Ask Slashdot: How To Bypass Gov't Spying On Cellphones?

Don't play.... by bobbied · 2013-06-13 05:45 · Score: 5, Informative

The only way to win is not to play...

Or, buy a new handset and phone number for every call and only pay cash.

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"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101

Re:Don't play.... by cold+fjord · 2013-06-13 05:59 · Score: 2

Sign language. The US government is short of interpreters, especially for cell phone intelligence.

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much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
Re:Don't play.... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-06-13 06:02 · Score: 4, Funny

NSA: "We'll have to be able to attach our own piece of string to yours if you wanna keep using that, sir"
Re:Don't play.... by SirGarlon · 2013-06-13 06:24 · Score: 2

Or, buy a new handset and phone number for every call and only pay cash.

And don't call anyone with, because the NSA is also monitoring all the incoming activity at the other endpoint of your call and can very likely deduce your identity that way.

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[Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
Re:Don't play.... by Stewie241 · 2013-06-13 06:29 · Score: 1

And I could only assume that they have the technology to deduct to at least some degree of accuracy the identity of a person based on voice. If not, it will come.
Re:Don't play.... by ub3r+n3u7r4l1st · 2013-06-13 06:33 · Score: 2

this is not what he meant.
It is very easy to analyze the identity of the caller by just nabbing the other side, unless the other side is also using a disposable cell phone.
This is how police capture thief of stolen phones.... by contacting people who have been called from those phones.

--
New Economic Perspectives
Re:Don't play.... by TWX · 2013-06-13 06:45 · Score: 5, Funny

I've got a particular gesture for them right here...

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Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Re:Don't play.... by TWX · 2013-06-13 06:52 · Score: 1

Just to hazard a guess, but if you're not using a cell phone then they can't intercept it. If you're not using a landline then they can't intercept it. If you're not e-mailing anything then they can't intercept it. If you're not mailing something then they can't intercept it, though I would think that mail would be the hardest to intercept if you were mailing and using random public mailboxes to send and if your recipients were using straw-purchase PO boxes or else third-party mailbox stores.

How about visiting people and talking face-to-face?

I suppose that if you know someone's public key and they've done a good job of not publicizing who they are relative to their public key, you could just spam a million e-mail addresses with the encrypted message, including one of their numerous temporary addresses in the spam list, and only they'd be able to read the message, and no one would really know who it was actually for. The hardest part would be avoiding a discernible pattern.

--
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Re:Don't play.... by bobbied · 2013-06-13 06:56 · Score: 1

Really? When the ANI (calling number) along with the ESN is changed after each call? I think that would throw off all but the most diligent of investigators. They would have to have a voice tap on the dialed phone (which requires a fully blessed search warrant and not just a FISA kangaroo court approval) to do any kind of speaker identification. You *MIGHT* be able to infer who the speaker is though the handset location, but that implies you have some kind of previous knowledge about locations. My idea would pretty much disrupt most of the straight forward data mining.
Remember, if you don't want to get tracked, you cannot show up on the grid, or attempt to communicate AT ALL. OBL bought it because somebody tracked one of his guys passing notes and stuff.
Zero chance of getting tracked is your goal? You likely need to hole up underground in some unknown location and never try to communicate with anybody. (good luck with that).

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"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
Re:Don't play.... by ArcadeMan · 2013-06-13 08:01 · Score: 5, Funny

I see that you're pointing to the sky, friend. Are you trying to tell me something?
I want to believe.

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Get free satoshi (Bitcoin) and Dogecoins
Re:Don't play.... by AK+Marc · 2013-06-13 09:47 · Score: 1

The point being that if I receive a call at 8:05 a.m. every day, all from a different burner phone, they can assume that all calls are from the same person, and if they identify the person in any one of those calls, they've identified the source of all of the calls. So, if they already have enough to identify me, and I've called Mom at 8:05 a.m. every day for a while, switching to burner phones won't bring me any anonymity. Sure, they couldn't "prove" it was me for any particular call, but they could reasonably assume it for all such matching calls.

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Learn to love Alaska
Re:Don't play.... by cffrost · 2013-06-13 10:46 · Score: 1

Just say "nuclear" "terrorist" "bomb" "uranium" over and over on the phone, it'll have the same effect. I'm sure this post will be flagged by NSA for that reason.

Do you really suppose that the people the NSA would identify as "terrorists" would use the word "terrorist" when they're talking to one another?

--
Thank you, Edward Snowden.

"Arguments from authority are worthless." —Carl Sagan
Re:Don't play.... by SpaceMonkies · 2013-06-13 14:36 · Score: 1

okdokey!!
Re:Don't play.... by lsatenstein · 2013-06-14 04:41 · Score: 1

There was a university in BA Argentina that developped a dynamic key encryption software application for cellphones. When you wanted your secure call, you got a key (process how is not certain), and the built-in AES encryption was applled to the packets going out and decryption coming in. The two users were therefore in a private session. Any attempt to overhear the call was futile. encryption was before the delivery to the network. There was a slight delay as the audio packet had to be processed. The Argentinian government, I believe, were very interested, because of military secretness.
And the next secure call used new randomly selected encryption keys from book. Their paper and working item relied heavily on the use of key management software.

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Leslie Satenstein Montreal Quebec Canada
Re:Don't play.... by kmoser · 2013-06-14 05:25 · Score: 1

Do you really suppose that the people the NSA would identify as "terrorists" would use the word "terrorist" when they're talking to one another?
Yes--when referring to those they intend to terrorize.
Re:Don't play.... by RockDoctor · 2013-06-14 19:23 · Score: 1

Sign language. The US government is short of interpreters, especially for cell phone intelligence.
But I thought that the US Govt had a monopoly on sign language interpreters, or is that only for Navajho Sign Language?
Slightly more seriously, and slightly tangentially, I saw a comment last night wondering why people are designing "new" , "gestural" interfaces for computers, when there already exist a modest number of gesture languages called ASL (American Sign Language), BSL (British Sign Language) ... I thought that one of the common mantras of the programming world had something to do with the avoidance of repetitious novel generation of rotationally symmetrical transport machines, but maybe this idea hasn't penetrated really.
For many years I've spent a lot of time working in high noise environments (90-100dB ; hearing protection is mandatory at 84dB), and have pondered the utility of learning such a language. If only there weren't so many regional dialects!

--
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"

Disposable cell phone by Skewray · 2013-06-13 05:46 · Score: 4, Interesting

I buy a $15 cell phone at Staples. It comes with $10 in minutes. Then I chuck it.

Re:Disposable cell phone by rmstar · 2013-06-13 05:56 · Score: 2

I buy a $15 cell phone at Staples. It comes with $10 in minutes. Then I chuck it.
That's an easy loophole to plug: just require registration to buy a phone. It is that way in Germany, I think.
Re:Disposable cell phone by amiga3D · 2013-06-13 06:00 · Score: 4, Insightful

Hell in the US they can't even keep non-insured non-licensed drivers off the road. Registering phones? Hah!
Re:Disposable cell phone by HWguy · 2013-06-13 06:01 · Score: 5, Insightful

Brian, I assume you paid in cash.
Do you know how much information the Staples inventory system has? Does it store things like the phone's Mobile Identification Number? It certainly logged the time the phone was sold and the location, perhaps flagging your cash transaction. Hopefully you smiled at the various cameras in-store and in the parking lot that recorded you driving up and buying the phone. ;-)
Re:Disposable cell phone by hawguy · 2013-06-13 06:09 · Score: 2

Brian, I assume you paid in cash.
Do you know how much information the Staples inventory system has? Does it store things like the phone's Mobile Identification Number? It certainly logged the time the phone was sold and the location, perhaps flagging your cash transaction. Hopefully you smiled at the various cameras in-store and in the parking lot that recorded you driving up and buying the phone. ;-)
Buying with cash is definitely important.
I almost brought up the same point about the cameras, but then I realized that if the goal is to keep broad surveillance from tracking him, cycling through disposable phones will do this unless Staples is turning over security camera footage to the NSA for facial recognition.
If the phone was used to commit a crime, the government could probably track it back to him through security camera footage, but they aren't going to be able to track his past few years of movement based on his cell phone records.
Re:Disposable cell phone by Nutria · 2013-06-13 06:09 · Score: 2

Hopefully you smiled at the various cameras in-store
Or wear a baseball cap and hoodie. Preferably with a full beard. And an a heavy foreign accent.

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"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
Re:Disposable cell phone by FictionPimp · 2013-06-13 06:13 · Score: 1

So you pay 5 extra bucks to get the illegal immigrant hanging out at the home depot next to staples to buy it for you, or send in a kid.
Re:Disposable cell phone by tnk1 · 2013-06-13 06:22 · Score: 5, Insightful

Yes. The idea of a burn phone is a very old one now. If you think that the NSA doesn't have contingencies to deal with that, you are mistaken.
Honestly, unless you really do expect to be doing something illegal, the NSA doesn't have the resources to actually analyze the material they get from everyone for all possible illegal permutations. Unless you have reason to believe you are being targeted, the very fact that you use a burn phone regularly is probably more likely to set off red flags than just your normal use of a possibly monitored phone.
Think about it this way. The use of burn phones is an inconvenience that most people won't bother with. If you are willing to put up with that inconvenience, you are in a relatively small group of people who are either refusers, or people doing illegal stuff. If I were the NSA, I'd be more interested in you as an evader, rather than less. And if they do happen to be able to track burn phones, you've just promoted yourself from Potential Terrorist, Second Class to Potential Terrorist, First Class.
When it comes to panopticons, what you really need to do is learn how to hide in plain sight. The U.S. government is more like Sauron than God. They see everything, but only if they're looking at it.
Re:Disposable cell phone by HWguy · 2013-06-13 06:23 · Score: 1

I almost brought up the same point about the cameras, but then I realized that if the goal is to keep broad surveillance from tracking him, cycling through disposable phones will do this unless Staples is turning over security camera footage to the NSA for facial recognition.
That's true. He's going through some amount of pain and expense to do so though.
We don't really know how much information is being correlated together from what sources. We do know that technology is getting ever more capable and even commercial companies are experimenting with facial recognition. Though there probably aren't large scale facial recognition projects running today, the spook agencies are filled with some pretty smart people who spend all day with big budgets thinking about how to get useful data. I wouldn't be surprised at some future revelation along those lines.
I'm not sure there are easy technical solutions to this Ask Slashdot question.
Re:Disposable cell phone by jeffmeden · 2013-06-13 06:34 · Score: 1

Disclaimer: I haven't actually done this, but it seems a lot better than buying phones from staples if you're truly up to something nefarious.
Wait, why? I thought the whole point of this line of reasoning was that you didn't want to be snooped on, despite *not* have anything to hide...
Re:Disposable cell phone by ultrasawblade · 2013-06-13 06:39 · Score: 1

Here are some problems with that:
- Did you pay with a credit/debit card? If so, that shit's logged.
- Did you modify your appearance to foil the likely Internet-connected security camera watching the cashier? If not, evidence of your purchase is available there.
- Did you take the car you normally use to the store? If not, it's possible parking lot security cameras have identifying information on you, including a license plate number.
- Cell phone towers are at least capable of logging the towers and RSSI of MS's (i.e. cell phones) that communicate with them. It's possible if you've activated more than a couple phones that a pattern of movement, the correlation which could identify you, could be established against multiple IMSI's such as IMEI, ESN, etc. Especially if you use it a lot in single location like your house.
- Certainly the cell phone companies keep logs of the numbers dialed from a particular device. It's possible if you are statistically similar to previous units it can be said that your current phone matches usage patterns and can identify you.
- Sales records may indicate that an unusually large number of $15 cell phones have been bought at one location, revealing someone is trying to hide something.
Re:Disposable cell phone by ub3r+n3u7r4l1st · 2013-06-13 06:42 · Score: 3, Informative

and how do you know if a warrant has been issued and executed? You have basically don't have a right to protest a warrant because you don't know it even existed.
And all mail are scanned and the image is taken and stored into a database (presumably the NSA):
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/documents/woman-arrested-for-obama-bloomberg-ricin-letters-687435

--
New Economic Perspectives
Re:Disposable cell phone by redmid17 · 2013-06-13 06:43 · Score: 1

When I lived in Germany you couldn't buy a pre-paid phone from a store without ID, passport if you were a foreigner, or maybe it was just the SIM. No one every checked if you were just purchasing minutes though and you didn't have to register a privately purchased phone as long as you had a SIM card. Circa 2003 and 2007 respectively
Re:Disposable cell phone by Charliemopps · 2013-06-13 06:48 · Score: 4, Insightful

they have an $80 billion per year budget. That's $255 for every Man woman and child living in this country. They certainly can track every single one of us. Especially considering the Majority of US Citizens aren't even old enough to use a phone or the internet yet.
Re:Disposable cell phone by KGIII · 2013-06-13 06:48 · Score: 1

Staples also probably transmits this information, over the internet, to their home office and to a data storage facility. The TLA folks may not even need to ask Staples for said information.

--
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
Re:Disposable cell phone by bsDaemon · 2013-06-13 06:57 · Score: 2, Insightful

pay some kid $20 to guy buy the burn phone/SIM for you. What kind of tradecraft master or wanna-be actually goes and buys their own burn phone?
Re:Disposable cell phone by Anonymous Coward · 2013-06-13 07:02 · Score: 1

Yes, it's silly. We have to register to buy a SIM, but we let everyone roam here, even from countries where you don't have to register your SIM (Hello Austria). Next time buy a SIM from one of the discount supermarkets (Aldi, Lidl, ...) and register online (bit of a chicken and egg problem there, but you only need an open hotspot once). You still have to enter your data, but they'll have to take your word for it...
Re:Disposable cell phone by master5o1 · 2013-06-13 07:19 · Score: 1

You can still encrypt the message.

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signature is pants
Re:Disposable cell phone by Anonymous Coward · 2013-06-13 07:23 · Score: 2, Insightful

Cars don't require a connection to centralized infrastructure.
Re:Disposable cell phone by tnk1 · 2013-06-13 07:31 · Score: 1

I think you underestimate what it takes to make use of the information they do collect. If you mean they can have a little file on disk with everybody's GPS coordinates, and phone calls at all times of the day... I suppose so. But so what? They need to crunch all that data, make connections and analyze those connections. That takes more than $255 per person. Unless you happen to be in Area 51 or a military base, your coordinates within the US, or what numbers you called are never prima facie evidence of anything.
The NSA can use this data to find terrorists or criminals (or people that really piss them off) because they have people generate patterns and searches for them to apply to this data. Those searches and processes are not going to just start spitting out every petty crime you have done and store that. It is going to connect you with people and places at certain times, but there needs to be some starting point or context. The NSA isn't just going to randomly select you from their database and say, "Gee, I wonder what Citizen #1157495 (Charliemopps) is up to today? Could it be... TERRORISM? Hmm?"
For instance, some guy could be cheating on his wife. His cell phone could allow the NSA to build one hell of an adultery case against him, between connecting him between sleazy motels and 3AM phone calls to his mistress. However, that only happens out of nowhere if the NSA is interested in that guy or his mistress. Otherwise, there are just two files on some disk somewhere where this data lies unanalyzed because it doesn't fit a search pattern or fit a context.
When people say, "they are targeting everyone," they don't understand what they are talking about. The NSA can send out a dragnet and scoop up tons and tons of raw data on almost everyone. What the NSA can't do is actually target 300+ million individuals in any way that matters unless those people match a pattern that fits a profile they have built, and even then, that profile needs some sort of contextual anchor like "this guy knows Assam al-Terrorist". What the NSA is trying to do is *narrow* their searches, not expand them. Having zetabytes of data does them no good unless they can draw conclusions from it.
Long story short, in a world where the NSA can see everything, unless you have reason to fear the NSA wants you in particular, the safest place you can be is right in the middle of the crowd where all the cameras can see you. The last place you want to be is where you are only caught by the traps they set up for the really dangerous people. Those are the traps they will be checking to see who they need to target.
Re:Disposable cell phone by http · 2013-06-13 07:36 · Score: 1

Pardon my ignorance, but google is unable to provide me with a definition of the word "refuser" that I can parse in the context of your post.
What is a refuser? And, what makes them different from people doing illegal stuff, yet readily lumped into the same group?
You may need to get clear in your thinking. "Hiding in plain sight" is a reaction, not a solution, to a panopticon. A solution means ending it, not making your life unlikely to draw attention.

--
If opportunity came disguised as temptation, one knock would be enough.
3^2 * 67^1 * 977^1
Re:Disposable cell phone by pnutjam · 2013-06-13 07:49 · Score: 1

Yeah, all those business and gov. surveillance cameras do jack 90% of the time. The pictures is too grainy, or the camera stopped working, or they switched to HD and only store 15 days cause disks are expensive. Unless you get caught immediately, a camera is not a big concern. They are really only good for proving something you already know.

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Cheap storage VM.
Re:Disposable cell phone by iONiUM · 2013-06-13 07:58 · Score: 1

Don't they spend a lot of money tracking foreigners? I think you divided by the US population.. but really you should divide by the entire world's population.
Re:Disposable cell phone by tlambert · 2013-06-13 08:01 · Score: 1

I buy a $15 cell phone at Staples. It comes with $10 in minutes. Then I chuck it.
That's an easy loophole to plug: just require registration to buy a phone. It is that way in Germany, I think.
That's an easy rule to plug: steal someone's phone instead.
Re:Disposable cell phone by Rogue+Haggis+Landing · 2013-06-13 08:24 · Score: 2

they have an $80 billion per year budget. That's $255 for every Man woman and child living in this country. They certainly can track every single one of us. Especially considering the Majority of US Citizens aren't even old enough to use a phone or the internet yet.
Pedant here -- at the 2010 Census, 79.9% of the US population was 15 or older, which seems like a good age by which most everyone will have a cell phone. So about $322 for everyone 15 and over.
Re:Disposable cell phone by Hatta · 2013-06-13 08:40 · Score: 1

Yes. The idea of a burn phone is a very old one now. If you think that the NSA doesn't have contingencies to deal with that, you are mistaken.
Such as?
Honestly, unless you really do expect to be doing something illegal, the NSA doesn't have the resources to actually analyze the material they get from everyone for all possible illegal permutations.
Which is all the more reason they need more funding to build more facilities and grant lucrative contracts to their cronies.
Unless you have reason to believe you are being targeted
When you are hypothesis testing 100 million people, making billions of calls per year, the number of false positives is going to be non-significant. We all have reason to fear, even if we have nothing to hide.
When it comes to panopticons, what you really need to do is learn how to hide in plain sight.
When it comes to oppression of any flavor, the only moral choice is resistance.

--
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Re:Disposable cell phone by Hatta · 2013-06-13 08:44 · Score: 3, Interesting

The last place you want to be is where you are only caught by the traps they set up for the really dangerous people
You assume that this is only about really dangerous people. We just had weeks of controversy about the IRS targeting people for political motives. Are you so naive to think that won't happen at the NSA?

--
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Re:Disposable cell phone by Skewray · 2013-06-13 09:51 · Score: 1

Actually, I buy junky phones at Staples because I hate cell phones, but they are somewhat useful when traveling to meetings. I buy one for the day/week, and then invariably lose it later.
Re:Disposable cell phone by Algae_94 · 2013-06-13 10:01 · Score: 1

I think we've seen that the profiles and search patterns used could easily be abused. I seem to recall that the IRS was recently targeting specific groups of citizens. How can you be so confident that the NSA will never make a search pattern that matches you at some point?

The fact that data they collect on an individual doesn't get used does not lessen their ability to use it at some time in the future.
Re:Disposable cell phone by Charliemopps · 2013-06-13 10:11 · Score: 1

You don't seem to understand. They can and do track everyone, and it's stored. They don't need to know whats all in there... just like any database. It's all logged for the time when it's needed. Suddenly this "tnk1" guy says some stuff they don't like on slashdot. So they run a query... got his IP address, ok, cross reference that, name and address... plus every ISP he's ever had, along with every DHCP request he's made... we now have every IP he's ever had over time in chronological order. Now query IP hits from those against site lists we have that are included in our "Embarrassing" list. Publish to public website... Now he's too busy dealing with his divorce to post on slashdot.
I could write the SQL to do such a request in a few hours. And it would be reusable for anyone I wanted to use it for. This is the kind of shit they will pull if they have these kind of records.
Re:Disposable cell phone by AK+Marc · 2013-06-13 10:26 · Score: 1

I pay a kid in a parking lot next door to run in and buy it for me. In cash.

--
Learn to love Alaska
Re:Disposable cell phone by AK+Marc · 2013-06-13 10:28 · Score: 1

They can track you down after, but lose the ability to track real-time.

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Learn to love Alaska
Re:Disposable cell phone by dmini · 2013-06-13 10:49 · Score: 1

Morpheus: A one byte's worth of dollars for every man, woman, and child in Zion. That sounds *exactly* like the thinking of a machine to me. (beware of annoying ads) http://www.anyclip.com/movies/the-matrix-reloaded/the-machines-threat/#!quotes/
Re:Disposable cell phone by bdwebb · 2013-06-13 11:00 · Score: 1

They can't keep uninsured unlicensed drivers off the road...but they can wiretap almost every digital communication made and make inferences as to personal relations and potential terrorist threats. Something tells me that if they really really wanted to focus on the uninsured/unlicensed, there would be a program wasting billions of education dollars to do it.
Re:Disposable cell phone by tnk1 · 2013-06-13 11:13 · Score: 2

I'm just advising you to not waste your time trying to make yourself seem safer, only to find that you're actually painting a bigger bullseye on your back.
Sure, someone could target you politically if they have a reason, but going through obvious steps to hide your activity makes it pretty easy to justify trying to find out what you are hiding.
We're all guilty of some crime that's on the books, it's just that no one has the time or inclination to bother with us. However, if you gain their interest, then maybe that comes out.
Your attempts to regain your privacy only make you a bigger target because you stick out like a sore thumb. If I am monitoring streams of data over the internet, what streams are going to interest me the most? Of course it would be the streams that are encrypted in some non-trivial manner. And why is that? Because you cared enough to encrypt or otherwise protect them.
Sure, you might be good at it and not get caught, but these guys get paid to find people who try and hide information. You're going to attract attention by trying so hard.
Re:Disposable cell phone by tnk1 · 2013-06-13 11:38 · Score: 1

There is a non-trivial time to analyze and make use of individual data. And as you pointed out for me, they targeted those people for a reason.
I should also point out that the IRS audit situation was not a dragnet. These non-profits have to file specially for their status and provide prospectuses to prove that they are non-profits. So, that's like you applying for the NSA book club and them reading that you like long walks by the beach and killing infidels in the name of Allah. They didn't run any computer profile on you that was harder than a text search. Hell, they probably just hit the arrow key to page though the applications as they were reviewing them. And of course, the Tea Partiers were giving them this information as required, it did not need to be compiled from raw data by the IRS.
As for what they collect on you. Do they have it forever? Maybe. Or maybe not. If there is one thing I have learned in my time in IT, data comes and goes. Some sticks around for insanely long periods of time, but some relatively important stuff is always disappearing into the ether.
Do they have it all neatly cross-referenced into "your file"? Probably not unless you're someone important. There are human analysts assigned to these cases, and while they can handle a lot of cases, they can't handle 300 million of them. Or even 1 million. If the NSA targets you, you should go buy a lottery ticket that day.
You know what I want Snowden to actually have released? Some proof that the NSA is blackmailing people with this somehow. Or some reason that I need to be more concerned with this than I was before this fracas.
Re:Disposable cell phone by eviscerations7235 · 2013-06-13 11:39 · Score: 1

i'd just like to point out that there are 18 states where medical marijuana is legal, yet the federal government considers it illegal. i live in one of those. what is not a crime locally is a crime federally. my fiance, who died of cancer, was a criminal under federal law, but not state law. these surveillance programs can very easily make criminals out of innocent people.
Re:Disposable cell phone by cffrost · 2013-06-13 11:49 · Score: 1

Hopefully you smiled at the various cameras in-store
Or wear a baseball cap and hoodie. Preferably with a full beard. And an a heavy foreign accent.
Wearing a balaclava couldn't hurt, either. I get a kick out of wearing mine when I go to my local credit union in the winter — the tellers always seem a little startled until they realize it's just me, then they're all "oh, you're so bad!" and "such a prankster!" and so forth...
When I decided to switch from the bank I was using (or rather, was being (ab)used by) to a local credit union, I obviously wanted to make a complete withdrawal, so I passed the teller a note that said "GIVE ME ALL MY MONEY," but she didn't seem to think it was funny at all, and I wasn't even wearing my balaclava!
My point is this: Balaclavas are great for maintaining your facial privacy, just so long as you're not someplace where everyone already knows who you are — unless it's a bank, where they don't seem to know (or care — I don't know which) who anyone is, unless perhaps you're a "high-roller" or whatever is the equivalent in banker jargon.

--
Thank you, Edward Snowden.

"Arguments from authority are worthless." —Carl Sagan
Re:Disposable cell phone by tnk1 · 2013-06-13 11:53 · Score: 1

Sure. Of course, they can already do that. *You* might be able to do something similar, if you had an inkling of who I actually am.
I'm not at all worried about the NSA. If the worst thing I have to worry about is that my data is on their shiny spinning platters, I have little to worry about. Why? Because no one actually targets you because you don't like the NSA. If the NSA has to target everyone who has ever said something bad about the NSA, I think we'd have solved unemployment AND injected a few trillion into the computer equipment industry. Oh, and need to build a lot more secret jails.
You're not special. I'm not special. They don't give a shit about us. Even if they were all evil supervillians, we're just not worth the effort. We can't actually do anything that the NSA cares about. They care about their budget. What am I going to do, refuse to pay my taxes? Right.
Dragnets like this don't concern me. The paranoid out there consider this a problem. I consider a panopticon to be an answer to a problem that no one actually has. They care about maintaining power. They don't need to be all-seeing for that, there are much easier ways to maintain power than some sort of complicated blackmail database of everyone.
So, I do believe that this is used exactly how they say it is being used, because they don't need something like this for anything else. Sure, it could be used to cause problems, but no more so than just hiring some old fashioned private investigators to dig up dirt on me. Which is honestly more likely to happen if you do become prominent.
Worry less about some top secret database that almost no one has access to, and worry more about the real privacy concerns out there. Facebook and Credit Card companies worry me more than any shadowy government conspiracy.
Re:Disposable cell phone by 7-Vodka · 2013-06-13 12:13 · Score: 2

Come to think of it, there have been some very peculiar incidents recently.
Supreme court justices changing their mind about which way to vote.
The head of the CIA and other officers resigning because of affairs where the government admits reading their personal email without a warrant.
Journalists being spied on.
Fuck, they caught Elliott Spitzer with that call girl and then couldn't explain how they stumbled on him....
Are you sure none of these incidents involved the illegal spying? The eye of Sauron stings a bit when it focuses on you doesn't it?

--
Liberty.
Re:Disposable cell phone by tnk1 · 2013-06-13 12:26 · Score: 1

I apologize, I wasn't trying to suggest that a "refuser" was anything more than a word I popped off on the top of my head. You might go with "evader" or "someone who takes active privacy measures against government agencies." I'm not suggesting they are a special type of person.
However, the reason that you might lump someone attempting to evade observation who is not guilty with those who are guilty is that those who are guilty (the criminals) will always take actions to hide their activities, because they have to. If their activities were open to casual inspection, they'd be caught fairly easily.
For those who are not criminals, but also attempting to evade observation, they will look to those who are searching, much the same. That is where you run into danger if someone is watching everything. It isn't a matter of being able to avoid observation, because you can't.
More to the point, criminals and those merely trying to evade observation are a significantly smaller section of the population than the general public. Even legal evaders require specialized knowledge of what they are doing. Perhaps that is common on Slashdot, but it is not common in the general population.
So, you're now selecting yourself into a smaller section of the population which consists solely of people who are capable of hiding their data, more or less successfully. You've stopped them from casually reading data, but you've done something worse. You think they will just give up on you now? Your encryption has set off an alarm and your data is sent for further scrutiny and code breaking. Congratulations, you have now actually earned their attention. On you.
If you attract attention, you attract resources. If you attract resources, you attract people who now need to justify the use of those resources on you. Those people now take a much, much closer look at you. Perhaps your encryption scheme looks exactly like one used by some real criminal gang and you have a similar traffic pattern somehow. That gets you on a probable cause warrant. Once they have that, anything they find on your computer is fair game, even if it so happens that you have nothing to to with the initial conspiracy they are searching for.
Point being, if you act secretive all the time, people start thinking you're up to something. That's just human nature. If you're trying to avoid being observed, then you need to avoid standing out, or you have to somehow check out of the system. Problem is, simply encrypting traffic just changes what your traffic looks like. To check out, you have to throw away your phone and internet connection. If you are willing to do that, then maybe it will work. Encryption? That's just like a red flag to a bull.
Re:Disposable cell phone by tnk1 · 2013-06-13 12:31 · Score: 1

Actually the laws make criminals out of you. Surveillance programs may or may not be able to prove you broke them.
Sorry about your fiance, but in the end she, and those like her, had pretty much nothing to fear from this.
The NSA doesn't care about her. Wouldn't have even been able to convict her with that evidence. Worst they could have done is tipped off the DEA. I doubt the DEA would have needed their help if they had any intention of arresting her.
Re:Disposable cell phone by njnnja · 2013-06-13 12:50 · Score: 1

The scary thing is that a few weeks ago I would have read this post and thought "Jeez put away the aluminum hat" and now I'm wishing I had mod points.
What if the director of the NSA decides that he wants to run for president in 2016? And shockingly enough, no prominent politician is willing to run against him?
I would love to say that if I had this kind of power that I would use it wisely and justly, but I don't really know what I would do. And so I can't possibly trust somebody else to avoid all abuses of this power
Re:Disposable cell phone by CohibaVancouver · 2013-06-13 13:31 · Score: 1

So your argument is that you are too stupid to think of something, so it *must* be impossible? Because that's how it sounds to me.
No, it sounds to me like he's saying "Give me some examples of how the NSA can track a burner phone purchased with cash." If you're not 'stupid' just explain it to us.

I'm curious of the same thing.
Re:Disposable cell phone by Orne · 2013-06-13 13:36 · Score: 1

... but as soon as you called your family/doctor/S.O. with that new number, that phone got added to the searchable list. If you made more than one call, or call the same people all of the time even with different phones, that disposable phone is now linked via the metadata. Network effect, indeed.
Re:Disposable cell phone by http · 2013-06-13 14:26 · Score: 1

Thank you, makes sense now. Mind you, I'm still of the opinion that avoiding standing out is the weaker solution, possibly even counterproductive. The results are a lot more rapid.
s/earned/obtained/

--
If opportunity came disguised as temptation, one knock would be enough.
3^2 * 67^1 * 977^1
Re:Disposable cell phone by Chickenlips · 2013-06-13 14:42 · Score: 1

Eliot Spitzer had made a lot of enemies on Wall Street during his run as NY State Attorney General. It's not very hard to imagine how law enforcement was made aware of his extra curricular activities with prostitutes, given his enemies.

This is not to knock your post, though. J. Edgar Hoover had dirt on everyone in Washington (phone taps). That is probably how he remained in his office for as long as he did.
Re:Disposable cell phone by ub3r+n3u7r4l1st · 2013-06-13 15:49 · Score: 1

assuming you survive long enough (emotionally and financially) to plead not guilty and see your day in court. Many people, however are being bullied like Aaron Swartz and surrendered.

--
New Economic Perspectives
Re:Disposable cell phone by Zynder · 2013-06-13 16:08 · Score: 1

Dude, I tried to explain that to some of the other slashdot 6-digit users to no avail. People are paranoid so don't bother. You and I can hide in the noise floor and they'll get those guys before they get us. The best we can do is continue to flood the systems with so much data that they can't process it all thus raising the noise floor even further. We're jamming the signal. If it weren't such a good damned idea, why does the military use it?
Re:Disposable cell phone by CodeBuster · 2013-06-13 17:11 · Score: 1

Hopefully you smiled at the various cameras in-store and in the parking lot that recorded you driving up and buying the phone. ;-)
He was wearing a latex mask and makeup disguise kit and he took the bus or rode his bicycle :P
Re:Disposable cell phone by AK+Marc · 2013-06-13 17:53 · Score: 1

How "can" they is not the same as how "could" they or how "do" they. Which would you like? If I knew how they did it, I'd be breaking the law to tell you.

Perhaps they get a list of all the IMEIs of disposable phones from the makers, and those are put on a watch list, so any use of them is specifically monitored, including where they were sold and what time, as well as any time they are powered on, and locations. If that burner is ever used in a crime, they can track the sale location and all towers it has connected to to get an idea of where the owner lived or worked, and use that to help track down the owner after the fact.

That took 10 times longer to type out than think up. I can think of at least 10 other ways for them to have decent tracking data on cash burners. But, since nearly every one of the "I'm too stupid to think of a way" people argues when given one, there's obviously no point to list any more until at least you or the OP have explained how that's impossible or sufficiently impractical. And even then, I'll likely not bother.

--
Learn to love Alaska
Re:Disposable cell phone by DMUTPeregrine · 2013-06-13 18:02 · Score: 1

Easy example: Someone with a burner phone is probably calling someone without one. Trace the locations of all calls made to the non-burner number, track those locations.
Since pretty much every (large) retailer tracks phones by MIN (Mobile Identification Number, the last part of the international mobile subscriber identity (IMSI) associated with all cell phones) to help track inventory, and records the type of payment used on all sales receipts it's not unlikely that the NSA can discover which phones were purchased with cash. They can then track these, and correlate patterns of numbers dialed by a succession of phones purchased with cash.
Since cash purchases don't automatically show up in a database like credit/debit/check purchases do, it's likely possible to correlate purchases of cell phones showing up in a store's inventory management system which don't have corresponding credit/debit/check authorization checks made. Combined with the high-rate of in-store activation (most stores will activate the phone for you/help you set it up) it's conceivable to track all cash purchases that weren't immediately activated, and correlate with phones activated outside a short window from any cash purchase.
Thinking of ways it's possible to track such things is really quite easy. There are almost certainly more things I've not thought of that the people at the NSA have. I'm certain they're doing those things, because it would take monumental stupidity not to. The NSA goons are malicious and anti-American, but they're clearly not stupid.

--
Not a sentence!
Re:Disposable cell phone by RockDoctor · 2013-06-14 19:32 · Score: 1

The hoodie is normal here - something to do with the driving summer rain. And I've worn a full beard most of the time since I needed to shave (except, of course, when posing for passport photos) ; a heavy foreign accent would be far more intelligible than the local accent ("accent with a trace of English, not English with a trace of accent", to quote one chinless TV idiot from the capital).
But a baseball cap? Do you want to look like a deranged idiot?

--
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
Re:Disposable cell phone by ArsonSmith · 2013-06-18 09:35 · Score: 1

Here in Phoenix I think you'd stand out a little more than many places if you're wearing a balaclava.

--
Paying taxes to buy civilization is like paying a hooker to buy love.
Re:Disposable cell phone by Vrtigo1 · 2013-06-25 09:49 · Score: 1

The answer here is to make an educated guess as to how long Staples retains surveillance camera footage and don't use a phone you've bought there until that retention period has elapsed. Then when the NSA tracks the call to a prepaid phone that was purchased at Staples at 4 o'clock on a Thursday three months ago and try to pull the surveillance footage, Staples will rightly tell them they no longer have it.

But in reality, might it be easier to buy your prepaid SIMs from a vending machine or a flea market / craigslist. There are many such places that do not have surveillance cameras where it is easy enough to remain anonymous.

And talk to who? by ugen · 2013-06-13 05:46 · Score: 3

Once you jump through all those loops, who will you be talking to? And if such a person exists, he probably already knows what you are going to say, so why bother calling? :)

Re:And talk to who? by gl4ss · 2013-06-13 06:09 · Score: 1

Once you jump through all those loops, who will you be talking to? And if such a person exists, he probably already knows what you are going to say, so why bother calling? :)
that's the thing. if everyone else is already tapped, what's the point. in fact this is how the prez and congress are justifying tapping everyone, because everyone might be called or might call someone or be somehow part of someone elses call network who might be aiding the enemy(so yeah if someone on your call network ever called someone who might have made a call to somali, yemen, iran or whatever country they label as suspicious this week then you're on the metadata list!).
otherwise just getting some end to end voip encryption would do the trick. but there's more since they would have metadata on your direct connection between those two devices, you would also need to bounce the connection from somewhere - through tor or whatever - and that would get laggy. but if you don't care about that, then it's relatively simple, you could just use some android phones for it too(it's possible to know that you're not sending extra data). the phone itself might get bugged while in your possession or the room you're talking from though - but if you're under personal surveillance at that level there's not that much that you can do - however in that case you might find comfort in that there's not enough people in the world to arrange 3+ persons surveying every person(though they sort of tried that in ddr).

--
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Re:And talk to who? by westlake · 2013-06-13 08:18 · Score: 1

Once you jump through all those loops, who will you be talking to?

Real spies like to keep things simple. They do not stand out from the crowd.
When stopped for a traffic violation they will be plausibly dressed for their age and class, respectably sober, and carrying a single iPhone or a Nexus, not a satchel of burners.

Nokia N900 by stormesj · 2013-06-13 05:48 · Score: 1

I have two Nokia N900s and I think it would be possible to make these devices "secure". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_N900

Re:Nokia N900 by amiga3D · 2013-06-13 06:05 · Score: 1

Viva Maemo!

Flooding by Phoenix666 · 2013-06-13 05:52 · Score: 4, Interesting

The NSA needs to be flooded with false positives. They need to have so many false positives generated that their illegal, unconstitutional spying is rendered moot.

On the other side, we need to surveille every member of Congress and the Executive and have their every move published on a publicly available site. After all, if they have nothing to hide then they shouldn't worry, right?

In a perfect world the President and every member of Congress who signed off on this unconstitutional behavior would be impeached. But I know this is not a perfect world. So instead I will advocate a world where we turn the panopticon on itself and make them suffer three times for what they make us suffer.

Tyrants must always be hoisted on their own petards.

--
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.

Re:Flooding by Grave · 2013-06-13 06:23 · Score: 2

Flood them with too much data? They can't sort what they have now, but they sure can store a lot And if they start to run low on space, they'll just make Congress fund another yottabyte of storage.
Re:Flooding by Sarten-X · 2013-06-13 06:39 · Score: 2

So in other words, we need to do absolutely nothing. The reality is the NSA already has more data than they can act on. Sure, they can analyze your phone calls and emails and figure out that you're the sort of person who is influential among your friends*... you could be a terrorist leader, or you could be a town gossip. It's far more likely to be the latter, so without more evidence, there's little point in pursuing you.
On the other hand, once you do do something that arouses suspicion, they can use your phone calls and emails to determine who may have conspired with you, and from there figure out what groups may be planning future attacks. By having that information available and already analyzed, they can pull up connections within minutes of a (preferably court-approved) request.
Rampant surveillance isn't what's really scary about what the NSA et al. are doing. Rather, what's worrying is that our government continues to rely on hindsight as a means to future security. We really ought to be more careful with our foreign policy, domestic welfare, and generally be more concerned with what people want to do to us, rather than what they can do to us. That would be a perfect world.
* I did this in grad school. It turns out analyzing call patterns is pretty simple, but the insight is practically useless. Most calling patterns are small rings with spokes.

--
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
Re:Flooding by arnott · 2013-06-13 06:48 · Score: 1

The NSA needs to be flooded with false positives. They need to have so many false positives generated that their illegal, unconstitutional spying is rendered moot.
This video recommends false positives in a funny way.
Re:Flooding by onyxruby · 2013-06-13 06:53 · Score: 3, Insightful

Wonderful idea, you and a few thousand buddies are all going to crapflood the NSA. The NSA, an organization that is arguably the best in the world at sorting noise from signal. Check your ego at the door and realize your an amateur pretending to play in the big leagues.
Want real change instead of feel good crap that doesn't do a damn thing? Call, or better yet, write your congress critter and demand change.
Re:Flooding by coinreturn · 2013-06-13 06:56 · Score: 1

The NSA needs to be flooded with false positives. They need to have so many false positives generated that their illegal, unconstitutional spying is rendered moot.
On the other side, we need to surveille every member of Congress and the Executive and have their every move published on a publicly available site. After all, if they have nothing to hide then they shouldn't worry, right?
In a perfect world the President and every member of Congress who signed off on this unconstitutional behavior would be impeached. But I know this is not a perfect world. So instead I will advocate a world where we turn the panopticon on itself and make them suffer three times for what they make us suffer.
Tyrants must always be hoisted on their own petards.
Might I suggest that you be the first to generate all those false positives? I'm sure you'll have no problem with the black SUV's that show up at your house.
Re:Flooding by Phoenix666 · 2013-06-13 07:11 · Score: 1

Gladly, coward. They can show up in all the black SUVs they want. The cameras I have mounted streaming that activity will evoke no reaction at all, I bet.

--
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
Re:Flooding by darkmeridian · 2013-06-13 07:43 · Score: 1

The NSA is reportedly filtering billions of electronic communications around the world in various languages and accents for the very miniscule fraction that is relevant to national security. Try your best to crap flood them with false positives; it won't matter because the rest of the world is already doing that.
You can write "BOMB BOMB KILL OBAMA" but the NSA would just ignore that because terrorists would never just keep trading messages that said that.

--
A NYC lawyer blogs. http://www.chuangblog.com/
Re:Flooding by sacrilicious · 2013-06-13 08:33 · Score: 1

Wonderful idea, you and a few thousand buddies are all going to crapflood the NSA. The NSA, an organization that is arguably the best in the world at sorting noise from signal. Check your ego at the door and realize your an amateur pretending to play in the big leagues.
Wow, I don't know how many NSA cocks you've sucked, but I'm sure they're appreciative.

--
- First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then ???, then profit.
Re:Flooding by Hatta · 2013-06-13 08:46 · Score: 1

The NSA, an organization that is arguably the best in the world at sorting noise from signal.
What reason is there to believe the NSA is any more effective than the TSA?

--
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Re:Flooding by coinreturn · 2013-06-13 09:39 · Score: 1

I don't see any reason to call me a coward, Mr. Tough Guy. I was just suggesting that you follow your own advice. And if you think three-letter-agency types are afraid of a few video cameras, you're a fool.
Re:Flooding by AmiMoJo · 2013-06-13 10:27 · Score: 1

Use a VPN. It has the practical effect of blocking some of the tracking and it increases the number of suspects (anyone using crypto is a potential terrorist). The more people who do it the more effective it becomes.

--
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Re:Flooding by magic+maverick+ · 2013-06-13 19:35 · Score: 1

OK, the party was a bomb, but the Dead Prez were cool.. Ricin our way towards Islamic Caliphate. Allah Akbar. God is great.
Also tree huggers anonymous have got another fire bombing, with real Molotov cocktails, fuck the SUVs and lets free the animals.
Also, I got a plan to crash a plane load of fertilizer into the White House. But I just need a pilot.

--
HELP MY ACCOUNT HAS BEEN HACKED BY AN ILLIBERAL ART STUDENT SET TO DESTROY THE INTERWEBZ!
Re:Flooding by dkf · 2013-06-13 19:53 · Score: 1

What reason is there to believe the NSA is any more effective than the TSA?
Simple! "N" comes before "T" in the alphabet, and so it's bound to be more effective. After all, if you extrapolate just a bit further you get that paragon of effectiveness, the BSA...

--
"Little does he know, but there is no 'I' in 'Idiot'!"
Re:Flooding by AK+Marc · 2013-06-16 14:28 · Score: 1

They can "sort" through it, but not analyze it. After the fact, they do a good job of seeing what should have tipped them off, which they had the data but hadn't yet analyzed. They can predict most things after the fact. They are working on getting better.

--
Learn to love Alaska
Re:Flooding by AK+Marc · 2013-06-16 14:42 · Score: 1

Why is it that the Christians are so anti-religion? Jews this, Muslims that. Jews are bankers and jewelers because the Christians and Muslims had banned them from owning land or otherwise applied different rules to them. When you can't buy land with your earnings/savings, you buy something smaller and more easily transportable, especially if you are constantly run off for believing in the same God as everyone else, just not the correctversion 2.0 or 3.0 of it.

Everyone else pushed them into money lending and jewelery, then attack them for being jewelers and bankers. I don't get it.

--
Learn to love Alaska

what makes you worth tracking? by alen · 2013-06-13 05:53 · Score: 1, Interesting

say the NSA is tracking 500 million people worldwide
do you really think that there is a guy sitting in the NSA tracking you for no reason? out of all the tens of millions of people? what makes you so important?

its like the idiots who think the supermarkets are tracking them personally with the loyalty cards. stores want aggregate data and purchase bundles to do loss leader promotions. they really couldn't care what you buy personally

it was already said the NSA does the same. they think some muslim street vendor or cab driver is sending money to fund the jihad, they see who he is calling and so on. to build data on possible people in a network.

Re:what makes you worth tracking? by Richy_T · 2013-06-13 05:58 · Score: 1

No, there is (probably) not a guy who is tracking you personally. But if/when they decide you're a "person of interest", for whatever reason, they can go digging.
And the supermarket thing doesn't bother me myself but it could result in some embarrassing and/or problematic invasions of privacy if implemented carelessly
Re:what makes you worth tracking? by hawguy · 2013-06-13 06:03 · Score: 1

say the NSA is tracking 500 million people worldwide
do you really think that there is a guy sitting in the NSA tracking you for no reason? out of all the tens of millions of people? what makes you so important?
Since they won't reveal exactly what they are tracking or what behaviors might warrant further scrutiny and investigation, how would I know if a guy at the NSA is tracking me? Maybe my purchase history will set off some "terrorist warning" alert and now they are digging through my past history records. Maybe they are going to send the guys in black SUV's to bring me in for questioning to ask me why I made a trip overseas, then made repeated purchases at Radio Shack and Home Depot *and* I turned my cell phone off for 3 days so I must be up to something nefarious.
If you think that wouldn't happen, then why are the combing through the data if they aren't going to scrutinize and/or question people who have suspicious behavior. And if they *are* doing that, then they are also going to find innocent users who did nothing wrong, yet are forced to explain themselves to the government and maybe even prove that they did nothing wrong.
Re:what makes you worth tracking? by Qzukk · 2013-06-13 06:06 · Score: 4, Insightful

"What makes you worth tracking?"
As the cost of this approaches $0, it's pretty easy to make tracking any given person's life worth more than it costs to do it.

--
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
Re:what makes you worth tracking? by Etherwalk · 2013-06-13 06:08 · Score: 1

Some of us just think it's a bad idea when the NSA can pick a random person on the street and know whether they're cheating on their spouse within two minutes.
Re:what makes you worth tracking? by alen · 2013-06-13 06:10 · Score: 1

say you do buy something that sets off a terrorist warning. chances are lots of other people are buying the exact same thing and setting off the same warning. its impossible for people to manually go through all the data and question everyone. even if they wanted to, they can't just question you for no reason. they just pass the info to the FBI. and they don't have enough people to question tens of thousands of people a year over what they buy. if they really did this it would be all over the internet
that's why in 2013 we have software that scans this data to find patterns
Re:what makes you worth tracking? by alen · 2013-06-13 06:12 · Score: 1

that's assuming there is a guy in Maryland clicking names on a list tens of thousands long to see who is cheating on their spouse, which is impossible and a stupid waste of time.
Re:what makes you worth tracking? by alen · 2013-06-13 06:14 · Score: 1

and what would be the point?
you really think there is some guy tracking you as you walk into a starbucks and yells out to the office, "qzukk is going into the starbucks, we got him"
Re:what makes you worth tracking? by NinePenny · 2013-06-13 06:14 · Score: 1

Two words - Fishing Expedition.
Re:what makes you worth tracking? by tapspace · 2013-06-13 06:16 · Score: 1

Come on /., we can't mod up such a blatant misunderstanding of a technical issue.
Since it's algorithmic filtering, we are all being tracked, just not in a personal, hands on way. Plus, if the data is retained, hey can examine your life with increasing levels of detail in the future. Building a huge database of all this data is even WORSE than tracking, because it enables all sorts of later analysis with increasingly powerful computers and increasingly sophisticated algorithms.
Re:what makes you worth tracking? by sfm · 2013-06-13 06:20 · Score: 1

> its like the idiots who think the supermarkets are tracking them personally with the loyalty cards. stores want aggregate data and
> purchase bundles to do loss leader promotions. they really couldn't care what you buy personally
Agreed, the supermarkets are interested in aggregate data. But they also keep the individual purchase data. This came out recently in a food poisoning case where the authorities used loyalty card data to narrow down what food was contaminated and the source (Medscape.com).
Just because aggregate data is the current stated goal, new data uses could easily appear. Then what?
Re:what makes you worth tracking? by immaterial · 2013-06-13 06:20 · Score: 5, Informative

its like the idiots who think the supermarkets are tracking them personally with the loyalty cards. stores want aggregate data and purchase bundles to do loss leader promotions. they really couldn't care what you buy personally
Bullshit. Careful who you call idiot, lest you look even more the fool.
Re:what makes you worth tracking? by hawguy · 2013-06-13 06:26 · Score: 1

say you do buy something that sets off a terrorist warning. chances are lots of other people are buying the exact same thing and setting off the same warning. its impossible for people to manually go through all the data and question everyone. even if they wanted to, they can't just question you for no reason. they just pass the info to the FBI. and they don't have enough people to question tens of thousands of people a year over what they buy. if they really did this it would be all over the internet
that's why in 2013 we have software that scans this data to find patterns
Right - they use datamining software to look for patterns, They can use very loose criteria that flags a million people, or they can tune the algorithms to tighten the criteria of what is flagged as "suspicious" until only 1000, or 100, or 10 people are flagged, and they'll keep tuning until they have a reasonable number of people to scrutinize and/or question.
Datamining works, but it's not exact - it can pick 1000 people out of 100 million that are likely going to do something, but not with 100% certainty. Especially since real terrorists know that they may be observed, so they take great pains to anonymize their behavior or make it conform to "normal".
The big question is - how many innocent Americans are scrutinized (wiretaps, email disclosure, sneak-and-peek warrants, etc) or questioned without having done anything wrong at all? No one can tell you since all of these activities are authorized by a secret court and it's illegal for a provider to disclose that a warrant has been served. Maybe it's 10 americans, maybe it's 1000, maybe it's a million, only the FISA court knows and they aren't telling anyone.
Re:what makes you worth tracking? by alen · 2013-06-13 06:30 · Score: 1, Insightful

that's still aggregate data. they find out who bought a basket of goods and market to them based on the predictions of past purchases of previous of these items. they don't care what you personally buy, the computer looks at the aggregate purchasing history and automatically creates coupons based on research of what you are likely to buy
its all done by computer. not like there is some guy sitting around and checking out hot pics of your pregnant daughter.
50 years ago they would have blindly mailed out coupons to anyone 18-49 or pay money for a TV ad. 90% of it would have been ignored. 2013 they can better target the right coupons to people more likely to use them.
not like they are going to have a custom profile of you accessible to anyone on the internet so they can laugh at you and know everything about you
Re:what makes you worth tracking? by LF11 · 2013-06-13 06:32 · Score: 2

I'm just waiting for the next pin to drop: DEA gets access to help assist the war on drugs.
Re:what makes you worth tracking? by localman57 · 2013-06-13 06:33 · Score: 2

No. Not in real time. The point is that they can go back in time and see what you did after they've identified you as a person of interest. The government has pretty much said as much. A lot of this apparatus is designed around the idea that the more information they collect, the more they can use one incident (whether it is successful or not) to prevent future incidents by tracking the person back in time and see who else might be connected. Then prevent them from doing anything.
Re:what makes you worth tracking? by Bob9113 · 2013-06-13 06:34 · Score: 1

what makes you worth tracking? ... do you really think that there is a guy sitting in the NSA tracking you for no reason?
What makes you think collaborative filtering and similar analyses are done one person at a time? The state of the art is done with linear algebra and similar maths, and solves simultaneously for each individual in the sample set.

--
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
Re:what makes you worth tracking? by alen · 2013-06-13 06:37 · Score: 1

isn't that the whole point of the program?
use data to find people living in the USA who are here to cause us harm in the future?
Re:what makes you worth tracking? by aaaaaaargh! · 2013-06-13 06:41 · Score: 1

say the NSA is tracking 500 million people worldwide
do you really think that there is a guy sitting in the NSA tracking you for no reason? out of all the tens of millions of people? what makes you so important?
If you look at the history of intelligence agencies all over the world, it is absolutely amazing what kind of people they considered "interesting" in the past (e.g. during the McCarthy era): poets, writers, movie-makers, businessmen, small criminals, politicians and political activists of all flavors, scientists, programmers, muslims, christians, outspoken government critiques, intellectuals, ... The list goes on and on. History has proved that these agencies have a pretty broad concept of what's "interesting" - all in the name of wasting tax payer money.
Re:what makes you worth tracking? by jdogalt · 2013-06-13 06:42 · Score: 1

and what would be the point?
1. automated more efficient and thus more financially profitable marketing and advertising.
2. political persecution. It's hard to get away with an old-school execution style A-list B-list purge, though certainly correlating the accelerometer data of mobile phones with the words on the web page visible at that second makes the list sorting much easier, if you don't care much about some false positives. And you can get your B list down from 50% to 1%, because computer targeting based on aggregated data really just is that good.
3. insider trading.
4. ratfucking anyone and everyone, from your brother, to the local congresscritter's close relatives under the age 14 that you don't like.
5. lots more shit that would keep me more awake at night than I can afford if I bothered to not repress the thoughts.
Re:what makes you worth tracking? by hawguy · 2013-06-13 06:52 · Score: 2

So someone asks you some questions. So what? If you went overseas, you were clearly fine with not only being questioned by the TSA, but having your personal property searched (without a warrant!) and even having your person scanned or physically scrutinized.
Well actually no, TSA didn't question me or go through my personal property other than an X-ray. US Customs asked if I was bringing back any restricted or taxable items, but they didn't question me about what else I had with me. They didn't even open my checked bag (or if they did, they reset the "opened by TSA indicator" on my lock and replaced the zip-tie on the zippers with another one just like mine.

If the NSA can flag your purchases, it also knows enough about you to know what you are doing with said purchases. So just ignore them (like they are ignoring you).
I'm supposed to be comfortable with surveilllance that is so detailed that not only do they know what I'm purchasing, but they also know what I'm doing with the purchases?
Re:what makes you worth tracking? by jma05 · 2013-06-13 06:59 · Score: 2

Now you are changing what you meant by "personally". Your first post implied personalized profiling. Now you are saying you meant personnel doing the profiling and that it would not matter if the profile is not public.
We are all products of different experiences and have different thresholds for finding things creepy. No need to call names.
Re:what makes you worth tracking? by dkleinsc · 2013-06-13 07:02 · Score: 1

Sit around collecting dirt on someone long enough, and you will find something that looks suspicious. Then, if you want to smack someone down, legitimately or not, you've collected an excuse to do so.
For example, let's say you'd sent a compromising photo to your significant other when you were 16. 20 years later, you're leading a politically inconvenient trade union, and whoops, waddaya know, all of a sudden you're done in for distributing child pornography.

--
I am officially gone from /. Long live http://www.soylentnews.com/
Re:what makes you worth tracking? by hawguy · 2013-06-13 07:07 · Score: 1

isn't that the whole point of the program?
use data to find people living in the USA who are here to cause us harm in the future?
If there were some way to ensure that's what the data is really used for that would be a laudable goal. But there's no way to prevent it from abuses. Maybe next election it will be used to find everyone that's ever contributed to a Tea Party candidate so the IRS can scrutinize their taxes, or maybe to track down everyone that's ever attended a Green Party meeting, or some other political means.
There's a lot of ways the data can be abused (if not by the current government, then a future one), and few ways to prevent the abuse.
Re:what makes you worth tracking? by alen · 2013-06-13 07:13 · Score: 1

so how will the NSA fund this? do they have some magic money making machine?
they beg for money from congress like everyone else. there are a few senate and house committees with members from both parties that have oversight of this and they take the money begging testimony in special sealed rooms cleared for classified information
Re:what makes you worth tracking? by tapspace · 2013-06-13 07:20 · Score: 1

Two weeks ago, it would have been "yeah, like the NSA is just amassing all of our search and call records." But, since we (the "conspiracy theorists") were right, it's time to change to some new objection. Well, I can't hit a moving target. You are 100% right, that will probably never happen. But, it could. And, there are literally an unbounded number of doomsday scenarios.
It is far more likely that in the future this data will be used to round up even more "criminals" (and, of course, you'll mentally tell yourself that you don't do anything bad enough to get that kind of attention, and that is exactly the problem with trying to argue with you and your lot, but I digress). All the government has to do is declare war on something that you do (or, even worse, have done). Sure, you can't be prosecuted ex post facto, but you can be prosecuted under any of a number of increasingly vague laws that will have already been long in place.
Or, whatever, we can just keep rolling the dice and watching American Idol content with the fact that the lives damaged by the US "justice" system are collateral damage and part of living in safe society. We can continue to lose our grip on freedom of speech, though, assembly and the press. We can continue to give up our privacy for ill-defined threats and wars on concepts. We can keep on keeping on, ever praying that they don't come for us, if that's what kind of dude you are.
Re:what makes you worth tracking? by jdogalt · 2013-06-13 07:36 · Score: 1

his point was that he believes it is possible. You apparently disagree. My own assessment is that it is possible, or, with the current trajectory of technology and social usage of it, will become possible in the near term (10 years). The way to combat it in my opinion, is to view the sorts that engage in it as criminals, and violaters of the constitution. The silicon valley types like to say "the perception is the reality". If we perceive these people as being legitimate, reasonable actors in our society... well, it's gonna be unfun in my opinion. But if we perceive them as criminals, and engage in an engineering war against them (i.e. I use duct tape to cover the camera on my mobile devices phones, but if we were at war with the spooks, there would be reasonable market share of phones with hard dip switch banks to cut the power/signal to the cam, mic, accelerometers, antennas, etc. I may be deluding myself that such physical things will be useful for long with ever shrinking scale nanotech. But the fact that anyone who has tried has failed utterly, due, I think to the buying public's lack of education about what these devices are really being used for (by the 'other users' of 'their' device), then I think such products would have at least somewhat succeeded in the market in the last 10 years. But it seems more that the NSA has successfully suppressed technical literacy to the point where our populace is ripe for the surveillance harvesting.
Re:what makes you worth tracking? by tlambert · 2013-06-13 08:03 · Score: 1

say the NSA is tracking 500 million people worldwide
do you really think that there is a guy sitting in the NSA tracking you for no reason?
I don't know... given your scenario, apparently there is a guy at the NSA tracking the majority of 500 million people for no reason...
Re:what makes you worth tracking? by ewibble · 2013-06-13 09:05 · Score: 1

Firstly I wouldn't have have even considered this a conspiracy theory. Fake moon landing, a weapon that causes earthquakes, are possibly true but highly unlikely. The question of is the government collecting all the information it can on us, the answer was clearly of course it is (at least highly likely), wouldn't you if you could.
But I agree with you, the problem is how will this information used in the future. I don't think anybody really wakes up and says what evil will I do today, they will use this information because they think it is the best for the country.
It will go something like this:
Group X will ruin the country if they get into power, they must be stopped, by any means at our disposal. Oh look at all this handy information available to us. You wouldn't want the Communist, Terrorist, or (insert favorite Evil group here) to win would you. Think of the children.
If you think this is a conspiracy theory you are wrong, just look at the world around you, do you think that China, Russia, Afghanistan, Iran wouldn't do this to their citizen. Of course they would, what makes you think that the country you live in the leaders are any better, apart from your own basis, and the media you are exposed too. Even if you think that, what makes you think that future powers that have access to this information won't. It is likely that this will happen.
It has happened before, and will happen again just much more efficiently next time. The people have to stop it as soon as possible, before it is too late.
The people who shouldn't have the privacy are the ones that are ruling the country, But they are the people that seem to have the most laws protecting their privacy. Of course the reason is for national security. It is true that secrecy is needed to run a country, but it never needs to be forever, they should be monitored and the data should be released when it no longer becomes necessary to keep it secret. (Protecting a career does not count)
Re:what makes you worth tracking? by immaterial · 2013-06-13 09:13 · Score: 1

that's still aggregate data.
Bullshit, again.

Not only is that completely contradicted by the article, it's completely contradicted by the rest of your post, which boils down to "sure they're tracking the specifics of what you buy and are data mining it to extract personal information on you, but it's done by a computer so who cares?"

Perhaps the teenage girl discussed in the article, who had her pregnancy outed to her family, cares?

I'd call your attempt at defending this utterly transparent, except somehow you got an insightful mod.
Re:what makes you worth tracking? by Algae_94 · 2013-06-13 10:12 · Score: 1

I find it hard to label someone as paranoid, when the government is indeed recording all of this data about them.
Re:what makes you worth tracking? by Zynder · 2013-06-13 16:41 · Score: 1

No he didn't. He said it in the 3rd sentence. They don't care what you personally buy. And they don't really. They will know what you have bought because that is recorded but yeah there isn't a guy that's gonna suddenly get an email that you just bought some Cheetos. What will happen is they will say in Alenville, sales are up on Cheetos. We have a new flavor of Cheetos. So send coupons/adverts to anyone who has bought Cheetos before and for those who are regular consumers, send them something extra special like a buy one get one free. Then the computer will comb the database and yes suddenly your name and address will pop up and get put on the mailing list. Big fucking deal. Hell if you matched that query then you probably want some buy one get one free Cheetos coupons. I would. What you are envisioning is that there is some Aunt Bea kind of gossip going around. "Hey Steve, that JMA dude just bought a dog collar, Crisco, and 4 boxes of magnum condoms. Boy is he gonna have a good time! Well you know just last week he bought 3 tubes of Vagisil, some Lice X, and a case of Mt Dew. So what does that mean?" And then you think it'll get posted to some kind of Walmart Facebook where "People who liked Crisco (like that JMA dude in Whereverthefuck Wisconsin) also liked Vagisil (like that JMA dude in Wisconsin). It just doesn't work that way!

You are correct though that people do have differing levels of creep factor. Doesn't mean their paranoia is justified.
Re:what makes you worth tracking? by CODiNE · 2013-06-13 17:20 · Score: 1

A fair amount of false positives to this stuff however. A while back a friend of ours had a baby shower so we bought her some baby stuff at regular stores, no loyalty cards. Next thing you know we start getting stupid baby magazines in the mail. Still get em.

--
Cwm, fjord-bank glyphs vext quiz
Re:what makes you worth tracking? by jma05 · 2013-06-13 21:25 · Score: 1

> What you are envisioning is that there is some Aunt Bea kind of gossip going around
No, I was not envisioning that. In fact, no one in this thread said that they themselves envisioned that. It was presented as a strawman argument.
Re:what makes you worth tracking? by AK+Marc · 2013-06-16 14:53 · Score: 1

Evidently you don't perceive these intrusions, or they don't bother you.
They aren't personal. The NSA doesn't know the last time I went through a metal detector, or what the result was. Sure, if there's an issue, they might be able to correlate machine logs with cameras, but they don't routinely try to personalize all available data to people. That would work better than what they do now, but beyond what they are doing. You have to show your boarding pass to go through security. Just put a camera on all of the ticket checkers, and pop the name and face into the database, along with their pass through the machines, and you might have had a point. And no, I'm not trying to give the NSA any ideas.

--
Learn to love Alaska
Re:what makes you worth tracking? by AK+Marc · 2013-06-16 15:13 · Score: 1

You are mistaking what's possible with what's probable. They don't have a file named "wife cheaters" But they have enough information at their disposal to determine within a few minutes whether any particular person is a cheater. That they don't, doesn't mean they can't or won't. It just means they don't care.

--
Learn to love Alaska

Umm by wbr1 · 2013-06-13 05:53 · Score: 3, Interesting

How about Ubuntu Touch? Linux core, can run VPN, TOR all the other goodies, and being OSS and linux you are free to investigate code and roll you own solutions on top of it.

--
Silence is a state of mime.

Re:Umm by dos1 · 2013-06-13 09:04 · Score: 2

Ubuntu for phones uses Android interfaces for drivers, so most of phones with it will have closed blobs to operate hardware directly. You never know what lives in such blobs.
Some phones also have their RAM directly connected with the modem. If that's the case, then no matter what OS you'll run, non-free GSM modem firmware may still access it and do nasty things, even with GSM radio supposedly disabled.
The only phones I know that provide full transparency regarding their firmware are Openmoko Neo Freerunner and OpenPhoenux GTA04. As the first one is a bit outdated, GTA04 is worth looking at, as it provides everything that was requested by the original poster and is still actively maintained - http://www.openphoenux.org/
BTW. The only thing that stops RMS from calling GTA04 completely free phone is non-free WiFi firmware, which has to be loaded to the chip. GTA02 (Freerunner) had WiFi firmware stored in its memory. Other than that, those two phones are completely free and you have full control from the first executed lines of code.

Not a god damned thing by onyxruby · 2013-06-13 06:03 · Score: 4, Insightful

There is absolutely nothing you can do because the government has root for any given phone (if nothing else through a warrant). Own the network and you own anything going through it. Your encryption means jack when their are appliances that do nothing but decrypt and re-encrypt traffic at very high rates of speed. You could get a separate phone just for having private conversations (ala drug dealer). You would quickly find out that they can determine that number (doesn't matter how you got that phone). Once they know that number they can just tap that through the same phone system.

Want some level of privacy and to ensure that the government at least has to get a warrant to read your supposed to be private conversations? Go old school, visit this antique shop called a Post Office and buy a roll of stamps and envelopes. There is well established legal doctrine that says snooping on your mail can only be done with a warrant.

Don't like my answer? Call your congress critter and demand change.

Re:Not a god damned thing by Nickodeimus · 2013-06-13 06:30 · Score: 1

Wish i had points to mod you up. Pretty much dead on on every item. No encryption that is available at this point is unbreakable for the kind of resources the NSA can leverage. Every other item people are listing here use various encryption means and methods that frequently revolve around AES256... which can be broken with brute force.
Re:Not a god damned thing by onyxruby · 2013-06-13 06:47 · Score: 1

One thing to note is that Media Mail is an explicit exception for everything. This is because it is by definition only to be used for "media" (books etc) and not for any other purpose. The post office lists very explicitly that there is no expectation of privacy and that they can inspect these packages to make sure that they aren't being used for anything other than media.
Your making the trade off of being able to ship heavy and otherwise very expensive items at a far cheaper rate by declaring that you are only shipping media and not private communications.
Re:Not a god damned thing by AmiMoJo · 2013-06-13 10:32 · Score: 1

There is absolutely nothing you can do because the government has root for any given phone (if nothing else through a warrant).
You could compile your own Android or Ubuntu OS from source and only use encrypted data comms over a VPN (instead of phone calls and texts). Full device encryption so warrants are ineffective.
It can be done, but it isn't easy.

Your encryption means jack when their are appliances that do nothing but decrypt and re-encrypt traffic at very high rates of speed.
The kind of encryption used to protect VPNs is specifically designed to prevent that. The very reason for it to exist is to communicate securely over an untrusted network. It works and if anyone every cracked it we would have far bigger problems than PRISM.

--
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Re:Not a god damned thing by onyxruby · 2013-06-13 14:40 · Score: 1

Meet the SSL decryption appliance. It works by use of a MITM attack. As I said if you own the network you own anything going through it. When you own the network you can own any corresponding key exchanges.
Here is one such example appliance, there are many others like it.
http://www.sourcefire.com/security-technologies/network-security/ssl-encryption-decryption
Re:Not a god damned thing by adolf · 2013-06-13 15:13 · Score: 1

You're very naive to believe that the the super computers they publish articles about are actually the most powerful that exist.
And you're very naive to believe that the most powerful super computers that exist are actually a few orders of magnitude faster than those that have articles written about them.
We aren't in the ENIAC days; Commercial Off-The-Shelf is the order of the day.
That said: Can an organization like the NSA defeat AES-128? What about AES-256? Probably so, but not through brute force: Remember, AES (and DES) are both products of the US Government.
*ahem*

--
Kid-proof tablet..
Re:Not a god damned thing by onyxruby · 2013-06-14 00:00 · Score: 1

I agree with your point about supercomputers, that isn't what I'm talking about using for decryption.
You don't need a supercomputer to decrypt the contents of a message when you own the network. Automated appliances conduct MITM attacks and are at use in every major corp for things like DLP. One example of a commercial product that you can buy.
http://www.sourcefire.com/security-technologies/network-security/ssl-encryption-decryption

Re:Being "spied" on, or drawing attention, choose. by amiga3D · 2013-06-13 06:04 · Score: 4, Insightful

The trick is to hide in plain sight. Most of the time if you seem legit and do nothing obvious you're flying below the radar.

HAM Radio? by littlewink · 2013-06-13 06:05 · Score: 3, Funny

It's waiting for you.

Re:HAM Radio? by red_dragon · 2013-06-13 06:12 · Score: 2

Encrypted communication on amateur radio bands is prohibited by law in the US, so transmitting an encrypted signal just invites spooks to triangulate your transmitter's position.

--
In Soviet Russia, Jesus asks: "What Would You Do?"
Re:HAM Radio? by localman57 · 2013-06-13 06:40 · Score: 1

That's what code is for. Not encryption, code. Talk in codewords. Get a ham license (or better yet, don't get one) then get a 2 meter radio, and move somewhere with an autopatch. That goes a long way towards giving you an anonymous outgoing phone number. And I'm guessing the spooks aren't just standing by to triangulate positions. That shit takes actual work by people, as opposed to harvesting tons of digital communication, which is easily done by computers.

Again, this is assuming that you're up to something nefarious. If you're not, just give up. it's hopeless to try to avoid this sort of surveillance if you want to live like an everyday person. The only way to stop them is to vote in people who say they'll change things (Like Obama?) or overthrow the government. The first option isn't likely to succeed, and the second isn't worth the cost.

And even if you succeed, you're still being watched by corporations all the time.
Re:HAM Radio? by Teckla · 2013-06-13 06:44 · Score: 1

Encrypted communication on amateur radio bands is prohibited by law in the US, so transmitting an encrypted signal just invites spooks to triangulate your transmitter's position.
One could always use Steganography.
Re:HAM Radio? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-06-13 07:00 · Score: 1

If you transmit without a license the local HAMs will look for you (and most likely find you); they take pretty seriously. And using code words to intentionally disguise is prohibited as well.
Re:HAM Radio? by localman57 · 2013-06-13 07:32 · Score: 1

Local guys are not going to find someone who transmits from a moving car a couple of times a week for a few minutes each time. If you're doing more than that, then yes, you're putting yourself at risk. But that pretty much goes true for any communications medium. The longer you talk, the more often you talk, the less you move around, the more likely you are to get caught. And, again, the big problem really isn't placing the call. It's where to place the call TO, which is why the feds really want to get all these numbers in the first place.
Re:HAM Radio? by gnu-sucks · 2013-06-13 07:45 · Score: 1

So then what, use encryption anyway and don't identify?
As much as I hate to say it, if you don't cause any problems or interference, you'll never even be noticed.
Ships in international waters do this all the time, sometimes with a license, mostly without.
Re:HAM Radio? by tippe · 2013-06-13 08:03 · Score: 1

et-lay em-thay y-tray o-tay op-stay ee-may.
Take that, NSA bitches..., uh, I mean ake-tay at-they, SA-Nay??? ah, fuck it...
Re:HAM Radio? by shem2519 · 2013-06-13 08:09 · Score: 1

The NSA has been monitoring HAM radio since at least the 1970's. Here's a mention of this from yesterday: http://www.brennancenter.org/analysis/crisis-fear-have-driven-us-national-security-state. I suppose you could speak in code, but it is unlikely that they would be unable to break a code that a human could speak and understand. They can probably at least tell which repeater or autopatch you are near. And whether they can track you down or not, it is conceivable that your verbal communications would be processed into something understandable more rapidly than an AES-256 message.

There's an app for that by Dramacrat · 2013-06-13 06:06 · Score: 1

Free, OSS Redphone, or a commercial solution such as PrivateGSM.

--
There are over 36 million lines of COBOL code in the world, and they are all raping children.

Re:There's an app for that by Dramacrat · 2013-06-13 06:07 · Score: 1

Free, OSS Redphone, or a commercial solution such as PrivateGSM.
... as for avoiding the collection of 'metadata', such as who called whom and when, well... roll your own GSM network. ;)

--
There are over 36 million lines of COBOL code in the world, and they are all raping children.

Rebirth by Etherwalk · 2013-06-13 06:06 · Score: 1

The NSA needs to be flooded with false positives.

Undead Osama, is that you? Phoenix666 was a bit obvious...

Eh by Impy+the+Impiuos+Imp · 2013-06-13 06:07 · Score: 1

This type of phone would be much more useful for politicians and businesspeople than the average joe, since they're the real target of rogue agents working for someone else (and not just illicitely for those in power, either, keep in mind. Planted leftovers for previous administrations could be too.)

Snowden showed he could listen in on conversations of powerful people, and no alarm bells went off anywhere.

--
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.

Did Lindsay Mills think she was important? by ZeroPly · 2013-06-13 06:09 · Score: 4, Insightful

I mean, come on, she was just a ballerina/dancer in Hawaii, what did she have to hide from the NSA? Sure, her boyfriend Edward Snowden was involved in government affairs, but just one of a gazillion contractors.

--
Support microSD: in a post 9/11 world, it is unwise to carry your data on media that you cannot comfortably swallow.

Re:Did Lindsay Mills think she was important? by JigJag · 2013-06-14 00:54 · Score: 1

a ballerina? Check your sources man, she is an exhibitionist circus performer and erotic dancer!
And before you object "so what if she is?", I will respond "indeed, so what?". It's not her lifestyle I condemn, it's the misconstrued and possibly disingenuous way you present the information. Don't colour or doctor the truth. It stains it.
And finally, yes, she is the target of the NSA because of her connections. The problem is that everyone is connected to Edward Snowden by 7 links or less, so we're all under suspicion too.
JigJag

--
"The hallmark of humanity is the ability to move beyond sensory inputs" - Mary Helen Immordino-Yang

Re:No easy solution by CanHasDIY · 2013-06-13 06:12 · Score: 1

I just can't stop myself. If you don't have anything to hide you have nothing to worry about.

Do the windows in your house have curtains or blinds, sir? The door to your bathroom - is there no lock on it?

Sometimes (read: most of the time) the desire for privacy has nothing to do with obscuring bad behaviour.

--
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese

What can we do? Not much. by _UnderTow_ · 2013-06-13 06:14 · Score: 1

This country is doomed. I'm not sure anything can be done at this point other than put your head between your legs and wait for the wreckage to come to a complete stop.

Re:No easy solution by hawguy · 2013-06-13 06:15 · Score: 1

I just can't stop myself. If you don't have anything to hide you have nothing to worry about.

There, I said it. Here come the downmodders.

Since once the NSA has the data it likely never gets deleted, how do you know if you have something you want to hide from a government 10, 15, 20 years into the future? Are you sure that none of the people or groups that you associate with now won't be deemed an enemy of the state at any point in the future? Maybe some ordinary every day activity you do today will bring you under suspicion in the future, like going to church (or one particular church), or the gun range, or spending time in a Makerspace.

Re:Being "spied" on, or drawing attention, choose. by CanHasDIY · 2013-06-13 06:17 · Score: 1

Which is better, drawing attention to your activity by hiding your communication, which likely triggers a red flag but won't hide metadata, or choosing your words carefully when communicating in any way, shape, or form?

In my case, the first one - My communications really aren't all that interesting, unless you consider "Hey, Honey, need me to stop by the store on my way home?" vital to national security interests. However, if I hide them, it makes the Powers That Be think they are interesting, and thus they will want to spend resources to investigate further. Upon said further investigation, they'll discover that they not only completely wasted their time and resources, but also inadvertently helped me achieve my goal of poisoning the holy living fuck out of their well.

--
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese

Re:Bullshit! NSA horseshit! by HornWumpus · 2013-06-13 06:18 · Score: 1

I kind of feel like I've forgotten my meds this week.

--
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'

Encrypted phones by Animats · 2013-06-13 06:22 · Score: 4, Informative

There are encrypted GSM phones with end-to-end encryption when talking to a similar phone. They're overpriced and hard to buy, but available. The source code is available so you can see how it works. It's classic Diffie-Hellman 4096-bit key exchange to establish a session key, followed by 256-bit AES encryption for the data.

It's too bad OpenMoko tanked. That was a totally open source phone down to the hardware level. That plus Cryptophone-compatible code would have been trustworthy.

Re:Encrypted phones by Anonymous Coward · 2013-06-13 06:29 · Score: 3, Informative

Openmoko is not tanked.
OpenPhoenux project, coming from Openmoko community, may be the answer for all those needs. It has less resources than Openmoko had, as it's done by a small german company Golden Delicious, but thanks to that it makes small moves rather than big and crazy that Openmoko did, so it's less likely that it'll completely fail like Openmoko did.
Old Openmoko Neo Freerunner already was perfect for such purpose, but it's a bit unusable for anyone who's not hardcore geek always being ready to use terminal on his phone to do simple tasks in case something breaks. Fortunately, new GTA04, together with QtMoko or SHR systems, should be quite good choice.
http://www.openphoenux.org/
"What OpenPhoenux stands for:
* participation by everyone
* extensible hard- and software - DIY
* allows to inspect what the system is doing (as far as achievable)
* can be repaired using standard parts (as good as possible)
* long-term support (e.g. software upgrades for an 2007 Neo 1973)
* no planned obsolescence through open hard- and software
* no central, intransparent, stock exchange listed instance that gives directions
* hardware development and production near to users (Europe) under fair labour conditions
* independent from the "modern mainframe" and back to the networked, decentralized web
* everybody plays client and server roles and keeps control over his/her participation
* makes the technical system transparent, not the user"
Re:Encrypted phones by Lumpy · 2013-06-13 07:47 · Score: 1

"being ready to use terminal on his phone to do simple tasks"
Like attempting to answer a phone call. OpenMoko is a ungodly nightmare, I still have a worthless freerunner that is 100% useless as a phone.

--
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.

Don't bother by anyaristow · 2013-06-13 06:23 · Score: 1

If you're going to fight for privacy and rights and puppies and things, then do things toward that goal. Securing your own phone doesn't do that. It just makes work for you. Unless you really do have something of interest to them. Which you probably don't.

Use your efforts to write letters, keep informed so you can vote intelligently, educate people, publish something, or whatever. Securing your own phone is just "I got mine." Worse, it's probably wasted effort.

Use a land line by alphaminus · 2013-06-13 06:31 · Score: 1

At least they need a warrant for that.

Re:Windows mobile 6.5 by Anonymous Coward · 2013-06-13 06:33 · Score: 3, Insightful

It sounds like you want a phone with

No, it sounds like he doesn't know what the fuck he's talking about at all.

Example:
" Technically it's not hard to design a phone that can switch off the GSM transmitter, and use VoIP for calls"
I've never seen a phone that wouldn't let you shut off the GSM transmitter, nobody needs to "design" this it's already there.
I can't speak for iPhones or Windows devices, but with Android you can shut off everything associated with cell phone carrier use any time you want, and install any kind of VOIP client you feel like using.

"Android may not be the best software for such a device, as it very eagerly phones home."

Bullshit. There's nothing in the Android OS which phones home or anywhere else. Yes, there are some applications which do it, but you can shut those off. And if you're extra paranoid just go install a custom ROM and don't run the spyware applications.

honestly by fazey · 2013-06-13 06:35 · Score: 1

Honestly, your best hope is going to be Ubuntu Touch. It will give you a hell of a lot more control over your phone than android. It is straight up linux, so if you know what you are doing on a linux box, you, in theory, should be able to cut off those phone home's and shit.

Re:Being "spied" on, or drawing attention, choose. by Hatta · 2013-06-13 06:39 · Score: 2

Avoiding attention isn't the point. Simply obstructing the illegal surveillance regime is the point. Any way in which you can resist, you should resist.

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Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!

Learn and use some obscure foreign language by Tirs · 2013-06-13 06:40 · Score: 1

For sure they will not understand what you say. The more different from English, the better. For example, Arabic is a good option.

Oh, wait...

--
Strength, balance, courage and reason. If you know what's this about, contact me!

Re:Learn and use some obscure foreign language by Anonymous Coward · 2013-06-13 06:43 · Score: 2, Funny

How about British English?
Re:Learn and use some obscure foreign language by PPH · 2013-06-13 06:58 · Score: 1

Navajo. No, wait. That's domestic, not foreign.

--
Have gnu, will travel.
Re:Learn and use some obscure foreign language by AK+Marc · 2013-06-16 15:48 · Score: 1

Hi hao. I'm sure they are trying to get on top of the Chinese, but it's not overly common for Americans to learn and immigrants are not trusted (much like the Japanese were put in concentration camps in western US in WWII because the US citizens weren't trustable). So you are likely pretty safe talking Chinese, unless you are high on their list. Too many talkers, and too few listeners.

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Learn to love Alaska

'Obama Phone' Program Has Nothing to Do with Obama by Teckla · 2013-06-13 06:41 · Score: 1

... Obamaphone ... Obamaphone ... Obamaphone ...

The 'Obama Phone' Program Has Nothing to Do with Obama

Get rid of it by Murdoch5 · 2013-06-13 06:46 · Score: 1

If your that concerned with your privacy then leave the grid. Go cash only and NEVER appear on camera or leave a network footprint. It's possibly if your careful to effectively disappear from the watchers but you have to tip toe like your in an active mine field.

If you want privacy just don't get a cell phone, they are pretty much the most track-able device that people carry day to day.

Re:Get rid of it by AK+Marc · 2013-06-16 15:56 · Score: 1

Go live in a small town in Alaska. There are plenty of felons who hide out in Alaska, most successfully, but others re-offend in Alaska, and draw attention to themselves, and get to serve time in the Alaska prison in Arizona, before being flown back to Alaska for release, and handed over to some other state for prosecution elsewhere.

I still haven't figured out why they didn't set it up to allow direct release in AZ for those being handed off to other officials, and send all prisoners slated for other state prosecution to be sent to the private prison in AZ, and release them there, rather than flying them back to Alaska for a day, and then back out to somewhere else, adding cost and complexity for all.

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Learn to love Alaska

Redphone, huh? by geminidomino · 2013-06-13 06:51 · Score: 4, Informative

Funny how a privacy-oriented app like TextSecure (text app from the makers of Red Phone, mentioned in TFS) wants to access my Device ID, SIM serial number, and Subscriber ID...

Re:'Obama Phone' Program Has Nothing to Do with Ob by Archangel+Michael · 2013-06-13 06:57 · Score: 2

Well, it makes about as much sense as the Liberal "Bush's War for Oil". just sayin

--
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.

Re:'Obama Phone' Program Has Nothing to Do with Ob by localman57 · 2013-06-13 06:57 · Score: 2

I know that. But it's become a common term for a government issued phone. If I say a Lifeline phone, people tend to think "I've fallen... AND I CAN'T GET UP!" or something like that. The world is full of commonly accepted terms that don't mean what they sound like they mean. You can fight it, or you can just go with it, and move on with your life.

Silent Circle by rover42 · 2013-06-13 06:59 · Score: 1

I'd say the obvious way to go: https://silentcircle.com/

Re:Silent Circle by Joe+U · 2013-06-13 07:16 · Score: 1

I'm almost always fine with closed source software, but in this case, I would feel better if I could see how secure they are at the source code level.
Re:Silent Circle by prz · 2013-06-19 03:40 · Score: 1

We in fact do publish the source code for Silent Phone and Silent Text. -Phil Zimmermann

Re:No easy solution by Anonymous Coward · 2013-06-13 07:01 · Score: 1

"anything to hide" define this

its really that simple.

whatever you think the definition is, you are wrong.

and every four years that definition is changed.

this is a concept most children have a hard time getting a handle on but a few years of history, social studies, government, and a study on world war 2 germany and the rise of the USSR usually clear things up.

Re:XMPP by master5o1 · 2013-06-13 07:12 · Score: 2

They could have kept mining federated XMPP chats and passing those to the NSA but no, they wanted to stop federation and only have Google-controlled chats go to the NSA.

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signature is pants

Re:No easy solution by njnnja · 2013-06-13 07:21 · Score: 1

I just can't stop myself. If you don't have anything to hide you have nothing to worry about.

I'm not going to downmod you, but I did notice:

amiga3D (567632)

(email not shown publicly)

Would you be willing to post your email? What about the name of your elementary school, the name of your first pet, and your mother's maiden name? Or how much money you have in the bank, and your retirement accounts?

It's not about having something to hide. It's about wanting a modicum of privacy from the Lois Lerners of the world (and yeah the baddies on the right too but the IRS is current events so that's my reference du jour).

Re:What to do? Don't worry about it by dcollins · 2013-06-13 07:21 · Score: 1

It's like you've never heard of (a) inalienable rights, (b) computers that can scan as many signals as you need (irrespective of NSA staffing levels), or (c) unhinged prosecutors who take a personal disliking to someone and then dig up every piece of dirt they need to destroy them (as evidenced by the USA's beating every country in the history of the world on imprisonment numbers).

You don't need to be exciting. You can just be the wrong person in some local cop's or prosecutor's crosshairs, or the wrong address on a sloppy search warrant. It happens EVERY. SINGLE. DAY.

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We know where leadership by an anti-intellectual "strongman" who scapegoats minorities and likes boisterous rallies goes

Possible Solution by Marksolo · 2013-06-13 07:44 · Score: 1

Set up a VOIP exchange at home connected to a landline. When dialing someone, phone your house landline; then use the exchange to connect via a VPN to one or multiple VOIP providers, who connect you to your recipient. This prevents meaningful metadata collection, unfortunately it does not stop tracking of the cellphone itself.

Re:Possible Solution by tokencode · 2013-06-13 12:12 · Score: 1

Huh? You don't think they have your landline logs?
Re:Possible Solution by Marksolo · 2013-06-13 15:05 · Score: 1

The problem for them is matching the data up, they will at best think you are friendless because you only ever phone your own house. The idea is to keep the data from being meaningful.

Very easy.... by Lumpy · 2013-06-13 07:45 · Score: 1

SIP software on your phone and a VPN connection. you connect to your target's VPN and then make the SIP call to his protected internal phone over the VPN. Good luck cracking that phone call.

They will have your IP address, so use a VPN service that is outside the country and hope it's not actually a honeypot ran by the government....

--
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.

Re:Windows mobile 6.5 by wooferhound · 2013-06-13 07:56 · Score: 1

Doesn't https://www.seecrypt.com// encrypt your calls and send them over the internet as VoIP calls ?

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We are Dead Stars looking back Up at the Sky

One time pad by strangeattraction · 2013-06-13 07:57 · Score: 1

Use text and encrypt with a one time pad.

Re:What to do? Don't worry about it by godrik · 2013-06-13 07:58 · Score: 1

The problem is not really that they are listening to everybody now. The problem is that they would log everything that is being said or done. Later on, if you become a "problem" to them, they could start charging you with ridiculous past illegal activities you had.

-"I am not arresting you because you are protesting drone strikes against an american target... I am arresting you because you smoked some weed 2 years ago (There are pictures of that on facebook and phones call logs where you admit it). Also you jaywaled 10 times in the last 6 month (recorded by your google glasses). I see that you also bought stuff from amazon and did not fill for sales tax, that's a tax fraud. Also you drove your car on june 3rd without insurance, It had expired on the 2nd and was renewed on the 4th, so here goes your driving licence. Your protest of the drone strikes? That's protected by the first amendment, I would not dare touching that. Too bad you'll have to protest in prison..."

Alternative scenario... by tlambert · 2013-06-13 07:59 · Score: 1

Is Google's dropping of XMPP purely a business decision to focus on Hangouts, or were there other reasons?

Alternative scenario...

Government: "We have a FISA warrant which lets us monitor all your XMPP traffic"
Google: ...
Google: clickity clickity clickity clickity ...
Google: "What's XMPP?"

I wonder what would happen if... by shem2519 · 2013-06-13 08:12 · Score: 1

I wonder what would happen if there was another Church Committee. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_Committee

Friends by robot256 · 2013-06-13 08:21 · Score: 1

staying away from certain places; like Google Plus, Facebook, and friends

Summary is correct. The only way to stay off of Facebook is to not have any friends.

Serval Mesh by doti · 2013-06-13 08:29 · Score: 1

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.servalproject

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factor 966971: 966971

Turning off phone isn't enough by guevera · 2013-06-13 08:33 · Score: 1

Don't forget to also take out the battery from your cell when you've turned it off, otherwise your phone can still be pinged by the network and in some cases will continue to automatically phone home. IIRC, smartphones will often also have some internal micro-power source (kinda like a cmos battery in your desktop). You'd have to disable that to make sure there's no power to the phone when it's off. I believe that most older dumbphones do not have this kind of thing, so you should probably stick to one of those for your burner (and of course if you've got a burner and a legit phone, never have them powered up in the same location at the same time).

Re:Windows mobile 6.5 by Hatta · 2013-06-13 08:51 · Score: 2

How would anyone know without the source code? Even with the source code, it's impossible to prove there's no back door.

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Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!

Re:Windows mobile 6.5 by Hatta · 2013-06-13 08:52 · Score: 2

I've never seen a phone that wouldn't let you shut off the GSM transmitter, nobody needs to "design" this it's already there.

You really need a hardware switch. Otherwise the OS could just pretend to shut off the radio.

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Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!

Some great apps by griffjon · 2013-06-13 09:03 · Score: 1

At one level, you're toast, right? You need a burner phone you bought with cash, without using ID, and to activate it without linking it to your person. You need to never have it with you at your commons places to be (house, work, coffeeshop on the corner, etc.) - and once you start talking using apps on a smartphone, you've multiplied the complications here 1000x. If you care that much, you probably should just give up on cell phones.

But, there are a tons of ways to make your usage of cell phones safer and more secure. The Guardian Project is a great place to start - https://guardianproject.info/apps/ - you can get their apps from the Play store, from the F-Droid OSS repo, or as APKs directly. It brings Tor to your Android, OTR chatting, end-to-end encrypted VOIP calls, and even PGP email.

iOS is a bit further behind with all of this, for various reasons.

There was a great guide on this last year, but the site seems to have gone offline. Some intrepid data-rescuers have put the content up on github:

https://github.com/opensafermobile/materials

--
Returned Peace Corps IT Volunteer

Re:Windows mobile 6.5 by chihowa · 2013-06-13 09:05 · Score: 2

Bullshit. There's nothing in the Android OS which phones home or anywhere else. Yes, there are some applications which do it, but you can shut those off. And if you're extra paranoid just go install a custom ROM and don't run the spyware applications.

That's absolutely false. If Google Apps are installed on the phone (any stock Android, not AOSP or Cyanogenmod (though you can install gapps)), then background programs will make constant connections to Google. GTALK_ASYNC_CONN_com.android.gsf.gtalkservice.AndroidEndpoint will wake the phone periodically to phone home (despite the name, it's not normal GTalk service, as it persists even if Talk is logged out or completely disabled). If you have "Wi-Fi & mobile network location enabled", a service will periodically wake your phone and send Google the surrounding wifi access points, the surrounding cell towers, and sometimes will turn on GPS and send your location.

These are stock Android OS components that phone home. Maybe you use different definitions for "OS" or "phone home", but there is certainly something to be concerned about in Android.

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If you want a vision of the future, imagine a youtube comments section scrolling - forever.

Re:Being "spied" on, or drawing attention, choose. by Jherek+Carnelian · 2013-06-13 09:18 · Score: 2

> The trick is to hide in plain sight. Most of the time if you seem legit and do nothing obvious you're flying below the radar.

Hiding in plain sight simply doesn't work when there is a permanent recording of everything you do. You might not trip some pattern detector today, but if you have any proximity to any events of interest then the NSA will be focusing on everything they've ever recorded you doing.

Just look at Snowden - for over a decade he anonymously posted to multiple websites with the username TheTrueHOOHA but no one paid any attention to him, he was "below the radar." But now everybody and their brother is digging up everything he ever wrote with that username. Crap he wrote when he was 17 is now under the microscope.

Easy by c · 2013-06-13 09:56 · Score: 1

1. Buy a phone with a removable battery. Cheap or expensive doesn't really matter.
2. Remove battery from phone.
3. Discard battery as appropriate for the type (it's probably classified as some sort of hazardous waste).

Your cellular phone is now 100% secure from government spying.

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Log in or piss off.

The Serval Project by complete+loony · 2013-06-13 11:44 · Score: 1

This is an objective of the Serval Project. Our Serval Mesh software for android currently provides secure voice / chat / file distribution over local networks. But since Wi-Fi has such lousy range, we're also planning to build and sell small Wi-Fi routers with 915MHz ISM band radios for long range / low bandwidth links.

While we're focused on local communications in places where the infrastructure is down / never existed / can't be trusted, with the addition of a Distributed Hash Table, we could provide services over the internet.

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09F91102 no, 455FE104 nope, F190A1E8 uh-uh, 7A5F8A09 that's not it, C87294CE no. Ah! 452F6E403CDF10714E41DFAA257D313F.

Re:Phones with "safe OS" by dos1 · 2013-06-13 12:33 · Score: 1

I wouldn't count Nokia N9, it's pretty much locked and easy to screw thanks to their security framework. Nokia N900 still has non-free bootloader, but without ability to brick your phone if you tinker too much with it just because security rules say so.

Fortunately, N900 and GTA04 are good choices :)

Re:Open Mobo? by dos1 · 2013-06-13 12:39 · Score: 1

You mean Openmoko? Company behind it failed, but community around it is still alive and there is now even successor of Openmoko Neo Freerunner - GTA04 (http://www.openphoenux.org/)

And yes, that would be great starting point. With GTA04 (and with old Freerunner too) you can be sure that that's you who is in control of your phone and your data. Openmoko and OpenPhoenux phones are pretty much the only completely free mobile phones out there.

Re:Being "spied" on, or drawing attention, choose. by F'Nok · 2013-06-13 14:57 · Score: 1

While it would be great if a large number of people poisoned the well of information, the unfortunate reality is that the very people able to safely do that (those with no secrets they want to keep private) are the ones that also have little motivation to do so.

The people that genuinely understand the need for such privacy and the value of information poisoning are often also the ones that don't want to have their lives scrutinised.

This sort of system works so well because they've convinced so many that there's no need to worry, and the ones that understand the risk can easily become public examples.

Re:Being "spied" on, or drawing attention, choose. by Zynder · 2013-06-13 16:16 · Score: 1

Yeah but look at the results. Look how long it took before he finally got put in the spotlight. Even then he kinda just threw himself out there. This could have stretched out much longer before they figured it out. You assume that you'll be able to stay anonymous forever and that is simply not true. The gov is huge and they have much much more power than you ever will. If they want you, they'll get you. The most that you can hope for is to keep delaying them as long as possible. It failed for the NSA too. They practiced some hardcore OPSEC I am sure. They locked this, encrypted that. And what did that get them? Nothing. The info got leaked. Same goes for you. If you try to hold a secret and someone wants to know it bad enough it will eventually leak as well. We the common folks are always at a disadvantage to the powers that be. It is better to overload the system than to try and starve it.

It's called Airplane mode by thelukester · 2013-06-13 16:40 · Score: 1

"Technically it's not hard to design a phone that can switch off the GSM transmitter, and use VoIP for calls." Android and iOS have had the ability to turn on wifi in airplane mode for years. Don't want to phone use.google services, install CM without the google apps.

Oh man... by gr0wler · 2013-06-13 16:42 · Score: 1

....this guy is totally a fuckin' cop.

Re:No easy solution by DMUTPeregrine · 2013-06-13 18:04 · Score: 1

If the NSA isn't doing anything wrong then they must not have anything to hide. Why haven't they declassified everything? Why is there even a classification system, if the only reason to hide things is because you're doing evil things?

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Not a sentence!

Its called "airplane mode" by tanveer1979 · 2013-06-13 18:53 · Score: 1

Switch on airplane mode, switch on WIFI, and use whatever encryption you like

--
My Aurora : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o91ZsGwJYyg
FB : https://www.facebook.com/TanveersPhotography

You don't route around this damage by ThatsNotPudding · 2013-06-13 23:53 · Score: 1

This damage has to be fixed, period. The corruption and psychopaths and enablers must be ripped out by their roots with no favoritism nor quarter given, By Any Means Necessary. Only then can we "have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth. "

Here's how by carys689 · 2013-06-14 04:16 · Score: 1

Use Verizon Wireless or T-Mobile. U.S. government cannot spy on the users of those two cellphone services because they are both partially owned by foreign companies. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324049504578543800240266368.html?mod=WSJ_hps_MIDDLE_Video_Third

Re:Won't work by Cederic · 2013-06-14 06:06 · Score: 1

It's still very crude and entirely useless but academics have had success in creating images depicting what someone's thinking of.

So give it another decade, it's not impossible that you will be able to tell what someone's thinking.

Whether it's ever possible at a mass population (rather than inserting someone into a scanner) is more difficult. I'd guess not, but I have no scientific basis for that.

Won't work by Hamsterdan · 2013-06-14 06:26 · Score: 1

Try to have that phone approved by the FCC (or whatever equivalent entity in other countries)

--
I've got better things to do tonight than die.

Re:No easy solution by AK+Marc · 2013-06-16 14:13 · Score: 1

Do the windows in your house have curtains or blinds, sir?

Yes, they are one of the most effective climate control methods. Open day and closed night in winter, and you should cut at least 10% off your heating bill, or vice versa in summer to cut your cooling bill.

The door to your bathroom - is there no lock on it?

As a parent with small children, I removed the locks. The children managed to lock themselves in, so I pulled them to prevent issues.

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Learn to love Alaska

Re:No easy solution by AK+Marc · 2013-06-16 14:22 · Score: 1

Because I do have something to hide. You are proving his point. Why do you put your money in a wallet and your wallet in a pocket? Wouldn't it be more convenient to tape bills to your shirt, and pluck them from there as you need them?

Sure it would, but you aren't keeping your money "secret" (though doing so is often a security feature as well), but you are protecting it from loss or damage. Do you lock your car in a parking lot so nobody sees what's in your ashtray (are they still calling them that when so few cars have real lighters or ashtrays anymore?)? Or do you do so to secure it?

Security of physical possessions isn't related to "hiding" anything.

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Learn to love Alaska

Re:What to do? Don't worry about it by AK+Marc · 2013-06-16 15:32 · Score: 1

(b) computers that can scan as many signals as you need (irrespective of NSA staffing levels),

The level of false positives and such are still where it's too labor intensive to track people. They "could" track lots of people, but they don't because of cost and complexity. They do best in retro-tracking. Once a person becomes a person of interest, then they can track them back for everything they've done in the past 10 years.

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Learn to love Alaska

Re:No easy solution by CanHasDIY · 2013-06-17 03:29 · Score: 1

Obtuse response aside, I'm certain my point was clear.

--
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese

Re:No easy solution by AK+Marc · 2013-06-17 08:08 · Score: 1

IF you thought it obtuse and you didn't take anything from it, then you aren't listening. Perhaps many people have different ideas of privacy for you. You look around and see millions of people wanting privacy. Maybe they just want solitude or security and you are confused because you have some bizarre affinity for seeing everything as "privacy". No, everyone *must* have the exact same values as you, or you'll go out of your way to explain how they are wrong for having an opinion.

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Learn to love Alaska

Re:No easy solution by CanHasDIY · 2013-06-17 10:31 · Score: 1

Ah, ok...

In case you missed it, I actually spelled out the point I was making in the once sentence you didn't quote:

Sometimes (read: most of the time) the desire for privacy has nothing to do with obscuring bad behaviour.

I said nothing about the rationales people actually use, but rather was pointing out that the rationale for removal of privacy (essentially, that only bad people have stuff they don't want made public) posited by OP was flawed.

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An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese

Re:No easy solution by AK+Marc · 2013-06-17 10:59 · Score: 1

Sometimes (read: most of the time) the desire for security or seclusion has nothing to do with privacy. I don't keep my PIN private for privacy reasons, but security reasons. Privacy is under attack in the US because it has been equated with supporting abortion, so I try to be clear what is discussed. That and if privacy was a "real" right, many laws and corporate activities would be broken. Would the Right to Privacy include the right to be forgotten, the right to be free from surveillance?

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Learn to love Alaska

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