Posts by WatAWorld

Google follows Amazon with auto-encryption of cloud data

Google signed its own death warrant yesterday

Google signed its own death warrant yesterday when it said users (i.e. customers) has no expectation of privacy.

Sure they said it regarding a different product, a "free product" but it reveals a corporate attitude that has little or no regard for client confidentiality.

How could any one explain to their VP, CEO or board of directions why they trusted Google with company data?

I don't even trust their search engine on my personal computer at home any more.

Google's legal team doomed itself by revealing Google ethics to the business community.

Google: Cloud users have 'no legitimate expectation of privacy'

NSA never requires a court order to read your emails or snail mails for non-US persons

"American government require a court order to read you emails, here we are talking about companies."

The American government's NSA never requires a court order to read your emails or snail mails on any other kind of mail or data file or stack of papers if any sender or recipient of the email or data is both not a US citizen and is outside the USA.

If you are a US-person communicating with another US-person the NSA may still be able to read your emails without a warrant if you are within 3 hops of a person of interest. (For example a foreign journalist.)

Non-US persons have no right to privacy at all under US rules.

I don't have time to provide the exact link, but you can start reading here and look for other articles on the NSA at Guardian.com.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jun/23/edward-snowden-nsa-files-timeline?INTCMP=SRCH

IT contractors are third parties to their clients business relationships

As an IT contractor do you not think your clients have a right to expect you to observe client confidentiality regarding what you learn about them and their business with their clients and suppliers?

Third parties is an awfully huge group for such a broad assertion

What a stupid statement: "Indeed, 'a person has no legitimate expectation of privacy in information he voluntarily turns over to third parties.'"

Google's lawyers are saying that Google has no legitimate expectation of privacy in information it voluntarily turns over to third parties like its lawyers?

And medical information to your doctor or company HR officer.

Income information to your accountant.

Report: NSA spying deals billion dollar knockout to US cloud prospects

Countries need to safeguard their domestic industry and academia

Countries need to safeguard their domestic industry, academic and commercial interests.

And that means establishing a domestic internet and good old fashioned shared computer services (cloud) in a manner secure from foreign eyes.

Sure your own government will spy on your business, but you can be pretty certain it won't give away what it finds to your foreign competitors -- and to business that is the important part of privacy.

Likewise for academia, your own government is not going to steal your research and give it to a foreign institution.

(This doesn't aid the privacy issue for ordinary individuals, since individuals are normally more worried about their own government spying on them, their own police and tax agencies, their own snoopy newspapers and neighbours.)

Re: Was the latest al-Queda threat real?

Everyone I know is assuming it was a fake threat, just based on past betrayals and past lies from the US government.

But even ignoring history and looking just at logic, how would closing embassies for a few weeks stop an attack? Surely it would merely delay an attack.

We know how much the NSA records and analyses. If they had "chatter" they'd have names, addresses, photos, address books, and there would be no need for embassy closures. Given their willingness to use lethal force on flimsy evidence, it would be faster and simpler to merely imprison or kill the alleged plotters.

So both by history and by logic I think it was a false flag effort.

Re: U.S. NATIONAL DEBT What is bad for the USA is bad for us in Canada.

The US has a history of blocking parts exports to countries it does not like, for decades in the case of Cuba, for for weeks and months over smaller disputes elsewhere.

If you cannot count on spare parts why by the aircraft?

This line of reasoning wouldn't see Boeing sales to NATO allies affected, but it predicts lower Boeing sales to India, China, Chile, Bolivia, Ecuador, and other non-aligned countries.

I'm in Canada and I'm not happy about this. What is bad for the USA is bad for us in Canada. But sadly the USA is self-harming for emotional reasons and logic won't stop it.

Re: U.S. NATIONAL DEBT Don't forget the upside of all this spying.

Don't forget the upside of all this spying on US trade.

1. They *can* know the other side's marketing strategies and bargaining positions.

2. They *can* know embarrassing information with which to blackmail decision makers into compliance.

3. We also know they're not above sabotaging the industrial enterprises of military rivals. Sabotaging the enterprises of commercial rivals could be next.

GCHQ set the stage with spying on that Common Wealth Conference, spying on allies for commercial advantage.

Re: AES, or not AES... Universal pwnership is the next logical step in universal capture.

@ Paul

1. The problem is that it is not 1 in a billion internet users.

By encrypting our email we'd make ourselves 1 in a few hundred thousand individuals globally.

Even most government departments don't routinely encrypt their email.

If encryption becomes easier and more routine, and almost everyone adopts it, then the 1 in a billion argument might become valid. But almost everyone adopting anything is far fetched.

2. We can encrypt all we want, and I agree AES is probably one of the better algorithms to use, but how do we protect the private keys and the unencrypted input and output?

Pwnership of our computers gives the ability to see everything on them, even when it is only there a short time.

How do we stop the NSA pwning all our computers? Universal pwnership is the next logical step in universal capture.

Re: @mybackdoor @AC 00:36

"Nothing happened to the forum, America happened to the world and this is the result. Pretty much despised as a nation globally*

*Individuals are a different matter. I happen to know some very nice Americans"

1. As UK citizens we know from 300 years of being the lone global super power that the rest of the world hates global super powers.

2. The USA shafted the UK after WWII with heavy loan repayments that lasted until 1996.

So US citizens should know from their own feelings that memories of hatred of super powers are long lasting.

3. The USA is a democracy and its people are responsible for the actions of their government.

There are lots of very nice people who vote for drone strikes and invading powerless countries using "shoot to kill shock and awe" campaigns.

4. The Americans do some good in the world. They are not all bad, and even the bad ones are seldom entirely bad.

Re: I usually don't buy socialist arguments about America being a "corporateocracy"

@Levente who said, "Sure. So did the UK, France, Spain, Italy, let's not forget Russia/USSR (ohh boy!), Germany (OHH BOOOYYY!), even uber-peacenik Denmark shot its citizens before...

...so actually your point was... what exactly?"

The point is that the US authorities will do what the authorities of other nations have done and that it is even easier to give and follow orders to shoot armed civilians than unarmed civilians.

And is your hand held peashooter going to make an impact on your government's helicopter gunships or Abrams tanks?

Is your peashooter going to stop drone strikes on your rebel civilian leadership?

Guns are pointless now. If you need guns to improve your country, you might as well give up and move to Somalia.

Re: I usually don't buy socialist arguments about America being a "corporateocracy"

The German population was armed before and during the NAZIs.

The Soviet population was armed before and during the communist era.

Guns only make matters worse.

Besides, people who are afraid to write letters to the editor are not going to go out in the streets to face tanks with guns.

And as was noted, US soldiers and US police have a history of shooting other Americans. The US Civil War, Vietnam anti-war protests, any Friday night in a ghetto.

Sadly emotional arguments based on fear trump arguments based on logical reasoning

You're 100% right that defense is the #1 priority in the USA.

Defense spending has been dragging the US economy to third world status after they lost 2,600 people to 9-11 just as surely as defense spending dragged the Soviet economy to third world status after they lost 8,668,000 people to WWII.

It didn't make rational sense for the Soviets to spend so extravagantly on defense then. It makes even less sense for the USA to spend 7-1/2 times as extravagantly now.

Problem is that making defense #1 is an emotional argument based on fear. It is almost impossible to defeat an emotional argument using logic, and the defense industry has most of the cards in the fear suit.

I suppose we could mention "money spent on defense is money not able to save American lives through medical research or traffic safety", which is true, perhaps spending on medical research or highway safety would save 10 times as many lives as spending on the NSA. But I can't figure a way to give it a strong emotional appeal. The flaw is that it uses logic and a person has to know at least a bit about economics and the concept of "opportunity costs".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_expenditures

US-controlled companies lethally compromised by US government cyber attacks.

It is not just time sharing, er uh, "cloud", although cloud is an obvious concern.

It is all hardware, software and backbone cables from US-based and US-controlled companies.

Possibly if a company merely has an office in the USA it can be regarded as lethally compromised for some purposes.

US-controlled companies have been lethally compromised by US government cyber attacks.

And those cyber attacks by their own government are as legal as they are continuous and 100% effective.

Western spooks banned Lenovo PCs after finding back doors

Re: Unnamed intelligence and defence backdoor sources?

Sadly there may be neither enough tin foil, nor enough tin ore, in the world to meet the needs of the IT community.

Three months ago I'd have called someone a nut for saying 20% what we now know to be true.

Re: What

Apparently the kit manufactured in the US and UK is backdoored by our lords and masters, so that's all right then.

If backdoors and vulnerabilities are unacceptable then there is only one logical conclusion

Initially I was going to ask, "How could they tell the Levono backdoors that perhaps the Chinese installed from the Microsoft backdoors that perhaps the NSA installed?"

But now that I think about it, they could tell -- but only if they had enumerated (counted and labeled) all the existing backdoors and vulnerabilities in Windows.

Which the NSA could only do if it knew about all the backdoors and vulnerabilities that were already there in Windows. I'm not saying they added them, but they could have counted the ones that got in.

And that might explain why governments don't use Linux or OS/x to avoid Windows vulnerabilities -- they know all the Windows vulnerabilities.

I don't know. I had always figured banks and governments avoided OS/x and Linux on desktops for the same reason, Windows had faced far more probing by hackers and was thus much more tested. Could the NSA have found and counted all the many vulnerabilities in each version of Windows when it came out?

Maybe this is just a nationalist phobia of foreign companies on the part of the NSA, not related to backdoors and vulnerabilities.

Or maybe the NSA knows what we should all know -- you cannot trust a government with control over the production of your hardware, software or services -- certainly not a foreign government (like a US government for those of us not in the US) and maybe not even your own government.

"He who looks behind the door hath hid there once himself" -- Old Belgium proverb

Former CIA and NSA head says Huawei spies for China

Re: "Unfair competition"

The US has traditionally used government spending on military programs to subsidize R&D for commercial firms.

And with its willingness to spend any amount on the military -- a military budget equal to the next 12 highest spending nations combined -- the US is in a class of its own in subsidizing commercial R&D.

The greater advantage Chinese companies have is extremely low wages. But that is a benefit shared by a few dozen other very under developed countries, one that will evaporate as China becomes a proper nation with a proper middle class.

Huawei occassionally as serious a security threat as US telecom companies

"Does Huawei represent an unambiguous national security threat to the US and Australia?" General Hayden replied "Yes, I believe it does."

Paraphrasing, Hayden is joking that, "Huawei is occassionally as serious a security threat as US telecom companies".

And I say *joking* because he doesn't say the spying is the "total capture" variety that the NSA goes for with the aid of US telecom companies.

Clearly if Huawei is an unambigious national security threat to foreign countries like the USA, then US telecom companies are an unambiguous threat to the national security of Australia, the UK, Canada and the rest of the world.

Remember that the few limitations US law has on spying apply only to US persons -- they do not apply to Australian, British, Canadian or others.

The US, its laws and its people consider inalienable human rights apply only to people in the USA and to US citizens elsewhere. The rest of us don't count as human to them.

CIOs bombarded with hybrid cloud surveys

Why no question of data security and the cloud?

Why no question of data security and the cloud?

If you use the cloud, the NSA, GCHQ and how knows who else, maybe even the Chinese, are going to see your data. And will they pass it on to your foreign competitors?

From Russia with no love: Prez Putin dubs Ed Snowden 'unwanted gift'

Extradition treaties do not apply to political refugees seeking asylum

The extradition treaties are lame excuses from world leaders who are too chicken to stand up to Obama and the NSA.

And you can see this is about fear of the Imperial Power because even countries that do not have an extradition treaty with the USA won't offer Snowden asylum.

Extradition treaties do not apply to political refugees seeking asylum. Pretty much every single genuine political refugee has criminal charges against him/her. Those that don't are usually economic refugees.

Just what is Big Blue now shipping exclusively to the Chinese?

Any word on how many back doors to the NSA is in this equipment?

Is there any word on how many back doors to the NSA is in this equipment?

Dear Linus, STOP SHOUTING and play nice - says Linux kernel dev

Re: Don't knock passion

What an odd bunch of programmers you've managed to assemble.

Most of them are dedicated and love the puzzle that is the work.

I'm not there. Maybe it is where you're located. Maybe it is the industry you support.

But it wouldn't hurt to read over some books on supervisory management just in case. You might find easier ways to motivate and retain staff.

Outside of Hollywood movies, anyone who shouts and swears either looses their job or all the good members of their staff.

"If you slam into a car, and the guy gets out and calls you an idiot, it's because you're an idiot."

Or you t-boned the other guy due to him being a poor driver.

Or you're brakes failed, or you were drunk, you're coming back from the vet after putting your dog down, or a hundred other things, including being a poor driver.

But someone who is truly an idiot will not actually have a drivers license.

"you committed shite when you should know better."

But usually in the workplace the person didn't know better. In the workplace rules and interfaces are constantly changing. The person who was supposed to show you may have done a lousy job. In addition, many of those reasons people sometimes get into car accidents also apply at work, the person's been diagnosed with cancer, sick kid at home, etc.

"If a company representative tries to post crap to my repository when they OBVIOUSLY know better - yes, they will, eventually, get shouted at"

Except that it might have been a different guy, or some automated system, or it was their first day on the job.

You might go down to a pub and have a beer with them, but you'll still be emotionally immature until you eventually realize that other people have entire lives they're going though that you know nothing about.

First principles of supervisory management: "Focus on the issue not the person"

One of the first principles of criticism in supervisory management is to focus on the issue not the person.

'You did this wrong, let Bob show you how to do it right' instead of the childish 'You're an idiot.'

<< There is no nice way to tell someone they suck. >>

That is the crux of the matter -- the incorrect concept of what a human being is and what it would take for a human being to actually suck.

You can be a terrible programmer and/or a terrible tester -- those things just mean you are a terrible programmer and/or a terrible tester.

Programming and testing are just things people do -- not what they are.

A person is a lot more than just what they do at work or for a hobby.

So there is NEVER EVER A LEGITIMATE REASON TO TELL SOMEONE THEY SUCK.

Worst case, if you've tried coaching them, if they still don't get it, you can tell them, "You just are not working out at this job. But I'm sure you will find success in some other career.

Linus Torvalds does not suck big time. But he is simply not working out as a project leader and "front man" for Linux.

Look at Windows -- thousands of people have been lead by Linus Torvalds to create an OS to replace the pathetic product Windows -- and he can't take market share from Windows. That is a hallmark of marketing and front-man FAILURE (true, one shared by Apple). Linus is doing a really piss-poor shitty job at his own job.

But that does not make Linus a failure, a looser or an idiot.

It does not mean Linus Torvalds sucks big time.

I'm sure Linus would have great success in some other career, perhaps coding or backroom QC guy.

Business life is not like a Hollywood movie

Vgrig, Torvals certainly can fire volunteers.

And he can refuse specific employees companies try to donate him as staff.

Business life is not like a Hollywood movie. We don't carry on like the 13 year-old teenagers who are the intended audience for most Hollywood products.

In the grown-up world you don't yell and insult your employees because if you do, nobody learns and the better ones quit.

Linus Torvalds is Microsoft's best friend.

Linux will never be accepted as a grown-up adult corporate operating system all the time Linus Torvalds is running off at the mouth using language and insults that would make a company loose a human rights lawsuit.

Linux may well be ready for the corporate world. We may see Linux finally being accepted as a corporate operating system mere months after Torvalds eventually one day dies.

It will be sad that Torvalds won't get to see that, but then he has brought this on himself.

Up yours, Google! Iran to launch OWN state email service

That's right, Iran does not have anything like Guantanamo Bay.

Why should the NSA be the only one with access to Iranian email accounts?

All countries should be setting up their own email services, that way email privacy falls under the jurisdiction of the country the email account holder is in.

I'm in Canada, an ordinary private citizen -- but the USA treats me as if I'm a government official in Russia or China, with no expectation of privacy, no human rights, and no warrant required to look at my message contents and other data.

Americans are supposed to be our brothers, but they treat us like an enemy.

Snowden: US and Israel did create Stuxnet attack code

Der Spiegle has produced a proper English version of the email interview

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/interview-with-whistleblower-edward-snowden-on-global-spying-a-910006.html

Snowden's Australian 'revelations' are old news

Did you read the article Richard?

Did you read the article Richard? Or maybe it was changed after you did.

The article reveals new facts, it does not just talk about old physical sites and the existence of ESCHELON.

Sure, some people might have dreamed that these specific programs were "known" 10 years ago, but many of them are less than 2 years old.

The old stuff, that may well have mostly been targeted spying, and maybe spying on 5% of general internet messaging.

1. It sucks in all data, no matter what it is, and which rights are violated by it. ...

2. Right now, the system is capable of saving three days' worth of traffic, but that will be optimised. Three days may perhaps not sound like a lot, but it's not just about connection metadata.

3. 'Full take' means that the system saves everything. If you send a data packet and if makes its way through the UK, we will get it. If you download anything, and the server is in the UK, then we get it."

4. Another US NSA whistle-blower William Binney also recently disclosed that Australia was involved in the trial of an earlier US-designed Internet traffic interception and analysis program codenamed "ThinThread".

Samsung Galaxy S3 explodes, turns young woman into 'burnt pig'

I wonder if a flammable solvent got on the phone

I wonder if perhaps a flammable solvent got on or in the phone.

Any word on what kind of paints and solvents she had been working with that day?

The episode should be examined and that should be one part of it.

Radar gremlins GROUND FLIGHTS across southern Blighty

or a bug in the NSA interface routine

or a bug in the NSA interface routine

Quantum: You know how EVERYONE's moved to the cloud? Yep... us too.

Is the NSA subsidizing our move to "the cloud"

Is the NSA subsidizing our move to "the cloud"?

Is the reason for the fad of returning to "time shared systems" simply to make industrial espionage against foreign (e.g. EU) firms easier?

Patriot hacker 'The Jester' attacks nations offering Snowden help

Someone said he has a website, how hard can it be to track him down?

Probably a lot of hacking is allowed to go on because it provides background noise that the security services can hid in.

He has a website.

He accessed a particular IP address and he passed on a particular character string of data. Now that we know they record 30 days of traffic, we know they could, if they wished, track him down if he is anywhere in the EU, USA, Canada, Australia or NZ.

Being a patriot is a very despicable thing when the patriotism is directed against freedom.

AC, says, "e has attacked a country and stolen their secrets."

By your logic you should imprison the entirety of the NSA and CIA because they did exactly what you say is a crime in your country -- attacked a country and stole its secrets.

Oh, it is only a crime if it is a "foreign country" -- Assange is Australian and to him, and me, the USA is a foreign country.

As regards Americans, true patriots think instead of automatically obey.

Thinking first, instead of blindly obeying, is what makes patriots from actually free countries superior to patriots from despotic regimes like NAZI Germany, East Germany, the Stalinist Soviet Union and Mao's Communist China.

Being a patriot is a very despicable thing when the patriotism is directed against freedom.

The true traitors are those who side with the bureaucracy in its attack the US middle class.

Snowden violated the laws of the bureaucracy and obeyed the Constitution of his country.

The US Constitution has trumped laws in every judicial decision where the two disagree -- which is how it is supposed to be.

And how many people who have fled "competitor nations" has the USA taken in? The USA does it, so don't the people of the USA think it fair?

The true traitors against the USA are those who side with the bureaucracy in its war on the US middle class.

We have traced the call and it is coming from the next office.

We have traced the call and it is coming from the next office.

There is no reason to believe this is not the same sort of state sponsored hacking that China does.

Sure it is sloppy and obvious, where the NSA can do stuff neatly, but in this case they'd want it to be obvious in order to send a message.

US: We spied on you Europeans but we can still be chums. Right?

"Free trade" is a silly label for it

"Free trade" is a silly label for it.

They're stealing EU business, technological and academic secrets.

They're spending billions to do this so they're almost definitely handing them over to your US-based competitors.

How is that free trade?

Anti-PRISM Trojan explodes over Jay-Z fans

If you don't want unauthorized software on your phone you're a traitor

Isn't that how it is now?

Your device is the government's device, because they own you.

You're being disloyal to your owner not wanting their stuff with their backdoors on your phone.

EU crackdown will see tougher sentences for stupid cyber-badhats

Impose Maximum or Minimum Sentences?

Typically "getting tough" means imposing a minimum sentence -- anyone convicted must serve at least the minimum sentence.

Imposing a maximum sentence means that the convicted criminal could receive any sentence less than that maximum, including no jail time at all, no parole at all, even an absolute discharge.

Of mice, the NSA, GCHQ and data protection

Spying on innocent members of the public is like beating your wife

Spying on innocent members of the public is like beating your wife:

Just because you have the capability to do it does not mean you should do it.

Cryptocat WIDE OPEN, new version a must

Overall I agree.

The only thing I disagree about is hiding in plain site.

- Yes this is what most of us are better off doing. This is what I do.

- No this won't work for people with commercial, industrial or scientific secrets who have been targeted for industrial espionage by the various governments that control the internet their chats pass through.

Americans attempt to throw off oppressive, unresponsive rulers on 4th of July

Re: Bootnote

The US War of Independence occurred after the UK had kicked France out of North America, when the Thirteen Colonies no longer needed British protection against the French.

A few years later the French and Americans would join forces in the War of 1812, which was fought on both sides of the Atlantic to prevent the British moving troops from one front to re-enforce the other front.

Sadly, most US citizens shirk their responsibility

I could start a similar movement here in Canada to influence Canadian politicians. But Canada has a pretty good record of respecting the human rights of foreigners. I'm sure if we're doing spying, it is mostly focused on Canadians, since no other country's internet backbone runs through here.

The problem is the US government.

But not being a US citizen I don't get a vote in their elections and so I'm unlikely to carry any sway with the US government. What am I going to do? Threaten to switch my vote? Make a campaign contribution to his opponent? Those aren't options.

The USA being a democracy, it is up the responsibility of US citizens to ensure that their government respects the human rights of foreigners.

Sadly, most US citizens just don't get that.

Thomas Jefferson did:

"“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. ...”

Thomas Jefferson said "all men", not "all US persons".

And all those international laws on human rights the USA voluntarily chose to sign, none of define humans as "US persons".

NY Times did/buried a story July 3/4: Recording everyone's snail mail

Holiday, when many people are going to be away on vacation or at least doing something other than reading a newspaper or writing letters to their congressmen.

https://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/04/us/monitoring-of-snail-mail.html?_r=1&

“In the past, mail covers were used when you had a reason to suspect someone of a crime,” said Mark D. Rasch, who started a computer crimes unit in the fraud section of the criminal division of the Justice Department and worked on several fraud cases using mail covers. “Now it seems to be, ‘Let’s record everyone’s mail so in the future we might go back and see who you were communicating with.’ Essentially you’ve added mail covers on millions of Americans.”

Bruce Schneier, a computer security expert and an author, said whether it was a postal worker taking down information or a computer taking images, the program was still an invasion of privacy.

“Basically they are doing the same thing as the other programs, collecting the information on the outside of your mail, the metadata, if you will, of names, addresses, return addresses and postmark locations, which gives the government a pretty good map of your contacts, even if they aren’t reading the contents,” he said.

---

I was impressed with the cases given as examples of where this massive invasion of privacy had shortened investigation times. But there is nothing to say that these cases would not have been solved without this tool, only that the tool allowed the cases to be solved faster.

I don't see any banner.

I checked Mozilla and Reddit from here in Canada.

Maybe we get a different version of the front page, but I don't see any banner.

Mozilla has a discrete headline half way down its news section, a section that begins well down its home page.

I don't see anything on Reddit.

Mastercard and Visa block payments to Swedish VPN firms

Re: This is not unreasonable

Huh? If credit card companies don't know who their card holders then that is not going to be changed by preventing those card holders using a few vendors.

This is about VPN making it difficult to conduct mass surveillance on ordinary people, companies and institutions.