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The Rise of the Global Surveillance Profiteers
blottsie writes "A new report takes a deep dive into companies like Hacking Team, which have sprouted up in the years since 9/11 sparked a global war on terror and a wired technological revolution. As the U.S. developed the online surveillance tools that, over a decade later, would eventually be revealed to the world by National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden, savvy businesses across the globe realized there were plenty of countries that might not be able to afford to develop such sophisticated technology in-house but still had money to burn."
While I may disagree with the business of data-mining and collection on a large scale, I don't think that 'profiteer' is the right term.
I always looked at someone that was profiteering as someone putting forth little to no effort in order to make the money that they make, and often it's a result of peddling someone else's work. A war profiteer was someone that stole military materiel and sold it, as an example.
These companies, while engaged in a business that I don't agree with, have had to develop the tools and techniques that they use to practice their craft. Depending on what they're monitoring or how they're doing it that might be a fairly substantial task, so I'm not going to downplay their efforts just because I disagree with them being engaged in to begin with.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
The question is, can you trust a 3rd party with your national interest, when they already owe loyalty to other governments? After all, unlike your citizens, if they sell your secrets for money, it's not treason.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
The simplest feasible explanation is that the Bush regime made huge amounts of funding and credit available to defence software and IT subcontractors to develop this stuff. They're now taking govt./publicly funded R&D and selling some highly questionable tools to oppressive regimes around the world. So the govt./public funds the R&D and the subcontractors sell it at a profit. I think you can call that profiteering... or racketeering... or whatever you like. It's how they operate: Everything to do with war and resource extraction is a dirty business.
Of course, with all this data coming in, be it license plates, transcripts of recordings, or anything else, this means that there are a lot of eggs in one basket. If the "good guys" (LEOs) know stuff, that is one thing. However, that same toll tag data that is used to pay a fee can be hacked, slurped up by a criminal organization, then sold to another criminal organization who is willing to use that data for burglaries and home invasions.
Right now, there isn't that much interaction between crime syndicates in one country and a local gang in another... but this can change. If the economy goes south again, two groups colluding over the Net can make some major profit on both their parts. The hacker group from Elbonia could sell a dump of people with high percentages of when they would not be home, and a local gang go in and do the "boots on the ground", perhaps splitting the spoils somehow (assuming they found a way to prevent either party from double-crossing the other.) It might even get fences to use BitCoin as a payment mechanism because even though coins are quite well tracked, wallets are anonymous.
Right now, with major security breaches seeming to be a daily news item, all this profile data might be in the right hands originally... but it can easily wind up in the wrong hands. For example, data on locations of a country's soldiers and their families would be quite valuable to an enemy. Couple this with data that showed what people knew/did what, and it wouldn't be surprising to see family of key infrastructure operators vanishing in order to coerce the operators/admins into doing something. Add behavioral analysis data to that mix, and it wouldn't take strongarm tactics... just find the people who are in it purely for the money and can be easily bought and stay bought.
Suppose war causes a shortage of water in an area.
Someone had a 10,000 gallon tank already full, and they sell the water at $10 / gallon. They bought the water at $0.01 / gallon, so they are making a 100000% PROFIT.
On the other hand, if someone is buying goods at normal price and selling them at normal price, there's no PROFIT. You don't have PROFITeering without PROFIT. Such a person might be an arms dealer, they might might even be a smuggler, but they wouldn't be a profiteer.
“There is a real question here about the public’s need for privacy and our need for security. If we come down 100 percent on the side of privacy, which seems to be in vogue in tech right now, we are putting ourselves at very legitimate risk. And to ignore that is foolhardy. I think, by and large, we and the other people who are protecting this software are working to keep people safe.”
Translation - STFU or the big bad terr'sts will come get you. We know what's best.
Same as Obama's mealy-mouthed "we need to balance civil liberties with our security." No, in point of fact, we don't. A whole lot of men died in the Revolutionary War specifically to give us independence and the bill of rights. Now the very same would-be guarantors of our "freedom" (as such) will trot out the "balance" argument to do whatever the fuck they want. And sadly we've become such a nation of distracted pussies we go along with it.
end of inbred psychopath crown royal zionic nazi roaming empires at hand.... oil gluttons feeling squeezed (carbon nation)... moms of the nile conference will be a real awakening... polymer polymore polyman is not our intended destiny... spirit of creation (all +++++++++++++++) remains undefeated...
The UK faced that years ago with its GCHQ links to the National Technical Assistance Centre, Government Technical Assistance Centre and other domestic efforts after the 1980's, 1990's.
Once the use of tech tracking enters the courts and legal system the tech tracking news is then public.
Sealed courts for every case with tracking? Hope parallel construction protects the role of contractor cell-site or other tracking?
A lot of interesting people can just stop using digital networks. All the mil, govs and their new contractors have set up is the ability to track digital networks globally.
Telco databases track consumers after a court order. That same database shows who is been tracked.
All the contractors can do is keep selling products that help law enforcement with parallel construction and try keep all investigations hidden.
That works well until open court or the press using FOIA finds the local use of extra cellular phone surveillance devices.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
unreported, must be an oversight https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=free+world+energy using our resources against us? https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=wmd+weather phewww
who didn't.
They got thrown in debtors prison, harassed, taxed without representation, or given substandard benefits, despite being the people who made America possible.
Anybody who thinks that America is less free now than it was then really is viewing it through rose colored glasses.
Just like the revolutionary war, any rights or freedoms we had/have/will attain will be hard won and much more easily lost just like it's been since time immemorial.
As such, if you want your rights either get out there and fight for them, or find somewhere that better appeals to the rights you hold dear.
Profiteering is a gentle term for a disease that plagues America. The right wing does not feel that capitalism has anything to do with economics. They view capitalism as a religion. To them raking is huge sums for the least effort is the meaning of life. Materialism is a natural fruit of capitalism. This is what happens when you restrict the faith community in the schools. We have all heard of the Israelites worshipping the golden calf. It should be called the gold calf. It represented and abandonment of God and a worship of wealth. Today we see people worshipping money in every way. Worse yet governmental forces enforce this greed by requiring people to have money. One way or another the govrnment will insist that you agree to have money. If you want to wander about with a tent and not sign up as a member of modern nonsense the land will be called either private or public and your little tent will not be allowed. As my Haitian friend remarked those corporate types belong to Satan. She is sort of right.
You are the ass-master of your fate, the Captain of your hole.