Althouse: "You can’t have 100 percent security and then also have 100 percent privacy and zero inconvenience."

June 7, 2013

"You can’t have 100 percent security and then also have 100 percent privacy and zero inconvenience."

"You know, we’re going to have to make some choices as a society."

132 comments:

Unknown said...: The choices seemingly have been made for us, behind closed doors.; 6/7/13, 12:22 PM
Charlie said...: Trust me, I'm not like the others.; 6/7/13, 12:23 PM
edutcher said...: True that, but these things are usually a matter of open debate and subject to Congressional approval.; 6/7/13, 12:25 PM
MayBee said...: I thought the language he was elected on in 2008 indicated people were willing to go with more privacy, less "100%" security.

But it would be nice to have a debate about it, rather than have it all done secretly. If the governmant isn't doing anything bad, they have nothing to fear from exposure.; 6/7/13, 12:26 PM
test said...: "You can’t have 100 percent security and then also have 100 percent privacy and zero inconvenience."

I wonder when people will quit pretending any criticism of privacy policy is a demand to have 100% of both. Probably never.; 6/7/13, 12:31 PM
Robert Cook said...: Straw man. Who ever asked for "100 percent security?" Who thinks we can have "100 percent security," even in the most draconian, boots-to-the-neck dictatorship?; 6/7/13, 12:31 PM
Robert Cook said...: "Obama Calls Surveillance Programs Legal and Limited"

He forgot to remind us that "America doesn't torture."; 6/7/13, 12:33 PM
Larry J said...: That's another of Obama's famous strawmen. We can't have 100% security under any circumstances and only a fool would believe otherwise. Under Obama, we've seen firsthand that government can't be trusted (and I could end the sentence there) to not abuse it's power due to the politicization of the bureaucracy.; 6/7/13, 12:33 PM
Revenant said...: we’re going to have to make some choices as a society

Isn't that a little hard to do when you don't actually tell society the choices are being made? "Society" cannot participate in a "choice" that by definition must be made secretly.; 6/7/13, 12:33 PM
Eric the Fruit Bat said...: The Reassurer-in-Chief.; 6/7/13, 12:34 PM
Mogget said...: OK! Trade privacy for security. Got it! Let's have full disclosure of every communication event between the WH and anybody else on the subjects of:

Fast and Furious
IRS weaponization
Benghazi

Lead the way, Mr. President! We'll watch and see how secure we feel once your privacy is limited.; 6/7/13, 12:34 PM
Henry said...: “You can’t have 100 percent security and then also have 100 percent privacy and zero inconvenience,”

Both clauses of this formulation are unattainable.

You can’t have 100 percent security.

You can’t have 100 percent privacy and zero inconvenience.

Making the first seem conditional is incorrect.

By overriding privacy and constricting the bounds of the open society you can, perhaps, increase security. But you can't have 100 percent security.

Maybe you can't even have 50% security. Now that's a dumb formulation. 50% of what?

The fact is, we live in an actuarial society. If you're going to take something from the individual -- privacy, liberty -- you better offer truth in return. How much safer am I? 1% safer? 10% safer?

The country just found out that the President is protecting us even more than anyone thought. Shouldn't my life insurance rates go down?; 6/7/13, 12:35 PM
YoungHegelian said...: “Nobody is listening to your telephone calls,...."

Well, not in real time, anyway.

But, if you've ever called anyone who's on the FBI/NSA "watched" list for whatever reason, you can be guaranteed that your conversation (or email or file copy) has been further scanned, maybe even by a human being with a pair of ears or eyes.

That's why the NSA/FBI wanted the phone metadata, so that they could build "webs" of relationships so that they can drill down to manageable subsets for future data capture & analysis.; 6/7/13, 12:36 PM
Revenant said...: Straw man.

Also known as "those who say". :)

Who ever asked for "100 percent security?"

The public demands it all the time. Every time something bad happens, people demand the government prevent it from ever happening again.

But yes, it is impossible. A true statement would have been "you can’t have 100 percent security, 100 percent privacy, or zero inconvenience."; 6/7/13, 12:37 PM
Eric the Fruit Bat said...: The president's ability to discourse at length in broad generalities should come as a comfort to those of us worried that he might actually know something about the details of what's going on and that he might actually be making decisions that matter.; 6/7/13, 12:38 PM
Bill, Republic of Texas said...: “If people can’t trust not only the executive branch but also don’t trust Congress and don’t trust federal judges to make sure that we’re abiding by the Constitution, due process and rule of law, then we’re going to have some problems here,” he said.

The problem I have with this statement is all the other news we get. We hear that on the Rosen subpoena the DOJ lied to get the warrant and then had to shop it around until they found a judge willing to sign it.

Also the DNI lied to Sen Wyden about this exact program. So how can we trust government when they lie to achieve their goals.; 6/7/13, 12:38 PM
cold pizza said...: Because this personal information could NEVER be used against one's political foes. Ever.

Trust us.

-CP; 6/7/13, 12:41 PM
rcommal said...: Mr. Obama suggested that Congressional debate behind closed doors should offer the public some confidence that the surveillance is not being abused.

BWAHAHAHA; 6/7/13, 12:42 PM
Doug said...: Boston Marathon bombing = 0%; 6/7/13, 12:42 PM
Moose said...: The problem is we don't get a say in which we want. It's made for us and we have to abide by someone else's secret decision that we don't even know about until someone leaks them...; 6/7/13, 12:43 PM
Hammond X. Gritzkofe said...: From USA Today: Then, Obama called it "a false choice between the liberties we cherish and the security we demand."

Uh. Mr. Pres. How about taking the LIBERTIES WE DEMAND as the starting point.; 6/7/13, 12:43 PM
Brian Brown said...: Since Obama is so super-duper smart, why does he always have to argue against straw men?; 6/7/13, 12:44 PM
Robert Cook said...: "Mr. Obama said the programs help prevent terrorist attacks and they are kept in check by rigorous judicial and Congressional oversight."

What "rigorous judicial and Congressional oversight? And why aren't we, the people made aware of this digital dragnet by those conducting it, if it's so necessary and beneficial to us, rather than by a journalist? How "rigorous" can the "judicial and Congressional oversight" be if we, the people don't know about it and can't question our representatives about it?; 6/7/13, 12:45 PM
Bill, Republic of Texas said...: Doug said...
Boston Marathon bombing = 0%

You know that's a great point. If they have all this information at their fingertips then why couldn't they determine the brothers were a threat.

I've never understood the FBI investigation. How is it possible they could not identify the brothers from the videos? WHy did they have to release the videos and ask the public to help identify them when they already had a file on them?

It;s just not that government is too big and too intrusive, it's also inefficient. If we going to live in a surveillence society, then let's get the benefits.; 6/7/13, 12:47 PM
MayBee said...: It's Obama's "if it saves just one child" schtick that comes the closest to demanding 100% safety.
Yet that formulation was rejected by the American people w/r/t gun rights. People don't want 100% safety.; 6/7/13, 12:51 PM
rhhardin said...: What protects privacy is staff uninterested in anything but their legitimate targets.; 6/7/13, 12:51 PM
J said...: Government can not possibly stop all terrorists but it can violate all your privacy.Obama and the Fallacy of False Choices.Why do law types learn rhetoric but not logic?; 6/7/13, 12:55 PM
MayBee said...: I've never understood the FBI investigation. How is it possible they could not identify the brothers from the videos? WHy did they have to release the videos and ask the public to help identify them when they already had a file on them?
---------

Great points.

And what does it say when every time- every time- one of these attacks happens, we have to hear about how it might have been someone from the right? Doesn't that indicate this administration considers right extremists to be as dangerous as Islamic extremists? Why would they limit their data collection to Islamic extremism?; 6/7/13, 12:57 PM
garage mahal said...: But Obama welcomes this debate! But he doesn't welcome leaks, and that's why this was kept secret from us.; 6/7/13, 12:57 PM
Kelly said...: Obama was against it before he was for it.; 6/7/13, 12:58 PM
Bryan C said...: IRS targeting people for their political beliefs? Inconvenience.; 6/7/13, 12:59 PM
prairie wind said...: He said the collection of information from Internet companies like Google and Apple does not apply to American citizens or people living in the United States.

Doesn't apply to me? The only way they know it doesn't apply to me is if they have looked at the data pertaining to me.; 6/7/13, 1:08 PM
garage mahal said...: it would be interesting to go back into the 2006-2007 archives at Althouse and hear the discussion back then on the NSA.; 6/7/13, 1:09 PM
Patrick said...: You cannot have 100% security under any circumstances. You also cannot have 100% privacy under any circumstances. No one really asked for either, although more and more the Government claims to be trying to provide the former, usually at substantial expense to the latter.; 6/7/13, 1:09 PM
VanderDouchen said...: Shut up. And racist.; 6/7/13, 1:12 PM
Ignorance is Bliss said...: Robert Cook said...

Straw man. Who ever asked for "100 percent security?" Who thinks we can have "100 percent security," even in the most draconian, boots-to-the-neck dictatorship?

Leftists, when talking about financial security.; 6/7/13, 1:12 PM
Rabel said...: The Washington Post has had the PRISM story for three weeks. A major paper never publishes Top Secret information without first verifying with the administrarion that no lives will be put at risk by the release. This gives the government some ability to influence the timing of the publication.

It looks to me that the White House has done a brilliant job of affecting that timing in a manner that has minimized the damage.

The Verizon story on metada collection came out on Wednesday and met with a firestorm of criticism. The PRISM story about a much more intrusive surveillance program came out a day later.

The effect has been that the public, the media, and even commenters here on Althouse conflate the two very different programs. Note the many references here today to the relative harmlessness of metadata collection. Note the WSJ editorial linked by Althouse which only speaks to the Verizon leak, not PRISM.

Read the Post's initial story linked above. If their facts are accurate, PRISM is not about metadata. The government is in the servers of all the major internet software and social media providers. They are monitoring and recording phone call content. They are reading emails. They are looking at Facebook posts, public and private. You may need a password to get into your gmail, but Google knows that password and so, apparently, does Uncle Sam.

The only protection a US citizen has from PRISM is the requirement that the NSA and FBI must assert a 51 perrcent probability that one of the participants in a phone call or email exchange is on foreign soil. Not very reassuring.; 6/7/13, 1:13 PM
Ignorance is Bliss said...: garage mahal said...

it would be interesting to go back into the 2006-2007 archives at Althouse and hear the discussion back then on the NSA.

Then go. We can manage fine without you here.

Take your time.; 6/7/13, 1:14 PM
Tibore said...: "You can’t have 100 percent security and then also have 100 percent privacy and zero inconvenience."

Strawman; we accepted the tradeoff under Bush after 9/11. The point isn't 100% privacy and zero inconvenience, the point is whether the Executive is abusing the power.; 6/7/13, 1:14 PM
J said...: Ya got it Patrick notice how one of the little government tricks is to put the watxhdogs inside the fence which obviates the watchdogs to defend the fence.Our so-called congressional oversight is eefending the policy-not us.; 6/7/13, 1:14 PM
Achilles said...: The most transparent administration ever.

Transparently Fascist.

His apologists and lackies on both sides of the Isle need to be impeached and DC needs to be detached from the country like the bloated tick it has become.; 6/7/13, 1:16 PM
garage mahal said...: Then go. We can manage fine without you here.

You guys seem to have a real hard time of it when I'm not posting, so I better stick around.; 6/7/13, 1:17 PM
Ignorance is Bliss said...: You may need a password to get into your gmail, but Google knows that password and so, apparently, does Uncle Sam.

I sure hope Google doesn't know my password. If they do, then they are ignoring 30+ years of computer industry security experience.; 6/7/13, 1:18 PM
Achilles said...: Bill, Republic of Texas said...

Doug said...
Boston Marathon bombing = 0%

You know that's a great point. If they have all this information at their fingertips then why couldn't they determine the brothers were a threat.

-------------

The US government had 2 other governments tell them the brothers were terrorists. Hassan was not exactly hiding before he shot up that military base.

But this is about controlling the law abiding, not the terrorists. Just like Gun Control. They don't care about our safety. They care about theirs.; 6/7/13, 1:20 PM
Joe Schmoe said...: You can’t have 100 percent security and then also have 100 percent privacy and zero inconvenience.

You can tell he's not running for office anymore. What he says is true; it's just one of those things you can't point out to people when you are running for office.

This is quite a departure from his "if it saves only one life..." stance from 6 months ago.; 6/7/13, 1:21 PM
Methadras said...: It's an onion of lies. Every layer leads to another one. There isn't a single kernel of truth in anything he says ever. Leftists are the most dangerous cancer on the face of the earth. The match has been struck folks. He's basically telling you that you are fucked and it's out of your hands. I think the time is now to begin the resistance to this unabashed unashamed attack on our liberty and freedom. It's all out in the open now.; 6/7/13, 1:21 PM
Rick67 said...: This is a classic Obama trope. He plays the false dichotomy card all the time. Either "you can't have all x and all y" or "our enemies want x - and we want y" (when his political "enemies" are *not* demanding x which is the complete opposite of y).

Smartest president evah.; 6/7/13, 1:22 PM
damikesc said...: Perhaps 100% security isn't exactly optimal.

Nor is anybody asking for it. Risk exists. A plane could fall from the sky and crush me. Should we ban flights for that miniscule risk?

This hyper-surveillance state DOESN'T DO WHAT IT SAYS ANYWAY. The Boston bombers still did their thing in spite of it.; 6/7/13, 1:26 PM
Hagar said...: Off topic from the Dept. of Nothing New under the Sun.

Translated from a letter to Prof, L. Daae, Christiania University, ca. 1885:

"– Who would have believed, just a few score years ago, that there would be such a dreadful split between the Norwegian people. With us, the Liberals have taken over such, that one, who is considered to be very intelligent, travels around the country and holds revivals, and on these occasions I think he campaigns for the Liberal policies as best he can, when he in a sophisticated manner diddles folks into believing how much good and how much benefits they have already brought, since all expenditures hereafter will be so much less. He professes to understand the Constitution as well as I understand the ABC book. We Conservatives have no one to defend us. What does most to cause people to hold with the Liberals, is that Lars Oftedal's newspaper, which is trusted before any others, is so widely read, since they believe in L. Oftedal like the Catholics believe in the pope; that he is infallible. The Lord alone knows what the consequences will be of this bewilderment. It is lamentable to contemplate that there is such a large divide between the inhabitants of our country."; 6/7/13, 1:27 PM
damikesc said...: That's the problem with Fascism. It never does what it says it will do.

Note: Mussolini didn't get the trains to run on time.; 6/7/13, 1:30 PM
rcommal said...: it would be interesting to go back into the 2006-2007 archives at Althouse and hear the discussion back then on the NSA.

Garage, I spent some time yesterday reading through a number of them, and they were interesting. For example one in particular, from December 2006 I think, featured a long, in-depth discussion on issues of legality between a couple of very determined commenters (I think Mark and Ace, actually, but I could be wrong) with some others joining in. Very blast from the past.; 6/7/13, 1:32 PM
gerry said...: ...they are kept in check by rigorous judicial and Congressional oversight.

JUST LIKE THE I.R.S.!!!!!

Lying. Lying. Lying.; 6/7/13, 1:36 PM
Rabel said...: Ignorance said:

"I sure hope Google doesn't know my password. If they do, then they are ignoring 30+ years of computer industry security experience."

Of course they know your password. Humans may not know it but the computers do. How else do you think they let you access the program. The government is in the servers, they don't need human cooperation.; 6/7/13, 1:36 PM
garage mahal said...: @rcommal
Yea I read some old threads as well. Whatever happened to Internet Ronin I wonder?

And we thought we were polarized back then. Those old threads are nothing like today's brawls.; 6/7/13, 1:37 PM
Patrick said...: Those old threads are nothing like today's brawls.

If by "brawls" you mostly mean "poo flinging festivals."; 6/7/13, 1:38 PM
X said...: garage mahal said...
You guys seem to have a real hard time of it when I'm not posting, so I better stick around.

it wasn't that bad. some dude named eelpout filled the void.; 6/7/13, 1:38 PM
the wolf said...: You know that's a great point. If they have all this information at their fingertips then why couldn't they determine the brothers were a threat.

I'm not convinced Obama's primary targets are terrorists.; 6/7/13, 1:39 PM
rcommal said...: Oh, dear, Garage, I don't like to do this like this but I don't know how to email you, and I suppose it doesn't matter anyway, but: Internet Ronin passed away from a cancer a little over a year ago. I do miss him. He was a great guy, and I'm just glad I got to talk to him several times before he died.; 6/7/13, 1:41 PM
Rabel said...: Ignorance said:

"I sure hope Google doesn't know my password. If they do, then they are ignoring 30+ years of computer industry security experience."

Of course they know your password. Humans may not but the computers do. How else do you think they let you access the program. The government is in the servers. They don't need human involvement.; 6/7/13, 1:45 PM
Brian Brown said...: rcommal said...

Garage, I spent some time yesterday reading through a number of them, and they were interesting. For example one in particular, from December 2006 I think

How did you find them??; 6/7/13, 1:45 PM
garage mahal said...: @rcommal
I think I remember a thread where he may have told us about his illness? That sucks. Glad you got to know him.; 6/7/13, 1:47 PM
traditionalguy said...: The Emperor says "no harm, no foul," while the data is being stored forever awaiting the day he needs to do harm to some enemies...like opponents of Sharia Law.

Surprise, surprise, the Lawless One is not concerned with any Law against what he wills to do.; 6/7/13, 1:49 PM
Ignorance is Bliss said...: Rabel said...

Of course they know your password. Humans may not know it but the computers do. How else do you think they let you access the program.

The standard practice is to run the password through a one-way encryption. So when I first set my password, it gets encrypted and stored. Each time I log in, the password I enter gets encrypted, and compared to the stored value. The system has no way to calculate my password from the encrypted, stored copy. Even if someone hacked into their system, they could not get my password, because my password is not stored.

That's why, when you report that you lost your password, they never email you your password, they reset it and email you the reset value.; 6/7/13, 1:49 PM
viator said...: Reporter Glenn Greenwald:

“What the Obama administration is doing in interpreting the PATRIOT Act is so warped and distorted and it vests themselves with such extremist surveillance powers over the United States and American citizens that Americans, in their words, would be stunned to learn what the Obama administration is doing,” he said on CNN’s “The Lead.”

Speaking with MSNBC host Lawrence O’Donnell, Greenwald dared lawmakers to investigate how information about the Verizon phone records leaked, as Feinstein has said should happen.

“Let them go and investigate,” Greenwald said.

He added, “There is this massive surveillance state that the United States government has built up that has extraordinary implications for how we live as human beings on the earth and as Americans in our country, and we have the right to know what it is that that government and that agency is doing."

Other than that, nothing to see here. Move on, move on, be safe, shelter in place until notified....; 6/7/13, 1:54 PM
DADvocate said...: You can't have 100% security, period. Obama's a lying liar. I vote for a lot more privacy, stronger civil rights, etc.

since the late 1960s (which is when the State Department began counting) is about the same as the number of Americans killed over the same period by lightning, accident-causing deer, or severe allergic reaction to peanuts.

For Obama and most power hungry politicians it's about lording over us, not safety, security, individual rights, etc. Any excuse will serve a tyrant.; 6/7/13, 1:56 PM
ricpic said...: ...the NSA/FBI wanted the phone data, so that they could build "webs" of relationships so that they can drill down to manageable subsets for future data capture & analysis.

Which is perfectly legitimate. It is an effective way to uncover connections - webs of relationships - between known terrorists (heads or senders) and probable terrorist cells (bodies or receivers). The problem is trust. If Americans by and large trusted their government the collection of metadata from Verizon would be seen as tolerable given the threat. But for obvious reasons trust is negligible.; 6/7/13, 1:56 PM
Anonymous said...: Have they provided 100% security? What happened in Boston? Feeling secure that they missed a known terrorist because they misspelled his name?

Have we wanted 100% privacy? Zero inconvenience?

No one in his right mind has ever said that. But we don't want 100% inconvenience: TSA body searches. We don't want to look over our shoulders for the lurking Big Govt. We don't want to be targeted by the IRS as political enemies. We want investigative reporters to investigate Big Govt.'s malfeasance, not kiss up to the big guy's big butt.; 6/7/13, 1:56 PM
Chip Ahoy said...: Hey ASSHOLE,

Please see the most famous of all fallacies, undistributed middle, and then see me after class.

Very bad with logical reasoning by moving the sliders to the extreme edges, very bad form, I don't know where to start actually except to say the only person mentioning 100% of anything is Himself, him and his extremely assholish polemic porpoises.; 6/7/13, 1:57 PM
rcommal said...: Garage: He had written a post elsewhere seeking info about his particular rare cancer and possible trails, and Althouse was totally standup and great (I know he so appreciated it!) and linked it. He got some really good leads and even followed up on a number of them, but in his case it was just too late or whatever.

Jay:

Well, I first found a number of them from Googling my previous handle and a couple of key words and then went on from there once I refreshed my general memory of when stuff was being discussed.

Here is the link to the one I specifically mentioned, I think (I'm not reading through it again today!)

I notice that there is a terrorism tag on that one, but I don't recall about the others. Althouse can totally correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think posts were tagged as extensively or at least specifically back then, and I don't even know if all were tagged or in the same way. Ask Althouse or Meade, maybe?

ANYHOO, I'm really not trying to threadjack here in any way, so I'm going to back out now.

/OT; 6/7/13, 1:58 PM
Jenny said...: This POTUS is a slow-witted dolt operated from behind the curtain by equally nefarious individuals.; 6/7/13, 2:01 PM
Mark O said...: Here is where a Con Law professor might have weighed in.

This decision was made in the Bill of Rights. The Constitution makes it clear that we will tolerate a certain amount of crime (something less than probable cause) so that we can keep our privacy. We will not require people to testify against themselves.

These are not new questions and they should not be up for analysis as if there were no prior affirmation of the balance made by Americans and the Courts.

To frame it as he has is to avoid the question as to whether such powers can rightfully be claimed in the absence of the exigent circumstance of war.

That is the real issue. Before there was a "war" we did not need these things. The two ground wars are over. The CiC has authoritatively announced there is no "war" on terror. Circumstances have changed. The exigent circumstances have vanished.; 6/7/13, 2:02 PM
exhelodrvr1 said...: Of course, the Chinese haave access to all this information, as well.; 6/7/13, 2:04 PM
Rabel said...: You're right Ignorance. My original comment on passwords was partly metaphorical but I foolishly followed that up with a supporting post.

I feel so bad, shamed by Ignorance. Problem is, the government has direct access to the files on their servers. They don't need your password.; 6/7/13, 2:09 PM
Colonel Angus said...: You guys seem to have a real hard time of it when I'm not posting, so I better stick around.

When my dog ran away I found it refreshing not having him scoot across the rug everyday.; 6/7/13, 2:11 PM
Brian Brown said...: oh my gosh is this funny now!~

Mark said...
One of the commenters here is exactly right; it's not the program per se which is especially troubling. It is the whole attitude this Administration takes to the law; the almost palpable arrogance that it can do whatever it wants to do under the color of "Commander-in-Chief" authority. It is the broad reading of this authority that led to the infamous Bybee memo that concluded that President could legally authorize torture despite laws prohibiting it. To me, that memo, this program, extreme positions in Hamdi and Padilla cases are all the rings of one chain which culminates in almost unbounded authority by the President. I think it should be troubling to many people.

12/19/05, 6:18 PM

Thanks for that link rcommal; 6/7/13, 2:14 PM
TMink said...: There is nothing like 100% privacy. And I am confused why the man who told us the war on terror was over and we won is telling us we need to surrender privacy due to the war on terror.

This administration had come unglued, and they were not well held together in the first place. This would never have occurred with a functioning press.

Trey; 6/7/13, 2:14 PM
Ignorance is Bliss said...: Rabel said...

Problem is, the government has direct access to the files on their servers. They don't need your password.

This is certainly true.; 6/7/13, 2:15 PM
Darcy said...: I didn't ask for 100% security and the suggestion that it's possible is laughable, so I'd like to keep my privacy.

Now where do I go to get my privacy back?; 6/7/13, 2:20 PM
Leland said...: If you're going to pretend anything close to 100% security, you're going to have to explain the lapses related to the Boston bombing. In short, that's a lie being used as an excuse to takeaway our 4th Amendment.

I think we are past the question as to whether the President has credibility. The question is the credibility within any of his supporters.; 6/7/13, 2:23 PM
Tibore said...: "Ignorance is Bliss said...

The standard practice is to run the password through a one-way encryption. So when I first set my password, it gets encrypted and stored. Each time I log in, the password I enter gets encrypted, and compared to the stored value. The system has no way to calculate my password from the encrypted, stored copy. Even if someone hacked into their system, they could not get my password, because my password is not stored.

That's why, when you report that you lost your password, they never email you your password, they reset it and email you the reset value."

Yes, this. Granted, a math pedant may lecture us all on the difference between a "hash" and true "encryption", but you did say "one way". As a practical matter, that's the same thing (math nitpickers: Go over there (*points*)). Especially as far as normal use is concerned.

Anyway... While it's in principle possible for any website administrator to be violating standards and storing passwords unencrypted - as opposed to storing the password "hash", which is nowhere near being the same thing - it's also unlikely in the extreme for even a mid-sized business to do this, let alone Google. In fact, in their I know for a fact they don't use something basic and simple just from our staff's discussions with them re: Google Apps for Business. They advertise OpenID heavily and that definitely does not store passwords, it stores hashes instead. The person who manages to reverse-engineer that has my total admiration. Plus will be rich to boot, as damn near every government in the world will try to put him/her on their payroll.

Anyway, it's sometimes simple to be cynical and think that just because you enter a password into a site that the site admins end up with it. But that's far from being the case. Nowadays, it's actually the rare site that doesn't at least hash your password and store that instead.; 6/7/13, 2:25 PM
Levi Starks said...: 1st amendment, The government has decided it's now criminal to say things that might be offensive,

2nd amendment, The government has decided that you don't have the right to protect yourself.

4th amendment, The government has decided it needs to be sure you're not considering violating it's new definition of the 1st or 2nd......; 6/7/13, 2:33 PM
Cedarford said...: "How were we able to get phone evidence of another Chechen not on any Russian warning - that from the phone calls preserved and their locations and times - is looking to have gone with Tamerlan Tsarnaev and slit the throats of three Americans???

Jay the Libertarian asshole extremist - That can be done with a warrant, you dope.

It was all done after the fact.

===============
Poor libertarian asshole...he forgets that the whole fucking point of data collection and preservation is so when a precious judge's warrant is issued after Muslims leave a pile of dead bodies we have the evidence preserved, not destroyed by the companies.

All so we can track years of who the Islamoids were in contact with and go from them to others in their network we had no suspicions of.

And find stuff from their records like preserved evidence placing Tamerlan and the other Chechen 20-100 yards from where 3 Americans (2 US Jews, 1 Israeli) were murdered on Sept 11, 2011.(Interesting date, huh?)

And from Todeshevs records we can look at HIS associates as well and delve their phone and internet activity and credit and debit card data.
Because those records are now preserved and not destroyed.

***** And just to expand, I am happy that we have had a fingerprint database for 90 years or so to solve crimes and help get convictions.
And I am happy we have closed circuit TVs and facial recognition software that nail not just the Tsarnaevs but others committing a crime documented and recorded as well. Nothing is worse for a defense layer than their client caught on camera, in the act. It is better than eyewitnesses.

Oh, and I am happy too that we have a DNA database that is collected by more and more states from each criminal, and linked at looked at with respect DNA collected at unsolved murders, rapes, assaults.

I don't want the databases destroyed, I don't see CSI or a 90 year old fingerprint collection as prelude to storm troopers destroying my Freedom! I don't see how each bit of evidence collected should have to cost taxpayers up to 10,000 dollars to have a person like former judge Eric Holder to have to issue a warrant 1st.; 6/7/13, 2:33 PM
rcommal said...: Heh. Now that is funny. The comment you highlighted, Jay, was, I think, referring to one I wrote earlier in the thread referencing "mindset." AsI said: Heh!; 6/7/13, 2:35 PM
Darcy said...: @Levi Starks

Yep.; 6/7/13, 2:36 PM
Anonymous said...: I get a "don't go toward the light" death vibe from the photo on Drudge right now.; 6/7/13, 2:41 PM
Nonapod said...: Anyway... While it's in principle possible for any website administrator to be violating standards and storing passwords unencrypted - as opposed to storing the password "hash", which is nowhere near being the same thing - it's also unlikely in the extreme for even a mid-sized business to do this, let alone Google.

Well... during the whole Sony PSN hack, it was revealed that the passwords were "hashed" but not encrypted.; 6/7/13, 2:41 PM
Brian Brown said...: Cedarford said...
Poor libertarian asshole...he forgets that the whole fucking point of data collection and preservation is so when a precious judge's warrant is issued after Muslims leave a pile of dead bodies we have the evidence preserved, not destroyed by the companies.

This is one of the dumbest comments I've ever read.; 6/7/13, 2:42 PM
Brian Brown said...: Cedarford actually believes we need a massive NSA database to preserve Verizon's phone records.

Cedarford is a fucking moron.; 6/7/13, 2:43 PM
BarrySanders20 said...: I am so glad I have a constitutional law professor (check-- lecturer) making these decisions, because he must be doing all the balancing that I would ever need. I am now free to drink my Slurpee and not worry because now I have 100% security. Barry sez that's what I want and why I should not be concerned.

Of course Barry's going to help build the wall.; 6/7/13, 2:44 PM
Big Mike said...: I'm agreeing with Robert Cook (at least the comments he wrote at the top of the thread).

I think I need to go lie down.; 6/7/13, 2:45 PM
Brian Brown said...: HA HA HA HA HA!

downtownlad said...
Regardless of the Constitutionality of the law, the Bush Administration continues to show complete disrespect for the other branches of Congress.

12/19/05, 8:24 PM

I love trips down memory lane.; 6/7/13, 2:46 PM
Levi Starks said...: Going back to a previous thread I would say that Credibility, and Privacy are both a lot like virginity.
It's rather difficult to get it back once it's been compromised..; 6/7/13, 2:47 PM
Cedarford said...: Levi Starks said...
Going back to a previous thread I would say that Credibility, and Privacy are both a lot like virginity.
It's rather difficult to get it back once it's been compromised..
===================
Same thing is true of peoples legs. Difficult to get back once blown off by a Muslim bomb.; 6/7/13, 2:53 PM
Jaq said...: We are on the way to a one party state. The govt has become so powerful that when somebody comes along who is willing to use it for political purposes, it will be over for democracy as we know it.

You may as well join "The Party" now. At least you will get to vote in the primaries, and who knows? They might even throw you some crumbs.; 6/7/13, 2:56 PM
Dear corrupt left, go F yourselves said...: If you're not an Obama worshipper, you are "Shadowy" and your access to free speech must be thwarted.

An IRS Political timeline.; 6/7/13, 3:00 PM
SeanF said...: Nonapod, if you read both Tibore's comment and your link carefully, you'll see that they're both saying the same thing - while encrypting and hashing are not technically the same thing, they serve the same purpose in terms of keeping the passwords secret.

In fact, unless I'm mistaken, hashing is actually preferable to encrypting in terms of password storage because encrypted data can be decrypted. Hashed data really can't be "unhashed."; 6/7/13, 3:00 PM
Drago said...: Blogger Big Mike: "I'm agreeing with Robert Cook (at least the comments he wrote at the top of the thread). I think I need to go lie down."

Not at all.

It's easy to find yourself in agreement at times with political "opponents" if those opponents possess some degree of intellectual and/or political consistency in terms of principles.

For instance, right about now Glenn Greenwald and Mark Levin are on the same "rough" page on this issue.

Why?

They are both principled.

One a liberal (not a leftist, clearly), one a conservative.

Which is why the eelpouts/alphas/Inga's etc of the world are such laughable hacks.; 6/7/13, 3:06 PM
Titus said...: Do you think Obama has a big cock?; 6/7/13, 3:06 PM
edutcher said...: Don't know if this has been raised, but have we determined there was no Congressional collusion in this?; 6/7/13, 3:09 PM
edutcher said...: Don't know if this has been raised, but have we determined there was no Congressional collusion in this?; 6/7/13, 3:10 PM
Jaq said...: Titus is right, we are just racists to be concerned about this kind of surveillance.

At least I think that is the point of his comment.; 6/7/13, 3:11 PM
Titus said...: No Tim that was not my intent.

I don't think there should be any spying of American citizens by the government. And I am not a fan of Obama's.

I was just wondering about his cock size. I would do him.

Love Vermont btw.; 6/7/13, 3:14 PM
Unknown said...: Has there ever been a more perfect flip flop? It's breathtakingly bold and should really be displayed on a split screen.

Candidate Obama, 2008:
"This administration also puts forward a false choice between the liberties we cherish and the security we provide"

President Obama 2013:
"You can't have 100% security and then also have 100% liberty and zero inconvenience."

False dichotomies for me but not for thee!; 6/7/13, 3:16 PM
Titus said...: I have never thrown out any racism charges either.

Personally, and I admit it, I don't care for the blacks that much.; 6/7/13, 3:16 PM
Jaq said...: Serves me right.; 6/7/13, 3:18 PM
Roger Zimmerman said...: I am a natural language processing engineer/scientist and do lots of data-mining. I also mostly detest this administration's policies, both domestic and foreign, though I didn't find much to approve of in the previous administration, either.

I will deal mostly with the technical aspects here, with some thoughts on the legal/moral aspects thrown in:

The stated goal of the program is to be able to spot unusual calling patterns between the US and "certain" other countries, and then to follow up these findings with more traditional surveillance techniques in order to determine if the caller(s) are actually up to no good. Presumably the NSA/FBI would need to present the data-mining findings to a judge (perhaps a FISA judge) in order to then obtain a warrant to effect the more traditional techniques. My understanding is that, if the data-mining was done on only international calls, this approach would be legal under current law. For the sake of argument, let's stipulate to that.

Now, the NSA argument is that the collection of the domestic-only records is used only to create the "baseline" model of normal calling patterns. Presumably, the model also will account for normal international calling patterns - that data would also be used in creating the baseline model. Then, the "run-time" mode is to only run the international calling data against the model and the algorithm would have thresholds which would determine that some call-clusters were unusual - i.e. were not typical of the baseline model. (This is oversimplified, but that's the basic idea).

This is entirely plausible, from a technical perspective. Smart people could come up with ways to use the domestic-only data to significantly improve the baseline model, and this would benefit the detection algorithm. The result would be fewer false positives, and also fewer false negatives. I would agree that this is a laudable technical objective.

The legal/moral objection comes mostly (I think) with the realization that, once the domestic records have been collected, and are sitting in a database, they could be used for nefarious purposes.

There is a straightforward technical solution to this: the telephone numbers could be encrypted prior to submission to the government, using an algorithm that kept identical numbers identical, but undecipherable. The area-code and country-code of the caller/callee would be provided (in human-readable form) as separate metadata. I think a model/algorithm built with such data would perform just about as well as a system built from readable data. If the system triggered on a pair of (encrypted) numbers, the NSA could then be authorized to have the data provider decrypt them.

Now, this is not fool proof. GIven enough encrypted/decrypted pairs, the government could eventually discover the encryption key. And, the NSA is even good at doing that without decrypted data (by looking at patterns in the encrypted data - also, the area-codes/country-codes would help). But, I think such a program would be a huge waste of time, and I basically trust our government scientists to not engage in such foolishness.

But, I do recognize that some politicians and bureaucrats will be motivated to crack even this system, and since they are the scientists' bosses, well, you know the rest. So, it does come down to a balancing act. You can have no perfect process when humans are involved, so you try to set up checks and balances as best as possible. Perhaps the current FISA does not do that. And, perhaps the collection of domestic-only records, for whatever purpose, is not legal within the current law ...; 6/7/13, 3:20 PM
Roger Zimmerman said...: ... (continued)
The quotation which is the title of this post is of course absurd. However, I don't think we have the luxury of saying that, because our current government is not as constrained in its exercise of power as designed by the Constitution, we should not grant it any powers along the lines of those granted in FISA. It is possible, even with flawed human beings and their systems, to set up a reasonable tradeoff between privacy and protection from the very real threats from very bad people in our world.; 6/7/13, 3:20 PM
KB said...: Whenever I read comments like t his, I wonder about the President's first day on the job, when he was finally told about all of the actual threats to the country that we face daily. It was easy for him to be a free wheeling civil libertarian when he didn't know the risks. Now, he's worse than Bush and has the temerity to lecture us over it.; 6/7/13, 3:21 PM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: Why is that when somebody says "you can't have" something, in me nags and says 'hogwash', or something along those lines.

If we can't do something, because it's good for us, lets do it and find out if its true or not... or something.; 6/7/13, 3:21 PM
Unknown said...: "What protects privacy is staff uninterested in anything but their legitimate targets."

Staff can get interested in a lot of things. Legitimate targets can be defined any way they decide to define them. And don't forget those rogue IRS low level staffers and the attention they pay to the prayers of the Tea party. Some staffer could have a pretty nice blackmail business on the side.

What part of your privacy are you willing to give up for that?; 6/7/13, 3:24 PM
garage mahal said...: New scoop from Greenwald here!; 6/7/13, 3:28 PM
Darcy said...: @tim in vermont

Ha. There's no safe way to interact. Not for long, anyway.; 6/7/13, 3:30 PM
Astro said...: This administration has mastered the false dichotomy. This is like Hillary's Benghazi defense with the false dichotomy between "'a protest' and 'guys out for a walk who decided to kill some Americans'" (when she knew it was neither).

With:
You can’t have 100 percent security and then also have 100 percent privacy and zero inconvenience."
we are again expected to accept a false dichotomy.; 6/7/13, 3:34 PM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: “We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things not because they are easy but because they are hard,”

The day after Benghazi, September 12, 2012, it was the 50th Anniversary of Kennedy speech to an outdoor audience at Rice University in Houston.

"100 percent security and 100 percent privacy and zero inconvenience" may be a very high goal, but, whoever said we shouldn't set our sights high, may also not have had our best interest at heart.; 6/7/13, 3:37 PM
Mogget said...: And it's another Top Secret (TS) No Foreigners (NOFORN) document. Are there any documents left in American SCIFS?; 6/7/13, 3:41 PM
edutcher said...: Titus said...

Do you think Obama has a big cock?

Apparently Moochelle doesn't. She has the hairy eyeball in the family.

garage mahal said...

New scoop from Greenwald here!

How much is Greenwald and how much McAskill, I wonder.

And, dare we ask, what does Choom consider overseas?

Maybe it's because Moochelle is mad at the Red Chinese First Lady for being better looking (and she is a looker).

PS Wag the Dog. Or, as Willie put it, Desert Fox.; 6/7/13, 3:45 PM
Baron Zemo said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 6/7/13, 3:51 PM
Tibore said...: "Nonapod said...
Well... during the whole Sony PSN hack, it was revealed that the passwords were "hashed" but not encrypted."

Right. "Encryption" is reversible; hashing is not. Just getting a password hash doesn't mean you get the password. A "hashed" sequence is not truly "encrypted" in that it doesn't meet the technical definition. "Encryption" is a state of encoding that makes a message readable only by the author and the recipient possessing the decryption key. A hash cannot be "decoded/decrypted". It's a permanent, non-reversible encoding.

I always say as a practical/functional matter that the distinction is meaningless to the average user. It's simply too much at times to go into the differences, but your post makes me have to do it.

In Sony's case, part of the problem is that the spokesperson was pedantically correct but gave the wrong impression anyway when he noted that the passwords were not "encrypted". In reality the passwords were never stored in plaintext, but that's not the impression given. What people thought was that their passwords were readable. They were not; there's a difference between not encrypted and plainly readable. The problem is, IT folks can be stuck when having to describe the difference in a case like this where there are multiple things to communicate. PR folks with no technical background will just be lost and say what they're told to say.

Now, there's genuine criticism over Sony's secrecy of their hashing algorithm, and whether it's sufficiently strong. But that's an entirely different issue from passwords being stored plain-text.; 6/7/13, 3:55 PM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: I have a hard time listening to Obama, but when I do catch something, I catch small petty sounds of mendacity.

To Mitt Romney Obama said during the debates.... "mine is not as big as yours"

At an election rally... "Don't boo vote... vote is the best revenge".

And... "You didn't build that..."

Its the way he talks.... Obama just doesn't talk like I've come to expect the president of the United States to talk.

Maybe that's the problem, my expectations are all wrong.; 6/7/13, 3:59 PM
Tibore said...: Oh, whoops. SeanF beat me to it. :); 6/7/13, 4:07 PM
Cedarford said...: Lem said...
Why is that when somebody says "you can't have" something, in me nags and says 'hogwash', or something along those lines.

If we can't do something, because it's good for us, lets do it and find out if its true or not... or something.

--------------------
We already had a variant of that, where the Jaimie Gorelick "Wall" was erected so intelligence data could not be shared with law enforcement, law enforcement data could not be shared with intelligence agencies because it migt "taint" the precious due process rights of US Citizens or even foreign terrorists.
Who Gorelick saw as having rights not much different than citizens and their trial and conviction could be jeopardized if info was shared,; 6/7/13, 4:39 PM
Unknown said...: To Mitt Romney Obama said during the debates.... "mine is not as big as yours"

I didn't catch how funny that line was at the time. And what a missed opportunity- if Romney was quick enough on his feet he could have come back with, "Yours is big enough, Mr. President."; 6/7/13, 4:45 PM
Titus said...: I think it would be cool in political debates if there was a cock contest.

After foreign policy we will then turn to cocks.

The candidate's whip them out on the table, we evaluate for a few minutes and the we and have a sword fight and get points on cards like old time finger skaters.

The at home audience gets to vote too.; 6/7/13, 5:06 PM
edutcher said...: Looks like Congress is getting ready to throw Choom under the bus, so serious question:

When Congress does a Sgt Schultz, can we trust are telling the truth or is it CYA?; 6/7/13, 5:07 PM
James Pawlak said...: MALO PERICULOSAM LIBERTATEM QUAM QUIETUM SERVITIUM; 6/7/13, 5:20 PM
cf said...: Fascinating Thinking, glad for this place.

I left and came back and read the line anew, and realized We Get the Trifecta Uh-Oh Ball: No Security. No privacy. No Convenience.

We are 100% Undefended, when even our President convicts an American citizen in the court of YouTube, allows his ass thrown into prison to cause the Hordes pause. Remember that before we ever knew how bad it was going down in Benghazi, our Egypt Embassy was throwing away our rights of Free Expression. we have all been Nakoula since that night: 100% Defenseless, and at the mercy of the state.

Add to that this latest pie-in-the-face: we know NOW we have absolutely zero privacy, 100% exposed all the time to whoever holds the badge that says we're Gov't.

And we are as highly inconvenienced as possible, especially if, for those of us who lean toward smaller government, it . . . S--L--O--W--S . . . U--S . . . D--O--W--N . . . . (hurrah! The twittering thrill of the grinning bitches) so much the better.

Nothing to see here. Move Along. You Have Nothing. Nada.; 6/7/13, 5:22 PM
Theranter said...: Here's some fun boys n girls, go to recoverydotgov n search "prism" (or even more fun, just put in your zip code) n see all the b.s. projects billions are spent on. Werregular citizens are partially to blame. Did we even have the courage to look into and at least monitor the bs the $s were (allegedly) used for?; 6/7/13, 5:40 PM
Anonymous said...: With this sophomoric twaddle (apologies to sophomores everywhere), is it too much to ask that this at least put the final nail in the coffin of the risible belief that Obama is anywhere near being a gifted orator, let alone a "Constitutional law teacher?" He's never been either, and anyone with a brain in their head knew it.; 6/7/13, 6:50 PM
Anonymous said...: With this sophomoric twaddle (apologies to sophomores everywhere), is it too much to ask that this at least put the final nail in the coffin of the risible belief that Obama is anywhere near being a gifted orator, let alone a "Constitutional law teacher?" He's never been either, and anyone with a brain in their head knew it.; 6/7/13, 6:52 PM
Chef Mojo said...: My understanding is that, if the data-mining was done on only international calls, this approach would be legal under current law. For the sake of argument, let's stipulate to that.

But here's the problem, and one that I haven't seen addressed: The Brits were/are doing the same thing, with the same stipulations. They're only targeting "international calls."

See where I'm going with this?

We're "international" in the eyes of the Brits. And they're "international" to the United States.

And we share intelligence with each other.

Clever lads... See? Everyone's obeying their laws.; 6/7/13, 7:13 PM
Revenant said...: Clever lads... See? Everyone's obeying their laws.

Um, no.

If the Brits are monitoring domestic US calls, that is illegal under US law. If the US government is cooperating in this -- and they would have to be -- then the officials responsible are guilty of criminal conspiracy.

Similarly, it is legal for the US government to kill Taliban members (we're at war) and legal under Taliban law for them to kill Americans. Despite that, the CIA cannot legally hire a Taliban hitman to bump off Glen Greenwald.; 6/7/13, 11:14 PM
rcommal said...: Now, that's what I'd call pithy. And to the point, as well.; 6/8/13, 1:11 AM