Monthly Archives: November 2013

Useful Information to Explain the NSA to Others

Today I ran across an informative article that will help you explain to your friends and family why the mass spying of the NSA is bad.  Think of this as a cheat sheet to being able to answer to the common statements you receive when talking about the NSA to others.  The article is named “Debunking Eight Common Excuses for NSA Mass Surveillance.”  Please take the time to read this as it will prove helpful in your future conversations.

http://gizmodo.com/debunking-eight-common-excuses-for-nsa-mass-surveillanc-1471747346

 

Thank you!

 

Alex

Up to 200,000 Documents

Looks like the NSA is opening up on how many documents Edward Snowden has taken while on the job.  According to the “soon to be retired NSA chief, up to 200,000 documents are in Edward’s hands and are being actively given to the media.  As more and more of these releases come out, it will be interesting to see how all of this will play out.  Please see link below for information regarding this story:

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/11/14/us-usa-security-nsa-idUSBRE9AD19B20131114?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews&utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter&dlvrit=992637

 

MUSCULAR Project

GOOGLE-CLOUD-EXPLOITATION1383148810

Above image is the actual diagram, though simple, of the MUSCULAR project.  Including the sarcastic smiley face.  This project is a partnership between the NSA and the UK’s GCHQ that infiltrates the communication between Google’s and Yahoo’s data centers across the world.  Visit the following link from The Washington Post for all the details, it is pretty compelling.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/nsa-infiltrates-links-to-yahoo-google-data-centers-worldwide-snowden-documents-say/2013/10/30/e51d661e-4166-11e3-8b74-d89d714ca4dd_story_2.html

The good news is that these companies that we rely on everyday are starting to question Congress as well as trying to find ways to encrypt the data stream so that the NSA will not be able to parse through all the communications coming and going from their data centers.