Report: NSA Has Access to Skype, SkyDrive; MSFT Responds

[smokeybravo]

At this point, if you buy an Xbone you might as well be paying M$ to install an NSA camera in your house. The always connected camera is just too good to pass up for the NSA. If you. Buy an Xbone you don't care about a free Internet.

 

[techguy911]

JPNpower:

So I suppose it is ok with you if the government turns completely like big brother and one can be arrested for "thoughtcrime"

This is already happening Americans are being arrested for facebook comments even though they did not commit a crime guilty of terrorist acts without fair and proper trials.

http://www.cnn.com/2013/07/12/tech/social-media/facebook-jailed-teen/index.html?hpt=hp_t2

Also watch Jessie Ventura Conspiracy theory:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_nlPgo6iKo

 

[nerrawg]

Nerrawg deserves a proper answer.

I apologize as this is typed on my smartphone.

Let me start by saying that your local sheriff can kill you tomorrow with his pistol. He will become a criminal in the process but nobody would stop him.For the same reason anybody can kill you. What is your reason to believe that you won't die tomorrow?

moving on, the IRS recently was in the news recently for corruption remember? what could you do to stop it? Regulation? Big programs like this can't be double checked all the time, and there is a lot of trust that you need to have.

Forthose reasons, I think that corruption is unlikely or unavoidable. Also remember that the whole point of the NSA is to track potential terrorists. Snooping about patents isn't going to be so easy. Like a cop patrolling around jewelry shops exclusively for no reason.

Finally, America has a safeguard against big brother,don't worry. Take you're pick. Republicans, judicial branch, British big brother history, the constitution.

Thanks for taking the time to answer. I have to admit though that I don't really understand the answer. You state that corruption is "unlikely or unavoidable", which is it? Those to statements appear to contradict each other, or at least it appears that you are saying on one hand that the potential corruption I described is not likely, but on the other hand that it is inevitable so why bother standing up to it? That doesn't make sense to me at all.

Of course I or anyone else can die at any time, but I wasn't arguing about our mortality here at all. I was talking about one specific thing. The ability of one single agency to monitor all the others and anyone or thing it desires without any independent oversight. So no, the whole point is that they can circumvent any of the safeguards you mention through secrecy and the Espionage act of 1917. No one would therefore be able to stand up against them if they continue down this path, that is my point. I don't believe anyone has offered a proper argument against this

 

[nerrawg]

Hasten:

I've been being a bit extreme in my responses, but you have as well. I am an auditor by career and come from a family of all attorney's (including my in-laws). Though there is concern for privacy in both of the aforementioned practices, none of us fear these recent reports. You are talking about the most extreme circumstances imaginable. If you were in a field such as this you would understand we do not keep our data/information on publically accessible networks. It would be insanely silly for any of our firms to use Skype, live.com, Skydrive, or anything similar with confidential information.

You are being sensationalist and it does not help anyone to act in a such a way. There is no evidence that any government agency is hacking private networks, which is where any of the information you are so concerned of being compromised is stored. Journalists, engineers, lawyers, accountants, all of us don't load critical data into social networks.

This is not being sensationalist, this is taking current revelations of the NSA's surveillance capabilities and making logical assertions about their potential uses. I explicitly did not state that it is happening now, I mention at all times that this is the potential result of the documented capabilities that the NSA currently posses.

Again this is not about social networks. As I have continuously stated I really don't care about those, they are beside the point. This is about the current revelations regarding the NSA's ability intercept any and all internet traffic. That means encrypted e-mails, vpn connections used by international trading firms, University intranet access from overseas etc. etc. Not to mention that they and GCHQ have been documented recently in the espionage of data from the closed systems of several nation states and organisations. While this is currently undocumented directly, several of their intercepts would only be possible if they now have the power to break the strongest available encryption, meaning that no data is safe unless you are one of the few researchers working on quantum encryption.

As to whether or not this is a concern for your auditing firm, probably not directly because I doubt the NSA is at all interested in what you are doing. As I stated clearly before, this is not about you or your company, this is about a system. It is about our system of democracy and free markets. Our founders went to extreme lengths to ensure that one entity or agency could never come to have complete control over all information. That is why we have three branches of government. It is also why having the FBI, NSA and CIA as separate and distinct intelligence agencies has worked over the last 50-60 years in terms of the balance of power. What I am warning about is precedence of one of these agencies, the NSA, above all the rest.

The unrestricted and unchecked ability of the NSA to monitor all it desires without any independent oversight and without the ability of anyone inside or out to be able to whistleblow on criminal activity. That potential, my friends, is what we are talking about here. Something has to be done to put this current development in check.

 

[nerrawg]

edit

 

[everygamer]

The question is are they building the ability for government requests to be handle efficiently, but still limiting access to content based on our legal rights. Meaning, an individuals content is only accessed/obtained by the government with the corresponding warrant. If this is the case, then I have no issue with this, its the equivalent of a wiretap which they have to get a warrant for.

If the government has unrestricted access to our materials as a group, even for the purpose of analysis that would strip out any identifying information, this should not be allowed. They should not be looking at our data unless their is due cause and a legal warrant.

 

[mapesdhs]

nerrawg writes:
> ... That is why we have never given this full authority to a single
> organisation in the history of our democracy - precisely because
> the founders knew such an act would effectively kill democracy itself-

You remind me of Toby and Sam from the West Wing: passionate about
and a broad understanding of the issues, well written, etc. If you're not
involved in political life, that would be a shame, as we need more people
like you in the system who really care.

IMO what's so sad is that the one nation in the world which fought for
its independence and as a result developed a solid constitution with
proper civilian rights (I mean the US of course) now seems to be so
happy to give up those rights as govt action erodes them step by step.

I'm reminded of WW2; one could argue most people in the early 1930s
didn't realise how important freedom was until it was taken away from
them and they then had to fight to get it back. Perhaps, having not been
affected so much internally by those events, the legacy in the US today
is that most Americans likewise don't realise how important what they
have really is; maybe it needs a domestic extremist political takeover or
some such event, and the resulting struggle to take the regime down,
to remind them. I hope not, but it increasingly looks that way. The cozy
consumer life dulls the senses, an idea which to me was the main point
of The Matrix (something most viewers failed to notice, awed as they
were by the special effects); it's an idea that's been brought to film
before, eg. John Carpenter's, "They Live".


Here's a relevant quote, appropriately from a famous American:

"Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - Benjamin Franklin, Historical
Review of Pennsylvania, 1759.

I expect Mr. Franklin would be appalled by Prism and what it represents.

Ian.

 

[__-_-_-__]

oh right but it's for defending usa against terrorist.
oh wait... terrorists will never use these methods of communication. -.-

 

[mapesdhs]

oh right but it's for defending usa against terrorist.
oh wait... terrorists will never use these methods of communication. -.-

Here's an interesting extract from this article:

"Since 9/11, the Brady Campaign tells us, there have been an estimated
334,168 gun deaths in the United States, a figure that includes homicides,
suicides, and unintentional shooting deaths. The total is 100 times larger
than the toll of September 11, 2001. Each year, since that day, approximately
30,000 people have been killed by firearms in America. Yet there has been no
cry for state or federal policies of prevention over punishment, no loud call for
a proactive rather than a reactive approach to gun violence. Imagine how
different America would be today if those figures tolled for acts of terrorism
instead of acts of gun violence."

Ian.

 

[softplacetoland]

To mr. Acadia11 and similars:

Your voice when you talk is in the free air too but following your logic everyone has right to hear what you say even when you whisper to the ear in secret. Your ignorance of people's right to have privacy and use free will freely makes even more obvious that you are either troll or person who wouldn't have anything against slavery in ages thousand years old governments. Shame that they didn't have you and similars. At least today we would have pyramids on every corner and graveyards full of silent ones.

 

[back_by_demand]

This is bad, but not something that bothers me. In the UK we never had a free country and invented the black arts going back to Walsingham in Elizabethan times. As long as the technology has existed to monitor any population, regardless of the supposed legality, its purpose has always been for protection against enemies. If the spying was really about clamping down on the masses then millions of people would have been done for illegal downloads and anyone accessing kiddie porn would be arrested inside a week. They are scanning for keywords like "Allah, President, Bomb". They really don't care about you torrenting Man of Steel or if you prefer blondes on your fav fap site, so chill out.

 

[catswold]

What the NSA has been doing is patently and explicitly unconstitutional . . . by definition it is illegal.

Yes, the government has always had the authority to access your private information . . . provided they have a warrant issued by a judge for "PROBABLE CAUSE."

There can be no "probable cause," on a blanket warrant of the type that the NSA was granted by the FISA rubber stamp court.

Laws passed by Congress cannot invalidate or negate in any way what the Constitution provides. The PATRIOT Act originally provided for individuals SUSPECTED OF BEING TERRORISTS OR BEING ASSOCIATED WITH TERRORISTS to be subject to surveillance provided the FISA court issued the warrant.

It has evolved to the point that FISA rubber-stamps every request and is now issuing "blanket warrants." Very clearly a violation of the 4th Amendment requirement that:

"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 NO WARRANTS SHALL ISSUE, 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."

It's quite specific and restrictive. The NSA and the FISA Court have repeatedly violated both the letter and the spirit of the 4th Amendment.

 

[catswold]

acadia11 and Hasten, et al, your naivete and gullibility are refreshing if somewhat pathetic.

The NSA has the ability to glean a tremendous amount of information on any individual solely using the publicly admitted to technique of data mining phone calls . . .
--Ever call a psychiatrist? The government now knows you have mental illness.
--Ever call a suicide hotline? The government now knows you suffer depression and have had suicidal thoughts.
--Call any physician with a specialty, they know you have a specific illness.

You think the folks running Obamacare won't be paying close attention?

Ever call a political candidate's campaign donation number? They know you supported Romney or Nader or Obama.

It's not "paranoia" if it's true and we already know that political information gathered by the IRS on donors were shared with the Obama Campaign. If you believe that the NSA hasn't been engaged in the same sort of skullduggery, then you are pathetically naive and so ideologically aligned with the forces of despotism that your are living in denial.

The principles in the Constitution are inviolable and sacred. They provide specific circumstances in which the federal government may engage in surveillance and invasion of privacy. What the NSA and other clandestine organizations have been doing is antithetical to our republican form of government.

It is also antithetical to everything our Founding Fathers believed in and sought to enshrine in the Constitution. I'm sure that Obama supporters, like you, hold the Constitution in the same contempt as he does, but it remains the law of the land and is the only authority for the existence of the federal government extant.

Dump the Constitution as Obama would have us do, and the legal basis for the entire government disappears.

Worse than your naivete and ignorance, is the hypocrisy. Had this been revealed under Bush, you and your ilk would be banging on the table and screaming at the top of your lungs for his head and the heads of everyone in his government.

 

[catswold]

mapesdhs, FYI, if you're going to quote statistics, the Brady Campaign is not even a remotely credible source. They are an agenda-driven advocacy group with generally followed policy of twisting statistics to suit their cause.

Their statistics are based on dishonest statistically invalid polling, their assertions about certain weapons have consistently been lies, distortions, or exaggerations. They're attachment to the truth is tenuous at best.

The number you site is meaningless, as "homicides" include all justified shootings by police or individual citizens in defense of their lives or property.

Never trust anything published by the Brady people, their hyperventilating crusade to destroy the 2nd Amendment protected, inherent rights of all law-abiding American citizens clouds their ability to reason and leads them to a constant campaign of lies.

 

[back_by_demand]

Catswold, please try not to make this about Obama, it has been going on worldwide for decades, you only just found out about it

 

[acadia11]

acadia11 and Hasten, et al, your naivete and gullibility are refreshing if somewhat pathetic.

The NSA has the ability to glean a tremendous amount of information on any individual solely using the publicly admitted to technique of data mining phone calls . . .
--Ever call a psychiatrist? The government now knows you have mental illness.
--Ever call a suicide hotline? The government now knows you suffer depression and have had suicidal thoughts.
--Call any physician with a specialty, they know you have a specific illness.

You think the folks running Obamacare won't be paying close attention?

Ever call a political candidate's campaign donation number? They know you supported Romney or Nader or Obama.

It's not "paranoia" if it's true and we already know that political information gathered by the IRS on donors were shared with the Obama Campaign. If you believe that the NSA hasn't been engaged in the same sort of skullduggery, then you are pathetically naive and so ideologically aligned with the forces of despotism that your are living in denial.

The principles in the Constitution are inviolable and sacred. They provide specific circumstances in which the federal government may engage in surveillance and invasion of privacy. What the NSA and other clandestine organizations have been doing is antithetical to our republican form of government.

It is also antithetical to everything our Founding Fathers believed in and sought to enshrine in the Constitution. I'm sure that Obama supporters, like you, hold the Constitution in the same contempt as he does, but it remains the law of the land and is the only authority for the existence of the federal government extant.

Dump the Constitution as Obama would have us do, and the legal basis for the entire government disappears.

Worse than your naivete and ignorance, is the hypocrisy. Had this been revealed under Bush, you and your ilk would be banging on the table and screaming at the top of your lungs for his head and the heads of everyone in his government.

psychiatrist would be covered under patient records, so no it's not public domain.

This isn't naivety it's just stupidity by some of you. Ok, let's assume the government knows that you called a suicide hotline, why the f'k do they care?

That's the issue, while anyone not just the government can get a lot of data today on anyone, the assumption is that anyone really cares that much about your life. They don't.

Corporations do, for monetary reasons, governments do in the sense of security reasons, but beyond that they simply don't care. How do I know this, well I'm not privy to say. Do you know how much money it cost to investigate anyone it takes a lot of time, to become, even top secret cleared takes 3-5 years and hundreds of thousands of dollars. For all the data that is out there, nobody, is going to bother to #1 retrieve it, #2 look at it, unless there is a reason. And you aren't about to that for every citizen on the planet.

I'm not naïve ... I just have better isht to do than live in some conspiracy world where some mythical government is out to get me. You are to idiotic to realize you are the government. The government isn't something else, it is the people.

 

[catswold]

Back_by_demand, it has never happened to the extent and expanse that it has under the Obama Administration. Under previous administrations, it has always been carefully focused and limited. The revelations by Snowden show that these efforts exploded under Obama's ministrations. He and his team may or may not have directed it's implementation, but it has been clear from day one that both Obama and AG Holder have real contempt for the Constitution and the protections therein contained.

It was wrong and I criticized it under Bush, both before and after that portion of the PATRIOT Act was amended to provide for FISA supervision.

It remains wrong and deserving of criticism under Obama . . . more so because of the gross expansion that occurred under his watch, and for the hypocrisy of his repeated loud attacks against the Bush Administration for doing precisely what Bush was doing and more.

 

[acadia11]

To mr. Acadia11 and similars:

Your voice when you talk is in the free air too but following your logic everyone has right to hear what you say even when you whisper to the ear in secret. Your ignorance of people's right to have privacy and use free will freely makes even more obvious that you are either troll or person who wouldn't have anything against slavery in ages thousand years old governments. Shame that they didn't have you and similars. At least today we would have pyramids on every corner and graveyards full of silent ones.

What right to privacy?

What constitutional law or even bill of right covers this. None, there is a right to illegal search and seizure. Which means conceivably no one can search your info without a warrant. The bottom line is that founders did not conceive of communications in the manner that we do today. But, I'll give you an example, the Post Office can search your mail ... where is the uproar over that?

Nothing has canged today in terms of how the government acts, te only change is in the way we communicate, which is inherently far less secure than the past. With that said you want privacy stop posting on facebook, stop posting on tomshardware forum, either wise you ain't having it. And yes, if you go in the middle of a room and start talking everyone can hear your conversation and it's perfectly legal.

As for this slave state, please, stop exaggerating 1700's south is a slave state. You guys really have no clue as to what it is to have no rights. The fact that you are complaining and no one is knocking on your door is far more freedom than you realize and disproves your notion tat someone actually gives a isht what you do with your life.

 

[acadia11]

To mr. Acadia11 and similars:

Your voice when you talk is in the free air too but following your logic everyone has right to hear what you say even when you whisper to the ear in secret. Your ignorance of people's right to have privacy and use free will freely makes even more obvious that you are either troll or person who wouldn't have anything against slavery in ages thousand years old governments. Shame that they didn't have you and similars. At least today we would have pyramids on every corner and graveyards full of silent ones.

What right to privacy?

What constitutional law or even bill of right covers this. None, there is a right to illegal search and seizure. Which means conceivably no one can search your info without a warrant. The bottom line is that founders did not conceive of communications in the manner that we do today. But, I'll give you an example, the Post Office can search your mail ... where is the uproar over that?

Nothing has canged today in terms of how the government acts, te only change is in the way we communicate, which is inherently far less secure than the past. With that said you want privacy stop posting on facebook, stop posting on tomshardware forum, either wise you ain't having it. And yes, if you go in the middle of a room and start talking everyone can hear your conversation and it's perfectly legal.

As for this slave state, please, stop exaggerating 1700's south is a slave state. You guys really have no clue as to what it is to have no rights. The fact that you are complaining and no one is knocking on your door is far more freedom than you realize and disproves your notion tat someone actually gives a isht what you do with your life.

 

[acadia11]

Back_by_demand, it has never happened to the extent and expanse that it has under the Obama Administration. Under previous administrations, it has always been carefully focused and limited. The revelations by Snowden show that these efforts exploded under Obama's ministrations. He and his team may or may not have directed it's implementation, but it has been clear from day one that both Obama and AG Holder have real contempt for the Constitution and the protections therein contained.

It was wrong and I criticized it under Bush, both before and after that portion of the PATRIOT Act was amended to provide for FISA supervision.

It remains wrong and deserving of criticism under Obama . . . more so because of the gross expansion that occurred under his watch, and for the hypocrisy of his repeated loud attacks against the Bush Administration for doing precisely what Bush was doing and more.

Obama had nothing to do with these programs and they existed for years before him.

And this is my issue, and furthers the notion, this is not a rights issue but an Obama issue. Most of the people complaining dislike Obama, so, now it's the false security state in their mind. And Obama must be behind. The fact is none of these programs started under Obama in fact the program that Snowden talked about was started by Dick Cheney, Prism and Tempora, were conceived of shortly after 9/11. So, no, you are wrong that Obama changed squat , Obama simply continued Bush Policies in terms of National Security.

June 24, 2013 "Information Clearing House - "AP" -- Former Vice President Dick Cheney said Monday U.S. congressional leaders he briefed in 2004 on a surveillance program recently disclosed by leaker Edward Snowden supported it, and both Republicans and Democrats wanted to keep it secret.
Cheney said he was directly involved in setting up the program, run by the National Security Agency, or NSA, in the weeks after the 9/11 attacks. He said it has had "phenomenal results" in preventing terrorist attacks. ... "If you tell the enemy how you are reading their mail, it's going to lessen your capability to do that," he said.

Wasn't Obama a community organizer in 2002, I'm joking, he was a professor and part of Illinois senate, he wasn't even in congress at this point.

 

[catswold]

Acadia11, you show your ignorance in your last comment. They’re not accessing “records,” medical or otherwise, they can know that you are seeking aid simply by following your phone call patterns and that in itself is dangerous knowledge.

They don't have to be investigating every individual, you see these days, we have these things called "computers." Computers are really, really good at categorizing data: they can do things like make a blanket search for everyone who called a suicide hotline and have the computer highlight those individuals for extra scrutiny by government decision-makers, or attach a flag on those folks and others who have sought a psychologists or psychiatrists help for a condition like depression so that they are suddenly declared ineligible to own a firearm . . . as they have done en masse to many veterans.

They care, because that type of information can be used in the processing of health insurance claims under Obama care and the so-called “Death Panels” (Independent Payment Advisory Boards). They are already using that sort of information, we saw an example of the type of influence that sort of information can have in the recent dust-up over the case of that little girl in Philadelphia with cystic fibrosis.

It was solely because of the huge dust-up made by opponents of Obamacare that Kathleen Sebelius succumbed to the public pressure and stepped in to make a waver.

People won’t even be aware they are being discriminated against, because they have some designated “untreatable” or “not cost effective to treat” disease or mental disorder.

You are terrible naïve, at least your comments imply so. Perhaps you are perfectly comfortable with the policies of the current administration and have no fear that they will abuse the information they acquire, what happens with the next administration? What happens when someone you don’t trust is elected President? You still going to sit there and pretend life is still a bowl of cherries? If so, you are more naïve than I originally estimated.

And finally, I reject and point out your, typical for your sort, straw man argument. I don’t believe that “some mystical government is out to get me,” I just understand the very principles and abuses which led our Founding Fathers to write a Constitution which explicitly prohibits the sort of activity you seem to bask in. Clearly you understand nothing about the intent of our Founding Fathers or what the Constitution says.

 

[catswold]

acadia11, the fact that you are unable to find a "right to privacy" specified in the Constitution in no way negates its existence. I suggest you revisit (or read for the first time in your life judging by your comment) the 9th Amendment:

"The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."

Just exactly like those specifically protected by enumeration in the Bill of Rights, the right to privacy is an intuitive, natural right. It goes hand-in-hand with the ownership of private property, the right to keep and bear arms, to be secure in ones property, etc.

Exceptions to those protections are specific and limited . . . in the case of search and seizure--as in the NSA spying on Americans--it requires a warrant that can ONLY be issued upon "probable cause supported by Oath or affirmation."

No "blanket warrants" such as the NSA has been operating under can possible be valid under that narrow provision.

The right to privacy is an inherent right--the government in America hasn't the power to grant me the right to privacy--and can only violate that right under very carefully delineated circumstances.

The "right to privacy" has been established by the SCOTUS in the Griswald decision upon which foundation, Roe v. Wade was based.

 

[catswold]

acadia11, you don't read very carefully, do you? I have already mentioned Bush, the PATRIOT Act, and the fact that their initial program had to be reined in and revised by Congress.

And yes, the program is significantly different from what it was under Bush. Far broader and more invasive. FISA requests under Obama have grown by an order of magnitude . . . more evidence that you don't know what you are talking about. Hayden testified before Congress to that fact.

Sort of puts your pathetic attempts at ridiculing those of us citing factual information into focus.

It never fails that shills who lack a reasoned, fact-based argument resort to attempts at ridicule and vacuous unfounded assertions.

 

[dalauder]

What's concerning to me is that I see no mention of warrants above. So long as they have a warrant, the NSA should be able to access data (and the warrant should be publicly discoverable). But if they don't, then Microsoft needs to quit screwing around with our property.

 

[JPNpower]

NERRAWG, I'll clarify my comment now. cat man, I'll reply to you later, since you wrote so much, I need time to read.

The NSA has the potential to collect corporate information as you say. They can take top secret information and sell it off to others. This is if they become that corrupt. However, do you seriously think that this can happen on a large scale without anybody realizing? Your local sheriff has the potential to shoot you dead today, but you're probably pretty confident that he won't. Why? He has access to a pistol wherever he goes! Thus, this kind of corruption probably won't happen.

Also, if, against all odds, it did happen, your proposed regulation won't help at all. If that local sheriff decided that he would shoot you, he would, regardless of what laws or his superiors say. A better example would be the IRS. That agency is regulated extremely tightly due to the fact that it deals with people's taxes. However, as you know, corruption did happen, and the Tea Party people suffered. However unlikely it is, when corruption does happen, you're not going to stop it.

Finally, the NSA isn't going to stay unregulated for long. If you think republicans, the (now unpopular) government, and the judicial system are going to let this go with a smile, you are very wrong. It probably will take a couple months, but action will happen I'm sure.