I am sick and tired of libertarians complain about so-called government abuse and manufacture crazy conspiracy theories. Tyranny? That could never happen here. After all, “we are the government.” Privacy and civil liberties? What, do you have something to hide or something? I mean it’s not like the U.S. government has the power and the ability to monitor every single telephone call or email in the country or anything.
News to Me: Pure Madness: U.S. Aims To Force Web Services To Compromise Message Encryption
Even if it accomplished nothing else, the Middle Eastern governments’ crackdowns on communications during the Arab Spring movement two years ago demonstrated how much governments, in general, and repressive governments, in particular, hate encryption—particularly in the hands of private citizens.
This is why governments from Egypt to Oman to India have tried to ban BlackBerry smartphones with their uncrackable encryption. Now, in the United States, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the military and intelligence agencies are going after your encrypted communications on Google, Facebook and other Web communication services.
Google, as you’ll likely recall, was hacked by the Chinese military who tried to get into the email accounts of dissidents who use Gmail for communicating their pro-freedom activities. The Chinese, a repressive regime if there ever was one, just hates dissidents. So the military hackers wanted to read their email to find out who they were and what they were up to.
Google responded by encrypting its network from end to end. Facebook, after being attacked repeatedly, has done the same thing. Other networks that pride themselves on their security are also providing encrypted communications, including BlackBerry, which is widely used by the U.S. government precisely for this reason.
Of course those other repressive governments never actually banned BlackBerry devices because their own intelligence agencies also use them and needed the security more than they needed to read other people’s email.
So now we come to the FBI and other U.S. law-enforcement agencies that are trying to read the text messages, chats and the email of people they think are bad guys. The feds say that they’re doing this to fight crime and terrorism. And they say they have a right to get information if they have a legally obtained wiretap order.
The problem is, as The Washington Post reported recently, that not all providers of communications services have the ability to comply with a federal wiretap order. Their systems are secure and they’re meant to stay that way. What the FBI is asking for is the ability to fine those companies that don’t comply with a wiretap order, even if they’re technically unable to do so within a time limit set by the FBI.
In other words, if you can’t provide the feds with a back door to your system, the government will keep piling on fines until you go out of business. The idea, of course, is to compel companies that provide secure communications to also build in a means for the feds carry out get their wiretaps.
U.S. Aims to Force Web Services to Compromise Message Encryption
The stick that would compel them is a series of increasing fines that theoretically (if you do the math) keep doubling until it reaches an infinitely large amount of money. It’s maybe even enough money to make Google pay attention, although it’s not clear that’s even possible.
In one sense this is understandable. The federal government does have a requirement to catch criminals and prevent terrorists from carrying out attacks like the 9/11 attacks in New York or the Boston Marathon bombing on April 15.
It also has the right to get a court-approved warrant to obtain access to the private communications of suspected criminals. But to fine a company into oblivion for something that they can’t do or because they need time to develop the technical ability to comply with the government’s demands seems insane. Sure, it will get their attention, but if the government drives the communication service out of business, law-enforcement officials won’t get the information they want.
Worse, threatening such a punitive response to a technically difficult problem only means that the federal government is either going to make locating a business in the U.S. unprofitable, result in wretchedly poor service or both.
Faced with such a punitive fine as the feds are contemplating, why would a company willingly place itself in harm’s way? After all, the Internet is everywhere. All that the FBI may accomplish is that these companies place themselves beyond the reach of U.S. law enforcement by, say, moving to Canada or Mexico.
Or, if the company is already in the U.S., they could very well force the creation of a back door that would satisfy the FBI, but at the same time lets in those same international and domestic bad guys that the FBI is chasing. This would happen because of the FBI’s time limit—to develop a back door in 60 days (or whatever they set the deadline at) or you’re fined into bankruptcy.
Does the FBI really want to force U.S. communications providers to implement insecure solutions just so they can satisfy their need for instant gratification? Does it really want to force the Facebooks of the world to locate in Canada, the European Union or some other nation that isn’t likely to honor a warrant from a U.S. court? But are such punitive measures really worth it?
For some reason, I’m reminded of a comment from the days of the Vietnam War as reported by legendary journalist Peter Arnett: “We had to burn down the village in order to save it.” Is that really the goal of the federal law-enforcement agencies–to cripple Internet communications and destroy companies that don’t have the means to comply with their demands?
Arizona Man Winds Up Jailed, Unemployed and Homeless After Photographing Courthouse | PINAC
Arizona man winds up jailed, unemployed and homeless after photographing Sandra Day O’Connor United States Courthouse in Phoenix.
Even after the Boston Bombing. The feds declared that all photographers are potential terrorists. So I am not surprised this happen. As a photographer my self I consider this very troubling.
Feds Push Insane New Speech Codes! (by ReasonTV)
Can you say think police. 1984 is here, and strong in our schools. All based on what you may say. Big Brother is the biggest bully on campus.
News to Me: Bloomberg Posted Private Terminal Messages Online
May 13th, 2013
Via: Quartz:
Bloomberg says it accidentally posted on the internet more than 10,000 private messages that traders sent each other on their Bloomberg terminals. The new revelation, reported by the Financial Times, will undoubtedly escalate the furor over Bloomberg’s handling of data that its customers consider to be confidential.
The messages were related to the Bloomberg Valuation Service, known as BVAL, which sets prices on financial products likes bonds and credit default swaps that are often traded among a small number of investors over the messaging system on their Bloomberg terminals. Customers allow Bloomberg to scan those messages for data about trades, so a market price can be established.
…
According to Bloomberg’s account, the messages that ended up online (and have since been removed) were voluntarily forwarded to Bloomberg by a customer “so that we could conduct internal testing to improve our technology for the client.” A Bloomberg employee uploaded the messages to what he thought was a private website. In fact, it could be accessed by anyone.
News to Me: Biometrics: A New Intelligence Discipline-Identity Intelligence Project Office
Source: Defense News
The intelligence community is pushing to make biometrically enabled intelligence — the art of identifying people by fingerprints, digital mugshots, iris scans or DNA — a regular part of business.
Biometrics has evolved dramatically during the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts, and is used in countless manhunts, but the discipline has not been fully institutionalized into the intelligence community. Among other issues, various agencies, including the DIA and the FBI, have different ways of looking at the technological breakthroughs.
“The general field or trade of identity intelligence really is in its infancy,” FBI biometrics expert David Cuthbertson told an audience in February.
Right now, biometrics still mostly means fingerprints. That’s the telltale record most commonly left behind by bomb-makers and thieves. The databases of fingerprints are vast: The FBI has 110 million fingerprint records; the Defense Department, 9.5 million; and the Department of Homeland Security, 156 million.
But other technologies are coming online. Facial recognition algorithms could someday riffle through mugshot databases to find matches much as fingerprint algorithms do today. Iris-matching technology is another field under development. Authorities around the world are rapidly switching from fingerprints to iris scans for verifying the identities of travelers and workers, and iris databases are growing. And some biometrics experts are aiming for multimodal biometrics in which fingerprint matches would be combined with facial recognition and other measurements to determine someone’s identity with maximum confidence.
“Increasingly, in the commercial sector and national, state, and local levels, organizations are going to adopt a biometric capability, like an Iris Scan, to confirm an identity because of its reliability,” a Defense Intelligence Agency spokesman said in an emailed statement. DIA officials turned down interview requests.
But the new choices and opportunities are also creating new problems and conflicting priorities. For example, iris scans may prove more convenient, faster and effective for authentication — identifying travelers, workers and officials — but fingerprints remain the standard for forensics. Some worry that as enthusiasm grows for using irises as ID, fingerprint collection may suffer, leaving fewer troves to search through in an investigation.
DIA EFFORTS
In October, DIA opened an Identity Intelligence Project Office.
“As we approach the war’s end, we have laid the foundation for fused capabilities in the Forensic and Biometric arenas and have developed strong interagency partnerships,” the DIA spokesman wrote.
Dalton Jones, a retired Army colonel who oversees forensics, biometrics and identity intelligence at DIA, challenged the biometrics community to look for innovative, cheaper technologies to ensure that biometrics and forensics intelligence “continue to mature and endure as robust, force multiplying capabilities in DoD.” He has warned of the“Threat of Disappearing Capabilities” in a “resource constrained environment,” in a briefing available online.
Over the last decade, biometrics has been put to use for improvised explosive device forensics and for identifying and targeting suspected insurgents and terrorists.
“We’ve always used this information for battlefield-type things, where we feed the special operators this information,” said Don Salo, who directs the Pentagon’s Defense Forensics and Biometrics Agency. “We also need to look at bringing the intelligence community into our fold, which we have now started to do.”
Salo’s agency includes the Biometrics Identity Management Agency, which is the steward of the Pentagon’s fingerprint database called the Automated Biometrics Identification System. He and Cuthbertson appeared together at an Armed Forces Communication Electronics Association meeting about biometrics.
Surveillance After The Boston Attack: Do More Cameras Fight Terrorism or Violate Our Privacy Rights? (by ReasonTV)
Infowars: Guess What’s Hidden in the Immigration Bill? A National Biometric Database for Citizens
Michael Krieger
Liberty Blitzkrieg
May 12, 2013Oh just another eight hundred page “bipartisan” bill that nobody will read, mainstream media will refuse to cover, and that will merely further destroy any remnants of freedom left in these United States. Never forget the George Carlin quote on bipartisanship:
“Bipartisan usually means that a larger-than-usual deception is being carried out.”
From Wired:
The immigration reform measure the Senate began debating yesterday would create a national biometric database of virtually every adult in the U.S., in what privacy groups fear could be the first step to a ubiquitous national identification system.
Buried in the more than 800 pages of the bipartisan legislation (.pdf) is language mandating the creation of the innocuously-named “photo tool,” a massive federal database administered by the Department of Homeland Security and containing names, ages, Social Security numbers and photographs of everyone in the country with a driver’s license or other state-issued photo ID.
This piece of the Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act is aimed at curbing employment of undocumented immigrants. But privacy advocates fear the inevitable mission creep, ending with the proof of self being required at polling places, to rent a house, buy a gun, open a bank account, acquire credit, board a plane or even attend a sporting event or log on the internet. Think of it as a government version of Foursquare, with Big Brother cataloging every check-in.
“It starts to change the relationship between the citizen and state, you do have to get permission to do things,” said Chris Calabrese, a congressional lobbyist with the American Civil Liberties Union. “More fundamentally, it could be the start of keeping a record of all things.”
David Bier, an analyst with the Competitive Enterprise Institute, agrees with the ACLU’s fears.
“The most worrying aspect is that this creates a principle of permission basically to do certain activities and it can be used to restrict activities,” he said. “It’s like a national ID system without the card.”
Good thing the terrorists aren’t winning or anything.
Full article here.
California Lawmaker Wants 3-D Printers To Be Regulated - Slashdot
New submitter phrackthat writes with news that California State Senator Leland Yee (D-S.F.) says he wants regulations to track who owns and uses 3-D printers. Yee’s comments come in response to the recent news of Defense Distributed’s successful test-firing of a 3-D printed gun. “He’s concerned that just about anyone with access to those cutting-edge printers can arm themselves. ‘Terrorists can make these guns and do some horrible things to an individual and then walk away scott-free, and that is something that is really dangerous,’ said Yee. He said while this new technology is impressive, it must be regulated when it comes to making guns. He says background checks, requiring serial numbers and even registering them could be part of new legislation that he says will protect the public. Yee added, ‘This particular gun has no trace whatsoever.’”’Basically he believes anyone who owns a 3d printers is automatically a terrorist or a criminal, unless the goverment says otherwise. For our protection. We have to register our property with the goverment and have permission of said goverment to own a 3d printer. What a nice world we live in. Also something I predicted would be tried 3 months ago.
News to Me: FBI Spyware Plot Revealed: Fed Wanted To Hack Computer Webcam To Hunt Suspect
By Mario A. / April 27, 2013
In an effort to better track suspects, the FBI wanted permission to hack a webcam and convert it into a surveillance camera. A Houston judge rejected this notion on Monday, refusing an FBI plot that revealed a troubling desire to use malware tactics to catch a criminal.
The suspect, who is still at large, is wanted for using email to gain access to a Texas man’s bank account and transferring a “sizable” amount of money to a foreign bank account. The original FBI plan involved installing a spyware Trojan (similar to the“sextortionist” plot revealed in January) to infiltrate a computer’s webcam and covertly take photographs of the wanted suspect.
“[T]he government’s data extraction software will activate the target computer’s built-in camera and snap photographs sufficient to identify the persons using the computer,” wrote Judge Stephen Smith in a 13-page rejection. “In between snapping photographs, the government will have real-time access to the camera’s video feed.”
News to Me: "We Only Need More Power And More Surveillance . . .
… to be able to prevent such terrorist acts.” This is the song-and-dance that always come from the political establishment. These people imagine that all that is needed to achieve any desirable end is more information about more people. It is an illusion shared by those who have yet to learn the basic lesson from the study of chaos: other than in a very short time-frame (e.g., forecasting tomorrow’s weather) it is impossible to predict outcomes in complex systems. The capacity to predict requires a “sensitive dependence on initial conditions,” which translates into having precise knowledge of all factors that can influence outcomes. Contrary to Plato’s vision, there are simply too many (and constantly changing) variables at work within any society of human beings to be able to identify and assess their impacts.
But as vertically-structured systems depend upon illusions to the contrary, the philosopher-kings - along with the philosopher-kings-in-waiting - will continue promoting their repressive and invasive schemes in search of magical ways of circumventing the inherent uncertainties arising from complexities.
News to Me: Big Brother, Big Government, Big Data
April 23, 2013
Ken Jorgustin
The next big threat to your privacy is… the new mammoth NSA spy center in Bluffdale Utah, 25 miles south of Salt Lake City. And it’s almost complete…
The spy center is nearly complete, and the NSA says the center will have a major focus on cyber security, while critics say that they will be storing data on Americans.It has been reported that the center will be able to hold 5 Zettabytes of data, an unimaginable capacity. 5 Zettabytes is the equivalent of recording 180 million years of HD-TV video. If an 11 ounce coffee on your desk equals one Gigabyte, just one Zettabyte would have the same volume as the Great Wall of China.
What will the NSA be doing with all this data storage? The NSA says that they need it to help keep the country safe.
Here’s a thought… maybe they will be recording every single thing about every single American (and others) from cradle to grave. And that’s probably just a drop in the bucket of their storage capacity.
Perhaps they’re looking to achieve perfect security in the U.S.
The thing is… the only way you can have perfect security is to have a perfect surveillance state. That’s George Orwell. That’s 1984. That’s what that would look like.
Concerns from critics about the new NSA spy center include the possibility that this data could be abused. Quoted from one critic during an investigation by Catherine Herridge (video below),
“That’s the real danger, because it’s really a ‘turn-key’ situation where it could be turned quickly and become a totalitarian state pretty quickly. The capacity to do that is being set up;” “It’s a lot of trust to put in one institution.”
FOX News report, “Cyber Surveillance”
Christians to be Court Martialed for expressing their faith (May 01, 2013) (by SignsofThyComing)
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