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Revelations about the French Big Brother

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Re: Revelations about the French Big Brother

#21

Post by JulianMorrison »

jgrahamc wrote: post #5

So, let's see. The NSA does it, GCHQ does it, DGSE does it. The operating assumption should be that all countries are monitoring all communications for at least metadata. Personally, I would not be the slightest bit surprised to learn that all phone calls are being recorded and as much Internet traffic as possible. I'm not surprised by this news at all. The technical means have been there for years and years. And the…

We need to stop being so blasé about the way countries spy on each other and the general public. No, it's not anything new. Yes, spies spy, that's their job. But it shouldn't be their job.

Re: Revelations about the French Big Brother

#22

Post by theboywho »

bnegreve wrote: post #9
jgrahamc wrote: post #5

So, let's see. The NSA does it, GCHQ does it, DGSE does it. The operating assumption should be that all countries are monitoring all communications for at least metadata. Personally, I would not be the slightest bit surprised to learn that all phone calls are being recorded and as much Internet traffic as possible. I'm not surprised by this news at all. The technical means have been there for years and years. And the…

> So, let's see. The NSA does it, GCHQ does it, DGSE does it. The operating assumption should be that all countries are monitoring [...] USA, UK and France are not any contry the're all at the top of this list: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_e... It doesn't say much about other contries.

All countries spy.

USA, UK, France and the rest of the top produce. The rest buys.

Re: Revelations about the French Big Brother

#23

Post by agilebyte »

Just like with small countries acting as offshore tax havens, is there a case for setting up a lot of cloud services in countries that neither have the technical capability or simply do not care what data is stored with them? Of course on the way there data pass through routers of at least one country that siphons the information and using satellite internet connection is costly :(.

Re: Revelations about the French Big Brother

#25

Post by sentenza »

Ok, so it seems this thing that we call free society is rapidly going off the rails. In addition to GCHQ and this crap from France, Netzpolitik.org recently dug up some interesting info on the publically known activities of the German secret services, which include tapping sea cables[1] and listening in on 5% of DECIX traffic[2].

So we now know for a fact that, while the general populace was blissfully disinterested and the techie crowd was mostly playing with its new toys, the intelligence community started building an all-encompassing global surveillance infrastructure. If we don't manage to pull off a roll-back now, our children or grandchildren will live in an actual science fiction dystopia.

My feeling is that we have a very small chance to achieve a roll-back in (continental) Europe, because the uncovered actions of secret services here are much more at odds with the societal consensus on the accepted powers of the executive. For the big five prospects are IMO more bleak.

[1] http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=n&pre... [2] http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=n&pre...

Re: Revelations about the French Big Brother

#26

Post by astrobe_ »

alan_cx wrote: post #6

It will be interesting to see how the French public react to this in comparison with Brits and Americans. Not to mention the Germans.

One of our former presidents, Mitterand in the 80ies, used intelligence services to eavedrop phone conversations for his own needs. You'd think people would revolt, but more recently in order to operate the "three strikes" law and HADOPI they delegated the monitoring of P2P/Interenet trafic (in order to check for IP rights violations) to a private company. We have laws about the privacy of communications too (like paper mail), but strangely nobody seem to realize they plainly apply to electronic communications.

Re: Revelations about the French Big Brother

#27

Post by zumth »

neolithic wrote: post #24

Was this leaked by Snowden? If so, it might explain why France blocked the Bolivian president's plane from using French airspace.

They do not mention sources, but I'd say it is some sort of open secret which is known by a lot of journalists. They mention that this officially does not exist, and from off-the-record talks, it does not exist because it's "secret défense".

Re: Revelations about the French Big Brother

#29

Post by a3n »

tomelders wrote: post #18
jgrahamc wrote: post #5

So, let's see. The NSA does it, GCHQ does it, DGSE does it. The operating assumption should be that all countries are monitoring all communications for at least metadata. Personally, I would not be the slightest bit surprised to learn that all phone calls are being recorded and as much Internet traffic as possible. I'm not surprised by this news at all. The technical means have been there for years and years. And the…

And for what, with surveillance like this, how is there still crime and terrorism? either it's ineffective or they're overselling the capabilities or they're more interested in dissidents, and judging by the way activists and whistle blowers are being treated, i suspect this is the real reason these systems exist. EDIT: Or there's some other threat none of us know about and these systems are working perfectly at keep…

We have never been attacked by space aliens. The system works.

Re: Revelations about the French Big Brother

#30

Post by coldtea »

jgrahamc wrote: post #5

So, let's see. The NSA does it, GCHQ does it, DGSE does it. The operating assumption should be that all countries are monitoring all communications for at least metadata. Personally, I would not be the slightest bit surprised to learn that all phone calls are being recorded and as much Internet traffic as possible. I'm not surprised by this news at all. The technical means have been there for years and years. And the…

>Snowden's "revelations" are completely unsurprising to anyone who has thought about this and the technology. I'm still waiting for him to reveal something actually surprising.

To someone used to an abusive relationship, no abuse is surprising.

"Oh, now he hit me with a metal club. Big fucking deal"

That doesn't make it acceptable or non dangerous.

So I wouldn't be waiting, like a mere spectator on something that doesn't affect me, for him to "reveal something actually surprising".

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