'Tip of the Iceberg': Senators Warn Far More Data May Not Be Safe

[xchrom]

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2013/06/13-0


During Wednesday's hearing, NSA Chief Keith Alexander was reluctant to divulge further details in public about the agency's dragnet surveillance practices. (Photo: Charles Dharapak/AP)

Members of the Senate Appropriations Committee took the opportunity Wednesday during a previously scheduled hearing to challenge the director of the National Security Agency about the extent of the agency's domestic surveillance, during which it was made clear that what has been revealed thus far is just the "tip of the iceberg."

Responding specifically to questions regarding whether "e-mail contacts" are being "vacuumed" by the Obama administration's clandestine interpretation of the Patriot Act's surveillance powers, NSA Chief Keith Alexander responded, "I don't want to make a mistake" and reveal too much. He added that disclosing such details may cause "our country to lose some sort of protection."

Alexander followed up by saying the topic of e-mail and other metadata surveillance is best discussed in a "classified session" which senators are scheduled to attend Thursday.

The two programs in question, which were revealed last week in a series of breaking stories by the Guardian—which had obtained the information by Edward Snowden, an employee of the contracted security firm Booz Allen—are supposedly distinct and are theoretically justified by different laws.

[HooptieWagon]

1. Of course.

The extent of the spying and surveillence is much more extensive than what they've admitted too or been leaked. That is why officials are committing perjury to hide it.

[cantbeserious]

2. + 1

eom

[Catherina]

3. " best discussed in a "classified session"" is a clear yes lol n/t

[Laelth]

4. k&r for exposure. n/t

-Laelth

[dgibby]

5. Keith Alexander

The. Most. Powerful. Man. In. America.

[DreamGypsy]

6. Tracking IP addresses like phone numbers...

... how does that work?

The article cited in the post includes this (emphasis mine):

Alan Butler, appellate advocacy counsel at the Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington, D.C., agreed by adding that, considering the Justice Department's use of Section 215, they could make the argument that IP address records fall under the same "tangible" classification as phone numbers:

I think that IP address records would likely be treated the same as call records unless they contain "content" (detailed URIs for specific pages might be considered content). So the FBI could theoretically put forth the same broad relevance argument used to justify this Verizon order.

I am interested in the answer to the 'how does it work?' question specifically for DSL connections, but anyone wise in the ways of other connection technologies is welcome to discuss those situations.

In particular, what information would a DSL provider have to make available to "an interested party" in order to identify a particular http request to a particular internet server as coming from my device. I profess some ignorance in this area.

I expect that almost all ISPs used DHCP/DHCPv6 to assign IP addresses, especially if they only support IPv4. Some customers may still be able request static IP addresses, but they probably pay more for them. Presumably an ISP who provides DSL can identify/track the modems it serves either by an associated phone number if there the subscriber has a land line or by MAC address of the modem for naked DSL or by a static IP address (unlikely). (I suspect my modem has a dynamic IP address, but I'd need to reboot it to check that.) When a device connects to the modem, either via wireless or cable, the modem does the DHCP handshake and gets an IP address. I assume the resulting local device table is only stored on the modem and not transmitted back to the ISP. The device table on my modem uses MAC address as the key (though it stores device names for active connections).

I am undoubtedly missing some obvious trick that allows my computer(s) and its conversation with "questionable sources" to be recorded. I look forward to being enlightened. Thanks in advance.

(If I don't get any replies here after some period, I'll re-post over in Computers and Internet...which is probably where this should have been in the first place. )