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NSA classifies Linux Journal readers as extremists

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Re: NSA classifies Linux Journal readers as extremists

#21

Post by ollysb »

Double_Cast wrote: post #17
srean wrote: post #12

What I am really keen to know is whether revelations like these have any impact on the "would love to work for the NSA fanboy". Do they continue to be just as keen and rationalize these things away, or does it make them ponder a bit. Things have indeed been getting scarier by the minute. Interest in Linux is not treason, yet, but I cannot/dont rule out that it could be, for some value of 'Linux'. Several trends in po…

I briefly met a guy who worked for US intelligence (can't remember specifics). I asked him about the NSA. First, he told me he couldn't say much. Then he said "Well I don't wanna brag, but the NSA really has caught a lot of terrorists, and is way more competent than the media makes them out to be." This leads me to believe that either: all these press articles paint a distorted picture; or the level of rationalizatio…

It also makes you wonder what those "terrorists" had actually done to warrant being captured.

Re: NSA classifies Linux Journal readers as extremists

#22

Post by throwawaykf05 »

rdtsc wrote: post #14
noir_lord wrote: post #5

The depressing part for me is that I've started to consider what I search for on a daily basis and how that might look...essentially they are starting to make me paranoid. Over the last few months I've googled Numerous Weapon Systems (I have a fascination with WW1, WWII and Cold War history - stuff like Black Arrow etc). Insurgencies during the British Empire Electronics (want to get back into and saw a fun project t…

That is one way that thought control works. Religion uses this, "don't think naughty thoughts, God will record it and you'll pay for it later". NSA is God except that NSA exists and is real. Here your search is a bit like your thoughts. Any of those things you listed, possibly could have landed you on the "naughty list". So now you start to really worry about what you search for. If you can't research or find info ab…

The flaw in the "thought control" premise is that the NSA never intended their monitoring to be revealed, so you'd never restrict your thoughts.

Unless... Snowden is an NSA operation to subtly begin exerting thought control! Brilliant! Now that I think about it, "Snowden" even sounds like a codename for an NSA operation.

Re: NSA classifies Linux Journal readers as extremists

#23

Post by gaius »

rdtsc wrote: post #14
noir_lord wrote: post #5

The depressing part for me is that I've started to consider what I search for on a daily basis and how that might look...essentially they are starting to make me paranoid. Over the last few months I've googled Numerous Weapon Systems (I have a fascination with WW1, WWII and Cold War history - stuff like Black Arrow etc). Insurgencies during the British Empire Electronics (want to get back into and saw a fun project t…

That is one way that thought control works. Religion uses this, "don't think naughty thoughts, God will record it and you'll pay for it later". NSA is God except that NSA exists and is real. Here your search is a bit like your thoughts. Any of those things you listed, possibly could have landed you on the "naughty list". So now you start to really worry about what you search for. If you can't research or find info ab…

"If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him." -- Cardinal Richelieu

Re: NSA classifies Linux Journal readers as extremists

#24

Post by throwawaykf05 »

noir_lord wrote: post #19
rdtsc wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is one way that thought control works. Religion uses this, "don't think naughty thoughts, God will record it and you'll pay for it later". NSA is God except that NSA exists and is real. Here your search is a bit like your thoughts. Any of those things you listed, possibly could have landed you on the "naughty list". So now you start to really worry about what you search for. If you can't research or find info ab…

Thanks for the interesting post, as I mentioned in the first post I have a fascination for 19th and 20th century history and the parallels to some of it are horribly stark (so stark in fact I can't believe that the people in power haven't spotted them which leaves me with "this is what they want"). Secret courts, no right to due process, no right to face your accuser, the presumption of guilt on political grounds, se…

But if you delve into that history even more, you'll note that it was accompanied by a pervasive sense of dread and fear even amongst those who were not being persecuted. In Nazi Germany, for instance, it was not just the Jews who lived in terror of the Stasi (edit: mixed up my history, not Stasi, but the "death squads" -- the Stasi came after the war, but even more feared), but all German citizens in general. The reason was probably that the Stasi made no attempts to hide their activities, just as the various Islamic groups and Mexican drug gangs don't today. Publicity of their acts to spread terror is the very tool these folks rely on to exert their control.

People who draw parallels between the actions of today's intelligence agencies and the agencies of oppression of yesteryear uniformly miss out on this key difference.

Re: NSA classifies Linux Journal readers as extremists

#25

Post by gaius »

Zigurd wrote: post #13
userbinator wrote: post #3

"the agency is targeting anyone who is interested in online privacy" - not so surprising, is it. I wonder what other similar criteria there are for being considered an "extremist"? No Facebook or other social networking accounts? Uses Linux? Makes certain types of comments online that support privacy (like this one)? ... It's really unsettling. On the other hand, now that this is out, I think the NSA will suddenly ha…

> NSA will suddenly have a ton more "extremists" to look at. Let's say that in NSA's dictionary, extremist means "Anyone with even a small potential to alter the course of society, the economy, or technology." Those people, plus a comfortable margin, might be 5% of the population. The NSA probably has the resources to examine all the electronic communications and do high-quality transcription of verbal communications…

More likely it means, anyone who isn't an employee of the NSA.

Re: NSA classifies Linux Journal readers as extremists

#28

Post by thibauts »

noir_lord wrote: post #5

The depressing part for me is that I've started to consider what I search for on a daily basis and how that might look...essentially they are starting to make me paranoid. Over the last few months I've googled Numerous Weapon Systems (I have a fascination with WW1, WWII and Cold War history - stuff like Black Arrow etc). Insurgencies during the British Empire Electronics (want to get back into and saw a fun project t…

This is censorship by terror.

Re: NSA classifies Linux Journal readers as extremists

#29

Post by _wp3r »

jl6 wrote: post #4

The NSA's problem is that new threats are a form of innovation, but that it's hard to predict innovation, and harder to target surveillance towards people planning a dangerous activity if nobody has seen that activity before. New ideas are a threat. So perhaps their method is to define Normal, and then monitor everybody Abnormal, on the basis that dangerous innovation is more likely to come from the Abnormal. Enthusi…

I could see a group of analyst deducting that people interested in traffic privacy fall into two groups. Technology intent and nefarious intent. If you were looking for people with nefarious intent, then that would lead you to monitor the tools that those in the nefarious group would use. This article feels very much like link bait for the technology activist.

You don't put a DUI checkpoint outside the library you put it outside the pub.

My point being that they tasked intelligent people with finding "terrorist" and this search pattern is a natural evolution of that task. Policy aside.

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