ECHELON The Real Threat To Our Privacy!

Originally posted by XeroOne

I'm inclined to agree with the latter statement, but the ideal solution is a balance, and for people to exercise their power of choice. Where most people fall down is their ignorance - they want all the latest shiny crap without making the effort to learn even the basic principles of how it works. Internet users were generally more informed back in the 90s, especially in regards to things like ECHELON. They had to be, since mistakes could prove costly on a dial-up connection - anyone could dial in and back out of your network interface, and you could listen to every call being made on whatever line your modem was using. If you ever experienced that, it was bleeding obvious that intelligence agencies, sitting near the top of the telecomms network, could also hear everything.
The old-school hackers and the three/four-letter agencies have evolved with the technology, and we could argue the real difference now is they're now dealing with an uninformed/ignorant population. Get some creeps to build a few 'social networks', and you now have all the background info and the means to profile everyone.

These days? Google+ demands your real name and cellphone number: you could just say 'Screw you, mate.' and refuse. That's Google's loss.
You could walk into a phone store, make an informed decision on which smartphone to buy (anything that lets you remove the battery, install yur own software and doesn't force you to upload all your #), and give the checkout guy a false name and address. Again, it's Google's loss if people started making an active choice.
We could make the choice of returning to old-style forums like this, instead of resigning ourselves to being sold out by a handful of Silicon Valley creeps.

Technology can be used to our benefit.

edit on 12-6-2013 by XeroOne because: (no reason given)

just to play devil's advocate, who's to say the people running ATS aren't creeps, and selling us out?

not that I'm saying they are, but what if?


you can never be too sure of anything these days.....case in point; up until this PRISM thing broke, nobody believed the NSA was getting information from companies, even though there were MSM articles about google working with the NSA last year....and until a few days ago, nobody believed the NSA was listening to domestic telephonic communications....

what was crazy tin hat stuff yesterday, is verified truth today....creepy times we live in, wouldn't you say?

Originally posted by Daedalus

Originally posted by XeroOne

I'm inclined to agree with the latter statement, but the ideal solution is a balance, and for people to exercise their power of choice. Where most people fall down is their ignorance - they want all the latest shiny crap without making the effort to learn even the basic principles of how it works. Internet users were generally more informed back in the 90s, especially in regards to things like ECHELON. They had to be, since mistakes could prove costly on a dial-up connection - anyone could dial in and back out of your network interface, and you could listen to every call being made on whatever line your modem was using. If you ever experienced that, it was bleeding obvious that intelligence agencies, sitting near the top of the telecomms network, could also hear everything.
The old-school hackers and the three/four-letter agencies have evolved with the technology, and we could argue the real difference now is they're now dealing with an uninformed/ignorant population. Get some creeps to build a few 'social networks', and you now have all the background info and the means to profile everyone.

These days? Google+ demands your real name and cellphone number: you could just say 'Screw you, mate.' and refuse. That's Google's loss.
You could walk into a phone store, make an informed decision on which smartphone to buy (anything that lets you remove the battery, install yur own software and doesn't force you to upload all your #), and give the checkout guy a false name and address. Again, it's Google's loss if people started making an active choice.
We could make the choice of returning to old-style forums like this, instead of resigning ourselves to being sold out by a handful of Silicon Valley creeps.

Technology can be used to our benefit.

edit on 12-6-2013 by XeroOne because: (no reason given)

just to play devil's advocate, who's to say the people running ATS aren't creeps, and selling us out?

not that I'm saying they are, but what if?


you can never be too sure of anything these days.....case in point; up until this PRISM thing broke, nobody believed the NSA was getting information from companies, even though there were MSM articles about google working with the NSA last year....and until a few days ago, nobody believed the NSA was listening to domestic telephonic communications....

what was crazy tin hat stuff yesterday, is verified truth today....creepy times we live in, wouldn't you say?

Yeah, how soon people forget AT&T, Mark Klein and Room 641A.

This too will die down and be consigned to the "Hey, remember when..." bin.

TextECHELON can actually be tracked all the way beck to World War 2, it is believed to have started up properly in the 1960's but its origins lie in a agreement signed in 1948 by America and the UK which permitted to two allies to shear signals intelligence in what became known as the UKUSA agreement (this was before the NSA was even founded in 1952).

Weakness in spell check programs, if the wrong word is an English word spelled correctly it goes to print.

In this case the author likely intends to say share rather than shear.

Bookmarking
Fascinating information.

reply to post by whatwasthat


ha!

well if the spelling is the only problem i really don't care

a reply to: OtherSideOfTheCoin

Tagged. Great Thread.

a reply to: OtherSideOfTheCoin

I was hoping to write a topic about this but seems you have covered it very well. It was interesting when I first read about such and knowing they are not far from where I live. The Golf Balls as I would call them, Golf Ball Hill.

I have read into all this and am amazed that most people have no clue about such collaborations between USA and UK. The UK and USA work together like brother and sister and never have they or will they part. Its even funnier when you see news articles about Britain getting angry over the US or the US with the UK. This never happens, its just to make out to the public that they do not scratch each others back. As you have pointed out here, they do.

Good for others to read, ill check out those videos. Good Post.

Jooo joe! Now go watch cartoons from the '80s to present.

originally posted by: spliffster
Jooo joe! Now go watch cartoons from the '80s to present.

Care to actually comment on the OP.

I think its time I change my signature....