US spy device 'tested on NZ public'

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10886031

by SCdF • 13 years ago

127 53 13 years ago

nzherald.co.nz

polemic• 13 years ago

Note that this alludes to the latest technique being used to erode privacy: the idea that "metadata" is somehow distinct and less deserving of protection than [other stuff]. The implication is "metadata" (like phone logs) is not really "data", which is absurd and dangerous.

rosser• 13 years ago

Without going anywhere near how "absurd" or "dangerous" treating phone traffic metadata differently than the phone traffic itself may or may not be, it's certainly not new. In the US, at least, who you called, when, and for how long is subject to much less legal safeguard than the content of the conversation had, and has been for a very long time.

Of all the things to take from this article, to my mind, that's not the first.

rayiner5• 13 years ago

Its not new. Metadata (e.g. addresses on the outside of envelopes sent in the mail) have never been considered private.

unclebucknasty5• 13 years ago

No. Whether it's new depends on the specific meta data being captured.

Also, what is new is the scale of meta data capture and analysis capabilities enabled by current technology. It is silly to say that authorities have historically looked at postal addresses on envelopes, so that makes it also OK to sniff virtually all forms of meta data for all forms of electronic communications. You can extrapolate that point into inanity, such that virtually anything is fair game.

Here, you are literally using what was permissible with Pony Express technology to make the case that it should still be permissible (or is at least no different) in today's hyper-connected world.

But, at some point, technical capabilities render safeguards in old laws obsolete, and we must take a fresh look at long relied upon precedents. Some of those precedents are based on capabilities available at the time, long before many of those available today could even be imagined. When that happens, there is a material difference in implication and meaning.

meepmorp• 13 years ago

Would you expect, then, that a list of phone numbers someone called or sent text messages to would be the kind of information that are not considered private? A list of addresses to which someone sent email? A list of URLs visited or books checked out of the library?

dsl• 13 years ago

This is far from a new thing. In 1979 the Supreme Court decided (Smith v. Maryland) that pen registers and tap and trace devices did not require a warrant. The basis is that you have no expectation of privacy because a reasonable person knows that the phone company itself is privilege to details such as calling party, receiving party, time, and duration.

The 2001 PATRIOT ACT clarified the Pen Register Act, extending this privilege to internet communications.

sliverstorm2• 13 years ago

Metadata can be very valuable for all sorts of operations though. Should we really reject its use out of hand? Can we not simply establish guidelines for how it must be obfuscated?

6d0debc071• 13 years ago

How would we enforce them?

gwright• 13 years ago

Thin on details, but it just sounds like traffic analysis applied to the cell network and/or Internet, which would obviously require multiple taps into the networks (for wired communication) and multiple listenting posts (for wireless communication).

Note, I'm not commenting on the legality or wisdom of this, just that the underlying analysis technique isn't anything new.

vaadu• 13 years ago

So who is watching the watchers?

ivanca2• 13 years ago

Nobody, that's not how modern governments work. They play every once on a while in the theater called "democracy" and later on they do as they, their friends and their sponsors please.

cinquemb• 13 years ago

Well at least until the point some of those people you refer to decide that they want to run things another way, and muster up enough resources and support for such.

This tends to happen from time to time outside of the current constructs of the government at the time.

pekk• 13 years ago

The people who regurgitate shallow, flip bumper sticker slogans in the place of anything resembling facts or analysis.

white_devil2• 13 years ago

I'm not sure which side you're trying to discredit.

Matsta4• 13 years ago

"DC-based author Tim Shorrock revealed ThinThread was sent to New Zealand for testing in 2000-2001"

This is news? It happened 12 years ago.

I would also note to whoever posts these NZHerald links, they are basically like the Fox News of New Zealand. None of the reports have a clue what the talking about when it comes to technology subjects, and they are known for writing about complete garbage which half the time isn't true at all.

Stuff.co.nz (Fairfax Media) is a more credible news source IMO.

tjpick• 13 years ago

> Stuff.co.nz (Fairfax Media) is a more credible news source IMO.

If you are interested in the most credible celebrity gossip news source, that is. Stuff is terrible.

Matsta4• 13 years ago

Still better than NZ Herald.

I remember the headline for the Herald on Sunday last week was along the lines of:

"EXCLUSIVE: X-RAY REVEALS CELLPHONE FOUND IN INMATE'S BUM"

ppog• 13 years ago

It's news because we only just found out about it. If we'd known about it for the last 12 years, sure, it would be silly to report it as news. But I'm not comfortable with the implication that if something can be swept under the carpet for a couple of years, then meh, it's no longer interesting or important when it comes to light.

melloclello• 13 years ago

> Stuff.co.nz (Fairfax Media) is a more credible news source IMO.

What?! Surely you don't mean scoop.co.nz?

Matsta4• 13 years ago

lol do people still read that?

leohutson• 13 years ago

>Stuff.co.nz (Fairfax Media) is a more credible news source IMO.

I find just about everything published under the Fairfax banner is of pretty poor quality, not necessarily factually incorrect or even politically biased, but presented in a overly sensationalist manner and with a populist and oversimplified analysis where any is provided at all.

Both Mediaworks and TVNZ have similar problems as well.

Radio NZ seems to have more freedom to ignore certain demographics (the lowest common denominator), and IMO has better quality news and opinion than other sources.

duncan_bayne• 13 years ago

This isn't a new problem. Lindsay Perigo quit TVNZ in the early 90s, accusing it of being 'brain dead':

"I sometimes ask myself what would life be like if I had just stayed at TVNZ, and there is no doubt that materially life would be a lot richer. But I do not regret for a second the fact that I forsook that career. I was dying within at TVNZ. The dumbing down that was going on. Plus the fact that for twenty years I had made a career of listening to other people spouting mainly nonsense. I had also become aware of what scumbags they were."

http://www.freeradical.co.nz/content/36/36jesson.php

bengoodger• 13 years ago

The Herald is in no way the "Fox News of New Zealand." It's Auckland's major newspaper. I don't find the reporting more or less dense than most other msm tech coverage frankly. I lived in NZ for 20 years, and don't remember any news sources there being quite as ridiculous as Fox.

Matsta4• 13 years ago

Sure maybe 20 years ago it might of been alright, but you can tell APN is going down the drain as no one is buying newspapers anymore, hence they post utter garbage articles that gain peoples attention for 2 seconds in hope that someone will actually buy it.

A good example is a friend of mine got mentioned on a headline of sharing naked pictures of some celebrity in a Facebook group. They mentioned all the companies he worked/associated as well to make it more juicy.

The article was complete BS as it was actually someone else and the picture itself wasn't even that bad (no naked bits). He basically got sacked from all his employers since they mentioned them.

He got his lawyer to send down a takedown notice, and they removed the article off their website and had to post a following article in the paper saying that the article was a load of BS.

aunty_helen• 13 years ago

New Zealand is just a testing ground for the US. The sooner you realize this, the sooner you can go back to sleep.

mtgx• 13 years ago

The NZ government basically responded to the spying claims with "Whoops..you caught us. Guess now we'll have to make the spying legal..."

stefantalpalaru• 13 years ago

It could have been worse. In 1951 the US tested LSD[1] on the French public.

[1] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/7415...

US spy device 'tested on NZ public'

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