whistleblowers: wikileaks, snowden i...

[Prospero]

Skype's secret Project Chess reportedly helped NSA access customers' dataScheme – set up before firm was purchased by Microsoft – allegedly eased access for US law enforcement agenciesDominic Rushe in New YorkProsecutors in Zhu Yufu's trial for subversion cited text messages that he sent using Skype. Photograph: Mario Tama/Getty ImagesSkype, the web-based communications company, reportedly set up a secret programme to make it easier for US surveillance agencies to access customers' information.The programme, called Project Chess and first revealed by the New York Times on Thursday, was said to have been established before Skype was bought by Microsoft in 2011. Microsoft's links with US security are under intense scrutiny following the Guardian's revelation of Prism, a surveillance program run by the National Security Agency (NSA), that claimed "direct" access to its servers and those of rivals including Apple, Facebook and Google.Project Chess was set up to explore the legal and technical issues involved in making Skype's communications more readily available to law enforcement and security officials, according to the Times. Only a handful of executives were aware of the plan. The company did not immediately return a call for comment.Last year Skype denied reports that it had changed its software following the Microsoft acquisition in order to allow law enforcement easier access to communications. "Nothing could be more contrary to the Skype philosophy," Mark Gillett, vice president of Microsoft's Skype division, said in a blog post.According to the Prism documents, Skype had been co-operating with the NSA's scheme since February 2011, eight months before the software giant took it over. The document gives little detail on the technical nature of that cooperation. Microsoft declined to comment.The news comes as the tech firms are attempting to distance themselves from the Prism revelations. All the firm's listed as participating in the Prism scheme have denied that they give the NSA "direct" access to their servers, as claimed by the slide presentation, and said that they only comply with legal requests made through the courts.But since the story broke a more nuanced picture of how the tech firms work with the surveillance authorities has emerged. The US authorities have become increasingly interested in tech firms and its employees after initially struggling to keep up with the shift to digital communications. NSA officials have held high level talks with executives in the tech firms and are actively recruiting in the tech community.'That information is how they make their money'Shane Harris, author of The Watchers: The Rise of America's Surveillance State, said the NSA had a crisis in the late 1990s when it realised communication was increasingly digital and it was falling behind in its powers to track that data. "You can not overstate that without this data the NSA would be blind," he said.The NSA employs former valley executives, including Max Kelly, the former chief security officer for Facebook, and has increasingly sought to hire people in the hacker community. Former NSA director lieutenant general Kenneth Minihan has taken the opposite tack and is helping create the next generation of tech security firms. Minihan is managing director of Paladin Capital, a private equity firm that has a fund dedicated to investing in homeland security. Paladin also employs Dr Alf Andreassen, a former technical adviser for naval warfare who was also for classified national programmes at AT&T and Bell Laboratories.Harris said the ties were only likely to deepen as technology moves ever more of our communications on line. He warned the move was likely to present more problems for the tech firms as their consumers worry about their privacy. "It's been fascinating for me listening to the push back from the tech companies," said Harris.Christopher Soghoian, a senior policy analyst studying technological surveillance at the American Civil Liberties Union, said the relationship between the tech giants and the NSA has a fundamental – and ironic – flaw that guarantees the Prism scandal is unlikely to be the last time tensions surface between the two.The US spying apparatus and Silicon Valley's top tech firms are basically in the same business, collecting information on people, he said. "It's a weird symbiotic relationship. It's not that Facebook and Google are trying to build a surveillance system but they effectively have," he said. "If they wanted to, Google and Facebook could use technology to tackle the issue, anonymizing and deleting their customers' information. But that information is how they make their money, so that is never going to happen."

[noskich]

Ima gde NSA ne moze da spijunira: http://www.forbes.co...reas-game-plan/For all the unbelievable technology of the NSA, and Snowden’s equally unbelievable theft of whatever he could get away with, North Korea remains the big dark hole in U.S.intelligence. No one has figured out how to bug the top decision-makers in the North, to track their conversations, to know who’s doing or saying what to whom.Jedina pouzdano slobodna zemlja od spijuniranja. Jedino mogu sa satelitima da zmire, ali zato se gradi ispod zemlje.

Edited June 21, 2013 by noskich

[Skyhighatrist]

Jel' se žališ il' se hvališ?

[odmor]

A sto onaj Kim III cuka po Mac-u na svom stolu?

[malkin]

Dejvid Sajmon debelo razočarava.Konor Friderzdorf obavlja temeljno razmontiravanje Sajmonove pozicije. Friderzdorf je napisao niz odličnih kolumni od kako su Snoudenovi likovi krenuli, treba ga čitati.Ne prestaje da me iznenađuje to što mnogi ljudi za koje sam smatrao da imaju integriteta i dovoljno inteligencije da sagledaju koliko je ozbiljan ovaj problem jednostavno sležu ramenima i potežu 'nemam šta da krijem'. Ne iznenađuje me kad Bil Mar i njegovih milion dolara brane Obamu i bave se Snoudenovim psihološkim profilom, ali kad, recimo, Ajra Glas i njegova ekipa ne mogu da dobace dalje od neke apologističke polu-zainteresovanosti, onda...Obama je za suzbijanje građanskih sloboda isto što i SNS za nezavisno Kosovo--politički protivnici nikad neće biti sasvim zadovoljni koliko je daleko otišao (ali će ga podržavati: videti pod Dik Čejni), a oni koji su ga doveli na vlast će po svaku cenu da istrpe i preguraju i najteže nedoslednosti i kognitivne disonance u koje ih uteruje.E da, ko sa mnom deli nesanicu i ozbiljnu ozlojeđenost ravnodušnošću naizgled razumnog sveta u vezi sa ovom vrstom problema, nek se podseti Solovljevljevog™ rada:

Understanding privacy as I have set forth reveals the flaw of the “nothingto hide” argument at its roots. Many commentators who respond to theargument attempt a direct refutation by trying to point to things that peoplewould want to hide. But the problem with the nothing to hide argument is withits underlying assumption that privacy is about hiding bad things. Agreeingwith this assumption concedes far too much ground and leads to anunproductive discussion of information people would likely want or not wantto hide.(...)The deeper problem with the “nothing to hide” argument is that it myopically views privacy as a form of concealment or secrecy. (...)Far too often, discussions of the NSA surveillance and data mining define the problem solely in terms of surveillance. To return to my discussion ofmetaphor, the problems are not just Orwellian but Kafkaesque. The NSAprograms are problematic even if no information people want to hide isuncovered. In The Trial, the problem is not inhibited behavior, but rather asuffocating powerlessness and vulnerability created by the court system’s useof personal data and its exclusion of the protagonist from having anyknowledge or participation in the process. The harms consist of those createdby bureaucracies – indifference, errors, abuses, frustration, and lack oftransparency and accountability. One such harm, for example, which I call“aggregation,” emerges from the combination of small bits of seeminglyinnocuous data.80 When combined, the information become much more tellingabout a person. For the person who truly has nothing to hide, aggregation isnot much of a problem. But in the stronger less absolutist form of the “nothingto hide” argument, people are arguing that certain pieces of information are notsomething they would hide. Aggregation, however, means that by combiningpieces of information we might not care to conceal, the government can gleaninformation about us that we might really want to conceal. Part of the allure ofdata mining for the government is its ability to reveal a lot about ourpersonalities and activities by sophisticated means of analyzing data.Therefore, without greater transparency in data mining, it is hard to claim thatprograms like the NSA data mining program will not reveal information peoplemight want to hide, as we do not know precisely what is revealed. Moreover,data mining aims to be predictive of behavior. In other words, it purports toprognosticate about our future actions. People who match certain profiles aredeemed likely to engage in a similar pattern of behavior. It is quite difficult torefute actions that one has not yet done. Having nothing to hide will notalways dispel predictions of future activity.

[noskich]

Jel' se žališ il' se hvališ?

Nijedno, veoma mi je zabavna cinjenica da gradjanin DPRK ima vise privatnosti nego gradjani `demokrackih` zemalja.

[bergasa19]

Dobar je i Vuk Perišić.

[Peter Fan]

Ne iznenađuje me kad Bil Mar i njegovih milion dolara brane Obamu i bave se Snoudenovim psihološkim profilom, ali kad, recimo, Ajra Glas i njegova ekipa ne mogu da dobace dalje od neke apologističke polu-zainteresovanosti, onda...

Ne bih da budem previse cinican, ali ne treba zaboraviti koji je glavni outlet za njegov rad ( i koliko tu drzava jos uvijek izdvaja), kao i to i ko mu je publika. Tako da bih ja rekao da su i on i Maher dio establishmenta, i da im kao takvima nije u interesu da previse talasaju. Nije on ni Busha direktno kritikovao.Amy Goodman je tu daleko najdosljednija.

[Indy]

E da, ko sa mnom deli nesanicu i ozbiljnu ozlojeđenost ravnodušnošću naizgled razumnog sveta u vezi sa ovom vrstom problema, nek se podseti Solovljevljevog™ rada:

Nema to veze sa 'razumom', odnosno to nije intelektualno. Ti ljudi (koji su velika vecina) koji podrzavaju neku vrstu status quo-a u sustini ne mogu da zele neku znacajnu promenu pravila igre, jer instinktivno osecaju da to radi protiv onoga sto oni vide kao svoj interes (i svoje porodice). Razmisljao sam o tome danas bas, da ti ljudi koji (kao recimo gorepomenuti australijski ministar inostranih poslova koji smatra Assangea, verovatno, izdajnikom, a pritom je sam dokazani spijun za Amerikance) nisu u stvari ni losi ni korumpirani ljudi - jednostavno oni iskreno veruju da Amerika (ovakva kakva je, manje-vise) stoji za nesto dobro i pozitivno i da nije valjano to razmontiravati. Ne branim ih, samo pokusavam da razumem.

[wall]

Složio bih se.Tajne službe rade na tom principu od nastanka.Recimo, da li je sporno da se neko prati (uhodi)?Narušavaju li se time njegova ljudska i građanska prava?Jasno, može se povesti rasprava da li građanin može tražiti privatnost ako se svojevoljno otisnuo u zajedničku tj "javnu" sredinu, no suština ostaje ista.Ili recimo, koliko bi se digla prašina ako bi se saznalo da sva pisama, razglednice i sl. prolazi kroz neki sistem nadzora i pregleda?Zašto postoji sabornost™ u političkim krugovima po ovom pitanju?Zato što i jedni i drugi znaju da bez toga nema obaveštajnog rada, a posledice su velike.

[Prospero]

^^ljudi osećaju da im je pax americana (ovo koristim u nedostatku boljeg termina) donela ono što "imaju" - homeownership, nekakve demokratske tekovine, "dobar život" naspram ljudi van zapadnog sveta, gadgets i perks itd.oni instiktivno brane "poredak" od kritike jer nisu sigurni da bi nešto drugo uspelo da im poboljša sveukupni položaj niti se upuštaju u outside the box razmišljanje. sve je po principu "to je što je, bolje nemamo" itd, što je defanzivna pozicija i tu je u stvari veliki prelom koji se desio nakon, recimo, fukuyaminog unipolarnog momenta. kriza je dovela do toga da se američke želje slabo poštuju, ekonomska "dogma" ne proizvodi "dobar život" na zapadu niti omogućava zapadu da dugoročno održava razliku u odnosu na ostale regione.ceo ovaj slučaj spada u domen odbrambenih mera sistema koji sada više nije "proaktivan", ne anticipira tako dobro budućnost nego prosto teži da se očuva, da se okameni. suviše dugo su serdarvojvodisali jedni drugima o demokratiji, globalizaciji koja ide u korist zapadnog društva u celini (a realno više ne ide), o posebnom blendu liberalizma i o kraju istorije da bi sada jednostavno napustili to. a to je dinamika x puta do sada viđena u istoriji i retko kada se nije završila useravanjem motke.poredak je ovlaš najušio promene koje mu ne idu na ruku i pokušava da se brani, ali više ne može izaći iz svoje kože već koristi ovakve i slične mere o kojima smo raspravljali a koje pogađaju ljude unutar njega, umesto da lepo polupaju neke morloke širom meridijana i istresu sopstvenu agresiju na nekom drugom.eto, rentovao sam pa udrite :)

[noskich]

ako se svojevoljno otisnuo u zajedničku tj "javnu" sredinu, no suština ostaje ista.

Pitanje je koliko je to svojevoljno. Jedna je stvar svaki dan na Facebook-u postavljati gomilu slika i statusa o svom zivotu i siriti gomilu informacija o sebi, a sasvim druga koristiti debitnu karticu za kupovinu, google za pretragu ili izaci na ulicu na kojoj su CCTV na sve strane. Ziveti mainstream zivotom danas ne mozes da izbegnes da im dajes na gotovs podatke o sebi.Mozes kao u http://en.wikipedia....the_State_(film) da koristis iskljucivo kes ili bitcoin, da ne dizes pogled iznad ka nebu, komuniciras iskljucivo preko kriptografski zasticene veze i slicno, zivis u Faradejevom kavezu... ali samim tim sto moras da radis za platu vec si primoran da otvoris bankovni racun i da ti prate transakcije.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zKxQv_SVBSYImaju tvoju lokaciju preko mobilnog koji nosis, znaju tvoje planove kad kupis kartu za put, znaju gde zivis, na sta trosis novac, sta te interesuje...Na protestima se brojevi svih mobilnih telefona registruju. Pojavis se na protestu dva puta - imas dosije i prate te pojacano. Ili ako se interesujes za neku od kontroverznih tema.Postoje triggeri- koji su definisani da te prebace u kategorije pojacanog nadzora. Edited June 21, 2013 by noskich

[wall]

Pitanje je koliko je to svojevoljno. Jedna je stvar svaki dan na Facebook-u postavljati gomilu slika i statusa o svom zivotu i siriti gomilu informacija o sebi, a sasvim druga koristiti debitnu karticu za kupovinu, google za pretragu ili izaci na ulicu na kojoj su CCTV na sve strane. Ziveti mainstream zivotom danas ne mozes da izbegnes da im dajes na gotovs podatke o sebi.Mozes kao u http://en.wikipedia....the_State_(film) da koristis iskljucivo kes ili bitcoin, da ne dizes pogled iznad ka nebu, komuniciras iskljucivo preko kriptografski zasticene veze i slicno, ali samim tim sto moras da radis za platu vec si primoran da otvoris bankovni racun i da ti prate transakcije.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zKxQv_SVBSY

Tu smo negde. Ja sam dao primer staromodnijeg načina prikupljanja podataka koji se smatra prihvatljivim i dovoljno demokratskim.Sad, treba praviti razliku između prikupljanja i davanja podataka o sebi. Ali mislim da nije bitno za raspravu.

[noskich]

Tu smo negde. Ja sam dao primer staromodnijeg načina prikupljanja podataka koji se smatra prihvatljivim i dovoljno demokratskim.Sad, treba praviti razliku između prikupljanja i davanja podataka o sebi. Ali mislim da nije bitno za raspravu.

Film je veoma edukativno stivo. Za preporuku ko god se interesuje za temu. Jedino sto ne mogu da doznaju je sta mislis ako o tome ne pises ili ne izgovaras.Kao sto rekoh iznad, u pogledu prismotre Severna Koreja je bolja (manje je ima). Edited June 21, 2013 by noskich

[Anduril]

...a to je dinamika x puta do sada viđena u istoriji i retko kada se nije završila useravanjem motke....

Ovo je sustina.Medjutim, ono sto sada sledi je da (mlada) vecina pocinje da gubi stvari koje si naveo da odrzavaju sistem.Neka veca kriza sistema je neminovna i pitanje je samo trenutka kao sto je vec vidjeno u drugo formi i u druga vremena.