
AT&T has a fiberoptic splitter copying our data to NSA - catilac
http://www.eff.org/issues/nsa-spying
======
fingerprinter
One thing I see people saying on here is that people should care....and I
do...but I don't know _what_ to do with it!

Can someone show/tell me what I, an average person, can do? It feels a bit
overwhelming and things like this point out how powerless we really are. I
hope I'm wrong and there are things we can do...I just don't know what they
are.

EDIT -

Asking two more specific questions:

1\. What can we do technically to be safe?

2\. What can we do to fight this? Petition Government? Support EFF? Other?
Very much at a loss on #2

~~~
wtn
Besides using SSH and VPN more, the only thing I can do is avoid ATT.

I was on T-Mobile for years (out of ATT spite) until Verizon got the iPhone
and I jumped within the week. I also spent a lot more money on internet using
alternatives to ATT DSL (although I doubt my information was more secure from
that choice).

~~~
fingerprinter
I'm guessing those other big companies are just as bad, however. Might not
have the facts yet, but being paranoid leads me to think that way....

~~~
abstractwater
I feel the same. What we would need is a telecommunication company that puts
the respect of privacy as one of its core goals (think Zappos), and not just
in the boilerplate license agreements. Although entering that arena has high
entry costs, it seems like a huge demand for such a service exists.

~~~
haecib
Quest communications was allegedly the only telecom co that didn't roll over
to the NSA:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qwest#Refusal_for_NSA_spying>

A lot of time has passed, and they have a new CEO. I wonder if they have
continued to hold out, or have quietly installed the black-room...

EDIT: I see they were just acquired last year by CenturyLink. I have to doubt
that they have now not rolled over (call me a pessimist).

Very sad that corporations are so willing to forsake the privacy of the entire
country's citizens (on the level of a constitutional breach) in order to make
a dime or curry favor. Beyond sad, it is terrifying that the government then
used warrantless wiretapping to specifically target our journalists:

[http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/01/25/tice_nsa_revelations...](http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/01/25/tice_nsa_revelations/)

...at least according to the same source that was responsible for leaking the
existence of the black-rooms in the first place.

Sigh. Maybe I'll pick up my old copy of 1984. It's getting ironic now.

------
zmblum
What about the following paragraph is not clear?

"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and
effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated,
and Warrants shall not be issued, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath
or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the
persons or things to be seized."

Am I missing something? Of course the problem is that it's near impossible get
something like this to the SCOTUS. The only real possibility is more whistle
blowing.

~~~
rdtsc
That is written for you to learn in 5th grade civics class and feel good about
your country and your government. But is not for those printing & spending
hundreds of billions of dollars.

~~~
itistoday
I'm not sure why people are upvoting your comment.

Actually, I do know why. It's a depressing disenchantment with government.

They don't understand that government is not going anywhere, and that
government can be as good as it can be bad.

The quote zmblum posted is brilliant, and it is an example of what Good
Government is capable of. It is not just for your 5th grade civics class. It's
for RIGHT NOW. Read the quote, understand and respect it and its authors, and
take action. The government is not just _them_ , it's also _you_ , and sitting
on the sidelines being cynical is _supporting them_.

~~~
CamperBob
_They don't understand that government is not going anywhere, and that
government can be as good as it can be bad._

No way in hell. Where, in either the future or the history books, is the
saintly leader who will counterbalance a Stalin or a Mao?

~~~
pyre
I think the point is government that is not necessarily led by a single
person. Though the president of the US is the 'leader,' he _does_ share power
with the Supreme Court and Congress. Just because everyone likes to point to
the president when things go wrong doesn't mean there aren't others that share
in the blame...

The current problem with the system is that: 1) the Federal government has
grown too large, and 2) the US is ruled by only two political parties that are
both (at their core) about the status quo and not all that different from each
other.

~~~
intended
May I suggest that the current US political debate is virulently polarizing
and unproductive?

Perhaps the issue Good Governance vs Bad Governance would be effective/useful?
(as opposed to the current axis of big vs small)

As was said by Deng Xiapong "it doesn't matter if the cat is white or black.."

~~~
pyre
Big government has more chance for corruption because the system ends up
growing ever-more complex. Parts the of the system that are useless never get
culled, they just keep finding ways to retain minimal amounts of relevance,
while attempting to maintain or increase their funding levels.

It's harder to have 'good government' when there are more ways for it to fail.

~~~
intended
Which is great and fine in a theoretical world. You guys just had your economy
blow up. IT doesn't matter if its big or small. It matters if it works. Ignore
size.

~~~
pyre
Ok, so you determine that it isn't working. Then you try to figure out how and
why so that you can fix the problem and you find out that it's death by a
thousand cuts.

I'm not so delusional to think that there will be some magical shrinking of
the government, but you seem to be telling me that it isn't a worthy goal,
which I disagree with. You can have the goal of making the government _work
now_ while at the same time trying to trim away the useless pieces.

~~~
intended
I have no issue with a smaller government. I just don't see how smaller or
bigger government are worthy goals IN and OF themselves. It just needs to be
working government.

The debate about big vs small govt. is one of many, pointless hand-wavy, ideas
used to harm your debate.

Is it wrong to point out that something is being used to obfuscate discussion,
polarize opinion, and detract from getting a solution?

------
akent
No big surprise here really. So when are we all going to get serious and start
using public key cryptography on a mass scale, even if we "don't have anything
to hide"?

~~~
bpd1069
Make it easy and you 'may' just make it happen. ;)

~~~
SoftwareMaven
I'm working on it (seriously :).

------
ck2
Just imagine what Google has splitting to the NSA.

The question is does Google give them raw data or pre-process it willingly for
them?

------
whimsymachine
What you can do: 1\. Support the EFF, CDT and other orgs that work on
technology and civil liberties. 2\. For truly private data and activity get
religion with PGP, TrueCrypt, Tor and other tools. For the non-private stuff,
take some sensible measures (see below) 3\. Consider
sandboxing/compartmentalizing your online activity across disparate ids,
browsers, machines, phones and locations. Definitely run Ad Blockers/Filters.
4\. Stay current with EFF/CDT and related twitter feeds. There will be another
privacy debate at a policy level. Get educated, push for the good guys.

Here's an overview resource: <http://amzn.to/etLNze>

Mark was given an award by the EFF a couple of years ago for his bravery.

------
AbyCodes
Watch Nova - The Spy Factory ( S36 E11 ). Nova investigated the National
Security Agency, and what led to AT&T do what it is doing today and why.

~~~
slug
There's also a nice book about it (The Shadow Factory by James Bamford):
[http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=9568943...](http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=95689436)

------
tlrobinson
Anyone else find it weird that Google Maps shows 611 Folsom Street as "Jesus
Christ My Lord & Savior Church"...?

~~~
biot
Further down the block and across the street we have 666 Folsom Street, where
the actual AT&T interconnect happens.

------
foobarbazetc
This happens in every single "free" country. People should care, but no one
does.

~~~
kjksf
In which other countries, exactly, does that happen? UK? Canada? Sweden?

~~~
thematt
Actually, yes...all those minus Sweden. The US, UK, Canada, Australia and New
Zealand all cooperate together.

See the Ecehlon program:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Echelon_%28signals_intelligence...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Echelon_%28signals_intelligence%29)

~~~
Joakal
Oddly enough, I hear rumours that it's a spy program on businesses, not
people.

~~~
ceejayoz
Spying on businesses generally involves spying on their people.

------
code_duck
This has been going on with pretty much every ISP for over a decade, hasn't
it? Carnivore - rather, DCS-1000?

------
leot
The argument that there is some steady march toward tyranny and erosion in our
freedoms would make sense if it weren't for the fact that these programs have
existed in one form or another since WWII (e.g.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Echelon_(signals_intelligence)>).

Furthermore, when, exactly, were the good ol' days, those days from which we
are presumably descending into tyranny, when we (all, not just white folk)
were truly "free"?

~~~
forgottenpaswrd
Today a big computer room could transcribe the entire telephone communications
of all America, and store it for later view.

You can use computers to search for whatever pattern you want in milisecons. I
think this makes it different from the past.

------
trotsky
2012 secure communication: handwritten note tucked into some junk sent airmail

------
colanderman
Question: which major carrier(s) are not known (or known not) to do this?
T-Mobile supposedly had little evidence against them, but they're being
assimilated.

------
judegomila
I was walking past the building wondering why they had .mil style no windows
for such a large building. Other exchanges I had visited had windows. If we
had collectively given the NSA rights to check our data, this would be ok. We
didn't give them the rights. Think of the insider trading, that could be
occurring by corrupt NSA officials.

------
rbranson
So? This isn't the equivalent to papers secured in your household, it's data
sent over someone else's network. I'm not a huge fan, but saying it's the same
as the government walking into your house and examining all your documents is
ridiculous.

Either way, call me when someone finds out they can decrypt and examine all
the SSL traffic in real-time.

~~~
kjksf
It is, however, the same as government opening and reading all of the mail you
send through the post office. And that government cannot do.

~~~
rbranson
That's only even a problem if they target you. Danger comes when they can
target everyone simultaneously and use automated means to find those who match
their profile as enemies of an agenda.

~~~
rosser
Isn't that pretty much what they're doing here?

------
jdavid
The problem is that privacy is no longer the default. So instead of having it,
now you don't and you have to prove why you need it.

I think that's kinda why the constitution set the default to innocent. Too bad
we don't really see that as necessary any more.

------
radicaldreamer
There were a series of disruptions to fiber coming out of the middle east and
north africa a few years ago that is probably connected to the same program.
(<http://goo.gl/apasy>)

------
juancferrer
Is this why the at&t+T-Mobile merger is being approved?

~~~
ascendant
I'm willing to bet that any anti-trust issues that are brought up will be
quietly squashed in the name of (A) campaign contributions and (B) increasing
the size of the AT&T dragnet.

------
hparra
That is the meanest-looking bird I have ever seen.

~~~
hparra
Original image available through EFF's flickr account:
<http://www.flickr.com/photos/hughelectronic/3531668253/>

~~~
vukk
They _need_ to make some version of that bird picture into a t-shirt.

~~~
tonfa
They did, last year (and I have seen people with it in conferences). I donated
and asked for this t-shirt but I never received it :(

------
molecule
2005 called, it wants its news back.

Call recorded by NSA.

------
danbmil99
And there's gambling in Casablanca!

------
totalforge
The NSA are drowning in data. They have a constantly changing target list from
the other intelligence agencies, and whatever crisis is, or will soon be in
the news is keeping them quite busy.

They really have more important things to do than monitor the geeks. Unless
you come up with some nifty new crypto.

p.s. SPLITTER!

------
linuxhansl
This is why I donate money to the EFF and the ACLU.

------
dan0
Not surprised.

------
drivebyacct2
This is literally years-old information. I was aware of and hollering about
this at people as a highschooler at debate and speech tournaments. Same thing
then as now, no one cares, or those that do care don't care enough.

Besides, who cares if you have nothing to hide. Right?

~~~
holdenc
In principal it's quite wrong and scary, but in reality I have to believe the
government is too incompetent to actually do anything with their mountains of
AT&T collected data.

~~~
jedsmith
According to paperwork leaked by Mark Klein, they have/had a "Narus STA 6400"
in the room. It's described as a supercomputer that sounds, to my ears,
similar to Carnivore. I doubt that they even try to collect (too much data),
and instead specifically look for things to grab from the firehose.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narus>

<http://narus.com/index.php/solutions/intercept>

~~~
davidandgoliath
Or, according to TIA, compile giant banks of information on every user based
on their traffic & purchasing habits. Combine this with your other online data
& there's quite a bit on every person.

------
daniel1980fl
I remember reading that long time ago. It actually made me quit AT&T and every
time someone called me, I tend to ask or check their number and tell them you
calling me from AT&T do you know about "the room"? Couple times my friends
quit it for the same reason; others don't care. I guess the answer is switch
to a different career.

I had a good laugh when I read (think it was Wikipedia) about that room. AT&T
was sued over it... they defends themselves by 1) the room does not exist AND
2) this lawsuit should not be proceed due to Act of National Security setting
aside lawsuit frames. LOOL! I dont know about you -- but to me first
contradicts the second one :)) the judge only decided on count 2) -- that it
is indeed NSA involved - so it was dismissed, but if there is NSA then the
room exists, hahahaha!!

~~~
fooandbarify
I think it's reasonable to assume that every North American (and European,
etc) carrier does this, so quitting AT&T won't help much. I'm sure there are
many other good reasons to leave them, though.

------
shareme
Not the first time US gov has violated US Constitution to spy on citizens..

People forget that the US President that first set a policy for this type of
illegal behavior was Roosevelt leading up to WWII. Cable/Wireless companies
were pressured by US Gov to record and copy cables sent by US citizens and to
send those copies to the US government.

Did not stop terrorism than will not stop it now..and yet 70 years later and
no one has learned.

------
sabat
... but corporations are A-OK. It's the government that's the problem. Right?

~~~
spindritf
Actually, yes. Corporations are A-moral and the government is the problem.
Just look where this traffic is allegedly going.

~~~
sabat
Corporations run the government. Don't forget that.

------
spaznode
AT&T isn't the only one to do this. So long as it isn't used against citizens
in criminal trials/etc I don't really care all that much if it helps make
intelligence people more efficient.

~~~
dwiel
How would you know that it isn't being used that way? Even if the evidence
isn't being used directly at trial, it could sure be used to help 'guess' when
a good time to stake out someone's house might be.

~~~
spaznode
Yeah, but if most of the world is doing this wouldn't we be losing a vital
ability to "protect and insure interests" of country? In the real honest way
and not patriot act bs.

Maybe you guys are just clueless about us having real enemies out there or
something. No fucking way is FBI or local law enforcement going to be granted
anything from NSA for shit. Because it's unlawful.

------
btipling
Oh hey Reddit...uh...I mean Hacker News.

~~~
ascendant
Your liberties and freedoms, especially as they relate to the digital medium
and AT&T in particular is very relevant for everyone, including hackers,
designers and entrepreneurs.

