Slashdot Mirror
Surveillance Story Turns Into a Warning About Employer Monitoring
rtfa-troll writes "The story from yesterday about the Feds monitoring Google searches has turned into a warning about how work place surveillance could harm you. It turns out that Michele Catalano's husband's boss tipped off the police after finding 'suspicious' searches (including 'pressure cooker bombs') in his old work computer's search history. Luckily for the Catalanos, who even allowed a search of their house when they probably didn't have to, it seems the policemen and FBI agents were professional and friendly. Far from being imperiled by a SWAT raid, Catalano spoke to some men in black cars who were polite and even mentioned to Catalano that 99 times out of 100, these tip-offs come to nothing. Perhaps the lesson is to be a bit more careful about your privacy, so that what you do on the internet remains between you and the professionals at the NSA."
Oh I see. The man searched thinks it was all just a misunderstanding. I guess that makes it OK then.
I guess it also covers the costs in time, money, equipment and paperwork spent on a search that should never have happened. I guess it also makes up for any useful work the men involved could have been engaged in like looking for actual terrorists or investigating organised crime in the banks. I would worry about how the NSA's Ur-dragnet/Informer hotline is throwing up so many false flags that law enforcement is now too busy to deal with actual problem, but this splendidly chipper blog post had allayed all of my concerns.
I'm glad that's all cleared up then.
May the Maths Be with you!
Not sure if you realise... but when you're on a work computer, all your internet requests usually go through some form of proxy server - which is how your IT department finds out what you access regularly and blocks it. Clearing your browser history is useless since every request is logged in a centralised server before it goes out to the net.
... wait, what?
Perhaps the lesson is to be a bit more careful about your privacy, so that what you do on the internet remains between you and the professionals at the NSA.
I know you're being snarky, Slashdot, but I'd trust the professionals at the NSA over middle management any day of the week. The NSA doesn't ruin your life if it goes through your google history and finds a few keywords. It doesn't assume the worst. The NSA gathers up the data, forwards it to a team of analysts, and, seeing this kind of thing every day, make an informed and reasoned decision to either forward it up the chain, or bin it. And as your own article says: 99 times out of 100, it's nothing. That's probably a conservative estimate; There have only been a few dozen acts of bona fide terrorism in the past year or so, and if the tin foil hat crowd is right, the NSA is monitoring everyone pervasively, so it's more like 999,999 times out of a 1,000,000.
The moral of the story here is that people who aren't law enforcement are really, really, epic bad at being judges of character. Especially when you're dealing with someone whose job is often earned on something other than critical thinking skills, investigative talent, and attention to detail... three things I think most will agree you don't find in most mid-level managers. It's like how during the midst of the Boston bombing, the internet armchair sleuth crowd wrongly identified many innocent people and forced the police to divert valuable resources to take those people into protective custody while the real bomber was left unidentified. The professionals, meanwhile, correctly identified them hours later, and then took them down without any innocent people getting caught in the cross fire.
I know it's politically popular right now to say law enforcement is a bunch of clueless, authoritarian, surveillance-happy asshats, but that's a slanted view. On the whole, they know what they're doing, and most of the time they get it right. You only hear about the times when they screw up. Now, considering how low of esteem they're held in for that track record, ask yourselves about the track record of middle managers, internet armchair pundits, and vigilantes have had doing the same things... and I'm betting their reputation with you is a lot better.
Chew on that for a bit.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
99 times out of 100, these tip-offs come to nothing
That's not quite what was said. From the original blog ; "they mentioned that they do this about 100 times a week. And that 99 of those visits turn out to be nothing."
So we have three possibilities;
1/ this statistic is a bullshit overstatement, talking up a minimal danger
2/ they are arresting terrorist bombers at a rate of 1 a week
3/ they are prosecuting 1 person a week on an unrelated matter, after gaining access to their house on the pretext of "war against terrorism".
Which do we think it is?
Some people might want to search for news stories pressure cooker bombs, or information about what they look like so they might be able to identify one if they see it on the sidewalk.
Typing "pressure cooker" lists pressure cooker bomb as the 3rd suggestion in Google.
Jason.
If your work browser is configured to accept certificates from the proxy server, SSL might not give you privacy.
Exactly! So, shut the fuck up, slaves. Employers pay for your time, not your work. Employers OWN you for the duration of that time. You have no rights beyond that which your employer affords you. You should act like the good little worker machines that you are unless your employer gives you permission to do otherwise.
God damn these lazy employees these days, thinking they can be human on an employer's dime.
It doesn't matter if she was searching for 'pressure cooker bombs', because that is not illegal!
She has not committed any crime, nor should she be suspected of one. In fact, she shouldn't have let them in the house, because they have no warrant, nor any valid reason to suspect her of doing anything against the law.
Since when was curiosity or knowledge seeking a crime? Is that where we are now? Living in fear of learning more, because those who think they're holding the power, are looking at everything we do?