Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

NSA tracking cellphone locations worldwide, Snowden documents show (2013)

washingtonpost.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

181–190 of 196 posts

Re: NSA tracking cellphone locations worldwide, Snowden documents show (2013)

#181

Post by nacs »

Zigurd wrote: post #126
progx wrote: post #23

And why we still have terrorists?

Because terrorists establish normal-seeming patterns of movement that do not diverge from that pattern until it is too late. Whereas if you take some time off from work to attend a protest, the FBI knows to come knocking on your door to ask pointed questions about your friends. That's what's pernicious about these programs. They're not good enough to focus on terrorists, but there is plenty of fodder for harassment o…

Also I'm thinking they don't use smartphones that leak all kinds of other data and instead cycle thorugh simple, cheap/pre-paid, disposable phones which would make establishing long-term patterns more difficult.

Re: NSA tracking cellphone locations worldwide, Snowden documents show (2013)

#182

Post by djschnei »

etiam wrote: post #142
jklinger410 wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Whereas I don't get a say but the exact same treatment from your country. The NSA works with the 5 eyes to gather data on you. If you want to stop the NSA from spying on you, vote in your democratic country to remove yourselves from our intelligence agreements. It doesn't necessarily mean the NSA won't spy on you, but it does mean it will be technically illegal for them to do so, so they probably won't do it unless…

I don't see that it would make said spying illegal under US law , and those are the only laws I expect NSA to fear enough to even bother subverting. Not that I disagree with the suggestion to put pressure on the partners though.

Interactions with foreign parties is rarely enforced through domestic law (in this sense). It's the job of your government to protect you from foreign governments. Your government having intelligence agreements with our government is them saying to you they don't value your privacy enough to protect it.

Re: NSA tracking cellphone locations worldwide, Snowden documents show (2013)

#183

Post by CamperBob2 »

nan0 wrote: post #102
alanwatts wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Killing someone because they killed someone is an infinite loop.

So we shouldn't have done anything after all the major terror attacks in the past decade ? You need to elaborate more on your general point.

So we shouldn't have done anything after all the major terror attacks in the past decade ? You need to elaborate more on your general point.

We'd be a few trillion dollars ahead, and a lot of dead innocent civilians around the world would still be alive.

So: yeah, pretty much. Sometimes turning the other cheek actually is the optimal thing to do.

Re: NSA tracking cellphone locations worldwide, Snowden documents show (2013)

#184

Post by nyolfen »

meric wrote: post #4
ffggvv wrote: post #3

This shows clearly that Putin is a dictator, that China is communist and that the USA spys the entire world to protect its citizens freedom. /s

The "communist country" has a capitalist economy. The "free country" has total electronic surveillance. The "federation" is run like an empire in a dictator-like fashion. And north korea, the "democratic republic", is the most oppressive regime in the world. What a world we live in.

Total electronic surveillance seems to be the international norm at this point. Disgusting, disheartening, and disillusioning, but true. I've come across the phrase 'surveillance capitalism' to describe the present world order and it seems pretty spot on to me.

Re: NSA tracking cellphone locations worldwide, Snowden documents show (2013)

#185

Post by talmand »

dmix wrote: post #179
talmand wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sounds nice. It won't happen, but it sounds nice. Every generation has felt they could do things better than the previous (old people shouldn't be allowed to vote has been stated lately), until they learn what it was the previous generation had to deal with. The mutual distrust among certain parties do go away after time, look at all the countries that were at war in WW2 that are now allies. But there is always…

> old people shouldn't be allowed to vote has been stated lately Really? I'd be interested to see a source on that. Not questioning the validity, I so many of these college aged kids calling for restrictions on speech and political organization of people they disagree with. I'm not surprised that this would come up. Looks like we can expect a mommy-state as much as we can expect a liberalization of out-dated baby boo…

I've seen it in connection with the Britain leaving the EU vote.

I wasn't implying I've seen it here, so I hope it didn't come across that way.

Re: NSA tracking cellphone locations worldwide, Snowden documents show (2013)

#186

Post by bnastic »

advisedwang wrote: post #174
bnastic wrote: post #54

> The NSA cannot know in advance which tiny fraction of 1 percent of the records it may need, so it collects and keeps as many as it can — 27 terabytes [...] The location programs have brought in such volumes of information, according to a May 2012 internal NSA briefing, that they are “outpacing our ability to ingest, process and store” data 27TB doesn't sound much, even by 2012 standards. The article doesn't specify…

Well if each (lat,lon,cell#,imei) record takes, say, 500 bytes and they take a measurement every minute, 27TB is enough to record every American for 4 months. That's pretty hefty surveillance even if the raw size doesn't impress.

I don't dispute that, but instead the tone of the article that makes it sound as if it's such a huge quantity of data that NSA is struggling (or was struggling) to capture it all.

Re: NSA tracking cellphone locations worldwide, Snowden documents show (2013)

#187

Post by mjevans »

Floegipoky wrote: post #154
benevol wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "Brexit" stats have clearly shown that UK would have remained in the EU if the "millenials" had really made use of their right to vote. The "old" generation (voting to leave the EU) clearly understands the value of their vote(s).

Something that's always bothered me about people who complain about low voter turnout among young demographics in the US is that young people are the least likely to be able to make it to the polls. In the US, election days are like any other- your employer is required to accommodate your vote, but in practice, younger demographics are much more likely to be working multiple shit jobs with bosses who treat them like…

I really like that idea. It should also cause businesses to push for LIMITING the number of voting holidays so that things are bundled up properly.

Re: NSA tracking cellphone locations worldwide, Snowden documents show (2013)

#188

Post by alanwatts »

nan0 wrote: post #102
alanwatts wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Killing someone because they killed someone is an infinite loop.

So we shouldn't have done anything after all the major terror attacks in the past decade ? You need to elaborate more on your general point.

>So we shouldn't have done anything..?

Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. So, I'm not saying we shouldn't do anything, though that might would be better than repeating ourselves over and over again in an infinite negative feedback loop, manufacturing that which we seek to eliminate. For every innocent life that has been taken a hundred revengeful combatants are born from that persons friends and family.

>The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it. Through violence you may murder the liar, but you cannot murder the lie, nor establish the truth. Through violence you may murder the hater, but you do not murder hate. In fact, violence merely increases hate. So it goes. ... Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.

-Dr. King, Where Do We Go From Here? 1967

http://kingencyclopedia.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/documentse...

Re: NSA tracking cellphone locations worldwide, Snowden documents show (2013)

#189

Post by pdeuchler »

justaman wrote: post #84
dunkelheit wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course not. The point is to have a strong BATNA, as negotiations people put it. The USA is actually a great example of this principle. Their military spending is the biggest in the world. What for? Do they intend to eradicate all other nations so that only Americans remain? I hope not. More probably, they spend all these resources because they don't like it when other nations tell them what to do.

I think our military power has evolved from the post war arms race into a pro-trade insurance policy.

how do you think they enforce those policies? economic colonialism is only worth it if you stay in control after development

Re: NSA tracking cellphone locations worldwide, Snowden documents show (2013)

#190

Post by exabrial »

throwanem wrote: post #133
exabrial wrote: post #57

Okay I hate to be the one to break the news to everybody here, but if you have a GSM phone this is quite trivial to do. The NSA hasn't done anything groundbreaking here, except maybe a Google search.

A measured reaction? Good God! We can't have that .

Sorry to disapoint. Please resume panic
Post reply on HN