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Turn It Off: NSA's Achilles' Heel
- jdimov 13y agoWhat equivalent or similar actions could be taken against GCHQ in the UK?
- fit2rule 13y agoNone. The only way to get rid of the GCHQ in the UK is revolution.
- junto 13y agoIn ten years time, this comment of yours will automatically place you on a list of 'dissidents'. You will be targeted for heightened (full) surveillance. Your phone will be tracked, all email and phone calls recorded and scanned automatically for review by a machine. You will not be allowed to fly, or find yourself in the queue for "special searches". You will be subject to stop and search on the street under the anti terrorism act, though no policeman will actually know why you are on that list. All of this will happen automatically. No person will have triggered this process, nor intervene on your behalf. Every TSA agent or UK equivalent will have no idea why you have been marked in the system as "terrorist/dissident". You will simply be treated as such. There will be no recourse. Your children, your siblings and your parents, plus your friends will have a slightly higher weighted bayesian 'terrorist' score placed on their files, because you know them. Welcome to the world of tomorrow. Welcome to the real Skynet.
- madaxe_again 13y agoYou have just articulated the principle problem with autocracy, be it by man or machine, succinctly.
- tzakrajs 13y agoBraziiiil...
- fit2rule 13y agoActually, unless I misunderstand your attempt at wry irony, I believe that this world is now.
- dd36 13y agoJack Bauer
- moocowduckquack 13y agoContinuously broadcast "The Archers" on all available frequencies.
- WalterSear 13y agoA cure worse than the disease.
- moocowduckquack 13y agodumdeediddlydumdeedum deedumdeediddlydumdeedum deedumdeedumdeedaadaa dumdeedumdeedumdeediddly daadaadaa dumdeedumdeediddlydum bang
- WalterSear 13y agoNoooooo! Stahhp.
- pbhjpbhj 13y agoCan you elucidate why the UK populus needs to turn to guerilla tactics against GCHQ? If you can then you've a platform on which, instead, to press for political reform. I'd very much like to hear a succinct elucidation before anyone says that the political process is too broken to make viable such change as is necessary.
- blauwbilgorgel 13y agoIt's easy to yell from the sidelines, but what is this hoping to accomplish? A total shutdown of the NSA? I wonder how realistic this goal is. Forcing states to pass legislature to ban offering help in any way to the NSA? Million dollar contracts down the drain, because a local government official turns off the water tap, turning data centers into ghost towns? Seems like a very long shot. Secondly I wonder how the pro's and con's weigh up. I think even the staunchest supporters of (internet) freedom would, at least to some extend, agree that intelligence gathering and spying is a current necessity for a world power like America. It would probably put their entire military in danger for intelligence efforts to drop to zero. That "the people" in general want things to change is clear and efforts to create such change are mostly noble. I think a balance can be found where the NSA acts within bounds, with oversight and transparency. Where companies can disclose the numbers on information requests. None of these secret court shenanigans anymore. Versus an NSA that does what it is made to do, does its job well (hiring proud academics included), and generally works in the interest of all American people (and their allies). There should be a balance between boundless spying and no spying at all.
- naterator 13y ago>It's easy to yell from the sidelines, but what is this hoping to accomplish? A total shutdown of the NSA? I doubt anyone thinks that, realistically. From what I gather this is essentially protesting, although a protest that actually causes those in power some discomfort. The NSA would have to start sourcing/generating it's own power and water. Anyone who works there will become persona-non-grata. In my opinion, this actually has the chance of doing something. Much better than 500,000 people marching down Broadway, then going home at the end of the day (Iraq war protest, anyone?). And I don't think anyone wants to see the NSA go away completely either. I believe that if the Snowden documents revealed that everything the NSA was doing was outside the nations borders (or just not targeted at US citizens), no one would give two shits. They would even be pleasantly surprised, probably. But that's not what we found out. We found out that the NSA and it's secret court take the most liberal reading of the laws in place to do whatever they want, and with no good controls over who has access to what information, or when. In short, this is a different form of protest, hopefully a more effective one.
- jmnicolas 13y agoI thought Utah was a pretty arid place, where does the water comes from ?
- netfire 13y agoUnderground aquifers, reservoirs from streams, rivers, etc. Northern Utah gets a fair amount of snow as well. There are around 2.9 million people living in Utah[1]. There is also a fair amount of agriculture in the state, especially up north, which uses most of the water in the state[2]. States like Arizona and New Mexico are much more arid. [1] - http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/49000.html http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/49000.html [2] - http://www.water.utah.gov/brochures/wiu_broc.htm http://www.water.utah.gov/brochures/wiu_broc.htm
- jmnicolas 13y agoVery interesting links thank you. I was very surprised about the "racial" statistics in the first link. In my country (France) it's unlawful to make this kind of statistics.
- gms7777 13y agoWait, its illegal to take take racial demographic statistics in France? I find that really surprising. I went and tried to look up French census information, but alas, I could only find it in French. I can however find estimates of racial demographics in France on wikipedia and such.
- jmnicolas 13y agoYes it's illegal. What you probably found was people's country of origin but not their race (or it was not a French survey). Even hinting about it will get you labeled as a racist.
- jah627 13y agoThis is a case of the "ends" creating a justification to open the door for the "means" to slip through. "States rights" and "nullification" have long been used to justify trampling the constitutionally protected rights of minorities of every race, creed, color, and religion. The simplest and best way to "nullify" the NSA, is to change it. If that takes a Constitutional Amendment, so be it. Its time to get to work.
- privong 13y agoThat states rights and nullification have sometimes been used for bad purposes doesn't mean that any use of states rights and nullification is automatically bad. Your statement reads as though that's what you mean. But surely you wouldn't say that states setting their own laws regarding taxation, wages, etc. (which are an exercise of states rights) are inherently bad? > If that takes a Constitutional Amendment, so be it. Its time to get to work. We already have one: "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized." What we need is to ensure it is being followed and enforced.
- cpr 13y agoTypical mainstream propaganda. Nullification was used initially to resist federal laws about returning captured slaves. See Tom Wood's book http://tomwoods.com/books/nullification/ http://tomwoods.com/books/nullification/ for the complete, surprising history of nullification.
- zmanian 13y agoSeveral key pieces of information on Off Now. -Off Now represents an unprecedented collaboration between left and right wing organizations. The 10th Amendment Center is associated with right wing causes like nullifying Obamacare or gun control regulations. The Bill of Rights Defense Committee is well known as left leaning civil rights organization. This partnership has been characterized by mutual respect and a shared love of liberty. It is amazing. - The Off Now legislation has real legal consequences in the opinion of experienced constitutional lawyers like Shahid Buttar of BORDC. In California, the Off Now Bill SB828 would prevent the NSA from recruiting on UC campuses and impair opening an NSA facility in the future in CA. In Washington State, it would impair the functionality of the Yakima facility considerably. What can you do? - If you live in Washington State, call the office of Laurie Jenkin's and ask for hearing on HB2272 http://www.leg.wa.gov/House/Representatives/Pages/jinkins.aspx http://www.leg.wa.gov/House/Representatives/Pages/jinkins.as... - Ask your employers to participate in the The Day We Fight Back on Feb 11th. https://thedaywefightback.org/ https://thedaywefightback.org/ - In SF, come to the AT&T building at 611 Folsom on the 11th to hear whistle blower Mark Klein speak and to remind the SF community that the NSA is capturing America's internet traffic right in their city. - If you live in CA, sign Shame on Feinstein. https://shameonfeinstein.org https://shameonfeinstein.org - Support the BORDC and the 10th Amendment center financially.
- zmanian 13y ago- Feb 11th 611 Folsom Street Protest (https://www.facebook.com/events/614121478661276/ https://www.facebook.com/events/614121478661276/) -Feb 11th Utah Protest (https://www.facebook.com/events/527159990715739 https://www.facebook.com/events/527159990715739)
- brokenparser 13y agoFacebook? Really?
- zmanian 13y agoI'm debugging a thing with the events page for the restorethefourthsf.com site.
- qwerta 13y agoI think this plan is very naive. There will always be money for more police and military stuff. North Korea is extreme example. Result of those obstructions would be mostly prosecution of activists.
- api 13y agoIf you cut the power to NSA facilities they will just install local generation, even trucking in their own fuel. Not sure about water and such but I'm sure they could do the same there.
- bo1024 13y agoUnfortunate, but likely true. That's the problem with trying to hit the NSA in the pursestrings -- if they need more money, they'll just get it, and to add insult to injury they'll get it from us via taxes.
- stevenrace 13y agoWhere it could be spun as a 'LEED, zero emissions data center' (a Thorium reactor, perhaps!). As for cooling, the old Cray's used Fluorinert - I suspect 3M would be happy to brew something up. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluorinert http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluorinert
- joyeuse6701 13y agoIt's a move in a large game of chess. Just because your opponent will counter your movement, doesn't mean you shouldn't make a move. This is a viable strategy. The earlier it is, the more likely you have resources to counter a movement. This is an option now and with sound strategy could be used in various scenarios. The NSA is successful now because of computational power and obscurity. They operate in the dark and as a result get away with a lot. But operational funds that feed their workers that work for them on all levels come from the people. Bureaucracy is acting as levels of abstraction preventing the people from shutting them down by denial of resources. The further you are able to cut down the bureaucracy and make it apparent that the NSA needs money from the people to operate, the more likely you are to engage the american people into saying 'no'. So, should they need to spend money on energy, they will have to find a means to get it, and the more you block them, the higher the price gets. At some point, if the campaign is successful, they will have to appeal to the people for money, i.e. some tax to do it. Maybe it will be defense spending, or maybe it will be energy tax. But the clearer it becomes an issue of money, the more obvious what the move is, and can thus be countered into a game finishing move.
- err4nt 13y agoWon't anybody 'attacking' the NSA will be labelled a terrorist, and anybody signing a petition simply add their own name to the list? If any kind of action like this is taken against the NSA on US soil, I'm sure it will result in increased legal protective measures for the NSA to help safeguard from this new 'terrorist threat', which will only make people want to disrupt them more. Basically what I fear is a home-grown 'terrorist' movement that the NSA will use to justify its recent behaviour. This works so well in their favour (long-term) that I can't even rule out the possibility of the whole thing being a false flag actually endorsed by the NSA. This can't end well…
- rubbingalcohol 13y agoSo, you're saying that organized political action to affect democratic change in America could be considered a "terrorist" threat? The fact that you're even worried about this shows how far our country has slid in terms of liberty and democracy. We are now on the cusp of being a police state, but I really hope people won't let that dissuade them from exercising their civic duty to engage the democratic process.
- louthy 13y agoThis!
- pbhjpbhj 13y ago>organized political action // The action is a physical with-holding of resources in order to prevent an arm of government from operating. That doesn't sound like "political" action. Warranted or not that description vastly underplays the gravity of the proposed action IMO.
- Crito 13y agoYou may redefine "political action" such that this sort of action does not qualify, but there is no way you can call it terrorism without resorting to absolutely ludicrous redefinitions.
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- ingenium 13y agoAll the federal government would have to do is threaten to cut all federal funding and subsidies to the state. An example would be funding for interstates, but there are many many more. I can't remember when exactly, but I'm pretty sure they've played this card before. I can't think of a single state whose politicians would not back down from such a threat.
- Phlarp 13y agoThey used the interstate funding threat to get all 50 states to toe the line on 21 year drinking age.
- Zigurd 13y agoAnd yet some states are still managing to hold out against Obamacare.
- Phlarp 13y agoIn this particular case "they" equals congress, not the administration. Obama is not legally able to hold highway funding hostage to get states to implement his doomed healthcare act; He could direct congress to do the above, but they are generally too busy discussing the repeal of the ACA these days.
- 1457389 13y agoIt would go to the SC, and since they have precedent with the Medicaid expansion, this would be likely to go in the states' favour.
- sadris 13y agoYou mean the federal government which has passed the least number of laws of all previous' Congresses?
- Loughla 13y agoI genuinely don't understand this statement as a metric for assessing effectiveness. What you're saying is that the best way to tell whether or not the federal government is doing its job is by the simple number of laws it passes. That sounds incorrect. I don't know, maybe I don't understand that measurement, but it seems like volume is a piss-poor way to measure how well the government is operating.
- jaybuff 13y ago"The water-cooled supercomputers require 1.7 million gallons of water per day to function." Anyone have a citation for that? I suspect that water is in circulation. I doubt they send almost two million gallons into the sewage system everyday.
- wmf 13y agoWater could be lost in evaporative cooling towers.
- NAFV_P 13y agoI did a quick calculation for the energy consumption of Tianhe-2, which has a power consumption of 17808 kW ... 1,538,611,200,000 J per day. Of course the Tianhe-2 is rated as the fastest, and the NSA won't be using something as big, but it gives you a rough idea of the power consumption of these machines.
- Zigurd 13y agoWhat a load of naysayers. Sending the message that pervasive domestic surveillance is unwelcome could be effectively sent with a couple critical states cutting off local resources and enacting laws that are hostile to the operators of such a facility. It doesn't have to be perfect. It's a form of protest.
- unclebucknasty 13y agoThis sounds great. Even has a slight geurilla ring to it, that appeals to the freedom-fighter in all of us. But, as many have noted on this thread, they will simply find ways around these obstacles. So, it's just another form of cat-and-mouse in a game we are destined to lose, as their resources are virtually unbounded. In all, it really goes the long way around getting done what really needs to be done: change and clarify laws which bring the NSA back under heel. IMO, pursuing anything else outside of legal redress as a primary goal (including pure technical solutions like encryption) is simply assuming the wrong posture. It concedes their right to do these things, as long as they can skirt the chestnuts we try to shovel into their path. In this, we allow ourselves to be put at odds with our own government and abandon the rule of law, as well as the very principle that our government works for us.
- pbhjpbhj 13y agoAgreed. It's an attempt to circumvent democratic process. That may be deemed necessary but then isn't there a larger issue - that you have a pseudo-democracy in which the only way for the populus to combat rogue agencies within the state government is to perpetrate acts of aggression against their own infrastructure? The infrastructure those same people are paying taxes to implement? Basically you're saying that USA democracy has broken to such an extent that the people need to initiate war - of a form - against the government's agencies.
- unclebucknasty 13y agoExactly. And, if our democracy is broken to that extent and the people are so apathetic about fixing it, then why should we expect that they would line up behind such "guerilla" action as proposed by this article?
- DennisP 13y agoNo, it's part of the democratic process. The action proposed is to pass state laws, not to commit acts of sabotage.
- darkarmani 13y ago> It's an attempt to circumvent democratic process. How is passing a state law circumventing democratic process? Isn't it more of a circumvention if all of the locals vote against the NSA, but the NSA still moves in?
- monkeynotes 13y agoIsn't the cooling water a closed recirculating system? That's how id design it anyway, seems wasteful to have fresh water pumped in continuously.
- zmanian 13y agoMy understanding is the Provo site uses an open loop system. I'm not aware of any data center scale closed loop cooling systems.
- dredmorbius 13y agoHeat of vaporisation of water is tremendous, and the amount of cooling you gain by allowing for evaporation is huge. You can contain the evaporative cycle, but that takes a lot more engineering. As with anything, it's a cost/benefit question.
- chris_mahan 13y agoI thought it was "Turn off the computer" and write on paper, and talk to people, in person, etc.
- user24 13y agodon't be ridiculous.
- pbhjpbhj 13y agoStopping a water supply to enact damage to a part of your, supposed, democratic governmental machine sounds to me like the first act of a civil war ...
- aray 13y agoMy favorite of all the restrictions so far is to ban recruiting at colleges and universities. The NSA recruited heavily out of my school -- many of my peers interviewed with them (it was hard to find an employer looking for so many engineering new grads).
- coldskull 13y agoCan the president not declare emergency and bypass the laws? The laws may not help much
- notdonspaulding 13y agoNo. At least I don't think so, but IANAL. In general, bad laws are better fixed by repeal or amendment, as opposed to fiat of the executive branch, because they represent the people. The NSA spying on Americans is bad, and I believe a violation of the 4th Amendment to the US Constitution. That being said, the way to fix this is through Congress or the Supreme Court. If you really want to see progress on this front, do it through the courts and through Congress. The wheels for this are already in motion, but it could take some time to have an effect. The two biggest things that could speed this up are to convince your friends and relatives that this is an important issue, and to vote for a non-establishment candidate in the upcoming mid-term election. Unless this becomes an issue for the average American (hint: it's not yet), or unless we get non-establishment representation in the Capitol building, this won't get fixed the way it ought to.
- vaadu 13y agoWould be nice if facebook, google, ISPs and cell phone providers refused to do business with employees of the white house, congress, NSA and FBI. Shut down their social networking and email accounts, their cell phones and their home TV and internet access.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- Ryel 13y agoYes, let's fund the NSA through taxes and then pay more by sabotaging them. Here's an equally brash idea... Innovators in the USA threaten to become primary residents elsewhere. Let other countries bid on the incentives they'd like to enact to bring thousands of startups and leading innovators.
- lukejduncan 13y agoIt took some digging to figure out who is backing this. It looks like it's an org called the Tenth Amendment Center. Does anyone know who these guys are? Are they reputable? Will my money actually go to this cause?
- icantthinkofone 13y agoI find it very interesting how many people claim to have intimate knowledge...now...of the most secret agency in the world where none existed before.