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The EU Report on the Echelon System
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Some people claim that the UNIX learning curve is steep, but at least you only have to climb it once.
Re:Echolon is our front line. (Score:1)
1984 (Score:1)
Intelligence is an Oxymoron (Score:1)
Echelon crosses the line. (Score:2)
1) We are told we have a set of freedoms and that we are so much more democratic than the non-'Anglo Saxons' as you put it, and that these freedoms are worth defending. I do not see how spying on the citizens of the world, while claiming that we have the right to privacy advances the cause of freedom. It happens to advance the cause of the states involved but not the nations involved. There is a distinction between believe in freedom and one's flag.
2) Simply because it is run by democracies, does not make it democraticly controlled. Ollie? Any thoughts? Have you been asked by your local political representative whether or not you actually support such a system? No, we were not told of it until this Englishman raised the alarm. Only when the cat was out of the bag did it become a political issue. It is an organization that does not face normal checks and balances like most government operations. Sure, a director has to have a somewhat uncomfortable yearly meeting with some other director but for an operation of this nature, public scrutiny dearly needed.
3) Our present government may be good overall, but future goverments may not. Will I be held accountable for this post in 30 years? (Here I am opposing my government's policy.) I honestly don't know.
Hitler was elected. Giving future governments insights into my private thoughts via my private faxes, emails, etc. is not such a wonderful idea. Even today one cannot predict the next fixations of our governments: today drugs and cracking, yesterday booze, tomorrow protesting the WTO? Pr0n? All these wars have casualties in ruined lives, for better or worse.
Civil Rights and specifically Privacy is an ideal that people hold to for a reason. This program makes it clear to citizens that our Privacy is not as important to our governments as we were told. One has to then ask: what's next on their list?
Re:Echelon (Score:2)
Re:Echelon isn't the best system... (Score:3)
Echelon as smokescreen (Score:2)
Re:Economic & political consequences (Score:2)
Jeezus fucking christ! It's not like the US was stealing secrets on techniques of developing and building newer and better weapons of mass destruction! Iraq is like 60 years behind the US in that technology, and if they weren't cheating on their sanctions, our spying would not have yeilded any results anyway? It was certainly not "spying" in the conventional sense of the word. And even if we weren't spying, they would have found some other excuse to chase out the inspectors - The Iraqi Parliment has declared the UN null and void for crying out loud? The world is LUCKY that the US did that spying, because when the inspectors DID get kicked out, we knew exactly where to hit them. If the inspection process won't stop them, force is your only fallback measure - so the spying was necessary to deal with an intransigent opponent. Oh no, we stole the top secret plans for Saddam Hussein's giant vibrating golden dildo he uses to pleasure his harem! HA HA! Nobody can stop the US now!
Iraq is looking for any excuse they can to justify building weapons so that they can attack Kuwait, Iran, Israel, Jordan, Turkey, and it's own citizens. Unless you want to pay $50/gal for gas, and watch millions more die, they simply must be stopped at all costs.
Frankly, I don't see why that regime simply isn't removed from power. All this pussy-footing around with legal sanctions and decrees has been given a chance to work, and guess what? every day since the last day of the Gulf War, it has been proven NOT to work. All it does is prolong the suffering of the Iraqi people under the dictator Saddam.
Re:Economic & political consequences (Score:2)
Re:Make a man a slave to keep him safe?? (Score:2)
- Higher Cannabinoid yields are better for the user. THC
is a medically safe compound with no longterm effects. That is why we have Marinol, because THC is safe. Smoking it, on the other hand, isn't so good for you. So a higher potency means less smoke for the same lvl of high. You seem to cast it in a bad light, it isn't in any logical sense.
- The potency of THC in a Cannabis plant varries on several conditions. Freshness, plant genes, growth practices all effect how much THC are in the plant. This was just as true in the 60's as it is now. High yielding plants were available in the 60's just as now. 30 years of breeding cannot alter a plant that much. Low THC yield plants still abound.
- If you spent the time to write your reply, consider spending that time reading up on the subject you are replying to. Reference links,
such as one on the actual potency of Cannabis,
would go a long way in helping your argument out.
---crulx
Forbidden? - Mirror? (Score:1)
Anyone having a mirror up, yet?
An interesting summary of this story (Score:4)
--
"In the land of the brave and the free, we defend our freedom with the GNU GPL."
NTK's summary (Score:2)
Not sure how we managed to report this one before Slashdot, but the European Parliament report on Echelon is (leaking) out all over the place, with the following recommendations included: that the Member States "develop and manufacture encryption technology and software and above all to support projects aimed at developing user-friendly open-source encryption software", and "public administrations of the member states are called upon systematically to encrypt e-mails so that ultimately encryption becomes the norm".
Looking forward to running the diffs on the final, published report.
--
US-centric perspective, again . . . (Score:2)
Just because Americans feel just relaxed and comfortable about spying on the rest of the world (including its UKUSA partners - I believe it was Ronald Walker who revealed that the US was spying on the Australian government) doesn't mean the rest of the world has to like it, and if it involves bases on non-US territory, doesn't have to put up with it.
Go you big red fire engine!
Re:Echolon is our front line. (Score:3)
Re:Echolon is our front line. (Score:3)
no mention of Echelon re: NSA undersea fiber taps (Score:1)
Re:Echelon DDoS attack. (Score:1)
Echelon DDoS attack. (Score:3)
my @Words = ("bomb", "attack", "assassinate", "coup", "terrorist");
while ( 1 )
{
print "$Words[rand($$^time)%$#Words+1]\n";
sleep(60);
}
Re:Interesting snippits (Score:1)
Yes, because if you don't pronounce it like only the President and Homer Simpson do, the computers probably won't pick it up :) Hmmm, I wonder if Springfield is really in Texas...
[Homer, correcting Pepe] "Nuke-yu-lar", it's "nukyular".
I wonder if the estimates of costs of industrial espionage are like the "Kevin Mitnick costs" - sure, our source code is worth X, and so even though we're not out any actual money and no one's really used the code against us, we'll just assume that Mitnick stole $X. Not that I necessarily defend the guy, but the charges weren't really proportionate to the actual results of his actions. So it may be with industrial espionage in general.
Caution: contents may be quarrelsome and meticulous!
Re:Make a man a slave to keep him safe?? (Score:1)
Did you win your suit?
And is there any chance you could provide references about the hate magazines. I can believe it, but I'd love to have something to back it up.
rark!
Re:Echolon is our front line. (Score:1)
Re:Echolon is our front line. (Score:3)
you have a point, but your usage of the term "anglo saxon" is pretty offensive. this country is made up of a variety of ethinc lineages, and anglo saxon by no means has even a plurality, let alone a majority.
also, echelon doesn't have anything to do with WWII, the Nazis, or preventing the plunging of Europe into a pit of darkness. the UKUSA alliance dates back to 1947; echelon to 1971. check it out:
The Echelon FAQ from Echelonwatch [aclu.org]
no (Score:1)
We have always been at war with Oceania, I mean, Eurasia.
Re:Make a man a slave to keep him safe?? (Score:2)
Also, the police were never precise about what they were looking for. Or how they knew how to look. And no, proving them wrong would not make them look like idiots, it would reaffirm for them the belief that SS tactics will work in America.
Re:Make a man a slave to keep him safe?? (Score:2)
This is why we shouldn't let 12 year olds post to these forums. This is the most stupid thing I have ever heard. Perhaps we should let the government wire your house with video cameras. Heck, I'd rather know that they were watching you 24 hours a day so that you couldn't build fertilizer bombs in your garage. Perhaps after Littleton, every parent should wire their kid's rooms so that we know their not hoarding weapons.
I could have also saved myself alot of trouble by not having walls, would you reccommend that too??
Have you ever heard the saying "Those who would sacrifice liberty for safety deserve neither"?? Get it through your sloping forehead, liberty is something you defend, not something you are given.
Make a man a slave to keep him safe?? (Score:5)
The U.S. Government is known to publish at least 30% of the hate magazines published in this country. There are automated reviews of your utility bills that seek certain patterns. Random IR thermal imaging is employed by almost every city with a population over 250,000. I could keep going on.
These techniques are used to identify people for the local police to investigate. They are illegal, and any evidence cannot be used in court, but they do lead the police to people and then it just gets worse.
I found out about this 6 years ago. I stared growing hydroponic veggies and bonsai etc.... I purchased some nice Hydro equipment from a catalog store, including a big MH light etc... I was initially harassed approximately 5 months after purchasing the equipment. 2 police showed up at my house and said that due to a high volume of people coming and going from my house (my mother was my only visitor all day) they had "probable cause" to search, and I should just let them in. When I refused, they started threatening, etc.
They could never get a warrant, because they could not justify it. So instead, they went through my trash, tapped my phones, put my house under surveilance, followed me to work and stooping me and giving me tickets and they trying to search my car.
To make a long story short, I sued for harrasment, and it was revealed that they got my name and address from the hydro store, (govt. run) and then watched my house for the light to start, and then waited 5 months so they could catch me "at harvest". The only problem is I was growing Roma tomatoes and a lime tree.
"Mother should I trust the Government???"
~Hammy
Re:a little paranoid (Score:1)
He would say, "all of us are a little paranoid, when you get on an air plane you think it might blow up. But your uncle is really paranoid. When he gets on an air plane he knows it is going to blow up."
This uncle was also the first person to ever tell mention anything like ECHELON to me. It was over 15 years ago too. He said that US had the ability to monitor all phone calls. But there would be no way for them to store everything. So, there were trigger words that would cause the rest of your conversation to be recorded. I was only a kid at the time, so I figured my dad was right, and he was just a lot paranoid.
But it was funny, recommended placing key words together every time you talk on the phone to over load the system.
In your memory, uncle:
Are you going to bring the party supplies, we need balloons to blow up, the White House apples for bobbing, and dispossible plates.
--
Re:Make a man a slave to keep him safe?? (Score:2)
The police don't have a right to search everyone just because they MAY be committing a crime, and I don't want them to be doing that. It's worth a bit of personal discomfort to collect the evidence and prove to people that the police are doing these things.
This is especially true with a stupid law like the criminalization of pot. It they were searching your building for someone who had built a bomb and taken out an airliner, I'd be a little more willing to co-operate. Especially if laws were changed to forbid police from searching you for one reason and arresting you for something else they see while in there. (I think they should be able to act on very serious crimes, like if they search you for drugs and find human remains, but not if they search you for drugs and discover cuban cigars, or copied DVDs, etc.)
btw, I can't say anything about hate magazines, but I remember an article a while back that said the same thing about kiddy porn, the goverment comes very close to entrapment in its production of this (well, rerelease of existing material, I'd assume) to snare anyone who tries to order more.
Re:Echolon is our front line. (Score:1)
Would that be the same military that "defended" South Vietnam by invasion and genocide? The same military that bombed North Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia to ruins, killing hundreds of thousands of civilians, if not millions? Perhaps the same military that "defended" Central and South America by overthrowing many a popularly-elected government because they showed signs of "communism" such as policies favoring land reform, education, labor rights, and health care? (See for instance Guatemala, El Salvador, Argentina, Nicaragua, et al)
America's indoctrination and propoganda system is a mighty fine piece of work, but even I am surprised that people still believe we need to defend ourselves from communism by using murder, torture, state terror, repression, and effective slavery of entire nations.
And that might be fine if it were really about communism rather than money. I understand that we like our high living standards, but is it worth terrorizing other people to "protect our sources of raw materials and ensure markets for our exports"? Would you be willing to fly to South America and do some of the killing yourself?
And Bush wants to increase the already insane level of military spending. I guess maintaining a puppet dictatorship with military force -- uh, I mean defense -- is quite expensive. Damn those peasants, always demanding to be fed and clothed and occasionally educated.
And who controls our democratic governments? You aren't under the belief that we as citizens of the various democracies control our governments, are you? When information gathered through Echelon was given to Boeing, causing Airbus to lose a contract to them, that was just another case of staving off fascism? Unlike the French indeed.
You forgot massacre indigenous populations, force our moral values upon others, destabilize peace to ensure unfetered access to oil, markets, and cheap labor, and use the CIA to overthrow popular governments. Oh yes, and how could I forget rape, pillage, and burn!
Peace PatientZero
Re:Interesting snippits (Score:2)
You may be upset that the system makes mistakes, or that the system can be abused... that makes me upset, and rightfully so. But not having one in place at all would be ridiculous as well. And irresponsible. It is not an easy answer, never will be, but that is the nature of the world we live in.
Well and thoughtfully said, sir. Without any rancor or sarcasm, I humbly bow my head in defeat. You are right. Such a system is necessary, and the world would be a more dangerous place without it. The primary (and some say only legitimate) reason for a government to exist is to protect it's citizens from physical harm. SIGINT is an obviously necessary part of that. We must simply strive to make sure it is only used for the protection of life and liberty, not for petty economic espionage as the EU member states are claiming.
- Rev.Interesting snippits (Score:4)
In an interview he [Mike Frost, former Candian secret service officer]gave for an Australian TV channel, he said by way of example that the CSE actually had entered the name and telephone number of a woman in a database of possible terrorists because she had used an ambiguous phrase in a harmless telephone conversation with a friend. When searching through intercepted communications, the computer had found the keyword and reproduced the conversation. The analyst was unsure and therefore recorded her personal details.
And to think I thought that the .sig fodder was silly! Doesn't look that way. And just to help Eris out, I shall henceforth be sprinkling my telephone conversations with random outbursts of "nu-coo-luhr terrorism", "anthrax", and "Backstreet Boys."
He [Wayne Madsen, former NSA employee] argues that the NSA had to concede that it held more than 1000 pages of information on Princess Diana, because her conduct ran counter to US policy, owing to her campaign against land mines
That is FUCKING INSANE. Because she held views counter to that of the Pentagon she's now a target for surveillance? CHRIST! I think marijuana and LSD should be legal, and have given money to several organizations who believe similarly. I guess that means the FBI, et al, have a ph1l3 on me because I question the governing orthodoxy.
FUCK YOU GUYS. And don't gimme any shit about "national security" because I will just throw up on your shoes. Oh yeah, we live in a free country. As long as you don't mind the fact that the government regularly compiles information on people that they don't like, even if they are peace loving activists like the goddamn Princess of Wales.
Where's Noam Chomsky when you need him?
As early as 1988, the Max Plank Institute estimated that the damage caused by industrial espionage in Germany amounted to at least DM 8 billion. The chairman of the association of security consultants in Germany quotes a figure of DM 15 bn a year, based on expert evidence. The President of the European police trade unions, Hermann Lutz, puts the damage at DM 20 bn a year. According to the FBI, US industry suffered losses of US$ 1.7 bn as a result of competitive intelligence and industrial espionage in the years 1992/1993. The former chairman of the Secret Service monitoring committee of the House of Representatives in the USA has spoken of losses of US $ 100 bn sustained through lost contracts and additional research and development costs. It is claimed that between 1990 and 1996 this resulted in the loss of 6 million jobs.
Encrypt people, encrypt! And roll out IPv6, cuz it's got packet level encryption. It'll help bunches.
- Rev.Re:Echolon is our front line. (Score:1)
What would you think if Texas was spying on the rest of the states of the USA?
Also, you imply that because Echelon is controled by the democratic government of the USA it will only used for the good cause and that you'll never give info to any corporation, etc. Riiiiigggght! Who buys that? I don't and it seems that the UE parliament doesn't either.
Cheers,
Angel
At least someone's acting as a privacy watchdog (Score:2)
The (US based) apologists always point out that if you have nothing to hide, you shouldn't worry. And that from a realpolitik point of view, the US/UK should be doing whatever's needed to gather intelligence on potential threats.
Since the EU doesn't really benefit from these arguments, I suspect that they decided to raise a stink untill the US/UK give some concessions to quiet them down. They probably want to share in any relevant intelligence that's relevant to their governments. They'll never really know if they're getting a complete account, but they'll be provided various intelligence tidbits that will placate them. Then this whole matter will be quietly dropped.
Until such time, the report will say
1) Zut alors! @e're being monitored!
2) Mon Dieu! If we are to get privacy, we must encrypt our messages!
3) Stop monitoring us or we'll get really upset and pout. We'll stamp our feet and make some noice.
Re:Echolon is our front line. (Score:3)
Re:Economic & political consequences (Score:1)
Well there's a puppet governement already. Saddam is the US puppet :
Frankly a 'real' puppet governement would have achieved the second point right, but the first point wouldn't be possible, hence loosing the diplomatic possibilities that the existence of Saddam offers .
And if you don't trust me, ask yourself this question : why, if Iraq lost the war and NATO invaded it, did we let Saddam in place and start an ambargo while we could have just put him in prison ? When Nazi germany lost WWII, we didn't let the Nazis in place and ambargo Germany... why do this with Saddam then ?
Re:the same stuff I always say ... (Score:1)
"Oh, wait, the NSA knows how big was the bribe and USian company managed to offer more and win the market"
But of course that wasn't public. Do you really think only other countries bribe to win public contracts ? Do you truly believes Being never gave dollars-filled black-wallets here and there ?
Anagram Summary... (Score:2)
(Well it's only one letter out
the same stuff I always say ... (Score:5)
The /. community tends to see technologies they like (napster) in the best possible light (but it can be used legitimately!!!!) and therefore justified. At the same time viewing any technology used by any government agency to do anything useful as the Tools Of Oppression, therefore a precursor to the End Of The World.
The truth of the matter is that there are precious few examples of echelon privacy violations I've seen, at least on slashdot ... the french airplane thing, for example. Here's the /. version slowly transmogrified into what I gleaned from cnn articles.
The NSA is stealing industrial secrets from the french and giving them to american companies!! Because of that an american company beat a french company for a large contract to the saudi government!
Oh, wait, the NSA was stealing industrial secrets and giving them to the U.S state department!
Oh, wait, the NSA only told the state department that the french company was offering bribes to saudi government officials. Then the state department told other saudi government officials!
Oh, and the NSA only did that because Congress (remember, the people we elect) passed a Real Actual Law mandating that the NSA report corruption information to the state department when it could potentially harm a U.S. business.
Yeah, the NSA's obviously evil and amok. I'm sure all the boeing employees who kept their jobs hate the fact that NSA monitors communications in foreign countries.
Oops! (Score:1)
10. Protection against industrial espionage
(missing sections to be submitted following visit to USA)
"Uh, we were just looking around..."
Re:Echelon as smokescreen (Score:1)
A shotgun approach (the rumored capabilities of Echelon) could
a) tip you off about interesting intel targets that you might not otherwise be aware of, and
b) tip you off about leaks if a target whom you're already surveilling uses a method not covered by existing wiretaps, infiltration et al, but is by Ech.
FWIW, some datacenters might be very, very difficult to infiltrate. Some organizations, or even entire regimes, might be quite paranoid.
Re:the same stuff I always say ... (Score:1)
Re:Echelon is here (Score:2)
Re:Make a man a slave to keep him safe?? (Score:1)
I don't see the problem with explaining what the lights were for. People are naturaly curious. If a neighbor came to me and asked me that same question I wouldn't have any problem explaining or even showing them, even if that neighbor happened to be a cop. Ohh well, guess I just don't get it.
=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\
Re:Make a man a slave to keep him safe?? (Score:2)
=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=
Re:Forbidden? - Mirror? (Score:1)
Re:Make a man a slave to keep him safe?? (Score:1)
No, mom says, don't trust the government.
Signals Intelligence (Score:2)
--
Echelon isn't the best system... (Score:2)
You think the wires in your house (even the electricity) go straight to plants without being tapped? The illuminati have your house completely tapped through every wire you own. The only escape is to be a hermit out in the middle of no-where. (see sig)
Re:Interesting snippits (Score:2)
This would all be fine and dandy, except that the only reason the USA is at risk of a nuclear explosion in the first place is because it's intelligence community pulls the kind of shit in other countries that makes people willing to sacrifice their own lives just for some slight payback. Not sick twisted people, normal healthy people like you or me.
If your wife, the light of your life, angel of innocence, is killed by the operations of foreign terrorists (the CIA) who are acting not for "national security" but to secure the flow of dirty money (which they think is the same thing) to their country, normal people develope a pretty big, and entirely justified grievance. And they sometimes have little left in their now-empty lives except to act on it.
In the Big Picture, salvation from bombs is not in winning an intelligence agency arms race, but in a foreign policy that doesn't create the need to bomb us in the first place. There are many countries or blocs of nations as big and/or powerful as the USA. Very few, if any, have the terrorist fears of the US. Why? Because very few act as if making lifelong enemies is inconsequential next to making money and playing power games.
We reap what we sow. Unlike a missile defence shield, a change in foreign policy can actually stop a nuke in a suitcase. And it won't cost billions. (unless you count the lost earnings from illegal arms trade and the like
Re:Economic & political consequences (Score:2)
Unfortunately, the world is not as black and white as that. I do not dispute that the inspectors felt thwarted, and that they were being constantly mislead, but Iraq was fully justified in doing this because the USA was illegally using the inspections to spy on Iraq.
The premise was that Iraq would open itself to impartial inspections, and was guarenteed said inspections would not be used for US spying. In a sense, the US broke the arrangement first.
Now with that in mind, consider that Iraq did, for over a decade, allow the inspectors almost complete access to anything they wanted to see. Perhaps Iraq was obstinate over requests to see things that (in its view) had little to do with weapons and a lot to do with internal affairs (ie "while we're here, Saddam, mind if we do a little spying?").
So for ten years, Iraq suffered under sunctions while waiting for the inspectors to finish their inspection. Ten years and there was no sign the end of sanctions was even close. "We've been had!" Iraq concludes "They ain't ever going to say they're satisfied - they're going to keep sanctions in place until Saddam is gone. The dirty lying bastards!".
Can't say I blame them actually.
To claim that Iraq's problems are entirely of their own doing is verging on ridiculous IMHO. The USA has done a whole lot behind the scenes, and it sounds like you're overlooking quite a bit of it. Of course, it's not like US media puts much effort into covering that sort of thing
Re:Make a man a slave to keep him safe?? (Score:2)
Or caused a lot of trouble for himself when they nabbed him for something else. Police will quite happily tell you that if they want to nab you on something, they can easily find something - no-one is 100% compliant with all laws. Letting a cop into your house who is highly suspicious of you is asking for a trip downtown.
And the bottom line is, in a free society, the police should not stop you in the street and ask to see your "papers" like the SS. A house search is even worse. And being harrassed because you dared to use your civil rights is unforgivable.
I'm disgusted by people who think that it is right and proper that the police should be able to harrass people, and have the gall to blame the victim for their "stupid" refusal to throw away their rights. People have civil rights for a reason, and if failing to waive your rights (at the unjustified request of the authorities) is as good as actually commiting a crime, you're right back in Nazi Germany. Is this so difficult to grasp?
Re:Interesting snippits (Score:1)
And curiously enough, she was from the part of the world that has suffered pretty heavily from leftover land mines. We're talking about ordinance that stands the test of time and people to this day manage to get themselves killed in leftover mine fields from wars gone by. Any resonably humane person could well look at the situation and say, "My god, this needs to be fixed.", even if it might be impractical to actually do anything about it.
And if Diana had been doing things secretly to undermine US policy, or even openly doing it, it still wouldn't change the basic idea that the CIA and NSA both need a lot more public scrutiny.
Echelon (Score:1)
Sincerly, NSA.
If you believe that have I got a deal for you . . .
Re:Echelon (Score:1)
That's pretty much the point, isn't it? Wiretaps and email taps require judicial orders in most countries, I don't know about the US.
Illegal acts should be discovered, hopefully before they occur, and acted upon decisively.
I'm surprised you had no objection to illegally copying software, or making threats against a world leader.
Here's the point:
Public monitoring of public behaviour is perfectly acceptable. It should be! If choose to stand on a street corner and discuss illegal activities infront of a beat cop then you get what you deserve. Your privacy is yours to protect, or not. Your government and by extension its agents are tasked by you to protect your rights, whatever those are. Do you want them to not be able to watch for these actions? For my part, I fully support legal monitoring. I like being able to go to the corner store at 1am because I'm out of Cheeto's.
a little paranoid (Score:3)
So we can come to the conclusion that we only need to be a little paranoid when it comes to the US government?
Check out the Vinny the Vampire [eplugz.com] comic strip
Economic & political consequences (Score:1)
Re:Economic & political consequences (Score:1)
We did invade Iraq. I think we didn't take Saddam out because our allies didn't want us building a new, U.S.-controlled government in an oil-rich Arab nation. Or it could be that we decided an extended stalemate would give us an excuse for a decade-long military presence in Saudi Arabia. Besides, I'm talking about economic domination, not military domination. That's why I mentioned the possibility of an embargo before instead of the possibility of the EU invading the US. And, the EU report concludes that Echelon was not geared for intercepting military communications.
The notion the the U.S. is some sort of "white hat" in the international arena is just not credible. Our actions in Central America in the 80's and in South America right now are more than enough to counter that assertion.
Secret Agent Bubba... (Score:1)
I think I'd tell Texas to come up with their own damn barbeque sauce instead of stealing our recipes, thank you very much.
Re:Economic & political consequences (Score:1)
And as for Iraq being sixty years behind us wrt WMD, consider this: We weren't lopping Scuds (or V1s) anywhere in 1941.
Re:Echelon is our front line. (Score:2)
I'm sorry, Lover's Arrival, but I must disagree.
Echelon is an infomration-gathering system. The theory behind its operation is that it picks up key words in open communications. It cannot pick out encrypted words. By "encrypted" in this sense, I mean messages within messages, such as one phrase meaning something completely different than what it sounds. (For example: "Climb Mount Niitaki," I think, was the phrase used to initiate the Imperial Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. This phrase would ot have been picked up, if Echelon was operating during WWII, which it was not, since there are no "key" words for Echelon to latch onto, such as "bomb," "attack," "aircraft carrier," and the like.) Some people have claimed that Echelon has been expanded to enable it to monitor Internet traffic.
Furthermore, military traffic of a sensitive nature is sent encrypted over non-civilian channels. Echelon's entire purpose is the monitoring of civilian channels. This is of importance when combatting an insurrection or rebellion, when the participants will most likely need to rely on the existing civilian information infrastructure. However, when facing a full-fledged military force (or an insurrection force equipped by a foreign power with military-grade equipment) Echelon will fail because the targets of surveillance will no longer be using civilian channels.
This lends credence to the assertations of a report to the European Parliament in 1988 that Echelon "ECHELON is designed for primarily non-military targets: governments, organisations and businesses in virtually every country." (Reference) [aclu.org] (In fact, go here [aclu.org] to learn about the ACLU's take on Echelon.)
Echelon is intended for domestic monitoring. The only possible use such a thing could have is to monitor a nation's citizens for insurrection and seditious activities. The legal and moral grounds for a government to monitor it's citizens and persecute them for these crimes depends upon whom you ask.
Just as a point of fact:
It did not. Echelon's groundwork was laid in 1947 as part of the UKUSA agreement, in which the United States and the United Kingdom (and by extension the British Commonwealth) would coordinate intelligence activities and share information. The actuall Echelon system itself was allegedly set up in 1971.
---
Chief Technician, Helpdesk at the End of the World
Difficult Problems (Score:1)
I agree with you about economic espionage. I think it's just another sign that America is being controlled more and more by big business than by leaders who genuinely have the people in mind when creating legislation and plans.
So, the question is, how can a system like Echelon be made palatable to those of us who love and adore freedom? How can we be sure that it is only being used for the protection of human life? The unfortunate thing is that this involves certain levels of trust and responsibility, and I dare say that those do not exist in our government right now.
Americans especially have a high (and healthy) distrust of government, and Europeans are pretty pissed off at our government, and I can't say that I blame them. Look at how angry we were with China's espionage activities!
Re:Interesting snippits (Score:2)
Just to play devil's advocate, and to add another POV to this. Compiling this information on Princess Diana was extreme, but do you want the other extreme? Where we are completely in the dark about potential threats to US policy and or security? Just so you can download your porn without anyone knowing? The fact is, there are people out there that don't give a damn about you, your freedoms, or your life. I firmly believe that the only reason that the US has not had a nuclear explosion on the mainland from a small nuclear bomb is because the intelligence community is running some hellacious interference that we never hear about. We know that there are people out there with nuclear material to construct highly destructive WMD which I have no doubt will, eventually, be used. The only other obstacle would be the engineering required to construct the bomb, but honestly, how hard would it be to find a corrupt engineer and pay him big bucks?
So the question is, don't you think that it is wrong NOT to keep tabs on information that could prevent terrorist attacks or otherwise put the lives of people at risk? The government has an obligation and a contract with the people to protect them from attack from both foreign and domestic enemies. It would be absolutely irresponsible to ignore this aspect of the equation.
You may be upset that the system makes mistakes, or that the system can be abused... that makes me upset, and rightfully so. But not having one in place at all would be ridiculous as well. And irresponsible. It is not an easy answer, never will be, but that is the nature of the world we live in.
All right - a whole new round! (Score:2)
Zarquil
Let's go out and get BOMBED and CRASH in the BUSH beside the WHITE HOUSE.
Does that translate well to French, German, and Spanish?
Re:Make a man a slave to keep him safe?? (Score:1)
You could have saved yourself a lot of trouble if you let the police come in and see that you weren't growing any pot, stupid.
I would rather that the government be aware of people who are growing hydroponic tomatoes than have the government be unaware of actual criminals building fertilizer bombs in their garages.
Re:Echolon is our front line. (Score:1)
Thats because they are trolling - successfully too given the +5 insightful they've got..
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Re:Echolon is our front line. (Score:1)
ROTFL!
Seriously though, we'd assume that minitruth would be able to do a little search-and-replacing, every time allegences changed, no? Hmm....job openings for perl hackers in 1984? Was perl even around then?
Re:Forbidden? (Score:1)
Re:Make a man a slave to keep him safe?? (Score:1)
Re:Echolon is our front line. (Score:2)
Re:Economic & political consequences (Score:1)
I'll answer this: Because Colin Powell, is a true pacifist (not to mention, entirely correct on this point). At the time of the Gulf War, Iraq had an unimaginably large standing army, fourth largest in the world (manpower wise). When the ground campaign ceased, the iraqis were in full retreat, having lost 100,000 men. At that point the stated and unstated objectives of the campaign had been accomplished... Kuwait had been freed, and their oil fields were again back in the hands of their former owners (though slightly burnt). At that time, there was seen to be little to gain from mowing down an additional 900,000 iraqi soldiers and god-knows-how-many civillians. Now, you could claim that the sanctions have killed more (though I doubt you'd be correct, but you can claim it), but Iraq could have ended those sanctions at any time simply by allowing UN weapon-inspectors free access to the facilities that they wished to see. Iraq's problems are entirely of their own doing. Anytime they wish to allow UN weapon inspectors, the sanctions are gone. Tim
Re:no mention of Echelon re: NSA undersea fiber ta (Score:2)
Vary strange. I wonder what characteristics a (critical) issue has to have in order to be so frequently ignored...
--CTH
--
New Scientist also wrote on this... (Score:1)
Click Here> [newscientist.com]
Also, this maybe of interest too:
Click here [bbc.co.uk]
Have fun.
Re:Echolon is our front line. (Score:2)
You say:
[...] but really it is just a branch of the modern military, and a legitimate form of defense.
The report says: ( section 13.2 [cryptome.org] )
What is important is that its purpose is to intercept private and commercial communications, and not military communications.
You say:
At the end of the day, Echelon is controlled by our democratic governments, and the information it reveals is used responsibly.
The report says: ( also section 13.2 [cryptome.org] )
As the protection of EU citizens depends on the legal situations in the individual Member States, which vary widely, and since in some cases parliamentary control bodies do not even exist, the degree of protection can hardly be said to be adequate.
I also wonder whether you have a brain in your head.
You say:
It provided much defense against the nazi threat in WWII.
Yes, and if the Romans hadn't beat off the Carthaginians, we'd all be speaking Carthaginian-derived languages today. And if the Anglo-Saxons, of which you are so proud ( and yes I am one too ), hadn't killed the Britons and stolen their lands, we'd all be speaking some variation of Welsh. And if the Anglo-Saxons hadn't had their butts kicked by William the Conqueror, we'd all be speaking something much more like Dutch. And if the Austrians hadn't beaten off the Turks, we'd all be speaking Turkish.
My point is: beating down an invader or an oppressor in the past hardly gives you moral justification for being an invader and an oppressor today. Just because Echelon-like systems were used to defeat the Nazis and provide valuable information on the Soviets doesn't mean that its OK to be using it to spy on private people and businesses today.
You say:
[...] our democratic Anglo Saxon realms [...] we should be strong, proud and altruistic [...] in its defense of the Anglo Saxon worldview [...]
Whoa, hold on there bucko!
Take off the white hood and put down the burning cross. Maybe its just me, but you sure do make yourself sound awfully racist talking like this.
Sure, the Echelon nations were settled/conquered/plundered largely by people of the British Iles, and they compose the dominant populations. But don't forget that within the UK, USA, Australia, NZ, Canada, there are many many non Anglo-Saxon people who are perfectly good citizens and share the same "values" you speak of. If you try to exclude them from being worthy of the same rights as others, you automatically invalidate your claims to any kind of democratic righteousnous. Also there are many Anglo-Saxons among us ( myself included ) who feel that this kind of espionage and surveillance of people and businesses, whatever their nationality is wrong and immoral. Evidently this "strong, proud and altruistic" nature you seem so misty-eyed about is not a genetic trait of Anglo-Saxon stock.
You seem very certain that the activities of the Intelligence agencies are scrutinized very thoroughly by the democratic bodies governing those nations. I think you need something of an education in the realities of the intelligence world. The truth is that most intelligence agencies operate with very little accountability to the public or to democratically elected officials. They operate this way by design as well as by convention.
As for the case of the UK, they are a member in some respects of the European Union and European community, and are moving towards more integration with Europe - and not with the "Anglo Saxon realms". As members of the European Union they would be in violation of treaties and human rights conventions to conduct or allow surveillance of European citizens. All this is outline in the report under discussion here - if you had bothered to read it.
In conclusion I've got to say that anyone who values democracy as you seem to should not subscribe to the hypocrisy of accepting any "undemocratic knife" to be used against anybody anywhere! This is contrary to the whole spirit and beliefs of this "Anglo Saxon worldview" and form the basis and constitution of all these "Anglo Saxon realms". To quote from one of the most eloquent "Anglo-Saxons" on this subject:
"He who sacrifices freedom for security will neither have nor deserve either"
-- Thomas Jefferson ( also Ben. Franklin said something very similar )
Re:Make a man a slave to keep him safe?? (Score:1)
LEXX
Re:Echolon is our front line. (Score:1)
OK, point by point since I have nothing but time at the moment.
I don't understand why people criticise Echelon all the time. Prima Facie , it may appear insidious and dangerous, but really it is just a branch of the modern military, and a legitimate form of defense.
Yeah, and while a rattlesnake may appear dangerous, it is in fact simply a branch of the lizard family and not to be concerned about.
In the modern world, defense through physical aggression really doesn't work. Armies and bombs are becoming an archaic thing of the past, as modern states attack each other in the infosphere.
Thank god you aren't controlling our military budget. Even today one has to occupy enemy land to own it. NO nation is so wired that it can be 'run remotely'. Not unless you have big fat missiles pointed at them, which brings you back in to the world of physical force.
Echelon is our defense. It has provided an incredible amount of information for the Anglo Saxon world, and was first set up by the Anglo Saxon nations to provide a defense against the socialism and communism gripping europe. It provided much defense against the nazi threat in WWII. I think perhaps that our European friends forget their history when they criticise Echeleon - if it were not for Echelon, the fascists and communists would have plunged Western Europe into a pit of darkness the like of which the world has never scene.
"449 In this year Mauricius and Valentinian obtained the Kingdom and reigned seven years. In their days Hengest and Horsa, invited by Vortigern, King of the Britons, came to Britain at a place called Ebbsfleet at first to help the Britons, but later they fought against them. The king ordered them to fight against the Picts, and so they did and had victory wherever they came. They then sent to Angeln; ordered them to send them more aid and to be told of the worthlessness of the Britons and of the excellence of the land. They sent them more aid. These men came from three nations of Germany: from the Old Saxons, from the Angles, from the Jutes."
Ignorant racist.
At the end of the day, Echelon is controlled by our democratic governments, and the information it reveals is used responsibly. We very rarely give information out to companies or the public, unlike the french.
Just how the fsck do you know for certain what our gov't does and does not do? This I would like to know.
Echelon is controlled democratically, but it is the undemocratic knife edge that defends and ensures the existance of our democratic Anglo Saxon realms. Those who would see it disbanded - like the Europeans with their PR campaign, when they do just the same thing unsuccessfully - are just seeking to plunge our nation into decline and guilt, where we should be strong, proud and altruistic. I hope to see echelon continue its good work, for all our people, in its defense of the Anglo Saxon worldview. UKUSA needs echelon.
Yeah, altruistic. Great, good and decent America dispensing the fruits of our moral high-ground to the great unwashed of the world. Jesushfuckingchristsittingonaspinfuckchairspewing
Grrrrr!
LEXX
Re:Economic & political consequences (Score:1)
Not black and white. Right and wrong! Attitudes such as these represent a clear and present danger to the intrests of myself, my country, the movie going public and Harrison Ford.
... (Score:1)
(rot13) Be abg... (/rot13) Nobody can crack -- or would want to even TRY to crack -- that! (joking, joking..)
Hmm... (Score:1)
I KNOW what's inside! Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck...
Wait, or was that Epcot?
Re:Make a man a slave to keep him safe?? (Score:1)
Re:Interesting snippits (Score:4)
You claim to be righteous, but you supported those causes. Diana outwardly was harmless, but she was against U.S. policy.
If keeping yourself from being investigated by the security police was as easy as holding a bunch of flowers and saying "peace, man," then terrorists would be poster children from Haight-Ashbury.
If Diana had been found to be secretly meeting with and funding other causes inimical to U.S. policy--if Lord Blakeney had been found to be the Scarlet Pimpernel--then maybe you'd agree that keeping an eye on them once we got the first clue was a good idea.
N.B. I hold views counter to U.S. policy (Bush's abortion and energy stance, e.g.). I have also held DoD security clearances. When I retire in 30-odd years one of the things I'm going to do is submit FOIA requests for my FBI, CIA, DISCO, Army, and NSA files, spend a few weeks writing a commentary on them, and have the whole thing bound in law-calf.
--Blair
ach mien leiben! (Score:3)
Re:price of freedom (Score:1)
americans are paranoid. (Score:1)
i mean i don't know what is really going on there, probably the european television is putting it in a different light (seriously).
so this is probably just my subjective view but can someone explain me why the american government likes playing Big Brother so much? i dont see any historical reasons or anything - except mabye that terrorist Bin Ladim.
Re:Echolon is our front line. (Score:5)
price of freedom (Score:1)
so let's remember our real enemy and their stupid berets and garlic-flavored frogs' legs and general cowardice.
Re:Echolon is our front line. (Score:1)
I think the point there is not that Echelon is used for military purposes, but that it can be used for non-military purposes. It is just as saying that a thing is good because is as good uses (read thing=gun or whatever controversial topic). It can be bad is you misuse it.
I wouldn't be so sure about that: it is well known that Echelon was used to spy on French companies to help US companies to win businesses. So please be moderate on theese :-|
And yes, as long as such a system is used by democratic government, this should not be a problem. But you know, the NSA (or any agency) sometimes does things that the government does not approve (officially). And you can also doubt that a government would no be tempted by using such systems to help its citizens (even if is seems not moral for other countries).
To get back to the "good use - bad use" that I was mentionning, Echelon is as bad (as good) as the government that uses it.
lame (Score:1)
The Zimmerman Telegram (Score:1)
Anyway, I was talking to an FBI agent a while ago about an active cybercrime case I'm pursuing, and I just couldn't get him to jump on the case. He said that their priorities are bigger, like Bin Lauden and a multinational pedophile kidnap/slave trader ring they'd just uncovered. Echelon can read my mail all day, it is of no importance to them compared to those sorts of issues.
Re:Make a man a slave to keep him safe?? (Score:1)
Could you elaborate a bit on that ?
Possibly some URLs with more information on that subject ?
Echelon is here (Score:2)
Did you know that Echelon had a year 2000 bug ? The CIA was blind for 3 days, there could have started the 3rd world war and you wouldn't have noticed it... [in fact the USA wouldn't notice the doom of Europe either, there would only be a little notice in USA Today at the 3rd page]
CU,
kx
Re:Make a man a slave to keep him safe?? (Score:2)
You can't be serious. Who in their right mind would let the police search their house without a warrent? Certainly not I. The last house we lived in was not very well oriented to the sun. My wife and I are plant lovers and had to put banks of full spectrum florescent lighting throughout the house to keep our plants alive while we lived there. We're talking basic houseplants here, folks. At night, a large window at the front of the house lit the entire street up due to the lighting in that room.
We didn't get harassed, but a cop lived down the street and I'm sure it was only a matter of time. Had he knocked on my door and asked what the lights were for, I would have simply smiled and said, "Wouldn't you like to know?" I wasn't doing anything illegal, but if law enforcement wants to look through my house, they're not doing it without a warrant. Fuck 'em. Make 'em go through the work. And do as Hammy did, if they illegally harass you, sue the sons of bitches. The whole war on drugs has gotten so out of hand that innocent citizens are being victimized, and I for one will make their lives as miserable as I can if they try to pull that shit on me.
Re:Echelon DDoS attack. (Score:1)
Re:Maxxam sucks! (Score:1)
Echelon: (non?)existent as it is, should you care? (Score:1)
For more then a decade, assumption has been that the Echelon network actually exists, and there's been lots of discussion about that. I'll save you another comment on it, and leave that to the European Commission's investigation team. One of the websites mentioned in a previous comment (New Scientist [newscientist.com]) states: "A new European Parliament document confirms the existence of a secretive US-led communications surveillance network, known as Echelon."
What's far more concerning (IMHO) and pops up in the discussions far less often, is how relevant a network like Echelon might be. Therefore, let's have a look at the technical difficulties one would have to overcome. Try to imagine being the 'big bad board' (BBB) implementing a system that would monitor all the network traffic for, say, a company with 10000 employees on five locations throughout the United States (or, if you prefer, Europe, the Far- or Middle East, Africa...).
Our first challenge would be deciding what network traffic is worth monitoring. Of course we're going to intercept all e-mail sent by our employees! Who knows what evil plans they're making up to throw over the BBB! On the other hand, we're proud to have the best educated employees in the region, so they're probably not stupid enough to use our own mail server for their evil purposes. They're likely using a hotmail [hotmail.com] account or the likes, so we're going to monitor all internet traffic on our networks too. In fact, we'd better watch all network traffic other than the use of our network shares and databases! So this thing is going to take up a lot of computing power!
Now, we can't possibly install the hardware needed for our Big Brother Watchdog on every site so we'll have to tap into network traffic at all five locations, bundle it and send it to our headquarters, where the BBB will be pleased to see all the hardware and extra cabling installed. Jeez, that'll be a lot of network traffic flowing to our headquarters from now on!
And of course, let's not ignore the faxes, telephone lines and the likes.
Talking about 'all the hardware'
Now look again! But this time, try to perceive the number of computers taking part in these projects, the total computing power involved, and the time needed to acquire the ultimate goal: a possible match on a cancer cure, the radio signal we wanted or an optimal Golomb Ruler. Quoting some of these statistics:
- Distributed.Net, OGR project: Our current combined OGR network speed is 182.49 Giga-nodes per second
- UD Cancer Research Project: 609,178 devices, 104,791,203 hours total CPU time
- Seti@home: 3044035 users, 673412.833 years of computer time
Looking at these statistics, let's reconsider the amount of computing power we'll need to sift through all this network traffic... Yeah, sure, even as a European from a pretty open-minded and at times unbelievably tolerant country (I'm talking about the Netherlands [minbuza.nl] here), I do believe that any government (1) has the money to make sure they get the best technology available to date, (2) can make sure this technology will be available to them alone by issuing laws accordingly and (3) will use this technology to whatever purpose they want. Even with this 'knowledge' in mind, it's hard to perceive the amount of equipment that would be needed to filter and accumulate all the data on the internet, telephone networks, etcetera.And that's just accumulating the data - not even processing it yet! Looking back to our mass-computing statistics, and how little you can actually achieve in a certain amount of time, it dare say that, even with the most advanced linguistic filtering techniques and disregarding all non-human communication, it's impossible to sift through the amount of data we're talking about when it comes to Echelon. And off course, since we're all a least a little geeky here, we wouldn't be using ASCII for our secret communications, would we?
Too bad for our BBB, but we simply can't put up enough computer power to do the monitoring we had in mind here. So as a company, we better just stick to checking our employers' e-mail...
There's one more technical hurdle I'd like to point out here. When you intercept network traffic at the source, for instance listening to a single segment of a network, it's pretty easy to reassemble single-user communication from the entire data stream. But on the internet, thanks to the wonderful original design of the network, we can't be sure that all our data is taking the same path from client to host and vice versa. In fact, TCP/IP makes sure our data is split into little fragments, and that each fragment on it's own will be routed to it's destination. One of these routes may be a copper cable on the seabed, another will be fibre, the third might even take a little space trip bouncing to and from a satellite. Now: how to intercept and reassemble ALL that?
In the EU (European Union - subst: UE, L'Union européenne) [eu.int] report the point I'm trying to make is stated as follows:
"Today, various media are available for all forms of intercontinental communication (voice, fax and data). The scope for a worldwide interception system is restricted by two factors:
- restricted access to the communication medium
- the need to filter out the relevant communication from a huge mass of communications taking place at the same time."
Some of the arguments mentioned above are also (albeit briefly) illustrated in the report. The (EU rapporteur's) assumption that the ability to analyse spoken language using a computer is still very limited may be naïve, the restrictions mentioned in the report ("the scope for filtering out is restricted by other factors: the ultimate capacity of the computers, the language problem and, above all, the limited number of analysts who can read and assess filtered messages.") remain intact.Concluding, I think we shouldn't be worried about BBG (Big Brother Governments / Big Bad Governments) listening in on our communications. Nevertheless, I support the EU rapporteur's conclusion: it's always a good idea to encrypt messages that you don't want to go public. Even if we disregard Echelon, all you need is a single geek on your network trying to get out some interesting information...
Paranoia, anyone? Tell us!