Prism and Verizon surveillance discussion thread

[The Good Reverend Roger]

http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/12/16/21925625-federal-judge-says-nsa-program-appears-to-violate-constitution?lite

A federal judge ruled Monday that the National Security Agency's gathering of data on all telephone calls made in the United States appears to violate the Constitution's protection against unreasonable searches.

The judge, Richard Leon of U.S. District Court in Washington, said that the NSA relied on "almost-Orwellian technology" that would have been unimaginable a generation ago, at the time of a landmark Supreme Court decision on phone records.

But wait!

The judge put his ruling on hold to allow the government to appeal.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Yeah, way to go, USA.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Yeah, way to go, USA.

"What you are doing is horrible and wrong.  But you can keep doing it until the people to whom I have passed the buck overrule me."

[Cain]

When you look at Judge Richard Leon's history, what is more surprising is that he cares about the NSA at all:

Leon was appointed to his lifetime judicial post by George W. Bush in 2002 after Leon won the gratitude of the Bush Family by protecting its interests as an aggressive and reliable Republican legal apparatchik on Capitol Hill. There, the heavy-set Leon gained a reputation as a partisan bully who made sure politically charged investigations reached a desired outcome, whatever the facts.

In 1992, when a House task force was examining evidence that Reagan and Bush began their secret contacts with Iran in 1980 while trying to unseat President Jimmy Carter, Leon was the Republican point man to make sure nothing too damaging came out that could threaten President George H.W. Bush's reelection campaign. Leon served as chief minority counsel to the House task force investigating the so-called October Surprise allegations.

Indeed, some key October Surprise witnesses described to me how Leon sought to intimidate them into retracting their allegations about Republican wrongdoing. When these witnesses refused to alter their sworn testimony, they became the targets of the task force, more so than Reagan and Bush.

[LMNO]

I dunno, sounds like he's still trying to score points for the Repubicans, or at least trying to make Obama look bad.

Not that he has to try very hard, in this sector at least.

[Junkenstein]

The last part is quite informative:

Given the passion expressed in the ruling – calling the NSA's technology "almost Orwellian" – one might assume that Leon is simply expressing his inner constitutionalist. And that may well be the case. It is not uncommon for federal judges, after they get lifetime tenure, to demonstrate more intellectual independence.

There seems to be something about the very concept of tenure that brings out the shittiest sides in people. That there seems to be some kind of trend with people showing sense after getting a job for life seems a little unjust to say the least. "Want to do good? Well first you've got to bury a lot of bodies for us."

[Cain]

Did anyone watch the 60 Minutes sloppy blowjob to the NSA?

I didn't, sadly, but it sounds amazing.  Fantastical conversations about pirates.  No discussion about metadata use in targeted assassinations.  Asking specifically about American wiretaps by the NSA to downplay the NSA's vast surveillance machine and the FBI's use of it.  And then there is the BIOS plot.

If you believe the NSA and 60 minutes, China had a secret plan to shut down the global economy.

To.

Shut.

Down.

The.

Global.

Economy.

That was news to many security experts, who had never before heard of the "BIOS plot," even though "60 Minutes" asserted that "computer manufacturers" had worked with the NSA "to close this vulnerability." Such an undertaking would have been well known in the information-security community.

Plunkett gave only the barest outline of the supposed Communist scheme, not specifying when and how the plot was uncovered and foiled. CBS' confirmation of the plot's existence and provenance relied on unnamed "cybersecurity experts briefed on the operation" who "told us it was China."

Security experts aren't buying it.

And with good reason.  Would security experts really not notice an unscheduled, global BIOS security patch being rolled out?  Like hell they wouldnt.  And why would the NSA subsequently reveal such a "top secret" operation?

Because it's bullshit, of course.

[Reginald Ret]

Bricking it is one of the dumbest thing you could do with BIOS access to every computer on the planet. That's like breaking into a bank and melting all the gold while you are standing next to it.

[LMNO]

And I can only suppose that there were no reasons given about why China would want to do this, when they're one of the emerging (if not fully emerged) leaders of said global economy?

[Cain]

Nefarious, Communistic, hacking reasons, one assumes.

[LMNO]

Ah.  Of course.

[Telarus]

[Cain]

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/12/20/us-usa-security-rsa-idUSBRE9BJ1C220131220

Documents leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden show that the NSA created and promulgated a flawed formula for generating random numbers to create a "back door" in encryption products, the New York Times reported in September. Reuters later reported that RSA became the most important distributor of that formula by rolling it into a software tool called Bsafe that is used to enhance security in personal computers and many other products.

Undisclosed until now was that RSA received $10 million in a deal that set the NSA formula as the preferred, or default, method for number generation in the BSafe software, according to two sources familiar with the contract. Although that sum might seem paltry, it represented more than a third of the revenue that the relevant division at RSA had taken in during the entire previous year, securities filings show.

That's pretty big news.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/12/20/us-usa-security-rsa-idUSBRE9BJ1C220131220

Documents leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden show that the NSA created and promulgated a flawed formula for generating random numbers to create a "back door" in encryption products, the New York Times reported in September. Reuters later reported that RSA became the most important distributor of that formula by rolling it into a software tool called Bsafe that is used to enhance security in personal computers and many other products.

Undisclosed until now was that RSA received $10 million in a deal that set the NSA formula as the preferred, or default, method for number generation in the BSafe software, according to two sources familiar with the contract. Although that sum might seem paltry, it represented more than a third of the revenue that the relevant division at RSA had taken in during the entire previous year, securities filings show.

That's pretty big news.

Oh for the love of fucking fuck.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

HAW HAW!

Hey, Mister Bank Robber, please design my safe.