Tech talk, cold comfort.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/j ... sonal-data

I'm trying to collect my thoughts on all of this. It's beyond belief.

After Mark Klein came out with information on room 641a years ago, it gave those that paid attention information about what was happening with their private data. Therefore, Snowden's documents didn't phase me much at all. Unforunately, not many people paid attention to all the room 641a's around the world.

Yeah, I knew the program was much bigger than was being acknowledged after Mark Klein made his revelations public.

But the article raises some good point and reveals things that are new, at least to me:

But the president focused largely on the NSA's collection of the metadata from US phone calls and made no mention in his address of the large amounts of data the agency collects from smartphone apps.

Good point.

Rovio, the maker of Angry Birds, said it had no knowledge of any NSA or GCHQ programs looking to extract data from its apps users.

Well, you know now. Of course we all need to realize Angry Birds is far from being the only 'app' (ugh) used to glean information from.

GCHQ's targeted tools against individual smartphones are named after characters in the TV series The Smurfs. An ability to make the phone's microphone 'hot', to listen in to conversations, is named "Nosey Smurf". High-precision geolocation is called "Tracker Smurf", power management - an ability to stealthily activate an a phone that is apparently turned off - is "Dreamy Smurf", while the spyware's self-hiding capabilities are codenamed "Paranoid Smurf".

That's the bit that really got my attention.

And of course:

A separate disclosure on Wednesday, published by Glenn Greenwald and NBC News, gave examples of how GCHQ was making use of its cable-tapping capabilities to monitor YouTube and social media traffic in real-time.

Monitoring Youtube in real-time. Wow. Must suck to be assigned that task.

MasterOne, I've seen that episode of Nova you linked to. Among other things it points out that all of this came about, basically because the CIA wouldn't call the FBI when two terror suspects entered the USA. I suppose most of the territorial pissing contests may have come to an end, but look at all the baggage that came with it.

 US and UK spy agencies piggyback on commercial data
 Details can include age, location and sexual orientation
 Documents also reveal targeted tools against individual phones

I don't see the problem here. These are spy agencies and their task is to spy. People voted to create these agencies. If people dislike it, they can vote to close these agencies. Creepy, nevertheless.

Oh, come now. Nobody voted for spying to cover everything and everyone. Monitoring Youtube in real time? I suppose the sexual orientation thing is used for nothing more than harassment. Do we really want to go back to the McCarthy era? I'd like to think that in the twenty-first century we would be beyond this sort of shit.

No offense intended toward you personally.

No, what I meant was that since they have strayed away from their original purpose, people should use their votes to remove these agencies. I just don't get the drama of it all. I mean, all "big" anything, be it government agencies or corporations with a lot of power, eventually get high on that power.

Steven W wrote:...No offense intended toward you personally.

What? No offense intended? I feel offended by that!

I like that movie.

You know, those german soldiers also "only followed orders" burning the jews. People should pay attention to what kinds of orders they are actually following and not just blindly follow. To blindly follow, that's the job of the lemmings not human beings.

My apologies "!", I obviously misunderstood you. And you're absolutely right all this shit is little more than a power trip.

My hypocrisy meter is about to explode:

http://www.latimes.com/world/worldnow/l ... 0684.story

Apparently a conversation between Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland and Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey R. Pyatt was recorded and uploaded to Youtube.

At one point, Nuland expresses pointed frustration with the European Union, using a blunt expletive.

But Psaki and other U.S. officials strongly suggested that Russia was the source of the embarrassing leak, which was notable for its clear, high-quality audio.

So? Given all that has been revealed about the U.S's behavior, we're going to pretend this is a big deal, even if we assume that it's true? Tapping Angela Merkel's phone was not? I don't think I could take enough Yoga classes to bend over backwards far enough to get my head far enough up my own ass to take this shit seriously. Honestly! I've also noticed that all of the "Boo-hoo China's spying on us" articles seemed to have dried up in the media. Wonder why?

Here's the youtube page mentioned:

Yeah, quoting myself again:

I've also noticed that all of the "Boo-hoo China's spying on us" articles seemed to have dried up in the media. Wonder why?

http://gigaom.com/2014/03/22/nsa-thorou ... documents/

The Huawei hackery, which netted the company's source code for multiple products, is a bit awkward when you consider how Huawei has been blackballed in the U.S. due to its supposed links to the Chinese military. According to the weekend reports, there's no indication of whether the NSA found any Chinese backdoors in Huawei's gear, but the U.S. agency was itself trying to find out how it could exploit the equipment to spy on end users.

Is there any high ground for the U.S government to stand on in debate on any topic anymore? Just asking.