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NSA tracking cellphone locations worldwide, Snowden documents show

washingtonpost.com

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Re: NSA tracking cellphone locations worldwide, Snowden documents show

#151

Post by Pengu »

swalkergibson wrote: post #29

I am now numb to these revelations, as I suspect are most of the technology community. The only thing that will make the rest of the general populace wake up is if someone on TV says they are vehemently opposed to it. Someone who has trotted out the, "I have nothing to hide, so I am not worried." I believe the only way this will happen is if Edward Snowden specifically targeted one of those people and created a file…

This is stupid, targeting individuals at 'random' is pointless and won't help anything. There is no way to tell whether or not a Character even holds a specific view that they portray. It's called acting for a reason, and this is why "faking it until you make it" is so popular. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8KwEDgpSWxo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yWf2LLaHkM0

All that matters post Snowden Revelations is Game Theory - as if this isn't how it's always been. It doesn't even matter what he says now, he has established himself as a Character. Whether he's even a legitimate individual is irrelevant. The fact that he and WikiLeaks both choose to release their documents over time instead of in a single dump gives them the advantage of having or following a script. The only ones who don't know what's on those documents are the public. There honestly doesn't seem to be a reason to trust either party and I doubt either will ever be in any real danger unless they so choose so, because that's all people seem to want in life is to be remembered after death.

The only thing that could ever work is individuals in power promoting a strictly decentralized or public society. Yet, this will never happen because High School never ends, and someone always wants to run the show. So, if the whole worlds a stage how come you aren't looking at the stars?

Re: NSA tracking cellphone locations worldwide, Snowden documents show

#152

Post by Pengu »

DanielBMarkham wrote: post #7

So the deal modern man was presented with was this: we'll give you instant global communication for pennies, but in return governments and corporations will closely monitor everyone on the planet: where they are, who they call, how long the call is, their texts, messages, and other communications -- basically their thoughts. We'll record this forever to use as we choose. Trust us. As a global population, we seem to h…

Wiretaps have existed for thousands of years in one way or another. They've existed in America since the Civil War when they tapped the Confederates telegraph lines. You either control the stage or you're a slave.

Re: NSA tracking cellphone locations worldwide, Snowden documents show

#153

Post by dragonwriter »

Pengu wrote: post #152
DanielBMarkham wrote: post #7

So the deal modern man was presented with was this: we'll give you instant global communication for pennies, but in return governments and corporations will closely monitor everyone on the planet: where they are, who they call, how long the call is, their texts, messages, and other communications -- basically their thoughts. We'll record this forever to use as we choose. Trust us. As a global population, we seem to h…

Wiretaps have existed for thousands of years in one way or another. They've existed in America since the Civil War when they tapped the Confederates telegraph lines. You either control the stage or you're a slave.

> Wiretaps have existed for thousands of years in one way or another.

Communication intercepts may have, but wiretaps haven't existed longer than communication by wire.

Re: NSA tracking cellphone locations worldwide, Snowden documents show

#154

Post by Crito »

swalkergibson wrote: post #110
CWuestefeld wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So why is that in polite company, even those that are opposed to our various wars are obliged to toe the line, "we support our troops"? Even in 21st century America, we continue to fool ourselves, thinking that somehow soldiers can be noble, heroes even, all the while being engaged something that is immoral.

I have wondered the same thing privately numerous times. I believe it is a reflexive reaction because they can easily be killed doing their jobs, which they signed up for. It is some kind of bizarre "patriotic" requirement, likely borne of the significant derision heaped upon returning Vietnam veterans. Perhaps it is a generation of people who never want to see that happen again that have created this sacred cow?

Heaping derision on people who were victims themselves, drafted into a war they did not believe in, is one thing. I totally understand why people might recoil from that.

With an all-volunteer army though? No way, it is on them as much as it is on anybody. I don't care if they joined for the GI Bill (doing it for the [college] money is a pretty fucking flimsy ethical justification), I don't care if they joined the reserves before war broke out for the GI Bill (agreeing to the possibility of a war, before you know the circumstances of that war, for the [college] money, is still a flimsy argument).

The "support the troops [bring them home]" stuff seems like it is likely backlash against the derision that we gave Vietnam veterans, but it should be re-evaluated because the situations are not equivalent.

Re: NSA tracking cellphone locations worldwide, Snowden documents show

#155

Post by Crito »

penrod wrote: post #141
CWuestefeld wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So why is that in polite company, even those that are opposed to our various wars are obliged to toe the line, "we support our troops"? Even in 21st century America, we continue to fool ourselves, thinking that somehow soldiers can be noble, heroes even, all the while being engaged something that is immoral.

What immoral acts do you consider US troops to currently be engaged in?

Participation in unnecessary wars.

They may not have made the decision to start a war (that is on politicians), but they made the decision to participate.

Re: NSA tracking cellphone locations worldwide, Snowden documents show

#157

Post by rbanffy »

marvin wrote: post #65
angersock wrote: post #3

From the article: NSA Director Keith Alexander disclosed in Senate testimony in October that the NSA had run a pilot project in 2010 and 2011 to collect “samples” of U.S. cellphone location data. The data collected were never available for intelligence analysis purposes, and the project was discontinued because it had no “operational value,” he said. Alexander allowed that a broader collection of such data “may be so…

> And that, folks, is why we as engineers and hackers have a moral duty to be very selective in the types of work we take on and for whom. Computer yechnology work is still a wild west. Other fields which have similar ethical considerations - medicine, chemistry, engineering - have ethics courses which make it clear to the graduates that their professional decisions have consequences. There is no such standard for co…

> There is no such standard for computer people.

That does not make our decisions inconsequential. And yes, we should talk a lot more about ethics in compsci courses.

As for people who work on things like PRISM, it often happen in small steps, one ethical shade of gray at a time. When you get to a PRISM, your worldview is so completely distorted, you think it's a natural thing to do.

Re: NSA tracking cellphone locations worldwide, Snowden documents show

#158

Post by sanskritabelt »

sukuriant wrote: post #125
sanskritabelt wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rough estimate from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territo... suggests that about 2/3 of americans live in a state bordering the ocean, so about 100 million americans further away from the shore. What that has to do with anything, god only knows, unless you meant something like '100 miles away from the border', and even then I'm at a loss. Go visit a flyover state sometime. Most of the country's…

I was going on the assumption that most people in population centers use or have used the internet; and that the number of people that were not in population centers was less than 20%; and I mental-gymnastics'd myself to thinking that those population centers tend to be on the shore, so I said it that way. Not necessarily right, but that's how I go there.

"most people in population centers use or have used the internet" 80% is "most" by lots of definitions.

Re: NSA tracking cellphone locations worldwide, Snowden documents show

#159

Post by Zigurd »

pavpanchekha wrote: post #142
sjtgraham wrote: post #79

> The NSA does not target Americans’ location data by design, but the agency acquires a substantial amount of information on the whereabouts of domestic cellphones “incidentally,” a legal term that connotes a foreseeable but not deliberate result. The implication that Americans being "incidentally" caught in the dragnet is the only aspect that makes this egregious is absolutely fucking disgusting. This is a habit end…

I understand your contempt but this distinction is important in this specific discussion, because the NSA charter specifically restricts its actions against Americans. Thus, if the NSA is spying on Americans often enough for it not to be a "mistake", then the NSA is flagrantly violating the scope it has been given. If this is not occurring, the NSA is operating within its (ridiculously loose) legal bounds.

Don't the instances of "parallel construction" already uncovered mean that the whole "restricts actions against Americans" thing has been blown wide open?

I suspect the answer to whether this was been written into law lies in secret interpretations of secret passages of the PATRIOT Acts, and that our rights have been, in secret, broadly abridged if not suspended.

Re: NSA tracking cellphone locations worldwide, Snowden documents show

#160

Post by ewoodrich »

Zigurd wrote: post #159
pavpanchekha wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand your contempt but this distinction is important in this specific discussion, because the NSA charter specifically restricts its actions against Americans. Thus, if the NSA is spying on Americans often enough for it not to be a "mistake", then the NSA is flagrantly violating the scope it has been given. If this is not occurring, the NSA is operating within its (ridiculously loose) legal bounds.

Don't the instances of "parallel construction" already uncovered mean that the whole "restricts actions against Americans" thing has been blown wide open? I suspect the answer to whether this was been written into law lies in secret interpretations of secret passages of the PATRIOT Acts, and that our rights have been, in secret, broadly abridged if not suspended.

Simply put, no. Parallel construction is a process by which otherwise inadmissible evidence can be used in court by obtaining it through an alternative lawful method. i.e. DEA trailing a specific car until it leads to a drug dealer based on a tip from the NSA.

The NSA charter restricts directly targeting Americans unless related to an international threat. i.e. FISA warrants ("Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act").

Instances of parallel construction emerge when evidence potentially useful for a domestic investigation is incidentally uncovered. Were it to be directly targeted when the individual has had no foreign communication, it would exceed the (very broad) scope of the NSA.

So it hasn't been "blown wide open". It is just that many people don't seem to particularly care about the nuances of either the NSA's charter or "Parallel construction" and throw terms around.

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