House votes to continue NSA spying on citizens

[Papewaio]

yes but it would need to be paired - which as I said isn't easy since it requires access to the car first - you couldn't just slip one on a car and then hack it... assuming the manufacturer has the paring system correct and requires a user generated key + input (I know my BMW does but i cant attest for the other manufacturers)

Is there a manufacturers key so they can troubleshoot it?

[Sir Moody]

Is there a manufacturers key so they can troubleshoot it?

of course (and you can buy them off Ebay)- these do require direct access however to the onboard computer - ie you have to be inside the car...

but this of course brings us to ... why - what do you think you will get by hacking a car which you couldn't get off a smartphone which is likely do go where ever the driver goes anyway?

The only people hacking cars are Researchers with too much time and an axe to grind about how insecure everything is...

now back onto the matter at hand...


Another thing we should all consider for a sec is the shear VOLUME of information the NSA is trying to track

in an average minute on-line you will have 640TB of data transferred, 100k tweets added and 204 million e-mails sent - and at current rates this will have DOUBLED by 2015

I don't care how good they claim their database searching is there is no way they can realistically track anything - they are quite literally burying themselves under a mountain of useless information - its the equivalent of trying to find a needle on Mount Everest during a blizzard

I am utterly unworried by their or anyone else's ability to track online information - personally I am more worried about the flagrant abuses of the laws handed to them which allow them to legally gather this all.

The best example is going on right now with the British Police detaining the partner of the News Reporter who writes on the Snowden case for the Guardian - the facts are out and it seem we have given our Police the ability to detain ANYBODY at an airport for 9 hours, finger printing them, seizing their DNA, taking any luggage they see fit (for 7 days apparently) and the only justification they need is "they might be carrying anything which could help terrorism"...

[Montmorency]

I don't care how good they claim their database searching is there is no way they can realistically track anything - they are quite literally burying themselves under a mountain of useless information - its the equivalent of trying to find a needle on Mount Everest during a blizzard

I don't know, going by this they could very well be "touching" pretty much all the data of consequence on the entire Internet.

[drone]

The EFF sued for a 2011 FISA court opinion, and won. The phrase "criminal" was used. Shame nothing will come of it.

In case you haven't heard of them, donate to the EFF. They are the ACLU of the internet.

[Xiahou]

Another thing we should all consider for a sec is the shear VOLUME of information the NSA is trying to track

in an average minute on-line you will have 640TB of data transferred, 100k tweets added and 204 million e-mails sent - and at current rates this will have DOUBLED by 2015

I don't care how good they claim their database searching is there is no way they can realistically track anything - they are quite literally burying themselves under a mountain of useless information - its the equivalent of trying to find a needle on Mount Everest during a blizzard

You think that's impossible? Tell that to Google.

[Sir Moody]

You think that's impossible? Tell that to Google.

Google is only dealing with pages + social media - no emails, no instant messaging and no data transfers

And it doesn't even try to look at the "dark" net.

Add to this Google isn't "Live" - if you put a page up now it takes several days to appear in Google (actually better now than it used to be because the Google spider crawls sites more often now)

The shear volume of data acquired in a minute would take even the fastest machines a few hours to index and sort - this created a massive "lag" in the data being acquired and when it can be consumed.

It is the legal framework and oversight we should be railing against here not the actual data acquisition.

[Fisherking]

Google is only dealing with pages + social media - no emails, no instant messaging and no data transfers

And it doesn't even try to look at the "dark" net.

Add to this Google isn't "Live" - if you put a page up now it takes several days to appear in Google (actually better now than it used to be because the Google spider crawls sites more often now)

The shear volume of data acquired in a minute would take even the fastest machines a few hours to index and sort - this created a massive "lag" in the data being acquired and when it can be consumed.

It is the legal framework and oversight we should be railing against here not the actual data acquisition.

What? What is Google Mail, or Gmail? Google Glass: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Glass

Google Earth, pay services give you real time pictures too.

Some of the developments are pretty depressing. Some recent Apple patens for example. Sensing vibrations of their device to detect your mode of travel, switching on microphone and camera to determine your surroundings. Also remote access for key holders, not owners of devices, to turn off or on cell phones and their various components, you know, cameras and microphones, or access your data remotely. They said it was for venues like movies but said it had law enforcement applications too.

You know, like not being able to photograph or film cops, or for government, turn off all phones in a geographic area.

University of Washington has figured out how to read gps locations for phones without batteries in them just by using background RF and electromagnetic energies.

Remotely accessing home WIFI or Smart Meters, for that matter can allow someone to determine where in a home you are and how many people are there and to an extent what they are doing.

I don’t know what others think but having electronic devices with abilities I don’t want them to have, even though we have to pay for them, without being able to disable these functions is just wrong. There is no opt out for any of them, from home computers to RFID chips.

Which reminds me of a Google-Motorola Division paten for RFID vitamins. Your stomach acid works as a battery with them.

[Fisherking]

Also this from the court: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/...-surveillance/

[HopAlongBunny]

Gee whiz guys
Mistakes happen:

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/americ...357335966.html

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/...97K14Y20130822

Canada has a similar problem with oversight:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/stor...canadians.html
Actually, I would go so far as to speculate all members of the "Five Eyes" engage in overreach and shoddy oversight. Seems to be the nature of the beast.

[Xiahou]

I guess this could also go under the topic about the government forcing you to provide services....

Last month, Levison reportedly received an order -- probably a National Security Letter -- to allow the NSA to eavesdrop on everyone's e-mail accounts on Lavabit. Rather than "become complicit in crimes against the American people," he turned the service off. Note that we don't know for sure that he received a NSL -- that's the order authorized by the Patriot Act that doesn't require a judge's signature and prohibits the recipient from talking about it -- or what it covered, but Levison has said that he had complied with requests for individual e-mail access in the past, but this was very different.

So far, we just have an extreme moral act in the face of government pressure. It's what happened next that is the most chilling. The government threatened him with arrest, arguing that shutting down this e-mail service was a violation of the order.

There it is. If you run a business, and the FBI or NSA want to turn it into a mass surveillance tool, they believe they can do so, solely on their own initiative. They can force you to modify your system. They can do it all in secret and then force your business to keep that secret. Once they do that, you no longer control that part of your business. You can't shut it down. You can't terminate part of your service. In a very real sense, it is not your business anymore. It is an arm of the vast U.S. surveillance apparatus, and if your interest conflicts with theirs then they win. Your business has been commandeered.

[Fisherking]

Yes, I saw the article but looked for other sources and couldn’t find much at the time.

It is shameful, abusive, and someone would have to explain in great depth how they think it is remotely constitutional.

But it would seem that all of out government agencies, from federal to local are taking an equally heavy hand in dealing with people who do not wish to comply or surrender their rights.

http://elkodaily.com/news/state-and-...9bb2963f4.html

This may already be in the Police Abuse thread but to me it all ties together. Government vs. Citizens.

[Xiahou]

NYT via Snowden confirms what we already suspected.... N.S.A. Foils Much Internet Encryption

The N.S.A. hacked into target computers to snare messages before they were encrypted. In some cases, companies say they were coerced by the government into handing over their master encryption keys or building in a back door. And the agency used its influence as the world’s most experienced code maker to covertly introduce weaknesses into the encryption standards followed by hardware and software developers around the world.

Some of the agency’s most intensive efforts have focused on the encryption in universal use in the United States, including Secure Sockets Layer, or SSL; virtual private networks, or VPNs; and the protection used on fourth-generation, or 4G, smartphones. Many Americans, often without realizing it, rely on such protection every time they send an e-mail, buy something online, consult with colleagues via their company’s computer network, or use a phone or a tablet on a 4G network.

Simultaneously, the N.S.A. has been deliberately weakening the international encryption standards adopted by developers. One goal in the agency’s 2013 budget request was to “influence policies, standards and specifications for commercial public key technologies,” the most common encryption method.

The very organizations that the NSA set up to help companies design robust encryption have actually been used to do the opposite- introduce weakness. It's doubly upsetting to know not only can the NSA decrypt pretty much everything, but they do so by introducing security flaws that others could also exploit.

[Papewaio]

So how many billions/trillions of dollars is this going to potentially wipe out of the US IT economy long term?

[drone]

I imagine a large horde of geeks are currently going through the Linux source code at the moment.

[Fisherking]

More on that latest leak, Much, much bigger than anyone thought.

http://www.livescience.com/39477-mos...-nsa-leak.html

[Husar]

Yeah, and what's also funny, Ghostery (a browser add-in) shows me 38 tracking sites and cookies when I open your link.

Also cute girls and their aunts make a lot of money by working part-time on the internet.

As for the NSA, they have to save us from evil people I guess, sometimes a man gotta do what a man gotta do.

[Fisherking]

The danger in the encryption debacle is largely to businesses and corporations. The have been known to steal from one and give to another, usually steal from the small or foreign and give to some favored firm. German high-tech and French defense industries seem to be favorite targets. But they have robed a few US companies too to give to their preferred corporations.

Nothing at all to worry about, unless you work for a firm that needs to be internationally competitive or where foreign sales at home could ruin your edge.

I suppose everything will be safe again once someone reinvents the pc with all different components and develops an operating system with encryption for it, provided they are not compromised along the way.

[Fisherking]

It just gets deeper:

White House had NSA Limits Reversed

Sep 10, 2013
UPI

http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2013/...9311378710000/


Good thing Syria came along to take most of this out of the news, huh?

[Papewaio]

Who is playing the role of Praetorian guard?

The voters. And just like early Romans they can be distracted by bread and circuses, and just like Praetorians they will be bought off in the modern sense with tax cuts, pork barrel projects or more important dilemmas to engage with.

My prediction is that a standard issue Republican & Democrat mix Congress and President will get elected in the next twelve years and by then an entire generation will be born to this. The terms of terrorism will extend, the thresholds lowered, Warrantless data collection will extend to cover the war on drugs, violent crimes and then to civil court cases.

I see the latest iPhone takes your fingerprint. Apparently only stored locally on your phone, I wonder how true that statement is given the geolocation bug was used by agencies to track individuals. So now you are tagged and verified every step of the day. Really like Apple products. Next purchase is probably going to be non US. Made in the US means backdoor to all TLAs and as a foreigner all my most intimate communications are allowed to be viewed because I'm automatically a suspect. Don't worry, it seems the locals will be treated the same soon.

Might as well send postcards from the edge as at least you know anyone can read these.

[Papewaio]

Praetorians were bought off. They were the red handed chess pieces not the masters.

So I would say the special interest groups. So follow the cash and it wouldn't surprise me it is a Venn diagram of military industrial with a mix of information tech including telcos. Who site in the nexus of all these interests? NSA so they are a key asset to anyone who wants the power of knowledge.

We are essentially screwed because at the moment the powers that be are in a relatively benevolent phase. However martial law has creeped up with the broader definitions of terrorism and the legalized abilities of the various government organizations. All it would take is a real war or a truly terrible terrorist attack and it would be game over.

[Husar]

Next purchase is probably going to be non US.

What kind of computing device has no connection to the US? And even if you find some cellphone that does not have Google, MS or Apple Software on it, how likely is it that your provider will not supply all your communications to the NSA? There doesn't even appear to be a proper encryption unless someone has thought up the whole thing themselves and was not influenced by encryption techniques that were influenced by the NSA.

I saw the TV series "Person of Interest" on TV today and while I used to think it's a funny fictional series, it seems almost like a documentary now. They even had the NSA give a company all kinds of personal information they collected from private citizens.

[Papewaio]

I can only vote on US policy by spending money.

So yes it will probably be a google android OS on Chinese hardware which my five eyes cooperating Telco will upload willingly to the NSA.

Hopefully Steam will more fully embrace Linux flavours... I could always potentially run games in a virtualized environment on a Linux base.

So right now there isn't alternatives. Nokia is owned by MS. RIM is Canadian so therefore part of the five eyes too.

That leaves Samsung... Which is part of an even more corporate government embedded scenario. HTC which is nice and all.

So yes as far as mobile devices are concerned we are screwed.

[Xiahou]

From Wired:
How the US Almost Killed the Internet

This article leaves me disgusted. The NSA is acting as the most insidious criminal organization you can imagine- with the important distinction of having full government backing.

[Husar]

From Wired:
How the US Almost Killed the Internet

This article leaves me disgusted. The NSA is acting as the most insidious criminal organization you can imagine- with the important distinction of having full government backing.

How naive, all Intelligence Agencies are doing this all the time and they have to to keep you secure. How can you say this is wrong when they all do it and they all cooperate and share data and none of them spy on their own citizens?

[Tellos Athenaios]

From Wired:
How the US Almost Killed the Internet

This article leaves me disgusted. The NSA is acting as the most insidious criminal organization you can imagine- with the important distinction of having full government backing.

That article? Why not try the Spiegel one which this talk is based on: