Keeping an Eye on Government Snooping 232
abb_road writes "BusinessWeek looks at the need for better electronic privacy safeguards in light of NSA call monitoring, and more recent administration pushes for ISP data-retention. As the article discusses, though safeguards are already in place, they're easily bypassed, based on older communication norms and don't take into account any 'war-time necessity' arguments." From the article: "There's a crying need for better privacy safeguards that reflect today's world -- and mirror a consensus among America's gadget-happy, cell-phone addicts whose daily chats and text messages are grist for Echelon's computers."
Time to start encrypting *everything*. (Score:5, Insightful)
It should be clear to everyone by now that the government cannot be trusted to respect the privacy of its citizens. Pushing for stricter controls at the governmental level is futile, since the Powers That Be have absolutely no qualms about sidestepping any troublesome rules and regulations that stand between them and their agenda.
The only way for citizens to reclaim their privacy is at the citizen level. The only solution is to start encrypting all data and communications as a matter of course. If every communication is encrypted, the government will not be able to make the argument that 'if you're encrypting, you obviously have something to hide'.
If we want privacy, crypto is the only way to have it in this day and age. If we want crypto to remain legal for citizens, we have to start excercising our right to encryption now, before it is stolen from us. If crypto is outlawed, only outlaws will use crypto.
Wont Matter (Score:5, Insightful)
We'd best stop them now! (Score:5, Insightful)
If you really want to get a picture of the average American's concern about privacy during a phone conversation just stop and listen for a few minutes at the supermarket or mall to all of the cell phone conversations that are going on so loud that it is hard to ignore them.
The US gov is suffering from bad PR. (Score:2, Insightful)
Not likely when you shoot the watchers (Score:5, Insightful)
The message: Don't watch the watchers!
We are peasants who need to be ruled, not citizens who govern.
Re:Time to start encrypting *everything*. (Score:5, Insightful)
I use encryption with my circle of friends... but what about the rest of the people I need to communicate with?
I have two siblings who still *insist* on using malware laden Wintel boxes; I despair of installing anything on their computers.
I'd have to setup & manage everything for my Mum's iMac (from a different contentment)
And what about what my Investment Brokers send me... sometimes it seems they're barely capable of using e-mail (and still want to use fax)
So how in the hell do I get all these people to use encryption when not only are they unaware of the risks they don't understand how to configure & use encryption?
The War on You and Me (Score:4, Insightful)
We've let the Brits marry into our family on two occassions. One line were Normans, invade with William in 1066, yadda, yadda. From this marriage we've gotten a live conduit into the military history of Britain as the family has served since 1066 in one military capacity or another. After dinner and the fall of the Iron Curtain there was much talk about how America would now have to act as policeman to the world as Britain had for many generations prior. The left wing of the family suggested the U.N. was mature enough to oversee international relations and see to the development and enforcement of international law. Although usually left leaning, I went against my better nature and thought the U.S. would have to assume a role similar to the Gunboat Diplomacy practised by the Brits.
With the erroding of individuals' rights across the economic and political specturms in America, has the War on Drugs been conflated with the War on Terror and these further conflated with the War on Pornography to spawn the now ludicrous war on terror for the children in a move on the part of the American administration to wield a big stick without any thought of walking softly.
Has America as the sole world power failed to lead by example by way of multilateral agreement and sunk into a seige mentality that permits China and Russia to forgo democratic change.
Is the American administration so intent of vanquishing its enemies and making history that it's blind to what history will make of it?
Re:Time to start encrypting *everything*. (Score:3, Insightful)
take the action and protest by encryption, doesn't matter if you live in france, china, sweden or tommorrows amerika.
The ONLY safeguard is (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Wont Matter (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm reinstituting my previous sig, because I think it says all that needs to be said about this point.
Information Leakage (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:We'd best stop them now! (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm Spying on Me!! (Score:5, Insightful)
The true "Powers That Be" are the people. As people we have the power to govern our own state and restrict the government's snooping. The NSA can be disbanded, those that broke the rules jailed, and the path of the government reoriented. Unfortunately, a far greater level of education and political will would be required to restore the decision making process to the people. For as long as the people are afraid of terrorists, crime, and the "axis of evil", the people will willingly give up personal freedoms in vain hope of personal security.
Who watches the Watchers? (Score:2, Insightful)
Personally, I'd compromise a lot on Privacy if the government would back off their conservative "we know what's best for you" bullshit. Legalize the sex, drugs, gambling, file sharing, contraversial media (*), and what does the plebian have left to hide? I have no problem with someone picking through cell phone records with a fine tooth comb if they are doing it to stop murders, rapes, kidnappings, and actual terrorists. Ask a parent who's been searching for their kid for ten years how they would feel if the investigator could use cell phone records to help find their child. It's when they use the information to put average Joe in jail who isn't hurting anyone, while a terrorist blows up 3000 people, that I'd rather see my tax dollars spent on something else.
*I'd make an exception to minors. Before a certain age I like any sane person believe children need some protection. But upon reaching the age where you can sign your life over to the military, I think the government needs to back the **** off what you can and can't do.
Re:Time to start encrypting *everything*. (Score:1, Insightful)
Only concern I have is if encryption becomes widespread then they will scrutinize the data end-points even more. Right now they claim not to listen to messages but put together a database of connections to sift through.
Being that they now hold you w/o rights if they only say you're a terrorist, visiting or messaging the wrong site/person/entity could get you a trip to camp.
I believe one would want to mask their identity as well as their message. Nothing is perfect, but if you can find one person to trust, you can hide behind them. The more people you have cooperating, more hops to travel, the harder it will be to take down the individual of interest. This works even better when nearly everyone has encrpyted channels coming through their lines.
How to accomplish this? Plenty, one I've been a part of is a virtual, private internet. It is based on open standards and can handle any layer 4 protocol, without modification. This means you can host any service that you are able to on the Internet, with the same ease (or lack of).
http://anonet.org/ [anonet.org]
There's something else you should worry about... (Score:2, Insightful)
Companies!
The government where elected by you and me to protect (duh) You and me. Of course, that's the textbook answer. But of course we should have our own politicians checked out now and then - you can't trust anyone really, but you have to (otherwise you'll go insane).
I'm no longer naive, there was a time when I believed that everyone was inherently good at heart - even with a tough background and much hardship trough life. "Good" is a definition - and personally I believe that if you have a clean closet, clean morals, privacy, decency and do the "odd-wrong-thing" now and then...because you're only human after all - you'll be fine - and all your buddies will be fine too, because they know you.
Sounds like a cliche doesn't it? Well - it really is that simple. I know - because I've been both good and bad, I prefer good -and deep down inside of me - I still believe in "good" as a main principle of life, but I ain't naive no more.
When things go bad - is when someone has something to gain on being a criminal. In my eyes we should watch over where private individuals have too much access over our information, not the government. The government can change because of us - we can elect and vote anytime. It's harder to do that with a company - especially if we don't know what's going on behind the curtains (metaphorically speaking...this could be the net..etc). In government we have a certain control - we can always get in on what it is and what's going down in toon-town, so if there's something we don't like - we either speak up, or get rid of the elements we think are sinister by voting and democracy.
Again - your eyes should be peeled on the private sector, that's an entirely different ballpark!
Re:What about the Canadian Gov't? (Score:2, Insightful)
I agree 100%. We need to find a happy medium between the tin-foil hat crowd who are spewing fear mongering about our gov'ts, and those that want to burn the Constitution spewing fear mongering about terrorism.
Personally, I'm under the attitude that it's not the spying or the information that is beneficial or dangerous, but what the gov't does with it.
First things first (Score:5, Insightful)
First thing we need to do is dispell this lie that there is some kind of "war on terror" going on because you just can't argue agains "war-time necessity." The government is going to get whatever they want as long as they are permitted to invoke "war" as the justifications. There is no "war on terrorism." Terrorism is a tactic. Having a war on terrorism makes about as much sense as having a war on amphibious assaults. If anything, we're at war in Iraq with insurgents in Iraq. But even that scarcely qualifies as war.
While we are at it, there is no war on drugs either. Let's get that out of the way right now. War is between two states or groups of people... not between a state and a noun.
-matthew
How will you know? (Score:3, Insightful)
When a child is missing, it is easy to see that the child is missing.
When the government tells you that persons X, Y and Z were planning on doing something, how do you know if what you are being told is factual?
And without any privacy, how do you stop the government from claiming that you are a "terrorist" when you start investigating their claims about the other "terrorists"?
After all, they'll have all your phone calls and emails and such.
YOU are a liar (Score:5, Insightful)
Now, Bill Clinton certainly did lie under oath. However, he lied under oath about what he was doing with his penis in private -- something a lot of douchebag conservatives would probably lie about, even under oath. And when he lied, noone died. QED.
Now FOAD, you disengenous piece of shit.
Re:Who watches the Watchers? (Score:5, Insightful)
"Those who would trade essential liberty for a little bit of temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety" -Benjamin Franklin
There are also countless quotes about the price of freedom and liberty being risk and eternal vigilence. All of these wouldn't be problems if your neighbors would stand up for themselves and watch eachother. It doesn't take massive spying programs by people with agendas. It takes knowing who lives on your block, who has kids, where people work, and actually KNOWING the people who live around you. So when the situation changes you know something is wrong. I remember growing up if one of us kids weren't at home when we should be every parent in a 2 block radius knew to be on the lookout for us. I also remember 4th of July when everyone on the block got together and had a BBQ. (Oh, and god forbid one of those other adults in the area caught you doing something wrong...you were gunna get nailed by them...and then again when you got home and they told your parents what you were doing). Too many people take the lazy stance of "not my problem". They won't report crimes, they won't watch out for eachother, and they most certainly will not risk anything themselves to help someone out. Society has allowed the government to do this stuff, the majority want this stuff because they want someone to hand them everything and a place to put blame. We, as a society, refuse to police ourselves, so the government is stepping in to do it for us, and most of the populace seems to welcome the change.
Re:There's something else you should worry about.. (Score:3, Insightful)
First, let me say, if you want to rail against the private-sector, the correct term to get people's blood boilding "corporations". It conjures up way better images than "companies". In slashdot groupthink, corporations are "evil"... companies are who writes our paychecks...
Secondly, what you are saying, fundamentally, for lack of a better word, is very... communist. You are, essentially saying, that you can trust the government alot more than you can trust private companies. I disagree with that, in most cases. (It also goes pretty counter to some fundamental American principles.) You are incorrect in your analysis of our "control" of the government versus our control of the private sector. You do have a huge amount of control over corporations (in general), with your wallet. In that respect, where free markets apply, the people are a far better control on the private sector then they are on the government.
The standard Slashdot response will link "evil corporations" and "non-competitive" and "cronyism" and "profiteering" and all these other strawmen in regards to certain lobby-friendly markets like oil or telecommunications.. but in reality, the bulk of the US corporations operate in highly competitive markets, and it's very easy to vote with your dollars... Your dollars vote alot more often than your ballot does, in fact...
Re:I'm Spying on Me!! (Score:4, Insightful)
do we have a God-given right to private conversations? And the answer is clearly no.
How do I come to that conclusion? Simple: ask any representative sample of Americans who believe in God (a prerequisite for believing in God-given anything), and I bet you anything that nearly all of them will tell you that God listens in on all their private conversations, and indeed on all their most secret thoughts, and that this is right and proper. Ergo, God does not recognise any right to privacy, QED.
Your argument allocates the power and privilege of God to the State. While I'm sure Dubya would accept and even applaud this argument, most actual believers would find this troubling.
I trust God with my innermost secrets because, to date, He has not abused this trust. The same cannot be said of the State.
Re:YOU are a liar (Score:2, Insightful)
Yeah, all those dead Kurds with chemical burns had nothing to do with it.
Bush and Blair both knew that the intelligence was inaccurate, their very sources said so and said not to base any action on that intelligence.
So who do you belive? The intelligence or the people that say the intelligence was wrong. Do you wait around to see who is right?
Not everyone knew how faulty the intelligence was.
You mean that John Kerry, John Edwards, Bill Clinton and Al Gore all had different intelligence than GWB? What about Putin? He sent a warning [washingtonpost.com]to GWB saying that Iraq was planning to attack the US? Do you discount his intelligence too? It's not like he wanted us to go into Iraq. Why would he lie? After 9/11, do you still sit around seeing if anything happens before acting on it? Don't you think that would be just a bit irresponsible?
Now, Bill Clinton certainly did lie under oath. However, he lied under oath about what he was doing with his penis in private -- something a lot of douchebag conservatives would probably lie about, even under oath.
OK... like I said in the grand-parent that you ignored, much like anything else that runs counter to your opinion. How about if I rape your wife/daughter/mother? It's my penis. I don't see how it's any of your business what I do with it. If I choose to lie about it, why do you care?
Now FOAD, you disengenous piece of shit.
I've presented valid arguments with facts and logic. You sling insults.
Re:The US gov is suffering from bad PR. (Score:3, Insightful)
So the issue isn't really one of trust, it is more one of gullibility and inability to divine missing information. Even if you do your own research in nearly all cases what you find will corroborate the facts that they have selected.
That isn't to say that what Fox says meets standards of integrity, but really they're not the ones to blame. They didn't create American's ADD induced appetite for three minute segments or 24 hour news on their own, they are just playing to the market as they found it.
I'm tempted to say we've ceased to be a nation capable of critical thought, but I'm not sure we ever were.
Correction: (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh, and the NSA's actions are harmful not only for violating the founding principles of this country (go to China if you want to curtail the rights of the people rather than putting enough effort into creating a solution that protects everything about this country), but has limitless opportunities for abuse by those near the top of the program and those near them. It's also a program that gives very little benefit to fighting terrorism in an age of disposable cell phones and language that won't trigger any filtering programs, instant messaging, and so forth; there's actually much more potential for abuse than for any real good. Anyway, speaking of the way the world's progressing, nothing could be more important that protecting every legal right and liberty we have, because quite frankly, the people of the West no longer have the capability of popular revolution in the case that things got really bad; imagine if Washington had tried to stage the American Revolution while the British had the armaments of today's military.
Oh, and that brings me to my last point. The worst parts about the NSA and Patriot Act and such is that Al-Qaeda is not that much of a threat to the US. In fact, it's not really a threat at all. We are not up against vast armies or comparable weaponry. With the amount of power that the United States has from its economic and politial clout to the sheer behemoth might of our military and vast superiority of technology, I'd count 9/11 as more of a lucky sucker-punch due to bureaucratic stupidity, and a suicidal one at that. Terrorism is not the Nazi Germany of today, nor the equivalent of the dangers of the Cold War. The only thing needed to stop terrorism is more hard work and careful planning, that's all. There was no need for a war against a country that had nothing to do with bin Laden that killed thousands of innocents, there was never any need for a Patriot Act, nor giving the NSA and CIA blanket authority to do whatever they want.
Re:I'm Spying on Me!! (Score:3, Insightful)
Most actual believers will believe and accept what they are told to believe and accept. And they will like it. And they will like making you accept it too.
Never underestimate the power of faith.
BusinessWeek, you say? (Score:2, Insightful)
The only unforeseeable thing is the number of times that canard is served to the public. The article concludes by offering a false dichotomy: should FISA be changed to allow data-mining by the NSA, or would Americans want "much stricter" limits on the NSA? Hey Otis, how about no data-mining? Is that good for you? Anyone who reads the Fourth Amendment might notice the part about "probable cause", but you won't find that in this article or in the current administration's rationales.
Re:hmmm (Score:2, Insightful)
#1) Is there a reason that it can not be integrated into closed source? Other than "We are smarter and you should be too." Open source is a great thing but, to get to the masses we need to accept that others may not be using our open source OS!
Can people not write simple open source drivers to integrate real-time hard drive encryption into closed source OS's?
Can people not develop easy to use plugging for the other closed source software?
#2) The whole key management is a difficult task. I work with people that need to use/Must use encryption. I end up doing there key management because they have no clue what a key ring, key server, public key, and private key is.
It seems to me that there is a lot of room for improvement and few seem to want to take the time or make the effort.
Re:Freedom of *what*, exactly? (Score:1, Insightful)
Agreed (although photographs which are not obscene are covered under the First Amendment, and Lewis Carroll style photographs of children are on shaky legal ground), but this is in reference to a supposedly open and anonymous network. To regulate content so that it does not contain kiddie porn/piracy, there has to be monitoring, and monitoring leads to the danger of content filtering and further restrictions.
Re:It's 6:00 Time For Your Next (Score:3, Insightful)
It's funny, WidescreenFreak, how you can be so opposed to my viewpoint, and yet somehow fail to address my post directly. What's the matter? Afraid I'll reply?
And before you think I'm trolling
Too late.
look throughout his posting history.
I could say the same for you [slashdot.org], sunshine. Thumbing through your posting history reveals quite a bit of vitriol...the main difference seems to be yours is poorly focused.
He has a clear hatred for both of them [Fox News or the Bush Adminsitration [sic]].
Guilty as charged. I do hate them. I harbor a deep resentment for people who abuse positions of authority and trust to further their own selfish ends. I loathe and abhor liars, murderers, and thieves. It sickens me how these people have managed to dismantle what was once, unarguably, the greatest country on the planet, until it became the hollow joke it is now. And it infuriates me to know that this dismantlement is continuing and accelerating, while its once proud citizens look on in doe-eyed confusion. Yes, I hate them. I hate them for doing what no foreign power ever could have. I hate them for destroying our very way of life. Above all, I hate them because as a result of their actions, our children will inherit an America that is horribly diminished...an America that they cannot be proud of.
(Sorry...that may have run a bit long...I'll try to keep it to "30 seconds of hate" in the future.)
q^_^p
Re:First things first (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:YOU are a liar (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Freedom of *what*, exactly? (Score:3, Insightful)
It can be argued that a t-shirt with this script on it couldn't possibly be piracy, yet there was a controversy over it.
I was making the point that piracy and speech aren't separated cleanly.
I like what your friend did, it is along the same lines as the t-shirt. I'll bet he got a C&D too!
Re:Freedom of *what*, exactly? (Score:3, Insightful)
As an aside, DeCSS isn't only used for piracy. You need it to watch dvds on a linux computer for example. Or to make a backup for personal use which used to be a fair use of copyright.
Even the pornography example isn't clearly defined. Is a picture of my kid in the tub pornography? What if some pervert uses it pruriently? What if some pervert collects pictures of kids in tubs and sells them?
Here's a steaming mug of STFU (Score:3, Insightful)
Not only is what is happening to you not censorship, it isn't even mod abuse. It is a community policing itself to keep out the undesireable elements. If you don't like it here, I suggest you leave. No one will miss you.
Buh-bye! Don't let the ACK hit you in the ass on your way out.