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Carnivore Update
A reader writes: "Yahoo has a news item about the continued use of DCS-1000 AKA Carnivore. Looks like it's being used more than ever, and some privacy groups are still fighting in court for more disclosure about its use."
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carnivores suck... I'm a vegitarian
-- Adam
"Carnivore is not deployed on our network," Shaw said. "We certainly do comply with law enforcement, but we do so in a way that does not compromise our users' privacy."
How does that work, exactly? Does Earthlink force you to use military-grade encryption prior to subscribing?
To see that Earthlink is concerned about their subscribers privacy. Complete and total privacy, right?
Well, at least privacy from any outside organisation, even a law-enforcement office. What they do internally concerning privacy of their subscribers must be their own private business.
I'm heading an OpenSource project thats grown to a fair size...
.tar.gz file... or a .zip file. I, later on, get an e-mail asking if I got the file... I hadn't. He re-sends. I soon get both in my e-mail later that day.
Therefore I have people send me files, etc to my e-mail address often.
I'm using AT&T Broadband internet (http://www.attbi.com), Some one sends me a
Now I'm not much of a conspiracy person, but... since when do we get e-mails sent second, first?
Why are e-mails with attachments taking so much longer to get to me, then e-mails without attachments? Anyone else notice this?
www.slightlycrewed.com - Because aren't we all?
Carnivore is not here to 'keep us safe'. It's here to keep us quiet. Thank you John Asscroft, for making sure no one speaks out without repercussions.
BTW: The terrorists have already won...the election.
...when computers were not hooked up to one another, let alone to a wall socket? Back in those days, 'snooping' was limited to a select half doen people around the globe and necessitated the keys to get to the actual computer.
Nowadays, creating software (napster, IE, Kazaa, Blizzard games...), let alone using it, is an issue that often ends up in the courts...
Technology sure is'nt the fun it used to be.
how does one change his
I wonder what they will do with all the april fool jokes polluting their data?
Try it! Library of Babel
Speaking of Carnivore: for 3 months, just after September 11th. I noticed that all of my traffic was being routed through Arlington VA. This stopped about two months ago. Now my packets travel normally, (no Arlington node in every traceorute). Was that Carnivore? If it was, doesn't that violate Free Speech?
Even with the recent evolution in factoring, there's no match for a properly set-up pgp/gpg.
Why bother to rely on their niceness when you can easily be rather sure nobody reads your important mails?
I guess everyone is under investigation for possible crimes then, huh? :P
Any sufficiently advanced influence is indistinguishable from control.
"While EarthLink had resisted Carnivore deployment on its network prior to the attacks, an EarthLink spokesperson told NewsFactor shortly afterward that he assumed every large ISP in the country had been contacted by the FBI and that all of them were cooperating."
"Carnivore is not deployed on our network," Shaw said. "We certainly do comply with law enforcement, but we do so in a way that does not compromise our users' privacy."
I have to wonder if "cooperating" with law enforcement means not only allowing access to the FBI and Carnivore but also making the public statement "Carnivore is not deployed on our network".
I wouldn't make any assumptions of privacy no matter what ISP you use.
Samsung took back my unlocked bootloader because Google wants me to rent movies. They're both evil.
It was probably the NSA, until they put you into the category of "Mostly Harmless"
Which is what I think they did with most the geek community.
Classify it as "Mostly Harmless"
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
"Still, SecurityFocus incident analyst Ryan Russell said the events of September 11th changed many citizens' minds.
"I think there is a lot less concern from the majority of people that they're going to be monitored," Russell told NewsFactor."
OK, now prove it. No one likes their communications being monitored. Has anyone actually gone out and ASKED people if they mind being monitored? Or is this more of the well, they don't seem to mind because they aren't bitching about it type of logic?
This cop-out crap about 9-11 changing the way everyone thinks of privacy is beginning to get extremely old. 9-11 was a national tragedy. Don't use it to slam dunk crap legislation down our throats...once you have gathered the wraith of enough people, then maybe you will listen. Most Americans are UN-EDUCATED on these matters. They also probably think that in order to be caught up in this, you need to be some militia-type with a bunch of ammo and automatic weapons to be investigated. Sad, really....
Sent from your iPad.
Just use ROT13 to encrypt your messages and your messages will be safe from prying eyes...
From excellent karma to terible karma with a single +5 funny post...
If you want to send a secret message to someone, you can use ordinary mail. It's a crime to open mail (or is it? since 9/11 they may hav changed this?)
Try it! Library of Babel
Until an agregious violation comes along and slams the consumers big bright and public, and at the same time doesn't hurt the interests of the major news outlets parent companies. It's all moot, didn't one of our founding fathers advocate revolution from time to time just to keep things on the up and up. Revolt, march, walk in the streets, but take a cue from the civil rights movement. Non violent, public, and when the cause is done walk away as average citizens otherwise you become part of the problem you sought to fight.
You know... just to let ya know... yahoo gets more traffic in one hour than slashdot gets in a day. I wouldn't be too concerned about the /. effect on freakin YAHOO!. :-)
FBI Headquarters, Director's Office, Present:
DATA ANALYST: Good Afternoon, Sir. Here is the latest report from Carnivore.
FBI DIRECTOR: Who the fuck is this Bernard Shifman?
DATA ANALYST: He's a moron spammer, sir. We're trying to get his e-mails excluded as we speak.
Need to know? I seriously doubt 99.99% of the population is doing anything of importance towards national security over the open Internet. If they are, you would most likely be working with the agencies that are doing the snooping in the first place.
BFD. Let 'em snoop.
Mail covers have been used by law enforcement for quite a while - it's a practice that allows them to scan/look at the front of an envelope to determine where it has been addressed to and from. Grabbing email headers is no different, and even the subject line may fall under this jurisdiction.
now i know that carnivore is no doubt being used to dig into message body and such, but please be aware that there is a precedent for certain functions of this system
-shpoffo
God, it would be boring to read all those emails. My emails are so boring that it would put any agent to sleep.
How much you wanna bet that EarthLink is lying and they have Carnivore on their system and saw that their business went down after they announced it was on their system?
Liars, liars.
Ashcroft is worthy of the Kremlin. He needs to read some of Jefferson's writings about liberty and how it is more important than security. Jefferson, were he still alive, would say that it is BAD to go crazy over security at the expense of privacy after Sept. 11. The kind of death he saw in the name of liberty was way more than at Sept. 11. Americans are soft war fearing babies. We are not worthy of our Constitution.
Freedom is ALWAYS more important than security. Ashcroft resembles Stalin, not Washington.
The thing I don't understand is this - it seems the people who get angriest about Carnivore are people like me, who have absolutely nothing to hide. I am not involved in any sort of criminal activity, and my "secrets" wouldn't earn an R rating if they were made into a movie. Yet this story makes me furious.
The people I know who DO have things to hide, who actually deal with sensitive corporate stuff, who do drugs and have affairs, these people tend to be very blase about privacy issues.
Why?
God is real unless declared integer
You may not be familiar with SMTP servers like sendmail, postfix, etc. Mails that are sent from clients go into a queue. In the case of larger ISPs with many many users, the mail servers handle quite a bit of mail, so messages may sit in queue for longer.
The order that they are sent out of the queue in is determined by settings set by the administrator. Some SMTP servers are actually setup so that small-sized messages get priority over bigger messages. Since most e-mails are small, your larger messages with attachments may sit in the queue longer, waiting for a bunch of smaller messages to be sent.
This queueing depends on the mostly on the *senders* mail server. The receivers mail server will generally put messages from the receive queue into the users mailboxes in the order they came in, but not always.
Have your mail client display all headers...these show where the mail was along its route and typically have date/time stamps on them. This will help you determine where the hold up is (on the sender's mail server, on your mail server, etc.) Look for the length of time between timestamps. If one is unusually longer than the rest, that's where the hold up is. I'm not saying it's not Carnivore, but what you describe is a fairly common occurrence.
My journal has hot
I mean really:An interview with has-been game designers?
A report on what OS a web site uses?
An article on an installer?
This is news? Please. Let's see some more fake stories. At least they inspired interesting responses.
Honestly, who cares? does it really matter? If they didn't have Carnivor (or whatever its called) then they would sure as hell have something else which they probably wouldn't tell anyone about (which they probably do). Encryption is not outlawed (well not yet), and even if it was (which they couldn't do anyway) i don't think anyone would give a crap and would carry on using it anyway, and claim they were sending "random data", or just use stenography. Governments are always going to spy on people, but i suppose this is not about that issue - its about the fact that people want to be able to send plain-text without havng to bother encrypting it (something which many email clients can do automatically for you) possibly because they are lazy. Even if the government doesn't spy on your network traffic, i'm sure there are some voyeuristic admins at your ISP/school/uni/workplace/router who have nothing better to do than browse your mail-box (see BOFH).
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
...which stories were real?
Since the 70s both US and former USSR used to monitor all of our phone calls... Im not surprised that US is now trying to monitor our e-mails... :))
Im really starting to believe that those pigeons used on India are the best sollution for our privacy needs!!!
Fabio - Sumare/Sao Paulo/Brazil/South America/Earth/Solar System/Milky Way/Universe
http://www.morroida.com.br
Yep. Yesterday on NPR they were talking about that. The freaky thing about mail covers is that they don't need a warrant to do them. Let's say your cousin was on the lam, wanted by the fuzz. The feds tell the post office to put a mail cover on *you*, just in case your errant relative sends you a letter from Tahiti. My understanding is that it's all pretty automatic these days. Both sides of all your incoming and outgoing mail get scanned, stored and forwarded to the interested part. The folks interviewed on NPR are trying to get the USPS and/or others to reveal just how often mail covers are being used, but so far the info is sketchy.
-
Perhaps I'm not so likely to jump back on the bandwagon because the situations that existed before 9/11 that brought about the events of 9/11 are for the most part unchanged.
- There's a good deal of moneyed hate for all that is Western culture. Don't think those in the EU get a pass. It's only a matter of irrational fortune that the London Stock Exchange or the Eiffel Tower didn't get nailed. What was the plan...50 airplanes all over the world? Something along those lines.
- Theocratic warfare is still quite prevalent in the middle east. Theocratic states don't play along national lines or rules. If God says it, screw your Geneva Convention, buddy.
- We haven't disproved the efficiency of non-state based warfare. In fact, all we've done is hope it goes away before something else happens. Of course, EVERYONE is worried about the unstated concern that the international organizations are really just fronts for foreign governments. It doesn't take a genius to figure out a half dozen methods for causing billions of dollars worth of damage in ANY major metropolitan area around the world with no possibility of being stopped.
- We don't know what was planned to go off, where it was planned to go off, and with whom it is to go off. If the terrorists had any forethought at all, they would've allowed for the possibility of a communications crackdown after the first strike. Carnivore is based on the hope that the terrorists weren't this prepared. Given that the people who carried out the hijackings were in the U.S. for years, this isn't something to count on. Then again, Richard Reid was so butt-loving stupid(he missed his first flight for crying out loud!) we may yet snap up the idiot in the enemy ranks.
To sum up: we don't know who the enemy exactly is, but we do know that the enemy does exist. To pretend the enemy doesn't exist is insanely moronic and, in the end, suicidal. Get over the concept that any inconvenience is a victory for the enemy, and at least allow for the possibility that the government may just be trying to save your pampered ass.Why hasn't someone come out with a good peer-to-peer mail system yet?
It would appear to me that this would be the best solution to the carnivore problem, and the mail could be encrypted at the same time.
Plus the added benefit of doing the handshake between the two clients could negotiate a new key everytime there was a new mail sent.
Then run a local mail server on the client, and voila, all of the current email clients are supported and its seamless. When you want to send a mail ... back to the local mail server, and it will startup a P2P session to the party that you want to send a mail to ...
Failing sending the mail P2P, it COULD default to 'normal' mail ...
Karma? Karma? I don't need no stinkin' karma.
Katie, Per our conversation and planning session regarding the rose garden, I think we have no choice but to kill them all. After we complete the herbicide treatment we can then replant with a better variety that wont be so suceptible to early frost. Regards, your bro So I wonder where THIS letter will go? Should I be paranoid? BTW, if YOU( you know who you are) are reading this... kiss my ass!
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I wonder if Carnivore is an x86 only program? Somehow I doubt there would be a Mac version since it uses PPC, or at least, not a Mac os X version yet. Perhaps a Carbon version of Carnivore is coming down the pike though... :)
Reasons to Think Private:
- Virus/Worms are primarily written for Windows
- Server Attacks are primarily on Windows
- Carnivore is X86 Wintel Exclusive?
Perhaps not the best new apple campaign...hrrmmm.
Wouldn't it be easier to beat something like Carnivor by /. it, ie - including the above post in our sigs. Let them read millions of dull technical open source rant emails a day. If that doesn't let my 'vive la resistance' emails through....
You can always conceal hidden messages in images or other files(or spam) so the FBI won't notice
What difference does it make what platform it runs on? Just compile it for whatever you have on hand.
ISS offers the source code for "altivore" a "feature complete version of Carnivore". It gives you a pretty good idea of how it works.
http://www.networkice.com/press/altivore.html
I still haven't gotten my friends to use GPG for everything, but I figured I could solve half of the problem, by having my email hosted overseas and then use an SSL connection to retrieve it (and also SMTP over SSL for outbound mail). That way, if someone's just snooping my side, then it's still hard to read mail that isn't GPGed. Right?
Nope. As far as I can tell, the client I have been playing with, doesn't show me certs or let me store the server's cert somewhere. Therefore, all my SSL connections could be going through a Man In The Middle and I would never know. SSL is practically useless.
When it comes to email, encryption really does have to be done at the application level, and PGP/GPG is The Way.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
I do know the enemy is out their. I also know that just because someone offers me candy doesn't make them a friend. I don't want my "pampered ass" saved from the wolves by the sharks.
Any sufficiently advanced influence is indistinguishable from control.
Ever heard of a mail cover? According to Law.com:
A mail cover consists of recording the information on the outside of all the mail delivered to the target home or business. It is done by the post office at the request of a local, state or federal law enforcement agency and lasts for one or more 30-day periods.
<snip>
... a mail cover doesn't need a judge's approval. Nor, as in wiretaps, are the targets of a mail cover eventually notified of the practice. The only way to learn about it is through discovery in a legal proceeding, if the lawyer asks the right questions.
And of course:
Its use has risen by more than half since the mid-1980s.
It's time people realized that surveillence isn't just about Carnivore and face recognition.
Nope, no sig
I do not deploy Linux. Ever.
Test received
Even if you use pgp/gpg, the adresses of the recipients are NOT encrypted.
/var/log/maillog of a corporate mailserver? It is really interesting. You can learn a lot just by analysing the addresses.
I don't send messages to any known terrorists, but have you ever looked at a
To sum up: we don't know who the enemy exactly is, but we do know that the enemy does exist. To pretend the enemy doesn't exist is insanely moronic and, in the end, suicidal. Get over the concept that any inconvenience is a victory for the enemy, and at least allow for the possibility that the government may just be trying to save your pampered ass.
Ohhh. Of course, it all makes sense to me now, the government NEEDS to read my e-mail to save me from terrorists... Of course. And the fact that this system was in place BEFORE a handful of people with boxcutters (Sweet zombie jesus how do you take over a plane with a fucking boxcutter?!) hijacked and crashed 4 planes is meaningless. Maybe, JUST maybe, we should stop training our citizens to be mindless drones who follow the whims of anyone around them, hmmm? The reason those planes crashed into the WTC is that the people one the plane believed OUR Governments bullshit about the best way not to die in a hijacking. Just like hundreds of people are raped and killed each year because the cops teach them not to resist. I say fuck that! If you're in a hostage situation you should ASSUME you are going to die anyways! If someone is trying to rape you, you should ASSUME they are going to kill you afterwards. FIGHT BACK PEOPLE!!! Stand up for yourselves and your rights! You don't need the government to do it for you!
Kintanon
Check out JoshJitsu.info for Brazilian Ji
simple, run your own smtp server and give the Fascist Bureau of Investigation (FBI) the middle finger. Short of a warrant, they cant touch your personal boxes.
Lawyers, MBA's, RIAA? A jedi fears not these things!
I've suggested before that invoking Communism or major communistic leaders like Stalin should be an argument losing tactic as well. How many of you are sick of crap like this:
That GPL stuff is just communism anyway. Yur just out to put 'leet programmers like me out of work.
Communism is invoked to make cheap talking points in exactly the same way Nazism is invoked; it's yet another cheap rhetorical club whose use should brand anyone using it as just another ignorant 11 year old talking out his hind end.
I don't care for Ashcroft either but the parent poster is right. The guy who compared Ashcroft to Stalin shot himself in the foot.
Communism corollary to Godwin's Law anyone?
"Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." --Ben Franklin
$ make work
make: *** No rule to make target `work'. Stop.
The drawback is that requiring encrypted email also blocks all mailing lists, and your clueless aunt in Nebraska who only uses AOL.
I do not deploy Linux. Ever.
Um its very easy to bypass carnivore. You can make their life miserable by formatting your data in such a way they won't even know where to look.
Yeah, you are. You should really pay attention to those sig's. Some people mean em.
Anyone here surprised? More to come. Drip, drip, drip...
It's called Ameritech's Arlington, VA NAP. If cross-country cross-network traffic doesn't go through there, it goes through one in Chicago or another one in Vienna, VA.
Stop being so damned paranoid.
- A.P.
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
Here are the folks that make it:
N etDetect or_Data_Sheet.pdf
www.niksun.com
Carnivore is called NetDetector for commercial sales.
http://www.niksun.com/products/pdf_files/
About $20k, runs on BSD.
I like to use emacs M-x spook to insert "keywords" in my emails. This must really piss off the Carnivore folks...
You can get my comprehensive spook.lines file at http://www-2.cs.cmu.edu/~tom7/spook/. They're included below for your terrorist-finding pleasure.
$400 million 1 October 15 May 1600 Pennsylvania Ave 17 November 3rd October 747 757 767 ACLU ADF AES AIDS AIIB AK-47 ALIR ANO ARD ARN ASALA ASG Abu Dis Abu Nidal Abu Sayyaf Aceh Merdeka Aden-Abyan Afghanistan Ahl-e-Hadees Air Force One Al Qaeda Al Quaida Al-Fatah Al-`Asifa Alamo Albanian Alex Boncayao Brigade Alliance of Eritrean National Force Alliance pour la resistance democratique Allied Democratic Forces American American Airlines Amn Araissi Arab Revolutionary Brigades Arab Revolutionary Council Arafat Area 51 Aum Shinrikyo Aum Supreme Truth Avtomat Kalasnikov BATF Babbar Khalsa Baghdad Berlin Bhinderanwala Tiger Force Black September Brigate Rosse CERT CIA CIRA CNDD CNRM CNRT Catholic Reaction Force Cessna China Chukaku-Ha Clinton Cocaine Communist Conseil Cuba DCS1000 DDoS DES DFLP DNA DXM Dal Khalsa Dayak Delta Airlines Delta Force Dev Sol Devrimci Sol DoS EFF ELF-RC ESSA EZLN Eastern Shan State Army Eiffel Tower Ejercito Popular Boricua Ejercito Popular Revolucionario Ellalan Force Eritrean Euzkadi Ta Askatasuna FALINA FALINTIL FALN FBI FMLN FRETILIN FROLINA FSF Farabundo Marti Fatah Force 17 Free Aceh Ft. Bragg Ft. Meade GHB GIA GRAPO George Bush George W Bush Gerakin Aceh Merdeka Grey Wolves H2O2 HAMAS Hague Conference Harakat ul-Ansar Hawari Hitler Hizb-i Wahdat Hizb-i-Islami Hizb-ul-Mujahideen Hizballah Hizbullah Honduras ICBM IIS 5.0 IRA IRA Ikhwan-ul-Mussalmin Interahamwe Iparretarrak Islamic Israel JKLF Jamaat ul-Fuqra Jamat-e-Islami Jamiat-e-Ahl-e-Hadees John Dillinger KGB KKK Kach Kahane Chai Kashmir Kennedy Khaddafi Khalistan Khmer Rouge Komala Kosovo Kurdish Kurdistan Kuwait LSD LSD LTTE La Cosa Nostra Lakshar-e-Taiba Lautaro Legion of Doom Lenin Les mongoles MAPU/L MD5 MDMA MI6 MILF MNLF Macheteros Macheteros Mafia Maktab al-Khidamat Mantis Manuel Rodriguez Marxist Maubere Resistance Mayfly Mayi-Mayi Middle-Core Mohajir Qaumi Mong Tai Morazanist Mossad Mothaidda Quami Mujahedin-e Khalq Myanmar NORAD NSA Navy Nazi Nellis Range Noriega North Korea Oklahoma City Ortega Osama Bin Laden PALIPEHUTU PCP PETN PGP PLO Pakistan Panama Pearl Harbor Peking Provos Qaddafi RC5 RDX RENAMO RSA Reno Rijndael Romania Rule Psix SCUBA SDI SEAL Team 6 SHA SWAT Saddam Hussein Saheed Khalsa Scientology Semtex Serbian Shora-e-Jehad Sivi Vukovi South Africa Soviet Steyr Students of the Engineer TATP TEMPEST THC TNT Tal Al Za'atar Talaa' al-Fateh Tamil Eelam Teamsters Terra Lliure Treasury Tupac Amaru U-235 UN US Airways Usama Bin Laden Uzi WTO Waco White House World Trade Center World Trade Organization Zapatistas airframe airport al-Gama'at al-Islamiyya al-Jihad al-Qa'ida algorithm amatol ambush ambush ammo ammunition anonymous anti-tank archives armada armor armor-piercing arms arrangements assassinate assassination assassination assault atomic bomb bank account biological blowfish bomb bomb boobytrap border broken arrow c4 camera carnivore carnivore charcoal chemical child pornography chinese class struggle claymore cocaine cockpit codebook colonel commando composition b conspiracy constitution cordite corporate corrupt council counter-intelligence crack-cocaine cracking cray credit card cryptographic czar d-day data haven defcon defenses democratie detcord detonate detonators dictionary disruption dissent divers doctrine domestic doomsday double agent e-bola echelon ecstasy efnet embassy embassy embassy empire encrypt enigma espionage explosion explosive face recognition faction fertilizer fissionable flight 800 football freedom freemasons fuselage genetic gold bullion government grenades gun gunpowder guns h-bomb hack harbor heroin hijack hostage hostages hydrogen bomb hydrogen peroxide illuminati impulse incendiaries infiltration infosec infrastructure initiators insurgent intel international internet internet worm interpol ireland jihad kamikazi kampuchea ketamine kibo kill kill kill kill launch codes lead azide lead styphante liberate liberation limousine lockpick loyalist main charge man-in-the-middle marijuana martyr massive DDoS maverick mercury fulminate mescaline microfiche microfilm minefield mines motorcade motorola mouvement munitions napalm nationalist negotiation negotiatior nitric acid nitrocellulose nuclear nuclear nukes olympics oppressed orthodox outlook express password picric acid pipe-bomb plague platter charge plutonium plutonium policy political pornography pre-teen president president primers private key propaganda psyops public key pulse detonation engine radar rail gun rebel remailer resistance revolucionario rijndael robotic rocket fuel rockets root-servers.net rubella salt peter sanctions satelliate satellite satellite phone secret secret key secret service secure security sequence shaped charge shoe bomb shotgun smallpox smuggle sniper sniper socialist space station special k spy steganography strategic submarine subsonic suicide suicide bombing suitcase suitcase nuke sulfur supercomputer supersonic surveillance tear gas teflon bullets terminate terrorism terrorist theater missile defense thermite thermonuclear timers triacetone triperoxide tunneling undercover undernet underwater united nations uranium violence virus virus warfare wargames warrant weapons white house white noise generator windows XP wiretap zenith
If you read the independent report on Carnivore written by IITRI, you would know that Carnivore ran on a Windows NT box. Net Detector may do the same or similar functions, but it is not Carnivore. I was part of that team that evaluated Carnivore, but I have no idea if the DCS-1000 is the same product, or if they have changed to something different. I also do not know if they incorporated the many suggestions we made. The Justice Department never asked us to look at any follow-on products. For various reasons (none involving Carnivore that I know of), just about all of the evaluation team has left IITRI.
Just the fact that they can log all my in- and outgoing email, and use it against me or my friends if we were ever to cause any trouble in the future is bad enough.
Just imagine if you or someone you know were running for office at some point in the future.
One of the most interesting trends when any sort of privacy issue comes up on Slashdot is the rather large number of trolls - excuse me, 'folks with alternate viewpoints' - who come out of the woodwork to proudly proclaim that *they* have nothing to hide and therefore aren't concerned. And, as *they* aren't concerned, neither should you be - unless you're doing something illegal, immoral, or socially deviant, that is.
Rather intriguing that folks who aren't concerned about their privacy insist that everyone else not be concerned as well. In fact, they practically rant about it, insinuating that everyone who doesn't agree with them is either paranoid or involved in some dark, nefarious scheme against All That Is Good And Right(TM).
If they were so bloody unconcerned they should be perfectly ready to accept the fact that others might have more stringent views, and accept them - but they aren't. No, they *demand* that you conform to their views on the matter - which indicates that they are indeed concerned: they want your life to be as open to inspection as their own boring little existence is.
Why? For the same reason that the halfwit readers of the Enquirer insist that public figures have no right to privacy: so that they at least have the chance to snoop on the life of someone more interesting. And participate in their destruction if they prove to be someone socially undesirable, like a bisexual or an atheist, or a bisexual atheist, or whatever is on today's hit-list parade.
In fact, the perverts who insist that they don't need privacy, and therefore neither do you (and they'll spend a great deal of energy making sure you don't get it), are nothing more than malicious little peeping toms hoping that legislation stripping away what little privacy we have left will provide them with the same sort of vicarious thrills that the Enquirer does now.
Make no bones about it: the truly unconcerned don't even bother to comment. They are, after all, *unconcerned*. Those that *do* make a point of commenting and then arguing about it are just plain shits - shits who want to first tell you you *can't* have something or do something, just to give themselves a false sense of power in their otherwise pathetic lives; and second, in the hopes of spying on you, either directly or through the government, in order to experience a real life second hand. Or better yet, in the hopes that your more interesting existence will be targeted and destroyed in a public fashion, malicious revenge for the ennui of their own useless, unimportant existence.
The people who argue against privacy aren't just expressing a viewpoint; they're lobbying to actively invade your life and try to extend some control over it. They aren't satisfied unless they know *everyone's* business and have the opportunity to rain all over the parade of people more interesting than themselves.
Make no mistake: these folks are just plain evil (with the small 'e'; they don't have the balls for the bigger one). Nothing more, nothing less. They are the enemy; a repulsive, squalling enemy, a mostly ineffectual, impotent enemy, but still an enemy. Bitch-slap the buggers whenever you can, for that's all that they deserve.
Max
My god carries a hammer. Your god died nailed to a tree. Any questions?
The hydrogen peroxide you get in the drug store is highly diluted (to something like 0.5%). Real hydrogen peroxide burns your skin, can explode if heated or shocked, and is used as rocket fuel.
The CIA and the FBI have a long, unbroken, consistent, verified, and very public record of:
1. Illegally spying on US citizens
2. Using illegally obtained information for political purposes (i.e., fighting political opponents)
3. Disrupting legal political activity (through the use of forgery, wiretapping, harrasment, torture, and murder)
Why should we think that this is any different?
This behavior is well documented from the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, and the 1990s. Did this activity stop sometimes recently?
E-mail, for all intents and purposes, might as well be messages exchanged via skywriting.
I've been pretty happy that Freenet ( http://freenetproject.org ) exists ever since I found out about carnivore; the only problem is that it's so esoteric and undocumented, you pretty much just have to trust that it's secure..there is no way to really verify that it's not just a big government plot.
Isn't THAT a nice paranoid thought.
But there is one thing I do find comfort in: I've worked with spooky crypto NSA types. They have the best talent that money can buy.
We, on the other hand (we being the downtrodden oppressed peons), have something else: the best talent money can not buy.
That sounded really sappy, didn't it? oh well.
Why, yes, I AM a Pagan Libertarian.
The government should be worried if some geeks ever got a hold of these.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Just a thought, but it may be relevant that to 95.4% of the world's population, that foreign government is yours. And the US government has itself said -- and proved in action -- that if UN resolutions are inconvenient, then they will be ignored in favour of whatever action the US government deems appropriate or expedient.
Saying 'but we're the good guys!' over and over will not make it so. Consider all the wars of invasion and intimidation over the last 50 years (Panama, Vietnam, Nicaragua, Libya, etc), all on demonised 'not-quite humans'. Consider the overt and unashamed US support of such 'democrats' as Suharto in Indonesia, Marcos in the Philipines, Just about everyone in Central America and (formerly) Qaddafi, Noriega, Saddam Hussein and Bin Laden.
This is not to say that the US is satan incarnate, and everyone else are angels. People can, and do, do things every day to each other that are horrible and sickening. My own country, Australia, was complicit in the invasion, occupation and attempted genocide in East Timor.
But most other players in the game do not have military budgets measured in multiple billions.
It's not just that the US government does these things (though that is bad enough), it is that these things are done with impunity.
I'll shut up now.
"This is a Hollywood movie: when it comes to the Laws of Physics, they're lucky if they get Gravity!" --- my wife
Yes , it's true I support carnovre, Why?
good question.
Because if the FBI whens then the courts will have
stated the the internet is the same as a system of
roads ergo a public/private information highway.
These allows for many more right's to the users of
the highway and less regulation of a private
highway.
If the internet is a private system aka You must
have wire taps, FBI loses.
1) The goverment can regulate the data flow as in
what , when and how you send data.
2) SA's lose the ability to correctly monitor
boxes while they become resposible for the
data.
If it's public,
1) I can send any type of data.
2) I can encrypt data because people don't
regulate it.
The crux of the case "Is the internet a private
communication or a public area" I personally
want it ruled public. And in a public area a cop
can stand on a corner and listen to everyone who
passes by, In a private world shuch as the mail
all sorts of regulations and packet controls
could be added that do nothing.
Just my 2 cents,
Leslie Donaldson
ldonald@nw.verizonwireless.com
Well, it is a shame no one will see your comment. Obviously, I can't mod it up as you're replying to me. So, I'll just do my best to engage you in conversation.
You raise good historical points, and, for that matter, conveniently ignore the nastier episodes in U.S. history concerning our dealings with others in favor of the more recent. I will be the first to not admit, but proclaim that international policy is almost always a choice of evils. What makes such policy even more morally ambiguous is that we know we are dealing with people every bit as vicious and authoritarian in order to suppress what we at that point consider the more immediate and dangerous evil. Of course, I would be a naive and colonial apologist if I didn't point out that this is nothing new. In fact, such choices have been present since the dawn of inter-civilization communication.
In our dealings with Panama, Libya, Iraq, Al Qaida and the like, every decision made between 1942 and 1992 was made with the Sovient Union in mind. Why? Well, they were the only true complete threat. While it is true that states with chemical weapons such as Iraq can kill thousands or possibly millions within the U.S. with coordinated strikes, and while its true that organizations such as Al Qaida could bring the world economy to its knees and possibly a recession with enough coordinated strikes, both threats absolutely vanish in the face of a true nuclear holocaust. Thus, we dealt with the less immediate evil.
The U.S. is not special with regards to its international policy. While we generally do pretty well with regards to human rights, there are atrocities with our names on them. This could be said about just about every country with an international agenda. In fact, the attitude of impunity is not special. Every country throughout history that has held such a strong position has held exactly that attitude, until their day in the sun finally ended.
I do recognize that the U.S. is a threat to theocrats everywhere. Consumerism doesn't work without the individual consumer, and we are the consummate consumerist society. Don't forget it's the reason we have the billions to spend on our military budget.
Once a person is capable of seeing that these issues are this large, that they concern not aspects of individual societies but the conflict between two very potent and robust societies, hopefully that person is capable of seeing that knee jerk reactions(such as those present in the posts that inspired my original comment, not your's) are inappropriate.
My complaint about Dick Cheney:
May I be cynical for a bit? I hope you don't mind,
but with Cheney's latest barrage of
malodorous notions, I can't resist the urge to make a
few cynical comments. To get right
down to it, some of the facts I'm about
to present may seem shocking. This
they certainly are. However, it's time that a few
facts had a chance to slip through the fusillade of hype.
What's my problem, then? Allow me to present it
in the form of a question: Where are the people
who are willing to stand up and acknowledge
that Cheney, in his infinite wisdom, has decided
to destroy the natural beauty of our parks and forests?
On the surface, it would seem to have something to do
with the way that his whole approach is repugnant.
But upon further investigation, one will find that
by allowing Cheney to put mephitic thoughts in our
children's minds, we are allowing him to play puppet master.
As for the lies and exaggerations, Cheney's
epigrams are rife with contradictions
and difficulties; they're entirely maladroit,
meet no objective criteria, and are unsuited
for a supposedly educated population.
And as if that weren't enough, if Cheney is going to
obstruct important things, then he should at least have
the self-respect to remind himself of a few things: First, a
true enemy is better than a false friend. And
second, many people respond to his debauched vituperations
in much the same way that they respond to television
dramas. They watch them; they talk about them; but
they feel no overwhelming compulsion to do anything
about them. That's why I insist we pronounce the truth
and renounce the lies.
Even people who consider themselves scornful
foolhardy-types generally agree that Cheney's slurs
symbolize lawlessness, violence, and misguided rebellion
-- extreme liberty for a few, even if the rest of us
lose more than a little freedom. One might conclude
that Cheney is incapable of writing a letter without using
such phrases as "crapulous pop psychologists", "loquacious
exhibitionists", "oppressive personae non gratae", or
some combination thereof. Alternatively, one might conclude
that Cheney has a different view of reality from the rest of us.
In either case, if you're not part of the solution,
then you're part of the problem. His historical record of
fickle pleas is clearer than the muddled pronouncements
of his apple-polishers for a variety of reasons. For
instance, the worst sorts of inconsiderate Neanderthals there
are must be treated with political justice, not with
civil justice, as they are sincerely not real citizens. Let me
rephrase that: I wonder if he really believes the
things he says. He knows they're not true, doesn't he?
A complete answer to that question would
take more space than I can afford, so I'll have to give
you a simplified answer. For starters, if
we let him cause riots in the streets, then greed,
corruption, and tribalism will characterize the government.
Oppressive measures will be directed against citizens.
And lies and deceit will be the stock and trade of the
media and educational institutions.
Even Cheney's bedfellows couldn't deal with the full impact of
Cheney's refrains. That's why they created "Cheney-ism," which is
just a garrulous excuse to force square
pegs into round holes. He plans to drag everything
that is truly great into the gutter. He has instructed
his votaries not to discuss this or even admit to his
plan's existence. Obviously, Cheney knows he has
something to hide. Most of you reading this letter
have your hearts in the right place. Now
follow your hearts with actions. I have traveled the length and
breadth of this country and talked with the best people. I can
therefore assure you that Cheney's artifices cannot stand on
their own merit. That's why they're dependent on elaborate
artifices and explanatory stories to convince us that Cheney's
warnings can give us deeper insights into the nature of
reality. We can and we must protect ourselves by any means
necessary against the unrestrained bestiality
of stupid, quasi-macabre paper-pushers. And that's the honest truth.
If you send an email in clear text you need to understand that you are posting it for all to see. Whether it's a cracker, a bribed sysadmin, a bullied ISP or anyone who has tapped into your email transmission at any of dozens of points along the way.
If the law says the government can't snoop you know damn well they will do it anyway.
If you want privacy, encrypt. Period.
Question Reality