NSA collected 500M U.S. call records in 2017, a sharp rise: official report • Hacker News Board

Re: NSA collected 500M U.S. call records in 2017, a sharp rise: official report

#231

Post by bonestamp2 » Sat, May 05, 2018, 6:32 AM UTC

lern_too_spel wrote: post #140

anoncoward778 wrote: post #17

Automatically collecting everyone's cell phone data, has software automatically installed in Smart TV's everywhere, monitors your online footprint (emails, social media[of course]). All those warning from Snowden all those secret software reveals from wikileaks an untold amount of funding from congress with virtually no oversight. And yet tons of bad things keep happening to regular citizens in the US. What exactly d…

Automatically collecting everyone's cell phone data, has software automatically installed in Smart TV's everywhere, monitors your online footprint (emails, social media[of course]). According to all the documents published so far, the NSA does none of these except monitoring public social media posts.

You're right, although anecdotally speaking... every time I've turned on my Samsung TV for the past 10 months, it lists the USB port as the most recently used source on my TV. It never did this before.

That is extra strange since I've never used the USB port on my TV, and the TV has been installed rather high on a wall behind my desk since the day it arrived so it would be nearly impossible for my wife or small children to get at the USB port, let alone plug in a valid source... unless it was being used as an exploit by some software in the TV.

I'm not suggesting that is what is happening, however, it is suspicious as hell.

Re: NSA collected 500M U.S. call records in 2017, a sharp rise: official report

#232

Post by factsaresacred » Sat, May 05, 2018, 6:33 AM UTC

jMyles wrote: post #177

newman8r wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article makes the claim for the year 1850, and your claim is for the year 1860. There were more slaves in 1860 ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1860_United_States_Census ) than in 1850 ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1850_United_States_Census ) In 1860 there were 3,953,761 slaves counted in the census. In 2016, if you count everyone under probation and parole in addition to those in jail and prison, the number is…

Yep, you're right - I was off by a decade. I initially heard about this not from The New Jim Crow but from this (seemingly awesome) Brown University student: http://www.politifact.com/rhode-island/statements/2014/dec/0... ...but if I'm doing the math correctly, it appears to hold even for 1860 for adult males.

Jesus. They're criminals not slaves. Don't do the crime, don't do the time.

Look, I too watched 13th on Netflix. Black people are over-represented in violent crime like assault, murder and rape, and so are over-represented in prisons.

Re: NSA collected 500M U.S. call records in 2017, a sharp rise: official report

#233

Post by kilotaras » Sat, May 05, 2018, 6:46 AM UTC

cheschire wrote: post #223

Imagine what one could do with access to every phone conversation in terms of training a neural network. A properly trained network could easily identify code words among a network of certain individuals and then use the frequency of usage to identify potential windows of opportunity even if they didn't specify time windows over the phone. And do all of this without actually saving a single thing so it wouldn't be co…

Unless you have a big training corpus of terrorist conversations anything more than flagging "unnatural" phrases seems very far-fetched. And considering ratio of targets to civilians even that would be flooded with false positives.

Re: NSA collected 500M U.S. call records in 2017, a sharp rise: official report

#234

Post by jstanley » Sat, May 05, 2018, 6:48 AM UTC

contourtrails wrote: post #159

anoncoward778 wrote: post #17

Automatically collecting everyone's cell phone data, has software automatically installed in Smart TV's everywhere, monitors your online footprint (emails, social media[of course]). All those warning from Snowden all those secret software reveals from wikileaks an untold amount of funding from congress with virtually no oversight. And yet tons of bad things keep happening to regular citizens in the US. What exactly d…

>"What does the NSA so? Who are they protecting? You're comitting a logical fallacy. You think just because bad things sometimes do happen to US citizens that the NSA clearly isn't doing anything.... Clearly faulty logic. I'm glad the NSA exists because there are bad actors out there and we need informed law enforcement to protect us.

You're committing exactly the same logical fallacy.

You think just because it sometimes helps against bad actors that the NSA is a net force for good.

Re: NSA collected 500M U.S. call records in 2017, a sharp rise: official report

#235

Post by Chriky » Sat, May 05, 2018, 6:53 AM UTC

aflagatopamoon wrote: post #148

anoncoward778 wrote: post #17

Automatically collecting everyone's cell phone data, has software automatically installed in Smart TV's everywhere, monitors your online footprint (emails, social media[of course]). All those warning from Snowden all those secret software reveals from wikileaks an untold amount of funding from congress with virtually no oversight. And yet tons of bad things keep happening to regular citizens in the US. What exactly d…

You need a brutish thug in your tribe/gang/Pantheon which you can count on to do dirty jobs. That's why the connection between organized crime and intelligence agencies has always been solid. Too much oversight/rule-pushing muzzles the potential of these guard dogs to act or intimidate. If you don't have these thugs in your gang, then other gangs that include them can take advantage of you. They are protecting the in…

> That's why the connection between organized crime and intelligence agencies has always been solid.

What do you mean by this?

Re: NSA collected 500M U.S. call records in 2017, a sharp rise: official report

#236

Post by riffraff » Sat, May 05, 2018, 6:57 AM UTC

smokeyj wrote: post #229

jknoepfler wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Although I tend to see most ultra-liberal conspiracy babble as nonsense, experience with my own psychology and observation of those around has led me to believe that white male fragility is a real thing. You're being downvoted because people on HN, who are by and large financially secure, well-educated technocrats (like myself!), feel like there's something deeply irritating about your post, whether or not it is stat…

It’s not about the fragility of liberal white males, it’s the fragility of government as a religion. It’s like asking Catholics to admit the atrocities in their history. Ever wonder why every crypto related article is met with disdain? It’s because their faith cannot tolerate questioning. The line between nationalism and religion is blurred intentionally.

the catholic church has literally said "we're sorry" for their history a bunch of times, for example for anti-semitism, the inquisition, behaviour against non catholics and religious wars.

If anything, the problem is they're very vague about stuff, and only admit guilt for their history, and not for present misbehaviour.

Re: NSA collected 500M U.S. call records in 2017, a sharp rise: official report

#237

Post by jMyles » Sat, May 05, 2018, 6:59 AM UTC

factsaresacred wrote: post #232

jMyles wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, you're right - I was off by a decade. I initially heard about this not from The New Jim Crow but from this (seemingly awesome) Brown University student: http://www.politifact.com/rhode-island/statements/2014/dec/0... ...but if I'm doing the math correctly, it appears to hold even for 1860 for adult males.

Jesus. They're criminals not slaves. Don't do the crime, don't do the time. Look, I too watched 13th on Netflix. Black people are over-represented in violent crime like assault, murder and rape, and so are over-represented in prisons.

> Don't do the crime, don't do the time.

Isn't this materially the same as, "if you are black, and especially black and male, choose your diet according to what the government says you can put in your body?"

If "the crime" is ingesting cannabis, I do the crime all the freakin' time and I have never, ever imagined that I might suffer any consequence of it.

Is "Don't do the crime, don't do the time" a reasonable thing to say in an environment of such intense selective enforcement?

Re: NSA collected 500M U.S. call records in 2017, a sharp rise: official report

#238

Post by cbanek » Sat, May 05, 2018, 6:59 AM UTC

If only they could use that data to find out who these telemarketing scammers who constantly offer to sell me health insurance are.

Re: NSA collected 500M U.S. call records in 2017, a sharp rise: official report

#239

Post by factsaresacred » Sat, May 05, 2018, 7:30 AM UTC

jMyles wrote: post #237

factsaresacred wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jesus. They're criminals not slaves. Don't do the crime, don't do the time. Look, I too watched 13th on Netflix. Black people are over-represented in violent crime like assault, murder and rape, and so are over-represented in prisons.

> Don't do the crime, don't do the time. Isn't this materially the same as, "if you are black, and especially black and male, choose your diet according to what the government says you can put in your body?" If "the crime" is ingesting cannabis, I do the crime all the freakin' time and I have never, ever imagined that I might suffer any consequence of it. Is "Don't do the crime, don't do the time" a reasonable thing…

Where to begin?

> Isn't this materially the same as....

No it's not. Are you suggesting that because a crime is so prevalent it should be ignored? As long as a crime is a crime and people commit that crime you can expect consequences for that crime. We live in a nation of rules and laws.

Anyway let's visit the facts:

- 59% of black prisoners sentenced to more than 1 year in state prison were sentenced for a violent offense, not drug crimes.

- More than half of the extra prisoners added in the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s were imprisoned for violent crimes; two thirds were in for violent or property crimes. Only about a fifth of prison inmates are incarcerated for drug offenses. Only a fraction of those for marijuana.

- Black Democrats and the NAACP were instrumental in enforcing tough sentences for drug crime as drugs were decimating their communities.

So violent crime is still the main reason for the incarceration rates. As for those incarcerated for drug crimes - perhaps there are too many imprisoned but it's mostly for selling hard drugs, not weed. And even if it was weed, it's not slavery.

> Is "Don't do the crime, don't do the time" a reasonable thing to say in an environment of such intense selective enforcement?

Yes, yes it is. And the 95% of blacks (and any race for that matter) that don't do drugs would agree.

http://www.drugwarfacts.org/node/876

http://rainystreets.wikity.cc/naacp-citizens-mobilization-ag...

Re: NSA collected 500M U.S. call records in 2017, a sharp rise: official report

#240

Post by knowThySelfx » Sat, May 05, 2018, 7:33 AM UTC

Only 500M? With the Management Engine type spy chips installed in virtually all modern processors which runs our computers and phones, its all very easy. 500M is hogwash.