More Fun With the NSA - SIM Cards Compromised at Manufacturer
- Thread starter Unarmed Gunman
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Jesus, I was by no means oblivious to our overreaching government.... but this just makes me SICK. I mean, this is a private corporation we're talking about here... If I had ANY MINIMAL reservations about the leaking of documents by Edward Snowden and the way it was done, this damn near wipes them away...
I literally was going through (what I consider to be) reliable source after reliable source in order to prove to myself that this wasn't a huge exaggeration... This bypasses everything our country/constitution is supposed to stand for.
Again, I'm not an Alex Jones junkie, but I'm by no means oblivious to the HUGE overreaching appetite of our government...
However, this absolutely made me SICK. I'm pretty much convinced that 'they' feel there are no boundaries placed on them, or at least, that there are no consequences for crossing (or in this case, stomping on, spitting on, and running far beyond) the line.
Its one thing to say "the government is CORRUPT" when they are TEAMING up with ISPS who are KNOWINGLY supplying them with access... this is a whole other level...
I literally was going through (what I consider to be) reliable source after reliable source in order to prove to myself that this wasn't a huge exaggeration... This bypasses everything our country/constitution is supposed to stand for.
Again, I'm not an Alex Jones junkie, but I'm by no means oblivious to the HUGE overreaching appetite of our government...
However, this absolutely made me SICK. I'm pretty much convinced that 'they' feel there are no boundaries placed on them, or at least, that there are no consequences for crossing (or in this case, stomping on, spitting on, and running far beyond) the line.
Its one thing to say "the government is CORRUPT" when they are TEAMING up with ISPS who are KNOWINGLY supplying them with access... this is a whole other level...
One interesting side not to all of this is that most of the Snowden documents that are being slowly disseminated are already a few years old, which would indicate that as amazing as some of this shit is, they've already got far better tricks up their sleeve.
Apparently, the solution is to take the advice of one of my family members, and "find happier news to read". Problem solved!
And it sounds as though you don't have the slightest clue as to what you're talking about. Go figure, eh?
For those that are outraged at what the NSA and others are doing I ask you this question;
What are you actually doing about it?
Besides complaining about it on a internet forum and being morally outraged for 10 minutes.
I'm being snide, I know, but it seems like most people get bent out of shape and complain that it is "a breach of privacy" for 10 minutes and then forget about it.
And before anyone jumps on me and screams "well what are YOU doing about it?" in an obvious attempt to deflect the fact they only care enough to be morally outrage from their arm chair.
I don't give a shit they are spying on me or the rest of the world.
This shit has been going on since time immemorial, this is nothing new. The only thing that has changed is the amount of data that they have access to.
So I ask the outraged, what are you doing about it?
You obviously care enough about the issue to post your anger at what the NSA is doing, but how and what are you going to do about stopping it.
And informing people about the issue is NOT doing something, because incase you haven't noticed, the general public doesn't care and the NSA won't stop because people know what they are doing.
Side Rant:
You all act like the NSA is some sort of magical government entity that is immune to corporate politics, factions and infighting, like some how because they are the NSA they are exempt from behaving like the DMV.
Look at the evidence, they collect massive amounts of data, but they have used this data to do what exactly?
Did they prevent the Boston bombings?
You can make a retarded sociopath the king, but all you end up with is Joffrey.
Information is power, but that power is worthless if the people with it don't know what to do with it.
Personally, I think the whole reason the NSA is grabbing data on such a large scale is not because they want to protect America's interests or from terrorists, but because they have fallen into a trap of having all the data's but what they do with it doesn't matter to them.
Information for them is like Pokemon trading cards, they have to have it all.
What are you actually doing about it?
Besides complaining about it on a internet forum and being morally outraged for 10 minutes.
I'm being snide, I know, but it seems like most people get bent out of shape and complain that it is "a breach of privacy" for 10 minutes and then forget about it.
And before anyone jumps on me and screams "well what are YOU doing about it?" in an obvious attempt to deflect the fact they only care enough to be morally outrage from their arm chair.
I don't give a shit they are spying on me or the rest of the world.
This shit has been going on since time immemorial, this is nothing new. The only thing that has changed is the amount of data that they have access to.
So I ask the outraged, what are you doing about it?
You obviously care enough about the issue to post your anger at what the NSA is doing, but how and what are you going to do about stopping it.
And informing people about the issue is NOT doing something, because incase you haven't noticed, the general public doesn't care and the NSA won't stop because people know what they are doing.
Side Rant:
You all act like the NSA is some sort of magical government entity that is immune to corporate politics, factions and infighting, like some how because they are the NSA they are exempt from behaving like the DMV.
Look at the evidence, they collect massive amounts of data, but they have used this data to do what exactly?
Did they prevent the Boston bombings?
You can make a retarded sociopath the king, but all you end up with is Joffrey.
Information is power, but that power is worthless if the people with it don't know what to do with it.
Personally, I think the whole reason the NSA is grabbing data on such a large scale is not because they want to protect America's interests or from terrorists, but because they have fallen into a trap of having all the data's but what they do with it doesn't matter to them.
Information for them is like Pokemon trading cards, they have to have it all.
I know you're trying to be a dick, but it's actually a good question and I'm glad you asked it. Aside from raising awareness on public forums about what is happening, we should also discuss some things that the average person can do to protect themselves, at least a little bit.
First, I think we can all agree that we're not going to elect our way out of this mess. And short of an apocalyptic scenario that significantly sets back technology, we're not going to reign in how that technology is used by the powers that be to control the average person.
So if you can't stop the information collection, I think the best thing you can do is obfuscate some of the data they collect. We all know that they are collecting information on everyone - friend or foe, enemy, terrorist or average citizen. And we all know that pretty little data center they just built in Utah can essentially store information on every human being until the end of time.
What they choose to do with all of this data is only partly known. Take a look at what some private sector companies like Palantir can do by building out exhaustive psychological profiles on people based on all of that data collected. That gives us a clue.
When they can run an algorithm against your browsing habits, physical location from your phone, searches, emails, network of known associates, health records, communication patterns etc, and come up with a dossier on exactly who you are and what makes you tick, then it's trivial to determine the best way to manipulate your behavior. And since storage is cheap they can just file it away forever to be used against you or your loved ones as needed.
So muddy the waters with incorrect data. You know most of what they collect so you know what channels you can use to deliver up incorrect data. You also know that you can leave them without data by occasionally paying for some things with cash and not taking your phone with you, and doing some of your interneting from a computer not tied to you or your online identities.
Although you can't escape all of the mass data collection without going off the grid, you can use their reliance on that data collection (and the assumptions that go with it) against them. By incorporating incorrect, incomplete and missing data into your data stream you can render their information about you useless, or at least less useful.
Ya i forget where I heard this but supposedly real revolutions almost never happen unless the people are starving or lack shelter. People will take a lot of shit from their government before they finally get off their asses to change things, self included. I'm not just comfortable in my life.. but too comfortable honestly. I can't see myself going for a revolution when I know that their results often make things much worse.
But I do take some precautions as UG mentioned and am currently looking at getting PGP setup between my friends/family and I so emails can at least be somewhat private.
I admit I was being a dick, but not trolling, it is a serious question.
This is one of the problems I have with the whole NSA is an omnipotent hive mind that knows and understands all.
Serious question (trying not to be a dick about it), why do you think the NSA can function any better than the DMV?
I admit I was being a cunt in the other NSA thread as well, but my point is the same.
Why are we assuming they are smart when they can't even make the non-www version of their website resolve?
It's not important to them? It's not high on their priorities list? They don't care?
There is someone at the NSA whose job is to work on that website, infact it's the job of the guy in the video I posted, and he either can't or won't fix the problem.
The only thing that tells me is he is either incompetent or he doesn't give a fuck about his job (pretty much the same attitude as employees of other government agencies).
And if the NSA employs one guy with this attitude, why are we assuming he is the only one?
Am I the only one that likes hearing about how advanced the NSA is? I was worried the West was losing the "technological war" against China, but this makes me think we still have a fighting chance
They're hiring interns bros
https://www.nsa.gov/careers/opportunities_4_u/students/undergraduate/dcm.shtml
Nvidia is big on gpu/parallel computing, making it cheap and fast to process magnitudes more data/calculations on everyday computers, let alone supercomputers/render farms with thousands of processors that the gov can afford.
So first they get all the info possible, and build tools to mine/utilize it. It's inevitable. What takes you a year to crack/brute force on a regular cpu is a fraction of a second with an array of processors working in unison.
https://www.nsa.gov/careers/opportunities_4_u/students/undergraduate/dcm.shtml
Nvidia is big on gpu/parallel computing, making it cheap and fast to process magnitudes more data/calculations on everyday computers, let alone supercomputers/render farms with thousands of processors that the gov can afford.
So first they get all the info possible, and build tools to mine/utilize it. It's inevitable. What takes you a year to crack/brute force on a regular cpu is a fraction of a second with an array of processors working in unison.
Ya but why would you assume it's everyone. Not all of them are incompetent but comparing the NSA to the DMV is. There are definitely some geniuses working for the government and some idiots. But we know for a fact that some of the most crazy shit gets invented by geniuses working for the government during wartime especially.. and supposedly we're on some permanent war against some chick named Terra.
@acidie -- So... you're banking on the idea that, it's ok if they grab all communication on the planet, because you don't believe they currently know how to mine / utilize it? Ummm, yeah... I guess that's one way to look at it.
The purpose of the DMV is to collect revenue and enforce regulations. It functions reasonably well, even if most branches are run inefficiently from a resident's perspective. We tend to look at the DMV and think "That place is run by retards!" But the agency is meeting its mission.
The purpose of the NSA is to gather, process and spread intel. It has an incentive and resources to do that job well. Given that, I'd guess that it's able to meet its goals as effectively as the DMV is able to meets its goals.
In my corporate life, we hired people across a broad spectrum of competencies, levels of motivation and corresponding salaries according to our short and long-term projects. We had guys who were very competent and very motivated. We also had guys who were at the other end of both scales. The former were put on high-profile, high-priority projects. The latter were not, but still fulfilled their respective roles.
I imagine the NSA is run in a similar fashion.
Because the NSA hires a lot of brilliant people with PhD's in various fields of mathematics and the DMV hires Shaniqua and her 3 inch fake nails.
It's not quite that simple. GPUs can do certain types of math faster than a CPU, but they're not magic. Even top 5 supercomputers that have GPGPUs are not yet utilizing them fully, mostly because they need programmers to rewrite/modify their old programs to use them.