FBI Pressures Internet Providers To Install Surveillance Software 225
An anonymous reader sends this quote from an article at CNet: "The U.S. government is quietly pressuring telecommunications providers to install eavesdropping technology deep inside companies' internal networks to facilitate surveillance efforts. FBI officials have been sparring with carriers, a process that has on occasion included threats of contempt of court, in a bid to deploy government-provided software capable of intercepting and analyzing entire communications streams. The FBI's legal position during these discussions is that the software's real-time interception of metadata is authorized under the Patriot Act. Attempts by the FBI to install what it internally refers to as 'port reader' software, which have not been previously disclosed, were described to CNET in interviews over the last few weeks. One former government official said the software used to be known internally as the 'harvesting program.'"
The harvest (Score:4, Funny)
Re:ENOUGH ALREADY! (Score:5, Funny)
Sheldon, shut up.
Re:ENOUGH ALREADY! (Score:3, Funny)
Oh, for fuck's sake. It's not like the entire government is out to get people. It's only the FBI, CIA, NSA, Pentagon, Police/SWAT, and the Executive office.
Re:Incompetence (Score:5, Funny)
Be seditionist, corrupt morals, piss on their gods and tell them to fuck off.
If I piss on their gods all my cash will be wet and stinky.
What would you prefer, Slashdot? (Score:0, Funny)
In all honesty, what would you rather have?
A: A 100% surveillance society?
OR
B: A 100% anonymous society?
Really think hard before you answer. Tinfoil hatters, I already know your answer, that alone should make you paranoid, you best burn your temp apartment and flee the cops that are coming for you right now. Also sing Can't Take My Eyes Off Of You while you are doing it.
Personally I'd go for the former. A just works better. It is more useful too.
Oversight of oversight of oversight. No lies. No abuses. No hiding reality from people.
You'd find that you probably aren't actually some weird person and that there are actually others like you. To be a special unique snowflake requires serious effort.
Of course, everyone knows your deep dark secrets now. Have you been lying to your friends and family?
But doubly of course, you also know the secrets of everyone else too. There would be no reason to fear unless you had done something absolutely atrocious by societies standards that you were hunted and killed like the witchhunts of old.
B is a horrible idea. But also a very intriguing one too. To wonder how a society like that would work is interesting indeed. Sort of like that film Keanu Reeves mained in, the film about people wearing some suit that "randomized" their features so they could go to secret meetings about elephants or some shit, I don't remember, barely paid attention the 2 times I watched it.
No relationships could form of any value. And if it was a society that was virtual, considerably harder to form even a relationship in general.
There would be no such thing as a fact, as anyone could make up anything. Imagine what a world would be like if it had the stability of the bitcoin. A single twitter post could devalue millions of their worth in mere minutes. It would be anarchy.
The secret answer C was the mess of a society we had previous to modern society. "The Wild West" would be a more appropriate timeline for you.
And the secret answer D won't happen because you won't move in to a forest and cut your ties with society which has been spying on you your entire life because it is more effort than it is worth. Even given the chance to fight for your freedom, you wouldn't because deep down you are just a coward born in to a suppressive society. Welcome to the now.