NSA Tool Collects 'Nearly Everything You Do On The Internet'

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Hang on a second, if this tool is so powerful, why doesn't the NSA use it to track down all the high profile fugitives on the wanted list (or Snowden himself)?

XKeyscore, the documents boast, is the NSA's "widest reaching" system developing intelligence from computer networks – what the agency calls Digital Network Intelligence (DNI). One presentation claims the program covers "nearly everything a typical user does on the internet", including the content of emails, websites visited and searches, as well as their metadata.
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Oh God. I put off downloading the Anarchists Cookbook for too long, now it's too late!
 
The problem with these programs is simple. They do NOT prevent misuse and abuse. Someone at the NSA shouldn't be able to go into work and read his neighbor's e-mails. Nor should the ruling political party be able to read their opponents e-mails and phone conversations. This has nothing to do with terrorism, or keeping the nation safe. If you have a legitimate threat, then you should have no problem getting a legitimate warrant.
 
Awesome!! I need them to tell me where I got that huge discount on that batch of porn I bought last year >_<
 
Just because they can collect it all means they're reading it all...

But yes, I agree, there needs to be accountability. I find this whole thing silly cause we've known about it since the patriot act was passed. People were willing to give up some liberties in the name of protection. Now it's like they've completely forgotten that people were overwhelmingly supportive of it.

This whole thing is an issue of trusting who is in charge...
 
wgm3446 said:
Just because they can collect it all means they're reading it all...

But yes, I agree, there needs to be accountability. I find this whole thing silly cause we've known about it since the patriot act was passed. People were willing to give up some liberties in the name of protection. Now it's like they've completely forgotten that people were overwhelmingly supportive of it.

This whole thing is an issue of trusting who is in charge...
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And if you trust the people at the top to self police, well have a look at Nixon.
 
Anyone ever seen the Zeta Project? It's a spin off from Batman beyond. A bit of nostalgia hit me, and decided to watch it again. Who chases a little girl and a peace loving robot? The NSA, that's who. In the show they literally wire tap everything, and listen to everything to catch the robot. The shows creators called it in 2001.

2001-The-Zeta-Project3-300x220.jpg
 
vengence said:
The problem with these programs is simple. They do NOT prevent misuse and abuse. Someone at the NSA shouldn't be able to go into work and read his neighbor's e-mails. Nor should the ruling political party be able to read their opponents e-mails and phone conversations. This has nothing to do with terrorism, or keeping the nation safe. If you have a legitimate threat, then you should have no problem getting a legitimate warrant.
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THIS! It simply boggles the mind that there is even any debate about this, especially after the IRS scandal and forget reading a neighbors mail, just wait until Anonymous or some group hacks into it and makes the data public at some point.
 
Juddog said:
Just because the tool is powerful, doesn't mean the people using it know what they're doing.
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I beg to differ, they know exactly what to do with their political enemies data.
 
The NSA, who I know is reading this, needs to be reminded of the Constitution. The president, too, while we're at it. And I know Obama is reading this as well. :mad:
 
By the way...where is creepyunclegeorge? He must be sleeping because it's unlike him to not defend the all spying eye.
 
Just because the tool is powerful, doesn't mean the people using it know what they're doing.
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Umm, try and think of it all this way.

1st, NSA gives a rat's ass about Snowden as Snowden is an FBI problem now. See, he may be leaking on what the NSA does but he is the FBI's problem to find and arrest. The NSA's job is not domestic crimes but foreign intelligence activities and only crosses into the domestic side because they are communicating through domestic communications lines.

It's simple, terrorist in Sudan calls or send's email to terrist in Mubai. The data flows through domestic satalites and networks. The data is mixed in with everyone elses stuff. It's hard to pick out the torrorists' stuff and seperate it from the rest sometimes. But if you collect everything, it becomes much easier to sort through what you have and connect it all together once you find a "key" peice. The problem is, you have to find a way to do this and not violate all of our rights in the process.

The solution as it is, suck it all up and stick it in a wearhouse. Now seperate the meta data from the juicy stuff, the content. The meta data is not as sensative to work with but it does allow them to link this guy to that guy so they can identify networks or collections of bad guys who are talking to one another. Once you have this network identified, now you can go to the secret court, show your evidence, and get the court order allowing you to reach into the content and get the good stuff.

That's the plan. Snowden was one of those low level guys and had access to the meta data part. He also became aware of the super secret special stuff that was also in the wearhouse. Now understand, Snowden wasn't an analyst, he wasn't authorized access to that stuff. But he knew it was there and he decided he would leak it all and make it sound scarey.

So while you read this stuff in the news try and fit it into this little layout. When someone meantions phone data try to determine are they talking about the meta data or the content. Anyway, maybe this clarifis some things for anyone who is confused.
 
creepy uncle google telling us its all fine, nothing to worry about if you are not a terrorist in 3...2...1
 
Some of you guys make some really foil hat wearing comments.

The guy in the NSA basement is on furlough today, he lives in one of the highest cost of living areas of the country and just took a 20% pay cut. If he can swing a part time job, do some moon-lighting it ain't worth it cause pizza delivery part time is a drop in the bucket for what he needs to make his mortgage.

These dudes have jobs man, they have assignments and things to get done. They get someone out in the field that gives them a name, they run the name against the DB and get a phone number or an Mac Address. They run that against another DB and get all the others he is talking too. Then they filter out the pizza delivery places and the calls from telemarketers to limit the hits to more possible possibles. Then they check who these other contacts are are start grouping them into family, friends, work associates, etc. They look at those people for known memberships or ties to radical islamic groups for instance. They take this guy who lives in say Indonesia and is a possible problem and they look for a pattern of connections that suggests he actually is a problem.

They are not looking for their stapler and they really don't give a shit if you don't like the president because their job is foreign. If the foreign bad guys didn't come to the US and didn't have contacts in the US, and if their data didn't flow through the US then we wouldn't be having these issues of how to seperate their stuff from ours. Not one senator has direct access to these data bases, hell they don't even have user accounts on these networks. If something comes up and some of this info needs to be breifed to some Senate Defense Committee then a report and breifing is created and they get breifed, therefor they have access in that they are cleared to see and be informed on issues derived from or based on this data. In some case, a specific source report might be cited and shown during a breifing to demonstrate that specific and it's seriousness. But if you think old geezer Senator from wherever is sitting on his laptop somehwere looking up dirt on some dude who is a pain in his ass for whatever reason then man you are a deluded and clueless.

Don't even try and equate an analyst within the NSA with a paper pusher filling forms from the IRS. They might get payed the same but the level of oversight, control, and work focus for the NSA guys is a whole nother world in comparison.
 
This isn't a tool for catching bad guys. This is a political tool. It will be used to monitor a particular party's special stars and blackmail them out of the races.
 
beowulf7 said:
The NSA, who I know is reading this, needs to be reminded of the Constitution. The president, too, while we're at it. And I know Obama is reading this as well. :mad:
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I'm sure that is just what their doing, eating popcorn, reading your forum posts here at the [H].
 
lcpiper said:
Some of you guys make some really foil hat wearing comments.

The guy in the NSA basement is on furlough today, he lives in one of the highest cost of living areas of the country and just took a 20% pay cut. If he can swing a part time job, do some moon-lighting it ain't worth it cause pizza delivery part time is a drop in the bucket for what he needs to make his mortgage.

These dudes have jobs man, they have assignments and things to get done. They get someone out in the field that gives them a name, they run the name against the DB and get a phone number or an Mac Address. They run that against another DB and get all the others he is talking too. Then they filter out the pizza delivery places and the calls from telemarketers to limit the hits to more possible possibles. Then they check who these other contacts are are start grouping them into family, friends, work associates, etc. They look at those people for known memberships or ties to radical islamic groups for instance. They take this guy who lives in say Indonesia and is a possible problem and they look for a pattern of connections that suggests he actually is a problem.

They are not looking for their stapler and they really don't give a shit if you don't like the president because their job is foreign. If the foreign bad guys didn't come to the US and didn't have contacts in the US, and if their data didn't flow through the US then we wouldn't be having these issues of how to seperate their stuff from ours. Not one senator has direct access to these data bases, hell they don't even have user accounts on these networks. If something comes up and some of this info needs to be breifed to some Senate Defense Committee then a report and breifing is created and they get breifed, therefor they have access in that they are cleared to see and be informed on issues derived from or based on this data. In some case, a specific source report might be cited and shown during a breifing to demonstrate that specific and it's seriousness. But if you think old geezer Senator from wherever is sitting on his laptop somehwere looking up dirt on some dude who is a pain in his ass for whatever reason then man you are a deluded and clueless.

Don't even try and equate an analyst within the NSA with a paper pusher filling forms from the IRS. They might get payed the same but the level of oversight, control, and work focus for the NSA guys is a whole nother world in comparison.
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I'm glad I'm not the only one who thinks this to.
 
I love how it is "tin foil hat" until it comes out that our most sinister suspicions were actually true all along, then it somehow suddenly becomes "no big deal". The statist apologists strenuously deny all allegations until proven wrong, then shrug their shoulders like "eh, so what?"
 
xX326Xx said:
I'm sure that is just what their doing, eating popcorn, reading your forum posts here at the [H].
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Not him, the intern is. Then he (or she) creates a Powerpoint presentation telling him that x% of the people on [H] are talking about him. x% are talking favorably and x% are talking unfavorably. He asks for the userIDs that talked unfavorably and those people disappear in six weeks. :D
 
lcpiper said:
Some of you guys make some really foil hat wearing comments.
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Might want to have some fact checking. Let's take Joe Wurzelbacher, aka "Joe the plumber". After making a comment about the presidential race in 2008, no less than three databases were searched each without cause, some multiple times by different individuals. At least that was all the was publicly disclosed.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controversial_Ohio_database_searches_of_Joe_Wurzelbacher

If you think someone who has access to all this information and pulls hundreds of search a day, isn't just going to do a search on his neighbor because he's curious, or because his neighbor pissed him off, or whatever, you're delusional. While the likelihood for political abuse of these systems is high, the higher probability and occurrence is abuse from the people who use them every day for personal gain.

I mean let's face it, a NSA employee is buying and/or selling a house. It wouldn't be advantageous for him to look at e-mails between the buyer/seller and their real estate agent? To pull the e-mails of the CFO of a publicly traded company? Will 99% of NSA do this? NO, but are there individuals that would? Of course.
 
lcpiper said:
The solution as it is, suck it all up and stick it in a wearhouse. Now seperate the meta data from the juicy stuff, the content. The meta data is not as sensative to work with but it does allow them to link this guy to that guy so they can identify networks or collections of bad guys who are talking to one another. Once you have this network identified, now you can go to the secret court, show your evidence, and get the court order allowing you to reach into the content and get the good stuff.
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From your long detailed posts it sounds like you know the NSA process inside n' out. That means that either
a.) You work for one of the NSA contractors and you just violated your security clearance rules by discussing your job.
or
b.) You don't really know much but are making a bunch of assumptions from what you've read online.

I'm going to vote for (b). So you don't know much, but feel that your understanding is much more sophisticated than the rest of the tin-hat wearing crowd here.

Nobody knows what they're collecting. That's precisely the problem! Probably even individual NSA contractors (i say contractors because NSA has very little actual IT staff of its own), don't know the full extent of everything that's being collected.

I work in programming in the DC area. I don't work for the government right now, but i did in my previous job. I know programmers who work for the big contractors, Booz-Allen, Harris, Deloitte etc. They're all the same. You got your 10% of people who know their shit. 20% who browse facebook all day, and 70% who just want to do enough so not to get fired.


....puhlease
 
Hang on a second, if this tool is so powerful, why doesn't the NSA use it to track down all the high profile fugitives on the wanted list (or Snowden himself)?
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They don't need to track Snowden. It's well known where he is and has been. I'm sure the CIA has agents sitting in the terminal with him.
 
Ducman69 said:
THIS! It simply boggles the mind that there is even any debate about this, especially after the IRS scandal and forget reading a neighbors mail, just wait until Anonymous or some group hacks into it and makes the data public at some point.
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Yep. It is a real risk. Hell, I would argue about their right morally and or legally to be collecting 99 percent of the data they do. Let alone the huge abuse potential or misuse, reckless use, etc. Already we have many high profile cases such as the IRS abuses and who knows what else we'll learn of...
 
mastaBlasta said:
From your long detailed posts it sounds like you know the NSA process inside n' out. That means that either
a.) You work for one of the NSA contractors and you just violated your security clearance rules by discussing your job.
or
b.) You don't really know much but are making a bunch of assumptions from what you've read online.

I'm going to vote for (b). So you don't know much, but feel that your understanding is much more sophisticated than the rest of the tin-hat wearing crowd here.

Nobody knows what they're collecting. That's precisely the problem! Probably even individual NSA contractors (i say contractors because NSA has very little actual IT staff of its own), don't know the full extent of everything that's being collected.

I work in programming in the DC area. I don't work for the government right now, but i did in my previous job. I know programmers who work for the big contractors, Booz-Allen, Harris, Deloitte etc. They're all the same. You got your 10% of people who know their shit. 20% who browse facebook all day, and 70% who just want to do enough so not to get fired.


....puhlease
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To me it seems like he is responding to people who make assumptions from stuff they read online. With at least providing links to information to actually back up his input. While obtaining the data is inclusive, the act of using/doing something with the data is exclusive. The way I look at it, if your doing or saying something that is going to throw up flags, maybe they should be watching you. I actually feel safer knowing we are being watched.
 
"Don't worry about all your shit in a database cuz dem guys is busy."

Lol, ok. That's a real compelling argument with no weak points and no potential to change at any point.

Same as idiots who don't get a prenup because they don't have assets. I guess that means you never plan to do anything in the future, either. Better not ever blow any whistles, because all of a sudden you're "aiding the enemy" and the nsa is right up your ass.
 
From your long detailed posts it sounds like you know the NSA process inside n' out. That means that either
a.) You work for one of the NSA contractors and you just violated your security clearance rules by discussing your job.
or
b.) You don't really know much but are making a bunch of assumptions from what you've read online.

I'm going to vote for (b). So you don't know much, but feel that your understanding is much more sophisticated than the rest of the tin-hat wearing crowd here.
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Cool, someone who at least knows something.
Instead of guessing, you could ask, how's this.
Joined Army in '81 doing Military Intel work, SIGINT Collection actually. It's how I know about most of this stuff, The NSA is the "Clearing House" so to speak, like most of our policies are NSA derived. Over the years I started as an Interceptor/Collector, I listened and reported, then I moved on to being an analyst, first of my specific discipline, later doing all source work, developing breifings, that kind of stuff. The stuff I did started being done less and less my people on systems and more just by systems so they offered me early retirement and I got out in '98. Of course I went to work as a contractor, I had a clearance, it's the natural thing to do. Been doing contract work ever since, started out as an instructor on systems and worked my way into IT. Now I work at Army NETCOM. It's lunch time, I had Mexican food for lunch.

So, the answer is almost A, and no I have told no one anything that is classified and I won't loose my job because I am not discussing my job or anyone's job that I work dirrectly with. I am simply using my experience in the field and knowledge of unclassified policy to help others be able to identify what they should be worried about over what they shouldn't.

Like you said yourself, they don't know what they are pulling in cause they are just sucking it all up and as you said, ...
10% of people who know their shit. 20% who browse facebook all day, and 70% who just want to do enough so not to get fired.
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And my list of companys isn't as good as yours, mine is L3 Communications, Northrup Grumman, CSC, Raytheon, SAIC, and my current employer who shall remain annonymous just because I like to hold a little something back :D
 
So this guy want's to talk about Manning with whistles(Treason), and what, like 130 Years in Prison give or take a few.

It's ok, keep your hero. He was just an idiot kid, he was trained, he was breifed, he watched really boring videos on other traitors, what they did, how they were caught, how what they did hurt our country, the country he swore to protect. Every time he logged into one of those classified computers he saw a pop up that reminded him he was on a classified system. He was a low level guy, new, young, and overall his job over there, I know what it was like, I used to do it, and I have been over there and seen them doing it. I know what his life was like deployed, I've ate the same chow, shopped in the same exchanges, drank the same coffee from Green Beans or whatever the name of the place might have been. I got the shirt.

If you want to think of Manning as a whistle blower or give him credit for some romantic form of heroism go ahead. But I know what he is, he knew what he was doing, and the Judge went east on him and his cute innocent kid face cause know matter if you buy into "why" he did, the fact remains he knew exactly "What" he was doing and that it would damage the country, and that it could get people hurt or killed.

His defense sold people on the idea that he checked and made sure he wasn't letting anything out that was too damaging, right .... over 700,000 files, he check all that shit. He's a Superman, He's sooo experienced.

He will be in Prison for the rest of his life, and he earned it.
 
vengence said:
To pull the e-mails of the CFO of a publicly traded company? Will 99% of NSA do this? NO, but are there individuals that would? Of course.
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Individuals you say. More like industrial espionage on a global scale. Big business, politics, and military are completely interconnected and serve one greater purpose. Why would they - or anyone with power, really - invest these huge amounts of resources if not for profit? Unthinkable!
 
lcpiper said:
So this guy want's to talk about Manning with whistles(Treason), and what, like 130 Years in Prison give or take a few.

It's ok, keep your hero. He was just an idiot kid, he was trained, he was breifed, he watched really boring videos on other traitors, what they did, how they were caught, how what they did hurt our country, the country he swore to protect. Every time he logged into one of those classified computers he saw a pop up that reminded him he was on a classified system. He was a low level guy, new, young, and overall his job over there, I know what it was like, I used to do it, and I have been over there and seen them doing it. I know what his life was like deployed, I've ate the same chow, shopped in the same exchanges, drank the same coffee from Green Beans or whatever the name of the place might have been. I got the shirt.

If you want to think of Manning as a whistle blower or give him credit for some romantic form of heroism go ahead. But I know what he is, he knew what he was doing, and the Judge went east on him and his cute innocent kid face cause know matter if you buy into "why" he did, the fact remains he knew exactly "What" he was doing and that it would damage the country, and that it could get people hurt or killed.

His defense sold people on the idea that he checked and made sure he wasn't letting anything out that was too damaging, right .... over 700,000 files, he check all that shit. He's a Superman, He's sooo experienced.

He will be in Prison for the rest of his life, and he earned it.
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Your condescending views really help showcase the problem at hand. You basically have a bunch of guys who have been inside the military-industrial complex for 30+ years, who think they know what's right and wrong, and what's best for the country, and the rest of us are just a bunch of naive "children" who just don't get it, and talk out of our asses, and keep doing stupid things.

Thank you for providing this wonderful example: yourself:cool:
 
I am really surprised how up and arms everyone is over the NSA doing this.

The data has been around for quite some time.

It is basically a more real time version of the internet Archive:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Archive

I had also read about IBM doing something like this on their own. Making a copy of the internet. But I was unable to find a direct link.
 
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