Intelligence post-Snowden: a debate
Moderator's Note
After a year of Snowden inspired revelations (or a calculated info operation) it is time to merge related threads into this one and re-name it. It was We are all honorary Muslims now" with PRISM? and now becomes 'Intelligence post-Snowden: a debate' (ends).
I dont know if Snowden got his own thread yet, but my first thoughts were:
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In a way this whole scandal is good news. A bugging operation that was supposedly paying this genius 200000 dollars a year does not speak well of the brilliance of our digital overlords… it hints that the whole thing is more a money-making scam for contractors than a terrible danger to humanity (i have no doubt that the people training him included bloodthirsty idiots, but look where that got them). Meanwhile the great hero of democracy, freedom and V for Vendetta escaped, of all places, to the People’s Republic of China (special administrative region Hong Kong); doesnt speak well of our heroic digital rebels either. Its all good in the proverbial long run. Satyameva Jayate as our Hindu brothers would say…Panopticon is coming, but as a Muslim who has fully expected everything i say or do on the internet to be “known” to the NSA since 2001, I think 12 years is long enough to determine that its not the end of the world…
“We are all honorary Muslims now”. And it ain't necessarily fatal.
Link:http://www.brownpundits.com/2013/06/...#comment-67610
"We are all honorary Muslims now" with PRISM?
Created as a new thread, after Omar posted the first post elsewhere. The title is adapted from his post.
Needless to say SWJ Blog Daily Update has several links to articles:http://smallwarsjournal.com/node/14161
We always thought they were listening to us back then too....
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When I was a kid, India was the bad country because it was pro-Soviet and we used to joke that people were listening to our conversations back then!
- From my comment to the following SWJ article:
http://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art...m-in-naglandia
People used to joke about this but it may have been a little serious, too. Back then, because of the crappy phones in India you'd here weird noises in the background and call at odd hours and hear clicking noises.... :)
PS: I'm a little more concerned than Omar but that's more about the thinking of the class that put this in place.
Putting focus on Paul Revere - and Joseph Warren
You don't have to have Irish ancestry to do this - though it may help - Kieran Healy, Using Metadata to Find Paul Revere (9 Jun 2013):
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London, 1772.
I have been asked by my superiors to give a brief demonstration of the surprising effectiveness of even the simplest techniques of the new-fangled Social Networke Analysis in the pursuit of those who would seek to undermine the liberty enjoyed by His Majesty’s subjects. This is in connection with the discussion of the role of “metadata” in certain recent events and the assurances of various respectable parties that the government was merely “sifting through this so-called metadata” and that the “information acquired does not include the content of any communications”. I will show how we can use this “metadata” to find key persons involved in terrorist groups operating within the Colonies at the present time. I shall also endeavour to show how these methods work in what might be called a relational manner.
...
What a nice picture! The analytical engine has arranged everyone neatly, picking out clusters of individuals and also showing both peripheral individuals and—more intriguingly—people who seem to bridge various groups in ways that might perhaps be relevant to national security. Look at that person right in the middle there. Zoom in if you wish. He seems to bridge several groups in an unusual (though perhaps not unique) way. His name is Paul Revere.
...
So, there you have it. From a table of membership in different groups we have gotten a picture of a kind of social network between individuals, a sense of the degree of connection between organizations, and some strong hints of who the key players are in this world. And all this—all of it!—from the merest sliver of metadata about a single modality of relationship between people. I do not wish to overstep the remit of my memorandum but I must ask you to imagine what might be possible if we were but able to collect information on very many more people, and also synthesize information from different kinds of ties between people! For the simple methods I have described are quite generalizable in these ways, and their capability only becomes more apparent as the size and scope of the information they are given increases. We would not need to know what was being whispered between individuals, only that they were connected in various ways. The analytical engine would do the rest! I daresay the shape of the real structure of social relations would emerge from our calculations gradually, first in outline only, but eventually with ever-increasing clarity and, at last, in beautiful detail—like a great, silent ship coming out of the gray New England fog.
Thus, a "1772" crystal ball, three years before "Different Experiences and Ideologies" collided at the Bridge. ;)
Presenting the evidence in truly scientific form requires a "Han" - Shin-Kap Han, The Other Ride of Paul Revere (2009):
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Notwithstanding the celebrated tale of his “Midnight Ride,” Paul Revere’s role in the complex of events leading up to the American Revolution remains rather obscure. The few who have delved into this gap in the historical narrative suggest that Revere’s real importance is not to be found in that one spectacular exploit (Countryman 1985; Fischer 1994; Forbes 1942; Triber 1998). What then was his importance, if any? In other words, if Revere was more than a messenger who just happened upon the assignment to ride to Lexington on that fateful night of April 18-19, 1775, and if he indeed had “an uncanny genius for being at the center of events” (Fischer 1994: xv), what exactly was the role he played? Joseph Warren, known mostly as the man who sent Revere on that ride, presents a similar quandary (Cary 1961; Truax 1968). What was his role? Also, what was his relationship with Revere in the context of the incipient movement?
Using the membership rosters of key Whig groups and supplementary secondary data, I address these questions by examining the underlying relational structure that created opportunities for Revere and Warren in the mobilization process. The analysis shows that Paul Revere’s genius was in his being a bridge par excellence. The role Joseph Warren played was of the same kind, welding the movement as a whole. Both men were bridges that spanned the various social chasms and connected disparate organizational elements, helping to forge an emerging movement that gave rise to the American Revolution. The effectiveness of the brokerage they provided in linking the microlevel interactions to the macrolevel mobilization was due mainly to the fact that the network they were embedded in was highly multiplex, and the positions they occupied in it were singularly instrumental. Moreover, they complemented each other as structural doubles. This is the other ride of Paul Revere and Joseph Warren—far less known, yet, I argue, much more crucial.
Just saying: back to the future.
Regrads
Mike
Slap's One Minute Street Cop Analysis
The whole Snowden things stinks worse than dead Pig in the Sunshine! This whole mess is following the plot of a true espionage story called the "The Falcon and The Snowman" Link below for some backround info.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Falcon_and_the_Snowman
Hong Kong speaks to America
http://www.info.gov.hk/gia/general/2...1306230476.htm
Traditional Chinese Simplified Chinese Email this article news.gov.hk
HKSAR Government issues statement on Edward Snowden
************************************************** *
The HKSAR Government today (June 23) issued the following statement on Mr Edward Snowden:
Mr Edward Snowden left Hong Kong today (June 23) on his own accord for a third country through a lawful and normal channel.
The US Government earlier on made a request to the HKSAR Government for the issue of a provisional warrant of arrest against Mr Snowden. Since the documents provided by the US Government did not fully comply with the legal requirements under Hong Kong law, the HKSAR Government has requested the US Government to provide additional information so that the Department of Justice could consider whether the US Government's request can meet the relevant legal conditions. As the HKSAR Government has yet to have sufficient information to process the request for provisional warrant of arrest, there is no legal basis to restrict Mr Snowden from leaving Hong Kong.
The HKSAR Government has already informed the US Government of Mr Snowden's departure.
Meanwhile, the HKSAR Government has formally written to the US Government requesting clarification on earlier reports about the hacking of computer systems in Hong Kong by US government agencies. The HKSAR Government will continue to follow up on the matter so as to protect the legal rights of the people of Hong Kong.
Ends/Sunday, June 23, 2013
Issued at HKT 16:05
NNNN
ie and eg 'FU George W Obama'
Are we "honorary Jihadists" ?
David,
I also ran into the Bershidsky article (from another website; it's popular on the Internet today); and downloaded the Dutch intel report, Jihadism on the web, a breeding ground for jihad in the modern age (2012) (AIVD; the General Intelligence and Security Service of the Netherlands).
The latter has quite a bit of meat for one (like JMM) who is not well acquainted with the "dark side" of the Interwebs. For example:
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What characterises jihadi cyberspace and how does it work?
The interactive possibilities of the Internet allow jihadists worldwide to find each other quickly. They meet in ‘public’ virtual places, for example on social media, on Internet forums and in chat rooms,
but also in semi-public or private virtual places.
This is where jihadist activities and processes unfold that constitute the greatest threat. These more private virtual places make up an important part of the Invisible Web (by scientists also referred to as the Deep Web, Da knet or Unde net). Unlike the visible part of the Internet, also called Subface Web or Indexable Web, this invisible Web refers to a part of the World Wide Web that has not (yet) been indexed and that cannot be found by readily accessible search engines such as Google. Scientists estimate that the invisible Web is 550 times larger than the visible Web.[1]
In other words, the invisible Web makes up over 99.8% of the entire Web and less than 0.2% of the Web is visible.
1. See
How much information? 2003, a study conducted by the University of California. As far as the AIVD can tell this is the latest scientific assessment.
See also, The dark side of the internet - In the 'deep web', Freenet software allows users complete anonymity as they share viruses, criminal contacts and child pornography (Andy Beckett, The Guardian, 25 Nov 2009).
Snowden's NSA "revelations" concern the visible Web. One hopes that the NSA is expending a much greater effort on the invisible Web and its more dangerous denizens.
Back to the 2012 Dutch report:
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1.3 Limited use of surface Web
Of course, jihadists are also active on the surface Web, where they use social media and various applications, such as email, Internet telephony and chat programmes, to name a few. They use these means of communication to actively spread jihadist ideas, recruit new jihadists and proactively distribute and promote propaganda material. Jihadists that are active on the surface Web are afraid of being detected, which is why there is no (or very limited) dynamic interaction, as opposed to what is observed on core forums.
Jihadists are also rather reluctant when it comes to using social media. The open, personal communication that characterises social media clashes with the clandestine and violent nature of online jihadist activities. The AIVD has found that radicalising persons erase their social media accounts sooner or later. They consider the (mostly American) social media to be kuffa (infidel) sites, and therefore unacceptable and unsafe.
One forum member issued a warning in a discussion about the use of ‘JewTube’, thereby referring to the Jewish background of one of YouTube’s founders. This discussion was shared by the SITE Intelligence Group, a commercial American think tank that analyses radical statements on the Internet. This forum member stated:
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“Your talk on YouTube can be monitored by the Kuffar. Many a brother were arrested based on intelligence from YouTube, they will not hesitate to handover your IP details to Kuffar. Therefore, it is NOT the place you should be social networking.”[3]
Another factor is that moderators actively monitor and remove inappropriate statements posted on social media. As a result of these restrictions, social media are mostly used for the (temporary) republication of jihadist propaganda.
3. Quote from a forum member in a publication of the
SITE Intelligence Group: Jihadists strategize to evade YouTube censorship, 28 April 2011.
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Members of the password-protected English-language Ansar al-Mujahideen forum shared strategies for evading Youtube censorship of materials promoting jihad in a thread begun on April 19, 2011, after a user complained that his account on the popular video sharing website was removed.
The Dutch report has much more detailed information; but the above is enough to suggest an answer to David's question:
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If this is true what is the system for?
I believe the answer lies in US political analysis; and is simple (and simplistic) enough. The American public has expressed its zero tolerence for attacks in the US; and to politicians (including military and intel politicians), that means that all available means have to be used to prevent all terrorist attacks. The politicians know full well that a harsh reaction against them could result if a future attack were laid out in an undetected series of emails (part of the visible Web). On the other hand, if the same attack were laid out in an undetected segment of the invisible Web, the public reaction could be much less harsh.
Of course, the information gathered from non-terrorists might well be useful for present and future prosecutions of non-terrorist crimes disclosed in the content (I construe the Patriot Act to allow that, though of questionable constitutionality). However, that information could also be used for investigation of "suspicious" persons, or of "enemies of the state". It very much depends on whom you elect, and on whom he or she appoints.
Regards
Mike
President Obama's Perception
My opinion of how current American politicians perceive the wishes of the American people - that is, 100% security as the elected end - has been very much shaped by the President's "100% Security" comment.
C-Span: 100% security and 100% privacy (C-Span video and transcript; 8 Jun 2013) - Clipped from: President Obama on Affordable Care Act (7 Jun 2013):
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00:01:00 SOME OTHER FOLKS MAY HAVE A DIFFERENT ASSESSMENT OF THAT, BUT I THINK IT'S IMPORTANT TO RECOGNIZE THAT YOU CAN'T HAVE 100% SECURITY AND ALSO THEN HAVE 100% PRIVACY, AND ZERO INCONVENIENCE.
00:01:23 WE'RE GOING TO HAVE TO MAKE SOME CHOICES AS A SOCIETY.
Regards
Mike
You know, for us, this would have been a dream come true
A very good article explaining why German memories of the Stasi influence their stance today:http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/06/2...l#.UcyNj3NwbqD
The title above is from a Stasi officer and so is this quotation, although I am not readily inclined to accept his apparent wisdom:
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It is the height of naivete to think that once collected this information won’t be used,” he said. “This is the nature of secret government organizations. The only way to protect the people’s privacy is not to allow the government to collect their information in the first place.
The article concludes with a far better quote, by the keeper of the Stasi Museum:
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The lesson, is that when a wide net is cast, almost all of what is caught is worthless. This was the case with the Stasi. This will certainly be the case with the NSA.
Alert! Geeks are about....
One of the more reflective articles on what happened within NSA and looking to the future by Joshua Foust . The title being 'The Geek Awakening' and sub-titled 'Edward Snowden is the vanguard of a broader challenge':https://medium.com/state-of-play/379fa6f59327
Forget GCHQ, the real surveillance state is yet to come
A commentary a month ago by Professor Richard Aldrich, who has written a tome on GCHQ (The UK's equivalent of NSA and close ally), has appeared a few times as the revelations have appeared:http://theconversation.com/forget-gc...-to-come-15073
Almost his last words:
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.....the transparent society will be with us sooner than we think.
Your data belongs to.......(insert choice)
Id'd via Twitter an American perspective on using metadata, with links to some of the tools commercially available and as a bonus the CIA's Chief Technical Officer explaining in a podcast what he wants (in March 2013):
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It’s amazing what a little — or a lot — of metadata can tell you about a person. I visualized a bunch of my own to show a sample of what’s available to agencies like the NSA and what even a wannabe data analyst can do with it.
Link:http://gigaom.com/2013/07/08/your-me...-look-at-mine/
Unanticipated Side Effects....
Anecdotally, I'm hearing from some friendly 'sales pukes' that the entire NSA 'spying' aspect is starting to become an issue in overseas technology sales efforts - and it's not positive. US technology companies trying to make tech sales for hardware and/or software, or web enabled services that could contain 'backdoors' or direct NSA access are having harder sales efforts, due to the 'Uncle' oversight effect (real or imagined). Serious money is involved.
This issue is not going away anytime soon. Search apps like DuckDuckGo are going to become more prevalent.
But the real issue is going to come to the forefront when US based multinational networking vendors start losing out to foreign multinationals like Huawei, because if everything else is equal (both Countries are spying on you), why not take the vendor that's 25-30% cheaper.
Hey, supposedly we'll be more secure - just poorer.
Lavabit & Silent Mail Statements
Inside the Decision to Shut Down Silent Mail (13 Aug 2013):
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Silent Phone and Silent Text promise end to end encryption with each service; encrypted data is not stored by the company and metadata from conversations is not stored. The same promises could not be made with Silent Mail, and the blame lies with standard email protocols such as SMTP, POP3 and IMAP that leak too much information and metadata, Callas said. The Lavabit announcement yesterday made it clear that Silent Circle had to act promptly with its product, scrapping a number of other options to phase the service out slowly, not take orders after a particular date, or even give customers 72 hours notice of the decision.
“Then, that is the flag for the warrants to come,” Callas said. “We said we had to do something and do it now, and tell people why we did. I had to think about it in terms of if I were [the government], what would I be doing? I would be typing up the subpoenas to be delivered at 7 a.m.”
Lavabit’s Levison, meanwhile, intimated that the 10-year-old company is in the midst of some unnamed request for user data, details of which it could not legally share. Some have speculated the company is in a battle over a request for Snowden’s passwords or other sensitive data. Rather than comply, Levison said he is suspending operations and preparing an appeal that if favorable, would enable him to revive Lavabit.
“I wish that I could legally share with you the events that led to my decision. I cannot. I feel you deserve to know what’s going on–the first amendment is supposed to guarantee me the freedom to speak out in situations like this,” Levison wrote in a note on the Lavabit site. “Unfortunately, Congress has passed laws that say otherwise. As things currently stand, I cannot share my experiences over the last six weeks, even though I have twice made the appropriate requests.”
Much more in story, with some interesting comments; e.g.:
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It is interesting to note how many people are jumping, hopping, infuriatingly mad about this and yet how many have Facebook pages that literally leak personal data about them every day? The problem is that personal privacy is an extremely valuable commodity and yet, the majority of people have sold there’s out for the ability to post a photo of what they ate that night and just who exactly the winner of America’s got talent should be?
Even now as my browser connects to this website it is leaking vast amounts of information about me. my IP address, cookie data, trackers for advertisers. The systems are inherently insecure they weren’t built with security in mind and until people wake up to the value that their personal privacy has we will walk eye’s wide open into the panopticon of the future were what you do and think is as transparent as a single pane of glass.
Regards
Mike