FBI: We need wiretap-ready Web sites -- now

FBI: We need wiretap-ready Web sites -- now

news.cnet.com

The FBI is asking Internet companies not to oppose a controversial proposal that would require the firms, including Microsoft, Facebook, Yahoo, and Google, to build in backdoors for government surveillance.

In meetings with industry representatives, the White House, and U.S. senators, senior FBI officials argue the dramatic shift in communication from the telephone system to the Internet has made it far more difficult for agents to wiretap Americans suspected of illegal activities, CNET has learned.

(visit the link for the full news article)

I'm admittedly not well-versed with this one, but it definitely seem like the drive to annihilate privacy & control the internet in this country never ends. This one has been in the works for years, it seems, and yet, I haven't heard about it until now.

I have a huge problem with a government back door for websites. HUGE problem with that. That is a big, fat exploit just waiting to be abused into oblivion against people. I can see how this backdoor could be used to silence, to slander, to blackmail. I don't see how this could be a good idea no matter how you cut it. When warrants for the information are no longer "acceptable", it should speak volumes for agendas.

news.cnet.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

reply to post by Nyiah


The Governments paranoia is out of control, if it were a person, it wouldve been institutionalized a long time ago.
Why in the hell are they so insistent on knowing everyone's GD business? Makes me want to toss my cell phone and unplug from the internet completely.

Yuh, at this rate they might as well throw everyone in jail. Looks like the jail system is going to run out of room. Yuh, and what about the people overseas?

reply to post by Nyiah


You know, if they feel the need to be this worried about what American citizens are discussing on the privacy of their own computers, maybe they should look at the WHY of the issue.

Why would there be so much dissension? They should solve the problem instead of attempting to blanket the reaction we have to it. The fact that they spend more time and resources trying to keep us from complaining, than they do actually solving the issues this country faces, should tell us everything.

The day the government becomes more paranoid than its citizens, to the point that everyone's rights are rewritten and violated, is the day the government needs a serious overhaul. It looks like that day is coming much sooner than we feared...

And the truly sickening part is, America is a superpower. When we're in trouble, who's going to save us?

When they need wiretap ready web-sites, our nation needs the management level of the FBI replaced entirely. I recall when the FBI Agents were known as squeaky clean and their training was as heavy on constitutional issues as firearms. Heck..The FIRST major complaints out of Gitmo Bay about prisoner abuse was either started by or at least supported from FBI Agents who flat out weren't up for that kind of crap in their presence. ..... I don't recall the sources, but it would have been 03/04 and I was listening to Satellite radio news all day and night on the truck back then.

How far they have fallen.... They've gone from the people who policed the police and represented the Feds of last resort to call when no one else had enough power to being the last resort for ANYONE to call because they have far too MUCH power and can stop demanding more.


Everyone is realizing no one is going to call themselves Gestapo or SS again and the next horror likely won't have anything in particular against the Jews. It'll be something else..........so when do we all start seriously wondering if lines are being crossed here our nation just isn't compatible with? Super-Snooping the whole net? Indeed...

The merger of corporations and government power is called fascism.

And thats what we are about to witness here IMO.

CEOs will get kickbacks from the feds for towing the Fascist line no doubt.

Originally posted by Juggernog

The Governments paranoia is out of control, if it were a person, it wouldve been institutionalized a long time ago.

The more attention you pay the more paranoid you become. It's true for any one person, any group and any government.

Crazies who watch the 24/7 news cycle grow increasingly paranoid. People who cant stop refreshing their Twitters and Facebook walls become more paranoid. Corporations who stalk their competitors become more paranoid. A government who tries to watch anything and everything becomes more paranoid.

And once the habit starts and the feeling sets you have to increase what you're watching which makes them all even more paranoid still.

It's not unlike an addiction and in the horrifying case of government paranoia we'll all suffer like never before as it inches closer and closer to rock bottom.

They already have so many resources at their disposal that I think this latest effort is to just scare people from using the first amendment as it should. With paranoid people at the helm no security ever becomes enough for THEIR survival...definitely not ours!

reply to post by TheMindWar

CEOs will get kickbacks from the feds for towing the Fascist line no doubt

Doubtful. But...

Many companies receive government financial assistance via CALEA to incorporate these wiretapping capabilities into their products and services.

So, we are all paying via our taxes for this to be implemented upon us. Of course, if you've nothing to hide...

Originally posted by Juggernog
reply to post by Nyiah

 

The Governments paranoia is out of control, if it were a person, it wouldve been institutionalized a long time ago.
Why in the hell are they so insistent on knowing everyone's GD business? Makes me want to toss my cell phone and unplug from the internet completely.

U answered your own question bud. The government IS paranoid and SCARED of the population. There is no other explanation to it.

The first reality we must recognize is that there have always been, there are now, and will always be "back doors" provided to the government. They are the result of cajoling, subsidizing, or other covert means to ensure that the political power structure remains in place and unchallenged.

For those unfamiliar, this is presented to our feeble-minded political puppets as "continuity of governance" and is couched in the fear-peddling of "threats" those same thespians are constantly seeing in every shadow... because they already know that they have crossed the line of 'service' to the country.

The Republocrats or Demicans are realizing what team they are playing on... and it's not "the people's."

Some of the older members of the "representatives" we "vote for" know full well what is going on. It is patently insulting that the media has utterly abandoned it's most noble function to 'join the gravy train.''

What kind of future is this for my children? Watched like suspects of crime 24/7 in every venue possible?

Personally, I believe that we may have already past the point of putting an end to it, because once the mega-corporations and global financial cartel inserted themselves in the government they became the only true "citizens" while the non-corporate individual is just a "human resource" serf.

I suspect there will be ways to hasten their inevitable fate... but to say so might transcend the boundaries of 'agitation' and enter into "activism" which is not germane to this discussion.

Remember.... it's not that they want permission to do this.... it's that they want immunity from having been doing it all along." Telecoms sold us out long ago.... in exchange for "political" power.... same with energy, aggro, pharma, healthcare, and the rest of the cabal (or combine) who are so much a part of governance that they can hardly be sued without every politicians scrambling to protect their 'sponsors' business from liability....

The FBI is asking Internet companies not to oppose a controversial proposal that would require the firms, including Microsoft, Facebook, Yahoo, and Google, to build in backdoors for government surveillance.

And this is why these companies should all be saying:
"No we will NOT build easy access doors for you to spy on our customers because you already overstep your bounds as an entity to begin with. We are represented by the very people who use our services and their opinions and privacies matter NOT YOURS."
Or:
"Our customers fund your very existance and they would not approve."


Oh yeah then I woke up from that dream...

Government After The Fact

Originally posted by Maxmars
b]Remember.... it's not that they want permission to do this.... it's that they want immunity from having been doing it all along." Telecoms sold us out long ago.... in exchange for "political" power.... same with energy, aggro, pharma, healthcare, and the rest of the cabal (or combine) who are so much a part of governance that they can hardly be sued without every politicians scrambling to protect their 'sponsors' business from liability....

And there it is. The fact that this is being discussed publicly suggests the "debate" is for public consumption.

Actual decisions about government surveillance of Americans are traditionally made without the awareness or approval of the electorate, and it has been that way for decades. As just one example:

ATS: AT&T Narus Collaboration Sent Your Private Internet Communications to The NSA

In response to a lawsuit by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Congress passed legislation retroactively granting immunity from prosecution to the telecoms involved. Considering the fact that passing such laws is expressly prohibited by the U.S. Constitution, and there's simply no way Congress could be unaware of what theyr were doing, this speaks volumes about the legitimacy of the regime currently controlling the U.S. government.

The trend toward increased government power in the U.S. and a continuing reduction of accountability to citizens is by no means unprecedented in world history, but in every previous case, the outcomes have been universally disastrous.

This particular example is just one of many, and there are plenty more to come. As the government continues to grow in power, consumes more resources and its true role becomes more apparent in American society, its pretext of representing the interests of the people will wear ever more thin. By the time the majority of the electorate finally sees the perils facing it, there may be little that can be done.

Perhaps as more and more warning signs make their way into the American consciousness, the trend can be reversed. But only if Americans are made aware of what's actually going on, and that can only happen if those who know do their duty as citizens and spread the word.

Originally posted by Starchild23
reply to post by Nyiah

 

You know, if they feel the need to be this worried about what American citizens are discussing on the privacy of their own computers, maybe they should look at the WHY of the issue.

Why would there be so much dissension? They should solve the problem instead of attempting to blanket the reaction we have to it. The fact that they spend more time and resources trying to keep us from complaining, than they do actually solving the issues this country faces, should tell us everything.

The day the government becomes more paranoid than its citizens, to the point that everyone's rights are rewritten and violated, is the day the government needs a serious overhaul. It looks like that day is coming much sooner than we feared...

And the truly sickening part is, America is a superpower. When we're in trouble, who's going to save us?

edit on CFridaypm303046f46America/Chicago04 by Starchild23 because: (no reason given)

Well said.

reply to post by Starchild23


Exactly.

The problem is that they are so blinded by their love of power that they are unable to entertain reason. Anything that counters their slanted world view is immediately discarded. Anything that challenges their delusional paradigm is ignored or deflected.

They don't care about the actual reason for the widespread dissension. In their mind all they know is that someone is challenging them, questioning them, making them uncomfortable with the truth. In this blindness, it is nearly impossible for them to use critical thinking to address the root of the problem.

It's all about control. If they actually wanted to address the root of the problem they would. They don't want to because they don't care.

i have to remain vague as this is different for different operating systems:

1. use IP-spoofers that you can trust (google for it) and that prevents cops from tracking you down as they'll end up somewhere else in the world. (the hacking community kntjows about trustworthy spoofers)
2. use proxy's as an alternative: search for the ones you can trust. Same game: they can't track you down as the trace stops at the proxy
3. use GNU pgp to encrypt email. Takes some effort and your pals have to join in but if you create a good key, it takes them too much effort to crack it
4. use GNU pgp to encrypt personal data
5. consider storing personal data on a separate harddrive that is encrypted in total.Slows down access so better not doing this with the drive that runs your applications
5. use software that prevents software from calling home so there's no trace of when you use what piece of software (on a mac: run little snitch, on windows: i dunno)
6. put passwords on your user accounts and make them safe.

please google for each of these tips to find details on how to do it (or find another search engine, that would be even better)

be careful with what you say onlne.
- Never give out real personal data unless you trust the site.
- Even at ATS, be very careful (as ATS cautions you as well). It doesn't take too much information in order to profile you.
- Lie about personal data if you are required to enter data.
- create heaps of emailaddresses that are being used for specific websites
- install plugins that allow you to disable 3rd party # installed in websites. To give you an idea, here on ATS there are at least 3 tracking services included (now don't panic: these are being used to generate general statistics and don't disclose individual data and are pretty harmless)

run different browsers for specific sites:
-i run google chrome for my social network services, but that's all
-I run another browser to access newssites and sites like this one.
By doing so, these assholes from google can't read your cookies as they are being stored in a different way
-run browsers in safety mode


- search alternatives for google, there are services out there that prevent google from seeing your IP and hence make it harder to locate you.
- never log in while searching in google
- avoid logging in in youtube, be a lurker

have software cleaning logs, history, urls... after every session:
- move these to a folder and erase it with a 7-pass eraser.
- Just trowing them away in the trash bin won't do any good as they just remove the pointers to the data. The data itself remains on the disk and can be recovered

defragment your harddisk very often so disk recovery gets harder.
- If you can have your machine running processes over night, instruct it to overwrite 'empty' space (which isn't empty usually) with random data (on a mac: do this with disk utility that's in the application folder)

-disable java, _javascript, unless you understand what they do and you really need to activate them

basically give up your ease of use and force your system to annoy you by forcing you to reflect before you do something.

- change passwords for every single occasion. Don't write them down, use tricks so you can remember. One such trick could be: make the URL of the service part of the password, trow in some weird characters like & or ((§ and add a constant (something you can remember). This creates unique passwords without you having to remember anything (except maybe the string of weird characters. You can write that string down, as long as you keep it away from other parts)

- change the file extension into something different. encrypt it, compress it and encrypt again.
- use ordinary filenames, don't call them "passwords.doc" but "recipe for apple cake.rtf"
- install software that destroys the content of you disk after x failed attempts to log in.

if you get rid of an old computer, take out the hard-disk, put it in an over and fry it
next, let it cool down, open it up and bend the plates
also remove the internal battery that keeps the clock going. This is not the same as your laptop's main battery

if you have very sensitive information to hide, get a video-editing program, make an ordinary home movie, put your sensitive data in an image file that has the same dimensions as your video and insert them as a single frame. Use a high frame rate while shooting the video: 25-30 fps. That means that the frame with the data will probably not been seen unless a frame by frame analysis has been made. Add a soundtrack after inserting the still frame so it sounds smooth: most video-editing stuff will allow you to stretch the audio for some frames without creating audible effects

never use public wifi to log on websites or send out email. never!

take out batteries of mobile devices that contain localisation tools or even simple mobile phones. Turning them off won't help you from being located.

Hmm, am I supposed to believe that illegal activities have skyrocketed since the internet came along?

reply to post by satron


nope
it's a story that has been created to justify
and
yep
old practices found new ways for distribution

to give a negative example: child pornography used to be exchanged in brown enveliopes, now they are in the darkness of usenet.

They all ready have and now they are just telling the public but making it seem as if they have not