I'm not sure why people immediately jump to conclusions that things like this are the result of actions by three letter agencies. I just don't understand why people do that?
On another site, having a similar conversation about this very topic, multiple people jumped in to assert that this was done at the behest of the NSA and that the legal mechanism for doing so was a National Security Letter. No amount of linking was able to convince them that that's not even what an NSL does. Nor would they believe that an NSL contains no such mechanism to force a company to do such.
Worse, it was multiple people who believed this. It wasn't just one isolated individual. Even showing them what an NSL really is made no difference to them. I pointed out what it did have the power to do, and they countered by saying that's what they claimed but that it could secretly do more. I asked for a citation and was told it wasn't out there because it was top secret. They linked to some of the most outlandish stuff, as if Cold War spies were actually proof that the NSL could compel Intel to include the ME and to include exploits in the code just for NSA use.
It went on like that, for a good day and a half of back and forth. I finally gave up trying to help them be sane.
I don't get it. I truly don't understand. These are otherwise bright people, or so they seem. I'm well and truly flabbergasted by this behavior.
On another site, having a similar conversation about this very topic, multiple people jumped in to assert that this was done at the behest of the NSA and that the legal mechanism for doing so was a National Security Letter. No amount of linking was able to convince them that that's not even what an NSL does. Nor would they believe that an NSL contains no such mechanism to force a company to do such.
Worse, it was multiple people who believed this. It wasn't just one isolated individual. Even showing them what an NSL really is made no difference to them. I pointed out what it did have the power to do, and they countered by saying that's what they claimed but that it could secretly do more. I asked for a citation and was told it wasn't out there because it was top secret. They linked to some of the most outlandish stuff, as if Cold War spies were actually proof that the NSL could compel Intel to include the ME and to include exploits in the code just for NSA use.
It went on like that, for a good day and a half of back and forth. I finally gave up trying to help them be sane.
I don't get it. I truly don't understand. These are otherwise bright people, or so they seem. I'm well and truly flabbergasted by this behavior.