

Snowden maintains NSA has access to company servers, so someone's lying - teawithcarl
http://gigaom.com/2013/07/09/snowden-maintains-the-nsa-has-direct-access-to-company-servers-which-means-someone-is-lying/

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krek
How is Snowden possibly lying? He's reading verbatim from the NSA documents
which use the words "direct access". Also he isn't "maintaining" this, this is
part of his original interview from over a month ago.

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mpyne
Which ones? The PRISM slides said "collection directly from the servers of..."
which is not the same as 'direct access'. Are there different NSA documents,
if so it would be useful to see the context of the wording in that case.

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krek
Your quote is accurate, "direct access" is not verbatim. Though "collection
directly" and "direct access" seem semantically the same to me in the context
of the slide. [1]

The relevant slide is talking about two types of mechanisms the NSA analyst
should use. The "Upstream" and "PRISM". It's within the the Prism description
that the words "collection directly from the servers of.." is used. So it's
not referring to raw data collection through neutral access points, as that's
what the "Upstream" is. It's explicitly saying the NSA has direct access to
these companies.

[1] [http://i.imgur.com/kIEtXjk.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/kIEtXjk.jpg)

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mpyne
> It's explicitly saying the NSA has direct access to these companies

It's explicitly saying that the NSA has access to data that would come
directly from the relevant company servers, as opposed to having to intercept
that data during transmission across the network. (Edit: an intercept is what
'upstream' collection would imply)

The companies themselves are still the ones who end up providing the data to
NSA though, just like the fact that my browser obtained your comment "directly
from the servers of Hacker News" does not imply that I have direct access to
the server hardware underlying HN.

~~~
krek
> The companies themselves are still the ones who end up providing the data to
> NSA though

Well that's certainly what the companies are saying. Whether they are telling
truth (personally I think they are) or not is something else. Snowden is
definitely not the one lying about this, since at worst his interpretation was
very sensible, and at best it is the very interpretation intended by the
author.

~~~
mpyne
> Snowden is definitely not the one lying about this, since at worst his
> interpretation was very sensible, and at best it is the very interpretation
> intended by the author.

"His interpretation"?

Snowden is the one who actually _has_ experience within the Intelligence
Community. I managed to figure out what it meant with a little background in
computer and networks knowledge and no background with IC work. Snowden has
superior qualifications in both, and you're saying that Snowden might have
made an honest mistake?

He knew what NSA jargon meant; he knew what the slide meant. The only thing
you can say for him 'at best' is that he allowed journalists to come to a
sensible conclusion based on what _they_ knew, but that is still manipulative.

And in the actual event he even claimed that they could see the very thoughts
form in your head, which is something beyond even mere manipulation.

~~~
krek
> I managed to figure out what it meant with a little background in computer
> and networks knowledge and no background with IC work.

We still don't know what exactly is going on, or know if direct access really
exists, so this is premature.

Secondly, your earlier example of using your web browser to collect directly
has nothing to do with the actual slides, which talk about getting special
access from the companies, and the document includes a timeline indicating
when each company finally signed on to the Prism program.

He said "direct access" and the document says "collection directly from the
servers of..".

> He knew what NSA jargon meant; he knew what the slide meant.

The NSA is a huge organization with a budget of tens of billions of dollars
and employs tens of thousands of people. Snowden of course does not have
complete understanding of everything, nor does Keith Alexander, nor does James
Clapper, the DNI who blatantly lied to congress about collecting data on
millions of Americans.

Placing any kind of blame on Snowden for directly paraphrasing a NSA document
makes absolutely no sense.

Edit: 'paraphase' is far too kind. It's nearly the exact words, with the
addition of 'access'. That NSA has special non-public access is something even
the companies admit.

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chris_mahan
Is it possible the NSA compromised Google, Facebook, etc. servers without the
companies knowing?

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trestles
These publicly traded companies lying? There's plenty of things that companies
are legally obligated to lie about. See Boeing, Raytheon etc.... The fact that
it is now a tech company is just new players in the game.

The problem with his claims is that he has made far-reaching accusations such
as "I could wiretap the president's email" with no proof. While I wouldn't
necessarily be surprised if he could (see the existence of Carnivore), to make
that level of a claim without SHOWING and VERIFYING that claim in the same
video is frightnigly foolish in my opinion. I'm guessing that it would have to
be access to servers since other 'communications' require the actual
application. In other words, there would almost need to be application level
awareness of this external output point. Again, not impossible but could /
should have been presented better.

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tater
There's a difference between lying and carefully choosing your words.

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Zigurd
Really?

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Shish2k
Yes.

