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Comment by tptacek | Hacker News Reader

"PRISM-like access to unencrypted data"? The notion that PRISM was literally a technological back door into servers and storage clusters at providers is a conspiracy theory.

Here, it's being deployed in the service of a dismissal of one of those providers improving their encryption --- of them making it harder for the USG to monitor comms.

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Access is access. Regardless of whether it's enabled by real time interception, SSH, remote desktop, FTP, a rich web app UI, or snail-mail based optical disk exchanges.

And besides, whatever PRISM may or may not be, it's pretty clear MUSCULAR would fill in any gaps, and dispel your claim of mere theories, in favor of reality.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6641378

NSA infiltrates links to Yahoo, Google data centers worldwide (washingtonpost.com)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/nsa-in...

I mean, you gave the top comment on that thread, after all.

Now you're changing your story. PRISM was widely reported not to provide automated/unauthorized access to data; it is now believed to be a submission/management system for FISA requests, which are reviewed by providers before the providers own personnel locate the data. The Guardian silently (to their shame) retracted the claims that PRISM was anything more than that.

Meanwhile, illegal direct access to intra-provider communications can be cured by improving operational security at providers, which is exactly what the story we're commenting on is an instance of.

No, I don't think your argument is valid.

IIRC, they were/are pulling tons of data with just a single FISA request. While the system you described is certainly much better than having a backdoor installed, I'm not sure whether that'll protect your data from being "accidentally" collected.

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