Revelations about the French Big Brother • Hacker News Board

Re: Revelations about the French Big Brother

#31

Post by coldtea » Thu, Jul 04, 2013, 1:44 PM UTC

lucian1900 wrote: post #10

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…

It is still very useful to have proof. It dispels the image of conspiracy theory.

We are way past this now. If anything, we have the opposite problems of "apology theorists" and "coincidence theorists".

People have been trained to think "conspiracy" is some BS endeavour that includes aliens in Roswell, mind control, illuminati etc.

Fact is, most of history has seen covert action by governments and organisations. Those are also conspiracies (by definition), and it's totally wrong (and disingenuous) to lump them with BS conspiracy theories.

Re: Revelations about the French Big Brother

#32

Post by panacea » Thu, Jul 04, 2013, 1:47 PM UTC

lucian1900 wrote: post #10

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…

It is still very useful to have proof. It dispels the image of conspiracy theory.

It's no big deal. We all suspected it.

It's so unsurprising that the US forced a foreign president to touch down and have his plane searched in a foreign country to try and catch the whistleblower.

Re: Revelations about the French Big Brother

#33

Post by lucb1e » Thu, Jul 04, 2013, 1:48 PM UTC

Merci, merci... now in English please? Can someone summarize it instead of having to try to read Google Translate's gibberish?

Re: Revelations about the French Big Brother

#34

Post by bsaul » Thu, Jul 04, 2013, 1:50 PM UTC

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.

I'm guessing, nobody will react. We already have the most impopular president of the last 50 years, one of the highest tax rates of modern country, highest unemployment rate, high abstention rate in elections, high immigration rates, high debt ratios, and the extremist political parties are on the verge of gaining massive support in the next european elections.

That, plus the fact that we've had numerous previous experiences of terrorists bombing our country, makes me think that we really have far bigger issues than the secret service spying everyone at the moment.

Re: Revelations about the French Big Brother

#35

Post by _djo_ » Thu, Jul 04, 2013, 1:51 PM UTC

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…

Exactly, this is what I've been pointing out: Every government with the means to monitor domestic and foreign communications does so and invariably stretches the law in order to achieve it.

That's why I've felt the focus on the NSA and GCHQ (i.e. the US and and UK) was misplaced. The focus should be on better privacy protections and rolling back state surveillance in all countries, not just the two whose programs are the best-known. In fact the understanding of how widespread this is may reignite the push for better client-side privacy and anonymity protection tools.

Re: Revelations about the French Big Brother

#36

Post by threeseed » Thu, Jul 04, 2013, 1:56 PM UTC

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…

So the government is NOT trying to prevent terrorism but instead has setup these elaborate systems just to prevent activism and whistle blowing. You sure that aliens aren't involved somewhere in there ?

The FACTS are this. The head of the NSA has testified in front of congress that over 50 potential terrorist acts were thwarted because of PRISM since 9/11 including bombing of the NY subways and stock exchange. And there is no evidence that the infrastructure the NSA has is available to every single cop in every town in order to fight crime.

Re: Revelations about the French Big Brother

#37

Post by MisterWebz » Thu, Jul 04, 2013, 1:56 PM UTC

sentenza wrote: post #25

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…

I doubt the EU is going to dismantle their surveillance capabilities while knowing that the US and other nations are still doing it. That's less power for the EU and more power for everyone else.

Re: Revelations about the French Big Brother

#38

Post by threeseed » Thu, Jul 04, 2013, 1:59 PM UTC

lucian1900 wrote: post #10

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…

It is still very useful to have proof. It dispels the image of conspiracy theory.

You needed proof to know the US government was spying ? It isn't some giant secret you know:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Security_Agency

Re: Revelations about the French Big Brother

#39

Post by asynchronous13 » Thu, Jul 04, 2013, 2:20 PM UTC

threeseed wrote: post #36

tomelders wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

So the government is NOT trying to prevent terrorism but instead has setup these elaborate systems just to prevent activism and whistle blowing. You sure that aliens aren't involved somewhere in there ? The FACTS are this. The head of the NSA has testified in front of congress that over 50 potential terrorist acts were thwarted because of PRISM since 9/11 including bombing of the NY subways and stock exchange. And th…

The head of National Intelligence testified in front of congress, too. When asked if they were collecting "any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans", he said, "No.". When the question was repeated, he said, "Not wittingly."

So he outright lied to congress. The information that you claim is a fact is from a source that I no longer believe.

Re: Revelations about the French Big Brother

#40

Post by kenjackson » Thu, Jul 04, 2013, 2:21 PM UTC

jgrahamc wrote: post #16

morsch wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whether or not it's surprising is totally irrelevant and you should stop pretending it isn't, if that is what you're saying. But you've got an interesting point in that the desire has always been to capture everything -- while the technical means to do it have been available for a couple of years. Along with a further shift in how people communicate towards easily moniterable technology, that is the crux of the matte…

This is a discussion on HN, not in a general public forum. Sure, the general public is probably surprised by what's been revealed but we should not be.

I've actually found the less technically savvy less surprised and less outraged.