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NSA targets the privacy-conscious

daserste.ndr.de

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Re: NSA targets the privacy-conscious

#71

Post by vidarh »

DINKDINK wrote: post #45
ajays wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In reality, there is hard epidemiological data showing that selling raw milk (edit: e.g. through the normal store channels) can lead to serious harm including deaths. I'd love to see the evidence, and see it compared to other food sources. I grew up in India. There all we got was raw milk from the cowherd; in fact, even today, my parents send the helper to get milk in a pail from the cowherd. It's always been raw m…

I would love to see the data with comparison to baseline too. and it is an example of a nanny state (the FDA is literally saying, we have to protect you from this) rather than acting as a licensed-milk-producer-seal issuer. It's the same nanny state issue when the FDA shut down more beneficial AIDS treatments in the 80s and 90s when the only drugs on the market, that the FDA approved of (AZT), were essentially toxic…

You could take a look at the Centre for Disease Control's page about the issue, which includes a PDF with detailed breakdown of disease outbreaks linked to raw milk:

http://www.cdc.gov/foodsafety/rawmilk/raw-milk-index.html

It's not particularly favorable to raw milk.

> They should only act to say, "This is the only type of drugs or milk the FDA approves of"

The same CDC report mentioned above, specifically address labelling, and points out that the numbers show that labelling is not shown to have significant effect.

If it was only your body you put at risk, you might have a point, but this also includes parents putting their children at substantial risk, and people putting others at risk whenever they serve non-pasteurised dairy products and people are not themselves aware of the risk.

Re: NSA targets the privacy-conscious

#72

Post by TeMPOraL »

Holbein wrote: post #28
pessimizer wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Not doing something can't make you more suspicious. That's just stupid.

No. That's common sense. If you don't do something on the internet, there is no data. No data = nothing suspicious.

No data may be very suspicious if some data is expected to be found. See http://abstrusegoose.com/396 for an illustrative example.

Re: NSA targets the privacy-conscious

#73

Post by crpatino »

Holbein wrote: post #41
pessimizer wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no state of no data. You are known to exist, you are known for not participating in something that is common for your group. That, in combination with the thousands of other data points about you will determine whether you are of interest. That may determine whether your car gets searched during a traffic stop, or whether you're put on a no-fly list. This is not complicated to build, it is simple to build, a…

I think you're overestimating the NSA's capability to cross-reference your actions and compare them to "what people like me should typically do". My point is, you should not change your behaviour to be a lesser target to the NSA. You'd just quickly become super paranoid. Instead you should live your live exactly the same, and if the NSA tries to make your live bad, that's the moment when you call them out on it - aft…

> I think you're overestimating the NSA's capability to cross-reference your actions

They don't need to do any cross referencing. Your parents, cousins, friends, former colleagues and classmates, etc, will sell you for a "like" in a hearth bit.

> and compare them to "what people like me should typically do".

Ditto. I hate every time people in my acquaintance network email me with "since you cannot be found like everybody else, I'm sending you this thing that you probably don't care about in the first place. After all we are still friends, right?"

Re: NSA targets the privacy-conscious

#74

Post by bilalq »

josefresco wrote: post #54
jobu wrote: post #16

Because anyone trying to keep anything private or secure must be hiding something bad... That's just wonderful. After 10 years of pervasive surveillance and not being able to catch a single terrorist I can't believe the NSA is trying to rationalize it as being a good thing. It's too bad the bill to defund the NSA didn't pass: http://defundthensa.com/

If we are to accept that some who seek privacy and security are good and innocent, we also need to accept that some who seek those same things can also be bad.

You can literally replace "seek privacy and security" with almost anything in that statement. I mean, out of all the people that prefer Coke over Pepsi, there are definitely some bad guys.

While your statement is true, it doesn't really give any justification on targeted spying. That is, unless of course, we consider the desire to hide things to be a signal of being a bad actor. Thinking along those lines is a very slippery slope though. The erosion of freedoms is just another side-effect of policies and actions shaped by such thinking.

Re: NSA targets the privacy-conscious

#75

Post by SeanDav »

josu wrote: post #56
jobu wrote: post #16

Because anyone trying to keep anything private or secure must be hiding something bad... That's just wonderful. After 10 years of pervasive surveillance and not being able to catch a single terrorist I can't believe the NSA is trying to rationalize it as being a good thing. It's too bad the bill to defund the NSA didn't pass: http://defundthensa.com/

>Because anyone trying to keep anything private or secure must be hiding something bad... No, that's not the reasoning. People that do bad things try to hide them. Therefore, a good first filter to catch bad people is to target those who hide things. They can narrow the search field afterwards.

Not sure why you were marked down for that comment. Logically it is an obvious low hanging fruit to target the people looking for privacy. It is cynical but certainly logical, like it or not.

Re: NSA targets the privacy-conscious

#76

Post by aluhut »

yry4345 wrote: post #18
caster_cp wrote: post #2

The only way out of this, as I see it, is making privacy the default. But this require some cooperation and motivation from the big guys at silicon valley. Imagine if Chrome, Firefox, Safari, all of them had, just like the incognito mode, the private mode. Of course, as anonymity also depends on the behavior of the user online, other actions are needed to really ensure security and privacy. But making it the default…

I think the cooperation necessary would be for the "big guys" to not have a vested interest in selling out privacy, which has been the prevailing business model for a long time. And, since the big guys only listen to their bottom line, that means not using them until they support privacy. It may mean not using the Internet substantially at all. (It's more than a little ironic to be saying this on the preeminent "busi…

"No one" uses it because it is too complicated for "every one".

Re: NSA targets the privacy-conscious

#77

Post by stinos »

jobu wrote: post #16

Because anyone trying to keep anything private or secure must be hiding something bad... That's just wonderful. After 10 years of pervasive surveillance and not being able to catch a single terrorist I can't believe the NSA is trying to rationalize it as being a good thing. It's too bad the bill to defund the NSA didn't pass: http://defundthensa.com/

Because anyone trying to keep anything private or secure must be hiding something bad...

Well that idea isn't exactly new, unfortunately, remember Eric Scmidt.. "If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place."

Re: NSA targets the privacy-conscious

#78

Post by pyre »

josu wrote: post #56
jobu wrote: post #16

Because anyone trying to keep anything private or secure must be hiding something bad... That's just wonderful. After 10 years of pervasive surveillance and not being able to catch a single terrorist I can't believe the NSA is trying to rationalize it as being a good thing. It's too bad the bill to defund the NSA didn't pass: http://defundthensa.com/

>Because anyone trying to keep anything private or secure must be hiding something bad... No, that's not the reasoning. People that do bad things try to hide them. Therefore, a good first filter to catch bad people is to target those who hide things. They can narrow the search field afterwards.

This is true, but saying "treat all people trying to hide things as potential terrorists" is a very wide net to cast (to the point of useless).

Re: NSA targets the privacy-conscious

#79

Post by acqq »

higherpurpose wrote: post #70
pessimizer wrote: post #20

Of course this happens, and it's an obvious technique. I'm sure that not having a facebook account adds to your score, using AdBlock adds to your score, mentioning the NSA online adds to your score, refusing cookies adds to your score, using Linux adds to your score, etc. That's how a police state works. (XKeyScore += 5) My mother was involved in civil rights, so she has a file. It's fine that I have a file too. Hope…

Amplify this by 100, and welcome to Minority Report, where you get a arrested for having a "very high score". This is where the "mass surveillance" and "let's monitor everyone just in case they might do something bad" thinking inevitably ends up.

> Amplify this by 100, and welcome to Minority Report, where you get a arrested for having a "very high score".

Or maybe welcome to Oceania of 1984, having to deal with Thinkpol:

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

"The Thought Police (thinkpol in Newspeak) are the secret police of the novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. It is their job to uncover and punish thoughtcrime."

Re: NSA targets the privacy-conscious

#80

Post by SeanDav »

pyre wrote: post #78
josu wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Because anyone trying to keep anything private or secure must be hiding something bad... No, that's not the reasoning. People that do bad things try to hide them. Therefore, a good first filter to catch bad people is to target those who hide things. They can narrow the search field afterwards.

This is true, but saying "treat all people trying to hide things as potential terrorists" is a very wide net to cast (to the point of useless).

It is a vastly smaller space than "all people that use the internet". Also I think it makes sense to assume that the "privacy seekers" set would contain a higher proportion of "bad actors". I am not in any way supporting them, but I understand why they do it - even if I hate the idea.
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