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EFF Asks How Big Brother Is Watching The Internet
MacDork writes "The EFF filed a FOIA request yesterday with the FBI and other offices of the US DOJ regarding expanded powers granted by the USA PATRIOT Act. The EFF is making the request in an attempt to find out whether or not Section 216 is being used to monitor web browsing without a warrant. The DOJ has already stated they can collect email and IP addresses, but has not been forthcoming on the subject of URL addresses. It seems the EFF is seeking any documentation to confirm such activity is taking place. One can only hope the automated FOIA search doesn't produce any false negatives or cost the EFF $372,999."
URL addresses and IP addresses amount to the same thing. Think about it.
Try not. Do or do not, there is no try.
-- Dr. Spock, stardate 2822-3.
Always assume that they ARE.
-- I could tell right away that she was impressed with my HUGE Slashdot Karma.
I don't like the idea of them monitoring web browsing, URLs, content, etc, without essentially a "warrant". I also think ISPs should not store any sort of historical browsing information. The fact there is no response as to whether or not this occurs is also disconcerting, because not only are they probably doing it, but they don't even care if we know or not.
We are one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively. Back to you with the weather, Bob!
"EFF Asks How Big Brother is Watching the Internet"
By getting his little sister to do it.
heh...
...if all our monitors turned out to be "telescreens"?
The coolest voice ever.
Porn browsing.
YUO FUCKING FAIL IT
My right to privacy. Seriousely. If the FBI suspects someone of terrorist activity, it shouldn't be hard to get a warrant to monitor their internet traffic.
It's the whole "those who are willingly to sacrifice freedom for security deserve niether" bit.
WWJD.... for a Klondike bar?
I don't understand how you can correlate the government browsing the sites I go to for porn to saving american lives. But I'm sure in your twisted , confused, and partially delusional state it makes sense... because giving up freedoms is the only way to stop people who incite fear. :/
We are one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively. Back to you with the weather, Bob!
Whatever they get will likely be 80% redacted. How is that useful? How is that freedom of information? You ask for info and they black out much of the useful stuff.
NPR's On The Media program (aired yesterday in these parts), talked about ACLU requests in 2003 regarding Iraqi prisoner abuse (well before Abu Graib broke), and the docs they did receive -- after lengthy expensive lawsuits -- was mostly (80%) blacked out.
If spying on everyone was the solution? Then we should all have someone riding shotgun throughout our lives.
The EFF filed a FOIA request yesterday with the FBI and other offices of the US DOJ regarding expanded powers granted by the USA PATRIOT Act.
Dear EFF,
With regard to your surv^H^H^H^Hcustomer service (ref: EFF-KEYLGGR-SECRTRY), we're happy to preempt your request.
The automated reply to your inquiry is:
NO MATCH FOUND
We sincerely hope your request has been fulfilled. We stay at your disposition for further inquiry.
Regards,
Joe Snoop, Dept. of Homeland Security.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
Regarding the "false negatives" bit in the summary:
The story is that an individual made an FOIA request to the FBI for some specific information.
The FBI claimed that no such information was available.
The claimant found out in the meantime that such information WAS available and had been previously provided by the FBI as the result of another FOIA request, and, as such, requested a court order the FBI to provide it again.
The FBI is arguing that its search was reasonable within department regulations and guidelines, and that it cannot and should not be expected to always undercover every single possible document in response to every request. And documents being indexed electronically doesn't make it as easy as one might think: it's precisely because documents are indexed electronically that is creating the difficulty: the FBI is claiming, essentially, that it can't predict every possibly keyword it should associate with a document for search purposes, and therefore shouldn't be held accountable if it misses documents during a good-faith search.
Whether or not the FBI was intentionally hiding OKBOMB memos, etc., is another story altogether.
Additionally, the article summary is awfully pessimistic: we don't yet know how DOJ will respond to this request. Perhaps it itself hasn't determined whether or not it considers "URLs" to be subject to pen-trap regulations. Additionally, for those who didn't RTFA:
At issue is PATRIOT Section 216, which expanded the government's authority to conduct surveillance in criminal investigations using pen registers or trap and trace devices ( "pen-traps" ). Pen-traps collect information about the numbers dialed on a telephone but do not record the actual content of phone conversations. Because of this limitation, court orders authorizing pen-trap surveillance are easy to get -- instead of having to show probable cause, the government need only certify relevance to its investigation. Also, the government never has to inform people that they are or were the subjects of pen-trap surveillance.
Remember, pen-traps were already allowed before PATRIOT. At issue is what exactly PATRIOT's expansion to these provisions further allows. It clearly has been determined to allow email addresses and IP addresses. However, whose IP addresses? The suspect, or a host the suspect is visiting? It would seem clear to me that, virtual hosting aside, if the a target host's IP may be logged, and since DNS names, embodied here as "URLs" and IP are very obviously interrelated, again, virtual hosts aside, it seems this argument is somewhat of a smokescreen to force debate on whether or not pen-traps in general should be allowed.
And since they were allowed before PATRIOT, the answer seems clear: if PATRIOT's expansions to the existing statues to accommodate new communications technologies were appropriate, all that's left is determining what exactly is included. And if "IP addresses" are included, which would logically include target hosts, it would seem that DNS names used to arrive at said IP addresses are intrinsic to the nature of their usage. So disagree with pen-traps if you want, but don't rant and rave about PATRIOT, because it's not about that (though many would desperately want you to think so).
If folks like you get killed then I'll take the porn.
"The first rule about USA PATRIOT ACT is you do not talk about USA PATRIOT ACT," if you will.
That was a good one!
EOM
... Have to say "Big Brother"? That just sounds like typical /. paranoia. Before you mod me, consider this: By its very nature the internet is insecure. Any email you send passes through and is temporarily stored on at least several computers before reaching its destination. It's not just "Big Brother" who's watching, it could be anyone with an interest in you, really. I'd say it's more likely that a corrupt server admin, or a large corporation is more likely to read your email than the goverment. In the end the answer is simple: Use any of the myriads of free encryption programs!
But that wasn't exactly filed yesterday. According to the EFF website it was filed on Jan. 14th
The difference between freedom and opression are the rights of privacy afforded to us as citizens. The idea that monitering could POTENTIALLY come up with valuable information in fighting terror is outweighed by the individual's right to maintain one's items private. I mean, if you can't even come close to a hit, is the cost of jeopardizing our freedoms worth it? Remember, under our government, even criminals have rights afforded to them that can not be revoked without due process.
If only preventing terrorism is all homeland security was about. The concern is not for the intended use, but the guaranteed misuse of power.
I wrote my uncle a letter yesterday. I used some nice stationary and envelopes from a shop in Bismarck. I asked him what he thought about the current administration, and if he could lend me his copy of a certain antisocial treatise. Unfortunately, the envelope did not have enough space for me to write a return address on the outside.
(Attention Carnivore, this post is intended as a joke, for the recipient only.)
Trying to use sarcasm in text-based forums does not work.
I think this is excellent. Even if they get nothing, I still think it's a step in the right direction. Let the people be aware of what's going on.
# fuser -v
#
Is that nearly every single packet that flows on the internet is routed through a facility in Virginia. At that facility, the print out each packet and examine it for illegal activity. They then copy the packet in triplicate, fax one copy to a vault in Colorado, and file the rest in the file of whoever originated the packet. Interesting or suspicious packets are emailed to the CIA and occasionally to the Mosad for further examination.
Good point, but I know of thousands or even millions of Americans who would be better served with a hot meal than a robot watching them suffer at their own expense. You are a NAZI.
You are about to give someone a piece of your mind, something which you can ill afford...
Its servers and clients are connected to others around the world. How people decided to do credit-card commerce there is still beyond me, however revolutionary or secure it is now. While there are fair uses of information and rights to privacy, "Internet privacy" still feels like an oxymoron, and technology like quantum computers may soon crack encryption like SSL, so I'm doubting we can stay private for very long. (Please correct me if SSL/other forms of "https" can never be cracked.)
You can hold down the "B" button for continuous firing.
Terrorist Attack? Put this in perspective. As a symbol and a demonstration of the relative laxity of certain aspects of the American security net 9/11 was devastating. But statistically 2,000 people is fewer than we lose on a monthly basis to car accidents. If there's one thing that past governments have demonstrated (not to invoke Godwin or anything) it's that if you give them the power, they will take it, and hang responsible use *cough*McCarthy*cough*. The more America lets itself quietly give up civil liberties--particularly on the domain of the internet, where the only parties with a vested interest in covering their activites for the sake of a conspiracy will find relatively easy ways around surveillance, the more this country ceases to be worth living in. Who wants absolute security at the expense of being arrested and helf without charges indefinitely? (which is now legally feasible at the government's discretion. Taking reasonable precautions in the name of security is common sense, but with the best military in the world and more security legislation than is healthy already passed, this is nothing we need, not now, not ever. I'd rather sacrifice the perceived security bonus and instead continue to live in a country worth ilving in with unrestriced access to a venue whose primary purpose is free discourse--exactly what the First Amendment is meant to protect.
Oddly enough, EFF wants a govenment/entertainment industry agency to monitor network traffic when it comes to compensating authors for filesharing.
Here's what I do: Bitty Browser & Andromeda
if they truly *are* out to get you.
Wanna keep a secret? Create a cheesy one-page website and offer something for sale that nobody wants for more than anyone would willingly spend - nobody will read it, and you're safe.
Seriously, anyone who believes privacy, secrecy or security exist anywhere on a network-connected computer is in for a deep disillusionment.
But, most people already knew *that*.
Take the 90-Day Challenge! http://rwmurker.bodybyvi.com/
I go to the terrorist/arabic sites then use Ajeeb (http://english.ajeeb.com/) to learn what they are saying about us. I don't want the government talking this in the wrong light. I should not have to worry at all.
Wow, my brain hurts.
Hypocrites
Oops, that didn't really make sense. It SHOULD read: People are always talking about freedom and they would die for it. So I ask the question, "Wouldn't you rather die than lose your freedoms?" They answer yes, but were just a minute earlier talking about how we needed to take away freedoms in order to protect ourselves. Hypocrites.
It seems like the EFF wants to make sure the FBI is not snooping on our 'net use. Again, the Internet seems like a very public place, though--it feels like a big, open sidewalk that you shouldn't give your credit card/perform crimes/do anything else that should be private in the middle of. I'm sure if the FBI's not snooping sans warrant to scare us to submission, many others deep in Europe/Asia/the Bronx would anyhow.
There should be a separate, private network, aside from the "Internets" as Bush once called it, for such business, I think. I am no expert, though.
You can hold down the "B" button for continuous firing.
For those of you that missed it the other day, some guy was arrested because of his buying habits at the grocery store - tracked by his frequent flyer card (or whatever they call them - I don't use em) from the same store.
Evidently months ago he bought the same kind of lighter fluid that was used to light his own house on fire with his wife and kids inside. He was pretty much going to 'pound me in the ass prison' until someone else 'fessed up to lighting the fire (the family didn't get hurt in the fire, IIRC.)
If you think for 60 seconds you aren't being watched - ask that guy.
Glonoinha the MebiByte Slayer
LOOK AT OUR ELECTIONS! theyre a joke. apathy reigns and we are spoiled and left fighting day to day for food on the table. it could have happened anywhere.
You are about to give someone a piece of your mind, something which you can ill afford...
While I have to agree with you, please remember that there are 49% of us who tried to make a difference in the last election.
of New Jersey. Still think terrorism is a bogeyman?
It's impossible to get a warrant if they *suspect* someone to be involved with "terrorist activity". They have to provide submissible evidence that someone is connected with a particular terrorist activity. The difference is more then semantic, and the Partiot act pen trap rule was to allow pen traps to get submissible evidence (communicating with people involved in terrorist activities)
Don't you love your country son? Do you want our brave soldiers to die? What religon are you?
Don't worry about that last question, we know the answer. We'll be at your house about 10 minutes after you get home from work.
And seriously, you should be getting back to work. You owe it to your employer, and to help the economy, which prevents terrorism!
See you soon flewp.
--The Man
What are we going to do tonight Brain?
but seriously its fair enough if your stopping peodophiles and the like, but how long until we start see warrented or unwarrented browsing habbits start to appear in trials? mr x is accused of rape, and as we can see he was a frequent visitor to many a porn sites..... or similar examples or habits being used to descibe character
i wasn't the intended recipient, but i was still amused by your homophonia.
We can see you through your monitors. You have mussed up hair, thick glasses, and no girlfriend. You are currently picking your nose thinking that nobody can see you.
You self gratify in front of your computer at least 3 times per week.
And now you are looking at the back of your monitor to see how we did it....
investigation by the police and the courtroom process was fucking flawed. The problem isn't the grocery store databases, the problem is the shitty way laws are applied and how data like that is interpreted in courtrooms.
Porn browsing.
It's +2 Funny, because it's true.
yes. i'm sure.
Someone at FBI watching ...
Joe#23153445 : URL http://www.*censored*.com
FBI guy : Great p0rn!
Joe#23153445 : URL http://www.*censored*.com
FBI guy : Damn, that user got tastes!
Joe#23153445 : URL http://www.*censored*.com
FBI guy to others FBI agents : I will keep watching user Joe#23153445 for a while, his activities seem suspecious. I will need extreme concentration, you can dismiss now.
A legitimate and valid question--the very asking of which is "Insightful." So, why is the parent modded -1 Flamebait? Seems like a good conversation starter to me.
Ignorance is curable, stupid is forever.
Well, What about the (almost) famous Echelon system? It supposedly feed all the worlds communications(phone, internet, sat, etc...) into databases and sifts through them to find "useful" intelligence....oops don't tell anyone I've said this....
Terrorism is a real threat.
You still stand a greater chance of dieing in a car crash or being shot by someone you know than getting killed in a terrorist attack.
Terrorism does *NOT* justify the abridgement of civil rights. *NOTHING* justifies the abridgement of civil rights.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
Eh, shouldn't that sentence read 'false positives'?
Why doesn't someone set up a "honey pot" that automatically trolled through the nastiest of the nasty of the various "terrorist" web sites, and see what happens?
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
That would be about the only real way to bring new voices to the political scene.
emt 377 emt 4
The internet is a very big space...
There are millions of "transactions" going on every second
If someone wants to listen to YOU specifically, they need to know you exist...
Carnivore is dead, but what good was it anyway? With anon servers, and other tricks, like encryption, and attachments, how could they even know what is going on?
So, if the FBI or anyone takes an interest in YOU it is because you came to be on their radar in some way...either by visiting a suspected web site, or sending e-mail to a suspect...then, you are in their scope...
What is the moral of the story?
Stay out of their radar...
--E--
I found the CBS link, where the FBI was unable to find documents that were previously released under FOIA, particularly troubling. Either there is a direct effort to render FOIA useless, or, perhaps more likely, that the FBI's computer systems are just incapable of managing even the most basic intelligence queries.
I won't say that what McCarthy did was right, but the facts do bear out that there was significant communist infiltration into our government at the time. It is not paranoia if they really are out to get you.
link, second source
From the NYT article:
Federal authorities made a total of 1,727 applications last year before the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, the secret panel that oversees the country's most delicate terrorism and espionage investigations, according to the new data.
The total represents an increase of about 500 warrant applications over 2002 and a doubling of the applications since 2001, the Justice Department said in its report, which was submitted to the federal courts and to Vice President Dick Cheney as required by law.
All but three of applications for electronic surveillance and physical searches of suspects were approved in whole or part by the court....
The F.B.I. told the commission that "there is now less hesitancy" in seeking the intelligence warrants, the report said. Nonetheless, it added, "requests for such approvals are overwhelming the ability of the system to process them and to conduct the surveillance."
I don't remember exactly what the number of warrants requested were before sept 11th, but I know it was very few. 1,727 is a lot of warrants - more than the number killed in Iraq. To put that in perspective, if you know of somebody killed in Iraq, you are more likely to know somebody whom the FBI is watching.
Yes, because only by monitoring everyone's porn browsing can we stop terrorists. But you raise a good point! So along the same lines, I have a question of my own.
Which is more important:
Not being raped by a herd of goats
or
The lives of thousands or even millions of Americans that could be slaughtered in a terrorist attack?
Obviously the later is more important. So down on all fours, bucko. No, no, too late to protest now. We have to Fight Terror!
The enemies of Democracy are
There are databases out there which index every single word in a document. I think one of them is called "Google". You might have heard of it. The idea that the electronic records cannot be indexed or searched by Glimpse, Harvest or some other search engine is stupid. We may be uncouth, unwashed and undesirable to 98% of the human population, but we're not stupid.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
a) It is not a valid question. Why? Because everybody here would certainly answer that the prevention of a terrorist attack is more important. That is not what the point of the article is. In fact the author displays an amateurish lack of foresight not to see that by asking this question he is not causing anyone to think or question anything. His argument rests on something that the general populace of slashdot considers more or less bunk - that the USA PATRIOT ACT does anything useful in the aid of stopping terrorism.
b) It is also flamebait, intentionally or unintentionally. If the author knew that he would not cause a thorough analysis and discussion of said "valid question", then he is deliberately trying to get people angry. If not, the same result occurs anyway, so therefore I affirm the rating of -1 Flamebait.
Something else to keep in mind, most people don't have "Leave It To Beaver" perfect lives. Blackmail is particularly powerful weapon used to silence people; Ad Hominem attacks are excellent protection from scrutiny when framed as "credibility" or "character" issues. It is a supremely valueable political weapon to know all of your opponent's weaknesses without having to expose any of your own.
If a terrorist attack occurs killing millions of people, the people would have been wise to reflect upon their actions. What suffering they must have caused to fuel such an attack.
Facing the idea that Terrorism is just an artifact of the way global politics are handled will be tough for America. Given a seat at the negotiating table, and an honest ear to hear their side, who would choose terror ?
Taking away my freedom will not change global politics, and will not reduce the root causes of terrorism.
...what are your chances of being threatened, blackmailed or falsly accused of a crime based on evidence gathered from your web browsing...I would guess pretty low. Now, lets have a look at some other statistics:
Chances of a child dying in a third world country before you finish reading this post: 100%
Chances of corporations being allowed to pump shit into the atmosphere until everyone with beach front property ends up having a really bad century: 100%
Chance of a really imporant species becoming extinct for no other reason than to increase shareholder value before the end of today: 100%
Chance that Monsanto is not telling us the 'whole truth' when it comes to genetically modified food (they've done it before guys): very freakin high
etc etc
Not trying to knock peoples beliefs here, but seriously...for sheer return on investment, isn't there a bunch more useful things to get angry about?
There are some real threats to this world, generally, your government is too stupid/apathetic/disorganized to be one of them.
So, basicaly they are claiming that they can't give Google a call and buy one of those "Google for your company intranet" 1U rackmount servers I see advertised here and there.
Besides, I don't understand why keywords are so all-important; I was writing software for full-text indexing (minus "noise words" like a/an/the/etc.) almost 15 years ago, and on pokey-slow PC's, too. My department at the college was much too cheap to spring for even a 386. Surely the FBI has heard of full-text indexing?
-paul
Pistol caliber is like religion: everyone has their favourite, and theirs is the only right choice.
Think about the massive amount of data that would be (or is being for the paranoid) collected if everyone, everywhere's internet activity is monitored. How would this be stored, and more to the point, searched through in a statistically useful way? Far more effective is the threat of constant surveilance. People keep themselves in line when there's a possibility they're being watched, but they don't know if they are or not. In general, obviously. This is known as Panopticism [geneseo.edu].
It may not protect you, but it's better than nothing to have these actions documented and at least minimal oversight and a mechanism for more oversight.
Play Command HQ online
Given a seat at the negotiating table, and an honest ear to hear their side, who would choose terror ?
Terrorists ?
the internet was -never- free, nor -ever- safe from big brother. its pretty ludicrous that we're 'fighting for the Net', when in fact it was the 'net info apparat which gave Big Brother the leg-up it needed in the first place
the big question is this
every computer in existence is prime target for a 'highly sensitive orbiting equipment platform' or two (interferometry) thats been launched 'in the name of NSA^H^H^Hnational security' in the last 15 years or so
now *that* is some tin-foil the EFF should be un-rolling, yo. seriously. its legit.
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
Seems I need make things a little more clear regarding my parent post.
/. user any sense of false security or imply that it's somehow "protected" and "holy" because it's online.
The analogy I'm looking at is an ISP has agreed to allow the FBI to surriptiously monitor it's network activity. In doing so, the FBI is doing nothing more that sampling data coming through on certain ports in the clear (i.e.: non-encrypted transactions such as email, IM p2p).
So let's say that in the process they see a pattern of use that resembles an exploit taking place against several target machines coming from a certain IP address. It turns out that the IP in question is at a home residence, At that point, they can subpeona the ISP and seek a warrant to confiscate the computers at that address and question the residents in the hopes of making an arrest.
I think that would be activity I would agree with.
a) The FBI is merely scanning aggregate usage targeting only services, not Individuals.
b) If the FBI does decide to target an individual, they will then need to send subpoenas and obtains warrants to actually act or monitor more invasively.
What I'm not for is the FBI being able to intrude upon private networks, scan/break encrypted protocols or target an individuals usage without a proper warrant. Rather, they would merely be sampling random traffic at cooperating ISP's who have agreed beforehand to work with the FBI/law enforcement.
Let's face it, "in the clear" transmissions are not private, just because it's on the interweb should not give anyone, especially a
Don't want the FBI to see your file transfers? Use SCP.
Don't want your chat eve's dropped on? Use an encrypted channel. Don't want content on your site accessed by strangers? Use SSL and pass protect your pages.
One reason why Law Enforcement has such a hard time dealing with online crime is that it has no way to prevent crime or respond to crime in progress. In online crime, it's almost always after the fact, when the trail is cold and the damage has been done that Law Enforcement get's involved.
I for one think it only makes sense to allow them to have some eyes/ears where it makes sense if they actually hope to do any real law enforcement online.
Does this mean they can also read any information we post on forms that use the GET method instead of POST? Since GET encodes the form information in the URL, by recording these URL's that would be the same as tapping a phone conversation.
A while ago, I saw a TV show which suggested that George W. Bush has ...eviscerated the Presidential Records Act and FOIA... for "national security" reasons?
Can anyone substantiate this argument? If so, how can an act that is used at least two million times a year be killed without any outcry from the public?
The problem is not that the govt is fabricating documents on demand. The "false negatives" mentioned are when there actually is something relevant that should be released, but is not. Whether it is caused by laziness, malice, or just bad luck is left as an exercise for the reader.
The DOJ has already stated they can collect email and IP addresses, but has not been forthcoming on the subject of URL addresses.
URL addresses? Simple, at the top of my web browser windows, just below the button. Next!
and just where are these facts to be found?
a) I don't agree with it, therefore it has no intellectual value.
/. party line, therefore it doesn't deserve to be seen.
b) It conflicts with the
Freedom
or
A political tool that benefits an elite minority.
You decide.
Let the FBI sniff the Internet. Hackers do it all day long. If you don't download kiddie porn or try to hack NORAD, you probably won't get in trouble for it. Unless, you are one of those idiots that leaves wireless default like my neighbor and invites trouble. Then you should be in court like MJ and his dirty mag with 13 year olds' dick beater prints on the pages. Consider the environment and play with caution. Are you more worried about the FBI or a hacker? Maybe a little of both? Oops !! I went to a shitty porn site with an unpatched system. Now it is driving my browser to every mule sucking underaged whore site on the 3rd world subnets and the feds are up my ass. Poor me !!
The issue is that people think that because they pay taxes, they should be able to get any document they want without paying anything extra.
That is worth repeating. No, it should not be difficult at all.
A 13yr old with a camcorder can also set it up in the bushes to look inside your home and watch what you're doing. This doesn't mean the FBI shouldn't be required to get a warrant to do the same.
You have an expectation of privacy in a private domecile. Bad analogy.
In the same realm, just because they can sniff the network traffic doesn't mean that they should. They have to get a warrant to tap your phone, and they should have to do the same to tap your IM conversations, e-mail correspondence, and web history.
Your internet traffic, for technical reasons, is travelling over many, many routers operated in the open by many, many companies and government organizations.
Honestly, what expectation of privacy do you have for unencrypted traffic over an OPEN, PUBLIC network?
You have some options if you want privacy:
- Use strong encryption.
- Use an anonymous proxy service that you can trust.
- Setup your own network and send your information over it.
Ironically, the word ironically is often used incorrectly.
Where I live, there has been much debate about using (any) software product or service offered by a U.S. company, for fear that (without notice) the company would turn over confidential information about private citizens to the US government. The Patriot Act insists that they not divulge that they have done this, even though what they are doing is clearly illegal (here). As a result, all American software and services are now being put under scrutiny. Vendor access to private data has become restricted. If support without access is not possible, then the software (and vendor) are no longer required.
So your choices are
a) freedom
and
b) Freedom(TM) - the wonderdrug we hear about on the TV all the time.
If a terrorist attack occurs killing millions of people, the people would have been wise to reflect upon their actions. What suffering they must have caused to fuel such an attack.
Facing the idea that Terrorism is just an artifact of the way global politics are handled will be tough for America. Given a seat at the negotiating table, and an honest ear to hear their side, who would choose terror ?
Fucking hell, don't be a reverse-idiot.
Let me explain. See, there are the regular idiots that think, "All those Ay-rabs are terrorists, like them what crashed the aero-planes into them buildings in NEW YORK CITY."
Then there are reverse-idiots. Like you. Those who are so naive as to think that the terrorists are all just people pushed to the brink, and what, they had no choice but to kill 3000 innocent people because, after all, two wrongs make a right.
There are some people that fight with terrorists because their family was killed by America, indirectly or directly, and they are filled with rage.
But most of the Islamic terrorists that get air-time, and their immediate followers, are not like this. They are simply interested in spreading militant Islam through-out the world, and stopping any spread of democracy or pluralistic thinking.
Ironically, the word ironically is often used incorrectly.
The Bush junta has recently replaced the head of NARA (National Archives and Records Administration). The new director will be in office at a time when the records from Bush's father are scheduled to be subject to the Presidential Records Act (PRA) and could be opened. Other areas which can be affected are, obviously, the 2000 election scandal, the events (misdeeds) permitting the Sept 11 2001 attack, the controversy about the decision to attack Iraq and, last but not least, irregularities regarding the 2004 election.
The new director will also oversee the Electronic Records Management e-government and the Electronic Records Archives projects. Note that electronic records, unlike paper, go away by default unless timely, correct, and proactive action is planned and taken.
Now there are many different views on those controversial topics, but getting the relevant government records into the light of day is about the only democratic way to resolve those questions.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
"The DOJ has already stated they can collect email and IP addresses"
Now I know why i have been getting all that spam about joining the army!!!!!!!!!!
Now if you had some sort of privacy agreement I could see being upset about that. It's a civil thing though, it's not that the government is taking your rights. You don't have to route your packets out to the internet. And the internet is mostly a privately funded and maintained entity. There isn't any regulation, internet isn't a utility. It's not like your history of borrowing from the public library or something. That's easy, "hey uunet, how'd you like to have your taxes reduced by 30%? let us install some hardware in your datacenters and as long as it is there you get a 30% discount" No messy warrants, nothing like that.
Now if they were forcing ISPs to comply then that would be a different matter but that's the problem anyways, you think mom and pop ISP is going to fight The Man when he asks to see you emails? You think comcast or earthlink so much as gives a shit about the millions upon millions of their customers individual privacy? If the FBI doesn't publicize it then why should they give a damn?
If you're really worried about your privacy and the government looking at your packets, then I'd see to it that they don't leave your home lan.
How exactly will posting "fr1st p0st" and "imagine a beowulf cluster of those!" to al Qaeda websites help us fight terrorism?
I can run a 6400000-bit encrypted stream between site A and site B, but if I am financially attached to one of the nodes they will get the information they are looking for. This isn't about reading text as it flows through a router, it is about noting where a suspect communicates, how often, at what times, etc. Perhaps then expanding the search to other users of that location, as warrants are not needed for execution.
This does an end-run around encryption. Hence the "Big Brother" aspect.
Together, we will drive the rats from the tundra.
I've often been tempted to put easter eggs in documents that I had to release as PDFs after I discovered way back that it's easy to move objects around in a PDF. I'm pretty sure I didn't leave anything that says "All your base are belong to us" hidden under what looks like a blank box, but you never know...
I tried to get a copy of http://www.stonybrook.edu/my university's monthly budget report, and the bill came to about the same.... No kidding, either. I think I've still got the letter around here somewhere; I should post it.
I'm not in the US, but everyone looks forward to the day when Americans get rid of Bush and his terrible policies that actually indirectly or directly influence the rest of the world.
Internet snooping by paranoid governments is a terrible thing and should only be applied to very suspected big criminals with proper authority of a court order etc. Because it is such an invisible thing, the best solution would be to encourage everyone to use anon surfing techniques like proxies and SSL. Unfortunately most people just don't care about privacy and understand the importance of it.
In fact, for Europeans, BRUSSELS should be doing something about it. But of course they are more interested in the correct length of a banana and banning Brazil nuts and cutting deals Bill Gates about ID cards and Windows software. Well well.
Don't look to the EU to save your human rights....Oh unless you ARE a terrorist of course and then you will get big rewards by the European Court of Human Rights if you are handcuffed too roughly by the police.
the money might be better spent trying to get government under control rather than for finding out just how insane they have become...
Get your torrents...
Great news, 2% either desire or are indifferent to me.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Can't I be 'served' by a hot robot, and thousands or even millions of Americans can suffer watching me over a meal? :D
Like a Reality TV show where I get taken by a Sybian with AI...
We will find out where you live soon enough.
People don't exist to serve systems, systems exist to serve people.
First, now its easier to track terrorists. Second why do you deserve privacy? Privacy or security, which would you prefer? The terrorists prefer privacy. Which side are you on?
People don't exist to serve systems, systems exist to serve people.
Not just anonymizer, but also zone alarm, and friendster.
People don't exist to serve systems, systems exist to serve people.
This attack that will kill millions started 9/11/01 and hasn't ended yet. US Gov is a tool for terrorists just like those airliners were: going fast and full of flammable fuel.
The technology is already there. It is still experimental or beta, but the more people support it, the faster it will grow mature.
Tor: An anonymous Internet communication system
-silence
Dyslectics of the world, untie!
It's conceivable that someone could throw together a script that will start at a certain web page (maybe from a collection of stored URLs), and then in some logical order, randomly visit a series of links. Add some random delays so that it can appear as though a real person is surfing. Set this to kick in a various times (cron maybe?), and continue for various lengths of time. I don't think they'd have any way of knowing if it's real or not,
Even if your ISP doesn't track your usage, everyone else does, through browser cookies and log scraping. All this information is sold to consumer marketing data mining companies who probably have more computing power than the US goverment. If the goverment wants to do queries, they can just subcontract it to the data mining companies, who are, conviently enough, exempt from the restrictions the goverment has on what data they can collect.
This is already being done, I think. One of the owners of a data mining company volunteered his services to the goverment after 911 and started a specialized business to handle that kind of stuff for the goverment.
there are quite a few threads under this story about civil rights in the usa and their abridgement since 9/11.
remember when it happened? the immediate consensus afterward was that we needed to carry on with our lives as before, or else "the terrorists would have won." we couldn't allow them to cow us, by god!
but, after all, we did change the way we live, with all this "homeland security" and "USA-PATRIOT" and guantanamo and abu ghraib and all the other abridgements of civil and human rights... the sad truth is that, thanks to the current administration, "the terrorists" did win...
i leave you with this quote from louis brandeis:
"experience teaches us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the government's purpose is beneficent. men born to freedom are naturally alert to repel invasion of their liberty by evil-minded rulers. the greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding."
if i'm a grammar nazi, you're an illiteracy nazi.
Compared with the danger of over-reaching governments, the threat from terrorism is very near zero, and completely insignificant. I have no respect for anyone willing to give government more authority just because they've been turned into a frightened little girlie-man.
"Support our Oops."
I think they send people to Cuba just for having a name like "Saeed al-Sahaf" these days :^( So he really has nothing to lose by trying this out...
Freedom: "I won't!"
That in general, and under the USA PATRIOT Act, the information an agency can collect pertaining to communications is only 'routing' information basically. Think of your packets going out over the Internet as sealed envelopes as far as law enforcement is concerned (in reality assume some hacker can see them and use SSL/PKI, but that's an aside). Anyone can see to whom and from whom a letter in the mail is going to, but law enforcement cannot open the letter without a warrant to do so. Likewise, they cannot just look at your packets. They are allowed to look at source and destination IP addresses as well as email headers, but to actually look at the packet content or email content they would need a warrant (at least if they wanted to use it in court). I suspect the answer to this FOIA request will say that URLs are protected given that in an IP packet, the HTTP request is part of the data.
What's your point? There really isn't one. Surely you don't think that the government should do nothing about people who have killed thousands by flying planes into buildings? Surely you were one of those people that thought the CIA/whomever failed us by not doing enough pre-9/11? Surely you don't think the FBI can prevent renal failure? Your 'hard evidence' is rather a moot point because it's neither here nor there and ignores the idea that national security and defense is one of the government's primary responsibilities.
Events permitting the attacks? Hah! So you're one of those misguided fools that loves to blame our governmental agencies for their lack of ability to foresee this tragic act of aggression but you hate the USA PATRIOT ACT and anything they might use to prevent another one? Can't stand the thought that they could look at your IP headers because that would be such a gross violation of your rights? Grow up and get a clue, seriously.
I would be much more wary of intelligence agencies like the CIA and NSA who do not collect information for court purposes and thus do not need to cite how they collected it to any judicial oversight. If things like Echelon are real, and I assume that they are, then as you say you should always assume your communications are watched somewhere. Personally I'm less concerned about those agencies and more concerned about mischievous 1337 h4x0rz misusing my information. Either way, anyone should know that Internet communications are not really private at all.
You are taking an overhyped piece of a law out of context and blowing it out of proportion and are more of a paranoid tin-foil-hatter.
Of course the main difference here is that Google and Netcraft cannot tie this information to any individual. The FBI can. The FBI has to as part of its job. This is why 'envelope' information such as headers and IPs can be observed, but a warrant must be obtained to inspect the contents of the packets for any law enforcement purposes. Any data they collect will be heavily scrutinized in a court of law if/when they bring charges against someone. Remember that what the FBI does is vastly different to the monitoring and reporting tasks of agencies like the CIA and NSA.
I'd rather that an ongoing investigation take privilege over the paranoia of the ACLU and the ramifications of leaking classified documents to the rest of the world, including al Qaeda and friends.
Terrorist cells should have access to ALL classified information! w00t!
True enough, but what is the difficulty with having communist sympathizers within our government? That's like saying we have Catholics in our government. Does it justify what was done?
The only FACT I'm aware of with this, is what the OP pointed out about abusing power. Sorry, just cause you only read books which support your narrow world view, doesn't make it a fact.
Always Encrypt, shred, proxy, etc.
If you do it always , then all activity seems to have the same sensitivity.
If you do it sometimes , then those few times stand out sorely.
That's one of the biggest reasons why you should show your parents, siblings, aunts, uncles, grandparents, neighbors, etc., how to use PGP or x509. That way all traffic looks the same.
But is it really possible to surf anonymously?
You have to trust the proxy you're using, and nowadays a Fed could just as easily subpoena the proxy logs (or maybe get that without a Judge's involvement as the article suggests). About the only thing you could really do would be to proxy-hop from one proxy to the next, routing all traffic through umpteen (yes umpteen) proxies-- thereby making it difficult to track down the traffic. But who really has the time and bandwidth for that?
They employ Google's Pigeon technique to identify the 'bad' stuff.
You actually dont even need "the".
Use any of myriad free encryption programs.
The solution to this is known: OPEN SOURCE.
Not trying to knock peoples beliefs here, but seriously...for sheer return on investment, isn't there a bunch more useful things to get angry about?
Yes, the expansion of copyright law and patents.
Seriously, these three things (ubiquitious governance/tracking of citizens through RFID-tagged IDs, restriction of expression either outright or more commonly via expanded copyright law, and restriction of our ability to enrich our lives technologically through patents) are the three pillars with which absolute authoritarian control can, has, and may well again be exercized by our government or, increasingly more likely, corporate entities.
You're not even going the be able to SPEAK about Monsanto, starving children, or any of a million other injustices if you (1) can't publish the information (copyright/DMCA take-down-without-a-trial style restrictions), (2) can't use technology others (e.g. MS) haven't locked you out of (TCPA/"trusted" computing initiatives and software patents), or (3) assemble peacefully and protest (ubiquitious governance and monitoring of citizens, which these electronic IDs help facilitate).
So no, there really aren't more important or fundamental things to worry about than your freedom to speak, to be heard, or to assemble, and by extention, to develope the technologies that allow you to do so as other interests develope technologies designed to restrict your ability to do so. These concerns are fundamental because the rights and freedoms that are threatened are fundamental, without which you won't even be able to criticize monsanto (tongue in cheek) for processing third world babies into soylant green for the masses (/tongue in cheek)
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
did you ever entertain the idea that your humor was, in fact, not?
OR, you can stop with the fucking idiotic statements like that.
.
Monitoring my web browsing WILL IN NO WAY PREVENT ANY TERRORIST ATTACK, EVER.
<FUCKING SCREAMING!>E.V.E.R.</FUCKING SCREAMING!>
I wish there was a way to emphasize just how loudly I want that said so that you understand. Millions of people will not die in a terrorist attack, you fucking fearmonger. There is simply no way for that to happen in the real world. Saying "thousands" is even disingenuous, as that will probably not happen any time in the near future either.
A hundred here, a hundred there, that's how terrorists work. 9/11 was either a freak occurrence or aided by the US government.
www.hitwise.com
Monitors websurfing. Companies pay them for the info.
Hedge funds use it.
Disney etc.
If a terrorist attack occurs killing millions of people, the people would have been wise to reflect upon their actions. What suffering they must have caused to fuel such an attack.
Why do you make the assumption that whatever terrorists do is justifiable in terms of past abuses committed against them--that they're simply a measure of past suffering? This way lies determinism.
Aren't some actions not justified by the past and just wrong? The Nazis killed many Jews, but we shouldn't treat this as a demonstration of how badly the Nazis were provoked by the Jews. The killing was simply wrong. Or, to take a far less extreme example, the government would say they were provoked by the threat of danger into passing the Patriot Act. Nonetheless, we can still criticize the choice.
If you assume that every action (terrorism, the Patriot Act, the Iraq War, etc.) is simply determined by previous actions of others, then criticism of these actions isn't even coherent. Actors make choices.
These scripts have been around since before the dot com boom. Someone got the bright idea to create web browsers that would stream ads to targeted users, and pay the users to use the browsers. It didn't take long for a slew of scripts to appear on usenet to fake web browsing.
"Sir, we have reason to beleive Osama is using the internet to communicate with terrorists," the communications officer says to the FBI Director. "Do anything you have to do, son. I want these guys stopped by any means possible."
Sound like fiction? More like a documentry to me...
He's not saying they were justified in doing what they did, but we shouldn't just then say that they had no reasons. Maybe various US actions were viewed as unjust by the terrorists--either rightly or wrongly--and as a result, the terrorists did attacked us. They were not well-justified and what they did was wrong, most certainly, but just saying 'they hate our freedom, so they attacked us' doesn't cover it. People on the other side of the world aren't going to put that much effort into attacking just because we're free; clearly they dislike us for some reason, and we do need to honestly consider if they have good reasons for hating us, even though those reasons clearly aren't sufficient to justified the attacks they make.
I will agree that the grandfather termed it overly-deterministically, and seemed to put too much (all) the fault on us, but the core of what he's saying makes some sense.
Umm... dying for freedom does not equate to taking freedoms away. Your post makes almost no sense.
I am scientifically inaccurate.
You make a very strong philosophical point that many would be wise to learn, but your view is too simplistic because it doesn't handle the exceptions.
For instance, what if, given a seat at the negotiating table, the former terrorist will not negotiate until you force your entire country to convert to a specific religion, or until you abandon all traces of democracy from your government? There potentially exist negotiating positions where you are not willing to budge and where your opponent is not willing to budge either.
Or
Your blind ignorant support of Liars?
Or
American support of terroists? (IRA)
What *EVERYBODY* seems to be missing is that you are getting a COPY of the information, and the MAKING COPIES takes time and resources. Why should I, as a tax payer, have to pay for the FOI request of all the halfwits wearing /.-branded tin foil hats who decide they have a right to every transcript of FBI phone taps. Say each request costs $30,000 of actual just straight resource costs (1,000,000 pages at $0.03/page). Say there are 10 of you dillweeds in each state (yes I know that's WAY low). That's $15,000,000 that all of us other tax payers (remember, the ones who don't wear tin foil hats) have to pick up! I bet all of you voted for Nader...
Having the requestor pick up the bill is completely fair, as they are the ones to created the cost. If you want to think of it as a tax, it's a use tax, which in this case is the most fair way to allocate the variable cost.
Mod me to hell now for not being a socialst...
If European agencies foresaw the risk of a kamikaze attack using airliners and took extreme counter measures like the ones I witnessed on the 10th, then yes I expect the U.S. to take such measures as well. It's not like none of the countries lack established protocols for such warnings or that sending a message across the Atlantic still takes weeks. It's also Osama's modus operendi to call his shots in advance.
Choosing not to take action is still a decision, ableit a passive one. Decisions in that case permitted the attacks. If you want a less controversial example, then look at the attack in 1983 on the Marine barracks in Beirut. Intel had provided pretty much everything in advance except the shoe size of the driver, yet the administration still chose to let the attack occur, even going as far as providing an obstacle free approach and ordering the gate guards to remove ammo from their weapons.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
Haha I remember that. I was in college when those sites came to be. I signed up, and posted flyers everywhere around campus. I actually made quite a bit of money because of all the referrals I had. AllAdvantage paid me a bit over $2000 before they shut down.
My spoon is too big.
Patriot Act wouldn't have helped. And so far it has only harmed.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
Basically what you're saying is that if innocent children are slaughtered by suicide bombers, it's not the fault or the terrorists, but rather it's the fault of the children because of what some people in their country who they've never met did to offend the terrorists, possibly before the children were even born? You uttered honestly the most asinine and evil statement I've ever heard on Slashdot, and I've been reading Slashdot for years. You should be ashamed of yourself.