I Can Wait

                  It was a warm June evening.  Bobby and Sally were at the lake with their parents, enjoying some ice cream after dinner.  The sun was setting, and there was a cool breeze in the air. “I’m cold!” Bobby exclaimed.

                “Well, maybe you shouldn’t have eaten your ice cream so fast,” said his father.

                “Here, you can have the blanket,” said his mother.  She unwrapped the wool blanket from around herself and gave it to her son.  “There we go, that’s better.”

                “Hey, I’m cold too!” screamed Sally.  She couldn’t stand when her parents gave Bobby special treatment.  “It’s not fair, you guys only care about Bobby. You gave him a cell phone and I still don’t have one yet, and he’s YOUNGER than me!”

                “Sally, we’ve talked about this,” her father started.  “Bobby plays baseball every day after school.  He needs a phone so he can call us when he’s done for a ride home.”

                “But I’m FOURTEEN years old!  All of my friends have a cell phone, it’s not fair.  I want to Snapchat with them!”

                “Having a phone is a big responsibility, Sally,” her mother said.  “They’re meant for adults, and other kids can abuse them.  Not to mention the NSA will start tracking your every move, and recording all your conversations.  Are you sure you’re ready for that?”

                “What do you mean?” asked Sally, innocently.  “What’s the NSA?”

                “The National Security Agency,” her father answered.  “It’s a division of the US government that’s supposed to protect us.  They do it by monitoring all our activity; our phone calls, our text messages, even our physical location.”

                “How does that protect us?” asked Bobby, confused.  “What does the NSA do with all of that information?”

                The children sat and listened to their parents, questioning their privacy for the first time.  They were told how the NSA stores all of their activity in databases, able to be accessed at any time.  How nothing they shared over the internet was safe from the NSA’s prying eyes.  And most importantly, they were told how there was nothing they could do to stop it.

                “But that doesn’t seem right,” said Sally.  “I thought that we had basic rights?  I learned about it during social studies, it’s in the Constitution!”

                “That’s true, Sally,” her mother replied.  “But those laws were established a long time ago.  Before things like the internet and telephones were even thought of.  Nobody thought about privacy or how technology would affect it back then.”

                “The government is very powerful,” continued her father.  “And they require us to put a lot of trust in them.  The best thing we can do is be informed about what’s going on, and elect officials that we think we can depend on.  We don’t have any other choice.”

                “But what if there are things I don’t want the government to know?” asked Bobby.  “I’ve said bad things about my teachers on the phone!”

                “Which ones?” laughed his mother.  “They aren’t interested in that, Bobby.  Yes, they may be recording your conversations and copies of your messages.  But they aren’t going to read them unless they think you are a threat to national security.  They don’t care about your teenage crushes or what you think of Mrs. Blankenship.”

                “There are things about my past that I’d rather the government didn’t know,” said his father.  “But what am I going to do?  Cut off all communication?  That would be silly.”

                “So we just have to accept the NSA, because we can’t do anything about it?” asked Sally.

                “Pretty much,” both parents responded at once.

                “Maybe you’re right,” Sally said.  “I don’t really need a cell phone.  I can wait.”  The family watched as the last beams of light descended over the lake in silence.

No Internet Terms of Service

With the recent light that has been shed upon the practices of the NSA, the public has become more aware of their activity when using the Internet. We now have this idea that the government is watching our every move, so we live with an increased level of awareness, at least while browsing the Internet. The Internet Terms of Service would take this slight fear that we all have and validate it. Our suspicions about the practices of the government will be plain in black and white for all of us to see. And worst of all, we would have to legally agree to be watched in this way. As citizens of a free country, this is not the way it should be.

As mentioned by Snowden in his interview, innocent people with "nothing to hide" could be made to look like criminals if their Internet browsing history is organized and presented a certain way. I remember reading a story about a family that was scrutinized by the government for suspected terrorist activity. One member of the family was looking up pressure cookers, presumably for the family kitchen. At the same time, another member was looking up backpacks to start a new year of school. These things combined gave the government idea that this family could be gearing up to repeat the events at the Boston marathon. This is just one example of how information can be misused against innocent citizens.

With that said, why would an "Internet Terms of Service" be a bad thing? In my opinion, it would be another way for the government to shoehorn their way into our private information. It would undoubtedly be lengthy, dry, and creatively worded in such a way that most people would not understand the freedoms that they would be surrendering by clicking "Accept." In all honesty, how many people really read the terms of service on any program or service they use? My guess is not very many. So many people would click "Accept" without even a second thought, allowing the government complete access to all of their online activity.

In addition, the Internet is all about freedom of speech and information. When you open your Internet browser and are confronted with a wall of text explaining all of the things you agree to surrender by using the service, what is the value of the Internet anymore. It is literally the government saying "Sure, you can do whatever you want on here, but it's going to be on our terms." I don't think this is something Americans should or would agree to.

I think it would also lead people to further lose trust in the government. People already are weary of the government's intensions after the allegations made by Snowden. How would the TOS further affect people's views? In order for the country to be successful, people have to have a trust and respect for the government. In order for this to happen, the government needs to start trusting and respecting its citizens. It was mentioned in the first article that we are experiencing all of these invasions in privacy without seeing any security benefit from them. The government cannot continue to take away freedoms while not visibly improving security. Alternatively, we shouldn't, as Americans, have to make a sacrifice such as the Internet TOS in the name of increased security.

Der Teddybär

Der Teddybär:

A Traditional German Fairy Tale (translated to English)

by Andrew

It’s the birthday today of little Johnny McDevon .

He’s having a party because he’s turning seven.

After the cake and the clown comes great suspense.

He’s dying to open all of his presents.

Toy cars, a toaster, and a lame sketch pad.

There’s one more left from mom and dad.

The tag on the gift says “NSA Toy Shop.”

There is blue wrapping paper and a ribbon on top.

He opens the box and nearly falls out of his chair.

Inside lies a fluffy brown teddy bear.

Johnny loves the bear all the way down to his paws.

He decides to name the teddy bear Klaus.

All day Johnny and Klaus play make pretend.

Soon enough the two were very best friends.

To school, the playground, and even the fair,

Johnny would go and so would the bear.

All his secrets and jokes Johnny would confide.

Klaus listened intently, never blinking an eye.

Then one evening, after a long day of school,

Johnny comes home and wants to hop in the pool.

He puts on his floaties and SPF 10.

Klaus and Johnny run and jump in.

When he surfaces, something is the matter.

Klaus is smoldering and sparking, because, up until this point, Johnny hadn’t realized that there were internal electrical components within the teddy bear.  (This line doesn’t translate to English smoothly).

Johnny runs inside screaming and crying.

“Mommy! Mommy!” he exclaims, “Klaus is dying!”

Mrs. McDevon consoles him and says “No need to cry.”

“Inside Klaus is a listening and GPS tracking device.”

Johnny asks his mom, “What does this do?”

Then mom replies, “It’s intended to protect you.”

Mrs. McDevon then continues, though no one asked her to,

“This bear tells us about everything about you.”

“Who you talk to, the duration, and how many times per day,”

“And with a FISA court order, even the words you say.”

Johnny was stunned, completely taken aback.

With justification from the fourth amendment these actions did lack.

Johnny’s mother then cackled and her head spun completely ‘round.

And in a poof of smoke, McDevon was nowhere to be found.

Left dazed and confused by this lack of transparency.

Johnny went and complained to the local state congressman.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This is a "German Fairy Tale" I wrote to help children understand how the NSA works.  It provides a parallel scenario in which parents can refer to when trying to describe the National Security Agency to their children.  I started this, got a couple verses in, and then realized how difficult it was to try and rhyme while also getting my point across.  I then spend an hour debating on whether I should do the terms of service in stead.    -Andrew M.

The NSA: America's Parents

            Its summer vacation, and young Jimmy loves to ride his bicycle all over the place. He takes it everywhere from the local nature trails, to the mall in the center of his town. Jimmy is allowed to do this because his parents trust him. They trust him, because they know almost everything about him. They have access to his room, the computer he uses, and him for a good portion of the day. It would be quite difficult for Jimmy to hide something from them. This is not an invasion of Jimmy's privacy, it is simply the nature of the parent child relationship. Parents try to watch out for their kids, and guide them down the right path so access to this information his quite helpful to them.  

            Much like a parent the NSA wants to watch, and protect all of us. It needs to have our emails, Facebook messages, phone records, Skype calls, and GPS coordinates at all times. The United States has to make sure we are all acting in accordance with its interests. It needs to know that we are not being bad children so when the time is right it can put us in an indefinite timeout with hardened criminals. Just think of the National Security Association as a loving third parent.

            Jimmy's parents love him, and as such they like to take pictures of him, and save them as mementos. They also enjoy making a scrapbook of important moments in Jimmy's life. They have pages for his first day of school, family get-togethers, Christmases, and just about everything else that Jimmy could possibly want to look back on. As a loving parent the NSA also does this for you. They database every single one of your online communications. Every chat with a friend, every picture you uploaded, and every post you made on a politically charged blog. They can then at any time take this information and run algorithms on it to create a profile on you. It's just like a Christmas scrapbook page, except this time it is used to detect whether or not the state deems you a threat to national security. This scrapbook is also not viewable by public entities, but the state loves you and it just wants to remember all of the fun times you have had in your life. They are never going to scrutinize this information and recontextualize it incorrectly to see you as a threat.

            Jimmy's parents work very hard to keep him safe, but they cannot be with him twenty four seven. There are always going to be times where Jimmy can get himself into trouble No matter how hard they try, parents simply cannot prevent every scrapped knee. Like human parents, the NSA has these same problems. Despite collecting terabytes upon terabytes of data they can't prevent everyone from being bad. We must however still subject our self to their watching eyes. A child does not abandon their parents the second they make a simple mistake. It's unreasonable to think a huge organization with access to everyone's personal conversations would be able to stop two teenagers from wreaking havoc on one of our nations great cities. The notion that that this mistake might prove their surveillance is unwarranted is incorrect. The NSA truly has our best interest at heart. We must trust them as a child trusts a parent. There is no potential for them to abuse their power because they love us. A child should have nothing to hide from their parents.

Notes:

            Up until this point I do not believe anything I wrote in this blog post to be true. Parents should not watch over their children all of the time and guide their every action. People need to be taught to make their own decisions and live with the consequences. The idea that the NSA is a parent watching over us is absolutely absurd, it is an organization made up of many different individuals all of which have their own personal motivations which no one is privy to (except maybe the NSA through metadata analysis). We are also not privy to motivations of the organization itself. Obviously they claim to be attempting to give us security, but there is so much classified material that few people have a full grasp of the situation.                                

Too much power for NSA

On June 5th, 2013, the media published a secret U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) Court order requiring Verizon Communications to provide the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) with all

of its customers’ telephony metadata, for all communications between the United States and abroad, as well as those “wholly within the United States, including local telephone calls.” Further reports indicated that such classified orders are routinely sought and obtained with respect to virtually all U.S. telecoms. Furthermore, people noticed that they have a program that can collects data from every phone device, including smart phone, which means that it can collect data from people’s email, Facebook, or any site they are visiting. However, giving power to collect data from people’s privacy is too dangerous; if NSA exploits this power, the balance of power can’t be maintained, and people can have real “Big brother.”

          The data in people’s phone and email is significant; if one can see all of that, one can know about all the relationship and privacy of the people. Let’s say I accidently had a car accident and killed someone and my friends and I are somehow talking about that event through either internet or email; a person in NSA can easily access to this information and know all my privacy. If that person knows me, he can easily threaten me by using this information, and I have to follow him. Although it was purely accident and the court revealed my innocence, I don’t want other people around me to know that I have accidently killed someone. Like this, there are plenty of people who don’t want others to know about their secret; that’s why there is privacy.

          Privacy is the information of people that they don’t want society to know about. However, sometimes they have to reveal their information like when they are making accounts in internet sites such as Google. As a result, in internet, there is important information of people’s names, pictures, home addresses, phone numbers, or even credit card numbers. That’s why when people are signing to internet sites, there are cyber securities to block others to get information from those sites. If a person can know about these data, it means he can know my name, picture, home address, phone number, and my college, and it can be really dangerous. Since NSA is collecting these data, either NSA will have too much power, and it will be hard to regulate NSA since NSA will know about people’s information on the branch that regulates NSA. In worst case, NSA can threaten those people.

          Also, one big problem is cracker. Cracker is a kind of hacker who uses their computer skills in illegal ways; if cracker can hack through NSA’s cyber security, it means that cracker will have information about people’s privacy, and the cracker might sell the information to other people. One might say, internet sites collect data from users and sell it to other, but it’s different in this case. Those internet sites can’t access to my secrets unless I reveal them. For instant, Google can only share data that people can’t know whose data is it. It’s not that dangerous now, but NSA can advance their power by having people’s private data, and eventually become the real Big Brother.

          I understand why NSA wants the power to investigate people’s privacy; by having all those information, NSA might prevent terrorism or other crime activities by collecting random people’s email. However, this action is too risky; I think NSA should be only allowed to collect a person’s data when they can prove that person is involved in a crime; NSA should not have the power to collect random people’s privacy when those people are innocent.

         

Internet ToS

Almost any time we sign up for a service nowadays, we sign a Terms of Service agreement. These documents outline an agreement between us, the end user, and whatever company is providing the service. Most of the time these agreements are done in order to protect the company from some sort of litigation. A software ToS will usually have a section explicitly saying that if your computer breaks, then they cannot be held liable for it.

Every once in a while, there will be some more interesting bits of information. For instance, EA's Origin client has a section allowing the company to gather information about your computer's hardware and software. Sometimes though, the company is careless in making their ToS. Arktos Entertainment Group, developers of The War Z (now renamed to Infestation: Survivor Stories), seemed to have just copied and pasted their ToS from Riot Games' League of Legends. Arktos' ToS at one point contained a link to the League page, and they appeared to have just done a find and replace of the games names.

I think that having a government based ToS for internet usage would be a mistake. I am a strong advocate for Net Neutrality, so I tend to dislike any kind of internet interference. Edward Snowden's recent leaks about the lengths of the NSA's spying on US citizens have revealed how far the government is willing to go to “protect” its citizens. Having a ToS for government spying would benefit people in one way – letting us know exactly how the government spies on people. However, that list would likely not be entirely accurate for any point in time, as there are always things they won't be willing to share information on (Prism for instance). With a government internet usage ToS, you'd also be explicitly agreeing to allow yourself to be spied upon and have your privacy trampled. If the government wants electronic information on one of its citizens, then it should go through proper channels to whatever company holds that information. It has been revealed that the government has been demanding information of certain citizens from companies, and then preventing them from talking about the information requests legally.

A government ToS for internet usage would likely also land people into legal trouble for ToS violation. Most of the time, a breach of the ToS will result in a termination of the service to the customer, or maybe some sort of law suit. Making a federal ToS though would likely introduce severe judicial penalties for breaching the ToS. As most people don't read the ToS before clicking the agree button, there would likely be thousands of Americans that have just blindly signed something away.

SIGINT: Term of Service

The National Security Agency, NSA is responsible for protecting our national security from threats from abroad and from foreign actors within the United States.  One of the ways the NSA accomplishes its mission is by continuously monitoring, accessing, and analyzing our adversaries' capabilities, intentions, and ultimately their actions. If the NSA was required to issue a terms of service agreement on any computer or network within the United States before it was allowed to monitor that computer or network would, in my opinion, do more harm than good.

Through a terms of service agreement the NSA would have to specifically state the legal purpose for the information being collected, what its users rights would be and the user’s accountability in case the information collected were be lost stolen or misused.  In addition, the NSA would have to publically and legally review how the information was being collected. This would inhibit the convert aspect of data collection and would allow malicious insiders to review the terms of service agreement and gain insights on the techniques and methods of covert data collection.  Through these insights, it would allow malicious insiders to adjust their tactics and publish possible counter measures thereby preventing these data collection activities to work effectively here and abroad.   Finally, the requirement for a term of service agreement may make it impossible for a multi-national company like the Bank of America, Google, and Microsoft, to both comply with the terms of service agreement and provide data and information security to its customers in the US and around the world.  If they declined to accept the terms of service agreement would they prevented from using the internet, Wi-Fi and cellular networks to provide services to their customers?  This would have a dramatic impact on the US economic that relies on telecommunication for everything from electronic trading to banking transactions and even Tele-medicine. If a term of service was issued, should we only allow one agency like NSA to manage and protect our country’s Information?  

In my opinion the NSA Signal Intelligence operations are vital and needed to maintain a constant protection against our foreign and domestic adversaries.