Slashdot Mirror
AT&T Forwarding All Internet Traffic to NSA?
An anonymous reader writes "SpamDailyNews is reporting that the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has filed a brief that claims AT&T has been forwarding internet traffic directly into the hands of the NSA. The brief was filed under seal (a procedure that allows only the judge and the litigants to view the document) in order to give the court time to review the information. From the article: 'More than just threatening individuals' privacy, AT&T's apparent choice to give the government secret, direct access to millions of ordinary Americans' Internet communications is a threat to the Constitution itself. We are asking the Court to put a stop to it now.'"
And you wonder why the feds have no problem with the AT&T monopoly getting back together? Can we file this under the "You-scratch-my-back-I'll-scratch-your" department?
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
Glad I'm not giving these bastards any of my money directly.
As TFA says:
I can't think of any possible justification for the documents to be kept sealed, but I wouldn't be suprised if the government wades in complaining that these document are directly related to National Security, and, should therefore be kept sealed, or claim that it would endanger their own investigations.
GeekServ Unix Consulting Services (http://www.geekserv.com)
...but here we are. Big Brother REALLY IS watching...
Who did what now?
Well, my DSL contract ends in May...here I come Nex-Tech.
I, as should everyone, will speak to them with my wallet. They have lost my local, long distance and data services.
Unstable Apps: Our Android Apps Don't Suck
How do they know it?
I would love to cancel my AT&T / SBC services but... my rental agreement requires that I have a phone line for my security system. What can I do? If I complain to AT&T no one will care.
Is that they're so lazy, they refuse to help the RIAA/MPAA/NSA/FBI, etc, unless they are literally forced by law, and then they only do the minimal amount required.
at what point do you realise that the current administration is out of control , perhaps when soldiers are knocking on your door ?
seems like the enemy is very much within, isn't democracy wonderful
I wonder, how long will it take for our government to realize that most of us take our rights pretty damn seriously, as they are the major reason why so many people like living here? Or, perhaps, we just need to put of a few signs at every protest and rally reading something along the lines of "Please remember to read the god damn Constitution and Bill of Rights before you do anything else."
Ex nihilo nihil fit.
Hmmm, I'm wondering how much traffic that actually is, sounds like some set-up they have there, if they can forward all the customer's traffic.
Would be nice to have a look at that kit.
Email, where you surf, and im messages are not considered protected private communications. It is in the same category as a post card. Unlike a letter or phone call there isn't any expectation of privacy on network communications.
Before anyone screams that they should be protected just remember if it was protected then using a network sniffer would become illegal! You can not have it both ways.
If you want private communications then use encryption, the phone, or send a letter.
The person that wrote this was trying to inflame people or doesn't understand what communications are protected and are not.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
the NSA would need a massive system to handle just the incoming data let alone one to sort through it.
It's more likely that the NSA just has Taps into the lines and can sort through the streams as they pass by.
if someone tell's me it's for homeland security to monitor our own citizens in such a fashion I would begin to demand we impeach Bush.
One can only truely lead by example. So if your a fear mongering warlord wanna-be so will your population be held in fear.
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
Something might be happening. What is it? We don't know.
Kent: Hordes of panicky people seem to be evacuating the town for
some unknown reason. Professor, without knowing precisely
what the danger is, would you say it's time for our viewers
to crack each other's heads open and feast on the goo inside?
Professor: Mmm, yes I would, Kent.
When, in the Course of human Events, it becomes necessary for one People to dissolve the Political Bands which have connected them with another, and to assume, among the Powers of the Earth, the separate and equal Station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent Respect to the Opinions of Mankind requires that they should declare the Causes which impel them to the Separation
church and state is mandated in the U.S. Constitution. Too bad that separation of big business and state wasn't similarly mandated. Why it that the "party of limited government" (the Republicans) is also the party of most intrusive and least ethical government?
First, if they're really doing this, we need full details.
Now, are they talking about forwarding ALL AT&T traffic to NSA? I find that really really hard to believe. How much data is that? Can someone point to some known tech that can handle that....ALL that data? I'm not asking for "secret-I-bet-they-have-cold-fusion-computers" BS tech that someone *thinks* the NSA has.
Second, this is just an accusation. There's one guy that has some documents that say that's what AT&T is doing. For all we know, this guy could be wearing tin-foil hats and singing to his dog about the aliens. He's doing this through the EFF, which to me doesn't lend much to this accusation, considering how they've handled things in the past. They don't exactly have a great track record.
We need details, people, details.
From Wikipedia
The Fourth Amendment guards against searches, arrests, and seizures of property without a specific warrant or a "probable cause" to believe a crime has been committed. A general right to privacy has been inferred from this amendment and others by the Supreme Court...
You are reading a copy of my copyrighted post.
On the policy side, this is an issue of trust and secrecy. This kind of intelligence operation is something you want to be available due to its good uses (and don't want to know about it), but you are afraid of because of the way the government can abuse it. The current administration has greatly reduced my trust in the professionalism of the US intelligence agencies to the point where I'm willing to support this kind of lawsuit.
I can echo the sentiments of the first poster regarding the (lack of) coincidence that AT&T forwarded over the traffic nearly concurrent with the U.S. government approving of the AT&T/SBC merger. That is fishy. But as for me I don't have anything I feel that I need to hide so I could care less that the U.S. government might have snippets of my own mundane life. As long as they don't max out my credit card or something...
As horrible as this is, i'm really not so surprised. However, what concerns me even more is the fact that noone will do anything. There won't be any public outcry. There will be no protests demanding the return of our constitutional rights. Of course we all know this isn't the first time this sort of thing has happened. I find it horrific that our previous president went to trial for receiving 'oral service' from a woman while our current one is pretty much destroying all of our civil rights and noone seems to care.
I can't believe that they'd even have a system capable of doing this. The kind of system they need would have to be massivce and working for a government entity myself I can't even believe that they'd get this kind of deal through congress.....on the otherhand most of congress are imbeciles so i gues sit could be possible.
Gorkman
You know what the irony in this is? We make hideous fun of countries like China where this kind of thing is standard operating procedure, but when we do it, it's supposedly to protect us from the terrorists. How does something like this come about?
I can't repeat this quote enough:
The question burning in my mind is this: How much will it take? How far does the government have to go before everyone says, "Enough!" and finally recognizes the greater danger that we're all in? How badly does our government have to act before people take up the call to arms and start rioting in the streets of this outrageous behavior?
For all the I-have-nothing-to-hiders out there, let me make it clear: I do have things that I'd rather stay hidden, and it's none of your damn business, and none of George W. Bush's damn business, what they are. And whenever a government goober tells me, "Trust me," that's the first sign that I shouldn't. We shouldn't have to blindly trust the government, that's why we friggin' fought England over 200 years ago!
Needless to say, I'm sure as hell glad I don't have AT&T, because it saves me the trouble of cancelling my account and writing a nasty letter about why.
Forward all spam to postmaster@nsa.gov :) So much to analyze :)
Get an analog cell phone. Get a data adaptor for it. (it's just an RJ-11 jack that plugs into the cell, and makes it act like a landline)
Yes, the cell phone has to be analog. Digital phones don't give you this option, due to the lossy compression.
Alternately, get a VOIP service that works with fax systems (important - takes more bandwidth, costs more money, but has not as lossy compression as cheap VOIP), and a good UPS.
You are on /. You are a geek or know lots of geeks. Get your security system rewired to use a cell phone instead of a land line.
Come on, is anyone really that surprised or outraged? This predates the Internet.
It's all fun and games till someone is plotting to simultaneously nuke NY, LA, and DC.
You can not choose where your traffic routes over the Internet, it's upto the individual networks to coose their own routing policy with their peers and transit providers.
So, even if you change ISP to say mister bob's DSL then he may use AT&T upstream or the dodgy pr0n site you visit may be somewhere just off of the AT&T network so your traffic will still pass through AT&T and therefore, if the claims are true, to the NSA.
There are different phone companies. Most areas have a lot of choices. There's about a dozen choices where I live, and it's no metropolis.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
I'm here on SBC (now AT&T) DSL, and actually, haven't had an ounce of problems with my connection for the past 2 years. It's been stellar actually.
But the only high speed alternative in my area is Comcast....and it will be a very very VERY cold day in Hell before I ever go back to Comcast.
"Leo Fender was in a 'state of grace' when he designed the Stratocaster." -- Paul Reed Smith
What did you think the NSA was for ?
I have discovered a truly marvelous proof of killer sig, which this margin is too narrow to contain.
Same. The only difference is that China does it openly. Openess is honourable in my book.
People saying they will switch away from AT+T for their DSL or whatever are missing an important point. Because of peering arrangements, your traffic almost certainly goes over AT+T's lines, regardless of who your ISP is.
did anyone notice also that a republican committee recently shot down the net neutrality bill that wouldve stopped AT&T from abusing their position to extort more money from web companies?
also anyone else think its bullshit that our tax dollars went towards AT&T and the other telcos to create fiberoptic networks, which they didnt finish, dont use, we cant use, they kept the money, and they charged us for it again anyway.. so basically they got free millions of dollars from tax payers and no strings attached.. and the right to set up a monopoly
i'm not saying i want the goverment and the big corporations to stop all corruption completely (cause i know thats IMPOSSIBLE) but could they at least not rub it in our faces SO BLATENTLY... i mean seriously, can we at least try to carry on the sham of a functioning system for another decade or so?
Obligatory SNL sketch:
Here at the Phone Company we handle eighty-four billion calls a year. Serving everyone from presidents and kings to scum of the earth. We realize that every so often you can't get an operator, for no apparent reason your phone goes out of order [plucks plug out of switchboard], or perhaps you get charged for a call you didn't make.
We don't care.
Watch this - [bangs on a switch panel like a cheap piano] just lost Peoria.
You see, this phone system consists of a multibillion-dollar matrix of space-age technology that is so sophisticated, even we can't handle it. But that's your problem, isn't it ? Next time you complain about your phone service, why don't you try using two Dixie cups with a string.
[loud, booming voice-over] We don't care. We don't have to. We're the Phone Company.
Klein bottle for rent - inquire within.
Would you PLEASE stop waving the US Constitution in my face? After all, it's just a god damned piece of paper
There's a Starman, waiting in the sky / He'd like to come and meet us, but he hasn't got the time.
Oh, and a couple more things I forgot to mention. (Damn, they're things I say a lot, too. I don't know how I forgot it.)
I am much more afraid of the danger my own government poses to my freedom and liberty than any threat the terrorists pose. If you were smart, after reading articles like this, you would be, too. How many people have died over the centuries to protect our freedom? While I certainly sympathize with the victims' families, are those 3,500 that died on September 11, 2001, really worth giving it all up for? Are all the other lives that have been lost that meaningless?
The other thing is that even if you do trust George W. Bush to read your e-mail, see what web sites you visit, wiretap your phones without warrants, arrest you as an "enemy combatant" and hold you for years without charging you or letting you see a lawyer, and whatever the hell else he's doing, let me ask you this: How much do you trust Hillary Clinton? Because if she's our next president, and it's looking like she may stand a decent chance, those are exactly the powers that you're giving her by letting your government goobers abuse you like they are now.
I don't give a damn who is president. Even if Jesus Christ came down from heaven and won as a third-party candidate, I wouldn't want Him to have the executive powers that George W. Bush have been claiming.
. . . the government ~50% of your labor and you want to be treated fairly. Please, just give this a rest, and until we beat these bastards back to a meager ~1% taxation rate, we will continue to be treated as their 'bitch-whore.'
That won't help if they do it correctly. You would need secure, encrypted connections between you and your annonomizer and even then, it really isn't that difficult to break 128bit keys anymore. They have the full contents off all your incomming and outgoing data traffic. In fact, going to an annonimizer will more likely FLAG you then it will if you do what "normal" people do.
We were all warned a long time ago that MS products sucked, remember the Magic 8 Ball said, "Outlook not so good"
man, many of you slashdotters believe everything you read. SpamDailyNews? wtf?
This is irrelevant. AT&T still owns a huge share of the land-lines, and of the trans-continental and trans-oceanic links, which is where such monitoring devices would be place. Just because the phone in your house, or your local ISP, is secure doesn't mean your traffic is safe.
AT&T apparently gave NSA access to databases containing telephone call logs, email content, and web addresses visited, not the raw stream of bits going through their routers. More sources: Wired and The Register. So it's not all internet traffic.
Still an egregious abuse of privacy, IMHO, and one of the reasons I donate to the EFF.
"I'm not, like, that smart. I, like, forget stuff all the time." -- Paris Hilton
AT&T runs portions of the Internet backbone, and traffic from other countries can go through their network as well, like when computers in China go to microsoft's windows update site. Also, as a backbone provider, switching from one ISP to another may not keep your traffic from going through their network. Do a traceroute to various destinations, and its highly likely that no matter your ISP, you'll go through AT&T's network at some point. Even from another country.
The only viable way to keep traffic off of AT&T's network is for other backbone providers to refuse to route traffic through AT&T, and get alternative peering agreements up with other BB providers. This may not be a viable option, however, since AT&T carries enough traffic volume for the Internet that to effectively 'kick them off' the Internet may cause other BB providers to experience very heavy traffic loads.
If I was the government of a non-US country, I'd be canceling AT&T contracts today, given that AT&T did this on the sly.
"We are all geniuses when we dream"
- E.M. Cioran
,since AT&T is Blizzard's ISP of choice, all us WoW user's connections have gone to hell in a handbasket.
I tried to think of a good sig, and this wasn't it.
Proven innocent? Who's going to do that? If you're accused of being a terrorist you'll go and rot indefinitely in the Cuban gulag. There's no prospect of being proven innocent, because the President says that we know you're Bad People.
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
I just signed up with them for DSL after waiting for years for it to become available, just to get away from the Comcast monopoly. Time to find me a traffic anonymizer while I clear from the Comcast "old users" list.
That won't help. I strongly suspect it's not just AT&T cooperating with the government, it's all the big carriers. When you're in bed together, as intimately connected as gov't and big business is, this kind of backscratching is de regeur. And moving to another ISP won't help, as they all have to use the big carrier's lines somewhere anyway. It's safe to assume that all internet traffic, no matter who your provider, is now being looked at by the government.
The anonymizer is also probably pointless, and likely to bring increased scrutiny, not increased security. Either the gov't will see a non-anonymous packet somewhere along the line and make the connection back to you, or have the keys to break the encryption to see the data is really innocuous, or will become increasingly suspicious about traffic it can't see and presume that in itself is an admission of guilt and that you are the enemy. remember, this is the backbone we're talking about, not some little hacker hanging off the periphery.
There was a time I would have thought such concerns to be disturbingly paranoid, but that was before the documented existent of pervasive spying by the gov't on everybody and the suspension of habeus corpus whenever they want to. Now paranoia seems the only sane reaction.
In theory, there's no difference between theory and practice. In practice, there is.
One of the central tenets of Classical (and in this case Friendly) Fascism is the fusion of Corporate and State power for the "common good". When one can no longer tell where the Corporation ends and the State begins (in terms of the power they wield over the citizenry), then you are living in a Fascist state.
Betram Gross had it right 30 years ago. The new Fascism will not involve book burnings, goose stepping, brownshirts, and mass rallies. It will appear in the form of the white man in a suit, PR campaigns, the selling of patriotism and religion, unity against external enemies, and endless war with moving goalposts.
AT&T (or any other telecom that operates under a government franchise) has ABSOLUTELY NO PROBLEM selling out their own customers to the State, because in all reality they are one and the same. Anything else that you think is just effective marketing.
Governments are not necessary.
Your World Delivered.
To the NSA.
(Thanks EFF)
TAT 14, the latest transatlantic cable (circa 2001) has four fiber pairs. Each uses 16 wavelengths of STM-64 (10 Gbps). That is 640 Gbps total. ATT is part owner.
Should anyone be surprised. Come on people, this is going on with ALL traffic. AT&T just got caught. Why do you think Pres Bush claims it is too cumbersome to use the FISA court to get warrants? The truth is that when you are data mining all traffic, taking a shotgun approach, a warrant doesn't fit the surveillance paradigm.
The same thing occurs for all internet traffic in the UK, in Europe, in China and probably many other countries. Its not going away so start encrypting. Oh wait, in the UK you have to surrender all of your encryption keys on demand by the govt. or face stiff automatic jail time (no trial).
I was reading the Puzzle Palace by James Bamford a few weeks ago when I read about Project Shamrock. Coincidentally, it was just after G.W. Bush said they weren't spying on civilians and the country should trust them. The book quotes part of the ruling that ended Project Shamrock. It sounded very familiar to what the President was being accused of. Now with this filing, I'm quite sure the second generation of Project Shamrock happened.
The headline indeed says that AT&T is "forwarding" their traffic to the NSA.
:)
If the NSA and AT&T are in it together, there's absolutely nothing to stop the NSA from putting their own hardware on AT&T's premises to do some initial scanning and filtering, and then sends anything interesting to the NSA. I highly doubt that there's some ginormous 500 terrabit WAN in place to facilitate forwarding all of AT&T's traffic to the NSA. Who pays for something like that and keeps it a secret? A few dozen servers that passively analyze stuff on AT&T's premises would cost next to nothing compared with having some super wide optical WAN. To that end, the article writer probably wasn't entirely accurate in saying that they're "forwarding all".
uh, right?
I could not have said this any better. People who say they 'have nothing to hide' are completely missing the point. It's not about nothing to hide, it's about our personal liberties being constantly eroded by a despotic administration that ironically pretends to espouse liberties abroad.
BTW, that sound you hear is the sound of all of the brave men and women who died defending our liberties spinning incessantly in their graves. We should all be ashamed for letting this happen to us.
What if the Hokey Pokey really is what it's all about?
the more I wonder if John Titor wasn't right.
Do you realize journalism in the US is dead because the public is perfectly happy to be knee-jerked every five minutes for the thrill. Use your head a little more.
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
I think it's time to start using an offshore tunneling service.
Oh, wait, then I'll probably be a suspected terrorist.
This whole guilty until provent innocent thing really sucks.
Bush himself has stated point blank that he ordered the monitoring of American's communications for this specific purpose. The press was all over it until Bush said, I ordered it and that's that.
I'd be more outraged if there was a US citizen at both ends of the call. There is no constitutional expectation of privacy on an international call anyway, so it's hard to get too upset about the Bush wiretapping. If he didn't do it, that wouldn't mean somebody at the other end wasn't. It sucks, but that's how it is. If you call outside the US, just assume somebody is listening. If you're lucky, it's just the US government.
It's all because the majority of people in the US are clueless idiots like you.
Be careful who you call clueless. You're so fixated on Bush, but you'd have to be fairly naive to think this wasn't going on long before Bush. What, exactly, do you think the NSA does?
I for one welcome George W Bush to the fight against terrorist zombie pc's on A T & T networks. I'm going to comment all my spamcop reports from now on with 'how was Sesame Street today George' (humour)
Hey, guess what, this post is being sent to the NSA, anyone want to say a big F. U. or something?!
But many states voted red. And they still would. The majority of Americans seem to favour less freedom and a more authorian government.
I dont understand when people assume is any privacy at all unless you do it yourself with PGP (or the newly announced digital streaming PGP). Its so easy to evesdrop on anyone else. Plus even easier for the US governement with its largest collection of supercomputers and switches on the planet.
...the government monitors its citizens.
Oh, wait...
Nevermind. Nothing to see here, move on please.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
. . . if we're too busy protecting the "rights" of those who advocate the use of violence to destroy it?
Seriously - I doubt the NSA is interested in the nasty-grams we send our lovers, or if we advocate the use of free software, or if we're opposed to condo developers.
What they are interested in is traffic that indicates a threat to our nation, i.e. the violent overthrow of government and any act that may further that cause, such as flying airplanes into heavily populated buildings.
I know we all love to get our panties in a bunch about "Big Brother," but can anyone name a U.S. citizen prosecuted for communicating an opinion (that is, in a legal way that did not create a public disturbance)? If the U.S. was the totalitarian hell-hole some people like to think it is, me thinks we'd all be living in fear of a knock at the door in the middle of the night.
And we're not. At least those of us who are reasonably sane are not.
What?
There is a world of difference, evidenced most conveniently by the fact that there is an entire news story and blog thread about the issue, and people are pissed off and saying so openly.
Such things don't happen in China, where the government does repressive things openly because their people lack the freedoms to openly complain about it. That doesn't make what they do honorable. The fact that our freedoms force our bad government officials to be secretive about their evil plots doesn't make our system less honorable.
Quite the opposite. Now use your blood-earned freedoms to make a DIFFERENCE on this issue, rather than spread FUD about how China is somehow better because they can be unabashedly evil.
If this is true (and there certainly are some questions about this story), what kind of fuel does this add to the debate over creating seperate internets much like the Chinese are proposing?
Because teenage pranks are fun when you're about to die!
This is what happens when your views differ from the main slashdot stream, you get modded down. People here bitch when their free speech gets violated, and then mod down whoever says something they don't like.
How can you be upset about your rights being violated by AT&T, the NSA and GWB and then mod me down because you don't like my opinion? Isn't that worse than what AT&T, the NSA and GWB are doing? They are just sniffing your packets, not punishing you for them.
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
I complain about the FCC constantly, but if I told people that I was anti-FCC because I was afraid of the abuse that normally comes from regulation-to-be-tyranny, I'd be called Mr. Tinfoil Hat. Yet this is exactly the reason why we have the Constitution limit the power of the federal government -- to prevent them from abusing the citizens as they quietly create a monopoly and then use it to do harm.
Where the federal government has any power over communications is beyond me -- the interstate commerce clause was written so that the federal government could prevent states from intruding on commerce -- no tariffs, no taxes, no abusive cartels. The federal government itself was not given power to actually reduce trade but improve it.
The more we believe that government is helping us, the more we'll be paying in taxes, a declining dollar, and a loss of rights that no one gives us but nature.
This is a bit bigger than people think. You can NOT just change ISPs and think you are voting with your dollars. That small ISP you go to is probably leasing lines from AT&T because they are not able to afford that much fiber. And AT&T could obtain the data at ANY point it takes a hop across a section of their cables. More than likely Verizon and QWEST are capable of this same thing... My company has had to deal with our ISP, Qwest, AT&T all at once because of the connections tieing our two facilities together ran through the different sections of cable. at some point AT&T most likely sees a chunk of like 70%+ of all internet traffic.
Um, VoIP T.38 fax support is NOT the same as VoIP MODEM support. Modem support is still very spotty at best. You will be lucky to get 9600 to work, although most security systems are still 300 / 1200 anyway which you will have better luck with. Latency is still a killer, as is exactly which codec is used (must be non-compressed - g711.) There is a third alternative of Modem Passthrough. Good luck finding hardware and a provider that supports it.
T.38 in an oversimplified view, is basically a fax relay, decoding the fax audio, sending as data, reencoding the audio for dumping into the telco network. While fax and modems are similar, they are not the same.
But ranting about it gives the readers of this fine website an excuse to feel important, as if the government is going to crack down on them for calling the POTUS a chimp.
It's like wearing a Che Guevera t-shirt; boutique politics as a replacement for real commitment.
Big Brother and the NSA should have their genitals revoked. They are spawning too many little bastard children.
It's all fun and games till someone is plotting to simultaneously nuke NY, LA, and DC.
The Russians and Chinese have had plans like this (-and- the capability) for years.
Nothing new under the sun....
A house divided against itself cannot stand.
So tell me more about these cracked warez, those MP3s, those brand new Hollywood movies, that child porn, and those terrorist plans you intercepted...
Are you messenging me on AT&T? I don't know you. Who is this? Don't come here, I'm closing the window! Prank caller, prank caller!
- For the complete works of Shakespeare: cat
You had it right in your first sentence. AT&T is forwarding all of their call data to the NSA. The NSA doesn't need any super-cool tech in order to intercept this data since AT&T (and the other telecom companies) simply send this data directly to them. Don't get me wrong, though - the NSA has some amazing technology. All of this data is processed, filtered, tagged and entered into a massive database.
I'm currently reading Body of Secrets: Anatomy of the Ultra-Secret National Security Agency by James Bamford. It's not light reading, but it's fascinating....and extremely disturbing. The fascinating part is that we've been here before. This exact scenario already happened in the 60's and 70's, until information about it was leaked (by the NY Times, no less) and it was investigated by the Church Committee circa 1975. It was called Project SHAMROCK then, and it involved the phone companies and Western Union delivering huge magnetic tape reels to the NSA on a regular basis. The project was so secret that only a few people within the NSA where even aware of it.
Until the Congressional investigation, hardly anybody within the White House or Justice Department had even heard whispers of it. Congress, of course, was completely out of the loop. This obsession with secrecy goes back to the very founding of the NSA. The NSA operated with no Congressional oversight for decades (it was called "No Such Agency"), and its existance probably wasn't even constitutionally legal/valid, but the information that it provided to other agencies (mostly the CIA and the Joint Chiefs of Staff) was so good that by the time Congress found out about it, it was indispensible. Today the NSA is the largest of the intelligence agencies (yes you read that right - larger than the CIA), although its exact budget is classified.
Second, this is just an accusation. There's one guy that has some documents that say that's what AT&T is doing. For all we know, this guy could be wearing tin-foil hats and singing to his dog about the aliens.
The only loonies around here are the people who think that the government isn't spying on Americans every single day. Now, that doesn't mean that they are listening to you in real time, and hanging on your every word. But all/most of your calls are recorded, digitized and handed to the NSA. From there, it is probably entered into a massive database. From there they can filter out unimportant calls and use data mining techniques to pull up relevant information. They use the ECHELON computer software to sift through information, which probably works similar to Google, with keyword searches and a list of search results.
If you still don't believe me, why don't you have a conversation with a friend, where you discuss planting bombs around town. See how long it takes the feds to show up.
Electric Monkey Pants
Ok so your privacy isn't worth the death of 100's of people, how about 10's, or less?
Evidently, I don't value privacy as much as everyone else. I guess I'm an end-result kinda guy. When I go into a resuraunt, I speak freely. I don't care who listens. Then again, if I see someone leaning over to hear my conversation, I may get upset. But if I don't know they are listening, I don't care. I hope they find the conversation insteresting. Their evesdropping does not change what I was going to say or its meaning to whoever I'm speaking with.
How many lives or crimes is my privacy worth? Zero. Like I said, I don't mind the sniffing as long as it is used to capture/kill terrorists and/or prevent a terrorists attack. The second it is used to prevent a drug deal or liquor store robbery... it's out. I guess national defence is more important to me than the assumed privacy of my emails and web browsing habbits. (And yes, I view porn)
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
NSA and DHS merge to form Minitrue... doubleplusgood!
Self-referential Sigs are cool on /. these days...
54
almost all wired communications go through ATT/SBC, let's hope this encourages more rapid developement of encrypted wireless mesh networks. As long you use their lines, you have no hope for privacy of any kind, and changing providers is meaningless.
What?
It's a good read for techies since it explains (in general terms) how and what the NSA is collecting. It's also an excellent primer for anyone who still believes that since he's not doing anything wrong he doesn't mind being watched.
"Internet connectivity is not a right, but a privilege."
Internet connectivity is neither a right nor a privilege -- it is a commodity.
Zhrodague.net - I do projects and stuff too.
I knew there was a reason that I installed PGP on my powerbook the other day.
Just another clear reason of why you should avoid doing business or in any way coming in contact with the Telco's.
Big ones, small ones, some as big as yer 'ead!
Give 'em a twist, a flick o' the wrist...
AFAIK, the only fiber they're interested in laying is to span that last-mile to the home... something they swore up and down they were going to do ten years ago. And they got xx billions in tax breaks + fees for it.
There's plenty of unlit fiber lying around, just not in the last mile.
The "phone companies beginning to make a stink about charging people to carry traffic over their pipes" because they're looking at the next 10 years and thinking "Crap, the marketplace is getting saturated & prices are going to come down. How are we going to continue growing?"
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
Our safety and rights as American people have been undermined by the even the thought of this story being true. If it does turn out to be true the American people affected by this have been gravely lied to and betrayed by their government and telecom company.
Give me a productive error over a boring, mundane and unproductive fact any day. ~Anon
That's the point. That a trite, clumsy quote can so accurately sum up the situation is what makes it insightful.
I mean, when people say that the domains should be in US hands, because the US-governement made the Internet, it should be the same for data transfered over it.
(This will probably noted as trolling or off topic)
The best they can do is say that this falls under the patriot act and nobody can be talking about the trial. Oh well, for non-USofA people, this is nothing new. The US has been reading our connections for a long time with Echalon. Welcome to the rest of the world.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
Having worked for government for 20 years I can tell you this with all confidence, "generally, most people are sheep. You can be lead and pushed all in the name of Democracy. When will the good people of this country get a backbone."
Baaaaaaa Baaaaaaaa Baaaaaaaa
It's a RED STATE thing. Father knows best.
What's with the +Funny mods for the responses to this post? Unless I locked my sense of humor in my car along with my keys this morning, I see no intent at humor in them. Is this some kind of mod prank? Protest? REVOLUTION?!??!
The analog networks are very very poorly maintained, suffer huge amounts of outage and very poor call quality.
The carriers that have analog service have - for years - been sacrificing the analog network for the digital network, as digital has all the features, functionality and capacity that both the customers and they want. The main downside is, as you point out, that you can't transmit modem data over digital.
I swear that one of these days I'm going to just start rejecting non-PGP-encrypted emails.
Any program relying on (nontrivial) preemptive multithreading will be buggy.
Two answers: First, different parts of the same government are involved. NSA probably doesn't share data that would compromise sources and methods with DoJ. Second, they could already have what they seek from Google, but not want to admit publicly that they already gathered it illegally. Sort of like getting a warrant to search based on some evidence you managed to find with evidence gathered in an illegal black bag job.
I too have felt the cold finger of injustice.
Is there really anybody who expects privacy when sending information over something called the "public internet"?
FWIW, I'll never type anything into a computer that that requires secrecy or privacy. After 25 years in software, I can say with great certainty that no matter what precautions are taken, anything stored or transmitted over any medium (digital or not) can surface again at an inconvienient time, either by accident or intent, and generally not due to government interference. Typically unintended information disclosure is from employees (both gruntled and disgruntled) and various flavors of black-hat engineering (social and/or technical).
I'm much more concerned about things like the huge die-off of the Coral Reefs than the government finding my secret recipe for Pesto Garlic-Pizza.
There could be many other explanations such as a major vendor *cough*MS*cough* having trouble catching up or the same factors that kept NTSC around or blocked the metric system.
And before any trolls start going on about address space, that is the least important, least relevant factor in IPv6 which provides:
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
The Bush Administration is becoming known for surveillance, torture, destroying confidence in the U.S., and generally showing disrespect.
The Bush Administration is, in my opinion, thoroughly corrupt. Bush seems to have little comprehension of the events around him. Those who are associated with him sell government favors to the highest-bidding corrupter.
The result is unprecedented debt, as money is vacuumed out of government into the pockets of the corrupters, by shutting down government functions.
I wrote a short, imperfect review of a few of the books an movies about the corruption: Unprecedented Corruption: A guide to conflict of interest in the U.S. government.
--
Before, Saddam got Iraq oil profits & paid part to kill Iraqis. Now a few Americans share Iraq oil profits, & U.S. citizens pay to kill Iraqis. Improvement?
It brings a whole new meaning to their new slogan after the merge with SBC. Now we know where our world was delivered.
lexbaby
"Be Brave, Be Loyal, Be True." -- Hawkeye Pierce
In my area (Chicago), VoIP isn't worth the money because you can't get ADSL from AT&T without subscribing to a voice line. And a voice line isn't cheap. And now it looks the telcos might be blocking VoIP in other ways.
How about AT&T lobbying to block municipal Wifi networks?
Thankfully, some of the towns are biting back. There are three local governments here blocking the fiber expansion because they claim it violates the cable TV franchise agreements they have with the cable cos.
Way too much trouble. There are alarm systems with cell connections to protect the system from having the line cut by a thief.
Sure, they're scum. Name anyone who ever ran for President and got more than 40% of the vote without betraying America and selling us out so that they could afford the best TV ads.
The real problem is that the federal government has this power to begin with. The fact that they abuse it, is totally uninteresting, because it's so expected. You give a gun to chimps and then wonder why someone got shot. I look at the Constitution, the 10th Amendment, etc, and wonder why the chimp is armed.
If you want an America that doesn't suck, then make it so that it doesn't matter who is president or who gets into Congress, because the positions would wield so little power. And the good news is, the Constitution is already written to support this. We just have to call them on it, and Just Say No every time they try to pass a law based on the justification that something is expedient or efficient or "seems like a good idea."
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Folks this has been going on for quite some time. It is not only the current administration that is guilty of these trespasses on our sacred rights. THIS IS NOT A REPUBLICAN DEMOCRAT THING. IT IS A US THING! Our great Nation is on a slippery slope and unless some major changes are made we'll be at the bottom. Our rights and freedoms are eroding on a daily basis. There are many things working against us and its time people took notice!
1. All that dbc001 (541033) wanted to do was disconnect his service with AT&T/SBC to send an economic message to the company. He can't because of his rental obligation to keep his security system connected. There's relatively little concern about the security system callups being tapped. It sounds like he already uses his cell phone for all conversations (hopefully digital). All he needs is enough to get the security system connected.
2. Using a facilities based CLEC voiceline provider means his twisted pair is going to a new switch. While AT&T/SBC could still physically tap that line, I'm very confident that the internet traffic forwarding is not using that method. Bulk tapping would not, either; it would be done in the switch. So even if he were using that line for communications, it would be the CLEC's privacy policy of most concern. His individual line could still be tapped physically by AT&T/SBC, but that isn't practical unless there's a specific reason.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
EFF - all about preserving freedom and privacy of electronic communications
FSF - all about preserving intellectual freedoms and encourage the sharing of code
They aren't the same.
What are you on?
TAT-14, the newest iteration of US-to-UK transatlantic communication cable, consists of 32 STM-64 circuits. Each STM-64 is capable of nearly 10 Gbps...
You have to love anonym.OS http://kaos.to/cms/content/view/14/32/ in times like this.
millions of ordinary Americans
It isn't just American's traffic being sent in this case. At the least, it's very likely any communication between American's and their non-USA counterparts. In the bigger picture, it's not unlikely that any traffic passing through AT&T's routers might be suspect. This includes traffic passing between two non-US entities (say, from Canada to another country through USA).
And of course, this doesn't just affect communication between individuals but also persons and businesses, meaning that if you do business with a US entity that routes through AT&T, then you may be getting sniffed.
The American gov't and related entities have their fingers deep in a big f*'ing cookie jar. Worldwide communications are at risk, and we need to see a strong action to curb this invasion.
Obligatory Seinfeld quote:
"Yes, I shrunk it!"
Let me get this straight.
You're saying you have some control over the way your traffic is routed?
You can just decide to "stop giving money to AT&T" and somehow, your packets will magically route around any AT&T-owned network?
How interesting!
The US intelligence agencies have had for years the capability to analyze some of the Internet traffic going through the US.
From everything I've heard, even if you look at nothing more than photographs from classical spy satellites, the CIA/NSA is just swamped with mountains upon mountains of data, and can't make heads or tails of what they've got.
To analyze "all" of the traffic on the internet, and make sense of any tiny fraction of it, would require a machine that would need to be designed and built be hyper-intelligent pan-dimensional mice.
Besides: Who watches the watchers? Who watches the watcher watchers? Who watches the watcher watcher watchers?
At some point, the thing starts to look like Bertrand Russell's Set of All Sets...
Yeah, and that worked so well in 2000...
Your networking works just like it always does, but communication with sites that publish their keys in DNS automatically encrypt communication with those sites. Spiffy.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Fight big business's abuse with big business's abuse : encapsulate all you communication within the latest unpublished msword's format documents.
Beautiful. The depths of subtlety are such that I fear I cannot grasp them.
In all seriousness, I think that it's common knowledge by now that you're pretty much compromising your right to pricacy when you connect to the Internet. I like how Apple can hire a private company to snoop BitTorrent traffic for the OSX86 hack circulating around a few months back and throw around cease and decist letters and it's considered acceptable, but when the government monitors net traffic it's an abomination and the end of the universe.
All of you privacy-obsessed slashdotters out there have two options:
1. Don't connect to the Internet.
2. Use encrypted connections, read your ISP's privacy policy, and only do business with sites you trust. Maybe even donate to OSS projects that help protect your online privacy, or write to your congressmen about your concerns.
Bottom line: it is your responsibility to protect your online privacy. Encrypt your login sessions. Use reputable sites. Don't distribute personal information. Don't post nude pictures on MySpace. It's really that simple.
"Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety - Ben Franklin" There are ways to fight this war that do not infringe on our god given rights.
You'll discover that even when the book was written the NSA didn't have the capacity to monitor even a fraction of the internet, much less all of it. There's lots more traffic these days.
Best Slashdot Co
Some of the states tried to leave the US once, and they US military occupied and subjugated that territory.
inbox full inbox full inbox full ...
What are you speaking about? There is NO SUCH AGENCY!
I don't know. Citing wiretapping laws in regards to the internet? Hasn't there been a bunch of debate on about the internet and phone lines? I know the phone companies have wanted to get a piece of the VoIP pie. Nothing else is coming to mind right now, but it seems like there has been a bunch of talk in this arena. I wonder if they're just opening up a big can of worms.
Heroscape, it's like legos combined with anachronistic wargames.
from a counter-terrorism perspective. There's just no reliable algorithm that can predict if someone is going to be a terrorist based on their actions without generating a million false positives in the process.
Any qualified security expert will tell you as much.
On the other hand, the fair market value of access to this data is enormous. You could use it to blackmail political opponents, discredit naysayers, get insider information on a transaction.
It's worth more than its weight in gold.
That is why the administration wants it.
This really is no surprise. I suspect no one has read between the lines in this article though. No one can tell me only one ISP is suspect of doing this. There is no telling how much of your info makes it to the Government. So one could say we have lost our Constitutional rights. Question is "If it is our Constitutional right, why do we have to fight tooth and nail over this in the first place?" I always assumed that whom ever was in office loved our Constitution and would do anything to protect it. Politicians are no longer protecting it. Our Government has gone to the gutter. They are slamming our own Government. Keep notes on those not protecting our Constitution folks, those are the ones you want out of office.
Naw. Couldn't happen!
ENCRYPT YOUR DATA
The only irrationality and screaming I saw was in your post. Debate? You didn't address any of his points. Not one.
Stop it.
Anyone who whines about being modded down should be.
You never know, in my building we were told the same thing but when I went and got Vonage I just left a cheap phone plugged into the outlet. I don't get a dialtone on it, but I can still use it to buzz people into the building.
-- Give me ambiguity or give me something else!
Digital phones don't give you this option, due to the lossy compression.
Huh?, I can plug my digital only VX7000 right into my Linux workstation
and dial out on it.
>>How badly does our government have to act before people take up the call to arms and start rioting in the streets of this outrageous behavior?
Found your quote interesting but the sad fact is that most of the morons in the U.S. have given up their second amendment rights under the false pretense of safety, just as we're now giving the rest of them away under the same guise.
Best thing everyone could do is to buy an rifle, a handgun, and get proficient with them. Put some teeth back in Jefferson's (really Locke's) premise that we are OBLIGATED to revolt when government no longer serves freedom. Then VOTE for people who aren't the establishment -- NO democrats and NO republicans.
Then stop spending your money for needless consumption. You don't need the latest graphics card or a pepsi with lime. While you're at it avoid supporting new taxation, that means all new taxation. No new property taxes for schools, no 3/8 of a cent for sports stadiums, and while you are at it, stop watching television, it's how they hook you.
Get the idea? Probably not, most Americans/Westerners are willing to sell their souls for a handout from the government.
Democrats and Republicans are like AIDS and Cancer, I want neither!
Echelon is NOT a fairy tale.
The NSA has more computing power and human analyst brainpower than is probably believable.
Back in the days when I did NeXT machines and software development, I heard that the NSA bought 400 NeXT cubes. The joke was "of course they did...saves them a ton of money on black paint!"
I later heard that the NSA liked the fact that the magnesium case was a pretty effective RF shield.
And then I got to see a NeXT app, Zilla, that let you build an early parallel processing system. Now, 400 Motorola 68040 CPUs isn't a Cray, but it's close. NeXT used 50 cubes to crunch on Fermat's Theorem and got throughout similar to a Cray YMP48 (this was 1990-91, so I may be fuzzy on this, but that's what I think I heard)
So, if the NSA was dorking with massively parallel systems 15-20 years ago, where are they today?
Personally, I think they have the data acquisition capability...with or without AT&T, the processing power, and plenty of human talent to build the data sieves to extract something useful.
Wait a minute...there's a knock at my door................
I am my own gestalt.
The past 100 years have seen governments kill 100,000,000 people. Even in times of war (heh, especially in times of war!), it's far more likely you'll get killed by your own government than an enemy soldier.
I agree that the current regime isn't going to bust down anyone's doors for making fun of the Prez.
But given the track record of the past century, what gives you such faith in the regimes that will win the elections of 2008? 2012? 2016? 2020? 2024? 2028? 2032? 2036?
I'd ask what you're smoking, but warn you that answering could get you in big trouble in 2015, when civil war breaks out between the tobacco-producers of the Old Virginia Coalition and the pot-farmers of the Neo-Cascadian Alliance, and the winners of the 2016 election ("Let the OVC/NCA wars never happen again!") trawl the database to purge society of the losers.
But for different reasons than you say.
I seriously doubt that the vast majority of internet traffic and/or telephone traffic could be stored for later easy access (or at least access at a much later time). You have problems of information overload and quite frankly data storage as well.
The problem is not in the idea that the calls are probably being stored, but that every call is being passively monitored (and temporarily recorded). In essence, everyone must operate under the assumption that every telephone call, every email, and every post to Slashdot is at least passively being passively watched by Big Brother. The potential for chilling effects in areas such as discussing whether the Hamas victory in the PA elections is a good thing is pretty high, what the real meaning of "Jihad" is, etc.
In essence, this creates a widespread, if passive, surveillance structure which creates a chilling effect on legitimate political discussions. If you think it only effects terrorists, you are incredibly mistaken. It effects anyone who takes an interest in Middle-Eastern politics, anyone who wants to have religious discussions online with Muslims, and anyone who is afraid he/she might have had a runin with people who might be watched by even rogue members of the NSA.
This is exactly the danger that the 1st and 4th ammendments were designed to prevent.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
C:\>tracert slashdot.org
.210.126]
Tracing route to slashdot.org [66.35.250.150]
over a maximum of 30 hops:
**CUT SOME**
5 56 ms 52 ms 62 ms te-2-1-ar01.absecon.nj.panjde.comcast.net [68.86
6 59 ms 69 ms 64 ms po10-ar01.audubon.nj.panjde.comcast.net [68.86.2
08.22]
7 58 ms 55 ms 52 ms 68.86.211.10
8 56 ms 69 ms 58 ms 12.118.114.17
9 62 ms 57 ms 60 ms tbr1-p012301.phlpa.ip.att.net [12.123.137.62]
10 68 ms 59 ms 59 ms tbr1-cl8.n54ny.ip.att.net [12.122.2.17]
11 65 ms 57 ms 62 ms ar5-a300s5.n54ny.ip.att.net [12.123.0.89]
See lines 9, 10, 11? see the part at the end? att.net? guess what that means?
try a tracert yourself.
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
I am just glad I have SBC as my provider. I don't have to worry.
But wait a minute...
I work for the beast -- former AT&T, not SBC -- and am very aware of our network infrastructure and topology. There is absolutely no way this is happenning. I can guarantee it. The EFF is grabbing at publicity straws now, and it's sad to see. I have no love for my employer's recent decisions, (mergers, buyouts, tiered Internet, telephone privacy), but this is an obvious attempt to make the bad guy look even badder. I used to have great respect for the EFF, but this is just sad.
Our Honeywell system runs just fine over Vonage circuits. We had to have a technician add the *99 prefix to the dialing sequence; this requests "Fax" capabilities from Vonage.
Apparently, we don't have a perfect "sync" rate or whatever, but its good enough that its not a problem. We've never had a perfect sync rate anyways, because we used that line for secondary incoming faxes.
It's an old (10+ years) system, too.
WhiteWolf666 an exBush supporter. All you new-school,compassionate,save the children Republicans can rot in hell
You know... if you're into that sort of thing...
(Of course, using it just proves that you have something to hide... so maybe you'll get in trouble anyway.)
I am the man with no sig!
Read The Puzzle Palace and Body of Secrets then ask yourself if your professor is joking.
Nobody ever showed up at our doors. :(
This space available.
Sorry, I can't take anyone seriously who refers to a presidential administration as a "regime". Those 100,000,000 victims have one thing in common: they allowed themselves to be disarmed first. I'm not worried until they start grabbing our guns again.
AT&T is forwarding all of their call data to the NSA. The NSA doesn't need any super-cool tech in order to intercept this data since AT&T (and the other telecom companies) simply send this data directly to them.
That would only require AT&T to spend millions of dollars on additional infrastructure. AT&T being a business, they would fight the order tooth and nail. Has that happened?
I don't doubt that the NSA has massive surveillance resources, but they're not the fuckin' Illuminati for christ's sake. They're a government organization staffed by human beings, and as such they probably don't have their shit together enough to do all the shadowy things you think they're doing.
Wrong. They don't have their shit together enough to make sense of the data they have. They certianly have their shit together enough to illegally collect vast amounts of data.
Massive, constitution-burning corporate handouts are EXACTLY what the government is good at. That and going after small targets since they can't catch who they're really after . . . . .
Uh, it has already happened. There was an article just a week ago (posted here on /. I believe) about a teen girl who has been charged with posession of copyrighted material (i.e. music files) she downloaded using a P2P network. Look it up.
Did the NSA discover this person's illegal activity and pass it on to the RIAA's lawyers?
No.
Don't believe me? You go look it up.
What?
Now it's happening here. Debt is a staggering 6% of GDP, the citizenry is increasingly becoming uneducated and anti-intellectual, production of finished goods and raw materials are moving offshore, and the rights and freedoms that used to be the rallying cry of our nation are eroding one by one. We're sliding ever faster towards a fascist system of government, where large corporations and a single powerful semi-dictatorial government figure control everything in the country, for the benefit of those few corporate elites and to the detriment of everyone else. Much like the Roman Empire which slid from a representative republic to a monarchy to a dictatorship to a pile of ruins, the American Empire is unmistakably on the downslope of history now.
In my opinion, it can't happen soon enough. The collapse of the American Empire will end all the debates about using forceful interventions in foreign countries, we won't have the coin for it. We also won't have enough coin to fund these massively intrusive government programs, or the hugely bloated, corporate-welfare laden half-trillion a year "defense" outlay. Hopefully we will finally be able to pass clean-money laws, and get some people into office who are truly interested in the public good instead of the source of their next big fat corporate campaign contribution.
"Why don't you interface with my ass...by biting it!" -Bender B. Rodriguez
Doubt it. The companies involved the first time around (during the Cold War) apparently did it for free. The government simply appealed to their patriotism (the military was the group that actually asked them - would you say no to the military?) and apparently never compensated them, though that may not really be the case. There was probably some tit-for-tat going on. Besides, any company wants to be on the government's good side, right? They probably see it as a cost of doing business. See the recent Google Goes to China fiasco for more insight into that mindset. As long as it's not prohibitively expensive (read: difficult to make a profit) most companies probably wouldn't have a problem with it. It's all to save us from Teh Terr'rists after all.
I don't doubt that the NSA has massive surveillance resources, but they're not the fuckin' Illuminati for christ's sake. They're a government organization staffed by human beings, and as such they probably don't have their shit together enough to do all the shadowy things you think they're doing.
You're right, they're not omnipotent, but they're not idiots either. They own and operate what is probably the largest supercomputer on the planet. They operate in the shadows, with virtually no oversight from Congress, and the current administration is obsessed with secrecy and spying. Whether they can spy successfully is an open question, but there's no question that they are trying. I think it's actually much more likely that you are the deluded one. They are probably doing way more stuff than I have mentioned so far, and probably doing it well. Their foreign surveillance work is top-notch; we didn't become the sole superpower by sucking at signals intelligence, that's for sure. I would encourage you to do some research on the matter before falling back into that "teh guvmint is incompetent and they sux"-style of "logic." I've provided facts, links and insight. Now it's your turn to follow up.
Electric Monkey Pants
I voted Republican in the last election because this independent could not stand the other choices. This administration and congress has gone way too far over - dare I say "fascist" (not meant to be flamebait but a description of activity). Unfortunately, this country and the elections are dealing with defining and separating people into extremes of political philosophy. I feel that this leaves out the vast majority who have to go to the polls and hold their nose when they vote. We are now all presumed to be guilty first and have to prove our innocence later and this wholesale abuse of The Constitution is guised under the need for "National Security". Our freedoms are slowly withering away and this has to stop. I have a feeling that my next trip to the polls will be with pen and a whole bunch of write-in's will be visiting my ballot (pen mightier than the punch?). I pray that the EFF kicks the gov's collective pratt in this case.
alot of copyrights?
;(
If they made a copy of everything, i wonder how many illegal downloads are on the gov't computers? Sick the RIAA on em, hehe. Hey maybe that means it IS ok to copy stuff. Which is it?
Do they have a copy of the short story i sent the other day? They do not have permission to keep it, what court does the RIAA prefer? Damn i wish i was stupid rich
That was my 1st thought, the rest aren't suitable for publication.....
You COULD complain... But then the feds might come knocking at your door.
I, for one, welcome our new internet traffic forwarding Phone Company overlords.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
When I lived in downtown Portland, the building intercom just dialed each resident's phone number. I gave my landlord my cell-phone number. I was able to buzz myself into the building from my cellphone.
Help us build a better map!
I hate to break it to you but the last small republic Republicans died out with Goldwater in the 70s. Ever since the Reagan (proto neo-con) era the Republicans have represented big governments (deficits increased under Reagan), increased domestic ebulliences, and increased foreign intervention that the founding fathers correctly warned us was such a bad idea. And no the Demolames aren't better, since Clinton and the DLC took over the Dems they have "triangulated," i.e. copied the Repigs worst moves. Most people think that it's under the Clinton error that the NSA expanded at the most rapid rates, and far from having a few next boxes they most likely had a Danny Hilis connection machine by the early 90s. Hint connection machine equal tens of thousands of processors in a massively parallel configuration:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connection_Machine
"Thinking Machines sold seven CM-1s, but only because DARPA brokered and subsidized most of the deals. If the company was going to stay in business, it would need a machine that could pull its weight outside AI research. Unfortunately, according to Resnikov, the decision to tailor the CM-1 to the AI "nonmarket" cost Thinking Machines three years in the real-world marketplace.
In April 1986, Thinking Machines announced the arrival of the CM-2, a machine the scientific community actually could use. The CM-2 was able to run FORTRAN and to do floating-point operations. It was also a piece of work artistically: a five-foot cube of cubes -- done up in what Thinking Machines employees called "Darth Vader black" -- in whose innards red lights flickered mysteriously. But the machine's exotic massively parallel technology still needed special software, which meant its users had to learn new programming techniques. The CM-2 might be more like the human brain than a sequential computer like the Cray was, but scientists knew how to write programs for the Cray. Many of Thinking Machines' first customers, says Dave Waltz, who ran the company's AI group, did most of their computing on the floating-point processors, ignoring the 64,000 single-bit processors."
http://www.inc.com/magazine/19950915/2622.html
Tired of all the isms, don't exploit people as an employer, or a government, mmmmK?
Unfortunately, it is impossible for you to give up your rights while I retain mine, therefore you don't just give up your own rights because the terrorists managed to scare into wetting the bed, you also give up mine.
I could say the same for you, changing rights with safety and terrorists with ACLU. My point was "if nothing in your life has changed, how are your rights being violated?" I guess it depends on who are more afraid of; the gov't or the terrorists. The way I see it, those that are leaving Guantanimo get to leave Guantanimo, those that left the WTC were taken out in pieces.
Tell you what, you keep wearing your tin foil hat and I'll keep wearing my flack vest and we'll see who has more rights after the car across the street blows up.
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
You think Roosevelt, Truman, Eisenhower and Carter would really try this stuff? I don't, and I don't think you do either. Yet it's become popular to grouse about how the whole political system sucks, how you don't have any choices, how it doesn't matter who is in office because they're all the same and pretty much leave it at that.
I call bullshit. They're not all the same. Some are definitely, demonstrably better or worse than others. The "Current Administration," in my opinion, will go down in history as THE WORST administration this country has ever had up to the present day - in so many ways and for so many reasons - to what is truly a treasonable extent. Given the outright contempt for the existing laws of the U.S., the spirit in which they were written and the rights of the citizens of the U.S. (to a degree and with an arrogance and seeming malice unequalled in previous U.S. history) demonstrated by this "Current Administration" on an almost daily basis, it is very important to know that it wasn't always this way, and it doesn't need to be this way.
Painting all politicians and political/governmental decisons and activities with the same brush, denouncing one and all as "chimps" or "scum" is muddleheaded thinking that does more to exacerbate the problem than it does to help it. It's a cop out, a blank check to take your toys and go home, rather than expending the effort to find and empower the next Jefferson, Jackson, Wilson or Lincoln. It's the mindset of the victim at heart - I can't do anything so I'll just suffer noisily because everyone else is an idiot. You have to do more than "Just Say No," because you think everyone but you knows what's what. You have to find those who can bring ideas to which it makes sense to say yes to office, you have to elect the non-scum - they're out there, but you won't find them or be served by them with the kind of attitude that lumps all politicians and public servants into the same sludge bin indiscriminately.
If you want the real U.S. back you have to work for it, we all do, and that means much more than just saying no and bitching about how all politicians suck.
Huh?, I can plug my digital only VX7000 right into my Linux workstation
and dial out on it.
And I'm sure it emulates a modem just fantastically, so has every digital phone I have had which included data service. That's not his problem, his security system box (which is likely ownwed by his landlord) just has an RJ11 phone port.
The EFF does not have a "losing record." Please stop repeating this. That was what appeared to be a hoax posting in the Register for some reason picked up in slashdot. It was simply made up. The hoax cited some lost cases that were not EFF cases. The EFF has a record of many significant victories, check out the web site. Of course the EFF does not win all the time, if we did it would mean we were being far too cautious in chosing what to defend, but please stop repeating this "losing record" stuff.
Has it been over a year since you last donated to the Electronic Frontier Foundation
You didn't vote for Bush the last time, did you? This shit was going on before the election.
I personally think that WWII marked the beginning of the end of the American Republic. So I would put its demise farther back than you would. I just find the legacy naming of our political parties somewhat funny, that is all.
As for Clinton.... I don't like him much either. He was far more diplomatic than Bush, but policy-wise, he was responsible for what I see are far greater erosions in our civil liberties than we even see in the Patriot Act (for example, the 1997 Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act has been used to attempt to make illegal certain pure speech activities, such as providing hyperlinks to various Hamas websites, but IANAL). Until we get a strong decision from the Supreme Court upholding or overturning Brandenburg, we have to assume that the assault on Free Speech in the name of fighting terrorism (which began under Clinton) is an unresolved issue.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
All of my email is already tunneled over SSH to a Dutch ISP. Perhaps I should start doing that with other traffic as well...
And it's got all that connectivity...I wonder if it's a one way link. Imagine if it got 0wn3d by some foreign (Russian?) Spamlord.
Won't happen, because nobody has similar hardware to practice cracking on. But if it did... (Social engineering? Whee!)
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Excellent point Truman's setting up the CIA, NSA, FBI, was a big breaking point in the American republic, ironically enough I just e-mailed that same point to a friend of mine. I guess my point was that the Republicans specifically started a deep slide into a police state mentality in the 80s, but you are right the rot has much earlier origins, origins Eisenhower tried to warn us about in his last speech about the military industrial complex. At this point pinning our hopes on either the Ds, or Rs is just plain futile.
Tired of all the isms, don't exploit people as an employer, or a government, mmmmK?
We ought to remember that President Washington also warned of the dangers of standing armies:
While, then, every part of our country thus feels an immediate and particular interest in union, all the parts combined cannot fail to find in the united mass of means and efforts greater strength, greater resource, proportionably greater security from external danger, a less frequent interruption of their peace by foreign nations; and, what is of inestimable value, they must derive from union an exemption from those broils and wars between themselves, which so frequently afflict neighboring countries not tied together by the same governments, which their own rival ships alone would be sufficient to produce, but which opposite foreign alliances, attachments, and intrigues would stimulate and embitter. Hence, likewise, they will avoid the necessity of those overgrown military establishments which, under any form of government, are inauspicious to liberty, and which are to be regarded as particularly hostile to republican liberty. In this sense it is that your union ought to be considered as a main prop of your liberty, and that the love of the one ought to endear to you the preservation of the other.
And from Eisenhower:
Our military organization today bears little relation to that known by any of my predecessors in peacetime, or indeed by the fighting men of World War II or Korea.
Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry. American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well. But now we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense; we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. Added to this, three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. We annually spend on military security more than the net income of all United States corporations.
This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence - economic, political, even spiritual - is felt in every city, every Statehouse, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.
In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.
We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.
Very precient, both of them.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
One of my friends said something very scary to me just the other day. We were discussing using cameras in public spaces to capture criminals & people who run red lights. He said he would rather give up is rights to privacy to catch the criminals. I told him he was unAmerican for having that view, and he just couldn't fathom how giving up freedoms could be unAmerican.
What I'm wondering, however, is if this trend will continue forever. Will we eventually reach a point where the majority of people FINALLY realise how many freedoms we've given up for the guise of protection? By the time that happens, will it be too late to change our ways without resorting to a civil war or revolution? Maybe politicians will continue to rule our government poorly and unjustly until we turn into a fascist police state.
Either way, I'm thankful I'm finally old enough to vote. What scares me is that my friend is now also old enough.
The traffic isn't literally being forwarded to NSA headquarters, the NSA has equipment colocated at the telcos which filters through all the traffic. So, their NSA software is in fact searching through all the internet traffic in the United States, unless of course the testimony of an actual technician with details of the operation doesn't do it for you.
m l
http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,70621-0.ht
Sure he doesn't know what it takes for a message, email, web page request, or VOIP call to actually sent back to NSA headquarters, or how long the data is kept, but at the very least the transmissions are being recorded until the software does its search. Heck maybe all those rooms are there "just in case" and only get turned on when their is a court warrant?? Time to find out.
In some subbasement at Fort Meade, within vast rows of high density holographic storage devices, must lie the world's largest stash of pirated pr0n.
I hate to be the lone decenter here and I know that my karma will pay for my opinions, but how has this affected any of you?
And how did the holocaust affect you?
This has no relevance to Godwin's law, it is a perfect illustration of exactly how stupid your argument is.
Sorry, I can't take anyone seriously who refers to a presidential administration as a "regime".
You can't take people seriously because you have a poor vocabulary?
WTF dude, seriously.
regime also régime Audio pronunciation of "regime" ( P ) Pronunciation Key (r-zhm, r-)
n.
1a. A form of government: a fascist regime.
1b. A government in power; administration: suffered under the new regime.
2. A prevailing social system or pattern.
3. The period during which a particular administration or system prevails.
4. A regulated system, as of diet and exercise; a regimen.
First couple of hops taken out to hide the originator: 8 qwest-gw.cgcil.ip.att.net (192.205.32.97) 23.034 ms 29.478 ms 24.981 ms 9 tbr1-p032501.cgcil.ip.att.net (12.123.6.30) 32.666 ms 41.991 ms 44.869 ms MPLS Label=32458 CoS=5 TTL=1 S=0 10 tbr1-cl14.n54ny.ip.att.net (12.122.10.1) 44.957 ms 48.719 ms 41.727 ms MPLS Label=32538 CoS=5 TTL=1 S=0 11 gbr5-p30.n54ny.ip.att.net (12.122.11.10) 46.586 ms 40.296 ms 37.793 ms MPLS Label=34 CoS=5 TTL=1 S=0 12 12.123.214.57 (12.123.214.57) 37.662 ms 46.947 ms 48.176 ms 13 12.126.221.94 (12.126.221.94) 68.314 ms 63.227 ms 54.721 ms 14 12.110.110.132 (12.110.110.132) 68.426 ms 46.873 ms 35.525 ms 15 * * * If all this is true att violated their own privacy policy: http://att.sbc.com/privacy_policy http://www.eff.org/legal/cases/att/
Big Brother is Tivo'n it in case he wants to watch it later
Get your Unix fortune now!
there is att...
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
Better yet, support the censure of Bush that is now sitting in the Senate. Senator Harkin (D-Iowa) has set up a web site to sign a petition to get the ball rolling among all those head-in-the-dirt senators.....
See, here's the thing, I know that Al Qaeda had one main goal, to scare the beejezus out of us and I refuse to be scared. I refuse to be cowed by some six-foot zealot and the goddamned fools he surrounds himself with, and I also refuse to be cowed by those who would wrest my freedoms away from me while pretending to fight the first guy. I want my freedoms, bought and paid for by my grandfather and great-grandfather. I want my freedoms despite the horror of September 11, and I refuse to give them all up because you're scared and the government thinks it needs more information when it doesn't know what to do with the information it already has.
You're a goddamned coward.
Yeah, I said it.
Anyone who whines about being modded down should be.
What if I put a copyright notice on all of my email, and explicitly state that it is a copyright violation to make a copy of that email for any purposes (maybe even add the "FBI Warning" for kicks). If AT&T mirrors a port through which that email travels, and the NSA reads that email, then they are reading an illegal copy of that email. Email Piracy! Think of the children! Maybe if enough people did this then there could be a class.
This Post © 2006 Bimo_Dude. All rights reserved. slashdot.org is authorized to display this post on their site.
FBI WARNING
Federal law provides severe civil and criminal penalties for the unauthorized reproduction, distribution or exhibition of copyrighted emails, web pages or slashdot posts. Criminal copyright infringement is investigated by the FBI and may constitute a felony of up to five years in prison and/or a $250,000 fine.
"Teleporting Rodents with D-Cell Battery Displacement" theory -- IgnoramusMaximus (692000)
Airbus was getting plenty of government help, including some rather special "loans". Basically they were being subsidized for reasons of national pride.
So the US government helps Boeing a bit. Fair is fair now, so don't complain.
Obviously it'd be best if neither side was doing this, but look who started first.
Wired news has Mark Klein's (the whistle-blower) statement. It sounds pretty credible:
m l?tw=rss.index
http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,70621-0.ht
The 2nd ammendment should have been interpreted to cover all weapons that would be suitable for a revolution.
Damn, I'd love an F-35B (Joint Strike Fighter w/ hover ability) and one of those sea-skimming landing craft. I also need lots of big lasers.
Walmart should stock the RPG-7.
There were four stories today on Slashdot about U.S. government corruption, and one about the government functioning as it should:
IRS Leaves Taxpayer Data Largely Unprotected. If the IRS is denied the computer equipment it needs, there is more money for the government corrupters to steal.
Former BSA VP Confirmed as Tech Undersecretary. Another unqualified person is appointed to influence U.S. technology.
FCC Opens Flood Gates for Junk Faxes. "Under the new rules, a junk faxer could visit your website and call that an existing business relationship."
This story: AT&T Forwarding All Internet Traffic to NSA?. The U.S. government conducts more surveillance world-wide and domestically than any agency, ever, in the history of the world.
Today's news from Slashdot about the U.S. government is not all negative:
FTC Levies Fine Against Big-league Spammers.
--
Violence does not promote democracy. It promotes more violence.
Get ready to be outraged. The Attorney General told congress this week that the president does have the right to order warrantless taps on calls made completely in the U.S.
I have only seen this once before and it was modded down pretty fast. So for posterity's sake http://server3.pictiger.com/img/211289/computers-a nd-electronic-gadgets/slashdot-plus-fice-troll.php .
Yes :). I can only speculate, but I think either bumbling bureaucracy or reluctance to tip "their" hand as to what they already have are both feasible.
I too have felt the cold finger of injustice.
With ssh, I don't have to manually screw around with public and private keys. It's not perfectly secure, for two reasons:
1. there might be a man-in-the-middle attack every single time I connect
2. I could mistakenly believe that a server key change ("we upgraded") is legit
Still, that's a lot more secure than what came before. (telnet and rlogin) With ssh, nobody can introduce a man-in-the-middle attack that wasn't there from the start.
Email needs to work this way. Send the public key in the headers with every mail. Automatically harvest such keys, marking them "tentative" if you must. Don't tell the user unless an inconsistancy is found, because the user does not want to be bothered.
Okay, cut the crap people... it's leased apartments we're talking about, not an IT department... no one will get, let alone allow you to do anything but use the service they're advocating... it was the same way with me in my old apartment... you have to, and that's just that. Welcome to the Desert.
whenever you are offered the choice.
It's not a "wasted vote", even if they don't get elected. If Libertarian candidates start taking enough votes to influence elections (even 10%), somebody in the major parties will start to coopt their platform and really work to reduce government.
If a libertarian candidate actually does get elected, they won't be able to implement the "scarier" parts of their platform (like legalized prostitution and drugs), because they'll still have to deal with the Republicrats. But it will finally give a serious voice to limiting the role of the federal government.
If enough libertarians get elected to actually form a voting bloc, then the "scary" pieces are still unlikely to be passed, but they'll even have enough power to start taking on the lobbyist power structures.
And in the meantime you're sending the right message to government: they've gone too far, too many times for us to put up with it anymore.
We are the 198 proof..
This is such an exaggeration that it's hard to take them serious.
It reminds me of a "union" tactic: demand more than you want.
Thankfully, the most I've had to deal with such shenanigans was while working as a Spanish teacher with the DISD: the union(s) were demanding healthcare as good as the governors. Yeah, right. Like any state could afford to treat all of their teachers as if they were the governor. It was utterly insulting to sensibility; especially since it was coming from people who are suppose to be sensible and fair (as teachers of students). Eran egoistas insensatos.
Sigh.
And how did the holocaust affect you?
This has no relevance to Godwin's law, it is a perfect illustration of exactly how stupid your argument is.
OK, let me get this straight... you are comparing the government sniffing packets to The Fucking Holocaust. OK, now I've think you've gone way to far overboard with the BusHitler thing.
Next, you have the bad taste to call my argument stupid. Did you not read my post? My point was that you will never know if the anyone perused your packets or not. In otherwords, it has little or no affect on me, you, or anyone else but the terrorist who is stupid enough to transmit his attack plans via email. You see, Jews were affected by the holocaust. Comparing the NSA's packet sniffing to being sent to a work camp and worked to death (literally) is a serious insult to Jews around the world. Are you an antisemite?
This moron posts this shit and I get modded a troll?
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
Stop posting to slashdot and start digging that bunker boy, Osama's coming to get you. Time to roll up the old freedoms and seal that hatch.
See, here's the thing, I know that Al Qaeda had one main goal, to scare the beejezus out of us and I refuse to be scared. I refuse to be cowed by some six-foot zealot and the goddamned fools he surrounds himself with, and I also refuse to be cowed by those who would wrest my freedoms away from me while pretending to fight the first guy. I want my freedoms, bought and paid for by my grandfather and great-grandfather. I want my freedoms despite the horror of September 11, and I refuse to give them all up because you're scared and the government thinks it needs more information when it doesn't know what to do with the information it already has.
You're a goddamned coward.
Yeah, I said it.
I think you are giving Al Qaeda too much humanity. You see, they don't give a shit if I'm scared or not. They didn't put on masks and scream BOO on 9/11. They killed as many people as possible. THAT is their goal.
Next you mention that you are going to lay around and enjoy the freedoms that your ancestors fought for. Then you have the balls to call me a coward. You see, I fought for those freedoms too, like your grandfather and great-grandfather. Were they cowards too? I guess that is the difference between us, I served. When I was on my tank rolling across the Kuwaiti desert, I had no rights, no privacy, no freedoms, no choices to make. I made sacrifices. That's part of what fighting is. I consider listening to phone calls from terrorists, tracking their emails and learning what books they check out of the library part of the fight. It's just not part of the fight you'd recognize because you won't see it on John Stewart.
So you can call me a coward all you want, but anyone reading this knows the truth. You, however are a leach. You are unwilling to lift a finger or give up anything at all in order to preserve the lives and freedoms of your fellow citizens. You won't even give up the illusion of privacy. I served my time. Other than go to protests, coffee shops and bong-parties, what have you done to earn the right to call me a coward? Are you willing to call a soldier a coward to his face, or are you a coward?
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
Come on, dont make it out like the US Constitution matters in any way.
... and they do it. But not in the 'world's greatest democracy'.
The rest of the world accepted the death of your constitution when the Patriot Act came into power.
In many parts of the world Judges actually have the power and responsibility to strike down laws that are unconstitutional
Who cares if AT&T hands over all your communications to the NSA. What the hell does it matter, you gave up your constitution willingly and deserve what comes of it.
George Bush + Linux = "I will not let information get in the way of the fight against Windows"
OK, let me get this straight... you are comparing the government sniffing packets to The Fucking Holocaust. OK, now I've think you've gone way to far overboard with the BusHitler thing.
No, as I quite clearly stated.
The form of your argument was exactly the same, hence it is invalid. The fact that it is so easily shown to be so proves that it is a *stupid* argument.
The fact that you continue on to spout idiotic nonsense about how "durrrrrr well the gummint is always your friend and would never abuse it..." shows how totally out of touch with reality you are.
Based on what this administration has done so far, how the fuck could you possibly be so stupid as to believe that idiotic nonsense?!?
Even if it was an administration that had demonstrated anything but utter contempt for integrity you would have to be an idiot to not know that this kind of power will absolutely be abused.
That's why you got modded troll. Nobody could be stupid enough to believe that shit you spouted.
Your sig:
--
Be a patriot: Murder a Republican.
I think that shows that you have fallen way to far off the left end. You are basically calling for a terrorists action, "Kill all those that believe differently." This conversation is over. I'm not going to waste any more time trying to reason with someone who hurls third grade level insults and wants me dead. Why don't you go find Republican soldier who is willing to die for your freedoms and tell him you want him dead. Until you are willing to do that to me in person, we are done here.
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
I think that shows that you have fallen way to far off the left end.
Wrong! I'm in the middle. Classical Liberal, Dude. You people have gone way off the extreme right end. That's fascism and we've already fought one war against it. Remember World War 2? That was us fighting against people just like you.
You are basically calling for a terrorists action, "Kill all those that believe differently."
Where did I say anything of the sort. Believe as you will. It's the actions of the Republican party that have demonstrated them to be the enemies of this country. Sorry, but setting up torture camps in various third world shitholes? Since that is what you stand for, what makes you think you deserve to live? Sorry, Sparky, but when you actively support the destruction of the constitution you have to expect that anybody with a scrap of patriotism *is* going to want your anti-American freedom hating ass dead. It's just the logical result of *your* chosen course of action. Don't blame me for loving what my country stands for. Blame yourself for acting to destroy it
Why don't you go find Republican soldier who is willing to die for your freedoms and tell him you want him dead.
Here's a better idea. Why don't you point me to one time in the last thirty years that our military has actually been used to defend my freedoms. Good luck with that Sparky.
Supercomputer: The fastest type of computer used for specialized applications that require a massive number of mathematical calculations. The NSA supercomputer center contains the largest accumulation of computer power in any one building on Earth. One Cray Triton supercomputer at the facility can handle 64 billion instructions per second, and there are many of them at the NSA. The computers are used for breaking adversaries' codes, creating U.S. top-secret codes and sifting through billions of information intercepts made by the NSA searching for useful intelligence. The government also bans the sale of supercomputers to countries such as Iraq for fear they may be used to create nuclear weapons.
Then we have this article called The NSA: Spying on you?
All from 2001. You just know they have gotten better at it by now.
qz
In the 1990s, a federal law was passed to reimburse telcoms for wiretapping equipment.
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
The South understood the history of the great civilizations, and was determined to hold off the inevitable decline as long as possible, by clinging to the founding ideas. It didn't work, and the Yankees' revolution succeeded. We now have a federal government that rules instead of being ruled.
is not scaling up that much these days. Moore's Law hit a wall a couple of years ago.
Best Slashdot Co
However, I question the usefulness of scanning and indexing every piece of mail, every file, every conversation to find a small group of people. I question the ability of NSA and others to use more information than ever to do waht they failed to do before September 11. I don't believe that NSA access to every facet of every American's life will allow the government to stop another attack because that data must be filtered, understood, and then acted upon. And many failures of intelligence didn't happen because of a lack of information, but at lack of understanding. We don't have the translators to read documents we found in Afghanistan, so how will someone sift through millions of emails to find the one that gives them a clue?
At the same time, we are continuing to loose privacy which, when Al Qaeda is gone, won't be easy to bring back. I fear we are giving up rights for a war that has no end--if we're fighting terror, and not just Osama--and we will have no way to bring them back.
I do assume that the members of Al Qaeda have humanity because they're human, though twisted. And, Osama stated this was his purpose in attacking the US. It was designed to 'terrorize' us, the make us react and to make us retract our freedoms and the openess of our society. This was the damage he knew he could cause and the only way to hurt us.
I am frustrated and worried about this country, but that's not excuse for insulting someone who has served, not matter how wrong I think they are.
Mark my previous comment -5 jackass.
Anyone who whines about being modded down should be.
Another side of this I find disturbing I cannot imagine the assets the NSA must be committing to Catalog and analysis all this data coming from AT&T'. what do one of these NarusInsight machines cost??
/me unplugs his vonage line. And looks for the black helicopters
"NarusInsight, capable of monitoring 10 billion bits of data per second"
"one NarusInsight machine can look at 10,000 million DSL lines at once in great detail"
What would the bandwidth cost the NSA to transmit that much data?
"These capabilities include playback of streaming media (i.e. VoIP), rendering of web pages, examination of e-mail and the ability to analyze the payload/attachments of e-mail or file transfer protocols."
As best as I can tell in my research so far is that the Narus gear sniffs packets as they go by and saves those that are "interesting" to a local disk array. Then this data is analyzed to a greater degree, first with software and then by humans.
I'm amazed this sort of thing isn't common knowledge, Heck, even the EU did a report on it a couple of years ago. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ECHELON
I want a list of atrocities done in your name - Recoil