NSA/GCHQ Use Lolcats To Discuss What They Learn By Spying On All Of Our YouTube Views And Facebook Likes
from the squeaky-dolphins-and-lolcats dept
Just hours after the NY Times/the Guardian and Pro Publica released their stories about Snowden documents revealing the NSA and GCHQ spying on mobile apps, NBC News, working with Glenn Greenwald, revealed a different bunch of Snowden documents concerning how the NSA and GCHQ are collecting unencrypted data concerning YouTube views, Facebook likes and Twitter messages via the taps they have on various internet backbone cables. These are not from the companies themselves, but rather because the data travels unencrypted across the internet, which the NSA and GCHQ grab because they can:
The reporters reached out to multiple tech companies, who note that they had nothing to do with this. That’s true, as it seems clear that the information was gleaned from the taps placed on the backbone, with the help of the giant telcos, rather than the internet companies. However, at this point, it seems time for any company to recognize that if any bit of data is not being encrypted, the NSA/GCHQ is looking through it. Google, once again, seems particularly upset to discover this was going on, after it had pushed back on attempts by the UK to set up data retention rules for this kind of purpose — when it’s clear that GCHQ was already doing it anyway.
A source close to Google added that Google was “shocked” because the company had pushed back against British legislation that would have required Google to store its metadata and other information for U.K. government use. The legislation, introduced by Home Secretary Theresa May in 2012, was publicly repudiated by Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg in 2013 and has never become law. May hopes to reintroduce a modified version this spring.
“It’s extremely surprising,” said the source, “that while they were pushing for the data via the law, they might have simultaneously been using their capability to grab it anyway.”
While it may have been reasonable in the past to assume that if the government wasn’t asking for this information via the front door, the info was safe, given both of the big stories of the day, it seems that every online company needs to get much more serious about encryption.
Filed Under: data, facebook likes, gchq, lolcats, nsa, privacy, surveillance, tapped cables, youtube views
Companies: facebook, google, twitter
Comments on “NSA/GCHQ Use Lolcats To Discuss What They Learn By Spying On All Of Our YouTube Views And Facebook Likes”
Lolcats
Srs Bizness
Re: Lolcats
PsychLOLgy FTW!
We can haz all the emails, likes, texts, & hate on youtubes?!
Very professional!
Squeaky Dolphin
That Squeaky Dolphin slide highlights how absurd the scope of the NSA’s illegal and immoral surveillance really is. If you scoop up all the Youtube and Facebook “likes” in the universe, that data is only useful if you feed *which* likes matter into the algorithm. But if you know *which* likes matter, you didn’t need to scoop up all the data in the first place since you could just go straight to those and build a case for a warrant or find probable cause to go any further. Old-fashioned, tailored investigations end up being the right thing all along, without having to violate the Constitutional and moral rights of everyone in the U.S.
Re: timing
Except yesterday’s useless scraping-it-all, becomes tomorrow’s useful data-to-mine.
Like: why keep a local copy of anything you found online.
It’s a diy waybackmachine (for free) for those with/without a warrant to go fishing …tyvm US citizen, I see ur tax dollar$ are hard at work.
“Google, once again, seems particularly upset to discover this was going on,….”
Well shit. They gotta put on a good show to project the illusion they aren’t connected at the hip with the feds – a fact painfully obvious to those whose heads aren’t inserted up Google’s asspucker.
Re: simpler
in teh g00glolz mega corp world, teh ketteh on the left dont knowz what all the puppiez right pawz be doin.
Re: Re: simpler
pawzable denial.
Anyone else notice OOTB is missing out today on really good material?
Re: "Anyone else notice OOTB is missing out today on really good material?"
Glad to be mentioned and missed, but there’s no good material, just lame political blather.
Besides, having stoked fanboys to point where my screen name is featured front page on the weekend, and they’re daily compelled to mention my absence, er, out of the blue, I’m pleased to sit and watch them flounder without me…
Techdirt: a sore for site eyes. (90 of 192)
10:02:47[l-5-2]
Re: Re: "Anyone else notice OOTB is missing out today on really good material?"
Oh, you’re not missed, my old son – far from it. Don’t you kid your paranoid and egotistic self. As far as I’m concerned, you can stay AWOL for ever and a day. If you don’t know (and nothing would surprise me, judging by the pig-ignorance shown in your posts) what AWOL means, it can be looked up quite easily, courtesy of your old buddies at Google.
Re: Re:
YOUSONOFABITCH.YOU INVOKED IT!
How long before this data is mined to guide politicians as to what they can get away with? How long before its used to guide political campaigns? How long before it is used to nip protest in the bud? About the only use for bulk data is in political manipulation of a population, either by the spies, or their political masters.
Re: paranoid much
Why u talk in the future tense.
If it’s currently a possibility, why not insist it’s contemporaneously probable.
The only thing “new” about these valuable secrets is that they are leaked to you and me. If there’s a secret conspiracy then the conspirators “know & use” the secret NSA rules & even more deeply buried harvested-data at any point in time you care to imagine. Makes for a good story. Now how can we decide which day was the 1st example of your “population manipulation by telco-spying” thesis? Where must we look to find the 1st smoking gun? And who you gonna call, ghostbusters??
Stay tuned here.
That is a stunningly disingenuous, or naive, comment, as the NSA? and those who own Microsoft, Amazon, Google, Apple, PayPal, eBay, Facebook, Twitter, et al, are of the exact same fiend ilk and aid and abet one another, even if they don?t trust one another.
Trying to understand the psyche of the public, to better control the public
Re: Re:
Oh, and viewing youtube videos makes you a terrorist now, apparently, and liking something must be an equivelant to a terrorist act, i guess
Who knew Facebook likes were an aspect of terrorism? So when are all these likes going to get together and build some sort of bomb or plan some sort of dastardly deed?
Talk about security minded apps. Just look, Lolscats must be highly rated for security. Geeze the things you learn at Techdirt. And here all those folks were concerned with encryption breaking. Why they can all just head over to Lolscats and have the ultimate of security. /s
Re: dragnet 101
But you know what get when you “aggregate” both data sets… ?
That is,
Free-public-website-usage-showing-unencrypted-users-assuming-privacy-and-clicking-like-on-a-lolcat
+++PLUS+++
Warrant-lawfully-obtained-for-a-targetted-search-of-US-governmental-spy-catelogues-full-of-decrypted-secrets-through-crippled-RSA-cryptograpy-hopefully-used-by-dangerous-violent-wellfunded-young-men-also-using-gmail-to-plan-an-imminent-and-terrifying-crime-on-noncombattants
===EQUALS===
a whole bunch of raw data 0s and 1s with 0% predictive power as information to save any of us surveiled-but-not-targetted telco user’s precious post-2001 living-a-life-in-fear life.
Im sorry, is this secret supose to, convince us of their seriousness of accountability, or not,…….you know, i cant quite decide, sarcasm,…i can totally decide
Right now, i bet, the pro nsa twats, all their concerned about is, that this information was released from the vaults of “government national security”, and not on the context of what was released
That lolcat image was probably taken from here:
http://cheezburger.com/2735157760
I’m pretty sure that doing so violated that site’s TOS.
Time to sue the NSA for violating the CFAA!
I’m going to apply for a job at the NSA.
I’d like to be paid for playing WoW, Angry Birds, watching YouTube, and reading blogs all day.
So, basically, the same thing I do now, except as a Highly Paid Professional.
Sign me up!
Tell those idiots to back to 2006 please.
Well, and erkkkk, huge sooprize! about the author of this techdirt [!] [?] post, no small wonder the distancing attempted between the NSA and its corporate bedmates:
[1] Floor 64, an Insight Company:
[2] [Thee[!]] Insight Community:
(Bolding mine. …Rod Serling stirs at the stunning greed, manipulation, and hypocrisy which succeeded his Twilight Zone series. Of course, the most effective way to refute commentary such as the above, has been to flaunt the comment (though not comment on it) as the default response, as if it were not true.)
Re: Re:
Are… are you trying to link Masnick with the NSA? I’m afraid you’ll need to be much more succinct in your accusation and how what you’ve posted provides proof of it. Simply being a corporation does not automatically prove any link.
Omg so they know I regularly like porn stuff ;(
Still, add that to the myriad of data they already grab and you can pretty much have everything a person does online. How long till they want the same capabilities for the offline world?
Oh yeah, I'm sooo surprised.
It?s extremely surprising,? said the source, ?that while they were pushing for the data via the law, they might have simultaneously been using their capability to grab it anyway.
Does anyone else out there think that it is even the slightest bit surprising that they may have been grabbing the data any way they could get it? Come now, this has been going on for what, say, a century maybe? Not until someone actually calls them up on it would they likely even be concerned, most likely..
…and as soon as an individual matches these ‘interesting data, connections and trends’ they…
..dig up the ‘pertinent’ records and…
hahah
New splunk tagline:
Splunk> Even gub’mint ninjas use it!