Comment Wake up, Re (Score 1) 256
If you do not believe that there IS, and ALWAYS HAVE been, some sort of programs monitoring everyones activities on the Internet you must not have been paying attention to your History lessones.
When the Cold War was at it's highest, computers were already being used by militaries around the world. Do you think that J. Edgar Hoover didn't implement plans. What about the CIA, or NSA. If you can not imagine any of them do it what about the KGB or MI6.
All of these are the people that hide infomatioin from themselves and thier governments for "Security" or any of a handfull of reasons that they only have to justify to themselves.
As any Network Admin can tell you if you can tap into the data stream you can see everything that goes past that point. When you are talking about globle commuications there are only a few places that the data can come into or out of each country. An easy example would be the telephone backbone that connects both North America and Eurpoe.
The US government, i.e. the Military, can without breaking any existing laws tap all those points that come into or out of the US, just by deciding that it is a "Threat to the Security of the United State...". This is without letting anyone know they are doing it.
Even with current encryption, which is trully impressive. They can if they choose, put not only one but as many Super Computers as they wish to breaking it. With the current speeds of PC's and such projects as openMosix and Beowulf eveyone should have one who wants one. I only have 16 nodes and can crack passwords at 20 a day, of course that is only DES64 passwords, but I'm doing it with computers that are too slow to be usefull as desktops.
If We the people of the United States want to have any sort of privacy we need to ensure it for ourself just as our fore fathers wanted us too. If everyone used encrypted connections and encrypted thier email. Along with AIM and such clients allowing for establishing encrypted connections. We would not need to worry about it as much.
When our fore fathers wrote the constitution all we needed to ensure our privacy was a gun. Now we need a Gun and PGP with VPN and encrypted file systems.
I think that the government needs to be able to do what ever it needs to do, as long as the results do not harm my way of life. I know that they are spying. I also know that no matter what they say or what we try to do, they cannot take the risk of not doing it.
The problem comes when they let any of that information become anything less than a State Seceret. When that information is only used for the "Safty of the Nation" it should not have an effect on any crime commited inside the US or any other Country. Your local drug dealers or mp3 downloader will not be slowed or stopped.
If you want to have privacy on the net, then install and setup encrypted servers and clients. Tell your friends to do the same, if the refuse then refuse any connections or emails from them. With all the current apps out there you can set most of it up in the background and you never have to do anything more than except new keys. Once you get someone using it they will never stop.
As far as freedom of speech, if you are posting something that is likly to get the attention of Big Brother to the point where they will come after you, then you were stupid it do it from somewhere they can trace you to, it's your own damn fault.
If Osama uses a computer and post to public fourms and he gets caught doing it, go U.S.. If the U.S. doesn't find him but finds 10 other cell leaders because the don't have the resources to hide better, who cares.
I don't do anything that would call the attention of the government to me, the MPAA maybe. It's not the government that I worry about it's the private companies with lawers that worry me.
They are the ones who want these laws, they are the ones who are spending the money to make these laws happen. Everytime some poor 10 year old girl settles for a small fine, they are also setting legal precident.
The government does not care if you download an mp3, most of the United States doesn't care, the rest of the World love the idea to be able to listen to music. Do you think that there are CD stores in ever town in Africa or China, and if there is does thier government let RAP in or Christian? What about Classical?
It's only one orginazation that doesn't like it, and they wont go out of business because of it. CD's, just like tape decks, are on the way out. Musicians trough out time been able to make money. If they are good, that will not change.
If you want your privacy there are ways to get most of it back, without breaking any law. If you need better privacy then learn.
As long as we can ensure that no one can see in our windows we feel secure with the safty of our houses, the government has the technology to not only see but hear what we do in our houses. Why don't they use them to find all the drug dealers, because there are too many places for them to monitor at one time to be able to stop them all. The same goes for the internet, there are how many packets of data transmitted accross the Internet day. They cann't handle that much data and extraploate from it to make it any more usefull than the computer the records all phone calls.
If you secure yourself and ask your friend to do the same, then who cares if they know I like Wendy's 99 cent menu better than McD's? If people stop complaining and look around there is free software that will give them all the security that they never had before.
No matter what you think or what they say, if the government wanted to know everything you did do you really think that they couldn't already. It's all just a matter of how much they need that informatioin that keeps them from getting it now.
If the NSA thought you had a nuke and you were not hiding in a small celler with it, they would do anything they wanted to, if they thought they could get information by doing it. When it comes to something like that not only will they watch you but every person that they know that ever knew you or someone that know them.
This is a new age, the stupid will either get caught or will not try. The smart will succeed or prove they were stupid to try. There has always been a "Black Market", and as with everything else that will still be there. There are hundreds of way to fool any security and someone will always find them. Why, because it's there.
When the Cold War was at it's highest, computers were already being used by militaries around the world. Do you think that J. Edgar Hoover didn't implement plans. What about the CIA, or NSA. If you can not imagine any of them do it what about the KGB or MI6.
All of these are the people that hide infomatioin from themselves and thier governments for "Security" or any of a handfull of reasons that they only have to justify to themselves.
As any Network Admin can tell you if you can tap into the data stream you can see everything that goes past that point. When you are talking about globle commuications there are only a few places that the data can come into or out of each country. An easy example would be the telephone backbone that connects both North America and Eurpoe.
The US government, i.e. the Military, can without breaking any existing laws tap all those points that come into or out of the US, just by deciding that it is a "Threat to the Security of the United State...". This is without letting anyone know they are doing it.
Even with current encryption, which is trully impressive. They can if they choose, put not only one but as many Super Computers as they wish to breaking it. With the current speeds of PC's and such projects as openMosix and Beowulf eveyone should have one who wants one. I only have 16 nodes and can crack passwords at 20 a day, of course that is only DES64 passwords, but I'm doing it with computers that are too slow to be usefull as desktops.
If We the people of the United States want to have any sort of privacy we need to ensure it for ourself just as our fore fathers wanted us too. If everyone used encrypted connections and encrypted thier email. Along with AIM and such clients allowing for establishing encrypted connections. We would not need to worry about it as much.
When our fore fathers wrote the constitution all we needed to ensure our privacy was a gun. Now we need a Gun and PGP with VPN and encrypted file systems.
I think that the government needs to be able to do what ever it needs to do, as long as the results do not harm my way of life. I know that they are spying. I also know that no matter what they say or what we try to do, they cannot take the risk of not doing it.
The problem comes when they let any of that information become anything less than a State Seceret. When that information is only used for the "Safty of the Nation" it should not have an effect on any crime commited inside the US or any other Country. Your local drug dealers or mp3 downloader will not be slowed or stopped.
If you want to have privacy on the net, then install and setup encrypted servers and clients. Tell your friends to do the same, if the refuse then refuse any connections or emails from them. With all the current apps out there you can set most of it up in the background and you never have to do anything more than except new keys. Once you get someone using it they will never stop.
As far as freedom of speech, if you are posting something that is likly to get the attention of Big Brother to the point where they will come after you, then you were stupid it do it from somewhere they can trace you to, it's your own damn fault.
If Osama uses a computer and post to public fourms and he gets caught doing it, go U.S.. If the U.S. doesn't find him but finds 10 other cell leaders because the don't have the resources to hide better, who cares.
I don't do anything that would call the attention of the government to me, the MPAA maybe. It's not the government that I worry about it's the private companies with lawers that worry me.
They are the ones who want these laws, they are the ones who are spending the money to make these laws happen. Everytime some poor 10 year old girl settles for a small fine, they are also setting legal precident.
The government does not care if you download an mp3, most of the United States doesn't care, the rest of the World love the idea to be able to listen to music. Do you think that there are CD stores in ever town in Africa or China, and if there is does thier government let RAP in or Christian? What about Classical?
It's only one orginazation that doesn't like it, and they wont go out of business because of it. CD's, just like tape decks, are on the way out. Musicians trough out time been able to make money. If they are good, that will not change.
If you want your privacy there are ways to get most of it back, without breaking any law. If you need better privacy then learn.
As long as we can ensure that no one can see in our windows we feel secure with the safty of our houses, the government has the technology to not only see but hear what we do in our houses. Why don't they use them to find all the drug dealers, because there are too many places for them to monitor at one time to be able to stop them all. The same goes for the internet, there are how many packets of data transmitted accross the Internet day. They cann't handle that much data and extraploate from it to make it any more usefull than the computer the records all phone calls.
If you secure yourself and ask your friend to do the same, then who cares if they know I like Wendy's 99 cent menu better than McD's? If people stop complaining and look around there is free software that will give them all the security that they never had before.
No matter what you think or what they say, if the government wanted to know everything you did do you really think that they couldn't already. It's all just a matter of how much they need that informatioin that keeps them from getting it now.
If the NSA thought you had a nuke and you were not hiding in a small celler with it, they would do anything they wanted to, if they thought they could get information by doing it. When it comes to something like that not only will they watch you but every person that they know that ever knew you or someone that know them.
This is a new age, the stupid will either get caught or will not try. The smart will succeed or prove they were stupid to try. There has always been a "Black Market", and as with everything else that will still be there. There are hundreds of way to fool any security and someone will always find them. Why, because it's there.
