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New documents reveal scale of US Government’s cell phone location data tracking

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Re: New documents reveal scale of US Government’s cell phone location data tracking

#141

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

bombcar wrote: post #67
ok_dad wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny thing is, they started the surveillance in late-2001 to suck all the records up. Where did they get the computers and storage devices to do that all at once? They must have been installing equipment for months or years, especially since I am pretty sure they even built a new data center on Fort Mead for it around that time. Now, this is 2001, when building a datacenter didn't just involve spinning up 1000 AWS E…

I would suspect it was already being done (in part, or in whole who knows) and the attacks were an excuse to "legitimize" it going forward.

It was definitely being done before 9/11. I know of one data broker who was under contract with a certain TLA in the 90's to perform hardware assisted rapid data scanning.

Re: New documents reveal scale of US Government’s cell phone location data tracking

#142

Post by rsyring »

bradgessler wrote: post #133
zaptheimpaler wrote: post #127

No one cares. This kind of surveillance and massive overreach by intelligence agencies has been reported dozens of times for at least 20 years now. The most recent example i remember was of facial recognition in airports. Media reported it, some people whined about it, oh maybe the people will demand privacy? lol. Now its standard procedure. Delta even does boarding based on facial ID by default. "Raising awareness"…

Anybody want to take a shot at how all of this will unwind?

It won't. Technology brings too much power with relative ease, governments and corporations are and will use it to their own advantage. Most people want convenience above all things and, even if they don't, are relatively powerless to do anything about it anyway.

New governments may rise and current ones fall. Ditto large corporations. Any progress made in the pursuit of privacy will be mostly smoke and mirrors. The incentives are just too misaligned.

Re: New documents reveal scale of US Government’s cell phone location data tracking

#143

Post by quickthrower2 »

sodality2 wrote: post #128
wahnfrieden wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you’re fine with state actors being able to precisely target propaganda / inciting calls to violence based on psychological profiles etc, including your neighbors

Not that they are fine, probably they just have no avenue to defend against that. It would be like an ant declaring war on the elephant.

Or maybe like a nest of hornets declaring war on a person

Re: New documents reveal scale of US Government’s cell phone location data tracking

#144

Post by amatecha »

StanislavPetrov wrote: post #93
ok_dad wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny thing is, they started the surveillance in late-2001 to suck all the records up. Where did they get the computers and storage devices to do that all at once? They must have been installing equipment for months or years, especially since I am pretty sure they even built a new data center on Fort Mead for it around that time. Now, this is 2001, when building a datacenter didn't just involve spinning up 1000 AWS E…

>Funny thing is, they started the surveillance in late-2001 to suck all the records up. It started long, long before 2001. Here is a 2000 press release from the ACLU about global surveillance done by Echelon, which had already been ongoing for years (back when the ACLU cared about privacy issues): https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/privacy-advocates-concer... By 1999 privacy advocates at already gotten together for…

Ah right, I remember when Echelon Watch[0] was launched, and made the rounds in chat rooms I frequented at the time... Of course most people dismissed it as conspiracy theory stuff :)

[0] https://web.archive.org/web/20001018103147/http://www.echelo...

Re: New documents reveal scale of US Government’s cell phone location data tracking

#145

Post by specialist »

plugger wrote: post #66
candiddevmike wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet, even with all of this surveillance, we still have mass shootings every five days.

surveillance doesn't seem to do much to deter crimes, it just makes investigation easier

I could almost support the panopticon if that actually happened.

Adjacently, to make the point: we warehouse 1000s or rape kits but don't bother to process them. Like, wtf?

Big Data completely flips the problem of investigation. Instead of identifying suspects, chasing leads, gathering evidence, and verifying alibis, with Big Data you just rule out everyone who does have an alibi. Leaving only those who don't have an alibi, thereby revealing the perpetrators.

It's been a while since I've actively cared about protecting privacy. So I don't know if any one's talking about how Big Data impacts legal concepts (balances of concerns) hammered out over the centuries. Like what is reasonable doubt and presumption of innocence when prosecutors can prove that every one else has an alibi?

When I tried to talk about this stuff with other privacy advocates, presumably savvy about policy and whatnot, they'd look at me like I'm paranoid schizophrenic. So if the experts are still coming up to speed, it'll take that much longer for the policy maker, much less the general public, to become aware.

Re: New documents reveal scale of US Government’s cell phone location data tracking

#146

Post by [deleted] »

ReactiveJelly wrote: post #113
ramoz wrote: post #27

It's important everyone becomes educated about the fact that virtually every mobile app sells some part of your data that leads to some private company possessing the ability to draw a circle around your house on map and then detect all patterns of life without any PII. I don't think it's fair to pit this as a US gov't surveillance problem. It's true though - the Government missions involved, where this type of data…

> virtually every mobile app Reminder to readers to use F-Droid

[deleted]

Re: New documents reveal scale of US Government’s cell phone location data tracking

#147

Post by hunterb123 »

zaptheimpaler wrote: post #140
hunterb123 wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please don't speak for everyone. I care. Many people care. You may feel as though the median person is too poor or dumb or disempowered, and that may disempower you, but there are many other people who tirelessly work against these types of overreaches, whether its' FOIA requests, campaigns, articles, or otherwise. I see no point in such a post, it drifted into some sort of anti-democracy rant.

Sorry about the drift into a rant. My point is to say that the standard playbook for creating social or policy change is broken. The playbook is roughly - 1. build awareness via a nice article like the link 2. people read it? 3. people do something about it? But very few people read. The actual issues in broad public awareness are whatever crap is on Fox news. Beyond that, even if people get mad they have no structur…

Most of those issues either are caused by the usual people that have been in power in congress, or aren't issues that Americans should even care about but have convinced to be (Ukraine) as to keep money spigots flowing.

Vote out the establishment in the senate and the house if you really want change.

Rule of thumb if they've been there for 50 years they're okay with the status quo, regardless of party.

Re: New documents reveal scale of US Government’s cell phone location data tracking

#148

Post by walrus01 »

zaptheimpaler wrote: post #127

No one cares. This kind of surveillance and massive overreach by intelligence agencies has been reported dozens of times for at least 20 years now. The most recent example i remember was of facial recognition in airports. Media reported it, some people whined about it, oh maybe the people will demand privacy? lol. Now its standard procedure. Delta even does boarding based on facial ID by default. "Raising awareness"…

Fifteen years before Snowden, people were writing books about the NSA, GCHQ and the ECHELON system and apparently nobody gave a fuck, except some niche of politically interested or infosec people.

Re: New documents reveal scale of US Government’s cell phone location data tracking

#149

Post by [deleted] »

zaptheimpaler wrote: post #127

No one cares. This kind of surveillance and massive overreach by intelligence agencies has been reported dozens of times for at least 20 years now. The most recent example i remember was of facial recognition in airports. Media reported it, some people whined about it, oh maybe the people will demand privacy? lol. Now its standard procedure. Delta even does boarding based on facial ID by default. "Raising awareness"…

[deleted]

Re: New documents reveal scale of US Government’s cell phone location data tracking

#150

Post by [deleted] »

[deleted] wrote: post #149
zaptheimpaler wrote: post #127

No one cares. This kind of surveillance and massive overreach by intelligence agencies has been reported dozens of times for at least 20 years now. The most recent example i remember was of facial recognition in airports. Media reported it, some people whined about it, oh maybe the people will demand privacy? lol. Now its standard procedure. Delta even does boarding based on facial ID by default. "Raising awareness"…

[deleted]

[deleted]
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