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Comment by whiddershins | Hacker News Reader

Oh, this is awesome: Keith Alexander explaining how what we really should do is let the NSA have a database that stores absolutely everything, and then they promise only to search through it when it is "reasonable."

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See, I'm personally of the same opinion. I couldn't figure it out, but then it hit me. It's the same line of logic that the military uses in their security clearances. Back in the day I used to work for a JAG lawyer, and have several friends that are/were in the military. So I do have some knowledge of the matter.

The way they do things is this. There's clearance and then there's need to know. So for instance one of my friends worked in network IT for the military. So had access to computers with "top secret" information on them. However, he wasn't allowed to access any of the information on the computers. Simply to use them for his job. Sound familiar to what the NSA is saying?

If there's other people on here that are closer to the military than I was please correct me, but it all starts to make "sense" when you think about it that way. I'm not saying it's right, in fact I think this system is likely problematic in a non military setting (and perhaps even within one as well)

I was in the military, with a clearance. You describe it reasonably well. A clearance means you can have access, if needed. I am completely against collection of information as they are doing because of time. A warrant gives them access to data from all time. This is a departure from current warrants that allow them to collect and examine data starting now (or as far back as it was stored by external parties). It's the difference between getting a warrant to wiretap a phone and getting a warrant to listen to every phone call ever made with a phone. In my mind, a warrant says we have have reasonable suspicion to collect more information as it stands right now, not reasonable suspicion to examine past behavior. Then again, I believe that the U.S.'s definition of rights are great and should be extended to all humans by the U.S., not just citizens or those on U.S. soil.

This is pretty basic stuff for those in the security industry. Read about mandatory access control if you are more familiar with discretionary access control (what happens in most off-the-shelf operating systems) as an interesting example of how things are done differently.

Access control is one thing but:

1) How can we guarantee that the control cannot be bypassed when everything is secret? 2) How can we guarantee that someone with clearance is not selling information to criminals?

Here's something I've been thinking about, let me know your thoughts: I'm thinking of the nuclear bomb analog. Other people have nukes, so we need nukes, and we have to trust the government not to turn nukes against us. Is it possible this is a similar example...and what we really should be doing is having oversight on the analogous launch codes...etc?

Note: this is not saying what they did was legal.

Problem with that comparison is that while a government could make and store nukes without people knowing, it's hard to start exploding them without attracting attention. Accessing a database, on the other hand..

Right so what I'm imagining is basically (for lack of a better term) a QA framework that tests that the instrumentation for tracking access...etc is legit. You could say that blowing up even one nuke without proper oversight is unacceptable and thus we have mechanisms in place to make sure the right bells and whistles are trigged.

EOD launching a nuke and using PRISM data are keystrokes on a computer.

Sure they're keystrokes, but if the software/audits/etc. are run by the same people who might want to abuse it, it doesn't mean much. And put yourself in their shoes: if you abuse a secret database, you likely won't get found out. If you abuse the nukes you most likely will.

Right so it's more difficult to do, but you can separate out the testing team or do other things to be rigorous about detection. At the very least you can make it more difficult than sitting down at a terminal and hitting go. One sort of simple solution I can think of is having passwords just like nuke authcodes that have similar restrictions that are passwords for access and decryption...etc.

And if the government (right at the top) decides they want to start accessing it regularly without the public knowing (like the current situation), they control those separate testing teams, and can authorize secret access at any time?

I think if it involved Presidential and Congressional approval and had things like exact query logging and required declassification prior to prosecution than that would be reasonable.

No - launching a nuke results in a thermonuclear explosion detectable from space - not just keystrokes on a computer. Keystrokes on a computer can be hidden, those mechanisms can be by-passed - and no satellite from space is going to detect all that and alert us to the problem in the reliable and impartial way that would be necessary.

My point was that even 1 unauthorized nuke is completely unacceptable and we have mechanisms to prevent it.

I see. I understand that a little more. I still disagree, however. There's a huge incentive for the government to keep those mechanisms working, and we'd all know it if they didn't. That's definitely not the case with the NSA. How will we know there isn't some secret backdoor?

It would be so much more difficult to detect unauthorized searching vs unauthorized nuke use that you can't really compare them.

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