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How the NSA Is Spying On Everyone: More Revelations
The Intercept has published today a story detailing documents that "reveal how the NSA plans to secretly introduce new flaws into communication systems so that they can be tapped into—a controversial tactic that security experts say could be exposing the general population to criminal hackers." The documents also describe a years-long effort, aimed at hostile and friendly regimes, from the point of view of the U.S. government, to break the security of various countries' communications networks.
"Codenamed AURORAGOLD, the covert operation has monitored the content of messages sent and received by more than 1,200 email accounts associated with major cellphone network operators, intercepting confidential company planning papers that help the NSA hack into phone networks."
... security experts say could be exposing the general population to criminal hackers.
I don't get it. The NSA is an organization of criminal hackers, and it's not a question of "could be", the NSA is already doing it. What am I missing?
Don't muddy the waters by implying that only a specific, "bad-apple" division of government is doing the stalking. It is government that is doing the stalking. The specific division of government (NSA) is utterly irrelevant to the victims. That only matters to the aggressor.
If it was a private company doing the stalking, you wouldn't say that "Human Resources" is the aggressor and ignore the fact that Human Resources is owned by, funded by, and works for Google. You would state the obvious and say that Google is the aggressor.
In other words, this is a failure of government, not "the NSA". Government is attacking your basic human right to free association, not "the NSA".
There is a group called SAGE that writes the crypto protocols for cell phones, DECT phones and other ETSI/ITU/3GPP derived standards.
They have never knowingly published an unbroken spec. It is widely understood that this group exists to put government sponsored back doors into cordless phones and cell phones.
I attended a 3GPP meeting since LTE was happening. In it, the guy from SAGE was presenting the new link cipher. 3GPP had asked for something based on AES (so SAGE couldn't pull their A5 shit any more). He presenting AES-CTR for the encryption and AES-CBC-MAC for the integrity field. He added in an off hand way that *the integrity field is truncated to 16 bits*.
Since I wasn't there to help them, I didn't question this in the meeting but after the meeting I cornered him an asked why he made it 16 bits (because its obviously stupid), and he did a Gallic shrug of his shoulders and said "Zat ees what zey asked for". So at that point I knew the fix was in.
I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
Do the NSA and the American government believe in any way they should be free from other people spying on them? Or have they completely given up and decided "fuck it, everybody is spying anyway"?
Because if the NSA or the US government are ever again going to complain about Chinese hackers, or pretty much any form of computer crime, it's the biggest pile of shit imaginable.
Pretty much America has publicly said "we'll spy on anybody we can", which means you have no right to bitch when others do it you.
Thanks, assholes, for undermining the rights of everyone on the planet.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Surprised? No... Concerned that US Citizens are being illegally monitored in their communications by the NSA? Yes... This is illegal monitoring of people who pose no threat to the US or their citizens. Monitoring them without a valid warrant with a description of what the threat they pose is is illegal.
I'm certain that it's because the current Libertarian Party platform has been hijacked by the Fascist Party and bears little to no resemblance to traditional libertarian values, policies, or ideals.
The Democrats and Republicans, however, have always been under the control of the Fascist Party, so their current actions (ignore the platforms, both parties already do) are consistent with their traditional views. The Greens have no coherent platform and are so inconsequential the Fascists haven't bothered with them.
"Unheard of means only it's undreamed of yet,
Impossible means not yet done." ~~ Julia Ecklar
I guess you can call it illegal, but that sort of implies that there is some sort of authority who can take authority action against transgressors. From the NSA to local police (illegal chokehold, anyone?) the security mechanism in America is without responsible civilian oversight. =(
-- "Oh. This guy again."
With the advent of IoT, it would be a fucking field day for spooks from NSA --- nothing, and I repeat, NOTHING in our daily lives will escape the watchful eyeballs of NSA
So, instead of Freedom Fries, we get Terror Toast?
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Technically the people of the United States have the authority. It's such a shame that the government has been able to sucker the less intelligent masses into giving up liberty under the "threat" of terrorism.
My solution was simply to move out of the USA. I've been an ex-pat going on a decade now and couldn't be happier. I plan to renounce my US citizenship this coming year.
There are plenty of people who can take authority. They can defund the NSA. They can disband the NSA. They can add new layers of oversight to the NSA> Just because they haven't doesn't mean there is no one who can./ Remember they did defund the TIA in early 2000's... Then they allowed it to side step and rename itself and begin operating anew. I think legally at this point, if defunded to resume operation under a new name would be seen as the complete refusal to operate within the charters it was held to.
not that i disagree per se, but thats pretty much a no true scotsman fallacy no? No party in american politics is 100% to its core. Democrats claim to be for the poor people, yet they keep pushing bills that directly hurt the poor. republicans say they are for limited government, except for military/police, or if you are a woman.
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
The U.S. government is EXTREMELY corrupt.
"Only if you are stating that President Obama is irresponsible."
As far as the President goes, there are 3 options that I see:
- President Obama may be irresponsible for allowing this level of intrusive surveillance.
- President Obama may not actually have the ability to change this - he may feel his hands are tied. I'm sure there are lots of things he'd like to do.
- President Obama may be responsible, and have control over the agency, but his positions and responsibilities may no longer be purely civilian.
And of course, Obama only has control over the fed. Police killing people and not being held responsible happens at a local level. The failure to hold the security apparatus responsible seems larger than a single agency or it's nominal overseer.
-- "Oh. This guy again."
While you are right on one hand, the issue is more complex than this.
Even in the article itself it talks about how the government is fighting with itself (NIST and the NSA, where NIST's mandate by law is to make sure the government and public are secure and NSA is by law mandated to make sure they are not).
"The government" is a big thing and the left hand doesn't ALWAYS know what the right hand is doing. The problems arise when the right hand can operate with autonomy so that not only does the left not know what it is doing, but it has no authority to put it in check.
Option 4: NSA has a surveillance tape of him with a Kenyan Muslim sheep.
Momentarily, the need for the construction of new light will no longer exist.
It's difficult to imagine an entity proclaiming itself as protecting the citizens, all the while removing the protections we've enjoyed as a people all these years.
Is the NSA so magnanimous that they can be trusted without question with all one's personal day-to-day activities and conversation? Should that even be an option for consideration?
If you can gain a fairly keen insight into a person from them answering 567 questions on the MMPI-2, what do you suppose could be learned from thousands of posts and emails? This could be performed without human intervention and continuously appended. Perhaps it already is. How about when you toss in personal phone calls?
No, placing an individual's exploitable frailties and weaknesses in a database for ready use isn't just immoral, it is evil. It is invasion of the psyche, and that the true crux of privacy issues.