NSA paid millions to cover Prism compliance costs for tech companies (2013) (opens in new tab)

They were right to be surprised and deny it. The initial reporting in the Guardian and Washington Post all said that NSA had "direct access" to the servers of all of these companies. After a few days, it was revealed that the NSA did not, in fact, have direct access to their networks, but instead had a system in place to retrieve data provided by these companies under court order.[1]

The Washington Post quietly revised its article without issuing a formal correction[2], but to date Glenn Greenwald has yet to retract his statement the NSA has direct access to their networks.

[1] http://thedailybanter.com/2013/06/nsa-story-falling-apart-un...

[2] http://www.zdnet.com/the-real-story-in-the-nsa-scandal-is-th...

None of these individual companies would have known about the NSA end of the webservice NSA calls PRISM.

Does the Zuck have a TOP SECRET clearance with read-ins to all the special access programs that would be needed to know about PRISM? Somehow I doubt it.

There was acting going on with those responses alright, but the acting more about pretending they didn't understand how powerful automating warrant compliance was, instead simply playing along to the crowd of hacktivists.

But none of these companies would have known about the NSA side, all they'd have seen would be the company's end of the operation, which would be nothing more than an archival tool of a user's data within a certain filter set followed by an upload tool to some NSA-controlled server. They wouldn't have even known what NSA calls the whole operation.

Weren't they justified in that reaction? As best I have been told and can recall, the CEOs recognised neither the "PRISM" name (presumably because it was an internal label which the government hadn't shared with the webcos?) nor the initial description in the press of the PRISM program (apparently because it was highly inaccurate). In that case it's easy to see how their reaction could be genuine.

If we're going to get specific about who is complicit, the vast majority of all people in the US are complicit. They keep electing the same politicians in D.C. (Pelosi, Reid, Boehner, Boxer, Graham, Feinstein, McConnell, McCain etc.), and constantly turn a blind eye to government abuses. Tons of leaders around the world are complicit.

It stands to reason, and should be unsurprising, that the vast majority of all relevant US technology companies would be complicit, seeing as they're under direct forced compliance.

There is broad electorate support for what the NSA does ('keeping America safe from terrorists' - Joe Public), which is why it has escaped an incredible scandal almost entirely un-altered. It's the same reason the Patriot Act still exists, despite the fact that you're historically more likely to die by choking on a hotdog than at the hands of a terrorist.

To be fair: they have no choice in whether or not to participate.

Whether or not they're participating willingly or not is another question.

Breaking the model under which they operate is the only real way to ensure that

Maciej Cegłowski's "The Internet With a Human Face" is one of the best examinations of what's wrong, and how to fix it, I've read (though Bruce Schneier and Eben Moglen also do a good job).

http://idlewords.com/bt14.htm

How does this establish their complicity? Surely agreeing to cover these costs out of their shareholders' pockets would be complicity, rather than pushing them onto the government?

Given the persistent, and intense criticism on HN of all things NSA since the original Snowden reveal, to say that your question is absurd would be putting it gently.

In fact I've seen no other platform that has had more negative + rational + informed discussion regarding the NSA than Hacker News.

YCombinator is an American company which is required to obey the law and comply with the government. The 'spell' you're referring to is for the moment a matter of law.

So yes, they are under the spell of the NSA. That YC still exists and hasn't been pursued ala Lavabit suggests that any requests, if they have been received, have been complied with to the government's satisfaction.

If one doesn't trust Facebook, Google, etc on principle, there is no reason to trust YCombinator or any startup they fund, other than personal bias, because the same principles apply. No one would trust such a statement from another company. YC should be no different in that regard.

Although, as is mentioned elsewhere, HN itself doesn't keep much private data. It probably wouldn't be worth their time to do anything more than monitor this site and inject the occasional bit of propaganda.

">>Has Ycombinator come forth with a statement they are not under the spell of the NSA?"

Considering the existence of "Gag orders", would they even be allowed to tell us? It's not like HN even has any private data really. It's not an Email service, it's not Facebook with privacy-settings. All our comments are very public and as far as I can tell pretty anti-NSA. It would be crazy to think the NSA isn't watching this site. HN, Reddit and Twitter are like the most likely places an uprising would start from.

If you're worried about the email-address you signed up with on HN, just assume the NSA has it(and whatever IPaddress you login from) and go from there.

We can read the link, and we can read your comment. If Y Combinator is 'under the spell of the NSA', they aren't doing a very good job at it.

> How is this statement anything other than a simple untruth on the part of the Guardian?

This article is from last year - IIRC this was the stance of those companies at the time.

This is in no way a guarantee against surveillance or even compromise, really. We already know blanket persistent monitoring exists so all communication is already collected between your hosted services and any others outside your network. All unencrypted data is analysed in near-real-time and encrypted data is stored for later analysis.

If you're interesting enough to state actors, there's not much you can do.

Yet still relevant,even if you dont like it.Because trust me foreign businesses using US based internet services still care about that huge scandal.