NSA is buying Americans’ internet browsing records without a warrant::“Web browsing records can reveal sensitive, private information about a person based on where they go on the internet,” said Sen. Ron Wyden.
NSA is buying Americans’ internet browsing records without a warrant::“Web browsing records can reveal sensitive, private information about a person based on where they go on the internet,” said Sen. Ron Wyden.
As with much of the federal government, the NSA’s information security is lax and outdated, and strict records that are supposed to be kept about who looks at what are not actually filed.
We’re pretty sure Russia and China are unofficially privy to any data they want.
NSA was supposed to be an INFOSEC department, making sure that Eve was out of business. That changed after the PATRIOT act (though the movie Sneakers predicted this change in mission). The eliptic curve scandal was a dead giveaway.
That said, at this point NSA leaks stuff to other law enforcement, and fourth-amendment protections are circumvented with parallel construction. Asset forfeiture puts the proof of innocence on the prior owner, so there are no rights to begin with. (Though this is changing state by state.)
As someone who has read the unclassified reccomendations on infosec written by the NSA and CISA, no, it isn’t. The NSA has some sophisticated security infrastructure, and if stuxnet or eternal blue has shown us, their infosec capabilities are incredible.
I have literally never heard anyone say this before and this goes everything I know about cybersecurity, intelligence, and geopolitics.
The NSA ECC bullshit was to support surveillance, not to weaken their own security. The theoretical vulnerability lies in the usage of the suggested parameters of their curve, not ECC itself. Making surveillance easier is something that the NSA has historically supported.
I genuinely have never seen anything to support this that is substantial.
Holy shit I cant believe you’ve made an anarchist defend the NSA but this is so damn wrong.
Apparently you don’t read TechDirt, which I have for over a decade now, and NSA had been active in shenanigans and lax securityy since the wiretapping scandals of the aughts, and in 2023 has been leaking stuff to FBI without warrants (which is supposed to be unconstitutional but between the PATRIOT act and the Federalist-Society-dominated SCOTUS, we may be no longer legally protected from NSA surveillance as an unreasonable search).
The FISC has always been a rubber stamp court, so it shouldn’t be necessary for law enforcement to circumvent warrants for NSA information, but it turns out it’s just easier using the NSA backdoor access.
I will admit to a certain degree of cynicism. When official channels tell me something is secure or handled with respect to all ethical and civic concerns, and investigative journalists tell me the opposite, I trust the journalists more than I do the official channels. But then I’ve been through the aughts and the George W. Bush administration when the only sources of actual facts were from foreign sources, because the native news agencies were terrified of reprisals for failing to toe the line.
It’s why when people are alarmed today that the fascist autocrats are here and SWATTING their political enemies, I can only quietly sip my coffee from the corner.