Is privacy coming back?

[Scott Shepherd]

Two things caught my attention in the tech world last week. One was that the iPhone 6 with IOS8 is encrypted and even Apple can't unencrypt (is that a word?). It makes all the unlawful gathering of data that's going on now go away to a large degree. Even if served with a warrant, Apple can't get the info, unless you're saved the info to the cloud. I thought Tim Cook, the CEO, had a brilliant statement, something along the lines of "You are not our product", meaning that Google sees it's customers are their product, because it's all the data they gather about you that they sell to people that makes them money.

The second was the viral rise of a new social media site called "ello" . It's said to be a Facebook type site, but they don't see selling your information or collecting data about you their business either. It's a small, growing company, taking on Facebook as the "Anti-Facebook" and right now, to control growth to a manageable level, they are only allowing people in by invitation only.

Two moves in the right direction, in my opinion.

I have seen some people really upset with the Apple thing, saying that "how will law enforcement do it's job now, without being able to pull all that data". The best response I saw in some comments were "How'd law enforcement solve crimes before the smart phone?".

Anyone else following this stuff?

Here's the info from the ello page :

"Your social network is owned by advertisers.
Every post you share, every friend you make and every link you follow is tracked, recorded and converted into data. Advertisers buy your data so they can show you more ads. You are the product that’s bought and sold.
We believe there is a better way. We believe in audacity. We believe in beauty, simplicity and transparency. We believe that the people who make things and the people who use them should be in partnership.
We believe a social network can be a tool for empowerment. Not a tool to deceive, coerce and manipulate — but a place to connect, create and celebrate life.
You are not a product."

[Mike Henderson]

That's good news. I hope ello is successful. But they have to make money some way - perhaps by charging an annual fee?

I do not use Facebook because of the privacy issue.

Mike

[Just FYI, the opposite of encrypt is decrypt.]

[Jerome Stanek]

Two things caught my attention in the tech world last week. One was that the iPhone 6 with IOS8 is encrypted and even Apple can't unencrypt (is that a word?). It makes all the unlawful gathering of data that's going on now go away to a large degree. Even if served with a warrant, Apple can't get the info, unless you're saved the info to the cloud. I thought Tim Cook, the CEO, had a brilliant statement, something along the lines of "You are not our product", meaning that Google sees it's customers are their product, because it's all the data they gather about you that they sell to people that makes them money.

The second was the viral rise of a new social media site called "ello" . It's said to be a Facebook type site, but they don't see selling your information or collecting data about you their business either. It's a small, growing company, taking on Facebook as the "Anti-Facebook" and right now, to control growth to a manageable level, they are only allowing people in by invitation only.

Two moves in the right direction, in my opinion.

I have seen some people really upset with the Apple thing, saying that "how will law enforcement do it's job now, without being able to pull all that data". The best response I saw in some comments were "How'd law enforcement solve crimes before the smart phone?".

Anyone else following this stuff?

Here's the info from the ello page :

"Your social network is owned by advertisers.
Every post you share, every friend you make and every link you follow is tracked, recorded and converted into data. Advertisers buy your data so they can show you more ads. You are the product that’s bought and sold.
We believe there is a better way. We believe in audacity. We believe in beauty, simplicity and transparency. We believe that the people who make things and the people who use them should be in partnership.
We believe a social network can be a tool for empowerment. Not a tool to deceive, coerce and manipulate — but a place to connect, create and celebrate life.
You are not a product."

If it you can encrypt it then it can be hacked just takes a little more time. Also what if you forget your password

[Scott Shepherd]

Also what if you forget your password

What's that have to do with it? If you forget your password, you follow the steps to create a new one, like always. When you forget your password now, it's not known because someone at Apple or whatever site has access to it.

I don't think this solves the privacy problem, but at least it's moving in a direction that I, personally, like a lot more. Also, with the NFC payment systems, it's not actually sending over your debit or credit card info, it's creating a unique key every transaction and sending the key, which would mean places like Target and Home Depot wouldn't actually have you credit card info on their servers, so there would be nothing for anyone to hack there.

As far as "if you can encrypt it, then it can be hacked just takes more time", I think that's a bit of a stretch. Cracking encryption isn't exactly an easy thing to do, using today's encryption. Possible? Yes. Probable? Maybe, but it would have to come from some serious source, not some kid in his parents basement.

[John Coloccia]

I have seen some people really upset with the Apple thing, saying that "how will law enforcement do it's job now, without being able to pull all that data".

The idea that someone in law enforcement should be indignant that I should dare be allowed have personal data is a far more serious problem than whether or not they actually have that data. There's no reason this sort of communication should be anymore or less protected than having a conversation in my own home. The idea that it should be recorded for all time, and then stored and made available to whatever agency decides they want to look at it, is just wrong to me.

Good for Apple and Google. I hope we see more of this, and I hope ello succeeds.

[Frank Drew]

The idea that someone in law enforcement should be indignant that I should dare be allowed have personal data is a far more serious problem than whether or not they actually have that data.
Good for Apple and Google. I hope we see more of this, and I hope ello succeeds.

I agree, and I don't even use a supermarket savings card. I don't think anything bad will happen to me if they know what brand of coffee I'm buying, but the idea just creeps me out and I'd just as soon lose the minor discounts they offer and keep my business to myself.

[Keith Outten]

I read the article about the encryption issue, the head of the FBI was complaining about the new policy. Frankly I'm pleased to see this happen and although it makes law enforcement have to work harder its better then the continuing degradation of our privacy. I agree with John that the more serious problem is the attitude of our public servants.
.

[paul cottingham]

If it you can encrypt it then it can be hacked just takes a little more time. Also what if you forget your password
There is some pretty damn good open source encryption out there. I'd bet PGP is still pretty much unbreakable still. I don't know what iOS 8 uses, but you can always encrypt it yourself.
Privacy in and of itself is a good thing, not an evil one.

[Jason Roehl]

The idea that someone in law enforcement should be indignant that I should dare be allowed have personal data is a far more serious problem than whether or not they actually have that data. There's no reason this sort of communication should be anymore or less protected than having a conversation in my own home. The idea that it should be recorded for all time, and then stored and made available to whatever agency decides they want to look at it, is just wrong to me.

Good for Apple and Google. I hope we see more of this, and I hope ello succeeds.

AMEN, except for the Google part--they probably have more data on everyone than the NSA, and it's for sale.

[John Coloccia]

AMEN, except for the Google part--they probably have more data on everyone than the NSA, and it's for sale.

I was referring just to their phone. They took similar steps with Android recently, I believe, or at least announced that they would.

[David Weaver]

I wonder how long this wrinkle will last, or whether or not we'll see a future story about how there was a back door that was used when apple chose to use it.

Apple has been gathering data without being honest about it in the past. It's worth so much money that I doubt they or google can really resist anything.

[Tom Stenzel]

I read tim e article about the encryption issue, the head of the FBI was complaining about the new policy. Frankly I'm pleased to see this happen and although it makes law enforcement have to work harder its better then the continuing degradation of our privacy. I agree with John that the more serious problem is the attitude of our public servants.
.

With the political aspects of this thread, I'm glad it was an admin that said it!

And yes, Keith, I agree 100%. When you remember why Apple and Google are adding encryption what the head of the FBI said made my irony meter go kaput.

-Tom

[Scott Shepherd]

I wonder how long this wrinkle will last, or whether or not we'll see a future story about how there was a back door that was used when apple chose to use it.

Apple has been gathering data without being honest about it in the past. It's worth so much money that I doubt they or google can really resist anything.

Tim Cook says there is no back door. He said they cannot comply with any warrants because they do not have the key. However, if you store things in their cloud services, those are stored data and warrants can gain them access to that. In short, if you leave the cloud access off, and just use the phone, it's said to be pretty safe from anything that's out there today.

In general, I really like his statement about "you are not their product". That's so different than Google. To Google, we are their product.

[Phil Thien]

I hate to burst any bubbles, but an encryption method that relies on a four digit numeric passcode which is typed into the unit repeatedly, and therefor is likely to leave physical wear signs of the four digits most often entered on the phone, is hardly unbreakable.

If you really don't want anyone seeing what is stored on your phone, I suggest changing your passcode often.

Our probably greatest degree of privacy comes from the recent unanimous Supreme Court finding that police cannot search our phones w/o a court order.

If they do get that court order, and if the contents have national security implications, I'm still not sure the NSA cannot get whatever they would need.

For all we know, NSA plants at technology companies have already made the NSA's job easier by storing a passcode somewhere easily accessible to someone that knows where to look.

Second, we learned in the Millennium Challenge of 2002 that at least one high-ranking military official (in this case retired Marine Corps Lieutenant General Paul K. Van Riper (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_K._Van_Riper)) apparently feels there is no trustworthy encryption. General Riper, instead of using encrypted radio communications, relied on hand-written orders driven by motorcycle couriers.

What does General Van Riper know, that we don't? During his career, I imagine the guy saw things and wondered, "how the heck did we get this?" Generals are extremely intelligent, they are capable of putting two and two together.

So if anyone is still reading this, I'd say my take is these privacy claims are 90% marketing and 10% reality.

[John Goodin]

Someone smarter then me once said, "If you not paying for it, you are not the customer, you are the product." I think about that often when on Google, Facebook or some other type of media.

[Chuck Wintle]

Tim Cook says there is no back door. He said they cannot comply with any warrants because they do not have the key. However, if you store things in their cloud services, those are stored data and warrants can gain them access to that. In short, if you leave the cloud access off, and just use the phone, it's said to be pretty safe from anything that's out there today.

In general, I really like his statement about "you are not their product". That's so different than Google. To Google, we are their product.
Do you really believe that data sent out from a phone will be safe from those who wish to spy? Perhaps time cook is a little naive judging from his statements. I somehow think that the NSA or any other branch of the government has the means to get data. We are powerless as citizens to stem the flow.

[David Weaver]

So if anyone is still reading this, I'd say my take is these privacy claims are 90% marketing and 10% reality.

Me, too. Even if they are currently true, it's temporary. I no longer worry much about privacy, I don't think it's (absolute privacy) something we're going to get as users. Worrying about it can drive you nuts and there's nothing you can do about it other than make a reasonable effort and then let it go at that.

[Pat Barry]

"If you not paying for it, you are not the customer, you are the product."
What? This is very nonsensical but does make you think a bit. I think what they really meant was "If you not paying for it, you are not the customer, you stole the product."

[Phil Thien]

What? This is very nonsensical but does make you think a bit. I think what they really meant was "If you not paying for it, you are not the customer, you stole the product."

No, it means that outfits like Facebook sell information about your online habits, what is found in your profile, the types of links you're inclined to click on, etc. So you do become their product, in a way. Their customers aren't their users, their customers are advertising agencies, companies marketing products, etc.

But the expression really needn't differentiate between those companies that charge and those that don't. Even the companies behind the products for which you pay are selling data about you.

[Jerome Stanek]

If it is encrypted and only you have the key what good is it when you are online sending info to someone else. they would not be able to use it

[Phil Thien]

If it is encrypted and only you have the key what good is it when you are online sending info to someone else. they would not be able to use it

It is the contents or memory of the phone that is encrypted. So the authorities cannot easily examine (for example) the contents of your photo albums to find evidence of a crime.

At least that is the idea.

[Scott Shepherd]

And contrast ello's statement that I posted on the first thread to this one posted today about Facebook's ads following you around now....

http://mashable.com/2014/09/29/facebook-ads-atlas/

Two very different business models. One creepy, one not so creepy :)

[Jason Roehl]

What? This is very nonsensical but does make you think a bit. I think what they really meant was "If you not paying for it, you are not the customer, you stole the product."

I agree with Phil on this. In the past, retail companies had very broad-based advertising campaigns, with only a few techniques for limiting their target demographics. Men's products were advertised during football games, women's products were advertised during soap operas. But, research has shown that the more targeted and specific the advertising, the more likely a sale is. Combine that with the internet, for which people are unwilling to pay, other than initial access, and you get many companies who, based on your surfing for free and their traffic volume, serve you up to companies that actually sell a tangible product or service. If you're surfing to X and Y, and those companies know that most who surf to X and Y also like Z, they'll advertise it to you.

Just think of all the software on your computer. How much of it did you directly pay for?

Chrome, Safari or Firefox?
Adobe reader?
Flash player?
Antivirus?
Media players?
SketchUp?
Google Earth?

The list goes on and on and on...and that's just what's resident on your computer, to say nothing of websites.

Even SMC here is quite valuable to advertisers, I'm sure. Members SAID they wanted to keep SMC ad-free, but when it came to a vote of dollars, they really didn't as a whole. I think few people want to subscribe to all the web content which interests them, just for the sake of maintaining a completely ad-free internet experience.

[Keith Outten]

I would think your contact list would be encrypted now and a host of other data sources stored on your phone.

[David Weaver]

I wonder how long it will be until we see court orders for individuals to get the data and provide it. Though if it's truly near impossible to get (at least with normal resources), i guess they'd have to rely on your honesty for now.

If it keeps police from taking your phone while you pull over of using one of those pull-aside devices that extracts data, that's good. They're welcome to look at my phone, but only if they ask nice. they could find such risky things as pictures of hand tools and texts about amish neighbors.

[John Coloccia]

If it keeps police from taking your phone while you pull over of using one of those pull-aside devices that extracts data, that's good. They're welcome to look at my phone, but only if they ask nice. they could find such risky things as pictures of hand tools and texts about amish neighbors.

I can't imagine the situation where I'd willingly consent to ANY search, ever, under any circumstances. If they have a reason to search, they will do it with or without your permission. If they have no reason to search, they'll try to intimidate you into giving them permission to go on a fishing expedition. They may even say things like, "If you have nothing to hide, why won't you let me search. It's making me think you have something to hide." Fine, think that all you want. Legally, that means diddly squat. Exercising your rights can not be used as probable cause. Voluntarily submitting to a search can not possibly EVER help you. Let me repeat that. It CAN NOT POSSIBLY ever help you, because if they had probable cause, they would be within their rights to arrest you and conduct a search, with or without your permission. They'll make it seem like you're just saving yourself a lot of grief if you let them do what they want, but the fact is that it can only possibly lead to MORE grief if their fishing expedition turns up anything that might make them scratch their head. You know, if you look hard enough in any of my vehicles, there's a decent chance you might turn up a stray piece of ammo that fell out of a box, or something like that. Heavens, they might even find a pocket knife...a WEAPON!

Seriously, don't ever submit to any search under any circumstances. I have enough police officer friends and acquaintances that I've talked to about this that all tell me the same thing...it can't help and it can only hurt, and if they want to give you a hard time, believe me that they will find SOMETHING to give you grief about. At a minimum, they'll ruin your afternoon.

[Phil Thien]

This sort of reminds me of some interesting court cases, where the courts have ordered individuals to provide passwords to access encrypted data. In a few cases that have made the news, the individuals have refused to hand-over the password, and the courts have held them in contempt (and in jail).

What I've always wondered was, why not just provide a fake password. Tell them it is "ILOVEAMERICA" and when they say it doesn't work, tell them it did for you last time you use the system. Tell them you'll type it in for them, and give it a shot. Shrug your shoulders and tell them they must have done something to screw-up the system.

Now petition a higher court for your release, arguing that you've cooperated to the best of your ability.

[John Coloccia]

This sort of reminds me of some interesting court cases, where the courts have ordered individuals to provide passwords to access encrypted data. In a few cases that have made the news, the individuals have refused to hand-over the password, and the courts have held them in contempt (and in jail).

What I've always wondered was, why not just provide a fake password. Tell them it is "ILOVEAMERICA" and when they say it doesn't work, tell them it did for you last time you use the system. Tell them you'll type it in for them, and give it a shot. Shrug your shoulders and tell them they must have done something to screw-up the system.

Now petition a higher court for your release, arguing that you've cooperated to the best of your ability.

I believe the latest legal theory on this is that you can't be forced to provide passwords, or anything like that, because it's akin to self-incrimination. Obviously, that's the correct call. I believe in some countries in Europe (I forget where off the top of my head) there is legislation that specifically forces you to turn over passwords.

It wasn't too uncommon back in the day for "hackers" to setup their computers so that an incorrect boot sequence would proceed to scramble the hard drive. Maybe the next step is to include a regular password and a doomsday password.

[David Weaver]

I can't imagine the situation where I'd willingly consent to ANY search, ever, under any circumstances. If they have a reason to search, they will do it with or without your permission. If they have no reason to search, they'll try to intimidate you into giving them permission to go on a fishing expedition. They may even say things like, "If you have nothing to hide, why won't you let me search.

I wouldn't actually do it, either, in reality. I've seen many videos from defense lawyers and detectives showing how they can get you stuck in a bind when you're completely innocent. One former detective, who was then a law student, did a good job of describing a typical scenario where he more or less did a diversion getting you to leak details about other possible things to hold you on while you're being careful to avoid trouble about what you think he's asking you about.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B1t3vtr0kxk

In reality, I have little exposure to the police and like most of the folks I've met, because the worst I've had dealings with was getting a ticket on a bicycle.

[John Coloccia]

In reality, I have little exposure to the police and like most of the folks I've met, because the worst I've had dealings with was getting a ticket on a bicycle.

You scofflaw! How'd you manage that? :)

I think the last ticket I got was on my motorcycle. He had me dead to rights...there was nothing to discuss. He was very nice for giving me a ticket with a rather creative speed, as opposed to the speed I was REALLY going. That was back in '98, or so. Now I drive like an old lady.

[Pat Barry]

You scofflaw! How'd you manage that? :)

I think the last ticket I got was on my motorcycle. He had me dead to rights...there was nothing to discuss. He was very nice for giving me a ticket with a rather creative speed, as opposed to the speed I was REALLY going. That was back in '98, or so. Now I drive like an old lady.
I got pulled over last year for doing 67 in a 55. He was coming straight at me with his radar on and his lights were flashing before he got to me. I pulled over (with my wife and daughter and dog in the car). He pulled in behind me and walked to my window and the first thing either of us said was me "I'm sorry" I said. He asked for my license and registration and ran my info through the computer and came back and told me to have a nice day. I still believe my saying I'm sorry altered his intentions.

[David Weaver]

You scofflaw! How'd you manage that? :)

I think the last ticket I got was on my motorcycle. He had me dead to rights...there was nothing to discuss. He was very nice for giving me a ticket with a rather creative speed, as opposed to the speed I was REALLY going. That was back in '98, or so. Now I drive like an old lady.

Road bike in a local park here. I ran a stoplight on a bike, right turn without stopping, and the police here will ticket you for that.

If you ever ride a road bike (which is something I did when I was thinner and younger and lived next to a park that has a nice 5 mile loop for it), the last thing you want to do once you've got a good pace going is stop at stopsigns and red lights.

I have never heard of anyone getting hurt not stopping at a right turn on a stop light here (or stop sign), but the county police use it to generate revenue. The guy who busted me was one of the least professional individuals I've ever met, giving me a long lecture about safety, and filed my bicycle ticket as a car ticket, using a code that gave me 3 points for "falling asleep at the wheel". I had to get a state senator involved to get it fixed. The barracks who filed the ticket refused to do anything to fix it "it's out of our hands once we file it", and the DOT here who handles the points told me that they wouldn't do anything unless the police refiled. I had to give up and go to a politician to get the points and infraction off of my *drivers* license for right turning at a red light in a park.

I didn't know they ticketed in the park, but after I got ticketed and brought it up with other people, I found the same, that they'd had trouble with "Officer Sid", too. I don't think he had all of his marbles.

Officer sid tickted me for $80, too, which was more than 3 times the legal limit in state law at the time ($25) with the statute specifically saying "no pedalcycle infraction shall be greater than $25 and no points shall be assigned for any pedalcycle infraction". I had some trouble with the DOT because they said they didn't think a bicycle was a pedalcycle, either. You'd think a barracks who does nothing but ticket bicyclists would actually know what the law was, but I guess not.

I didn't talk to sid, he just rambled on and on, but it didn't take me long to look up the law when penndot sent me notice of my points and the reason why i got them. i can't imagine having to call the insurance company to tell them that I turned right at a stop light instead of falling asleep behind the wheel. I'm sure they'd have thought "yeah, right, that's a new one".

Every other police officer I've ever talked to for any reason, including speeding, has been much more courteous and professional.

[John Coloccia]

Well, there might be a reason Sid is on bike watch.

[Jason Roehl]

Well, there might be a reason Sid is on bike watch.

I'm guessing he's only allowed one bullet...

[Phil Thien]

I believe the latest legal theory on this is that you can't be forced to provide passwords, or anything like that, because it's akin to self-incrimination. Obviously, that's the correct call. I believe in some countries in Europe (I forget where off the top of my head) there is legislation that specifically forces you to turn over passwords.

It wasn't too uncommon back in the day for "hackers" to setup their computers so that an incorrect boot sequence would proceed to scramble the hard drive. Maybe the next step is to include a regular password and a doomsday password.

The issue hasn't hit the Supreme Court yet (I don't believe), and some judges have insisted on those keys. This is from Wikipedia (below).

I agree w/ you, this seems pretty cut and dried. The fact that anyone would make legal arguments to the contrary is troubling.

United States[edit (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Key_disclosure_law&action=edit&section=16)]The Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privilege_against_self_incrimination) protects witnesses from being forced to incriminate themselves, and there is currently no law regarding key disclosure in the United States. However, the federal case In re Boucher (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_re_Boucher) may be influential as case law (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Case_law). In this case, a man's laptop was inspected by customs agents and child pornography was discovered. The device was seized and powered-down, at which point disk encryption (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disk_encryption) technology made the evidence unavailable. The judge argued that since the content had already been seen by the customs agents, Boucher's encryption password "adds little or nothing to the sum total of the Government's information about the existence and location of files that may contain incriminating information."[22] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Key_disclosure_law#cite_note-22)

In another case (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Fricosu), a district court judge ordered a Colorado woman to decrypt her laptop so prosecutors can use the files against her in a criminal case: “I conclude that the Fifth Amendment is not implicated by requiring production of the unencrypted contents of the Toshiba Satellite M305 laptop computer,” Colorado U.S. District Judge Robert Blackburn ruled on January 23, 2012.[23] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Key_disclosure_law#cite_note-23)

However, in United States v. Doe, the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Court_of_Appeals_for_the_Eleventh_Ci rcuit) ruled on 24 February 2012 that forcing the decryption of one's laptop violates the Fifth Amendment.[24] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Key_disclosure_law#cite_note-24)[25] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Key_disclosure_law#cite_note-25)
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Bureau_of_Investigation) may also issue national security letters (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_security_letter) that require the disclosure of keys for investigative purposes.[26] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Key_disclosure_law#cite_note-26) One company, Lavabit (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lavabit), chose to shut down rather than surrender its master private keys.

[Jim Matthews]

I believe it means that a company must either gather cash either from tireless investors,
or by selling what they have in their possession.

If it's not a product or service, what's left?

[Jim Matthews]

We are powerless as citizens to stem the flow.

Not so.
Treat every public network as compromised.

Be careful what you post online.
Presume that anything travelling along a radio wave
can be detected with antennae.

For most of us, the outrage outweighs reality.
(We're not interesting.)

If this is a serious matter, beyond the point of flustration,
pressure your representatives.

Just don't try to reach them, after the puck drops.

[Curt Harms]

I believe the latest legal theory on this is that you can't be forced to provide passwords, or anything like that, because it's akin to self-incrimination. Obviously, that's the correct call. I believe in some countries in Europe (I forget where off the top of my head) there is legislation that specifically forces you to turn over passwords.

It wasn't too uncommon back in the day for "hackers" to setup their computers so that an incorrect boot sequence would proceed to scramble the hard drive. Maybe the next step is to include a regular password and a doomsday password.

The U.K. has or is working on such legislation. Having a setup where entering a certain password nukes the data files is not a bad idea, even for something like an ATM card. If I enter a certain number my ATM access is disabled until I go through certain steps to re-enable it. For anyone interested in data privacy, read up on Lavabit's travails. I had a lavabit email account and one morning I went to log on and no lavabit. The owner wiped the servers with no warning rather than comply with a court order to provide keys. It's too long to get into here.

[Scott Shepherd]

I considered using Tor years ago (for those that don't know what Tor is, it's free software that links 1000's of computers across the world and allows one to use the internet anonymously). Then I read an article that said that the guts of Tor were created by the military, so they knew how it worked, and basically how to defeat it. If they knew, then you know everyone else knows, so what's the point?

[David Weaver]

If they knew, then you know everyone else knows, so what's the point?

Figure that you or I will not know which software or method really is difficult out there, that most of the rest of the stuff is offered more as a marketing bit to meet demand. If people think they're not being watched or tracked, then they feel better.

It's probably better to assume that everything that we write, partially enter in a box somewhere or view is tracked and logged somewhere. But we are all part of a gigantic group of people doing the same thing, so even if you're embarrassed about something you do online or worried about it, there are probably several million other people doing the same thing.

[John Coloccia]

It's probably better to assume that everything that we write, partially enter in a box somewhere or view is tracked and logged somewhere

Bingo. I've been saying that for years, and I got a lot of flack for it. Oh, I'm a conspiracy theorist...I'm paranoid...etc etc. After the revelations of the past several years, I've noticed how everyone seems to have shut up about it. Simply don't ever type or say anything on a computer or phone that you don't want everyone on the planet to know.

[David Weaver]

I think it's just a realistic think to assume, just as you do John. It's human nature for people who are collecting data to analyze and use to collect absolutely everything they can, even if they're not analyzing it yet. Time and again, even facebook and apple have had to backtrack on their claims and say "oops, we accidentally collected..."

Yeah, right. Accidentally. Accidental elaborate programming that does something very specific.

[Curt Harms]

I think it's just a realistic think to assume, just as you do John. It's human nature for people who are collecting data to analyze and use to collect absolutely everything they can, even if they're not analyzing it yet. Time and again, even facebook and apple have had to backtrack on their claims and say "oops, we accidentally collected..."

Yeah, right. Accidentally. Accidental elaborate programming that does something very specific.

See? The people Apple hires are so good they do more by accident than most of us do on purpose:D.

No, I don't believe it either.

[Scott Shepherd]

so even if you're embarrassed about something you do online or worried about it, there are probably several million other people doing the same thing.

I'm not embarrassed at all. If you think this is about being embarrassed, you've strongly misunderstood my concern. I don't do anything on the internet that would embarrass me (other than posting stupid things from time to time), but my concern isn't based on embarrassment, it's based on my privacy. I have a right to search for "brain cancer" without that information being sold to a medical company and my general address targeted and mapped as someone looking into "brain cancer", at which time insurance companies are quoting my insurance higher because I keep searching for symptoms of brain cancer. It might be because I know someone that's going through it and I'm trying to learn and help them. However, it's not mapped and sold as such. It's all pinpointed to a unique person and those things are mapped into a profile, one that's not accurate.

If I search for anything, that's my private information. The reasons behind my searches are not your business, not should they be sold to the highest bidder because you're a snake. To me, it's the equivalent of coming to my house and going through my trash, collecting all the information about what I bought or what mail I threw away, then taking that data from my trashcan and selling it to someone. If someone did that at your house, you'd call the police on them, if Google does it, then it's supposed to be okay.

[David Weaver]

[QUOTE=Scott Shepherd;2316697]I'm not embarrassed at all. If you think this is about being embarrassed, you've strongly misunderstood my concern.

It was a generalized comment, not directed at you. Whether or not your search items are sold to someone else is not necessarily a matter of rights, it's a matter of legality. I wouldn't ever search for anything on the internet, or view anything and make the assumption that I can dictate whether or not it can be used, sold, etc. It can, and it will be, and even if it's illegal, it probably still will be. That's just reality at this point.

[Pat Barry]

It seems to me that recrimination infringes upon basic rights granted to us by the constitution:

"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized".

I think that data mining of the sort being now conducted violates the right to be secure against unreasonable search and seizure.

[Scott Shepherd]

[QUOTE=Scott Shepherd;2316697]It was a generalized comment, not directed at you. Whether or not your search items are sold to someone else is not necessarily a matter of rights, it's a matter of legality. I wouldn't ever search for anything on the internet, or view anything and make the assumption that I can dictate whether or not it can be used, sold, etc. It can, and it will be, and even if it's illegal, it probably still will be. That's just reality at this point.

And that's exactly my complaint. If people had any clue, even a tiny bit of a clue about the profiles built on them by these companies, there would be public outcry and it would stop. However, most people aren't geeks and don't understand what's happening. As a point of reference, it's not so much Google, but there are many private companies who's names aren't publicly known, that are companies that do nothing but work on putting together all the pieces about each of us. They gather the data, buy it, and start building a profile on each and every one of us. Then they sell that profile to companies. To me, it's like having a private investigator researching you for years, then taking an ad out in the newspaper and posting everything about you that they know. To me, that's just incredibly wrong.

Again, if people knew and understood what was being done, it would stop. But no one ever listens to the geeks :)

[David Weaver]

[QUOTE=David Weaver;2316701]

And that's exactly my complaint. If people had any clue, even a tiny bit of a clue about the profiles built on them by these companies, there would be public outcry and it would stop. However, most people aren't geeks and don't understand what's happening. As a point of reference, it's not so much Google, but there are many private companies who's names aren't publicly known, that are companies that do nothing but work on putting together all the pieces about each of us. They gather the data, buy it, and start building a profile on each and every one of us. Then they sell that profile to companies. To me, it's like having a private investigator researching you for years, then taking an ad out in the newspaper and posting everything about you that they know. To me, that's just incredibly wrong.

Again, if people knew and understood what was being done, it would stop. But no one ever listens to the geeks :)

I would bet any of the dozens of fake personas of me built up by these companies could more accurately guess what I like or would like to see than I could on my own! I'll bet they are all a lot more comprehensive than we know, too.

[David Weaver]

I think the writ of assitance (I think that's what they were called) was in the minds of the people who wrote those laws. The search you make is being conducted on something that is someone else's property, and not our own. It's a much different situation than the writ of assitance type situation where agents of the law were allowed to enter any house and turn it upside down without knowing if there was anything troublesome that they were even looking for.

Things like phone records have been made of us forever.

Also, the data mining issues seem to go to the FISA court (especially where the data is requested by the government - even if they are taking privately collected data and requesting it for their own use), and not to a regular court where the information is more publicly visible. If there was going to be any real improvement in any of this stuff, the hearings would need to be in a regular federal court, and i don't expect we'll see that. It seems that the value of the data for other people has enough value that it could go quite a bit further before it creates enough of a negative swell (and even after that it would still be collected, anyway. Someone would just tell us they did something about it, wait for us to find out that they didn't, that changes were cosmetic, and the same "fix" would happen again at the next outrage).

[Andrew Pitonyak]

What's that have to do with it? If you forget your password, you follow the steps to create a new one, like always. When you forget your password now, it's not known because someone at Apple or whatever site has access to it.

If I forget my encryption password, that is pretty much the end of it.... Well, if I have an inkling of what my password is, I could always try to brute-force (guess) the password. That is why you should always write the password on the drive in permanent marker right :D

My primary interest in encrypted media is so that when I lose a drive (or similar) under warranty, I do not need to stress about sending it back for warranty replacement. Also, if I decommission a drive, well, I have no strong need to wipe it.

[paul cottingham]

I considered using Tor years ago (for those that don't know what Tor is, it's free software that links 1000's of computers across the world and allows one to use the internet anonymously). Then I read an article that said that the guts of Tor were created by the military, so they knew how it worked, and basically how to defeat it. If they knew, then you know everyone else knows, so what's the point?

I'm pretty sure that is not true. It is open source, so glaring back doors would probably have been found by now. (I know the current BASH debacle creates some arguments against this position. But that's a bug, not a back door.) from my understanding, TOR gives the US government fits. You know, the whole "if you have nothing to hide" nonsense.

[Scott Shepherd]

I'm pretty sure that is not true. It is open source, so glaring back doors would probably have been found by now. (I know the current BASH debacle creates some arguments against this position. But that's a bug, not a back door.) from my understanding, TOR gives the US government fits. You know, the whole "if you have nothing to hide" nonsense.

Might want to read TOR's own page, it states exactly that it was a Navy project.

https://www.torproject.org/about/overview

[paul cottingham]

The other issue that people aren't considering is metadata. That is the stuff that Snowden was so concerned about, and what most privacy advocates are freaking out over. With good reason, I might add.
Again, the issue is not whether or not I have anything to hide. It's the fact that I shouldn't have to worry about people gathering information from and about me without my knowledge, to be used who knows how.

[paul cottingham]

Might want to read TOR's own page, it states exactly that it was a Navy project.

https://www.torproject.org/about/overview

Yes, sorry, I know it's a navy project. But it's an open source navy project. The source tree is right on the web page.

[Scott Shepherd]

The other issue that people aren't considering is metadata. That is the stuff that Snowden was so concerned about, and what most privacy advocates are freaking out over. With good reason, I might add.
Again, the issue is not whether or not I have anything to hide. It's the fact that I shouldn't have to worry about people gathering information from and about me without my knowledge, to be used who knows how.

Did you read the article in last month's Wired Magazine about Snowden? It was an interview with him and it was fascinating to me. Nothing new, but it showed his path. He says he intentionally left breadcrumbs on all the things he took so that they would know exactly what he had taken, to give them a little "heads up" on what to expect and years later, he still sees reports about various things that indicates no one ever picked up on the breadcrumbs he left for them to find.

He also said that they were collecting data on political people, basically, people that has been visiting websites they shouldn't be, and it was to be used against them when legislation was moving through the political process to kill anything that would stop them from their snooping.

He was in the CIA as well as the NSA, before leaving and working for Dell, working directly with the CIA under Dell. It was an interesting read.

[Tom Stenzel]

I'm not embarrassed at all. If you think this is about being embarrassed, you've strongly misunderstood my concern. I don't do anything on the internet that would embarrass me (other than posting stupid things from time to time), but my concern isn't based on embarrassment, it's based on my privacy. I have a right to search for "brain cancer" without that information being sold to a medical company and my general address targeted and mapped as someone looking into "brain cancer", at which time insurance companies are quoting my insurance higher because I keep searching for symptoms of brain cancer. It might be because I know someone that's going through it and I'm trying to learn and help them. However, it's not mapped and sold as such. It's all pinpointed to a unique person and those things are mapped into a profile, one that's not accurate.

If I search for anything, that's my private information. The reasons behind my searches are not your business, not should they be sold to the highest bidder because you're a snake. To me, it's the equivalent of coming to my house and going through my trash, collecting all the information about what I bought or what mail I threw away, then taking that data from my trashcan and selling it to someone. If someone did that at your house, you'd call the police on them, if Google does it, then it's supposed to be okay.

Scott, why are you such an optimist? :-)

I think it's far worse than rummaging through your trash. It's going through your file cabinets reading your bills and payments. It's fingering stuff in your nightstand, reading the love letters you sent and the ones that were sent to you.

It's using your cell phone (not sure if it needs to be a smart phone) as a bug in your house listening in to all conversations within reach of the microphone. Supposedly the equipment is sold to law enforcement only, but what if some was sold (or lent out by a salesperson for a small pocketable fee) to do a little corporate espionage?

I really dislike the way things are going. You want privacy? You criminal you! Think of the children! We have to save the babies!

-Tom

[paul cottingham]

Did you read the article in last month's Wired Magazine about Snowden? It was an interview with him and it was fascinating to me. Nothing new, but it showed his path. He says he intentionally left breadcrumbs on all the things he took so that they would know exactly what he had taken, to give them a little "heads up" on what to expect and years later, he still sees reports about various things that indicates no one ever picked up on the breadcrumbs he left for them to find.

He also said that they were collecting data on political people, basically, people that has been visiting websites they shouldn't be, and it was to be used against them when legislation was moving through the political process to kill anything that would stop them from their snooping.

He was in the CIA as well as the NSA, before leaving and working for Dell, working directly with the CIA under Dell. It was an interesting read.

The book by Glen Greenwald is excellent, although filled with an awful lot of self serving crap about Greenwald (he seems to be his own biggest hero.) I came to admire Snowden, the more I read and researched, despite the fact that I initially had a very dim view of him and his actions.

[Phil Thien]

He also said that they were collecting data on political people, basically, people that has been visiting websites they shouldn't be, and it was to be used against them when legislation was moving through the political process to kill anything that would stop them from their snooping.

If he believes that, he is delusional.

About the only thing I can imagine being useful in that regard is proof someone was viewing child pornography.

And telling someone you're going to have them charged for viewing child pornography (or go public with the information) unless they support your legislation could very easily backfire (the pervert would be better off going public and insisting he was threatened that if he didn't support said legislation, that the spooks would use planted child pornography to discredit him).

The problem with most people like Snowden is they don't get the big picture. They have all these beautiful small pictures, but they can't put them all together and see the panorama.

[David Weaver]

I don't see it as being that far fetched. They all have jobs that depend on legislation being passed or not being passed. If people send things in email that could be incriminating, it would benefit the NSA to collect it and use it as leverage. Whether or not it's legal isn't really the issue, it's whether it's useful.

[Phil Thien]

I don't see it as being that far fetched. They all have jobs that depend on legislation being passed or not being passed. If people send things in email that could be incriminating, it would benefit the NSA to collect it and use it as leverage. Whether or not it's legal isn't really the issue, it's whether it's useful.

Here is the problem: Either such a method would ALWAYS work, or it has never really been employed.

Because not everyone can be blackmailed. And as soon as you try blackmailing them, some people will go public.

But because nobody has gone public (indicating the spooks are attempting to blackmail them), then the technique has never been employed.

[David Weaver]

I think that's a pretty naive view. There is a third scenario, and that's that it is only employed as a negotiation tool when it has significant leverage. The other naive part of that view is that everyone who can't be blackmailed will go public when they resist something.

[Phil Thien]

I think that's a pretty naive view. There is a third scenario, and that's that it is only employed as a negotiation tool when it has significant leverage. The other naive part of that view is that everyone who can't be blackmailed will go public when they resist something.

Speaking logically, that isn't a third scenario, that is just the "it always works" scenario retreaded. Whether it always works because your information is THAT good, or whether it always works because people are so darn weak doesn't really matter.

Now, whether everyone who can't be blackmailed will go public if they resist: Provided that the threat is carried out, there is no real reason for someone to remain silent, and plenty of reason to talk.

That is, let's say you have proof I accepted a bribe, and attempt to blackmail me. I push back, so the next logical step is for you to go public, which results in me being arrested. Now, am I going to sit in prison and keep my mouth shut about your attempt to blackmail me, or am I going to call 60 Minutes?

And BTW, I can still vote against your legislation even though you're telling everyone I accepted a bribe. It isn't like I can't vote while I'm on trial.

[Scott Shepherd]

If he believes that, he is delusional.

About the only thing I can imagine being useful in that regard is proof someone was viewing child pornography.

And telling someone you're going to have them charged for viewing child pornography (or go public with the information) unless they support your legislation could very easily backfire (the pervert would be better off going public and insisting he was threatened that if he didn't support said legislation, that the spooks would use planted child pornography to discredit him).

The problem with most people like Snowden is they don't get the big picture. They have all these beautiful small pictures, but they can't put them all together and see the panorama.

Phil, I don't think you got what he said. He didn't say they were doing it (actually blackmailing), he said they were collecting the data. And I believe you were close to being right on the content, but I didn't wish to say the topic because this is a family forum. The fact that they are collecting the data, targeting people, in this case, people running for office, should be enough to raise the hair on the back of your neck.

Read the Wired article. It really was a good article.

[Phil Thien]

Phil, I don't think you got what he said. He didn't say they were doing it (actually blackmailing), he said they were collecting the data. And I believe you were close to being right on the content, but I didn't wish to say the topic because this is a family forum. The fact that they are collecting the data, targeting people, in this case, people running for office, should be enough to raise the hair on the back of your neck.

Read the Wired article. It really was a good article.

I have not read it, and I'm not quite sure if I'm going to seek it out.

The thing that rubs me wrong about Snowden is that he says one thing, but seems to do another.

He revealed his identity four days after the first stories covering the leaked material. He said he did so because he wasn't ashamed of what he had done, and to prevent his former coworkers from having to endure a witch hunt.

But then why not just tell the reporters to reveal your identity immediately, with the very first stories? What changed during those four days?

I'll tell you what changed: He saw what he thought was overwhelming public approval and thought (mistakenly) that the world would throw him a parade.

And even now, as the story has dragged on, there are regular "Snowden revelations." All seemingly timed to keep himself in the press.

What this guy says motivates him, and what actually motivates him, are two separate and distinct things.

Not that the same thing isn't true of any one of us. But we're not revealing state secrets.

[Scott Shepherd]

Phil, you might want to read that article. I would say that the impression you stated of him is not at all what he comes off like in the article. He's not releasing anything. Any "new" revelation isn't new by him. He hasn't had possession of the material in quite some time. The issue is that it was a million pages or something like that, and it's being combed through by 3 or 4 sources and they are releasing things as THEY find them. He's not orchestrating anything. He gave the material away and was done with it. I actually came away from the article thinking he was a lot closer to being a patriot than a criminal. He actually was fine with coming back and serving time. I got no indication that he was doing any of this for fame, but rather doing this because he was watching extremely unlawful things happening on mass scales and no one even remotely pulling the reins in.

[Phil Thien]

Phil, you might want to read that article. I would say that the impression you stated of him is not at all what he comes off like in the article. He's not releasing anything. Any "new" revelation isn't new by him. He hasn't had possession of the material in quite some time. The issue is that it was a million pages or something like that, and it's being combed through by 3 or 4 sources and they are releasing things as THEY find them. He's not orchestrating anything. He gave the material away and was done with it. I actually came away from the article thinking he was a lot closer to being a patriot than a criminal. He actually was fine with coming back and serving time. I got no indication that he was doing any of this for fame, but rather doing this because he was watching extremely unlawful things happening on mass scales and no one even remotely pulling the reins in.

The press, for the most part, loves Snowden. So I'm not surprised the article in Wired is quite favorable.

But as far as having handed over the material and being done with it, that doesn't explain why he keeps talking to the press:

http://www.newsfactor.com/news/Snowden--New-Zealand-Is-Spying--Too/story.xhtml?story_id=13200AZC2U4O#

As far as saying he is fine with coming back and serving time, that kinda goes right back to what I was saying about him saying one thing while doing another. Any time he wants to come back and stand trial, he is welcome to do so.

I'll track the article down and read it, just to be fair.

[Scott Shepherd]

I agree for the most part, they do love him. In fact, the guy that interviewed him was in the NSA during Vietnam and blew the whistle on the NSA and testified before the Church Committee, so it's not like he's not a "friendly" face to Snowden. I don't know if I felt swayed by the friendly interview, but rather more just about his path. It's not like he was some fringe guy. He comes off like he was the reasonable one watching bad things happen with no checks and balances. Having said that, after seeing some of the things exposed, I think he was right. Think about it, before those documents were leaked, most people had no idea all this internal spying and metadata was being collected. How many people in the USA knew all their calls were being recorded. Not monitored, RECORDED, and archived? To me, I don't recall any of voting on that type of stuff. I'm all for people spying on people that are bad, but recording every single person's phone calls without consent? That deserves to be discussed by the population.

The NSA and others were running wild. Just doing whatever they wanted to do. Who was overseeing them? No one, really. To me, that's frightening to some degree. A secret government agency, working on building profiles of every single American citizen, without any consent, any warrants, or anything else. That's simply wrong.

[Mel Fulks]

I don't think the past is going to come back. The idea of the stored data is hard to get used to ,but people will get used to it. Few years from now we will see complaints about stored data the same way we look back on farmers in the early 20th
century thinking airplanes could not legally fly over their land. I see the data as a type of time travel, we can get warrants to wire tap criminals phone calls in the past as easily as in the future.

[Roger Feeley]

Scott, I've not had any experience with TOR but it appears that it's open source. That means that the source code that drives TOR can be downloaded, compiled and modified by anyone. Code changes are reviewed by a committee of users and open for all to see. I don't feel too worried about back doors. Too many eyes.

[John Coloccia]

But as far as having handed over the material and being done with it, that doesn't explain why he keeps talking to the press:


Probably so Putin doesn't kill him.

[paul cottingham]

Scott, I've not had any experience with TOR but it appears that it's open source. That means that the source code that drives TOR can be downloaded, compiled and modified by anyone. Code changes are reviewed by a committee of users and open for all to see. I don't feel too worried about back doors. Too many eyes.
Yep. Love open source.

[Curt Harms]

Scott, I've not had any experience with TOR but it appears that it's open source. That means that the source code that drives TOR can be downloaded, compiled and modified by anyone. Code changes are reviewed by a committee of users and open for all to see. I don't feel too worried about back doors. Too many eyes.
The same was supposed to be true of the Heartbleed & Bash oopsies.

[Andrew Pitonyak]

The same was supposed to be true of the Heartbleed & Bash oopsies.

Obvious back-doors are likely to be spotted quickly. Open source is not a guarantee that a backdoor or a vulnerability does not exist, but, it does mean that if anyone is looking for it or finds it, then they can track who added and when. The "Bash Oopy", as you call it, was released for my Linux box very quickly because it was open source. Most of these vulnerabilities are easy to miss because they are very subtle in nature. The automated tools are becoming better at finding this sort of thing.

The bigger concern with things such as TOR is not that there is some sort of back door but that you will either not properly configure your computer to use it, or that you will exit on a compromised node, which allows the compromiser to watch the traffic; which I think is mostly only a problem if your stream of traffic contains data that you do not want someone to see.

When I say compromised node, I don't mean a node where someone has taken it over, I mean a node that was setup by someone for the sole purpose of watching the traffic.

[Dave Anderson NH]

Note to Phil and others. If you don't think government agencies "blackmail" or use subtle threats you are very naïve, too young to remember, or have a short memory. Remember good ole J. Edgar? He was the king of abuse of power and blackmailed presidents, members of congress, and members of the media. His files on even regular Americans who came to his or the FBI's attention because they were considered "subversive" or questioned things were legion. How do you think he survived so many years past the mandatory retirement age?

The only difference between J. Edgar and today is the technology used. Personal privacy is an illusion. Our rights have been eroded slowly and steadily as the unchecked power of the executive branch of government has become preeminent over the legislative and judicial.

[David Weaver]

Thanks, Dave. That's my sentiment, too. Setting up hypothetical scenarios and creating a logical test is an oversimplification of what can and does happen. The fact that both sides (including their staffs) would work very hard to push each other around but keep it out of the media is just human nature. Whether it's business or government, same thing, but the difference is that if the NSA decides to break their own rules, there is essentially nothing in place to review of stop them. It's not in the best interest of a politician to make big waves, nor is it in the NSA. It's more useful for them to get dirt on each other and try to use it to make deals, and cut out the private sector in general.

Most of the leverage that occurs is found out long after its no longer useful, just like the J edgar issue.

[Mel Fulks]

Yeah. Which president vowed to fire Hoover; Johnson? Nixon? J.Edgar left the elliptical edifice with a promise he could
stay head of the bureau as long as he wanted and get a bigger bag O' money budgeted.

[Scott Shepherd]

The bigger concern with things such as TOR is not that there is some sort of back door but that you will either not properly configure your computer to use it, or that you will exit on a compromised node, which allows the compromiser to watch the traffic; which I think is mostly only a problem if your stream of traffic contains data that you do not want someone to see.

When I say compromised node, I don't mean a node where someone has taken it over, I mean a node that was setup by someone for the sole purpose of watching the traffic.

So do you think that there's a server farm somewhere with 1000's of computers in it, all running as part of the TOR network to be used exactly as that compromised node? Wouldn't doing that just provide them the "in" that they needed? (I'm not well versed on TOR, other than basically knowing what it does and having had looked at it a number of times over the years).

I never signed up for it because, at the times I looked, I think it violated the terms of service for my internet provider, which would mean using it put my entire connectivity at risk.

[Phil Thien]

Note to Phil and others. If you don't think government agencies "blackmail" or use subtle threats you are very naïve, too young to remember, or have a short memory. Remember good ole J. Edgar? He was the king of abuse of power and blackmailed presidents, members of congress, and members of the media. His files on even regular Americans who didn't came to his or the FBI's attention because they were considered "subversive" or questioned things were legion. How do you think he survived so many years past the mandatory retirement age?

The only difference between J. Edgar and today is the technology used. Personal privacy is an illusion. Our rights have been eroded slowly and steadily as the unchecked power of the executive branch of government has become preeminent over the legislative and judicial.

There is much speculation that Hoover employed blackmail, but little proof.

The idea that Hoover blackmailed presidents to remain in power has been debunked.

There was not a single time during Hoover's life that any sort of blackmail attempt blew-up. Nobody can be that good at blackmailing. Especially when the targets are powerful, connected people. Eventually someone is going to kill themselves, but not before sending a letter to the NY Times saying they were being blackmailed by Hoover.

And you seriously think one of Nixon's or Kennedy's lieutenants (guys like G. Gordon Liddy) wouldn't have just killed the guy and made it look like an accident if any of that were true? Just push him down the stairs, make sure he hits his head real hard, suffocate him at the bottom, say it was an accident.

I mean, you know why "Deep Throat" refused to reveal themselves, right? Because they knew they'd (Whitehouse Operatives) kill him/her.

In terms of privacy and our constitution, I feel okay. I think things are still working alright. The Supreme Court recently held police can't search a smart-phone w/o a warrant. I haven't heard of any instances where people have claimed their constitutional rights were actually violated as a result of any collection efforts by the spooks.

I think people are buying into sensationalist coverage of this crap.

"The NSA has your phone meta data, and this is what they COULD do."

"What your bank account may tell the NSA."

Good grief.

My position: Concerned, not alarmed, refusing to buy into the hysteria.

[John Coloccia]

Phil, the world was a much different place before the internet and 24/7 news cycles. Incidentally, Truman himself flat out accused Hoover of blackmail.

[Mel Fulks]

I will leave the Hoover blackmail thing to better historians. But some stories over time get played down simply because
they are embarrassing to perpetrator and victim, I think the Hoover - M.L. King thing is one of those. It is proven that
Hoover,in testimony before congress to ask for more money made up his own statistics.

[Scott Shepherd]

In terms of privacy and our constitution, I feel okay. I think things are still working alright. The Supreme Court recently held police can't search a smart-phone w/o a warrant. I haven't heard of any instances where people have claimed their constitutional rights were actually violated as a result of any collection efforts by the spooks.

I think people are buying into sensationalist coverage of this crap.



So recording private conversations without consent (just a a point of reference, in the state of Virginia, one person has to consent to the taping of a call for it to be legally gathered) is perfectly fine with you? You don't see that as ANY violation of privacy?

I knew, about 25 years ago that all phone calls were routed through a system that listened for keywords. It was the trigger of those keywords that flipped the switch to get things recording. You knew, as long as you didn't get on the phone and start staying some pretty bad stuff, your call wasn't recorded.

Forget Google, I'm talking about just pure traffic. My email, which is my own domain, is gathered. Why? You have no reason to believe I have done anything wrong or am planning to do anything wrong. So who and what gives you the rights to take all my private emails and store them without a warrant? It has nothing to do with whether or not I have anything to hide, it has to do with principle and no one's given these people the authority to do it, they're just doing it, without our permission and we have no say so in it.

I don't care that they run my phone calls or emails through a keyword filter. I'm fine with that. But the threshold has always been that as long as that data isn't stored, then it's legal. Now, it's being stored, which is where I have the issue with it.

[David Weaver]

There is much speculation that Hoover employed blackmail, but little proof.

The idea that Hoover blackmailed presidents to remain in power has been debunked.


The idea that he was collecting information on individuals has not.

A quote from truman about the FBI:

"They are dabbling in sex-life scandals and plain blackmail (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackmail)."

Presidents Harry S. Truman (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_S._Truman) and John F. Kennedy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_F._Kennedy) each considered dismissing Hoover as FBI Director, but ultimately concluded that the political cost of doing so would be too great.

Why would that be?


And you seriously think one of Nixon's or Kennedy's lieutenants (guys like G. Gordon Liddy) wouldn't have just killed the guy and made it look like an accident if any of that were true? Just push him down the stairs, make sure he hits his head real hard, suffocate him at the bottom, say it was an accident.

Do you think that anything hoover and his comrades amassed would've just disappeared if that occurred?

[Phil Thien]

The idea that he was collecting information on individuals has not.

A quote from truman about the FBI:

"They are dabbling in sex-life scandals and plain blackmail (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackmail)."

Presidents Harry S. Truman (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_S._Truman) and John F. Kennedy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_F._Kennedy) each considered dismissing Hoover as FBI Director, but ultimately concluded that the political cost of doing so would be too great.

Why would that be?



Do you think that anything hoover and his comrades amassed would've just disappeared if that occurred?[/COLOR]


Truman (and others) misunderstood WHY Hoover himself would send a trusted agent to tell a member of congress (or a governor, or whoever) that they had been made aware of compromising information.

Say a politician's wife is having an affair. The FBI comes knocking and says, "hey, your wife is having an affair. We just wanted you to know that we know. Here is my card."

Is that a threat? Super-smooth blackmail?

Fast forward six months and her now-jilted lover wants $50k, or he is going to the press.

You could call the cops, but that may blow up in your face.

Or you could find that card the agent gave you and give him a call. He is going to know exactly what to do.

[Phil Thien]

So recording private conversations without consent (just a a point of reference, in the state of Virginia, one person has to consent to the taping of a call for it to be legally gathered) is perfectly fine with you? You don't see that as ANY violation of privacy?

I knew, about 25 years ago that all phone calls were routed through a system that listened for keywords. It was the trigger of those keywords that flipped the switch to get things recording. You knew, as long as you didn't get on the phone and start staying some pretty bad stuff, your call wasn't recorded.

Forget Google, I'm talking about just pure traffic. My email, which is my own domain, is gathered. Why? You have no reason to believe I have done anything wrong or am planning to do anything wrong. So who and what gives you the rights to take all my private emails and store them without a warrant? It has nothing to do with whether or not I have anything to hide, it has to do with principle and no one's given these people the authority to do it, they're just doing it, without our permission and we have no say so in it.

I don't care that they run my phone calls or emails through a keyword filter. I'm fine with that. But the threshold has always been that as long as that data isn't stored, then it's legal. Now, it's being stored, which is where I have the issue with it.

Not all calls are being recorded.

Think about it.

Just think about how much storage would be required, and how much bandwidth would be required to transmit all that data back to a facility where it could be archived. Think about all the smaller carriers (hundreds of LD haulers), and at least one of them would have been run by a screaming libertarian that would have gone to the press and insisted that the gov't was demanding a feed.

And 25 years ago, digital switches barely had enough horsepower for call completion, much less voice recognition. Maybe on a limited basis, something could be deployed, but not wide-spread. And not only that, that technology would have to tie right into the switches, there is no way you'd get every operator in the states to just agree to keep their mouths shut.

I know people have made accusations. Even "insiders." But they probably don't even understand the scope of the project.

[David Weaver]

Recording a call wouldn't require much of a bit rate. I have no idea if anyone would care to commit the resources to it, but it wouldn't take that much. A percentage could be sampled (10%?), and just because small carriers might not be involved, it could be strategic, like pay as you go phones or specific carriers.

The insider comments you may be referring to are folks describing the MYSTIC program (I had to look it up) that said that they have the capacity to record 100% of a foreign country's voice calls and retrieve the calls later. The same story that I found describing it said it was in full swing in 2011. The same story said that the calls go into a 30 day buffer and any calls deemed interesting are rolled into long-term storage.

As far as your interpretation of hoover helping people by spying on them, that's what I'd tell them to if I were spying on them. "Look, I'm doing this to help you" (until I need it for leverage against you, but I'm not going to tell you that part).

[Scott Shepherd]

Not all calls are being recorded.

Think about it.

Just think about how much storage would be required, and how much bandwidth would be required to transmit all that data back to a facility where it could be archived. Think about all the smaller carriers (hundreds of LD haulers), and at least one of them would have been run by a screaming libertarian that would have gone to the press and insisted that the gov't was demanding a feed.

And 25 years ago, digital switches barely had enough horsepower for call completion, much less voice recognition. Maybe on a limited basis, something could be deployed, but not wide-spread. And not only that, that technology would have to tie right into the switches, there is no way you'd get every operator in the states to just agree to keep their mouths shut.

I know people have made accusations. Even "insiders." But they probably don't even understand the scope of the project.

You might just want to check that data- EVERY call made is being RECORDED. The Utah data center is said to have enough capacity to store everything ever created to date.

EVERY call IS being recorded. That's not even a point of debate at this point in time. It's been admitted in front on congress. The carriers have no say so in it. Screaming libertarians or not.

If you don't think this is happening, you need to look into a little more.

Here's the data center that's being built :

http://www.wired.com/2012/03/ff_nsadatacenter/all/

Here's how large it is, in terms of storage :

"the Pentagon is attempting to expand its worldwide communications network, known as the Global Information Grid, to handle yottabytes (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yottabyte) (1024 bytes) of data. (A yottabyte is a septillion bytes—so large that no one has yet coined a term for the next higher magnitude.)"

[Pat Barry]

TOur rights have been eroded slowly and steadily as the unchecked power of the executive branch of government has become preeminent over the legislative and judicial.
I certainly prefer it this way and I am sure everyone would. Obviously its not unchecked power. God only knows how bad things would be if our Legislative branch actually had any operational responsibility. It would be a nightmare, a quagmire, and a fiasco all rolled into one. Could you imagine our bickering legislature, who care more about re-election than ANYTHING else, particularly in election years (which by the way is every year) actually being accountable to get anything of substance actually done?

[Pat Barry]

You might just want to check that data- EVERY call made is being RECORDED. The Utah data center is said to have enough capacity to store everything ever created to date.

EVERY call IS being recorded. That's not even a point of debate at this point in time. It's been admitted in front on congress. The carriers have no say so in it. Screaming libertarians or not.

If you don't think this is happening, you need to look into a little more.

Here's the data center that's being built :

http://www.wired.com/2012/03/ff_nsadatacenter/all/

Here's how large it is, in terms of storage :

"the Pentagon is attempting to expand its worldwide communications network, known as the Global Information Grid, to handle yottabytes (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yottabyte) (1024 bytes) of data. (A yottabyte is a septillion bytes—so large that no one has yet coined a term for the next higher magnitude.)"
Is this "Big Brother"?

[David Weaver]

I agree with Mel, we're going to get used to the fact that everything digital exists in archive. I kind of assume that's the case now. It may not be quite yet, but it's inevitable.

(consequently, I have heard old timers at home telling me about the imaginary glass panes that extend into space designating what you own, and they weren't happy about airplanes flying through their space. I guess their parents must've impressed the same thing on them).

[John Coloccia]

I certainly prefer it this way and I am sure everyone would.

You would be wrong. Try to remember, Pat, that the person wearing the crown won't always have the same ideas that you do.

[Phil Thien]

You might just want to check that data- EVERY call made is being RECORDED. The Utah data center is said to have enough capacity to store everything ever created to date.

EVERY call IS being recorded. That's not even a point of debate at this point in time. It's been admitted in front on congress. The carriers have no say so in it. Screaming libertarians or not.

If you don't think this is happening, you need to look into a little more.

Here's the data center that's being built :

http://www.wired.com/2012/03/ff_nsadatacenter/all/

Here's how large it is, in terms of storage :

"the Pentagon is attempting to expand its worldwide communications network, known as the Global Information Grid, to handle yottabytes (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yottabyte) (1024 bytes) of data. (A yottabyte is a septillion bytes—so large that no one has yet coined a term for the next higher magnitude.)"

The problem is, your Wired articles site no sources that actually confirm any of what they claim. They can say whatever they want, secure in the knowledge that no NSA official will either confirm or deny.

And his own facts don't jive with his claims. For example, he says "The NSA has long been free to eavesdrop on international satellite communications. But after 9/11, it installed taps in US telecom “switches,” gaining access to domestic traffic. An ex-NSA official says there are 10 to 20 such installations."

Well, there are literally thousands of switches in the U.S. The baby bells have hundreds, the 2nd and 3rd tier carriers many, many more. You are going to need access to each one of them before you can claim you're recording all calls. I'd be satisfied with half and a statistics slight of hand. But 10 to 20?

So I'm afraid I'd just have to clump these sorts of claims into the conspiracy theory category. And I'm not ready to start wearing my tinfoil hate so they can't read my mind.

Not yet.

[Scott Shepherd]

The problem is, your Wired articles site no sources that actually confirm any of what they claim. They can say whatever they want, secure in the knowledge that no NSA official will either confirm or deny.

And his own facts don't jive with his claims. For example, he says "The NSA has long been free to eavesdrop on international satellite communications. But after 9/11, it installed taps in US telecom “switches,” gaining access to domestic traffic. An ex-NSA official says there are 10 to 20 such installations."

Well, there are literally thousands of switches in the U.S. The baby bells have hundreds, the 2nd and 3rd tier carriers many, many more. You are going to need access to each one of them before you can claim you're recording all calls. I'd be satisfied with half and a statistics slight of hand. But 10 to 20?

So I'm afraid I'd just have to clump these sorts of claims into the conspiracy theory category. And I'm not ready to start wearing my tinfoil hate so they can't read my mind.

Not yet.

So you just ignore them admitting to it in front of congress because you don't believe what Snowden says? It's not up for debate, it's been confirmed.

What you you expect, for a spy organization to come out and openly say "Here's all the way's we are spying on you?". That's a bit farfetched, considering they deny any black operation even exists, even when they do exist.

[Scott Shepherd]

Again, you might want to do your research....here's an article about the guy that blew the whistle on it. It's called "Stellar Wind". He should know because he's the guy that actually wrote the software to do it.

http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/crime/item/18681-nsa-whistleblower-binney-nsa-recording-80-of-u-s-phone-calls

http://www.thenewamerican.com/tech/computers/item/7254-nsa’s-spy-program-stellar-wind-exposed

[Phil Thien]

So you just ignore them admitting to it in front of congress because you don't believe what Snowden says? It's not up for debate, it's been confirmed.

What you you expect, for a spy organization to come out and openly say "Here's all the way's we are spying on you?". That's a bit farfetched, considering they deny any black operation even exists, even when they do exist.

You keep saying it isn't up for debate, it has been confirmed. Got a link showing that? I can't find anything of the sort. I read two newspapers a day, never saw anything where someone said "oh yeah, we record all convos."

And no, I don't expect the NSA to tell me everything they're up to. But that doesn't mean I'm going to believe everything YOU tell me they're up to, either.

[Eric DeSilva]

So do you think that there's a server farm somewhere with 1000's of computers in it, all running as part of the TOR network to be used exactly as that compromised node?

Seems like they take more direct action--make your node compromised. See the article referenced at #24 here: http://gizmodo.com/65-things-we-know-about-nsa-surveillance-we-didn-t-know-1586633452

[Scott Shepherd]

You keep saying it isn't up for debate, it has been confirmed. Got a link showing that? I can't find anything of the sort. I read two newspapers a day, never saw anything where someone said "oh yeah, we record all convos."

And no, I don't expect the NSA to tell me everything they're up to. But that doesn't mean I'm going to believe everything YOU tell me they're up to, either.

See post above yours.

[Phil Thien]

Again, you might want to do your research....here's an article about the guy that blew the whistle on it. It's called "Stellar Wind". He should know because he's the guy that actually wrote the software to do it.

http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/crime/item/18681-nsa-whistleblower-binney-nsa-recording-80-of-u-s-phone-calls

http://www.thenewamerican.com/tech/computers/item/7254-nsa’s-spy-program-stellar-wind-exposed

He hasn't worked for the NSA since 2001, and he didn't say they were archiving the voice data, just "recording the calls."

Here, read this:

In March 2012 Wired magazine published "The NSA Is Building the Country's Biggest Spy Center (Watch What You Say)" talking about a vast new NSA facility in Utah (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utah_Data_Center) and said, "For the first time, a former NSA official has gone on the record to describe the program, codenamed Stellarwind, in detail," naming the official William Binney, a former NSA code breaker. Binney went on to say that the NSA had highly secured rooms that tap into major switches, and satellite communications at both AT&T and Verizon.[8] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stellar_Wind#cite_note-Wired_Magazine-8) The article suggested that the supposedly-dispatched Stellarwind continues as an active program. This conclusion was supported by the exposure of Room 641A (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A) in AT&T's operations center in San Francisco in 2006.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Binney_(U.S._intelligence_official)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A


Hardly exhaustive.

If you have anything indicating the program is far more exhaustive, I'm all eyes.

[Scott Shepherd]

He hasn't worked for the NSA since 2001, and he didn't say they were archiving the voice data, just "recording the calls."

Here, read this:

In March 2012 Wired magazine published "The NSA Is Building the Country's Biggest Spy Center (Watch What You Say)" talking about a vast new NSA facility in Utah (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utah_Data_Center) and said, "For the first time, a former NSA official has gone on the record to describe the program, codenamed Stellarwind, in detail," naming the official William Binney, a former NSA code breaker. Binney went on to say that the NSA had highly secured rooms that tap into major switches, and satellite communications at both AT&T and Verizon.[8] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stellar_Wind#cite_note-Wired_Magazine-8) The article suggested that the supposedly-dispatched Stellarwind continues as an active program. This conclusion was supported by the exposure of Room 641A (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A) in AT&T's operations center in San Francisco in 2006.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Binney_(U.S._intelligence_official)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A


Hardly exhaustive.

If you have anything indicating the program is far more exhaustive, I'm all eyes.

Sure, explain to me how you record something digitally without it being archived. Impossible. If it's written to a drive, it's been stored. That means, exactly what I said, that the calls are being recorded. When we started this conversation, you said it wasn't happening at all. Now you're saying they are being recorded, but not archived. You can't have it both ways. Those articles show the program exists, the very program you denied existing earlier in this thread. I don't have anything to prove. I don't work for the NSA, but when the people that wrote the software are verifying the documents released by Snowden, then I tend to believe it's true.

If you don't want to believe it, that's up to you, but I've read enough and seen enough examples to know what I believe, and when Congressmen and Women are on record, saying that it's happening, then I tend to believe them as well. They have access to more than I do.

[Phil Thien]

Scott, I see what you're saying, but he didn't say what that link said he said. LOL, he said:

“At least 80% of fibre-optic cables globally go via the US”, Binney said. “This is no accident and allows the US to view all communication coming in. At least 80% of all audio calls, not just metadata, are recorded and stored in the US. The NSA lies about what it stores.”

But the article you linked sort of misstates (sensationalizes) what he said. They open with this:

NSA whistleblower William Binney (shown) has made the startling claim (http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jul/11/the-ultimate-goal-of-the-nsa-is-total-population-control)that the NSA is recording the audio of at least 80 percent of Americans' telephone calls. The NSA acknowledged in 2013, after repeated and explicit denials, that it was recording telephone metadata, but it still denies it is keeping the audio of any American's phone calls.

So in reality, if I call you from Milwaukee to VA, NSA doesn't get a chance at OUR call. But if I'm in Iraq and call you, then yeah, they _have a chance_ at our call.

But again, he hasn't worked for the NSA since 2001. And he is a disgruntled former employee, they (NSA) didn't go with his program. So whatever he says is a bit questionable.

Not trying to be difficult, just trying to keep it real.

Oh, and I never said call recording wasn't happening at all. Just that it wasn't happening on a large scale.

I know this, because secrets like that are hard to keep. Once you need to enlist people outside the intelligence community, they leak. They leak like sieves. And BTW, many of the switches involves are Nortel and Siemens. Those are foreign outfits.

[Scott Shepherd]

So in reality, if I call you from Milwaukee to VA, NSA doesn't get a chance at OUR call. But if I'm in Iraq and call you, then yeah, they _have a chance_ at our call.



That's simply not true, according to many other sources. So they denied the metadata gathering for a decade. Now when people "in the know" say they are recording all calls, and they say "No we aren't", I'm supposed to shrug my shoulders and say "nothing to see here?".

They've proven time and time again that they are doing exactly what these people are saying they are doing. In fact, I can't think of one instance where they weren't doing what they were being accused of.

[Chris Padilla]

....and I hope ello succeeds.

This was the first I heard about ello when I read this thread yesterday. This morning on the audio in the gym (Sirius/XM), the DJ was waxing about it as well. I guess they are getting 35k hits/day for folks trying to get in. He also said folks are selling their invites on eBay for $500!!!

[Pat Barry]

You would be wrong. Try to remember, Pat, that the person wearing the crown won't always have the same ideas that you do.
So I suspected. Its not the concept that you dislike but the actual person in charge. No matter, that changes every 4 years. No matter who is president, I will always support them, even though I may or may not have voted for them. The legislative branch is where all that gets confused. They ONLY care about their own necks, not what is good for the country.

[John Coloccia]

So I suspected. Its not the concept that you dislike but the actual person in charge. No matter, that changes every 4 years. No matter who is president, I will always support them, even though I may or may not have voted for them. The legislative branch is where all that gets confused. They ONLY care about their own necks, not what is good for the country.

As plainly as I can say it, it's the concept I dislike.

[Chris Padilla]

Let's keep the political discussion at zero, Folks. :)

[Phil Thien]

That's simply not true, according to many other sources. So they denied the metadata gathering for a decade. Now when people "in the know" say they are recording all calls, and they say "No we aren't", I'm supposed to shrug my shoulders and say "nothing to see here?".

They've proven time and time again that they are doing exactly what these people are saying they are doing. In fact, I can't think of one instance where they weren't doing what they were being accused of.

Here is the thing, for these conspiracy theorists to be right, for all these conversations to have been recorded, you'd need the cooperation of at least hundreds of civilians, many not even U.S. citizens.

They'd all need to keep their mouths shut about making changes to accommodate the spooks. Think of the engineers that worked at places like Northern Telecom, Siemens, AT&T, the hundreds (thousands?) of field network engineers, they'd all have to keep their mouths shut.

And if this has been going on for 15 years, they'd all have to keep quiet for the entire duration.

And then you see stories like this:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/06/06/everything-you-need-to-know-about-the-nsa-scandal/

Where the NSA is asking for metadata from Verizon. Why bother? If they already have 80% of the voice, they have the metadata, too.

Lots of exaggerated claims, people love conspiracy theories, but most don't hold up to even mild scrutiny.

[David Weaver]

Phil, I think you're very naive, and not fully grasping human nature. Maybe we'll remember to bring this thread back up as more stuff comes up. I don't know what's going on, just as you don't, but I'd bet the truth is closer to more than less. The trouble is nobody has the incentive to tell us the truth, as there is no real oversight other than a rubber stamp "court".

[Scott Shepherd]

Here is the thing, for these conspiracy theorists to be right, for all these conversations to have been recorded, you'd need the cooperation of at least hundreds of civilians, many not even U.S. citizens.

They'd all need to keep their mouths shut about making changes to accommodate the spooks. Think of the engineers that worked at places like Northern Telecom, Siemens, AT&T, the hundreds (thousands?) of field network engineers, they'd all have to keep their mouths shut.

And if this has been going on for 15 years, they'd all have to keep quiet for the entire duration.

And then you see stories like this:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/06/06/everything-you-need-to-know-about-the-nsa-scandal/

Where the NSA is asking for metadata from Verizon. Why bother? If they already have 80% of the voice, they have the metadata, too.

Lots of exaggerated claims, people love conspiracy theories, but most don't hold up to even mild scrutiny.

How can it be proven. Every time someone tells the truth, you say they are making it up and if it were true, more people would say so. What's the threshold? 1 person? 2 people? 50 people? 100 people? 5000 people? It only takes one person to tell the truth. The fact that an entire organization who's funding relies on people not holding them accountable stand up and say "that one guy is lying" is a shock to you? It's not one guy. It's not a conspiracy theory when the documents exist and show that it's happening. The very person that said he designed the system and it's being used in the USA is discounted by you. If the guy that says he designed the system and it is being used isn't enough proof for you, then I'm not sure there's much I can say to change your mind.

You have to put pieces of the puzzle together as well. The data center I linked to can hold all the data ever created to date. If you think they just built it to capture metadata, which is tiny in file size, then there's nothing I can do to change that.

Let's see, the person that wrote the program says it's being used, the documents Snowden exposed said the program exists (Snowden didn't make those documents up, they were actual documents from the NSA, not some made up, make believe conspiracy theory guy using Photoshop), Congress people say it exists, former NSA employees say it exists, there's a data center being built by the NSA that can hold more data than any other system ever created by man, and yet it's all just a pie in the sky, wild fantasy that nut job fringe people believe.

Yeah.....alrighty then......

[Phil Thien]

Phil, I think you're very naive, and not fully grasping human nature. Maybe we'll remember to bring this thread back up as more stuff comes up. I don't know what's going on, just as you don't, but I'd bet the truth is closer to more than less. The trouble is nobody has the incentive to tell us the truth, as there is no real oversight other than a rubber stamp "court".

http://www.deadzones.com/2011/05/how-many-cell-phone-calls-are-made-day.html#.VCx9fGd0yrc

900 billion cell calls per year. That is only cell calls, and only in the USA. If the average call is sixty seconds long, and if we're encoding at 2kbps, we'd have 13,824,000,000,000,000 bytes (check my math), or 13.824 petabytes. Say were using today's 3TB hard drives in large SAN (Storage Area Networks). We'd need 4608 hard drives with no overhead for redundancy (much less the filesystem).

And that is today. So go back to 2007 when they introduced the first 1TB hard drive. Now you need 13,824 hard drives. More actually, this is best-case scenario and not real-world.

And that is only cell calls. Now add-in all the landline calls (all the business lines). Oh, and so far we're only talking USA calls, they really want (and can have) the foreign calls. So add all that in, LOL.

Back in 2006, the DoD was starting on the world's largest SAN (Storage Area Network):

http://www.csoonline.com/article/2121070/data-protection/dod-builds-world-rsquo-s-biggest-storage-area-network.html

"The Meta SAN will store many petabytes (millions of gigabytes) of both administrative and mission-critical command and control data, and be put together by Brocade and reVision, an IT consultancy."

It was a 17k-port system, so it would not even have had enough capacity to store cell and landline calls from the USA for a year. It could handle a fraction of just the USA data, never mind the foreign data. And of course, they (NSA) have been archiving data, too.

Seriously, the #'s are so far off between was has been claimed and what is actually doable that it is a bit mind-boggling to me that people would think this stuff is being archived somewhere.

And I haven't even done bandwidth. All that data has to go to data warehouses. Remember when IOS 7 came out (just last year) and AT&T (largest carrier in the world, doesn't need to peer with anyone they're so big) struggled with the network load? Well, those cell calls for the USA alone amounts to approx. 4.7-GB per second, about a DVD of incoming data. Every. Single. Second. Just for USA cell calls, not landline, not overseas.

We can forget human nature and look at what is and has been possible from a technology perspective.

Now, they (NSA) may be marching in the direction of wanting to archive every single call. Technology will eventually make that possible.

But some of these people are saying it has been going on for 15 years?

My calculator says "no."

Maybe my calculator is naïve.

[Phil Thien]

How can it be proven. Every time someone tells the truth, you say they are making it up and if it were true, more people would say so. What's the threshold? 1 person? 2 people? 50 people? 100 people? 5000 people? It only takes one person to tell the truth. The fact that an entire organization who's funding relies on people not holding them accountable stand up and say "that one guy is lying" is a shock to you? It's not one guy. It's not a conspiracy theory when the documents exist and show that it's happening. The very person that said he designed the system and it's being used in the USA is discounted by you. If the guy that says he designed the system and it is being used isn't enough proof for you, then I'm not sure there's much I can say to change your mind.

You have to put pieces of the puzzle together as well. The data center I linked to can hold all the data ever created to date. If you think they just built it to capture metadata, which is tiny in file size, then there's nothing I can do to change that.

Let's see, the person that wrote the program says it's being used, the documents Snowden exposed said the program exists (Snowden didn't make those documents up, they were actual documents from the NSA, not some made up, make believe conspiracy theory guy using Photoshop), Congress people say it exists, former NSA employees say it exists, there's a data center being built by the NSA that can hold more data than any other system ever created by man, and yet it's all just a pie in the sky, wild fantasy that nut job fringe people believe.

Yeah.....alrighty then......

The data center you linked is brand new, and they (owners) won't give us any specifications. And it doesn't matter if it has the capacity to hold the data NOW, there wasn't the capacity to hold the data previously, so I doubt the data exists.

And that "guy," Binney, he isn't the guy that wrote anything being used. They picked another project, and he left, 15 years ago. His guesses of what is going on now aren't necessarily any better than anyone else's.

[Phil Thien]

You might just want to check that data- EVERY call made is being RECORDED. The Utah data center is said to have enough capacity to store everything ever created to date.

EVERY call IS being recorded. That's not even a point of debate at this point in time. It's been admitted in front on congress. The carriers have no say so in it. Screaming libertarians or not.

If you don't think this is happening, you need to look into a little more.

Here's the data center that's being built :

http://www.wired.com/2012/03/ff_nsadatacenter/all/

Here's how large it is, in terms of storage :

"the Pentagon is attempting to expand its worldwide communications network, known as the Global Information Grid, to handle yottabytes (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yottabyte) (1024 bytes) of data. (A yottabyte is a septillion bytes—so large that no one has yet coined a term for the next higher magnitude.)"

It looks like everyone has gone, but in case anyone finds these things interesting...

Large storage systems are called SANs (Storage Area Networks). They use off-the-shelf technology in the form of hard drives, lots and lots of hard drives, and controllers that aggregate them into enormous volumes. The NSA uses SANs to store data. Everyone uses SANs to store data. Popular vendors of SANs are EMC, IBM, Cisco, etc.

But the largest conventional hard drives that could be used in SANs these days are approx. 6-TB in size. So in order to achieve one yottabyte, you'd need 166,666,666,666 hard drives. That is 166 billion hard drives.

So I'd say arguing that anyone is going for a yottabyte anytime soon is pretty sensationalistic. And when an author asserts something that is so easily debunked with a little math, you really have to wonder about the other stuff attributed to unnamed sources.

BTW, I hope you guys don't take my posts as being in favor of spying on U.S. citizens. Nothing could be further from the truth.

I'm just saying, be a little skeptical of everything you read, that is all.

[David Weaver]

My calculator says "no."

Maybe my calculator is naïve.

Phil, you're getting too far into suppositions. Something is or it isn't, neither you nor I will know and at this point supposition doesn't really amount to much. Nobody would've believed they had the ability to store an entire foreign country's calls for 30 days, but they have it.

Arguing about it in the interim and coming up with straw scenarios to try to create an idealized notion that it's impossible or possible doesn't amount to much. It is or it isn't, and if is or isn't was easy to find out, we'd already know.

All I need to do to make sure that you don't talk as an administrator is tell you that I want the capability, that it's not being used or used only for calls with foreign targets (I could lie about that as the NSA, and who has jurisdiction to do anything about it) and that if you leak any details about it, you'll go to jail and compromise national security. You have no payoff to discuss.

I could also do it on the 20 nodes that have the most traffic instead of all of them, it wouldn't be materially different, and it would involve fewer exposures.

Do you see now how worthless it is to argue about whose calculator is more naive? It's completely pointless. I have no dog in the fight, I really don't care if they're recording my calls beyond the notion that it's fundamentally wrong and (at least historically) illegal for them to do it, and thus am not keen to argue it any further. What they do isn't going to change my behavior.

[Brian Elfert]

Sure, explain to me how you record something digitally without it being archived. Impossible. If it's written to a drive, it's been stored. That means, exactly what I said, that the calls are

Stuff can be recorded without being archived. Cockpit voice recorders store voice data, but they overwrite the data after 30 minutes. I don't know that there is a general definition of how long data has to be kept to be considered archived. I wouldn't consider data kept for seven days to be archived. A lot of companies that keep data long term will keep it on fast storage for 30 to 90 days and then move the data to slower storage for archive after that.

[Phil Thien]

Phil, you're getting too far into suppositions. Something is or it isn't, neither you nor I will know and at this point supposition doesn't really amount to much. Nobody would've believed they had the ability to store an entire foreign country's calls for 30 days, but they have it.

If someone had told me the NSA could record an entire foreign country's voice data for thirty days I'd have had no problem believing it. I may do a bit of math, but it would seem less preposterous than many of the other claims I've read.


Arguing about it in the interim and coming up with straw scenarios to try to create an idealized notion that it's impossible or possible doesn't amount to much. It is or it isn't, and if is or isn't was easy to find out, we'd already know.

The math clearly shows it is impossible, there is no need to consider that they've done something that is impossible.


All I need to do to make sure that you don't talk as an administrator is tell you that I want the capability, that it's not being used or used only for calls with foreign targets (I could lie about that as the NSA, and who has jurisdiction to do anything about it) and that if you leak any details about it, you'll go to jail and compromise national security. You have no payoff to discuss.

I'm not sure what you're saying there. But if you're saying that highly targeted illegal access of US conversations could occur, I have no doubt. In fact, the NSA has admitted there have been such abused, but they say they've identified them and disciplined the individuals (including termination).


I could also do it on the 20 nodes that have the most traffic instead of all of them, it wouldn't be materially different, and it would involve fewer exposures.

Do you see now how worthless it is to argue about whose calculator is more naive? It's completely pointless. I have no dog in the fight, I really don't care if they're recording my calls beyond the notion that it's fundamentally wrong and (at least historically) illegal for them to do it, and thus am not keen to argue it any further. What they do isn't going to change my behavior.

The calculator simply tells us whether the claims being made are technically achievable. If the calculator tells us they can't do what they're saying, then we have to question everything else from that source.

Anyone arguing anything to the contrary is to argue in favor of gullibility.

[David Weaver]

gullibility.

I think gullibility is the belief that their "punishments" go further than just being public relations moves.

Your definition of proof is pretty loose compared to what I'd call proof. Setting up a narrow set of variables for a scenario and calling it proof for a universe is not proof.

You and I don't even know what's legal and what's not because to my knowledge, FISA court decisions aren't public. They've made all sorts of decisions loosely describing things as being legal when no reasonable person would do so. They are a rubber stamp whose decisions don't get published. The conversations about harvesting all traffic at nodes and threatening criminal penalties for lack of compliance may not even be illegal.

[Phil Thien]

Stuff can be recorded without being archived. Cockpit voice recorders store voice data, but they overwrite the data after 30 minutes. I don't know that there is a general definition of how long data has to be kept to be considered archived. I wouldn't consider data kept for seven days to be archived. A lot of companies that keep data long term will keep it on fast storage for 30 to 90 days and then move the data to slower storage for archive after that.

If any of these sources had come out, for example, and said that the NSA is keeping their hands on the last 24 or 48 hours of all voice transmission they can get their hands on in the U.S., and they are trying to build systems to get more and archive it longer, then boy, I'd be very concerned about a statement like that.

Because now the source is stating something substantially less sensationalistic and quite possibly technically achievable.

But that doesn't seem to be happening. We keep getting these guys which seem to be relating Hollywood-type scenarios. And I guess that is because the technologically uninformed believe it, because what they know about technology comes from the movies.

"Sir, there is a firewall."

"Oh, just do a back door download of the security database."

"Good idea. Done, we're in."

[Phil Thien]

Your definition of proof is pretty loose compared to what I'd call proof. Setting up a narrow set of variables for a scenario and calling it proof for a universe is not proof.


Well if I'm going to be required to believe that the NSA is using alien technology to achieve the bombastic claims made by attention-starved alarmists, then I don't know the way forward.

I know a bit about non-alien technology, that is my trade.

[David Weaver]

Who meets that criteria here? I am not making any yottabyte claims, nor am I making the claim that they're recording every call in the US (which wouldn't require a yottabyte). They could do a material number and that'd be fine, and here's my hypothetical - they could collect all call records, which they do, and use that to determine where they point their resources in bulk collection, and collect some significant percentage as a rule. There is no natural law that says you'd need to know about it or that you'd be given the relevant specs.

I'm not sure if you're angry at people who have made more sensationalized claims that go to the ladder, so you categorize anyone who may say there's even a first rung or what, but the burden of proof for someone from your viewpoint (stating absolutes) is a lot higher than it is from my point (could be, we don't really know), and history would probably prove you wrong more than me because you've cornered yourself into saying definites about something you really don't know much about - other than what is publicly released.

[David Weaver]

I know a bit about non-alien technology, that is my trade.

A bit and everything are vastly different, and applying something to the extreme argument (all data archived permanently) and then suggesting complete proof for any scenario (collection and temporary storage and then archiving of calls, compressed or whatever) doesn't hold water.

I haven't related any "sensationalistic" scenarios, or hollywood anything, I'm literally saying they could employ the same thing here that they do in foreign countries and you will not know what they're doing until long after they do it. That's why I don't have any idea how you're so certain that your argument about "hollywoods" has anything to do with what I've said.

[Phil Thien]

A bit and everything are vastly different, and applying something to the extreme argument (all data archived permanently) and then suggesting complete proof for any scenario (collection and temporary storage and then archiving of calls, compressed or whatever) doesn't hold water.

Read message #86 in this thread.


I haven't related any "sensationalistic" scenarios, or hollywood anything, I'm literally saying they could employ the same thing here that they do in foreign countries and you will not know what they're doing until long after they do it. That's why I don't have any idea how you're so certain that your argument about "hollywoods" has anything to do with what I've said.

If I've specifically accused you of doing so (I don't think I have), then I apologize. But there are others contributing to this thread, and they are citing sources.

The problem with the sources cited is that the claims are over the top.

And we can't substitute more reasonable claims on behalf of those sources. We can't say, "well, what they say seems impossible or implausible, surely they meant this instead." We have to evaluate their statements on their merits.

FWIW, I absolutely agree that the NSA could employ the same techniques used on foreign soil right here in the US. And I agree we would really have no way of knowing, maybe ever.

But we can't cite absurd claims being made by sensationalistic journalists and their questionable sources as evidence that anything like that is going on. You may feel it is happening, I really have no idea if it is (I tend to think it isn't but it wouldn't take much of the right evidence to sway me), but nothing stated in this thread or any sources cited so far is any sort of proof that it is already occurring.

I hope that clears-up my position.

[Scott Shepherd]

If anyone is interested, here's a link to a pretty interesting interview with the guy that wrote the software. It was very interested to hear how things progressed. I found him to be a highly credible sounding person.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/government-elections-politics/united-states-of-secrets/the-frontline-interview-william-binney/#seg19

[paul cottingham]

Even if they are "only" gathering metadata, and I really believe they are, and probably can for the vast majority if not the entire US, that is horrifying. That anyone could defend any of it totally baffles me.
Oh, and BTW, if they are listening in on even "just 5%" of conversations or email without warrents, for any reason, it is still too much.

[Phil Thien]

If anyone is interested, here's a link to a pretty interesting interview with the guy that wrote the software. It was very interested to hear how things progressed. I found him to be a highly credible sounding person.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/government-elections-politics/united-states-of-secrets/the-frontline-interview-william-binney/#seg19

Again, just to be clear, he did not write any software that was actually employed by the NSA:

In September 2002, he, along with J. Kirk Wiebe (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=J._Kirk_Wiebe&action=edit&redlink=1) and Edward Loomis (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Edward_Loomis&action=edit&redlink=1), asked the U.S. Defense Department to investigate the NSA for allegedly wasting "millions and millions of dollars" on Trailblazer (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trailblazer_Project), a system intended to analyze data carried on communications networks such as the Internet. Binney had been one of the inventors of an alternative system, ThinThread (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ThinThread), which was shelved when Trailblazer was chosen instead.

[Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Binney_(U.S._intelligence_official)]

I sort of wonder if he'd be singing a different song had the NSA gone with his project, instead of his competition's.

[Phil Thien]

Even if they are "only" gathering metadata, and I really believe they are, and probably can for the vast majority if not the entire US, that is horrifying. That anyone could defend any of it totally baffles me.
Oh, and BTW, if they are listening in on even "just 5%" of conversations or email without warrents, for any reason, it is still too much.

Half of me reads the NSA description of how the data is used and thinks, "I'm okay with that." The other half thinks the collection and use of metadata is invasive.

The third half of me realizes that there may be a price to pay for tying the hands of the NSA too tightly.

It is a heckuva balancing act. They (NSA) won't tell us much about their successes, so how are we supposed to know whether what we've given up (in liberty) makes it worthwhile?

[Scott Shepherd]

Again, just to be clear, he did not write any software that was actually employed by the NSA:

In September 2002, he, along with J. Kirk Wiebe (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=J._Kirk_Wiebe&action=edit&redlink=1) and Edward Loomis (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Edward_Loomis&action=edit&redlink=1), asked the U.S. Defense Department to investigate the NSA for allegedly wasting "millions and millions of dollars" on Trailblazer (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trailblazer_Project), a system intended to analyze data carried on communications networks such as the Internet. Binney had been one of the inventors of an alternative system, ThinThread (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ThinThread), which was shelved when Trailblazer was chosen instead.

[Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Binney_(U.S._intelligence_official)]

I sort of wonder if he'd be singing a different song had the NSA gone with his project, instead of his competition's.

I didn't say watch it to be convinced of anything, I said that if you wanted to see an interesting interview. We know your stance Phil, unless one of us provides proof that there's a secret program, you're not going to believe it. I stopped trying to have that conversation 2 days ago with you. I posted this interview because I thought it was a fascinating interview. How you took that guy, and turned him into a bitter person because he didn't get selected for something speaks volumes to me.

I could put 1000 people on here and you'd pick apart every one. I'm done with that conversation and I'm continuing my conversation about privacy by linking to things I think are interesting.

[Phil Thien]

I didn't say watch it to be convinced of anything, I said that if you wanted to see an interesting interview. We know your stance Phil, unless one of us provides proof that there's a secret program, you're not going to believe it. I stopped trying to have that conversation 2 days ago with you. I posted this interview because I thought it was a fascinating interview. How you took that guy, and turned him into a bitter person because he didn't get selected for something speaks volumes to me.

I could put 1000 people on here and you'd pick apart every one. I'm done with that conversation and I'm continuing my conversation about privacy by linking to things I think are interesting.

I noted back in #99 that the guy didn't, in fact, write the code being used. I thought maybe you had missed it, so I thought I would make it more clear this time around.

Sorry your feathers got ruffled.

[Julie Moriarty]

Seriously, don't ever submit to any search under any circumstances. I have enough police officer friends and acquaintances that I've talked to about this that all tell me the same thing...it can't help and it can only hurt, and if they want to give you a hard time, believe me that they will find SOMETHING to give you grief about. At a minimum, they'll ruin your afternoon.

This made me think of a recent incident with the son of a friend. He and three of his friends were in a park, sort of tailgating on his vehicle. They had had a few beers (he's 21) and were passing a joint (this wasn't in Colorado) when they spotted two officers on bicycles approaching them in the distance. They did what they felt they needed to to hide the evidence, including close up and lock the son's vehicle. When police asked questions, the son refused to implicate himself and refused to allow the police to search his vehicle. They handcuffed him and sat him away from the other three, who all cooperated with the police. In the end, the son received 5 citations, including obstructing a police dog (by greeting the dog the way most dog lovers would). Six squad cars, eight police officers and they threw everything they could at him because he wouldn't talk. It cost him over $2K in attorney fees and fines while the cooperating friends were sent home.

One can interpret this in different ways but the bottom line is when the authorities decide they want to ruin your day, they will. And most often the judicial system will support them. You need a good attorney and maybe even the media to dilute the power they collectively wield. If in fact Apple cannot decrypt their own software, that would substantially reduce their apparent complicity in blocking law enforcement's belief they have the right to infringe on personal rights when allegedly pursuing justice. But it won't stop them from doing what they believe they have the right to do and they will just find another means to do so. And as long as we live in a society that freely and willingly gives up private and personal information and allows it to be submitted into a system that requires blind faith that information will never be used against you, that society is vulnerable to losing all it's privacy.

Whatever Apple's and ello's claims might be, I find it hard to simply accept their words at face value. I've seen too many good-intentioned ideas succumb to the human emotion of greed. And with greed already deeply embedded in the three branches of our government, I have little faith that privacy invasion will ever cease, or even return to what it was prior to the electronic data revolution. Not as long as there is a profit to be made.

[Phil Thien]

If anyone is interested, here's a link to a pretty interesting interview with the guy that wrote the software. It was very interested to hear how things progressed. I found him to be a highly credible sounding person.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/government-elections-politics/united-states-of-secrets/the-frontline-interview-william-binney/#seg19

Okay I watched the video, I thought it was very interesting. You will see he isn't objecting to all voice being collected, but all metadata. Voice, he says, is very targeted. BUT, they find the voice based on the metadata (which is the way an intelligent person would go about it).

And a couple of his assumptions about why his project was passed over may be colored. He made a reference to commenting-out lines of code by adding a "C" in front. Well, that is FORTRAN. If I were comparing projects, and one is written in FORTRAN and another in one of the C's, I'd likely be much more interested in the C code. Not because I can't handle the FORTRAN, but it will be easier for me to scale C projects, and to find new employees willing to work on C projects. The universities aren't exactly churning-out FORTRAN coders.

And a competent C guy can do FORTRAN, but no supervisor can handle the amount of eye rolling and sarcasm that will ensue.

But yeah, I think the guy lays out his points very well, and he DOES NOT want the U.S. metadata collected, period, end of story. He feels it is a violation of our constitutional rights. And there are a ton of people that feel that same way. The best way I've heard this put is, "freedom of association which is tracked by the gov't isn't freedom of association at all."

And like I've said, I'm torn.

As Mr. Binney points out in the video, they're trying to identify these sorts of social networks. And I see where that metadata would be invaluable.

The thing is, that interview was taped last year. And now news reports indicate there may be more U.S. born citizens that have become sympathizers and may be attempting to reach-out and even join terrorist organizations. That could be propaganda, I suppose. But people looking for somewhere to fit in join cults which also seems inexplicable, so I can't rule it out.

So if U.S. citizens talking with other U.S. citizens on U.S. soil is exempt from metadata mining, that would seem to make the job of the NSA to "connect the dots" that much more difficult.

Where do you draw the line?

[Phil Thien]

Awesome post, Julie.

[paul cottingham]

I find myself wondering how they caught anyone at all before mass surveillance. I seriously doubt the small increase in "safety" (a strange way of looking at it in a gun mad country in my estimation, you are much more likely to be killed by a gun than a terrorist, not a judgement, an observation) is worth the wholesale loss of privacy.

[Adam Cruea]

Half of me reads the NSA description of how the data is used and thinks, "I'm okay with that." The other half thinks the collection and use of metadata is invasive.

The third half of me realizes that there may be a price to pay for tying the hands of the NSA too tightly.

It is a heckuva balancing act. They (NSA) won't tell us much about their successes, so how are we supposed to know whether what we've given up (in liberty) makes it worthwhile?

No, it's not a balancing act. It's an overreaching act.

The NSA is the sister agency of the CIA; neither one is allowed to touch, work on, or intervene with anything on American soil. That the NSA collects *any* information on Americans is against their charter.

The FBI are the ones that are chartered for the homeland, not the NSA/CIA/DIA.

Privacy, as we knew it 30 years ago, is gone (I can only say 30 years because I'm 34). The average American is too busy caring about the Kardashians and The Voice to understand or even comprehend "privacy" and "security". I recently went on business trips and had to go through airports. I got to deal with the TSA extensively. You know how much safer I felt? None.

"Empty your pockets of everything" - out of 10 times through TSA, I only got called on not emptying my pockets once
"Make sure all metal is off your person" - out of 10 times, I walked through the scanners 10 times with a metal belt buckle

My backpack that went through the X-ray machines had a good amount of wires. Literally, 4 3 foot Category 5E cables. 8 wires per cable, so almost 100 feet of wire. Then there was my iPhone. Small tools. Keys.

All in all, for a resourceful person, I had plenty of weaponry and equipment to make explosives or take key personnel and hijack a plane. While flying from San Francisco to DC, when the pilots had to take a leak, guess who guarded an open cockpit door? The little old lady that was a stewardess. Seriously? Does grandma know Kung-Fu?

The point? Security and privacy are long gone, my friend. It's a facade, and the average American is tacitly complicit in believing it. Pay no heed to the man behind the curtain, for then you might have to realize that only you are responsible and accountable for yourself. If recent news and child-rearing "experts" are reasonable gauges, it's no wonder no one wants to look behind the curtain and see the truth.

[Chuck Wintle]

I find myself wondering how they caught anyone at all before mass surveillance. I seriously doubt the small increase in "safety" (a strange way of looking at it in a gun mad country in my estimation, you are much more likely to be killed by a gun than a terrorist, not a judgement, an observation) is worth the wholesale loss of privacy.

i wondered the same thing. But now with all the surveillance capability are they doing a better job? billions of cell phone calls and emails happen everyday...how do they narrow them down to something useful. millions of people lead normal lives and are not plotting terror against the us or its citizens but they, the terrorists only need to cause mayhem just once in a while to cause fear..is this the price of a free and open society?

[Jason Roehl]

Well said, Adam.

I flew commercially for the first time in 20 years last December. I kept my trap shut, but TSA was like a bad joke you've heard too many times. At one checkpoint, after emptying my pockets, removing my shoes and belt, I still set off the metal detector. YAY! Pat down! They were surprised they didn't find anything. (You know, because machines NEVER malfunction...) I saw all kinds of ways I could get something past the security were I of the mind to do so.

[Phil Thien]

No, it's not a balancing act. It's an overreaching act.

The NSA is the sister agency of the CIA; neither one is allowed to touch, work on, or intervene with anything on American soil. That the NSA collects *any* information on Americans is against their charter.

The FBI are the ones that are chartered for the homeland, not the NSA/CIA/DIA.

Privacy, as we knew it 30 years ago, is gone (I can only say 30 years because I'm 34). The average American is too busy caring about the Kardashians and The Voice to understand or even comprehend "privacy" and "security". I recently went on business trips and had to go through airports. I got to deal with the TSA extensively. You know how much safer I felt? None.

"Empty your pockets of everything" - out of 10 times through TSA, I only got called on not emptying my pockets once
"Make sure all metal is off your person" - out of 10 times, I walked through the scanners 10 times with a metal belt buckle

My backpack that went through the X-ray machines had a good amount of wires. Literally, 4 3 foot Category 5E cables. 8 wires per cable, so almost 100 feet of wire. Then there was my iPhone. Small tools. Keys.

All in all, for a resourceful person, I had plenty of weaponry and equipment to make explosives or take key personnel and hijack a plane. While flying from San Francisco to DC, when the pilots had to take a leak, guess who guarded an open cockpit door? The little old lady that was a stewardess. Seriously? Does grandma know Kung-Fu?

The point? Security and privacy are long gone, my friend. It's a facade, and the average American is tacitly complicit in believing it. Pay no heed to the man behind the curtain, for then you might have to realize that only you are responsible and accountable for yourself. If recent news and child-rearing "experts" are reasonable gauges, it's no wonder no one wants to look behind the curtain and see the truth.

A couple of points/questions:

(1) From your first three paragraphs are you saying you'd be okay with the FBI being the ones in charge of collecting the metadata? I think the NSA is doing it because they (NSA) also have much of the foreign completion data, so they can tie things together. I'd actually prefer the NSA do it, quite frankly, as they (NSA) aren't responsible for law enforcement here. It creates a bit of a firewall, in other words. And again, it isn't like the NSA is endlessly pouring over this data, they access it pretty infrequently, and with oversight. So says the NSA and congress. Now we can chose not to believe them. But as I've stated, it is pretty difficult to keep hundreds of people from blabbing when a program like this is misused.

(2) Your points about airport security are well-taken. But do you think a guy from the Middle East doesn't imagine airport screeners are going to look at him a bit more closely than they look at you, regardless of what the TSA says? Why do you think terrorist organizations are trying to recruit people that don't look Middle Eastern? Have you seen the recent press reports of young (impressionable) girls from Australia that were brought to the Middle East as possible mating partners?

So many of these programs (airport security, metadata collection, etc.), by their mere existence, make the job of terrorists more difficult. Just the possibility of getting caught boarding an airplane, or of the NSA identifying a cell because of the use of telephones, makes it that much more difficult for terrorist organizations.

I think it was Snowden that said the NSA wanted to monitor chat traffic on gaming networks. Whether they are or aren't doesn't really matter, because if you're a terrorist you now have to assume they may be.

The government is going to be blamed no matter what. If there is an attack, they will be blamed for not having done enough. Until then, they will be blamed for having gone too far.

The game is called "You can't win."

[Chuck Wintle]

Well said, Adam.

I flew commercially for the first time in 20 years last December. I kept my trap shut, but TSA was like a bad joke you've heard too many times. At one checkpoint, after emptying my pockets, removing my shoes and belt, I still set off the metal detector. YAY! Pat down! They were surprised they didn't find anything. (You know, because machines NEVER malfunction...) I saw all kinds of ways I could get something past the security were I of the mind to do so.

face it the TSA agents are not the brightest people around. I always though it was more of a make work program for those who are unemployable in regular jobs like the ones most persons have. At least unemployment was reduced in certain sectors.

[Phil Thien]

face it the TSA agents are not the brightest people around. I always though it was more of a make work program for those who are unemployable in regular jobs like the ones most persons have. At least unemployment was reduced in certain sectors.

With a staff of approx. 50k, the employees are representative of what you'd find in the general population.

[Adam Cruea]

A couple of points/questions:

(1) From your first three paragraphs are you saying you'd be okay with the FBI being the ones in charge of collecting the metadata? I think the NSA is doing it because they (NSA) also have much of the foreign completion data, so they can tie things together. I'd actually prefer the NSA do it, quite frankly, as they (NSA) aren't responsible for law enforcement here. It creates a bit of a firewall, in other words. And again, it isn't like the NSA is endlessly pouring over this data, they access it pretty infrequently, and with oversight. So says the NSA and congress. Now we can chose not to believe them. But as I've stated, it is pretty difficult to keep hundreds of people from blabbing when a program like this is misused.

(2) Your points about airport security are well-taken. But do you think a guy from the Middle East doesn't imagine airport screeners are going to look at him a bit more closely than they look at you, regardless of what the TSA says? Why do you think terrorist organizations are trying to recruit people that don't look Middle Eastern? Have you seen the recent press reports of young (impressionable) girls from Australia that were brought to the Middle East as possible mating partners?

So many of these programs (airport security, metadata collection, etc.), by their mere existence, make the job of terrorists more difficult. Just the possibility of getting caught boarding an airplane, or of the NSA identifying a cell because of the use of telephones, makes it that much more difficult for terrorist organizations.

I think it was Snowden that said the NSA wanted to monitor chat traffic on gaming networks. Whether they are or aren't doesn't really matter, because if you're a terrorist you now have to assume they may be.

The government is going to be blamed no matter what. If there is an attack, they will be blamed for not having done enough. Until then, they will be blamed for having gone too far.

The game is called "You can't win."

1) The NSA doesn't have oversight; they're a black operation, part of the black budget, and they're basically accountable to know one. The Snowden leaks prove that. The NSA can access almost any of your communications anytime, anywhere they want. How do they keep people from blabbing? Well, I don't know your background (I stick to the Neaderthal Haven mostly, so pardon here), but if you've ever done an SF-86 for a TS clearance, then actually read the NDA you have to sign, you know it's better to shut up and not risk it. There's a reason Snowden is in Russia and will stay in a non-extradition treaty country until his death; breaking that NDA is basically viewed upon as treason, which is punishable by death. Ever noticed you don't see many people leaking state secrets, and when they do, they go directly to jail, do not pass go, and do not collect $200? The TS NDA covers that. Long story short: what you see cannot be repeated under any circumstances. You are to die with this information and for this information. Release of this information is punishable by termination, jail, and any applicable sentence thereof. There's also the small case that some of the people honestly believe in the mission.

While sitting in the SF airport and Portland airports, I saw bags getting left behind multiple times. I glanced around to see if anyone else noticed; guess what? Most people had their nose stuck in a cell phone not caring. I've seen the same in train stations and metro stations here in DC (it's one of the myriad of reasons I hate riding transit out here).

The thing is, terrorists don't care if they get caught; that's the whole idea: instill fear. Whether they bomb something or not, their mission has been accomplished. Once fear is instilled, all is right for them.

Personally, as a US citizen, it is my responsibility to be on watch for suspicious people acting oddly, not the government's. Maybe it's because I work with the government and I realize they could screw up their own erotic dreams, but I wouldn't trust the government to sit on their butts and collect a paycheck without screwing it up (as evidenced by several porn-browsing-during-work-while-the-country-crumbles stories).

[Phil Thien]

Personally, as a US citizen, it is my responsibility to be on watch for suspicious people acting oddly, not the government's.

While we clearly disagree on most points, I do respect your opinions.

On that point above, that you're going to watch for suspicious people acting oddly, could you explain something that a terrorist cell would naturally do that would tip you off to the fact that they're planning something diabolical? Some tell-tale sign?

[Pat Barry]

While sitting in the SF airport and Portland airports, I saw bags getting left behind multiple times. I glanced around to see if anyone else noticed; guess what? Most people had their nose stuck in a cell phone not caring. I've seen the same in train stations and metro stations here in DC (it's one of the myriad of reasons I hate riding transit out here).

Personally, as a US citizen, it is my responsibility to be on watch for suspicious people acting oddly
So - did you report this suspicious activity or what? Did you note who left the bags? Brown, purple, what have you, or maybe it was granny. Did they shut down the airport, bring in the bomb squad? Just curious

[Chuck Wintle]

1)
Personally, as a US citizen, it is my responsibility to be on watch for suspicious people acting oddly, not the government's. Maybe it's because I work with the government and I realize they could screw up their own erotic dreams, but I wouldn't trust the government to sit on their butts and collect a paycheck without screwing it up (as evidenced by several porn-browsing-during-work-while-the-country-crumbles stories).

Do you think you would have spotted the boston bombers? By most accounts they were not doing anything suspicious.

[Scott Shepherd]

Do you think you would have spotted the boston bombers? By most accounts they were not doing anything suspicious.

Just for clarity, neither did law enforcement, the FBI, the NSA, CIA, or anyone else with all the data collecting they are doing.

[Chuck Wintle]

Just for clarity, neither did law enforcement, the FBI, the NSA, CIA, or anyone else with all the data collecting they are doing.

yes all the taxpayers money hard at work keeping the public safe!

[Phil Thien]

Just for clarity, neither did law enforcement, the FBI, the NSA, CIA, or anyone else with all the data collecting they are doing.

100% agreed. While I was impressed with how quickly they were identified after the fact, I think most of the credit there goes to security cameras belonging to commercial enterprises.

[Adam Cruea]

100% agreed. While I was impressed with how quickly they were identified after the fact, I think most of the credit there goes to security cameras belonging to commercial enterprises.

And thank you for making my point.

It wasn't Big Brother that did much of anything. It was entities not even related to Big Brother.


So - did you report this suspicious activity or what? Did you note who left the bags? Brown, purple, what have you, or maybe it was granny. Did they shut down the airport, bring in the bomb squad? Just curious

In the cases of the airports, people generally came back after about 5 minutes. However, not only am I trying to express that people don't pay attention, people don't even try to keep themselves safe. You're specifically told *not* to leave baggage unattended because people could slip whatever into your bags, yet people are happy and content to believe that after TSA checks, they're "safe" and don't need to worry. False.

And yes, I have reported unattended baggage (as has my wife) on the Metro here in DC. Know what happened? Zilch. My wife was actually told not to bother with it by the Metro PD.


On that point above, that you're going to watch for suspicious people acting oddly, could you explain something that a terrorist cell would naturally do that would tip you off to the fact that they're planning something diabolical? Some tell-tale sign?

Well, let's see. There's that whole "We don't care about landing a plane, just flying it" that would have tipped me off about 14 years ago for one.
For two, anything out-of-the-ordinary is suspicious. People are habitual creatures that naturally fall into patterns.
For three, read up on "microexpressions". You can use microexpressions along with body language to determine someone's intent. For example, someone that shifts about in their chair is uncomfortable. Someone that shifts about in their chair and nervously looks around is hiding something. When talking to someone, when one holds your gaze abnormally long (stares) or won't hold your gaze, they are trying to hide something. In the first case, they are aggressively trying to cover something up. In the second case, they are trying to avoid your attention. Even meek people will make eye contact during interaction; only people trying to avoid interaction wholly avoid eye contact.

Read up on social engineering techniques; a lot of those will tell you what to look for when you want to find something out-of-the-ordinary. And it's also a sad truth that most people don't pay attention; hence why social engineering is so successful so many times.

Again, I'm not being snotty when I say it, but read up on psychology. It's really quite fascinating being able to see someone and within about 30 seconds summarize their personality and intentions. This works for a good portion of people, basically those without serious mental illness. Human beings are open books waiting to be read; you just have to know how to read them.

[Phil Thien]

And thank you for making my point.

It wasn't Big Brother that did much of anything. It was entities not even related to Big Brother.

In the cases of the airports, people generally came back after about 5 minutes. However, not only am I trying to express that people don't pay attention, people don't even try to keep themselves safe. You're specifically told *not* to leave baggage unattended because people could slip whatever into your bags, yet people are happy and content to believe that after TSA checks, they're "safe" and don't need to worry. False.

And yes, I have reported unattended baggage (as has my wife) on the Metro here in DC. Know what happened? Zilch. My wife was actually told not to bother with it by the Metro PD.

Well, let's see. There's that whole "We don't care about landing a plane, just flying it" that would have tipped me off about 14 years ago for one.
For two, anything out-of-the-ordinary is suspicious. People are habitual creatures that naturally fall into patterns.
For three, read up on "microexpressions". You can use microexpressions along with body language to determine someone's intent. For example, someone that shifts about in their chair is uncomfortable. Someone that shifts about in their chair and nervously looks around is hiding something. When talking to someone, when one holds your gaze abnormally long (stares) or won't hold your gaze, they are trying to hide something. In the first case, they are aggressively trying to cover something up. In the second case, they are trying to avoid your attention. Even meek people will make eye contact during interaction; only people trying to avoid interaction wholly avoid eye contact.

Read up on social engineering techniques; a lot of those will tell you what to look for when you want to find something out-of-the-ordinary. And it's also a sad truth that most people don't pay attention; hence why social engineering is so successful so many times.

Again, I'm not being snotty when I say it, but read up on psychology. It's really quite fascinating being able to see someone and within about 30 seconds summarize their personality and intentions. This works for a good portion of people, basically those without serious mental illness. Human beings are open books waiting to be read; you just have to know how to read them.

So you want to profile people based on their inability to sit still at the airport (which could just as easily be a 'roids flare-up) or someone not looking you in the eyes while talking (which could just be someone that has one form or another of high-functioning autism)? That sounds a ton more invasive than the NSA collecting telephone metadata and searching it for patterns.

I'll take a pass on any of those ideas.

[Chuck Wintle]

So you want to profile people based on their inability to sit still at the airport (which could just as easily be a 'roids flare-up) or someone not looking you in the eyes while talking (which could just be someone that has one form or another of high-functioning autism)? That sounds a ton more invasive than the NSA collecting telephone metadata and searching it for patterns.

I'll take a pass on any of those ideas.

i agree its great to be vigilant and watch for suspicious people but in a crowd how does one maintain this level of scrutiny with thousands of people milling about?

[Scott Shepherd]

Looks like the head of the FBI doesn't like the encryption angle from Google and Apple either, so he's either a good actor and still has access to it all, or it's a serious step in taking back the privacy....

This just popped up on Mashable today.

http://mashable.com/2014/10/16/fbi-director-encryption-going-dark-speech/

[Wilbur Harris]

A long time ago, probably 5 years or longer, I was out of town on Saturday and needed some money. Nobody would cash a 2K check so I laptopped into Western Union to get the money. Not a good idea but I needed the money. That said, here's what happened....

Western Union (WU) told me I needed to call them on the phone and I did. The lady nicely (really was nice) explained that this was an unusual request and that she needed to verify my identity. I agreed and she asked about 5 multiple choice questions. I answered the questions and she agreed to approve the transaction. Don't remember the questions exactly but I can recreate them for the point.

What color car have you bought in the last 2 years? Wasn't so much the color but she knew what colors I hadn't bought.

What is the middle name of your child?

What domain name do you have registered?

When is your wife's birthday?

What is the first name of your wife's sister?

There was only one correct answer to these questions meaning that she had correct data and was able to pull the data in minutes. This was just WU so if you think you need to concern yourself you are right. Right on one hand and wrong on the other. I don't believe you can prevent such data gathering and don't know what hurts and what doesn't. All I'm saying is that they have such databases and the data is available to most anybody that needs it or says they do....such as WU.

[Adam Cruea]

So you want to profile people based on their inability to sit still at the airport (which could just as easily be a 'roids flare-up) or someone not looking you in the eyes while talking (which could just be someone that has one form or another of high-functioning autism)? That sounds a ton more invasive than the NSA collecting telephone metadata and searching it for patterns.

I'll take a pass on any of those ideas.

Unless you're a hermit and you don't talk to people, you do this every day.

Some people are just more adept at it and realize it than others.

You've shown that you are not adept at this. A 'roids flare-up will not have someone looking around nervously. They will have expressions on their face of pain and discomfort, not nervousness.

The autistic will not talk to you and you know they're autistic right off the bat. I've dealt with autistic kids; you know almost right away. They also don't avoid eye-contact; they will look around randomly. The person wanting to hide will purposely keep from making eye contact.

Either way, you do this every day in human-to-human interactions, unless you're on the spectrum. You register people's expressions and emotions without realizing it; we all do.

[Phil Thien]

Unless you're a hermit and you don't talk to people, you do this every day.

Some people are just more adept at it and realize it than others.

You've shown that you are not adept at this. A 'roids flare-up will not have someone looking around nervously. They will have expressions on their face of pain and discomfort, not nervousness.

The autistic will not talk to you and you know they're autistic right off the bat. I've dealt with autistic kids; you know almost right away. They also don't avoid eye-contact; they will look around randomly. The person wanting to hide will purposely keep from making eye contact.

Either way, you do this every day in human-to-human interactions, unless you're on the spectrum. You register people's expressions and emotions without realizing it; we all do.

Adam, I don't know what you've read or what show you watched, but it really isn't possible to reliably draw conclusions about someone's intention based on their posture or the way they're fidgeting in a chair or the expression on their face.

And even if you think someone is acting in a nervous manner, that doesn't necessarily mean they have some sort of evil planned. Maybe a soon-to-occur meeting with a difficult family member is causing some nervousness.

But nonetheless, the underlying and most important point is: You feel the NSA's access to metadata is a violation of your right to privacy, but it is okay for you to involve the police in someone's life because you think you have a read on the person based on some perceived micro-expressions and body language.

What you're proposing is far more invasive than looking at metadata. And again, I'll take a big pass.

[Adam Cruea]

Adam, I don't know what you've read or what show you watched, but it really isn't possible to reliably draw conclusions about someone's intention based on their posture or the way they're fidgeting in a chair or the expression on their face.

And even if you think someone is acting in a nervous manner, that doesn't necessarily mean they have some sort of evil planned. Maybe a soon-to-occur meeting with a difficult family member is causing some nervousness.

But nonetheless, the underlying and most important point is: You feel the NSA's access to metadata is a violation of your right to privacy, but it is okay for you to involve the police in someone's life because you think you have a read on the person based on some perceived micro-expressions and body language.

What you're proposing is far more invasive than looking at metadata. And again, I'll take a big pass.

It's called real life and understanding body language. Human beings are habitual creatures, with habitual actions and habitual patterns. A difficult family member will not elicit nervousness; that elicits dread. People take the path of least resistance; a difficult family member causes resistance, which causes stress, which causes effort in dealing with them, which is shown as dread. Nervousness is caused by fear of getting caught doing something you shouldn't. How is meeting a difficult family member doing something you shouldn't be doing?

I realize you don't believe me, and frankly, I can't say I care. If you want to deny to yourself that this is what any interrogator does (read expressions, body language, and puts them all together) while manipulating the interrogated's environment, okay. I'm not here to change your mind. You're the one that posted, which opens up your opinion to alternatives which you might not be able to fully understand (I don't understand the paranoid crypto-folks and the "if you have nothing to hide, why care" folks, so don't take that as a slam). You've yet to show that you understand basic human psychology, though. Here's some light reading: http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/spycatcher/201107/intention-desire-denial-reluctance-behaviors

I never said it was okay to involve the police in someone's life. Personally, I feel everyone needs to leave me the hell alone, and I'll leave everyone else the hell alone. I honestly don't understand the point of terrorism (I understand why it's done, how it's done, and the purpose), just like I don't understand the point of war, or religion, or really anything other than working towards a common goal. Nor do I really understand the point of police; intelligent people are able to police themselves.

Terrorism, war, religion, police; they're all used by feeble-minded people to control masses of more people, because en masse, a group of humans is as smart at the dumbest member (mob mentality). Why? What's the point? To prove who has the better method of killing? To prove who has the better farcical deity? To prove who has better "order" or is more "cultured"? Yeah, we all see how well that's working out.

Exercise to understand the situation: argue on the side of brown-skinned Middle Easterners as to why America is the terrorist in the global society. You'll quickly understand that "terrorist" is merely a matter of perspective and that there are extremists on both sides of the fence. One just happens to be backed by more resources than the other, and the one with more resources generally trains the one with fewer resources.

[Andrew Pitonyak]

It is common for people to fail a polygraph interview for a security clearance and then later pass with no difficulty. I can assure you that if you drop me into a chair and start questioning me, I will mostly likely exhibit every guilty sign that there is unless I medicate to avoid the signs. I am also naturally fidigty (as if that were a word) so I have had security people follow me around since they were certain that I was up to no good. Of course after I figured out what they were doing, I opted to have a little fun with them and ran them all over the place. I almost felt bad for them.... "where is he going now....".

[John Coloccia]

Reading body language is like interpreting dreams. There's no one thing that means anything at all. Squirming in a chair is completely meaningless on it's own. Maybe my leg hurts. Maybe I have to pee. Maybe I'm just fidgety. Maybe, I can sit perfectly still and just lie to your face. When I hear someone say stuff like this I think, "Man, this is someone I want to play poker with". Seriously, I don't know what any of this has to do with privacy. I will say, though, that a little knowledge is a bad thing.

The whole social engineering thing is like tall tales about old exploits no one can confirm or deny anymore. I don't even believe in social engineering anymore because there's absolutely nothing to it. That's just a fancy term for "lying". It works not because of some skilled manipulator, but because people generally trust other people. If I call up a secretary, know a little bit about the company (maybe I did some dumpster diving and figured out she works for Mr. Smith), and toss out some reasonable sounding lingo, there's very little reason for her to suspect me of wrong doing when I tell her that Mr. Smith told me to contact her to get some information. The "social engineer" that depends on reading body language is a fool.

[Chuck Wintle]

Looks like the head of the FBI doesn't like the encryption angle from Google and Apple either, so he's either a good actor and still has access to it all, or it's a serious step in taking back the privacy....

This just popped up on Mashable today.

http://mashable.com/2014/10/16/fbi-director-encryption-going-dark-speech/
Scott,
I doubt very much that NSA, FBI or whoever will be shut out of tracking emails and cell calls. Very likely they already have the codes to decrypt them not withstanding the contents of this article.