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Confirmed: The NSA is Spying on Millions of Americans

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Re: Confirmed: The NSA is Spying on Millions of Americans

#421

Post by _k »

graycat wrote: post #408
joonix wrote: post #397

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's all a giant scam. All this technology requires huge IT contracts for some of the biggest corporations in the country. It's all kind of a hilariously sad cycle: 1. Energy/resources corps "encourage" the US into war or political involvement/coups to protect their assets (i.e. oil rights in Iran, Iraq, etc. War involves much spending which goes to big contractors) 2. Meddling in the region provokes resentment from…

Your 1. is not the only spark of the process you describe, with considerable accuracy. E.g., the US bent itself all out of shape in Viet Nam and did a lot in Korea, and oil or assets of big US companies were not saved or much at risk or involved. But, yes, some big US companies -- Ike's military- industrial complex -- got big bucks. And in Viet Nam, a lot of oil was burned, and I have long guessed we burned enough oi…

Have the voters wise up and then what ? Vote for either Romney or Obama ?

Re: Confirmed: The NSA is Spying on Millions of Americans

#423

Post by mturmon »

killerpopiller wrote: post #230
digitalengineer wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you for the reply. can't believe I forgot all about Germany! I sometimes joke we would have been better off ( privacy-wise and financially ) if we would have become a federal state of Germany in the '50s. Our Gilder was already linked to the German Mark and you are our largest trade partner. We seem to have the same financial 'hard money' line as well. I visit Germany a lot and am always amazed by the hospitali…

likewise! I was several times in NL and perceived you guys the cooler germans. This open minded culture I adored seemed so fixed to me. I hope this conservative backlash will diminsh.

American here, have only visited NL and DE for a few weeks, never lived there.

It was also my perception that the Dutch had a live-and-let-live toleration, that seems like the opposite of the monitoring regime described in the comment. (I'm not really referring to marijuana, I'm speaking more generally.) To this naive outsider, who admittedly has something of a crush on Amsterdam, that level of monitoring is puzzling.

But maybe all those bike roads and dikes point to another aspect of the culture -- a little too well-supervised and well-engineered.

Re: Confirmed: The NSA is Spying on Millions of Americans

#424

Post by icelancer »

andreyf wrote: post #59
adventured wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Voice printing all but eliminates the idea of anonymity for tracfones. All they'd need is one conversation, and they can look for you from there on using your voice. They can back trace who you are by who you talk to and so on; relatively trivial to figure out who you are from there, particularly assuming you make a few calls and or reveal any details.

I'm skeptical how accurate voiceprinting can be after all the distortion/compression of a cell signal. If you have a device you use to have contacts you want to keep secret from the NSA, you probably shouldn't call your friends on it.

You are thinking about it from someone trying to understand another person through distorted comms. You aren't thinking about every other signal in the "speech" that is really quite easily identifiable with a reasonable margin of error.

Re: Confirmed: The NSA is Spying on Millions of Americans

#425

Post by dhughes »

digitalengineer wrote: post #82

Dutch person here with a little insight what's to come for you guys. Some information about our tiny little country (in Wester Europe, very pro-US) with just 17 million people. Our government listens in on more calls every year than in the whole of the US combined. All our telecommunications providers are forced to have the capability to intercept all traffic (phone and internet). Encrypted data must be stored for an…

Not to condone such an intrusive government but I've read that a lot of personal info is public record but with the result of, for example, being able to track diseases with great precision in families over decades.

I forget whereI read it but there is more to it than that but the gist of it is the existence of such a massive amount of data results in amazing discoveries.

Re: Confirmed: The NSA is Spying on Millions of Americans

#427

Post by primodemus »

graycat wrote: post #353

Gee, let's see: All that NSA 'big data', every phone call, from, to, time, etc. Then we had the wacko Boston bombers. So, apparently the great, all powerful, all seeing, all knowing NSA didn't see those two wackos coming. But, but, but, how could the poor, little NSA be expected to see two, obscure, wacko nutjobs? Well, let's see: The Russians told us over and over that those guys were wackos and dangerous. Told us f…

"The Hellman guy, of course, had been explaining public key crypto-systems that heavily embarrassed the NSA and, really, essentially put it out of business for its stated mission, is smiling. As I recall, he had blond hair long, nearly to his waist. "

The Hellman guy was probably Whitfield Diffie. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whitfield_Diffie

Re: Confirmed: The NSA is Spying on Millions of Americans

#428

Post by [deleted] »

wolfpackk wrote: post #351
cakebread wrote: post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Getting a chubby at any chance to say "ad hominem" is also typical HN.

Given that the poster robomartin is less than 1.5 years away from asking what the best (undergrad) online CS degree is, I felt it was particularly apt in this case.

[deleted]

Re: Confirmed: The NSA is Spying on Millions of Americans

#429

Post by robomartin »

wolfpackk wrote: post #345
robomartin wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really? And "go fuck yourself" is "reason" how? I am merely a mirror for the direction you chose to take. If you want to discuss the topic with civility I am all for it so long as you don't ask me to do things with my body I am quite literally biologically incapable of doing.

Merely reflecting the tone you've taken throughout this post. Then to use the passive-aggressive "May I suggest getting an education" bit is incredibly condescending, especially given that your position of less-government is universally better, after being scrubbed of the sensationalist rhetoric you are spewing, has literally 0 empirical evidence behind it. There is a reason Austrian economics is not taken seriously.…

You are a piece of work, aren't you?

Interesting that you went back and researched my comment history. So, your assumption was that I am a kid looking for a CS degree? Now, that's really funny! Thanks.

Re: Confirmed: The NSA is Spying on Millions of Americans

#430

Post by robomartin »

wolfpackk wrote: post #345
robomartin wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really? And "go fuck yourself" is "reason" how? I am merely a mirror for the direction you chose to take. If you want to discuss the topic with civility I am all for it so long as you don't ask me to do things with my body I am quite literally biologically incapable of doing.

Merely reflecting the tone you've taken throughout this post. Then to use the passive-aggressive "May I suggest getting an education" bit is incredibly condescending, especially given that your position of less-government is universally better, after being scrubbed of the sensationalist rhetoric you are spewing, has literally 0 empirical evidence behind it. There is a reason Austrian economics is not taken seriously.…

You know, maybe you out to calm down and think before you type.

If it makes you happy, yes you are right, I don't know jack shit about economics or cs. There, you won.

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