

The NSA Searches Ten Times as Much of the Internet as It Said It Does - j_baker
http://www.theatlanticwire.com/politics/2013/08/nsa-better-data-collection-math/68490/

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devindotcom
I can't get excited or depressed about these numbers, because at this order of
magnitude and with as little as we know about the workflows and storage
mechanisms involved, there is no meaningful difference between 0.000004% and
0.00004%, or indeed 4%, considering how vague the definitions are of whether
something is being inspected, whether it can be or is stored, etc.

That said, the more data (numbers, policies, or what have you) the better. Get
it all out there, fact-check the hell out of it. If you want to do a puzzle,
first you have to pour out the pieces.

~~~
flaktrak
The problem as I see it is that no matter how much they store. If they so wish
they can search for you!

The potential for abuse is just to high.

Originally I was so what some random stranger at some big department might
have some info on me.

A friend said to me once "think of your worst enemy, whoever that may be, if
they had every piece of communication you ever sent on the internet or if they
had list of every website you ever went to, would you be worried?"

That clarified things for me. Not that I have enemies in that respect (at
least I hope not) but if I did would I want them to have access to this
information.

We do not know who has access to this info and business leaders (especially in
countries other than the US) are having their conversations monitored and that
info is apparently being passed to business leaders in the US.

We can't have this.

~~~
wanderingstan
I really hope that someone in Hollywood (or a Fiction author) sees the
potential here. What would an anti-Snowden have done in his place? Monitor his
girlfriend? Dig up dirt on a romantic rival? Blackmail a senator?

Or for that matter, now that politicians know this power is out there, how
about a Senator finding an anti-Snowden to get dirt on a political rival?

You basically take "The Lives of Others" and have a modern-day script with a
few search-and-replaces.

~~~
malandrew
Yes. A thousand times yes. Forget Minority Report. Build up an entire script
based solely on the facts of what we already know the NSA's systems are
capable of right now.

The script should try to weave in every abuse scenario that is practically
possible: Digging up for personal vendettas and blackmail. Insider trading.
Manipulating politics or the economy in other countries. Manipulating politics
or the economy in our own country. Sock puppeting. etc.

Design the script to play to the fears of every politically influential group.

There are more than enough facts out there now to weave a very plausible story
that looks like a prequel to 1984.

~~~
L_Rahman
Guardian journalist Charlie Booker is the showrunner of a series called Black
Mirror on Channel 4 in Britain where each episode is centered around exploring
the potential impact of technology in the near future.

There are some scripts written up for a third series and the NSA revelations
would be perfect to explore in a show like that. The problem, as is the
general case with this issue, that far too few people are actively engaging
it. Black Mirror drew around 1.6m viewers at its highest point, but this was
admittedly only in the UK and there was no hot button issue being explored.

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jsmcgd
Who cares what percentage of the total internet traffic is monitored? This is
a totally disingenuous metric to put forward. Most of the traffic on the
internet is not meant to be private. Most of the traffic probably even isn't
created by humans.

Interesting metrics to debate:

What percentage of American emails are recorded by the NSA? 0.0004% or 100%?
What percentage of American phone calls are recorded by the NSA? 0.0004% or
100%? What percentage of American text messages are recorded by the NSA?
0.0004% or 100%?

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photorized
If you ignore various entertainment traffic (HD video etc) - which is the
biggest component of the multi-petabyte "information exchanged on the
Internet" \- one could be monitoring/capturing 100% of the information that
matters (emails and social media postings), and still technically be within
that fraction of a percentage point.

~~~
devindotcom
Exactly. I have a little bandwidth counter in my rainmeter and it tells me
that so far this month I've used about 50 gigs download and 20 gigs upload. So
incredibly little of that is content that is sensitive or really even
meaningful. If I send one email to a terrorist, then download one movie, then
only like a couple kilobytes out of several gigs is actually "interesting"
data.

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pkinsky
>Our figure is valid; the classified information that goes into the number is
more complicated than what’s in your calculation.

>Our overall number is valid. I’m not sure why you’re calling this a
“discrepancy” when the number in the white paper is valid.

I wonder if they expect anyone to believe them.

~~~
niels_olson
This is straight out of Kafka.

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ax
I'm getting flashbacks to the VerizonMath Fiasco.

[http://verizonmath.blogspot.com/2007/08/original-
recording-o...](http://verizonmath.blogspot.com/2007/08/original-recording-of-
verizon-customer.html)

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chris_mahan
I don't believe what the NSA says publicly.

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Karunamon
The NSA? Caught lying? I am shocked. SHOCKED.

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cloudwalking
Does the NSA search more than Google?

~~~
devx
Even with what they admitted I think it was said they search more than Google.
If this 10x story is true, then it makes it all the more true.

