Your computer is your enemy

Or to be more accurate, your operating system is.

I have a reliable source and a good friend working for a big IT firm, I won't name for obvious reasons, who confirmed my fears that the most popular OS may be riddled with NSA spyware.

It is more advanced that people think it is. People already know about the "magic flash disk" agents and officers use to unlock and upload data from any PC .
But it goes beyond that.
They can access your computer freely remotely, effectively look at its content, browsing history, record what you type, access your emails and everything. Even plant "evidence" against you. Mainstream firewalls and protections will not detect all this information moving in and out. And that is one of the main counterterrorism and intelligence tool, the remote access of any computer that belongs to suspected enemies.

That's the reason Chinese and Cuban governments built their own OS based on the open source Linux and are quickly moving to promote households to use their OS.
www.reuters.com...
www.gov.cn...

I think it is important for ATSers to be aware of such thing. I know many think they are safe, even with their alternative views, but the govt is probably doing this in the possibility someone becomes too vocal and too popular. Then it would be easy for them to stop this person under whatever terror law with evidence (real or not) stored in his/her computer.


[edit on 13-2-2009 by TheOracle]

What you are saying i think is in the back of the mind of everyone to have reached the pages of ATS.
To ad to your thread i should say that everytime i involve my self too much in corners of info that everyday people don't, my computer gets into trouble. When i don't have a back up of my latest work-its just gonne together with the OS when formating ...
Crowd control.

I dont got nothing to hide.. infact i hope they get infected from all the crappy spyware i have on my pc LOL



wouldnt put it past em..

At this point I don't really care if they are spying on me or not. They can't take my birthday away, as far as I know. Since that's about all I have left they really can't do much to me. Sure, I don't like it at all but since I can't get real news on the tele I have to use the net.

I care,for what I type, and the site I visit are none of the NSA's business at all. I used tio run Windows, like most everyone else does, but kept on getting hacked and system crashes drove me nuts. Then a friend turned me on to Linux, and I would never go back, not even for money.
Linux is a lot faster, and never gets a virus, and it is near impossible for anyone to "see" what I have on my machine, for my drive is encrypted, as are my files, and the NSA can eat dirt.

Originally posted by TheOracle
Your computer is your enemy

Yes .. it is an evil and vile entity that lives in my house. Fortunately I have discovered a computer god at ATS ... 12m8keal2c.

He can smite a virus from across the country.
He leaps tall adwares in a single bound.
Faster than high speed.
Stronger than malware.
Smarter than popups.

He's 12m8keal2c ... Super Computer Dude.

ON TOPIC - Computers .. you can't live with them and you can't live without them. Alot of us don't know much about them. All we know is that we need them. And that's where someone .. someday .. will nail us.

reply to post by GEORGETHEGREEK

everytime i involve my self too much in corners of info that everyday people don't, my computer gets into trouble.

I knew it wasn't just me, or my imagination.

I'll leave it at that...

peace

reply to post by TheOracle

That's the reason Chinese and Cuban governments built their own OS based on the open source Linux and are quickly moving to promote households to use their OS.

In reality, it’s because they can more easily add their own spyware to Linux, just as the NSA did before facing the harder task of coding it into Windows.

I don’t believe any of that – simply making the point that we need to be wary when thinking about security. Linux may be open source, but very few people read and compile the source code for themselves; most just believe that it’s safe because that’s what we are told.

Anyway, what is this NSA you speak of, and should I fear these americanos when I live in España?

Yes, I know that and dual boot with Mepis and Pclinuxos on my computers, which are wonderful OS's. Often, when on Windows, I leave nasty little letters for the black op spyware guys, addressed to them and tell them both what I think of them, that they're traitors to humanity and how we're going to kick their butts, and establish a true grass roots, bottom up equal world and they should be true heros and join in.

it may be possible yes ... we will never know ...

thats why linux would be the best option as OS

That may not be a bad thing, use it if you catch my drift

reply to post by TheOracle


Then why are you using the bugger?

Simple response to this....
Stop using Windows and install Linux. It's free and easy to use (relatively)

I wouldn't be surprised at all if it was even half true.

When windows 95 was first launched I pretty much tore apart every file on the comp. I had just to see what I could find.

Lets just say I told a friend I could break any password protection he had with it and show him every e-mail he ever sent out even if he believed he fully deleted them all within 5 minutes from the time I hit his power button.

Of course he laughed and thought I was crazy and said no way it's not possible I unplugged his mouse then and said here you go all I need is the keyboard.

Well I was wrong, it took 3 1/2 minutes as his computer was quite a bit faster than I thought lol

I then showed him exactly how I did it and where all the emails were stored on the hard drive and in what file even after deleting and emptying the deleted folder.

I gave him a batch file I made to auto dump all that junk it kept in the separate files so every time the computer started up it cleaned the files that the stuff was stored in.

Once windows xp came about those files were no longer in the operating system so I assumed they were renamed or placed somewhere else. Never did find them in any operating system of xp or vista although I have never tried to disect vista so to speak as I don't use it anyway. But did wonder if there was a file somewhere maybe encrypted on top of it storing all the info.

No worrys here,my computer guy works for CIA as head cryptologist,he gets called when there is a breach only any computer in military instillation,so unless he is against me,I'm cool

Meh. I pirate every operating system I own that isn't linux. I've run quite a few. I run XP now so I can play some games. I don't look at porn or type anything I'd really need to keep secret on anything but Linux.

So I'm not too worried.

*yawn*

If you are worried about your software on your computer you haven't started digging deep enough into Information Technology to realize that there are much worse things than a backdoor in Vista. Keyboards leak information which can be read from another room using the right hardware, monitors give off a diffuse light which can be recreated into a snapshot of what is on the screen. Wireless networks can be compromised and sniffed from a safe distance as well, so if you are just concerned about your software it might be time to enroll in a few courses in college and tune in to some tech news.

The bottom line is that not even Linux or OS X is safe from prying eyes and mischevious crackers, no system is sacrosanct, ever. If you are worried about someone being able to snoop onto your electronic activities the only absolute solution is to stop said activities all together irregardless of their legality. I'm not saying this to dissauade people from looking up what they want but to get the point across that if you don't want someone else to know about it don't do it; there is no 100% solution to keeping your information and activities on a digital device private.

Is it difficult to switch from win Xp to Linux? I've never run anything other than ME and XP which my computer came with. Anything special I'd have to do to convert? Thanks to anyone who can offer advice, I'd be interested in checking out Linux for now I guess.

reply to post by shockedonlooker


There is no short answer to this, you could run into issues with finding drivers for your computer's hardware, you might use some speciality application in Windows which has no suitable equivilent in Linux, etc. If you enjoy video games on your computer I would highly suggest against Linux as its going to be a hair pulling experience to be able to play those games on it. However if all you do is normal web surfing the transition wouldn't be anywhere near as bad.

Thanks Helig, I use it for just basic stuff and use Paint Shop Pro, that's about it. I usually have bad luck as it goes with drivers and stuff so until I get some huge windfall "stimulus" check I suppose I'll wait until I can replace altogether.

Pouring custard into your floppy drive (or similar) is the only way to remain safe, fellow ATSers. After so many years of there being Linux out, do you really, honestly think that won't have backdoors in it too?