Slashdot Mirror
"They Are Watching Everyone"
A
Moscow Times story
shows us what happens when privacy protections are few or ineffective. A Russian private-eye firm has bought a $50,000 black-market database "on 140 politicians, journalists, businessmen and criminals," and is now publishing it. Why? Because "we want people to know the spirit of the KGB is alive ... the telephone tapping and surveillance of hundreds of Russian citizens indicates that the country is under a microscope and that this microscope is more intense than that of the KGB/FSB." One woman whose phone conversations were bugged by the free-lance spies says: "Soon, we will look back with nostalgia at the times when we were only listened to by the KGB and not by God-knows-whom, by anybody." Hyperbole? Perhaps. Fortunately, this could never happen here.
It's really very simple. We don't bother hassling Congress because it's pointless; you really think that Congress passing a law against snooping will stop the NSA and other TLAs from doing so? Nope.
Instead we work on technical solutions, like widespread encryption, which cure the problem once and for all. Relying on politicians to protect your privacy is really, really dumb.
You're wrong. What you're talking about would be a form of key escrow, which some agencies are eager to establish but which is still, in the general case, a threat rather than a fact.
Consider: when you generate a PGP (or GPG, or whatever) private key, you're doing it yourself, and you don't send a copy of it to anyone.
Now, if the crypto you're using is very lame, I suppose there might be a "master key" or small set thereof that could decrypt any message encrypted using that lame technique. But that would become obvious upon analysis, and open-sourced software especially wouldn't be around very long before someone noticed such a glaring flaw.
Mind the Gap
Actually, considering what we do know about Echelon and whatnot (it gets posted on slashdot enough, that is), I think that was sarcasm.
At least, I hope that was sarcasm...
Anyhow, I'll just go home and watch Big Brother, content in the fact that no one is watching me..... Is that a two-way mirror?
---
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
It's been shown that treatment programs work much better for curbing drug use than law enforcement does for preventing it. We can send millions of dollars and tons of equipment all over South America, but that isn't going to change a thing. All it does is help continue to create the artificial scarcity that makes drugs so profitable in the first place, which encourages more people to get into the business. Then there's all the corruption that it creates, even in our own military, police forces, and government. We need to quit trying to prevent the drugs from coming in and work on education and treatment. These are the most effective ways we have of dealing with the problem. Hopefully if we, as a country, ever get our sh|t together and tell the politicians to give up this never-ending "war," we can get some of our liberties back as a side-effect. I doubt they'll give up their new-found power easily though.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
I'd not take everything Russian press says at face value. Most of Russian press serve interests of some polical and/or financial groups or individuals, and there's almost no "independent" press as such (well, almost the same is true for any other country, just in Russia the phenomena is more developed and accepted). This means the whole story can be invented by someone just to put a needle in the butt of some politician or political group. Gathering "kompromat" (compromising materials), both true and outright false, and publishing it on various media is very common, as well as concept of "informational war", such as launching on a controlled TV channel programs entirely dedicated to bashing owner's political enemies, and "profiling" news items to represent them in a way most harmful to one's political enemies.
So when you base your privacy efforts on some information from Russian press, beware. This could be just a move in someone's information war, and you'll be just a pawn in this game.
-- Si hoc legere scis nimium eruditionis habes.
For a more pervasive example of observastion, take a look at the grocery 'Club Cards' that are becoming popular. These cards allow the stores to attach names to the lists of purchases made. There is nothing to prevent them from selling this information to insurance companies and marketing companies
Great, just what we need: more conspiracy theories.
There is nothing stopping them from doing this now with your credit card number, your account number scanned from your check or if you're so paranoid you always pay with cash, even from the security cameras snapping your picture and comparing it with some sinister database with the intents you describe.
The tools already exist for them to do this, let's not freak out when something new comes along with just as much potential for evil big brother spying.
If your local supermarket is really doing this kind of thing to you, shop elsewhere. I think it's a pretty silly thought, myself.
I disagree. Privacy costs. There are real, dollar savings I pass up by refusing discount cards. I can afford this now, but I know a lot of people for whom $20 or even $5 saved at the supermarket *is* a big deal. This is what's happening today.
In the future of (even more) pervasive surveillance, it's simply going to cost more to keep one's privacy; most won't be able to afford this, but I guarantee you, some will. You won't be getting snapshots of what Bill Gates or Gee-Dubya are buying at the supermarket. They don't have to go to the supermarket for themselves so their data trail is diffused.
Proponents of the "Transparent Society" are deluded if they think everyone's going to have the same access to information AND the same lack of privacy.
-Isaac
I am not a lawyer, and this is not legal advice. For Entertainment Purposes Only.
Am I correct that the NSA is part of the Executive branch of the government?
I wonder if Congress doesn't have some sort of check or balance to reign in the NSA.
My biggest concern is that these intelligence community agencies are getting more and more power. I fear that eventually if nothing is done to curb the NSA's power, we're going to wonder how nice the Russians had it under the KGB!
Don't get me wrong, I don't think the NSA is as powerful or as ruthless as the KGB was WRT th the general citizenry, it's the slow erosion of rights over time I'm concerned with.
My parents are US citizens working in Moscow and my mom has told me that several times she has picked up the phone to find it dead. When she asks if she has called the correct number she gets a responce "Certinly Not" in a perfect birttish accent. They have also said that they feel that the house is bugged to the point where my father will not discuss goings on in the office at home.
:-)
I have to say that when I went there you are under a lot of scuritny. It is not uncommon to be followed wile walking down the street or to have people watch you out of the corner of their eye.
On the lighter side, Moscow is one fun town to party and I very much liked the females.
---- Fight to protect your right to keep and arm bears! ummmm... ya I think that's right....
Irony, of course.
Jamie McCarthy
Jamie McCarthy
jamie.mccarthy.vg
The easiest way to get laws passed in the US is to show the lawmakers how they are affected by them. Case in point: your video store records are more protected than your financial information, because about 15 years ago a politician was publicly embarassed when a newspaper got a list of videos he/she had rented.
So what to do about it? Well dig up dirt. Compile it. Share it. Let the world know Richard Nixon's social security number. Find out exactly what George W. Bush had for breakfast, and call him on his home phone number to let him know. Let the politicos understand why privacy is important and they will make the laws.
If we don't get privacy from them, why should they get privacy from us?
--
Why can't I moderate something "Wrong" or at least "Grossly Misinformed"?
This database is created by private company (MOST), not KGB/FSB. However, many of this company employees are former KGB officers. The head of the company, Mr. Gusinsky, is now taking heat for this and some other activities he was involved in. Unfortunately, any attempt to curb him is interpreted as an "attack on free speech" in US media.
So I guess, goverment is not the only organization that is after your privacy. Of course, it could never happen in US. Yeah, right.....
This will happen here regardless of laws passed, and, just as in Russia, it will be the private sector doing most of it. The private sector's scale of operations will dwarf any goverment snooping.
Why? Because microtechnology will make it possible and incredibly cheap. Look at the micro air vehicles in development - only a couple of inches wingspan. Cameras the size of buttons. Microphones much smaller.
I expect that within ten years you will be able to buy cameras and microphones by the bucketload. It will come down to the Diamand Age fluff floating thru the air.
There is a difference between recording and broadcasting, though. I also expect that almost all recording will be done for review purposes, like black boxes in airliners -- something happens, you review the record. There will be so much recorded that actually watching it will be boring beyond belief.
When snooping becomes this easy and cheap and undetectable, it will be pervasive. Older generations will shudder in fear, but kids will grow up knowing their every move is recorded, whether in public or private. In a generation, it will be accepted and expected practice. I personally both dread it and look forward to it. Dread because it's not what I am used to, anticipate it because one of the causes of so much inequity in the world is the rich and powerful having access to information that the poor and weak don't. But if you can bug them as easily as they can bug you, power shifts. No longer will the powerful get away with crimes that their victims are punished for.
A very concrete example was Rodney King being beaten by the L.A. cops -- and video recorded. That recording was the beginning of the end. That's why so many cop cars now have video cameras -- to protect the cops from the citizens. A delicious harbinger of things to come!
I think physical crime will drop dramatically, because it will be so easy to find out who did it. Proof might be harder due to the ease of making false recordings, but anonymous email to friends and family of the accused will be rampant.
--
Infuriate left and right
Fortunately, this could never happen here.
Fat lot you know, Jamie.
Just be sure to wear the gold uniform when you beam down -- you know what happens when you wear the red one.
I've said it before, and I won't say it again since it's obvious. Insert randomly bad data to make it not profitable to continue data collection.
Swap Stop&Shop cards with buddies at the water cooler - send them cross-country - best still, make up a fake identity which only buys vice-foods, and watch those pre-approved credit card offers roll in for your imaginary friend.
Get a PO box. It's not a big help, but it's another level of indirection that an automated system has to filter. I have one. 99% of what I get there is junk, and 99% of that is from Micros~1 because I registered a few products..
Put spider-poison in your web page. A bunch of interesting words, and counter-referencing URLs in an HTML comment do wonders - but also confuse worthwhile serach engines. YMMV.
Encrypt. Even if you have nothing better to do it with but ROT13.
Why not IP6? Do you really have to ask? Whom would it inconvenience?
-- What you do today will cost you a day of your life.
Your phone may not be tapped, and no one is bouncing an IR laser beam off of your living room window, but if anyone in the US thinks they are not under a microscope, they are sadly mistaken.
You have a credit card? You use it? You're profiled. Your spending habits drive the issuing of credit and the supply of goods to your geographical area.
You have a wholesale club or grocery store card? You're a statistic. Your nutritional habits are monitored by your friendly neighborhood grocer, and your area is blanketted for health risks based on this information.
You have medical insurance? You're analysed for risk, allergies, immunizations, tests. Ever have a VD test? Pregnancy test? Cancer test? Those premiums just don't want to drop, do they? Doctors don't release your personal information, that would be unethical. HMO's are just protecting their investment.
You have a car? Then you not only have a license and registration, you also have insurance. You buy gas with on credit? If you buy a lot, your insurance premium reflects that you drive a lot. You must inform the DMV within 2 weeks of changing residence, but it's ok, since you're in a free country.
You have a phone? You're cross-linked with the people you call, and the above information is crunched for your 'circle of friends'. Ever call overseas? Which country?
Computers were invented to do math, but showed tremedous utility in data processing. It is naive to think that this sort of profiling does not go on in the most money-oriented, statisticaly driven, heavily computerized country in the world. People may not be organized enough to plan something like this, but corporations are, after all, there is huge money at stake.
Reality check for the future... You give blood? Which database will those genetic tests end up in? You have a LoJack? A cell-phone? No need to tell anyone where you're going, they already know. Wouldn't you like to protect your new born son against abduction through a genetic sample taken at birth? Just wait until his girlfriend's father checks that information in 16 years, for a nominal fee of course...
Paranoid? Probably. Wrong? Probably not.
-- What you do today will cost you a day of your life.
"Note, 'tho, that the NSA's charter is pretty darn specific. In most circumstances, they are NOT allowed to deliberately eavesdrop on an American citizen, or to arrange for any other nation to do so -- and their own FAQ reiterates this. Exceptions, if memory serves, include conversations with foreign nationals.
In theory, of course. But, in practice, all any intelligence agency needs to do to perform domestic surveillance, is apply to the special FISA court (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) Title 50, Chapter 36 US Code, which, last I heard, had refused exactly one request (out of tens of thousands) since 1978. FISA warrants (which, unlike regular warrants are not published or released) have skyrocketed in the past few years -- averaging ca 250/yr in the first 15 years of FISA, and over 1000/yr by the latest Congressional figures I've seen (which may not be a complete count of recent warrrants for obvious reasons).
I discussed FISA in another story recently, and I don't like to think about it too much in one day (it's too depressing, for personal reasons) so please see my earlier post on wiretaps [there's a bug in slashcode, so you may have to click the post # to see the whole thing) or do a Google search for "FISA wiretap" (no quotes).
I like the NSA (also for personal reasons), but my personal fondness for the organizations doesn't blind me to the dangers intrisic in irresponsible policy.
One of the trends that brought down the USSR was the way technology disproportionately empowered the individual in a restrictive society. In the 70's, mimeographs and xeroxes were tightly regulated as potential printing presses. Even a senior scientist seeking a reprint usually had to get it copied by a designated library officer, who kept logs. One key to the maintaining power was maintaining a disparity in capability between the KGb (e.g.) and the indivisual. But the Soviet economy would not long stand unless they freely used computers, networks, fax, xerox, and other technologies that were growing common in the West, and these tools could be (and were) used for dissent as well
In a society where technology and openness traditionally favor the individual, the balance can easily swing the other way -- it really has nowhere else to go. Overly broad powers, in actual experience yield little, and even in theory should yield very little, given practical realities.
Powers tend to be used, regardless of the target. US vs THEM is very deep in the human tribal nature, and is a common attitude in any gov't agency or business. The Geeks (individuals) led technology, but now the technology is so powerful that for many individual applications it doesn't matter if you have a P-100 or a Beowulf cluster... large organizations, however, can harness the full power of the new technology...
We need to use our Mark I jello-ware neural-nets before it's too late!
If you can go to bed, knowing you did a valuable thing today, you're very lucky. If you can't... it's not bedtime
The KGB had a really great survelance system because most of their information came from the civilian population itself, from citizens who where looking for a little extra money or simply a better life, and this was a difficult task in a communist country. Now that Russia and the other ex-USSR countries have a free market economy, people have a lot more options to improve their quality of life. In short, to achieve the level the KGB had as a spying state-driven organization this new agency has to hire thousands, if not millions, of russian citizens to watch one another. Even so, the quantity of the information would be so much that most of it would be unreachable or not usable, and that's without checking the quality of it.
I dont recall exacly but I think the german secret police, the Stasi, had this problem, they where overwelmed with information and most of it was useless.
What the Russian goverment should do is protect civil rights and enforce them like western countries do. This is part of a transition, and Russian citizens are more or less used to this kind of espionage and invasion or personal privacy.
Hay I mean it couldn't happen in the United States Land of the free, CIA and FBI.
Hold on a moment...
*Silently*Hay someone get the brainwashing machine working.... we got one... yeah.. he's on to us BIG TIME...
I don't actually exist.
There was no such silly thing. There was a kind of "radio-thru-cable" system, but it was up to people to buy the actual box. And these boxes were extremely low-tech and easy to disassemble.
That still doesn't invalidate the comment. Some people are so offended that they would rather have a government, which can and does use that information to kill people to a bunch of companies using the information for reasons unknown. It is sort of the "devil you know" syndrome. Do I understand it? Nope. But if the government never killed anyone you know, it's pretty easy to dismiss their actions.
Logic ... merely enables one to be wrong with authority. -- Doctor Who
I can picture the next headline in The Moscow Times: "Russian Internet Shut Down by Slashdotters".
:)
I don't know what kind of internet connectivity they have there but I'm sure this is not going to help the situation
------
IanO
------
Objects in Mirror are Losing!
...they would be hauled off for contempt of congress, but the NSA managed to get away with it.
Your answer: the NSA could blackmail any (not every) politician in Congress out of office in a microsecond. Every politician has large skeletons in the closet, and NSA knows everything. Do you need a more plausible reason why Congress didn't press the point?
The grocery cards are a bad example in that they are voluntary. You don't have to have them/use them, or you can use them intermittnetly (only when you buy on sale). Yes, it's more expensive not to use them. Think of the savings as the grocery store paying you for the use of your personal data.
Pharmacies are a better example, where the data collected are not voluntary -- you want meds, you have to give them a minimum of info. They've tried (and changed their minds when it hit the evening news) to sell the data. That's scary!
Fortunately, this could never happen here
I think he was being sarcastic.
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Nitpick: Congress doesn't approve funding for Echelon (directly anyway). Recently, Congress requested information from the NSA to prove that American's privacy weren't being violated. The NSA refused, claiming Attorney-Client privledge or some other lameass excuse. If an individual tried that, they would be hauled off for contempt of congress, but the NSA managed to get away with it.
-B
The police are in the executive branch of the government (enforcing the laws), while judges are in the judicial branch (interpretting the laws). The judiciary is supposed to check the power of the executive branch, there is nothing "redundant" about that.
One of the reasons that those requests are rarely denied is because the police know what is required to get permission and don't want to waste their own, or the judges, time making a request without reasonable suspicion. Also, just because a judge gives permission for a wiretap doesn't mean that a good defense lawyer won't get it thrown out in court.
-B
PS- I'm not saying the system works perfectly, but it is designed well.
According to my logs from today, you spent 3 hours surfing the web (an hour of that on Slashdot), an hour and a half playing Minesweeper, clipped your fingernails for 15 minutes, and wrote one email to your girlfriend. BTW, if you're going to do that thing with the baby oil, you should put a shower curtain down on the floor first.
-Agent B
To a certain extent, I agree with this now, but there are a few important issues I have with that:
I'm not saying this is anything that will affect your or me significantly in our lifetimes, but they are issues that need to be dealt with as soon as possible. Besides, just because it doesn't affect us doesn't mean it's not important. Senators are people too!
I seem to remember that Russian homes were required to have hard-wired "radios" for some time. This was probably mostly done to minimize the use of real radio receivers and the possibility of receiving anything that conflicted the official pravda.
However, I've always wondered how many of these things were simply 1-way speakers, and how many were 2-way speaker/microphones, like George Orwell's 2-way TVs.
Maybe jamie should have wrote it as:
<sarcasm>Fortunately, this could never happen here</sarcasm>
so we wouldn't have to deal with people who can't recognize sarcasm pointing out how naive he (she?) is.
This should be a wakeup call for people who don't take their own privacy seriously. This should also be a wakeup call for congress when they approve funding every year for eschelon related activities. This should be a wakeup call for anybody who belives that nobody cares what they do with their private life.
---
Play Six Pack Man. I
What?! You mean Scott Mc Nealy was right and we have no privacy anyway? I guess we'll just have to "get over it"... ;-)
"The future's good and the present is nothing to sneeze at." - Roblimo's last
Well, given that "The Moscow Times" is an English language newspaper, I don't see what is disturbing about it...
Well, look at it this way.
The law enforcement types say they need to curtail civil liberties to be effective.
Ok, they got it.
Step back from an occaisional drug bust and look at the situation as a whole. Are they demonstratively more effective than before?
If not,then we've just traded our liberties for nothing.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Not true! Babelfish now does Russian to English!
For more information, click here.
We have ways and means to prevent this (to an extent. gpg/pgp, ssh, ssl for web. This covers most things that people do on the net. These aren't perfect and are still prone to human error but using these simple things can lessen the effects of this.
You know, for someone who posts so much you sure don't get moderated up very often.
^^--- This ad hominem attack was brought to you by the letter "M" and the number "23" -- ^^
- Rev.
Every day, it seems, we see more and more stories about how group X is violating privacy. From Echelon to RealNetworks, privacy abuse is very, very obviously pervasive and almost totally unchecked.
And what does the /. crowd do? They bitch. Bitch bitch bitch bitch bitch. Katz spews out another horror piece. User comments that amount to little more than "that sucks!" are moderated up to 5. Endless debate occurs over the rights of states & corporations vs. the rights of the individuals. On and on and on...
In the meantime, little harm occurs to those who violate these rights. Have you written or called your Congresscritter to bitch about this? Yes, money rules politics. But so does the ballot box. If they think that there are concerned citizens out there it will at least give them pause before voting for the "Feinstein-Helms Let's Give the Corporations More Power to Eavesdrop Bill of 2000". PLEASE spend less time posting comments here and more time calling up Congressmembers. Bitch to THEM. Get active! As cool as /. is, it affects policy only marginally. "They've got the guns but we've got the numbers" as Jim Morrison famously said. Bitch, moan, complain and do so loudly and consistently.
[Note: This message applies worldwide: just replace "Congress" with "Parliament" or "Duma" or whatever happens to apply to your particular locale. But fucking DO it. Nothing positive will happen in the "real world", no matter how high your karma is here.]
This should probably be modded as flamebait, because I am trying to be inflammatory. I *want* people to get pissed.
And while we're at it, can someone email me & tell me why IPv6/IPsec hasn't been widely implemented yet? Packet level encryption would help in situations like this.
- Rev.It's hard to take a moral stand when your snout is deep in the slop.
I told *two* grocery stores that I would change my shopping habits and never darken their door again rather than provide personally identifiable marketing information. Fortunately the third chain (Albertsons) has repeatedly stated that they will not introduce them. When I really wanted something that only a carded store carried, I shopped at the local grocery store and paid full price. (It subsequently went bankrupt and was purchased by Albertsons.)
This was a pain, but nobody can accuse me of sitting on the fence. I was also always very clear that I would accept their cards if they were truly anonymous - put a bowl of them out on the customer service desk and donate any bonus points to charity. I'll grab a new card every few months - long enough for you to collect real marketing information, but not long enough that I would worry about my privacy. I have been told by all stores that that is "impossible."
In contrast, you're already in bed with the marketers. You lie, other people swap cards at parties, but you all buy into the Big Lie that it's legitimate for a grocery store to demand personal information in exchange for token discounts on merchandise they artificially marked up in the first place. (E.g., I noticed that 2-liter bottles of soda shot up from $0.99/2L to $3.99/2L, with a "sale" price of $1.99/2L, after the introduction of these cards.) When they decide to crack down on identity fraud and demand that you provide real information to get your discounts you're not in a strong moral position to protest.
This seems like a minor point, but if you look at the civil disobediences that worked (including the experiences of POW camp survivors) you'll see that one of the common threads is that the leaders and members always made an explicit effort to avoid any benefits which weren't available to all. I'll take advantange of a sales price which is available to everyone, card or not, but I won't accept a sales price that in any way - no matter how small - reflects special treatment in return for cooperation.
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
Man, I just joined this place, and NO ONE knows anything about the PBX, which is just in an unlocked 'closet' that I can go into anytime. Why do telcos and employers think that "all those wires" make no sense to anyone? It's actually a piece of cake. Security through obscurity at it's worse!
Anyway, what would keep your employer from coughing up any of the information they already have on you? We've already had court cases where the Company's backup tapes are open for viewing! Add this to that Quova company that is port scanning everyone on the internet, and the information your employer has is their's to peruse. Some people asked how in the heck could Quova get your buying habits and interests from this... Maybe text parsign through all your emails. Or simply finding the Net-Nanny-Watch type software that already has all of your web site visits handy... and coded to your name.
Rader
Heroin _IS_ legal. It's a VERY powerful pain killer and is generally used in terminal patients with very painful diseases (I've not heard of it being used in nonterminal cases). The thing is, there's no good reason to use heroin other than to get high. The only other reason generally puts in you a hospital anyway. Your doctor could concievably write you a perscription for heroin, same as (s)he could for morphine. Just wanted to clear that up. There are a lot of other drugs that are the same way (most "hard" drugs).
-- Ace
not to nitpick, but the current federal govt(you know, that one established with this constitutions, in 1789), was put in place as a response to the prevous federal government, the Articles of Confederation, which was really weak. It gave the federal government no power, and if we had kept it, I'm sure we wouldn't be as well off today.
But more on the subject, I don't understand why you state-righters think that giving the states more power will somehow lead to better protection of civil liberties. There isn't a tie between the two. In fact, as the federal government has gained power(thanks to FDR and LBJ, JFK), people have gained even more rights and protections....thanks to the federal government's ability to coerce the states(like Mississippi, Alabama, etc)
to sum it up, Federalism(the balance of power between the states and the federal government) isn't tied to civil liberties...and if it is, federal power is good for increasing civil liberties.
your friendly poly sci major
quatto
so it's probably easy enough for the government to monitor all communications and hone in on key words that are spoken!
It's called Echelon, and it is very real.
Echelon is "sigint." Or signal intelligence. I remember reading an article in Time Magazine shortly after Australia first announced that it was taking part in the project to monitor the worlds private and public communications. Time reported that all email, land-line phone, cell phone, newsgroup, message board, pager, etc was open to interception by this singal monitoring project.
They originally reported that it looks for key words (ie presidential threats). The monitoring has been done by computer which flags suspected transmissions and sends them off for further investigation.
Conclusion: It has long sinc been possible to monitor you phone calls. Big Brother is watching.
It's only when we've lost everything, that we are free to do anything...
Soo...
Fess up! what did they have on you. I'm not expecting you to give details, but was it accurate, scarily precise, or just vague and uninformative.
Me, I'm proud of the fact that the credit agencies do a knock-kncok routine ("Johan who?") when they hear my name. Tho it does make getting appartments a hassle.
it's in English. themoscowtimes.com and themoscwtimes.ru are both in English. Kind of worrysome if you ask me.
Disclamer - Opinion of Person
Of course, you won't realize it until one day your health insurance agent says they are downgrading you to a 'At Risk' group, doomed to pay more, simply because they noticed that you haven't been buying the 5% fat beef instead of the 20% fat beef.
More likely, it will be because of cigarettes or alcohol. Cigarettes are almost ALWAYS cheaper with a card.
There was one particular lawsuit where someone sued a grocery store, and they brought up alcohol purchases on his club card in their legal defense.
I generally avoid these type of cards for that reason. Of course, if you have use a credit card, all of that information is logged anyway. For maximum privacy the only option is cash.
--- "So THAT's what an invisible barrier looks like!" - Time Bandits
To quote: "The "extraordinarily detailed database" holds a dossier on almost every person in Canada with as many as 2,000 pieces of information about each person's education, marital status, ethnic origin, mobility, disabilities, income tax, employment and social assistance history.".
It's scary stuff to say the least. Ostensibly, this information has been collected "to plan schools, hospitals, utilities", but it's only one step from being a huge money-maker when sold to advertisers. How would you like to receive targeted marketing from medical companies when they learn from your medical records that you have such-and-such a disease/condition?
Apparently (though I can't find the news article relating to it), there is going to be a dismantling of this database, but do you trust that the information will be destroyed? Or will it be broken down into smaller chunks and disseminated among government agencies responsible for particulars? When you decide to run for prime minister at age 50, will the two months that you were on welfare in your 20's be delivered to the media by some source?
TheGeek
TheGeek
http://www.geekrights.org
Kill the monkey
If you really want to be private then you need to follow these simple steps:
1. Don't communicate. No phone, no internet, no speaking, hell, don't even blink your eyes.
2. Don't go anywhere. People can see where you're at.
3. Don't shed any skin/hair/bodily fluid. People can look at your genetic code and engineer a biotoxin that can only make YOU sterile. (Which shouldn't matter if you follow this rule anyway, as you can't spill bodily fluid.)
4. Don't touch ANYTHING, as then they can get your fingerprint.
5. Stop living. This is the only surefire way to rid mortals of keeping tabs on you. (Except for the U.S. Census, which has a tendancy to count graveyards in their polls, but no on listens to them anyway.)
The point is, you are safe nowhere as long as you exist. Why anyone would be SURPRISED that we are all being spied on all of the time is beyond me. I mean what the hell do you think all of those satillites are for? Weather Forecasting?! PSHAW!
Vulgrin the MAD
I sig, therefore I am.
Ok, well said.
But what do you do about this? Take away all of the DEA's powers? Make everything go in front of a judge? Think of what that will do for red-tape.
I'm not defending them at all, but you have to think of alternatives to give them the tools they need to solve their task. Either that or legalize all drugs and have the country turn into a cesspool.
My 2 cents. Any unused currency can be returned for a full refund within 30 days.
Vulgrin the MAD
I sig, therefore I am.
Again, I don't agree with the DEA or anything but:
Imagine if they HADN'T been doing what they have been doing for so long. Would it be better or worse?
Its a completely pointless question, that I don't personally agree with, but I'm trying to look at both sides.
Vulgrin the MAD
I sig, therefore I am.
Who says that can't happen here in America. Bill Clinton does it. Remember that little thing about hiring a detective? Who knows what black box projects are going on and what they are doing. Hell, the US & Russian governments don't need to use electronics. They have other means. In the US, one such project was "StarGate"-- I am not sure if I have the name correct. The US government you trained military to remotely view places in the world from well within the US borders.
;)
For all we know, Bill Clinton has a mega database with all our names in it, or was that Bill Gates.
At the next eco-hypocrisy-meeting, count the private jets used to get to the meeting. Should be interesting to see that
It couldn't translate what I've typed in in KOI8-R, so I guess it only understands Windows-1251 (which I can't type). Sigh.
--
Industrial space for lease in Flatlandia.
--
Ancient Goth: Someone who overthrew the Roman Empire.
Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.
Slashdot does not HAVE a consistent political opinion. It never will because people the world over post their varied opinions here. Is this news to you?
--
Namesys is based in Russia, is it not? I wonder if he made it on the list.
Any sufficiently advanced civilization is indistinguishable from Gods.
Uh no: Judge - judicial decision maker. Police - executive enforcement.
There's a reason for that. Figure it out.
The message on the other side of this sig is false.
I hate to be the pessimist/conspiratory theorist here, but truthfully, for all that I know my phones are tapped by uncounted numbers of people/organizations. I would never know about it, from the "end user" point of view, but somebody could easily be eavesdropping on all my conversations, e-mail (can anybody say Echelon?), and God knows what else. Just because the U.S. government says they are upholding the law and not bending it does not make it true. I recall a bit of text placed on the music video for Van Halen's "Right Now" song... "Right Now, our government is doing things you think only other governments do" It's not far from the truth, folks.
------
I've got an easy solution for those cards. Lie. There's nothing on the form you fill out that says you can't. Lie, and then trade the cards with your friends on a regular basis. There's nothing on the form you fill out about that either.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Maybe it is me, but Russia is starting to sound more and more like a perfect liberterian society: a tiny government that has pulled back significantly, leaving the free market to govern itself.
And market it did, everything it could, at maximum profit and perfect prices. Suddenly a database of private lives is only worth 50k, and no pesky law telling you what you can sell or not.
Funny enough, it just doesn't sound like a place to raise children or grow old in.
It's too late to hope it never happens here, it already happens every day.
The Drug Enforcement Agency has lobbied for and received an amazing suite of powers, ostensibly for use in fighting the 'War on Drugs'. Not only can the DEA seize cash and assets without proof of wrongdoing, mere suspicion, they can also get wiretaps on suspected criminals with minimal evidence. In fact, DEA and other law enforcement can now get wiretaps without the inconvenience of justifying it to a judge by merely waving the flag of 'Drug War'. After that, it's basically a blank wiretapping check that's written in their name.
For a more pervasive example of observastion, take a look at the grocery 'Club Cards' that are becoming popular. These cards allow the stores to attach names to the lists of purchases made. There is nothing to prevent them from selling this information to insurance companies and marketing companies in the years to come. Of course, you won't realize it until one day your health insurance agent says they are downgrading you to a 'At Risk' group, doomed to pay more, simply because they noticed that you haven't been buying the 5% fat beef instead of the 20% fat beef. A marketer might call you up one day and ask you to try Pepsi instead of Coke, or browbeat you on your choice of laundry detergents.
Phone tapping isn't the biggest problem anymore, it's all the OTHER data that's sorted, collated, and filed under you social security number.
At least in America, they could have their conversations monitored and lives dissected in front of a national audience, and have a chance at a HUGE CASH PRIZE!!! The only downside is you have to live in a house or on an island full of strangers...
Stop by my site where I write about ERP systems & more
The major networks already use an army of hidden cameras and microphones to broadcast conversations that participants are led to believe are private.
As the story indicates, the leading suspect here for gathering this information is the independent news television station. You might have noticed that journalists and network news shows also believe thy are allowed to committ fraud to secretly tape private conversations.
This is news?
Err, guys, why did you think the British sold that tower? Because we don't spy on our citizens anymore? No, offcourse not, the hardware was appearantly obsolete and replaced by better.. (As every ./ knows what happends to obsolete hw..) Privacy? It ended the day you hooked up your first inet (AOL) account (to figure out it sucked indeed..).. Want to know for sure? Try typing your name in let's say Altavista and be amazed..
I have a personal copy of PGP Desktop Security 6.5.3 on Windows 98, a corporate PGP Security Suite (or whatever, the version with the ADKs and custom installer-builder). I have been able to get both to send and receive information with GnuPG. Version 6+ of PGP defaults to DH/DSS keys similar enough to what GPG uses. You are kind of constrained to what block cipher you use, but that's about it.
All true wisdom can be found in sigs.
Is it just me, or does anybody else find it somewhat disturbing that 'The Moscow Times' website, including both themoscowtimes.com and themoscwtimes.ru, is entirely in English?
First, let me state that I don't like drugdealers and their like at all. Softdrugs (cannabis) is merely OK with me, harddrugs are just bad. But that's off-topic. But the Mafia was born in the time that alcohol was illegal in the USA, and gangs started making big money with it. It turned out that prohibiting alcohol gave more trouble than allowing and controlling it. The same goes, for a great part, for drugs. One can easily become 100 years using heroine of a good, pure quality, and noone has to bother about people using this. Now, it's big money and it's mixed with all kinds of shit that causes users to become sick etc, and it's expensive, so people have to steal to use it. IMHO it'd be better to legalize it and control it. :-) ) to have a finger into everything, everywhere. So what works better than to create a devil (drugs) and have a force with almost unlimited power to 'fight' it? :-) )
BUT America wants to have an excuse (yes, I'm finally coming to my point here
The DEA is such a force, it's everywhere and when America thinks it's needed to do something about a thing they don't like, they use it. And. of course, everything and everyone has to be monitored everywhere. I think the DEA is just an excuse to get influence.
Am I lucky I live in the Netherlands! (Yes, I have used cannabis for years, absolutely problemless, I stopped, without any problem, and I'm not using any other drugs (apart from caffeine), never have used other drugs, and never wanted to. But that's off-topic again
What person will donate an airborne act of love?
Why could it never happen here? Yes, it is illeagal, but the article states that is was a blackmarket datableas, hence, illeagal. You can buy wiretap kits from any number of catolog companies, and/or a library card and a couple of bucks.
-- Don't overthrow the government, just think about it.
Bullshit. The KGB murdered people for political beliefs. This happens when law breaks down to the point that the government itself is simply a system of force. The US is a long way from there, despite incidents like Ruby Ridge, Waco, and Miami.
Don't try to compare M$ or DoubleClick using your email to sell shit, to the KGB. It's an insult to all the people that they killed.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Ruby Ridge: Government could have waited. Instead they used sniper to kill.
Waco: Government could have arrested leader in town. Instead they decided to go in with guns blazing, and failed. They then could have waited. Instead they decided to snipe and storm.
Elian: They could have waited for the court decision. Once again, they stormed a private house.
Now what laws? All of the above cases have the stench of abitrary and exmplerary enforcement. The last case was the shakiest legaly as A. Child Custody is a State matter. B. Federal law grants immunity rights to ANY Cuban that reaches US soil. C. No flight hazard was ever demonstrated.
The framers of the constitution put thought billiting of troops in private houses was evil enough to be mentioned in the Bill of Rights. I wonder what they might think of the above.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
"Soon, we will look back with nostalgia at the times when we were only listened to by the KGB and not by God-knows-whom, by anybody."
Psst - Don't trust those bastards to snoop on you! Only the real KGB knows how to do it right. Just let us take charge again and never have to think for yourself again. We'll round up all of those pesky computers, copy machines, and other printing presses for you. Happy days will come again.
From what I've read, this is not winning anyone over but retirees and, suprise, party members who have taken some big hits. What can be worse than being killed for thinking? People want to be free.
The KGB is still watching you too!
He's mixed up with the KGB!? I always knew he was a communist!
----------------
Programming, is like sex.
The Bill of Rights doesn't tell the government what it can do, but more what it can't do. And the 10th amendment paraphrased, "What we didn't cover in the first nine, is left to the states to sort out."
Unfortunately, the "Interstate Commerce Acts" are the guise used by the Feds to keep a tight noose around the throats of the people. Drug dealing is clearly interstate commerce, therefore we need a national drug beauracracy. Since air from West Virginia goes into Pennsylvania, we need an environmental "protection" agency.
The list goes on and on.....
----------------
Programming, is like sex.
Most 10th Amendment supporters (which should include politicians who supposedly swear to uphold the Constitution) don't say, "that giving the states more power will somehow lead to better protection of civil liberties", we say, "the government never had the right to intrude on them.
And thanks for pointing out Mississippi and Alabama. They are poor examples of government stepping in and "helping" out. Ever hear of the Mormons? Why did they go to Utah? Surprise! They left everywhere else because their local government kept/or tried to keep their civil liberties from them! Since you're poli-sci, you hopefully know that Connecticut was founded by a woman who left Massachusetts because she was being hounded by officials. (She was a slut or something). And why was Maryland founded? English Catholics wanted somewhere to go, where the Anglican Crown couldn't hound them.
People have ALWAYS been free to move to a better place. Always.
----------------
Programming, is like sex.
fizz -- tell me you're trolling.
because of course we've never heard of Echelon.
I am, therefore you think.
Fortunately, this could never happen here.
I have never laughed so hard in weeks. Dude, Jamie, clue up! Corporations are trying to Big Brother us here, whereas government agencies are the ones doing it in Australia and the USSR.
It can happen here, and it can happen with the assist of all the ignorant and apathetic Americans. Namely starting with the ones who said it couldn't happen here. *hint* *hint*
*obPrayer: moderators have mercy.*
========================
63,000 bugs in the code, 63,000 bugs,
ya get 1 whacked with a service pack,
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
Insanity is the last line of defence for the master diplomat. But you have to lay the groundwork early.
i dub thee troll sort of nice troll, at the time of writing, at least one person bit
Where do you think news shows and all that get everything from. If you are an important person you are listened to and followed. Everything goes through so many switches and digital portions that our lovely echelon could be listening and taping and monitoring everything. Almost all of us use some sort of mail server that we are not the only sysadmins of, so we are monitored there. Whenever we call other places of buisiness we are usually taped at our end or the other end of the phone call. Even if we speak in private person to person who is to say that that person won't record the conversation. Our country is definately a case of little brother is watching. We have a million camcorders recording everywhere with ten million people trying to get on TV by finding out some juicy information about a celebrity. oh well just my .02$.
I am 31337 or something.
I've heard rumors that the FBI (or possibly the NSA) pays the CICS to spy on American citizens to avoid violating US law.
In a related story, I just saw an old Movie called The FBI Files. It was complete prophaganda, (J Edgar Hoover was made to look like some great wonderful guy (he was still the Dictator of the FBI when the movie was made)) but the interesting part was when they talked of the 'evils of communisim', complete with the stalking^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hsurveillance of a 'commie'.
Jordan Bettis
``Wherever you go, there's another stupid sigfile quote.''This is somewhat OT, but concerns privacy. I created a script to clear out all references to doubleclick.net and adserv in my ~/.netscape/cookies file whenever Netscape is launched. Is this enough? What is the file format of that cookie?
Though I originally wanted to ban all cookies, my online banking and a multitude of other sites have major problems unless cookies are enabled.
Great... this is just typical. You'd figure that the KGB is still involved in tapping your phone in Russia, what about the CIA, the CBI, and other intelligence agencies. The scary part is that voice recognition technologies keep getting better, so it's probably easy enough for the government to monitor all communications and hone in on key words that are spoken!
SolidWorks on Linux?
Please do not tell me Miami refers to Little Elian. To equate this (or Waco) with the gov't breaking laws is just not right. The gov't showed a huge amount of restraint by not going in immediately in either case.
You can flame me or moderate me down for standing up for the gov't in this case. I don't care.
--
dman123 forever!
--
dman123 forever!
Filtering out the -1s and 0s since 1999.
I do not think privacy exists in any real sense. The most one can hope to have is privacy by obscurity, as long as nobody considers you important enough to seriously start digging.
It seems that even that will be undermined as more daily activities move online. and automated data collection techniques are developed. That's why I think that a set of laws restricting usage of the internet for data collection will be necessary.
First of all, define $here. If you by that mean the Western countries, I truly hope that the last sentence was sarcasm. If people start to think like that, they won't notice when they're in the same situation as in Russia.
Maybe that's just what has lead them to this point: Indifference.
Lagoon
The world doesn't need you.
Soviet disintegration is still a continuing process. And it feels to me at least like a timely reminder of the fragility of the purported framework of privacy protection on which we rely.
One of the most striking charcteristics (not because it is non obvious in other circumstances but because in this case it was so extreme) of the disintegration of the USSR is the wholesale destruction of trust mechanisms. Organised crime thrives in a society absent control or the means to control by civilian policing, so "mafiosi" protection rackets are virtually legitimised because they are the most available form of strength. Maybe to understand how such can be accepted one has to think again about the comforting mantle that a uber state provides, and that even when it is clear to citizenry this has failed, pride patriotism and wishful thinking all conspire to find excuses and justifications, just as the Communist Party post Perestroika and free elections evoked this idea sucessfully.
No doubt Stasi files in East Germany and similar in satellite Eastern Block countries came into "wrong" hands via private transactions. If anything this database release is a reminder of the private control excercised over information by individuals in Russia today
In the West, only a conceptual - practical link exists to maintain some control over similar happening, i.e. the Legislative, Exceutive and Policing bodies differentiation and deliniation.
Forgetting for a moment that in any country such as the USA or UK or France (well maybe I'll omit the UK, given present conditions :( the understanding of responsibilities to private citizenry and the differentiation between enforcement of state edict and private protection is quite well ingrained. BUT INTRODUCE ANY PROTRACTED FORM OF INSTABILITY, and everything comes down to individual actions.
There is nothing whatsoever to actually *stop* someone in posession of sensitive personal documents from distributing them freely, though they might expect punishment in present circumstances. But it can be done. There was if I remember correctly a story here some while back about how Canada wanted to keep 2000 fields of data on each and every citizen. Quite a few posters rightly thought that an threat to invasion of privacy. I and others wanted to know where from they could find 2000 fields of valid data to populate such a database, and even though someone poined out such info would be handy ineven tof crisis to trace people lost (provided the same crisis did not take out the power or other lines to the relevant servers)what I kept on thinking about was WHO would be responsible to manage such a repository? I.e. WHo would integrate such a powerful database with existing and know precepts of privacy and accountability?
Okay, my bad because I've drifted off topic now.I think the thing to recognise in this Russian release of info (sorry but my Ruski is not good enough to tell much of what is going on with the actual dataFinally, it's a sad thing to watch, but recent history in Russia seems to be solely about a few private interests, and not about a nation at all, the ideas about which and concerning the people just get used as a sideshow whenever convenient. I don't think that's a new thing. I wonder now how many reasons I can come up with (privately, after posting this) for WHY none of this would ever hapen here
enough of my ranting :)
Read the article, it looks like they cut and pasted once section two times...
Its good to know the quality of their journalism is no better than ours...
-- A Human Being is nothing more than mobile CO2 factory. Bow to the plants.
Any translaters?
Gimme the good bits only!
Mode (3) smart-aleck mode. Press * to return to main menu.
They have the biggest database of all US and
foreign nationals.
They know your scores (remember that 450 on
maths?), they know your address, they have your
essays (that rant you wrote about the Pope?),
they have everything to totally wreck your life...
All in the name of education of course
Mode (3) smart-aleck mode. Press * to return to main menu.
I think there are actually very few who would do so. The media tend to play up the connection in a case like Matt Sheppard's (sp?) murder.
Similarly, people who support abortion are also often the victims of zealous murderous fundamentalists.
While abortion providers have been targeted, I don't believe the numbers justify the use of the term 'often'. Also, zeal and belief in the fundamentals of an individual's religion are superfluous and inflammatory with respect to this argument. There are just as many people who are zealous in their beliefs and twisted enough in their thinking to kill people simply because they are christians (or muslims, or bahai, etc.) as in school shootings in Kentucky, Littleton and the Baptist church in Texas. You could probably take the numbers of churchgoers killed in these three attacks and come up with a significantly larger number of deaths than those of abortion providers.
I recently read about a prominent atheist who was kidnapped and then was never seen again.
If you're referring to Madelyn O'Hare, she and two of her children are presumed murdered by an associate for $500,000.00 in gold (I think that's the right amount) and not because of her beliefs or activism.
These examples are similar to the idea that we are all being spied on in that they are exaggerated in and even sensationalistic. Does that mean that there aren't people who would just as soon kill homosexuals as look at them? No, I'm certain that there are, just as I'm certain that there are a few people who would target someone because of their religious beliefs or the color of their skin, or any number of other differences. They don't all belong to a single demographic, but a single mindset that says it's OK to use violence to achieve your ends. There are a few who would carry that as far as murder, far more who would beat the living daylights out of you, and still more who would scheme against you or rail against you publicly. I don't believe the increases from group to group to be incremental but exponential. This is not based on profiling, but simple observation.
carlos
--
As a matter of fact, I am a lawyer. But I play an actor on TV.
That's funny. Almost governmental, giving with one hand what you take away with the other.
If you check out my previous posts you'll see that I don't have a problem with a need to preserve privacy. I think all of us have things in our lives, past or present, that we'd just as soon weren't made public (except the sociopaths).
--
As a matter of fact, I am a lawyer. But I play an actor on TV.
One of the the things I have noticed about watching Russia that last several years is there is tendency to take their new found freedoms to extremes. Kind of like a teenager driving.
The company suspected of doing the spying is a private broadcast company which produces "news" shows similiar to Hard Copy.
Their Mafia is more violent, there politicians more corrupt in general, their journalists more invasive, or are they.
I did notice that the commentary tends to indicate that the calls they cite as being tapped are long distance calls. My understanding of Russia's infrastructure is that a lot of their long distance calls still go out over microwave transmission. Microwave transmissions are notoriously easy to snoop. It has long been rumored that the NSA satellites regular snooped on microwave transmissions. Curious enough, is they used to "calibrate" their equipment over friendly countries.
Mind if I calibrate this bug in your office?
Why is that every conspiracy alarmist is focused on the government? Oddly enough the fact that government may be watching me bothers me not nearly so much that other entities are. I mean, there's corporations who aren't really accountable to anyone, then there's any number of political groups, not to mention people on the fringe of questionable stability. And I won't even get started on those guys in black sedan parked out in front of my house. Of course I don't really know where that machine in my head is sending signals to either.
If you want to get the special deals, but not be at risk, just pick a different name on your application (and fake address, etc). (I remember somewhere someone suggested that we all sign up as George Orwell.)
looks like www.flb.ru is down...
It's looking more and more like privacy is a comdity in short supply these days. ANy why wouldn't it be? How many of you work for employers who can, quite legaly, tap your office phone, drop a packet sniffer on your network connection and log everytime you check Slashdot?
This kind of data tracking, be it wire taps or packet sniffing is becomming more common, and the common man is login his right to privacy for 'the greater good.' Can't say i agree, but neither can I say I'm surprised.
Welcome to 1984 indeed.
Do we need to be paranoid about it? I don't think so. Lets be honest--what can you do? Besides, how does it harm you if the FBI (or RCMP or whatever) taps your phone? Were you really planning on making a death threat against the President? Were you actually stupid enough to talk about bombing a TWA flight over the phone?
Privacy? Whe needs it. What have you got to hide?
Beware the Whyte Wolf.
With a gun barrel between your teeth, you speak only in vowels...
So they got some issues.... sue them.
Nuff Respec'
DeICQLady
7D3 CPE
People think that people are just parnoid... Well those people are either stupid or Spooks themselves. The US government like the Russian Government is based on the thought : If we don't monitor our citizens that will compermise national security, more then now then before now with the technology people can access information and sell it to a third party easily and if they don't compromise there citizens privacy there can be trouble. No matter what you believe on the bill of rights .. you can shoot that out the door since your whole life is in the computer .. no matter if you have a computer or not. I t doesn't matter anymore. Our government has tabs an everyone in-fact US Technology is at least a decade or more ahead of our current technology and US consumer market is about a decade ahead of the rest of the world. Use your imagination of the capabilty of our government nations fear us and most of all Most logical citizens are afriad as well .. ever thought what would happen if you disappeared off all computers in the world you would be completely erased untill they want to put you back in the system..... Blackmail?... Killing none existant people? the ideas go on scary ...
"Before God we are all equally wise - and equally foolish." -Albert Einstein
No...I'm not being sarcastic...I always talk like this. It's a speech impediment. Sorry
You are more than the sum of what you consume.
Desire is not an occupation.
Given all of the things that they are doing in the UK with internet monitoring, how long before an employee maintaining these monitoring systems decides to keep some of the logfiles, make himself a simular database, and publish it? Imagine the ramifications of something like that happening....
but Nixon and his wife have been dead for a few years now, so I am not quite sure what slinging around his social security number around the Net will accomplish....
This is another view of the world.
Are there people, who doesn't do anything but listen to phonecalls and read through you're email all there life - or did they make a giant AI to do it for them........ and where do thay store this vast amount of data.......... hmmmmm...... as strange as it gets
This is why we need cryptography. Why do you think that GSM is not common in the US? Because it has crypto that made it impossible to snoop on for Echlon (of course, it's been broken now, but hey...) Folks, encrypt your email and don't talk on the phone. Or at least don't say anything important on the phone. If everyone encrypts their email, than the governments and large companies that want to spy on us will drown in a sea of undescipherable information. On a related note: should we use PGP or GNUPG? GNUPG is GPL, but it has not been ported to any platforms other than Linux.
There have been reports for decades of the US government doing this to its own people. It supposedly sifts for delicate information regarding national security. This became more realistic a year ago when the governemnts activities in Europe were brought to light by the French. It's basically been confirmed.
The secretive company that's scanning the net? Perhaps...
It's great and all that they're listening to our phone conversations, but do we get cool little telescreen things like in 1984? I bet it would look cool hanging in my room!
-Antipop
...is when we all wake up and the heating and air industry has been subsidized by the government. To lower costs they use an army of Bob Hoskins clones.
Andrew Borntreger
Andrew Borntreger
Champion of cinematic disasters
"Let's say someone did tap my phone. What will they use the information for? Will they attempt to blackmail me with information regarding cheating on my diet? What would they expect to gain? My assets are few. I try to live my life peaceably with others and within the limitations of the law"
Consider yourself one of the lucky people whose behaviour just happens to fit in with society accepts.
Consider that in many states in the US it is still illegal to have gay sex, for example. Consider yourself lucky you are straight (I'm assuming you are, otherwise you might feel differently than your post indicates.) Remember that not only would being gay be illegal in many states, but there are plenty of employers who would actually fire someone for being gay, and there are quite a number who would brutally murder you for being gay. Similarly, people who support abortion are also often the victims of zealous murderous fundamentalists.
There are plenty of people who would discriminate against others for being mentally ill, e.g. being clinically depressed. Many people have been fired after their employers found out about it. You can argue all you like about labor laws and discrimination laws - but in the real world, it is not easy (particularly if you don't have in-demand skills as computer nerds like us are lucky enough to have) to fight this sort of discrimination. Lawyers are expensive, lawsuits take a heavy emotional and financial toll, and the facts are often gray enough for someone's case to be lost against better lawyers.
I'm a reasonably experience C++ programmer, so I'm open about having depression (I am straight though, the gay thing was just an example :) .. I'm sure if I got fired because of it I would still be able to find another job elsewhere. But I count myself one of the lucky few in that regard.
My point is that some people often have valid reason to hide something, even if the reason they have to hide it is society itself, unfortunately. Nobody is likely to brutally murder you for cheating on your diet, but there are people who would if they know you were gay. And if they knew you were an atheist (yes, this happens .. I recently read about a prominent atheist who was kidnapped and then was never seen again.) Any number of things.
Profiling technology is currently fairly limited and expensive, but in the next 10 to 40 years it will become extremely cheap, prevasive and intelligent. There already exists software that can do both facial and behaviour recognition from a video, and that software will only get cheaper and better. So will cameras.
I like this part of the report:
"I can virtually guarantee you Cardinal O'Connor was never investigated," The Post FBI source said. "There is no file on Cardinal O'Connor."
Now, what is a virtual guarantee??? Something that looks like a guarantee but isn't exactly?
Uh-huh...
actually from what i've heard, and correct me if i'm wrong, but there are 2 encryption keys for every algorythm, and the government gets a copy of one of them. that would mean that increased encryption on the net would do nothing to stop echleon.
The run dates were 3/14/2000 - 3/16/2000 and they're in Real Audio format (RealNetworks? NSA? Coincidence? ok, that's even a little too paranoid for even me!).
So in the former Soviet Union some private company is spying on "public figures" and "little known journalists." Interesting twist is that in this country it's the little known journalists spying on the public figures, while the public figures stealthily spy on the public at large. To whit - check out the "G-files" section of APB.com to find out what the federal "intelligence" agencies have been secretly recording about various public figures for decades (Judy Garland's G-File is very interesting, as is Grace Slick's). And to find out about journalistic intrusion into the private lives of public figures, one need look no further than the crusty spoo on monica's dress, or the feeding-frenzy drubbing of that kiddie show hero known as Pee Wee in the early 90s. I hate to sound sympathetic to any group spying on/intruding in anyone else's business, but let's face it - both our own government and our corporate news media thrive on the same stuff here at home.
Eloi are stupid, throw morlocks at them!
Unfortunately this spirit is not only in Russia, in Denmark for instance where most of the population are employed by the government (though still claim to be democratic??? I mean, you vote for the hands that feeds you) this is generally approved - of cause, if it's in the interest of 'the country'. Steve Nielsen
Want to have private voice/voice conversations over the internet?
Enter PGPfone
An Education is the Font of All Liberty
We're safe in the UK -- our government don't sell off information they gained through invading privacy, erm I mean monitoring to ensure the safety of the nation. They just leave it on laptops in taxi cabs.
Of course these laptops are running NT so we're perfectly safe because it is such a secure operating system.
That was sarcastic, or no? It's so hard to tell without a little winky face to guide me. Oh internet, what have you turned me into!!
sig:
See the "..for smart people" banners Wired runs here? Look elsewhere guys.
Hey everybody, it is certainly time to wake up. After years of reading alarmists and other paranoids talk about how "they" are watching, it seems that there is some much harder evidence. We have known all along that there was potential for privacy infringement, but now we see it for real in Russia. The worst thing is we can't count on legislation. The government (national) is frequently the culprit. This should be a call for states to stand up and reassert their powers in the government, in the United States any way. The constitution provides for limited government at the national level. It is time that this was enforced. No matter what you philosophy of government now, you cannot deny that this was the intent of the founders. Here's hoping it isn't too late yet...
Free as in speech, free as in beer, or free as in lunch?
Perhaps the vast mass of people in the US and other G8 countries only have the conspiracy theorists' viewpoints on how or what the government is up to because almost anybody who is cleared to work on the actual technologies involved in signal intercept, decryption, wiretapping, etc. is totally forbidden to utter one word about what they do and who they do it for (part of some nasty government legislation). I've know people at work who've described their work as being for "the client" (who can't be named), the project name couldn't be named, and who couldn't talk about what they were doing. But a perusal of the web reveals sites like DARPA and others where one gets a glimmering of the kinds of technology they are working towards - like technology to detect and scan underground bunker complexes, technology (from publicly posted RFP/Functional Specs) to intercept and process/parse hundreds of thousands or millions of cellphone calls simultaneously, etc. Plus plenty of legislation has been put in place to make the various Exchange Carriers and Backbone Carriers provide facilities for law-enforcement taps that are seamless and undetectable. There is little doubt that the US, the UK, and even Canada can currently process and study large volumes of communication in real-time and that information is stored in databases. There was just a major scandal in Canada about the data collected in one place by one of our government agencies (HRDC) - and that isn't even a classified database held by CSE, CSIS, or the Solicitor General. And those, no doubt, pale beside their US counterparts. And as for crypto... can you disguise which keys you hit on your keyboard? There are technologies to pick this up from orbiting planes, nanomikes implanted in the areas you are operating in, etc. as well as the ability for lasers to pick this up off of any nearby glass. They can get it from the unencrypted signals down your keyboard wire (wonderful antenna) or from the keyclicks. Simply put, if the gov't wants to know what you are up to, they'll find out. On the one hand, there are concerns about how this data is used or abused. On the other hand, it helps the gov't catch the *actual* bad guys, and it probably helps explain why places like Canada are as (relatively) safe as they are. Besides, it isn't likely to change :)
Pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work.
There was never a genius without a tincture of madness.
Aris
too bad it's so schnarfing expensive to get satellites floating 'up there'. and for all those people who have/intent to post, "couldn't happen here? hey, you're wrong!", i'm pretty sure it was sarcasm in the first place, it's been known to be happening (legally) since the cold war...only rule (how do they enforce *this*?) is that you-or rather they-send a letter alerting you that they have been tapped, x amount of time after the tapping has been done:-)
what hump?
Repulsive? I'm sorry but I tend to think of my rear end as beautiful. You shouldn't ban someone for seeing the beauty in my where the sun dont shine because someone with poor taste says to. No-sir-ee!
I just finished reading 1984 when i read this article and it did not surprise me a bit that there are this many privacy violations going on in Russia. There are bills in Russia that if passed will make anyone thinking of creating a website have to register and get it aproved by the government. And another one which would make all Russian ISPs have to register with the government where the Russian burocrats could have control over which websites can be accessed. Ofcouse this is not law yet, i dont think, but it does show how much Russia is reverting back to its old KGB ways. Also the owner of the Russian international TV station NTV which broughtcasts around the world was imprisoned a little while ago, i have not heard what happened to him but i am sure it was not fun. What does all this mean for the US? Well i dont really know. However, 1984 is a great -maybe a little overstated - example of what could happen in Russia in the times to come. And if it can happen in russia it can just as well happen here, infact who is to say that it isnt? The NSA or whoever could just be a little better at hiding it.