No More Privacy
 

Hi:

As a group I think we could work together on this and maybe prevent it.
I think it's really UN-necessary and it may be time to stand up as a group and say NO--
What do you think?

http://www.naturalnews.com/035416_Go...ent_noise.html
http://www.prisonplanet.com/you-read...-spy-tech.html

This is not surprising.

The best way to deal with this is to avoid using Google services, all Google services, as much as possible.

I would not go so far as advocating not using an Android phone, when the primary alternatives are iJunk and Windows, but don't use the Gmail. Don't use Google search, use Startpage. Don't use Google docs. Don't use G+. Don't use Google Drive. Just don't. Minimize using Google as much as possible.

They likely know everything about you already, but you don't have to help.

Although they could easily get patents for the technology used in such nefarious endeavours, they are unlikely to get a patent for the process. It is like filing for a patent on using eyes to see and ears to hear. They are trying the same thing Apple did: copyright a finger swipe. The actions the desired patent would protect are of much more concern than the patent application.

Reversals in the prevailing attitudes of a society are sometimes hard to predict, but this one isn't. Americans, in particular, are not used to living in a surveillance state, and people are beginning to notice that when they, say, "mention that they like purple bunnies" on a web-site or a social network, within a few minutes they start getting bombarded with advertisements for purple things that hop.

The legal-liability angle also has not been fully considered yet, but one day soon, it will be. Someone will get murdered, say, at 01:02:03 PM on 04/05, and it will become important to know precisely where that person was. And, as this difficult investigation continues, you might suddenly find yourself subpoenaed for detailed information about this person's whereabouts and about every person with whom this person might have interacted or even been near to. Even if your intention was merely selling purple bunnies, you find that you possess information that could be used in discovery. And, well, "you just never thought about that," because (of course) it was never before possible to collect real-time information about everybody everywhere. You just thought it would be a cool way to sell more purple bunnies.

I don't have a mic installed, and I don't have flash player installed. Thus it is physically impossible for them to listen to a non-existent mic. On my netbook I can just blacklist the drivers required to use the webcam, or I can put a bit of sticky tack over the mic and close the webcam shutter.

It doesn't get any more complicated than that.

What do they have to gain? (besides a profile)

Can a patent prevent an organization or business from being sued?

Friends and family that I have discussed this with are not in favor of their privacy being impinge upon.
Some are in fact pretty angry--

Do you know if they can get past my home directory encryption?

Yes they are. So-called "Westerners", including Americans, pretend it does not happen, and when evidence is brought forth showing that it does, they ignore it. To mention only one example. How many people still use Google's e-mail service after it was revealed Google keeps a copy of every message sent by and received by their users?

And quickly forget.

Money. Using something someone else has a patent on requires paying the patent holder a fee.
That is not the purpose. See above.

Aside from what was mentioned in those 2 articles that I linked I am now pondering the thought that there may be more on the agenda than just capital gain (money) I could be wrong (need to research more) but there may be other motives as well.

I was not aware that Google keeps a copy of every message Randy.....Thank you.

Who is that Randy person? I am RANDICVS IMPERATOR LINVX. Forget about Google and bow down before my grandeur!

Not via the mic, but do take a look at who developed the encryption algorithm you are using.

Well, I better not have my phone at hand because if I fart, google may use their noise spying technology to bombard me with toilet related ads :)

As frankbell already mentioned, just don't use google services if you can.

But I do admit I use google for only two services: One is to access the play store with a gmail account. The second is the google search engine. I did tried other search engines, but google search engine just yields better results. Just my opinion...

It's not easy to keep our privacy in this post 911 world. The NSA will have or find ways to circumvent our privacy.

As for google, they will continue to invent new technologies to gather information on us as much as possible.

It's a dog-eat-dog world we live in :/

LOL-!-;)

---------- Post added 04-08-14 at 07:50 PM ----------

I'll check that out; thanks:-

The "fart angle" (ahem ...) is 'interesting.' Especially since we all know that a Marketroid just might do it!

(After all, "Marketroids" never take a ... errr, umm, well anyway ... be-cause they're full of ... ummmm ;) )

====

However, we should expect that, as a matter of course, every bit of our e-mail communications are being recorded. (Ditto that every comment that we make on this forum or any other is being preserved, even if we "delete" them.) There is, fortunately ... (see below)
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Comment: GPGTools - http://gpgtools.org

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To decrypt, use OpenGPG Key-ID: 2780F874. (server: keys.gnupg.net)
OpenGPG Fingerprint: 0390 195F 7D6C 3155 A738 0C9B 3191 919F 2780 F874.
... or, just read on ... ;)

People so-far have been conditioned to use https:// for their on-line orders, yet they so-far do not exercise any :eek: security at all with regards to: e-mail, Facebook, Twitter ...

Entirely as a matter of course, all of my dealings with business contacts take place using GPG-secured email ... and I don't have to think twice about it, because with my e-mail software "it just works.™" When I send an e-mail to certain people, it's automatically encrypted, and when I receive one, it's automatically decrypted. (Any email that is ostensibly from them, which is not encrypted, is flagged as probably-bogus.) None of this is hard to do.

(And: decryption of the above block of ciphertext – "a simple way to deal with that" – is also "just a right-mouse click away.")

At this point, these sorts of precautions have not yet shown up on "the public Radar." But, I think, they soon will. Effective encryption can be "transparent," and very soon I think it will be. When that happens, the evesdroppers among us (yes, including The Almighty Google™) will be plunged back into the dark. Where they properly belong.

And in the meantime ... other silly-things might be taken care of. For instance, why aren't bona-fide emails from (say) Delta Airlines, automatically and routinely digitally-signed with Delta's easily-verifiable S/MIME and GPG keys?! Since we have the technology to completely-prevent bogus or tampered-with emails ... and since emails from companies like these are exceptionally important (to transportation security (!!)) ... why aren't we already doing this, and why isn't GMail's widely-used webmail service and mobile-app already doing this "routinely?"

In many ways, "it's high time that the Internet started to grow up."

Agreed; IMO I think it's a shame that it is this way.

I found that startpage is a fairly good search engine.

Until today I didn't know about Echelon--

ECHELON was capable of interception and content inspection of telephone calls, fax, e-mail and other data traffic globally through the interception of communication bearers including satellite transmission, public switched telephone networks (which once carried most Internet traffic) and microwave links.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ECHELON

Guru:;) Sundialsvcs
I sincerely agree!

I too question why it's not getting done. Something is not right.
Could it be that giving up privacy is more important for the sake of security?

I do not have evidence but I am suspicious that the newer mobo's with the uefi + legacy could be a backdoor for corporations and businesses to look in on our os's:-

I found that certain distro's will not install on that particular mobo (MSI Z87GD65) with the uefi + legacy click BIOS that I have but will install on my old legacy BIOS machine w/o uefi--

Anyone watching me is undoubtedly bored beyond reason!!

Just a brief note before I leave the thread. They mainly use psychology and mind games. They herd you carefully. So, stand strong and don't become paranoid or they'll have you exactly where they want you. As unusual as it may sound, taking extra measures for extra privacy may be a huge mistake, IMO. Just think about it, consider it, investigate the possibility carefully.

Load magazine clips.

I say that stuff in jest.

Bored indeed and possibly that hungry for information:-

Surveillance began long before '01. The American government has been recording every telephone conversation in the world (using listening posts) since the early '70s or late '60s. Yet far too many people believe surveillance is a recent change. This kind of information is not secret, but most people do not want to know. Some are naive and others prefer the bliss of ignorance.

True.

Are are enough people that know their rights, how to apply those rights, hire lawyers (if that's what it takes) and get a large enough community group together to fight this? Or not?

I agree as well, more people should fight and make their voices heard and contact their local congress representative but I doubt if any would listen. Obama and possibly other future presidents and government agencies are already commuted and will continue to spy on us because they're just plain paranoid of everybody.

Here's an interesting bug/feature of Chrome:
http://www.ibtimes.com/google-chrome...ations-1569646

Right, I could write to or call my local congressman but like you said he might carry on a conversation on the phone but most likely
"wouldn't listen" I could try but I see it this way-- I am only one voice. I think it will take many voices.

I'd have to start a petition most likely in my town and that may or may not be wise. (have to think about it)

I'm finding it hard to do. The biggest problem is that I can't get any of my family, save one, or any of my friends to set up a GPG key so I can encrypt my emails to them. They won't use my GPG key to encrypt their email to me. Service providers and companies I interact with as a customer don't give me the option of providing them with my GPG key so they can encrypt their email notices to me.

What email software are you using that automatically encrypts outgoing mail to the people who's public keys you have, or decrypts incoming encrypted mail without you having to enter your pass phrase?

Anything that makes routinely using encrypted email easier is something I'd love to know more about. But I think the problem of getting other people on board with encryption is pretty much an insurmountable problem.

Suppose you head the NSA. You have a set amount of time and money at your disposal. These may seem unlimited, but considering the magnitude of your task, your resources are limited. Who would you focus your efforts on ? People who take drastic actions to cover their activities ? Or people who just go about their daily business without major changes ? The latter need not be less careful in what they do or say, but they are less suspicious and so are less likely to be targeted. That's just my current theory.

It seems to me that they want to target everyone, they aren't doing this because of terrorism, they are doing this because they are power hungry, and they wish to bring down our current free system.

As a matter of fact I am not sure that I believe in Muslims being the terrorists today. I think that they are a convenient excuse for the Federal Cartel (Federal Government), to carry out its illegal activities. Who knows, perhaps the terrorists are simply a major CIA operation of misinformation and deception that allows our government to terrorize the population of foriegn nations, capture oil reserves in preparation for peak oil, and exercise its power. Why? Because power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

I see two major, but very different problems:

(1) There is "a vast amount of money in it," and furthermore it is all ##CLASSIFIED## money, so there's really every incentive for everyone to find a ter'rist under every toadstool ... or at least to argue (and yes, bribe) that we should all look for one. The US Government has been doing this for so long, and now finds itself having to "bury" so much profligate spending in everyone else's budget, that this is, for instance, why it costs nearly 50¢ to mail a letter now.

(2) As I said, though, in a February blog-entry on my site, The NSA is the Least of our Worries. Of far more concern to us should be the private corporations who have swallowed the surveillance kool-aid, too, ostensibly in the name of advertising. There are, at this point, no laws, no privacy procedures, no oversight.

And, some day soon, mark my words on this, some little minor's gonna get kidnapped because of not-so "anonymized" "marketing" data that was in some innocent company's database ... a detail of precisely where this little girl was because her phone was with her. It's gonna make what happened to Target look like nothing.

And/Or maybe use our personal information to commit conspiracy against us down the line.

And potentially using the information that they gather to twist it and use it against us--

I think this is a really serious matter that needs attention before it gains to much power.
You agree?

Just heard about this on the evening news.
This is not good-

https://secure.dslreports.com/showne...tap-Law-128527

That's too bad, I did use DDG ( Duck Duck Go ) occasionally along with google but if it's true,
then our privacy is at the mercy of our government's agency and the powers that be.

I remember a line from the movie A League of their Own. when Tom Hanks said "There's no crying in baseball"

Well, I guess we can say "There's no privacy on the internet" :/

Do you know PClinuxOS are there privacy groups (besides an attorney) out there that fight for stuff like this to be stopped?

Maybe writing a letter to the America Civil Liberties Union is a place to start?

To be honest, I really don't know. I've never done anything like that before. All I ever did was made comments about it. :/


Sorry...

A couple of things about this make me laugh:
The number of people saying "I just use Google for ***" as if, for some reason, only using a couple of services somehow protects them from any data gathering.
That it has been public knowledge (in the UK at least) since the 1980's that Echelon involved a collaboration whereby the US government spied upon citizens of the UK and the UK government spied upon citizens the US in and they passed each other the data so that they technically didn't breach their laws against spying on the populace*. It has also been public knowledge that the US used this information to gain the upper hand in bidding wars with European countries. Yet, somehow, everyone is now worried about the NSA.

The cat is out of the bag and we are already in police states. Short of bloody revolution (which I'm not advocating) there is no way back.


*(Canada, Australia and New Zeeland were involved but I'm attempting to simplify)

It's ok and thanks for your honesty.

If there is a way I'll post it.

Do you think, 273 that if enough (huge group of people) rally together to stand up and fight for our rights that there may be a way back?

It's high time for all of us within the data processing profession to start pushing lawmakers (no matter where in the world we happen to live ...) to realize the need for sensible laws that will help to curb these abuses ... and also to realize that our push for "(inter)national security" has backfired.

Lawmakers, like the public at large, don't know what the risks are and where the boundaries ought to be. We need to be the ones who are telling them.

Mark my words: there are two sides to every technological coin. One thing that's gonna happen is going to be a crime that makes the Lindbergh Baby kidnapping (and subsequent murder) seem like a cakewalk in the park. And I say this only because, well, "awful crimes" are one of the inevitable results of the new opportunities created by technological (r)evolutions. When that sh*t happens, your company just might rue the day it started to collect "all that data" without any serious thought to (a) who really had access to it, and (b) how else it could be used by someone who was not "nice."

Once again, just because something can be abused does not mean it will be or should be prevented at all from happening! As long as those services are not forced it is OK because you decide to accept those terms or not and you manage how much it goes even if you do. Also you forgot about upsides while thinking about downsides - that no-privacy theme is actually helpful when searching for someone you will never find without internet(unless you have friends in police, haxor community, government etc.) because of selfexplanatory reasons.

In all politeleness, Arcane, that is much too naïve a point-of-view to be acceptable public policy. I'm not talking about just "googling someone." (And, oddly enough, many sensitive public records are at least semi-protected.)

What I am specifically talking about is geolocation (GPS) data. Your phone knows exactly within fifteen feet where your daughter is, and where you are, and everyone on both of your contact-lists. And this information is being made promiscuously available, "for marketing reasons," to virtually everyone ... never mind the NSA. Look at the permissions that are asked-for by each Android app ... if it asks for something like location, as most do, it's doing something with it. Face it, you didn't look at the list, and if you did look you didn't have a choice. You spent no more time considering that, than you did at the page of gobbledygook with the "I Agree" button.

Do you even know what apps are on your phone, that were there when you bought it at the store, and are running by default? Once an app is started (and many are started automatically), it never stops. Notice how fast the battery runs down when the phone is supposed to be off and not-in-use. "It never occurs to you ..."

Look at a "Task Manager." (Install one on your phone if you don't have one.) Notice how many apps are running that you didn't know about. Kill them all. See they're gone. Now, in fifteen minutes or so, look again. Many of them are back. In an hour, even more. Did you know that? No. Did you consent to it? No. "Did it occur to you ...?" Probably not.

"The murderer was a closet pedophile, but no one knew that because he had no criminal record. He was simply a contract programmer, running marketing reports off of Hadoop. He had access to the data as part of his job. He knew where little Emily's bedroom was within 15 feet. He knew she was home alone, and that no one was in the house next door or across the street. He knew the area perfectly from Google Maps. He knew all this from the 'marketing data' routinely obtained by an enthusiastic and data-savvy supermarket chain . . . where he was an authorized $22-an-hour temporary employee, working completely within his level of access, merely doing (but, horribly misusing) his job. Nothing was ever 'hacked' nor 'hacked into.' 'It never occurred to' anyone within the supermarket company what else could be done with their 'marketing' data, by someone who legitimately had access to it all, right under their noses."

This is sensational, folks, but it is not sensationalistic. There is a terrible, unprecedented, intrinsic danger in these datasets, and in the way that they are promiscuously being gathered and disseminated, ostensibly for the best and most innocent of reasons ... "never mind the NSA." This is the dark side of this thing that we have allowed to be made, and yet it is the status-quo right now today. So, why should (once again ...) public policy only change after something totally horrible yet totally forseeable has actually occurred? Can't we get "Emily's Law" passed, ahead of time?

How on Earth could we all be crowing about our "national security," and utterly ignore this? If this isn't "national security" also, then what is? As I wrote last February, The NSA is the least of our worries.

???
There is so much wrong with that that it is not necessary for anyone to touch it.

Perhaps I do not want to be found, especially by undesirables. Why should your right to find me out-weigh my right to privacy?

Perhaps there is a reason for that?

Overstepping boundaries is never good, IMO-

Information in the hands of the one who is "not nice" is a great concern for many:-

1. If 'people in charge' would want you then you would already be under their surveillance. They have stuff average Joe's&Jane's can only be jealous about. If you have nothing to fear then you would not worry much about this downside. As long as you are nothing special they won't care about you. Paranoia is also mental disease.
2. "your right out-weight my right"? WTF? This is just ridiculous. As long as you are part of society this logic is flawed in it's core. There is no right violation - just compromise(s). Everyday we deal with this - we chose what rights we exchange for responsibilities and viceversa - we have to! That is how society works. Each of us are pieces of puzzle to make it whole and balanced.
3. You still control information flow even if it would be forced upon you. You decide what info to put there and how much. Some people just put basic stuff that everyone knows about them and use those websites like Skype.
4. That information might one day save you from trouble(s). This is upside. It is like saying we should not search for cure of cancer because then we would know how cancer works and would be victims of those who will force us to have it.

No, you really don't "control the information flow." Data is being collected about exactly where you are ... where your kids are ... 24 hours a day 7 days a week. And it's going god-knows-where in the private sector. ("Never mind the NSA.")

This data's available for years past as well as the present moment, to any intern out there who was hired because he "knows Hadoop." Enough to stalk you, and your children, based on data that's been silently collected about you now for the past several years. "Marketing data," you know ...

Some kid's gonna get killed someday. And it's going to "go viral" internationally, and the lawyers are going to come (rightly) out of the woodwork.

I thought you can switch it ON|OFF? Even if you can't switch you can still control data you provide so that they will never know everything or data of importance. Give them false data, give them mixed data, don't give at all...just use your imagination! :rolleyes:

It is possible to switch off GPS (at least it appears so) but your location is tracked whenever one uses a mobile phone and that data has already been leaked to criminals by carriers. As I understand it in the US the GPS chip in a cell phone must allow law enforcement (or other approved agencies) to activate it at any time they see fit without a warrant -- hence the push to mandate GPS chips for cell phones in the US.

As I've said, I'm not worried about the NSA or police forces ... nearly so much as I am worried about private corporations and their virtually non-existent internal controls.

Someone could query a relatively unprotected database and accomplish the net result of "stalking" anyone, anywhere in a matter of a few hours. You don't know who he or she is, or even where. Maybe they ran a background check on this person, but plenty of people don't have a criminal record yet. There are no laws ... it's just "marketing data." Nothing is being hacked. The perpetrator is an employee, on the job, using data he is authorized to use. No one's looking over his shoulders. It never occurred to anyone to look.

And this is not a "theoretical exploit." A terrible high-profile crime will be committed, because, I'm very sorry to say, that also is part of human nature. It's nothing we want to think about. We see a shiny new coin/toy and see only the bright side. We have the rosiest of intentions. We are trusting. Much, much, much too trusting . . .

Furthermore, many companies are "always looking for the lowest-priced personnel," so they've gladly "outsourced" access to all that data. But even if they didn't. Even if the perpetrator is a white red-blooded American citizen from a well-to-do family.

So, let's just think a moment outside the box when it comes to what "national security" (and "counter-terrorism") really consist of in this modern world of ours, given that this scenario has suddenly become very international as well as very domestic. Our DHS establishment probably has its head (and therefore, its eyeballs) stuffed up the "para-military" a:eek:hole, where "everything is a nail para-military operative" and our entire finely-tuned hammer trillion-dollar system is oriented towards just that. Well-l-l-l.... What if some old-fashioned really nasty crook psychopath with a heart of the blackest ice . . . did think outside the box? (And, human nature says, the right word unfortunately isn't "if.")

Part of the core mission of ... law enforcement, NSA, CIA, and Congress ... is to look on both sides of every coin and to soberly anticipate all possibilities before they happen. Not just the sexy high-tech ones that can be parleyed into multi-billion dollar classified contracts, but the ordinary ones that are staring us all in the face.

That is amazingly naive. 1) How many people are in prison for crimes they did not commit? 2) What you and I think is bad and not bad is not what counts. It is what the government and its police think are good and bad that matter.
If I do not want you to know what I eat for lunch, what colour underwear I wear, where I go when I want to be alone, etc., you and Google do not need to know. Your argument that I have no right to privacy, because I am a member of society is ludicrous.

This statement shows what terribly little you know about the kinds and amounts of data being continually collected.

And if I had wheels instead of feet, I might be a bus.