NSA slides explain the PRISM data-collection program

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/politics/prism-collection-documents/

by o0-0o • 13 years ago

474 117 13 years ago

cdooh2• 13 years ago

Two days, two major reveals, wouldn't be suprised if tomorrow I wake up to find out that they've been switching on the microphones and cameras on webcams and cellphones.

yogo2• 13 years ago

Not to mention all of the revelations over the past few weeks. Either the administration is trying to top Nixon or there is some kind of conspiracy playing out.

o0-0o7• 13 years ago

I think their is a high placed mole. It might even be that Obama is the source of the leaks, and he's a good guy after all. Jury is still out on that one.

cdooh2• 13 years ago

I wonder how the Obama administration will repond to this other than the usual "Terrorism is bad and you need to trust us that we do all this for your own safety"

mtgx• 13 years ago

All of this deserves impeachment. Will Congress oblige? That's the real question. Normally, Republicans would be more than happy to do it - but for something like this? I'm more skeptical about that.

conover• 13 years ago

"...switching on the microphones and cameras on webcams and cellphones."

http://news.cnet.com/2100-1029-6140191.html

They've been doing it with cell phone microphones for years apparently.

brewdad• 13 years ago

Aha! Now we know the real reason that most phones sold today have a non-removeable battery.

mcantelon• 13 years ago

The CIA has stated that it wants to do this.

http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/03/petraeus-tv-remote/

Tech like the XBox One will make this pretty easy (as its microphone is always on and the Kinect cam is integrated).

nemothekid• 13 years ago

I've always wondered how a government agency would reliably set up cameras in everyone's home 1984 style. I find it hilarious that we may just go down to Best Buy and install in our own homes.

rasterizer3• 13 years ago

For what it's worth Apple and Google denie it: http://www.cnbc.com/id/100797046

tyre• 13 years ago

Not exactly. From the article: >Google specifically denied that it has a "back door for the >government to access private user data."

>Apple told CNBC, "We have never heard of PRISM. We do not >provide any government agency with direct access to our >servers, and any government agency requesting customer data >must get a court order."

They are not providing a back door, but it isn't the _means_ of providing information to the NSA that citizens are upset about, it is the 'providing information to the NSA' part.

rasterizer3• 13 years ago

Actually it's the backdoor bit that's more problematic. If they hand data by court order that is acceptable but if the government has direct lines to servers that is much more problematic.

ceejayoz2• 13 years ago

IIRC, they're legally required to deny it.

Plus, careful wording allows all sorts of out. Google says they don't provide a "back door", but this sort of thing could be defined as coming in the front door.

tedivm• 13 years ago

Gag orders don't require them to deny it, the require them not to confirm it.

eightyone2• 13 years ago

It's not worth anything because they have an obligation to both their shareholders and the government to deny, deny, deny.

quackerhacker• 13 years ago

Eagle Eye...my favorite movie!

While I understand that this had been uncovered today, is it really that surprising.

adrinavarro2• 13 years ago

Now. Exactly which data is exposed for each provider?

I'm thinking mostly about Gmail. Because virtually everyone now is using it…

The whole content of any communications? Just origin/dest?

This is becoming scary.

uvdiv• 13 years ago

Exactly which data is exposed for each provider?

According to slide 2, all of it. You might be confusing this with yesterday's Verizon story, which was "only" metadata -- caller, sender, time, and duration. This one is "actual" data -- email content, chat text, audio/video of VoIP calls.

(From the article, there's also a parallel NSA program (BLARNEY) that collects metadata only. I don't know why there's two of them).

skymt• 13 years ago

BLARNEY is data-mining from IP metadata collected at Internet backbones, which is obviously a far broader net than backdoors at a few specific services.

adrinavarro2• 13 years ago

Rather, I'm trying to hold onto the idea that my mail is not directly piped, entirely, into a government tracking and storage system. No questions asked, no filters: just everything.

Which is what is probably happening right now.

0003• 13 years ago

Here is hoping that there is zero.zero percent corruption in the FBI, NSA, and CIA. A lot of disruptive start-ups and research institutions use Google business[1] and education[2] apps...

[1] https://www.google.com/intx/en/enterprise/apps/business/ [2] http://www.google.com/enterprise/apps/education/customers.ht...

paganel2• 13 years ago

I'm thinking mostly about Gmail.

I think YouTube too, saw a mention of it in one of the articles linked from HN. Which I guess makes sense from their point of view, there was this case about 3 months ago of two Russian spies caught in Germany who had "taken orders" by way of YouTube comments (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142412788732453200457836...).

And then of course there's all the "jihadist" YT videos (Arabic Nasheeds and all that) with lots of comments that may hold "useful" data, like IP addresses of those commenting. Of course I've long time ago created a YT playlist with a couple of these nasheeds (even though I don't understand a word some of them do sound really nice), which I hope to counter-act in NSA's eyes by my loyal membership to /r/murica and limitless fanboyism for the works of Thomas Paine.

FireBeyond• 13 years ago

Why leave Apple off the list in the title submission?

(Because they deny it? Then better leave Google off the list, too - they deny it as well).

o0-0o7• 13 years ago

Actually, in my haste to post I only listed the ones that I thought of right away. I was quite disappointed to hear the Apple too, has succomb.

Now I really have a reason to install Debian Wheezy on MBPr. ;p

This is no way to live. Something must be done.

eightyone2• 13 years ago

Does Debian (or any Linux distro for that matter) support HDPI displays without looking awful?

meaydinli• 13 years ago

This got me thinking. Linux distros has usually been seen as a safe harbor for people. We now have proof that MS and Apple has been in bed with the governments for a long time, and but even before it wouldn't have been too wrong to think MS/Apple has some kind of back door.

Years ago, something called Ubuntu came up to spread linux to the masses. While it was hard to install and maintain a linux pc before, Ubuntu made it so that it was almost as simple as windows. I know this is a baseless conspiracy theory, but would it be too far fetched to think maybe Ubuntu was sponsored by the government to spread linux and lull the people into a false sense of security in their linux environment?

o0-0o7• 13 years ago

I-M-P-E-A-C-H

j2d3• 13 years ago

oh please. like this has a thing to do with POTUS. I worked at an ISP in 1998 when we were contacted by the FBI and required to install carnivore. This has been going on a very long time.

nthj2• 13 years ago

When a junior developer screws something up, I accept responsibility and apologize to the client.

It's my fault.

There is no authority without responsibility.

If you don't like that, don't accept the job.

[FWIW I didn't like Bush either]

refurb• 13 years ago

Would have you said that if this had happened 6 years ago and Bush was still in office?

d23• 13 years ago

I'll make the middle-ground argument then: Obama is at fault and should have done better, but he's also done a lot of other good things. This is one aspect of his presidency I am not happy with; for a lot of other aspects, I think he has been quite reasonable and progressive.

venomsnake• 13 years ago

If Obama knew about that - maybe there are grounds for impeachment (seems like bigger than watergate and a blowjob combined).

If he didn't he is just incompetent and unfit to lead the "free" world.

flyinRyan6• 13 years ago

Right, so lets just keep on holding no one accountable. That's worked great so far.

o0-0o7• 13 years ago

Link to delete Google Account:

https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/32046?hl=en

arindone2• 13 years ago

I don't think this is helpful or productive -- it's not the companies at fault, but rather the government that is making this compulsory.

PavlovsCat2• 13 years ago

They lend their face and their bullshit smile to the government towards which many people have a much more healthy distrust. I agree that this doesn't make them the main culprit, but they don't get to completely wash their hands of it either. Big (monstrously huge, actually) corporations make the job of tyrannical governments much easier; how about we chop them into more manageable bits without having personally hard feeling towards them, and deal with the government(s) at the same time?

flyinRyan6• 13 years ago

No, it's absolutely productive and helpful. We the people have no voice. Companies like Google who makes billions are the ones with a voice. If a million people left Google in protest you could expect action. If a million people signed some bullshit online petition nothing at all would happen.

CodeFoo2• 13 years ago

Why stop at Google? Here's Facebook too:

http://www.facebook.com/help/214376678584711

rasterizer3• 13 years ago

Why is Google being singled out? atleast they are among the ones denieing this report: http://marketingland.com/google-apple-facebook-deny-nsa-pris...

And why are you omitting Apple from the title while listing Google twice (YouTube)? and what the hell is "msn" and "y"?

CodeFoo2• 13 years ago

He probably has an agenda against Google. It's very common on HN. HN hates Google, but loves Apple and Facebook.

alan_cx4• 13 years ago

Why? If your ISP is giving you up, what does google matter?

alecco• 13 years ago

Most Google services can work over SSL (after years of pressure). That trumps ISP's DPI. And live traffic is nothing compared to your search history (with location and profiling) and email.

cpeterso• 13 years ago

I'm not sure why this is a big surprise to anyone. I'm a cynic, but if anyone asked me whether I think the NSA, CIA, or FBI are eavesdropping on personal communications, I would say, "of course they are." This is nothing new: ECHELON, Clipper/Skipjack, Carnivore, ...

burntsushi• 13 years ago

I guess I'm not so surprised that it's happening and I'm more surprised with the transition from "yeah it definitely looks like they're doing it" to "we have hard evidence that they're doing it."

apl002• 13 years ago

totally agree. I always thought the government was doing this but now its front of me, its a whole new shitty feeling.

alan_cx4• 13 years ago

How many times does some one have to say this? I'm sorry, but this sort of comment is getting pretty tiresome.

Yes we all "knew". All of us "knew". Some of us have "known" for something like 15 years. (Which, BTW, is why I'm most sure why Obama is getting so much flack. Its a Clinton - Bush - Obama scandal.)

But none of us, not one, actually did know anything at all. We suspected, or assumed. But we did not know. Not unless one of us is working for the NSA, etc, etc. (Ironic if I have just picked on the one poster who is)

Now we do know. It is absolute. No doubt, no shouting down, we know.

There is a huge difference: Before we were written off as conspiracy nuts jobs. Now we have certain knowledge.

Im not picking on you personally. Your post is one of many in the past couple of days. As such I have not down voted you, that would be unfair. But please, can people stop with this sort of comment? We all know we "knew".

samsonasu• 13 years ago

No. Don't downplay people concerned with privacy who noticed a series of obvious, blatant actions over a period of literally decades as cynics or conspiracy nuts.

You are picking on people; we really did know, not "know." It was obvious, it remains obvious, and the fact is that its going to continue and get worse despite the revelations of this week, unless we do something.

Painting rational people who notice and complain about government overreach as paranoid is precisely what enables the expansion of these policies. You should be asking what you can do now to help rather than setting us up to be further discredited or ignored by implying our years of complaining weren't substantiated until just now.

guiambros2• 13 years ago

Am I the only one to think this is too good to be true? I mean, this can have the exact opposite effect, and become a big "don't trust what you read on the Internet, kids".

NSA doesn't even have to deny anything. Let the other interested parties wash their hands, and leave with a "told ya" smile.

Not sure if it was intentional or not, but seems a very convenient prank. I know, Conspiracy theory^-1. We'll see.

eli• 13 years ago

I mean, I guess I see what you're saying, but obviously at least a handful of people at each of the member companies knew. I believe those are the people the parent comment is talking about.

photorized• 13 years ago

Ironically, hackers have been monitoring unencrypted drone streams for years.

That, plus knowing what we know about big data projects, I have a suspicion this "system" has very limited functionality.

smackfu• 13 years ago

ECHELON, Clipper/Skipjack, Carnivore

Were any of those ever confirmed with documentation?

rsanders• 13 years ago

Carnivore definitely was, and it wasn't really kept secret. If you worked long enough in telecom or Internet service, you probably got to install a Carnivore box in your data center.

toyg• 13 years ago

Echelon was indeed confirmed, afaik, although in less apocalyptic terms than initially described, hence deflating the related news-cycle. In a way, 20 years later, all the fuss looks very naïf compared to what GCHQ and friends do nowadays.

flyinRyan6• 13 years ago

It's not about surprise, it's about proof. Comments like this are nothing but highschool cool-table karma whoring. "I knew it all along" adds nothing to the conversation. Congratulations for nothing.

danso3• 13 years ago

(note/edit: I've made an error of conflation between the recently reported massive phone record sweep-up and PRISM, which according to the WP, simply allows analysts to trace (essentially) the totality of someone's online interactions, though not everyone at once. So really, things don't seem that much different than last week when it was well known that the government has discretion to warrantlessly tap us. Still, $20M a year is a pretty good price for a government contract)

Isn't it kind of surprising that the leak for this came from a career intelligence officer and not one of the many tech-utopia idealists who work at these kinds of startups? Not necessarily someone at the executive level, but one of the scores of employees required to assess, review, and implement the alleged backdoor? It's not just a matter of ethics, but just that you'd think someone must be idealistic/reckless enough to leak it from the companies' side

Edit: Also, as has been pointed out elsewhere...this program only cost $20M a year? If that's the price of eternal security, I'd say we got a pretty goddamn good deal. The shitstack that is the government's stimulus contracts database alone cost $18M to build (http://www.propublica.org/article/stimulus-transparency-watc...). And what percentage of a fighter jet's paint job does $20M cover?

I'd say it's possible that the government is unconstitutionally intruding on our privacy but also doing it in a bumbling way (which also has its downsides).

arindone2• 13 years ago

To be honest I'm still catching up on a lot of the details with these stories, but it's this comment that made me wonder if there is a bit of hyperbole going around. Companies make leaks all the time on the most mundane things (hell Apple can barely contain the new iPhone that is usually coming out.) I'm hesitant to believe all the conspiracy theories going around that the companies willingly did this, or that it's as easy as it sounds.

danso3• 13 years ago

What really makes me suspicious is this passage:

> “They quite literally can watch your ideas form as you type,” said the “career intelligence officer” who gave documents describing PRISM to the Washington Post.

Think of the engineering needed at multiple endpoints to allow something like this...I can believe the NSA has some of the best cryptoanalysts, but our best front-end hackers as well (do they have their own Meteor.js)? I'm only being slightly pedantic here. If this is "literally" possible, then the amount of work needed for the collaborating companies is non-trivial. It's one thing to pass along uber-authentication credentials allowing an NSA-agent Zuckerberg-like privileges...that could be something implemented with as few as a couple people. But to bake in something right out of a hacker movie?

It just makes a few of the claims sound a bit suspect...because what is terribly frightening is the government's ability to aggregate and analyze this information in bulk, not to peep in on you as you're typing in real-time, which would be one of the least efficient ways ever to spy on the general American public's online activity.

And no, I'm not being an apologist for federal expansion of powers. I'm pointing out that some of what this source is leaking seems to be beyond reality, not because of technological sophistication, but because of the number of mundane moving parts and actors that would seemingly have to be involved (theoretically, wouldn't they have to have as many datacenters as all the companies they're vacuuming from?). The entire PowerPoint slide set looks like something a get-rich-quick contractor would whip up to win a fat contract that would never actually be scrutinized for viability.

But still, even if the government doesn't actually have the capability as described, it is wrong for them to not disavow it...it's not any good if their mindset is: "Oh we're not doing that...yet...but we would love to, some day)

Executor• 13 years ago

You do not need to have belief systems; knowledge is more powerful. And conspiracy theory is a loaded term. Remove both from yourself to process information better.

wmf• 13 years ago

Does $20M include the cost that was borne by the companies?

jonknee6• 13 years ago

The $20M is probably not a full number--that might be the portion of it that gets credited to the program while other major costs (storage!) are already covered somewhere else.

znowi• 13 years ago

> this program only cost $20M a year? If that's the price of eternal security, I'd say we got a pretty goddamn good deal.

This line of thought is similar to another comment on HN stating that "we should be grateful to Google".

- Oh, they take only $20M? We should be grateful for that. Let them do whatever it takes to "protect our freedom".

I'm very surprised to see this kind of reasoning on the hacker's forum.

ryanSrich• 13 years ago

I'm very surprised to see this kind of reasoning on the hacker's forum

I'm not. HN is typically more liberal than what some might consider a traditional hacker to be; I'd imagine the real hackers congregate somewhere else. Somewhere less "white hat-y", if you will.

The problem with getting through to people who are willing to surrender their freedoms for a false promise of security is that they don't see the government as a threat. If the government is not a threat then why not surrender your freedom to them? Are they not there to protect us?

This idea has been present throughout history and most notably in western literature. It's believed by some that in order to have an achievable utopian society we must enslave ourselves to the government only at the cost of our personal freedoms. By this definition we've long been enslaved, it's just that some are now noticing it.

Of course some level of opposition will always be present. However the size of such is so small that the power they have must be leveraged through some alternative means. Some say this is the internet. We now know that's not true.

wyck• 13 years ago

It's no coincidence this is called PRISM.

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

Some parts of this technology are actual prisms (several patents pop-up via google) , this might remove all parties legally speaking.

Furthermore these can be installed fairly easily without anyone really knowing, though some physical access is required.

The same technique was used in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A and pretty much all over every pipe, including the one this data went throught to show up on Hacker News.

digitalboss2• 13 years ago

What really shocks me is why wouldn't a technologist/coder / etc - Whisteblow this sort of information. Why would they sit behind a computer, deploy/design such software, and not have some concern, and go public with this?

This is not about the "NSA, CIA, or FBI" - it's about those other companies enabling those gov agencies to gather such information, why doesn't someone from those companies speak up that deploys this software?

Is it really about $$$? Is it the same reason programmers create SPAM bots?

SOOooooo, which one of you geeks wrote the code to track call data, then wrote a script to export the data to the NSA - THEN you didn't tell the rest of tech community.

DISAPPOINTED IN YOU

jlgreco3• 13 years ago

Most programmers are very much unlike you or I. Think about those legions of DoD/DoD contractor engineers that trust government implicitly and totally, and really don't give a shit about more "hacker"/"technologist" subjects.

ericd• 13 years ago

I wonder if the NSA and the politicians that enabled this realize the amount of economic damage this could do to the US by promoting the balkanization of the world's telecom networks and spreading mistrust for US tech and telecom companies. This seems very short sighted, if they care about that stuff at all.

o0-0o7• 13 years ago

I guarantee free markets care about this, but yeah. You knew that.

siculars• 13 years ago

So when do we get to read about The Machine in Person of Interest?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Person_of_Interest_(TV_series)

rdl• 13 years ago

I'd like the raw/unredacted slides, please (or at least images of them, to protect the source).

qoo• 13 years ago

$20M a year, what a bargain!

sfall• 13 years ago

Don't worry it looks like they can barely use powerpoint, massive data analysis is a cinch compared to powerpoint (sarcasm)

andyl• 13 years ago

Google is dismantling XMPP federation, but if these slides are true then their NSA federation is working better than ever.

NSA slides explain the PRISM data-collection program

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