Ars TechnicaPosted on 07/06/2014 8:55:50 AM PDT by PoloSec
Just yesterday the federal Privacy and Civil Liberties Board released its report insisting that the National Security Agency's (NSA) operates a perfectly legal operation collecting mass amounts of metadata on Internet users. At Forbes, Gregory McNeal were quick to call it "a big victory for the NSA, and a seeming rebuke to critics of the agency." Well, any good P.R. points the agency scored were likely undone today. A German publication got its hands on the top secret source code of XKeyscore, one of the mass surveillance systems exposed by whistle blower Edward Snowden last year, and suggests that the NSA is watching us a lot more closely than it admits.
Here are some major points from DasErste.de:
Ars Technica
One of the most important takeaways, tech security expert Bruce Schneier highlights, is the "very disturbing" fact that "this isn't just metadata; this is 'full take' content that's stored forever."
Linux users aren't the only "extremists" in the NSA's eyes. The agency also engages in long-term surveillance of people who use – or even simply search for – anonymity-protecting tools like Tails and Tor.
One of the two German servers being spied on belongs to Sebastian Hahn, a computer science student at the University of Erlangen. He's an important figure in the Tor Project because
his server is not just a node, it is a so-called Directory Authority. There are nine of these worldwide, and they are central to the Tor Network, as they contain an index of all Tor nodes. A user's traffic is automatically directed to one of the directory authorities to download the newest list of Tor relays generated each hour.
What is XKeyscore?
Snowden succinctly explained the system earlier this year:
You could read anyone's email in the world, anybody you've got an email address for. Any website: You can watch traffic to and from it. Any computer that an individual sits at: You can watch it. Any laptop that you're tracking: you can follow it as it moves from place to place throughout the world. It's a one-stop-shop for access to the NSA's information. ...
You can tag individuals… Let's say you work at a major German corporation and I want access to that network, I can track your username on a website on a form somewhere, I can track your real name, I can track associations with your friends and I can build what's called a fingerprint, which is network activity unique to you, which means anywhere you go in the world, anywhere you try to sort of hide your online presence, your identity.
An NSA representative responded to today's revelation, assuring, expectedly, that "such tools have stringent oversight and compliance mechanisms built in at several levels. The use of XKeyscore allows the agency to help defend the nation and protect U.S. and allied troops abroad."
Who leaked the information?
The most likely guess would be Snowden, but the writers of the report don't acknowledge any input from him. Schneier, who is very familiar with the Snowden documents, says it's not his work. "I think there's a second leaker out there," he writes.
I imagine there are several re-education camps reserved just for Freepers.
How will they possible keep info on all these illegals?
“I imagine there are several re-education camps reserved just for Freepers.”
......have only three options, escape, barricade or fight back; only two possible outcomes, live or die; and only one chance to get it right.
What is most worrisome is that the data could end up in the wrong hands — like Al-Qaeda’s or ISIS’.
Back in the day I always figured the alphabet guys had expanded their file on me to an entire file cabinet. Now in the digital age its probably expanded to an entire SAN cabinet.
Well at least we will be able to meet each other in person
I think it's in the wrong hands now, is it not?
OK with me if ISIS finds out I visit the Linux forum.
wrong hands — like Al-Qaeda’s or ISIS’.—
From the elbows down, who can tell:
Al-Qaeda, ISIS, or bo’s himself, they are all the wrong hands.
Or maybe that is from the neck down.
Don’t forget criticizing Obama or the Government puts you on the list too.....
I just downloaded/installed the TOR Browser, last week, but haven’t tried it out yet. Am I in trouble? < /sarcasm>
/johnny
I said something offhandedly to Dennis. “I just wish we could get rid of those bastards, once and for all.”
He stared at me for a long time, chewing on his second BLT sandwich until the Navy steward retreated from range, and then he said, “Actually, Jacinda, there is sort of a plan for that.”
(...)
I told him that removing a few dozen of the worst reactionaries wouldn’t change anything. Other fast-talking right-wingers would just take their places. Except they would be angrier than ever.
“Not dozens.” He paused. “Around two thousand, actually.”
The new number shocked me. “That’s not possible.”
(...)
“Here’s how we came up with two thousand. I was given a copy of a new law enforcement software program, one that Justice had for testing and evaluation. A refinement of the social networking analysis stuff. Data-mining, all of that. We put it on a clean computer, adjusted it for our own parameters, and made the list. We tried it at different levels from ten up to ten thousand. The optimal number for the greatest effect with the least initial disruption came in at about two thousand.”
(...)
“We could both be facing prison time just for talking like this.”
“Not as long as we’re in power. You know how I know? Operation Fast and Furious. At least four hundred dead and there was no blowback that we couldn’t handle. Our media stuck right with us all the way through. For me, that was the final test. We can do almost anything if we get the timing right, and most of the media stays with us.”
~ Matt Bracken, “What I Saw At The Coup”
I’m back, using Tor. Now it wants me to ‘Download Tor Browser Bundle Update’, or the blinking button won’t stop annoying me. And tere’s a firefox.exe file in the folder. Going back to Opera v12...
WE KNOW WHO YOU ARE AND WHERE YOU ARE AT
F’em
The NSA has been creating maps of American citizens' social networks
Why do they want to do that?
What could social networks be used for in the hands of government? Consider:
Using Metadata to Find Paul Revere
How will such capabilities be used now?
How They Hunt
Is it already too late?...
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