# U.S. mining data



## teckk (Jun 7, 2013)

U.S. mining data

http://m.guardiannews.com/world/2013/jun/06/us-tech-giants-nsa-data

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB100...9112289298922.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_LEFTTopStories

http://dailycaller.com/2013/06/06/n...t-eavesdropping-on-cell-phones/#ixzz2VXyj8PeR

http://www.politico.com/story/2013/06/glenn-greenwald-us-privacy-92400.html#ixzz2VYWMfqp7

http://dailycaller.com/2013/06/07/n...r-microsoft-will-watch-you-247/#ixzz2VYZSDzox

http://m.washingtonpost.com/investi...0c0da8-cebf-11e2-8845-d970ccb04497_print.html

http://m.guardiannews.com/world/2013/jun/06/us-tech-giants-nsa-data


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## derekschrock (Jun 7, 2013)

Are they using FreeBSD to do it?


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## sossego (Jun 7, 2013)

If you use TOR, the U.S. Navy will see what you are doing. Just don't use any form of communication which requires or will be viewed by some regulatory agency. Don't speak to anyone. Stay in a place that cannot be viewed by any means of modern technology. Follow all of these precautions and use anarchy to remove any doubt.

Now you are safe.

Phone conversation tapping has been around for a long time. Surveillance of American citizens by their government is nothing new. Many people will listen and then ignore the knowledge of such actions.


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## drhowarddrfine (Jun 7, 2013)

OMG! No one's ever done that before!


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## h3z (Jun 8, 2013)

Francis Bacon was a huge fan of cryptology in his day. There are all kinds of ways to transfer information, using not standard forms of encryption. And, you will likely be able to do so with out ever needing to fear interception. Because, likely you are small fish. Even if you are working on some closed source project, likely anyone that could time conservingly crack you crafty cryptology would have no interest in your data.

Basically, if you have something that just must not be intercepted, don't put it out there in the first place.

But, there are really tons of ways to scramble your data for safe delivery.

As for less traceable peer communication. Thats a tough one. The best way is to communicate though means that make it difficult to determine that your connections should raise suspicion. So, it is probably best to find a way to do peer to peer communications right out in the open. Like here on a forum. But, you are still required to avoid things like time stamping, in certain scenarios. Also, anything that can create correlations with your double speak type conversations, can weaken your veil.

Doing both could be even more complicated. But, with a tangled web of efforts it could still be done. 

I could go on, but it would just expose more of my paranoia potentials. And, there are far more interesting things I could save that for.


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## sossego (Jun 8, 2013)

Multiple people with multiple machines using multiple protocols with multiple clients will create a world of shit confusing enough that the government will say...



			
				The Man said:
			
		

> Screw this, I'm going to lunch!


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## jozze (Jun 8, 2013)

Like this guy did .


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## sossego (Jun 8, 2013)

Do you have the HTML5 of the video?

Nevermind, I'll catch it later.


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## ShelLuser (Jun 8, 2013)

This isn't really anything new, the only thing new about it is that it has hit mainstream media. But for some reason the tracking of people has always been an issue.

My roots lie heavily in Linux, ironically enough I started using it to keep my Solaris experiences fresh, and eventually I also came into contact with IRC which I have been following and participated in for nearly 20 years or so, good times. All heavily Linux minded.

During that time the FreeS/WAN project started and being excited and interested in networking it didn't take long for a couple of friends and myself to start experimenting and hacking away, which eventually led to founding of the #ipsec IRC channel and us building our own world-wide VPN, right after we discovered how easy is was to start using GRE tunnels. "World wide" happened simply because most of us were scattered all around the globe, from Japan to India, Sweden, Austria, Germany, The Netherlands, England, Scotland, and even the US. I just discovered that the website is still up, but the part about the VPN itself has been removed.

I can tell you one thing; for a bunch of freaks this was completely awesome. Because we we're basically building our own private "internet". We even started propagating our own TLD (.vpn) and many folks started providing their website on it as well, which became quite fun.

Yet at one time our US friends suddenly got interviewed by what appeared to be some law enforcement unit because apparently they were into very suspicious behaviour. Yeah, running a VPN from your home server, how suspicious is that?  (then again, the use of a VPN wasn't as mainstream as it is now).

The incident happened with 2 friends, completely unrelated to one another, and it triggered us to include a (now removed) disclaimer on the main "VPN page" that anyone was welcome to apply for a connection, but that overseas friends from the US should be careful because it could arouse suspicion.

And all this happened last century, around 1990 or so, _way_ before 9/11.

So in my opinion this is merely paranoia at work, something which has been there for a long time now.


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## jrm@ (Jun 8, 2013)

drhowarddrfine said:
			
		

> OMG! No one's ever done that before!



No one has ever justified something by saying it happened before.


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## jrm@ (Jun 9, 2013)

There is a function in GNU Emacs called spook.  From the source:



> ;; Created: May 1987
> ...
> ;; Steve Strassmann <straz@media-lab.media.mit.edu> didn't write
> ;; this, and even if he did, he really didn't mean for you to use it
> ;; in an anarchistic way.



Here's some sample output when I run it.


```
fundamentalist Ricin Malware Wildfire TB world domination DMAT Saudi Arabia
asset Conficker Blister agent E. Coli BROMURE Sears Tower Kennedy
```

I think I'd actually be a bit worried to put this in an email nowadays.  Maybe I should have posted to this thread.


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## drhowarddrfine (Jun 9, 2013)

jrm said:
			
		

> No one has ever justified something by saying it happened before.



I was justifying it? Don't know how you got that.

However, I will say that many people I've read elsewhere are running with one side of the story while ignoring the other. In other words, no one is considering, or listening to, the reason behind all this. I could go into more but this whole thread is bordering on politics.


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## jrm@ (Jun 10, 2013)

drhowarddrfine said:
			
		

> I was justifying it? Don't know how you got that.



You left a little ambiguity, but that was my impression.  Please correct me if I'm wrong.



> However, I will say that many people I've read elsewhere are running with one side of the story while ignoring the other. In other words, no one is considering, or listening to, the reason behind all this.  I could go into more but this whole thread is bordering on politics.



You are missing the point.  The NSA is self certifying themselves to work outside of the law.  They are only supposed to gather foreign intelligence, but instead they are contributing to the creep towards creating a surveillance state.

This is the Off-Topic forum and you are clearly interested in the topic, so why not contribute something constructive if you have a different view.


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## drhowarddrfine (Jun 10, 2013)

jrm said:
			
		

> The NSA is self certifying themselves to work outside of the law.  They are only supposed to gather foreign intelligence, but instead they are contributing to the creep towards creating a surveillance state.


Not quite. The NSA is a branch of the Department of Defense. The mistake a lot of people make is thinking that analyzing US data does not relate to foreign intelligence but, with all the foreigners in this country, it's difficult to tell them apart. All this is brought on by these same foreigners, and their friends and relatives, who are supply intelligence and funds to bad guys. Some of these people are naturalized American citizens doing bad things. People forget that, too.


> This is the Off-Topic forum and you are clearly interested in the topic, so why not contribute something constructive if you have a different view.



Without looking, I would bet politics, like religion, is not allowed here and I will no longer reply to this thread.


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## sossego (Jun 10, 2013)

In the words of the great wise one.....



			
				Great Wise One- No shit said:
			
		

> It's time for lunch.


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## DutchDaemon (Jun 10, 2013)

As long as everyone sticks to facts and observations it's quite ok. When opining (especially the 'light on facts' kind) and political divisiveness start playing a role, the forum rules kick in. I would say that any rough estimate will bring up 1,000+ other forums where that type of discussion has a warmer home. Probably toxic, but warmer.


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## jrm@ (Jun 10, 2013)

drhowarddrfine said:
			
		

> The mistake a lot of people make is thinking that analyzing US data does not relate to foreign intelligence but...



Please correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the NSA bound by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act?  Are you saying that it is permitted, by law, to harvest every email, phone conversation and text message and store them in a giant database?  It's poignant that this program was leaked by a system administrator who can really grasp what this means.



			
				drhowarddrfine said:
			
		

> ..with all the foreigners in this country, it's difficult to tell them apart. All this is brought on by these same foreigners, and their friends and relatives, who are supply intelligence and funds to bad guys. Some of these people are naturalized American citizens doing bad things. People forget that, too.



It's shocking that you simply justify the need for this unprecedented surveillance on "all the foreigners in this country" when US citizens (not the naturalized kind) blow up government buildings in Oklahoma city and use assault rifles to target people in theatres and elementary schools.


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## teckk (Jun 10, 2013)

The thread was not meant to be political in promoting one party or ideology over another. But rather information on governments ability to look at any or all of the packets that flow across the internet. So if you mail your sweetie and tell her that you will be 30 min late for supper, government knows about it. As we have seen with the recent IRS scandal in the US, government can use information to suppress citizens that the present government power doesn't like. 

Encryption will not allow you to communicate in private either. Recent court rulings have demanded that people turn over their encryption keys or go to jail. 

The post is FreeBSD related since all of us use the web with FreeBSD a lot. 

It's not only the US either. If the US is doing it, so are all of the other governments. There have been articles about the US and Britain sharing intel for example. There not just getting court orders to spy on terrorist when they can convince a court that there is probable cause. They are simply scooping up everything, putting it into a database, and who knows what the info will be used for in years to come.

US companies are already denying people employment based on their facebook page. They have also demanded the persons facebook password for condition of employment. I think that the more we know about what our governments are doing, the better.


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## jrm@ (Jun 12, 2013)

This is all just old news: Shia Labeouf in 2008.


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## jrm@ (Jun 23, 2013)

Surveillance Gag via Slashdot.


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