U.S. mining data from 9 leading Internet firms

[amoy]

a very thin line btwn "commercial practice" and "spying", like Google adSense putting on ads simultaneously according to content of webpages u are browsing through javascript...

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[amoy]

Obama strongly defends phone and Internet surveillance - latimes.com

Obama defended the extensive surveillance Friday, saying he'd come into office skeptical and had bolstered congressional oversight and judicial review.

"We scrubbed them thoroughly. We actually expanded some of the oversight, increased some of safeguards," he said at a news conference in San Jose. "I think it's important to recognize that you can't have 100% security and also then have 100% privacy and zero inconvenience. We're going to have to make choices as a society."

Critics say Obama has not only embraced tactics he denounced as senator, but has also set up a framework that cements their place in law. They note he has often used the same justifications that he once blasted as the Bush administration's "false choice between the liberties we cherish and the security we demand."

 

[t_co]

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/10/us/former-cia-worker-says-he-leaked-surveillance-data.html

Former C.I.A. Worker Says He Leaked U.S. Surveillance Data
By BRIAN KNOWLTON
WASHINGTON — The British newspaper The Guardian on Sunday revealed the identity of the source of its information for a series of articles on surveillance practices by the National Security Agency.

In an article on its Web site, the newspaper identified the source as Edward Snowden, 29, a former technical assistant for the Central Intelligence Agency who has worked at the N.S.A. as an employee of outside contractors.

The British newspaper said it was revealing Mr. Snowden's identity at his own request. It said he had decided from the moment he chose to disclose top-secret documents to the public, revealing the highly secretive data-surveillance programs, that he would not remain anonymous.

"I have no intention of hiding who I am," he was quoted as saying, "because I know I have done nothing wrong." But the newspaper said he was also braced for the United States government to "demonize" him.

The Guardian said that Mr. Snowden was working at the N.S.A. office in Hawaii three weeks ago when he made final preparations for his disclosures. It said he copied the documents, then advised a supervisor that he needed to be away for "a couple of weeks," saying he required medical treatment.

He then told his girlfriend that he would be away for a few weeks.

On May 20, the newspaper reported, he boarded a flight to Hong Kong, where he remains ensconced in a luxury hotel room. He said he chose that city because of its "spirited commitment to free speech and the right of political dissent."

The paper said Mr. Snowden, fearing that he himself would be the object of spying, lines the door of his hotel room with pillows to prevent eavesdropping.

The Guardian last week reported the existence of a secret government program that collects data from phone calls made on the Verizon network. That newspaper and The Washington Post later reported that a separate program known as Prism was being used to collect Internet data of foreigners from Internet companies like Facebook and Skype. The source of the leaks had remained a mystery, however, generating fervid speculation.

In its account of Mr. Snowden's motivations, The Guardian described him as a man whose patriotism and deep-seated idealism about his country suffered a stinging series of disappointments, leaving him conflicted and finally pushing him to take a step some have described as treason.

After growing up in North Carolina, he moved with his family to Maryland, near N.S.A headquarters in Fort Meade.

Though he never obtained a high school diploma, he studied computing at a community college in Maryland. He enlisted in the United States Army in 2003 and began training to join the Special Forces, he told the newspaper, helping to fight in the Iraq war "to help free people from oppression."

But his experience was dispiriting, The Guardian reported. "Most of the people training us seemed pumped up about killing Arabs, not helping anyone," he said. Mr. Snowden broke both legs in a training accident and received a discharge.

He then got a job as a security guard at a covert N.S.A. facility at the University of Maryland, soon moving to a computer job with the C.I.A., rising with unusual speed for someone lacking a high school diploma.

The C.I.A. sent him to Geneva in 2007; he had diplomatic cover and clearance giving him access to classified documents.

But he grew disillusioned there by the tactics he saw agency operatives use in trying to recruit a man to spy on Swiss banks, and he began thinking for the first time about exposing government secrets.

He temporized, however, fearing that his disclosures might endanger someone, and hoping that the election of Barack Obama might bring greater transparency to government.

But after taking a job for a private contractor, and being assigned to an N.S.A. facility on a military base in Japan, he said he watched "as Obama advanced the very policies that I thought would be reined in," adding, "I got hardened."

He has gradually embraced, with ever-greater fervor, the causes of transparency and Internet freedom.

The Guardian said he had been fully transparent himself when challenged by its reporters to confirm the authenticity of the materials he provided. It said he offered his Social Security number, even his C.I.A. identity number.

Mr. Snowden said that he admired both Daniel Ellsberg, the source of the Pentagon Papers, and Bradley Manning, the Army private who has acknowledged providing huge troves of government documents in the WikiLeaks scandal.

But he drew a contrast, saying that "I carefully evaluated every single document I disclosed to ensure that each was legitimately in the public interest." He said that "harming people isn't my goal. Transparency is."

Mr. Snowden said that he now hopes he might be granted asylum someplace – possibly Iceland – but that he is prepared for whatever happens.

"I feel satisfied that this was all worth it," he said. "I have no regrets."

Nicely done China. Blowing up a PR landmine under Obama's feet right as he was about to pressure Xi over hacking at the Sunnylands summit, then putting the leaker under 24-hour Chinese security in Hong Kong so there's no conceivable way the US can get to him, giving China a nice, neat, medium-term bargaining chip to have over Obama in case he tries piping up about hacking again.

No wonder Obama was so quiet about cybersecurity after the Sunnylands summit, even though cybersecurity topped their agenda.

This was a masterful move.

 

[t_co]

This, plus the Chinese wedge driven between France/Italy and Germany/UK over the EU trade dispute, demonstrates that Xi knows how to play foreign policy hardball on the same level as the Americans. About ----ing time.

 

[t_co]

NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden: 'I do not expect to see home again' | World news | guardian.co.uk

Q: What do you think is going to happen to you?

A: "Nothing good."

Q: Why Hong Kong?

A: "I think it is really tragic that an American has to move to a place that has a reputation for less freedom. Still, Hong Kong has a reputation for freedom in spite of the People's Republic of China. It has a strong tradition of free speech."

The fact that he's under 24-hr security in a Hong Kong luxury suite suggests to me this was a classic wet operation. Quite a power move, wonder how Obama can respond.

 

[t_co]

Now every time the US asks for China to release a dissident to the US for asylum, China can simply say "we would like Bradley Manning to join Edward Snowden in Hong Kong".

Bravo.

 

[boris]

NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden: 'I do not expect to see home again' | World news | guardian.co.uk



The fact that he's under 24-hr security in a Hong Kong luxury suite suggests to me this was a classic wet operation. Quite a power move, wonder how Obama can respond.

Hopefully by sending hit-squads from CIA's SAD to send this traitor to hell.

 

[t_co]

Hopefully by sending hit-squads from CIA's SAD to send this traitor to hell.

That would only make him a martyr.

 

[sayareakd]

US is doing this for decades, nothing new in it, NSA and CIA got tones and tones of data on everyone, hell google has got tons of data. They have access to everything, what do you think those supercomputers for.

 

[LurkerBaba]

I'm not talking about data servers maintained by Chinese govt. I'm talking about info collected by Google through android phones.Of course not talking about forked versions of android like alibaba. Talking about android powered phones with playstore+bundled google apps.

AFAIK Google Play services are not popular in China. Most phones don't come with Play pre-installed, paid apps are blocked and things like Gmail don't work

 

[The Messiah]

 

[VIP]

AFAIK Google Play services are not popular in China. Most phones don't come with Play pre-installed, paid apps are blocked and things like Gmail don't work

I know, china's half+ Android phones are forked androids like Amazon's. That's why I mentioned Alibaba one of that forked androids...

 

[t_co]

U.S. surveillance revelations deepen European fears | Reuters

(Reuters) - Europeans reacted angrily on Friday to revelations that U.S. authorities had tapped the servers of internet companies for personal data, saying they confirmed their worst fears about American Web giants and showed tighter regulations were needed.

The Washington Post and the Guardian aroused outrage with reports that the National Security Agency (NSA) and FBI had accessed central servers of Google, Facebook and others and gathered millions of phone users' data.

Europe, which lacks internet giants of its own, has long yearned to contain the power of the U.S. titans that dominate the Web, and privacy-focused Germany was quick to condemn their co-operation with the U.S. security services.

"The U.S. government must provide clarity regarding these monstrous allegations of total monitoring of various telecommunications and Internet services," said Peter Schaar, German data protection and freedom of information commissioner.

"Statements from the U.S. government that the monitoring was not aimed at U.S. citizens but only against persons outside the United States do not reassure me at all."

The Post said the secret program involving the internet companies, code-named PRISM and established under President George W. Bush, had seen "exponential growth" during the past several years under Barack Obama.

Some of the companies named in the article have denied the government had "direct access" to their central servers. Nevertheless, the justice minister for the German state of Hesse, Joerg-Uwe Hahn, called for a boycott of the companies involved.

"I am amazed at the flippant way in which companies such as Google and Microsoft seem to treat their users' data," he told the Handelsblatt newspaper. "Anyone who doesn't want that to happen should switch providers."

CONCERNS RIPPLE BEYOND EUROPE

The European Union has struggled to assert its citizens' rights to privacy in the United States for almost a decade.

Transatlantic agreements on sharing the financial and travel data of European citizens have taken years to complete, and the European Union is now trying to modernize an almost 20-year-old privacy law to strengthen Europeans' rights.

International concerns also echoed beyond Europe.

In Australia, the conservative opposition said it was "very troubled" and had voiced concern to U.S. diplomats in Canberra about what it called large-scale, covert surveillance of private data belonging to foreigners.

"There is a massive global trend to cloud services," said opposition communications spokesman Malcolm Turnbull, noting that the vast majority of providers were U.S. firms.

Fears about the security of data held on U.S. servers have already been a major factor in slow European adoption of "cloud" computing services, in which computing-intensive applications are done by central providers in large server farms.

The U.S. Patriot Act, signed into law after the September 11, 2001 attacks on the country, gave U.S. intelligence agencies significant new powers of data surveillance and had been a focal point of resistance.

"You hear more concerns in Europe than in the U.S., about the Patriot Act in particular. PRISM just enhances those concerns," said Mark Watts, a partner in London law firm Bristows specializing in privacy and data compliance.

"The main players that are mentioned are much more on the consumer cloud end... but it may be that emotionally it adds to the concerns about U.S. cloud providers," said Watts, whose clients include several large U.S. internet firms.

Cloud services accounted for $16.1 billion in revenues in western Europe last year, according to IT research firm Gartner, less than half the $32.9 billion generated in north America by firms such as Amazon or Salesforce.

Europe has tried to protect its citizens by imposing restrictions on the export of data to third countries without strong data protection laws, which can include the United States - but Bristows' Watts said these were easy to get around.

European Justice Commissioner and Vice President Viviane Reding said: "This case shows that a clear legal framework for the protection of personal data is not a luxury or constraint but a fundamental right."

Reding, who has been trying to push through an update to Europe's data protection laws for 18 months, noted that EU government leaders meeting in the European Council had been able to agree the Data Retention Directive relatively quickly.

Their action on the 2006 directive, which stipulates that phone and internet companies must store records to help in fighting serious crime, showed they could act fast when limiting civil liberties.

"It is time for the Council to prove it can act with the same speed and determination on a file which strengthens such rights," she said in an emailed statement.

WHOLESALE SURVEILLANCE

Some of Europe's difficulties in combating perceived data abuses arise from the fact that many European governments look with envy at the U.S. security services' powers.

Britain is trying to strengthen its already powerful monitoring capabilities by bringing in what critics say would be the West's most far-reaching surveillance laws.

The Guardian reported on Friday that Britain's eavesdropping and security agency, GCHQ, had been secretly gathering intelligence from PRISM and had had access to the system since at least June 2010.

GCHQ said in an emailed statement to Reuters: "Our work is carried out in accordance with a strict legal and policy framework which ensures that our activities are authorized, necessary and proportionate."

Mikko Hypponen, chief research officer at Finnish software security firm F-Secure, said outrage was the appropriate response to the U.S. revelations.

"What we have in our hands now is the first concrete proof of U.S.-based high-tech companies participating with the NSA in wholesale surveillance on us, the rest of the world, the non-American, you and me," he said.

But he added there was little that individuals could do, with precious few alternatives to the popular services offered by U.S. firms Facebook, Google or Apple.

"The long term solution is that Europe should have a dot.com industry just like the United States, which would give us economic benefits but more importantly would make us independent of the wholesale surveillance of the U.S. intelligence agencies."

Would be funny if the EU's protectionist efforts aimed at Silicon Valley instead of Chinese solar manufacturers. China should do everything it can to whip up public consternation in Europe over US internet firms' access to their data - it would simultaneously weaken the US internet industry and delay any Transatlantic Free Trade Agreement (the other anti-China economic agreement the US is pushing, in addition to the TPP).

Sacrificing the interests of Huawei in Europe would be worth it if the scorched earth campaign also burned out Google, Facebook, Apple, and TAFTA. It would be even better if the resultant heavy US lobbying of EU commissioners was exposed - nothing like combining Euroscepticism, anti-Americanism, and the residual anger of an economic recession to permanently damage US-EU relations. Tens of thousands burning American flags in the Tiergarten and the Champ de Mars, and millions of European users boycotting US internet companies - that's what China should be aiming for.

 

[t_co]

2010 marked the start of the US offensive to build diplomatic coalitions aimed at countering China.

2013 will mark the start of the Chinese counteroffensive.

Let the games begin!

 

[average american]

The USA is good at kind of stuff, after 80 years practice on communism and the USSR.

 

[nimo_cn]

American surveillance program isn't just targetting American citizens, but also targetting people world wide whoever are using services from the 9 American companies.

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[amoy]

Hong Kong hotel says Edward Snowden was there, but checked out Monday - The Washington Post
Edward Snowden faces strong extradition treaty if he remains in Hong Kong

Russia hints that Putin may grant political asylum to whistleblower Edward Snowden as NSA leaker vanishes in Hong Kong | Mail Online

Edward Snowden, a former CIA technical assistant fled to Hong Kong
Leaked details of Prism, which he says harvests personal data from web
U.S. National Intelligence director says surveillance keeps America safe
Names Iceland as his destination of choice due to internet freedom
Russian MP Robert Schlegel urged the Kremlin to look at a the possibility
News has increased pressure on President Barack Obama to act swiftly
House Speaker John Boehner called him a 'traitor' who put Americans at risk

 

[SamwiseTheBrave]

irs very interesting to note the timelines here........Skype came onboard after Microsoft acquired it in May 2011, Apple a year after Jobs` death (am sure Steve would`ve told the NSA guys to take a hike across the Mojave desert). wonder why Google signed up only in 2009 and what it got in return

 

[SamwiseTheBrave]

indian and egypt at the same hotness levels - and even germany is at yellow !!! wonder what their reactions will be.... ireland is hotter than the rest of the UK, looks like the Brits are in cahoots to keep a lid on the IRA chaps eh ? i wont even mention pakistan at red, looks like the mullahs were being sensible for a change when they ask for bans on FB, Google and Yahoo.

 

[nimo_cn]

India seems be at a higher level than China according to the figure, that is mostly unexpected.

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