I don't want to see your dick, but I don't have a massively funded standing army or insane amounts of money to sway those who do.
Like it or not, this is the reality of our world now: control belongs to paranoid career bureaucrats more interested in preserving their budgets than any measure of civil liberty.
Can you report back on the results? I'd be very interested in finding out how they respond. I think they have to register a crime and give you a crime number if you ask for one.
The difference is these countries pride themselves on the freedoms their citizens possess, yet they go behind their backs and surveil everything and anything they can about them, usually using technologies and platforms their own citizens helped devise.
That may or not be paranoid, but it's not really on topic. The users in this case had were actively using their webcams and sending images over the Internet to chat partners.
FBI has already done that for years in US. This is how they "protected us" - by not telling anyone about such bugs for years. How can you then trust anything they say about "cyber security"? They don't care about cyber security, only cyber offense.
i'm sure there are some environments that have strict no mic's requirements, i wonder what they do to disable mic's on the iMac. Perhaps they don't use iMacs or disable sound in the bios?
Only completely ignorant people[1] would have called you paranoid. Any device left to the mercy of such vulnerable software cannot be trusted. Even if societies pushed back against this surveillance machine and there were someday open, transparent modes of government -- even then -- still only fools would mock others who act out of caution and practical wisdom. RATting alone is reason enough, nevermind basic hacks that lead to total compromise. Webcams and mics have been easy targets since they've first existed in the mainstream (mid 90s).
Further, if one's rightly concerned, unplug XBOX One and such devices when they're not in use. Built-in mics are the truly annoying part to counteract.
[1] only the vast majority of people (both computer savvy and illiterate)
Also, every specific denial by Clapper and his supporters is getting refuted. I'm interested in who will be revealed to be the victim of some compaign using the porn-browsing habits, and what corporation(s) will be revealed to have benefitted and been victimized by economic espionage.
The logical end result of the government's collecting people's calls and texts and web visits and nekkid photos is that the government will later use that data. So I would assume that one of the aces up Snowden's sleeve is documents with the specifics about how all this data was (is) used to blackmail people, including politicians -- although that would probably be something that the CIA actually carries out, whereas the NSA merely grabbed the data that makes it possible.
well if plugging the disabled 3rd party mic somehow leaves the internal one recording, that would imply your soundcard just got upgraded to having the ability for two inputs recording simulataneously. usually cost a premium, such cards :)
Unfortunately, input and output switching is usually implemented in software these days, so an attacker could probably just remotely switch to the internal mic on most laptops.
It's okay, the CEO has said only he and another employee can access people's Snaps, right after they admitted they also allow authorities to see them [1]. Just pay no attention to the line of security bugs, and you should "feel" safe (unless you've got anything to hide, of course).
Man, I think I'm going to turn off that auto-upload backup feature in Google+ now on my android phone. This stuff is so terrible, and for all their handwaving about not being in on it these companies are helpless to do anything about this stuff.
I know it's tempting to see the younger generation as a sign of larger cultural shifts, but the Baby Boomers were once a lot like the Millennials, and one day the Millennials will be a lot like the Baby Boomers.
Considering just how much the sexual revolution reversed itself after HIV became well-known, Millennials are positively prudish compared to Boomers and Gen X-ers at the same age.
Sharing information about someone out of context is still a great threat. Heck, it happens all the time: a politician digs up a school paper written by an opponent who was a fiery socialist 30 years ago, and tries to paint them with that brush. And it works. So, even with the sex thing, you might not be embarrassed, but the information can and will be presented in a way to maximize your pain. You might not care about people knowing you ate a bunch of dicks, but your opponent is going to cast it, for example, as non-consensual, or will dig up some dirt on the sex partners. Perhaps they are under-age, non-consenting, or willing (with a little inducement) to simply lie about what you did.
Bottom line: information is power, and even lack of shame cannot protect you from the damage it can do in malicious hands.
(BTW your point is well taken. There was an episode of Sherlock where a (presumably young and attractive) female member of the British royal family engaged a prostitute for some lesbian S&M play - and a the gov went to a great deal of expense to cover it up. My thought was, "why bother?" People's imaginations being what they are, the biggest impact would be a small uptick in UK births in 9-10 months.)
It's bad enough that my online friends are bombarded with my, frankly, dull snaps. I pity the lubed up agents hoping for fun times faced with episode 78 of "hehehe look how cute my dog is" followed by "Saw this man with a shoe on his head and thought of you".
I think every citizen in the Five Eyes network (AUS/NZ/CAN/UK/US) should send letters to their elected official highlighting how concerned we are on the issue of privacy. I'm based in Canada, and I'm already drafting an email to my MP. I just don't think people can sit back at all now.
My name's Roger, and I'm a constituent of your riding. I've had the pleasure of meeting Margaret, and I want to thank you both and your team for the great work you do for the riding.
I'm writing because with each passing day, revelations are getting worse and worse about the surveillance capabilities of security agencies. Just today the Guardian revealed that the GCHQ, our British allies, collect webcam recordings en masse, including sexually explicit material shared between two consenting individuals.
We know the Harper administration is stuck as being part and parcel of Five Eyes, and that the CESC has conducted spying for the NSA, using Canada's good name for nefarious purposes.
I write this in the hope that you are aware of this issue, and to inquire as to what you and your party are doing with this regards, and what active efforts you will be making in the future to shed awareness about this creeping invasion on our privacy. As Canadians, we should be protected under Section 8 of the Charter with regards to reasonable expectation of privacy, but I do not want this to constantly shift because security agencies continually push us down the slippery slope Senator Church so eloquently warned Americans about during the Church Committee:
"If this government ever became a tyrant, if a dictator ever took charge in this country, the technological capacity that the intelligence community has given the government could enable it to impose total tyranny, and there would be no way to fight back because the most careful effort to combine together in resistance to the government, no matter how privately it was done, is within the reach of the government to know. Such is the capability of this technology.
I don't want to see this country ever go across the bridge. I know the capacity that is there to make tyranny total in America, and we must see to it that this agency and all agencies that possess this technology operate within the law and under proper supervision so that we never cross over that abyss. That is the abyss from which there is no return."
Let me know how I can contribute to any efforts with this regards. I hope you are well, and eagerly await any response you have on this topic.
"We know the Harper administration is stuck as being part and parcel of Five Eyes, and that the CESC has conducted spying for the NSA, using Canada's good name for nefarious purposes."
Is it just the CSEC or both CSEC and CSIS? Why are we not hearing more about the NSA-style violations made in Canada? I can't believe that we aren't participating in all this...
I know that in the USA the political action has been largely irrelevant and low profile, though it has weakly galvanized politicians who were anti-NSA before the leaks were even public knowledge.
I'm in the UK and have been following this story pretty closely and I can't think of a single politician who has spoken about it never mind against it.
I've seen the odd report (and it's very odd when they do report it indeed) on Newsnight where they had some mouthpiece using the "Oh in the wrong hands this would be dangerous but we are the right hands line" alongside the always popular "If you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear" and the fun "We stuck strictly within the framework we where told to".
I wonder what they are doing with all the d#k pics? Making a database and cross referencing them with d#k pics of known terrorists? To use in conjunction with full body scanners at airports so they can more easily spot a potential terrorist just by looking at their junk? Stranger things have happened.
I hope one of the users wasn't Wendi Murdoch, otherwise (the then) UK Prime Minister Tony Blair would have a LOT of answering to do [0].
>> The passionate note surfaced amid the flotsam of a shipwrecked marriage. It was written in broken English by a woman to herself, pouring out her love for a man called Tony. “Oh, shit, oh, shit,” she wrote. “Whatever why I’m so so missing Tony. Because he is so so charming and his clothes are so good. He has such good body and he has really really good legs Butt . . . And he is slim tall and good skin. Pierce blue eyes which I love. Love his eyes. Also I love his power on the stage . . . and what else and what else and what else . . . ”
>> The woman was Wendi Deng Murdoch, the Chinese wife of the Australian media mogul Rupert Murdoch. The note, not revealed until now, could have been one of the few pieces of evidence in their surprise divorce last year, had the case come to trial. “Tony” was the former prime minister of Great Britain, Tony Blair.
Imagine for a moment these two had secret chats over yahoo, Skype, text or email, recorded by GCHQ and passed on to the NSA. Now imagine how much power this would give anyone in possession of the damning evidence while Blair was in power and deng still married. This is why we can't trust the gov. or spy agencies with this sort of widespread surveillance - with it comes tremendous power which is more damaging to our civil society than the threat of terrorism ever will be.
The document estimates that between 3% and 11% of the Yahoo webcam imagery harvested by GCHQ contains "undesirable nudity". Discussing efforts to make the interface "safer to use", it noted that current "naïve" pornography detectors assessed the amount of flesh in any given shot, and so attracted lots of false positives by incorrectly tagging shots of people's faces as pornography.
So, if you have to hide something, show your private parts. Can we conclude this?
Reminds me of this story, the googling of which is now in my search history so I hope you're grateful.
"A US card cloner forced would-be gang members to take part in group sex sessions as part of an initiation ceremony designed to weed out undercover cops, according to a detective."
crude, but probably very true. just remember that confessions of a TSA agent blog. I can't imagine it would be any different (if not worse, because the people aren't actually present).
Statistically speaking, it is now very probable that the GCHQ has collected a huge collection of materials classified as "pornography" (as in, naked people showing themselves on webcams to each other, believing that this is a private session; apparently this is a thing). Again, statistically speaking, a significant percentage of this is likely to be classified as "child pornography" (as in, teenagers doing the above). Therefore, does it follow that GCHQ thinks of the children, and not in a good way?
Riiiight: "Oh don't worry, it's not as if the data was collected with such intent, so it's all right, no problem exists. Also, this data doesn't even exist, so there."
This really isn't any worse than the other invasions of privacy that have been revealed – but it's much easier to point at it as an egregious and visceral violation of privacy. Even though webcam stills may be the least important (or useful) spying the US and UK have been doing, this may be some of the best fodder for arguments to limit such activities. So thank you, UK, for being so dumb.
> webcam stills may be the least important (or useful) spying the US and UK have been doing
It ties individuals faces to online accounts and computers and possibly addresses. Especially combined with increasing amounts of CCTV it removes further anonymity.
I was also disturbed by the "dissemination of offensive images is a disciplinary offence" statement which implied that was not the case for other images and that it is only a disciplinary offence rather than a criminal one (misconduct in public office if there isn't anything else).
But you can't use that blackmail tool without revealing that you were spying illegally. Revealing that would be worse for the blackmailer than the blackmailee.
Well, if a security service decides it needs to blackmail someone, they're hardly going to send them a letter on official letterhead. In this case I imagine they'd pretend to be something like a small hacking group, infiltrating individual webcams arbitrarily/opportunistically. Something like that.
Revealing that would be worse for the blackmailer than the blackmailee.
Isn't that a bit optimistic? As things typically work out today, no official would ever be personally identified and held to account in court if something like this "accidentally" leaked. Meanwhile, the subject of the leak could have their life destroyed any number of ways, even if the image that gets leaked was taken out of context or otherwise not an accurate reflection of the person in question.
We've seen far too many cases recently where innocent people have been severely harmed, on rare occasions even literally killed, by some part of the government, and yet remarkably often no-one is ever held responsible. Until the authority for these kinds of actions must be tied to a named individual, and the identity of that named individual can never be concealed from a court, and that named individual faces meaningful consequences for any abuses that happen on their watch unless they can show that their subordinate did not follow a proper direction (in which case responsibility transfers to the identified subordinate), and any ultimate subordinate involved in such an action who can't identify the responsible individual gets no more legal protection than any other citizen who did the same thing, this problem will continue.
Anonymous is a loose collective that has already seen headlines in mainstream media, and it's impossible to prove that Anonymous did or did not do something. "Anonymous" takes credit for a lot of things that 4chan had no involvement in, for example.
Simply saying "the hacker collective known as Anonymous has released photos of..." and there's literally no way for the general public to dispute it. Anonymous is a pretty convenient cover for government blackmail.
Who said you have to reveal that you were spying illegally?
Just saying "we have this on you", this being something that can stop a career of a politician, or break his marriage, for example, will paralyse most people. And of course they make psychological assesments about who are most vulnerable and most likely to respond well to blackmail.
Second, you don't have to reveal anything. It's not like the agency himself has to do the blackmail and declare who they are and what they did. They can delegate that to some associate, who might not even know who is giving him commands. Or they can do it with anonymous messages ("We have this picture of you. You don't know who we are, but vote that on this law").
LOL That would only be true if they were willing to break the law (by blackmailing somebody, yet felt the strange need to making a legal accusation.
It's very hard to defend against institutional blackmail. The blackmailer just has to make their demands, that need to be followed "if you known what's good for you". Generally, that will work and no further steps are necessary.
If somebody decides to resist the demand in any way, you simply place some of those pictures of underage kid - perhaps from the project mentioned in this article - and place a "tip" with the local police. Of course, they could always "parallel construction" it. Many options there, because you never actually have to show real evidence in court, or even show up. You just have to get the ball rolling, and the child-porn accusation will do the rest for you.
In fact, it's important to make a big show about it, because coming down hard on the occasional person that questions your demands serves as an excellent way to discourage other from trying.
Its additional. I haven't put thought into which I'd most want them to stop but the combination is worse than either on their own. It also allows the possibility of automated face recognition and social graph tracking in public places via CCTV (if not now then in the future).
Because they only cost $1-2 and people feel like they add value to the device (to use it with Skype, Yahoo!, Google+ Circles, and so on).
There is no evidence right now that the intelligence services can remotely activate webcams on any device of their choosing. They would likely need to first install malware on most devices to accomplish that.
They would likely need to first install malware on most devices to accomplish that.
They can easily do that, that isn't really in doubt, though of course that's not why things have cameras, as you say, cameras are cheap and quite useful, no need for a grand conspiracy.
I'm sure they wouldn't bother to exploit a machine unless they decide to target you specifically, but if they do decide to, given the resources they have available and the imperfect security on almost every OS, network and hardware you might use, they can easily use your phone or computer to record by installing malware. It's really very straightforward, all they need is a zero day in any of the network connected applications you use, baseband of your phone etc.
William Binney (worked on Stellar Wind) and Edward Snowden have gone on record confirming these capabilities are used routinely - in particular I remember Binney confirming mobiles used as mics, even when turned off. For him this is a matter of fact capability, not at all as dangerous as mapping all our activities at once from metadata and content sweeps on a broad scale - I tend to agree.
There is, however, evidence that FedGov can remotely activate webcams on some devices of their choosing.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/fbis-searc...
The FBI has been able to covertly activate a computer’s camera — without triggering the light that lets users know it is recording — for several years, and has used that technique mainly in terrorism cases or the most serious criminal investigations, said Marcus Thomas, former assistant director of the FBI’s Operational Technology Division in Quantico...
This is important because this is perceived as completely different by the public. The idea that someone is watching you through your computer will have a much greater impact than someone scanning your emails.
Exactly. Although really, we should be just as concerned about the other stuff, if not more so. But people get why this is really wrong. Because of the penises and vaginas.
Whether it's worse or not, it's violating our privacy to an extent where there is barely anything left to be exposed.
I assume they do the same with Skype, Lync etc. I hate the thought of being photographed by these creepy "intelligence officers" every time I'm on a webcam. Probably it also happens when we don't use the webcam.
Sadly, even though it'd rile up their readers, the Daily Mail is unlikely to print it because it does so in a way that goes against the paper's political leanings. They're very selective about which outrages they stir.
> Even though webcam stills may be the least important (or useful) spying the US and UK
Blackmail. Polticial, economic, and spying-related informant-turning blackmail.
The CIA's primary business is getting informants and agents all over the world. Usually via some threat. This is perfect fodder for it.
Using cheating and sex (ie homosexuality in the 50s) against people is one of the most classic examples of recruiting strategies for intelligence agencies.
The analogy is pointing out that homosexuality is not a taboo because it's been exploited, it's being exploited because it's a taboo.
Your original statement seemed to suggest that it is still a taboo because those who wish to exploit it want it that way. The cause is not power brokers, it's everyone (or enough of everyone) who makes taboos' shamefulness persist.
I'll cite a source for you: "If a man lies with a male as with a women, both of them shall be put to death for their abominable deed; they have forfeited their lives." (Leviticus 20:13 NAB)
As an atheist from an "orthodox Christian" background (as opposed to protestant, baptist or the catholic church), I cannot really understand why people who call themselves Christians even quote the Bible, and seemingly only awful anachronistic parts, as opposed to the New Tastement.
As another atheist (from a Lutheran background) who has read the bible (it kind of precipitated the whole atheist thing), I totally understand why many Christians believe that the old testament is relevant and believe that their god considers homosexuality to be sinful.
That wasn't what I was taught in my particular brand of Christianity, but having read the book I can totally see where other denominations pick it up. They aren't hallucinating or imagining hateful things in that book, it's all in there, ready to be reinforced or erased and excused, depending on which particular interpretation you take.
I think that reading the bible and coming to the conclusion that the god described in it hates homosexuality (among any number of other things) and that Jesus did not reverse those prejudices is perfectly reasonable. It's also somewhat reasonable (though far less so I think) to take away the idea that the Christian god is genuinely all loving and that Jesus absolved that god of all of it's sins (wasn't he suppose to do that for humanity instead? But it seems like he is most often invoked to absolve the christian god of his sins...).
(That of course isn't to say that I believe the sort of hateful Christianity seen prominently in certain parts of America (and other parts of the world) is acceptable. While I think their interpretation of the Bible is reasonable, I think it is _unreasonable_ for them to believe the Bible is divinely inspired, or that the god they read from those pages is worthy of being worshiped.)
They actually don't quote all of the really awful anachronistic parts, just the parts that align with their world view. It's not like they have a problem with shellfish, after all.
Says who? Definitely not Jesus himself as quoted in the New Testament (his words, directly quoted):
Matthew 5:17-18
"Think not that I came to destroy the law or the prophets: I came not to destroy, but to fulfil. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass away from the law, till all things be accomplished."
The "law or the prophets" is, of course, everything written in the Old Testament, where different chapters were attributed to the different prophets already in Jesus' time.
He makes it even stronger:
"Ye have heard that it was said, 'Thou shalt not commit adultery': but I say unto you, that every one that looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart" (Matthew 5:27-28)
Verily, read thine Bible, if you believe it's inspired by God. Read it yourself. Don't believe what others interpret.
Or maybe accept that we shouldn't take that book too seriously?
To be more accurate, Jesus' ministry and teaching was a fulfillment of the law (the previous commandments) and the Old Testament, not a replacement. The law is still a valuable resource for Christians in understanding the character and holiness of God, among other things.
"Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them." Jesus speaking in Matthew 5:17
Jesus affirmed the law and called people further into true righteousness, which can never come from following rules, but requires a transformation of the heart that only God can accomplish. That is what He is talking about in the sermon on the mount (Matthew 5).
I see you decided to omit Matthew 5:18. Don't pretend it doesn't exist. They are the actual words of Jesus if you believe that the Bible was inspired by god. See my other comment here for more.
It is the next sentence said by Jesus himself, confirming the law of the prophets: "For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass away from the law, till all things be accomplished."
I don't see heaven and earth passed away, so the laws of the prophets still hold according to Jesus himself. He said that. Written one sentence after the one you quote claiming the opposite. So you decided not to believe what Jesus said. Fine with me. I believe the Bible is written by humans and that the humans invented all the gods.
But anyway we should discuss what GCHQ did with webcam streams of at least millions of people! What is your opinion on that?
You're correct, the law has not passed away. The requirements of it have been fully met (fulfilled) by Christ. By submitting our lives to Christ, his perfect fulfillment of God's law is credited to us, thereby freeing us from the penalty of the law.
This is obviously off topic from the original post, but hopefully it's a valuable conversation. It's actually a really important point that is reiterated throughout the New Testament explicitly and foreshadowed throughout the entire Old Testament.
I think we've probably reached the limit of productive conversation on the topic. You seem intent on clinging to a contradiction that doesn't exist in the text. But it was good to discuss it.
Yeah, the GCHQ thing is jacked up but not surprising. The connectedness and anonymity of the digital world and its increasing integration into our lives makes for some pretty scary scenarios.
Not to get too far afield from the original post, or to start a religious debate where we end up calling each other Hitler, but I've got some good stuff for you:
"But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart." (Matthew 5:28)
"If a man commits adultery with another man’s wife—with the wife of his neighbor—both the adulterer and the adulteress are to be put to death." (Leviticus 20:10 NIV)
"As for your male and female slaves whom you may have: you may buy male and female slaves from among the nations that are around you." (Leviticus 25:44 ESV)
So, um, not a great book to pull random quotes from as a source.
I think the point was that homosexuality has been taboo for a lot longer than the CIA has been around. So while they obviously have found it useful there's no reason to think they needed to work to keep it taboo for so long.
It has been both taboo to the point of the death penalty, and widely and openly practiced all the way through to outright championed (Relevant Futurama quote: "Let us party like the Greeks of old... you know the ones I mean!"), by any number of societies throughout history.
I've always thought it was odd that people got upset about homosexuality and not about adultery. Religiously they are equally bad.
Perhaps it's because it's not really a religious issue (just using that as an excuse).
Biologically people are repelled by homosexuality and attracted to adultery. That affects their state of mind, and they look for a reason for that and catch upon religious arguments.
> I've always thought it was odd that people got upset about homosexuality and not about adultery.
What people get upset about is a cultural variable that is not consistent across times and places. Plenty of times and places, people have gotten at least as upset about adultery as about homosexuality.
Hahaha! It has always amazed me how people indebted to intellectual discussions via the culture of a forum completely disregard all historical context of an ancient peoples. xD
I get that it's the "in" thing now to hate on ancient texts to seem smart but ...
Quoting a writing from the ancient Jewish leader Moses is equivalent to studying the history of the peoples in those times and locations. Please, note that basically ALL nations used an enslavement "banking" system that basically boiled down to: You pay off your credit card by working for the creditor for a few years (or for however many years the owner thought was sufficient).
It has absolutely nothing to do with recent American slavery traditions embedded in deep racism and superiority complexes.
The only similarities are the translation of the word: slave.
The economics of ancient cultures was drastically different from how it has been for all post-1600s Bank of England cultures. :P
Ancient texts are fine. Great fun, so long as they are treated as ancient texts.
I don't think that anybody is distressed by the Code of Hammurabi, but that is because there are not people going around sincerely stating that they believe the Code of Hammurabi to be timeless and perfectly just, and Hammurabi himself to be someone to look to for ethical or moral guidance.
It is only when the historical context of ancient documents is purposely ignored or denied that those ancient documents become the targets of modern criticism.
It is no accident that socially conservative ideologies are correlated with right-wing / authoritarian politics. It is such an age-old instrument of manipulation and control that I am tempted to believe that it is innate and ingrained into our biology.
It is no accident that socially conservative ideologies are correlated with right-wing / authoritarian politics
Now you are just being silly. The USSR sent homosexuals to the gulags. China considered homosexuality to be a mental illness up 'til 2002, it is only when they started to become capitalist that they relaxed! In the UK it is the right-wing Tories that are bringing in gay marriage.
Attitudes towards homosexuality are simply not correlated with left-right politics.
Charlie Stross features a gay couple in one of his novels, and one of the conditions of their employment for a top secret government office is that they must be explicitly out about their homosexuality - one attends a Pride Parade once a year in order to comply with these regulations.
That's a pretty common requirement for many classified positions in the real world (not having to attend pride parade, but being out about your sexual preferences).
is this true ?! Any evidence? Is there a page on whitehouse.gov with F R Smith - foot fetish (moderate), would like to be a Gimp but never found the right owner.
Yes it's sort of true - the concern here is about being susceptible to blackmail or coercion, which rules out pretty much anyone who has a personal secret which they feel ashamed about or would go to great lengths to keep secret. If you're gay and out, there's no security concern, but if you're in the closet, there is a chance someone could find out and blackmail you into revealing secret information.
This also applies to people with large amounts of debt - which IIRC is one of the most common reasons people are denied clearance. See here for more info (scroll to "Vulnerability to Coercion"): http://www.dhra.mil/perserec/adr/falsification/falsification...
The debt issues has less to do with blackmail, and more to do with having serious financial strains. They're concerned you'll sell information in exchange for money so that you can pay off your debts. It's the same for drug addiction and gambling.
I think there was a guy that was caught spying recently that had a gambling addiction.
Same thing. Image you are Iran. If you have 10 people to pick from to bribe and ask to work for you. Pick the one with largest dept and offer to pay that debt in return for co-operation.
This really isn't any worse than the other invasions of privacy that have been revealed
I think you're incorrect on this. The level of intrusion here is much greater. There is a reason why video phones never really replaced voice: they are too revealing. This borders on voyeurism.
Remember the stories of TSA agents joking about what they saw on full body scanners? I don't believe it is credible to think that these types of photos aren't used in a similar fashion here even though it's a different country and agency. And that's actually the least damaging way they could be used.
This is the difference between someone reading that you do weird sexual things with your partner and having pictures to prove it. Blackmailing someone with a still webcam image of them engaging in an act would be a lot more effective than with an SMS text description. This is a big deal.
I think that this leak will have the biggest effect. It bothered me enough that I emailed the entire college of computing at my university (I am a junior faculty member) to argue for setting ethical boundaries for big data projects, but, alas, I doubt that I will get a response.
Some insider, the next snowden, should leak the database to the internet. When crying children run to their parents, saying that some posted nude pictures of them, I think, this would an effective wake up call.
I honestly think it was deliberate. What class of Operating System developer ships their OS releases without 100% CODE COVERAGE? Apple do code coverage testing, surely? I mean, more than the "-warn-dead-code" args that get flung around.
I can't understand how this would have gotten released into the wild if they were doing industry-standard code coverage tests. And .. if they're not doing industrial-strength code-coverage testing on their iOS/OSX release builds, thats the real news here ..
Potentially GCHQ could be sat on one of the largest private collections of indecent images of people underage. The age range is liable to be 14-50, the article says around 7% were of people doing naughty things on camera, even if that tails off at the age extremes that's still a worrying thought.
Keeping a creepy eye on your junk, just in case you're a terrorist.
This kind of data would be tremendous treasure trove for future historians :-)
Imagine if we had this kind of data on previous periods, we'd be able to infer a lot of how people behaved, what their pastime was, better understand the fashion sense (or lack of it for certain photos apparently)...
More seriously, in a way, I think it's good that this happened because I hope that it will be a wake up call to the public opinion so that we might avoid living in a future with no rights to privacy. I'm really grateful that Snowden made the sacrifices he did to give us those information.
It's amazing to think of the potential of blackmail over politicians these kind of scheme would give...
ISTR that in the futuristic dystopia depicted in V for Vendetta, there are government spy cameras everywhere, including in people's bedrooms.
And it turns out that's not so futuristic. We're already there. The moment it became technically (Edit: and really, economically) feasible to spy on people's bedrooms, our governments leapt at the chance.
I wonder what Alan Moore would have to say about that. We didn't have to experience a crisis of social, governmental, or financial instability. There was no catalyzing meltdown that lead to this modern embrace of a new "soft" totalitarianism. This is just the latest chapter in a steady progression of increasing surveillance that can be traced back at least to the 1960s.
And it's a cinch that something like 51% of the general public will react just as they have all along: "Well, if it's necessary to keep us safe..."
>We didn't have to experience a crisis of social, governmental, or financial instability.
September 11th and the London train bombings? No argument against how disturbing this all is, but don't feel it's accurate to say this increased surveillance wasn't caused by a crisis. It's all being done in the name of preventing terrorism, significant acts of which have occurred in the last decade both on US and UK soil.
So if anything, it's exactly like you stated, a traumatic event(s) has resulted in government(s) taking unreasonable measures and expanding powers to embrace a new "soft" totalitarianism.
Hey efuquen we pretty much wrote the same thing at the same time. We should be friends.
In all honesty, we need to ask ourselves what we can practically do within the current framework that can push the government towards what we want. Less surveillance and civilian oversight of the intelligence community.
I don't think so. I did once, but I don't anymore.
Huge, bloodthirsty, spectacular acts of terrorism were older than those attacks, and those attacks didn't threaten the stability of the societies or governments in question in the slightest.
The tendency of English-speaking governments to use sweeping, untargeted surveillance to curb political activism or otherwise mold public opinion and behavior is older than those attacks, too. They spied on MLK and peace activists during Vietnam, not because they were threats to security but because they were threats to the spies' own political convictions, more or less.
What has really changed in the last 15 years or so is that its now economically feasible to spy on everyone, all the time, partially because the spied-on voluntarily fund the most expensive part of the equipment (their own webcams, cellphones, cars, laptops, ISP connections, etc). So governments are doing it. Something like 9/11 provides a handy excuse, maybe, but I've come to think it's naive to accept that as the real reason. I believe we would find ourselves in this position with or without 9/11.
The component laws behind the crackdown, at least in the US, were written ahead of time. They'd been on executive-agency-wishlists for years. It might have taken a crisis to justify actually passing these laws. But they were not purpose-crafted programs and laws in response to particular events.
The UK was doing weird things with privacy back then too.
Special branch wanted an informer on every street. They infiltrated many political groups and meetings.
Some groups were outlawed - we even prevented news organisations from broadcasting the voices of some people leadingnto their video being dubbed by actors.
That's a poignant observation that we didn't have to experience a crisis of social, governmental, or financial instability, but we did experience 9/11. 9/11 is the catalyst that pushed a lot of this surveillance over the edge.
If you combine this revelation with this one https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/02/24/jtrig-manipula... then you end up with the exact totalitarianism you speak of. Its the efficacy of the government to target any individual that makes it a totalitarian state even if it doesn't look like that on the outside to most people.
There were and are people in these governments who know that you don't need the worst catastrophes, you simply need "just enough" and people in the right place at that time to suggest these practices be instituted. The rest of these governments gave these agencies the power and permission to do these things.
Technically this means that GCHQ likely have the single largest archive of child porn in the world. It isn't exactly news that people from the ages of 12-17 are using video chat to share erotic images (e.g. SnapChat), and if GCHQ is storing one snap every five minutes, they likely have billions of nudes of people below the age of 18.
There was a comment on reddit that they are immune to these laws. Kind of makes sense? I mean, if the police are investigating child porn, and take the hard drive, they're not really going to be charged with possessing it. That's my take at least.
Why? PRISM is about selected (targeted) collection of data from users that the government has a court order for. Every country in the world does this. This program collects data from traffic passing through the UK regardless of whether the UK government has any reason to suspect the users whose data is collected, let alone present those suspicions to a judge. Yahoo has every reason to be outraged.
I don't think those slides are talking about court order related activities. After all, all companies must comply with court orders, so why would the NSA single out the nine as their "current providers"?
As the companies have repeatedly explained and as the government's declassified documents show, it's because the companies built systems to automatically send new account data to the government for accounts under court-ordered surveillance as new IMs, emails, etc. came in. This contrasts with having an engineer manually send data dumps daily in some format the government has to figure out how to parse.
I don't believe that's true. Much of the controversy centered around the (highly xenophobic) fact that the NSA was unable to guarantee that it wasn't scooping up data belonging to US citizens. If this was only about court ordered surveillence then surely it could have done so?
And second, I specifically remember that all nine companies immediately denied the existence of the program. Then it became too big and it was time to "explain it"? As Bush Jr. would say, fool me once...
You're confusing different programs. PRISM in particular is only court-ordered surveillance of targeted users. That's what companies like Yahoo! participated in without knowing the NSA's code name for it.
Limiting collection to non-Americans applies to bulk collection programs like the email header collection for unencrypted email deliveries crossing national borders and like this program. Those are programs the companies didn't know about and are understandably outraged about.
Now companies are able to release more info about what the government had requested, though it is delayed and limited to giving ranges periods of time instead of absolute numbers.
"Rather than collecting webcam chats in their entirety, the program saved one image every five minutes from the users' feeds, partly to comply with human rights legislation, and also to avoid overloading GCHQ's servers."
Ummm, "comply with human rights legislation" ... what? Are they implying that they was a human rights watchdog involved that confirmed that their approach was "legal"? Or, is the more likely case that they assume that their activities are legal internally -> ergo we're fine to proceed? That phase in itself is a HUGE red flag to me.
As I'm pretty sure there is no "human rights legislation" that states that indiscriminate capturing of private video streams is bad unless you only capture an image every 5 minutes, it's likely that technical restrictions are the only reason for the intermittancy - they even say how nice it would be if they could capture everything. Oddly, the primary sources we've been shown don't mention any human rights justification.
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[ 5.0 ms ] story [ 302 ms ] threadLike it or not, this is the reality of our world now: control belongs to paranoid career bureaucrats more interested in preserving their budgets than any measure of civil liberty.
It doesn't fill me with confidence that 'they' aren't remotely activating and recording images without our knowledge though.
As to topicality, it depends how narrow your interpretation of the topic is.
http://nypost.com/2013/12/08/fbi-can-turn-on-your-web-cam/
https://www.apple.com/imac/features/
So that won't work for me, sadly.
[1] only the vast majority of people (both computer savvy and illiterate)
i own an old hp like that and i love it
i never need the camera and when i need to skype i just plug the headphones
I also wonder if plugging a 3rd party mic into line-in and switching it off would have a similar effect for the mic.
You can never be sure unless your fix is physical.
People are going to seriously regret using Snapchat in later life.
1- http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/oct/15/snapchat-hands-...
The trend seems to be towards people not caring about exposure. You can't blackmail someone who isn't embarrassed.
"Yeah, I ate a bunch of dicks on Saturday night and posted the photos. What? Like you've never done that."
Bottom line: information is power, and even lack of shame cannot protect you from the damage it can do in malicious hands.
(BTW your point is well taken. There was an episode of Sherlock where a (presumably young and attractive) female member of the British royal family engaged a prostitute for some lesbian S&M play - and a the gov went to a great deal of expense to cover it up. My thought was, "why bother?" People's imaginations being what they are, the biggest impact would be a small uptick in UK births in 9-10 months.)
My name's Roger, and I'm a constituent of your riding. I've had the pleasure of meeting Margaret, and I want to thank you both and your team for the great work you do for the riding.
I'm writing because with each passing day, revelations are getting worse and worse about the surveillance capabilities of security agencies. Just today the Guardian revealed that the GCHQ, our British allies, collect webcam recordings en masse, including sexually explicit material shared between two consenting individuals.
We know the Harper administration is stuck as being part and parcel of Five Eyes, and that the CESC has conducted spying for the NSA, using Canada's good name for nefarious purposes.
I write this in the hope that you are aware of this issue, and to inquire as to what you and your party are doing with this regards, and what active efforts you will be making in the future to shed awareness about this creeping invasion on our privacy. As Canadians, we should be protected under Section 8 of the Charter with regards to reasonable expectation of privacy, but I do not want this to constantly shift because security agencies continually push us down the slippery slope Senator Church so eloquently warned Americans about during the Church Committee:
"If this government ever became a tyrant, if a dictator ever took charge in this country, the technological capacity that the intelligence community has given the government could enable it to impose total tyranny, and there would be no way to fight back because the most careful effort to combine together in resistance to the government, no matter how privately it was done, is within the reach of the government to know. Such is the capability of this technology.
I don't want to see this country ever go across the bridge. I know the capacity that is there to make tyranny total in America, and we must see to it that this agency and all agencies that possess this technology operate within the law and under proper supervision so that we never cross over that abyss. That is the abyss from which there is no return."
Let me know how I can contribute to any efforts with this regards. I hope you are well, and eagerly await any response you have on this topic.
Is it just the CSEC or both CSEC and CSIS? Why are we not hearing more about the NSA-style violations made in Canada? I can't believe that we aren't participating in all this...
Political action has been ineffective so far.
I know that in the USA the political action has been largely irrelevant and low profile, though it has weakly galvanized politicians who were anti-NSA before the leaks were even public knowledge.
I've seen the odd report (and it's very odd when they do report it indeed) on Newsnight where they had some mouthpiece using the "Oh in the wrong hands this would be dangerous but we are the right hands line" alongside the always popular "If you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear" and the fun "We stuck strictly within the framework we where told to".
https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/02/24/jtrig-manipula...
>> The passionate note surfaced amid the flotsam of a shipwrecked marriage. It was written in broken English by a woman to herself, pouring out her love for a man called Tony. “Oh, shit, oh, shit,” she wrote. “Whatever why I’m so so missing Tony. Because he is so so charming and his clothes are so good. He has such good body and he has really really good legs Butt . . . And he is slim tall and good skin. Pierce blue eyes which I love. Love his eyes. Also I love his power on the stage . . . and what else and what else and what else . . . ”
>> The woman was Wendi Deng Murdoch, the Chinese wife of the Australian media mogul Rupert Murdoch. The note, not revealed until now, could have been one of the few pieces of evidence in their surprise divorce last year, had the case come to trial. “Tony” was the former prime minister of Great Britain, Tony Blair.
[0] http://www.vanityfair.com/society/2014/03/wendi-deng-note-to...
So, if you have to hide something, show your private parts. Can we conclude this?
"A US card cloner forced would-be gang members to take part in group sex sessions as part of an initiation ceremony designed to weed out undercover cops, according to a detective."
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/02/01/smut_initiation_card...
It ties individuals faces to online accounts and computers and possibly addresses. Especially combined with increasing amounts of CCTV it removes further anonymity.
I was also disturbed by the "dissemination of offensive images is a disciplinary offence" statement which implied that was not the case for other images and that it is only a disciplinary offence rather than a criminal one (misconduct in public office if there isn't anything else).
Isn't that a bit optimistic? As things typically work out today, no official would ever be personally identified and held to account in court if something like this "accidentally" leaked. Meanwhile, the subject of the leak could have their life destroyed any number of ways, even if the image that gets leaked was taken out of context or otherwise not an accurate reflection of the person in question.
We've seen far too many cases recently where innocent people have been severely harmed, on rare occasions even literally killed, by some part of the government, and yet remarkably often no-one is ever held responsible. Until the authority for these kinds of actions must be tied to a named individual, and the identity of that named individual can never be concealed from a court, and that named individual faces meaningful consequences for any abuses that happen on their watch unless they can show that their subordinate did not follow a proper direction (in which case responsibility transfers to the identified subordinate), and any ultimate subordinate involved in such an action who can't identify the responsible individual gets no more legal protection than any other citizen who did the same thing, this problem will continue.
Simply saying "the hacker collective known as Anonymous has released photos of..." and there's literally no way for the general public to dispute it. Anonymous is a pretty convenient cover for government blackmail.
So, that's a plus.
'Hackers Release Photo Of Prime Minister And Mistress'
Done.
Just saying "we have this on you", this being something that can stop a career of a politician, or break his marriage, for example, will paralyse most people. And of course they make psychological assesments about who are most vulnerable and most likely to respond well to blackmail.
Second, you don't have to reveal anything. It's not like the agency himself has to do the blackmail and declare who they are and what they did. They can delegate that to some associate, who might not even know who is giving him commands. Or they can do it with anonymous messages ("We have this picture of you. You don't know who we are, but vote that on this law").
It's very hard to defend against institutional blackmail. The blackmailer just has to make their demands, that need to be followed "if you known what's good for you". Generally, that will work and no further steps are necessary.
If somebody decides to resist the demand in any way, you simply place some of those pictures of underage kid - perhaps from the project mentioned in this article - and place a "tip" with the local police. Of course, they could always "parallel construction" it. Many options there, because you never actually have to show real evidence in court, or even show up. You just have to get the ball rolling, and the child-porn accusation will do the rest for you.
In fact, it's important to make a big show about it, because coming down hard on the occasional person that questions your demands serves as an excellent way to discourage other from trying.
There is no evidence right now that the intelligence services can remotely activate webcams on any device of their choosing. They would likely need to first install malware on most devices to accomplish that.
They can easily do that, that isn't really in doubt, though of course that's not why things have cameras, as you say, cameras are cheap and quite useful, no need for a grand conspiracy.
I'm sure they wouldn't bother to exploit a machine unless they decide to target you specifically, but if they do decide to, given the resources they have available and the imperfect security on almost every OS, network and hardware you might use, they can easily use your phone or computer to record by installing malware. It's really very straightforward, all they need is a zero day in any of the network connected applications you use, baseband of your phone etc.
William Binney (worked on Stellar Wind) and Edward Snowden have gone on record confirming these capabilities are used routinely - in particular I remember Binney confirming mobiles used as mics, even when turned off. For him this is a matter of fact capability, not at all as dangerous as mapping all our activities at once from metadata and content sweeps on a broad scale - I tend to agree.
http://www.nytimes.com/video/opinion/100000001733041/the-pro...
http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/fbis-searc... The FBI has been able to covertly activate a computer’s camera — without triggering the light that lets users know it is recording — for several years, and has used that technique mainly in terrorism cases or the most serious criminal investigations, said Marcus Thomas, former assistant director of the FBI’s Operational Technology Division in Quantico...
I assume they do the same with Skype, Lync etc. I hate the thought of being photographed by these creepy "intelligence officers" every time I'm on a webcam. Probably it also happens when we don't use the webcam.
"GHCQ has pics of your teenage daughter ..."
Blackmail. Polticial, economic, and spying-related informant-turning blackmail.
The CIA's primary business is getting informants and agents all over the world. Usually via some threat. This is perfect fodder for it.
Using cheating and sex (ie homosexuality in the 50s) against people is one of the most classic examples of recruiting strategies for intelligence agencies.
there will always be something taboo in society to blackmail people with.
And yes, there always will, but I think that homosexuality as a taboo has been exploited, specifically.
Your original statement seemed to suggest that it is still a taboo because those who wish to exploit it want it that way. The cause is not power brokers, it's everyone (or enough of everyone) who makes taboos' shamefulness persist.
I felt that while both can be weapons, there is a concrete, perhaps subtle difference between the two.
As an atheist from an "orthodox Christian" background (as opposed to protestant, baptist or the catholic church), I cannot really understand why people who call themselves Christians even quote the Bible, and seemingly only awful anachronistic parts, as opposed to the New Tastement.
Perhaps they should call themselves "Mosians"?
That wasn't what I was taught in my particular brand of Christianity, but having read the book I can totally see where other denominations pick it up. They aren't hallucinating or imagining hateful things in that book, it's all in there, ready to be reinforced or erased and excused, depending on which particular interpretation you take.
I think that reading the bible and coming to the conclusion that the god described in it hates homosexuality (among any number of other things) and that Jesus did not reverse those prejudices is perfectly reasonable. It's also somewhat reasonable (though far less so I think) to take away the idea that the Christian god is genuinely all loving and that Jesus absolved that god of all of it's sins (wasn't he suppose to do that for humanity instead? But it seems like he is most often invoked to absolve the christian god of his sins...).
(That of course isn't to say that I believe the sort of hateful Christianity seen prominently in certain parts of America (and other parts of the world) is acceptable. While I think their interpretation of the Bible is reasonable, I think it is _unreasonable_ for them to believe the Bible is divinely inspired, or that the god they read from those pages is worthy of being worshiped.)
Matthew 5:17-18
"Think not that I came to destroy the law or the prophets: I came not to destroy, but to fulfil. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass away from the law, till all things be accomplished."
The "law or the prophets" is, of course, everything written in the Old Testament, where different chapters were attributed to the different prophets already in Jesus' time.
He makes it even stronger:
"Ye have heard that it was said, 'Thou shalt not commit adultery': but I say unto you, that every one that looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart" (Matthew 5:27-28)
Verily, read thine Bible, if you believe it's inspired by God. Read it yourself. Don't believe what others interpret.
Or maybe accept that we shouldn't take that book too seriously?
Christians have absolutely no responsibility towards the Mosaic Law and only strictly towards the teachings of Jesus (whom they declare their leader).
Paul says this in a letter to a group of new Christians living in Collosae (modern day Turkey)sometime in the mid 1st century (50-60 C.E.) [0]
[0] http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Colossians+2%3A1...
But back to the topic, tell me, do you approve what GCHQ did?
The Bible can be made to say anything.
[1] http://bibviz.com/
"Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them." Jesus speaking in Matthew 5:17
Jesus affirmed the law and called people further into true righteousness, which can never come from following rules, but requires a transformation of the heart that only God can accomplish. That is what He is talking about in the sermon on the mount (Matthew 5).
I don't see heaven and earth passed away, so the laws of the prophets still hold according to Jesus himself. He said that. Written one sentence after the one you quote claiming the opposite. So you decided not to believe what Jesus said. Fine with me. I believe the Bible is written by humans and that the humans invented all the gods.
But anyway we should discuss what GCHQ did with webcam streams of at least millions of people! What is your opinion on that?
This is obviously off topic from the original post, but hopefully it's a valuable conversation. It's actually a really important point that is reiterated throughout the New Testament explicitly and foreshadowed throughout the entire Old Testament.
This is a short helpful explanation http://www.desiringgod.org/articles/how-christ-fulfilled-and...
Last time I checked, heaven and earth were still here.
Yeah, the GCHQ thing is jacked up but not surprising. The connectedness and anonymity of the digital world and its increasing integration into our lives makes for some pretty scary scenarios.
"But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart." (Matthew 5:28)
"If a man commits adultery with another man’s wife—with the wife of his neighbor—both the adulterer and the adulteress are to be put to death." (Leviticus 20:10 NIV)
"As for your male and female slaves whom you may have: you may buy male and female slaves from among the nations that are around you." (Leviticus 25:44 ESV)
So, um, not a great book to pull random quotes from as a source.
Perhaps it's because it's not really a religious issue (just using that as an excuse).
Biologically people are repelled by homosexuality and attracted to adultery. That affects their state of mind, and they look for a reason for that and catch upon religious arguments.
What people get upset about is a cultural variable that is not consistent across times and places. Plenty of times and places, people have gotten at least as upset about adultery as about homosexuality.
Other times and places, not so much.
I get that it's the "in" thing now to hate on ancient texts to seem smart but ...
Quoting a writing from the ancient Jewish leader Moses is equivalent to studying the history of the peoples in those times and locations. Please, note that basically ALL nations used an enslavement "banking" system that basically boiled down to: You pay off your credit card by working for the creditor for a few years (or for however many years the owner thought was sufficient).
It has absolutely nothing to do with recent American slavery traditions embedded in deep racism and superiority complexes.
The only similarities are the translation of the word: slave.
The economics of ancient cultures was drastically different from how it has been for all post-1600s Bank of England cultures. :P
I don't think that anybody is distressed by the Code of Hammurabi, but that is because there are not people going around sincerely stating that they believe the Code of Hammurabi to be timeless and perfectly just, and Hammurabi himself to be someone to look to for ethical or moral guidance.
It is only when the historical context of ancient documents is purposely ignored or denied that those ancient documents become the targets of modern criticism.
http://www.politicalcompass.org/ukparties2010
Nurture vs Nature.....
I don't think this is anything but a negatively nurtured situation....
yes, it is part of our species favoring r-selection
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R/K_selection_theory
(progressives are the ones who favor K-selection)
Now you are just being silly. The USSR sent homosexuals to the gulags. China considered homosexuality to be a mental illness up 'til 2002, it is only when they started to become capitalist that they relaxed! In the UK it is the right-wing Tories that are bringing in gay marriage.
Attitudes towards homosexuality are simply not correlated with left-right politics.
I thought it was a pretty clever idea.
This also applies to people with large amounts of debt - which IIRC is one of the most common reasons people are denied clearance. See here for more info (scroll to "Vulnerability to Coercion"): http://www.dhra.mil/perserec/adr/falsification/falsification...
I think there was a guy that was caught spying recently that had a gambling addiction.
Sexually explicit images are quite useful for blackmailing.
I think you're incorrect on this. The level of intrusion here is much greater. There is a reason why video phones never really replaced voice: they are too revealing. This borders on voyeurism.
Remember the stories of TSA agents joking about what they saw on full body scanners? I don't believe it is credible to think that these types of photos aren't used in a similar fashion here even though it's a different country and agency. And that's actually the least damaging way they could be used.
[0] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7158786
Bulk, large scale collection
Of Content, moreover the visual and explicit
Of people not suspected of any crime.
Before this, we didn't have hard evidence that the large scale collection was grabbing content of non-suspects in addition to the to/from data.
I'm not sure what rationalization is left to hide under, but I bet that people will still try to say that this isn't so bad.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6107478
are so easily killed off on HN.
I can't understand how this would have gotten released into the wild if they were doing industry-standard code coverage tests. And .. if they're not doing industrial-strength code-coverage testing on their iOS/OSX release builds, thats the real news here ..
Keeping a creepy eye on your junk, just in case you're a terrorist.
Most likely yes.
It has been pointed out that under the UK's tough anti-child-porn laws, there is no way that this is legal.
Edit: more details on that from Mr. CStross: http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2014/02/rule-34-...
More seriously, in a way, I think it's good that this happened because I hope that it will be a wake up call to the public opinion so that we might avoid living in a future with no rights to privacy. I'm really grateful that Snowden made the sacrifices he did to give us those information.
It's amazing to think of the potential of blackmail over politicians these kind of scheme would give...
I fear, they will write, that the beginning 21st century was full of perverts!
What do they have from other centuries:
Goethe, Franklin, Hugo, ....
And from ours:
People that strip before the webcam??
And it turns out that's not so futuristic. We're already there. The moment it became technically (Edit: and really, economically) feasible to spy on people's bedrooms, our governments leapt at the chance.
I wonder what Alan Moore would have to say about that. We didn't have to experience a crisis of social, governmental, or financial instability. There was no catalyzing meltdown that lead to this modern embrace of a new "soft" totalitarianism. This is just the latest chapter in a steady progression of increasing surveillance that can be traced back at least to the 1960s.
And it's a cinch that something like 51% of the general public will react just as they have all along: "Well, if it's necessary to keep us safe..."
September 11th and the London train bombings? No argument against how disturbing this all is, but don't feel it's accurate to say this increased surveillance wasn't caused by a crisis. It's all being done in the name of preventing terrorism, significant acts of which have occurred in the last decade both on US and UK soil.
So if anything, it's exactly like you stated, a traumatic event(s) has resulted in government(s) taking unreasonable measures and expanding powers to embrace a new "soft" totalitarianism.
In all honesty, we need to ask ourselves what we can practically do within the current framework that can push the government towards what we want. Less surveillance and civilian oversight of the intelligence community.
I don't think so. I did once, but I don't anymore.
Huge, bloodthirsty, spectacular acts of terrorism were older than those attacks, and those attacks didn't threaten the stability of the societies or governments in question in the slightest.
The tendency of English-speaking governments to use sweeping, untargeted surveillance to curb political activism or otherwise mold public opinion and behavior is older than those attacks, too. They spied on MLK and peace activists during Vietnam, not because they were threats to security but because they were threats to the spies' own political convictions, more or less.
What has really changed in the last 15 years or so is that its now economically feasible to spy on everyone, all the time, partially because the spied-on voluntarily fund the most expensive part of the equipment (their own webcams, cellphones, cars, laptops, ISP connections, etc). So governments are doing it. Something like 9/11 provides a handy excuse, maybe, but I've come to think it's naive to accept that as the real reason. I believe we would find ourselves in this position with or without 9/11.
The argument that "these are strange times and require a new class of countermeasures" is exactly the lie they want to sell you.
Special branch wanted an informer on every street. They infiltrated many political groups and meetings.
Some groups were outlawed - we even prevented news organisations from broadcasting the voices of some people leadingnto their video being dubbed by actors.
If you combine this revelation with this one https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/02/24/jtrig-manipula... then you end up with the exact totalitarianism you speak of. Its the efficacy of the government to target any individual that makes it a totalitarian state even if it doesn't look like that on the outside to most people.
and some people will still insist that 1984 was about USSR...
"I seem to remember" would have saved a lot of people a lot of time.
Apologies, but this is a BB of TLBD
Hoover's FBI did what it want, MI5 famously "burgled their way across London". Oversight came later.
That's pretty funny.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:PRISM_Collection_Details.... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Upstream-slide.jpg
And second, I specifically remember that all nine companies immediately denied the existence of the program. Then it became too big and it was time to "explain it"? As Bush Jr. would say, fool me once...
Limiting collection to non-Americans applies to bulk collection programs like the email header collection for unencrypted email deliveries crossing national borders and like this program. Those are programs the companies didn't know about and are understandably outraged about.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2342200/Revealed-Yah...
Now companies are able to release more info about what the government had requested, though it is delayed and limited to giving ranges periods of time instead of absolute numbers.
Ummm, "comply with human rights legislation" ... what? Are they implying that they was a human rights watchdog involved that confirmed that their approach was "legal"? Or, is the more likely case that they assume that their activities are legal internally -> ergo we're fine to proceed? That phase in itself is a HUGE red flag to me.