In a lengthy interview with the Guardian, NSA whistle blower Edward Snowden spoke with editor Alan Rusbridger about his extraordinary rise to infamy. Currently in exile in Russia, he talked about how he disseminated documents about the activities of the NSA to numerous countries: "Once you start splitting them over jurisdictions and things like that it becomes much more difficult to subvert their intentions. Nobody could stop it". He remains defiant. He may be an outlaw but "its been vindicating to see the reaction from lawmakers, judges, public bodies around the world, civil liberties activists who have said its true that we have a right to at least know the broad outlines of what our governments doing in our name and what its doing against us".

He explains how during his time working as an NSA analyst, he learned about previous surveillance programs run under George W Bush. Programs that were deemed unconstitutional and, having been closed, forced the US government to assume new executive powers that were then used "against the citizenry of its own country". For Snowden the power of the state is worrying:

So when we think about the nation we think about our country, we think about our home, we think about the people living in it and we think about its values. When we think about the state, were thinking about an institution. The distinction there is that we now have an institution that has become so powerful it feels comfortable granting itself new authorities, without the involvement of the country, without the involvement of the public, without the full involvement of all of our elected representatives and without the full involvement of open courts, and thats a terrifying thing.

The ever shrinking costs of technology is cited as a reason to further fear the surveillance programs. When it becomes cheaper to store data than it is to sift through it and work out what is actually valuable, it is held onto for a long time. The NSA, for instance, is able to hang onto information about individuals for five years before having to apply for an extension. While there has been an outpouring of global disgust at Snowden's revelations, he feels the backlash against the government would be even stronger if the impact of surveillance programs were better understood.

You have a tremendous population of young military enlisted individuals who, while thats not a discredit to them, may not have had the number of life experiences to have felt the sense of being violated. And if we havent been exposed to the dangers and risks of having our privacy violated, having our liberties violated, how can we expect these individuals to reasonably represent our own interests in exercising those authorities?

It has long been alleged that the internet companies who have decried the NSA have actually been willing partners. Snowden says that the financial arrangements that exist between surveillance agencies and internet and telecommunication companies is kept entirely secret -- "at a much greater level than for example the names of human agents operating undercover, embedded with terrorist groups".

Talk about the NSA has become so commonplace that it is easy to forget the huge numbers of entirely innocent people whose privacy has been invaded in recent years -- and Snowden insists that the big names have been (maybe still are being) fully compliant.

Agencies are provided with direct access to the contents of the server at these private companies. What it means is Facebook is allowing the government to get copies of your Facebook messages, your Skype conversations, your Gmail mailboxes, things like that.

It seems there is not really a need to be concerned that the government is hacking into private accounts, rather than access is being openly provided on demand.

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Snowden: Facebook is allowing the government to see your messages

Edward Snowden singled out cloud-storage provider Dropbox for lacking security measures he says would protect users from government snooping. He then plugged smaller competitor SpiderOak, which he says does.

In aninterview with The Guardian published Thursday afternoon, the former National Security Agency contractor said Dropbox is hostile to privacy because it controls the encryption keys, making it capable of handing over user data stored on its servers to the government.

He also fixated on the startups hiring of former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice as a board member, though its not clear she has any role in shaping the companys privacy policy.

Safeguarding our users information is a top priority at Dropbox, a Dropbox spokeswoman said in an email. Weve made a commitment in our privacy policy to resist broad government requests, and are fighting to change laws so that fundamental privacy protections are in place for users around the world.

But Snowden said users should instead use SpiderOak, a storage startup which takes extra security measures such as not storing users passwords. That makes it difficult for the government to access any user data, even with a court order.

More than a year after he leaked classified documents on the U.S. National Security Agencys programs to monitor phone calls, email and other communications, Snowden is urging tech companies to adopt stronger methods of privacy protection. Some of the documents he leaked helped sway Internet giants like Google and Yahoo to encrypt data passing between their servers and sparked a wave of startup innovation in the field of secure mobile messaging.

In cloud storage, as with other online services, adding greater privacy requires tradeoffs that could compromise ease of use or commercial viability for tech companies focused on making money.

Both Dropbox and its storage rival Box already encrypt data in transit between servers and while its at rest on their servers. But neither goes the extra step of SpiderOak, one of a handful of companies pitching cloud storage that is subpoena-proof, meant as a deterrent against the National Security Agency and other spy teams.

Heres how it works: SpiderOak has users encrypt data on their machines before they send it to the companys servers. The company maintains it keeps no readable version of users passwords or data.

The plus side: If a government asks SpiderOak for your data, all it can give them is a scramble of numbers and letters. The down side: If you forget your password, SpiderOak has no way of resetting it for you. (Users are allowed to leave hints with the company.)

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Snowden Says Drop Dropbox, Use SpiderOak

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5 Infamous People Kicked Out Of Their Countries - Video

Dropbox is a very popular cloud storage service, butNSA whistleblower Edward Snowdenis no fan.In a recent interview with The Guardian, Snowden called Dropbox a "targeted, wannabe PRISM partner" that is "very hostile to privacy."

Snowden also isn't happy about Dropbox's decision in April to add former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice to its Board of Directors. Snowden called Rice "probably the most anti-privacy official you can imagine."

Snowden said Rice was one of several people overseeing the Stellar Wind program. Stellar Wind allowed the NSA to collect some U.S. email records and Internet use for nearly 10 years following the September 11 terrorist attacks. Rice was also a proponent of warrantless wiretapping, a fact which helped inspire a grassroots campaign calling on people to "Drop Dropbox" unless the company removed Rice from its board. Dropbox CEO Drew Houston publicly supported Rice's appointment to the board in an open letter published shortly after the Drop Dropbox campaign began.

Update:Here's what Dropbox has to say:

"Safeguarding our users information is a top priority at Dropbox. We were not involved in PRISM, and would resist any program of its kind. Weve madea commitmentin our privacy policy to resist broad government requests, and are fighting to change laws so that fundamental privacy protections are in place for users around the world. To keep our users informed, we also disclose government requests inour Transparency Report."

As for Snowden, he says cloud companies need to move to a zero-knowledge approach, such as Dropbox competitor and online back-up provider Spider Oak. Zero-knowledge providers encrypt data before it reaches the cloud and leave the encryption key with the user. That means the user is the sole person that can unlock their data since no one else has the key. "That's the only way they [cloud providers] can prove to the customers that they can be trusted with their information," Snowden said.

While that's mostly true, there are situations where your encryption key can be exposed to zero-knowledge providers.

In the case of Spider Oak, for example, using the company's website requires the company to briefly store your password.Nevertheless, SpiderOak is certainly a solid choice for anyone looking for enhanced privacy in their backups and Dropbox-style file sync. Rolling your own cloud storagewithout multi-device syncing, alasis also possible with hardware like WD's My Cloud Mirror.

The Guardian's interview with Snowden comes just as the whistleblower's year-long asylum in Russia is set to expire on July 31. Snowden recently applied to prolong his stay in that country, according to RT.com.

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Edward Snowden: Dropbox is 'hostile to privacy' | PCWorld

Dropbox is a very popular cloud storage service, butNSA whistleblower Edward Snowdenis no fan.In a recent interview with The Guardian, Snowden called Dropbox a "targeted, wannabe PRISM partner" that is "very hostile to privacy."

Snowden also isn't happy about Dropbox's decision in April to add former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice to its Board of Directors. Snowden called Rice "probably the most anti-privacy official you can imagine."

Snowden said Rice was one of several people overseeing the Stellar Wind program. Stellar Wind allowed the NSA to collect some U.S. email records and Internet use for nearly 10 years following the September 11 terrorist attacks. Rice was also a proponent of warrantless wiretapping, a fact which helped inspire a grassroots campaign calling on people to "Drop Dropbox" unless the company removed Rice from its board. Dropbox CEO Drew Houston publicly supported Rice's appointment to the board in an open letter published shortly after the Drop Dropbox campaign began.

Update:Here's what Dropbox has to say:

"Safeguarding our users information is a top priority at Dropbox. We were not involved in PRISM, and would resist any program of its kind. Weve madea commitmentin our privacy policy to resist broad government requests, and are fighting to change laws so that fundamental privacy protections are in place for users around the world. To keep our users informed, we also disclose government requests inour Transparency Report."

As for Snowden, he says cloud companies need to move to a zero-knowledge approach, such as Dropbox competitor and online back-up provider Spider Oak. Zero-knowledge providers encrypt data before it reaches the cloud and leave the encryption key with the user. That means the user is the sole person that can unlock their data since no one else has the key. "That's the only way they [cloud providers] can prove to the customers that they can be trusted with their information," Snowden said.

While that's mostly true, there are situations where your encryption key can be exposed to zero-knowledge providers.

In the case of Spider Oak, for example, using the company's website requires the company to briefly store your password.Nevertheless, SpiderOak is certainly a solid choice for anyone looking for enhanced privacy in their backups and Dropbox-style file sync. Rolling your own cloud storagewithout multi-device syncing, alasis also possible with hardware like WD's My Cloud Mirror.

The Guardian's interview with Snowden comes just as the whistleblower's year-long asylum in Russia is set to expire on July 31. Snowden recently applied to prolong his stay in that country, according to RT.com.

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Edward Snowden: Dropbox is 'hostile to privacy'

Edward Snowden claims NSA workers saw sharing images as 'fringe benefit' 31-year-old has been living in Moscow since leaking top-secret documents He spoke of his concerns for personal privacy and urged professionals to do more to protect themselves and the data they have

Published: 08:30 EST, 18 July 2014 | Updated: 10:41 EST, 18 July 2014

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Whistleblower Edward Snowden said NSA employees saw sharing such images as a 'fringe benefit' of their position

Whistleblower Edward Snowden has claimed a culture exists within the National Security Agency in which intercepted nude photos of people in 'sexually compromising' situations would be routinely passed around among workers.

Speaking from exile in Russia, Mr Snowden said NSA employees saw sharing such images as a 'fringe benefit' of their position.

The 31-year-old former NSA worker also spoke of his concerns for personal privacy and urged professionals to do more to protect themselves and the data they have.

The former computer analyst has been living in Moscow since leaking thousands of top-secret documents about government surveillance practices in the US and beyond.

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Edward Snowden says 'nude photos intercepted by NSA would be shared among employees

Edward Snowden during his interview (Photo: Alan Rusbridger for the Guardian)NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden gave a video interview to the Guardian this week to discuss the state of internet privacy, the changing landscape of investigative journalism, and what his life has been like since he released the classified documents last year that exposed the U.S. government's global surveillance program. In one of the more poignant moments of the interview, Snowden spoke thoughtfully and bluntly about what his future might be if he leaves asylum in Russia and returns home to the U.S.

"If I end up in chains in Guantanamo," Snowden told his interviewers, "I can live with that."

Snowden also called on lawyers, journalists, doctors, and others who handle sensitive information to use alternative "zero-knowledge" security software and search engines that would protect confidentiality of sources and clients online better than Skype, Dropbox, or Google, for example. In some cases, he said, the big companies are actively anti-privacy, noting that Dropbox just added surveillance advocate Condoleezza Rice to their board of directors and calling them a "wannabe PRISM partner."

Technology can be useful for privacy, he said, as long as we don't "sleepwalk" into accepting new apps. "We shouldn't trust them without verifying what their activities are, how they're using our data, and deciding for ourselves whether it's appropriate where they draw the lines," he said.

Google and Skype have been useful for hosting public chats and interviews, Snowden said, but he would never rely on them in his personal life.

Currently, with a lack of reliable privacy software and the consequences of unlimited government power, journalism has become "immeasurably harder," Snowden said. The first contact with a source, "before encrypted communications are established, is enough to give it all away." He said new training for professionals who handle private information is necessary to ensure safety for the "average member of our society," particularly as technical literacy has become "a rare and precious resource."

There should be no distinction between digital information and printed or spoken information, Snowden said. "If we confess something to our priest inside a church, that would be private, but is it any different if we send our pastor a private email confessing a crisis that we have in our life?"

Before leaking the NSA documents to the public, Snowden said he first tried to address the matters that concerned him internally, asking colleagues and supervisors about the more nefarious elements of the program.

"I said, 'What do you think about this? Isn't this unusual? How can we be doing this? Isn't this unconstitutional? Isn't this a violation of rights?'" he recalled.

He was particularly worried about the fact that the many of the NSA's invasive systems were used for fun. Snowden described a troubling work environment where unlimited access to private information was regularly taken advantage of by individual employees. If the surveillance program happened to pick up a person's nude photographs, for example, co-workers would distribute them around the office, where a culture of lax supervision meant that no one was ever held responsible.

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Edward Snowden to the Guardian: "If I End Up in Chains in Guantanamo, I Can Live With That"

Edward Snowden, the former NSA systems administrator and whistleblower has revealed that during his time at the NSA employees would regularly share nude photos of people that were under surveillance.

According to Snowden, whilse he was working at the office employees would stumble across intercepted images of people either nude, or in compromising sexual positions, and then share them with colleagues.

"They turn around in their chair and they show their co-worker. And their co-worker says: 'Oh hey, that's great. Send that to Bill down the way.' And then Bill sends it to George, George sends it to Tom. And sooner or later this person's whole life has been seen by all of these other people."

In the interview Snowden goes on to lambast the processes that allow this behaviour suggesting that because management are unable to monitor such low-level behaviour it goes completely unchecked.

Even worse he implies that as far as the employees are concerned, many see the access to people's nude photos as just one of the 'perks to the job'.

The revelation came out during a seven hour interview with the Guardian which covered Snowden's daily life in Russia, what would happen if he was finally caught and how he would cope if the US had him sent to Guantanamo Bay.

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Edward Snowden Reveals The NSA Shared Nude Photos

Until we can destroy all this excess personal information from various organizations both public and private, keeping only that information obtained by court order, there is nothing we can do to warn the public of the possible results.

Glenn Greenwald, Laura Poitras, Associated Press

Enlarge photo

In Glen Greenwalds book "No Place to Hide," Mr. Greenwald quotes Edward Snowden saying Massive Data Depositories are being built worldwide with the largest at the new data center in Utah. A question can be asked about Snowdens statement. If Snowden had come out with this before the NSA storage facility had been built, would the good people of Utah have wanted this gigantic facility in our state? I think not. However, so long as it is now here, I believe we need to articulate a policy toward the facility and what it does to both our personal viewpoints and the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution.

One statement heard often in defense of NSA and this storage is let them do it, I have nothing to hide! You personally may not if you have no personal information, but nearly everyone else does have information they do not want shared. This information is not illegal or criminal, but personal such as health, business strategies, future plans for love and life, financial situations both good and bad, political or religious views and many other written or video pieces of life. It is my belief that Edward Snowden did what he did out of the highest love of the Constitution and at the highest level of patriotic whistle-blowing to protect that Constitution.

Suppose there is another person far less patriotic and obsessed by money and power still working for NSA at the same level as Snowden. What is to prevent this person from downloading files on business plans of corporations and individuals, financial information of many entities and perhaps most damaging, political information on policies, financial sources and human flaws of a candidate to act upon by an opponent and offer these for sale?

In a presidential or other national election, such information could be catastrophic in determining the outcome. I am sure that only a very small number of NSA employees could ever act in this manner, but look at what Snowden did by himself. It would also seem that NSA condones lies to protect itself if necessary as witnessed by James Clapper, the head of U.S. intelligence, telling a congressional panel and the entire country that the government does not collect massive information on U.S. citizens purposefully.

What would covert files for money do to the NSA? Perhaps what is all right for the boss to do should be all right for the employees as well. I cannot excuse such unnecessary lies, no comment would work just fine. Clapper chose to willfully commit perjury in my view, and has he been called to account for his lies as Snowden has been for his patriotic whistle-blowing?

In the last few weeks, the Supreme Court blocked police from rifling through a personal cellphone because of the large amount of personal data that can be found there. When Snowdens efforts get to that court as I believe they must, what will the court say about the NSA policies of attempting to collect everything while lying about it?

It is my belief that when government data collection is added to the volumes of commercial personal data they can access under present regulations and also pirate information, there will be enormous amounts of individual information available for exploitation.

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My view: NSA, Edward Snowden and Utah