If it's antitheft software than at a minimum i'd expect it to be running as administrator and phoning home every few minutes reporting the last 5 networks it was connected to and every wireless AP it can see along with signal strengths for wifi geolocation/triangulation. At a minimum.

Any program you're running could do most of that (except maybe tap into the wireless AP list without admin access).

Clearly this is the algorithm managers need even if it isn't the algorithm managers want. I can see it already:

"how can this be right???! All of the inputs are the things I do! Something isnt right here!"

It's called EXIF. Easy to strip with tools designed for it. Hard to find phones that come with thisr tools.

the Prey App

Is this something running on your computer where it's capable of bypassing whatever network configuration you've got?

No, as long as no undeserved molestation has resulted from such surveillance, it does not qualify for "Police State".

Sorry, but having Big Brother observe each and every one of us through the telescreen is absolutely Police State. Being put on "a list" is unquestionably a threat, even if nobody is at liberty to say just what being on that list does. (It does do something, right? I mean, you're not just supporting Big Government spending your tax dollars to make lists and throw them away and then making more lists, right?)

You'd be OK with the government having "a list" of every gun owner in the country, right? Because at this point, I'm pretty sure the NSA has one. Those forms that sellers mail in on toilet paper go somewhere.

Snowden does not mention it

Oh, he doesn't?

It is interesting to note that this rule specifically avoids fingerprinting users believed to be located in Five Eyes countries, while other rules make no such distinction. For instance, the following fingerprint targets users visiting the Tails and Linux Journal websites, or performing certain web searches related to Tails, and makes no distinction about the country of the user

-- https://www.schneier.com/blog/... (emphasis added)

Oh dear, it looks like you might be right. XKeyscore wasn't from the UK, it's run right here in the good ol' US of A. Against fellow Americans, "without distinction".

not only have we seen any evidence of innocents prosecuted

Absence of Evidence is not Evidence of Absence, especially when the government has demonstrated the ability to destroy evidence and immediately kill any court proceeding for "national security". Al Haramain's lawyer had their warrantless wiretap transcript mailed to him, the government destroyed that evidence and killed their lawsuit repeatedly due to "lack" of evidence.

we have not even seen allegations

What would such an allegation look like? How would we tell it apart from the waves of everyone else getting released for false convictions, because they've only been in prison since the NSA started spying on everyone instead of being imprisoned for 30 years?

Maybe it'd look like the IRS denying your nonprofit status application? I wonder if we'll ever find those emails...

brave is kind of silly.

There's a saying:

Better to live on your feet than die on your knees.

Oh wait, there isn't. But there should be.

I absolutely would, but I don't get a say in it since my neighbor paid the Inter Street Provider extra for a service which allowed him to use some of my driveway to park on. The ISP promises that they'll build more driveways in my neighborhood sometime in the next 20 years or so in order to meet increased demand. In the meantime if I pay extra I can use my other neighbor's driveway.

yeaaaah, no.

Slashdot 2001: Hey guys my boss wants me to sign a all your base are assigned to us agreement, what do?

It's hell. Hell, isn't it?

Debian Oldstable.

10% flat sales tax on everything (consumption tax, also applied at borders)

I'm fine with that, my imported megayacht never crosses the border. Here's $5 for the rubber dinghy I come ashore in.

> BTW, the deficit reductions under Clinton were the direct result of the policies of Reagan and Gingrich.

Bullshit. The Clinton surplus was created by the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993, which every single Republican in congress voted against.

you have us all working 80 or 160 hours a week for you?

Not all just one.

As soon as any autonomous car advocates start talking about 'what actually happens'

Why yes! Just the other day a baby stroller magically appeared 2 feet in front of me while I was doing 90mph on the local autobahn, forcing me to make a snap decision between creamed baby or ramming the President's car which was carrying a gaggle of pregnant neurosurgeons to a peace conference that just happened to be in the other 5 lanes of the freeway and the shoulders and the sidewalks and the ditches, all at the same time (except for the lane the baby stroller was in, of course).

    Fortunately being the superior human being that I am, I was not constrained by mere binary thinking and through a little ingenuity and physics, managed to lean my manly, manly physique across the vehicle just in time to ski past the baby and land safely on the other side. Not only that, but as it gracefully settled back onto four wheels, the breeze from the air displaced by my HMMWV (only the real ones are worthy of my leisure time) blew out a forest fire that was threatening to ignite a fireworks factory right next to a nuclear waste storage shed.

Let's see one of those auto-no-muss cars do that!

Here in Houston, TX we've been solving it by making the exits that back up be two lanes wide instead of just one. Now twice as many cars can sit and wait for the stoplight at the intersection immediately after the exit to turn green.