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June 2017
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Wyden Siren: Coats Is Answering A Different Question About Surveillance Of US Persons

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Remember, folks, when Senator Ron Wyden asks certain questions or suggests something nefarious is going on behind the scenes, you'd best listen. Time and time again over the past six years or so, whenever he's brought up such an issue, he's been right. Some on Twitter have now dubbed this the Wyden Siren. Pay attention when Wyden is hinting at something. So... it's time to pay attention. On Thursday, Wyden sent a letter to Dan Coats, the Director of National Intelligence, complaining that he is answering a different question than the one Wyden asked. This is, of course, a fairly typical move in political circles, but especially in the intelligence community. You word answers in very tricky ways, such that you know the public will be misled, but if pressed in the future, you can argue that your answer was not untruthful -- just semantically misleading in the extreme.This case goes back to Wyden questioning Coats on June 7th about whether Section 702 can be used to collect purely domestic communications. There were already some people screaming "Wyden Siren" on Twitter about the question, even to the point of arguing that the question was setting up Coats the way that James Clapper was setup a few years back (in which he lied about NSA surveillance on Americans). Coats stated that such a thing would be against the law -- leading Marcy Wheeler to point out not only that the statement is incorrect, but that Coats signed a memo saying it's incorrect.After the hearing, as Wyden's new letter to Coats points out, Coats gave Wyden an answer. But, as Wyden now points out, it was an answer to a different question:

Dear Director Coats:At the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence's open hearing on June 7, 2017, I asked you the following question and requested a yes or no response: "Can the government use FISA Act Section 702 to collect communications it knows are entirely domestic." You responded: "Not to my knowledge. It would be against the law." After the hearing, in response to questions from reporters, the ODNI sent the following:
"Section 702(b)(4) plainly states we 'may not intentionally acquire anycommunication as to which the sender and all intended recipients are knownat the time of acquisition to be located in the United States.' The DNIinterpreted Senator Wyden's question to ask about this provision andanswered accordingly.
That was not my question. Please provide a public response to my question, as asked at the June 7, 2017, hearing.Thank you for your attention to this important matter.Sincerely,
Ron Wyden
Pay attention, folks. The Wyden Siren is blaring... and that usually means more awful surveillance revelations will be coming soon...

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posted at: 11:45pm on 15-Jun-2017
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Decade-Old GTA4 Modding Tool Suddenly Taken Down After Take-Two Interactive's Threat

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Video game makers and publishers have wildly different stances on modding communities, as is well known. Some embrace the communities and see them correctly as a free boon to the popularity of their games, while others would rather maintain strict control of the gaming experience by resorting to legal muscle with modders. But there is something strange in the Grand Theft Auto franchise, with Rockstar Games and Take-Two Interactive often taking confusing positions on what communities can do with their games. What would seem undeniable is that the modding community has extended the lifespan of finely-aged games, such as Grand Theft Auto IV, by giving gamers new ways to play them.And, yet, Take-Two appears to have recently sent a threat letter to a wildly popular tool to mod GTA4, angering of a large swath of its own fans. OpenIV is the name of the tool and it had a wide array of uses, including making videos of gameplay from angles impossible in Rockstar's editor, to adding new vehicles to the game and delving into the game code to find secret areas. Some content created using the tool has even been featured on Rockstar's website, with the company going to lengths to praise the modding community's creations. Earlier this month, however, the creators of OpenIV got a cease and desist letter from Take-Two.

According to a post on the official OpenIV website, the alleged cease and desist came on June 5th 2017. The supposed problem, OpenIV’s creators say, is that the program allows “third parties to defeat security features of its software and modify that software in violation Take-Two’s rights.” After discussing their options, the team behind the tool says they decided it was not worth their time to fight back.“Yes, we can go to court and yet again prove that modding is fair use and our actions are legal,” creator GooD-NTS wrote. “Yes, we could. But we decided not to. Going to court will take at least few months of our time and huge amount of efforts, and, at best, we’ll get absolutely nothing. Spending time just to restore status quo is really unproductive, and all the money in the world can’t compensate the loss of time. So, we decided to agree with their claims and we’re stopping distribution of OpenIV.”
The reaction from the gaming community was as swift as it was one-sided in its near universal condemnation of the takedown. Reactions ranged from confusion about why this action was taken after nearly ten years of OpenIV being in use and distribution to promises to never buy a Take-Two game again. Here is a sample of the reaction from Kotaku's post.

Now, we could have a perfectly reasonable discussion about why modding of this kind ought to be considered Fair Use. Or we could discuss how petulant legal threats of this kind are a detriment to creation and the operations of running a creative endeavor. That, after all, is something we know quite a bit about.But my chief question is much more basic: How in the world did Take-Two think that this was a good business decision? Given the extreme backlash, whatever harm was caused to gamers themselves by the modding tool must be minimal at worst. Given how long Take-Two put up with this tool existing without threatening it for so long seems to indicate that any harm to the company was minimal at worst. Meanwhile, it's quite clear that this is a tool that fans of GTA4 very much want to be able to use and its use only happens if they have a copy of the game. It makes the game more useful and attractive, in other words, which means more sold copies. What in the world was the company trying to accomplish here, other than merely resorting to protectionism?

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Mar/Apr 2017 - MultiValue Framework vs. NoSQL/Relational Database

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We don't call a jacket a lapel just because a jacket has a lapel. Likewise, we need to stop calling MultiValue a database just because it has one. There's so much more. Underselling the power we bring to every project is a thing of the past.

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Mar/Apr 2017 Magazine

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Cover Story - MultiValue Framework vs. NoSQL/Relational Database

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Another Judge Says The Microsoft Decision Doesn't Matter; Orders Google To Hand Over Overseas Data

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Microsoft may not have to respond to government demands for US persons' data held overseas, but it looks like everyone else (specifically, Google) will have to keep trawling their foreign data stores for US law enforcement.The Second Circuit Appeals Court ruled US government warrants don't apply to overseas data. Courts outside of the Second Circuit are finding this ruling doesn't apply to Google's foreign data storage. The most obvious reason for this is other circuits aren't bound by this decision. The less obvious reason has to do with how Google stores its data.As Google describes it, communications and data are in constant motion, moving in and out of the country as needed for maximum efficiency. When a warrant arrives, Google gathers everything it finds in its domestic servers but hands back a null response to data currently held overseas. Sometimes what Google hands law enforcement is nothing more than unusable digital fragments. Obviously, the government isn't happy with this new status quo.And it is a new status quo, as is pointed out in this ruling [PDF] by a DC magistrate judge [via FourthAmendment.com]. The ruling here aligns itself with one handed down in Pennsylvania earlier this year. In that decision -- like in this one -- the judge noted Google used to capture everything requested, no matter where it was located. It's only very recently Google has refused to chase down data (and data fragments) located in servers around the world.The process was described this way in the Pennsylvania decision:

Google stores user data in various locations, some of which are in the United States and some of which are in countries outside the United States. Some user files may be broken into component parts, and different parts of a single file may be stored in different locations (and, accordingly, different countries) at the same time. Google operates a state-of-the-art intelligent network that, with respect to some types of data, including some of the data at issue in this case, automatically moves data from one location on Google's network to another as frequently as needed to optimize for performance, reliability, and other efficiencies.As a result, the country or countries in which specific user data, or components of that data, is located may change. It is possible that the network will change the location of data between the time when the legal process is sought and when it is served. As such, Google contends that it does not currently have the capability, for all of its services, to determine the location of the data and produce that data to a human user at any particular point in time.
Nothing has changed here. And nothing has changed in terms of legal analysis, despite this memorandum order being issued in a DC court. The court finds Google does not effect a seizure of requested data because it simply makes a copy of it. It also points out (and Google concedes) that it does not act as a government agent when it does this, despite the only reason for Google's copying of the data is to respond to a government warrant. The court notes the Stored Communications Act does carry privacy implications, but only as far as the private entity's actions -- not the government's demands. The court's analysis states the SCA provisions only prohibits unlawful access (such as hacking) while regulating companies' responses to government demands.The court goes on to say Google's view of its legal responsibilities is completely untenable. Because of the transitory nature of Google's data handling, it would never be able to fully comply with demands for records, no matter which country issued the order.
Finally, it must be said that the above Morrison analysis of the operative sections of the SCA has the added benefit of avoiding the bizarre results that application of the Microsoft decision to modern data networks like Google's would produce. If that decision's focus on the physical location of the data's storage were to be applied to service providers using such networks, the records and information the government would receive in response to an SCA warrant may differ significantly depending on the date on which the warrant is served. Indeed, the same warrant served on ten different days may well produce ten different results depending on where on the network the shards of responsive data are located at the moment each warrant is served. Such random results -- generated by a computer algorithm -- would serve the interests of neither privacy nor international comity.Compounding the problem, even assuming the service provider could and would identify for law enforcement the location of the foreign-based servers on which the missing data was stored (as Google refused to do here), that knowledge would effectively be useless to the government here. By the time the government could initiate the international legal process necessary to obtain the missing data from wherever it was stored, it is entirely possible that the network would have relocated the data yet again to a server in a different country. Moreover, it is Google's position that it need not respond overseas to any such international legal requests because it is only at its headquarters in California that its data can be accessed and compiled into a recognizable electronic file. Thus, in Google's view, the only means available to obtain records and information related to a Google account is by serving an SCA warrant on its LIS team in California.
The magistrate says that's not going to work -- not under the stipulations of the SCA. In fact, it's just not going to work at all because of Google's data-handling. It may be primed for efficiency, but does little to help it comply with warrants.
To reach the conclusion advanced by Google here, the Court would need to find that a properly-issued SCA warrant requiring the disclosure to law enforcement in the United States from Google's headquarters in the United States of digital files accessible only from the United States constitutes an extraterritorial application of the SCA simply because pieces of data that make up those files were stored on a server located outside the United States at the moment in time the warrant was executed. Because such a conclusion runs contrary to the straightforward extraterritorial analysis of the SCA under Morrison detailed above, the Court finds that Google has not shown cause for its failure to produce all the records and information called for in the instant warrant within its possession, custody, or control.
In the end, the court orders Google to ignore the realities of its data flow. It may make things easier for law enforcement, but it has very little to do with keeping the government within its jurisdictional confines.
Google's LIS representatives in California can access, compile, and disclose to the government those records and information with the push of a button and "without ever leaving their desks in the United States." Microsoft, 829 F.3d at 229 (Lynch, J., concurring). Because that "entire process takes place domestically," id., Google will be ordered to comply with the warrant in full, and to disclose to the government all responsive electronic records and infonnation identified in Attachment B to the warrant within its possession, custody or control, wherever those records and information may be electronically stored.
In essence, Google is being ordered to act as a government agent to secure all requested data wherever it happens to reside. Since it can do it from a California office, the court reasons nothing foreign is touched -- at least not by the government. Once it's all packaged up locally, the local boys can access it without fear of a suppression challenge.

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posted at: 12:00am on 15-Jun-2017
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Islamic State Using Small Drones Routinely In Iraq For Scouting And Dropping Explosives

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Here on Techdirt we like to remind people that drones are not just death-dealing machines in the sky, but can also be a force for good. However, like any other technology, drones can and are utilized by the worst as well as the best. Inevitably, that includes terrorist groups like Islamic State (ISIS), as an interesting article from the Los Angeles Times reveals:

In the seven months of the Iraqi government's drive to recapture Mosul from the jihadists, small drones have become a signature tactic of the [ISIS] group: Their appearance on the horizon, loaded with a camera, signals that punishing mortar barrages will soon be on the way. Others guide car bombs to their target, or drop small explosives miles behind the front line.
Most of these drones come from the Chinese company DJI, generally regarded as the leading drone manufacturer in terms of market share. Clearly, the routine use of its products by ISIS is not the best publicity in the world:
Reports that Islamic State had used DJI products pushed the company in February to create a geofence, a software restriction that creates a no-fly zone, over large swaths of Iraq and Syria, specifically over Mosul.
But there are problems with geofencing. First, there is the issue of when a demand to geofence certain regions is legitimate, since answering that question requires a political judgment about who is really in power. Secondly, it's not that hard to get around geofencing, either by using quick fixes, or simply swapping to other drones that run on open source code that allows geofencing to be turned off.Given that geofencing may not work, countermeasures are generally necessary. Those include rather crude solutions like shooting drones out of the sky with firearms, to more sophisticated ones like the DroneGun, from the Australia-based DroneShield Ltd., a company that specializes in counter-drone technology:
[the DroneGun] jams the GPS signal and radio linkages between the drone and its operator. The device, which sends out a jamming cone over a mile in length, forces the drone to either land immediately or to return to its base so that it can be tracked.
DroneShield's CEO, Oleg Vornik, already has some thoughts on what terrorists will do next:
"we believe organizations like ISIS will begin deploying swarms of drones. If you saw the Super Bowl halftime, you would have seen dozens of drones with little lights on them moving in a choreographed fashion," Vornik said. "That technology can be used to load grenades onto a large number of drones."
In other words, as drones continue to develop new and potentially exciting capabilities, so terrorists will eagerly embrace them -- just like everyone else.Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca, and +glynmoody on Google+

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