Comment by danso | Hacker News Reader

Comment by danso | Hacker News Reader

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So the key question is, if this part is true:

> Now, these accounts are being updated in real-time. So Facebook somehow creates a mirror of the slice of stuff that only the NSA can access. The selected/court-ordered accounts are updated in real-time on both the Facebook server and the mirrored server.

Does this "slice" contain material and accounts gathered only after the legal review that Facebook claims that it performs?

If so, then this story gels with what the NYT reported, that some organizations have built a secure framework to expedite the transmission of requested data...which makes sense, depending on the nature of the investigation...that is...if the NSA has requested data on a suspect on an ongoing case...then they'd probably want that datastore to be updated...in the same way that they want wiretaps to stay on the wire during the investigation.

Note: this is not to say that such surveillance is justified, but that this program makes sense with what Facebook and Google said yesterday and with the reports by the WaPo and the Guardian. Whether this is substantially worse than the other apparatuses we have in place, such as NSL, is also up for debate.

Facebook and Google have always been the least transparent imaginable AND they're both in damage control mode AND they're obviously under some DHS gag order. So why anyone would give any credence to a word they say is beyond me.

It's not out of faith in Google or Facebook, it's that they have put up a reasonably testable defense rather than what they could've done, which is to remain mostly silent. Moreover, the very size and complexity that most people distrust them for also means that their cooperation with any government function is going to involve a lot of moving parts...it's not likely to be the case that Zuckerberg can lie about something and be sure that those involved all stick to the script.

So given that, I think it's worthwhile to actually test their assertion (I.e. not rush to judgment) rather than patting ourselves on the back with the logical fallacies of:

* "Well, the reports about Facebook and Google must be true because it comes from a group that is itself evil and who I would normally not believe" (the enemy of my enemy is my friend)

* "Well, what else would you expect an obviously evil entity to say after being accused of evil acts?" (circular reasoning).

Again, it's not because Google and Facebook are poor disenfranchised groups that must be sympathized with, but because it feels a little dishonest to subject them to the same kind of inescapable logical trap that our government has used to go after and prosecute suspected enemies of the state

Just out of curiosity...can you really not imagine a less transparent corporation than either Google or Facebook?

With PRISM, if the allegations were false, Facebook and Google would deny them, but if they were true, Facebook and Google would still deny them. So the denial carries no information in and of itself. Parsing the denial might bear some clues--for instance, all these companies use the same technicalities and talking points.

What are the similar talking points? They both do strongly deny knowledge or participation in PRISM, but that's not really a talking point.

And I don't think it's an either-or situation: either it's the truth and they deny, or it's false and they deny. There's a third option: it's true, and they remain silent.

Also, is it such a crazy idea that Facebook, Google, etc. would get together and come up with their own talking points? That was my first reaction on seeing the similar statements -- that they're acting with a common purpose and agenda, but one that's their own, not the governments.

Why would companies who aren't collaborating with the NSA suddenly start collaborating with each other to deny collaborating with the NSA? Wouldn't they issue their own denials in their own words?

I don't really understand your question. It seems like you're asking why several groups, under attack in the same way, might get together to defend themselves, but I'd have thought that self-evident so -- what are you saying?

When you're issuing denials, you don't have to get together and figure out how to phrase your denials unless you're trying to hide something.

Google has been by far unquestionably, undeniably the MOST transparent. They were the ones that started disclosing government requests in the first place. They are the ones currently fighting against National Security Letters as being unconstitutional in the courts.

If you can find a more transparent company when it comes to government data requests I would love to know about that company.

And no shit Facebook and Google are in damage control mode. They'd be in damage control mode regardless of if they are guilty or innocent, this is a huge PR disaster for both of them and nobody seems to give a shit what the facts are - this went from a few bad power point slides to national panic overnight.

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