Emphasis mine.

Can I believe that the NSA is doing lots of shit it shouldn't be doing, and needs serious reform, without buying into every bit of hype that they have developed God-like omniscience?

Or does arguing for a bit of calm automatically turn me into an authoritarian who's supposedly eager for everyone to be spied upon?

If remote installation doesn't exist yet, then all they have now is a spy tool for phones they've managed to physically acquire first. Calling this "total access" is more than a bit hyperbolic.

Much of this leaked material isn't about *actual capabilities* of the NSA, a lot of it is just wishlist stuff and the kind of crap people through into PowerPoint presentations to convince their coworkers and managers that they're working on cool and important stuff.

and should have a way of turning off what they don't want intercepted on their cell phones.

It's merely stoking the flames. We do need some flames, but I prefer them to be fact-based flames.

...the title of the OP misrepresents what the alleged source material says.

Ask more clearly if you wish.

The link in the OP is to Forbes. While the original leak is a Snowden slide, the actual article is about a security analyst talking about the implications. Granted, Jacob Applebaum has massive ideological axes to grind, but it isn't just him talking about the inherent security problems in how Apple does its iMessage encryption with a key server in the middle.

Apple has dismissed compromise as a theoretical-only risk, but that is quite a step down from impossible, which was their original position.

http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/apple-denies-imessage-vulnerability-insecure-prism-backdoor-515039

And who can forget the paper that has google encrypting their internal traffic now....server compromise is an NSA "speciality"



I guess I am just curious as to your level of proof required.

I see motive, means and opportunity. Perhaps it *is* all bullshit, but there are reasons that dismissal should not be automatically given any more.

...and one is then trying to link that crime to a suspect.

You're starting with a suspect, saying there's "motive, means, and opportunity", and therefore... what, there must have been not just a crime, but the specific crime that everyone's Apple phone has been (not just could be or will be, but has been) laid bare to the NSA?

There's plenty of reason for concern, reason to keep pursuing major reform at the NSA, reason to keep pressure on private businesses to tighten their own security... but not reason to simply decide that the NSA can, and is already doing, every single thing imaginable to magically infiltrate everything.

Proof would be evidence that plenty of people have actually had data remotely sucked out of their iPhones by the NSA, not just vague indications that perhaps the NSA has developed/is developing such technology, coupled with (admittedly justified) suspicions about their appetite for data.

Court cases asking for the even broad descriptions have been denied because of lack of standing (it is need-to-know-secret). And without that kind of information, how could anyone ever hope to establish the causal relationships necessary to test if damage was done?

To even know what we learned this year required the creation of a "traitor" who is dismissed as not credible because, well, he's a "traitor." The leaked activities are intrusive, do not seem relevant to terrorism and moreover do not have a demonstrated success record -- additionally they are hideously expensive programs (intelligence spending exceeds the amount we spend on energy, basic science and medical research) with obvious potential for abuse. Furthermore, even the general precepts and operational philosophy are not open to discussion because they are "secret."

In such circumstances, the only rational response as a responsible citizen is to presume that crimes have or will be committed. If the government is unhappy with that, they are free to open it up and prove otherwise.

"They" won't "let me" find out what they're up to, so I'll just assume it's the worst -- even if that means imagining super-human competence and skill where I need to imagine competence and skill, outrageous incompetence and error where I'd fear incompetence and error -- and it's their fault if I'm wrong, not mine. Whatever happens, I'm not gonna let 'em pull the wool over my eyes, nosiree!

But go on cheering for secrecy and a lack of transparency when it even comes to the goals of the program.

Eventually, a Republican will start re-using it JUST LIKE BUSH AND CHENEY DID and then you'll suddenly see the light.

I'll wait here.

Your response is simply petulant.

Looking back I admit I was wrong. You're not a NSA cheerleader.

You've actually tended towards being a "sensible woodchuck" on this issue -- skeptical while acknowledging that it would be important if there were actually something to it. Add to that a somewhat patronizing "wink-wink-nudge-nudge" overtone that anyone taking this seriously must have some issues with paranoia. Using a "metadata analysis," those last bits were typically exchanged with more open cheerleaders so I guess I can see why I considered you one. Apologies.

And I must be tired tonight -- your superiority complex as regards to those with their "hair on fire" does demonstrate that #32 was indeed a crude troll. Sadly, I took it seriously.

Oh well, it doesn't matter if it is crude or not it worked -- congratulations on your successful trolling!

Please point to the place I denied there was "actually something to it".

You don't seem to be able to deal with disagreement in any way other than turning an opposing view into a polar opposite of your own viewpoint, then arguing with that polar opposite of your own creation regardless of what's been said.

And for that matter, how does deciding, without solid evidence, that the NSA is guilty of particular things like, "I KNOW, I just KNOW they can break into any iPhone anywhere, those bastards!" constitute a better, or at all more productive or useful, level of taking things seriously?

Nope, I pegged you right this morning. Reading your NSA related postings was a waste of time....but that was because I expected to learn what a "reasonable" person whose concern with the issue was a "7" rather than a "10" would stand.

On cursory examination, the specifics of your "concerns" are contained in a single throwaway sentence in August about the FISA courts having some check-and-balance problems. And that was almost two weeks after President Obama proposed reforms to the FISA court for exactly that reason. If there are any others, feel free to point them out.

On the other hand you are rather free with advice to people who "share" your concerns who are just not as awesomely controlled about it as you are....

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=3188017

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=3504219

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=3343482

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=3888002

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=3606376

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=3261175

You don't need to bother actually arguing with the words I say, no, you're too clever for that. All you have to do is have me "pegged", you figure out "where I'm coming from", and then you can decide what it is that I really mean, smugly certain that anything I've ever said is wrong with the NSA is just a "throw away" sentence or two.

We're always trying to get you, it's all just a clever ploy to catch you, trip you up, but you'll have none of it! My NSA buddies and I aren't going to get you with our tricky, insincere words, by gosh, you've got it all figured out. Nobody fools you!

Is there anything I could say, that I could show you that I've written, that you wouldn't dismiss, since you've "got me pegged", and will forever after filter everything through your predetermined pegging?

Speaking of rhetorical tricks, you've now tried to make this all about me, totally escaping dealing with your poor standards of predetermined guilt.

This will be, of course, just a rhetorical trick I'm employing to fool you, which must be totally insincere and designed to placate the masses while doing nothing (as opposed to the courageous and highly effective techniques you must be employing), but here's what I change about the NSA and any other government intelligence operations:

Big scaling back of data collection.
Much stronger requirement for getting specific warrants for specific data gathering.
Making it harder to get warrants, so they aren't just rubber stamps from secret courts.
Investigation into the ties between private business and government spying activities.
Pressure from other countries against the US infringing on their citizens privacy.

But I guess without being absolutely sure that the NSA can get into my iPhone at any time, and stridently proclaiming so, that's all meaningless, throw-away stuff.

Only I ain't pretending we're all in agreement as I excoriate you for having your "hair on fire."

Like you have done with various folks....well, for months now.

I've said where I stand, with no pretense, and with no concern for how much that may or may not coincide where you stand.

And what "game" is "the same game"? That's just petulant throw-away verbiage, without any substance or sense behind it.

You have no pretense only because you have no documented position. You claim to be concerned about NSA overreach only you've never actually written about it. You have, however, used your stated position to gain credibility as you broadbrush others with your "hair on fire" assertions.

You can always refute my claim with your posting history. Oh wait, no you can't!

If this were a general political forum, not DU, you'd find more speaking out against the NSA.

If I wanted to give out my real name (which I don't) you'd find complaints about what the NSA is doing on my FaceBook page, and not much arguing with other people about the specifics since I don't get much in the way of specifics to argue about back.

Looking at my posts here and trying to do a tally of what I have or haven't written about is frankly a stupid metric, and a biased one the way you handle it, because you seem to consider anything I say against the NSA "throw away" because of what, insufficient word count?

The details of what's wrong with the NSA are a far more interesting topic, and the "hair on fire" crowd gives me a whole lot more to disagree with about details. What I agree with gets posted by more than enough other people without a bunch of "me too" posts, and they hardly need a bunch of "atta boys" from me either. Where people I'd agree with to some degree or another go over the top is more likely to draw me into a conversation.

My repeated use of the word petulant is simply because you exude petulance. The word is repeatedly appropriate. I can look up variations on "petulant" in a thesaurus, if that would help.

Paragraph by paragraph:

1) Huh. Well TIA caused me to find this place back in 2002. Seemed a hot and relevant topic then. Are you saying that posters to DU should avoid talking about NSA surveillance for some reason? Personally I stay because I find that my values make me a Democrat and not the converse. It does cause friction...

2) What you write on Facebook is basically irrelevant. On the place that matters, here, you have a track record of hopping on those you feel are going wild, while sharing more than a few high-fives with the Cheerleaders. Right now I'm all ears because I do come here to learn and while we've been tossing some namecalling I have largely enjoyed the exchange. What comments critical of the NSA does a non-hair-on-fire intelligent person who is concerned at the level of a "7" rather than "10" make? Sounds like I'm not asking too much -- it's either a cut and paste or a bullet summary.

3) You were more than happy to send me to your posting history when it served your interest. I'm sorry the other aspects of it are not to your liking. The word count of actual critical points from someone describing themselves as being concerned is less than 10. That just seems rather odd to me.

4) That is the first fair point you've made since I have that tendency to demand more of people who agree with me as well and it gets me in trouble here regularly. On the other hand, there have been plenty of demonstrably wrong statements on the part of the cheerleaders that have apparently escaped your notice. Again, it seems odd.

5) Petulant? No. It's more like cantankerous and querulous. But it really isn't about me at this point.

...that (1) posters shouldn't talk about the NSA. What I'm saying is that I can count on plenty, plenty of other people to say the stuff that I think is pretty obvious (which often needs to be said, but not particularly by me) about issues like the NSA, and I'll wait to chime in where either I feel I've got something new or different to add, a bone to pick, a compliment to make when someone says something particularly well, or the spirit otherwise moves me.

Take a non-political issue for example, like some sort of major natural disaster occurs. It's good that someone posts here to let everyone else know about it, but I don't ever need to be that person. It will get taken care of.

By your absurd standards, if the only comment I come along to make on the disaster is to say that someone was wrong about it being 10,000 people killed, but only 5,000, you might have to determine that I was pro-disaster because I didn't sufficiently demonstrate my sorrow that the event had occurred. Even if I'd said, "5,000 dead is terrible enough", I guess that would just be a "throw away" comment if not accompanied by a sufficient number of other posts and high enough a word count to dramatize my wailing and gnashing of teeth.

2) Sorry to break it to you, but what either of us write here or on Facebook is largely irrelevant. For what little effect our posting does have, my comments on Facebook at least have the advantage that they might impact those who aren't so out alignment with my own politics that they've hidden my posts by now, but who aren't "members of the choir" already either.

I'd be curious what constitutes being a "cheerleader" for the NSA. You certainly can't find any posts by me that say "NSA, go for it! Collect MORE data! You make me feel so safe!", nor have I made any "high fives" to comments expressing anything close such cheering. In your book, apparently, mere skepticism about certain accusations and fears, or a tempered level of concern less that "ZOMG!11!11!!!" constitutes "cheerleading".

3) When did I send you a posting history? In some other thread, on some other topic? I have no idea what you're talking about, and little concern for what you find "odd" for that matter.

4) For what I'd call "cheerleading", I've seen very little actual cheerleading. In the rare event that I have, the pile-on is so fast and furious there's little for me to add that wouldn't be highly redundant.

I bothered to respond to the issues above so as not to appear evasive, but it's all very much beside the point to why I jumped into this thread: Commenting on the OP's hyperbolic and unsubstantiated interpretation of data that isn't itself unquestionable, and doesn't even say what he/she says it says if you take that data at face value.

Why are you unable to address that issue without diving into my posting history, thinking that the issue can't be discussed unless you "peg" me, figure out where you think I'm coming from, and search for a hidden agenda?

1) You are actually rather quick with the "+1" or "me too" style comments when it suits you (and for relatively silly things as well). No need to pretend you're simply being efficient in your use of responses.

2) As expected, you still don't actually seem to have any problems other than that vague disapproval. Certainly, a "7" implies more unhappiness than a "2" and we've established that you are a person that prides yourself in only dealing in specifics. Yet you are rather unwilling to even summarize your own concerns about the NSA, though you've admitted sharing them with Marc Zuckerberg! That is simply bizarre and a bit telling.

3) ZOMG you have a posting record that others can consult! Maybe *that* can be your answer to number 2!

4) Hmmmm. Okay. I can see the definition of cheerleader needs to be made. A cheerleader to me is someone who seems to actually and sincerely believes that the reimplementation of the Bush/Cheney/PNAC inspired TIA is something this country should have. It gets expressed in a lot of ways that I don't mind debating: "I want to feel safe at any cost" and "somebody should enforce the law and this is a way to do it" and "corporations do it, so why can't the government." It also gets expressed as thoughtless crap like "libertarian" "Eddie Snowden is a traitor" and "hair on fire" or zombie ideas like "metadata is harmless." Since those terms are as semantically null and mindless as freeper cries of "WOLVERINES!!!!" I consider them cheerleading.

To address your last points, every single claim discussed thus far has started out "unsubstantiated." Yet here we are six months later a bit older but a lot more educated and sadder about this misguided, overpriced effort that still has yet to show a single decent success. So, huffing that things are hyperbolic is pointless -- the value implied by that sort of reasoning was gone long ago.

Finally, I can see that the "peg" comment bothers you -- that it's been repeated twice shows that you do have your own "hair on fire" moments too! Good! It should bother you. Recognizing that data is power makes me highly reluctant to support any long term USG collection of it.

...so what does being "quick with the '+1'" sometimes or not have to do with it? I typically do that for when someone says something particularly well, makes a particularly good point or observation. Gosh, I'm sorry if I don't tally enough "me too"s and +1s when someone says something rather obvious, even when I agree with it.

2) I'm "rather unwilling to even summarize"? I did so pretty clearly already in this thread. You and Mr. Zuckerberg and the NSA all have access to the same data here.

3) Yes, I have a track record here that can be consulted -- and poorly analyzed by your approach for reasons already explained.

4) Did I ever say, "I want to feel safe at any cost?" or anything like it? Or "Corporations do it, so why can't the government?" or "metadata is harmless"? Did I ever +1 such a comment? My opinions of Snowden, and Greenwald for that matter, aren't that they are heroes or villains, but questionable characters who have, perhaps by virtue, perhaps in spite of themselves, served a useful purpose.

The process of sorting through what has been revealed about the NSA isn't helped by hyperbole or leaping to conclusions, since it taints the necessary and important opposition to NSA overreach with tinfoil hat nutbaggery.

The "peg" comment gets my attention because it in fact pegs you -- as the kind of person who can't handle simply arguing the point at hand, can't directly deal with the words that have actually been said, but rather thinks that he/she is oh-so-cleverly "seeing through" what is being said (and therefore can't be bothered processing the actual words said), applying an overrated sense of his/her own ability to "peg" someone, and who, after the pegging has been done, hears nothing but the straw man arguments generated by caricatures of their own creation, rather than what the person they're talking to is actually saying.

Sadly, while I am an incredibly interesting person, it isn't.

TTFN!

...is describing the nature of your evasiveness in regard to my original "it", which was unjustified distortion and hyperbole in the OP.

he provided documentary proof that the U.S. government is spying on everyone.

The capabilities the U.S. government has, and are using, is down right Orwellian.

And just look at some of their recent logos...





And TIA was from 2001...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_Information_Awareness

They had to change the name, and logo, as it apparently wasn't ready for prime-time, even though they thought they had carte-blanche after 911.

Sid

Look at our "capabilities!" Look at how much "stuff" we have, how much "shit" we can do!!!

The Germans thought we had an Army in England, ready to come across the channel....!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Fortitude

Dummy aircraft:

On this board. I can vouch for that!

http://www.cracked.com/blog/5-easy-ways-to-spot-b.s.-news-story-internet/



Sid

The article in the OP is full of nonsense words because...well, we're not expected to know anything that's 'technical', are we?
[hr][font color="blue"][center]No squirrels were harmed in the making of this post. Yet.[/center][/font][hr]

I like your linked article. And I agree. The content of this post is made up BS.

I actually saw the speech last night:

It's really low quality stuff, subpar for a CCC talk.

He ends the talk conspiring about how Hugo got cancer and joking about radio waves being used to intercept your thoughts. Oh, except, yaknow, the continuous wave approach requires hardware installed on the monitor which you're trying to get data from. This is a completely asinine metaphor. Tinfoil isn't going to protect your damn hardware if it's been modified.

Oh, and the basic concept of the technology has been around since RFID (it's a little different as it uses a targeted beam but it's not like something you couldn't think up). And it's also easily detectable since it's using, yaknow, electromagnetic radiation.

Sid

In 2002, most of TIA was similarly vaporware. Yeah, the codenames changed when the light shown in, but in the end they built most of that sumbeach didn't they?

So, snide dismissal has already proven to be ineffective against evidence. The USG wants this capability, only idiots will presume they will not get it.

and actually know how telecommunications really work FYI

LOL...

Wrong...

You remember which leaked document showed the number of actual targets? I do!

I am referring to June 21, 2013 where you referred to one of the first leaks describing "access to the network of cables which carry the world's phone calls and internet traffic" as a pathetic dumbing down of journalism.

Just 40 days later you were jumping in with your "expertise" about the products of those taps.

Your technical opinions have been outpaced by events before. I am not expecting much to change.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A

I would love to talk with Mark though, wonder if he even knows what services the circuits running through the splitters were carrying. I've had splitters installed in our network before. It's kind of like, the law

CALEA, we use a trusted third party like most companies to actually transmit the data to Quantico. That reminds me I need to schedule some more testing with them on one of our new al-a-carte features. We control what gets sent to the gubiment FYI, technology works LOL. Warrants work

By the way, if you are ever putting a splitter in I recommend using NetOptics. Their passive slim taps work great, only around $600 a pop as well. If you don't know your loss or don't want to break a live circuit to get readings before hand get the 70/30 split. I've had better luck starting with that instead of the 50/50 split FYI.

http://www.netoptics.com/products/network-taps/slim-tap

There are a lot of nice high-paying jobs at stake.

This is crazy, and it is giving a huge competitive advantage to all foreign competitors out there.

This needs to stop, ASAP.

The Obama NSA is a different agency altogether.

I'm sorry, General Alexander, that request for information does seem rather pervy.

But it doesn't seem like it is.

I just "upgraded" to a reference Android Open Source Project v4.4 ROM - it's entirely stable and usable but almost totally feature-incomplete; virtually every function expected of a modern smartphone has to be added with an app. It came with a clock, but that's about it.

On the other hand, it's 100% open-source and while I have neither the time nor the skill to read the code myself, the community has vetted it and there's no NSA trickery slipped into the software. I can't say the same for the extra apps, but I am able to see and control all their communications.

Of course, the NSA isn't a bunch of amateurs with limited resources. They've probably outright put snooping circuitry into the chipset, Qualcomm is a US software company..