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NSA Can Spy On Data From Smart Phones, Including Blackberry
An anonymous reader writes with a report from Spiegel Online that the U.S. government "has the capability of tapping user data from the iPhone, [and] devices using Android as well as BlackBerry, a system previously believed to be highly secure.
The United States' National Security Agency intelligence-gathering operation is capable of accessing user data from smart phones from all leading manufacturers. ... The documents state that it is possible for the NSA to tap most sensitive data held on these smart phones, including contact lists, SMS traffic, notes and location information about where a user has been." As a bonus, the same reader points out a Washington Post report according to which "The Obama administration secretly won permission from a surveillance court in 2011 to reverse restrictions on the National Security Agency's use of intercepted phone calls and e-mails, permitting the agency to search deliberately for Americans' communications in its massive databases ... In addition, the court extended the length of time that the NSA is allowed to retain intercepted U.S. communications from five years to six years — and more under special circumstances, according to the documents, which include a recently released 2011 opinion by U.S. District Judge John D. Bates, then chief judge of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court."
What amazes me is that there have been no reprisals so far. Not by the US citizens, by US courts nor by other countries. Folks who actually live in the US, please tell me: are people really just shrugging it off or am I just not seeing the repercussions from here?
Secret oversight can't be trusted
Of course not, but posting anonymously won't keep them from knowing who you are.
I just upgraded to an Android phone from my old feature phone and find it annoying when a pre-installed app wants me to turn GPS and Location Services on. Those are supposed to be for my benefit, not doubleclick and the NSA's.
Free Martian Whores!
That's the entire problem with this NSA crap. Anyone who bucked the system and made it far along enough in the process would have tons of dirt on him/her already automatically unearthed by the NSA's data centers. The info would be leaked to a complicit media, who would drool over the chance to run another political scandal, and the good politician's career would be over before it even began.
It's sad, but knowing about the extent of the abuse has actually made me *more* worried about protesting the abuse. Panopticon and all that -- we know they can be watching any of us now, with access to basically all our information online (even stuff that's encrypted, like this data, which is being sent over a VPN but who even knows if it's secure?), as well as all the metadata from our phones, which tell them exactly where we have gone. I doubt they are interested in me per se, but say I ran for office under a platform the established powers didn't like -- they might get interested then, and I would be fucked.
This shit is really scary.