Ask HN: What does "direct access" mean?

1 point

13 years ago

I have seen the complete and comprehensive looking statements by companies indicating that they do not allow "direct access" etc. On the other hand, looking at the Guardian's slide[0], I see the line "Collection directly from these U.S. Service Providers: Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, Paltalk, AOL, Skype, YouTube, Apple."

Admittedly, I'm confused. Why would the NSA claim direct collection, while companies reiterate no "direct access"? What's going on there?

I can think of a few ways to deal with this:

a) Google/FB/Yahoo are unaware at top levels (Larry, Matt Cutts, whoever) of the information they expose, presumably due to a gag order or other legal mechanism on those actually facilitating the exposure.

b) G/F/Y are aware at top levels, but consider collection indirect, or not vast, and the NSA PowerPoint creator does not share the same definition. For instance, perhaps G/F/Y consider access "indirect" because it complies with a court order which has been reviewed, or because selected data has been quarantined in a separate server.

c) The terms "direct access" and "collecting directly" mean the same thing, but NSA PowerPoint is false, or constructed by someone who doesn't understand the program.

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I would like to limit the discussion in this thread specifically to reconciling these two claims. Discussion about the extent and value of surveillance are worthwhile, but best done elsewhere.

[0]http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/08/nsa-prism-server-collection-facebook-google