NSA App Ideas To Popularize Spying and Big Data 78
reifman writes "Perhaps the reason the NSA's surveillance programs are so unpopular with Americans is that we haven't seen any of the potential consumer benefits that spying and big data can provide. Here are ten ideas for the productization and monetization of the NSA's spying infrastructure to inspire Americans to consider the bright side of the dark arts." In case anyone doesn't notice, these suggestions (at least most of them) are presented tongue-in-cheek; a truly secure email system, though, is another story.
Re:Computer says no.. (Score:5, Informative)
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Haha given the situation, I think people will read this as a way not to set up a blog.
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Unfortunately not:
Re:Computer says no.. (Score:5, Funny)
This is what you get for making fun of the NSA.
They will probably be scraping up the IP addresses of everyone who visits your site. You could make your life easier if you'd co-locate your server with them. They have a nice facility in Utah.
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This is what you get for making fun of the NSA.
I think this sums it up. [youtube.com]*
*Assuming "making fun of them" is a cause of action. ;-)
Very hot facility (Score:2)
They have a nice facility in Utah.
They already had 10 bouts of fire inside that spanking new utility, only 2 of those they have identified the causes of the fire.
Of the other 8 fires the causes still remain unknown
Even Slashdot has covered the news of the fires, twice
http://slashdot.org/topic/datacenter/nsa-datacenter-delayed-1yr-after-series-of-explosive-electrical-failures/ [slashdot.org]
and
http://slashdot.org/story/13/10/08/1457235/nsas-new-utah-data-center-suffering-meltdowns [slashdot.org]
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Re:Computer says no.. (Score:5, Informative)
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Maybe Coral would help: http://jeffreifman.com.nyud.net/2013/10/20/ten-ways-to-make-nsa-spying-popular-with-americans/?sdot [nyud.net]
Re: NSA App Ideas To Popularize Spying and Big Dat (Score:1)
Re: NSA App Ideas To Popularize Spying and Big Dat (Score:5, Informative)
Ideas to sell this?
Check out the Gruen Transfer's videos. They ran with this idea a few weeks ago and asked two Australian ad agencies to compete for the production of the best ad to support ASIO spying on Australians,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JinOn0fu-u0 [youtube.com]
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You do remember that "war on terrorism" is not enough, we need "war on everything" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7G0w0JBpcMA [youtube.com]
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Ideas to sell this? Here's a few...
1. The constitution, the foundation and framework of law on which the nation (and all conceptually contained within it) was built upon forbids it.
2. Communism or the many shades of it shouldn't be a real big seller in the U.S. unless we'd like to see Jewish barbeques or some other race on the grill depending upon the bar code series tat on your wrist.
3. See #1.
Who would eat Jews? They probably don't even taste like pork!
Another suggestion (Score:2)
My ten (Score:3)
1.) Buy as much bacon as possible before the Chinese decide they need it all for themselves.
2.) I lied about ten, well, because bacon.
NSA should cache web pages (Score:5, Funny)
So they can intercept and fulfill requests for slashdotted articles.
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So they can intercept and fulfill requests for slashdotted articles.
I'm not so sure. The NSA may be watching us all masturbate via our webcams, but they're still a government agency, and as such there are certain standards they must abide by regarding government services provided...
"NSACloud(tm) is currently experiencing a high volume of freedom requests. Your freedom is very important to us. Please remain in the queue and your request will be granted in the order we think it should. Thank you for your patience, Citizen." (cheesy muzzac starts playing on the webpage)
Unpopular? (Score:5, Insightful)
Um, I don't think this is really true. So far we haven't seen a real push back on the NSA programs by the general public. It's one of the things that scares the crap out of me about the whole situation: Joe Sixpack and Lisa Liberal don't seem to care.
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That's very stupid. If you don't vote at all, to the politicians you literally don't count.
If you don't donate you don't count. And you count in proportion to your donation.
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Re:Unpopular? (Score:5, Insightful)
"Perhaps the reason the NSA's surveillance programs are so unpopular with Americans..."
Um, I don't think this is really true. So far we haven't seen a real push back on the NSA programs by the general public. It's one of the things that scares the crap out of me about the whole situation: Joe Sixpack and Lisa Liberal don't seem to care.
I know its a bit of an over reaction to draw the connection, but that is the same thing that scared me so much about The Holocaust. Something clearly preventable, and obviously bad being done by a government, but very few of the citizens are doing anything about it. Our american students are sitting in their history classes being told how the Germans failed to prevent the Holocaust, and thus we need to be careful about such things, while our government is doing blatantly immoral things (of drastically less severity) that no one is caring about. I don't care if congress has a 10% approval rating; just saying you don't approve isn't going to stop this (especially given that its another branch of government doing a power grab. Oh where have we seen that before...)
What are we suppose to do? I sent money to the EFF, and I tell everyone I know. I'd consider joining some protests, but there arn't any. Maybe I should be writing my congressmen? Does that actually work?
I'm a software engineer, and I'm been teaching myself cryptography. I try to design governmental/representative and electoral systems in my free time. I really don't think I can accomplish much though. Maybe propaganda campaigns like this app will help, but I fear not. So much is so wrong, and I just don't know what to do. What can we do?
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I don't mean to depress you or kill your hopes, but as someone that has been doing the writing to representative routine for years now. No it doesn't work, I've never once received a personal response and at best was subscribed to their spam mail list. Something more needs to be done.
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I know its a bit of an over reaction to draw the connection, but that is the same thing that scared me so much about The Holocaust. Something clearly preventable, and obviously bad being done by a government, but very few of the citizens are doing anything about it. Our american students are sitting in their history classes being told how the Germans failed to prevent the Holocaust, and thus we need to be careful about such things, while our government is doing blatantly immoral things (of drastically less severity) that no one is caring about. I don't care if congress has a 10% approval rating; just saying you don't approve isn't going to stop this (especially given that its another branch of government doing a power grab.
Oh, the low approval rating is a good match for the parliament at the times of the Weimar Republic. That was the basic situation giving the National Socialists the ability to push through the PATRIOT act, excuse me, I mean the Ermächtigungsgesetz putting aside major parts of the constitution. They subsequently implemented the CIA, excuse me, the Gestapo which would kidnap and kill people without due process. They had concentration camps in Guantanamo, excuse me, in Poland, where they used "enhanced
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I invoke Godwin's Law. As horrible as some of the stuff our government does is, there is no mass incarceration or genocide period yet end of story.
FTFY.
BTW, there's significant evidence that other nations had a reasonable inkling of what was going on -- read some of the history books on IBM's explicit involvement in tagging and rounding up Jews. Not that Jews were particularly welcome in the USA either back then.
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To be fair the fact that millions of Jews were being murdered was not common knowledge at the time. The government was aware of how extreme it was and kept it quiet for fear of a blacklash or that it might encourage other countries to join the war against them.
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If you knew the govt was killing Jewish people, coloured people, gays, unionists etc, ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Holocaust#Non-Jewish [wikipedia.org] ) you'd think hard about adding yourself to the list, most people don't wish to be martyrs.
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As a German-born American, I've been following this with that very eye. And it scares the hell out of me that my countrymen here in the US do nothing. We revolted against Britain for far less.
Re:Unpopular? (Score:4, Informative)
But are they doing anything about the intrusion? (Score:2)
Even if 99% of the Americans say they oppose it still doesn't matter.
Saying is NOTHING.
What is need right now is for Americans to ACT.
But are we seeing the Americans doing anything ?
Nope.
As long as MOST of the Americans remain complacent and do NOTHING, them fuckers gonna take advantage of the it and will conjure up much more despicable stuffs in order to "keep us safe from ourselves".
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Show me the people of your country doing something about it, and I will take your US bashing seriously.
In my country we are worse off and people has no way to "act". It's easy to make demands for others, but how about "acting" yourself? You might be known as a "hero" and everything.
Your post is also "saying", by the way. By your definition, it's "NOTHING".
Learned helplessness (Score:5, Interesting)
Joe Sixpack and Lisa Liberal don't seem to care.
Some people have been studying the phenomenon of "upheval" in it's generic form. It's spawned a lot of studies/papers and even popular books, viz: The Tipping Point [google.com].
The overall summary is that you can't just point out how bad something is, you have to give people an action they can take to help fix the problem.
There is widespread distrust, anger, and annoyance at the NSA due to the revelations. There's no public outrage because there's really nothing anyone can do. "Joe Sixpack" has no actions to take: voting doesn't help, writing congresscritters doesn't help, even public mass demonstrations don't seem to help. What you are seeing is Learned Helplessness [wikipedia.org]: an animal doesn't take actions to help themselves, because they're convinced that the actions will have no effect.
Consider the recent history of cell phones or music distribution: people were complaining that cell phones were a walled ecology with no innovation and poor functionality. You had to get carrier approval to run a program on a cell phone, and they would only allow the simplest, meager functionality. You were lucky if your carrier allowed you to have tetris.
People complained that if you wanted music, you had to purchase a physical CD, for an ensemble collection and for an exorbitant fee. Usually you had to purchase an entire CD for a single song you liked.
As soon as an option was given, people flocked to the new systems in droves, uptake was very fast.
Make secure E-mail easy to use with trivial installation and the situation will change overnight. There will be a flood of new users.
Everyone hates the situation, but for most people there's nothing they can do about it.
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People complained that if you wanted music, you had to purchase a physical CD, for an ensemble collection and for an exorbitant fee. Usually you had to purchase an entire CD for a single song you liked. As soon as an option was given, people flocked to the new systems in droves, uptake was very fast.
Seems to me the "option" was withdrawn when we moved from records to CD's but then it was returned, ie: a business plan glitch in the transition from records to downloaded mp3's.. My own kids that grew up in 80's/90's paid little or no attention to top 40 lists, what was the point when you couldn't buy the single to play at home?
I think that financially speaking they shot themselves in the foot with the rush to digital albums. As kids in the 60's / 70's we used to visit the record shop every Friday to pi
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"There's no public outrage because there's really nothing anyone can do."
Nothing convenient and safe. The inconvenience of being surveilled isn't sufficient for any of the public to give up their freedom in return for (hypothetical example) kneecapping politicians. Since politicians only respect what they fear, and the public won't sacrifice to put them in fear, the elites win.
After OK City, there were no more "Randy Weaver" or "Branch Davidian incidents". I'm not advocating such acts, but pointing out that
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Well...in terms of going out and demonstrating, no. But background, I'm a health care provider. In my office new patients are required to sign a receipt that they have been offered a copy of my privacy policy, part of HIPPA. I've been doing this for over 10 years. In the past few years I added a new section on email. It informs patient that if they want to use email to make appointments or for minor communication they can, but email is not secure and there can be no expectation of privacy. Pre-Snowden
Thanks for updating your web site (Score:1)
The /. article said you had 10 ways, now you have 503 ways.
Now where is the "next" button? I'm only seeing method #1, "guru meditation."
In case anyone doesn't notice, these sentences (at least most of them) are presented tongue-in-cheek; a meditation of a guru, though, is another story.
NSA will know what you will write 2 posts in advan (Score:3, Funny)
The NSA will eventually get so good with its data collection algorithms that it will be able to know what you will write, 2 posts in advance. This will doubtfully create a sentient internet with our collective conscious.
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Really dude? (Score:5, Interesting)
I know this is satire, but fuck you
Dude, really?
Check out John Cleese's lecture on creativity [youtube.com].
Then tell me if you're one of the people who believe in absolute solemnity for certain subjects, that they cannot be joked about in any way.
By way of illustration, here's a parody of torture [youtube.com].
Reversing the role (Score:2)
Cached Version of Page Here (Score:5, Informative)
Last Wish (Score:1)
I didn't feel very jokey-jokey about the subject, so I decided to write a short story for the treasonous bastards of the NSA. Hope you like it assholes, hope it makes you think about what the future will bring. I am channeling Phillip K. Dick today. Or perhaps I was inspired by this [youtube.com].
________
LAST WISH
It was a bright little office with an official seal and large letters on the door: The Pact. A hole in the wall really. A series of blurred young faces, documents to sign. A ten minute 'psych' interview with po
Use that data-center (Score:2)
Can't read the article (server slashdotted?), but, since they have the data-center anyway, I suggest they start a "free" social network, a "free" web-based email service, and a "free" search engine.
here is TFA (Score:5, Informative)
it's just a blog post so...
Ten Ways to Make NSA Spying Popular with Americans
posted by REIFMAN OCTOBER 20,2013 in FEATURED, HUMOR
With a more entrepreneurial focus, the NSA could easily counteract the current unpopularity of its surveillance programs and eliminate concerns over the cost of its multi-billion dollar programs.
Here are ten services the NSA could offer to make its spying more popular with Americans and offset the costs of its massive data collection:
1. Make flying easier. Since the NSA knows who the terrorists are, it can generate proceeds from “Not a Terrorist” badges which allow the wearer to bypass security screenings. For an additional fee, it will text you ahead of time if you’re booked in the middle seat between two lumberjacks.
2. Simplifying tax time. Since the NSA knows everything about our finances and credit card transactions, it will file your return with the IRS. Never be audited again.
3. Data recovery. Lose your phone? The NSA will restore your contact list. Hard drive fail? No worries, the NSA will rebuild it from the cloud.
4. Avoid annoying people. The NSA’s new mobile app will help you identify and avoid specific people. Is that chatty coworker in the restroom? Know before you go. Never run into your ex again.
5. Find your teenager. Kid out past curfew? AT&T and Verizon won’t help? Don’t guess. The NSA’s mobile app will pinpoint your teenager on a moment’s notice.
6. Private investigations. Is the guy you’re dating married? Is your spouse having an affair? There’s no need to hire a private investigator. The NSA will monitor the activities of those around you and email you if there’s anything you should know.
7. Improving relationships. Need to playback that conversation with your partner from 3 days ago where they’d agreed to cancel dinner reservations with your mom? No problem, the NSA audio cloud (built in to iOS and Android) will make it easy to retrieve.
8. Unlimited remote access to data. Out of dropbox space? Need a file from home or from your ex-boyfriend’s computer? No problem, the NSA’s cloud file store has it.
9. Access to medical records. Need to lookup an x-ray for your doctor? Want genetic testing reports on your date? The NSA mobile app has that too.
10. Truly secure email services. Using email encryption is hard, a surveillance-free email service would be super popular right now.
If you have more ideas for the NSA, with the hashtag #NSAapps.
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Mexico isn't very happy with the NSA today either but with the French it's personal (millions of personal phone calls recorded from nearly everyone in France that used a phone last December).
HIV Testing? (Score:2)
No more calling in sick! (Score:3)
Site's still down .. (Score:1)