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#Post#: 1366--------------------------------------------------
NSA tw:politics
By: Red Date: November 4, 2013, 11:36 am
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As many, if not all of you know by now, the NSA is watching. I
don't mean to sound like some crazy conspiracy theorist, and I'm
typically not savvy with expressing political opinion on this
forum, but you guys gotta admit, the NSA and European equivalent
are overstepping their ethical boundaries. If you're completely
unsure of the situation, I'd recommend going to Google news and
typing in "NSA" or "Edward Snowden", it's worth knowing about.
Anyhow, reports allegedly claim that the NSA has hacked into
Google and Yahoo data centers across the US. While they're
legally justified because of the Patriot Act, which to be put
bluntly says that law enforcement can use almost any means
necessary to stop terrorism, they're practicing bad ethics, and
the way I connect the dots is pretty odd - basically running on
republican standards - but if morals ethics are supposed to be
put in place by religions, and the government is being
unethical, technically, isn't the government being immoral?
Google and Yahoo did not consent to the disruption of data,
which could've severely harmed the multi-million dollar systems
housed within their data centers. Would the government reimburse
them? Is anyone who has any authority at all within the
government tell the NSA to stop? Can Google and Yahoo do
anything about it? Probably not. Companies typically don't want
to get involved in a legal dispute with the law itself. If
you're battling against a judge in a courtroom, isn't that trail
going to be a bit biased?
Another question, do you think the NSA is really beneficial to
online security as we know it? All they've done is proven that:
1. They have legal power. (They request information nicely
first. You don't have a choice legally whether or not they take
it.)
2. Cryptography is dead. (The NSA has requested back doors for
most cryptographic signatures. That means that they can probably
break into SSH tunneling (connecting securely to another
computer over the internet) and PGP (used for emails). Keep in
mind, legally, some people HAVE to keep their data safe (such as
psychologists). It's not so much a matter that we have nothing
to hide, it's that other people can lose their job if their
confidential systems are breached, accidentally or purposefully.
It also means that virtually no system is an invisible one. TOR
is doing the best it can to stay afloat as an anonymous network,
but I2P and Freenet? Forget it.
3. They're a-holes.
4. They might be relatively ineffective in the first place.
(Pardon my 2nd Amendment argument, but gunman needs weapons. The
US makes weapons and sells them. The gunman buys the weapon. The
US looks for the gunman online to make sure he's not doing
anything suspicious. Meanwhile, the gunman shoots up a small
community because he wasn't on the feckin web in the first
place. The NSA is supposed to stop terrorism, but all it seems
to be doing is clogging up bandwidth. Lemme throw some numbers
at you: "... [The NSA] could produce about 10,000 false
positives for every real "hit"..." via this.
HTML http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424127887324049504578543542258054884<br
/>This is an estimate by some professors that sound realistic
enough for me. There're millions, if not billions of people who
have access to the web across the globe and the NSA plans to
gather some information about the interactions between each of
them to infer their intentions. .00001% (I think, I'm bad at
math) of those interactions may result in a "positive" terrorist
threat. Whether or not this threat is life-threatening is up to
debate, the NSA doesn't release their criteria for judging these
kinds of things to my knowledge. Whether or not there is
actually action taken against the threat is a whole 'nother
ballgame altogether.)
I'm mainly just pissed that the internet, which was built off of
people's generosity and spare time for the enjoyment of others
and the benefit of society's academic growth and the growth of
information systems, is being poked and prodded by legal
entities who think they own everything. I don't want an agent
standing over my shoulder during every single discussion I have
in real life, it's embarrassing and rude, yeah? I don't want
people doing that to me on the internet as well. What am I going
to do about it? I don't know yet, cringe every time I make a
Facebook post at the very least.
/rant
#Post#: 1371--------------------------------------------------
Re: NSA tw:politics
By: notme Date: November 5, 2013, 1:29 am
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basically.Also dogs?
#Post#: 1374--------------------------------------------------
Re: NSA tw:politics
By: Red Date: November 5, 2013, 11:16 am
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yes, also dogs.
#Post#: 1377--------------------------------------------------
Re: NSA tw:politics
By: MisterCuttlefish Date: November 5, 2013, 10:48 pm
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Before this is read: I'm not writing this to hurt anyone and I
will probably agree with you if you correct me. This is my
opinion and it can change. I did a report on the NSA and debated
with it so basically I'm just really fucking done with the issue
because of stupid people at school.
I'm just trying to figure out why I should even care about it
anymore.
The minute you step into anywhere public, enter your information
into a database, even search something on the web- you're
already being watched. If not by the NSA but by (just in
general) anyone who even gives half of a shit to watch you and
has the means to do so. You're already being filmed every day,
your face is everywhere. The thing is, no one actually gives a
fuck.
Sure, yes, your information is open to what I imagine as a bunch
of guys in suits with headphones on in a dark room looking at a
computer screen. Maybe a few drinks and snack packets are strewn
about. But why would they even care about you? Are you doing
illegal things? Terrorist-like things? If not, what do they want
to learn from you? Not a lot.
Nothing (that I'm aware of) has happened to affect me negatively
in any way on this issue. And there are literally a fuck load
more people in the united states than you or me so who even
cares.
I do realize, however, that it is a form of paranoia.
The NSA is spying on our allies, they make the US seem like its
afraid of everything- which it should be. We've basically fucked
over a lot of people, even our allies in the past, so there is
good reason for why they're spying in the first place.
HOWEVER: I am not siding with them AT ALL. I don't agree with
what they're doing and I would love to stop it. The thing is,
that might take a while.
In my opinion, if anything, we should just wait for this kind of
thing to blow over. We push where we can push and then just let
the rest of the issue get handled by people who can actually do
something.
Not being able to handle this, like, being worked up over
something you can't control... what's the point? Its just
painful.
When I first heard about it, I was freaked out. But I think like
1 1/2 years is long enough to calm myself. My energy on this is
kind of running on empty. :c I hope that wasn't too messed up, I
apologize in advance for any anger caused.
#Post#: 1378--------------------------------------------------
Re: NSA tw:politics
By: Red Date: November 6, 2013, 12:57 am
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No, I agree, but it has already effected you negatively, just
indirectly. You can simply not care about the issue, that's okay
and no one needs to call you out on it because abstaining is a
stance.
Nonetheless, if the NSA can hack Google, that means other people
can too, which means they can actually do very real malicious
things to your identity which has the potential to effect your
offline life as well.
Cryptography is a piece of technology meant to keep certain
things safe and to keep people out from places they don't need
to be in. When cryptography fails, there's no more real use for
facebook or tumblr or pargee or anything on the internet really.
There's no use for the internet. People can just go into other
people's systems and modify whatever they want. Social
standpoints aside, from a technological perspective it's a
nightmare.
#Post#: 1380--------------------------------------------------
Re: NSA tw:politics
By: MisterCuttlefish Date: November 7, 2013, 10:51 am
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Sucks to suck.
But what is there we can do to stop it? Anything at all?
Is figuring out a way to protect ourselves/fix the problem in
our general area, the point of this thread?
I can't contribute. v o v sadly.
#Post#: 1381--------------------------------------------------
Re: NSA tw:politics
By: Red Date: November 7, 2013, 11:12 am
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Well, it is in "Rants and Complaints" so I suppose there's no
real solution in mind. I mean, I can think of solutions but
they're pretty out there in terms of feasibility. None of them
would be safe from hackers or the government, they'll always
have their nose in things. As long as stupid people exist, there
won't be a free internet, really.
I blame human greed.
#Post#: 1396--------------------------------------------------
Re: NSA tw:politics
By: MisterCuttlefish Date: November 19, 2013, 8:50 pm
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Good thing to blame man u v u
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