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I still remember Larry page's denial and Mark Zuckerberg's denial. We can never trust them again.

obviouslygreen 13y ago
Again? We should never have trusted them in the first place. You should never trust anyone until they've proven themselves trustworthy, and trusting a company is just over the top. The amount of trust we grant these people and companies in the first place may not be the root of the problems we're facing lately, but our collective naivete about other people's motivations and scruples has most certainly contributed to the lengths at which our rights and privacy can readily be violated by both the people we're throwing our data at and the governments that want access.
jlgreco 13y ago
To be fair, if you ever trusted Zuckerberg then you were a "dumb fuck". ;)
- rayiner 13y ago
  I mean, didn't he take someone else's idea and turn it into a billion-dollar company for himself while cutting them out? Multiple reasons not to trust him!
- irishcoffee 13y ago
  Anyone with a facebook account "trusts" him.
myko 13y ago
What are you talking about? Nothing in either of their denials has been shown to be wrong.
- mayanksinghal 13y ago
  Exactly. Someone really needs to have very tilted perception to not see the perpetrators at this moment.
- betterunix 13y ago
  Not wrong, but still dishonest, and deliberately so. The denials all focused on "direct access" to their servers and what is allowed/required by law.
  - myko 13y ago
    Wrong. They were accused of giving direct access to the government. They in fact aren't doing that. All they do is provide information when legally required to do so. What exactly do you think Facebook and Google have done wrong?
Splendor 13y ago
From what I understand PRISM splits the fiber coming out of the companies implicated on it's way to the backbone. This does not require the knowledge of the companies implicated. Since it's actually splitting the light inside the fiber, PRISM is a cute name.
- jlgreco 13y ago
  That is basically a continuation of the Room 641A concept. There are a few problems with that theory when you consider that these companies are using SSL now. They cannot MiTM data from a beam splitter and we know they are not actively MiTM'ing traffic from a spliced cable with their own private key signed by a cooperating CA (doing this would be noticed quickly if they tried it en masse). If they have the companies private keys then they could be passively decrypting the traffic, unless DHE/ECDHE were being used. If that was the case then they would need the companies private key and the ability to do an active MiTM. I don't doubt that they are doing something, but I don't think we have enough information yet to say what. Hopefully further releases will shed more light on this.
  - twinge 13y ago
    Add on top of that the PRISM program only costs $20m/year. There is just no way a massive nationwide clandestine fiber tap collecting data from companies moving petabytes a day between datacenters can cost a mere $20m/year. The thing that is most frustrating about this leak is we only get 4 slides out of a 41 slide deck, and are left to fill the gaps with paranoid worst-case assumptions. And the Internet is a great echo chamber of paranoid assumptions.
    - jlgreco 13y ago
      Well, we also don't know if PRISM is piggybacking on another, possibly far more expensive system (the hypothetical hardware could already be in place, and under the budget of another far more expensive program). Really, we just don't know. We don't know anything, except that it sure seems that something is going on. The documents are not getting the same treatment as the fabricated documents of a raving lunatic anonymous coward on Slashdot. It seems fairly prudent to assume the worse case scenario, better safe than sorry, but it is important to not confuse that assumption with knowledge.
chiph 13y ago
Even if they knew about the program, they couldn't have said anything because of the gag order part of the National Security Letter they were handed.
- gcb0 13y ago
  But then they wouldn't come forward as fast as they did to boast that their companies are sparking clean... That's lying.
  - chris_mahan 13y ago
    They realize the instant most people around the world realize storing stuff on "the cloud" is equivalent to forwarding a copy to the CIA, their business is SOL internationally. Imagine if I was sending copies of everything (emails, internet uploads, photos, videos, skype recordings, aws server snapshots) to China's Ministry of State Security... I'd have the FBI at my doorstep in no time.
deelowe 13y ago
There's no proof to suggest they knew otherwise. Anything stated thus far is speculation. All that's been shown as "evidence" is a slide with company logos on it and some statements from the NSA which claims to collect "Facebook" data, which could really mean anything. Plus Google openly submitted a request to allow them to publicly disclose the number, type, and scope of NSLs it receives. I have more reason to doubt the Govt than these other companies. Also, given the name "PRISM," isn't it pretty obvious how this program worked? Think about it... What does a prism do? Meanwhile, Verizon and ATT have been completely silent and government representatives are making up new definitions for the term perjury.
- uvdiv 13y ago
  Also, given the name "PRISM," isn't it pretty obvious how this program worked? Think about it... What does a prism do? It's obvious a spy agency isn't trying to communicate how their program works to everyone who stumbles across their codename.
  - wavefunction 13y ago
    They always seem to love clever acronyms that are tangentially related to whatever it deals with, like USAPATRIOT Act is actually about how to not be a good US patriot.
- irishcoffee 13y ago
  Generally (pretty much always) the name of a government program is an acronym. I wouldn't try and draw much meaning from it.

Again? We should never have trusted them in the first place. You should never trust anyone until they've proven themselves trustworthy, and trusting a company is just over the top. The amount of trust we grant these people and companies in the first place may not be the root of the problems we're facing lately, but our collective naivete about other people's motivations and scruples has most certainly contributed to the lengths at which our rights and privacy can readily be violated by both the people we're throwing our data at and the governments that want access.

jlgreco 13y ago

To be fair, if you ever trusted Zuckerberg then you were a "dumb fuck". ;)

rayiner 13y ago
I mean, didn't he take someone else's idea and turn it into a billion-dollar company for himself while cutting them out? Multiple reasons not to trust him!
irishcoffee 13y ago
Anyone with a facebook account "trusts" him.

myko 13y ago

What are you talking about? Nothing in either of their denials has been shown to be wrong.

mayanksinghal 13y ago
Exactly. Someone really needs to have very tilted perception to not see the perpetrators at this moment.
betterunix 13y ago
Not wrong, but still dishonest, and deliberately so. The denials all focused on "direct access" to their servers and what is allowed/required by law.
- myko 13y ago
  Wrong. They were accused of giving direct access to the government. They in fact aren't doing that. All they do is provide information when legally required to do so. What exactly do you think Facebook and Google have done wrong?

Splendor 13y ago

From what I understand PRISM splits the fiber coming out of the companies implicated on it's way to the backbone. This does not require the knowledge of the companies implicated. Since it's actually splitting the light inside the fiber, PRISM is a cute name.

jlgreco 13y ago
That is basically a continuation of the Room 641A concept. There are a few problems with that theory when you consider that these companies are using SSL now. They cannot MiTM data from a beam splitter and we know they are not actively MiTM'ing traffic from a spliced cable with their own private key signed by a cooperating CA (doing this would be noticed quickly if they tried it en masse). If they have the companies private keys then they could be passively decrypting the traffic, unless DHE/ECDHE were being used. If that was the case then they would need the companies private key and the ability to do an active MiTM. I don't doubt that they are doing something, but I don't think we have enough information yet to say what. Hopefully further releases will shed more light on this.
- twinge 13y ago
  Add on top of that the PRISM program only costs $20m/year. There is just no way a massive nationwide clandestine fiber tap collecting data from companies moving petabytes a day between datacenters can cost a mere $20m/year. The thing that is most frustrating about this leak is we only get 4 slides out of a 41 slide deck, and are left to fill the gaps with paranoid worst-case assumptions. And the Internet is a great echo chamber of paranoid assumptions.
  - jlgreco 13y ago
    Well, we also don't know if PRISM is piggybacking on another, possibly far more expensive system (the hypothetical hardware could already be in place, and under the budget of another far more expensive program). Really, we just don't know. We don't know anything, except that it sure seems that something is going on. The documents are not getting the same treatment as the fabricated documents of a raving lunatic anonymous coward on Slashdot. It seems fairly prudent to assume the worse case scenario, better safe than sorry, but it is important to not confuse that assumption with knowledge.

chiph 13y ago

Even if they knew about the program, they couldn't have said anything because of the gag order part of the National Security Letter they were handed.

gcb0 13y ago
But then they wouldn't come forward as fast as they did to boast that their companies are sparking clean... That's lying.
- chris_mahan 13y ago
  They realize the instant most people around the world realize storing stuff on "the cloud" is equivalent to forwarding a copy to the CIA, their business is SOL internationally. Imagine if I was sending copies of everything (emails, internet uploads, photos, videos, skype recordings, aws server snapshots) to China's Ministry of State Security... I'd have the FBI at my doorstep in no time.

deelowe 13y ago

There's no proof to suggest they knew otherwise. Anything stated thus far is speculation. All that's been shown as "evidence" is a slide with company logos on it and some statements from the NSA which claims to collect "Facebook" data, which could really mean anything. Plus Google openly submitted a request to allow them to publicly disclose the number, type, and scope of NSLs it receives. I have more reason to doubt the Govt than these other companies. Also, given the name "PRISM," isn't it pretty obvious how this program worked? Think about it... What does a prism do? Meanwhile, Verizon and ATT have been completely silent and government representatives are making up new definitions for the term perjury.

uvdiv 13y ago
Also, given the name "PRISM," isn't it pretty obvious how this program worked? Think about it... What does a prism do? It's obvious a spy agency isn't trying to communicate how their program works to everyone who stumbles across their codename.
- wavefunction 13y ago
  They always seem to love clever acronyms that are tangentially related to whatever it deals with, like USAPATRIOT Act is actually about how to not be a good US patriot.
irishcoffee 13y ago
Generally (pretty much always) the name of a government program is an acronym. I wouldn't try and draw much meaning from it.