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NSA targets the privacy-conscious

39 points by dombili 12y ago

lhnz 12y ago
I wonder if the privacy-conscious individual is safer than others or made a huge misjudgement by signalling that they have something to hide thereby putting themselves under a magnifying glass that only the top-X% of secure internet users will escape?
- dan_bk 12y ago
  > or has made a huge misjudgement by signalling that they have something to hide That is obviously a psychological effect that the NSA & Co. welcome very much, maybe even try to use against the rest of us. The question is: Do we want to let such a cheap trick get us?
- conradk 12y ago
  If everyone was more privacy conscious in the Internet, the NSA and other agencies that do mass surveillance would not be able to target, well, everyone. That'd be the end of mass surveillance. Therefore, it's probably better to be a little privacy conscious and use services outside the USA whenever available, for two reasons: - if the economical impact on the US economy is bad, the gov would have to rethink things - it makes it harder and more expensive for the NSA to spy on you Ultimately, trying to hide from the NSA is pointless. If they actually want your information, they'll get it. But making it impossible for them to do mass surveillance is a whole other thing. And an important one !
dang 12y ago
There are two variants of this story on the front page. The other one has the fuller discussion, but this one is the original source. We'll bury this one as a dupe and change the url of the other one.
jobu 12y ago
Because anyone trying to keep anything private or secure must be hiding something bad... That's just wonderful. After 10 years of pervasive surveillance and not being able to catch a single terrorist I can't believe the NSA is trying to rationalize it as being a good thing. It's too bad the bill to defund the NSA didn't pass: http://defundthensa.com/ http://defundthensa.com/
- Cyther606 12y ago
  While attacking the NSA on legal grounds is admirable, they operate above the law. If their public budget was ever threatened, they would just turn to the black budget. Any laws attempting to restrain the NSA's power would be circumvented. Tell everyone to use Tor Browser. Heck, I think it's worth starting an underground bounty for ISP techs to install Tor Browser on customer computers. Pay per install, paid in BTC.

39 points by dombili 12y ago

lhnz 12y ago

I wonder if the privacy-conscious individual is safer than others or made a huge misjudgement by signalling that they have something to hide thereby putting themselves under a magnifying glass that only the top-X% of secure internet users will escape?

dan_bk 12y ago
> or has made a huge misjudgement by signalling that they have something to hide That is obviously a psychological effect that the NSA & Co. welcome very much, maybe even try to use against the rest of us. The question is: Do we want to let such a cheap trick get us?
conradk 12y ago
If everyone was more privacy conscious in the Internet, the NSA and other agencies that do mass surveillance would not be able to target, well, everyone. That'd be the end of mass surveillance. Therefore, it's probably better to be a little privacy conscious and use services outside the USA whenever available, for two reasons: - if the economical impact on the US economy is bad, the gov would have to rethink things - it makes it harder and more expensive for the NSA to spy on you Ultimately, trying to hide from the NSA is pointless. If they actually want your information, they'll get it. But making it impossible for them to do mass surveillance is a whole other thing. And an important one !

dang 12y ago

There are two variants of this story on the front page. The other one has the fuller discussion, but this one is the original source. We'll bury this one as a dupe and change the url of the other one.

jobu 12y ago

Because anyone trying to keep anything private or secure must be hiding something bad... That's just wonderful. After 10 years of pervasive surveillance and not being able to catch a single terrorist I can't believe the NSA is trying to rationalize it as being a good thing. It's too bad the bill to defund the NSA didn't pass: http://defundthensa.com/ http://defundthensa.com/

Cyther606 12y ago
While attacking the NSA on legal grounds is admirable, they operate above the law. If their public budget was ever threatened, they would just turn to the black budget. Any laws attempting to restrain the NSA's power would be circumvented. Tell everyone to use Tor Browser. Heck, I think it's worth starting an underground bounty for ISP techs to install Tor Browser on customer computers. Pay per install, paid in BTC.