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XKeyscore: NSA program collects 'nearly everything a user does on the internet'

theguardian.com

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Re: XKeyscore: NSA program collects 'nearly everything a user does on the internet'

#621

Post by hackinthebochs »

deveac wrote: post #218
nikcub wrote: post #29

This is overwhelming. Even when you always hear the claims about we knew this was going on, somehow it is still shocking when you see it all laid out infront of you with screenshots and the capabilities described. I can see how they get HTTP information, since they would intercept at transit hubs - but how are they getting all Facebook private messages and Gmail? I was also looking for another unique ID that users ar…

>This is overwhelming. Even when you always hear the claims about we knew this was going on, somehow it is still shocking when you see it all laid out infront of you with screenshots and the capabilities described. It has become a bit of a pet peeve of mine recently to see self-aggrandizing comments from users around the net about how "we should have known" and "none of this is new." I'm a practically addicted news j…

I'm one of those "none of this is new" types. The fact is, we ALL very much should have known. Do the words "Echelon" and "Total Information Awareness" ring any bells? These were terms being used pre-9/11. There is no excuse for someone technological and with a small inkling of understanding of human nature to not have seen all of this coming. There really isn't.

If you're waiting for someone like Snowden to come along and spoon-feed you all the ways the government can screw you, you're doing things completely wrong. Oversight requires foresight.

Re: XKeyscore: NSA program collects 'nearly everything a user does on the internet'

#623

Post by rehack »

Makes me Wonder, if the Internet in this widespread form, was allowed so that they can snoop (so easily)?

When I was a kid, my father, had told me a story that in Russia people are scared to speak their minds, for fear of being snooped via any hidden gadgets in the walls.

Re: XKeyscore: NSA program collects 'nearly everything a user does on the internet'

#624

Post by w_t_payne »

s_q_b wrote: post #414
noonespecial wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The technical possibility isn't the new and staggering part, it's the profound lack of morality, respect for any ideal whatsoever, and compete apathy towards the oaths these people took to serve us . They have compeley misused the power we granted them in sacred trust. We should remove it from them at once. If this has become impossible, we need to know that as soon as we can.

> The technical possibility isn't the new and staggering part, it's the profound lack of morality, respect for any ideal whatsoever, and compete apathy towards the oaths these people took to serve us. Again, I'll chime in as the resident apologist. The people working at Fort Meade are not evil. They truly believe they're doing a great service to the nation. They may be wrong, and they've certainly thrown privacy out…

Yes, I quite agree.

I have a tremendous amount of respect for those in the security services, who have been given a rather difficult job to do, and who seem (from the vanishingly small amount that I know) to be approaching it in a professional and objective manner.

I have no desire to be nasty, and if I have personally offended anybody by what I have written, I most profoundly apologize for the hurt.

However.

This is an important issue, and it deserves public attention and a detailed debate. I hope that some of my provocative wailing and doom-mongering has done what was intended: provoked some thought and consideration.

This is, after all, politics, and, as I have mentioned before, we sometimes need to make a caricature out of our own positions in order to make a point. Omlettes and eggs and all that.

Re: XKeyscore: NSA program collects 'nearly everything a user does on the internet'

#625

Post by w_t_payne »

I wonder if we should try to put together a programme to try to drain the NSA of technical talent ... offering jobs or other incentives to try to persuade developers currently working for the agencies and their various contractors to resign?

Re: XKeyscore: NSA program collects 'nearly everything a user does on the internet'

#626

Post by dclowd9901 »

pessimizer wrote: post #560
dclowd9901 wrote: post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you're expecting the world to come to terms with Stallman, rather than the other way around. Think about that for a minute, and then explain to me why that makes more sense.

Speak for yourself. Stallman is a massively influential thinker that has indisputably changed the world positively. A lot of the world has reshaped itself to attempt to resemble Stallman's dreams. His contribution was to have the dreams and to share them in material ways, and he didn't even owe us that. You're in the bizarre position of criticizing him for being right. You're expecting Stallman to figure out a way to…

You seem to think I'm the one who has a problem with him. I think he's always been dead on, and don't disagree with you in the slightest about his vision.

Where our expectations start to misalign is the part where he's been ignored because he doesn't know how to be a consummate human being (let alone marketer), and you say it's everyone else's fault. Idealism is fucking useless.

Re: XKeyscore: NSA program collects 'nearly everything a user does on the internet'

#627

Post by jhki »

astrodust wrote: post #407
lazyjones wrote: post #382

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why? The reasoning here is a awfully thin, but has something to do with "being tracked = bad" and then goes into crazy territory from there. You don't understand why tracking may be bad? Or are you just trying very hard to mock his very valid conclusion? Here's other people's thoughts about cellphone tracking: http://www.zeit.de/datenschutz/malte-spitz-data-retention/ (totally crazy, right!) > If he's concerned abo…

Tracking can be bad for some people, it can ruin their careers, destroy their marriage, completely upend their life if that sort of information got out. However, for most of us, it's not especially valuable information and any one day will look like any other. When I engage with social networks, use a cellular phone, I'm aware of the liability. I'm making a conscious trade-off. I really would like it to be less of a…

"Tracking can be bad for some people, it can ruin their careers, destroy their marriage, completely upend their life if that sort of information got out. However, for most of us, it's not especially valuable information and any one day will look like any other."

> I think the thing to realize here is life can change very quickly. What if, for one reason or another, you become a celebrity all of a sudden - Or happen to acquire particularly well-connected enemies. When this kind of powerful info is used against you things look quite different.

Re: XKeyscore: NSA program collects 'nearly everything a user does on the internet'

#628

Post by tedks »

anigbrowl wrote: post #589
tedks wrote: post #493

Earlier quoted context omitted.

* RMS reads the web via email because he's traveling virtually all the time and rarely has Internet access. A batch-based system makes more sense for him. This isn't an ethical stance, and the fact you include it hits your credibility severely. * The FSF uses computers other than Yeeloongs. The FSF also doesn't really care about free hardware. The Yeeloong has chips with non-free firmware burnt in, and the FSF doesn'…

RMS reads the web via email because he's traveling virtually all the time and rarely has Internet access Surely you can't expect people to take this argument seriously. It's easy to get internet access on the go in much of the world already.

RMS emails in restaurants, cars, trains, etc., in Europe and the United States but also frequently in SE Asia and South America. There are pictures of him responding to email in the mountains in Nepal.

It's easy to get Internet access on the go in most of the places I've been to, but I've been to a tiny fraction of the places RMS has been to.

Re: XKeyscore: NSA program collects 'nearly everything a user does on the internet'

#630

Post by newman314 »

s_q_b wrote: post #414
noonespecial wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The technical possibility isn't the new and staggering part, it's the profound lack of morality, respect for any ideal whatsoever, and compete apathy towards the oaths these people took to serve us . They have compeley misused the power we granted them in sacred trust. We should remove it from them at once. If this has become impossible, we need to know that as soon as we can.

> The technical possibility isn't the new and staggering part, it's the profound lack of morality, respect for any ideal whatsoever, and compete apathy towards the oaths these people took to serve us. Again, I'll chime in as the resident apologist. The people working at Fort Meade are not evil. They truly believe they're doing a great service to the nation. They may be wrong, and they've certainly thrown privacy out…

So concentration camps were understandable???

You are nuts if you think that that was acceptable given the circumstances.

Just doing my job is not sufficient in jobs such as these.

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