It's not stupid at all..........

so the NSA now hands out unfilterd info to israel

Actually there are quite some more things, but as it seemed that people here in the forum weren't exactly interested, I didn't post them anymore here...

For example, this at first may look rather innocuous:

Spoiler:

But if you count 2 and 2 together, you should realise what possibilities this iPhone 5S fingerprint scanner does offer to the authorities. After all, the NSA does have access to Apple products as was revealed before, and even if Apple claim the fingerprint data would be stored separately - will you really believe them?

easy targets
but what on earth would the hipsters bring to the table
other than the economic information

la bestia negra wrote:easy targets
but what on earth would the hipsters bring to the table
other than the economic information

You know how valuable the economic information alone is? Plus I don't really want to have my fingerprints in some database, just out of principle. And yeah, this belongs to the reasons why I definitely wouldn't want to visit the USofA. They want to know way more stuff about people going there than I'm comfortable with.

rwo power wrote:

la bestia negra wrote:easy targets
but what on earth would the hipsters bring to the table
other than the economic information

You know how valuable the economic information alone is? Plus I don't really want to have my fingerprints in some database, just out of principle. And yeah, this belongs to the reasons why I definitely wouldn't want to visit the USofA. They want to know way more stuff about people going there than I'm comfortable with.

lol RWO not just the usa i wont be surprised if they aren't spying on everyone

la bestia negra wrote:lol RWO not just the usa i wont be surprised if they aren't spying on everyone

Well, in Germany or the EU countries I visited I never had to fill in nosy forms or give my fingerprints ^^

Because they're all in the EU... leave that sphere and suddenly every visit requires roughly the same amount and type of paper work for immigration forms and whatnot, whether it's Canada, China, the USA, or New Zealand.

Brazilian president Rousseff launches tirade against US over NSA surveillance

Dilma Rousseff's scathing speech to UN general assembly the most serious diplomatic fallout over revelations of US spying
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Julian Borger New York
theguardian.com, Tuesday 24 September 2013 10.13 EDT
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Dilma Rousseff UN general assembly
Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff speaks at the United Nations general assembly. Photograph: Spencer Platt/Getty Images

Brazil's president, Dilma Rousseff, has launched a blistering attack on US espionage at the UN general assembly, accusing the NSA of violating international law by its indiscriminate collection of personal information of Brazilian citizens and economic espionage targeted on the country's strategic industries.

Rousseff's angry speech was a direct challenge to President Barack Obama, who was waiting in the wings to deliver his own address to the UN general assembly, and represented the most serious diplomatic fallout to date from the revelations by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.

Rousseff had already put off a planned visit to Washington in protest at US spying, after NSA documents leaked by Snowden revealed that the US electronic eavesdropping agency had monitored the Brazilian president's phone calls, as well as Brazilian embassies and spied on the state oil corporation, Petrobras.

"Personal data of citizens was intercepted indiscriminately. Corporate information – often of high economic and even strategic value – was at the centre of espionage activity.

Also, Brazilian diplomatic missions, among them the permanent mission to the UN and the office of the president of the republic itself, had their communications intercepted," Rousseff said, in a global rallying cry against what she portrayed as the overweening power of the US security apparatus.

"Tampering in such a manner in the affairs of other countries is a breach of international law and is an affront of the principles that must guide the relations among them, especially among friendly nations. A sovereign nation can never establish itself to the detriment of another sovereign nation. The right to safety of citizens of one country can never be guaranteed by violating fundamental human rights of citizens of another country."

Washington's efforts to smooth over Brazilian outrage over NSA espionage have so far been rebuffed by Rousseff, who has proposed that Brazilian build its own internet infrastructure.

"Friendly governments and societies that seek to build a true strategic partnership, as in our case, cannot allow recurring illegal actions to take place as if they were normal. They are unacceptable," she said.

"The arguments that the illegal interception of information and data aims at protecting nations against terrorism cannot be sustained. Brazil, Mr President, knows how to protect itself. We reject, fight and do not harbour terrorist groups," Rousseff said.

"As many other Latin Americans, I fought against authoritarianism and censorship and I cannot but defend, in an uncompromising fashion, the right to privacy of individuals and the sovereignty of my country," the Brazilian president said. She was imprisoned and tortured for her role in a guerilla movement opposed to Brazil's military dictatorship in the 1970s.

"In the absence of the right to privacy, there can be no true freedom of expression and opinion, and therefore no effective democracy. In the absence of the respect for sovereignty, there is no basis for the relationship among nations."

Rousseff called on the UN oversee a new global legal system to govern the internet. She said such multilateral mechanisms should guarantee the "freedom of expression, privacy of the individual and respect for human rights" and the "neutrality of the network, guided only by technical and ethical criteria, rendering it inadmissible to restrict it for political, commercial, religious or any other purposes.

"The time is ripe to create the conditions to prevent cyberspace from being used as a weapon of war, through espionage, sabotage and attacks against systems and infrastructure of other countries," the Brazilian president said.

As host to the UN headquarters, the US has been attacked from the general assembly many times in the past, but what made Rousseff's denunciation all the more painful diplomatically was the fact that it was delivered on behalf of large, increasingly powerful and historically friendly state.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/24/brazil-president-un-speech-nsa-surveillance

Dilma

Dilma

Finally someone is not sucking up to the US anymore. I wish European leaders had the courage that Dilma has to stand up like that.

This is probably more to do with strengthening her own position at home rather than having a proper go at the Yanks.

I'm sure the Brazilians are as happy to receive security cooperation from the Yanks as the Germans are, going on Merkel's lack of caring about the whole thing.

Worth reading, even though it's not a short article:

The Snowden files: why the British public should be worried about GCHQ
When the Guardian offered John Lanchester access to the GCHQ files, the journalist and novelist was initially unconvinced. But what the papers told him was alarming: that Britain is sliding towards an entirely new kind of surveillance society

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/oct/03/edward-snowden-files-john-lanchester

(I didn't c+p because of the length this time)

Interview with Glenn Greenwald on NSA, GCHQ etc:

Spoiler:

It seems that the NSA could not crack Tor, so if you are really concerned about your privacy that's what you should be on:

http://www.theverge.com/2013/10/4/4802512/nsa-failed-to-compromise-tor-network-but-exploited-browser-vulnerabilities

Yeah, the Guardian reports that, too. It is necessary to safeguard your computer against Trojans that might be planted by the authorities, though.

Source: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/oct/04/nsa-gchq-attack-tor-network-encryption

Really, with the amount of power the Government has they could easily overthrow democracy here. Quite disturbing. Not what the Founding Fathers wanted.

You guys read about NSA being able to control computers that are not online with radiowaves if a device has first been planted (either at the factory or by an NSA agent)?

Yeah.  Solution: Best build and repair your computers yourself

Best solution: Admit your government is more powerful than you

rwo power wrote:Yeah.  Solution: Best build and repair your computers yourself  

Other than laptops, that's the best option in any case, really. It's cheaper, more reliable (easier to send back a bad motherboard/power supply for a warrantied replacement than to try to take an entire computer back in) and ensures you can get exactly what you want in your machine.

NSA collects 200 million texts a day

"The NSA extracted data on people's travel plans, contact networks, financial transactions and more based on the database of text messages, it was reported."

The head of the US Senate intelligence committee has publicly accused the CIA of improperly accessing computers used by congressional staff.

"The legislative branch should declare war on the CIA."

But it has to do with terrorists!!1! Clearly our Ivy league lawyers could potentially be terrorists.

A couple of more wrong turns and this place could turn into a dictatorship.

Edit: This may or may not have something to do with the NSA, but follows the spying theme.

The Obama administration has conducted warrantless searches of Americans' communications as part of the National Security Agency's surveillance operations that target foreigners located outside of the U.S., the administration's top intelligence official confirmed in a letter to Congress disclosed Tuesday.

Barry the Constitutional lawyer

Reminds me of a signature I read in another forum: "In the next election, I'll vote for the NSA. At least they are interested in me."