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?

Comments

FreeBSD

[approachingZero]

One more reason to use FreeBSD.

Re:FreeBSD

[Anonymous Coward]

What, then you're daemonic

Re:FreeBSD

[countach]

They don't flag the FreeBSDers for closer monitoring. They just send them straight to Guantanamo Bay.

Yeah, right.

[Samantha Wright]

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.

Re:Yeah, right.

[davydagger]

you don't understand how these people work, and how they think.

The concept of a scientific investigation as seen on CSI is a work of creative fiction, nothing more. The capablities of the US government to deter threats including profiling the target with the largest brush feasibly possible, then trying to fuck with the people who fall under whatever target they made up enough that they point fingers at someone else, and whoever has the most fingers in their dirrection looses.

Hypocrisy and the fact that they might be targeting their best chances to do what most people think they do is not relivant.

After they label people as "extremists", they then use excedingly long jail sentances, other threats, and attempts to ruin their social lives, and a split from mainstream society as leverage to get these people to work for the NSA or other government or capitalist agencies.

They can then denounce everyone not explicitly helping them as terrorists.

The fact that most nerds, anyways still say "fuck the system" is a tribute to moral character, more absolute ideas of freedom, and knowledge of history that isn't dependant on the 2 year TV news election cycle, is a tribute to the moral fiber of the computer enthusiast, something that mainstream society lacks.

Re:Yeah, right.

[ctheme]

I'm not exactly contributing to the topic at hand, but felt compelled to give a source for your story. It's a reddit post from earlier this year. Here is the relevant portion:

I was once on a US military ship, having breakfast in the wardroom (officers lounge) when the Operations Officer (OPS) walks in. This guy was the definition of NOT a morning person; he's still half asleep, bleary eyed... basically a zombie with a bagel. He sits down across from me to eat his bagel and is just barely conscious. My back is to the outboard side of the ship, and the morning sun is blazing in one of the portholes putting a big bright-ass circle of light right on his barely conscious face. He's squinting and chewing and basically just remembering how to be alive for today. It's painful to watch.

But then zombie-OPS stops chewing, slowly picks up the phone, and dials the bridge. In his well-known I'm-still-totally-asleep voice, he says "heeeey. It's OPS. Could you... shift our barpat... yeah, one six five. Thanks." And puts the phone down. And then he just sits there. Squinting. Waiting.

And then, ever so slowly, I realize that that big blazing spot of sun has begun to slide off the zombie's face and onto the wall behind him. After a moment it clears his face and he blinks slowly a few times and the brilliant beauty of what I've just witnessed begins to overwhelm me. By ordering the bridge to adjust the ship's back-and-forth patrol by about 15 degrees, he's changed our course just enough to reposition the sun off of his face. He's literally just redirected thousands of tons of steel and hundreds of people so that he could get the sun out of his eyes while he eats his bagel. I am in awe.

Cue downmods and comments of "Slashdot has literally become reddit."

Re:Yeah, right.

[davydagger]

oh yeah, your right. I mean no nerd ever killed them selves facing 35 to life for technical infractions related to accessing publicly available scientific files.

No nerd ever lost their job, and is on the run from US law enforcement for exposing unethical mass survialence and harrassment by the US Government.

No nerd was ever arrested for trying to do the right thing and exposing unethical or dangerous computer behavior.

No nerd was ever arrested for modifying his own video game system, that he bought, and then blabbing about it on the internet.

No nerd was ever targeted for being either a terrorist or a school shooter by rampant paranoia from authorities.

but yeah, your right, nerds are left alone by the system.

Extreme?

[Anonymous Coward]

I do feel kind of extreme. Extremely awesome for being a Linux user!

It's not what you think

[tyggna]

They're looking for potential hires. What better pool to pull from than technical terrorists?

BINGO!

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess that makes me usr bin Laden?

ftfy

Silver Lining

[ThatsNotPudding]

Finally someone pays attention to us Linux folk!

Re:Silver Lining

[Anonymous Coward]

NSA - proof your government does listen to you.

Magazine

[freeze128]

That sounds like a good name for a magazine: "Linux Extremist"

We're all Terrorists

[BlueTemplar]

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.

Re:We're all Terrorists

[Dishevel]

Oh.

Thank you for your comment. I really appreciate the way ACs are not only so free with their opinions, but I have noticed that almost without fail they always offer tons of well researched supporting facts to back up their opinions.

That coupled with their awesome grasp of humor and their perfect recognition of sarcasm makes me value opinions of ACs like you so very much.

Underlying cause?

[no-body]

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

Re:Underlying cause?

[Zordak]

So - all in all, the tremendous snooping effort is not showing much result and essentially being a flop.

I don't know about that. I'm sure it's been about as successful as J. Edgar Hoover's mid-century communism witch hunts, which had more to do with propping up Hoover's own personal empire than with catching communists.

Re:Underlying cause?

[jeIlomizer]

It was well documented after the fall of the Soviet Union that there was a powerful network of communist infiltrators within the US government, and that Sen. McCarthy was right, though he had a horrible clumsy way of acting in reaction to it.

Clumsy? People's fundamental liberties were violated. No matter how 'safe' that makes us, that's more criminal than clumsy.

The Rosenbergs deserved to die, they were guilty.

I don't see how the former follows from the latter, because I don't believe in government thugs executing people to begin with.

Well, of course

[Opportunist]

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.

Re:Well, of course

[gstoddart]

It's frightening how close the US already got to the USSR of old.

I don't know.

I think the in days of the USSR, the citizens didn't believe the propaganda. Whereas a lot of Americans seem to think "why, we have to do this to stop the terrorists".

Convincing people to buy into it is quite a feat.

Basically the NSA has decreed anybody who disagrees with their methods and scope must be an extremist.

I predict in less than 10 years any form of dissent, or privacy will be completely gone in the West. And then we're all harmless sheep, which is exactly what they want.

Re:Well, of course

[c6gunner]

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.

Oh, irony.

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". But self-styled "free-thinkers" such as yourself always seem to tend toward these extreme, paranoid views that barely resemble the actual situation. It's almost as if you tended towards extremism or something.

Re:Well, of course

[gstoddart]

Soon will come the time when they will not need to convince anyone anymore.

Yes, because they'll have arrested anybody who disagrees with them, and all that is left will be people too scared to say anything or who agree.

The NSA is the enemy of freedom and liberty, they just act like they're defending it.

And, yeah, some desk weenie has probably flipped a switch that says I'm an extremist -- what they don't realize is the more they do this shit, the more they'll create extremists.

What's really pathetic is how many Americans are buying into this, when not 20 years there would have been outrage.

Really, and truly, on 9/11 the terrorists got exactly what they wanted -- the destruction of Western societies as we knew it, and the rise of Americans saying "we don't give a crap about the rest of the world, we're scared". Sadly, that will create a backlash of people saying "we don't give a crap about the US, now piss off".

There's no going back from this kind of thing.

Re:Well, of course

[purpledinoz]

And what is the actual situation? The searching for terrorists is probably not the only thing the data is used for. I'm sure the data is used for various nefarious purposes, such as industrial espionage, political espionage, blackmail. Maybe figuring out the sentiment of the population and their likelihood to breakout into mass protest. I'm sure they're doing some non-evil research too. I wouldn't be surprised if there's a database identifying people who are against the status quo of the Democrat/Republican duopoly, and feeding that data to the media outlets so they run stories smearing any third party candidates. That's a bit farfetched, but everything the NSA was confirmed to be doing was also farfetched before Snowden leaked those documents.

Re:Well, of course

[CaptainDork]

I used to think that way, but more and more I think it's going the other way.

Governments seldom get anything right. Look at the NSA. It's big, it's grabbing data so fast that it has 1.) Nowhere to put it and 2.) Nothing to analyze it with.

Meanwhile, the general population is growing data at exponential rates AND is increasing its own awareness of government's interest AND is taking steps to muck things up for the NSA.

In my view, the people are smarter than their government.

Re:BINGO!

[GameboyRMH]

-sh: /usr/bin/laden: not found

Muahahaha! >:-D

Re:oh god

[Tyrannicsupremacy]

I cant imagine how you can find spare time amidst all of your jihadding to post on slashdot...

It is time to

[Twelfth Harmonic]

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.

Why do they not exempt 5 eyes countries?

[timrod]

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?

Re:Why do they not exempt 5 eyes countries?

[GameboyRMH]

They give you the Five Eyes exemption until you do something really dangerous like read a Linux magazine or look up encryption tools. Then you've shown that you are a potential threat like all those shady characters who live in every other country on the planet.

Re:Why do they not exempt 5 eyes countries?

[Anonymous Coward]

You are missing the point.

Threat has to be created for the apparatus to be funded.

Repeat the above until it sinks in. People would lose jobs if they said "hey, well, we don't really have a serious threat.... so yeah, we are doing nothing at this time". So they make shit up to keep busy.

Wars are fought for the idea "keep population distracted".

If people were actually rational beings, not "retarded emos", we would not need more than half (more like 90%) of the so called security apparatus. And FBI would not be having a war on drugs, they would be having a war on DUIs (driving under influence), speeding and we would require yearly vehicle safety checks. Also, most people would not be speeding anyway, because hey, would be rational creatures. We would not need to even debate US's outdated second amendment.

But no, we live in a world of phycohistory. Masses are not governed by rationality, but by emotion. The world is "fuck you, got mine". So that's what we have and deserve. We have thousands of nukes still ready to kill off our civilization *today*. We have War on Drugs and War on Everything. We have people protesting nuclear power, because hey, AGW is not real and somehow they think coal is better.

So, it's back to square one. "Fuck you, got mine". That's why we are where we are. /RANT

Re:Not a big surprise

[lister king of smeg]

With people like Richard Stallman at forefront, who can blame them?

You mean the guy screamed about the government spying on us and that we can't trust closed source anything for decades. Guess what he turned out to be right.

To a coward...

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:To a coward...

[Zordak]

There is an old saying: in a democracy, people deserve the government they get.

Actually, the saying is, "Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard." It was H.L. Mencken who said it.

i dont know how much more i can take.

[nimbius]

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]

Re:Paging cold fjord and c6gunner!

[GameboyRMH]

Really? Check out the beards on Islamic fundamentalists and l33t *nix sysadmins. Are you ready to assume that's a coincidence?

That's nothing

[m.dillon]

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 extra screwed then

[Maquis196]

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!

Know your history

[HeckRuler]

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?

Re:Know your history

[GameboyRMH]

You forgot about one of the dangerous communists he was tracking, Isaac Asimov.

(TFA in that link is worth a read, or you can read my spoilers)

Re:Know your history

[meta-monkey]

Shit man, don't attract more attention on me! I, uh, use Windows! Windows...ummm...8? Is that the least terreristy one? I don't know! Don't rendition me, I'm harmless I swear!

Re:Know your history

[Noryungi]

The Stasi (East Germany Secret Police) used to be one of the most powerful intelligence service in the world. It is estimated they had hundreds of thousands of informants and it maintained files on millions of citizens of East Germany.

But the Berlin wall eventually fell, despite all its efforts and all its agents. I believe the same thing will happen in the US. When the times comes, the whole rotten house of cards will crash down to earth.

Oh, and, NSA? Please go f**** yourself.

Re:BINGO!

[jones_supa]

Obligatory Hackles strip.

Re:Paging cold fjord and c6gunner!

[CreatureComfort]

You can tell the difference by the Cheeto stains.

The NSA also considers Slashdot

[tekrat]

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.

Re:News Flash

[Anonymous Coward]

That's just the punctuation police triangulating your unlicensed apostrophe emissions.

Re:BINGO!

[jd2112]

Sounds cool until they show up and kill -9 your ass.

Re:Not a big surprise

[TheReaperD]

There are few greater crimes in the US than being right when the right answer isn't popular. Ask any Vietnam war protester or George Carlin about airport security.

Re:Not a big surprise

[jenningsthecat]

But the government is intercepting data primarily from open protocols to do the spying. I don't think that closed source had anything to do with that.

That's only because they picked the low-hanging fruit first, and long-ago compromised closed-source with the sometimes-eager help of the companies who sell it.