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Lamplighter 07-19-2013 12:47 PM
Quote:
You Are Being Tracked: How License Plate Readers Are Being Used to Record Americans' Movements
The headline here is pretty misleading.
There's a real issue about "You" when the data is being stored for years.

At least the "red-light cameras" that give you a $300 "ticket-by-mail" have a photo of the offending driver.
How many car owners can say who was driving their car on a particular highway
on any particular date at any particular time...4 or 14 or 44 years ago.

This amassing of enormous amounts of "data" is a waste of resources,
because the digital age has created one truism: garbage in - garbage out.

xoxoxoBruce 07-19-2013 10:40 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by tw (Post 870867)
First define the resulting problems. Then address them. Who controls the data?
That should be done before the readers are installed, not after the horse has left the barn.

Griff 07-20-2013 08:18 AM
Absolutely.

tw 07-20-2013 06:38 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce (Post 870975)
That should be done before the readers are installed, not after the horse has left the barn.
You are asking for our Congress to advance America. When so many preach the gospel according to Limbaugh. "We want America to fail".

Good luck solving a problem that Cheney and other 'we fear them' wackos wanted. After all, extremist see evil hiding in every phone booth. (Does Superman know how much they hate illegal immigrants?)

glatt 07-22-2013 10:50 AM
2 Attachment(s)
The NSA is apparently absolutely enormous.
Big article in the Washington post today goes into some detail on how it has grown since 9/11. But the interesting thing is the slideshow.

Did you know that the NSA building in Ft. Meade Maryland is larger than the Pentagon? I thought the Pentagon was still the largest office building in the US Government. The Pentagon is huge.

But the NSA headquarters is bigger, and they plan to make it another 50% larger with a new addition.
Attachment 44933

Did you know that the NSA also has huge facilities in Aurora CO, and Bluffdale Utah?

How about in Yorkshire, England? Did you know they have a large facility there?
Attachment 44934

Check out the slideshow.

Lamplighter 07-22-2013 02:14 PM
Who says the government doesn't create jobs...

ZenGum 07-24-2013 01:47 AM
And yet, they are incapable of spying on even themselves, apparently.

http://www.propublica.org/article/ns...rch-own-emails


Quote:
I filed a request last week for emails between NSA employees and employees of the National Geographic Channel over a specific time period. The TV station had aired a friendly documentary on the NSA and I want to better understand the agency's public-relations efforts.

A few days after filing the request, Blacker called, asking me to narrow my request since the FOIA office can search emails only “person by person," rather than in bulk. The NSA has more than 30,000 employees.

[editing by ZG]

"There's no central method to search an email at this time with the way our records are set up, unfortunately," NSA Freedom of Information Act officer Cindy Blacker told me last week.

The system is “a little antiquated and archaic," she added.
:eyebrow: :right: :lol: :lol2:

Lamplighter 07-28-2013 10:15 PM
Ron Wyden is still at it... hinting, but not disclosing.
This weekend new issues may be becoming public.

Washington Post
David A. Fahrenthold
July 28, 2013

With NSA revelations, Sen. Ron Wyden’s vague warnings about privacy finally become clear
Quote:
It was one of the strangest personal crusades on Capitol Hill:
For years, Sen. Ron Wyden said he was worried that intelligence agencies were violating Americans’ privacy.
But he couldn’t say how. That was a secret.

Wyden’s outrage, he said, stemmed from top-secret information he had learned as a member
of the Senate Intelligence Committee. But Wyden (D-Ore.) was bound by secrecy rules, unable to reveal what he knew. <snip>

Two years later, they found out.

The revelations from former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden
— detailing vast domestic surveillance programs that vacuumed up data on phone calls,
e-mails and other electronic communications —
have filled in the details of Wyden’s concerns.
<snip>
Now, in the aftermath of Snowden’s disclosures, Wyden is pressing his case on two fronts.<snip>

On Friday, Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper Jr. responded to a letter co-authored by Wyden with new details.


Washington Post
Peter Wallsten
July 26, 2013
Quote:
<snip>
In the letter, released Friday by Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.),
a vocal critic of the surveillance program, Clapper said the problems had been
“previously identified and detailed in reports to the Court and briefings to Congress.<snip>

Wyden, in an interview late Friday, said
intelligence officials could “definitely” reveal more information
about the problems without compromising national security.<snip>

Wyden has warned in the past that the court’s secret interpretations of the Patriot Act
"gave the government the authority to collect other forms of bulk data,
including health information and credit card records.

Lamplighter 07-29-2013 03:08 PM
Holder Tells Russia Snowden Won’t Face Torture or Death...

Water-boarding or a few other extreme interrogation techniques ? Well maybe.
But NO torture... and death would certainly be something of an "Ooooops"

ZenGum 07-29-2013 07:15 PM
In other news, Holder grants Snowden immortality, apparently. ;)

Lamplighter 07-31-2013 11:36 AM
3 Attachment(s)
And the beat goes on... 32 pages of newly declassified documents
that show details of even larger surveillance "projects"


NY Times
CHARLIE SAVAGE
Published: July 31, 2013

U.S. Outlines N.S.A.’s Culling of Data for All Domestic Calls
Quote:
WASHINGTON — The Obama administration on Wednesday released
formerly classified documents outlining a once-secret program of the National Security Agency
that is collecting records of all domestic phone calls in the United States,
as top officials testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee.
<snip>
The documents released by the government, meanwhile, include an April ruling
by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court that supported a secondary order
— also leaked by Mr. Snowden — requiring a Verizon subsidiary to turn over all
of its customers’ phone logs for a three-month period.

It said the government may access the logs only when an
executive branch official determines that there are
“facts giving rise to a reasonable, articulable suspicion”
that the number searched is associated with terrorism.
<snip>

The newly disclosed XKeyscore presentation focuses in particular on Internet activities,
ncluding chats and Web site browsing activities, as intelligence analysts
search for terrorist cells by looking at “anomalous events” like who is using encryption
or “searching the web for suspicious stuff.”

Griff 08-01-2013 01:27 PM
Ho hum. Another day another violation of the 4th Amendment.

Lamplighter 08-05-2013 10:34 AM
The Guardian
Glenn Greenwald
8/4/13

Members of Congress denied access to basic information about NSA
Quote:
Documents provided by two House members demonstrate
how they are blocked from exercising any oversight over domestic surveillance
<snjp>
Two House members, GOP Rep. Morgan Griffith of Virginia and
Democratic Rep. Alan Grayson of Florida, have provided the Guardian
with numerous letters and emails documenting their persistent,
and unsuccessful, efforts to learn about NSA programs and relevant FISA court rulings.
<snjp>
Rep. Griffith requested information about the NSA from the House Intelligence Committee
six weeks ago, on June 25. He asked for "access to the classified FISA court order(s)
referenced on Meet the Press this past weekend": a reference to my raising with host David Gregory
the still-secret 2011 86-page ruling from the FISA court that found substantial parts
of NSA domestic spying to be in violation of the Fourth Amendment as well as governing surveillance statutes.
And then there is the question of Freedom of Information...

NBC News
Michael Isikoff
6/12/13
Secret court won't object to release of opinion on illegal surveillance
Quote:
In a rare public ruling by the nation’s most secretive judicial body,
the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court ruled Wednesday that
it did not object to the release of a classified 86-page opinion concluding
that some of the U.S. government’s surveillance activities were unconstitutional.

The ruling, signed by the court’s chief judge, Reggie Walton, rejected
the Justice Department’s arguments that the secret national security court’s rules
prevented disclosure of the opinion. Instead, the court found that
because the document was in the possession of the Justice Department,
it was subject to release under the Freedom of Information Act.
<snip>
The EFF’s lawsuit was inspired by a July 20, 2012 letter from an aide to
Director of National Intelligence James Clapper to Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore.,
that stated that “on at least one occasion,” the FISC held that “some collection”
carried out by the U.S. government under classified surveillance programs
“was unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment.”

BigV 08-05-2013 12:42 PM
I flatly refuse to believe that the government is only intercepting communications of foreigners.

I know that should some American citizen (wacko extremist though he may be) located in the country, make mention of some threat to the president, that it would be acted upon, even though the aforementioned wacko extremist was previously unknown to the government.

Where is the fucking due process in this whole farce? Where is the check and balance of the three co-equal branches of government? Where is the transparency?

sickening!

Griff 08-05-2013 01:03 PM
Screw checks and balances, no branch should be actively subverting the Constitution and right now by my count we are at two and three is likely.

BigV 08-05-2013 01:23 PM
well, defense against the subversion of the constitution is what checks and balances is all about, but never mind that quibble.

I think the core of this problem is a fattening and softening of American attitudes, BY DESIGN, by those who can profit from it, either by increasing their wealth or their power or both. By having unrealistic attitudes like "protect me from everything at all times" "be afraid of _________" "with us or agin us" repeatedly and relentlessly promoted, it gives ideas like this traction. Someone(s) will say, I can provide that protection, just sign here, or rather, look away while I "protect you" and by "protect you" I mean agglomerate more power and money to myself.

THEY'RE culpable for two reasons, simple greed for money and power, and by mistrusting the toughness (indeed, breeding it out of our attitudes) and resilience of regular, civilian citizens.

Griff 08-05-2013 01:25 PM
Amen, brother V.

BigV 08-05-2013 01:28 PM
I need to try out my voice more.

Griff 08-05-2013 01:31 PM

Griff 08-05-2013 01:53 PM
The Drug Enforcement Administration has been the recipient of multiple tips from the NSA. DEA officials in a highly secret office called the Special Operations Division are assigned to handle these incoming tips, according to Reuters. Tips from the NSA are added to a DEA database that includes “intelligence intercepts, wiretaps, informants and a massive database of telephone records.” This is problematic because it appears to break down the barrier between foreign counter-terrorism investigations and ordinary domestic criminal investigations.

On and on...

Lamplighter 09-01-2013 11:14 AM
...along that line, here is a story about bank robbers, the FBI, and "tower dumps"

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2...hy-it-matters/
Ars Technica
Nate Anderson
8/29/13

How “cell tower dumps” caught the High Country Bandits—and why it matters
Fishing expeditions can pay dividends—but do they need a warrant?

Quote:
On February 18, 2010, the FBI field office in Denver issued a "wanted" notice
for two men known as "the High Country Bandits"—a rather grandiose name
for a pair of middle-aged white men who had been knocking down rural banks
in northern Arizona and Colorado, grabbing a few thousand dollars
from a teller's cash drawer and sometimes escaping on a stolen all-terrain vehicle (ATV).
<snip>
If you're the FBI, you ask a judge to approve a full "cell tower dump,"
in which wireless operators will turn over the records of every cell phone
that registered with a particular tower at a particular time.
(Phones "register" with the nearest cell towers so that the network knows how to route calls.)
And then you look for any numbers that stand out.
<snip>
The FBI actually received more than 150,000 registered cell phone numbers
from this particular set of tower dumps, despite picking the most rural locations possible.
What the case agents wanted to do was scan the logs from all four sites on the belief
that no single person was likely to be at all four banks during the robbery—except for the robber.

So the FBI dumped all the numbers into a Microsoft Access database and ran a query.
As expected, only a single number came back: Verizon Wireless phone number 928-205-xxxx
had registered with the tower closest to three of the banks on the day of each robbery.
(Verizon didn't have a cell tower covering the fourth bank.)
Further analysis found a second number, 928-358-xxxx,
that had been in contact with 928-205-xxx and that had registered with two of the towers in question.

The FBI then went back to the judge and obtained more particular
court orders covering these specific phone numbers.
The phone numbers came back with subscriber names attached: Joel Glore and Ronald Capito.
And the location data returned showed that these two phones had
been present at most of the 16 bank robberies under investigation.
Further, the data showed that both phones tended to travel from Show Low, Arizona,
to the location of each bank just before each robbery.
<snip>
BUT... About those 149,998 other numbers...

Quote:
Bandits? Caught. Justice? Done.
But let's step back from the final result for a moment and ponder
the technique that provided the big lead —the cell tower dumps.
Should we have any concerns with the government getting that sort
of mass tracking information on so many Americans without a warrant?

Some judges say yes. Former Magistrate Judge Brian Owsley dealt routinely
with warrant requests and court orders until becoming a law school professor earlier this year;
he has just written an intriguing paper about the issues surrounding cell tower dumps.
In his view, these are clearly "searches" under the Fourth Amendment,
and they require a full warrant backed by evidence of "probable cause."

That's because the Supreme Court jurisprudence on surveillance has
relied for decades in part on the idea of someone's "reasonable expectation of privacy"
—and people certainly expect that their location won't be easily and routinely accessible
to law enforcement without a warrant, regardless of whether cell phone technology tracks them or not.

Flint 09-01-2013 01:24 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Lamplighter (Post 874920)
Quote:
So the FBI dumped all the numbers into a Microsoft Access database and ran a query.
Access ??? I don't want anyone having access to this kind of data who does't have a ƒucking SQL Server guy on staff.

Lamplighter 09-01-2013 02:50 PM
Don't worry about it... that was just a product placement ad.

Lamplighter 09-02-2013 01:51 PM
1 Attachment(s)
Here is a new program published today ... a program called "HEMISPHERE"
It's not just cell phones... it's every call that goes through an AT&T "switch"

NY Times
SCOTT SHANE and COLIN MOYNIHAN
9/1/13

Drug Agents Use Vast Phone Trove, Eclipsing N.S.A.’s
Quote:
For at least six years, law enforcement officials working on a counternarcotics program
have had routine access, using subpoenas, to an enormous AT&T database
that contains the records of decades of Americans’ phone calls
— parallel to but covering a far longer time than the National Security Agency’s
hotly disputed collection of phone call logs.<snip>

Hemisphere covers every call that passes through an AT&T switch
— not just those made by AT&T customers —
and includes calls dating back 26 years, according to Hemisphere training slides
bearing the logo of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy.
Some four billion call records are added to the database every day, the slides say;
technical specialists say a single call may generate more than one record.
Unlike the N.S.A. data, the Hemisphere data includes information on the locations of callers.<snip>

Crucially, they said, the phone data is stored by AT&T,
and not by the government as in the N.S.A. program.
It is queried for phone numbers of interest mainly using what are called
“administrative subpoenas,” those issued not by a grand jury or a judge
but by a federal agency, in this case the D.E.A.<snip>

“Is this a massive change in the way the government operates?
No,” said Mr. Richman, who worked as a federal drug prosecutor in Manhattan in the early 1990s.
“Actually you could say that it’s a desperate effort by the government to catch up.”

But Mr. Richman said the program at least touched on an unresolved Fourth Amendment question:
whether mere government possession of huge amounts of private data,
rather than its actual use, may trespass on the amendment’s
requirement that searches be “reasonable.”
Even though the data resides with AT&T, the deep interest and involvement of the government
in its storage may raise constitutional issues, he said.
Here is the article-link to the slides described above...


NY Times
9/1/13

Synopsis of the Hemisphere Project
Quote:
The government pays AT&T to place its employees in drug-fighting units around the country.
Those employees sit alongside Drug Enforcement Administration agents
and local detectives and supply them with the phone data from as far back as 1987.

A slide presentation given to The New York Times shows that the Hemisphere Project
was started in 2007 and has been carried out in great secrecy.

Quote:
[p3]
Hemisphere Summary
? Hemisphere results can be returned via email within an hour
of the subpoenaed request and include CDRs that are less
than one hour old at the time of the search
? The Hemisphere program has access to long distance and
international CDR's data going back to 1987
? Hemisphere data contains roaming information that can
identify the city and state at the time of the call
? Results are returned in several formats that aid the analyst/
investigator (I2, Penlink, GeoTime, Target Dialed Frequency
report, Common Calls report, etc)<snip>

Attachment 45337

Lamplighter 09-05-2013 05:41 PM
It's almost(?) getting boring to see one article after another about the ubiquitous abuses by the NSA.

The last time I remember such a drip, drip, drip of exposés were the Watergate crimes of Richard Nixon.

This 4 page article is based on the documents provided by Edward J. Snowden, and
describes the front-door, back-door, and digital methods that NSA is using to decipher
every coded message and to collect and store any/every message that the NSA, itself, decides.

The NSA apparently asked the news media to NOT PUBLISH
this article because it exposed things they wanted kept secret.
In this article, the Times tells why they have gone ahead with publication.

NY Times
NICOLE PERLROTH, JEFF LARSON and SCOTT SHANE
September 5, 2013

N.S.A. Foils Much Internet Encryption
Quote:
The National Security Agency is winning its long-running secret war on encryption,
using supercomputers, technical trickery, court orders and behind-the-scenes persuasion
to undermine the major tools protecting the privacy of everyday communications in the Internet age,
according to newly disclosed documents.

The agency has circumvented or cracked much of the encryption, or digital scrambling,
that guards global commerce and banking systems, protects sensitive data like trade secrets and medical records,
and automatically secures the e-mails, Web searches, Internet chats and phone calls
of Americans and others around the world, the documents show.
<snip>
Beginning in 2000, as encryption tools were gradually blanketing the Web,
the N.S.A. invested billions of dollars in a clandestine campaign to preserve its ability to eavesdrop.
Having lost a public battle in the 1990s to insert its own “back door”
in all encryption, it set out to accomplish the same goal by stealth.
The agency, according to the documents and interviews with industry officials,
deployed custom-built, superfast computers to break codes, and began collaborating
with technology companies in the United States and abroad to build entry points into their products.
The documents do not identify which companies have participated.

The N.S.A. hacked into target computers to snare messages before they were encrypted.
And the agency used its influence as the world’s most experienced code maker
to covertly introduce weaknesses into the encryption standards followed by hardware
and software developers around the world.

Etc.,
Etc.,
Etc.,...

<Snip>

Lamplighter 09-05-2013 06:38 PM
This is a link to a "sister" article in The Guardian.
It gives a somewhat different perspective, and different details

The Guardian
James Ball, Julian Borger and Glenn Greenwald
9/5/13
US and UK spy agencies defeat privacy and security on the internet
Quote:
NSA and GCHQ unlock encryption used to protect emails, banking and medical records
$250m-a-year US program works covertly with tech companies to insert weaknesses into products

Security experts say programs 'undermine the fabric of the internet

Lamplighter 09-06-2013 11:28 PM
It's not just the NSA that is trying to break codes...

US "drone attacks" may be vunerable to false GPS location signals, video transmissions, flight controls, etc.

Washington Post
Craig Whitlock and Barton Gellman
9/3/13

U.S. documents detail al-Qaeda’s efforts to fight back against drones
Quote:
Al-Qaeda’s leadership has assigned cells of engineers to find ways
to shoot down, jam or remotely hijack U.S. drones, hoping to exploit the
technological vulnerabilities of a weapons system that has inflicted huge losses
upon the terrorist network, according to top-secret U.S. intelligence documents.
<snip>
Details of al-Qaeda’s attempts to fight back against the drone campaign
are contained in a classified intelligence report provided to The Washington Post
by Edward Snowden, the fugitive former National Security Agency contractor.<snip>

In 2011, the DIA concluded that an “al-Qaeda-affiliated research and development cell
currently lacks the technical knowledge to successfully integrate and deploy
a counterdrone strike system.” DIA analysts added, however, that
if al-Qaeda engineers were to “overcome these substantial design challenges,
we believe such a system probably would be highly disruptive for U.S. operations
in Afghanistan and Pakistan.”<snip>

Beyond the threat that al-Qaeda might figure out how to hack or shoot down a drone,
however, U.S. spy agencies worried that their drone campaign was becoming
increasingly vulnerable to public opposition.
Intelligence analysts took careful note of al-Qaeda’s efforts to portray drone strikes
as cowardly or immoral, beginning in January 2011 with a report titled
“Al-Qa’ida Explores Manipulating Public Opinion to Curb CT Pressure.”

Lamplighter 09-08-2013 08:56 AM
http://www.cellar.org/images/editor/menupop.gif
 
Some Dwellars may remember this post....
Quote:
Ron Wyden is still at it... hinting, but not disclosing.
This weekend new issues may be becoming public.

With NSA revelations, Sen. Ron Wyden’s vague warnings about privacy finally become clear
It was one of the strangest personal crusades on Capitol Hill:
For years, Sen. Ron Wyden said he was worried that intelligence agencies were violating Americans’ privacy.
But he couldn’t say how. That was a secret.
Today another article clarifies more of what Wyden was all about...

Washington Post
Ellen Nakashima
9/8/13

Obama administration had restrictions on NSA reversed in 2011
Quote:
The Obama administration secretly won permission from a surveillance court in 2011
to reverse restrictions on the National Security Agency’s use of intercepted phone calls and e-mails,
permitting the agency to search deliberately for Americans’ communications in its massive databases,
according to interviews with government officials and recently declassified material.

What had not been previously acknowledged is that the court in 2008 imposed an explicit ban
— at the government’s request — on those kinds of searches,
that officials in 2011 got the court to lift the bar and that the search authority has been used.<snip>

But in 2011, to more rapidly and effectively identify relevant foreign intelligence communications,
“we did ask the court” to lift the ban, ODNI general counsel Robert S. Litt said in an interview.
“We wanted to be able to do it,” he said, referring to the searching
of Americans’ communications without a warrant.

Together the permission to search and to keep data longer
expanded the NSA’s authority in significant ways without public debate
or any specific authority from Congress.<snip>

The court’s expansion of authority went largely unnoticed when the opinion was released,
but it formed the basis for cryptic warnings last year by a pair of Democratic senators,
Ron Wyden (Ore.) and Mark Udall (Colo.), that the administration had a “back-door search loophole”
that enabled the NSA to scour intercepted communications for those of Americans.
They introduced legislation to require a warrant, but they were barred by classification rules
from disclosing the court’s authorization or whether the NSA was already conducting such searches.
<snip>

Griff 09-15-2013 05:50 AM
The Black Budget
 
Let's play the reallocation game! What would you do with $52.6 Billion a year that have demonstrably made us less free and likely less safe? Education, science research, space exploration, roads and bridges,...

Lamplighter 09-28-2013 06:39 PM
The beat goes on...monotonously and sadly

This article refers to NSA's collection and use of emails, social media, etc.,
to link people to others, who travels with whom, where they go.

Washington Post
Ellen Nakashima
9/28/13

NSA said to be studying some Americans’ social connections using e-mail, call data
Quote:
The National Security Agency has been mining for several years
its massive collections of e-mail and phone call data to create extensive graphs
of some Americans’ social connections that can include associates, travel companions
and their locations, according to the New York Times.

The social graphing began in 2010 after the NSA lifted restrictions on the practice,
according to an internal January 2011 memorandum, the Times reported online Saturday.
It based its article on documents obtained by former NSA contractor Edward J. Snowden and interviews with officials.

The graphing, or contact chaining, is conducted using details about phone calls and e-mails,
known as “metadata,” but does not involve the communications’ content,
according to the documents cited by the Times.

It is supposed to be done for foreign intelligence purposes only, the documents state,
but that category is extremely broad and may include everything from data
about terrorism and drug smuggling to foreign diplomats and economic talks.
<snip>
According to documents the Times cited, the NSA can augment the data
with material from public, commercial and other sources, including bank codes,
Facebook profiles, airline passenger manifests and GPS location information.
<snip>

“This report confirms what whistleblowers have been saying for years:
The NSA has been monitoring virtually every aspect of Americans’ lives
— their communications, their associations, even their locations,”
said Jameel Jaffer, deputy legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union.<snip>

William Binney, a former NSA technical director turned whistleblower, has
long warned of the NSA’s mining of data to create social graphs.
He alleged that it started in the second week of October 2001,
in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, and that it took place on a massive scale.
<snip>

Lamplighter 10-15-2013 08:17 AM
I read this article yesterday, and it blew me away.
This 3-page article goes on and on with a new release of what NSA has been doing.

It seems outlandish to spend so many resources on fear,
...yet they still MISSED the Boston Marathon bombing.

Shouldn't there be something like a signal-to-noise ratio or a risk/benefit analysis.


Washington Post
Barton Gellman and Ashkan Soltani
10/14/13

NSA collects millions of e-mail address books globally
Quote:
The National Security Agency is harvesting hundreds of millions of contact lists
from personal e-mail and instant messaging accounts around the world,
many of them belonging to Americans, according to senior intelligence officials
and top-secret documents provided by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.

The collection program, which has not been disclosed before,
intercepts e-mail address books and “buddy lists” from instant
messaging services as they move across global data links.
Online services often transmit those contacts when a user logs on,
composes a message, or synchronizes a computer or mobile device
with information stored on remote servers.
<snip>
During a single day last year, the NSA’s Special Source Operations branch
collected 444,743 e-mail address books from Yahoo, 105,068 from Hotmail, 82,857 from Facebook,
33,697 from Gmail and 22,881 from unspecified other providers,
according to an internal NSA PowerPoint presentation.

Those figures, described as a typical daily intake in the document,
correspond to a rate of more than 250 million a year.
Each day, the presentation said, the NSA collects contacts from an estimated 500,000 buddy lists
on live-chat services as well as from the inbox displays of Web-based e-mail accounts.
<snip>
<snip>
<snip>

glatt 10-15-2013 08:37 AM
They can't prevent stuff, because there is too much data. They can only go back after the fact and use their info to round up the rest of the gang after an attack has occurred.

Lamplighter 10-15-2013 09:18 AM
... maybe CDC could develop a vaccine ;)

gvidas 10-15-2013 02:55 PM
To put it in context, all of these little bits of secondary information add up to an amazing picture of everyone. Bruce Schneier's summary is "metadata is surveillance," which I quite like:

https://www.schneier.com/blog/archiv...ta_equals.html

Quote:
Imagine you hired a detective to eavesdrop on someone. He might plant a bug in their office. He might tap their phone. He might open their mail. The result would be the details of that person's communications. That's the "data."

Now imagine you hired that same detective to surveil that person. The result would be details of what he did: where he went, who he talked to, what he looked at, what he purchased -- how he spent his day. That's all metadata.

When the government collects metadata on people, the government puts them under surveillance. When the government collects metadata on the entire country, they put everyone under surveillance. When Google does it, they do the same thing. Metadata equals surveillance; it's that simple.

tw 10-15-2013 11:26 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Lamplighter (Post 880272)
It seems outlandish to spend so many resources on fear,
...yet they still MISSED the Boston Marathon bombing.
Boston Marathon is simply one example. Could easily be the outlier in the data.

But from most every leak is a pattern. Most all averted terrorist attacks were from similar sources that also saw and suspected 11 September. Information that resulted in a memo on the president's desk warning of such an attack. And it was ignored.

Most terrorism was averted by using conventional investigative techniques. Most every failure was due to people not following up on their information (ie underwear bomber). If all this high tech spying on Americans was so useful, then where are all the leaks reporting on those successes? Even bin Laden was located using more conventional techniques.

Conventional investigations: Diana Deans and three other officers - discovered the bomb for LAX. Therefore the word went out from President Clinton to look for other attacks. Using conventional investigation techniques, they probably averted the bombing of Time Square, of Toronto, of the Radisson Hotel in Amman Jordan, and the bombing of the USS The Sullivans. Because top management put out the word and took seriously information from conventional investigation sources.

These advanced investigation tools have proven useful AFTER other information targets a specific threat. IOW every one should require a bench warrant. Currently, even that legal requirement has been bypassed because, well, this is the problem. We still have not defined the definition of the word 'privacy'. And have too many lawmakers who are so wacko extremist that no time remains to address this now serious problem.

Lamplighter 10-17-2013 06:08 PM
This is now on Google News...

Quote:
Former Pentagon Official to Be Nominated as Homeland Security Chief
New York Times - ‎1 hour ago‎

WASHINGTON - President Obama plans to nominate Jeh C. Johnson,
who framed many of the administration's national security policies as
the Defense Department's general counsel during Mr. Obama's first term,
to become the next chief of the Homeland ...
Now that a lawyer is running the whole show, can you imagine what "legalities" NSA will get away with.

.

glatt 10-18-2013 08:10 AM
The NSA is under the umbrella of the Department of Defense. So now that this guy is leaving DOD he will have no connection to the NSA.

Maybe you are thinking of the TSA? The TSA is under the Department of Homeland Security.

Lamplighter 10-18-2013 08:23 AM
That's probably my bad.
But is DOD under Homeland Security ?

I'm just leery of lawyers in any top position... except DOJustice, etc.
Advising is one thing, making top management decisions, ugh.

I know this particular fellow has been a big help to Obama, but still.

ETA: OK, I was, indeed, wrong. I looked it up and see the difference. Sorry about that.

Lamplighter 11-03-2013 02:47 PM
1 Attachment(s)
Apparently, Senator Diane Feinstein (D-Calif) believes she is Mr. Phelps:

Good Morning, Mr. Clapper: Your mission, should you choose to accept it,
involves finding and storing each granule of data from everywhere in the world:

Attachment 45939

As always, should you or any of your NSA Force be caught or killed,
the Secretary will disavow any knowledge of your actions.
This tape/disc will self-destruct in five seconds. Good luck, Jim

tw 11-03-2013 03:46 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Lamplighter (Post 882389)
Apparently, Senator Diane Feinstein (D-Calif) believes she is Mr. Phelps:
The revelations from Snowden have been so egregious and surprising that even Senator Feinstein has started criticizing the NSA.

Lamplighter 11-03-2013 04:16 PM
Quote:
The revelations from Snowden have been so egregious and ...
Interesting choice of words

tw 11-04-2013 07:46 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Lamplighter (Post 882401)
Interesting choice of words
I never said who is being emotionally absurd as to be offended. That's a major part of the problem. Too many want to be angry (emotional) rather than understand the scope and underlying principles of this problem. So the problem festered - has been becoming severe. And not just with international relations. Would have been even worse - not much different than what was written in a famous book called "1984".

sexobon 11-04-2013 06:30 PM
The Cellar Security Council is monitoring this thread.

tw 11-05-2013 06:56 AM
George Bush Sr threatened to create a New World Order. Thank god we have citizens with assault rifles protecting us in our airports.

glatt 11-05-2013 08:07 AM
1 Attachment(s)
Quote:
Originally Posted by tw (Post 882486)
Thank god we have citizens with assault rifles protecting us in our airports.
I've seen multiple news reports that say the police are looking for a motive for why this guy hates the TSA.

Is there anyone in the country who likes the TSA? They have to be the most hated branch of the government. Well, maybe the IRS is more hated.

Attachment 45947

Not saying I approve in any way of the actions of this murderous thug. He belongs in prison. But looking for a motive? Duh.

tw 11-06-2013 07:13 AM
Once upon a time, workers only hated Post Office Management. Going Postal. Apparently there were not enough of them. With so many assault rifles, hunters must now search for new game.

Bagging trophies in malls and theaters is too easy.

Government will require all guns be connected to the internet. Then Echelon, Prism, or whatever it is now called can actually find and avert crimes.

Lamplighter 11-09-2013 05:40 PM
The Washington Post ran a survey form about on-line privacy for several days,
and the first thing it asked for was your NAME !

This article almost makes it sound as if all of 81 people went past that and responded...

Washington Post
Timothy B. Lee
November 7, 2013

Here’s how people are changing their Internet habits to avoid NSA snooping
Quote:
<snip>The irony of asking for full names and e-mail addresses in a survey
about online privacy was not lost on Switch readers.

"The questionnaire can't be for real. I thought I inadvertently connected to 'the Onion,'" one reader
wrote in the comment section. Other commenters described the survey as "bizarre" and "creepy."

Some survey respondents indicated that they had cut back on using the Internet
to send sensitive personal information. But a much larger group told us that
they hadn't changed their Internet habits at all.

"If the NSA wants to know I spend too much time researching fantasy football,
hotels in Las Vegas, and the best way to roast pumpkin seeds, so be it," one wrote.
"You only have something to fear if you are looking up things that the NSA would consider dangerous to US citizens."

Other respondents haven't changed their habits because they believe doing so is hopeless.
"There is simply no defense against the NSA if they are targeting you," one reader claimed.
"I accept that I am a minnow swimming in a pool full of sharks," wrote another.

Added a third respondent: "I always add the following to my emails 'Hey NSA, go f--k yourselves.'"

Lamplighter 11-12-2013 08:40 AM

NY Times
By ALISON SMALE and DAVID E. SANGER
11/12/13

Spying Scandal Alters U.S. Ties With Allies and Raises Talk of Policy Shift
Quote:
BERLIN — Just as European and American negotiators resumed work
on a groundbreaking trade accord meant to tie their two continents closer together,
René Obermann, the chief executive of Deutsche Telekom, the German telecommunications giant,
told a cybersecurity conference in Germany on Monday that his company was
working to keep electronic message traffic from “unnecessarily” crossing the Atlantic,
where it could fall into the hands of the National Security Agency.

Other German executives, and some politicians, are beginning to talk of segmenting the Internet,
so that they are not reliant on large American firms that by contract or court order allow
United States intelligence agencies to delve into their data about phone and Internet usage.

Europeans are demanding that any new trade accord include data-privacy protections
that the United States is eager to avoid. Almost never before has a spying scandal
— in this case the revelation of the monitoring of the cellphone of Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany —
resulted in such a concrete, commercial backlash.

Now it is also driving a debate inside the American government about whether the United States,
which has long spied on allies even while nurturing them as partners, may have to change its approach.

<snip>

Lamplighter 12-15-2013 08:15 AM
The NSA has finally learned that they can't know everything...

NY Times
MARK MAZZETTI and MICHAEL S. SCHMIDT
12/14/13

Officials Say U.S. May Never Know Extent of Snowden's Leaks
Quote:
Investigators remain in the dark partly because the facility where
the former National Security Agency contractor Edward J. Snowden worked
was not equipped with software to monitor employees.
<snip>
Six months since the investigation began, officials said Mr. Snowden had
further covered his tracks by logging into classified systems using the passwords
of other security agency employees, as well as by hacking firewalls
installed to limit access to certain parts of the system.
<snip>
In recent days, a senior N.S.A. official has told reporters that he believed Mr. Snowden
still had access to documents not yet disclosed. The official, Rick Ledgett, who is heading
the security agency’s task force examining Mr. Snowden’s leak, said he would consider
recommending amnesty for Mr. Snowden in exchange for those documents.
<snip>
... but that won't stop them from trying.

Griff 12-15-2013 08:25 AM
It's sort of hilarious watching our government descend into the old soviet ways. I remember sitting in a Roman History class in college when the Professor said something like, "Anything familiar in this?"

busterb 12-15-2013 03:24 PM
This shit is NOT amazing to me Anyone who has contact with the bunch of assholes who work for the Gubberment knows this. From the VA, IRS and all are full of the affitive action assholes. Hey. I got my job. Ya can't fire me.

glatt 12-15-2013 04:05 PM
I know a bunch of people who work for the government and most are not assholes. But one definitely is, and another is a great guy, but the people who have to deal with him think he is an asshole because he's enforcing laws they are breaking.

Lamplighter 12-16-2013 01:14 PM
WOW !

Breaking news (tv talking heads) report that a federal appeals court judge has ruled the "entire law"
under which the NSA digital surveilance programs operate is unconstitutional.

This judge has also delayed his own ruling while it is being appealed.
But he is saying that the NSA should get ready for it to be supported.

tw 12-16-2013 09:14 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Lamplighter (Post 886236)
Breaking news (tv talking heads) report that a federal appeals court judge has ruled the "entire law"
under which the NSA digital surveilance programs operate is unconstitutional.
Justices have danced around this concept in public discussion. For example, Scalia has said the Constitution does not provide a right to privacy. It is possible that Justices reverse previous rulings that defined what is privacy and what is now to become information accessible to police without a court order.

I doubt any decision would be that earth shaking. But a discussion is to (will be) finally occur.

At this point, Snowden is looking more like a hero for exposing rampant disregard in the NSA for laws or for the principles that define those laws. We know this from what has happened after 11 September. NSA and other intelligence agencies no longer can be trusted to make their own rules. With new technologies and virtually unlimited budgets, these organizations need serious and increased oversight.

Adak 12-17-2013 04:10 AM
And the judge singled out the oft-cited precedent case, always used to justify intrusive measures by the gov't, and said it was obsolete (which it should be, it was written 30 years ago, when our technology was much different than now).

Well done, Federal Judge Richard Leon!! :cool:

Lamplighter 12-17-2013 05:30 PM
Snowden is singing a special song:
"Please pass the salt... I've got a lot of rubbing to do"

Quote:
National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden wrote an open letter
to the people of Brazil published in a Brazilian newspaper on Tuesday.

In the letter, he said he would be willing to help the country
investigate NSA spying on its soil in exchange for political asylum.

Brazil, including President Dilma Rousseff, has been a major target of NSA spying
and has complained vehemently in the international community. Snowden has temporary asylum...

Snowden wants to help Brazil fight NSA surveillance

Griff 12-21-2013 09:22 AM
NSA program stopped no terror attacks, says White House panel member

A member of the White House review panel on NSA surveillance said he was “absolutely” surprised when he discovered the agency’s lack of evidence that the bulk collection of telephone call records had thwarted any terrorist attacks.

Color me less surprised.

Lamplighter 12-21-2013 12:26 PM
Good catch, Griff

Lamplighter 12-21-2013 11:54 PM
It’s already in Wikipedia (here), and was reported as an "exclusive" by Reuters on 12/20/13,
but here is a shorter version:

Mother Jones
Kevin Drum
Dec. 21, 2013

NSA Paid Security Company to Adopt Weakened Encryption Standards
Quote:
Undisclosed until now was that RSA received $10 million in a deal that set
the NSA formula as the preferred, or default, method for number generation
in [ RSA Security LLC's ] BSafe software, according to two sources familiar with the contract.

Although that sum might seem paltry, it represented more than a third of the revenue
that the relevant division at RSA had taken in during the entire previous year, securities filings show.

....Most of the dozen current and former RSA employees interviewed said that
the company erred in agreeing to such a contract, and many cited RSA's corporate evolution
away from pure cryptography products as one of the reasons it occurred.

But several said that RSA also was misled by government officials,
who portrayed the formula as a secure technological advance.
"They did not show their true hand," one person briefed on the deal said of the NSA,
asserting that government officials did not let on that they knew how to break the encryption.
However, the Wiki version speaks more along the lines that the "random number generator"
that was preferred by NSA was already well known among cryptologists as being one that could be broken
... and so leaves the impression that the RSA cryptologists knew, or should have known,
what was involved for the $10 million contract.

.

Lamplighter 12-23-2013 07:49 PM
So, who do you believe...

Cruxialcio
Antone Gonsalves
December 23, 2013

RSA Denies Hobbling Encryption Software For NSA
Quote:
RSA has strongly denied a report that it was paid to embed in encryption software-
flawed technology that would have enabled the U.S. National Security Agency to break into computer products.
Reuters reported Dec. 20 that the NSA paid the influential security vendor $10 million
to provide its customers with the agency-developed encryption formula
that would create a backdoor in products.

RSA, a unit of EMC, reportedly used the technology in BSAFE,
which is software embedded in commercial applications to secure data.
On Dec. 22, RSA posted a statement that said,
"We categorically deny this allegation."

While acknowledging it worked with the NSA, RSA said it never
kept the relationship secret and often publicized it.
"Our explicit goal has always been to strengthen commercial and government security," RSA said.

RSA said its decision in 2004 to use Dual EC DRBG in BSAFE was in the context of
an industry-wide effort to build stronger methods of encryption into products.
At the time, the NSA had a trusted role in the security industry.

The flawed algorithm was one of multiple choices customers had in BSAFE toolkits, RSA said.
Approval of the standard made it a valuable tool in meeting
government requirements for information technology products.
RSA continued to offer Dual EC DRBG in its product until NIST recommended in September of this year
that the algorithm no longer be used, because it had been compromised.

Quote:
"RSA, as a security company, never divulges details of customer engagements,
but we also categorically state that we have never entered into any contract
or engaged in any project with the intention of weakening RSA’s products,
or introducing potential ‘backdoors’ into our products for anyone’s use," the company said.


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