intslack

You're right, partly. Either way, NSA ha(d|s) direct access to Yahoo and Google's internal networks with MUSCULAR and various other WINDSTOP programs that have collected many more records than MUSCULAR, without requiring warrants whatsoever. Arguing over why The Guardian didn't retract is just splitting hairs at this point, because they did include the slide that claimed "direct collection from the servers." Then there's also UPSTREAM. PRISM is hardly the smoking gun in these long chain of events. And again you're right, I did mix up the 215 blurb.

Nice chat.

The two statements from The Guardian are referencing the documents themselves. If you want to talk about out of context, you missed the headline and the multiple paragraphs framing it as a question of what the providers say versus what the NSA documents say.

"Direct access," these are the NSA's own words. The Guardian ran the providers statements versus what the NSA documents said. That's a fact. That's why there are no retractions in The Guardian's story, and as Soghoian says they don't actually deny "direct access" in those statements, legally. What's likely is that the companies allow them to run informal searches to narrow the data down.

As for the "court order," they're just talking about a FISA court order which only "allows the data to be queried when there is a reasonable suspicion, based on specific facts, that the particular basis for the query is associated with a foreign terrorist organization," which they readily ignore, and it's more like a general warrant because NSA relies on self-reporting. As Snowden indicated, and LOVEINT showed, analysts can just use bullshit justifications and cover it up. And if they targetted a U.S. citizen, according to their own documents, it's "not a big deal."

Sorry for the wall of text, but I quoted verbatim from the book below.

Wow, thanks for accusing me of being an NSA goon.

I didn't accuse you of being an NSA goon. Stewart is definitely one though.

If there is evidence that the NSA has been handing Huawei source code to Cisco, or any kind of data to any private organization for that matter, in order to gain a competitive advantage, then Greenwald has yet to show it.

What does that have to do with anything? Why is NSA interested in “energy,” “trade,” and “oil” in the PRISM slides? Why is the NSA spying on “heads of international aid organizations, foreign energy companies and a European Union official involved in antitrust battles with American technology businesses.” Why are they “monitor[ing] the communications of senior European Union officials, foreign leaders including African heads of state and sometimes their family members, directors of United Nations and other relief programs [such as UNICEF], and officials overseeing oil and finance ministries.”

The answer is simple:

"When the United States uses the NSA to eavesdrop on the planning strategies of other countries during trade and economic talks, it can gain enormous advantage for American industry. In 2009, for example, Assistant Secretary of State Thomas Shannon wrote a letter to Keith Alexander, offering his “gratitude and congratulations for the outstanding signals intelligence support” that the State Department received regarding the Fifth Summit of the Americas, a conference devoted to negotiating economic accords. In the letter, Shannon specifically noted that the NSA’s surveillance provided the United States with negotiating advantages over the other parties."

It's economic espionage no matter how you spin it. When NSA believes it's pertinent to the "national interests" of the USA, not the "national security" they'll take it.

You can consider Stewart Baker's opinion to be worth jack shit, but apparently Glenn Greenwald, Ryan Gallagher and Ryan Grim thought his opinion was good enough to quote extensively for the SEXINT article that they wrote.

Two quotes shooting himself in the foot by acknowledging and defending the program is hardly extensively quoting him.

they omitted slides from the PRISM presentation in order to make the argument that the NSA had direct access to Google/Yahoo/Microsoft/etc.

That was the Gellman and the Washington post that claimed that, without question. The Guardian article framed it as a question. Greenwald never had to issue any retractions.

And just fyi, Gellman is still sticking to the direct access accusations. And Greenwald now thinks that he's right, because analysts can query without staff intervention at Google et al.

I'll quote verbatim from the book:

The companies listed on the PRISM slide denied allowing the NSA unlimited access to their servers. Facebook and Google, for instance, claimed that they only give the NSA information for which the agency has a warrant, and tried to depict PRISM as little more than a trivial technical detail: a slightly upgraded delivery system whereby the NSA receives data in a “lockbox” that the companies are legally compelled to provide.

But their argument is belied by numerous points. For one, we know that Yahoo! vigorously fought in court against the NSA’s efforts to force it to join PRISM—an unlikely effort if the program were simply a trivial change to a delivery system. (Yahoo!’s claims were rejected by the FISA court, and the company was ordered to participate in PRISM.) Second, the Washington Post’s Bart Gellman, after receiving heavy criticism for “overstating” the impact of PRISM, reinvestigated the program and confirmed that he stood by the Post’s central claim: “From their workstations anywhere in the world, government employees cleared for PRISM access may ‘task’ the system”—that is, run a search—“and receive results from an Internet company without further interaction with the company’s staff.”

Third, the Internet companies’ denials were phrased in evasive and legalistic fashion, often obfuscating more than clarifying. For instance, Facebook claimed not to provide “direct access,” while Google denied having created a “back door” for the NSA. But as Chris Soghoian, the ACLU’s tech expert, told Foreign Policy, these were highly technical terms of art denoting very specific means to get at information. The companies ultimately did not deny that they had worked with the NSA to set up a system through which the agency could directly access their customers’ data.

Finally, the NSA itself has repeatedly hailed PRISM for its unique collection capabilities and noted that the program has been vital for increasing surveillance. One NSA slide details PRISM’s special surveillance powers. Another details the wide range of communications that PRISM enables the NSA to access. And another NSA slide details how the PRISM program has steadily and substantially increased the agency’s collection. On its internal messaging boards, the Special Source Operation division frequently hails the massive collection value PRISM has provided. One message, from November 19, 2012, is entitled “PRISM Expands Impact: FY12 Metrics”.

Such congratulatory proclamations do not support the notion of PRISM as only a trivial technicality, and they give the lie to Silicon Valley’s denials of cooperation. Indeed, the New York Times, reporting on the PRISM program after Snowden’s revelations, described a slew of secret negotiations between the NSA and Silicon Valley about providing the agency with unfettered access to the companies’ systems. “When government officials came to Silicon Valley to demand easier ways for the world’s largest Internet companies to turn over user data as part of a secret surveillance program, the companies bristled,” reported the Times. “In the end, though, many cooperated at least a bit.”

[...]

The Internet companies’ claim that they hand over to the NSA just the information that they are legally required to provide is also not particularly meaningful. That’s because the NSA only needs to obtain an individual warrant when it wants to specifically target a US person. No such special permission is required for the agency to obtain the communications data of any non-American on foreign soil, even when that person is communicating with Americans. Similarly, there is no check or limit on the NSA’s bulk collection of metadata, thanks to the government’s interpretation of the Patriot Act—an interpretation so broad that even the law’s original authors were shocked to learn how it was being used.

I can see in the PDF file for Greenwald's book that he still extensively cites the Boundless Informant slides, despite the fact that they've been thoroughly discredited[3]

How is that? That has nothing to do with whether the US records are correct.

No, but that's their justification the vast majority of the time. They don't limit it to foreign governments or militaries either. They do engage in economic espionage, fact. They do single out anyone they don't like which isn't limited to terrorists in these campaigns: "radicals", among them Wikileaks supports, fact.

Stewart Baker has discredited himself[1], his opinion is worth jack shit frankly. I wouldn't trust anything he says, not only because he was behind many of these programs as council but also because of Eben Moglen's interactions with him during the almost-prosecution of Phil Zimmerman, and suggest you do the same.

That the documents are 'sensationalized' is the favorite refuge of NSA goons: when Keith Alexander's comment about collecting it all became public, SEXINT, PRISM, etc. He talks about all of those and leaves no doubt that this characterization is horse shit after the third chapter.

[1] http://www.skatingonstilts.com/skating-on-stilts/2014/04/hid...

Guess I should've been clearer: any equipment they're interested in that ships from the US is at risk. They don't need to go after all equipment. They only need to go after equipment being shipped to backbone providers abroad, and specific targets they are interested in that are "tough to crack."

Further, if one believes that TAO is limiting themselves to terrorists buying Cisco equipment, I have a bridge to sell you. That's absurd considering they produly boast about their economic espionage, their spying on activists such as Wikileaks supporters and other "radicals," and their partners bragging about how they DDoS IRC chat rooms of hacktivists.

One example: http://justsecurity.org/2013/11/29/nsa-sexint-abuse-youve-wa...

All of this is summarized in Greenwald's new book.

Anything that's shipped from the US, basically. From the slides released with Greenwald's new book today: https://i.imgur.com/lCM0apx.png

Here's the source, but be warned that this is a 90 MB pdf: http://hbpub.vo.llnwd.net/o16/video/olmk/holt/greenwald/NoPl...

'Intellectual Property' doesn't exist at all, people just like to group copyright, trademarks and patents into the same term despite the separate, drastically different sets of laws backing them.

Lewis Hyde's Common As Air is a good read on the framers' original intentions when it came to issues like this, and why our modern system is in violation of their original constitutional mandate. Personally enjoyed it more than his other well known work The Gift.

On the subject of the article, and as per Bradley Kuhn's analysis[1], it should be noted that the court did not consider the question of fair use in this case and a jury will be able to sit down and consider that can of worms going forward. Not the end of the world, considering.

[1] http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2014/05/10/oracle-google.html

It's not going to interfere with anything: sponsored tiles aren't going to replace any of your newtab tiles (pinned or otherwise) in an old profile.

This is simply for new users and new profiles, to populate the newtab page with useful links until all of those items would be sufficiently populated.

Or you could click the button in the top-right hand corner of the newtab page to turn the tiles off completely (it also seems to disable thumbnailing now, you had to turn that off manually a few versions back.)

oh boy, another GPL debate! phk was right, seems we never get tired of this stupid shit.

It didn't make itself "deliberately incompatible" with all free licenses before it, for example MIT/X11 is definitely compatible. Why is the original BSD license singled out?

https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/bsd.html

Many people besides you believe proprietary software is harmful enough to enact defense mechanisms when proprietary software vendors harm the user and lock down free software into their products.

The vast majority of distros seem to agree that standardization is a good thing in the switch to systemd. If you don't want to be standardized maintain it yourself, see: GoboLinux.

But modularity of Linux doesn't seem to be going anywhere. Contrary to what the author says, systemd is not monolithic but rather consists of protocols and multiple daemons outside of PID1.

There doesn't seem to be any plans to stop one from using anything other than systemd on say Debian either. As far as I know the only hard requirement for systemd (really logind) is with Gnome on Wayland for user seats, because Consolekit is dead. Gnome seems to be willing to work with the *BSDs et al who have no plans to switch to systemd.

https://blogs.gnome.org/ovitters/2013/09/25/gnome-and-logind...

Australis sealed the deal and made them nearly identical in the most critical ways.

How is that? Using the hamburger icon, which was used by Mozilla in mockups before Chrome used it, or rounded tabs (which Chrome doesn't actually use), or making the customization UI (something which Chrome doesn't have, yet again) not look like it's from the year 2000?

Please identify the critical ways in which it's imitating Chrome.

The most important aspects for me would be customization, and Chrome doesn't offer anything in the same ballpark. And with Chrome, you have to resort to tedious workarounds to install certain extensions if you don't want to login to your Google account. And if we ignore all of that, Firefox's add-on ecosystem wins too.

People get upset at every UI rehaul; you could hear much the same sentiment after Firefox 3.

History will judge Eich just fine. He's a great technologist, and the Open Web owes a huge debt to him. He's probably done more for equality and inclusiveness than anyone who protested his appointment.

That's the real tradgedy here: the world, and Mozilla, lost a great ally (for now.)

Ah yes, he could've spared himself the trouble by just parroting empty words. The heretic should've just recanted!

there is no reason to believe his vague "stance" on equality.

There is: no one at Mozilla Co. publically doubted his stance on equality, in fact you had many coming to his side. It was people at Mozilla Fnd. who've never interacted with him, were the ones with doubts.

But instead of waiting for Eich, who said "I can only ask for your support to have the time to “show, not tell”; and in the meantime express my sorrow at having caused pain,[1]" to actually back up his words with actions, a bunch of social justice warriors decided that the heretic must burn. I'm not going to call them equal-marriage rights advocates because they're just acted like a bunch of bullies who thought he'd somehow "evolve" like our politicking President did.

It's shameful.

Hello to the person who decided to downvote all of my posts in a dead discussion, though. You must be so proud. Could've at least replied with a comment comparing Eich to the KKK or something.

[1] https://brendaneich.com/2014/03/inclusiveness-at-mozilla/

Phil Donahue is a nice example, I'll concede, but it says more about the corruption of the MSM than anything.

Why should I give money to an organization who's going to turn around and give it to a guy who's going to use it to compare my friends to child molesters

Where's the evidence that Eich has compared your friends to child molesters? You have none. Eich reaffirmed his own stance on equality going forward, at issue is that he just didn't want to recant his support for Prop 8, for which he donated his own money on his own time.

I'm not going to dignify your bullshit with any further responses just based on that comment.

Liberals get fired by their conservative employers for their views all the time. It's nice to see it work the other way for once.

Where's the evidence? And regardless of whether that's true or not, it's not right: you're effectively feeding social pressure to keep your beliefs private out of fear for retribution.

Almost as if you're reinforcing another closet on everyone else.

Sucks to see it thrown back at you, doesn't it? Time to eat your own dogfood.

Tit for tat bullshit: you are no better than the anti-gay bullies.

I've supported equal marriage rights since high school, for the record, and lean left-lib.

The left-wing anti-liberalism streak that's fueled this crisis is apalling to me personally. And those who were so insistent on burning Eich, the heretic, because he wouldn't recant will hopefully regret their actions once it happens to someone, for example, who donates to Planned Parenthood and is pressured to resign by a bunch of conservatives.

If you would have been outraged if he was pressured to resign for having the opposite opinion but think what happened is somehow appropriate: you are a bigot.

I wish him the best of luck, some good rest to think things over, and know that (despite his opinion otherwise) we are worse off when there's a Mozilla without Eich.

I asked you if you were equating Eich with homophobic bigots, and you confirmed that you did.

And no, I wouldn't feel the same way. As I said in that post, there's no biological basis or objective fact for refusing to accept interracial marriages. They're only justified by racism. There is however, a biological reason that Eich and others might not accept same-sex marriages.

It's a rational, yet very ignorant view. The point is that opposing same-sex marriage is definitely not the same when you do a direct comparison to interracial marriage bans.

Either way: the damage is done, the bridges were burned, and it's clear that you're among those who just want to be outraged about this group of people's ignorance instead of reaching out to them and striving for dialog, so there's no point in having this conversation.

So. to be clear, you're saying Brendan Eich is a homophobe?

My point is that people who opposed interracial marriage thought that they had a rational basis for doing so (even though it didn't make sense); similarly, people who oppose gay marriage today also think they have rational bases for doing so, even though they don't make sense.

Not really, as I said before there’s no biological basis for refusing to accept an interracial relationship as a marriage.

I'm not going to continue defending views that aren't my own, so if you're interested in reading what exactly "traditional marriage" defenders are talking about then try this review: http://www.harvard-jlpp.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Georg... (pdf)

No: They believe that marriage is a union that's only between a man and a woman, which has long social and cultural roots. Justified by the fact that same-sex couples categorically can't reproduce with each other.

Of course these objections to same-sex marriage have a slight problem: egg and sperm donations. But it's not exactly typical biological reproduction.

It's pretty stupid, but not everyone who holds these objections is a homophobic bigot. And, to be clear, I'm not attempting to act as an apologist for whatever views Eich holds: I'm just trying to refute the direct comparison between same-sex and interacial marriage bans. Because it's in every thread multiple times, and usually with a KKK reference which is absurd.

There was really no way this situation would have ended well regardless of how it turned out, because both sides seem incapable of communicating.

You don't seem to understand: they can be rational and maintain that a relationship between two people categorically incapable of producing children together biologically, two people of the same sex, can’t be a marriage.

It's ignorant, places way too much emphasis on sex rather than committment and love, and is justified by stupid ideas like marriage being "reserved" for heterosexual couples for the purpose of procreation, but it's rational. It also leads to seperate but equal legal frameworks, which are bullshit.

Bans on interracial marriage were irrational, not relying on a single objective fact.

What I would like: abolish state-recognized marriages altogether. Civil partnerships for everyone, let churches squabble about marriage if someone wants a ceremony, and they can enter into a partnership for benefits.

What's practical: modifying our legal framework for marriage across the states.

That direct comparison doesn't work either: The herd mentality in religious circles is that because same-sex couples can’t produce biological children together, they shouldn't be recognized as marriages. This is rational if you see the institution of marriage as a state-recognized union between that's only between a man and a woman, which has long social and cultural roots.

Bans on interracial marriages, on the other hand, are just justified by racism and not objective facts.

Eich is ignorant, but I'm pretty sure he's not a bigot.

http://www.benmoskowitz.com/?p=971

I agree with Sullivan's take[1] posted yesterday. If this is the gay-rights movement today, a bunch of extremist Social Justice Warriors, I want no part of it.

Not only that, but Catlin's reaction to it[2] is also shameful: 'oops, we thought he would evolve like President Obama did, our bad. but hey, we're putting our apps back on the marketplace!'

[1] http://dish.andrewsullivan.com/2014/04/03/the-hounding-of-br...

[2] http://www.teamrarebit.com/blog/2014/04/03/a-sad-victory/

if he put money on an association like the kkk?

Great comparison, it's not like the KKK murdered thousands of people or anything.

I look at it from a practicality standpoint: abolishing the state-recognized marriage institution and just leaving religions to squabble amongst each other while moving everyone to civil partnerships for the benefits is impractical. So marriage is going to have to be redefined, whether they like it or not.

That's not concrete evidence, sorry. Your logic is faulty:

1) You're equating his monetary support for Prop 8 as evidence of homophobic bigotry, which by itself it is not.

It's quite obvious that Eich is deeply religious: the herd mentality in those circles is that because same-sex couples can’t produce biological children together, they shouldn't be recognized as marriages.

This is rational if you see the institution of marriage as a state-recognized union between that's only between a man and a woman, which has long social and cultural roots. The same can not be said for bans on interracial marriages which are just backed by racism, and not objective facts.

Ultimately, assuming that these are Eich's views (which is very likely,) they are ignorant because they focus too much on sex and too little on the idea of commitment and love.

What they aren't: grounds for throwing around labels like "homophobic bigot," as there are many who empathize with those who are discriminated against, abused, disowned, lynched and executed because of their expression of gender identity. They see nothing wrong with homosexuals, but rather take issue with marriage as an institution being redefined.

Haven't seen any evidence that Eich opposes civil partnerships. I want nothing to do with marriage personally and would much rather a civil partnership for my relationship, but dissolving the state-recognized institution of marriage completely is very messy.

So redefining marriage is the best choice, lest we have separate but equal legal frameworks: marriages for heterosexual couples and civil unions for homosexual couples as well as heterosexual couples who want nothing to do with marriage but want the benefits it brings.

2) You're comparing Eich to the KKK which executed thousands of people, which is a disgusting comparison but you may just be historically ignorant.

Eich was pressured to resign just because he wouldn't parrot empty words about how he's "evolved" on the issue in the court of public opinion, like President Obama has.

And we're worse off for it, because he was the most qualified to lead Mozilla.

had Eich been a white supremacist

In this first part, you equate white supremacists with what I assume would be "homophobic bigots," implying that there's concrete evidence of Eich being such a "homophobic bigot." When there's not.

Donating and voting for prop 8, and therefore not in favor of redefining their "institution of marriage" (ignorant as that may be on their part) is not plain and simple hate, it's clear that you didn't even bother to read the blog post if you're willing to trivialize this issue like that. Even if you don't respect Brendan's beliefs, beliefs that I certainly don't respect, please stop trying to turn this into a black and white, "tolerant" vs "bigot" issue.

"pro homo"?

It appears that Jugurtha is not a native speaker of english, so take that into account before you start taking issue with their word choices instead of their points.

The rest of your post is exactly why people want to take a stand.

Asking why hypocrisy is on display in the campaign to shame Eich into resigning is why people want to make a stand? Really? I thought it was because the LGBT community are being denied equal legal frameworks for marriage, and that many are being discriminated against, abused, disowned, lynched and executed around the world because of their expression of gender identity. Or is that just a Social Justice Warrior tactic, to take a stand because someone "tone-shamed" them?

Their main point that many unfairly dismiss any and all on the "anti-gay marriage" side as homophobic bigots is a valid one. Someone believing that their idea of the institution of marriage being trampled is ignorant, a product of their upbringing and the communities they find themselves in, but not homophobic in and of itself.

The only crisis here is fueled by people like @nelson who want him to to either spout empty words or resign from a position that he's the most qualified for.

Eich is ignorant, no doubt about that, but shaming him into resignation is not the moral high ground when he's reaffirmed Mozilla's strive for equality. Further: just because he's ignorant doesn't mean we should throw around labels like homophobe or bigot, and comparisons with the KKK, in communities that should know better.

There's also a factual innacuracy in the blog post, the shake-up of the board of directories was planned well in advance, and isn't a crisis, as per Mozilla's statement:

The three board members ended their terms last week for a variety of reasons. Two had been planning to leave for some time, one since January and one explicitly at the end of the CEO search, regardless of the person selected