

Analyzing Yahoo's PRISM non-denial - timf
http://paranoia.dubfire.net/2013/06/analyzing-yahoos-prism-non-denial.html

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flyt
Anything Yahoo! says rings false after the incident in 2002 when they
willingly volunteered identifying data to the Chinese government about a user,
which landed him in prison for ten years.

[http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/01/world/asia/wang-
xiaoning-c...](http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/01/world/asia/wang-xiaoning-
chinese-dissident-in-yahoo-case-freed.html)

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wang_Xiaoning](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wang_Xiaoning)

~~~
pyre
This seems a odd stance to take. Whether or not Yahoo! is/was involved in
PRISM seems divorced from their giving up of a Chinese political activist /
radical. It might mean that you believe them _capable_ of participating, but
we don't even have direct confirmation of what PRISM is exactly. What if PRISM
is a worm sitting on Yahoo!'s network? What if PRISM is interception of
network activity going _to /from_ Yahoo! and sending it off to some NSA data-
center?

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unreal37
No, poor article. Yahoo flatly denies involvement in any broad surveillance
scheme. Trying to dissect words such as "voluntary" and "requests" and trying
to claim they are not actually denying this is absurd.

Don't get me wrong. I believe we live in a surveilance state. I believe the US
government collects tons and tons of data on every US citizen whether they are
under investigation or not in case some day they are needed, but I don't
believe the big public companies like Facebook, Google and Yahoo participate
in this scheme.

The US government has more control over the Internet than to need permission
from these companies.

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mathrawka
The non-denial was written by a lawyer... it would be a common assumption that
there is word trickery at hand. I believe this analysis goes into the details
of how words can be used to change what the original statement is saying...
while looking like it is just an honest non-denial.

That is why I upvoted this post at least.

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arindone
This is junk -- there is absolutely nothing that the companies can say to
satisfy the critics. We're not going to get at the truth via conspiracy
theories and making connections in the language of the denials. "Non-
denial"??? If you were in the CEO's shoes, and knew that the PRISM issue was
false, what would you say DIFFERENTLY?

What frustrates me is that this comes from the assumption that Yahoo & co. are
absolutely without a doubt guilty.

~~~
aaronbrethorst
'We are not subject to any sort of federal order that requires us to turn over
data, as described by Glenn Greenwald' would be a nice place to start.

~~~
benologist
"We categorically are not making data available voluntarily or under duress to
any government or company or organization."

Of course none of them can say that because they're all sharing stuff with
someone(s) and who knows where it ends up - Right Media, Twitter button and
ScoreCard Research are all on Yahoo's homepage and except the Twitter button,
inside Yahoo Mail.

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znowi
Microsoft is also using "voluntary" in their, surprisingly short, press
release: [http://www.microsoft.com/en-
us/news/Press/2013/Jun13/06-06st...](http://www.microsoft.com/en-
us/news/Press/2013/Jun13/06-06statement.aspx)

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InternalRun
I think everything is to fresh for us to come up with a picture about what is
going on. These companies require their users trust to run and they could face
action by governments if they have been giving user data over to the US so
they are not going to come out and say. “Hell yeah we did" but for all we know
they are telling the truth. We need more information. Right now it is a
clusterfuck of claims and denials. Someone is lying, place your bets on who...

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vultatio
Anytime an article starts with 'analyzing' like this, it seems to, more often
than not, mean that what follows will be a complete guess based on
preconceived notions the author has about the subject in question. The author
inevitably seems to just read into it however he wants to reinforce whatever
his beliefs already are.

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auctiontheory
"Yahoo" ... was that one of those twentieth century social networks like
Myspace and Friendster?

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taktix
If anyone is skimming the comments to see if the article is a worthwhile read,
it is. Excellent analysis.

