[adeon]

Is there any reliable source for NSA paying Rovio other than this random bar discussion? Not that I don't believe you or that I'm naive about NSA and the power of money, but I looked around news in 2014 and the accusations against Rovio specifically are a bit different flavor. It seems that Rovio was oversharing data to ad networks (Millennial Media comes up a lot), and NSA likely slurped data from the advertising companies. This bar banter is suggesting that NSA had some kind of arrangement with Rovio directly instead, and Rovio willingly went along.

Or alternatively, do you feel the Rovio employee's blabbering was talking about an actual, real NSA deal with Rovio, or was it more like a bar joke and direct NSA co-operation was not really implied? (e.g. "we know our security is bad, but these ad companies pay us $XX million to not use encryption so it's sorta like NSA pays us to keep it that way sips beer").

I'm interested, because if that is an actual thing that happened, then that's an example of NSA paying a Finnish company $$$ to weaken their security, and the Finnish company willingly agreeing to that. Is it in NSA's Modus Operandi to approach and then pay foreign companies to do this sort of thing?

Your comment is describing it in few words, but to me it sounds like it maybe wasn't implying an actual NSA direct co-operation, more like someone doing bar banter and being entirely serious. But that's just me trying to guess tone.

(I'm Finnish. I want to know if Rovio has skeletons in their closet. So I can roast them.)

[leftcenterright]

from an intelligence perspective, this is business as usual.

- Rovio sold data to ad companies (ad companies primarily based in the US)

- They used AWS (to which of course NSA has legal access)

- Data is not end to end encrypted, all metadata sits on servers in plain text and within AWS even moves from server to server in plain text

How much insight metadata can grant to someone like NSA is still wildly underrated.

- https://www.propublica.org/article/spy-agencies-probe-angry-...

[adeon]

Ah yeah, I saw the propublica as well, it was one of the first articles I found when looking on the topic. I don't doubt at all that Angry Birds data was used by NSA, doesn't seem controversial.

The specific question I am interested in is: Did Rovio knowingly and willingly accept $$$ from NSA (directly or indirectly) to weaken their security? I.e. were they acting as a willing accomplice.

Because that part would be unusual for Finland (well, at least as far as I know). For US companies I wouldn't bat an eye at news like this.

[belter]

Misheard and it was RSA instead of Rovio? The numbers match... :-)

https://www.reuters.com/article/world/exclusive-secret-contr...

[financetechbro]

Perhaps $10M is the standard rate for this type of service?

[adeon]

Lol, yeah, I also learned yesterday that there is apparently, NSA, National Security Authority. No, not the NSA this article is talking about and everyone knows about.

I mean: National Security Authority, "Kansallinen turvallisuusviranomainen", which appears to be some office/people under Finnish foreign affairs: https://um.fi/national-security-authority-nsa-contact-inform...

I will say I got confused a moment yesterday when googling on the topic here because when you put NSA and Finland in the same search, it would get topics about this other NSA that just happens to exist which I had never heard of before, and just happens to be Finland-associated.