How to Become a Supervillain

plasmastate writes "Learn German. Proceed to SuPerVillainizer. Launch the SuPer Villainizer Conspiracy Client V 0.9 Beta. Join selected conspiracy. Proceed to Terrorism Information Awareness. Savor sweet, sweet irony." Send us a postcard from Guantanamo Bay.

Comments

Supervillan Training

[Associate]

I thought the quickest way to become a supervillan was to send out SPAM.

bah already /.ed

[reinard]

2 comments posted and already dead.

Why learn german?

[slavemowgli]

Why would learning german be a prerequisite (or even something helpful) for becoming a supervillain?

Re:Why learn german?

[jpop32]

Why would learning german be a prerequisite (or even something helpful) for becoming a supervillain?

Because, obviously, french wouldn't do. I mean, yeah, being French gives you a certain notoriety nowadays, but honestly, can you picture a supervillain ordering a 'croissant' and a copy of 'Le Monde' for breakfast? On the other hand, ordering 'bratwurst' and reading 'Allgemeine Zeitung' does give you some crediblity.

Re:Why learn german?

[slavemowgli]

On the other hand, ordering 'bratwurst' and reading 'Allgemeine Zeitung' does give you some crediblity.

That's just what I don't understand. :) Why does it?

Re:Why learn german?

[ronfar]

Because, obviously, french wouldn't do. I mean, yeah, being French gives you a certain notoriety nowadays, but honestly, can you picture a supervillain ordering a 'croissant' and a copy of 'Le Monde' for breakfast?

What about the Merovingian?

Re:Why learn german?

[davidhan]

Have you ever heard German? It sounds evil.

Re:Why learn german?

[slavemowgli]

Hmmm. I've heard german quite a few times actually, but never got that impression.

Re:Why learn german?

[jpop32]

What about the Merovingian?

My point exactly.

Re:Why learn german?

[cbv]

Have you ever heard German? It sounds evil.

I do speak German, and you're absolutely right. Well, there's this proverb (sort of) that just nails it down:

Germans, of course, have no love life. They can't, since whispering "I love you" to your sweetie sounds just the same as telling her that you wish to eviscerate her corpse and place the head on a spear in the front yard as a warning to others.

Re:Why learn german?

[Stephen Samuel]

Have you ever heard German? It sounds evil.

Perhaps, but I find women speaking english with a German accent more sexy than evil.

Grow freaking up, huh?

[Otter]

...most recent Flash Player is needed to view this site...

Flash! Could there be greater proof of their villainy?

Seriously, though, while I'm skeptical of many of the actions taken in pursuit of national security, and critical of quite a few of them, bragging about "ridiculing the notions of "the enemy" or the "bad guy"" comes across to me as evidence of utter stupidity on the part of the Villainizer guys.

Obviously, there's tremendous subjectivity about right and wrong, but smirking about your contempt anyone who talks about "bad guys" is idiocy that's all the stupider for its pretensions of cleverness.

About the project.

[Anonymous Coward]

The following is from http://www.supervillainizer.ch/index.php?theory=1
-----
About the Project

Since and even well before the 11th of September laws have been passed in the United States and in Europe, that permit certain nations to keep all e-mail traffic under close surveillance. This has also happened in Switzerland. For more than a year now, Swiss providers have been required by law to retain telecommunications data for six months and if required by a judge to arrange the real-time interception of the email communication of their customers. It is the consequence of these advanced surveillance practices that the question is no longer: Who? Where? What? But: What not? Fears are being fueled and "enemy" profiles established.

SuPerVillainizer is an interactive web project aimed against the establishment of these enemy profiles that these data retention surveillance scenarios are based on. Through the generating of artificial villains, SuPerVillainizer ist questioning the prevalent notion of "friend" and "enemy: SuPerVillainizer is about creating profiles of villains, rogues, bad guys, and scapegoats, equipping them with real email accounts at a Swiss provider, uniting them into conspiracies, and then watching as the villains start to automatically communicate with each other using SuPerVillainizer-generated conspiracy content, infiltrating the carefully planned surveillance system with more and more disinfoming mails every day. This conspiracy mail content can be influenced, the conspiracy language chosen.

Because real email accounts at a real Swiss provider are being generated, and real mails are being sent using several SMTP-servers, the game is taking place in reality . This opens up the possiblility of real consequences should the authorities fall for the fictional content or the real conspiratorial connections between the accounts. Moreover, this conspiratorial email traffic is not to be limited to Switzerland only: concerned email-users can "donate" the email accounts they do not want to use (anymore). The accounts are integrated into the conspiracies and should be set to "AutoReply" if possible, so that an automated dialogue between the conspiring villains and the donated account evolves.

It is the goal of the project to render the aforementioned enemy profiles obsolete. The world does not consist only of good and evil like we some people would like us to believe (example: "War on Terrorism"). SuPerVillainizer calls concerned people to act against this inadequate personalization (friend/enemy) and against the predominant black-and-white-thinking: many "enemy"-profiles coexist in the SuPerVillainizer environment: everyone can potentially become a villain: Bush conspires with Osama Binladen a member of the Swiss federal council plots to contaminate water supplies together with Saddam Hussein. Everyone can declare themselves "SuPerVillains" and join a conspiracy. Here, the surveillance-system is being rendered absurd because it actually assumes that everybody is a potential criminal.

SuPerVillainizer is a webtool like its predecessor TraceNoizer - Disinformation on Demand (http://www.tracenoizer.org. TraceNoizer permits the clouding of one's own identity on the net and therefore provides the individual with an individual strategy against electronic surveillance. SuPerVillainizer on the other hand is a tool for collective use à a collective strategy in dealing with electronic surveillance: all information is freely accessible (no passwords), all villain profiles ever entered are re-useable and a database of keywords and sentences (so-called "Trigger Words") are compiled collectively which are then integrated into the emails sent by SuPerVillainizer to divert and confuse Echelon & Co.

Design
SuPerVillainizer is designed to resemble an email client such as Microsoft Outlook, Eudora, Netscape, which most computer users have installed on their machine to send and receive emails.
Emailing is an every-day task for most Europeans, used

Re:About the project.

[nomel]

I think this is funny...but is it really a good idea.

Cause seriously, it will take time away from tracking the real bad guy's...which could lead to disaster. I would hate to know that I was involved in making a terrorist not be stopped, possibly causing people to be killed.

There possibly are advantages for real bad guys. Once they were in this system, they would probably be ignored after they figured out that it was just the supervillainizer...letting the bad guy eventually do real bad things...doubt it.

Re:About the project.

[BigBadaboom]

I would hate to know that I was involved in making a terrorist not be stopped, possibly causing people to be killed

You are assuming that the best way to locate terrorist cells is to troll millions of emails looking for keywords.

I doubt very much that many terrorists are located that way. Which is why (to me at least) that systems like Echelon are really intended for this purpose. Real time trolling for emails seems to have a more nefarious purpose.

In this instance they are talking about Swiss ISPs being required to keep all emails for six months. This data would presumably only be searched in response to a subpoena relating to specific emails.

Therefore I doubt this project is going to affect the ability of Swiss law enforcement to track terrorists. All it's going to do is increase the size of ISPs email archives.

Re:About the project.

[chthon]

Hmm, if all e-mail is monitored then maybe terrorists and villains will go back to snail mail, contacts in dark corners, exchanging of notes through papers, and so on...

The current problem in U.S. and European legislations about these things is that these people do not seem to understand that setting up a conspiration does not need any high-tech or computer related technology. This means that once these measures are in effect, conspirators (?) can use all of the above techniques, which means that old tried-and-true police work will be necessary.

That is one of the reasons that the 11 September attack had success : American legislature thinks that for their safety, they should channel money from police forces to the army.

Re:About the project.

[TamMan2000]

This is grotesquely irresponsible, but the thing about it that really turns my stomach is the fact that somebody spent time and effort on this. Time and effort that could have been spent on something productive, or helpful, or even entertaining. This is just monstrous.

On the contrary, it is grotesquely irresponsible to go around invading the privacy of millions of innocents in the hope that you might also be invading the privacy of a terrorist.

Being free is not about being free from possibly harm, it is about being free to say and think what you want, and to be free from unreasonable search and seizure, and to have freedom of association.

All this BS about protecting our freedoms while they are taking them away to give us some security really gets me pissed off. Assuming you're American, I want you to think about something: What is "the land of the free and the home of the brave"? I propose that we are no longer brave, and because of this we are throwing away our freedoms to get a little protection. Well screw that, I would rather take the chance of being killed by a terrorist (brave) than live in an authoritarian state (not free).

People doing projects like this are very noble indeed, they are discouraging the use of systems that destroy freedom by attempting to make them useless.

Re:About the project.

[TamMan2000]

Being free is not about being free from possibly harm, it is about being free to say and think what you want, and to be free from unreasonable search and seizure, and to have freedom of association.

Right. None of which are being infringed.

I disagree. The supreme court has decided that free speech means that you have the right to anonymous free speech. All of this stuff about monitoring the populace removes the possibility of me being able to speak my mind without repercussion. If I say that I think 'bad guy x' is a wonderful person who should be supported, I am allowed to think that, but with all the surveillance that would get me put on a watch list which is equivalent to making my life a living hell.

Also, correct me if I am wrong, a warrant is needed for a wire tap because it is considered a form of search which must be determined to be reasonable by a judge. Why then shouldn't the same be true of other electronic communication?

So, this is both an infringement of the fist and a major infringement of the forth.

That's nice, but...

[gmaestro]

...everything I learned about being a supervillain I learned from this book.

Re:Stupid project

[inerte]

Either you are trolling, or you don't realize the irony of this topic.

If you don't want someone snooping your mail or online activities, then use encryption.

That's exactly what "terrorists" will do (or already do) anyway. If they want to communicate in private, using "advanced technologies", such as email, they will find a way to do it.

What Villanizer fights against is a much more broader topic than security, or the lack of it. It's to show how useless these techniques are, specially since they're being used for political reasons (and 75% of the people agree with me on that).

It's placebo, nothing more than that.

Re:Flash!

[Tumbleweed]

> Flash! Could there be greater proof of their villainy?

Oh yeah: "Client-side Java"

*shudder*

Re:Flash!

[Otter]

Hey, it's no surprise you and I are on the same wavelength -- we seem to have registered for our accounts here on the same day! ;-)

Re:Flash!

[Tumbleweed]

> we seem to have registered for our accounts here on the same day! ;-)

Coolio. I remember being annoyed at all the anonymous coward "first post" nonsense, and decided to go ahead and register to get rid of them once Slashdot implemented the scoring system. Until then, I didn't see a need to bother. Now, of course, I realize I could've had a 3 digit user ID if I'd done it at the get-go. *shrug* Oh well, no biggie. Reading at +3 helps cut down on that a _lot_. :)

Re:Stupid project

[shaitand]

These law enforcement efforts you speak of trample on my rights. It's better to let ALL the bad guys get away.

German?

[lowtekneq]

So I guess the only "evil doers" out there are German or Russian? Oh but I guess in about ten years we'll see Arabic ones too? By the way, I'm German (remember that country that was against starting that war that ended up being groundless.. yeah)

Re:German?

[GypC]

Groundless? Get your head out of your ass!

I think Robert Kagan said it best:

...if Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair are lying, they're not alone. They're part of a vast conspiratorial network of liars that includes U.N. weapons inspectors and reputable arms control experts both inside and outside government, both Republicans and Democrats.

Maybe former CIA director John Deutch was lying when he testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Sept. 19, 1996, that "we believe that [Hussein] retains an undetermined quantity of chemical and biological agents that he would certainly have the ability to deliver against adversaries by aircraft or artillery or by Scud missile systems."

Maybe former defense secretary William Cohen was lying in April when he said, "I am absolutely convinced that there are weapons. . . . I saw evidence back in 1998 when we would see the inspectors being barred from gaining entry into a warehouse for three hours with trucks rolling up and then moving those trucks out."

Maybe the German intelligence service was lying when it reported in 2001 that Hussein might be three years away from being able to build three nuclear weapons and that by 2005 Iraq would have a missile with sufficient range to reach Europe.

Maybe French President Jacques Chirac was lying when he declared in February that there were probably weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and that "we have to find and destroy them."

Maybe Al Gore was lying when he declared last September, based on what he learned as vice president, that Hussein had "stored secret supplies of biological and chemical weapons throughout his country."

Finally, there's former president Bill Clinton. In a February 1998 speech, Clinton described Iraq's "offensive biological warfare capability, notably 5,000 gallons of botulinum, which causes botulism; 2,000 gallons of anthrax; 25 biological-filled Scud warheads; and 157 aerial bombs." Clinton accurately reported the view of U.N. weapons inspectors "that Iraq still has stockpiles of chemical and biological munitions, a small force of Scud-type missiles, and the capacity to restart quickly its production program and build many, many more weapons." That was as unequivocal and unqualified a statement as any made by George W. Bush.

Clinton went on to insist, in words now poignant, that the world had to address the "kind of threat Iraq poses . . . a rogue state with weapons of mass destruction, ready to use them or provide them to terrorists . . . who travel the world among us unnoticed." I think Bush said that, too.

So if you like a good conspiracy, this one's a doozy. And the best thing about it is that if all these people are lying, there's only one person who ever told the truth: Saddam Hussein. And now we can't find him either.

Re:German?

[lowtekneq]

Ofcourse Iraq has weapons that they shouldn't, I mean the US did sell them a good bit in the Iran/Iraq war. Im also sure that there are many other countries out there just as horrible. But the rush to war was not called for, the diplomacy before may have been weak, but that seems like no reason to rush to war.

Re:German?

[The Cydonian]

German, as in Swiss, 'coz the site is a .ch one. Nothing against you guys per se.

Re:German?

[GypC]

Who sold them their weapons?

Diplomacy failed with Iraq. They were given every opportunity. Now, after decades of state sponsored rape and torture, children imprisoned and buried alive, whole villages nerve gassed, etc., etc., ad nauseum; someone finally says "enough" and does something about it (thank you U.K., Australia, Poland, and the rest). And the socialist asshats all over the world spring to the defense of poor old Saddam, citing such luminary and level-headed allies as France and Russia as the "Voice of Peace."

It boggles the mind. It really does. Look, German, they (the Muslim extremists) hate you. They want to kill you. They are your sworn enemies. To them you are a beer-swilling, porn-corrupted, BMW driving Christian who must die or submit to Allah. The USA is not your enemy. Just because we have the firepower doesn't make us Imperialistic. We give the countries back after we conquer (in case you haven't noticed, you're still speaking German; and no offense intended, your people were extremely difficult opponents and almost had us whipped) We don't need Iraq's oil, we don't want everyone to have a McDonald's unless they fucking well want one. We want to drink beer, grill steaks, watch the kids play... maybe play a little baseball. With all of you. We want peace. But we damn sure ain't gonna stand around while innocents get slaughtered and call it peace.

Re: German?

[Black Parrot]

> By the way, I'm German (remember that country that was against starting that war that ended up being groundless.. yeah)

Ah, but W has assured us that the evidence will eventually turn up.

Re: German?

[Black Parrot]

I thought you were serious until I got the the argument that Clinton would have to be a liar before your opponent could be correct.

Re:German?

[Lars T.]

Who sold them their Weapons of Mass Destruction?

And who has just overthrown a secular government, thus liberating a bunch of Muslim Fundamentalists already killing Americans as a thankful gesture - based on the claim that when Bin Laden calls you an infidel, it obviously means you are giving him WMD?

Re:German?

[Lars T.]

Oh, you forgott the USA. Odd. No wonder you got lost.

Re:German?

[lowtekneq]

I guess you tune out anything you don't want to hear, but in the Iran/Iraq war the US sold weapons to both sides. The newspaper says a review of a large tranche of government documents reveals that the administrations of President Reagan and the first President Bush both authorized providing Iraq with intelligence and logistical support, and okayed the sale of dual use items â" those with military and civilian applications â" that included chemicals and germs, even anthrax and bubonic plague.

- CBS News Build up to war? Well inspections where going, there was some bombing in '98, but other than that the relations were no different than those with North Korea or Iran. Recently Bush made the link between international terrorism and Iraq, soon after the US and England (and lets not forget the important help of nations like Poland, Litvia, and Iceland... well the US did give some countries money for their support) went to war.

Re:German?

[why-is-it]

I think Robert Kagan said it best:

Who is Robert Kagan and why should his opinion matter?

To paraphrase Carl Sagan, there are no authorities, at best there may be experts. The "experts" were unable to find any WMD in Iraq. As Hans Blix has suggested, perhaps the Iraquis were telling the truth, despite their many flaws and shortcomings.

Groundless? Get your head out of your ass!

You know, you toss up a bunch of quotes, but at the end of the day, the US and UK have had unrestricted access to all of Iraq for almost a month and they have not found any of the WMD that posed such an immediate threat to the rest of the world that this pre-emptive war was justified as being essentially in self defense. I would humbly suggest that you follow your own advise. Thinking for yourself instead of regurgitating what CNN and Fox tell you would be a good idea as well.

That said, successful politicians seldom tell outright lies to the public - it's too risky. They don't tell us the honest truth either - that would be even riskier. Most likely GWB believed what he was told, and the civil servants provided information to further justify those beliefs. Tony Blair and John Howard went along for the ride not because of any moral imperative, but because there was money to be made in the clean-up. Howard admitted as much!

It's too bad, because GWB has virtually no credibility on the world stage now. He is still the biggest bully in the schoolyard, and will continue to get his way, but nobody will believe...

Re:German?

[why-is-it]

But we damn sure ain't gonna stand around while innocents get slaughtered and call it peace.

Good thing that Iraq is the only place in the world that innocents were being slaughtered. Yup, that has not happened anywhere else since GWB put himself in charge. Certainly not in the Congo for example. Of course the Congo does not have significant oil reserves, nor would it be a strategic location for permanent US military bases.

Apparently, as with the genocide in Rawanda, the lives of the people in the Congo aren't worth much.

BTW - in case you forgot, the US deliberately stayed out of WWII for more than two years. The war was seen as a purely European conflict. The moral imperative to fight the Axis only came into being after the Japanese attack against Pearl Harbour.

Re:German?

[GypC]

It's kind of hard to pick sides in tribal warfare with each side doing unto each other over the years. A brutal dictator on the other hand...

So that's your argument? "We didn't liberate France right away." Yes, of course, you're right. America is the Great Satan and just wants to rule the world with an iron fist. How could I have been so blind? Thank you, moonbat.

Re:German?

[lowtekneq]

My very conservative history teacher even taught about how the US sold weapons to Iraq, nameing various sources. "Combat overflights" Oh you mean Sorties? When the US flew over the no-fly zones to make sure everything is going the way it should? There were times when shots were fired but not on a daily basis. And I guess the US didn't sell Afganistan the weapons that they used to fight the US? So what exactly was the reason? Oil? probably not, since the US gets very little oil from Iraq. Freeing the Iraqi people? Very unlikly. Weapons of mass distruction? Haven't found any. It can't be as simple as to distract the American public and makeup for not finding Bin Laden. But whatever, can go on watching your FOX news and listening to Mr. Limbah. You seem to think that war is the answer, but will not admit it, if anyone here is ignorant I think it is you.

Re:German?

[lowtekneq]

I have spent a lot of time in Europe, Europeans don't hate Americans, but you sure as hell hate them.

We want peace. But we damn sure ain't gonna stand around while innocents get slaughtered and call it peace.

Fighting for peace is like screwing for virginity

Re:German?

[lowtekneq]

ha. No offense, but this is a complex issue, and it's understandable that a young person such as yourself would be confused by it.

Yeah, those damn kids don't know anything. I've seen both sides, I live in the conservative south of the US, but I come from Germany, a very liberal country. Throughout this whole conflict I have been reading German magazines and websites along with Time and CNN/FOX/MSNBC. I don't think age has anything to do with this, as many (think millions) around the world share my view. Obviously your statements with little proof and conservative spin on things prove your ignorance, the statement about age has further proved it. I think this discussion is over, or do you have more bullshit thats wedged somewhere up there?

The descritption sounds a little odd

[Deagol]

But I think that the underlying principle is sound.

I wish I could link to another /. post of mine, but I can't find it. I ranted a while back about wanting to start "Project White Noise" after yet another article about how Bush-n-Ashcroft were wiping thier asses with the US's constitution.

It's inspired by the old USENET "spook fodder" method. Fill the 'net with suspicious-looking traffic for the sake of decreasing the S/N ratio of various 3-letter agencies' snooping efforts.

The first and obvious protocol would be email. My goal would be to have email accounts in every country both sending & receiving messages to & from every other country (anyone want to calculate the permutation on that?).

Message payloads would include: legit messages, automated gibberish messages (fortune, spam generator, eliza bot, etc.), and purely random data. Each of these types could be sent: plaintext, public-key encrypted, symetricly encrypted, and encrypted with a one-time-pad (generated on the fly then tossed when sent, rendering the data non-recoverable).

Ideally, each white noise client would get a list of participating email addresses from a source (P2P network, perhaps) and send the messages at random intervals in the background whenever connected to the 'net.

I haven't solved the problem yet of routing truly legit mail through all of this. I guess the ultimate goal of this would be a distributed, peer-to-peer version of the Mixmaster network on steroids.

Then there's all sorts of fun you can have with other protocols and subliminal channels. There's a Phrack article on sending covert data in the payload of ICMP ping packets. I've often thought of using plain old HTTP. You send a line of ASCII-encoded (possible even encrypted) data file to a remote server in a GET line. The remote user massages the lines of data from the log files to reconstruct the data sent (works through corporate firewalls that allow web surfing!).

I'm all for catching bad guys, but I draw the line at wholesale monitoring of citizens. As I stated in a post long ago, I would rather risk dying in another random act of violence (of the 9/11 caliber) than be forced to live in a police state. I'm sure those who lost loved ones in the attacks wouldn't likely share my view, but what makes our country truly great is the freedom its citizens have, and eroding those freedoms cheapens the value of those lives lost on 9/11.

Re:The descritption sounds a little odd

[chthon]

Isn't there already enough noise to signal by spam ?

Just in time

[MonkeyPaw]

This website came just in time.

I've just drawn up plans to blow up the moon,..

bwa-ha

baw-ha-ha

BWA-HA_HA_HA!

Re:Just in time

[MeerCat]

But I like the moon.

Whereas we like tha moon

Re:Secret ACTUAL steps required

[MonkeyPaw]

Hey wait a minute. I thought that was the "underware stealing" outline.

Re:a serious question

[kramer2718]

Why? It's billiant satire. It's also a great (albeit small) way to stick it to the fascists running the world's governments.

Re:Stupid project

[kramer2718]

Sure. I seriously doubt that the people at the NSA have found a polynomial time algorithm for factoring, and assuming that they haven't found a SMALL polynomial time algorithm for factoring, there is no way that they'll be able to decrypt all of the encrypted e-mail being sent around. Learn a little bit about cryptography. Rooms full of supercomputers really don't mean a whole lot without the right algorithms.

Re:German? Not only

[apeine]

I guess that evil-doers include Korean speakers, and for quite some time, arabs are REALLY evil for tracing system. Or maybe even spanish, for their druglords in Colombia and other spanish speaking countries.
But we can't deny that russian speaking villain had their charm on the 70's. ;-)

Re:Stupid project

[shaitand]

inconvience? First of all, that is a violation of MY rights, and EVERYONE elses rights. Violating my rights is NOT a subjet of inconvience.

Waste of time...

[TallEmu]

..and bandwith!

Want to protest snooping? Install PGP (or open src equivalent) and encrypt every email you send.

Write a simple installer so that my mum can install it easily as well and I'll tell her to use it too.

There. It is now "somewhat difficult" for the authorities to randomly snoop on every email. Of course, with the appropriate search warrants they can make you give up the keys, but that is another issue.

Re:How to Become a Supervillain

[XO]

There really is no Step 5 there. Caldera/SCO's plan is to Profit directly from #5, I'm sure.

Re:Stupid project

[shaitand]

The right to privacy IS a right I actually have, it has been affirmed repeatedly by the supreme court, a body my founding fathers put in place to defend those rights. If you'd rather trade freedom for security, have at it. But don't be so pompous as to think that your decision is the right one for everyone.

Just like phone taps, a warrant should be required for law enforcement to intentionally intercept communication between two parties OVER ANY MEDIUM. Email, private chat room, phone, cell phone, VOIP, radio, etc. Actually this is just a best realistic viewpoint, in truth they should actually have to notify me this is occuring before they can implement it AND notify every party involved in any communication they intend to record.

For the record, I'VE fought to secure those FREEDOMS we hold so dear, have you?

Re:Stupid project

[Anonymous Coward]

The right to privacy IS a right I actually have, it has been affirmed repeatedly by the supreme court, a body my founding fathers put in place to defend those rights.

Nope. You misunderstand our legal tradition. Grossly.

If you'd rather trade freedom for security, have at it.

I do. Very much so. Because without security, freedom is meaningless. You can't exercise your liberties if you're dead. The question is not, therefore, whether we should strike a balance between liberty and security. Obviously we must. The question is where that balance should be struck.

People like yourself who speak in terms of absolutes, who insist that liberty must never be abridged in the name of security, just aren't thinking. They're also blissfully unaware of how the real world actually works.

Just like phone taps, a warrant should be required for law enforcement to intentionally intercept communication between two parties OVER ANY MEDIUM.

Nope. If you have a conversation in a restaurant, and a cop overhears you talking about knocking over a bank, he's going to act on that. That's because a conversation in a public place carries with it no reasonable expectation of privacy.

Email is the same way. There's no reasonable expectation of privacy in packet-switched computer communications. This is blatantly obvious to anybody who has the slightest knowledge of how these systems work.

No reasonable expectation of privacy means no legal recognition of privilege.

Actually this is just a best realistic viewpoint, in truth they should actually have to notify me this is occuring before they can implement it AND notify every party involved in any communication they intend to record.

You're unclear on this whole idea of "surveillance," huh?

For the record, I'VE fought to secure those FREEDOMS we hold so dear, have you?

I served with the 224th aviation battalion from April of 1970 to February of '72. I was stationed in Long Thanh North. So I guess that's a yes.

Re:Stupid project

[shaitand]

"You're unclear on this whole idea of "surveillance," huh?"

Nope understand it perfectly well, I just believe it violates my right to privacy and therefore shouldn't be.

"Nope. If you have a conversation in a restaurant, and a cop overhears you talking about knocking over a bank, he's going to act on that. That's because a conversation in a public place carries with it no reasonable expectation of privacy.

Email is the same way. There's no reasonable expectation of privacy in packet-switched computer communications"

And this is less true of telecommunications how? Phone networks are circuit switched, but more and more they are packet switched, either way than can be more easily sniffed than e-mail. I can just slap a transmitter on your phone line and listen to it, your email I have to first intercept, and then decode (even if the encoding about as public as it gets, ie clear text is NOT clear english).

Oh please....

[why-is-it]

It's kind of hard to pick sides in tribal warfare with each side doing unto each other over the years. A brutal dictator on the other hand...

So much for not standing by and letting innocent people get slaughtered...

BTW in the 80's, when Rumsfeld was selling Iraq chemical and biological weapons for use against Iran, Saddam was a trusted ALLY. Isn't it funny how circumstances change, especially since he was just as brutal a dictator then as he was a few months ago...

I suspect that if you check a reputable source, Saddam Hussein would not rate as the worst dictator on the planet in recent history. Can't imagine why it was deemed so necessary to get rid of him. Surely it has nothing to do with oil...

So that's your argument? "We didn't liberate France right away."

Liberating France was a good thing. I just have to wonder why the US had to be dragged kicking and screaming into WWII in the first place. For more than two years people fought and died in that war and the US did not see any need for "regime change" in Nazi Germany...

Today however, based on lies and distortions, it seems perfectly admissible to fight a war and occupy a foreign nation simply because they have something GWB wants...

Re:Oh please....

[GypC]

You know what? All of that oil money is going to go to the Iraqi people, and then you're going to find something else to moan about.

What does a bloodthirsty tyrant have to do nowadays to earn the hatred of the Lefties? Vote Republican?

Re:Oh please....

[why-is-it]

You know what? All of that oil money is going to go to the Iraqi people

Not necessarily. IIRC, Haliburton (you know, the company Cheney used to be the VP of) has received untendered contracts for the reconstruction of Iraq worth a few billion dollars. Sure, the oil "belongs" to the Iraqi people, but the money from selling that oil will be leaving the country and it appears that a fair bit of it is destined for GWB's cronies...

Coincidence?

Re:Stupid project

[shaitand]

"How many ways are there to say, "You are wrong. Go home and think some more before posting again?""

How many ways are there to say, "Your wrong and have yet to indicate anything that even hints I am other than your babble."

I can list supreme court cases in which they've affirmed the right of privacy. I can show you in the constitution where it delegates the supreme court the authority and in fact the RESPONSIBLITY to determine the constitutionality of laws passed by the legislative branch. In fact that is what the supreme court was created for... they aren't supposed to hear cases that are not of great import in terms of liberties or directly associated with interpretation of the constitution.

Again I will state, if you prefer security to freedom this is your choice. I personally believe that security should end where impediment to freedom begins. This doesn't include me not having to wait in an airport but it DOES include reading my private communications to form those lists.

Re:a serious question

[kramer2718]

No. I am no more an anarchist than Thomas Jefferson. I just happen to believe in civil rights.

Re:Stupid project

[kramer2718]

Not that it really has anything to do with my e-mail, but if you really do have a factoring polynomial time algorithm, you really ought to publish. That would be a great step toward a Turing award.

Re:a serious question

[kramer2718]

A very brave, Anonymous Coward. Call me a fool.

But seriously...

---from www.m-w.com---

Main Entry: fasÂcism
Pronunciation...
1 often capitalized : a political philosophy, movement, or regime (as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition
2 : a tendency toward or actual exercise of strong autocratic or dictatorial control

Note that I did not capitalize the word. I am using it as in definition 2. There was no fair election of the current regime (Bush et. al.). Censorship is being practiced (both in terms of obscenity laws and also by the FCC, as well as by the DMCA). Bush personally decide to go to war without being beholden to anyone. As is the topic of this post, the government is routinely spying on even law abiding citizens. Innocent people are being held indefinitely without due process (under the PATRIOT (II) act).

Now I'm not saying that there aren't good things about this country, but civil rights have certainly gone into the shitter since 9/11, and this means that the terrorists have won.

how to become a supervillain

[flowerbear]

this is obviousely a trap by the NSA or GCHQ or perhaps even.....the INGUISITION!!!

be afraid be very afraid!!!