[liberationtech] NSA has direct access to tech giants' systems for user data, secret ppt reveals

[R. Jason Cronk]

I tend to agree with this. Here are some things that look fishy about 
this leak

  * The $20 million budget seems paltry. Nothing gets done in government
    for that small amount.
  * The Powerpoint is amateurish  (then again with no budget.....)
  * Everybody implicated is denying it (though I suspect they would say
    the same if it were true)
  * The Guardian says it verified the authenticity of the presentation
    but it doesn't say how, nor does it appear they have any
    corroborating evidence.


Hopefully their will be some further investigation that will provide 
additional evidence about the program's existence.

Jason



On 6/7/2013 12:23 AM, x z wrote:
> What surprised me is how Guardian and Washington Post cover this 
> "story". The Power Point slides looks laughable to me. Maybe I should 
> interpret "direct access to servers of firms" as like when I'm typing 
> this email I am also having /a direct access/ to Gmail's servers.
>
> This either a ploy by some "pro-privacy" extremist or a prank by 
> somebody who's tired of these hyperbole privacy outcries.
>
>
>
> 2013/6/6 Peter Eckersley <peter.eckersley at gmail.com 
> <mailto:peter.eckersley at gmail.com>>
>
>     Of course, I was reading to fast and leaning to heavily on control+f.
>
>     Anyway, 20 million annually seems like a very low number by the
>     usual standards of efficiency in Department of Defense programs. 
>     But the NSA might already have a data storage, processing and
>     query architecture in place that is either not included in this
>     budget or only included on a marginal cost basis.
>
>
>     On 6 June 2013 16:45, Peter Eckersley <peter.eckersley at gmail.com
>     <mailto:peter.eckersley at gmail.com>> wrote:
>
>         Where did you get the $20m budget number from?  I can't find
>         it in any of the stories or attached materials.  But I could
>         be missing something.
>
>
>         On 6 June 2013 16:14, x z <xhzhang at gmail.com
>         <mailto:xhzhang at gmail.com>> wrote:
>
>             doesn't seem real to me.  especially the part "*direct
>             access to servers* of firms ...", and with an annual
>             budget of measly $20m.
>
>
>             2013/6/6 Michael Carbone <michael at accessnow.org
>             <mailto:michael at accessnow.org>>
>
>                 -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
>                 Hash: SHA1
>
>                 Guardian:
>                 http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/06/us-tech-giants-nsa-data
>
>                 WaPo:
>                 http://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/us-intelligence-mining-data-from-nine-us-internet-companies-in-broad-secret-program/2013/06/06/3a0c0da8-cebf-11e2-8845-d970ccb04497_story_1.html
>
>                 some of the slides (haven't seen the full ppt drop):
>                 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/politics/prism-collection-documents/
>
>                 Participating companies in chronological order:
>                 Microsoft, Yahoo,
>                 Google, Facebook, PalTalk, YouTube, Skype, AOL, Apple.
>                 Dropbox
>                 apparently next up.
>
>                 - --
>                 Michael Carbone
>                 Manager of Tech Policy & Programs
>                 Access | https://www.accessnow.org
>                 michael at accessnow.org <mailto:michael at accessnow.org> |
>                 PGP: 0x81B7A13E
>                 PGP Fingerprint: 25EC 1D0F 2D44 C4F4 5BEF EF83 C471
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>         -- 
>         Peter 
>
>
>
>
>     -- 
>     Peter
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*R. Jason Cronk, Esq., CIPP/US*
/Privacy Engineering Consultant/, *Enterprivacy Consulting Group* 
<enterprivacy.com>

  * phone: (828) 4RJCESQ
  * twitter: @privacymaverick.com
  * blog: http://blog.privacymaverick.com

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