[Wikimedia-l] PRISM

[Anthony]

On Tue, Jun 11, 2013 at 10:41 AM, Marc A. Pelletier <marc at uberbox.org>wrote:

> On 06/11/2013 08:19 AM, Anthony wrote:
> > Putting everything in a single database which can be accessed by a single
> > developer is a choice.
>
> It is, also, the only *reasonable* choice given the resources at our
> disposal.
>

Maybe (*).  But my comment was in response to "There will always be humans
maintaining the system who must, in order to do their work, have potential
access to everything."  That the commenter extended this to everyone
regardless of their resources is evident from the example of Snowden (who
didn't have anywhere near access to everything anyway).

(*) Which is to say, no, I disagree, but I don't feel like arguing about it.

Put another way: I can see at /least/ two dozen vectors for the NSA (or
> whichever acronym agency you prefer) to get at every single octet under
> WMF control without us being able to even know about it.


Legally?

There is nothing we can do about any of this beyond continuing to be
> careful and trust in all the numerous employees and volunteer of the WMF
> (most of whom are outside the US) to start yelling very loudly if
> something fishy is going on.  So let's store the tinfoil hats and get
> back to work, please?
>

Tinfoil hats?  These secret subpoenas have been demonstrated to be real.
Very few of the employees (and probably none of the volunteers), none of
whom are outside the US, would know about them, and those few would be
criminally bound to keep quiet about them.

This isn't conspiracy theory.  This isn't paranoia.  It's demonstrated
reality.