create rules to abridge the right they already assumed to exist. They didn't have to tell you that you have a right to free speech because that was a given.

One of the few things clearly spelled out that the Government can't do, is that they can not deny you any of your rights!

Citation required. I find no such simple statement anywhere in the Constitution. Maybe I missed it?

Now, please explain how what you said changes the fact that the founders were simple people and could have said things very simply, were that how they intended things to be. The use of the term "unreasonable" implies there is also "reasonable" search (which you can claim a right to be secure against from general principle, but is not stated explicitly) which the fourth amendment does not prohibit the government from conducting. The statement about how warrants shall be obtained does not say that they are required for every search.

Re:A Herring?

[Obfuscant]

That statement is very clear. You are to be secure against search or seizure of your person, property, papers, and effects unless the Government has a warrant.

That may be your interpretation of the fourth amendment, but the fourth amendment doesn't actually say that in so many words. It implies that there are reasonable searches and does not prohibit the government from conducting those. And it says what is required for issuance of a warrant, but does not clearly say that a warrant is required for every search. By implication then, a warrant is not required for every search.

And you've converted the specific word "houses" into the generic "property". Had the founders intended the amendment to cover all property owned by someone, they could have done what you did -- use the word "property". They chose not to. Certainly in a more agrarian time, they'd have thought "what about barns and stables?" "What about searching a field?" A barn is not a "person, house, paper or effects". Did the founders just forget barns existed, or did they intend to exclude them from the list of things that have a right to be secure against search or seizure?

The warrant requires a court order with someone giving testimony on why the warrant is required, and the warrant must be specific as to what can be searches or siezed.

Almost right. It does not say that a warrant is required for every search. You've kind of admitted you know that when you say that there is a requirement for a statement of why the warrant is required. If it were as simple as "every search requires a warrant", then you'd not need to specify that when you want to get one. It would be insulting the court's intelligence, and wasting its time, to swear upon oath that the reason this warrant is required is because the Constitution requires one for every search.

But you are wrong because the oath or affirmation is not to specify why the warrant is required. That oath or affirmation applies to the probable cause. That's why a warrant is justified.

The requirement for a warrant is rather vague. I'm certain that the people who wrote this amendment knew that when they wrote it, and were it to have meant that a warrant was required for every search, it would have said so.

The wording in the Constitution and Bill of Rights is not vague.

The fourth amendment requirement for a warrant is one example of where the Constitution and Bill of Rights is rather vague. The ICC is another. That's why there is a Supreme Court.

Re:A Herring?

[Obfuscant]

Can you not comprehend English? I gave it to you twice and you keep reverting back to the same nonsense. "The right to be secure in their person".

Thank goodness you put the period outside the quote marks, because the real fourth amendment doesn't end the sentence there. It continues "... against unreasonable searches and seizures, ...". Just repeating "secure in their person! secure in their person!" doesn't convey the full meaning of the true fourth amendment.

Do something, except repeat the same nonsense over and over hoping it becomes true.

Be careful when admonishing others that you don't ignore the log in your own eye.

Re:A Herring?

[s.petry]

Ahh yes, coming into a conversation at a convenient point always helps with putting a dig in where you want it correct?

I never said the same thing over and over, I showed how the writing is used to convey the point with as few words as possible. The wording is eloquent in both conservation and choice of words. The meaning is not vague as people claim, it's very specific.

Re:A Herring?

[Obfuscant]

The language written is done to be specific in as few words as possible.

They did not write the amendments to be as short as possible, they wrote them to say what they meant. That takes extra words, sometimes. Like the words you keep ignoring.

The right to be secure in your property

Not "property" in general, four things that aren't all inclusive. Against unreasonable searches and seizures. You keep forgetting these words. They apparently thought the word "unreasonable" was important, otherwise they really could have written it with as few words as you want to accept. And they could have been all-inclusive and said "property", but they chose not to.

If you have a right to be secure in all of those things, then the Government can NOT access any of that data legally unless they follow the Constitution and have a warrant.

"Follow the Constitution" is a very nice way of puttng it, since that is absolutely correct. "Follow s.petry's personal interpretation of the Constitution that has a large number of words elided" would be incorrect. "Unreasonable", not "any and all". And the words that aren't there that you keep trying to put in are the ones that say "a warrant is required for any search", which is incorrect.

They spell out 3 areas of "private" materials which are _yours_ by the Bill of Rights and that the Government can not touch without a warrant.

It's actually four. Persons, houses, papers, and effects. And "unreasonable" keeps appearing in my copy of the Constitution under the part that says what it prohibited, even though it appears to be missing from yours. The government can and does make reasonable searches without warrants all the time. Everything from pat downs when they interview you on the street to look inside your car when they stop you as a driver to empty all your pockets when they arrest you.

Now please go back and watch the puppet show!

And when is your next performance?

Re:A Herring?

[s.petry]

If the Government grants that all people have the "right to pursue ...", would the logical conclusion be that the same Government can not prevent nor can they hinder that pursuit? That statement is a restriction on the Government, not claiming "you can't have it" or "only in a perfect world".

Personally I am always amazed at the wording of our Constitution, Bill of Rights, and Declaration of Independence. The eloquence in simplicity is something lost on most today, where see politicians try to bury the real meaning under heaps of rhetoric.

Well, the quotes were blockquoted

[wiredog]

But the posting software seems to have wrapped the whole thing in blockquotes.

Spam - the perfect cloak

[bizitch]

So if I want to do terrorist stuff - I should probably hide my communications inside emails about ch3ap V!agr@. Eventually the NSA will have to get a mail washer to help filter out the crap and my criminal activity will go un-noticed.

Re:Spam - the perfect cloak

[Valdrax]

Shouldn't be too hard to write steganography software that hid its messages in the pseudo-random changes to the text for filter evasion. You'd just need a good library of spam message templates of varying length to use as the chaff. For better results, run the same process with random messages that are sent out as part of the same bulk mailing blast to a large list of spam recipients to make it impossible to tell which message is important and which is not. Two terrorists can converse by broadcasting garbage to the world.

Now that I think of it, I wonder if that's the reason I get spam messages with no attachments or links to tell me where to get the product should I have a temporarily absence from reason and want to actually purchase them...

Re:Spam - the perfect cloak

[gstoddart]

Hmmmm .... stegaspamography ... hiding your information in plain sight as penis enlargement pill spam.

Great, now when we receive spam we'll end up on terror watch lists because we could know the data is in there. After all, someone is presumed to be able to decode it.

Re:Spam - the perfect cloak

[Anonymous Coward]

yes, the empty spam message is weird to me too.

Maybe it is secret communications between foreign powers who use steganography by hiding the data inside the sender and receiver addresses. And only if you can see what everyone is sending and receiving, like Spy agencies, you can actually read the message.

Re:Spam - the perfect cloak

[Beardo the Bearded]

ch3@p plut0n1um!! Buy CANDU plut0n1um at r0-ck b0ttom pr1c3s!

Re:Spam - the perfect cloak

[Nivag064]

During the second world war, in New Zealand, someone was tasked with reading laundry lists over the radio. Hidden in ththis was coded information for secret agents, embedded observers, and the like. They may have told something like: listen for private Scotty's list at 1605 hours and do this if he has 3 pairs of underpants washed, do this if it is 5 pairs, and also this if his green shirt was starched...

So it would be a near certainty that agencies in a lot of countries use spam to communicate to deep cover agents. Tens of thousands of people might have spam about a particular brand of viag... that has a coded message for selected agents - but those agents who read the spam could not be distinguished from non-agents.

I am sure that the NSA, and other agencies (not just in the USA) have programs to try and sort out the spam to detect this - which is yet another type of arms race. How do nyiou know some is a message & not straight spam???

Re:Spam - the perfect cloak

[umafuckit]

Now that I think of it, I wonder if that's the reason I get spam messages with no attachments or links to tell me where to get the product should I have a temporarily absence from reason and want to actually purchase them...

Perhaps it's just looking for a reply to indicate they have a valid e-mail address. Even an out of office reply would do the trick.

Re:Spam - the perfect cloak

[Darinbob]

Warning, if nuclear explosion lasts longer than four hours, consult your physician.

Re:Spam - the perfect cloak

[girlintraining]

Shouldn't be too hard to write steganography software that hid its messages in the pseudo-random changes to the text for filter evasion.

That's the easy part. The harder part is that you have to either setup, infiltrate, or silently replace, a spam distributor. It's just like money laundering; you need a "legitimate" business to front for it. Which makes this a relatively expensive proposition for the limited bandwidth and one-way communication afforded.

Terrorists, unlike governments, don't have a straw stuck to your wallet. They operate on limited budgets, and with limited manpower available. And the limited manpower they do have tends to be untrained and often uneducated. Engineers are highly sought after by the criminal underground -- terrorists, drug cartels, everyone. They have a glut of mules and people willing to strap bombs to their chest, but far fewer people who can manufacturer the drugs, or make the bombs. They often resort to kidnapping such individuals due to the exceptionally limited supply.

In the face of that, a stenographic technique is very expensive for the service it provides. Why not use conventional stenographic techniques like just visiting tourist hot spots, taking pictures, and uploading them to various blogs? As original images, they wouldn't have a bitwise match anywhere else, thus a differential analysis wouldn't reveal the insertion of stenographic data.

I don't know why engineers over-think problems like this; While yes, a terrorist could do this (or anyone else), the presence of competing solutions offering similar or greater functionality at a lower price means this likely will never happen. The people hauling drugs and strapping bombs to their chest may not be beacons of rational thought, but the people higher up are; You can't organize people without having an organized mind yourself.

And besides, stenography is something most often employed in industrial espionage, or in the high stakes 'spy game'. Or put another way: It's employed by people who have a lot to lose. You aren't going to see garden variety terrorists doing it because they're cheap. And expendable. That's one of the few 'fringe benefits' of being an organization of fantatics -- they don't worry about their 401K plan.

Re:Spam - the perfect cloak

[HiThere]

It should be pretty easy to infiltrate a spam provider. All you need is someone sufficiently expert who's willing to work cheaper than those who don't have a mission. The spam provider wouldn't even care...unless the feds started knocking on his door.

The coded message would be justified as chaff to get the spam through filters. And the organization could even provide additions e-mail addresses to send the stuff to. This might even end up being a profit center, with only the upper management of the spamming organization unaware of what's going on.

The weakness here is that you need to have a way to get the communication flowing backwards. So you need to have several spamming companies in different locations so that information can flow easily. And, of course, it *IS* a relatively low bandwidth kind of thing, so you will need to spread every actual message over several spam messges. And you'll need to think of it as a telegram, or a twit, not as an e-mail.

Re:Spam - the perfect cloak

[wvmarle]

Not sure if they really have a "mail washer".

Most of the e-mail traffic, even the not-spam type, is utterly useless for them. Like a discussion with the missus on which movie to go watch. Or that I'll be home late tonight. Where to meet up for the next birthday party (or is that just a code word for suicide attack?).

So they just catch all, then later figure out which accounts may be of interest, and start looking at those. All the rest is just taking up space and probably never looked at, and kept just in case, and because they don't know which accounts are really of interest. Collecting all the spam in the process is just a minor inconvenience.

It just looks like spam

[bill_mcgonigle]

Inside those seemingly banal Nigerian wire transfer scams are steganographically hidden instructions to sleeper cells. It just takes a particularly clever analyst to see the data for the noise.

SPAM is a way to hide a message in plain sight

[Anonymous Coward]

and you never know if the SPAM are actually a broadcast messages with certain keywords carrying the instructions for their coordinated attacks. May be the typos contains letters to form hidden words too?

Re:SPAM is a way to hide a message in plain sight

[icebike]

and you never know if the SPAM are actually a broadcast messages with certain keywords carrying the instructions for their coordinated attacks. May be the typos contains letters to form hidden words too?

Or, maybe its shows a new vector for an anti-NSA attack by the Iranians. The perpetrators send small parts of a virus in individual spams, and wait till the NSA computers puts them all together to form a logic bomb or something.

Hmmm, if they were to do that, the next Honest American President would have to award them the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Re:SPAM is a way to hide a message in plain sight

[Beardo the Bearded]

Or, maybe its shows a new vector for an anti-NSA attack by the Iranians.

Fuck the Iranians, I'm signing up for everything.

Everything.

Every.

Thing.

We will choke them to death on our spam.

Re:SPAM is a way to hide a message in plain sight

[RenderSeven]

REQUEST FOR URGENT BUSINESS RELATIONSHIP

FIRST, I MUST SOLICIT attack YOUR STRICTEST CONFIDENCE IN the THIS TRANSACTION. THIS IS embassy BY VIRTUE OF ITS at NATURE AS BEING UTTERLY dawn CONFIDENTIAL AND 'TOP SECRET' on tuesday. I AM SURE AND lunch HAVE CONFIDENCE OF YOUR will not ABILITY AND RELIABILITY TO be PROSECUTE A TRANSACTION OF provided THIS GREAT MAGNITUDE INVOLVING regards A PENDING TRANSACTION REQUIRING achmed MAXIIMUM CONFIDENCE.

Re:SPAM is a way to hide a message in plain sight

[NatasRevol]

LOLunch.

Re:SPAM is a way to hide a message in plain sight

[skids]

I can see the movie dialogue now:

Generic Eastern European Coldwar Badguy: Sure you are das Americans do not know?
Generic Eastern European Coldwar Badgeek: Nyet. Ze messages ver hidden across million email to sell Viagra.

Re:SPAM is a way to hide a message in plain sight

[Beorytis]

I had wondered about a steganographic secondary purpose behind the grammatical-but-semantically-empty seemingly-random paragraphs that used to appear at the end of spam messages to confound filters.

Re:SPAM is a way to hide a message in plain sight

[HyperQuantum]

I wish I could mod this up to Score 10, Funny.

That's not spam

[VirtualWizard]

It's a clever spy technique called obfuscation. Each one of those pill or account transfer messages contains a vital enemy secret that could mean the downfall of our nation. I encourage the NSA to carefully look over each one with exacting attention. You never know....

Re:That's not spam

[Mike Van Pelt]

Maybe this will get some real firepower (Predator drones?) directed at spammers.

order of magnitude

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not a math major however if 2GB to 117GB estimate is a result of rounding error NSA storage capacity must be huge.

Re:order of magnitude

[bobbied]

You think? But Define huge. Any fool can collect and store vast amounts of data, but FINDING something in the haystack is the issue.

Having a huge amount of data on spindles is great, but what's the point if you cannot sort through it and find what you want quickly? I'd be more amazed with the ability to *search* a week's worth of data for keywords and patterns and actually return a meaningful result with enough time to actually react to something being planned via E-mail... That's the *real* trick.

with that kind of accuracy ...

[Sterculius]

"somewhere between 2 GB and 117 GB" ... can't narrow it down any more than that? Are you sure it was an Iranian email address, or was it just somewhere between Israel and Yemen?

Re:with that kind of accuracy ...

[dietdew7]

Maybe the ISP was cooperating with the NSA and kept the account active.

Re:with that kind of accuracy ...

[sandytaru]

Quite possibly it was being sent out from a distributed bot net and not a single user's computer.

Spam filter?

[magic maverick]

Think of the spam filter they could build with that amount of spam to train it with...

One thing about using Yahoo, and Google mail, is that their spam filters have scale. Because so many virtually identical emails will be sent to hundreds or thousands of inboxes, they can say that it's either spam or a newsletter. If it looks like spam, or if enough people mark it as spam, than it probably is. Bang.

And the NSA is getting not just the email going to one company, but to all of them. And to those weirdos (like me) who don't trust advertising supported email and either pay someone or run their own email.

Wow. If they were doing good, they could distribute a set of rules so that anyone could implement an almost perfect spam filter...

Re:Spam filter?

[synapse7]

A benefit of a spammed address book is this would help them build a diagram of connections.

Re:Spam filter?

[bobbied]

Think of the spam filter they could build with that amount of spam to train it with...

What makes you think that this isn't exactly what they are doing... At least in a way.

Re:Spam filter?

[Jorgensen]

That's no good! Terrorists will just disguise their emails as spam by sending it out to millions, and things will go unnoticed by the NSA: Too many dots to connect, which will (as usual) only be discovered by hindsight.

Obviously the intended terrorist agent on the receiving end will have a similar problem... Which means that the NSA can recognise the terrorists, because they're the ones reading everything in their Junk folder!

Oooh - the arms race will never end :-)

Nice to see that spammers are useful for something though: Keeping both the NSA and (some) terrorists busy at the same time!

They'll soon have additional funding

[tech.kyle]

...as soon as they hear back from that Nigerian Prince.

Holy data range, Batman!

[SeaFox]

Between 2 and 117 GB

I guess this is that "are they really collecting just metadata like they're telling us, or the whole message to analyze" thing.

This should make their operatives easier to spot.

[intermodal]

They're the ones with the biggest penises and/or breasts.

Suddenly

[lesincompetent]

Everyone loves spammers.

A positive?

[symes]

Now if the NSA actually did something useful and targeted those creating all this spam perhaps they could get a little positive press and goodwill... or maybe not

So it's come to this

[FuzzNugget]

Spam is actually doing something useful. Enemy of my enemy and all that.

Re:So it's come to this

[Seumas]

I guess I remain unclear as to what it is doing that is useful? A huge torrent of data is only difficult to sift through if you have no idea what you're looking for. Additionally, let's split the different (2gb to 117gb) and say 58gb of data per day for 13 days. That's 754gb, which is only $28 worth of storage at full retail prices and probably not even $14 at their bulk prices. Since they're spending *our* money, that's a trivial amount. It's not even worth factoring into anything, for them.

Re:So it's come to this

[HiThere]

The problem isn't storing the data, it's understanding it. And codes can be ANYTHING. There's no plausible way to break a code besides stealing the codebook. Cryptography is something totally different.

P.S.: Yes, I know that in principle you can break a code by getting a large enough pile of messages and observing what reactions that cause to be initiated. But that's just not plausible. And you have to decide what's important, is the the way Viagr? is misspelled, or what words occur next to it? What is the "chunk size" of that message? does it represent one letter, a complete sentence, or something in between? Etc. How does the target delouse the signal? Does he pay attention to the third word after each misspelled word? Does it matter how the word is misspelled? Etc. So it's not plausible. It would probably take longer to break the code than the particular code would be in use.

Serves 'em right

[themushroom]

If you're gonna go snooping through people's stuff, you're bound to find a lot of garbage.

Re:Serves 'em right

[vux984]

If you're gonna go snooping through people's stuff, you're bound to find a lot of garbage.

Garbage!? That's how my terrorist cell communicates you insensitive clod.

Cialis spam is "Alpha"
[ia1i5 spam is "Bravo"
CiAli$ spam is "Charlie" ...

Viagra spam is "Death"
ViAgr4 spam is "America"
P3n is 3nlargem3nt is "Allah"
We1gt L0ss is "Target"
"I saw your picture online" is "Great Satan" ...
"This stock is making a turnaround" is whatever letter the stock starts with.
"This stock is on High Alert for Today" is whatever the 2nd letter of the stock starts with.
"This Company could be come my longest running winner!!!" has a GPS latitude encoded into the digits of the target price, trade date, and last trade info
Longitude comes in on a fake PO tracking number shipment spam

Re:Serves 'em right

[NatasRevol]

We'd have a whole lot less actual data on 'terrorist' networks if they actually used a method like this.

Re:Serves 'em right

[steelfood]

I'd like to see the face of the analyst in charge of your file after they intercept this.

Re:Serves 'em right

[foma84]

The list wouldn't be complete without "Allah", would it?
It really shows the level of your discrimination and/or racism.

Re:Serves 'em right

[vux984]

The list wouldn't be complete without "Allah", would it?

I referenced Viagra and Cialis but left out Levitra too. What do you divine from that fact?

It really shows the level of your discrimination and/or racism.

Discrimination? What $deity-name$ would you have found acceptable? Or do I have to propose a religious extremist terrorist cell that's also multi-faith to appease you? I picked on Islam because its 2013, and its culturally aware. Proposing Quaker terrorist cells would have been funny in its own right, but that's not the modern bogeyman is it?

Racism? Well that was random. Why not throw in chauvinist too?

Re:Serves 'em right

[foma84]

I picked on Islam because its 2013, and its culturally aware.

So, following your logic, because it's 2013 it is "culturally aware" to associate Islam with terrorism?
Yes, that is discrimination/racism. I'm not throwing terms around.

Re:Serves 'em right

[vux984]

So, following your logic, because it's 2013 it is "culturally aware" to associate Islam with terrorism?
Yes, that is discrimination/racism. I'm not throwing terms around.

No. That''s not discrimination. I don't treat judge or treat muslims differently. I don't presume they are terrorists, I am in fact well aware that the vast majority are perfectly normal people.

But there is no escaping that the media and government bogeyman is "Extremist Islamic Terrorism" right now, and its not 'discrimination' to make a joke about that.

Please

[hduff]

Can the NSA waterboard the spammers? If so, they could redeem themsleves.

Easy way to get into a watch list

[gmuslera]

One of the more immediate consequences of snooping (even if were only metadata, and is far more than that), was that "normal" americans getting spam (or other kinds of unsolicited email) from elsewhere could be put into watch lists, with the collateral effects of getting all their mail inspected and backdoors installed in their PCs/cellphones just in case, and more "real world" consequences with the TSA or others in the present or future (maybe exaggerating, i liked a lot this story, but reality seem to be stranger than fiction). That they can't tell that it is spam before triggering all those actions should be worrysome.

lots of Nigerian persons of interest

[bkmoore]

So after sorting out all that spam, the NSA is now busy creating files on people such as miss Wumi Abdul, the only Daughter of late Mr and Mrs George Abdul, whose father was a very wealthy cocoa merchant in Abidjan, the economic capital of Ivory Coast before he was poisoned to death by his business associates on one of their outing to discus on a business deal.

So Miss Wumi Abdul, if that's your real name, wherever you are, the NSA's on to you now.

You woke us for this?

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

To heck with spending, we're borrowing half an aircraft carrier's worth of money per day. A few dozen servers a week with a hundred terabyte drives? Hehehehehehehehe.

Re:This should make their operatives easier to spo

[mu51c10rd]

They're the ones with the biggest penises and/or breasts.

*shudders*

Re:Dedup?

[Seumas]

It's not even that uncommon. Modern mailstores employ single-message-copy, so that if a message is delivered to 800 people on the same mailstore, there's actually only *one* "physical" copy of it on the drive.

Maybe They Know Something You Don't

[Greyfox]

I'm guessing everyone working at the NSA has an enormous penis. Even the women. And they're probably erect ALL THE TIME. They probably fund their entire operation with the resource given to them by those guys trying to get all their shit out of Nigeria. No doubt none of their credit cards are blocked at Bank of Aemerica, and they probably supplement their income with lottery winnings from the UK (Nigel seems like such a nice young lad) and working from home for a thousand dollars a day.

forwards

[xombo]

I suspect a lot of their collection of contacts is centred around people carelessly leaving whole gobs of people in the To or CC lines (instead of BCC) when doing forwards.

They could at least make themselves useful.

[Kazoo the Clown]

If they are going to invade our privacy on a massive scale, the least they could do is use the evidence of this spam to crack down hard on the spammers. It would make it easier to find the terrorists by eliminating a lot of the communications noise, and might be good PR, giving something tangible back to society instead of being just takers for all anyone can tell. And they'd have less data to store, which would be cheaper and faster.

Re:Dedup?

[HiThere]

How do they handle it if single letters change in each copy? It seems like that should also be compressible, but would normal deduplication work?

The internet white noise generator

[kyoko21]

This is what I have been saying all along for the last 10 years. Fighting privacy by making yourself more private is not the solution. The current premise of all surveillance programs that are being operated today assumes that it is generated by a human being. The easiest way to counter this assumption we can go back to the Aesop's Fable "The boy who cried wolf".

What did the boy do? The boy cried wolf so many times that in the end when he told the truth, no one believed him. If that boy was alive today and wanted personal privacy, he would be crying wolf all the time. How would that work?

Automate the process and make it easy that everyone else can do it, too. If everyone cried wolf, who would you believe? We change the assumption and accept the fact that surveillance isn't going away. However, by burying the would-be listener with unlimited content and for someone/something to groom through all that data to figure out what is relevant, what is the truth and un-truth, it is a daunting task and it opens a new set of problems. How can you assess the threat if everyone was saying the same thing all the time, became friends with everyone else? Do you really know that person? Or is everyone really friends with Timothy McVeigh because he is such a cool guy until he pull that crazy stunt in OKC in 1995. What if sleeper cells weren't so sleepy but were outright public being a sleeper cell?

Re:Dedup?

[Seumas]

I'm sure there's some super clever way to deal with it in a database, but in a mailstore, it would generally identify a same message if it were a single message with many addresses in the envelope (during address list expansion) and therefore only store one copy, linking the rest to it. If it were a million messages sent individually to one person at a time, then it would probably be treated by a mailstore as a unique message, each time.

Re:You know who wins in all this?

[BrentNewland]

I recall a recent article saying they purchase a very large portion of all hard drives. That means they are partially responsible for lowering storage prices.