Context
NSA, The National security Agency is one of
the largest of the US intelligence organizations in terms of personnel and
budget. NSA operated under DOD jurisdiction and report directly to Director of
National Intelligence. Formed in 1952 as armed Forces Security Agency.
With all the fuzz about NSA constantly
watching, I’ll show you just the tip of the iceberg
1952 - President Truman Establishes the
National Security Agency (NSA)
1973 - Supreme Court Rules Warrants Are
Required for Domestic Intelligence Surveillance
1975 - Senate "Church Committee"
Investigation Uncovers Illegal Domestic Spying by NSA, Recommends Reforms
1978 - Foreign Intelligence Surveillance
Act (FISA) Signed Into Law, Protecting Americans from Domestic Spying
2000 - NSA's Expresses Desire to "Live
on the Network"
In a report about the NSA's mission for the
21st Century, the agency notes: "The volumes of routing of data make
indexing and processing nuggets of intelligence information more difficult. To
perform both its offensive and defensive mission, NSA must 'live on the
network.'
2001 - Terrorist Attacks of September 11,
2001
2001, Sep 12 - Culture against Domestic
Spying Begins to Shift at the NSA
2001, Sep 13 - White House Asks NSA What
Could Be Done With More Legal Authority
2001, Sep 14 - With President's
Authorization, NSA Director General Michael Hayden Begins Targeting
2001, Sep 15 - NSA Resurfaces Plan from
1999 to Enhance Spying After White House Asks What More Could Be Done
2001, Sep 21 - All US Phone Numbers Calling
an Afghanistan Telephone Number Can Be Kept and Shared
2001, Oct 2 - NSA Director Hayden Holds
Classified Briefing with Congress
2001, Oct 4 - President Bush Signs Order
Beginning NSA's Domestic Spying Program
2001, Oct 4 - NSA Believes Authorization
Allowed It to Spy on US Phone Calls and Emails Without Warrant
2001, Oct 5 - Attorney General Told to
"Just...Sign It"
2001, Oct 6 - NSA Director General Hayden
"Surprised With a Small 'S'" After Authorization Drafted by Vice
President's Counsel is Signed by the President
2001, Oct 15 - Attorney General Certifies
NSA Program without Assessing Program's Legality
2001, Oct 16 - NSA Approaches Some
Companies to Voluntarily Hand Over Data
2001, Oct 16 - NSA Sends First Letters to
Some Private Companies Asking for Data
2001, Oct 17 - Administration Starts
Secretly Approaching Telecom Companies to Participate in NSA's Domestic Spying
Program
2001, Oct 18 - Companies Start Sending
Internet and Telephony Content to NSA
2002, Summer - AT&T Technician
Discovers NSA Is Working Inside AT&T Facilities
2002, Late - Telecommunications Companies
Formally Enter Voluntarily Agreements with US to Give Data to NSA
2003, Jan - NSA Interviews AT&T
Employees For A "Special Job" at AT&T
2003, Jan - Construction of Secret Room in
AT&T's San Francisco Facility Begins
And as you can imagine it all went crazy
downhill from now on. From what we know now:
- All domestic and outside calls are being recorded. They are stored for a month initially. If anyone assigns any importance to the data, it is being saved for good
- Every telephone company works with NSA
- Any person in the world can be spied on without warrant
- Every internet provides sends data to NSA data centers
- NSA has more processing power than every other powerhouse on the planet
- NSA has more storage in one of their centers than every Google datacenter combined
- Every single person can be selected, and all information gathered from the internet (social websites)
- Facebook, twitter, google+ and basically any other are cooperating with NSA
- Microsoft, Apple, Linux – they all work with NSA
- Every single encryption method (doesn’t matter is open source or not) has a one click solution for NSA (True Crypt confirmed)
- NSA intercepts communication between Yahoo and Google
- It has been confirmed that NSA trades delicate information with other agencies and corporations
- It has been confirmed that even the President of United States of American can be spied on without warrant.
How did it get leaked? Well it started by
stupidity. Some of the thousands of employees made their LinkedIn pages and
listed the names of programs they use (some of the names are as follows: ANCHORY,
AMHS, NUCLEON, TRAFFICTHIEF, ARCMAP, SIGNAV, COASTLINE, DISHFIRE, FASTSCOPE,
OCTAVE/CONTRAOCTAVE, PINWALE, UTT, WEBCANDID, MICHIGAN, PLUS, ASSOCIATION, MAINWAY,
FASCIA, OCTSKYWARD, INTELINK, METRICS, BANYAN, MARINA). After that,
whistleblowers helped getting the information out. But if the world knows now
about this spying program – why is no one freaking out? It’s official now that
few presidents from Europe and even Vatican secret meetings were spied on. Why is
no one making a big story out of it? Simple. Every single country is doing it
too.
Question time!
- What is your opinion on the idea of NSA surveillance?
- How do you secure your private data? (I’m not from NSA I promise……
- What is your opinion on this matter in general?
Comments
2. Confidential. My advice : You want to have secure machine? Plug off internet cable or WiFi :)
3. Government of US should pay lots of compensations to countries monitored by them. What's more I think that many of international servers mainly used 'pro publico bono' should be placed in neutral country like Switzerland or United Nations.
Cheers
I'm aware that our life is getting more and more invigilate. However I think we can't change it. It's inseparable part of development and I accept it. Personally I don't have any critical data, which I would like to hide. Of course there are all personal data, accounts and passwords, but I don't see any reason why such organization as NSA can be interest in it. Let be honest I'm irrelevant. To me is controversial activity, but if it helps to prevent crimes I'm OK with it. The situation is different when your data are stolen by some smaller criminal organization or single person. Unfortunately Internet doesn't help here. We left a lot of information about us on the Internet and in many cases do not secure them properly. To me that is the real problem for regular people.
To me, the problem itself has more to do with business than it does with regular people. People like John Smith, who cares about them, right? I'm ok with gathering data about me from the internet - this is where I put it in the first place, but having the control over marketing and business decisions is little too much for me to accept.
Besides, I'm eager to watch the fight between people inventing better and better encrytpion methods and those who are breaking it :)
Would you trust her? I don't think so... that would be stupid from your side to give precious secrets to anyone! So the question is why do we put so much trust in equipment (or internet) which is from the government / from companies which cooperate with government ? Someone could say that everyone is using them! And often we don't have choice - we have o replay to e-mails, communicate with others etc. After some time we do not realy care about what we are doing/reading/watching, but there is always someone who does - don't worry ;)
Does anyone have any idea how could we from one side have latest "toys" and the internet and from the other be safe from NSA?
What do you think about TOR?
You may ask why am I writing not only about the internet but also about the equipment - http://tech.wp.pl/kat,1009779,title,Tajemnicze-kody-na-wydrukach-z-kazdej-drukarki,wid,15878830,wiadomosc.html?ticaid=1119ac I hope that this informaton is not new for you :)
I will use words which describe situation with governments best:
"Relying on laws to keep your private information safe is like relying on a dog to guard a plate of bacon."
2. How do you secure your private data? (I’m not from NSA I promise……
Who gives? This post is stored on Google servers anyway :) I don't publish stuff which I don't consider public.
3. What is your opinion on this matter in general?
I think that we need better cryptography and decentralization. I recommend very good presentation about the theory of cryptography and current state of it: 'The Factoring Dead: Preparing for the Cryptopocalypse: A talk at Black Hat USA 2013 discussing recent advances in academic research that imperils two critical algorithms upon which Internet trust rests: RSA and Diffie-Helman.' http://www.slideshare.net/astamos/bh-slides?utm_source=slideshow&utm_medium=ssemail&utm_campaign=weekly_digest
Really I don’t care about this NSA\CIA case. I can understand surveillance in terms of national safety or safety of my country so If they are using it to really help why not?
How do you secure your private data?
I don’t because I simply don’t have so precious private data. My credit card PIN number is in my head and it is the best way to keep it safe (for now at least). If someday I want to be secure I just disconnect pc from network at that’s it. In other case there is no way to really secure your data.
What is your opinion on this matter in general?
I think that people are crazy about this privacy stuff nowadays. But if you are using free mail account your privacy is lost so only way to keep your personal information safe is to stop using services which are linked with global network or like me just don’t think about it and do nothing with it.
My best approach for securing private data is storing on external disc drive without connection to the Internet and if I want to discuss something important I prefer direct conversation. If it is not very secret I don’t care, NSA can feel free to read stupid things written by me or my friends. I hope they fluently know polish.
In general I think, I will say it once again this power, possibility is too much for anybody. Unfortunately we cannot deal with it. It is the other side of the coin. The dark side. If we want advanced technologies in our live we should accept it and a little bit be careful.
It seems to me that the leak about the US spying on us not as important as the news agencies are trying to make it. The scale is bigger than before but every country has spies. The US has more of them than others.