Government snooping, backdoors and #necessaryhashtags

[ewmayer]

Longtime NSA-exposé-writer James Bamford profiles General Keith Alexander, head of the NSA cyberwarfare command, in the latest issue of Wired:

The Secret War

Offensive cyberwarfare (as exemplified by the Stuxnet worm), the burgeoning cyber-industrial complex and "zero-day exploits", oh my.

[ewmayer]

here.

According to Reuters, the data leak spanned a year beginning in 2012.

The personal information leaked by the bug is information that had not been given to Facebook by the users - it is data Facebook has been compiling on its users behind closed doors, without their consent.

A growing number of Facebook users are furious and demand to know who saw private information they had expressly not given to Facebook.

Facebook was accidentally combining user's shadow profiles with their Facebook profiles and spitting the merged information out in one big clump to people they 'had some connection to' who downloaded an archive of their account with Facebook's Download Your Information (DYI) tool.

According to the admissions in its blog, posted late Friday afternoon, Facebook appears to be obtaining users' offsite email address and phone numbers and attempting to match them to other accounts. It appears that the invisible collected information is then being stored in each user's 'shadow profile' that is somehow attached to accounts.

But at least FB is not "proactively cooperating with the NSA" ... that's gotta count for something, right?

[Batalov]

An interesting blast from the past here.

Also, Snowden changes planes in Moscow. An interesting play move by Putin; I wonder what his hidden message to the US (or to his populace) could be? "We are not like them?" or "any means are good for propping one's rating?"

____________________________________

(I was actually tracking the interest to the ternary Goldbach problem preprint and checking all threads returned by search for "Goldbach"... Only Norman mentioned it, - in the old Twin prime thread, not the new one.)

[cheesehead]

Originally Posted by Batalov

Also, Snowden changes planes in Moscow. An interesting play move by Putin; I wonder what his hidden message to the US (or to his populace) could be? "We are not like them?" or "any means are good for propping one's rating?"

Oh, nothing so plain or ordinary as that.

Originally Posted by http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Global-News/2013/0623/Snowden-s-stealthy-exit-How-WikiLeaks-and-maybe-Russia-helped

. . .

Soldatov says Russian assistance is also logical, for wider reasons than just an opportunity to stick it to Uncle Sam.

"Russia and China have been involved in a so-far unsuccessful struggle to change the rules of the Internet, by taking control of it away from the US-based Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) and giving its functions to a wider, non-US-based entity," he says.

"The Russians and Chinese have been posing, for these purposes, as big defenders of Internet freedom. This political context helps to explain RT's close relations with WikiLeaks as well.... So, it makes sense for them to help Snowden too. Russian authorities see an opportunity to present themselves as the new center of refuge for whistleblowers against US dominance in Cyberspace. It's a coup for them," he adds.

[cheesehead]

Oops. I forgot to include:

If you follow the link "change the rules of the Internet" from CSM to Bloomberg, you're at this article:
"U.S. vs. China, Russia in Battle for Control Over the Internet"
http://go.bloomberg.com/tech-blog/20...-the-internet/

in which there's a link to a 13-months-ago article in Vanity Fair:

. . .

The infrastructure for managing Web addresses has been a sore spot for some countries for some time. The origins of the latest power grab were outlined in depth in this Vanity Fair piece from May, which described it as a “war under way for control of the Internet.”

. . .

... which is:

"World War 3.0"
"In the Battles of SOPA and PIPA, Who Should Control the Internet?"
http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/20...defcon-hacking

(I've inserted spacing in two of the article's paragraphs, for easier reading.)

. . .

There is a war under way for control of the Internet, and every day brings word of new clashes on a shifting and widening battlefront. Governments, corporations, criminals, anarchists—they all have their own war aims.

. . .

The War for the Internet was inevitable—a time bomb built into its creation. The war grows out of tensions that came to a head as the Internet grew to serve populations far beyond those for which it was designed.

Originally built to supplement the analog interactions among American soldiers and scientists who knew one another off­-line, the Internet was established on a bedrock of trust: trust that people were who they said they were, and trust that information would be handled according to existing social and legal norms. That foundation of trust crumbled as the Internet expanded.

The system is now approaching a state of crisis on four main fronts.

The first is sovereignty: by definition, a boundary-less system flouts geography and challenges the power of nation-states.

The second is piracy and intellectual property: information wants to be free, as the hoary saying goes, but rights-holders want to be paid and protected.

The third is privacy: online anonymity allows for creativity and political dissent, but it also gives cover to disruptive and criminal behavior—and much of what Internet users believe they do anonymously online can be tracked and tied to people’s real-world identities.

The fourth is security: free access to an open Internet makes users vulnerable to various kinds of hacking, including corporate and government espionage, personal surveillance, the hijacking of Web traffic, and remote manipulation of computer-controlled military and industrial processes.

. . .

[ewmayer]

ZeroHedge blogger "George Washington" offers The SINGLE Most Important Step to Protect Yourself from Government Spying.

A.k.a. "Ernst is holding on to his 10+ year old dumbphone until death do us part". (Not that Ernst has anything to hide, mind you.)

Another interesting aspect I've heard discussed is that such "safety-conscious internet habits" such as using encrypted e-mail and "anonymized" browsing may greatly increase the chances of one's being flagged as "suspicious" and getting one's internet transmissions and phone calls "saved for later deep probing".

Funny that all the "old fashioned spy-versus-spy" tricks of the height of the cold war 50 years ago will likely be making a roaring comeback, and not just amongst the "spooky types" this time around.

[cheesehead]

Originally Posted by ewmayer

ZeroHedge blogger "George Washington" offers The SINGLE Most Important Step to Protect Yourself from Government Spying.

From the article:

So the single most important step to protect yourself from government – or private – spying is to remember that your conservations might not be private when your cellphone is nearby … even if it is turned off.

The author is confused. Such awareness doesn't protect you; it just warns you ... if you remember.

Take the batteries out except when you want to be tracked/monitored/listened-to (such as when you're lost).

[LaurV]

Originally Posted by Batalov

Also, Snowden changes planes in Moscow.

Is he a hero for that? As another blogger said there, that guy is not a hero. He is just an ego-centrist ordinary thief. What he imagined NSA does? Cutting leafs for dogs? The "company" was built from the ground to listen to your phones. Live with it. Why a honest person would mind? How about "we have nothing to hide"? etc.

[retina]

Originally Posted by LaurV

How about "we have nothing to hide"? etc.

Well, how about "If the NSA is not doing anything wrong, then they have nothing to hide.", right?

[LaurV]

Right!

[Batalov]

Originally Posted by LaurV

...What he imagined NSA does? Cutting leafs for dogs? The "company" was built from the ground to listen to your phones. Live with it.

Why would he live with it?

Originally Posted by wiki

The National Security Agency (NSA) is a cryptologic intelligence agency of the United States Department of Defense responsible for the collection and analysis of foreign communications and foreign signals intelligence, as well as protecting U.S. government communications and information systems, which involves information security and cryptanalysis/cryptography.

Originally Posted by http://www.nsa.gov/commitment/

These are our commitments to you, our fellow citizens:

• We will act with integrity to advance the rights, goals, and values of the Nation.
• We will adhere to the spirit and the letter of the Constitution and the laws and regulations of the United States.

I don't see anything here about listening to my phone without a warrant.