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NSA Considers Linux Journal Readers, Tor (And Linux?) Users "Extremists"
New submitter marxmarv writes If you search the web for communications security information, or read online tech publications like Linux Journal or BoingBoing, you might be a terrorist. The German publication Das Erste disclosed a crumb of alleged XKeyScore configuration, with the vague suggestion of more source code to come, showing that Tor directory servers and their users, and as usual the interested and their neighbor's dogs due to overcapture, were flagged for closer monitoring. Linux Journal, whose domain is part of a listed selector, has a few choice words on their coveted award. Would it be irresponsible not to speculate further?
One more reason to use FreeBSD.
'I don't know what it's called. I just know the sound it makes, when it takes a man's life.' ~ Four Leaf Tayback
There's this story about an off-duty bridge officer aboard a large US military ship who, groggy after having to get up rather early, called the bridge and requested that the vehicle, some quarter of a million tons of steel, personnel and equipment, be rotated 15 degrees, all so he didn't have to move an inch to get the sun out of his eyes while he drank his coffee.
Maybe whoever wrote that list merely wants to read the Linux Journal forums. Surely we're not pretending as if SELinux doesn't exist and that the NSA hasn't historically contributed to Linux. That would be a foolish thing to do. Of foolishness.
Bio questions? Ask me to start a Q&A journal. Computer analogies available for most topics!
I do feel kind of extreme. Extremely awesome for being a Linux user!
They're looking for potential hires. What better pool to pull from than technical terrorists?
Too bad it's not slang for groovy radically bodacious these days.
My whole card's filled out!
I guess that makes me Cyber Bin Laden?
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
so, can the government now confiscate their own bank accounts for financing terrorists?
I guess that makes me usr bin Laden?
ftfy
With people like Richard Stallman at forefront, who can blame them?
Finally someone pays attention to us Linux folk!
The article and summary _ARE_ extremist by making the outlandish assumption that the intelligence community is interested in ONE thing and everything related to one search criterion is labeled as such.
Applying the same logic to someone's Google search for "stuffed linux penguin", it'd be like claiming they think penguins are operating systems.
NSA closely monitoring /.
Finally, this is the year of the linux extremist. Stone every windows infidel! Show Darwinists how well their Mac burns!
That sounds like a good name for a magazine: "Linux Extremist"
Year of the Linux Extremist?
That has got me curious. I wonder how many terror groups use linux?
i read Linux magazine , i use tor and worse than other , i am from Iran . oh god ! i have no doubt.they should list my name beside bin laden .
At this point, I think I'm not going to be too far away from the mark by saying that if you're not part of the USA' "Military-Industrial Complex", then you're a terrorist.
http://youtu.be/veEhirVCcdQ
http://i.cubeupload.com/T6cyLu.png
If you want weird you go where the weirdos are.
Are they in any way successful in catching "terrorists"?
Hardly - maybe they caught one guy in - was it San Diego - to give money to some far away organization labeled as well, offensive/dangerous in some way (don't recall all details).
There was also a hearing and a lied number of 20-isch? was admitted but later debunked.
So - all in all, the tremendous snooping effort is not showing much result and essentially being a flop.
Remedy: Increase effort in more and more complex systems.
Otherwise, maybe it's just inner need for control, power and conditioned thinking which motivates and attracts humans to participate in this nonsense (religions come to mind following the same principle).
Actually a very dangerous route this is taking - thought control (if you THINK that, you are...) and modeled prediction of events based on secret procedures
If you dare to not follow the herd, think for yourself, make up your mind by yourself without the aid of government "guided" media, of course you must be an extremist.
It's frightening how close the US already got to the USSR of old.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
"SIR, more than half the internet are terrorists! They are all connected to Linux!"
"Mother of GOD! Get the President!"
NSA Learns How The Internet Works, coming to a theatre near you!
Please go ahead and tell us how great it is that the NSA is spying on Americans in order to protect us from extremist Linux users.
Thanks in advance!
-- an American who researched encryption utilities for the electronic medical software he's a developer for. You know who I am!
liberate our OSes !! In all seriousness; it pains me to see the country that created the Bell Labs to fall into the hands of these lunatics.
I just finished reading the article, and here's something I don't get. They mention that for certain "fingerprints", the NSA would automatically exclude users believed to be in one of the "Five Eyes" countries. Yet, for other fingerprints (such as searching for Tails) it would gather data regardless of where the user is located or believed to be located. Why would they apply the "Five Eyes" exemption some but not all of the time?
Everyone who isn't us is the enemy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
They say to a hammer, everything looks like a nail. To a frightened small-minded cop, everyone looks like a crook. To an agency charged with protecting a nation against people who keep secrets, everyone looks shifty, and like he has something to hide.
To the hanging judge, every man looks guilty, and to a coward, every man is a terrorist.
Their attitude reflects their mindset: they're a bunch of frightened, small-minded cowards. The sad thing is...
We. All. Collectively. Hired. Them. To. Protect. Us.
What does that say about us? Sure, it was by proxy, we hired the useless, corrupt, bought-out politicians who hired them, but it is still the fault of the person who voted these clowns into office. Don't blame the NSA for doing their job, blame the lazy, stupid, good-for-nothing assholes who hired them and gave them permission or negligently allowed them to do what they do, and then blame the people who elected THEM.
There is an old saying: in a democracy, people deserve the government they get. To be honest though, it's not just democracies where this happens. In general, people deserve the government they get. Period.
Linux people _might_ be terrorists. FreeBSD users most certainly are terrorists, don't ya know?
The feds have been tagging talk radio listeners, gun enthusiasts and others as "extremists" in training material and other non-public documents for years now.
How's it feel?
The precedent is long set, but you didn't care when it started because you agreed with it at the time; "teabaggers herp derp."
Too late now, fuckers. Keep your head down.
First i was an extremist because I visited, and posted, to slashdot. then i was an extremist because I used tor, then again because I used crypto on my laptop, and again for reading wikipedia...and once more im an extremist for reading the linux journal?
At what point in my extremety should I start endorsing things like sports drinks and shoes? Am i still allowed to drink tea in the morning or does this mean i need to switch to energy drinks and techno music. Does this work like GTA? can i take up knitting and become less extreme instead? Do the kids know im extreme? I mean the only un-extreme thing i seem to have been able to do last year was buy this Model M keybo0@0#69t@[NO CARRIER]
Good people go to bed earlier.
RMS == Prophet Mohammed (pbuh)
GNU/Linux == Sunni Islam
GNU/Libre-Linux == Shia Islam
The NSA also contributed to Dual_EC_DRBG.
Copyright (c) 1990 - 2014 Dice. All rights reserved. Use of this comment is subject to certain Terms and Conditions.
In the 80's it was well known that the CIA was monitoring the USENET. Apparently there was a list of keywords that they searched for that became well known, so we used them all the time. We had it on good authority that the CIA had become amused by our antics. It probably relieved the boredom.
-Matt
I'm a Linux sysadmin, run Tor at home and vote Green Party. (In UK were considered domestic extremists - http://www.theguardian.com/pol....
I do wonder how that Ice cream van outside stays in business, its not even hot outside!
Anyone who has not been categorized as an extremist by now should be ashamed of their "fainting goat" status.
Time to remind everyone of the last time this happened.
Except it was J Edgar Hoover, the FBI, their programs like COINTELPRO, and those crazy radicals like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Albert Einstein as well as people on the list for being part of the women's right movement, civil rights movement, "the new left", criticizing the Vietnam war, and the typical boogy-man organizations of socialists and communists.
Or hey, how about MINARET? or SHAMROCK?. Both of which had no warrents, but when people got a whiff of them, congress came down hard and the projects were discontinued.
What's so different about this time? Why are the power that be not doing their job?
Here's a great quote by meta-monkey, from A YEAR AGO:
Re:"Congressional hearings" (Score:5, Insightful) ...
by meta-monkey (321000) Friend of a Friend on Wednesday July 31, 2013 @12:39PM (#44437417)
Scarier part: why aren't they blaming each other for this "serious overreach?" That they will then investigate, have some hearings, and then go right back to biz as usual? That's all politicians do. Make vague, meaningless statements and take no responsibility, blame everyone else, then do nothing. Instead they're making firm, direct statements. "Legal!" "Constitutional!" "Full oversight!"
Why are they so far off script? Here's how the script is supposed to go:
Snowden: "They doin' teh snoops!"
Democrats: "Bush started it!"
Republicans: "Saint Bush never would have authorized this! This must be part of a secret communist Muslim plan to install sharia law!"
Obama: "No, really it was just the Cincinnati branch of the NSA!"
Senate committee: "Thank you for your service, Mr. Snowden for bringing this overreach to our attention. We've got top men working to correct it. Top. Men."
Snowden: "No prob, I'll go rot in obscurity now."
Clapper: "Ow. My wrist. From the slapping. Wheeeeeelp, back to the shadows for biz as usual."
The mask isn't just slipping. It's on the floor. The man behind the curtain is doing a tap dance. Just what the fuck is going on?
One YEAR. The exact same trend is continuing. No one of power is fighting this. No one is backing down. Just what the fuck is going on?
LOL, simultaenously they struggle to find hires. Maybe the NSA will collapse under the weight of its own absurd contradictions. /dream-on.
I'm one of the people calling bullshit on this, there's plenty of Linux users both in the US and in the world that are not "extremists," case-in-point, pretty much all Ubuntu or Mint users, for example, and I'm also a Linux user and I'd consider myself pretty far from "extremist."
Anyway, the new dude is Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and he's assimilating Irag, Syria and probably Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Somalia, Nigeria... you name it... into his all new "proper" Islam state.
A number of armies in the region are already squaring up, including Iran and Saudi. There have been some murders of Israeli and Palestinian teenagers by terrorists too, probably trying to goad each side into action.
It's a bloody miserable state of affairs.
Stick Men
... them. They label them extremists because they need to do that to watch people. Is it fair or reasonable? No. It just how our stupid government works.
Should the NSA be watching the very savvy computer communities? Obviously. They have to do that. They can't do their jobs unless they're aware of what is going on there.
Should they label them extremists? No. But neither should they need to do that to watch someone.
This is why a lot of political groups in the US are being labeled as extremists. Because there are some people in those groups that do crazy stuff like make bombs. Practically none of them do that but one out of a million does... and they need to watch for that.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
Android is Linux. Linux users are extremists....
If A = B and B = C....
The NSA also considers Slashdot to be a terrorist organization.
And they'd be right too, judging from some of the comments I've posted here... oops.
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
In other (related?) news, I can't seem to send twitter direct messages containing "http://yro.slashdot.org". Is it just me?
Glad I mowed it.
Linux Journal, really? The real extremists are over at LWN. And by extremists, I mean those who are extremely good at what they do.
Anyway, while the NSA is searching nerd sites for terrorists, the FBI has been caught covering up for Saudi terrorists.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Linux since 1991 (MCC floppies).
Proud to be an extremist.
The logical progression from here will be discrimination based on programming language preference. Watch out Lipsers while .Net'ers and Javastas can sleep a little easier. Clojurians may end up a little confused, however.
Who works for these terrorists of freedom? Any engineer in their supposedly educated mind should see through this propaganda and dip.
Time for linuxjournal.com to get a whole lot of extra traffic. Let them find lots and lots of terrrists.
Just for the scale: Das Erste isnt some random publication, but Germany's state TV, their equivalent of the BBC.
1.) Bush senior is CIA boss, has excellent relations to the Saudis. See "House of Bush, house of Saud" movie.
2.) Bush Junior is an idiot, needs money.
3.) Conjecture: Sauds sell oil to Bush junior much below market rate, so he can "finally make some money".
3.1) Russia has become a very weak bogeyman by 2001. They are essentially bankrupt and cannot be used to justify MIC pork in the hundreds of billions.
4.) Saudis fly into WTC
4.1) Tata ! A new bogeyman is on stage
5.) Totally unrelated Iraq (Saddam was a socialist and not a islamist) is being hit with war. Saudis are not touched at all
6.) Big business for war industry. 800 billion/year
What does it mean ? We (pax Americana) are ruled by a massively corrupt security establishment. Military officers, police, NSA, CIA, DIA and the "commander in chief" are actually corrupt bastards. They easily kill their own compartiots in order to ensure funding. That's the tough shit truth.
Grow some cynical balls and forget all those fairy tales they indoctrinated you in school.
Seriously, this is so bizarre that this has to be a garbled report of something simpler. I can see them tracking white power bigots, drugs villains, and people saying any variant of 'God tells me to kill anyone who disagrees with me' but readers of computer science materials?
---- The above post was generated by the Turing Institute. Maybe.
Alas, the bill in question was pushed through despite otherwise unanimous opposition within a few weeks of the conservative party obtaining a majority government in Canada.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
At last it's the Year of the Linux Desktop! That's terror-riffic!
"I believe in Karma. That means I can do bad things to people all day long and I assume they deserve it." : Dogbert
.
Then they put all the people on the black list that might want to *read* about SELinux, or other technologies, before using it?
Come on, you either want people to be safe _from_ hackers (the bad guys) or arrest all the hackers (software engineers). Maybe someone needs to buy them a current dictionary including the many uses of the common word "hacker" and what it really means in which context?
Just download tails yourself and start using it. Increase the amount of encrypted traffic that they don't know the contents of.
You Do Not listen to Fox news for content.
You Might Be "Extremists" If:
You ask why?
You Might Be "Extremists" If:
You think things through.
You Might Be "Extremists" If:
You disagree with the NSA.
You Might Be "Extremists" If:
You work for the government, and you don't think its a good idea to shut down the government.
You Might Be "Extremists" If:
You're old, white, male, and NOT angry.
You Might Be "Extremists" If:
You think the Iowa caucuses are comedy.
You Might Be "Extremists" If:
You haven't seen any voter fraud.
You Might Be "Extremists" If:
You think anyone that doesn't think like you may have a valid point.
apologies to Jeff Foxworthy
than a jack-booted thug trampling everyone's God given rights. Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice!
It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for an NSA employee to enter the kingdom of God.
You misspelled "fr05ty p155!"
Actually, the parent's comment confirms that you're out of touch with popular opinion on Slashdot, because that comment is sitting pretty at +5 Insightful.
From the establishment's perspective, there is no doubt that anyone who is fighting them is under suspicion of being anti-establishment, and they have only one pigeon hole for people of that persuasion.
Extremest are created. Perhaps they are actually Mildest.
Don't tase me bro! BBZZZZZZZTTT!! Yeow!
I use OpenBSD & Debian GNU/Linux primarily, which I'm *positive* triggers some kind of NSA monitoring trope whenever I use apt-get to install GPG or OpenBSD's pkg_add to install, well; *any* OpenBSD package is probably viewed as "suspicious".
Since I use Debian sometimes, I also *sigh* hereby admit that I've occasionally frequented _The Linux Journal_, & I enjoy their content immensely.
I don't *always* go there to learn how to enable full-disk encryption or how to create "burner" phones by running SIP/VoIP software in a _qemu_ virtual machine, but I'm sure I've bumped into black-flagged projects & probably, in some kind of desperate, bumbling attempt at following an article about $PRIVACY::$ANONYMITY Perl modules, well, you can probably guess.
I admit it. I've accessed cryptographic software directly from the Comprehensive Perl Archive Network, on more than one occasion.
I've succombed to kitten huffing.
I keep a three-ring binder filled with barrettes from females I've encountered over the years as a kind of "keepsake" album.
And once I shot some racy digital photographs with a woman I was dating, & I couldn't decide whether or not 2048-bit, 4096-bit, or 8192-bit encryption was strong enough to protect the images from being leaked into the internet. So I deleted them.
So, I admit it. I'm a Linux & OpenBSD user that has rummaged through countless software repositories on all seven continents over the course of several decades. I read _The Linux Journal_ & I like it.
The way I figure it, that probably puts me into some kind of watch-list bonus round, or some kind of keyword-trigger-list Hot 100 chart on the NSA's giant wall of pulsating 256" plasma displays.
I don't usually talk about it, & hell, I haven't even been over here to SlashDot for quite some time, but I figure, if TrollHax0r, Sarcasta, CmdrTaco, Bruce Perens & friends are still around, they can vouch for the fact that I am guilty as charged on all counts.
Sincerely,
dragonfly_blue
Free music from Jack Merlot.
Fuck systemd
Covert operations tend to allow actions to come into play. If they find a problem person will they suddenly develop really bad health or worse?
My optical drive crapped out on me a couple months ago so I have unfortunately not been able to install NetBSD on my toaster oven, which doesn't have a coreboot/openbios compatible EEPROM so I can't even do a PXE network install.
That's not NetBSD's fault obviously. But since I can't complete that project, that means I have to use my OpenBSD systems to make breakfast.
I'm sure if _The Linux Journal_ was a selector, that the OpenBSD package repositories & mirrors are likewise tripwired.
And even if they aren't, well. The NSA would hardly overlook the OpenBSD community for possible deviants, especially considering the time Theo de Raadt started a food fight in the company cafeteria with some of the fine representatives of DARPA. I'm *pretty* sure that the NSA heard about that.
So instead of monkeying around at monkey.org or whatever, I'm trying to come up with some catchy OpenBSD slogans or whatever. Hopefully that will make us seem a little bit less... "Linux Journal"-esque, & you know. More appealing to stay-at-home dads & soccer moms.
OpenBSD: Maybe not portable enough to install on your toaster oven, but portable enough.
OpenBSD: Paranoid by default: paranoid by choice.
OpenBSD: the choice of security-conscious systems administrators worldwide.
Free music from Jack Merlot.
Gnome3 has far surpassed my expectations on OpenBSD 5.5.
It is almost, but not quite, entirely unlike Microsoft Windows, in every way.
In fact, this is the last time I will even mention Gnome3 in the same paragraph as Windows. Promise.
Free music from Jack Merlot.
If you are a member of the military you are already on the watch list. ... you are already on the watch list. ... ever.)
If you work for a defense related company you are already on the watch list.
Apparently if you use Linux, or Tor, or read Linux Journal, or read this
If the AI marks you as a potential future trouble maker, expect that eventually you will be quietly sidelined. You won't be fired, you will be made irrelevant. (You just won't get that promotion
Eventually the AI will get good enough to pick children likely to become trouble makers. These children will discover higher hurdles in their education and future jobs. Again they will be steered into "safe", "low risk", low paying jobs. These people will be steered away from others of their kind to ensure they don't collaborate in their "trouble making".
If you are a "trouble maker" your children will automatically be marked as "trouble makers".
Eventually the AI will get good enough to pick which children will make charismatic, "right thinking", leaders. These children will find help and encouragement in their education and jobs. They will be steered into positions of power.
Currently there is the computing equivalent of a desktop PC dedicated to watching each person on the watch list. The watching is extensive but not complete. As time goes on, more and more activities, "transactions", "feeds", become available on each watched person.
In 10 to 20 years, the computing equivalent of one of today's super computers will be used to watch each targeted person, and instead of a list of a couple of million, (with a couple of tens of thousands of high value targets,) each person in the country will be watched.
If you are 5Is, how do you get around the laws forbidding watching your own citizens? Get another of the 5Is to put everyone on their target list and feed everything you have to them...
The problem started when the NSA realized that many programmers drink Mountain Dew, given its caffeine/sugar jolt.
Add to that all those Mountain Dew commercials featuring "extreme" personalities.
Treating programmers as extremists was simply the next logical step.
Now pardon me, I must ride my snowboard down the side of the building while screaming "WOOOOOOOO!!!!"
"Once we've identified and embraced our sickness, we'll have strength...and that's when we get dangerous." - John Waters
...people from that same group. They correctly assume that smart, talented people with serious computer skills are potentially more of a threat than morons. That is, its better than, say, keeping an eye out on readers of "high-times".
This doesn't offend or surprise me at all.
Gnome3 has far surpassed my expectations.
in which direction?
---Saying gnome 3 is better than windows 8 not so much a compliment as it is damning with light praise.
I do think you over-estimate the power of authority. The soviet union tried what you suggest and, yeah, NSA is up to something quite similar. BUT - despite their massive, well-equipped armed forces, despite their Tsheka, despite their propaganda efforts - they failed. Because you cannot "mandate" economic performance and creativity.
This is a battle and you will win it BY using FOSS software, BY using ciphers so that your trade secrets will stay secret, BY turning off the mobile phone so they cannot manufacture "incidents" easily.
Just tell them they are Little Tshekists and to eat out their soul.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheka
That's going to wear down their morale.
They are very welcome to look at my programs that don't even compile, crappy website and a whole lot of pictures of my cat. I'm an extremist, you know? They absolutely need to waste your tax money on me, it's for national security.
Wait a minute, I forgot that they can't break into Linux, that's why it's the top choice for extremists ;-)
and then blame the people who elected THEM
Yeah, but you have an electoral choice of one party or almost the exact same party but with an elephant mascot. Sure, they might have a few minor funding priority differences but it's window dressing. It's a one party state except the one party has split into two branches, to give an appearance of choice. You know, I reckon if China just did that - split the Communist party into the Communist People's party and the Communist Republican party, and then came up with a cosy arrangement that ensured that no other party had a cat's chance in hell of any power whatsoever and the two branches pretty much took turns at having power (a) everything would be just the same in China and (b) the West would hold them up as a paragon of the democratic ideal.
But neither should they need to do that to watch someone.
So they should just be able to watch people for absolutely no reason at all, no warrants required?
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
... You don't need a warrant to pay attention to what people are doing.
Does a cop need a warrant to watch a street corner? Obviously not.
Anywhere in my post did I reference breaking into people's machines or compelling people to release information by court order or otherwise?
no... I did not.
So I'm talking about the sort of things you need warrants for at all.
If the NSA is getting warrants to tap the communications of people that they don't know even did anything then that's obviously wrong.
However, the NSA obviously should watch savvy computer groups to be aware of new technologies, new programs, new ideas, new threats, new talent, new names in the game, etc.
If they don't pay attention then they're going to be clueless.
Should they label people extremists simply because they have information that they might want? Obviously not.
But then this is a lot of the consequences of the patriot act which is still screwing things up. The government just labels everyone a terrorist and then gets to do whatever it wants.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
The CIA ran guns to Castro while another portion opposed his revolution, and that's when the CIA was relatively small. One of the guys running guns to Castro later got mixed up in Watergate which is how that sillyness eventually came out in court and got into the press.
See, a rational person would have looked at what's going and concluded that the NSA's position is "of course you're more likely to be an extremist" rather than "of course you must be an extremist".
This is a comment in the actual code used by the NSA:
The source also says the NSA refers to "the Linux Journal - the Original Magazine of the Linux Community", and calls it an "extremist forum".
So yes, the NSA, in their own words, do indeed believe if you use TAILS, or read The Linux Journal, you are an extremist.
Moderated Usenet
"Das Erste" is a (major) TV broadcaster and its name roughly translates as "TV1". The fact that they also have a Web site which summarizes the content of previously broadcast features does not change this.
'Extremism' is an evil concept. An 'extremist' implies someone on the edges of the bell curve of belief - but guess what - most people think of themselves as being in the middle of that curve, no matter what their own beliefs. So in practice 'extremist' means 'extremely different from me'.
The purpose of law enforcement should be to stop acts of violence, terrorism, subversion, whatever - but never to stop mere difference. In a violent society, peace is extremist. In a dictatorship, freedom is extremist. In a racially segregated society, equality is extremist.
It's no wonder authorities love the word 'extremism', it's a slur for any kind of dissent.
Remember, the direct opposite of 'extremism' is 'conformism'.
Moderated Usenet
At some point, the (US) public reaction to this matter, as more and more awesomeness is revealed, has to change from the initial shock and discomfort over what arguably pushed right up close against Constitutional prohibitions, to something more like "Holy Shit That's Fucking Cool!!!!"
I'm guessing they're anti-economic in that sense they're trying to prevent people outside the US to purchase US-made Linux-based items such as SBC's and whatnot. I can understand that but some people are just world-citizens and think that US creations are great and well worth the price (or how you say it)
Super Villian: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8LsxmQV8AXk
This is why a lot of political groups in the US are being labeled as extremists. Because there are some people in those groups that do crazy stuff like make bombs. Practically none of them do that but one out of a million does... and they need to watch for that.
There are some Americans that make bombs.
Better watch all of them. Just in case.
It's what comes out of most Americans' mouths when they open. They can't help it, though. They've mostly accepted that social self-determination is bad and needs to be razed at gunpoint and replaced with markets.
/. -- the Free Republic of technology.
Rays can be traced both ways. Each bit of intelligence gathered provides information about how and whence it was collected. That's not the sort of thing you throw around casually unless you're trying to burn it. (See also "parallel construction".)
Besides, why would they when GCHQ's already got a whole company of Internet trolls to run propaganda ops (or as they call them, "Internet effects operations") and outsourcing makes for cleaner hands and more deniability?
/. -- the Free Republic of technology.
as a means of keeping the working class obedient and docile and paying for the middle class. They are also rational from a safety perspective. The devil (or the intent to exploit, if you prefer) is in the details.
The mistake is assuming that the ancien regime exists to serve you, which is not only laughably ahistorical, but nauseatingly consumerist. Unless you're part of the gentry, you exist to serve them.
/. -- the Free Republic of technology.
I Hunt Sysadmins discusses why sysadmins are high-value targets. In short, sysadmins are often softer targets than the high-value Linux systems they might be paid to secure or administer. They probably use webmail or social networking services from PRISM partners, and the things they look up often reveal information about their projects and methods. The thrust of it is how to look at haystacks with CT technology instead of boring old flat radiographs, and as odious as the ends are, the means are the stuff of a fascinating, occasionally scintillating read. They are, after all, just a very large IT shop with a one-of-a-kind data set to play with.
Of course the haystack analogy breaks down before it starts as there is no +1 Needle of Revealed Wisdom to locate and extract. Is Russia fomenting a "color revolution" in the US as payback for the two we gave them in Ukraine? Is China building a fifth column inside the US to ensure their trillions in dollar holdings will hold value? Is French heavy industry spying on major US political patrons and stealing intellectual "property" or business information? Does Germany still believe the USA is faithfully holding all their gold on deposit at Fort Knox? Is Elizabeth Warren really a danger to foreign investors favored by the ruling class? etc.
If you think situational awareness is a waste, you're probably forgetting that government organizations can provide good service to customers iff the government thinks it's important. City hall treats you with hostility not because they're the government, but because you're not.
/. -- the Free Republic of technology.
DUAL_EC_DRBG was a random number generation algorithm that only its mother could love. It's slow, complex not provably more random than other algos, and comes with magic, unexplained constants, which are the last thing you want to see in an ostensible entropy generator based on asymmetric crypto... and if you want FIPS certification you have to use the given constants. Why did NSA want it in there so badly? Why, after a potential flaw was found and corrected, did NSA personnel "suggest" a change that, in retrospect, only made that putative flaw more reliably exploitable? Cryptologists explain.
On the hardware side, Theodore T'so observed that Intel was very eager to have RDRAND be the exclusive source of entropy for the kernel's RNG, as was one goofball at Red Hat who tried to introduce a kernel parameter to do the same thing. He fought them both off, thankfully.
In general, see also ProPublica on the SIGINT Enabling Project.
/. -- the Free Republic of technology.
I was wondering when something like this would happen.
K
--- I was far from home, and the spell of the Eastern sea was upon me. -Lovecraft-
I doubt they fear BoingBoing readers.
While not surprised, given the standard set of stereotypes that generally seem to be employed, both justifiable and not, nevertheless: The Flibberty!?