The Internet is a Surveillance State

Brandontward - h/t to Joe Miller

I'm going to start with three data points.

One: Some of the Chinese military hackers who were implicated in a broad set of attacks against the U.S. government and corporations were identified because they accessed Facebook from the same network infrastructure they used to carry out their attacks.

Two: Hector Monsegur, one of the leaders of the LulzSac hacker movement, was identified and arrested last year by the FBI. Although he practiced good computer security and used an anonymous relay service to protect his identity, he slipped up.

And three: Paula Broadwell,who had an affair with CIA director David Petraeus, similarly took extensive precautions to hide her identity. She never logged in to her anonymous e-mail service from her home network. Instead, she used hotel and other public networks when she e-mailed him. The FBI correlated hotel registration data from several different hotels -- and hers was the common name.

The Internet is a surveillance state. Whether we admit it to ourselves or not, and whether we like it or not, we're being tracked all the time. Google tracks us, both on its pages and on other pages it has access to. Facebook does the same; it even tracks non-Facebook users. Apple tracks us on our iPhones and iPads. One reporter used a tool called Collusion to track who was tracking him; 105 companies tracked his Internet use during one 36-hour period.

Increasingly, what we do on the Internet is being combined with other data about us. Unmasking Broadwell's identity involved correlating her Internet activity with her hotel stays. Everything we do now involves computers, and computers produce data as a natural by-product. Everything is now being saved and correlated, and many big-data companies make money by building up intimate profiles of our lives from a variety of sources.

Facebook, for example, correlates your online behavior with your purchasing habits offline. And there's more. There's location data from your cell phone, there's a record of your movements from closed-circuit TVs.

This is ubiquitous surveillance: All of us being watched, all the time, and that data being stored forever. This is what a surveillance state looks like, and it's efficient beyond the wildest dreams of George Orwell.

Sure, we can take measures to prevent this. We can limit what we search on Google from our iPhones, and instead use computer web browsers that allow us to delete cookies. We can use an alias on Facebook. We can turn our cell phones off and spend cash. But increasingly, none of it matters.

There are simply too many ways to be tracked. The Internet, e-mail, cell phones, web browsers, social networking sites, search engines: these have become necessities, and it's fanciful to expect people to simply refuse to use them just because they don't like the spying, especially since the full extent of such spying is deliberately hidden from us and there are few alternatives being marketed by companies that don't spy.

This isn't something the free market can fix. We consumers have no choice in the matter. All the major companies that provide us with Internet services are interested in tracking us. Visit a website and it will almost certainly know who you are; there are lots of ways to be tracked without cookies.

Cellphone companies routinely undo the web's privacy protection. One experiment at Carnegie Mellon took real-time videos of students on campus and was able to identify one-third of them by comparing their photos with publicly available tagged Facebook photos.

Maintaining privacy on the Internet is nearly impossible. If you forget even once to enable your protections, or click on the wrong link, or type the wrong thing, and you've permanently attached your name to whatever anonymous service you're using. Monsegur slipped up once, and the FBI got him. If the director of the CIA can't maintain his privacy on the Internet, we've got no hope.

In today's world, governments and corporations are working together to keep things that way.

Governments are happy to use the data corporations collect -- occasionally demanding that they collect more and save it longer -- to spy on us. And corporations are happy to buy data from governments. Together the powerful spy on the powerless, and they're not going to give up their positions of power, despite what the people want.

Fixing this requires strong government will, but they're just as punch-drunk on data as the corporations. Slap-on-the-wrist fines notwithstanding, no one is agitating for better privacy laws.

So, we're done. Welcome to a world where Google knows exactly what sort of porn you all like, and more about your interests than your spouse does. Welcome to a world where your cell phone company knows exactly where you are all the time. Welcome to the end of private conversations, because increasingly your conversations are conducted by e-mail, text, or social networking sites.

And welcome to a world where all of this, and everything else that you do or is done on a computer, is saved, correlated, studied, passed around from company to company without your knowledge or consent; and where the government accesses it at will without a warrant.

Welcome to an Internet without privacy, and we've ended up here with hardly a fight. - CNN

Technorati Tags: Internet,Surveillance,loss of common sense,Big Brother,Facebook,Big Brother is watching you,Google,social media,social networking,cookies

Urgent: Black List bill – will be introduced by Wednesday/Tomorrow to destroy you tube, twitter, by making users responsible

List of petitions: We petition the Obama administration to: https://wwws.whitehouse.gov/petitions/#!/petitions

Ask your congressman not to support this!!  This is another way to stop free speech and stop information that the Obama White House doesn’t like from getting out!

URGENT ACTION NEEDED: New Internet Blacklist Bill Could Shut Down Twitter And Youtube!

http://act.demandprogress.org/letter/pipa_house/?akid=970.9555.ifjbPu&rd=1&t=2

A bit of an emergency: The rumor all over Capitol Hill is that the House version of the Internet Blacklist Bill will be introduced this week, probably on Wednesday.

Our allies on the Hill say the bill's so bad that it could effectively destroy Youtube, Twitter, and other sites that rely on user-generated content by making the sites' owners legally responsible for everything their users post.

Nobody will want to take that risk, so sites like Youtube and Twitter could be forced to shut down.

Facebook, Myspace, and Google+ would be at risk. The cyberlocker and streaming provisions could affect your iPhone, Android, AmazonCloud, Pandora, Spotify, Grooveshark and even your email accounts.

And all of this is being driven by a few major corporations who are trying to protect their private profits.

Will you use the form at right to ask your Congressmember not to cosponsor the legislation, at least until they've heard our concerns?

Related:

Iceland's president: Social media turns government into a 'sideshow'

http://www.cnn.com/2011/10/21/tech/innovation/iceland-president-social-media/index.html

Facebook updates and YouTube videos are becoming more important to global affairs than governments, Iceland's president said this week.

"This so-called social media has transformed our democratic institutions in such a way that what takes place in the more traditional institutions of power -- congress, ministries, even the White House or the presidency and the cabinet in my country -- has become almost a sideshow," Olafur Ragnar Grimsson, Iceland's president, said in an interview with CNN on Thursday at the PopTech conference here in coastal Maine.

"I know it's a strong statement, especially coming from someone who spent most of his life within those institutions. But the power of the social media is, in my opinion, transforming the political process in such a way that I can't see any chance for the traditional, formal institutions of our democratic systems to keep up."

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange rails against Facebook, says it's a spy tool for US government… Plus Other Steve Quayle Alerts

Video on the page:  WikiLeaks Founder Julian Assange Rails Against Facebook, Says It's A Spy Tool For US Government  (See other alerts below)

Maybe he's a MySpace guy.

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange called Facebook "the most appalling spying machine ever invented" in an interview with Russia Today, pointing to the popular social networking site as one of the top tools for the U.S. to spy on its citizens.

"Here we have the world's most comprehensive database about people, their relationships, their names, their addresses, their locations, their communications with each other and their relatives, all sitting within the United States, all accessible to US Intelligence," he said. "Facebook, Google, Yahoo, all these major U.S. organizations have built-in interfaces for US intelligence.

"Everyone should understand that when they add their friends to Facebook they are doing free work for the United States intelligence agencies," he added.

The comments were a bit strange, coming from the founder of a website best known for pushing spilling secret information.

In an email to the Daily News, a Facebook spokesman denied the company was doing anything that they weren't legally obligated to do, saying that "the legal standards for compelling a company to turn over data are determined by the laws of the country, and we respect that standard."

"We don't respond to pressure, we respond to compulsory legal process," the spokesperson wrote. "There has never been a time we have been pressured to turn over data -- we fight every time we believe the legal process is insufficient."

In any event, many Facebook users have been increasingly concerned about the sharing of their information.

In 2010, three Democratic senators asked the FTC to look at the social networking site's information-sharing policies.

The Wall Street Journal has reported that popular Facebook apps like Farmville and Causes also shared users' information with advertising and tracking companies.

Concerns about information-sharing has seemingly done little to dissuade the more than 250 million people who use Facebook - including someone who created an official WikiLeaks page on the site.

More than 1.72 million people clicked that they like it.

Assange is currently in England, awaiting extradition to Sweden to face sexual assault charges.

Alerts:  Steve Quayle. - http://stevequayle.com/index1.html (5.4.11)

Paper Silver War Intensifies: Today we witnessed another raid orchestrated by the bankers. They generally wait until the physical markets, in London are put to bed before they strike. Last night,I told you that the Comex initiated a 3rd margin increase as the bankers were scared out of their minds as to the huge demand for silver metal. The on top of that, the bankers called on additional support by the brokerage firms as it was necessary for the bankers to try and force as many longs as possible to pitch their positions so the bankers could cover their short position. Please pay special attention to the following announcement: more

Foreign Military Troops Train in California Desert: I was listening to Hawk's Friday evening broadcast and I wanted to tell you what American soldiers have talked about regarding foreign troops. I live near Fort Irwin here in California. I have been told that Iraqi troops, German troops and other Nato troops train out in the desert. They have mock cities and practice searches and road blocks. These troops are allowed to shop in the PX however, I do not know if they can leave the base. more

WikiLeaks Founder Julian Assange Rails Against Facebook, Says It's A Spy Tool For US Government: WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange called Facebook "the most appalling spying machine ever invented" in an interview with Russia Today, pointing to the popular social networking site as one of the top tools for the U.S. to spy on its citizens. "Here we have the world's most comprehensive database about people, their relationships, their names, their addresses, their locations, their communications with each other and their relatives, all sitting within the United States, all accessible to US Intelligence," he said. "Facebook, Google, Yahoo, all these major U.S. organizations have built-in interfaces for US intelligence. more

Occult Timing Associated With Osamas Hollywood Scripted Assassination From Rob Skiba: Are you kidding me?? Seal Team 6 killed OBL on the 66th anniversary of Hitler's death on the same day the Illuminati was created at 3:30 EST (33) as the result of putting a bullet through his LEFT EYE!! Come on guys! Wake up. They're just mocking your total ignorance if you can't see through this scam. go to archives

Top Secret Stealth Helicopter Program Revealed in Osama Bin Laden Raid: Experts: Before an elite team of U.S. Navy SEALs executed a daring raid that took down Osama bin Laden, the commandos were able to silently sneak up on their elusive target thanks to what aviation analysts said were top secret, never-before-seen stealth-modified helicopters. In the course of the operation that cost the al Qaeda leader his life, one of the two Blackhawk helicopters that carried the SEALs into bin Laden's Pakistani compound grazed one of the compound's wall and was forced to make a hard landing. With the chopper inoperable, at the end of the mission the SEALs destroyed it with explosives. more go to archives

Obama Proposes Harsh New Copyright Laws for Internet

Obama Proposes Harsh New Copyright Laws for Internet

David Makarewicz, Contributing Writer
Activist Post

On Tuesday, the White House’s Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator, Victoria Espinel, provided Congress with a White Paper (available for download here), outlining a series of the Obama Administration’s recommended legislative changes to combat online piracy and counterfeiting.  Significantly, the recommendations include making it a felony offense to stream infringing content and giving Federal agencies wiretapping authority to obtain evidence of criminal copyright and trademark offenses.

The White Paper is the product of the IP Czar’s review of “existing laws to ensure that they were effective and to identify deficiencies that could hinder enforcement.”  The review was conducted in conjunction with a group of federal agencies, including the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Justice and the State Department.

These new proposals, as well as the Obama Administration’s recent questionable domain seizures and previous controversial proposed laws, such as COICA, have raised questions about what Obama’s legacy will end up being with regard to internet issues.

In the White Paper, Espinel attempts to camouflage some of the potentially controversial recommendations behind lofty goals like health risks, national security, counterfeit drugs and combating criminal gangs.  However, many of the key measures, such as the new wiretapping powers and increased sentencing for repeat offenders, appear to be potentially applicable to any website operator and not limited to any one group or purpose.

Several points of the White Paper also still need to be investigated and clarified.  For example, it requests that Congress change the law to clarify that “infringement by streaming, or by means of other similar new technology, is a felony.”  However, there is no attempt to clarify what activities fall into the category of “other similar new technology.”  Does this only refer to technology that has not been invented yet?  Are search engines that list streaming sites the type of “other similar new technology” that will be subject to felony charges?

Around the web, the initial reaction to the White Paper is mixed.  CNET hints that we should question the motives behind the Obama Administration’s crackdown on copyright infringement by pointing out that “No less than 78 percent of political contributions from Hollywood went to Democrats in 2008, which is broadly consistent with the trend for the last two decades, according to OpenSecrets.org.”

Techdirt is more direct with its criticism, pointing out:

The thing is, every time the government ratchets up IP laws in ways that don’t match with the way most people view the world, the less respected those laws become. Rather than actually increasing enforcement, these moves decrease respect for those laws.

On the other hand, Ars Technica applauds the fact that “The list largely avoids big controversies—Web censorship, ‘three strikes’ rules—in favor of a focus on health, safety, and serious criminal activity.”

While I agree that these proposals could be worse, I believe the White Paper’s potential to arm the United States government with another powerful new set of weapons aimed at websites demands more analysis than I can do in a single article.  Therefore, this will be the introductory post of a multi-part analysis that I will roll out over the course of the next few days that will provide a more detailed review of the recommendations in the White Paper, as well as what these recommendations tell us about the Obama Administration’s intellectual property philosophy and agenda.

Part II will review the Government’s proposed new wiretap authority for copyright offenses.

David Makarewicz is an attorney practicing internet law concerning privacy rights and copyright defense for websites and blogs. Visit Dave at Sites and Blogs to keep up with breaking Internet news.

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