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U.S. military members' personal data being sold by online brokers

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Re: U.S. military members' personal data being sold by online brokers

#101
post #89

Most people's data is being sold. No reason military people would be exempt.

The reason is twofold: 1. Servicemembers hold security clearances and thus access to critical things. 2. Leaked PII is a national security threat. This report, I'd argue, is good 'marketing' for the very real need for privacy protections nationwide. The U.S. military is, despite its best efforts, still an admired and respected institution.

That doesn't have any relevance to my point. Currently there is no infrastructure in place to secure people with clearance more than anyone else, so it's no surprise their data is available.

As for your second point, big shrug. All the data is already out there and isn't going away anytime soon. Best case is to protect future data from being leaked, but the US isn't going to outlaw data brokers anytime soon and holding companies with poor computer security practices to account is very recent.

Re: U.S. military members' personal data being sold by online brokers

#102
post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason is twofold: 1. Servicemembers hold security clearances and thus access to critical things. 2. Leaked PII is a national security threat. This report, I'd argue, is good 'marketing' for the very real need for privacy protections nationwide. The U.S. military is, despite its best efforts, still an admired and respected institution.

That doesn't have any relevance to my point. Currently there is no infrastructure in place to secure people with clearance more than anyone else, so it's no surprise their data is available. As for your second point, big shrug. All the data is already out there and isn't going away anytime soon. Best case is to protect future data from being leaked, but the US isn't going to outlaw data brokers anytime soon and holdi…

You are incorrect that there's no infra to secure people with clearances. WRT your second point, 'all the data is out there' is an awful argument.

The solution is simple: if you want to do business with or in the United States, you must respect its citizens' rights. There's plenty of other comparable regulatory frameworks; food safety, weapons, etc.

Re: U.S. military members' personal data being sold by online brokers

#103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not American, and curious about the checks required for different weapons. I get lot of contradictory information online. Also read in many places buying illegally is easy. How true is that?

Buying legally in the US isn't that hard to make it worth it to buy illegally unless you are a broke teenager buying one to try and "look cool and tough" to your friends.

> Buying legally in the US isn't that hard to make it worth it to buy illegally unless you are a broke teenager

Or unless you have a felony, which would make up a much larger share of illegall firearm purchases than teenagers.

Re: U.S. military members' personal data being sold by online brokers

#104
post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh no, don't get me wrong, I've been dying to leave, nothing I would like more. But I am sure you've heard of the term economic slavery, and that's what I have become. Don't make enough to make the ends meet, and don't make enough to leave. Have to pay the debts before I can give up the passport.

Debt does not stop you from leaving, if you have a second passport.

US is one of the only countries in the world where you still have to pay US taxes no matter where you live or work and what passports you have, as long as you are a US citizen, and you can't give up US citizenship, which is also a paid process, unless you've paid all taxes.

Re: U.S. military members' personal data being sold by online brokers

#105

Seeing drone dropped grenades everywhere in Ukraine has made me worried about normalized "drone drop murders" spreading to the rest of the world. With widely available addresses gang violence, political killings, and even online flamewar escalations will become much much uglier. Who needs to do a driveby shooting if you could drop a homemade bomb from a McDonalds bathroom 20 miles away using some jailbroken drone? Vi…

> Who needs to do a driveby shooting if you could drop a homemade bomb from a McDonalds bathroom 20 miles away using some jailbroken drone?

Driveby shootings are super easy. Drone bombing someone is way harder. Especially from 20 miles away. I don't see how Ukraine would change that.

Getting away with driveby shooting requires about the same amount of faff as getting away with a drone murder. (Because in both cases unless you biff it spectacularly the police is not going to catch you red-handed. They are going to find you based on who wanted the person gone.)

Re: U.S. military members' personal data being sold by online brokers

#106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sometimes the US perspective of things is completely surreal for me as a European. In a country where you can buy assault rifles with minimal background checks, people worry about addresses being available because someone might be able to look up the address to kill them with a drone and a home made bomb.

> In a country where you can buy assault rifles with minimal background checks, people worry about addresses being available because someone might be able to look up the address to kill them with a drone and a home made bomb. Drones and IUDs may be less traceable than guns and offer even less risk to the user. Currently if you're going to use a gun, you basically have to be suicidal or care zero about the consequence…

> Drones and IUDs may be less traceable than guns and offer even less risk to the user.

Gotta watch out for those intra-uterine devices - they can take out a city block. ;)

Re: U.S. military members' personal data being sold by online brokers

#107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

in most states someone who has multiple assault violations and a history of mental health problems can walk into a gun show with $700 and 15 minutes later walk out with a semi-automatic AR-15

[flagged]

not necessarily gun shows of course, that's just where it's easy to find private sellers - private sales don't require background checks

Re: U.S. military members' personal data being sold by online brokers

#108

Seeing drone dropped grenades everywhere in Ukraine has made me worried about normalized "drone drop murders" spreading to the rest of the world. With widely available addresses gang violence, political killings, and even online flamewar escalations will become much much uglier. Who needs to do a driveby shooting if you could drop a homemade bomb from a McDonalds bathroom 20 miles away using some jailbroken drone? Vi…

> Who needs to do a driveby shooting if you could drop a homemade bomb from a McDonalds bathroom 20 miles away using some jailbroken drone? Driveby shootings are super easy. Drone bombing someone is way harder. Especially from 20 miles away. I don't see how Ukraine would change that. Getting away with driveby shooting requires about the same amount of faff as getting away with a drone murder. (Because in both cases u…

> Because in both cases unless you biff it spectacularly the police is not going to catch you red-handed.

The barriers for police have also gotten lower over the time. The thing where a lot of criminals get caught is dragnet surveillance - just subpoena Google, Apple and the operators of cellphone towers for a list of everyone who was in the proximity of where a crime happened, and they have no choice but to deliver the data you yourself collected to the police.

This is also getting worse because it's just a matter of time until states with abortion bans subpoena Google, Microsoft and Apple for which persons that are regularly in that state have visited known abortion providers in another state in a timeframe consistent with an abortion visit, or who have searched about abortions on the Internet.

Re: U.S. military members' personal data being sold by online brokers

#109
post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn't have any relevance to my point. Currently there is no infrastructure in place to secure people with clearance more than anyone else, so it's no surprise their data is available. As for your second point, big shrug. All the data is already out there and isn't going away anytime soon. Best case is to protect future data from being leaked, but the US isn't going to outlaw data brokers anytime soon and holdi…

You are incorrect that there's no infra to secure people with clearances. WRT your second point, 'all the data is out there' is an awful argument. The solution is simple: if you want to do business with or in the United States, you must respect its citizens' rights. There's plenty of other comparable regulatory frameworks; food safety, weapons, etc.

> You are incorrect that there's no infra to secure people with clearances

I'm not. If there was, their data wouldn't be lumped in with everyone else when it's leaked/hacked from all these large different organizations.

> WRT your second point, 'all the data is out there' is an awful argument.

It's a fact. You won't be able to remove that stuff now that it's out. IT's somewhat an instance of the Streisand effect. Numerous people have it torrented and downloaded locally.

> The solution is simple: if you want to do business with or in the United States, you must respect its citizens' rights.

That's not any kind of solution, especially when much of the issue is internal.

Re: U.S. military members' personal data being sold by online brokers

#110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sometimes the US perspective of things is completely surreal for me as a European. In a country where you can buy assault rifles with minimal background checks, people worry about addresses being available because someone might be able to look up the address to kill them with a drone and a home made bomb.

As other commenters have mentioned, US American's ease of access to firearms does not extend to their usage. If you buy a weapon and wrongly shoot someone, there is a system in place to make sure you are found and punished. There is no such system in place for catching people flying drones.

Sure there is (if you use that drone as a weapon). It would be the same investigation as someone putting a bomb at your front door. They’d analyze the components and narrow down the people with the motive and figure out which one bought them.
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