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NSA secretly conducted illegal searches on Americans for years

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Re: NSA secretly conducted illegal searches on Americans for years

#101

Post by spaceribs »

mirimir wrote: post #60
spaceribs wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Encrypt everything. I wouldn't trust the political process to work itself out in the near future, so a technical approach may be the answer in the meantime. I've moved all my friends to Signal not because we're having sensitive conversations, but because we're voting with our actions.

Yes. And privacy does give you more options. But be careful not to be too obvious about it, because that makes you a target.

> But be careful not to be too obvious about it, because that makes you a target.

Good. It's probably better that a young curmudgeonly asshole like myself that has zero respect for unquestioned authority go through the years long process of bringing a clear case of 4th and 5th amendment violations through to the supreme court.

I personally would rather rot in jail in contempt if it meant that these questions of personal property, privacy and self-incrimination were discussed and settled legally. It's a question of civic duty at that point.

Re: NSA secretly conducted illegal searches on Americans for years

#102

Post by arca_vorago »

lmm wrote: post #30
endymi0n wrote: post #11

I think the most dangerous thing is that what Snowden predicted actually happened by now. After all the revelations, nobody is interested anymore. There's this general fatigue and powerlessness that leads to a feeling of "well, yeah, everbody knows by now... what's the news here?" - even for me as a security expert and privacy proponent. The real danger is nobody cares anymore, as this enables all further constitutio…

What do I do, as someone who cares? No, seriously. Should I throw a bit more money at the EFF? Start my own political party, or enter an existing one and try to steer it in my direction? Try to get employed by one of these organizations and then promote a better understanding of their mission internally? Move to another country where people care more (which?) Identifying the problem is a good first step, but what can…

The absolute first step is to take control of your devices. LineageOS or Replicant phone. GNU+Linux on computer, openwrt or similar on router/switches, ipfire similar on firewall. Firefox instead of chrome or opera. VLC instead of iTunes. Emacs/Vim instead of sublime. Blender instead of Maya. Etc. I'm working on this myself. It's not easy, but it is worth it.

RMS was and is right: either the user controls the program or the program controls the user.

When you fix a bug, contribute it back. When you write a program, make it (l)gplv3.

Re: NSA secretly conducted illegal searches on Americans for years

#103

Post by Ntrails »

captainmuon wrote: post #97
lmm wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do I do, as someone who cares? No, seriously. Should I throw a bit more money at the EFF? Start my own political party, or enter an existing one and try to steer it in my direction? Try to get employed by one of these organizations and then promote a better understanding of their mission internally? Move to another country where people care more (which?) Identifying the problem is a good first step, but what can…

Start a revolution. I'm only half joking. I think we can't solve these problems within the current political and economical and system. We have to found a new radical political movement. A lot of the problems we face: the crisis of representational democracy, populism, unemployment, xenophobia, the surveillance state, terrorism, ... cannot be solved individually, but I believe must be fixed simultaneously. We got to…

> But as opposed to him, we can actually fulfill these promises.

Man on internet claims that his statements are totally more trustworthy than man on TV.

I'm not disagreeing with you per se - but "fuzzy on the details but this will totally work I promise" is not exactly a radical new line of thought

Re: NSA secretly conducted illegal searches on Americans for years

#104

Post by BearGoesChirp »

endymi0n wrote: post #11

I think the most dangerous thing is that what Snowden predicted actually happened by now. After all the revelations, nobody is interested anymore. There's this general fatigue and powerlessness that leads to a feeling of "well, yeah, everbody knows by now... what's the news here?" - even for me as a security expert and privacy proponent. The real danger is nobody cares anymore, as this enables all further constitutio…

People don't care until they see concrete harm to themselves. Look at how many modern day genocides we outright ignore. If we can do that, then what is a little spying in comparison?

Re: NSA secretly conducted illegal searches on Americans for years

#105

Post by hutzlibu »

captainmuon wrote: post #97
lmm wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do I do, as someone who cares? No, seriously. Should I throw a bit more money at the EFF? Start my own political party, or enter an existing one and try to steer it in my direction? Try to get employed by one of these organizations and then promote a better understanding of their mission internally? Move to another country where people care more (which?) Identifying the problem is a good first step, but what can…

Start a revolution. I'm only half joking. I think we can't solve these problems within the current political and economical and system. We have to found a new radical political movement. A lot of the problems we face: the crisis of representational democracy, populism, unemployment, xenophobia, the surveillance state, terrorism, ... cannot be solved individually, but I believe must be fixed simultaneously. We got to…

So you say start the revolution first and then figure out how things will work afterwards?

"tolerance, individual rights, decentralism, and openness" sounds nice, but are not enough alone to bring food on the table, keep the lights on and the warm water running, which is something most people want to be sure of, before they join your revolution ...

Otherwise I am with you on the dreaming part about how a new society could look like. But I think this is something which needs to be much more concrete, before you can start to think about "revolution", unless you want something like a October Revolution, but then count me out ...

Re: NSA secretly conducted illegal searches on Americans for years

#106

Post by [deleted] »

captainmuon wrote: post #97
lmm wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do I do, as someone who cares? No, seriously. Should I throw a bit more money at the EFF? Start my own political party, or enter an existing one and try to steer it in my direction? Try to get employed by one of these organizations and then promote a better understanding of their mission internally? Move to another country where people care more (which?) Identifying the problem is a good first step, but what can…

Start a revolution. I'm only half joking. I think we can't solve these problems within the current political and economical and system. We have to found a new radical political movement. A lot of the problems we face: the crisis of representational democracy, populism, unemployment, xenophobia, the surveillance state, terrorism, ... cannot be solved individually, but I believe must be fixed simultaneously. We got to…

[deleted]

Re: NSA secretly conducted illegal searches on Americans for years

#107

Post by cxromos »

acqq wrote: post #88
cxromos wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another schizophrenic view of the world.

Which fact from these that I've specified you not believe? WMD in Iraq story was actually fabricated, the UK actually stole an article of a student Ibrahim al-Marashi to present it as the result of the work of their intelligence services. bin Laden actually had a Bosniak Muslim passport. There were "Bosnian mujahideen" soldiers from the foreign lands fighting there, just like now in Syria. They were actually supporte…

I don't dispute that fact. The Muslims in Bosnia are moderate in nature. It's traditional. Ottoman empire was against the type of Islam like the one that originated in Saudi Arabia. I don't dispute the fact that WMD was a stunt of the crony capitalism of Cheney and his friends. But those Muslims in Syria, 'moderate' rebels, were victims of Assad family for decades. It's bound to happen, sooner or later, for people to rebel, when victimized. One doesn't need to study history to recognize this basic truth.

Re: NSA secretly conducted illegal searches on Americans for years

#108

Post by mirimir »

mirimir wrote: post #60
spaceribs wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Encrypt everything. I wouldn't trust the political process to work itself out in the near future, so a technical approach may be the answer in the meantime. I've moved all my friends to Signal not because we're having sensitive conversations, but because we're voting with our actions.

Yes. And privacy does give you more options. But be careful not to be too obvious about it, because that makes you a target.

Too late to edit, but here's a citation:

> ... Once the amount of risk is determined, consider cost, time, and effort of implementing OPSEC countermeasures to mitigate risk. Factors to consider include:

> (1) The benefit and the effect of the countermeasure on reducing risk to the mission.

> (2) The cost of the proposed countermeasure compared with the cost associated with the impact if the adversary exploited the vulnerability.

> (3) The possibility that the countermeasure could create an OPSEC indicator.

DoD OPSEC manual at pp 13-14

https://www.opsecprofessionals.org/official/081103_DOD_OPSEC...

Re: NSA secretly conducted illegal searches on Americans for years

#110

Post by pvnick »

awqrre wrote: post #55

I think that the privacy issue will get worst quicker under Trump, which is why I voted for him. I think that it is required, for it to get better, because people don't care enough yet.

Not sure that's true. His team seems to have been the victim of it, so that complicates things. May be a wake-up call to the party that's currently in power. It's fascinating because political abuse was exactly what Snowden and Greenwald warned against and yet they don't seem to care much because they dislike Trump. Deep down everybody is a political hack.
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