Prism

[hslan.Corvax]

There is no privacy on the internet. No matter what you do, what sites you use, there is always someone watching. Encryptions are mostly useless too. They are developed by intel-agencies and military most of the times anyway, so they know how to bypass or decrypt them. Its their job, so everyone who thinks he can hide something by encrypting it is just foolish and naive. I think goverment agencies, esp. US, Russian, Isreaeli, Chinese and UK have vast potentials of doing such things that we are not even aware of or know of. Most likely all protocols are cracked already, most software has some way to gather infos or whatever and we have no idea about it.

So in my opinion all the fuzz is kind of just hot air, no matter what you do on the net, someone somewhere knows. You either go full usability-masochism and use a gazillion of tools to hide your trace that has doubtful use, or you just live with it and keep on.


That said, im not for surveillance of any kind, but there are some thing you just cant do anything about. Now there is a big fuzz about PRISM, who knows what other governments do the same and how many other programs the US has running. Try to shut down one and there will be three new ones at least ..

[Slayer]

But when you see Chinese government hacking major US companies, then I figure they don't completely suck at internet espionage.

(...)

Look at Russias situation. Look at the journalists that have mysteriously died in the past and look at Russia trying to silence any criticism and any kind of opposition.

Yep, they are indeed arguments to assume R and C are spying. I was just wondering if there was ever any case where it was like 99% certain that C or R had spied. Or if there were ever any defectors, like there have been in the Cold War.

The US even said they are not on par with China when some company was hacked and that they will need to upgrade their defense against hackers and secure important data better than they are right now.

Hehe, I really don't believe that, it is a very nice way to reserve more money for development of such programs.

But the comparance to nuclear weapons is not bad. Having more "power" owning them although they are morally questionable is comparable to using a program like prism, isn't it?

Yes, and I'm going on some sort of a stretch here, but I think the comparsion is even deeper.

The Cold War
US and USSR (the parties in the Cold War) invest lots and lots of money into nuclear weaponry. They never actually use it because it will mean total destruction of the world, but since everyone is so afraid of the other party, the people think it's a good thing that their government has nuclear weapons. This sort of stays the same for 30-35 years. The costs of the nuclear programs rise exponentially in the meantime. After those 35 years, protest is growing in several countries. People don't see the advantage of having nuclear weaponry anymore, they just see the danger of it. Because of a weakness in the economy of one of the parties, it collapses and the Cold War is over.

The Information war
US, Russia and China (the parties in the Information War) invest lots and lots of money into internet spying programs. They actually use it because it it's not dangerous in any way, and since everyone is so afraid of the other parties, the people think it's a good thing that their government has internet spying programs. This sort of stays the same for 30-35 years. The costs of the internet spying programs rise exponentially in the meantime. After those 35 years, protest is growing in several countries. People don't see the advantage of having internet spying programs anymore, they just see the danger of it. Because of a weakness in the economy of one of the parties, it collapses and the Information War is over. Or: it continues with the two remaining parties until one of those collapses.

Differences being that
1) Using spying systems cost less lives as opposed to lots of lives when using nuclear weaponry
2) The collapsing economy will not be Russia this time, it will be the US.

"Educated guessing" this, of course. History never repeats itself, and seeing the future is not something I am capable of

[Dukat]

[Harmonikater]

I'm not a terrorist so I have nothing to fear?
But then what happens when the gathered information is used for something else, say prosecuting a ethnic group by a state that has left democracy on the track?

[THeTA0123]

Voila

thats why everybody is against it

Just like back in 1938 when jews had to come and register themselves for "everybodies safety and advantage"

see how that worked out

[NTH]

Nobody is surprised that Governments can tap into communication systems, but the fact that this information is being stored for years for everybody without there being a reason why your personal slumbering on the Internet is being targeted.
And that some 10.000 plus persons plus contractors plus whoever feels like can take dive into my Internet traffic bother me a lot.

I have enough shit that doesn't concern anyone. If I am looking for a different job, not your concern, if I am thinking about converting to Buddhism not your concern, if I like to chat with fellow nerds about a WWII modification of a 8 year old game none of your fucking concern.

@Archi
Look at that guy Snowden, does he really come across like the next reality star craving attention..get real man.

[Zoologic]

You don't have any privacy or freedom. It is an illusion created by the super power country to preserve the way they prefer to live with. Wait until they find what is CIA director's most disturbing fetish or Obama's secret meeting, and they'll start to talk different thing.

I guess they are all public security matters and meant to be snooped. Doesn't concern me at all, it is not something new. They are basically bad guys from the beginning, it is just they like to talk big bullshit about freedom, privacy, and that kind of stuffs.

[Dukat]

What pisses me off most, is that they all complain about the treason of the Russians, China and Snowden himself. Like they didn't do anything wrong. At first they spy on you, and then they complain if you're uncooperative.
If somebody spies on me, he declares me to be his enemy. He betrayed me first. How can he expect cooperation or even help then?
This is so fundamentally stupid, it makes one question overall sanity of these people in general. There appears to be some error in their reasoning. Like accounting 1 and 1, making it 3.

[Surfbird]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/10150905/NSA-suveillance-US-bugged-EU-offices.html

Now this is interesting. US spying on the European Union...Not only via online surveillance but also with bugs?!
That's pretty damn cheeky if you ask me. Currently it's not a confirmed message, but if it's true I look forward to the shitstorm in the next few days.

Assumed it's true, it shows really well that the defence against terrorism is just a part of this whole project. This is political espionage and the terrorism is the easy way to justify running the program. Not that alle the countries aren't already on it, but I guess that the importance of telecommunicational security will grow by even more now. When the US is spying on the EU, whom can you still trust?!

Really interesting developement (always assuming it's true). Not a real surprise, but that they put bugs into EU offices, into officies of an organisation that should be considered Allied but is, according to German "Spiegel" magazine, called a "target" by the NSA...wow.

I personally believe it's more than rumors. When something like this gets published there usually is some truth behind it. And when you think about it and see politicians keeping silent instead of saying it's simply nonsense you can be pretty certain there is some truth involved in my opinion.

Anyway, what do you guys think?

[|7th|Nighthawk]

^ Surfbird, avast tells me your site contains malware Not sure if it's just messing around again but who knows.

[Surfbird]

I doubt a well known newspapers' internet presence contains malware

[hslan.Corvax]

Not long till the US will fall to its own paranoia. The problems they seek to solve are created by their idiocy. Thats a downward spiral there, and it will end in a big fuckup.

[Slayer]

Assumed it's true, it shows really well that the defence against terrorism is just a part of this whole project. This is political espionage and the terrorism is the easy way to justify running the program.

This is, and has been all along, exactly my point.

But just like I'm not willing to live in fear of a terrorist attack, I'm not willing to live in fear of the NSA either.

It would be nice if they both get to be so good at their "jobs", that they can leave us, the civilians, out of it. But I guess that's only a dream.

[Surfbird]

Personally, I don't care that much about espionage of myself. I don't like it, but I am a lot more worried of the political part of the surveillance. That they do it on the EU, which should be considered somewhat Allied. It brings up questions of what the USA plans to be in future. I don't mind too much that they are paranoid of terrorism. But political espionage... On Russia, on China, the Middle East, would not be surprising and they are probably on it too. But that they spy the EU also shows that they fear to lose their leading position in the world. They either don't trust the EU or want to gain an advantage of information over other countries.

This might damage the relations of EU and US for quite some time. I'm sure EU is not going to do anything with or for the US until there is an official statement. But where is the US' trustworthyness? How can you believe them after this? How much is the word of the president worth?

For the US it's a situation on the edge between keeping their surveillance agenda alive and keeping up relations with the Europe and other countries. So they either do something that brings their trustworthiness back to an adequate level or they have a surveillance program running the whole world knows about.

To me it looks like they have to do something, the consequences of nobody trusting them might be more fatal than the decision to abort the espionage on Allies for them.
Whatever, the image of the US and their trustworthiness is severly damaged now.

[Zoologic]

Personally, I don't care that much about espionage of myself. I don't like it, but I am a lot more worried of the political part of the surveillance.

Yup, +1 on that Surfbird.

On the EU side, that's another business. But for the Americans for the lack of shock: imagine if the information is used by the "commander-in-chief" to maintain his cronies in power, he could have authorized NSA operatives to spy on his political rivals for whatever reason (e.g. collaborating with Syrian rebel of suspected Al-Qaeda influence).

The Americans have been babysit-ed for long time and overly protected from making stupid decisions with that litigation-prone environment. For a problem this complex, they simply rely on their "elected" government and get lazy. No wonder sometimes I do share this grim world-view like Archimonday's. People are just too idiotic to respond.

In the end of it all, should the US citizens allow this to continue, they should at least make NSA report on what gain the nation get from sacrificing (some) of its citizens' privacy after the program is shut. The document should be declassified, at least specifically for the person being spied under mistaken suspicion and surveillance targeting.