Domain: firstlook.org
Stories and comments across the archive that link to firstlook.org.
Comments · 108
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Huh???? Chipping, anyone?
But what about all those semiconductor chips out of China, which are part of those American drones, which allow Iran to bring them down (when they are illegally overflying their airspace)?
The socialist response to Obama's SOTU:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
And the Real Obama:
https://firstlook.org/theinter... -
Re:So, he is admitting that the attacks are true
Got anything more than a tautology, like those who insist that Michael Moore is as full of it as Rush Limbaugh without anything to back it up? Media Matters always backs up their claims with references, just like Snopes. Their failing is that they only call out right wing bullshit when it's coming from Republicans, not Democrats. But that's not to say they go around making shit up - which is what you seem to be doing.
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Re:i heard that Sony hack was insiders
"North Korea/sony Story Shows How Eagerly U.S. Media Still Regurgitate Government Claims" ( Jan 2015) https://firstlook.org/theinter...
News is now from "intelligence agencies and government officials".
Some part of the US gov and its contractors really wants a cybercrime boondoggle. -
Re: Do users really care?
I see a lot of similar comments, but I liked yours so I'll address the themes here.
First, facebook is not the only problem. You're kidding yourself if you think it is. The list of technology companies that sucker their users are as long as the list of technology companies that sell 'the cloud'. Google, Yahoo, Microsoft etc.
Worse than this, the evil is not marketing. The real evil is the secret pact between the tech companies and the government's monopoly on the initiation of force, for the benefit of a minority of oligarch families. The elite's technology branch
The real evil is the patriot act, the capture of government, the capture of industry and the subversion of the constitution. All tech companies are a part of this, most willingly, some unwillingly or unwittingly and the only honest ones are forced to shut down.
The capture of the government and industry is nothing new, but it reached tremendous success in the 20th century. First they captured the congress and the judicial, then the executive, then the monetary system and then they really captured the executive with the JFK assassination. Don't forget where some of the recent oligarchs originated.
- Are you against marketing?
- are you for privacy?
- are you for honesty as a virtue?
- are you for Free Software?
- are you for the constitution?
- do you believe in free will? (or that you should act as if it exists)
- do you believe in the traditional family?
- are you religious?
- are you for sound money?
- are you an Austrian or a keynesian?
- do you believe that there really is a 2 party system in the USA?
Do you see it yet? if you rule out the vast majority of the population based on internet usage, you're out of whack. Firstly because that's not the real problem.
Also, you might have MUCH MORE in common with someone who uises fb daily than on someone who doesn't, based on your OTHER principles and virtues.
It's like saying, "I'll only hang out with people who are atheists.". That's not enough. In 10 years time that could still be all you have in common. Or they could change their minds.
Finally I would just like to remind people that not only is the USA responsible for millions of deaths around the world, it now tortures people.
If you refuse to interact with people who support these acts, how will you ever change their minds?
Oh and just for good measure. A fucking surveillance blimp. The internet of things is coming to spy on you from the sky 24/7. Is it not enough that you've captured the mass media? If you were to only hang out with people who share all your principles or most important beliefs, you would not hang out with anyone.
Furthermore, having intelligent debate with people who disagree with you (and are virtuous enough to have an intelligent debate) is the only way that you can make any sort of real progress in self discovery and discovery of the universe. If your ideas an principles are not challenged, if you don't go back to first principles to figure what what's really important, if you don't re-assess your beliefs in the face of new evidence, you'll never improve.
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Re: Do users really care?
I see a lot of similar comments, but I liked yours so I'll address the themes here.
First, facebook is not the only problem. You're kidding yourself if you think it is. The list of technology companies that sucker their users are as long as the list of technology companies that sell 'the cloud'. Google, Yahoo, Microsoft etc.
Worse than this, the evil is not marketing. The real evil is the secret pact between the tech companies and the government's monopoly on the initiation of force, for the benefit of a minority of oligarch families. The elite's technology branch
The real evil is the patriot act, the capture of government, the capture of industry and the subversion of the constitution. All tech companies are a part of this, most willingly, some unwillingly or unwittingly and the only honest ones are forced to shut down.
The capture of the government and industry is nothing new, but it reached tremendous success in the 20th century. First they captured the congress and the judicial, then the executive, then the monetary system and then they really captured the executive with the JFK assassination. Don't forget where some of the recent oligarchs originated.
- Are you against marketing?
- are you for privacy?
- are you for honesty as a virtue?
- are you for Free Software?
- are you for the constitution?
- do you believe in free will? (or that you should act as if it exists)
- do you believe in the traditional family?
- are you religious?
- are you for sound money?
- are you an Austrian or a keynesian?
- do you believe that there really is a 2 party system in the USA?
Do you see it yet? if you rule out the vast majority of the population based on internet usage, you're out of whack. Firstly because that's not the real problem.
Also, you might have MUCH MORE in common with someone who uises fb daily than on someone who doesn't, based on your OTHER principles and virtues.
It's like saying, "I'll only hang out with people who are atheists.". That's not enough. In 10 years time that could still be all you have in common. Or they could change their minds.
Finally I would just like to remind people that not only is the USA responsible for millions of deaths around the world, it now tortures people.
If you refuse to interact with people who support these acts, how will you ever change their minds?
Oh and just for good measure. A fucking surveillance blimp. The internet of things is coming to spy on you from the sky 24/7. Is it not enough that you've captured the mass media? If you were to only hang out with people who share all your principles or most important beliefs, you would not hang out with anyone.
Furthermore, having intelligent debate with people who disagree with you (and are virtuous enough to have an intelligent debate) is the only way that you can make any sort of real progress in self discovery and discovery of the universe. If your ideas an principles are not challenged, if you don't go back to first principles to figure what what's really important, if you don't re-assess your beliefs in the face of new evidence, you'll never improve.
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Re:not quite
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Re:not quite
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Detekt is a free tool that scans your computer for
- DETEKT
What is Detekt and how does it work?
"Detekt is a free tool that scans your computer for traces of known surveillance spyware used by governments to target and monitor human rights defenders and journalists around the world. By alerting them to the fact that they are being spied on, they will have the opportunity to take precautions.
It was developed by security researchers and has been used to assist in Citizen Lab's investigations into government use of spyware against human rights defenders, journalists and activists as well as by security trainers to educate on the nature of targeted surveillance.
Amnesty International is partnering with Privacy International, Digitale Gesellschaft and the Electronic Frontier Foundation to release Detekt to the public for the first time."
###
Official Sites:
https://resistsurveillance.org...
https://github.com/botherder/d...
https://github.com/botherder/d...
https://github.com/botherder/d...- version 1.1 download (Nov 20, 2014)
.exe & sig
https://github.com/botherder/d...###
- Detekt Author's GPG key:
The distributed binary is signed with my personal PGP key, the public key is available at
###
- More info/News stories:
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/...
http://www.theguardian.com/wor...
http://www.amnesty.org/en/news...
http://www.amnestyusa.org/news...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
https://threatpost.com/detekt-...
https://firstlook.org/theinter...
http://www.bbc.com/news/techno...
http://www.zdnet.com/amnestys-...###
- Author's Twitter Page:
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Gvmt didn't try to suppres OWS? Where've you been?
It's not even controversial that the FBI coordinated a crackdown on Occupy. http://www.theguardian.com/com...
The FBI even knew of possible assassination plots via rooftop sniper fire, and not only would they not act on these obvious acts of terrorism--the FBI has tried only to hide public knowledge of these plans. http://www.democracynow.org/20...
The entire HBGary scandal came about due to the Chamber of Commerce (which shouldn't be a part of government to begin with) cooperating with Bank of America through a middleman to target activists and occupy figureheads.
Furthermore, the government has been paying trolls to trash both OWS and the tea party on various sites. But it's too early for you to hear about that in mainstream news (even though the Intercept broke the story of government-paid trolls earlier this year: https://firstlook.org/theinter...)
So the idea that the government hasn't tried to suppress occupy is BULLSHIT. -
Re:Paid shills on slashdot: the obvious tells
A bit late to the party, bud? The fact of paid shills has become evident from many angles. GHCQ (and the NSA by extension) have already been shown to employ paid trolls. https://firstlook.org/theinter... (Here's where you call Greenwald a libertarian or bitch about Omidyar Pierre.)
Even telecoms employ pay trolls. http://www.vice.com/read/troll...
Oil companies? You bet. http://www.dailykos.com/story/...
So of course the government does as well--are you daft? In another message I'm arguing against a guy named Trollston, for fuck's sake. -
Re:die by taser or gas?
usually it's the State Department who declares whomever as a terrorist, not a local judge. I can't quote specific law but you can read this and this but seeing as recently the FBI declared the beheading in Oklahoma "not linked to terrorism" beside the fact he was a Islamic convert who had ISIS stuff all over his FB.
Until individual state legislatures start passing laws allowing their local jurisdictions to declare individuals (and groups) terrorists, your "cop judge" theory is a none-starter (for now). This would quickly end up in the Supreme Court; it's akin to a state deciding to declare war on a group or individual. Oklahoma can't legally have a judge declare someone a terrorist any more than they can legally invade Mexico with the Oklahoma National Guard. The whole system doesn't work that way. -
Re:Goolge is helping...
The "elites" have the best education money can buy, they have the best advisers money can buy, and the free time to research what ever they need because they don't have to work 40-60 hours a week to make ends meet.
Given that little bit of information let me ask who exactly is not that smart. You or them? Just to drive the point home, lets play along with a few more questions.
How many people would an elite group have to control in order to really run the country? They don't need to control each person individually, they just need to control enough to maintain media so that they could build up or destroy a person. Nearly all media is already controlled by 3 people in the USA. It does not take manually handling politicians to control them, it takes money and errand runners. Given that the President, Congress, and Senate is less than a thousand people, you only need a few runners for each of the people in the conspiracy. They don't need to control State politics, just few Governors is all. California and New York have a big enough population to concern people, Wyoming on the other hand does not have enough population to be a concern.
Further, you don't need to direct every detail to get the result you want. Bits and pieces here and there is called compartmentalization, and we have known about this for a very long time. Agencies within the Government practice this with a high degree of precision, such as the projects that built the SR71, F117, etc... You can see it in action after the fact so you know it exists, yet you somehow want to claim that it could only work with building some of the most complex machines the world has ever seen and could not happen in politics. Come now, that's just idiocy.
As to Conspiracy in general, take the TV show Survivor. In the first series people almost immediately started conspiring with others to win. After the first series, the conspiracies became the focal point of the show. If people would conspire within a few days to win a million dollars, you don't believe it's possible that they would conspire when the stakes are much higher? This is also idiocy.
One of the most important things I ever read regarding politics was this.
FDR once said "In politics, nothing happens by accident. If it happens, you can bet it was planned that way." He was in a good position to know. We believe that many of the major world events that are shaping our destinies occur because somebody or somebodies have planned them that way. If we were merely dealing with the law of avenges, half of the events affecting our nation's well being should be good for America. If we were dealing with mere incompetence, our leaders should occasionally make a mistake in our favor. We shall attempt to prove 'bat we are not really dealing with coincidence or stupidity, but with planning and brilliance. This small book deals with that planning and brilliance and how it has shaped the foreign and domestic policies of the last six administrations. We hope it will explain matters which have up to now seemed inexplicable; that it will bring into sharp focus images which have been obscured by the landscape painters of the mass media.
In the past people have commented simply to discourage people from reading the book, so I won't be surprised to see that again. The book is from 1971 and titled "None Dare Call it Conspiracy" by Gary Allen.
Labeling people "Conspiracy Theorist" has happened since the same years. Anytime someone brings up an uncomfortable question, label and belittle. If that does not work simply censor and ignore. (Also covered in the same book).
I believe you need to try harder to discourage people from making connections which are easy to see. Dump the Troll handbook and actually attempt to hold rational discourse and dialogue with people.
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Re:Are GCHQ agents liable?
Note that this is coming from the country where public employees are paid to spread lies on the internet. How Covert Agents Infiltrate the Internet to Manipulate, Deceive, and Destroy Reputations, GCHQ’s “Chinese menu” of tools spreads disinformation across Internet
Of course they're exempt from the law. Why are you people as a UK wide collective not outraged yet?
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Are GCHQ agents liable?
Note that this is coming from the country where public employees are paid to spread lies on the internet. How Covert Agents Infiltrate the Internet to Manipulate, Deceive, and Destroy Reputations, GCHQ’s “Chinese menu” of tools spreads disinformation across Internet
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Leaked Files: German Spy Company
Leaked Files: German Spy Company Helped Bahrain Hack Arab Spring Protesters
https://firstlook.org/theinter...
[Anarchism]/u/PhineasFisher leaks 40GB of data taken from security firm Gamma International, proving how their software FinFisher was used by Middle Eastern governments to spy on dissidents and journalists.
http://www.reddit.com/r/bestof...
Gamma FinFisher hacked: 40 GB of internal documents and source code of government malware published
http://www.reddit.com/r/techno...
Gamma International Leaked
http://www.reddit.com/r/Anarch...
Also:
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Re:Yeah, keep focusing on the messengers
Meanwhile important stories NOT appearing on Slashdot...
Barack Obama’s Secret Terrorist-Tracking System, by the Numbers
This is the story referenced by the submitted CNN story.
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Yeah, keep focusing on the messengers
Meanwhile important stories NOT appearing on Slashdot...
Cash, Weapons and Surveillance: the U.S. is a Key Party to Every Israeli Attack
The U.S. government has long lavished overwhelming aid on Israel, providing cash, weapons and surveillance technology that play a crucial role in Israel’s attacks on its neighbors. But top secret documents provided by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden shed substantial new light on how the U.S. and its partners directly enable Israel’s military assaults – such as the one on Gaza.
Over the last decade, the NSA has significantly increased the surveillance assistance it provides to its Israeli counterpart, the Israeli SIGINT National Unit (ISNU; also known as Unit 8200), including data used to monitor and target Palestinians. In many cases, the NSA and ISNU work cooperatively with the British and Canadian spy agencies, the GCHQ and CSEC.
and
Barack Obama’s Secret Terrorist-Tracking System, by the Numbers
Nearly half of the people on the U.S. government’s widely shared database of terrorist suspects are not connected to any known terrorist group, according to classified government documents obtained by The Intercept.
Of the 680,000 people caught up in the government’s Terrorist Screening Database—a watchlist of “known or suspected terrorists” that is shared with local law enforcement agencies, private contractors, and foreign governments—more than 40 percent are described by the government as having “no recognized terrorist group affiliation.” That category—280,000 people—dwarfs the number of watchlisted people suspected of ties to al Qaeda, Hamas, and Hezbollah combined.
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Yeah, keep focusing on the messengers
Meanwhile important stories NOT appearing on Slashdot...
Cash, Weapons and Surveillance: the U.S. is a Key Party to Every Israeli Attack
The U.S. government has long lavished overwhelming aid on Israel, providing cash, weapons and surveillance technology that play a crucial role in Israel’s attacks on its neighbors. But top secret documents provided by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden shed substantial new light on how the U.S. and its partners directly enable Israel’s military assaults – such as the one on Gaza.
Over the last decade, the NSA has significantly increased the surveillance assistance it provides to its Israeli counterpart, the Israeli SIGINT National Unit (ISNU; also known as Unit 8200), including data used to monitor and target Palestinians. In many cases, the NSA and ISNU work cooperatively with the British and Canadian spy agencies, the GCHQ and CSEC.
and
Barack Obama’s Secret Terrorist-Tracking System, by the Numbers
Nearly half of the people on the U.S. government’s widely shared database of terrorist suspects are not connected to any known terrorist group, according to classified government documents obtained by The Intercept.
Of the 680,000 people caught up in the government’s Terrorist Screening Database—a watchlist of “known or suspected terrorists” that is shared with local law enforcement agencies, private contractors, and foreign governments—more than 40 percent are described by the government as having “no recognized terrorist group affiliation.” That category—280,000 people—dwarfs the number of watchlisted people suspected of ties to al Qaeda, Hamas, and Hezbollah combined.
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The FBI program sounds alot like this one at NSA
I wouldn't be surprised a bit to learn they are related:
https://firstlook.org/theinter...
Snowden docs, exceptional description of the Turbine program that seeds malware to non-targeted individuals - goal by the NSA (then) was millions of infections.
The logical extension of this is, in the end, to compromise all personal and business computer systems - so anything is available when needed. -
Irony is so thick here...
On the page 48 of this document
EXAMPLES OF TERRORISM AND/OR TERRORIST ACTIVITIES3.18.1 destruction of aircraft or aircraft facilities
.....
3.18.13 damaging a protected computer used in interstate or foreign commerce or that is used exclusively by a financial institution or the United States Government ...
3.18.18 damage to Government property
3.18.19 destruction of communication lines, stations, or systems ...Well, AFAIC under these definitions the IRS are terrorists.
...
3.18.29 the use of weapons of mass destruction ...
3.18.34 harboring TERRORISTS
3.18.35 providing material support to TERRORISTS
3.18.36 providing material support to terrorist organizations
3.18.37 financing TERRORISM
3.18.38 receiving military-type training from a FTO
3.18.39 torture
3.18.40 developing, transfering, possessing, or threatening to use atomic weapons ...
3.18.46 manufacturing, distributing, or possessing controlled substances intending to provide anything of pecuniary value to a FTO, member, or groupUnder these definition USA government is a terrorist organization.
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Re:Here we go...
> Here it comes, all the reactionary Jew hatred posts...
They are coming because you wrote that, practically a first post even.
It makes me wonder if your goal is to derail any thoughtful analysis of the story.
Isn't that one of the tactics from the recently revealed GCHQ/JTRIG "Disruption Operational Playbook?" -
"I hunt sysadmins"
I Hunt Sysadmins discusses why sysadmins are high-value targets. In short, sysadmins are often softer targets than the high-value Linux systems they might be paid to secure or administer. They probably use webmail or social networking services from PRISM partners, and the things they look up often reveal information about their projects and methods. The thrust of it is how to look at haystacks with CT technology instead of boring old flat radiographs, and as odious as the ends are, the means are the stuff of a fascinating, occasionally scintillating read. They are, after all, just a very large IT shop with a one-of-a-kind data set to play with.
Of course the haystack analogy breaks down before it starts as there is no +1 Needle of Revealed Wisdom to locate and extract. Is Russia fomenting a "color revolution" in the US as payback for the two we gave them in Ukraine? Is China building a fifth column inside the US to ensure their trillions in dollar holdings will hold value? Is French heavy industry spying on major US political patrons and stealing intellectual "property" or business information? Does Germany still believe the USA is faithfully holding all their gold on deposit at Fort Knox? Is Elizabeth Warren really a danger to foreign investors favored by the ruling class? etc.
If you think situational awareness is a waste, you're probably forgetting that government organizations can provide good service to customers iff the government thinks it's important. City hall treats you with hostility not because they're the government, but because you're not.
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Re:It'll come down to an opinion
I was under the impression TOR was explicitly designed to allow others to break the law
Not really, in some places even what is legal still might get you into trouble. In the US people are detained indefinitely without accusation, mostly because of religious reasons, but for other reasons as well. You might be selected for further surveillance for accessing legal things like a religious website, a linux forum, and news websites like Wikileaks or CNN (link to Jacob's presentation: to protect and infect part 2, it's long but I'm sure you can find that info in other places). Even if you think you are not under detention risk, you might want to read stuff without being selected for indefinite surveillance and infection, without being profiled as a criminal and getting in a list of people that can possibly be framed.
Another good example of tor use is if you share a house and don't want other people seeing the ads that are targeted to you (like a dick growing something, pheromones perfume, gay dating website, Russian brides website or too expensive shoes).
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Reaction guestimations...
Based on the number of proportional font memos with a blacked out second country name, it shouldn't be too hard to narrow down the other country (in addition to the Bahamas) for which "full retrieval" was possible.
I mean, it's not Laos, and it's not Nagorno-Karabakh, but with a known font, you could narrow it down pretty quickly based on the redacted images.
Here:
https://prod01-cdn00.cdn.first...
And here:
https://prod01-cdn02.cdn.first... -
Reaction guestimations...
Based on the number of proportional font memos with a blacked out second country name, it shouldn't be too hard to narrow down the other country (in addition to the Bahamas) for which "full retrieval" was possible.
I mean, it's not Laos, and it's not Nagorno-Karabakh, but with a known font, you could narrow it down pretty quickly based on the redacted images.
Here:
https://prod01-cdn00.cdn.first...
And here:
https://prod01-cdn02.cdn.first... -
Re:Not just US.
Not all Americans, but all American Exceptionalists fit that bill. Greenwald nicely calls out their bullshit on a regular basis:
US Takes a Break From Condemning Tyranny to Celebrate Obama's Visit to Saudi Arabia
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Confused? Read Greenwald from seven years ago.
Suppose the US was at war with Country X. Men with guns attacked a US military base in Country X. The US troops fire back, killing the forces of Country X. But aha! One of the enemy was actually a US citizen! So does that mean the US troops cannot shoot at that one person?
Suppose...there was a relevant analogy here. Because none of the people being assassinated are killed on the battlefield - that's why they're assassinations. Markets, weddings, apartment buildings...those are the sites of your typical drone strikes, where people are minding their own business. Not in a firefight with Marines or plotting the next strike with the Legion of Doom. Like Abdulrahman al-Awlaki, who was blown up at a cafe with his cousin because he was born to the wrong father.
Why is it okay to target non-US citizens with drones, but not US citizens? Why is it okay to shoot them, but not with drones?
It's not that it's "okay", it's that the Constitution provides greater protections for citizens than for non-citizens. But even for non-citizens, it's not okay to target them with signature strikes, where we don't even know who we're killing,
None of this is new. Start here to get your feet wet. Continue on at the Guardian, and finally to the presdent day. If that's too tl;dr, just know that the USG didn't stop being full of shit at every level with the invasion of Iraq. That if a "senior administration official" tells you that water is wet, you just might want to verify their claims.
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Re:Anonymous on the internet?
Heres the slides (warning TS//) http://apps.washingtonpost.com... They are from 2007, before iPhone came out. Much has changed since then.
NSA capabilities now include tapping phones of an entire country this is even U// by now https://firstlook.org/theinter...
Since Tor was identified as interesting in 2007 and since it hasn't died, it is safe to assume efforts are continuing to be applied against it.
And no, I don't have access to Internet scale data streams here, just using the standard Tor disclaimer at https://www.torproject.org/abo... but even 10 minutes is a long time if you have constant near-realtime communication.
Of course, Tor would be very effective for messaging services where you send one message and then disconnect!
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Re:Right...
Wrong again, Bob. The scope of the deceptive practices is the internet, with particular focus on hacktivists. Here, educate yourself.
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Re:Misleading article.
Believe it or not, there are also some instances where cryptography is not needed, such as for purely publicly accessible information that can benefit from being cached, etc.
I don't think there is any instance where cryptography would not be useful, as long as privacy is an option. Most Internet communications are point-to-point, so caching should not be done in between. From an opsec point of view, it's less risky to use encryption for confidential information if you also use encryption for everything else, too.
Even for publicly cached data, you could use cryptography for authenticity instead of confidentiality. For example, DNSSEC is about proving the authenticity of DNS information, so your name resolver doesn't get fooled by DNS hijacking. Authenticity turns out to be useful even for completely mundane stuff.
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Re:Sure
Or more recently (2009), the decision to release photos of the abuses in Iraq and Afghanistan in compliance with a court order, and then two weeks later saying "Oh nevermind, we're going to do the exact opposite." The Intercept has a good writeup of that.
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Re:Personal Liberty!
And this wasn't from him, anyway: see https://firstlook.org/theinter...
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New York Times, not Snowden
See also https://firstlook.org/theinter...
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Re:Personal Liberty!
> As to being an "NSA asshole," I truly hope that you someday break the conditioning of your Soviet youth to realize that not everyone thinks alike in the West. Some of us are actually right even if we are not a member of "the party," an apparatchik, or a member of the "dark forces."
For someone who is neither from a communist country nor was a subject of cold war era, anti-communist conditioning in the West, I must say that after JTRIG revelations, it is getting kinda hard to distinguish NSA ethos from communist ethos.
https://firstlook.org/theinter...
It always makes one wonder what NSA calls its clearly more sophisticated equivalent of the 50 cent army... no doubt much better paid.
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Re:This has gone beyond madness
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Re:Most Transparent Ever!
I'm not even sure at this point WHY they're moving towards opacity. (Is opacity the opposite of transparency when it comes to government?) He's not going for another term, so it's not like hiding details from the voters is going to get him another term. And he's obviously not going to get in real legal trouble, he'd be pardoned by whoever the next guy was, worst case scenario. He's keeping Bush administration secrets about torture secret. He was elected in part because people thought he was an anti-bush. You'd think self interest alone would cause him to expose it during his first term. He's not winning any support from anyone for continuing the war on terror, his supporters dislike it, most voters are apathetic, and the opposition is doing anything they can to stop him no matter what.
The only thing that makes sense to me is that the administration is actually convinced it's important for national security. I'm not open-minded enough to believe torturing people in secret keeps anyone safe, so it's frightening that the administration is that deluded. -
Lies lies lies
Wow, there is so much wrong in this post I don't even know where to begin.
Let's start with the "claimed and won whistle-blower status". That is completely false. First off, the whistleblower laws only apply to government employees. As a contractor, they did not protect him at all. Second, he is charged under the Espionage Act, which does not have any whistleblower or "public good" exception. People prosecuted under this law are forbidden from telling a jury that they were acting for the greater good, the only thing that the jury is allowed to hear is that the law was broken.
http://www.politifact.com/pund...
Second, as for "the worst thing that could happen to him", consider the prior example of Thomas Drake, who was a whistleblower years before Snowden, followed the letter of the law precisely, and as a result had his house raided by armed FBI agents. They also raided the houses of three other people who knew Drake, the FBI holding the families of these associates at gunpoint. The prosecution of Drake was in fact persecution, as Richard D. Bennett of the Federal District Court said explicitly when he called it "unconscionable".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T...
He has not "kept revealing stuff" in order to "keep his value". He gave his documents to a few trusted reporters before he fled, and since he left he has not released a single thing. The continuing revelations are from his original release to the reporters, he is not providing anything new at all. He says he has none of the documents anymore, and the NSA and CIA and FBI have not shown any evidence that he does have them. The intelligence agencies have instead used weasel-words to insinuate that he does without literally accusing him of it.
The collection efforts directed at our allies need to be revealed, because they are part of a larger pattern of flagrant disrespect and veiled acts of war the intelligence agencies are perpetuating universally across the globe. Do you even realize we are talking about universal surveillance of every man, woman, and child on Earth? The reality is far worse than any dystopian science fiction you can find. The NSA is worse than the Stasi, as said by a former Stasi official.
https://www.techdirt.com/artic...
As for our political and military allies also being economic competitors, how the hell do you justify spending more on our intelligence budget than the rest of the First World nations combined? In what possible way is that an economic advantage?
The worst part of all this is that I cannot ever know for sure if you are simply grossly misinformed, or you are a government shill paid to deliberately post false information in an organized propaganda attempt.
https://firstlook.org/theinter...
You, sir, terrify me almost as much as the totalitarian government intelligence agencies.
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Re:NOW it's a tragedy, NOW it's so sad to see...
To be fair, she accuses the intelligence community of doing far more than simply spying on her.
said the CIA had searched through computers belonging to staff members investigating the agency’s role in torturing detainees, and had then leveled false charges against her staff in an attempt to intimidate them.
“I have grave concerns that the CIA’s search may well have violated the separation of powers principle embodied in the United States Constitution, including the speech and debate clause,” she said. “It may have undermined the constitutional framework essential to effective congressional oversight of intelligence activities or any other government function.”
The intelligence community blackmailing the people who are supposed to have oversight of the intelligence community is probably at least a little more dangerous than the intelligence community spying on it's citizens. If for no other reason that the former prevents the latter from being solved. Pruning the CIA and NSA back to appropriate levels will require congressional action, and that's likely exactly what the CIA and/or NSA is trying to stop with these actions.
Good point. However this illustrates the dangers of allowing the intelligence community spying to spy on citizens as freely as they can now. Who's to say the intelligence community won't start blackmailing or framing citizens that don't meet their political views.
Imagine if J Ed Hoover had the surveillance abilities and rules we have today? Would he been able to destroy Martin Luther King's civil rights movement if he had the ability identify supporters of the movement and find dirt to blackmail them as fast as he would have today?
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Re:NOW it's a tragedy, NOW it's so sad to see...To be fair, she accuses the intelligence community of doing far more than simply spying on her.
said the CIA had searched through computers belonging to staff members investigating the agency’s role in torturing detainees, and had then leveled false charges against her staff in an attempt to intimidate them. “I have grave concerns that the CIA’s search may well have violated the separation of powers principle embodied in the United States Constitution, including the speech and debate clause,” she said. “It may have undermined the constitutional framework essential to effective congressional oversight of intelligence activities or any other government function.”
From the intercept.
The intelligence community blackmailing the people who are supposed to have oversight of the intelligence community is probably at least a little more dangerous than the intelligence community spying on it's citizens. If for no other reason that the former prevents the latter from being solved. Pruning the CIA and NSA back to appropriate levels will require congressional action, and that's likely exactly what the CIA and/or NSA is trying to stop with these actions. -
Re:"pro-Russian forces in Crimea"
Something like this document involving funding revolutionary groups? Or maybe could be explained with NSA/GCHQ manipulation in social networks? That the first report blames the owner of the site of the other report could give an idea of how complex is putting blame on someone lately, but in case of doubt, don't attribute to stupidity what can be explained with NSA's malice.
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They will destroy your reputation
Go ahead. NSA will destroy you if you do anything that actually secures the internet.
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Re:Tor?
yep that's the one. I wouldn't trust Tor network as an anonymity service for anything, let alone something I really wanted to keep secret.
Tor is solid, are you and the GP trying to deceive, or have you been decieved?
Would you like to know more? "How Covert Agents Infiltrate the Internet to Manipulate, Deceive, and Destroy Reputations"
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RMS has been quite clear on his lines for years.
Stallman has said in numerous talks that he doesn't own a cell phone because not only due to lack of respect for his software freedom but also because they are (more properly identified as) trackers. He rightly objects to handing over data to track his location, as is part of a cell phone's normal operation. As with so many of these issues, his precience in looking out for his own privacy predates the headlines—Jeremy Scahill and Glenn Greenwald of The Intercept report that the NSA has been using SIM cards (commonly used with cell phones) tracking data to target drone attacks: "What's more, he adds, the NSA often locates drone targets by analyzing the activity of a SIM card, rather than the actual content of the calls. Based on his experience, he has come to believe that the drone program amounts to little more than death by unreliable metadata.".
As for "openness of source", you'd do well to read the summary
/. provided on this story and the links contained therein. One of those links pointed you to a long-published article about how Stallman is not a spokesperson for "open source" and he has pointed out significant differences between his older movement—the free software movement—and the younger open source movement which focuses on development methodology (and is therefore willing to install and recommend nonfree software). That newer essay updates an older essay which has been published in print as well as online.Stallman has also long pointed out that code in unchangeable hardware (code in ROM, for example) is equivalent to hardware in that the user and the developer are facing the same hurdles to modify that code. So I'd imagine that a toaster with code in ROM would be a candidate toaster for him to own. But so many devices these days have updateable code. If the code can be changed the user and developer might not be on an equal footing with regards to who is allowed to change that code (free software grants you the freedoms nonfree software does not grant). Thus this more common occurrence raises all the issues he's been talking about, writing/publishing software for, and organizing against for decades.
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Sorry, douchetard, but ....
you are talking to a population here who has experienced first hand the opposite of what you are spewing. Now go back to your paid troll position, douchetard....
https://firstlook.org/theinter... -
lucidity
Who knows what DARPA is really doing and how much of this is just part of the "4 D's", (Deny, Disrupt, Degrade, Deceive).
https://firstlook.org/theinter...
But forget DARPA for a moment. Since we're talking about dreams, if you have ever considered learning to have lucid dreams, you really ought to go ahead and do it. It's terrific.
I started playing around with the idea in 2010, and it took me a few months but now I've learned to lucid dream at will. It's the most goddamn fun you can have asleep. Plus, it's really useful. I've done things like solve problems in dreams and have the solution at hand when I wake up (it's not always going to actually solve the problem, but it will always make you think about the problem difficulty) and I've even been able to learn to play pieces of music that I'd previously found very difficulty, by playing them in my dreams, even to the point of seeing the score (it's not exactly the same, but it seems to me that if you rehearse something in a lucid dream, it actually helps you in practice when you try it awake).
Honestly. Give it a try. There are plenty of primers on how to do it available. It's easy, you just have to be patient and practice something called a "state test" at various times through the day. It can be as easy as looking at a street sign, and then looking away for a moment and then looking back to see if it says the same thing. The idea is, that you are testing to see if you are awake or in a dream. Then, when you have practiced this a while, you'll be dreaming and you'll do a state test and then WHOA! you'll realize your dreaming and then it's off to the races. There are other techniques too.
Lucid dreaming can make your dream life a blast.
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From mapping to ....
In the past the news was just about listening, tracking and mapping
"aircraft are all fitted with sophisticated surveillance equipment. " ...The aircraft are able to identify suspects using 'voice-prints' ...
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new...
Then the wifi mapping news e.g. "mapped the Wi-Fi fingerprint of nearly every major town in Yemen".
https://firstlook.org/theinter... (10 Feb 2014)
Expect more interest in any wifi network at a home, suburb and country based network level. -
Re:ironic
Do you know what is ironic?
This image from the article.
I wonder if it is intentional. -
Re: Love the pro-Assange crowd here...
So. You believe nothing is knowable? Saves time.
Waitaminut. Lookie here! https://firstlook.org/theinter...
News today from Glenn Greenwald says that there are well organized covert groups whose purpose is to disrupt and neutralize online forums and discredit people. You don't think they'd show up on Slashdot, do you? -
Useless
Why maintain soldiers if they can make the enemy population do the dirty work for them? Venezuela, Uzbekistan, Syria and other arab countries, and probably more to come, all follow the same pattern. And if well you can't tell when or when not they used the weapon they have and are willing to use, you must assume the worst.
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Re:Of course it's "lawful"
This story links to the BBC which also appears to be very uncritical of the UK government press freedom violations these days. A much better news source would be the new real investigative reporting at The Intercept:
On the UK’s Equating of Journalism With Terrorism
UK Court: David Miranda Detention Legal Under Terrorism Law
Actually, both of those articles claim the UK court ruled that the journalistic activities David Miranda was indirectly involved with "equate" to terrorism. “I’m of course not happy that a court has formally said that I was a legitimate terrorism suspect..." quotes one of those two articles.
The UK court did not rule that way if you read the judgment. In fact, it explicitly states it did not make such a distinction. The court ruled that the law in question doesn't say that the government can detain people it suspects of being terrorists, it actually says the government can detain people who have any connection with such activity to determine if they are or are not involved. The court explicitly ruled that the law was not constructed to detain people who provide "probable cause" in the criminal sense, because the detainment is not specifically targeted at criminals or even suspected criminals directly. Its designed to provide the government with a tool to investigate people who might be, and for whom there doesn't necessarily exist criminally sufficient probable cause for search.
The UK court also ruled that while the statute refers to "terrorist activity" it actually explicitly defines the term for the purposes of the law, irrespective of what people consider "terrorist activity" to be, and the court was required to follow that definition. For the purposes of that statute only, "terrorist activity" is any activity that:
“(1) In this Act ‘terrorism’ means the use or threat of action where— (a) the action falls within subsection (2), (b) the use or threat is designed to influence the government or an international governmental organisation or to intimidate the public or a section of the public, and (c) the use or threat is made for the purpose of advancing a political, religious, racial or ideological cause. (2) Action falls within this subsection if it— (a) involves serious violence against a person, (b) involves serious damage to property, (c) endangers a person’s life, other than that of the person committing the action, (d) creates a serious risk to the health or safety of the public or a section of the public, or (e) is designed seriously to interfere with or seriously to disrupt an electronic system.”
Basically, its any act or threat of an act intended to influence a government or governments, involves serious property damage or mortal danger of some specific serious nature, and is intended to advance a political agenda. Notice the law doesn't specifically say you have to threaten to kill someone or kill someone. It actually says you have to act or threaten to act in such a way that death or damage is a consequence of that act. The court itself noted that the law appears extremely broad in its definition, but it wasn't being asked to rule on whether the law was overbroad.
The court ultimately ruled that the government had a legitimate reason to believe that David Miranda was involved with people who were at the time acting or threatening to act in a manner which was designed to influence a government and forward a political agenda, and those acts had the potential to cause death or serious property damage. All those appear true on their face, and thus the law states the detainment was legal. The law doesn't say David Miranda is a terrorist or was involved with terrorist