The NSA watches you poop.

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BoldW

BoldW

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Tuco_sl said:
I feel like the tech-savvy people are ironically blowing the NSA's ability to monitor the internet out of proportion and the tech-ignorant people are repeating it as truth.
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I think the opposite, more or less. The "tech-savvy" people to me are the programmers, DB admins, etc., who know how both the typical infrastructure is designed as well as the system to store and retrieve the information. The tech-ignorant people are the ones who think everything is an iPhone app. When I go to my DB admin to pull records or create a report, all I have to do is tell him what fields to pull, or what relationships I want, and 10 minutes later I have it on my desk.

When Snowden said the safeguards are more policy than infrastructure, that is really easy to see.
 
Big Phoenix

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BoldW_sl said:
I think the opposite, more or less. The "tech-savvy" people to me are the programmers, DB admins, etc., who know how both the typical infrastructure is designed as well as the system to store and retrieve the information. The tech-ignorant people are the ones who think everything is an iPhone app. When I go to my DB admin to pull records or create a report, all I have to do is tell him what fields to pull, or what relationships I want, and 10 minutes later I have it on my desk.

When Snowden said the safeguards are more policy than infrastructure, that is really easy to see.
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Pretty sure its safe to say what keeps the NSA in check so far(though dont kid yourself into thinking they arent doing unconstitutional bullshit already) is technological limitations of capturing, storing and analyzing the data they want to, not their own policies or the Constitution.
 
khalid

khalid

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http://www.cnn.com/2013/06/17/politi...html?hpt=hp_t2

Obama_sl said:
Asked in the interview whether the NSA's process should be more open, Obama said, "It is transparent. That's why we set up the FISA court."
That body, however, operates in secret, and its locations are considered classified. It has approved the vast majority of the requests it has received for warrants, though those orders are also kept secret.
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Yeah, really transparent there.
 
Tuco

Tuco

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BoldW_sl said:
I think the opposite, more or less. The "tech-savvy" people to me are the programmers, DB admins, etc., who know how both the typical infrastructure is designed as well as the system to store and retrieve the information. The tech-ignorant people are the ones who think everything is an iPhone app. When I go to my DB admin to pull records or create a report, all I have to do is tell him what fields to pull, or what relationships I want, and 10 minutes later I have it on my desk.

When Snowden said the safeguards are more policy than infrastructure, that is really easy to see.
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From everything I've read accessing data is pretty much a free for all, but actually attempting to do it is so limited that the people thinking the NSA is monitoring them is just a joke.
 
Namon

Namon

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Phazael_sl said:
Unless you want to scrub every fucking router and ISP between you and your point of purchase, it IS inevitable. Unless you want to go all Amish and shun the internet entirely, you are going to have to accept that there is a data trail out there that you have no control over. Honestly I am far more upset at how private enterprise mines this information, rather than the government (though the line between the two has become blurred a lot over time; another topic), but the genie is out of the bottle on this one. That is unless you want to get off the grid and operate only in cash or barter....
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I honestly don't understand this. I don't want a private corp to have my info, and think there should be laws against that. To the tune that the company would be buried if caught doing it. However if I was forced to choose between the two, I'd pick a private corp every time. Just because they can't just get a hair up their butt and randomly throw me in jail.

To play devil's advocate for a second, in a way this is not much different then the government seizing a suspicious package in the mail. The family owns a shipping store and we have had that happen a couple times, and I'm not sure anyone thinks about that. But then again, they don't seize a package, make photo copies of it and store it in a filing cabinet for future use either
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fanaskin

fanaskin

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Tuco_sl said:
From everything I've read accessing data is pretty much a free for all, but actually attempting to do it is so limited that the people thinking the NSA is monitoring them is just a joke.
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except for the whole blanket recording of data so they can go back and bumble around to look at whatever they want aspect of it.
 
N

Numbers_sl

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Director of the NSA is speaking now. He's going to name the terror plots that have been stopped because of the program.
 
Big Phoenix

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Numbers_sl said:
Director of the NSA is speaking now. He's going to name the terror plots that have been stopped because of the program.
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50, but you just have to trust them on that
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2
inShare

Speaking to a congressional committee this morning, General Keith Alexander revealed that government surveillance efforts have thwarted "over 50" possible terrorist threats since 9/11, including plans to bomb the New York Stock Exchange and NYC subway system. Alexander, who heads the NSA, specifically noted that programs like the Verizon metadata collection may have been able to stop 9/11 if they had been in place at the time. He suggested that this program as well as "other intelligence" - which he did not disclose - assisted in foiling the 50 or so threats.

Alexander noted that the foiled plots occurred worldwide, not just domestically, although further details for most incidents aren't being publicly given at the moment. According to NBC News, a congressional committee will be briefed on classified details of all of the attacks this Wednesday.
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http://www.theverge.com/2013/6/18/44...A-surveillance
 
Pancreas

Pancreas

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Trying something different today, it's a buffet post. Take only the parts you want. Don't worry there is enough bull shit for everyone.

"Surgicalifragilistic"
Referring back to the guy trying to fill up his preferred patient punch card. I would never willingly go in for 100% optional surgery. With the number of potential complications that can arise just from anesthesia, not to mention other operating room hijinks (like operating on the opposite limb, and potential for infection), any surgery I go in for better be absolutely necessary. Luckily I haven't had to go under the knife for anything so far, and hopefully I can keep it that way.

I am all for early screening and trying to catch issues before they become major problems. Going in to get "tuned up" just for the hell of it though, that is ridiculous and dangerous.

An absolute ton of issues people experience can be prevented through cleaning up what they eat and just staying active. Much of the time doctors and patients just look to treat symptoms and not address underlying causes. It's like promoting a healthy lifestyle falls mostly outside of modern medicine and is left to gurus and life coaches.

What do they call the super secret intelligence agency in Mexico?
"An esse"
As for the NSA and the top secret FISA court, it's disappointing and expected. It seems that the world is getting homogenized in terms of personal liberties, government dictation and corporate corruption. In the next few decades the policies and practices of most major nations will probably be indistinguishable from each other. Also with the population explosion we are going to see in the next 30 years (world population will almost double) dealing with individuals is going to become even more costly and time consuming. I see the "need" for drastic techniques to find and neutralize potential threats within the populace.

Do you know your threat score? Find out today at freethreatreport.com
I wouldn't be surprised to see certain behaviors, considered by intelligence agencies as red flag activities but are currently legal, simply get outlawed. Censorship, official or unofficial will probably be common place in regards to anything that smacks of terrorism or marked as subversive. Sorting through all of the information that gets generated for an individual will probably become automated as the volume of information will be staggering. Programs will look for links in various activities and accounts that could point to potential threats (this guy is an amateur pilot and visits websites written in Arabic *RED ALERT*) . When a person passes some sort of statistical threshold, their account will probably get kicked up to some pool of high risk accounts.

Basically there will be a threat level metric for everyone. It will be like your credit score. But instead of getting you a better rate on your car loan this score will supposedly inform the government as to how likely you are to shoot up a school, or blow up a building, or maybe just say something mean about the president. This score might even be completely invisible to people. I am sure having stupid amounts of money will inherently lower someones score too.

Techno-babble
As a last piece, technology will continue to increase the amount of coverage and surveillance out there. To the point where most populated areas will have 24/7 satellite video capable of face/body recognition. Coupled with phone positioning logs, they will be able to track almost everyone's movement within a city on any given day. Mash that up with persistent personal video (Think google glass, but not as sucky), or good ole fashion street cameras and evidence gathering for a crime will become a matter of running an image search within a time frame.

Also looking for an individual will become easier. Face recognition searches will pop up people every time they get recognized in real time.

Final bit is throwing the augmented reality on top of it all so a person could have a wanted tag associated with them. So they show up with a big red warning next to them as they run through everyone's field of view.

Of course all of this really sucks if you happen to look like a suspect or an agent spells the name they are looking for wrong, or Siri's future equivalent has a brain fart and brings up the file of the person she thought the CIA director wanted, YOU, instead of the actual cell leader the were planning on droning that day.
 
Phazael

Phazael

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Yeah the movie Brazil is actually a pretty good prediction of our forthcoming surveillance state.
 
chaos

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Bro, he escaped into fantasy because that is a place "the man" couldn't control! He is the quizak haderack!
 
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