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Hopefully companies and organizations like the UN start moving away from AT&T. AT&T is a publicly traded company and so the only thing they understand is profit

Hopefully companies and organizations like the UN start moving away from AT&T. AT&T is a publicly traded company and so the only thing they understand is profit and loss. The snowden releases cost u.s. tech companies $100B+, including a 10% drop in Cisco quarterly revenues. Hopefully this continues as multinationals continue to move their business outside the u.s. Let the u.s. government spy on Americans all they want since Americans seem to like being spied on, while the rest of us move on. I know that mindset doesn't match many of the people here on HN, but Americans are mostly Authoritarian and seem to like the comfort they feel from programs like this.

ianlevesque 11y ago
People just don't pay attention at all. I'm not sure which is worse.
jonknee 11y ago
It's very hard to move away from telecom companies. You may switch your direct services, but whoever you switch to will still use AT&T backbones and the like. All the big telecoms are guilty of being complicit with the government, what would make a difference is one taking a stand like Apple/Google has regarding encryption. That would put pressure on the others to follow suit.
- toomuchtodo 11y ago
  Could Google, Facebook, Amazon, and Apple create a non-profit that owns their own dark fiber and parcels out capacity? Think municipal fiber, but at a wholesale level.
  - olympus 11y ago
    They maybe could, but that probably wouldn't stop the NSA from gaining access through other means. More importantly, they probably wouldn't. All those companies you previously listed have been identified in documents leaked by Edward Snowden as supporting the NSA with backdoors.
  - haroldp 11y ago
    Each of those companies has been implicated as complicit in cooperating with the NSA's warrantless domestic spying.
    - us0r 11y ago
      Not sure why you are down voted but the US Intelligence Agencies are Amazon's single biggest customer.
      - Zigurd 11y ago
        Because there are several people on HN who think an illusion of privacy is good enough.
      - chinathrow 11y ago
        Also not sure why we haven't heard anything about Amazon/AWS within the Snowden docs... yet. Anyone?
        fnordfnordfnord 11y ago
        That was the CIA.
        chinathrow 11y ago
        The customer yes, but I ment some relevations about tapping AWS internally by the NSA.
        us0r 11y ago
        http://www.defenseone.com/technology/2014/07/how-cia-partnered-amazon-and-changed-intelligence/88555/ http://www.defenseone.com/technology/2014/07/how-cia-partner...
  - giggles_giggles 11y ago
    Why would they do it non-profit? Google Fiber is this.
    - toomuchtodo 11y ago
      Google Fiber is for the last mile, consumer/business users. I'm suggesting a non-profit organization or entity that is a holding company for dark fiber assets for tech companies, with a charter that specifically protects the privacy and integrity of the packets that travel over it. If your packets run over AT&T, you clearly have lost. But if you control physical access, the only way the government is going to gain unlawful access is through someone who has integrated themselves into your org or through an illicit fiber tap. You've significantly reduced your attack surface. EDIT: You could even go so far as to require different orgs to travel over physically diverse strands, thereby preventing any sort of multi-tenant shenanigans, with the cable being shared ownership.
- fastandfurryous 11y ago
  Google and Apple are still subject to the same pressures applied by warrants, subpeonas and national security letters. I'm not really sure what you mean by encryption, though. Apple's iMessage may be encrypted, but their key exchange can be MitM'd easily. Realistically you wouldn't use a service that exists because of the profit motive or is in the US. It will continue to operate to drive a profit while working with the government to stay in business.
  - chinathrow 11y ago
    I heard a rumour that iMessage/Apple is trying to fight an NSL. Does anyone have more details?
    - fastandfurryous 11y ago
      Given that NSLs have a gag order, this is probably a PR stunt like the lawsuit against the government. They have been complicit with PRISM since 2012 without a peep.
- CyberDildonics 11y ago
  There is no sense in trying to bend all the middle men to our will. The problem is broadcasting anything in the clear. Being able to effectively encrypt data at the IP level is what really needs to happen.
mercurial 11y ago
Who are these lucky "rest of us" fellows who have both advanced technical infrastructure and no government spying? They don't live in the EU, Russia, and I guess most of Asia.
- comrade1 11y ago
  The spying outside the u.s. is nothing like the corporate-government partnership spying in the u.s. You can go to any Western country besides the u.s. and not be subject to indiscriminate spying. What's funny is that if you're an American in the u.s. you have other governments in Europe, Australia, Canada, etc spying on you on behalf of the u.s. government and sending all of your information back to the u.s., but they're not spying on their own citizens to the same extent.
  - jsmthrowaway 11y ago
    The idea that Five Eyes is unique in its pursuits and "any Western country besides the u.s." isn't monitoring everything that is technically possible is so naïve that I'm amazed you worked for PGP. I don't normally go after people for being anti-American, but I'll make an exception here because your ideology is making you look comical. You're a foreign national with an interest in cryptography living in Switzerland. Of all the people in the world who shouldn't be so absolutely clueless, it's you. They're on you like stink on shit, and suggesting otherwise is laughably stupid. What do you think, Switzerland became a discreet financial haven out of a measure of luck, while Swiss intelligence sat around being good, decent, idle people? For all of my extensive problems with U.S. intelligence, they at least made an effort to uphold the law. They failed, yes, but so many pivotal decisions were around the legal framework. I wonder how such a conversation goes in Ukrainian intelligence, or German, or Mexican. "We have a lead on El Chapo but we can't follow up because it's illegal to wiretap." Yeah, okay. Come back to reality, bud.
    - comrade1 11y ago
      You just spout a bunch of rhetoric and nothing substantial. All of your comments here are the same. You shill for the u.s. the government. Swiss intelligence is not idle. They were the group that leaked the report on the cia rendition programs, yet another illegal act by the u.s. intelligence community, but in this case by the CIA and not the NSA. U.S. intelligence has not made an effort to uphold the law. How could you even say that? They have only worked within the law retroactively - they've had to change the law retroactively to make what the NSA has been doing not illegal.
johncolanduoni 11y ago
> Let the u.s. government spy on Americans all they want since Americans seem to like being spied on, while the rest of us move on. I know that mindset doesn't match many of the people here on HN, but Americans are mostly Authoritarian and seem to like the comfort they feel from programs like this. What exactly is your source on this? If we're going to stick with anecdotal evidence, I (who actually live in the US) have found most people's reaction to the Snowden revelations to be overwhelmingly negative, particularly among younger people. If we want to look at some actual data, instead of accusations about public opinion by someone who doesn't even live in the US, it appears that a majority of Americans don't approve of the NSA's actions[1]. On top of that, companies like Apple, Facebook, etc. have been implementing end to end encryption so thoroughly that the government is pushing to make it illegal[2]. So I'd thank you to not decide that all Americans like to be spied on, or that we're mostly authoritarian, just because it fits your ideology. [1]: http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/05/29/what-americans-think-about-nsa-surveillance-national-security-and-privacy/ http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/05/29/what-america... [2]: http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/07/08/421251662/fbi-director-says-agents-need-access-to-encrypted-data-to-preserve-public-safety http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/07/08/421251662/...
- comrade1 11y ago
  First, I'm American. I've worked on NSA and DoD projects, and I've worked for PGP. I now live in Switzerland. You only have to look at the consequences of the Snowden revelations. Nothing has really changed - some meaningless legislation was passed that moves the phone metadata recording to the phone companies from the NSA, but even then it's not clear that its stopped - the NSA data center in Utah where those conversations were recorded doesn't seem to be shutting down. I would bet the phone conversation, skype conversation, etc recording is still going on since it was never explicitly addressed anywhere in legislation. And my comment about Americans being Authoritarian is nothing new - they've long considered to be Authoritarian.
  - johncolanduoni 11y ago
    > You only have to look at the consequences of the Snowden revelations. Nothing has really changed... So your evidence that the public doesn't care about the revelations is that the government (who are the perpetrators of the spying) haven't changed their ways? Could it instead be because when selecting candidates to vote for (for the minority that do vote, which is a separate problem), Americans have prioritized other issues? Do you think that the survey I cited was methodologically unsound, or that people were simply lying? How about the fact that private companies are responding by changing their platforms to be more resistant to such data collection even under warrant, and publicizing the fact? Why do you think they are doing that, if not to appease the public? > And my comment about Americans being Authoritarian is nothing new - they've long considered to be Authoritarian. By who? You? And whether or not the government is authoritarian, how does that imply the people like it?
FlaceBook 11y ago
> I know that mindset doesn't match many of the people here on HN Right, the people here on HN only support spying when they are the ones doing it to users for "ad targeting" purposes.
- white-flame 11y ago
  I wonder what percentage of YC ventures have their revenue model based on advertising prospects.
Zigurd 11y ago
It's all hostile territory. While it's rational to punish quislings, it's irrational to think anyone handling a large amount of communications isn't a quisling. Certainly nobody is making claims that they are working to secure your data against state surveillance. It's also long past time when providers like Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, etc. could have been offering secure communications and storage. At some point you have to suspect they are in with the surveillance state as much as the telcos are.
mtgx 11y ago
After the Snowden revelations I believe AT&T was stopped from expanding in Europe. Mexico seems to welcome them on the other hand...
happyscrappy 11y ago
This is a standard trope, but it requires that you be willfully ignorant that 1) all western countries are sharing intel 2) the US does most of its spying on foreign countries 3) there is no European politician that has even tried to run on an anti US platform. I wonder why?

ianlevesque 11y ago

People just don't pay attention at all. I'm not sure which is worse.

jonknee 11y ago

It's very hard to move away from telecom companies. You may switch your direct services, but whoever you switch to will still use AT&T backbones and the like. All the big telecoms are guilty of being complicit with the government, what would make a difference is one taking a stand like Apple/Google has regarding encryption. That would put pressure on the others to follow suit.

toomuchtodo 11y ago
Could Google, Facebook, Amazon, and Apple create a non-profit that owns their own dark fiber and parcels out capacity? Think municipal fiber, but at a wholesale level.
- olympus 11y ago
  They maybe could, but that probably wouldn't stop the NSA from gaining access through other means. More importantly, they probably wouldn't. All those companies you previously listed have been identified in documents leaked by Edward Snowden as supporting the NSA with backdoors.
- haroldp 11y ago
  Each of those companies has been implicated as complicit in cooperating with the NSA's warrantless domestic spying.
  - us0r 11y ago
    Not sure why you are down voted but the US Intelligence Agencies are Amazon's single biggest customer.
    - Zigurd 11y ago
      Because there are several people on HN who think an illusion of privacy is good enough.
    - chinathrow 11y ago
      Also not sure why we haven't heard anything about Amazon/AWS within the Snowden docs... yet. Anyone?
      - fnordfnordfnord 11y ago
        That was the CIA.
        chinathrow 11y ago
        The customer yes, but I ment some relevations about tapping AWS internally by the NSA.
      - us0r 11y ago
        http://www.defenseone.com/technology/2014/07/how-cia-partnered-amazon-and-changed-intelligence/88555/ http://www.defenseone.com/technology/2014/07/how-cia-partner...
- giggles_giggles 11y ago
  Why would they do it non-profit? Google Fiber is this.
  - toomuchtodo 11y ago
    Google Fiber is for the last mile, consumer/business users. I'm suggesting a non-profit organization or entity that is a holding company for dark fiber assets for tech companies, with a charter that specifically protects the privacy and integrity of the packets that travel over it. If your packets run over AT&T, you clearly have lost. But if you control physical access, the only way the government is going to gain unlawful access is through someone who has integrated themselves into your org or through an illicit fiber tap. You've significantly reduced your attack surface. EDIT: You could even go so far as to require different orgs to travel over physically diverse strands, thereby preventing any sort of multi-tenant shenanigans, with the cable being shared ownership.
fastandfurryous 11y ago
Google and Apple are still subject to the same pressures applied by warrants, subpeonas and national security letters. I'm not really sure what you mean by encryption, though. Apple's iMessage may be encrypted, but their key exchange can be MitM'd easily. Realistically you wouldn't use a service that exists because of the profit motive or is in the US. It will continue to operate to drive a profit while working with the government to stay in business.
- chinathrow 11y ago
  I heard a rumour that iMessage/Apple is trying to fight an NSL. Does anyone have more details?
  - fastandfurryous 11y ago
    Given that NSLs have a gag order, this is probably a PR stunt like the lawsuit against the government. They have been complicit with PRISM since 2012 without a peep.
CyberDildonics 11y ago
There is no sense in trying to bend all the middle men to our will. The problem is broadcasting anything in the clear. Being able to effectively encrypt data at the IP level is what really needs to happen.

mercurial 11y ago

Who are these lucky "rest of us" fellows who have both advanced technical infrastructure and no government spying? They don't live in the EU, Russia, and I guess most of Asia.

comrade1 11y ago
The spying outside the u.s. is nothing like the corporate-government partnership spying in the u.s. You can go to any Western country besides the u.s. and not be subject to indiscriminate spying. What's funny is that if you're an American in the u.s. you have other governments in Europe, Australia, Canada, etc spying on you on behalf of the u.s. government and sending all of your information back to the u.s., but they're not spying on their own citizens to the same extent.
- jsmthrowaway 11y ago
  The idea that Five Eyes is unique in its pursuits and "any Western country besides the u.s." isn't monitoring everything that is technically possible is so naïve that I'm amazed you worked for PGP. I don't normally go after people for being anti-American, but I'll make an exception here because your ideology is making you look comical. You're a foreign national with an interest in cryptography living in Switzerland. Of all the people in the world who shouldn't be so absolutely clueless, it's you. They're on you like stink on shit, and suggesting otherwise is laughably stupid. What do you think, Switzerland became a discreet financial haven out of a measure of luck, while Swiss intelligence sat around being good, decent, idle people? For all of my extensive problems with U.S. intelligence, they at least made an effort to uphold the law. They failed, yes, but so many pivotal decisions were around the legal framework. I wonder how such a conversation goes in Ukrainian intelligence, or German, or Mexican. "We have a lead on El Chapo but we can't follow up because it's illegal to wiretap." Yeah, okay. Come back to reality, bud.
  - comrade1 11y ago
    You just spout a bunch of rhetoric and nothing substantial. All of your comments here are the same. You shill for the u.s. the government. Swiss intelligence is not idle. They were the group that leaked the report on the cia rendition programs, yet another illegal act by the u.s. intelligence community, but in this case by the CIA and not the NSA. U.S. intelligence has not made an effort to uphold the law. How could you even say that? They have only worked within the law retroactively - they've had to change the law retroactively to make what the NSA has been doing not illegal.

johncolanduoni 11y ago

> Let the u.s. government spy on Americans all they want since Americans seem to like being spied on, while the rest of us move on. I know that mindset doesn't match many of the people here on HN, but Americans are mostly Authoritarian and seem to like the comfort they feel from programs like this. What exactly is your source on this? If we're going to stick with anecdotal evidence, I (who actually live in the US) have found most people's reaction to the Snowden revelations to be overwhelmingly negative, particularly among younger people. If we want to look at some actual data, instead of accusations about public opinion by someone who doesn't even live in the US, it appears that a majority of Americans don't approve of the NSA's actions[1]. On top of that, companies like Apple, Facebook, etc. have been implementing end to end encryption so thoroughly that the government is pushing to make it illegal[2]. So I'd thank you to not decide that all Americans like to be spied on, or that we're mostly authoritarian, just because it fits your ideology. [1]: http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/05/29/what-americans-think-about-nsa-surveillance-national-security-and-privacy/ http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/05/29/what-america... [2]: http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/07/08/421251662/fbi-director-says-agents-need-access-to-encrypted-data-to-preserve-public-safety http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/07/08/421251662/...

comrade1 11y ago
First, I'm American. I've worked on NSA and DoD projects, and I've worked for PGP. I now live in Switzerland. You only have to look at the consequences of the Snowden revelations. Nothing has really changed - some meaningless legislation was passed that moves the phone metadata recording to the phone companies from the NSA, but even then it's not clear that its stopped - the NSA data center in Utah where those conversations were recorded doesn't seem to be shutting down. I would bet the phone conversation, skype conversation, etc recording is still going on since it was never explicitly addressed anywhere in legislation. And my comment about Americans being Authoritarian is nothing new - they've long considered to be Authoritarian.
- johncolanduoni 11y ago
  > You only have to look at the consequences of the Snowden revelations. Nothing has really changed... So your evidence that the public doesn't care about the revelations is that the government (who are the perpetrators of the spying) haven't changed their ways? Could it instead be because when selecting candidates to vote for (for the minority that do vote, which is a separate problem), Americans have prioritized other issues? Do you think that the survey I cited was methodologically unsound, or that people were simply lying? How about the fact that private companies are responding by changing their platforms to be more resistant to such data collection even under warrant, and publicizing the fact? Why do you think they are doing that, if not to appease the public? > And my comment about Americans being Authoritarian is nothing new - they've long considered to be Authoritarian. By who? You? And whether or not the government is authoritarian, how does that imply the people like it?

FlaceBook 11y ago

> I know that mindset doesn't match many of the people here on HN Right, the people here on HN only support spying when they are the ones doing it to users for "ad targeting" purposes.

white-flame 11y ago
I wonder what percentage of YC ventures have their revenue model based on advertising prospects.

Zigurd 11y ago

It's all hostile territory. While it's rational to punish quislings, it's irrational to think anyone handling a large amount of communications isn't a quisling. Certainly nobody is making claims that they are working to secure your data against state surveillance. It's also long past time when providers like Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, etc. could have been offering secure communications and storage. At some point you have to suspect they are in with the surveillance state as much as the telcos are.

mtgx 11y ago

After the Snowden revelations I believe AT&T was stopped from expanding in Europe. Mexico seems to welcome them on the other hand...

happyscrappy 11y ago

This is a standard trope, but it requires that you be willfully ignorant that 1) all western countries are sharing intel 2) the US does most of its spying on foreign countries 3) there is no European politician that has even tried to run on an anti US platform. I wonder why?