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GCHQ Tried To Track Web Visits of "Every Visible User On Internet"
An anonymous reader writes with Ars Technica's story on the relevations reported today by The Intercept that the UK's GCHQ has been tracking World Wide Web users since 2007, with an operation called "Karma Police" -- "a program that tracked Web browsing habits of people around the globe in what the agency itself billed as the 'world's biggest' Internet data-mining operation, intended to eventually track 'every visible user on the Internet.'"
That sounds ridiculous. They should have used something with more of a verbal punch, perhaps recalling banditry and tracking on a live document.
All puns aside, the name is no more ridiculous than any bullshit justification for tracking "every visible user on the internet".
Yeah, go ahead three/four-letter agencies, I'd love to see what reasons you'll pull out of your ass for this one.
Do you know anything about IT and the internet? Your post suggests otherwise.
This datamines via cookies. You consent to these (or not) via your browser. This is about the same as you walking down the street and deciding whether or not you care to dodge the cctv cameras watching you.
Windows 10 is your operating system and you have no idea what it does. How do I know this? Because I have no idea what it does. And I'm willing to bet 99% of Microsoft has no idea what the new telemetry of Windows 10 collects. This is the same as hiring a butler that watches everything you do over your shoulder and every 10 minutes, he speaks quietly into an encrypted walkie talkie and you have no idea what he's telling his association of butlers. But you do know one thing, which is that the NSA/GCHQ has access and power over this association.
So laugh away? Ha ha ha?
You cannot accuse much less convict people for something they haven't done yet. Once you do that, we're at despotism and there's nothing stopping them from convicting you or me for whatever reason. The laws have already been pushed too far. Why do you think it's time to abandon them? How likely are you to die in a "terror" event?
The whole point of the law is to ensure that everyone is guilty of something. That way, whenever you want to get some particular individual there is always something to catch him on.
You don't have to convict people for something they haven't done yet; theres always something they've done.
Why do you think there are so many laws and no one can be sure they aren't breaking one?
In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
Follow they money. The greatest fear of the billionaires is losing their power from low cost revolutions. Votes are easy to fix as are the candidates. Sex scandal publicity and auto accidents cover most of the problems.
The UK is an old school monarchy, with a royal appointed upper house of "lords" dating back to 1066 owning 75% of all land. No changes please.
Don't believe anything.
I'd like to see the possibility of prosecutions explored, and at the very least the head of MI5 must now step down. He was on Radio 4 just a few days ago saying that there was no "population level" surveillance. Clearly that was a lie. He has zero credibility now.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC