American NSA Out Of Control

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You should assume any information you share is public and permanent. The very nature of the Internet makes it inherently non-private, ie., a bunch of "servers" SHARING information.
Yet everyone is upset when a website gets hacked, I wonder why. ;)
 
Lets put this into perspective before claiming only tin foil hat basket cases need to worry about this:
I would think this statement was done for a clear reason: Google CEO warns of data explosion and a future without privacy

Google, CIA invest in the future of web monitoring
What the NSA is doing (As you can read in the linked articles) is profile every internet user in every way.

This does not only relate to online behavior but also your offline behavior including your location movements, your offline conversations and offline activities.See: Google wants to listen into your phone conversations
If you check the latest updates of Google chrome, Google Now and various other Google products, you can see that when installing those apps you agree to give the apps access to your microphone and video 24/7. The above article has already become a reality.

To analyze all this information and compile extensive profiles about billions of people, a massive data-center was needed. Here it is: The NSA is building the largest spy center on the planet

This development on the web is something to think about. Its probably less relevant if your forum is about kittens.
But as soon as it concerns a little more sensitive topics like financials, addictions, health, sexuality, relations, STD's, business, politics then this is something to be seriously concerned with IMHO.

A forum offers the user anonymity through an anonymous account name. But Google, Facebook, MS can index anything that your users write on your forum and tie it to their real identity and to the rest of their historical online and offline activity. As mentioned by the CEO of Google this provides an extensive profile of many people exposing delicate private details. And that's only the start. Clearly the NSA is combining this data with whatever information source they have.
Its very likely that they will use algorithms to identify people who are likely to become a problem.

If you have a 100% trust in the government always making correct and sensible decisions and protecting such delicate information from hackers, other intelligence agencies and abuse, then all seems fine. I do not have that trust.
 
It's very simple actually. Do not put info onthe internet you are not comfortable with everyone knowing/ finding out. Seriously. is that hard?
 
It's very simple actually. Do not put info onthe internet you are not comfortable with everyone knowing/ finding out. Seriously. is that hard?
Do you keep money in a bank? Do you go to the doctor? Hospital? Maybe watch pornography? Or ever did a google search on something that might potentially be used as a weapon, for example?

The bank keeps your information online. I don't know about where you live, but over here they really really want to store your medical history online. Are you comfortable with everyone knowing these things about you? With everything you do online being linked to your real life person? Maybe it ending up influencing your real life?

The reality is, you have some decision on what you want to share. And the things we share willingly on the internet, are for many people because they feel it's unconnected to their real life, so they can speak more freely on a broad amount of subjects. When suddenly everything connects out of your control, it's very much a different situation than just choosing not to share personal stuff online. Because that decision often gets made for you, out of your choice.
 
I just lost 8 hours of sleep worrying about what data is out there online pertaining to me.

This topic is comical.
 
It's very simple actually. Do not put info onthe internet you are not comfortable with everyone knowing/ finding out. Seriously. is that hard?
Yes. As soon as you buy a smartphone, you barely have that choice. Your camera, microphone, location, calendar, text messages are part of your online data. Recordings without your knowledge can be taken and transmitted without your knowledge 24/7. IMHO that is going a little too far because people do not choose to share this.

The same goes for forum posts. If someone uses an online identity (which is part of the success of forums) then the person should be able to expect that their privacy is respected. It should not be that their forum post content is connected to their identity / profile, just because the webmaster uses Google Analytics, Facebook login, or because they use a browser from Google or Microsoft.
 
I just lost 8 hours of sleep worrying about what data is out there online pertaining to me.

This topic is comical.
May I please have your bank account information, including passwords and such? I mean, it's online after all, you chose to share it. Thanks in advance.
 
The sacrifice of privacy in the name of national security has become an excuse overused. The argument of transparency equals safety is such a crock of sh*t, because the world will never be safe.

Having everything open and known is not going to stop some crazy desperate fool from robbing the convenience store down the street, let alone some dude with a bomb strapped to his back with the intention of blowing himself up.

I wonder how The President of The United States would feel if his privacy was forcefully and unknowingly taken away from him, how would he feel about it? Because right now, we're forcefully having our privacy taken away from us and more than often without us knowing about it.

How would Barack Obama feel if a video tape of him having sex was released? Is it going to take something like that for a President to understand we American too value our freedom and our privacy?

In truth that would be tame in comparison to the whole country and all its citizens being monitored and recorded against our will and many of us without our knowing. But perhaps it may help get the message through or maybe it will be used as yet another excuse to further monitor and record everyone, including you.
 
The sacrifice of privacy in the name of national security has become an excuse overused.

How so?

If it would even prevent one death, it's worth it.

If you don't want them listening in on your 1-900 call's, or whatever, don't call the number anymore.

Be like me, go off the grid. I have to now. I'm scared they might find out I like peanut butter on my pancakes. :rolleyes:
 
How so?

If it would even prevent one death, it's worth it.

If you don't want them listening in on your 1-900 call's, or whatever, don't call the number anymore.

Be like me, go off the grid. I have to now. I'm scared they might find out I like peanut butter on my pancakes. :rolleyes:

May I please have your bank account information, including passwords and such? I mean, it's online after all, you chose to share it. Thanks in advance.
 
Sador you'd make better points if most of your arguments weren't strawmen. You cannot force a correlation between government accessing private information and a hacker maliciously exploiting a server and releasing your data. Nor can you say that someone who is not shocked that the government has been accessing such data for long periods of time is open to them having all of your data so much then be willing to give out such data to someone they do not know on the Internet. Using such arguments just undermines the situation.

This has been going on for years before 9/11. Microsoft and Yahoo were giving out email, chat logs and other information to legal entities for years. Google requires much more pressure to give out information, and I find it unlikely that there is a backdoor for their services though there might possibly be a flagging system for things such as child porn, terrorism and other such activity.

Phone companies, ISP's, data centers and bandwidth providers have always been giving information to the government. Before it was masked in such ways to make it seem as if it were a irregular request now it is just more blatant.

Should you be worried? Yes, however there isn't much you can do other than to raise awareness and push for it to end and being pro-active about protecting your rights rather than just complaining on the Internet. This does not mean using FUD like so many here seem to do as that will help no one, solve nothing and only undermine the truth of the situation.
 
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