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The NSA Reveals That It Does 20 Million Database Queries Per Month
from the that's-a-lot dept
As we noted earlier today, the NSA's two key "defenses" of the thousands of abuses and violations of the law that recently came out thanks to a leaked document are that there wasn't "intent" to abuse the system (we had no idea that made illegal things legal...) and, second, that it was such a small percentage of the activity that it's really no big deal. Glenn Greenwald quickly noted that the NSA is actually saying "we collect billion of emails and calls every day, so what's a few thousand privacy violations?" hoping that everyone focuses on the second half of the sentence. But the key point is actually the first half of that sentence. In fact, as we noted in that last post, the NSA's top compliance guy actually revealed a startling fact in his attempt to push the meaningless "ratio" of violations to queries:
Remember, too, that the NSA has insisted that it doesn't datamine its data collection, which is clearly hogwash. That many queries means they're trolling through that database all the time. Remember how the NSA was trying to play down how often it did queries by saying that only 300 phone numbers had been used to "initiate" a query? Yeah, well, once again, it would appear that the NSA was not being fully forthcoming about these sorts of things. Shocking, I know, but I'd imagine they'd claim it was the "least untruthful" answer they could come up with after having a good week or so to answer the question.
The official, John DeLong, the N.S.A. director of compliance, said that the number of mistakes by the agency was extremely low compared with its overall activities. The report showed about 100 errors by analysts in making queries of databases of already-collected communications data; by comparison, he said, the agency performs about 20 million such queries each month.Again, the ratio is a meaningless number. You're not declared innocent of murder because you didn't happen to murder someone every other day of your life. But, perhaps more important in this is the revelation of the 20 million queries every single month. Or, approximately 600,000 queries every day. How about 25,000 queries every hour? Or 417 queries every minute? Seven queries every single second. Holy crap, that's a lot of queries.
Remember, too, that the NSA has insisted that it doesn't datamine its data collection, which is clearly hogwash. That many queries means they're trolling through that database all the time. Remember how the NSA was trying to play down how often it did queries by saying that only 300 phone numbers had been used to "initiate" a query? Yeah, well, once again, it would appear that the NSA was not being fully forthcoming about these sorts of things. Shocking, I know, but I'd imagine they'd claim it was the "least untruthful" answer they could come up with after having a good week or so to answer the question.
Reader Comments
The First Word
don't crossreference our statements!
thats our job, we do millions every month and are damn good at it.Subscribe: RSS
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And some of the basic infra-structure of the web is in American soil. Sure this mass surveillance on Americans is worrisome for the Americans themselves but shouldn't the rest of the world be worried too?
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--WHERE IsTerrorist = 1
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How many of those use "direct access" to Google's servers?
And which spying corporation is the worst? Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Yahoo, Apple...
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Well, if those 300 people each called 41 people, and those all called 41 people, and those all called 41 people, we're already over 20 million.
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Re: How many of those use "direct access" to Google's servers?
Two sides of the same coin. The NSA uses the private corporations to harvest data on the population.
Corporate spying alone is way down the list because people have the choice as to whether or not they want to use that company's services.
I don't know why I bothered because you will inevitably ignore what I said and continue with your anti corporation rants.
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Holy Crap that's quite a bit of data mining
For example: If we had a first and last name but no social security number. We were forbidden from doing a search unless we also had their zip code of residence. The searches were to be exact and targeted as possible; which if you care about privacy is how things should be.
This broad untargeted data-mining by the NSA is astounding. Makes me sick.
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Some data analytics systems will run thousands of queries to satisfy a single request.
They certainly should not be using the total volume of queries to try to minimize the number of abuses, but at this point, they are simply throwing out numbers that are meaningless without context.
We should all be focused on the simple number of times they have abused their power or broken the law. Trust me, the number of times we were not speeding does not matter one bit when it comes to defending the time the radar gun got us.
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WHERE last_name like 'Snowde%'
FTFY
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don't crossreference our statements!
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Re: Holy Crap that's quite a bit of data mining
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Re: How many of those use "direct access" to Google's servers?
Corporations --------> $$$$$$$$ ---------> Government Officials
Government Officials --------> Beneficial Laws ---------> Corporations
Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Yahoo, Apple etc... are pretty much victims and are just complying with these new "Laws".
It's the Corporations that are developing/supplying Tech and services for the NSA that are the ones making the laws via bribery.
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--WHERE IsTerrorist = 1
Commenting out the where clause explains why they think every American is a terrorist.
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If the Bacon numbers are a good indicator.
And yours too.
I suspect everyone is few enough degrees from a terrorist suspect to be worthy of inclusion in search queries.
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Corporate money out of politics
OBLIGATION of business to make profit disregarding any societal cost.
Without regulation and laws then growing people to be slaves would be legitimate pro-corporation ideology.
It's the laws and regulations that need to be the focus.
By law, google are not allowed to grow slaves.
By law, google are required to hand over all access to NSA.
Who is funding the American Laws ?
Corporations.
So being anti-corporation is actually legitimate.
Being anti corporate funding of politics is smarter.
Until the money is out of politics, there will be a valid reason for people to be anti-corporatist.
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Re: If the Bacon numbers are a good indicator.
Well, I suppose all of that anti-establishment dancing could raise some red flags these days.
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Re: Re: If the Bacon numbers are a good indicator.
There was a law against dancing, and he violated it and lead others to violate it as well!
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Between 34 and 35 per second if the querying is only during business hours, where 20 business days defines a "month".
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Re: How many of those use "direct access" to Google's servers?
Fucking idiot. The fact that you even have to ask that shows your bias and insane focus on Google to the exclusion of all else.
The NSA is FAR worse than any corporate collaborator, because the NSA has the full weight of the government and law behind it.
A corporation can't arrest you or put a gun to your head or order you murdered via drone strike.
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One query for 3 out of 4 Americans every year
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Techdirt terrorists often discuss about tech stuff. According to these terrorists technology can make carrying their daily terrorism (reading) tasks easier. Filter gone haywire!
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Re: Re: How many of those use "direct access" to Google's servers?
Government Officials --------> Beneficial Laws ---------> Corporations------> Hire Government Officials upon leaving office or positions for $$$$$$$$$$$$$$
Fixed
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WHERE Exists = 1
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That's not a question, it's a statement. If anyone does have any questions, I refer you to the Constitution, Amendment 4.
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Why break the local laws? Should just share.
Everything I needed to know I learned in kindergarten.
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In the words of Bonnie Raitt...
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Do you really think there is no skunkworks version of that app that doesn't log queries? Because I think that's naive.
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Er.. I need to stop posting stupid shit like this before the NSA decides to recruit me as an numbers analyst.
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So Much Open Resistance
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I don't know, the NSA seems to have a compulsive need to keep track of everything. I'm not sure they would be willing to just not log something.
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Re: Re: Holy Crap that's quite a bit of data mining
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The NSA compulsion to keep track
I hope you're right. Thorough records will be convenient when rounding up those responsible for the program.
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Of course they're obviously not lying
Of course they're obviously not lying, and it's like 10 times that amount...or more...they never lie.
fool me three times...derrr
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