Congress Pretends to Curb Illegal and Unconstitutional Wiretapping Program

The Democratic and Republican parties are among the greatest threats to the people and Constitution of the United States.  From Wired:

The U.S. House of Representatives has passed a bill that would end the NSA’s mass collection of Americans’ phone records. Unfortunately, it may not end the NSA’s mass collection of Americans’ phone records.

The House voted 303 to 121 Thursday in favor of the USA Freedom Act, broad legislation aimed at reforming the NSA’s surveillance powers exposed by Edward Snowden. The central provision of the bill, which now moves on to debate in the Senate, is intended to limit what the intelligence community calls “bulk” collection–the indiscriminate vacuuming of citizen’s phone and internet records. But privacy advocates and civil libertarians say last-minute changes to the legislation supported by the White House added ambiguous language that could essentially give the NSA a broad loophole through which it can continue its massive domestic data collection.

Survey: Comcast, Time Warner the Most Hated Companies in the United States

From BGR:

The only consumer survey that matters has found that among all businesses across every industry, Comcast and Time Warner Cable are the two most hated companies in America. The American Customer Satisfaction Index, which is put out quarterly by the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business and is considered the most comprehensive customer satisfaction survey in the United States, has just come out with a new survey showing once again that Comcast and TWC have the lowest customer satisfaction ratings of any ISPs in the United States. And that’s not even the worst news for the two companies in the latest survey.

We asked ACSI to provide us with customer satisfaction scores for every company in every industry that they cover and it turns out that Comcast and TWC have the lowest customer satisfaction ratings of any of them.

In fact, Comcast and TWC’s Internet service businesses were the only two businesses in the United States to score below a 60 on the ACSI’s 100-point scale. What’s most amazing is that both Comcast and TWC have even lower customer satisfaction ratings than United Airlines, which has a notoriously bad reputation in an industry that, due in part to government security requirements, is known for delivering a miserable experience.

The Criminal Justice System Is Aptly Named

Because it is indeed criminal.  From the Guardian, an op-ed by Ladar Levison, who chose to shut down his secure encrypted email service rather than bend over for the feds. Excerpt:

The largest technological question we raised in our appeal (which the courts refused to consider) was what constitutes a "search", i.e., whether law enforcement can demand the encryption keys of a business and use those keys to inspect the private communications of every customer, even when the court has only authorized them to access information belonging to specific targets.

The problem here is technological: until any communication has been decrypted and the contents parsed, it is currently impossible for a surveillance device to determine which network connections belong to any given suspect. The government argued that, since the "inspection" of the data was to be carried out by a machine, they were exempt from the normal search-and-seizure protections of the Fourth Amendment.

More importantly for my case, the prosecution also argued that my users had no expectation of privacy, even though the service I provided – encryption – is designed for users' privacy.

If my experience serves any purpose, it is to illustrate what most already know: courts must not be allowed to consider matters of great importance under the shroud of secrecy, lest we find ourselves summarily deprived of meaningful due process. If we allow our government to continue operating in secret, it is only a matter of time before you or a loved one find yourself in a position like I did – standing in a secret courtroom, alone, and without any of the meaningful protections that were always supposed to be the people's defense against an abuse of the state's power.

How the NSA Compromises Hardware

From Ars Technica:

A document included in the trove of National Security Agency files released with Glenn Greenwald’s book No Place to Hide details how the agency’s Tailored Access Operations (TAO) unit and other NSA employees intercept servers, routers, and other network gear being shipped to organizations targeted for surveillance and install covert implant firmware onto them before they’re delivered.

These Trojan horse systems were described by an NSA manager as being “some of the most productive operations in TAO because they pre-position access points into hard target networks around the world.”

The document, a June 2010 internal newsletter article by the chief of the NSA’s Access and Target Development department (S3261) includes photos . . . of NSA employees opening the shipping box for a Cisco router and installing beacon firmware with a “load station” designed specifically for the task.

Today, the CEO of Cisco has written a letter to President Obama against these sleazy practices, which make everyone less safe.  From the CBC:

Cisco Systems Inc's chief executive officer has written a letter to U.S. President Barack Obama urging him to curtail government surveillance after evidence circulated showing the U.S. National Security Agency had intercepted Cisco equipment, a company spokesman said on Sunday.​

In a letter dated May 15, John Chambers, chief executive officer and chairman of the networking equipment giant, warned of an erosion of confidence in the U.S. technology industry and called for new "standards of conduct" in how the NSA conducts its surveillance.

Local Police Deploy Secret Military Grade Electronic Warfare Devices Against Citizenry

Cities and counties around the country continue to use funds from DHS to further militarize local police and ramp up the Democratic and Republican parties' ongoing war on basic constitutional rights and liberties. In the present case, police won't even reveal the nature of the electronic warfare devices being deployed against the people. From the Pontiac Tribune:

‘HailStorm’ is a new device obtained by the Oakland County [MI] Sheriff with monies from a U.S. Homeland Security Grant and so far, there isn’t much information available on what exactly it can and cannot do.  There were no questions asked when Oakland County commissioners unanimously approved the use of this cellphone tracking device previously used by the US military in Iraq.

Undersheriff Michael McCabe told The Detroit News that the federal Homeland Security Act bars him from discussing the Hailstorm device.
Many privacy advocates are questioning why one of the safest counties in Michigan needs the very powerful, super-secretive military device called ‘Hailstorm’. The Detroit News sought basic information about Hailstorm and the county denied their Freedom of Information Act request.

The Oakland County Sheriff’s Office, located here in Pontiac, is the only police department in the state of Michigan(that we know of?) currently using the military technology. If you think this is an invasion of privacy, you are not alone.

FCC Caves to Corporate Masters of the Democratic and Republican Parties

Anyone who expected a group of Democrats and Republicans to do anything other than continue to carry water for their corporate overlords on this issue, as with all other issues, seriously needs to have their head examined. From the Washington Post:

The Federal Communications Commission on Thursday voted in favor of advancing a proposal that could dramatically reshape the way consumers experience the Internet, opening the possibility of Internet service providers charging Web sites for higher-quality delivery of their content to American consumers.

The plan, approved in a three-to-two vote along party lines, could unleash a new economy on the Web where an Internet service provider such as Verizon would charge a Web site such as Netflix for the guarantee of flawless video streaming.

The proposal is not a final rule, but the vote on Thursday is a significant step forward on a controversial idea that has invited fierce opposition from consumer advocates, Silicon Valley heavyweights, and Democratic lawmakers. The FCC will now open the proposal to a total 120 days of public comment. Final rules, aimed for the end of the year, could be rewritten after the agency reviews the public comments.

Again, supporting the Democratic or Republican parties in any way, shape or form is effectively tantamount to declaring oneself in active opposition to the most basic interests, rights and liberties of the people of the United States. 

Unintended Consequences of the Snowden Leak

In the aftermath of the Snowden NSA leak last year, supporters of the National Security Police State and Surveillance Society in the Republican and Democratic parties quickly ran to the media arguing that the leak represented a grave threat to national security because it would potentially reveal sensitive intelligence sources and methods.  It is now being reported by the WSJ that, in response to the Snowden leaks, Al Qaeda have changed up their crypto protocols and rolled their own encryption software.  And the uninformed  responses from the professional hysterics in the media and blogosphere are not hard to find.  Take some guy named Bob Cesca at the Daily Banter, for example. He writes:

So this is just peachy. I’ve always been very, very cautious to not over-emphasize the general scope of the terrorist threat, but this has more to do with stupidly and recklessly helping the ones that are out there, and it appears as if Snowden & Company have done precisely that.

What this reveals is that Bob Cesca doesn't know the first thing about the basic tenets of cryptography. One of the first things anyone learns when doing the most rudimentary study of cryptography and cryptanalysis is that "home-brewed," closed source  cryptographic software is essentially broken by definition, since by definition it cannot be subjected to rigorous review.  This makes it easier to break.  So, ironically, by switching up their crypto, Al Qaeda are likely providing new attack vectors for intelligence agencies the world over.  And this is in fact the view of at least one actual expert in cryptography, Bruce Schneier, as opposed to the uninformed reactions of professional political whiners.  He writes:

The Web intelligence company Recorded Future is reporting -- picked up by the Wall Street Journal -- that al Qaeda is using new encryption software in the wake of the Snowden stories. I've been fielding press queries, asking me how this will adversely affect US intelligence efforts.

I think the reverse is true. I think this will help US intelligence efforts. Cryptography is hard, and the odds that a home-brew encryption product is better than a well-studied open-source tool is slight. Last fall, Matt Blaze said to me that he thought that the Snowden documents will usher in a new dark age of cryptography, as people abandon good algorithms and software for snake oil of their own devising. My guess is that this an example of that.