http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2007/10/nsa-asked-for-p/
"NSA Domestic Surveillance Began 7 Months Before 9/11, Convicted Qwest CEO Claims"
Links to the trial http://www.wired.com/images_blogs/threatlevel/files/512.pdf
"...made inquiry as to whether a warrant or other legal process had been secured in support of that request. When he learned that no such authority had been granted and that there was a disinclination on the part of the authorities to use any legal process, including the Special Court which had been established to handle such matters, Mr. Nacchio concluded that these requests violated the privacy requirements of the Telecommunications Act."
Yes Cold 'either brute force it, or go around it" - the encryption is useless as sold. The "encryption is still OK" as in a method but the hardware, software, codes as sold globally and used are back to plain text junk.
The 'good hardware and software now" links back to a few different countries, their staff, contractors, ex staff and anyone who can pay.
Cold the world is filled with NSA and GCHQ surveillance in the form of junk telco crypto.
"More and more countries are beefing up their" cryptographic "capabilities as a result of his revelations" that what the US and UK sold them was junk.
"Diplomatic relations among many nations are now strained" as the NSA, GCHQ and a few random "other" trusted nations, their staff, ex staff and contractors and ex contractors have the crypto keys to international and domestic telco networks.
That access is all for sale to the highest bidder over time. Not a good place for any gov to be in. ... "cooperation with allies and beefing up their own intelligence agencies" was basically trusted telco staff in other countries allowing all their nations data to flow to the NSA and GCHQ over decades. Banking, trade deals, political conversations, emerging science, export deals... once thought to be secure where lost to a "few" other nations in real time.
Political leaders where handed "safe" phones by their own expert staff only to find the phone is a total crypto fail.
Can they trust their own top staff? If the top staff where happy to help the UK, USA, a few other countries and contractors over decades- who else are they helping?
As for the "Russian asset" talking point - all the whistleblowing data is in the hands of a few people in the "press".... Russia knows the info could be a trap and would be very careful about trusting any of it.
Over time more Snowden docs will be released. Readers can follow the interesting pace on sites like http://cryptome.org/2013/11/snowden-tally.htm
Countries will rebuild their own domestic networks, political communications networks and their academics will hopefully be more creative and wise.
Remember cold if the NSA and GCHQ can get into any telco system - so any other 'group' over time. Communications security for all or plain text junk for all.
Re the full extent of the surveillance.
Thanks to Snowden we have an understanding for the ~"3" ways into some tame US.com:
1. Muscular: to collect data from US.com trunk lines. http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/10/nsa-hacked-yahoo-google-cables/
3. Collecting from your between your browser to the US.com internet service.
2. Prism: Asking for the data from the US.com https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRISM_(surveillance_program)
We are to believe option 1 and 3 are totally out of the skill set of the web/telco.coms?
Lack of trust goes down the entire cryptography academic/testing/science/sales/code US/UK branding.
Few have faith in US or UK gov testing of US or UK cryptography and the list covers a few sections of US and UK exports:
US or UK academic teaching of US or UK cryptography?
US or UK press reporting on US or UK cryptography?
US or UK brands testing of US or UK export quality cryptography?
US or UK brands selling of US or UK export quality cryptography?
The NSA and GCHQ wanted into cheap junk global telco and networking cryptography - the NSA set the standards, tame US brands sold it cheap and the US gov spread telco deregulation on the US telco loop pricing.
Most govs know what weak junk telco encryption results in - telco and networking access for 'all' not just a few trusted US and UK gov NSA/GCHQ 'teams' and friendly nations.
All the hardware, software, codes and sales are now tainted as expensive junk open to 'any' gov or ex staff or commercial group or criminal or faith based interests at a price.
Then you have the legal questions in the USA facing a new round of court challenges and law reform or efforts.
As for "anybody saying that things" http://cryptome.org/2013-info/06/whistleblowing/whistleblowing.htm
Thanks to Snowden, a lot of costly junk encryption can now be fixed and networks secured around the world:)
Looking back over US/UK crypto history how any such 'events' where deflected in the past:
Good use of US/UK compartmentalization from the 1950-80's really saved the NSA/GCHQ from court/press issues.
Trials would just not be on the crypto topic and press could be brushed aside as Soviet friendly local press adding their own wild stories. i.e. simple signals intelligence that watches the Soviet Union and lots of domestic safe guards.
Any publisher, legal advice to an author would be just as comical, you can sell your creative crypto history book and 'nothing' with happen to you.
An 'insiders' book was not facing a court, its contents must be 'safe', almost fiction or Soviet friendly.
Now the world has woken up to cheap US/UK Enigma version 2.0 telco gifts. Globally most govs and telcos know where the US/UK govs got in, ex gov staff and 'other' govs, criminals will get in thanks to junk US/UK encryption.
Govs/politiicans are also aware that their own top crypto staff did not protect them from their data been 'lost' to 5 other govs, a few other govs and contracting staff and.....
So after many months expect to see a 'plan' - make PR around the docs as released (sock puppets as seen on slashdot).
Lots of spin on tainted negative stories around the docs as released (sock puppets as seen on slashdot).
HTTPS for all.... and really good encryption for.com backhaul.
The US Fourth Amendment protections will really need to to be legally memory holed (1984 book reference).
The stage is been set for a lot of PR as one or two of the more public ways the NSA/GCHQ got into the tame US.coms is looked into and now fixed.
Any mention of the 2-3 other ways will be spun as a version of the 'fixed' method. Expect see a flood of the usual sock puppet names in the press and web 2.0 with some great US privacy news:)
Re: What makes them think that NSA wouldn't just hack the servers on their soil?
GCHQ and the NSA would do this for tempest site use for NATO/embassy encryption machines. Plain text out near the machine, quality 'tested' encryption along the network.
For that you need ongoing contractors or staff with a reason for access in/near the machines over time.
Its fine if the machine manufacture is a UK/US front or tame to the needs of the US/UK gov.
After Snowden physical site access will not be like the 1950-60's for a US/UK telco/saff/gov front to just keep the "servers" flowing back to the USA/UK for sorting/storage/searching.
This makes the efforts of Brazil costly - in terms of US ground teams needing to get close to the (one) site and tap without ever been found out.
Different countries may also be under internal pressure from their respective security forces.
Where only the "foreign intelligence" and top mil staff told of the US efforts and where happy to 'share'?
Now a lot of low, mid ranking and other domestic intelligence groups, special forces know that was done to their gov/public/private telco networks...
Will they be as happy to ware two hats and just 'share' their countries future banking, science, education, mil, political and trade efforts with a few other countries 24/7?
Re poor people vote conservative?
Think of the USA as a vast melting pot of people escaping the poverty and evil of a faith/class/wealth/royal systems of their old countries.
When entering the USA they saw that they had many new 'freedoms' but still had a wealth/power structure to consider if they every wanted to move up in society.
In different parts of the US the party machines where unique to each region and over generations set patterns of votes.
Local issues of farm taxes, hunting rights, corruption, inheritance taxes, faith, crime rates, gov spending (unemployment spending or military industrial complex) can all shape regions or not.
Some parties can just ignore regions or people knowing they will never get their 'vote' - over generations it becomes a way of life no matter the total corruption.
Add in think tanks and massive spending on shaping voters emotions and the US can be very interesting per region swapping out a political duopoly:)
Other parts of the world have a more clear rich vs poor, working class vs power systems and faith.
Re History repeats itself, you know.
I would suggest reading all about Engima, Enigma after ww2, the NATO/embassy encryption with 'tempest' plain text and later sales of weakened global crypto machines with junk math, early cell phones....
All this was well understood into the 1990's.
Snowden now fills in the missing US telco and US crypto gaps in US science/gov/academia.
A lot of trusted junk telco tech and code seems to have passed with great reviews:) http://it.slashdot.org/story/11/06/06/2045203/25-of-us-hackers-are-fbicia-informers
The UK tried not having watched its top translators into the late 1970's. The Soviet Union just walked out with vital sat (Ryolite and Canyon) and submarine tracking information ("Project Sambo"). After the early 1980's 'everything' was going to be watched.
The NSA really pushed down onto the UK on that aspect - never again would any top/cleared staff just get to wonder a 'safe'.
Digital tracking would very easy and the FBI/MI6/NSA/CIA/GCHQ knew what no digital tracking would allow again.
Notes on access changes would have been passed by real staff with Russian connections, been considered by Russia as a trap or just ongoing upgrades.
Russia mostly seems to like US gov workers in place and moving up in their respective areas with 'problems' that Russia understands. A contractor might be all over interesting projects and then in the private sector again with little in the way of really useful product and way too much info on Russian 'methods' in the USA.
Cleared Australian staff would have been all over the USA as part of their cleared working life and more able to speak with cleared US staff more freely than their own Australian govs staff.
Thats a huge issue for Canada, UK, NZ, Australia long term to ponder - everything flows back the US, extra countries the USA trusts, contractors and others.
Sections of the Australian armed services did have a moment of clarity on that issue after WW2 but that wisdom seems to have been lost in rush to hand everything over to the US/UK.
re " used IDs and passwords which were not his then it could be impossible to establish which logins were in fact performed by SNoden himself."
All that would have been logged too. How many cleared gov staff could one admin have 'seen'/'used' from his site/location with his clearance as a new contractor?
All staff are watched, all staff have geographic locations, hours, levels of files and projects they can work on/with....
Unless the system is flat and anyone can look at anything, at anytime for any reason, over any project.... with no logging... a subset of geographic ID's and times will stand out.
China and Russia would not touch the files as the person was CIA, then a contractor and then NSA with no background to Russia/China.
Russia would have been tempted if the plan was to stay in US gov for years and all docs could be considered over time.
Any of the bulk actionable documents could be a set trap, internal US intel junk for US political budget consumption, or lost internal bait for KGB/FSB spies...
Russia is not the Soviet Union and won't fall for such an 'easy' document trick again and again.....
Better to charm the press with optics of travel, a job, sit back and sees what plays out.
China knows everything crypto from the US is a trap and is working its way around all the US telco tech as fast as it can in its own way.
No need for unknown 'document' help, just time, skills and manufacturing prowess.
The US mil has had a long history with computer databases going back to the 1960's with the Community On-line Intelligence System effort.
The CIA, FBI and MI5,6 all knew what a motivated cleared individual could do with a "photocopier", "camera" and more trusted clearance level to a paper file system.
Would digital files be that just left to be that easy?
East Germany showed what a levels where needed to protect aspects of running spies or handling covert materials - a split of data making any one "walk out" very limited in what was lost.
We are now to believe 'the' US agency at the centre of US data integrity, protection and world wide data penetration could not rewind its own networks logs?
Snowden was CIA, was passed onto a contractor with his CIA work 'cleaned' at some point by someone and then onto the NSA.
Snowden would have had direct id/code/physical location contact with how many people who could have been allowed to look into files from "that" "site" in the USA?
What are the options? The NSA structure is now (~past 10 years) so 'sharing', 'out sourced', 'cloud based' and privatised that any staff "member" can look down over many projects without 'question' or any useful 'logging'?
That an admin can be so 'skilled' to cover/find/alter all digital tracking logs, using digital methods that none in the NSA, FBI, CIA, MI6/5, GCHQ ever thought about?
With all the Soviet/Russia spy hunts wrt staff, past whistleblowers over ~30 years, the digital file structures where 'outsourced' to such an extent that all security protections are now lost?
Yes the fun part after Snowden is the aspect of not 'knowing' and still been able to buy "made in the USA" based on price, a good lunch after 10-20 years of great deals, or speed, trusted needed standards.
Now countries might be a bit more wise and air gap the deep back end of their core databases and only offer a daily networked cash flow and orders.
The global firms still get to enjoy just in time orders but the ability of outside spies/govs to easily look deep into past orders might need physical access.
The change might be a total distrust of any US networking, US cloud, US networking, US encryption products offering speed, depth, history and tracking in one lucrative turn key service.
Globally domestic options might get more sales and support with US software and hardware been used as need for very limited international connections.
The NSA like the GCHQ works for the current gov and any future gov - i.e. the flow of data and junk global encryption is always the ongoing 'game'.
Funding and legality is part of the dance with every generation of political leaders and the US/UK press.
Usually political leaders are so addicted to predictive 'insider' files, news and trading that they are totally locked into the system.
The press traditionally needed access so stories could be blocked or changed before publication.
Book publishers could also be persuaded to drop chapters.
So the NSA is just working for the NSA trying to escape the past power/funding grabs of other parts of the US mil and gov - FBI, CIA and unique voting rights on mil/gov policy teams.
i.e. the NSA wants to be setting policy and never again wants to be 'called' in to a meeting to just offer tech advice and then told of the results.
LOL cold, many NSA/US gov/mil whistleblowers have been in the US court system http://cryptome.org/2013-info/06/whistleblowing/whistleblowing.htm
The US gov likes to try color of law, state secrets and really push the need for expensive cleared legal staff to keep the tame US press away.
The US Constitution covers all actions by the NSA domestically and no US "gov" granted US "immunity" laws can legally out pace that:)
In the end the staff are usually cleared and internal changes are 'made' just to make the cases fail to gain any more domestic traction and US press attention.
Then you had Snowden who did the smart thing and went to the press, escaping the 'internal' US gov legal trap that is domestic whistleblower protections.
Very true. GCHQ was interested in cell networks and voice prints. Good cover for a few regions of interest to get a bulk new telco upgrade distant from any exchange staff or UK court?
"HFC" in Australia was rolled out for pay tv in areas like state capitols. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television_in_Australia#Cable_television lists the cities.
Australia is all about keeping 'pay tv' in the existing hands and keeping out new streaming services. Optical would have allowed a new level entry to many new digital streaming media offerings.
So now Australia will be back onto telco copper, HFC and optical for new builds (greenfield). That keeps millions of people trapped on HFC streets with one existing network to pay/rent:)
Australia's population is packed into cities..... Optical could have been done to most of the city and other suburbs and regional centres as existing copper ducts and exchanges showed.
i.e. very much like South Korea in terms of an optical rollout that all telcos/isp can be selected from by the users.
The rest of the outer regions would have been offered dedicated wireless towers or sat - a vast improvement over some 'tower' or ~digital loop copper network with low adsl if lucky.
Australia is not tough for any optical skilled telco - you just need to map out suburbia and the cities, towns - all have existing ducts and exchanges.
Remote areas would have gotten a huge jump in services from existing sat, copper or shared wireless telco options.
"dig up a whole continent to plug in towns" is what was done in the past for copper and could have been redone for optical - once for generations with upgrades as needed. Very simple and pay back would been fine with less constant 'fix' up costs.
The only winners now are existing pay tv and telco networks - they keep their network and get paid for keeping new HD media out.
http://delimiter.com.au/2013/12/12/please-accept-apologies-wrong-turnbull/ hints at the politics.
Better than the telcos in the US was going to be the optical to almost all homes with wireless towers and sat for some.
Every telco, isp would then be on the same network and have to offer real options to every person wanting telco/net/POTS (plain old telephone service)
National, international best effort vs dedicated, cost, data caps - but it would have cut out several 'Bell' like entities from the copper, HFC revenue streams and allow new media (HDTV, streaming) players into Australia.
The other option was to keep part of the copper and place many new cooled, powered optical nodes in suburbia and let the 'Bell' look after the copper, rent/sell HFC and keep any revenue streams and protect existing HDTV (pay tv). http://delimiter.com.au/2013/12/12/delimiter-publishes-internal-nbn-co-fttn-analysis/
In the end the costs of all the new cooled, powered optical nodes in suburbia added up in terms of telco/eletrical skill sets needed, speed was low due to low diameter, old, cut, long, shared copper lines.
Faults where fixed to making a voice call standard - can you dial emergency services, make a POTS call? Over time many quick fixes to an old copper network:)
With the new slow HFC, copper and token optical plan the 'Bell' like entities are now as safe as any in the USA and milking existing revenue streams with no real bandwidth for new HD media.
So HFC will be open to more telcos but at what cost, speed? When you pack in 'all' of the streets with new bandwidth needs on limited HFC - you get very 'old' problems of one shared link back to optical - just one line for many people in many homes with many new download and up load needs.
Australia is now as safe for existing media and telcos as the USA and without any upgrade vision to optical at a huge cost to buy/rent into very old limited networks.
All optical for many in Australia would have been paid back over decades with low repair costs. The upfront cost was not low but now Australia will be paying big for copper and HFC...
Slashdot Mirror
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2007/10/nsa-asked-for-p/
"NSA Domestic Surveillance Began 7 Months Before 9/11, Convicted Qwest CEO Claims"
Links to the trial http://www.wired.com/images_blogs/threatlevel/files/512.pdf
"...made inquiry as to whether a warrant or other legal process had been secured in support of that request. When he learned that no such authority had been granted and that there was a disinclination on the part of the authorities to use any legal process, including the Special Court which had been established to handle such matters, Mr. Nacchio concluded that these requests violated the privacy requirements of the Telecommunications Act."
Yes Cold 'either brute force it, or go around it" - the encryption is useless as sold. The "encryption is still OK" as in a method but the hardware, software, codes as sold globally and used are back to plain text junk.
The 'good hardware and software now" links back to a few different countries, their staff, contractors, ex staff and anyone who can pay.
Cold the world is filled with NSA and GCHQ surveillance in the form of junk telco crypto.
... "cooperation with allies and beefing up their own intelligence agencies" was basically trusted telco staff in other countries allowing all their nations data to flow to the NSA and GCHQ over decades. Banking, trade deals, political conversations, emerging science, export deals ... once thought to be secure where lost to a "few" other nations in real time.
"More and more countries are beefing up their" cryptographic "capabilities as a result of his revelations" that what the US and UK sold them was junk.
"Diplomatic relations among many nations are now strained" as the NSA, GCHQ and a few random "other" trusted nations, their staff, ex staff and contractors and ex contractors have the crypto keys to international and domestic telco networks.
That access is all for sale to the highest bidder over time. Not a good place for any gov to be in.
Political leaders where handed "safe" phones by their own expert staff only to find the phone is a total crypto fail.
Can they trust their own top staff? If the top staff where happy to help the UK, USA, a few other countries and contractors over decades- who else are they helping?
As for the "Russian asset" talking point - all the whistleblowing data is in the hands of a few people in the "press".... Russia knows the info could be a trap and would be very careful about trusting any of it.
Over time more Snowden docs will be released. Readers can follow the interesting pace on sites like http://cryptome.org/2013/11/snowden-tally.htm
Countries will rebuild their own domestic networks, political communications networks and their academics will hopefully be more creative and wise.
Remember cold if the NSA and GCHQ can get into any telco system - so any other 'group' over time. Communications security for all or plain text junk for all.
Re the full extent of the surveillance. .com: .com trunk lines. .com internet service. .com .coms?
Thanks to Snowden we have an understanding for the ~"3" ways into some tame US
1. Muscular: to collect data from US
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/10/nsa-hacked-yahoo-google-cables/
3. Collecting from your between your browser to the US
2. Prism: Asking for the data from the US
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRISM_(surveillance_program)
We are to believe option 1 and 3 are totally out of the skill set of the web/telco
Re So what would happen?
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130927/14413024680/one-telco-exec-who-resisted-nsa-has-been-released-4-years-jail.shtml
Lack of trust goes down the entire cryptography academic/testing/science/sales/code US/UK branding. :)
Few have faith in US or UK gov testing of US or UK cryptography and the list covers a few sections of US and UK exports:
US or UK academic teaching of US or UK cryptography?
US or UK press reporting on US or UK cryptography?
US or UK brands testing of US or UK export quality cryptography?
US or UK brands selling of US or UK export quality cryptography?
The NSA and GCHQ wanted into cheap junk global telco and networking cryptography - the NSA set the standards, tame US brands sold it cheap and the US gov spread telco deregulation on the US telco loop pricing.
Most govs know what weak junk telco encryption results in - telco and networking access for 'all' not just a few trusted US and UK gov NSA/GCHQ 'teams' and friendly nations.
All the hardware, software, codes and sales are now tainted as expensive junk open to 'any' gov or ex staff or commercial group or criminal or faith based interests at a price.
Then you have the legal questions in the USA facing a new round of court challenges and law reform or efforts.
As for "anybody saying that things" http://cryptome.org/2013-info/06/whistleblowing/whistleblowing.htm
Thanks to Snowden, a lot of costly junk encryption can now be fixed and networks secured around the world
Looking back over US/UK crypto history how any such 'events' where deflected in the past: ..... .com backhaul. .coms is looked into and now fixed. :)
Good use of US/UK compartmentalization from the 1950-80's really saved the NSA/GCHQ from court/press issues.
Trials would just not be on the crypto topic and press could be brushed aside as Soviet friendly local press adding their own wild stories. i.e. simple signals intelligence that watches the Soviet Union and lots of domestic safe guards.
Any publisher, legal advice to an author would be just as comical, you can sell your creative crypto history book and 'nothing' with happen to you.
An 'insiders' book was not facing a court, its contents must be 'safe', almost fiction or Soviet friendly.
Now the world has woken up to cheap US/UK Enigma version 2.0 telco gifts. Globally most govs and telcos know where the US/UK govs got in, ex gov staff and 'other' govs, criminals will get in thanks to junk US/UK encryption.
Govs/politiicans are also aware that their own top crypto staff did not protect them from their data been 'lost' to 5 other govs, a few other govs and contracting staff and
So after many months expect to see a 'plan' - make PR around the docs as released (sock puppets as seen on slashdot).
Lots of spin on tainted negative stories around the docs as released (sock puppets as seen on slashdot).
HTTPS for all.... and really good encryption for
The US Fourth Amendment protections will really need to to be legally memory holed (1984 book reference).
The stage is been set for a lot of PR as one or two of the more public ways the NSA/GCHQ got into the tame US
Any mention of the 2-3 other ways will be spun as a version of the 'fixed' method. Expect see a flood of the usual sock puppet names in the press and web 2.0 with some great US privacy news
Re: What makes them think that NSA wouldn't just hack the servers on their soil?
GCHQ and the NSA would do this for tempest site use for NATO/embassy encryption machines. Plain text out near the machine, quality 'tested' encryption along the network.
For that you need ongoing contractors or staff with a reason for access in/near the machines over time.
Its fine if the machine manufacture is a UK/US front or tame to the needs of the US/UK gov.
After Snowden physical site access will not be like the 1950-60's for a US/UK telco/saff/gov front to just keep the "servers" flowing back to the USA/UK for sorting/storage/searching.
This makes the efforts of Brazil costly - in terms of US ground teams needing to get close to the (one) site and tap without ever been found out.
Different countries may also be under internal pressure from their respective security forces.
Where only the "foreign intelligence" and top mil staff told of the US efforts and where happy to 'share'?
Now a lot of low, mid ranking and other domestic intelligence groups, special forces know that was done to their gov/public/private telco networks...
Will they be as happy to ware two hats and just 'share' their countries future banking, science, education, mil, political and trade efforts with a few other countries 24/7?
Re poor people vote conservative? :)
Think of the USA as a vast melting pot of people escaping the poverty and evil of a faith/class/wealth/royal systems of their old countries.
When entering the USA they saw that they had many new 'freedoms' but still had a wealth/power structure to consider if they every wanted to move up in society.
In different parts of the US the party machines where unique to each region and over generations set patterns of votes.
Local issues of farm taxes, hunting rights, corruption, inheritance taxes, faith, crime rates, gov spending (unemployment spending or military industrial complex) can all shape regions or not.
Some parties can just ignore regions or people knowing they will never get their 'vote' - over generations it becomes a way of life no matter the total corruption.
Add in think tanks and massive spending on shaping voters emotions and the US can be very interesting per region swapping out a political duopoly
Other parts of the world have a more clear rich vs poor, working class vs power systems and faith.
Re History repeats itself, you know. :)
I would suggest reading all about Engima, Enigma after ww2, the NATO/embassy encryption with 'tempest' plain text and later sales of weakened global crypto machines with junk math, early cell phones....
All this was well understood into the 1990's.
Snowden now fills in the missing US telco and US crypto gaps in US science/gov/academia.
A lot of trusted junk telco tech and code seems to have passed with great reviews
http://it.slashdot.org/story/11/06/06/2045203/25-of-us-hackers-are-fbicia-informers
The UK tried not having watched its top translators into the late 1970's. The Soviet Union just walked out with vital sat (Ryolite and Canyon) and submarine tracking information ("Project Sambo"). After the early 1980's 'everything' was going to be watched.
The NSA really pushed down onto the UK on that aspect - never again would any top/cleared staff just get to wonder a 'safe'.
Digital tracking would very easy and the FBI/MI6/NSA/CIA/GCHQ knew what no digital tracking would allow again.
Notes on access changes would have been passed by real staff with Russian connections, been considered by Russia as a trap or just ongoing upgrades.
Russia mostly seems to like US gov workers in place and moving up in their respective areas with 'problems' that Russia understands. A contractor might be all over interesting projects and then in the private sector again with little in the way of really useful product and way too much info on Russian 'methods' in the USA.
Cleared Australian staff would have been all over the USA as part of their cleared working life and more able to speak with cleared US staff more freely than their own Australian govs staff.
Thats a huge issue for Canada, UK, NZ, Australia long term to ponder - everything flows back the US, extra countries the USA trusts, contractors and others.
Sections of the Australian armed services did have a moment of clarity on that issue after WW2 but that wisdom seems to have been lost in rush to hand everything over to the US/UK.
re " used IDs and passwords which were not his then it could be impossible to establish which logins were in fact performed by SNoden himself." .... with no logging ... a subset of geographic ID's and times will stand out.
All that would have been logged too. How many cleared gov staff could one admin have 'seen'/'used' from his site/location with his clearance as a new contractor?
All staff are watched, all staff have geographic locations, hours, levels of files and projects they can work on/with....
Unless the system is flat and anyone can look at anything, at anytime for any reason, over any project
China and Russia would not touch the files as the person was CIA, then a contractor and then NSA with no background to Russia/China.
Russia would have been tempted if the plan was to stay in US gov for years and all docs could be considered over time.
Any of the bulk actionable documents could be a set trap, internal US intel junk for US political budget consumption, or lost internal bait for KGB/FSB spies...
Russia is not the Soviet Union and won't fall for such an 'easy' document trick again and again.....
Better to charm the press with optics of travel, a job, sit back and sees what plays out.
China knows everything crypto from the US is a trap and is working its way around all the US telco tech as fast as it can in its own way.
No need for unknown 'document' help, just time, skills and manufacturing prowess.
Re consider forgiving someone
From the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_Committee to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80%93Contra_affair to
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Covert_United_States_foreign_regime_change_actions
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Ghraib_torture_and_prisoner_abuse to rendition and the junk global telco encryption -
So much is now in history books and can be found by any academic or person -
Think of how the Soviet Union got into any country - the press, academics, students, peace groups, trade unions, banking, trade, mil.... politics
i.e. internal 'news' about trusted names/brands within the USA that where turned by the Soviet Union/Russia or "worked" for the US gov in the private sector.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Mockingbird gives a hint.
Generations of bulk insider trading within very trusted sectors of the private sector via privileged files and tips/front groups.
The US mil has had a long history with computer databases going back to the 1960's with the Community On-line Intelligence System effort.
The CIA, FBI and MI5,6 all knew what a motivated cleared individual could do with a "photocopier", "camera" and more trusted clearance level to a paper file system.
Would digital files be that just left to be that easy?
East Germany showed what a levels where needed to protect aspects of running spies or handling covert materials - a split of data making any one "walk out" very limited in what was lost.
We are now to believe 'the' US agency at the centre of US data integrity, protection and world wide data penetration could not rewind its own networks logs?
Snowden was CIA, was passed onto a contractor with his CIA work 'cleaned' at some point by someone and then onto the NSA.
Snowden would have had direct id/code/physical location contact with how many people who could have been allowed to look into files from "that" "site" in the USA?
What are the options? The NSA structure is now (~past 10 years) so 'sharing', 'out sourced', 'cloud based' and privatised that any staff "member" can look down over many projects without 'question' or any useful 'logging'?
That an admin can be so 'skilled' to cover/find/alter all digital tracking logs, using digital methods that none in the NSA, FBI, CIA, MI6/5, GCHQ ever thought about?
With all the Soviet/Russia spy hunts wrt staff, past whistleblowers over ~30 years, the digital file structures where 'outsourced' to such an extent that all security protections are now lost?
Yes the fun part after Snowden is the aspect of not 'knowing' and still been able to buy "made in the USA" based on price, a good lunch after 10-20 years of great deals, or speed, trusted needed standards.
Now countries might be a bit more wise and air gap the deep back end of their core databases and only offer a daily networked cash flow and orders.
The global firms still get to enjoy just in time orders but the ability of outside spies/govs to easily look deep into past orders might need physical access.
The change might be a total distrust of any US networking, US cloud, US networking, US encryption products offering speed, depth, history and tracking in one lucrative turn key service.
Globally domestic options might get more sales and support with US software and hardware been used as need for very limited international connections.
The NSA like the GCHQ works for the current gov and any future gov - i.e. the flow of data and junk global encryption is always the ongoing 'game'.
Funding and legality is part of the dance with every generation of political leaders and the US/UK press.
Usually political leaders are so addicted to predictive 'insider' files, news and trading that they are totally locked into the system.
The press traditionally needed access so stories could be blocked or changed before publication.
Book publishers could also be persuaded to drop chapters.
So the NSA is just working for the NSA trying to escape the past power/funding grabs of other parts of the US mil and gov - FBI, CIA and unique voting rights on mil/gov policy teams.
i.e. the NSA wants to be setting policy and never again wants to be 'called' in to a meeting to just offer tech advice and then told of the results.
LOL cold, many NSA/US gov/mil whistleblowers have been in the US court system http://cryptome.org/2013-info/06/whistleblowing/whistleblowing.htm :)
The US gov likes to try color of law, state secrets and really push the need for expensive cleared legal staff to keep the tame US press away.
The US Constitution covers all actions by the NSA domestically and no US "gov" granted US "immunity" laws can legally out pace that
In the end the staff are usually cleared and internal changes are 'made' just to make the cases fail to gain any more domestic traction and US press attention.
Then you had Snowden who did the smart thing and went to the press, escaping the 'internal' US gov legal trap that is domestic whistleblower protections.
Very true. GCHQ was interested in cell networks and voice prints. Good cover for a few regions of interest to get a bulk new telco upgrade distant from any exchange staff or UK court?
"HFC" in Australia was rolled out for pay tv in areas like state capitols. :)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television_in_Australia#Cable_television lists the cities.
Australia is all about keeping 'pay tv' in the existing hands and keeping out new streaming services. Optical would have allowed a new level entry to many new digital streaming media offerings.
So now Australia will be back onto telco copper, HFC and optical for new builds (greenfield). That keeps millions of people trapped on HFC streets with one existing network to pay/rent
Australia's population is packed into cities..... Optical could have been done to most of the city and other suburbs and regional centres as existing copper ducts and exchanges showed.
i.e. very much like South Korea in terms of an optical rollout that all telcos/isp can be selected from by the users.
The rest of the outer regions would have been offered dedicated wireless towers or sat - a vast improvement over some 'tower' or ~digital loop copper network with low adsl if lucky.
Australia is not tough for any optical skilled telco - you just need to map out suburbia and the cities, towns - all have existing ducts and exchanges.
Remote areas would have gotten a huge jump in services from existing sat, copper or shared wireless telco options.
"dig up a whole continent to plug in towns" is what was done in the past for copper and could have been redone for optical - once for generations with upgrades as needed. Very simple and pay back would been fine with less constant 'fix' up costs.
The only winners now are existing pay tv and telco networks - they keep their network and get paid for keeping new HD media out.
http://delimiter.com.au/2013/12/12/please-accept-apologies-wrong-turnbull/ hints at the politics. :)
Better than the telcos in the US was going to be the optical to almost all homes with wireless towers and sat for some.
Every telco, isp would then be on the same network and have to offer real options to every person wanting telco/net/POTS (plain old telephone service)
National, international best effort vs dedicated, cost, data caps - but it would have cut out several 'Bell' like entities from the copper, HFC revenue streams and allow new media (HDTV, streaming) players into Australia.
The other option was to keep part of the copper and place many new cooled, powered optical nodes in suburbia and let the 'Bell' look after the copper, rent/sell HFC and keep any revenue streams and protect existing HDTV (pay tv).
http://delimiter.com.au/2013/12/12/delimiter-publishes-internal-nbn-co-fttn-analysis/
In the end the costs of all the new cooled, powered optical nodes in suburbia added up in terms of telco/eletrical skill sets needed, speed was low due to low diameter, old, cut, long, shared copper lines.
Faults where fixed to making a voice call standard - can you dial emergency services, make a POTS call? Over time many quick fixes to an old copper network
With the new slow HFC, copper and token optical plan the 'Bell' like entities are now as safe as any in the USA and milking existing revenue streams with no real bandwidth for new HD media.
So HFC will be open to more telcos but at what cost, speed? When you pack in 'all' of the streets with new bandwidth needs on limited HFC - you get very 'old' problems of one shared link back to optical - just one line for many people in many homes with many new download and up load needs.
Australia is now as safe for existing media and telcos as the USA and without any upgrade vision to optical at a huge cost to buy/rent into very old limited networks.
All optical for many in Australia would have been paid back over decades with low repair costs. The upfront cost was not low but now Australia will be paying big for copper and HFC...
Yes it provides one final task for malware to decrypt vs a plain text file for any gov/gov trained staff or skilled person to just 'find' as needed.
Yes thats the fun part, how where the ip's in one jurisdiction found?