How Silicon Valley Helped the NSA 163
theodp writes "The U.S. tech giants' pledge to up their privacy game in the wake of reports that all-your-data-belong-to-the-NSA rings a little hollow to Abraham Newman, who reminds us that such protections run counter to the business model and public policy agenda that tech companies have pursued for decades. 'For years,' writes Newman, 'U.S. information technology (IT) firms have actively backed weak privacy rules that let them collect massive amounts of personal data. The strategy enabled the companies to work their way into every corner of consumers' lives and gave them a competitive edge internationally. Those same policies, however, have come back to haunt IT firms. Lax rules created fertile ground for NSA snooping. In the wake of the surveillance scandals, as consumer confidence plummets, technology companies' economic futures are threatened.'"
Strange (Score:4, Insightful)
How all of us were "ok" with the companies collecting this information. When an intelligence agency combines this info, we suddenly scream for privacy. I'm scared enough that google accesses my Gmail content, and Apple my iMessages and contacts.
Re:Strange (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
I am not thinking so much of software giants but Intel which forces you to relinquish your privacy with apparently no way to get around their backdoors.
Stop worrying about intel. AMD is including a TPM in their CPUs too, it has other purposes as well so it has another name but it's the same shit when you distill it. And all the ARM processors are also working on including them. Anyone who doesn't will find themself in a poor position when they're the only ones not permitted to play DRM video.
Re: (Score:2)
Privacy is never a given
Seems to me, that unless stated otherwise, I should be able to have a private conversation with someone (email, phone, etc) without having to worry about the conversation being recorded and accessed by someone for means which it was not intended.
If employers and health care providers are already "googling" people for information about rates and employability, imaging the same private companies accessing an NSA scoring system to gather the same insight. It's not just about people's personal lives, it's about
Re: (Score:2)
Agreed.
It's morality, a quaint concept these days. Just because it's _possible_ to listen in, for instance, doesn't mean it's right to do so. That little bit seems to get lost in most of these 'discussions'.
For that matter, all those pointing out how ordinary emails are sent plain-text, so what? Consider the header to be the envelope, just like of a letter via snail mail; works for me. Somebody has to physically do something to read an email by opening the file, just as someone has to open the envelope
Re:Strange (Score:5, Insightful)
all of us were "ok" with the companies collecting this information. When an intelligence agency combines this info, we suddenly scream for privacy.
Google does not have the ability to put us on the no-fly list. "Ok" or not, the threat level just isn't the same.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
All of us were NOT "OK" with companies collecting this information. If you were, I'm sorry for you. In order to be OK with that you'd have to believe that corporations don't have disproportionate power over peoples' lives, that they won't sell you out in a heartbeat because it's profitable or because they don't want to be bothered, and most importantly, that information once collected won't be abused. Information will ALWAYS be abused and there are only two cures for that: don't collect it in the first
Re: (Score:1)
All of us were NOT "OK" with companies collecting this information. If you were, I'm sorry for you. In order to be OK with that you'd have to believe that corporations don't have disproportionate power over peoples' lives, that they won't sell you out in a heartbeat because it's profitable or because they don't want to be bothered, and most importantly, that information once collected won't be abused. Information will ALWAYS be abused and there are only two cures for that: don't collect it in the first place, or jail the abusers of it. That latter is kind of satisfying, but rather hard to pull off unfortunately. It is far better to not allow the collection in the first place, and that means reeling in corporate power in addition to government power.
You say the threat level isn't the same. I would submit to you that the only reason we don't have private corporate armies running around the US (we used to) is that they have simply outsourced that task to the government. So when you speak of government or corporations in this country, you're just talking about the same large entity which has to be stopped.
Well, The Market is supposed to protect us against this kind of stuff. If we don't like having our private information passed around like Pokemon cards, we take our business to a company that doesn't do that.
Wait? They ALL do it? We don't have a choice? It must be meddling Socialist Government forcing them to be that way!
Re:Strange (Score:5, Interesting)
Actually - you DO have some choice. Did you fill out that frequent shopper's survey? Chump. Did you supply your telephone number the last time you purchased a pizza over the counter? Chumped again. Do you give out your cell phone and email address everytime a vendor requests it? Chumped, chumped, and chumped, over and over again. Do you use that credit card for ALL your purchases? You are so chumped!
Use dollar bills, in person, and refuse to supply information of any kind to the vendor. THEY DON'T NEED ANY INFORMATION TO MAKE A SALE!!
But, if you insist on getting that penny discount on your next bag of Cheeto's, go ahead and play their game.
Re: (Score:2)
Meanwhile, in the real world, grown-ups occasionally need to buy things that aren't sold at the corner deli.
Re: (Score:3)
And, that is such an adult comment. I got my first paying job in 1971. Graduated high school in 1974. Joined the Navy in 1975. Discharged from the Navy in 1983. Need I go on?
I have walked out of stores where the staff was overly prying. "Why do you need my phone number?" "It's required, we're supposed to ask everyone!" "Good bye then!"
If you CHOOSE to be corporate America's chump, that's fine. But don't make excuses to me for it.
Re: (Score:3)
Then you should be old enough to know that, valid or not, your "loyalty card" rant was almost completely out of context for the discussion at hand.
Re: (Score:2)
AC makes a more intelligent comment than you do. He encourages me to poison the data base. I like that.
You still make excuses for cooperating with the invasion of your own privacy. My "rant" was entirely in context. Don't cooperate with the assholes. They need no information for your day-to-day business. As for your supposedly more important stuff - don't buy on credit, and you don't HAVE to supply any information. I have a debit card in my pocket, and I have cash money. I use the card sparingly. W
Re: (Score:2)
"Utilities are paid with old fashioned checks, drawn on an old fashioned checking account. Larger purchases are often paid for in CASH, with no paper trail left behind."
Like your name, number, license number, etc. isn't already on the check and most places won't process it without knowing it. As for large cash transactions, businesses are required to report large cash or credit transactions. The door about the freedom of cash you talk about was closed long ago. All cash is serialized so track
Re: (Score:2)
"As for dealing with local banks, that only works as long as the locals have a good opinion of you."
And, you find that to be unbelievable, or something? Yes, the locals have a pretty good opinion of me. Strange, isn't it? They KNOW that I'm good for whatever, they don't have to check a computer database.
Re: (Score:2)
2. Paying cash for all of my fixed expenses, like the cell ph
Re: (Score:2)
I have a safeway card so old it doesn't have a name. They look at my receipt and go "Thank you, Misterrrrrr...." and I say "You can call me THE BLANK" and take my receipt and go home.
But Google knows all about me :)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Yep, why ask for info: if that store has a CCTV (to see you and your parked car on their lot), stores their money in a safe or bank (can count serial #'s on bills). And keeps receipts (id-ing what you bought)...
The world of opt-in/opt-out is coming to close folks and becoming a more tactical situation. Even if you opt-out, I'll eventually have the ability to single you out and then make up a profile of you using public info...the systems are that good nowadays.
Just live in group housing, and share mail (unr
Re: (Score:3)
This fascistic "only following orders" mindset really needs to be nipped in the bud. America understood that it was unjustifiable in the 1940s, but it's their first refuge now.
If for profit(*) you maintain a product knowingly used for evil, you are just as responsible as the person directing you.
(*) A person who has little choice will have diminished or zero responsibility. So, a destitute person who gets a job as a cleaner for Google when there is nothing else on offer, or someone given forced labour in a
Re: (Score:2)
This fascistic "only following orders" mindset really needs to be nipped in the bud. America understood that it was unjustifiable in the 1940s, but it's their first refuge now.
America learned that it was unjustifiable only in the very, very most extreme cases in the 1940s.
If your commander orders you to put a bunch of people into a room and fill it with cyanide gas and you do it ... you might be held accountable for that years later, maybe. (i.e. only if your side loses the war, and you're one the folk they can track down and extradite.)
But if your orders don't involve killing innocent, unarmed, non-threatening people in cold blood -- America expects you to do what you're told.
Re: (Score:2)
I had thought that the most powerful outcome of the Nuremberg trials was its impact on the public view of necessary ingredients for freedom. IOW, you can never have freedom unless each person acts as a rational individual, questioning everything.
Even if the law hadn't changed, the Western value system had been refined - the civil rights movement of the '60s, for example, was the product of post-war enlightenment. Even the hippy movement was an albeit sometimes directionless expression of, "Question everythi
Re:Strange (Score:4, Insightful)
Even besides that. It doesn't matter if you're ok or not. Even if you don't share your information, if one of your friends has your information on a phone and shares this with facebook it will still be shared...
Regardless of whether you've ever consented to share it with facebook or anything else.
Re: (Score:2)
No, I don't think we should give up. I am just trying to point out that making people aware of this has more effect than refusing to use these services.
People are not aware that this happens and/or is possible.
Re: (Score:2)
I really want to help all of the people on slashdot to get it once and for all.
Private is what happens in your own home. And once you let in many other people say for a party... Well that is pretty public as well.
What happens on the internet, at a bar, at a party, or anywhere else is in public.
That cell phone conversation you had while waiting in line at the store? Public.
That party where you got drunk and naked? Public.
Email? As private as a postcard.
What do you people don't get about this. If you want som
Re: (Score:2)
Email is trivial for anyone to monitor. It is sent in freaking clear text and has been since day one. It is like handing a folded piece of paper to a courier at best.
The idea that something that you post to a bunch of your "friends" on a social networking site is private is pure insanity. You need to get a grip on simple reality public is public.
Re:Strange (Score:4, Informative)
Not all email is sent in clear text. Some admins aren't clueless.
For instance, my mail server communicates with many other mail servers using SSL, including when talking to other servers. Yahoo, Google, and Outlook.com all use TLS and upgrade to a secure connection on HELO. Likewise my mail servers REQUIRE SSL AND AUTHENTICATION for picking up mail or sending from our addresses. Include SPF in the mix and the only clear text version of the mail is sitting on my server hard drives and the client machines.
I'm fairly confident the NSA hasn't gotten into my system yet, and they didn't fake our certificate chain since its an internally generated chain that no cert provider is in, just our own not network connected CA.
Email can be secured with current technology and protocols. Easily.
Re: (Score:3)
"Email can be secured with current technology and protocols. Easily."
"Include SPF in the mix and the only clear text version of the mail is sitting on my server hard drives and the client machines."
So only when it is on your server. And even then it is not secure for your other users since you can read it. Most sys admins are too ethical to do such a thing but I have run into at least one that read everyone's email. Again I say no more secure than a postcard. Anyone in the postal service can read it.
Re: (Score:2)
No in your home you have what is called an expectation of privacy. You do not have that expectation of privacy at a party, on the street, while driving, on an airplane, at a bar, club, or party. Email may have an expectation of privacy but it is a foolish one to expect since it is almost always stored in clear text on someone's servers. It is foolish to depend on it with anything important since it takes only a sysadmin to break that trust and Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo all scan your mail for ads and to g
Re: (Score:2)
http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2012/09/13/jesse-kline-u-k-surveillance-state-goes-too-far-by-putting-cameras-in-school-bathrooms/ [nationalpost.com]
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/spy-cameras-are-used-to-target-student-protesters-2290783.html [independent.co.uk]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robbins_v._Lower_Merion_School_District [wikipedia.org]
I started out looking for a story from a few years ago. The United Kingdom child services was installing cameras into the homes of troubled youth. Has the internet been "sanitized", or was that a fal
Re: (Score:2)
Google does not have the ability to put us on the no-fly list. "Ok" or not, the threat level just isn't the same.
But they could affect your credit score which, given the ever expanding uses (like employment, housing, even dating) can have an even larger effect on the average person's life than being on the no-fly list.
Re: (Score:2)
I hope a bitch (which is what she'd be) will check my credit score before dating, and save me some fucking trouble.
The issue of credit checks by employers is an ugly one, though.
The issue of housing is also an ugly one; it's illegal to be homeless, but you can still be denied housing. Compare to car insurance, where SOMEONE has to insure you (used to be GEICO, dunno who it is now.)
Re: (Score:2)
No, but it does have the ability to control what you see on the Internet. In fact, it is doing so already, and claiming it is for your own good! Which is more important to you -- to get on an airplane or to get online?
Re: (Score:2)
It depends on who you are. For example, I find it difficult to imagine finding a new job in my field (programming) without using the Internet.
You might argue that I do not "need" to find a new job. To which I would retort, that is an argument against freedom itself.
Re: (Score:3)
Neither are required for life in even the slightest way. Plenty of fully functional people have jobs, homes and families and they never fly and don't have Internet access.
Just as a reminder, since it seems to be forgotten so often.
Airplanes are barely a 100 years old.
The Internet, or more specifically, the web, is only about 20.
These are not 'requirements' for life. You will survive without either.
Technically no freedoms are 'requirements' for life, you can survive without them. 150 years ago people of a certain skin colour didn't have any freedoms in the US yet they were alive. Even now, in many countries, plenty of people have jobs, homes and families without ever having the chance to freely express their political views.
The standard for freedoms isn't what's a 'requirement' for life, and it'd be a very unfortunate world if it was.
Re: (Score:2)
You don't think a giant multinational corporation could make your life miserable if it really wanted to? You must live inside of a Disney movie.
Re:Strange (Score:5, Insightful)
Legally you had the US Constitution to keep the US gov away.
Legally you had teams of in house (corporate) lawyers defending the 'brand' from hints of warrantless gov collaboration.
Your political leaders that would 'out' any goverment domestic spying just for party political points.
The US stock market would never allow the US gov to risk its international sales and would side against warrantless gov and keep sales up.
You had the public, gov hardware and software 'interface' that would be uncovered very quickly with great press coverage by so many skilled staff.
You had staff, academies and skilled members of the press who would find some trace.... and then win media prizes with the story of the decade...
Skilled academics, code reviews, gov standards, software brands and teams of individuals had all looked over net encryption and found it usable for consumers.
After Snowden it was all found to be a hoax.
Political leaders did nothing, lawyers said nothing, academics educated the junk code to generations of fee paying students, the tame press never followed any stories, corporations took gov cash and helped, telcos ensured the optical was in place. Mercenaries and contractors enjoyed the overtime.
The brands are now a joke.
Re:Strange (Score:5, Insightful)
"How all of us were "ok" with the companies collecting this information."
Speak for yourself, Kemosabe. There were a lot of us who have been bitching about the invasion of privacy all along. Were we listened to? Of course not - we were shouted down. "There is no privacy on the internet, everything you put out there is available for public consumption. Grow up dummy, if you've done nothing wrong, then you have nothing to hide!"
Always, the conversation was derailed with just such words.
Fact is, conversations on the internet are about as private as discussing your private life on the town square. Of course it's not "private", but you don't expect snoops to be actively engaged in eavesdropping activities. On the town square, you can look around to see if the town gossip is lurking behind the nearby bench. Or, whether the Chief of Police is loitering within earshot.
The internet? Only some of the more savvy users are aware just HOW LITTLE privacy they have. We are forced to avoid monitoring and eavesdropping. And, it's impossible to tell just how effective our efforts are. And, we know all the while that if NSA or any other agency takes an active interest in us, they can just tap into everything at the ISP level.
Those of YOU who were "ok" with data mining - it's about time you woke up, and understood that we have valid concerns. Now - what ya gonna do about it? Can we get NSA and a few dozen of the programs that they support defunded? Can we get some of the various police tools shitcanned? What are we gonna DO? Resort to the darknets? That really isn't a solution. All that the NSA has to do, is to install a few thousands of their own onion routers and I2P routers, and whatever else comes along. Perfect MIM attack vectors, since they straddle the backbones anyway.
What ya gonna do? Just sit around and bitch, with those of us who have been bitching for years? Do you have a plan?
You might join us, in writing your congress critters. Repeatedly. Often. Write to your own, and everyone else's as well. Sign all the online petitions that you can find. Start your own petitions. And, bug hell out of your congress critters. They HATE to get hate mail. They much prefer not to hear from you at all, and they love fan mail, so send the HATE MAIL.
Re: (Score:2)
I think the real solution to this is ignore the political side completely, and work on technological solutions. Make the next version of SMTP work like the Tor network. Make something like Diaspora or Status.net (open source social networks) so easy to setup and run that it's a few taps on an iPhone, Android phone, Windows, Mac OS X, Linux
Re: (Score:2)
Actually - congress has the sole authority to fund government programs for a reason. It is their final check on things. They can, and have, simply defunded things that they ultimately disapproved of. Remember Acorn? If I were to dig, I could find more, I'm certain. The appropriations bills are part of the checks and balances system. It's not so different from your own personal life. "I want this and that and two of these!" But, when the cost is tallied up, you decide that you just can't afford all o
Re: (Score:2)
you were ok with it since they only had to pay off two dudes of two parties for it.
as to competitive edge? actually there is no actual proof of it giving a competitive edge whatsoever. if it did, american companies wouldn't have been so fucked so many times. it does give an added cost of business though, as you need to spend time pestering the people for their postal codes etc shit and as you spend time sending mail to addresses they haven't been living at for years.
Re: (Score:2)
How all of us were "ok" with the companies collecting this information. When an intelligence agency combines this info, we suddenly scream for privacy. I'm scared enough that google accesses my Gmail content, and Apple my iMessages and contacts.
i was fine with google taking my info because i know they a singular goal: use the information to provide more targeted ads. they don't care what you are interested in, just get an ad to you. Microsoft and Apple have a bad track record of psychopathic behavior [wikipedia.org] and denying any responsibility for their actions. the NSA has psychopathic behavior and a god complex which is extremely dangerous.
you may think this is extreme but it's no exaggeration when i say the NSA has no problems with killing anyone that po
Re: (Score:2)
i was fine with google taking my info because i know they a singular goal: use the information to provide more targeted ads. they don't care what you are interested in, just get an ad to you. Microsoft and Apple have a bad track record of psychopathic behavior [wikipedia.org] and denying any responsibility for their actions.
Please give us some examples of what you call "psychopathic behaviour".
Re: (Score:2)
i was fine with google taking my info because i know they a singular goal: use the information to provide more targeted ads. they don't care what you are interested in, just get an ad to you. Microsoft and Apple have a bad track record of psychopathic behavior [wikipedia.org] and denying any responsibility for their actions.
Please give us some examples of what you call "psychopathic behaviour".
well off the top of my head, microsoft has a string of bold face lies, anticompetitive behavior (strong arming OEMs and demanding "protection" money for Android come to mind) and then there is greatest lie of them all, Bing. even when it was unquestionably clear that they were copying results from google, they claimed they didn't and referred to their method of copying as "another vector" of data collection. as for Apple, they invented a deportation raid to get back their iphone 5 prototype. there is als
Who can spare a thought for such matters (Score:5, Funny)
When the next iPhone will be curved?
http://apple.slashdot.org/story/13/11/11/0353252/apple-developing-curve-screen-iphones-and-improved-sensors [slashdot.org]
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1, Offtopic)
When the next iPhone will be curved?
I'd prefer it if the next iPhone were be cured, but that is too much to hope for.
Re: (Score:2)
Vote with your feet (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Hardware will be rebuild and air gapped. Many will still use and enjoy the 'free' US brands but trust is gone.
Re: (Score:2)
There is a lot of market potential in air-gapped hosting!
Re:Vote with your feet (Score:4, Funny)
tl;dr return to the '80s and '90s where businesses had servers in their server room.
Never left it. Feels good, bro. My only "conspiracy theory" (in that I extrapolated from the available evidence quite a bit) has turned out to be mostly accurate.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
yeah, last time I checked the NSA's reach was worldwide. And US courts have upheld the 3rd party doctrine where any information a 3rd party has about you (phone records for instance), is not subject to the same Constitutional protection as your personal effects are.
There is no free lunch (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
I have many times the server power that is necessary for serving all the data I want to be available online. My internet connection is sufficiently fast for hosting most of it -- all of it if I can use distributed hosting. The cost of hosting is negligible. If there were no Youtube or GMail, the cost of doing it yourself would not crush anybody. Those services feed on laziness, not necessity.
Re: (Score:3)
There is no free lunch
It depends. From the point of view of the company CEO accepting to help the NSA or other agencies, there might be a lot of free lunches. That all that counts, right?
Re: (Score:3)
Riiighht. The Internet will be balkanised because the US is only govt doing this & there is no cooperation between the intelligence agencies. Hey, it's not like the Communications that the French govt was complaining about was collected by the DGSE & then passed onto the NSA as the price for the USA deploying drone assets to Mali, or that the Germans perform "legal" surveillance of their population secretly or that the Brazilians spy on diplomats or ...
Government heads are protesting much too loudly
Re: (Score:3)
I would love it if I could pay for an effective search engine that didn't track my search habits in order to alter the results.
I would love it if I could pay for a social network to keep in touch with my friends and business contacts and it didn't spy on me and spam me
Re: (Score:2)
I would love it if I could pay for a social network to keep in touch with my friends and business contacts and it didn't spy on me and spam me and sell my information to all and sundry.
It's called your own website. Put up a site based on any CMS, say Drupal, and then have all your friends create accounts there. But if you're paying someone else to run a site, then by definition you're paying someone else to compile data on you. Then the government gives them a choice between turning over the data or going to PMITA prison.
Re: (Score:2)
But what about your cell phone company, your internet service provider, your bank, your physical retailer with an account system (warehouse retailers with memberships like Costco, grocery stores with outrageous prices if you
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I've kicked around the idea of getting a VPN service like ProXPN or something. Then they can track my every move and sell it to advertisers, but I'd rather see some tiny company (ideally, one based in another country) have this informat
Re: (Score:1)
Wait a minute, don't blame this shit on me. I've been telling everyone that social networking was dangerous and evil since "Instant Messaging" was invented in the 90's. None of them ever fucking listen to a damned thing I say though and neither did you. You have only yourselves to blame.
The competitive edge is surely the NSA? (Score:1)
Surely the competitive edge is the hidden market for private data the NSA created!
So business models can undercut rivals by selling your private data to the NSA in secret, and it's really a government subsidy controlled by the military, but is never revealed because it's hidden behind terrorist scaremongering.
Corporate America (Score:2)
Has far more data that is likely to hurt you than the NSA does, and they have no problem selling to anyone with enough money. Potential employers having access to my salary history without my consent scares me and will hurt me far more than the government knowing I called my aunt yesterday. Likewise with my insurance company knowing that I visited Dunkin Donuts yesterday. Put away your tinfoil hats and see the real threat.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
How amusing. That really is a good one. Not sure how you got so many people in on the joke.
You are all implying that the NSA (i.e. the government) and corporate america are separate entities....
My my, what a chuckle.
You were joking......right?
Re: (Score:3)
Put away your tinfoil hats and see the real threat.
What tinfoil hats? Are you suggesting that it is crazy to be afraid that the government might abuse the massive amount of power we've given it, even though every government has abused its power without fail? The people who work for the government are humans, not perfect angels; thus, it makes no sense to me to not be wary of them.
Of course, I don't think corporations having all this data is a good thing either, but there are no tinfoil hats present here.
Re: (Score:2)
There's no DIFFERENCE between corporations and government. Look at CISPA. Read it, and understand it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyber_Intelligence_Sharing_and_Protection_Act [wikipedia.org]
Re: (Score:2)
Well, okay... but my post didn't really strongly suggest that there were significant differences to begin with. I'm aware that any information these corporations have will likely also fall into the hands of government thugs.
Re: (Score:2)
You really need to read up on CISPA. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyber_Intelligence_Sharing_and_Protection_Act [wikipedia.org]
If passed, then all corporate data becomes government data, and government can and will choose to share that data with yet other corporations. In short, you will no longer be able to distinguish between corporate and government surveillance - it will all be intertwined.
Backward (Score:5, Insightful)
Lax rules created fertile ground for NSA snooping.
No, rules don't make any difference to criminals, NSA or otherwise.
It is the high value of centralizing all that data info which makes for fertile ground.
Re: (Score:2)
Everything could be sold on for marketing, value adding, research, fine print.... all safe back to the 'allowed' buyers.
Re: (Score:2)
No, rules don't make any difference to criminals, NSA or otherwise.
Citation? You can't prevent murder by outlawing it, but you may well reduce it.
Yeah right (Score:3)
... as consumer confidence plummets ...
As if the average facebook user cares about privacy.
Re: (Score:2)
Oh they care, for the most part. They just don't think about privacy.
Fuck the NSA (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
You're a moron. That quote, that quote's from 1975. People have been warning about overreaching government for a long time (long before 1975). I was just giving an example of that. You seem to imply that you think I'm crazy. It doesn't take a crazy person to recognize that "Western" governments have been getting more authoritarian and totalitarian as technology progresses. Soon enough we'll be at the stage of voluntary always on telescreens (c.f. Microsoft's Xbox and camera). The police state loves that sor
Re: (Score:2)
It's just the typical cycle. Rewind to the 80s, hippies passing out flyers on streetcorners warning of the trilateral commission's influence on American finance and people throwing them away saying "this looks like a bunch of bullshit". Forward to 2000, the trilateral commission's influence on finance and politics is a proven fact, and now we're looking at more groups like the Bilderbergers etc and people are saying "this looks like a bunch of bullshit" all over again.
We should string the tech company executives up alongside the politicians and bureaucrats. And when the revolution comes, apologists will also be up against the wall.
Sadly, when the next revolution comes,
should be how Americans helped the NSA (Score:3)
Everyone wanted free Internet, free search engines, free Webmail, free coupons, free 5% off clubs, free 1-click shopping.... what did people think was going on there?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I'm angry at Bank of America, Mastercard, Visa, Comcast, Verizon, Sprint, AT&T, Costco, Sam's Club, Amazon.com, Best Buy, CVS Pharmacy, Riteaid Pharmacy, etc... they profit directly through financial transactions with me, but they still collect every scrap of
Re: (Score:2)
Heck, Facebook easily saw that "opportunity" and wrapped it in a nice exclusivity wrapper to make you feel important.
And 75% of the population eat it up. In wholesale....
I guess democratic gov't does reflect the people it governs. No news here folks.
As I have said before, information doesn't want to be free, it wants to be exploited. 'Free' (as in beer) and 'private' are just aspects of exploitation folks.
How Silicon Valley Helped China... (Score:2)
Plenty of these companies already worked together with China behind the great firewall or other countries that required a tight all encompassing security/censoring framework.
It's just the quirks of doing business in a country, your home country included.
That's the convenient viewpoint (Score:4, Insightful)
...perhaps I could correct this a little: ..."
"'U.S. citizens have passively accepted weak privacy rules that let companies collect massive amounts of personal data. The strategy enabled the companies to work their way into every corner of consumers' lives
I keep hearing about the "US govt" this and "companies" that.
The fact is that the whole 'privacy' thing is comparable to the cigarette issue for the last 50 years....NOBODY believed cigarettes were in any way good for you, and by the late 1960s pretty much everyone recognized that they were quite harmful (regardless of what the cigarette companies insisted).
In short, the consumers willfully participated and knew (when they bothered to think about it) that companies were collecting massive amounts of data with every transaction, using (without complaint) their social security number as an id#, etc.
When I've got a friend or three complaining about companies/government gathering private data, they're usually paying for their meal with a credit card.
Even Firefox (Score:2)
I mean , the browsers allow all the tracking etc .. Once the people doing the browsers are done selling us , maybe we'll have a break.
Browsers have to be made not to allow the snooping. They are not made that way , they are made to support snooping.They are made to help advertisers take all they want from our machines.
Time to fork and abandon browsers that do not make the efforts to protect us l
Re: (Score:3)
That's why Firefox browser (and of course, the Chrome browser) will never take any serious steps to block user tracking. If Mozilla ever got serious about user privacy, the next grant from Google would never arrive and Firefox development and bug fixes would slow to a trickle.
If any browser vendor would put real investment into blo
No threat to companies: we've forgotten already (Score:4, Insightful)
Few people really 'got' what was going on; some people remain unaware; and most really don't care.
Companies will lie, politicians will lie, and the people will pretend to believe them and carry on.
This is not just about surveillance (Score:4, Insightful)
This is also about attacking [schneier.com]; hacking, intrusion, modifying systems, sabotaging hardware [wikipedia.org], etc. Is not a passive "i want to know this", but an active/aggresive "i will plant a backdoor/rootkit to be able to do there whatever i want", including hitting you as a person, as a country, or as a trusted media that reach enough/certain people/companies.
We already knwo they planted backdoors on Tor users [slashdot.org] and Slashdot and LinkedIn users [slashdot.org], and with Silicon Valley cooperation, probably they will be bundled in a lot more software/hardware/services. Time to stop playing boiling frog.
All your data... (Score:2)
FTFY
Re: (Score:2)
Quite a bit too late since the NSA already publishes ( and for a number of years ) their own security enhanced hardened linux.
Re: (Score:2)
*their own security* enhanced.
Re: Like we didn't know (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Are you blocking some or all Javascript, or are you using a slightly esoteric browser? Adds are disabled just for me.
Re: (Score:2)
Ads are a pain but I use Ghostery [ghostery.com] and DoNotTrackMe [abine.com] which takes care of most of the crap.
Re: (Score:2)
It does that to me sometimes. I just uncheck it, then check it again, with a couple of refreshes thrown in where appropriate and it goes back to normal.
Re: (Score:2)
So the problem is very likely something to do with your environment. If you want them to have a look at it then post the details of the problem and your environment to "feedback" - email
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
The biggest sinners are banks, cell phone companies, credit card companies, internet service providers, grocery stores, physical store retailers, and only retailers. They get our money directly, and they choose to track us extensively anyway. That's the real sin - "