NSA Scandal, Regular Email Isn't Secure.

[P.V.]

I've always said that regular email isn't secure despite the proponents. It appears now others could be snooping in besides the email providers and ISPS!

The US's National Security Agency (NSA), its wiretapping agency, has been monitoring communications between the US and foreign nationals over the internet for a number of years, under a project called Prism. Some of the biggest internet companies, from Apple to Google to Yahoo, are involved. The US government confirmed the existence of the scheme and its application on Thursday night.

Interesting read here, the link:

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[vinylweatherman]

The problem is that if the NSA can do it, so can the cybercriminals. Unlike the NSA, the criminals are after money, OUR money.


They don't need the cooperation of Microsoft to hack windows, just employ a few teenage "script kiddies", the way it has always been done.

The real problem though is that it makes end users paranoid, and the conspiracy theorists are throwing their foil hats in the air in celebration of the acceptance as truth of something they have always known. This leads to those conspiracy theories that really are fantasy being able to gain credibility of the back of "bizzare, but true" revelations slowly coming out of the woodwork.

We all know how prone to hacking Windows has always been, and this has been put down to the long term incompetence of Microsoft, a massive company with billions of dollars behind it. Now, maybe this is not incompetence, but design. A way to let the NSA do this, but in a way that allows Microsoft to have no knowledge of it. Rather than coding explicit back doors, they refrain from making security TOO tight so that with some effort, the NSA can work their way in and create their own back doors. Only when an exploit makes in into the wild do they issue a patch.

Now, off to Tesco to buy some kitchen foil

 

[chuchu59]

On this subject I would like to hear whether you guys regard Snowden as a traitor or hero/patriot. Given that the US Government is calling for his extradition it sorts of places the Hong Kong government into a predicament.

 

[anniemac]

Chu,

I'm kinda torn on this one.

On one hand, knowing that our Gov. is spying on the general population is very disconcerting to me. But most folks knew it was going on anyway. We just didn't know how far it went.

Now, one the other hand, it is the responsibility of our Gov. to protect it's citizens. So if nosing around will help prevent any more mass killings like have happened here lately, then I'm all for it.

However, what bothers me is how a person like this guy became privy to all this information. Who vets the people? I am as qualified to hold his former job as he was.

It is just scary all around.

 

[vinylweatherman]

Chu,

I'm kinda torn on this one.

On one hand, knowing that our Gov. is spying on the general population is very disconcerting to me. But most folks knew it was going on anyway. We just didn't know how far it went.

Now, one the other hand, it is the responsibility of our Gov. to protect it's citizens. So if nosing around will help prevent any more mass killings like have happened here lately, then I'm all for it.

However, what bothers me is how a person like this guy became privy to all this information. Who vets the people? I am as qualified to hold his former job as he was.

It is just scary all around.

If someone working for a private contractor knows this much, what is REALLY going on where secrecy is SO important that only a very few highly vetted people are in the know?

Perhaps the NSA should have laughed it all off as a conspiracy theory driven hoax, much like the theory that HAARP is controlling the weather and will ultimately destroy the planet is laughed off.

The US just got caught being a hippocrite, but we knew that already. Where China censors news from the west, the US censors sites like Pirate Bay and online casinos with a vengeance almost equal to that of the Chinese government. It's a case of the "free world" censoring one this, and the "totalitarian state" censoring another.

In fact, the US government DOES censor news sites. Attempts to find out about news from sites like FOX are IP blocked from the UK, and it is the US that is doing it. At the same time, they criticise the Chinese government from blocking the same FOX content at it's borders so that it's citizens can't see it. You can change FOX for any one of a number of US factual content portals.

The moral of this tale is that you can break the law so long as you are too powerful to get busted. The Mafia work on the same principle, they have so much power due to corruption that it can be damn near impossible to bust them. The Chinese hackers are not breaking the law in China, and the law in the US does not apply to them, the same view taken by the NSA when they hack into China.

 

[GrandMaster]

In fact, the US government DOES censor news sites. Attempts to find out about news from sites like FOX are IP blocked from the UK, and it is the US that is doing it.

I have no problem accessing Fox news (if you can call it news) or any other American news sites from the UK.

 

[vinylweatherman]

I have no problem accessing Fox news (if you can call it news) or any other American news sites from the UK.

I have often seen "this video is blocked from your country", but I tend to view their Youtube channels, as they seem to be the links that Google brings up most prominently. Youtube only block things at the request of the copyright holder. It did appear to be the official channel, rather than an unauthorised upload.

Maybe FOX is not the best example, as works of fiction are often blocked, for example the US Sci Fi and comedy streams. I was surprised though that video reports of breaking news were also being blocked just because it was covered by a US news station. The story does tend to end up on BBC news though, even though it seems to take Google longer to catch up.

 

[P.V.]

On this subject I would like to hear whether you guys regard Snowden as a traitor or hero/patriot. Given that the US Government is calling for his extradition it sorts of places the Hong Kong government into a predicament.

Good question Chu, haven't quite figured out his full intentions.

If he's done this to turn the information over to other countries then I'd say he's a traitor but if he just wanted to inform the American people of the magnitude of what's going on, I personally see no wrong in that.

Should be interesting to see how this plays out. I've yet to fully understand why he picked Hong Kong.

 

[GrandMaster]

I have often seen "this video is blocked from your country", but I tend to view their Youtube channels, as they seem to be the links that Google brings up most prominently. Youtube only block things at the request of the copyright holder. It did appear to be the official channel, rather than an unauthorised upload.

Maybe FOX is not the best example, as works of fiction are often blocked, for example the US Sci Fi and comedy streams. I was surprised though that video reports of breaking news were also being blocked just because it was covered by a US news station. The story does tend to end up on BBC news though, even though it seems to take Google longer to catch up.

It is usually a copyright issue, or on some sites (not youtube, obviously), it may be conservation of bandwidth. BBC programmes are not available on iplayer outside the UK, is this censorship by the British government?

 

[robborg]

I watch rt news channel in america (102 or 103 on comcast), they cover this and many other topics from the rest of the worlds view of america, and alot of the time actually has real news, unlike any american news channel..

 

[vinylweatherman]

It is usually a copyright issue, or on some sites (not youtube, obviously), it may be conservation of bandwidth. BBC programmes are not available on iplayer outside the UK, is this censorship by the British government?

The BBC do this for "entertainment" content, as do others, but not for news content. Outside of the UK, there is a separate BBC channel containing factual content such as world news, and this IS available from the iPlayer outside of the UK.

The problem with the internet is that many sites link to US news channels as reference material, rather than sites from other countries. This is really down to the "America owns the internet" concept, but it leads to people outside the US running into these "your country is blocked" issues.

I very much doubt Chinese citizens have licensed access to this content, yet far from blocking it for "copyright reasons", the same US broadcasters are complaining, via the government, that the Chinese citizens are having their human rights violated by being blocked from accessing the same content that UK citizens are being blocked from seeing.

An actual example I remember recently was the recent tornado devastation in the states. I found more about it via Google, but then ran into the "your country is blocked" problems on some of the coverage on websites. The coverage was clearly intended to appear on these free to access news sites, so the block was not down to a "pay wall" on the site. This means that I am able to look at the UK media coverage on the story, but not the coverage from the US sites, and unlike the BBC news teams, the US reporters were actually there, and were able to give a better account. Only later on did the BBC content catch up, and later still we have a couple of science documentaries about the event.

This illustrates my earlier point that the US censors the internet just as much as China. The difference is that China does it in order to preserve it's system of totalitarian control, which is threatened by information from outside reaching citizens in the raw state, rather than the modified state from the state. In America, the "information is money" concept drives a policy of blocking the unfettered free access to information, even blocking content that CANNOT be turned into money such as breaking news stories.

Have you EVER seen the 6 o'clock news out on DVD?

A news bulletin is virtually worthless the next day, it's only purpose then is to form part of a history archive for future generations.

 

[Redbet-Andy]

It is usually a copyright issue, or on some sites (not youtube, obviously), it may be conservation of bandwidth. BBC programmes are not available on iplayer outside the UK, is this censorship by the British government?

It's usually the advertisers deal or to protect DVD sales. Oddly enough a lot of UK content is blocked in the UK on Youtube but perfectly fine for watching when your abroad.
The BBC has to block them because all UK citizens with a TV have technically paid for that content and if they were giving it away free to other countries there'd be uproar.

On the original topic - if you don't have any secrets you won't have any whistleblowers. No need to be specific just tell your citizens - we monitor all comms. I suspect if it was put to a referendum the motion to allow "spying on citizens" would be passed.

 

[vinylweatherman]

It's usually the advertisers deal or to protect DVD sales. Oddly enough a lot of UK content is blocked in the UK on Youtube but perfectly fine for watching when your abroad.
The BBC has to block them because all UK citizens with a TV have technically paid for that content and if they were giving it away free to other countries there'd be uproar.

On the original topic - if you don't have any secrets you won't have any whistleblowers. No need to be specific just tell your citizens - we monitor all comms. I suspect if it was put to a referendum the motion to allow "spying on citizens" would be passed.

This is what makes no sense. UK content is supposedly blocked because we have paid a TV license fee, and those abroad haven't. This is all back to front, with those who have paid not being allowed to see it, but those who have not paid are free to enjoy what our money has paid for. This nonsense approach is only going to alienate people, and generate support for sites like Pirate Bay that have a "same access for all" policy, and content provided based on individuals deciding it is too good not to share.

The current system will never kill it, and I can easily bypass "your country is blocked.." if I really want to. After all, the NSA can do it The Brits can do it too, and probably are. There is already a fuss about what the UK government intend to monitor, and I bet this NSA revelation will stoke the fires of the UK GCHQ debate. I expect GCHQ knew all along what the NSA were up to, but would of course have kept quiet about it, and will now steer clear of saying anything that might implicate them or the UK government in this NSA scandal.

What the US government should REALLY worry about is having the big companies like Google and Microsoft go after them. After all, the whistleblower has presented evidence that these companies were involved by allowing the NSA a "back door" into their servers. The companies of course deny this, but as we now know, they are legally obliged to deny everything, so such denials mean little. In fact, ANY denial of involvement in NSA secret activities means nothing more than a company obeying the "secret intelligence court" ruling that they must deny all knowledge of anything it sanctions.

This could destroy trust in these companies' ability to keep our private things private, and in the longer term this loss of trust will cost them money.

For ordinary citizens, the fear issue should be obvious, they DO have something to fear despite being innocent, and that is that the intelligence survey will look at the data and conclude that "2+2=5", and follow this up with arrest and detention without right of appeal of innocent citizens, which will be officially classed as "acceptable collateral damage" in the war on terror and crime.

 

[Redbet-Andy]

This is what makes no sense. UK content is supposedly blocked because we have paid a TV license fee, and those abroad haven't.

I've only ever seen it happen with ITV and C4 content to be fair but you may be right and it happens with the beeb sometimes. The BBC should start a VPN company seeing as how everyone I know who lives abroad buys one to get their TV content anyway.

 

[Balthazar]

It's just one more thing that makes me ashamed to be part of this species. Not that the government spies on us (it's the natural course of things), but that a large % of the people blindly supports it. The fact that you're far less likely to die from a terrorist attack than being struck by lightning, or the fact that they didn't stop sh*t even though it's in place since 2006 are mere details.

Please Mr. Government, please take my liberty and give me the illusion to be more secure. Would you please install your own GPS in my car and a camera in my bedroom? I'd feel even more secure.

Freedom is a thing of the past, enjoy your "security", sheeple.

I'd like to take this moment to congratulate the terrorists who clearly won the war.