Yahoo scanned customer emails for US intelligence

Re:Yahoo scanned customer emails for US intelligence by cJ0th on Tuesday October 04, 2016 @04:01PM (#12638905)

Anyone remembers this?

> Barack Obama: NSA is not rifling through ordinary people's emails. US president is confident intelligence services have 'struck appropriate balance', he tells journalists in Berlin

edit: link fixed https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jun/19/barack-obama-n...

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Re:Yahoo scanned customer emails for US intelligence by Inlinked on Wednesday October 05, 2016 @09:03AM (#12643410)

The way I read this story the NSA is really not rifling through ordinary people's email. They are specifically looking for a certain string. It is highly unlikely that ordinary people's emails contain this string.

A story like https://www.wired.com/2010/05/kuok/ is a relevant case here.

> Using a Yahoo e-mail address and a different name, Kuok also allegedly contacted an Arizona company this year that had posted on eBay a KG-175 TACLANE — an NSA designed encryption device used to communicate with classified military computer networks, such as the Defense Department’s SIPRNet.

> Kuok repeatedly expressed fears that he might be dealing with an NSA, CIA or FBI agent, but continued to negotiate with the undercover officer, even cautioning him to avoid referencing the items by model number in e-mail, because “your country has this system to analyze” e-mail for keywords.

What if the string was something like "KG-175 TACLANE"? How many ordinary people would have this string in an e-mail? What is wrong with getting a warrant to read through e-mails containing such a string?

This news is definitely news to me. It is just not shocking or unexpected or contrary to what Barack Obama has been saying.

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Re:Yahoo scanned customer emails for US intelligence by jessaustin on Wednesday October 05, 2016 @02:46PM (#12646605)

It is highly unlikely that ordinary people's emails contain this string.

I need a new sig. "KG-175 TACLANE" it shall be!

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Re:Yahoo scanned customer emails for US intelligence by mtgx on Tuesday October 04, 2016 @05:50PM (#12639826)

Yup. So that's a complete lie now (not that I actually believed him when he said it then). When you searching through everyone's emails, then you're invading everyone's privacy.

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Re:Yahoo scanned customer emails for US intelligence by rando832 on Tuesday October 04, 2016 @09:31PM (#12641014)

He's a career politician, it seemed so obvious from the first day I heard him campaign that he was just telling people what they wanted to hear without any intention of implementing the details except for what is needed to keep up his reputation as he campaigns for his next term and then his legacy. It's the same thing from all the presidential candidates in recent history. The system is broken in some ways, and in some ways it's working ok.

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Re:Yahoo scanned customer emails for US intelligence by Magnets on Wednesday October 05, 2016 @07:32AM (#12642985)

I guess they are using the same justification as GCHQ; they use tools to scan everything and a human doesn't actually read ("rifle through") the majority of material.

Is it still an invasion of privacy if a machine reads my emails? Google read my emails to check for spam.

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Re:Yahoo scanned customer emails for US intelligence by maxymoos on Wednesday October 05, 2016 @08:01AM (#12643087)

To me, the main difference is that you know about Google's automatic parsing of your emails upfront and it can therefore be a factor in your subscribing/unsubscribing decision.

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Re:Yahoo scanned customer emails for US intelligence by jamisteven on Tuesday October 04, 2016 @04:21PM (#12639117)

^This.

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Re:Yahoo scanned customer emails for US intelligence by 1024core on Tuesday October 04, 2016 @11:40PM (#12641402)

Well, technically he's right because the NSA isn't rifling through your emails, Yahoo is.

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Re:Yahoo scanned customer emails for US intelligence by adventured on Tuesday October 04, 2016 @11:53PM (#12641450)

It's pretty obvious you're wrong in that assessment:

"The company complied with a classified U.S. government demand, scanning hundreds of millions of Yahoo Mail accounts at the behest of the National Security Agency or FBI, said three former employees and a fourth person apprised of the events."

Your theory is that Yahoo scanned hundreds of millions of accounts for the NSA, but the NSA isn't doing / hasn't done anything with those billions of emails. Your premise requires that the NSA come into possession of a truly massive load of data and then never touches it at all. That's absurd.

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Re:Yahoo scanned customer emails for US intelligence by 1024core on Wednesday October 05, 2016 @08:44AM (#12643295)

It was just a flippant remark, but think about it: the story claims that Yahoo greps through emails at NSA's direction. So the NSA isn't grepping through the emails; Yahoo is. Sure, Yahoo then maybe turns around and gives all the results to NSA, which then proceeds to do whatever it wants with it.

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