Thursday, October 31, 2013
Obama's continuing war on Privacy
The NSA, the Atlas Shrugged of spying - bulk is better. There's intelligent spying and then there's the indiscriminate, haphazard, random and promiscuous spying as practiced by the NSA...now it's tapping into Yahoo and Google links overseas. Just what in hell were we supposed to learn from Angela Merkel and the Pope anyway? Welcome to President Obama's dystopia.
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What steps, if any, are you taking or have you taken to protect yourself in said regard?
ReplyDeleteYou're a big fan of the TOR network, best encryption going right? but just quite recently the government was able to finally get in there and took down that Silk Road guy peddling international drugs. As for steps I dunno but a good start would be if folks like BB and Saty stopped making excuses for this president. Also we probably wouldn't even be talking about this if that Snowden guy didn't spill the beans.
Delete"You're a big fan of the TOR network, best encryption going right?"
DeleteOne of many tools. Some are more effective than others and again if this subject concerns you so wouldn't a logical conclusion be to explore it and others?
"...quite recently the government was able to finally get in there and took down that Silk Road guy peddling international drugs."
Indee the FBI did finally get to Ross Ulbricht but their break in the case which led to his arrest didn't have anything to do with vulnerability of Tor.
"Also we probably wouldn't even be talking about this if that Snowden guy didn't spill the beans."
That's unfortunate for you.
Couple things; the spook business ferrets will poke and pry wherever and whenever... always have. Look at how many Israeli spies have been caught spying on the US. Our best allies. No doubt we do it to them as well. As a former Israeli
ReplyDeleteintelligence chief noted, leaders of allied nations make public pronouncements, but
what are they really thinking and saying among themselves? Secondly, spooks use
any available methods from satellites to 'moles' to wiretaps...modern electronic communication makes it much easier and computational equipment provides the
analysis capability formerly done by thousands of office clerks in spookville centers.
They probably also listen to that obnoxious lady in the grocery store on her cellphone shouting, "I''m in vegetables now, you like spinach, Roy?". Not condoning it, just pointing out every one does it. ..and it is probably 99.9% unusable data.
The NSA has kind of become a rogue agency much like the CIA during the Kennedy Administration. Just a few weeks ago we learned that they have not really been keeping within the parameters set by that special court and now with them tapping into the Google and Yahoo links overseas they have even less oversight and are probably having a field day. Carney is Obama's lackey, waterboy. It's like if you caught Obama's eye peeping through your keyhole Carney would go he wasn't looking at you. At this stage of the game Carney should just quietly leave and work on a book, he's probably got some good stuff by now.
ReplyDeleteYou are absolutely right about rogue agencies, although the situation began with the OSS in WWII. Eisenhower's admin saw the CIA coup in Iraq, Kennedy's in Cuba, Reagan's in the mid-east and Nicarauga and Nixon had them bugging US folks. We recall that even earlier, it was one of J.
DeleteEdgar Hoover's hobbies to collect dossiers as leverage on congressmen
and other high ranking officials. If you care, read this deja vu of rogue
intel/counter intel. People are invariably shocked when this crap pops up now days, but it is and has been endemic. Now, if you have something to hide, by all means buy a bunch of encryption stuff and have a go. Me, I was thoroughly vetted by the spook agencies when I got my TS clearance back in the day and could not care less whether I'm bugged (hi guys!), but I stay
off facebook and twitter because I DO resent the private sector searching my purchases and flooding me with ads and deals. (to say nothing of facebook and twittering a gross waste of valuable time). As for Chris, he
is libertarian enough to understand my rights and opinions as I understand his. I don't blame him for his mistrust and disgust of spookville, and more power to him if he wants to battle with it.
"As for Chris, he is libertarian enough to understand my rights and opinions as I understand his. I don't blame him for his mistrust and disgust of spookville, and more power to him if he wants to battle with it."
DeleteThey say knowledge is power. That's not entirely true. If you never put such knowledge and information into purposeful action then it isn't worth a lick.
I'm not interested battling it in so far as I simply believe in using the appropriate tools which are readily available at my disposal and not only that but learning them to make them better.
Facebook/Twitter, the private sectors, ads...last two days I've been browsing with my tablet for some free ebooks and stuff. Got to be frustrating not because I don't know how to download but most sites want you to sign up and open some sort of an account. I can't see having ten or twenty accounts with passwords at sites I'm only gonna visit sporadically if at all just 'cause I'm searching for this or that title. That's kind of annoying but if the site were worth it yeah I could sign up but the deal is and they kinda admit this but they wanna flood your e-mail, your inbox with ads, deals and stuff related to your interests whatever they are at that moment. Bottom line I just wanna download something, if I wanna download Kafka, Steinbeck or Bradbury you don't have to know who am I or what makes me tick. Your offering the free book after all.
DeleteIf it interests you at all, there are a flurry of free books available at Mises.org and lfb.org. They're not all economic books. Some deal with praxeology ang ethics and other subjects as well. If you download the Aldiko app from Google Play you can read the downloaded ePub files.
DeleteMy tablet already came with the Aldiko Book Reader. I just copied down Mises.org in my little notepad for future reference. It took me 17 days to complete my second reading of Atlas and yes they did make a movie about it all and Part III is coming out later in '014 I believe. I still say there should be some kind of an abridged version, I mean people are busy man!
Delete"As for steps I dunno but a good start would be if folks like BB and Saty stopped making excuses for this president."
ReplyDeleteSo you're going to pin your action (or rather inaction) on the opinion that BB and/or Saty have about the president?
Whereas you could be taking responsibility and ownership on this you instead resort to deflection. Own it Z. Step up if it concerns you and actually do something about it.
"Now, if you have something to hide, by all means buy a bunch of encryption stuff and have a go."
ReplyDeleteSo goes the argument which misses the moral and logical point completely.
I have to agree with Chris here. That's Saty's point that if she ain't doing anything wrong by golly let the government spy on her smarphone, tablet, laptop and whatever else she has. Even if I'm not hiding anything and I'm not I find this endless snooping by the government to be creepy, it ain't right and is not in keeping with a free society.
ReplyDeleteThis has nothing to do with the government but my own website. So early this morning because I know Party City has free wifi I parked outside the store in the mall parking lot and started checking my e-mail on my smartphone, what the hell may as well check the blog too. Two times a message comes up from Party City that this is a restricted page my website and it goes against their policy. OK I get that it's a kid's place but geez just 'cause I use some salty language from time to time. Same thing happened to me at the cybercafe in K-Mart once. Must be them adult themes.
ReplyDeleteNothing is free. You're simply privileged to be able to use it.
ReplyDeleteI use the point about rights and privileges whenever I discuss illegal immigration. The activists and many of the illegals act like they have a legal right to be here. No you don't, we're giving you the privilege of living and working here basically 'cause we're not doing anything about it but a privilege is not a right.
ReplyDeletePeople have a right to be free and to travel freely. Simply because men institute borders ought not negate this.
ReplyDelete& yet you still can't visit Havana unless you're Jay-Z and Beyonce.
ReplyDeleteYou know what's at the root of alot of unease over the NSA it's all the techno-porn we consume and it's not just the everyday stuff like erotic massage and the Kama Sutra/Sting stuff but all those subgenres. No need for Gov't to know what you wouldn't tell your mother. Dunno, maybe Obama wants dope on the Tea Party.
ReplyDeleteNSA has been around since the early '50s. It was greatly expanded post 9-11-
ReplyDelete'The Ghost of 9-11' more or less. Angela Merkel's phone has been monitored since 2002. If you are techie-inclined, she recently switched from a Nokia 6120 Slide to a
Blackberry 210. So, how come the spooks didn't pick up on the latest crazed gunman at LAX?
BB that's my whole point. You know Adam Lanza too was a denizen of some of the darker chat rooms and left dark hints of what was to come. Morality aside isn't that the whole point of this massive data-sweeping program that out of the 95% of perfectly useless information the computer algorhythms are supposed to net the psychos too?
ReplyDeleteChris I take it you view TOR as a kind of John Galt ray screen. OK so with ObamaCare I want to know why the consumer can't decide for him or herself if they have a substandard policy. Why does it have to be Obama or Jay Carney who decides?
ReplyDelete"Originally sponsored by the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory, which had been instrumental in the early development of onion routing under the aegis of DARPA, Tor was financially supported by the Electronic Frontier Foundation from 2004 to 2005. Tor software is now developed by the Tor Project, which has been a 501(c)(3) research-education nonprofit organization based in the United States of America since December 2006. It has a diverse base of financial support; the U.S. State Department, the Broadcasting Board of Governors, and the National Science Foundation are major contributors. As of 2012, 80% of the Tor Project's $2M annual budget comes from the United States government, with the Swedish government and other organizations providing the rest, including NGOs and thousands of individual sponsors."
ReplyDeleteSo, we may presume that Chris views it as a psychopathic government scheme
supported by thieving taxpayer funds, rather than some fictional libertarian metallurgist?
Googling Tor....it's a start BB...it's a start....
ReplyDeleteGoogling; the best way to keep up with church architecture .
DeleteJohn Galt would be against TOR I believe, too Floyd Ferrisy.
ReplyDeleteThe world of electronic data. I phoned the local Dodge garage for an appointment
ReplyDeletefor oil/service on my old truck. They never asked my name (no voter ID,
nada), but asked, "is that the 2000 Ram 1500, silver?". Somehow my phone number must click on their caller ID and my whole life of driving vehicles pops up on
their screen. Guess I'll get a microchip embedded, in case I get lost.
Few weeks back got a replacement Sears card in the mail for the old one with a sticker saying call this # to activate or go to this website. Figured the website is more relaxing but try as I might I couldn't activate the damn thing even though I followed all the instructions, "authentication failed" kept popping up. Tried again the next day too. Then last week they handed out these parish surveys at church and guess I'm just tired of data and forms and stuff so when I got home I just chucked the thing in the garbage. They usually use this info to close parishes anyway. I feel like soapie, time is a commodity we all share and I'll be damned if I waste any more of mine!
ReplyDeleteIt is the coming 'singularity', Z-Man-
Delete" If this process of growth continues, and existing problems in creating artificial intelligence are overcome, sentient machines are likely to immediately hold an enormous advantage in at least some forms of mental capability, including the capacity of perfect recall, a vastly superior knowledge base, and the ability to multitask in ways not possible to biological entities. This may give them the opportunity to— either as a single being or as a new species — become much more powerful than humans, and to displace them." Better befriend R2D2 while there is time. :)
In the meantime look for the techno-bubble to burst. Found out at work what some are paying for their smartphone coverage, as Mike Tyson would say it's ludicrous.
ReplyDeleteWow, you had trouble getting a Sears card website to work? And it surprises you that a website that needs to access multiple databases simultaneously and deal with millions of people at one time has had problems? Is Sears Obama's fault too? Or is it just Satan fooling around with the Church's website?
ReplyDeleteDouble standards.
'Cept the technical glitches at HealthCare.gov are on another plane entirely. This particular Sears card isn't even a Visa, can't go to Google Play with it just places like Land's End and K-Mart. I've hardly used it at all and so after two days gave up trying to activate it because it's not that important to me. I never bothered calling the 800 # so I have no basis to compare HealthCare.gov and the Sears website. One time I had some problems downloading videos to my tablet but was able to download the next day or the day after. Dunno, the problems at the fed marketplace seem much longer and intractable than the problems at the Sears website or clip.dj and there's no guarantee that they'll be fixed by the magical date of Nov. 30. You're really comparing all of these??? Preparations for the ObamaCare website were something like what at least two years in the making? multimillions of dollars went into the effort and they didn't even testdrive it first before its launch date? AND despite all of this they haven't even delayed the individual mandate despite the problems? The way you and BB cling to this ObamaCare thing is like clinging to the Costa Concordia but to each his own:)
ReplyDeleteThey've already reduced wait times from 8 seconds to less than 1 and the error rate is now 1%. Seriously, if you don't believe that there were people wrenching this system while it was being put together, in order to make sure this happened, then you're so naïve you shouldn't live alone. There was no way on heaven or earth that this wasn't going to happen. You don't vote 46 times against something and not have some sort of contingency plan in place. Probably the only reason the site works at all is because they were convinced they were going to repeal it with one of those 46 votes. It will all get worked out, maybe not by the date, but it will. You don't replace a paradigm overnight, or easily, or without mal-intervention from your opposition.
ReplyDeleteSo with all this going on why didn't Obama at least have the consideration to DELAY the individual mandate? What's the big deal? Obama doesn't know how to govern.
ReplyDeleteThat mayor up in Toronto makes Wiener look like a boy scout....
ReplyDelete...and what he's putting his wife through! Look I keep saying it, Weiner never smoked crack and probably only had sex with Huma.
ReplyDeleteHe reminds me of that Larry Joe Campbell
ReplyDeletewho acted in 'According To Jim'. Apparently the renowned Canadian taste has
degraded.
You have to admit though Rob Ford is massively entertaining although I don't think his wife is amused. Imagine if Tesh said on the radio what Ford said the other day!
ReplyDeleteDid you see overweight cop wannabee George Zimmerman has been arrested again? Pointing a shotgun in his girlfriend's face in her apartment. A bit of a stretch
ReplyDeletefor thestand your ground law, IMO.
He can't seem to stay off the radar screen. Each time he's in the news again I'm a little more on Trayvon Martin's family's side.
ReplyDeleteJohn Tesh should take Zimmerman under his wing. Make him into a boring
Deletevegan that gets plenty of sleep and loses interest in pointing guns.
He could also give Zim some tips on women, first the ex-wife and now his girlfriend. I say on the arc Zimmerman is currently going in about a year's time he should be driving off a cliff or something.
DeleteIn the ACA screwed up software department, I notice that YouTube finally got around to fixing their site. They had made it easy for some obscure pad app to use:
ReplyDeletewhich dorked the other 50 million users.
I'm guessing you don't watch alot of DVDs but since we're on the technology topic some discs are great, every scene broken down and great for going right to a car chase scene or whatever. Other discs the menu will give the title of a chapter or scene and you go there and you end up ff'ing at different speeds to find the relevant clip. So basically after a frustrating day on the computer or tab you can have a frustrating evening with your home entertainment and then you go to work in a bad mood the next day.
ReplyDeleteThat technology changes faster than my brain cells. Did a few VCR tapes back in the day, but am not much on movie watching. Our DVD player will
Deleteget a rare workout over thanksgiving. The little girls watch some Disney stuff
(and hopefully they can figure the technology)
I'm not good at setups but I know how to use the damn thing. Have an older Emerson tv so when I got my dvd player I had to get an RF Converter and had my friend help me. The setup's over my head so I treated him to McDonald's for all his help. IMO discs have some advantages over videotapes. For one you can't get the tape all gnarled because it ain't a tape and even if you get some scratches on it supposedly those disc fixer-upper kits can help. Also better for queuing to your favorite scene whereas with a VCR tape it's much more cumbersome. I'm still surprised tapes are even around.
ReplyDeleteMy wife's nephew was on the xbox-1 team. They worked long and hard to release product by Thanksgiving. Each received a free unit and a day off. Don't converse much with him: he speaks computer science and I speak chemistry.
ReplyDeleteI was never into the whole video game scene but I hear they're addictive. Even grown men in their forties often spend literally hours on them.
ReplyDeleteThey are said to be quite addictive (of course lots of things are) and probably
Deletebest played by single folks .
It used to be porn now it's comic books and video games.
ReplyDeleteThe arguments continue over whether violent video games are a diversionary and helpful release of violent thinking...or a contributor:
ReplyDelete"Police discovered that Adam Lanza played a chilling computer video game titled “School Shooting,” where players enter a school and randomly target teachers and students, before opening gunfire himself at Sandy Hook Elementary School on Dec. 14, 2012."
Again but I thought Adam Lanza had completely demolished his computer, his hard drive, everything. Does this mean if I go out in a vacant parking lot and take a hammer and smash my tablet to smithereens then stomp on it for good measure they can still find my Selena Gomez video? That's pretty good!
ReplyDeleteApparently the forensics people are pretty good at hard disk data retrieval.
DeleteDoubt they are interested in the considerable effort of recovering Ms. Gomez, though.
& if the hard drive the so-called cyber blackbox were destroyed too? What do we always say around here - just sayin'
DeletePeople are all freaking out about the NSA, but what about Google tracking every website you go to so they can give you 'targeted advertising'? How about stores tracking where shoppers go? It's everywhere. You can either lose your mind over it or get over it. I find the threat of Christian Dominionism far more insidious and actually threatening.
ReplyDeleteI actually find the militant Islamists the most threatening of all. At least the Rev. Pat Robertson is not gonna shoot up a mall.
ReplyDeleteYou think the threatening militant Islamists should be droned?
DeleteThey already are being droned so my opinion is not relevant. You already know I find the whole drone scene creepy and straight out of science fiction and yet Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos wants to drone your product to your front yard a half hour after you put in your order.
ReplyDeleteFigures. There is much talk among the FiCons about replacing the troublesome fastfood workers and their evil demands with robots. Back in
Deletethe day the Japanese were big on the introduction of robots to manufacturing. They had a factory that ran all night in the dark, filled with
robots working without pay. The night janitor came by with his push broom, got too close to the 89b5. It picked him up and spray painted him to death.
Then some accountant in Tokyo figured out that older Japanese ladies could be hired significantly cheaper than the $10 million robots.
....business cycles. If the Jehovah Witnesses start sending drones door-
to-door, I'm moving.
What is it Applebee's where when you sit down there's a Presto iPad for placing your order. Who do you tip?
ReplyDeleteLatest Snowden whistle: NSA is riding on google cookies . If there IS a sasquatch, they
ReplyDeletewill find and track it.
NSA has a prurient interest in Society imo. Latest from the FBI, apparently they can turn on your webcam without you even knowing it and see what's going on. At any rate we're gladly giving over all our rights.
ReplyDeleteIt was much more difficult to vacuum up personal information when all we
Deletehad was the Pony Express.
I've heard they have so much information now their memory is measured in tetrabytes or something.
DeleteHeard a rumor that the UK division of Microsoft had come up with a disposable I-pad.
ReplyDeleteSo disposable, it was designed to be used on the toilet, play a couple games ,then wipe with it. US HQ quashed the product, noting there were better ideas for 'end-use
product'. Too bad, as otherwise NSA would be reduced to tracking sewer lines.
A disposable iPad on a toilet, I'm thinking that would be mainly for men and porn and then they feel guilty later, a few days go by and they get the urge again and buy another one (Rite-Aid, CVS). Sort of a male kind of cycle thing.
DeleteOdd folks get upset over NSA, but accept crap from BigBiz. It is called data mining
ReplyDeletewhich was developed by the private sector, over-used and abused by the private
sector and copied by the G-spooks. Wonders of progress, ya know?
I find the NSA program far more ominous than an annoying e-mail from Google Play.
DeleteFarmers and ranchers here about with 1000 acre + spreads are using drones to look for predators, weeds and their own livestock.
ReplyDeleteThis is a good thing? It's technology run amok imo. Everybody using drones for this and that first off it clogs up everybody's airspace, second what if one misfunctions or the operator misdrives it and it hurts someone? It's a distraction, say you're driving along with your friend and it used to be oh look at that red-tailed hawk in the sky now it'll be look at the drone. You want a bunch of unmanned aircraft up in the air BB at all times?
DeleteRC aircraft; it used to be a hobby.
DeleteDid you hear the latest? We droned a wedding party in Yemen that may have had a few al-Qaeda. Oh well.
DeleteRegarding the recent hacking of Target Stores, NSA not involved. But,
Deletewe notice that the US is one of the few civilized countries still using magnetic strip ID, while others have gone modern with embedded chips:
the former easily hacked, the latter impervious. How come we are so far behind?
Target's one of my favorite stores in this area and I love the one in Mt. Kisco. I don't worry much about this stuff because I basically pay cash-on-the-barrelhead for everything nowadays, forces you to stay within your means. Hey how old-fashioned am I?
DeleteQuite aways back we had one phone. Landline. If us kids were on it more than 5 minutes, we got chewed out good. Now days kids are born with a phone in one hand. Just sayin....
ReplyDelete