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A lot of people— sometimes the most technically competent ones— were busily telling them that wholesale surveillance was infeasible... greatly underestimating t

by mehwoot 13y ago

A lot of people— sometimes the most technically competent ones— were busily telling them that wholesale surveillance was infeasible... greatly underestimating the available funding and ingenuity. The fact that this is happening to _everyone_... Has this actually changed? Is there any evidence that a U.S. citizen's gmail account, or skype calls, or yahoo searches, or facebook information, has been obtained without a court ordered warrant? I'm not a U.S. citizen and have always assumed that anything I put on these companies' servers can be read by the U.S. government at will. But if you're a citizen of the land of the free and the home of the brave, I haven't seen anything come out that actually showed your cloud data is being accessed without probable cause being shown, the way it always has been.

kintamanimatt 13y ago
> I'm not a U.S. citizen and have always assumed that anything I put on these companies' servers can be read by the U.S. government at will. Why are you ok with that?
- mehwoot 13y ago
  Firstly, I feel like assuming the government has the ability to monitor your communications and acting accordingly is better than assuming they can't and getting worried when it turns out they do. Secondly, I have zero power to change how the U.S. conducts it's business in this regard so I'm not going to expend energy fighting it, I just take it into account and try not to use these services in a way that I wouldn't want to be discovered. Thirdly, I do agree that the government (U.S. or mine) should be allowed to get information on me if they show probable cause. I strongly support that. And if I accept people might look at my stuff, then it doesn't really matter in the end why they are doing it- I should still plan accordingly. The Government could very well have probable cause to investigate me even when I've done nothing wrong. We have the technology to keep what we do online anonymous. Even if the government had no power to check this, stuff like the AOL search data debacle shows there is always a non zero possibility someone could be looking at your unprotected data. If you're worried about that, you should protect your data. That's the only real solution. I agree with people who fight against illegitimate or non transparent ways people try and access that data- but that's not what I rely on to keep my privacy.
ippisl 13y ago
The NSA tried to force twitter the list of all the people who subscribed to wikileaks. Twitter refused, but similar requests to gmail etc were being done and probably were'nt refused.
- whatevenisthis 13y ago
  You really believe that the NSA can't get into Twitter's servers if they want to? They just plant someone in security. What's the easiest way to get into every consumer internet service? Just get someone there on the payroll. That's how it's always been done.

by mehwoot 13y ago

kintamanimatt 13y ago

> I'm not a U.S. citizen and have always assumed that anything I put on these companies' servers can be read by the U.S. government at will. Why are you ok with that?

mehwoot 13y ago
Firstly, I feel like assuming the government has the ability to monitor your communications and acting accordingly is better than assuming they can't and getting worried when it turns out they do. Secondly, I have zero power to change how the U.S. conducts it's business in this regard so I'm not going to expend energy fighting it, I just take it into account and try not to use these services in a way that I wouldn't want to be discovered. Thirdly, I do agree that the government (U.S. or mine) should be allowed to get information on me if they show probable cause. I strongly support that. And if I accept people might look at my stuff, then it doesn't really matter in the end why they are doing it- I should still plan accordingly. The Government could very well have probable cause to investigate me even when I've done nothing wrong. We have the technology to keep what we do online anonymous. Even if the government had no power to check this, stuff like the AOL search data debacle shows there is always a non zero possibility someone could be looking at your unprotected data. If you're worried about that, you should protect your data. That's the only real solution. I agree with people who fight against illegitimate or non transparent ways people try and access that data- but that's not what I rely on to keep my privacy.

ippisl 13y ago

The NSA tried to force twitter the list of all the people who subscribed to wikileaks. Twitter refused, but similar requests to gmail etc were being done and probably were'nt refused.

whatevenisthis 13y ago
You really believe that the NSA can't get into Twitter's servers if they want to? They just plant someone in security. What's the easiest way to get into every consumer internet service? Just get someone there on the payroll. That's how it's always been done.