
New PRISM slides say the program allows NSA to eavesdrop on live conversations - llamataboot
http://gigaom.com/2013/06/29/new-prism-slides-say-the-program-allows-nsa-to-eavesdrop-on-live-conversations/
======
yk
I think this does clean up some of the language of Googles prism statement.
[1]

    
    
        First, we have not joined any program that would give 
        the U.S. government—or any other government—direct 
        access to our servers. Indeed, the U.S. government does 
        not have direct access or a “back door” to the   
        information stored in our data centers. We had not 
        heard of a program called PRISM until yesterday.
    

So they did not hear of the NSA codename for FBI operated equipment. ( And
note that they do not deny wiretapping, just 'direct access' and 'back door.')

    
    
        Second, we provide user data to governments only in 
        accordance with the law. [...] Press reports that 
        suggest that Google is providing open-ended access to
        our users’ data are false, period.
    

That seems to indicate that here Google defines 'provide user data' as a
specific database access. Which seems to be reinforced by

    
    
        Until this week’s reports, we had never heard of the broad 
        type of order that Verizon received—an order that appears 
        to have required them to hand over millions of users’ 
        call records.
    

Note they talk about records, not about live interception. ( And the order
against Verizon seems than to indicate that Verizon did not participate in
live wire tapping.)

IMHO, this points in the direction, that there is FBI equipment in the Google
datacenters. This equipment is tapping into the network connections and pipes
them to the NSA. So the Guardians allegations [2] that

    
    
        "Collection directly from the servers of these US service 
        providers: Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, PalTalk, AOL,
        Skype, YouTube, Apple." 
    

means that there is nothing between the servers and the wiretapping equipment.
While the companies take the view, that only a account on a database server
constitutes 'direct access.'

[1][https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5841228](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5841228)

[2][http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/07/google-
facebook-...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/07/google-facebook-
prism-surveillance-program)

~~~
skwirl
This is an incredibly fanciful interpretation of language. If these reports
are correct then Google is simply outright lying. If you have to strain to
read a statement to mean the exact opposite if what it plainly says and that
opposite is the truth, then what practical difference is there between that
statement and a lie?

Statements from Google:

    
    
      we have not joined any program that would 
      give the U.S. government—or any other 
      government—direct access to our servers.
    
      Our legal team reviews each and every request, 
      and frequently pushes back when requests are overly 
      broad or don’t follow the correct process. Press 
      reports that suggest that Google is providing 
      open-ended access to our users’ data are false, period.
    
      Until this week’s reports, we had never heard of the 
      broad type of order that Verizon received—an order 
      that appears to have required them to hand over 
      millions of users’ call records. We were very surprised 
      to learn that such broad orders exist. Any suggestion 
      that Google is disclosing information about our 
      users’ Internet activity on such a scale is 
      completely false.
    
      We cannot say this more clearly -- the government does 
      not have access to Google servers--not directly, or via 
      a back door, or a so-called drop box. Nor have we 
      received blanket orders of the kind being discussed in 
      the media. It is quite wrong to insinuate otherwise.
    
      Google participates in that allows the kind of access 
      that the media originally reported. Note that I 
      say "originally" because you'll see that many of 
      those original sources corrected their articles after 
      it became clear that the PRISM slides were not accurate.
    
      There is no free-for-all, no direct access, no 
      indirect access, no back door, no drop box.
    
      We’re not in the business of lying and we’re absolutely
      telling the truth about all of this. Our business 
      depends on the trust of our users. And I’m an executive 
      officer of a large publicly traded company, so lying to 
      the public wouldn’t be the greatest career move.
    
      If by what has now been “revealed” you mean the allegation 
      that Google is allowing the NSA unfettered access to user 
      data or that we’re handing over data willy-nilly to the 
      government, again, that’s just not true. It’s not 
      rhetoric, it’s just a fact.
    
      QUESTION: Without giving any specifics which might put you 
      in violation of such an order, are you legally bound to \
      lie about anything to the public? (Yes or no is fine)
      ANSWER: Nope. No gun to my head.
    
      I’m really troubled if you’ve lost trust in us because of 
      this idea that we’re collaborating in a broad surveillance 
      program. We’re not, and that’s why we are pushing back so 
      hard on these allegations.
    

I really don't know how you could say NO more strongly. How would you say it?
It is manifestly apparent at this point that there is no possible way that you
could say it without someone who wants to believe otherwise reading whatever
they want out of it.

~~~
yk
In your examples, Google again just talks about 'servers.' There is no
language which indicates that there is no wiretapping equipment in their
datacenters, except for

    
    
        There is no free-for-all, no direct access, no 
        indirect access, no back door, no drop box.
    

Which is clearly wrong, since there is a indirect access to user data ( via
court order). [1]

However at this point Google is trying to prove a negative, that it does _not_
knowingly participates in _covert_ surveillance of its users. ( With the added
complexity, that AdWords analytics should qualify as surveillance.) So Google
will have a very hard time to convince me. However a published privacy policy,
verified by a third party, would go quite a long way.

[1]
[http://www.google.com/transparencyreport/userdatarequests/?h...](http://www.google.com/transparencyreport/userdatarequests/?hl=en_US)

~~~
skwirl
You seem to read only the lines that you can creatively contort to validate
your belief and ignore the rest. I don't think you are intentionally doing
this, but it seems quite apparent that it is happening anyway from my vantage
point. The Google comments mention user data in addition to the servers
themselves, and many of the comments refer to surveillance in general.

If the media claims turn out to be true nobody is going to think "Oh, Google
was telling the truth the whole time!" As I mentioned, there is no practical
difference between this statement being "true" in the sense that you
creatively "read" it and an outright lie. No reasonable person would read
these statements in the way that you have.

You seem to be having a really hard time simultaneously holding the idea that
the media reports are correct and the idea that Google/the big tech industry
is trustworthy, hence the mental gymnastics. You're going to have to drop one
of those two ideas. You will eventually.

~~~
yk
Of course I am discarding some texts and doing a hostile interpretation of
others. The reason for this is, that not all texts are created equal. Some,
like the Larry Page one, are created by lawyers and PR specialists in endless
meetings. The Google blog post in particular has the purpose of limiting the
damage to the Google brand. For this it needs to sound good first of all, but
it also needs to contain a sliver of truth so that the company can not be
forced to retract it, which would just further damage the brand.

So implying something, while actually reporting something different is a lie,
but it is a highly specific type of lie. And it is quite often quite
interesting to do these mental gymnastics to uncover the sliver of truth in
these statements.

------
coldcode
Wait until your phone call winds up on youtube. Think it can't go that far?
Imagine an NSA contractor or employee with a gambling problem who needs cash.
Your data is now their ticket out of trouble.

~~~
jsz0
I doubt the NSA would build such a sophisticated system without layers of
security and extensive audit trails to prevent misuse. If not only because
misuse of the system would be a disaster for the NSA and potentially be a
bigger national security problem than what the system is designed to prevent
in the first place.

~~~
coldcode
Yet by the very nature of a secret agency you will never know what safeguards
they have or how effective they are. Plus there are a lot of really really
smart people likely working there who know exactly how everything works.
Aldrich Ames took advantage of his position and knowledge to out CIA spies for
years.

------
kahirsch
The FBI's Data Intercept Technology Unit is a group of people. See, e.g., this
memo.[1] Does the Washington Post have some other information that the FBI's
"interception unit" is technology on the premises of the private companies?

[1][https://www.eff.org/files/FBI_CIPAV-08-p9.pdf](https://www.eff.org/files/FBI_CIPAV-08-p9.pdf)

------
kristopolous
The only thing I do on the phone now is yell into it "fuck communism" and hang
up.

------
hartator
Does someone keep the raw materials somewhere (the slides and others non-
article stuffs) a la wikileaks?

~~~
mtgx
I think both the Guardian and Washington Post have them. Greenwald said before
he had thousands of pages he wanted to analyze before posting more. It's
better to do it this way, than post all in bulk. The latest WP article already
seemed a bit overwhelming.

~~~
perlpimp
This way laying it out step by step federal government is covering itself in a
web of incremental lies, discrediting itself every step forward. All in all
looks more like a ginormous clusterfluff.

------
babesh
Snowden didn't 'make up' these slides. These are government slides. I would
trust them over what the government is telling you now if only because the
government decided to outright tell you nothing prior to Snowden revealing
this information.

Whenever you want to know the truth, just go to original sources instead of
someone's 'interpretation' of it.

------
tzs
The slides do not say that. They only show real time monitoring of chat
login/logout and email send/receive. The content only appears to be accessible
to the analyst through the paths on the right side of the slides, which are
for accessing stored data, not live data.

------
pasbesoin
This sounds like CALEA, to me. Inasmuch, it doesn't surprise me, even if it
doesn't entirely please me.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communications_Assistance_for_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communications_Assistance_for_Law_Enforcement_Act)

The questions I have are whether they are indeed doing it wholesale, e.g.
widespread "phrase monitoring" and whether they are archiving (particularly,
wholesale) the content [1] without a _target /content specific search warrant_
in place.

P.S. Also, whether they are doing it to political and/or economic ends.

\--

[1] We already know about the disposition of the so-called "metadata".

------
PavlovsCat
That's the one I have no problems with. Whenever I rant on the phone about
politics, I hope _someone of those I actually mean by that, instead of just a
friend who did me no harm_ , is listening to it. The same goes for any other
medium (as phone conversations don't seem to be included in this)

Well, let's say I _would_ have no problems with it, if I wouldn't worry about
the chilling effects it would have on others.

~~~
Vivtek
The politicians themselves aren't listening - and by being a surveillance
target, you've already been othered to the point that your viewpoint will
simply be taken as a sign you're untrustworthy and a dangerous element.

It would be nice if the politicians _were_ required to hear complaints, but
that only works if you're rich enough to make a difference in the Game.

~~~
PavlovsCat
Oh, I don't think it would change anything, I guess people deep into it are
briefed on more arguments than I could ever dream of. They're probably
perfectly aware of and okay with what they're doing, too. I still find this is
one of the rare cases where narcissism actually is helpful, because I am not
intimidated in the least by the idea of being spied on. I'm like fuck yeah:

[http://www.sinfest.net/archive_page.php?comicID=2660](http://www.sinfest.net/archive_page.php?comicID=2660)

Being caught spying on others = super embarrassing, being spied on =
hilarious. But then again, I never had anything used against me, I would sing
a different tune real quick in that case. So I don't mean to belittle it in
general. But if anyone can get a kick out of it _while_ being against it and
vocal about that, more power to them, right?

~~~
Vivtek
I have to agree!

------
teeja
Be sure to make a direct reference to the boys listening at some point in each
call so that they can feel good that they're not being ignored. Remember, one
of the most important aspects of networking is about establishing a warm
relationship.

Right, boys?

------
ChikkaChiChi
If you are looking for a job, simply type into any comment field on the
Internet "HEY NSA I WANT A JOB" and someone will contact you shortly.

------
kimlelly
There is something we all have to do now:

Never give 1 cent to these companies, again.

Our only vote with them is our dollars.

