# What should we allow our governments to do?



## basilio (10 June 2013)

A few days we learnt through The Guardian that the US government was monitoring practically everyones Internet use, email use, phone calls.  The details of how this has been done and the scale can be found in the attached url.

Unsurprisingly the security agencies went ballistic about the disclosure of this mass surveillance activity. It was described as  criminal and exposed US to grave dangers.

Now the your guy who exposed this surveillance has come out. H


> The 29-year-old government contractor who turned whistleblower to reveal vast US surveillance programs says he is not afraid, despite the intelligence authorities' threat to hunt him down.
> 
> In footage shot by The Guardian newspaper, Edward Snowden said he packed his bags for Hong Kong three weeks ago, leaving behind a "very comfortable life" in Hawaii, a salary of $US200,000 ($212,423), a girlfriend, a stable career and a loving family.
> 
> ...




So what is evil ? Particular activities by a government that  they want to keep hidden (ie war crimes in Iraq, mass surveillance) or exposing this behavior?  

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/06/national-security-agency-surveillance
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jun/07/whistleblowers-and-leak-investigations . This is particularly worth a read


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## basilio (10 June 2013)

*Re: What should we allow our governments to do ?*

To add a bit more commentary on the issue of disclosure of widespread government surveillance.




> *Edward Snowden: more conscientious objector than common thief*
> 
> US members of Congress ought to be seeking the earliest opportunity to learn what this brave whistleblower is saying
> 
> ...




http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jun/10/edward-snowden-conscientious-objector


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## DB008 (10 June 2013)

*Re: What should we allow our governments to do ?*

For a laugh, watch this....

'Shock jock' disrupts BBC's Sunday Politics show
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-22832994


Anyways, if you don't want anything read by Governments, don't put it online.

Everything you do online leaves a electronic footprint.


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## Julia (10 June 2013)

What is your own view about this, basilio?


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## DB008 (10 June 2013)

Someone on reddit posted this. Very relavent. 









BTW - Edward is in deep s**t


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## basilio (11 June 2013)

I think the post that DB008 recopied covers many of my concerns.

I have a great deal of unease about the extent of surveillance now possible and undertaken by security organizations.  In my view one of the fundamentals of a "free" society and perhaps a "democratic" one is privacy and the capacity to speak freely. Having all your conversations and actions monitored doesn't look like a free, democratic society. Sounds more look the German Democratic Republic....

I also have a concern about the power of security organizations and their capacity to act honestly. We saw in Australia only a few years ago how an Indian doctor was labelled a terrorist and despite the fact that this was a monumental error he was still smeared and incarcerated for ages. 

There is also the issue of how much control a very powerful security agency can exercise on government. For example Edgar Hoover stayed head of the FBI for eons because he made sure he knew of all the peccadilloes of politicians. When they came to power he made sure they knew they couldn't cross him. 

Finally there is the certain risk that governments  can use blanket security surveillance to chill criticism and if necessary silence critics even if they have to make up the case.


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## basilio (11 June 2013)

There is an excellent article in The Age from a Human Rights lawyer that details most of teh issues  I have with what is happening.

*Dangers of blowing the whistle in the digital age*

Date
    June 11, 2013 


Elizabeth O'Shea
*
Bradley Manning and Edward Snowden are victims of democracy criminalising the exposure of injustice.*


Whistleblower Edward Snowden's stunning story provides an insight into government power at almost the exact moment the future echo of his story is playing out in a military courtroom in the US.

Snowden has identified himself as the source of revelations about the mass spying operations undertaken by America's National Security Agency as part of its Prism program. The motivation for his revelation, that the NSA has vacuumed up internet and phone data of millions of everyday people, was solely ''to inform the public as to what is done in their name and that which is done against them''. Almost certainly forfeiting his family relationships, his home and possibly his liberty, Snowden's courage is of the finest variety. *This massive operation by the NSA destroys the concept of privacy as we know it, but paradoxically few knew about it until Snowden blew the whistle. Who knows whether something similar to Prism is already happening in Australia?*

Snowden's calm acceptance of his fate is impressive. His story is remarkably similar to that of Bradley Manning and there is a good chance it will have a similar outcome personally. Coincidentally, Snowden's leak came in the week Manning's trial finally began. His treatment alone, as a prisoner of conscience, should be cause for alarm. He has waited for more than three years for this day, in breach of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, which requires a speedy trial. He has suffered in conditions that are cruel, inhuman and degrading. That is not hyperbole: it is the view of the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture.

Mainstream reporting has described Manning as a funny little character or weirdo. This not only lacks compassion, but is wilfully blind. Manning is a humanist: indeed, the back of his dog tag was stamped with that exact word. *Like so many whistleblowers, including Snowden, he saw injustice and tried to expose it. He explicitly wanted to ''spark a domestic debate on the role of the military and our foreign policy''. He rightly asked: ''[if] you saw incredible things, awful things … things that belonged in the public domain, and not on some server stored in a dark room in Washington DC … what would you do?'' He had tried to raise concerns up the chain of command and was told to ''shut up''. To expose wrongdoing in this context is admirable; to continue to collaborate in its concealment is the opposite.*

Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/comment/da...digital-age-20130610-2nzz1.html#ixzz2VrksyvLT


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## pixel (11 June 2013)

You can't have total freedom without total responsibility for consequences.
Meaning, if you don't want anybody to know what you're up to, including any and all evil plots, then you have to accept that there won't be any "preventative measures". That also mandates that you eliminate everybody who misuses that freedom and commits clandestine evil - *at first strike*. None of that bleeding-heart nonsense about "bad childhood", "bad company", or "new chance through rehabilitation".

Just as there is no half pregnancy, there can't be any half freedom of thought, expression, actions.


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## basilio (11 June 2013)

PIxel I don't quite understand what you are saying.

Is one of the ideas your suggesting that anyone who commits evil is eliminated after the first offence ? 

Cheers


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## prawn_86 (11 June 2013)

Personally I think what Edward Snowden did is a courageous and admirable thing, yet the vast populous of the US or Australia wont care as they go about there every day life, and it is this attitude that governments rely on. There is no recourse and governments can, and do, virtually do what they want these days.


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## McLovin (11 June 2013)

Is it any surprise? Even on here, we've had plenty of people advocating much more widespread use of CCTV to track everyone's movements, for police to be able to stop and search whomever they want. Anytime a crime is committed these days a whole new set of laws are enacted that strip away our rights in the interest of "protecting the community".

Of course we are so over governed it's no wonder we live in a nanny state.

It's not often I look to Texas for guidance on sound public policy, but there state lawmakers (this is a state with a population the size Australia) are paid a fraction of what they would earn in Australia.



> State legislators in Texas make $600 per month, or $7,200 per year, plus a per diem of $139 for every day the Legislature is in session (also including any special sessions). That adds up to $28,200 a year for a regular session (140 days), with the total pay for a two-year term being $35,400.




Compare that our bloated state parliaments. When you're paying them $28,200/year you don't get busy-bodies trying to legislate other people's lives.


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## basilio (11 June 2013)

Not that much interest on ASF either Prawn ?

Anyway just to continue with the case  there is a very dangerous argument being pursued by  the US government as it attempts to put Private Bradly manning in jail for life over his leaking of documents to the press.



> However, the implications are much broader. Many investigative journalists have discussed with confidential sources, including national security sources, how to access information, how to take security precautions and how to avoid getting caught.
> 
> As Assange himself put it this week, speaking from his refuge at the Ecuadorian embassy in London, the US prosecution's argument involves a disturbing precedent:
> 
> ...


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## Calliope (11 June 2013)

basilio said:


> Bradley Manning and Edward Snowden are victims of democracy criminalising the exposure of injustice.[/B]




They are on a par with The Cold War Cambridge Four; Philby, Burgess, Maclean and Blunt who betrayed their country's inteligence secrets to Stalin's Soviet Russia.. They too were acting from "high moral principles".


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## pixel (11 June 2013)

basilio said:


> PIxel I don't quite understand what you are saying.
> 
> Is one of the ideas your suggesting that anyone who commits evil is eliminated after the first offence ?
> 
> Cheers




If you want to ban crime prevention in the name of *absolute personal freedom*, you must implement adequate crime retribution on the basis of *absolute personal responsibility*.
Under that premise, the obvious answer is YES: Punishment must fit the crime.


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## basilio (11 June 2013)

Calliope said:


> They are on a par with The Cold War Cambridge Four; Philby, Burgess, Maclean and Blunt who betrayed their country's inteligence secrets to Stalin's Soviet Russia.. They too were acting from "high moral principles".




Well mate if you believe that you will believe absolutely anything you want to believe - regardless of reality. 

But of course this is just another Calliope wind up ?


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## Calliope (11 June 2013)

basilio said:


> Well mate if you believe that you will believe absolutely anything you want to believe - regardless of reality.
> 
> But of course this is just another Calliope wind up ?




I am always wary of whistle blowers or posters who claim the high moral ground, or is this just another basilio wind up?


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## Julia (11 June 2013)

prawn_86 said:


> the vast populous of the US or Australia wont care as they go about their every day life, and it is this attitude that governments rely on. There is no recourse and governments can, and do, virtually do what they want these days.



That's quite true.  I'm not sure that this apathy is an indication of lack of concern;  rather an acceptance of the helplessness of individuals to change anything.



basilio said:


> Not that much interest on ASF either Prawn ?



That is not surprising imo.  Also, it's possibly not all lack of interest, but perhaps more ambivalence.
I've never supported the actions of Assange et al.  I detest the poking of government noses into so much of our lives and the interference of the nanny state.  But I find it hard to care or to imagine for a moment that any governmental agency is going to be remotely interested in my boring remarks via the internet or my phone calls to tradies to get a quote for something.



> Anyway just to continue with the case  there is a very dangerous argument being pursued by  the US government as it attempts to put Private Bradly manning in jail for life over his leaking of documents to the press.



What do you think should have alternatively been the consequence for Mr Manning?
Don't you think he'd have been aware of the inevitable consequences when he made the decisions he did?


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## basilio (11 June 2013)

I think we are getting off topic here. I was trying to open debate on how far we should allow National secret service agencies to monitor what we say over the net, phones email . 

For example who controls the secret service when it isn't accountable to anyone and generally operates outside of direct parliamentary scrutiny ?


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## basilio (11 June 2013)

Just consider for example the numerous laws we have to "protect our privacy". See what happens if you attempt to use a concealed tape recorder to record a boss or business partner doing something crooked.  The act of use a concealed recording device is illegal !  And yet we have secret service organizations with a seeming cart blanche to hoover everything the can off the net/phone in giant fishing expeditions.

It's not right is it ?


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## McLovin (11 June 2013)

basilio said:


> I think we are getting off topic here. I was trying to open debate on how far we should allow National secret service agencies to monitor what we say over the net, phones email .
> 
> For example who controls the secret service when it isn't accountable to anyone and generally operates outside of direct parliamentary scrutiny ?




But isn't it all related? The more you allow overt government spying and interference, the more the government believes it has the right to introduce more covert spying.


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## basilio (11 June 2013)

Check out the interview with Edward Snowden. (While you still can)

But remember that if you do the secret service will have this action on your file and at any time this could be used to show your were sympathetic to a known terrorist and international spy - and dealt with accordingly...)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HFnORtknqVE&feature=player_embedded#!


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## Calliope (11 June 2013)

basilio said:


> Check out the interview with Edward Snowden. (While you still can)
> But remember that if you do the secret service will have this action on your file and at any time this could be used to show your were sympathetic to a known terrorist and international spy - and dealt with accordingly...)




I think we could be in danger just for reading the propaganda of a failed warmist/alarmist. Perhaps you should seek sanctuary in China or Equador...those champions of free speech.


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## DB008 (11 June 2013)

Amid Data Controversy, NSA Builds Its Biggest Data Farm
http://www.npr.org/2013/06/10/190160772/amid-data-controversy-nsa-builds-its-biggest-data-farm?utm_source=NPR&utm_medium=facebook&utm_campaign=20130610

My opinion - that is just a cover story. The NSA would have a much, much, much bigger 'data farm' hidden somewhere else...as if you'd tell the world of your greatest asset.

Back to the main story...

*US spy leaker Edward Snowden leaves Hong Kong hotel*



> An ex-CIA employee who leaked details of US top-secret phone and internet surveillance has disappeared from his hotel in Hong Kong.
> 
> Edward Snowden, 29, checked out from his hotel on Monday. His whereabouts are unknown, but he is believed to be still in Hong Kong.
> 
> ...




http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-22850901


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## Julia (11 June 2013)

basilio said:


> I think we are getting off topic here. I was trying to open debate on how far we should allow National secret service agencies to monitor what we say over the net, phones email



Oh, basilio, what a cop out from answering my questions which I maintain are absolutely relevant to the rightness or otherwise of the actions of the latest 'whistleblower'.
Would you prefer that no monitoring of communications occurs, that our government is happy for eg terrorist activity plans within Australia to go unnoticed?
Nothing is ever as simple as you seem to be proposing.  
And much as I don't like to disabuse you of the notion you have any choice in the matter, I don't think it's a matter of 'how far we should allow national agencies to monitor what we say over the net, phones, email".
Do you seriously think they are going to be interested in such as this paltry thread on a stock forum???




McLovin said:


> But isn't it all related? The more you allow overt government spying and interference, the more the government believes it has the right to introduce more covert spying.



True enough.  But where would you suggest the line be drawn?  Should governments have the right to examine what they believe to be terrorist plans against Australia?


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## McLovin (12 June 2013)

Julia said:


> True enough.  But where would you suggest the line be drawn?  Should governments have the right to examine what they believe to be terrorist plans against Australia?




Yes. But I don't think they should be allowed to trawl data endlessly in the hope of catching people planning to commit crimes. For the same reason I don't believe in having CCTV everywhere and random drug searches.


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## basilio (12 June 2013)

Julia there is always a balancing act between national security and privacy.  What Edward Snowden was doing was highlighting the total indiscriminate collection of information by national security. He doesn't go into detail in his interview but he makes it clear that there were many. many taps he was believed were  completely unjustified. In the end that is why he has effectively sacrificed his career and probably his freedom to tell us something many will find uncomfortable.

Unfortunately  anti terrorist security organizations do not get it right. Are you aware for example of how many detainees in Guantamano bay have no terrorist connections at all ? But because they have been incarcerated the authorities will not free them  because they would have to acknowledge a mistake. 

The most factual and detailed account of these errors was made by the Joint Task Force at Guantanamo Bay. You can check out the detail at Wiki leaks.  (You certainly wouldn't be able to read it otherwise would you )

And the second story highlights the trauma of an innocent person imprisoned in Guantanamo Bay  long after it is clear there has been a mistake.

http://wikileaks.org/gitmo/
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/08/opinion/sunday/my-guantanamo-nightmare.html?_r=0


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## Julia (12 June 2013)

Mclovin and Basilio, all good points, well made.


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## pixel (12 June 2013)

McLovin said:


> Yes. But I don't think they should be allowed to trawl data endlessly in the hope of catching people planning to commit crimes. For the same reason* I don't believe in having CCTV everywhere and random drug searches*.




Why not, McLovin?
CCTV can work both ways: Not only did it catch Jill Meagher's killer and identified the Boston bombers, it helps also exonerate people who are wrongfully accused of a crime. On one occasion, it confirmed my alibi, showing me at a place far away from where the offence was committed. A subsequent "closer look" at the original footage did show a vague resemblance of my doppelganger, but one significant difference that had been overlooked in the first pass even identified the real offender.

As far as Internet mining is concerned, I have no problem with a security agency trawling through the guff I write here and elsewhere. If anything, I would hope they catch the nutters that disagree with my views, before one of those nutters gets close enough to physically "disagree" with me.


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## prawn_86 (12 June 2013)

pixel said:


> If anything, I would hope they catch the nutters that disagree with my views, before one of those nutters gets close enough to physically "disagree" with me.




What if they found you to be one of those 'nutters' and had you locked up without charge?


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## basilio (12 June 2013)

The blow out after the Edward Snowden expose of the breadth of secret service surveillance continues.

All of Congress (Republicans and Democrats are angry at the  spying. Europe is also furious at the spying on its citizens. 



> "There was a letter that we were supposed to have received in 2011 but I can't find it and most of my friends in Congress did not receive this either," said New Jersey Democrat Bill Pascrell, who claimed the widespread collection of phone data amounted to "spying on Americans … This is one of the first briefings I have been to where I actually learned something."
> 
> The anger was apparent in both parties. The conservative Republican Steve King of Iowa predicted joint action from Congress would be imminent. "There is going to be a bipartisan response to this," he said.
> *
> ...



http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/12/anger-mounts-congress-telephone-surveillance-programmes


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## basilio (12 June 2013)

Excellent story on Edward Snowdens background and how he came to the decision to expose the degree of secret service surveillance across the world.  



> *Edward Snowden: the whistleblower behind the NSA surveillance revelations*
> 
> The 29-year-old source behind the biggest intelligence leak in the NSA's history explains his motives, his uncertain future and why he never intended on hiding in the shadows




http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/09/edward-snowden-nsa-whistleblower-surveillance


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## basilio (12 June 2013)

Another story looking at other whistle blowers who spoke out .







> *Edward Snowden and whistleblowers: 'The truth sets you free'*
> 
> Edward Snowden's leaks about the NSA's electronic surveillance make him one of the most damaging whistleblowers in history. But what drives loyal employees to reveal the truth? And how do they live with the backlash?
> 
> ...




http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/10/whistleblowers-snowden-truth-sets-free


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## McLovin (12 June 2013)

pixel said:


> Why not, McLovin?
> CCTV can work both ways: Not only did it catch Jill Meagher's killer and identified the Boston bombers, it helps also exonerate people who are wrongfully accused of a crime. On one occasion, it confirmed my alibi, showing me at a place far away from where the offence was committed. A subsequent "closer look" at the original footage did show a vague resemblance of my doppelganger, but one significant difference that had been overlooked in the first pass even identified the real offender.




99.9% of people are not criminals. So why should we trade the freedom to quietly go about our business for some obscure notion of security. Cases like Jill Meagher's are not a reflection of the society we live in. They are outliers that shock the community and can easily be used by nanny state proponents to further their cause (the same thing happened when Conroy was trying to install an internet filter and kept citing child pornography).

I accept that there are some places where crime rates are high and the use of cameras is warranted and well signposted, but I have zero interest in Australia becoming like Britain where you are filmed from the moment you set foot outside your house until you return.

It's the idea that whenever something bad happens and someone is inevitably outraged, we should all lose a little bit more of our personal freedom. We're being treated more and more like children everyday.


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## Zedd (12 June 2013)

McLovin said:


> We're being treated more and more like children everyday.




Chicken and egg. I would argue that we're acting more and more like children everyday, and have given the politicians a mandate to treat us like children. The issues and level of debate in our so called 'democracy' are so low that it's difficult not to become apathetic.

If these programs/capabilities were known of publicly before the last US election I imagine both major parties would have run supporting campaigns, and the POTUSA would now have a public mandate for all of it and more. As an NSA spokesman pointed out, there was "public outrage" that the intelligence agencies weren't more intrusive and therefore effective in stopping the Boston bombings.

I think as an individual, with no real access to people in power, and only one vote, the best you can do is believe in responsible and sustainable freedom, and preach it in opposition to any individual, government or religion who says otherwise. 

Don't get sucked into the paranoia, or alarmist panic, re: personal freedoms, or personal safety. DYOR.


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## DB008 (12 June 2013)




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## pixel (13 June 2013)

McLovin said:


> 99.9% of people are not criminals. So why should we trade the freedom to quietly go about our business for some obscure notion of security. Cases like Jill Meagher's are not a reflection of the society we live in. They are outliers that shock the community and can easily be used by nanny state proponents to further their cause (the same thing happened when Conroy was trying to install an internet filter and kept citing child pornography).
> 
> I accept that there are some places where crime rates are high and the use of cameras is warranted and well signposted, but I have zero interest in Australia becoming like Britain where you are filmed from the moment you set foot outside your house until you return.
> 
> It's the idea that whenever something bad happens and someone is inevitably outraged, we should all lose a little bit more of our personal freedom. We're being treated more and more like children everyday.




Well then - I suggested an alternative in my first reply:
https://www.aussiestockforums.com/f...t=26939&page=2&p=777634&viewfull=1#post777634

If you agree to match the degree of personal freedom with an equal amount of personal responsibility, then let's all act like adults and enjoy our freedom. Take away the right to freedom only from those who abuse it - including the right to live among us free people. No excuses, no compromise.

But that doesn't seem palatable to "all right-thinking, compassionate urbanites" either. Much to my astonishment, in tonight's Project on Channel 10, a Women's Advocate, when asked whether Jill's rapist and killer should be kept locked up, wriggled out of it by phantasising about "education" and teaching young boys and men how to respect women. By all means, try that too. But there are some corrupted individuals around that know how to play the system. We have to learn how to find and isolate them. If we want freedom for everybody, the only protection we must offer the 90+% who deserve it protection from those who don't.


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## McLovin (13 June 2013)

pixel said:


> Well then - I suggested an alternative in my first reply:
> https://www.aussiestockforums.com/f...t=26939&page=2&p=777634&viewfull=1#post777634




I'm not advocating total freedom (which I'm assuming is some sort of libertarian anarchist's fantasy), I'm advocating a position that says that you will never have a crime free society that is also free. Like almost everything else in life, incremental gains have larger and larger costs. In the case of crime, rather than targeting criminals the system is moving more and more to treating everyone as a potential criminal. It is moving the state from a system of enforcing laws to a system of surveilling people. Because no matter how harsh the penalties, people will commit crimes, that's just a fact of life. 

We live in one of the safest societies on Earth, so why the need for all these invasions in to our privacy by reactionary politicians, for threats that either don't exist, or whose real threat is a tiny fraction of what many are led to believe?

The government has a role in our society, but it's the encroachment of government into every facet of our lives that I object to.


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## Julia (13 June 2013)

pixel said:


> If you agree to match the degree of personal freedom with an equal amount of personal responsibility, then let's all act like adults and enjoy our freedom. Take away the right to freedom only from those who abuse it - including the right to live among us free people. No excuses, no compromise.
> 
> But that doesn't seem palatable to "all right-thinking, compassionate urbanites" either. Much to my astonishment, in tonight's Project on Channel 10, a Women's Advocate, when asked whether Jill's rapist and killer should be kept locked up, wriggled out of it by phantasising about "education" and teaching young boys and men how to respect women. By all means, try that too. But there are some corrupted individuals around that know how to play the system. We have to learn how to find and isolate them. If we want freedom for everybody, the only protection we must offer the 90+% who deserve it protection from those who don't.



I understand your point, pixel, but can it ever be as black and white as that?

We put people in jail for silly things like unpaid fines.  They're there just long enough to learn how to be criminals.  Meantime, you have someone with the appalling history of sexual and physical assault of Jill Meagher's killer who was allowed out on parole, despite demonstrating the intractable nature of his pathology.

The women's advocate to whom you refer above is typical of an ignorant bunch of feel good, 'everyone has their soul to be saved if only we're kind to them' people who will never accept that rehabilitation is not possible for everyone.


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## Julia (13 June 2013)

McLovin said:


> The government has a role in our society, but it's the encroachment of government into every facet of our lives that I object to.



Do you see any difference in this regard between Labor and Liberal governments, McLovin?


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## pixel (13 June 2013)

Julia said:


> I understand your point, pixel, but can it ever be as black and white as that?
> 
> We put people in jail for silly things like unpaid fines.  They're there just long enough to learn how to be criminals.  Meantime, you have someone with the appalling history of sexual and physical assault of Jill Meagher's killer who was allowed out on parole, despite demonstrating the intractable nature of his pathology.
> 
> The women's advocate to whom you refer above is typical of an ignorant bunch of feel good, 'everyone has their soul to be saved if only we're kind to them' people who will never accept that rehabilitation is not possible for everyone.




In reply to both of you, Julia and McLovin:

No, it's not black AND white, but IMHO it's black OR white.
We can't have the best of both worlds, just as we can't be a little bit pregnant.

I would prefer a truly minimalist government, one that creates a framework with simple *rules that can be controlled and enforced*. If they can't be enforced, it's foolish to set them in the first place because most "normal" people will get used to ignoring them - and extrapolate that experience to other areas.
The minimalist approach does however require a population of mature adults, who know their responsibilities and accept the consequences of their actions. Even more so, who pass this attitude on to the next generation and accept responsibility for their offspring's misdemeanours as well. Some kids needed a little more head-butting to "get it", but they certainly knew when they had strayed - and remembered the unpleasant consequences next time a similar temptation came around. 

Strange as it may sound, I can still remember a time when that attitude prevailed throughout most of our country. ... and then, the lunatic fringe became aware that squealing and threatening to vote the other way were successful means for getting ahead ... That's when things went off the rails and legislation became so complex that not even QCs can figure out why it's OK to call a red-headed person an ape (as in o*Ranga*Tan), but a punishable offence when used against a dark-haired one.

As a consequence, there are more and more law violations clogging the courts, and offenders filling the jails, that there isn't enough time to prosecute the serious offenders, nor enough space to keep THEM away from their innocent victims. And were one to suggest that human vermin like the Boston bombers or Jill Meagher's killer ought to be eliminated without excuses or parole, the outcry from the bleeding heart brigade would be utterly predictable.

Above all else, I do believe that we have already reached the point of no return: We have wrapped our kids in protective padding and surrounded them by laws that ensure nothing can dent their fragile psyche or lanky bodies, no matter how dumb they act. If a kid falls off a swing and scratches a knee, sue the Shire Council because they didn't put foam rubber all around! If a kid runs into a car, sue the driver because he drove 41 in a school zone!

Now it would be unfair to expect responsibility and self-control from young adults. As a logical consequence of the proliferation of laws that protect everybody from every possible adversity, the government has to make sure that nobody violates those laws and bullies, harasses, offends openly or in a clandestine manner. And how better make sure of that than capturing city traffic on CCTV tapes and social twitter twaddle on backup copies. The latter is no different to the practice used by banks, credit agencies, even supermarkets, of keeping track of our financial transactions, purchases, and shopping preferences. Not many complain about that kind of snooping, yet it has a far greater effect on our lives.


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## Julia (13 June 2013)

Great post, pixel.  The best summary of the miserable position of our society I've read in some time.


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## johenmo (14 June 2013)

Reading this thread, I think of "for What It's worth" by Buffalo Springfield.  There's no doubt time & society is changing so conventional rules of making a country safe don't cut it anymore. The balance of rights vs. responsibility has, IMO, shifted to favour rights over responsibilities.  People's views generally change when an incident affects them, like Pixel mentions about CCTV.

The balance of "Govt" rule over our lives is unbalanced.  They interfere with rules over things like pool fences (a topic dear to my heart) yet are powerless because of personal freedom/rights for criminal organisations (like bikies).  CCTV is a good thing in a country like ours atm, whereas it's no so good in some other countries (which I won't name because this is undoubtedly being monitored as I'm sure I am a "person of interest").  I believe the police need to have their rights upheld, not undermined but they would also be hammered should they abuse it.  

Some people need to be saved from themselves, let alone saving others from them.  I'd rather be monitored more and be able to walk where I want (a right) rather than have to avoid areas or have to be wary of being attacked.  
Why should some (possibly drunk/drugged/racist) yob(s) have the freedom to attack someone over that person's freedom to go about their business without fear?  

Some people need to be saved from themselves, let alone saving others from them.


----------



## prawn_86 (14 June 2013)

"Why ‘I Have Nothing to Hide’ Is the Wrong Way to Think About Surveillance" - http://www.wired.com/opinion/2013/0...is-the-wrong-way-to-think-about-surveillance/


----------



## basilio (14 June 2013)

Its a long read but if you would like to lean more about the size,complexity and capacity of the american surveillance capcity this story is a beauty.
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/06/general-keith-alexander-cyberwar/all/


----------



## DB008 (15 June 2013)

*U.S. Agencies Said to Swap Data With Thousands of Firms*

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-06-14/u-s-agencies-said-to-swap-data-with-thousands-of-firms.html?y



> Thousands of technology, finance and manufacturing companies are working closely with U.S. national security agencies, providing sensitive information and in return receiving benefits that include access to classified intelligence, four people familiar with the process said.
> 
> These programs, whose participants are known as trusted partners, extend far beyond what was revealed by Edward Snowden, a computer technician who did work for the National Security Agency. The role of private companies has come under intense scrutiny since his disclosure this month that the NSA is collecting millions of U.S. residents’ telephone records and the computer communications of foreigners from Google Inc (GOOG). and other Internet companies under court order.
> 
> ...






Some funny memes coming out from all of this...


----------



## DB008 (16 June 2013)

Look at the lump in his throat when he finishes the sentence....


----------



## DB008 (17 June 2013)

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2013/06/16/snowden-whistleblower-nsa-officials-roundtable/2428809/


----------



## basilio (18 June 2013)

DB008 said:


> http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2013/06/16/snowden-whistleblower-nsa-officials-roundtable/2428809/




Thanks for that DBOO8.  

Exceptionally good story from 3 ex NSA officials who tried to go the official way in raising concerns about illegal data collection.

Poor bastards ended up being charged with espionage and didn't get any traction with the evidence they were raiding.

Well worth a read IMO.


----------



## basilio (18 June 2013)

Chris Berg from the Institute of Public Affairs offers his view on the current surveillance scandel.  He believes it is a dangerous, unaccountable disaster.


> *US surveillance scandal just the tip of the iceberg*
> 
> Date
> June 16, 2013
> ...


----------



## DB008 (22 June 2013)

Brits are in on it too. But really, who are we kidding, it's not as if most of us didn't have an inkling that anything put on/through the internet wasn't spied on.

*GCHQ taps fibre-optic cables for secret access to world's communications*



> Exclusive: British spy agency collects and stores vast quantities of global email messages, Facebook posts, internet histories and calls, and shares them with NSA, latest documents from Edward Snowden reveal




http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2013/jun/21/gchq-cables-secret-world-communications-nsa?CMP=twt_gu


----------



## DB008 (22 June 2013)

Not sure where to put this one (here or breaking news).

*U.S. charges Snowden with espionage*

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/us-charges-snowden-with-espionage/2013/06/21/507497d8-dab1-11e2-a016-92547bf094cc_story.html



> Federal prosecutors have filed a criminal complaint against Edward Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor who leaked a trove of documents about top-secret surveillance programs, and the United States has asked Hong Kong to detain him on a provisional arrest warrant, according to U.S. officials.
> 
> Snowden was charged with theft, “unauthorized communication of national defense information” and “willful communication of classified communications intelligence information to an unauthorized person,” according to the complaint. The last two charges were brought under the 1917 Espionage Act.


----------



## DB008 (23 June 2013)

Snowden has left Hong Kong. He is on a Aeroflot flight to Moscow right now. Reports coming out that Moscow is just a stepping stone to Iceland.


----------



## Calliope (24 June 2013)

DB008 said:


> Snowden has left Hong Kong. He is on a Aeroflot flight to Moscow right now. Reports coming out that Moscow is just a stepping stone to Iceland.




Ecuador is the country of choice for those fleeing from justice. The world's most anti-American country and with no freedom of speech. Why do so-called advocates of freedom of speech find it so attractive?



> NSA whistle blower Edward Snowden is on the move, requesting asylum in Ecuador after fleeing Hong Kong and heading to Russia. Snowden is believed to be travelling on to Havana next, before eventually arriving in his  destination of Caracas, Venezuela, later today. However, the whistleblower wasn't spotted emerging from the plane, with some passengers telling waiting media they believe he was whisked away by a waiting black car.


----------



## Calliope (25 June 2013)

If Ecuador can snatch Snowden then it will have a matching pair. They can then start a breeding program. In no time at all, the country will be overrun with little hackers.


----------



## DB008 (28 June 2013)

*Ex-Pentagon general target of leak investigation, sources say
*http://investigations.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/06/27/19174350-ex-pentagon-general-target-of-leak-investigation-sources-say?lite



*Ecuador offers U.S. rights aid, waives trade benefits*
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/06/27/us-usa-security-ecuador-idUSBRE95Q0L820130627


> (Reuters) - Ecuador's leftist government thumbed its nose at Washington on Thursday by renouncing U.S. trade benefits and offering to pay for human rights training in America in response to pressure over asylum for former intelligence contractor Edward Snowden.
> 
> The angry response threatens a showdown between the two nations over Snowden, and may burnish President Rafael Correa's credentials to be the continent's principal challenger of U.S. power after the death of Venezuelan socialist leader Hugo Chavez.


----------



## DB008 (28 June 2013)

Forgot to add this

Greenwald: Snowden’s Files Are Out There if ‘Anything Happens’ to Him



> As the U.S. government presses Moscow to extradite former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden, America’s most wanted leaker has a plan B. The former NSA systems administrator has already given encoded files containing an archive of the secrets he lifted from his old employer to several people. If anything happens to Snowden, the files will be unlocked.
> 
> Glenn Greenwald, the Guardian journalist who Snowden first contacted in February, told The Daily Beast on Tuesday that Snowden “has taken extreme precautions to make sure many different people around the world have these archives to insure the stories will inevitably be published.” Greenwald added that the people in possession of these files “cannot access them yet because they are highly encrypted and they do not have the passwords.” But, Greenwald said, “if anything happens at all to Edward Snowden, he told me he has arranged for them to get access to the full archives.”
> 
> ...




Link is in header


----------



## Calliope (29 June 2013)

Now we know why Ecuador is such an attractive country for free speech loving hackers/spies like Assange and Snowden.



> THE intelligence agency of Ecuador appears to have sought in recent months to obtain new equipment for a large-scale surveillance, according to confidential government documents obtained by BuzzFeed. The capabilities sought by Ecuador resemble the National Security Agency practices revealed by Edward Snowden, who is reportedly seeking asylum in the left-leaning Latin American republic. The Ecuadorian documents - stamped "Secret" - obtained by BuzzFeed ... suggest a commitment to domestic surveillance that rivals the practices by the US National Security Agency that are at the centre of a fierce national debate. They include both covert surveillance capacities and the targeting of President Rafael Correa's enemies on social media.




http://www.buzzfeed.com/rosiegray/exclusive-documents-illuminate-ecuadors-spying-practices



A supporter of Edward Snowden holds a sign outside the Embassy of Ecuador in London June 24.


----------



## DB008 (30 June 2013)

Europeans aren't happy about this one.

*U.S. bugged EU offices, computer networks: German magazine*



> (Reuters) - The United States has bugged European Union offices and gained access to EU internal computer networks, according to secret documents cited in a German magazine on Saturday, the latest in a series of exposures of alleged U.S. spy programs.
> 
> Der Spiegel quoted from a September 2010 "top secret" U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) document that it said fugitive former NSA contractor Edward Snowden had taken with him, and the weekly's journalists had seen in part.
> 
> ...





http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/06/29/us-usa-eu-spying-idUSBRE95S0AQ20130629


----------



## DB008 (2 July 2013)

E. Snowden statement on Wikileaks



> Monday July 1, 21:40 UTC
> 
> One week ago I left Hong Kong after it became clear that my freedom and safety were under threat for revealing the truth. My continued liberty has been owed to the efforts of friends new and old, family, and others who I have never met and probably never will. I trusted them with my life and they returned that trust with a faith in me for which I will always be thankful.
> 
> ...




http://wikileaks.org/Statement-from-Edward-Snowden-in.html?snow


----------



## CanOz (2 July 2013)

Calliope said:


> If Ecuador can snatch Snowden then it will have a matching pair. They can then start a breeding program. In no time at all, the country will be overrun with little hackers.




You seem to think, for some reason...that these guys are computer hackers? That they ruthlessly hacked this information from some data base or something???

Please explain?

CanOz


----------



## basilio (3 July 2013)

Very strong statement from Edward Snowdens. 

I thought the most powerful comment made was at the end of the letter and bears repeating.



> *"In the end, the Obama administration is not afraid of whistleblowers like me, Bradley Manning or Thomas Drake," he said. "We are stateless, imprisoned or powerless. No, the Obama administration is afraid of you.
> 
> "It is afraid of an informed, angry public demanding the constitutional government it was promised – and it should be. I am unbowed in my convictions and impressed at the efforts taken by so many."*




- - - Updated - - -

Edward Snowdens father has come out ion support of what is son has done. Very strong letter released by his lawyer.




> *Edward Snowden's father writes open letter to NSA whistleblower in Moscow*
> 
> *Lon Snowden pens open letter with his attorney in response to a statement issued by his son Edward Snowden from Moscow
> *
> ...




http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jul/02/edward-snowden-father-open-letter


----------



## basilio (3 July 2013)

What America wants America gets.

It seems that the plane taking the President of Boliva back home from Russia was forced to land in Austia becasue it was denied clearance to go through French and Portugese air space.

The Yanks think Snowden is on board.




> *Bolivian leader's plane rerouted on Snowden fear*
> By CARLOS VALDEZ
> ”” Jul. 2 8:37 PM EDT
> 
> ...




Nothing like trashing diplomatic immunity in the name of catching someone you desperately want.

And does anyone seriously think Julian Assange won't be swept out of Sweden 10 seconds after he lands? 

http://bigstory.ap.org/article/bolivian-leaders-plane-rerouted-snowden-fear


----------



## DB008 (3 July 2013)

The chain of events from this Snowden scandal will surely be made into a main-stream movie one day.

This just gets better and better.


*Bolivian leader slams Snowden rumour*



> The Bolivian president's plane was forced to divert to Austria after it was denied airspace over a rumour Edward Snowden was on board, sparking a row.US fugitive Edward Snowden's struggle to find a safe haven has sparked a diplomatic row after Bolivian President Evo Morales's plane was diverted to Austria over suspicions he might be on board.
> 
> The incident happened on Tuesday just hours after Morales had said his country would consider a request for political asylum if Snowden submitted one.
> 
> ...





*Bug Found in Ecuador’s Embassy in London*


> HAVANA TIMES ”” Ecuador’s Foreign Minister, Ricardo PatiÃ±o, reported today that a bug was found in the main office of the Ecuadorian embassy in London. He said that on Wednesday an announcement is forthcoming as to who owns that device.
> 
> Patino said the microphone was detected a few days ago, but it had not been announced while the investigation as to whom it belonged to was underway.  He said that information has been verified and would be made public tomorrow.
> 
> ...


----------



## DB008 (4 July 2013)

Some funny memes going around....


----------



## CanOz (5 July 2013)

I don't have much sympathy for the American people on this one really. They allowed the republicans to push through these laws, legalized this invasion of privacy...as a result of 911. Now, after the democrats are in office, one guy decides to spill the beans....so far king what! 

The American people are getting what they voted for. Thier fat, lazy, corrupt congressman must be having a great laugh at thier constituents expense, again.

CanOz


----------



## basilio (6 July 2013)

The Defense Department in USA has blocked access to The Guardian for all defence employees. They don't want members of the armed forces to learn any specific details about the disclosures Edward Snowden has made of  almost universal surveillance by NSA.



> The Defense Department Is Blocking the Army from Reading the Guardian
> 
> By Meghan Neal
> No embarrassing news reports in the Pentagon, please. Via
> ...





_"Keep them in the dark and feed them BS "_


----------



## banco (6 July 2013)

basilio said:


> The Defense Department in USA has blocked access to The Guardian for all defence employees. They don't want members of the armed forces to learn any specific details about the disclosures Edward Snowden has made of  almost universal surveillance by NSA.
> 
> 
> 
> ...




They either think their members are dumb enough that they can't find the Guardian website outside work or it's pointless symbolism.


----------



## DB008 (11 July 2013)

*Artist protesting against U.S. surveillance with "lysgraffitti"*





The U.S. embassy in Berlin was Sunday night illuminated by an activist and artist's reaction to the recent revelations about American surveillance.




> A German artist lit up the American Embassy in Berlin with the inscription "United Stasi of America." He would put the spotlight on the U.S. surveillance which he believes can be compared with the Stasi.
> 
> Edward Snow Its revelations about American surveillance and the so called PRISM program has provoked many reactions worldwide. In Germany, government monitoring a sensitive subject that evokes memories of the Nazis and the East German secret police Stasi methods.
> 
> ...




Link


----------



## DB008 (13 July 2013)

PBS Frontline (an American program) does some very good documentaries.

'Top Secret America'

Video here - Daily Motion http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xr8v44_frontline-top-secret-america_shortfilms#.UeDglT788WU

'Spying on the Home-Front'
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/homefront/view/


----------



## DB008 (13 July 2013)

Go Telstra

*Telstra storing data on behalf of US government*



> Telstra agreed more than a decade ago to store huge volumes of electronic communications it carried between Asia and America for potential surveillance by United States intelligence agencies.
> 
> Under the previously secret agreement, the telco was required to route all communications involving a US point of contact through a secure storage facility on US soil that was staffed exclusively by US citizens carrying a top-level security clearance.
> 
> ...





http://www.canberratimes.com.au/it-pro/security-it/telstra-storing-data-on-behalf-of-us-government-20130712-hv0w4.html


----------



## DB008 (14 July 2013)

Hmm....

"Parking enforcement" ???


----------



## basilio (15 July 2013)

The rule of Law...

How have we reached the stage where  one country can create its own kill list of suspected enemies and then systematically hunt and kill them around the world? 

How would we respond if 

a) Scores(hundreds) or innocent people were also killed by mistake/accident
b) The hunted became the hunters and started retaliating.

This is a long story but highlights how far we have gone from concepts like trials, evidence and justice. 



> *
> Obama's secret kill list – the disposition matrix
> *
> *The disposition matrix is a complex grid of suspected terrorists to be traced then targeted in drone strikes or captured and interrogated. And the British government appears to be colluding in it
> ...




http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jul/14/obama-secret-kill-list-disposition-matrix


----------



## sydboy007 (16 July 2013)

Should a Government be allowed to send our troops off to a war on the other side of the world when there is no direct threat to Australia, where it is questionable if the troops are going in against international law, and when millions took to the streets over a few weekends to protest against it?  I certainly don't think so, but Johnny Howard didn't agree with me.

I know sometimes Governments have to take the unpopular decision as it is the right thing to do, but they are public servants and at the end of the day if you haven't been able to convince the majority that what you are doing is good for the country, then maybe you need to take a step back and work a bit harder on getting people to follow than on taking unilateral actions.


----------



## basilio (17 July 2013)

I came across a detailed analysis of the way the Edward Snowden situation has evolved and lengths to which the US will go to chase down Snowden and  scare any other potential whistle blowers  into silence.

Sobering stuff.



> * Tomgram: Engelhardt, Can Edward Snowden Be Deterred?*
> Posted by Tom Engelhardt	at 8:05am, July 16, 2013.
> Follow TomDispatch on Twitter @TomDispatch.
> Email Print
> ...




http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175...m_term=0_1e41682ade-458b95a0c6-308749913#more


----------



## DB008 (8 August 2013)

*Unhappy With U.S. Foreign Policy? Pentagon Says You Might Be A 'High Threat'*

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/07/insider-threat-training_n_3714333.html




> A security training test created by a Defense Department agency warns federal workers that they should consider the hypothetical Indian-American woman a "high threat" because she frequently visits family abroad, has money troubles and "speaks openly of unhappiness with U.S. foreign policy."
> 
> That slide, from the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA), is a startling demonstration of the Obama administration's obsession with leakers and other "insider threats." One goal of its broader "Insider Threat" program is to stop the next Bradley Manning or Edward Snowden from spilling classified or sensitive information.
> 
> But critics have charged that the Insider Threat program, as McClatchy first reported, treats leakers acting in the public interest as traitors -- and may not even accomplish its goal of preventing classified leaks.


----------



## basilio (19 August 2013)

The abuse of anti terror laws to intimidate dissent is well and truly out.  And it demonstrates just how close we are to a Stasi State.

The big story in England is the detention and  questioning of Glenn Greenwalds partner David Miranda under the Anti Terrorism Act. Short story is he was pulled out at Heathrow on his way home to Brazil and questioned for 9 hours before the security officials confiscated his mobile phone, laptop, camera, memory sticks, DVDs and games consoles.

No lawyer, can't refuse to answer questions no names. All under anti Terrorism legislation supposedly directed to people wanting to blow up trains. buildings ect.




> *
> Glenn Greenwald's partner detained at Heathrow airport for nine hours
> *
> David Miranda, partner of Guardian interviewer of whistleblower Edward Snowden, questioned under Terrorism Act
> ...





And what was Glen Greenwalds response ? Absolutely  xxxxxing furious. And totally undeterred.  Worth picking  a few comments out.



> This is obviously a rather profound escalation of their attacks on the news-gathering process and journalism. It's bad enough to prosecute and imprison sources. It's worse still to imprison journalists who report the truth. But *to start detaining the family members and loved ones of journalists is simply despotic. Even the Mafia had ethical rules against targeting the family members of people they felt threatened by*. But the UK puppets and their owners in the US national security state obviously are unconstrained by even those minimal scruples.
> 
> *If the UK and US governments believe that tactics like this are going to deter or intimidate us in any way from continuing to report aggressively on what these documents reveal, they are beyond deluded.* If anything, it will have only the opposite effect: to embolden us even further. Beyond that, *every time the US and UK governments show their true character to the world - when they prevent the Bolivian President's plane from flying safely home, when they threaten journalists with prosecution, when they engage in behavior like what they did today - all they do is helpfully underscore why it's so dangerous to allow them to exercise vast, unchecked spying power in the dark.*





 Crazy , crazy courage


> *
> Detaining my partner: a failed attempt at intimidation*
> 
> The detention of my partner, David Miranda, by UK authorities will have the opposite effect of the one intended




http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/18/david-miranda-detained-uk-nsa


----------



## basilio (19 August 2013)

And just to update folks on what the NSA is doing regarding snooping on people.

Apparently they are searching and copying every email that enters or leaves the US.  No discrimination, search warrants, or cause to suspect. 



> *The NSA is turning the internet into a total surveillance system*
> 
> Now we know all Americans' international email is searched and saved, we can see how far the 'collect it all' mission has gone
> 
> ...



http://www.theguardian.com/commenti...ernet-surveillance-email?INTCMP=ILCNETTXT3487


----------



## DB008 (6 September 2013)

Reports: NSA Has Keys To Most Internet Encryption




> The National Security Agency has the keys to most Internet encryption methods and it has gotten them by using supercomputers to break them and by enlisting the help of private IT companies, The New York Times and The Guardian are reporting.
> 
> In plain English, this means that many of the tools ”” like TLS, used by many banks and email providers ”” that people worldwide have come to believe protect them from snooping by criminals and governments are essentially worthless when it comes to the NSA.
> 
> ...




http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2013/09/05/219367716/reports-nsa-has-keys-to-most-internet-encryption


----------



## Whiskers (6 September 2013)

Legalise bribes and corrupt payments, or at least divert it from public officials into consolidated revenue. 



> Australia's richest person, Gina Rinehart, says non-violent prisoners should be allowed to pay their way out of jail.
> 
> Ms Rinehart, who owns 15 per cent of Fairfax Media, said Australia should follow the lead of US state Texas and look for ways to reduce the number of people imprisoned at taxpayers' expense.
> 
> ...




... and if that fails, just let more out of jail earlier to avoid building new jails to accommodate more criminals... a-la California.


----------



## sydboy007 (6 September 2013)

Whiskers said:


> Legalise bribes and corrupt payments, or at least divert it from public officials into consolidated revenue.
> 
> 
> 
> ... and if that fails, just let more out of jail earlier to avoid building new jails to accommodate more criminals... a-la California.




Already happens - if you're rich

Insider traders get piddly fines for the value of their trades, rarely if ever sent to jail.  The CEO of Gunns recently received a small $50K fine for insider trading when he sold off $3M of shares - they eventually became worthless.  Why wouldn't you take advantage of inside knowledge when the downside is so small.

The Opes Prime director just got found not guilty for using his position to benefit himself.

I'd prefer more effort on rehabilitation.  Free TAFE training for someone willing to take the chance works out far cheaper than a few months in a minimal security prison.


----------



## DB008 (8 September 2013)

*NSA surveillance: A guide to staying secure*



> The NSA has huge capabilities – and if it wants in to your computer, it's in. With that in mind, here are five ways to stay safe
> 
> Now that we have enough details about how the NSA eavesdrops on the internet, including today's disclosures of the NSA's deliberate weakening of cryptographic systems, we can finally start to figure out how to protect ourselves.
> 
> ...




http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/05/nsa-how-to-remain-secure-surveillance


----------



## DB008 (12 September 2013)

*Yahoo CEO Mayer: we faced jail if we revealed NSA surveillance secrets*



> Mark Zuckerberg joins Mayer in hitting back at critics of tech companies, saying US government did 'bad job' of balancing people's privacy and duty to protect
> 
> Marissa Mayer, the CEO of Yahoo, and Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook struck back on Wednesday at critics who have charged tech companies with doing too little to fight off NSA surveillance. Mayer said executives faced jail if they revealed government secrets.
> 
> ...




http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/sep/11/yahoo-ceo-mayer-jail-nsa-surveillance


----------



## DB008 (19 September 2013)

*Linus Torvalds Talks Linux Development at LinuxCon*



> *NSA Backdoor*
> 
> Torvalds was also asked if he had ever been approached by the U.S. government to insert a backdoor into Linux.
> 
> Torvalds responded "no" while shaking his head "yes," as the audience broke into spontaneous laughter.



http://www.eweek.com/developer/linus-torvalds-talks-linux-development-at-linuxcon.html#sthash.Si8LXq1Z.dpuf


----------



## DB008 (6 October 2013)

Worthy of a read

*How the Owner of the Company That Handled Edward Snowden's Encrypted Emails Courageously Stood Up to the Feds' Massive Investigation*


http://www.alternet.org/civil-liberties/lavabit-blocked-fbi-court-records-find?paging=off&current_page=1#bookmark


----------



## DB008 (8 October 2013)

*Australia prepared briefing on US global internet spying program PRISM before Snowden revelations*




> Documents obtained under Freedom of Information laws show the Federal Government knew about the secret US internet spying program PRISM months before a whistleblower made details public.
> 
> The Attorney-General's Department prepared a secret briefing about PRISM in March, two months before former National Security Agency (NSA) contractor Edward Snowden leaked information on the global spying program to The Guardian newspaper.
> 
> ...




http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-10-08/australia-prepared-briefing-on-prism-spying-program/5004290


----------



## johenmo (9 October 2013)

NOT CLAIM TRAVEL EXPENSES SO EASILY...

I leaves me speechless (but, sadly, not surprised) that they can claim ski holidays and then state it was "a mistake".    I have been claiming expenses for 30 years and one knows when an expense is legitimate.  Anyone here have knowledge of the system/process?  Who actually approves the claims?  The approvers are as much to blame.

I don't have an issue if they travel for legitimate reasons and add on some time for personal reasons - at their own expense.  All the companies I worked for have been OK with it - I pay all the expenses for those days.


----------



## basilio (9 October 2013)

> Anyone here have knowledge of the system/process? Who actually approves the claims? The approvers are as much to blame.




Its a really dodgy area.  Both major parties colluded to cover up the processes of allowing claims. Check out the following story for more details.



> *
> Expense claims kept secret: a team effort by Labor and the Coalition*
> 
> It took just three minutes for both major parties to exempt three key departments from freedom of information scrutiny
> ...




http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2013/oct/08/expense-claims-kept-secret


----------



## basilio (16 October 2013)

Back to governments that spy on their citizens in the name of freedom. (That  does have a great ring doesn't it ?)

Apparently the next big concern on NSA is compromised computer hardware.  In simple terms they are concerned about computers in which hardware items have already been constructed to allow secret external access.

Turns out this is pretty much what they have already been doing and fear another country might get in on the act.


> *
> US fears back-door routes into the net because it's building them too*
> 
> If the Snowden revelations have taught us anything, it's that the NSA has been up to the sort of covert practices it claims to be so concerned about
> ...




http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/oct/13/us-scared-back-door-routes-computers-snowden-nsa


----------



## basilio (16 October 2013)

More revelations about the power of the State and the willingness to use the police force to intimidate workers.



> *
> Police colluded in secret plan to blacklist 3,200 building workers*
> 
> *IPCC tells lawyers representing victims it is likely that all special branches were involved in providing information*
> ...




http://www.theguardian.com/business/2013/oct/12/police-blacklist-construction-workers-watchdog

Perhaps we can look forward to seeing a rerun in Australia soon.


----------



## Calliope (24 October 2013)

Angela Merkel is not happy.



> GERMAN Chancellor Angela Merkel has demanded answers from US President Barack Obama after learning US spies may have monitored her phone, warning this would be "breach of trust" between allies.
> 
> The White House, rattled by the latest exposure based on leaks from intelligence contractor Edward Snowden, said it is not now listening in on Ms Merkel, but did not deny the possibility her communications may have been intercepted in the past.








- See more at: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/new...y-e6frg6so-1226745679612#sthash.9nRKxxJo.dpuf


----------



## basilio (25 October 2013)

So at least Angela Merkel wasn't the only one being bugged. Apparently the NDSA routinely bugs all the world leaders and asks its officials to provide all phone numbers they obtain in their  work.

Just part of Snowdens cache of information. No wonder  the US went apoplectic.

_____________________________________________________________________________________-

So how would the US respond if it became public that another country was bugging the phones of the President and senior administration ?  I think a short sharp war or perhaps an "accident" if it was too  difficult to be be made public. 



> *NSA monitored calls of 35 world leaders after US official handed over contacts*
> 
> • Agency given more than 200 numbers by government official
> • NSA encourages departments to share their 'Rolodexes'
> ...




http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/oct/24/nsa-surveillance-world-leaders-calls


----------



## Knobby22 (25 October 2013)

If Snowden ever gets caught, I will pity him greatly.


----------



## basilio (25 October 2013)

One can certainly understand why US was furious and terrified about the leaks.

The real damage seems to be the trashing of their relationships with their allies by exposure of the spying they have been routinely doing. It it's also certain that  many countries economic interests will have been compromised with the US knowing their stance on trade and investment deals. Those trade talks are very intense...
_______________________________________________________________________________________

I think there is a real risk that the US will lose its leadership in world economic affairs over this issue. As I see it there could easily be a reassessment by the European countries of how they deal with the US. In particular one could see a questioning of the role of the dollar as an international point of reference and a reassessment of how many American dollars countries want to hold as assets.

It will be interesting to to see how China responds diplomatically to the changing scene. They are very astute diplomats and I think there could easily be a shift in international focus to the Asian/Chinese sphere.


----------



## DB008 (25 October 2013)

Surprised?

*NSA monitored calls of 35 world leaders after US official handed over contacts*



> The National Security Agency monitored the phone conversations of 35 world leaders after being given the numbers by an official in another US government department, according to a classified document provided by whistleblower Edward Snowden.
> 
> The confidential memo reveals that the NSA encourages senior officials in its "customer" departments, such as the White House, State and the Pentagon, to share their "Rolodexes" so the agency can add the phone numbers of leading foreign politicians to their surveillance systems.
> 
> ...




http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/oct/24/nsa-surveillance-world-leaders-calls


----------



## DB008 (31 October 2013)

*NSA infiltrates links to Yahoo, Google data centers worldwide, Snowden documents say*




> The National Security Agency has secretly broken into the main communications links that connect Yahoo and Google data centers around the world, according to documents obtained from former NSA contractor Edward Snowden and interviews with knowledgeable officials.
> 
> By tapping those links, the agency has positioned itself to collect at will from hundreds of millions of user accounts, many of them belonging to Americans. The NSA does not keep everything it collects, but it keeps a lot.
> 
> ...




http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/nsa-infiltrates-links-to-yahoo-google-data-centers-worldwide-snowden-documents-say/2013/10/30/e51d661e-4166-11e3-8b74-d89d714ca4dd_story.html


----------



## basilio (13 November 2013)

For anyone still interested in the depth and width of the US surveillance program check out the following story.

Absorbing reading



> *Mistaking Omniscience for Omnipotence*
> In a World Without Privacy, There Are No Exemptions for Our Spies
> By Tom Engelhardt
> 
> Given how similar they sound and how easy it is to imagine one leading to the other, confusing omniscience (having total knowledge) with omnipotence (having total power) is easy enough.  It’s a reasonable supposition that, before the Snowden revelations hit, America’s spymasters had made just that mistake.  If the drip-drip-drip of Snowden’s mother of all leaks -- which began in May and clearly won’t stop for months to come -- has taught us anything, however, it should be this: omniscience is not omnipotence.  At least on the global political scene today, they may bear remarkably little relation to each other.  In fact, at the moment Washington seems to be operating in a world in which the more you know about the secret lives of others, the less powerful you turn out to be.




http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175771/tomgram:_engelhardt,_a_surveillance_state_scorecard/#more


----------



## DB008 (14 November 2013)

*In Lavabit Appeal, U.S. Doubles Down on Access to Web Crypto Keys*



> A U.S. email provider can promise its users all the security and privacy it wants; it still has to do whatever it takes to give the government access.
> 
> That’s the gist of the Justice Department’s 60-page appellate brief in the Lavabit surveillance case, filed today in the U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Virginia.
> 
> ...




http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/11/lavabit-doj/


----------



## basilio (19 November 2013)

A new twist to the capacity of governments to spy on everyone, everywhere all of the time.

Turns out it is private industry that is offering countries all the tricks and tools to catch up with teh Yanks , Brits ect. 



> *Private firms selling mass surveillance systems around world, documents show*
> One Dubai-based firm offers DIY system similar to GCHQ's Tempora programme, which taps fibre-optic cables
> Beta
> 
> ...




http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/nov/18/private-firms-mass-surveillance-technologies


----------



## DB008 (30 December 2013)

*Inside TAO: Documents Reveal Top NSA Hacking Unit*




> The NSA's TAO hacking unit is considered to be the intelligence agency's top secret weapon. It maintains its own covert network, infiltrates computers around the world and even intercepts shipping deliveries to plant back doors in electronics ordered by those it is targeting.






> *On-Call Digital Plumbers*
> 
> One of the two main buildings at the former plant has since housed a sophisticated NSA unit, one that has benefited the most from this expansion and has grown the fastest in recent years -- the Office of Tailored Access Operations, or TAO. This is the NSA's top operative unit -- something like a squad of plumbers that can be called in when normal access to a target is blocked.
> 
> ...




http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/the-nsa-uses-powerful-toolbox-in-effort-to-spy-on-global-networks-a-940969.html


----------



## DB008 (6 January 2014)

Interesting.

Looks like the yanks want their fingers in every pie there is...



*French-UAE Intel Satellite Deal in Doubt*



> DUBAI AND PARIS ”” A United Arab Emirates (UAE) deal to purchase two intelligence satellites from France worth almost 3.4 billion dirhams (US $930 million) is in jeopardy after the discovery of what was described as “security compromising components.”
> 
> A high-level UAE source said the two high-resolution Pleiades-type Falcon Eye military observation satellites contained two specific US-supplied components that provide a back door to the highly secure data transmitted to the ground station.




http://www.defensenews.com/article/20140105/DEFREG04/301050006


----------



## basilio (6 January 2014)

> DUBAI AND PARIS ”” A United Arab Emirates (UAE) deal to purchase two intelligence satellites from France worth almost 3.4 billion dirhams (US $930 million) is in jeopardy after the discovery of what was described as “security compromising components.”
> 
> A high-level UAE source said the two high-resolution Pleiades-type Falcon Eye military observation satellites contained two specific US-supplied components that provide a back door to the highly secure data transmitted to the ground station.




Surprise, surprise , surprise.

Big Brother certainly wants to keep an eye on everyone doesn't he?

Mind you it would be *AN ACT OF WAR* if anyone else was discovered to be doing exactly the same stuff to the good ol boys ..


----------



## basilio (8 January 2014)

So how far can the cops go in chasing suspected druggies ?


> *
> Anal Probes And The Drug War: A Look At The Ethical And Legal Issues*
> 
> By Radley Balko Posted: 11/12/2013 8:42 am EST  |  Updated: 11/12/2013 9:07 am EST
> ...



http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/11/anal-probes-and-the-drug-_n_4254600.html


----------



## basilio (19 March 2014)

*Are we the lucky country to have 100% phone taps ?*

 Edward Snowden left NASA when he became aware of just how far they intended to infiltrate the lives of literally every person on earth. His cache of documents is being systematically reviewed and released. This is his latest story



> *NSA surveillance program reaches ‘into the past’ to retrieve, replay phone calls*
> 
> 
> By Barton Gellman and Ashkan Soltani, Wednesday, March 19, 2:37 AM E-mail the writers
> ...


----------



## DB008 (19 March 2014)

Nancy Pelosi Admits That Congress Is Scared Of The CIA



> Over the past few months, one thing we keep hearing over and over again from defenders of the intelligence community is that everything is under control and "legal" because Congress has powerful oversight. We've shown, repeatedly, how that's something of a joke. The intelligence community has lied repeatedly, has withheld documents and is generally nonresponsive to oversight attempts by Congress. And, with the reports that the CIA spied on the Senate Intelligence Committee, we also find out that for all the bluster and talk of oversight, folks in Congress are actually scared by the intelligence community.
> 
> In response to Senator Dianne Feinstein's speech last week calling out the CIA for spying on her staffers, Rep. Nancy Pelosi was asked to comment and gave what might be the most revealing comments to date as to why Congress is so scared of the CIA:
> 
> ...




http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140317/07441526589/nancy-pelosi-admits-that-congress-is-scared-cia.shtml


----------



## DB008 (29 March 2014)

*How a Chinese Tech Firm Became the NSA’s Surveillance Nightmare*



> The NSA’s global spy operation may seem unstoppable, but there’s at least one target that has proven to be a formidable obstacle: the Chinese communications technology firm Huawei, whose growth could threaten the agency’s much-publicized digital spying powers.
> 
> An unfamiliar name to American consumers, Huawei produces products that are swiftly being installed in the internet backbone in many regions of the world, displacing some of the western-built equipment that the NSA knows ”” and presumably knows how to exploit ”” so well.
> 
> ...




More on link below...

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2014/03/how-huawei-became-nsa-nightmare/


----------



## noco (29 March 2014)

I do not think our Government should go ahead with the NDIS scheme as it too costly and will increase as the years pass by.

I really don't believe we can afford it.......$22 billion a year for starters.....something else will have to be put on the back burner to pay for it.   Times are tough at the moment.



http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/...22_billion_a_year_for_the_ndis_plus_blowouts/


----------



## DB008 (14 May 2014)

Great doco!

*United States of Secrets*

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/united-states-of-secrets/?elq=e463a0eb0aa84f48bde7a8b47271074f&elqCampaignId=918


----------



## DB008 (5 July 2014)

*NSA targets the privacy-conscious*



> The investigation discloses the following:
> 
> 
> Two servers in Germany - in Berlin and Nuremberg - are under surveillance by the NSA.
> ...


----------



## basilio (11 July 2014)

Still wondering whether the NSA is being unfairly judged ? Feeling relaxed and comfortable about our democratic way of life ?




> *The ultimate goal of the NSA is total population control*
> 
> At least 80% of all audio calls, not just metadata, are recorded and stored in the US, says whistleblower William Binney – that's a 'totalitarian mentality'
> 
> ...




http://www.theguardian.com/commenti...e-goal-of-the-nsa-is-total-population-control


----------



## basilio (20 July 2014)

How private should our electronic communications be ? Should we expect that anything we email, put in a drop box, send to our lawyer,  text to our partners/lovers is open for surveillance and judgement ?

Worth checking out the story and interview with Edward Snowden on these topics.



> *Edward Snowden urges professionals to encrypt client communications*
> Exclusive: Whistleblower says NSA revelations mean those with duty to protect confidentiality must urgently upgrade security
> 
> • Watch Snowden's interview with the Guardian in Moscow
> ...




http://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2014/jul/17/edward-snowden-video-interview

The  edited interview he does is very insightful.  

Cheers


----------



## DB008 (14 August 2014)

*Snowden: The NSA, not Assad, took Syria off the Internet in 2012*



> n a Wired interview with well-known National Security Agency journalist James Bamford that was published today, Edward Snowden claimed that the US accidentally took most of Syria off the Internet while attempting to bug the country's traffic. Snowden said that back in 2013 when he was still working with the US government, he was told by a US intelligence officer that NSA hackers””not the Assad regime””had been responsible for Syria’s sudden disconnect from the Internet in November and December of 2012.
> 
> The NSA's Tailored Access Office (TAO), Snowden said, had been attempting to exploit a vulnerability in the router of a “major Internet service provider in Syria.” The exploit would have allowed the NSA to redirect traffic from the router through systems tapped by the agency’s Turmoil packet capture system and the Xkeyscore packet processing system, giving the NSA access to enclosures in e-mails that would otherwise not have been accessible to its broad Internet surveillance.
> 
> ...





http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/08/snowden-the-nsa-not-assad-took-syria-off-the-internet-in-2012/


----------



## DB008 (26 August 2014)

*NSA built “Google-like” interface to scan 850+ billion metadata records*



> According to newly published documents, the National Security Agency has built a “Google-like” search interface for its vast database of metadata, and the agency shares it with dozens of other American intelligence agencies. The new documents are part of the Snowden leaks and were first published on Monday by The Intercept.
> 
> The new search tool, called ICREACH, is described in an internal NSA presentation as a “large scale expansion of communications metadata shared with [intelligence community] partners.” That same presentation shows that ICREACH has been operational since the pilot launched in May 2007. Not only is data being shared to more agencies, but there are more types of such data being shared””ICREACH searches over 850 billion records.
> 
> New data types being shared include IMEI numbers (a unique identifier on each mobile handset), IMSI (another unique identifier for SIM cards), GPS coordinates, e-mail address, and chat handles, among others. Previously, such metadata was only limited to date, time, duration, called number, and calling number.




http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/08/nsa-built-google-like-interface-to-scan-850-billion-metadata-records/


----------



## luutzu (26 August 2014)

A good article detailing ONE example of lobbyists controlling American democracy.

After this article, truly, if "we" are those people who have a few thousands saved for a rainy day... in fact, if "we" are those who need to save for a rainy day, "we" ain't gonna have any say in what "our" gov't is doing.

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/09/01/friends-israel


----------



## DB008 (29 August 2014)

When someone wants to get in, they will get in. With Government backing, there is no stopping some people...

*JPMorgan Hack Said to Span Months Via Multiple Flaws*



> Hackers burrowed into the databanks of JPMorgan Chase & Co. and deftly dodged one of the world’s largest arrays of sophisticated detection systems for months.
> 
> The attack, an outline of which was provided by two people familiar with the firm’s investigation, started in June at the digital equivalent of JPMorgan’s front door, an overlooked flaw in one of the bank’s websites. From there, it quickly developed into any security team’s worst nightmare.
> 
> ...






> *Seeking Data*
> 
> Meanwhile, JPMorgan has reinforced its large security team with a small army of outside experts. They are retracing the hackers’ steps inside the network and looking for clues to the ultimate location of the stolen data.
> 
> ...




http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-08-29/jpmorgan-hack-said-to-span-months-via-multiple-flaws.html


----------



## DB008 (16 September 2014)

*NSW Police use hacking software to spy on computers and smartphones: WikiLeaks data*



> NSW Police are using sophisticated hacking software to spy on smartphones and computers during criminal investigations, according to documents published by WikiLeaks on Monday.
> 
> FinFisher, also known as FinSpy, is surveillance software sold by German company Gamma International. The software is typically used by intelligence and policing agencies to break into computers and mobiles and can secretly log keystrokes and take screenshots.
> 
> ...




http://www.smh.com.au/it-pro/government-it/nsw-police-use-hacking-software-to-spy-on-computers-and-smartphones-wikileaks-data-20140915-10h530.html


----------



## basilio (15 November 2014)

Probably worth bumping up this thread with the full release of the anonymous letter sent by the FBI to Dr King to persuade him to suicide in 1964.

For those who aren't aware Edgar Hoover, head of the FBI, despised Dr King and was intent on destroying his efforts to demand equality for Negroes through peaceful dissent. 

Interesting to see that Hoover had tried to get the Media to expose Dr Kings private life but in the 60's there was still some respect for public figures private lives. 


> Hate-filled letter from FBI to Martin Luther King made public
> 
> Date
> November 14, 2014 - 1:44PM
> ...




http://www.canberratimes.com.au/wor...-luther-king-made-public-20141114-11mnbn.html


----------



## DB008 (18 December 2014)

*‘Black budget’ summary details U.S. spy network’s successes, failures and objectives*



> U.S. spy agencies have built an intelligence-gathering colossus since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, but remain unable to provide critical information to the president on a range of national security threats, according to the government’s top-secret budget.
> 
> The $52.6 billion “black budget” for fiscal 2013, obtained by The Washington Post from former *intelligence contractor Edward Snowden, maps a bureaucratic and operational landscape that has never been subject to public scrutiny. Although the government has annually released its overall level of intelligence spending since 2007, it has not divulged how it uses the money or how it performs against the goals set by the president and Congress.
> 
> The 178-page budget summary for the National Intelligence Program details the successes, failures and objectives of the 16 spy agencies that make up the U.S. intelligence community, which has 107,035 employees.




http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/black-budget-summary-details-us-spy-networks-successes-failures-and-objectives/2013/08/29/7e57bb78-10ab-11e3-8cdd-bcdc09410972_story.html


----------



## noco (26 December 2014)

Greg Craven sums up politics very well in my eyes and has made the remark that both the Liberal Party and the Green?Labor left wing socialists should take a good hard look at themselves and each other.

It seems when Abbott was in opposition he tried hard to curb Labor's extravagant spending on hare brain schemes and was called "MR NO", but now he is Government Labor is trying their level best to curb the Governments cuts to spending....what is best in the National interest and that is what both sides should consider.

What a shamozzle.

So what should we allow governments and the opposition to do?

Maybe a double dissolution mid year would be the answer and and let voters decide if they would to go back into chaos again.  



http://www.theaustralian.com.au/opi...o-regain-respect/story-fnhuln9g-1227166617087

*But the problem is, even boldly assuming Abbott to be a one-term Prime Minister, why is there any reason to believe the same malady will not immediately beset Bill Shorten?

After a 2016 election, unless things dramatically improve, we will have endured more than six years of government by electoral lotto. The stocks of ministry as a concept will be at an all-time low. The Senate almost certainly still will be controlled by political micro-fauna.

So perhaps the Christmas break is a time for both the great parties of the federation — Labor and Liberal — to take a good hard look at themselves, and each other.*


----------



## DB008 (21 January 2015)

*The Digital Arms Race: NSA Preps America for Future Battle*



> Normally, internship applicants need to have polished resumes, with volunteer work on social projects considered a plus. But at Politerain, the job posting calls for candidates with significantly different skill sets. We are, the ad says, "looking for interns who want to break things."
> 
> Politerain is not a project associated with a conventional company. It is run by a US government intelligence organization, the National Security Agency (NSA). More precisely, it's operated by the NSA's digital snipers with Tailored Access Operations (TAO), the department responsible for breaking into computers.
> 
> ...




http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/new-snowden-docs-indicate-scope-of-nsa-preparations-for-cyber-battle-a-1013409.html


----------



## basilio (21 January 2015)

Thanks for the update  DB008.

The Snowden affair seems to have died down now. Somehow we have taken it for granted that nothing we say is private and that governments can and will snoop into our life  at will.

That story though highlights how vulnerable our community is to deliberate attacks on the computer systems that run our lives. Think power, communications, banking, industry. And of course that is just what our governments are preparing to do if and when they deem it necessary

Scary xhit.


----------



## Julia (21 January 2015)

basilio, you might be interested in this episode of RN's "Big Ideas", entitled "The Inside Story on Edward Snowden".

http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/bigideas/the-inside-story-of-edward-snowden/5968180


----------



## basilio (22 January 2015)

Julia said:


> basilio, you might be interested in this episode of RN's "Big Ideas", entitled "The Inside Story on Edward Snowden".
> 
> http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/bigideas/the-inside-story-of-edward-snowden/5968180




Nice one Julia.  Thanks for that.
Cheers


----------



## DB008 (25 January 2015)

*Snowden: iPhones Have Secret Spyware That Lets Govt's Monitor Unsuspecting Users*




> The iPhone has secret spyware that lets governments watch users without their knowledge, according to Edward Snowden.
> 
> The NSA whistleblower doesn’t use a phone because of the secret software, which Snowden’s lawyer says can be remotely activated to watch the user.
> 
> ...




http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/snowden-iphones-have-secret-spyware-lets-govts-monitor-unsuspecting-users


----------



## DB008 (18 February 2015)

Wow.

This is huge.

*How “omnipotent” hackers tied to NSA hid for 14 years””and were found at last*

*"Equation Group" ran the most advanced hacking operation ever uncovered.*​


> A long list of almost superhuman technical feats illustrate Equation Group's extraordinary skill, painstaking work, and unlimited resources. They include:
> 
> 
> The use of virtual file systems, a feature also found in the highly sophisticated Regin malware. Recently published documents provided by Ed Snowden indicate that the NSA used Regin to infect the partly state-owned Belgian firm Belgacom.
> ...






> Taken together, the accomplishments led Kaspersky researchers to conclude that Equation Group is probably the most sophisticated computer attack group in the world, with technical skill and resources that rival the groups that developed Stuxnet and the Flame espionage malware.






> In an exhaustive report published Monday at the Kaspersky Security Analyst Summit here, researchers stopped short of saying Equation Group was the handiwork of the NSA””but they provided detailed evidence that strongly implicates the US spy agency.






> First is the group's known aptitude for conducting interdictions, such as installing covert implant firmware in a Cisco Systems router as it moved through the mail.





http://arstechnica.com/security/2015/02/how-omnipotent-hackers-tied-to-the-nsa-hid-for-14-years-and-were-found-at-last/


----------



## DB008 (21 February 2015)

*THE GREAT SIM HEIST*

*HOW SPIES STOLE THE KEYS TO THE ENCRYPTION CASTLE*​


> AMERICAN AND BRITISH spies hacked into the internal computer network of the largest manufacturer of SIM cards in the world, stealing encryption keys used to protect the privacy of cellphone communications across the globe, according to top-secret documents provided to The Intercept by National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden.
> 
> The hack was perpetrated by a joint unit consisting of operatives from the NSA and its British counterpart Government Communications Headquarters, or GCHQ. The breach, detailed in a secret 2010 GCHQ document, gave the surveillance agencies the potential to secretly monitor a large portion of the world’s cellular communications, including both voice and data.
> 
> ...




https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/02/19/great-sim-heist/​


----------



## basilio (22 February 2015)

Is it bloody scary or is it not ? The outlining of just how sophisticated NSA and other spy agencies are in terms of hacking into any correspondence we have. Learning about any and every facet of our lives.

It's truly Orwellian.

The other reality is that we should have no confidence in  believing all this surveillance is just to catch the bad guys. From my perspective "the bad guys" are simply whoever the person directing this surveillance chooses to designate.

In particular it will always be people who challenge what is happening.


----------



## DB008 (25 February 2015)

basilio said:


> Is it bloody scary or is it not ? The outlining of just how sophisticated NSA and other spy agencies are in terms of hacking into any correspondence we have. Learning about any and every facet of our lives.
> 
> It's truly Orwellian.
> 
> ...






*There's a massive new leak of confidential spy files from MI6, Mossad and the FSB​*


> Iran's President Hassan Rouhani speaks at the UN. Israeli assessments of Iran's nuclear program are included in the leak.
> 
> Al-Jazeera has obtained hundreds of confidential "spy cables" from some of the world's top intelligence agencies, in what the news channel is calling "the largest intelligence leak since Snowden."
> 
> ...




http://www.businessinsider.in/Theres-a-massive-new-leak-of-confidential-spy-files-from-MI6-Mossad-and-the-FSB/articleshow/46343705.cms


----------



## basilio (8 March 2015)

*ARE YOU AWARE  THAT .*



> 1) "that for at least 14 years a unit in the NSA had succeeded in infecting the firmware that controls hard disk drives with malicious software that is able to persist even through reformatting of the disks.Firmware is computer code embedded in a read-only silicon chip. It’s what transforms a disk from a paperweight into a storage device.
> 
> The hack is significant: the Kaspersky researchers who uncovered this said its ability to subvert hard-drive firmware “surpasses anything else” they had ever seen.
> 
> ...



So we now know that  NSA has managed to  still make computers controllable even after a complete reformat and the have successfully hacked into the encryption keys of billions of mobile phone sim cards.

Do we feel secure now ?

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/mar/08/edward-snowden-trust-phone-laptop-sim-cards


----------



## luutzu (8 March 2015)

basilio said:


> Is it bloody scary or is it not ? The outlining of just how sophisticated NSA and other spy agencies are in terms of hacking into any correspondence we have. Learning about any and every facet of our lives.
> 
> It's truly Orwellian.
> 
> ...




Chomsky was saying all these metadata and spying on terrorists among us... it's not to stop terrorism, it's the control the population.

I believe him.

First, there's only one case where this metadata stop a terrorist (a Somali sending some $8500 to a terrorist back in Somalia through Western Union); I guess the second would be the recent duo in Western Sydney.

Second, you're not going to spend hundreds of millions or billions to watch and protect civilians from a potential terrorist act that may occur now and then. No government is ever that kind and thoughtful and generous with its people. 

I could think of a few hundred projects that kind of money could go towards and it would save many many many more lives than a relatively insignificant chance of a terrorist act killing a few of us. That's not to belittle terrorism or to say that a certain "low" number of death is acceptable... but that's what all politicians do when they make their calculations.

Cancer kill how many Australians? Smoking? Alcohol? Bad roads? Drug abuse and no funding for harm minimisation programmes? Public schools and better libraries, more doctors and nurses and preventative care etc. etc.

All these billions so we're safe from terrorists? But let say terrorism, unlike cancer or old age or lack of education... things that affect only most but not all people; say terrorism is a cancer that affect all of us and will bring our house down... if it is that serious, maybe there's a cheaper way of stopping it.

As Chomsky said, we don't like ISIS and evil terrorists cutting off heads and torturing people, they don't like walking down the street and be blown up because some guy a few metres away is a terrorist on the kill list.


BUt I guess we little people doesn't know what's best for us so we must be lied to and watch over. 

----

And I feel really safe seeing a nuclear (former) superpower being pushed to bankruptcy.

The last time a defeated power  was sent bankrupt, it dug itself out of the depression by employing its masses in armament manufacturing and kick off the economic recovery by annexing a few countries, then almost the entire continent just to really boost morale and nationalism.

But I guess the Russians are probably too drunk on Vodka to think that ey, their scientists did go to space, and ey... they also defeated Napoleon, Hitler and was competing for world domination just a couple of decades ago.

But I guess their president and their people doesn't mind having an inept leader of a British colony down under shirt fronting their leadership and talk to them as equal.

I heard a quote from a historian: When the last soldier of the last great war died, the next great war is about to begin.


----------



## DB008 (11 March 2015)

*CIA hacked iPhone, iPad and Mac security – Snowden documents reveal extent of privacy invasion​*



> The CIA has spent almost a decade attempting to breach the security of Apple's iPhone, iPad and Mac computers to allow them secretly plant malware on the devices. Apple announced on Monday, 9 March, that it had sold over 700 million iPhones since the first version was announced in 2007, giving some idea of the scope of the CIA tactics.
> 
> Revealed in documents released to The Intercept by Edward Snowden, the CIA's efforts at undermining Apple's encryption has been announced at an secret annual gathering known as the "Jamboree" which has been taking place since 2006, a year before the first iPhone was released.
> 
> ...






> *Poisoned Xcode*
> 
> As well as targeting the iPhone and iPad directly, the CIA also claims to have developed a poisoned version of Xcode, the software development tool used by app developers to create the apps sold through Apple's hugely successful App Store. It is unclear how the CIA managed to get developers to use the poisoned version of Xcode, but it would have allowed the CIA install backdoors into any apps created using their version.




http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/cia-hacked-iphone-ipad-mac-security-snowden-documents-reveal-extent-privacy-invasion-1491258​


----------



## DB008 (17 March 2015)

*Is BlackBerry's $2,360 Super Secure Tablet Unhackable?*


http://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/2015-03-16/has-blackberry-created-an-un-hackable-business-tablet-


----------



## DB008 (31 March 2015)

Hmm...




> *FBI lets suspects go to protect 'Stingray' secrets​*
> NEW YORK (CNNMoney) ”” The FBI has a secret device to locate criminal suspects, but they would apparently rather let suspects go free than reveal in court the details of the high tech tracker.
> 
> The device, called a "Stingray," tricks cell phones into revealing their locations. Closely guarded details about how police Stingrays operate have been threatened this week by a judge's court order.
> ...




http://www.ksl.com/?nid=157&sid=33878539​


----------



## DB008 (3 May 2015)

Mikko Hypponen xTED talk - back in 2013 about the NSA....he wasn't far of the mark, that's for sure



​


----------



## Tisme (3 May 2015)

luutzu said:


> Chomsky was saying all these metadata and spying on terrorists among us... it's not to stop terrorism, it's the control the population.
> 
> .





I think it's more of doing it because they can. The counter terrorism is probably justification by some conpromised bureaucrat for spending resource  and taxpayer money. The beneficiaries are more likely the big American computer cum technology providers who make a motsa out of the sales of equipment, software and ongoing support. 

That our pollies haven't learned from the debacle in many states with the health computer systems is astonishing. There must be some really good sales people in the tech industry.

Snowden has been mana from heaven for the US economy.


----------



## DB008 (19 May 2015)

*UK government quietly rewrites hacking laws to give GCHQ immunity​*



> The UK government has quietly passed new legislation that exempts GCHQ, police, and other intelligence officers from prosecution for hacking into computers and mobile phones.
> 
> While major or controversial legislative changes usually go through normal parliamentary process (i.e. democratic debate) before being passed into law, in this case an amendment to the Computer Misuse Act was snuck in under the radar as secondary legislation. According to Privacy International, "It appears no regulators, commissioners responsible for overseeing the intelligence agencies, the Information Commissioner's Office, industry, NGOs or the public were notified or consulted about the proposed legislative changes... There was no public debate."
> 
> ...




http://arstechnica.co.uk/tech-policy/2015/05/uk-government-quietly-rewrites-hacking-laws-to-grant-gchq-immunity/​


----------



## DB008 (3 August 2015)

*Wikileaks Latest Info-Dump Shows, Again, That The NSA Indeed Engages In Economic Espionage Against Allies​*


> Today, Friday 31 July 2015, 9am CEST, WikiLeaks publishes "Target Tokyo", 35 Top Secret NSA targets in Japan including the Japanese cabinet and Japanese companies such as Mitsubishi, together with intercepts relating to US-Japan relations, trade negotiations and sensitive climate change strategy. The list indicates that NSA spying on Japanese conglomerates, government officials, ministries and senior advisers extends back at least as far as the first administration of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, which lasted from September 2006 until September 2007. The telephone interception target list includes the switchboard for the Japanese Cabinet Office; the executive secretary to the Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga; a line described as "Government VIP Line"; numerous officials within the Japanese Central Bank, including Governor Haruhiko Kuroda; the home phone number of at least one Central Bank official; numerous numbers within the Japanese Finance Ministry; the Japanese Minister for Economy, Trade and Industry Yoichi Miyazawa; the Natural Gas Division of Mitsubishi; and the Petroleum Division of Mitsui.




https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20150731/09240231811/wikileaks-latest-info-dump-shows-again-that-nsa-indeed-engages-economic-espionage-against-allies.shtml​


----------



## DB008 (30 August 2015)

*Data retention and the end of Australians' digital privacy*​



> Intelligence and law enforcement agencies will have immediate, warrantless and accumulating access to all telephone and internet metadata.
> 
> The electronically logged data of mobile, landline voice (including missed and failed) calls and text messages, all emails, download volumes and location information will be mandatorily retained by Australian telcos and ISPs.
> 
> ...





http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/data-retention-and-the-end-of-australians-digital-privacy-20150827-gj96kq.html#ixzz3kFdaLUbR​


----------



## luutzu (31 August 2015)

This was some 30 years ago. Things have gotten worst today.


----------



## Tisme (31 August 2015)

Cover ears, shield your eyes and put the kids to bed:

[video]https://video-lax3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hvideo-xfa1/v/t43.1792-2/11786742_598702186937959_1579389884_n.mp4?efg=eyJy  bHIiOjE1MDAsInJsYSI6MzE2N30%3D&rl=1500&vabr=674&oh=bf975cccf47060bca6c6400e0a8a8007&oe=55E390CD[/video]


----------



## SirRumpole (27 September 2015)

If they aren't doing anything wrong, what have they got to hide ?

United Nations special rapporteur for asylum seeker human rights delays Australian visit, cites Border Force Act 

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-09-...ator-australia-visit-border-force-act/6807146


----------



## DB008 (27 September 2015)

Why do we let the Government keep tabs on us, when they can't even keep their own data safe?

*Millions of fingerprints stolen in US government hack​*


> Hackers who breached US government networks stole far more fingerprint records than first thought, officials have said.
> 
> In a statement, the White House said more than 5.6 million fingerprint records were stolen from the Office of Personnel Management (OPM).
> 
> ...




http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-34346802​


----------



## DB008 (13 October 2015)

D-Day has arrived.

Not really worried. The government guarding their own data is a joke anyways.




> US whistleblower and privacy activist Edward Snowden has drawn attention to Australia’s new metadata laws, which come into effect today.
> 
> Mr Snowden, 32, tweeted this morning to his nearly 1.5 million followers to remind them of the looming legislation.
> 
> The anti-surveillance campaigner followed his message with a series of tweets decrying the monitoring of citizens by governments and security agencies.




http://www.9news.com.au/technology/2015/10/13/11/34/surveillance-whistleblower-edward-snowden-draws-attention-to-new-australian-metadata-laws#Dac1jVIj58jFTmXi.99​


----------



## pixel (22 November 2015)

Lest we forget: Excerpt from Hansard 2003:


----------



## luutzu (22 November 2015)

pixel said:


> Lest we forget: Excerpt from Hansard 2003:
> View attachment 65083


----------



## Bill M (23 November 2015)

Another excellent film luutzu thank you. Just be careful though as it brings out all the deniers, whackos and others that try and discredit such documentaries.


----------



## luutzu (23 November 2015)

Bill M said:


> Another excellent film luutzu thank you. Just be careful though as it brings out all the deniers, whackos and others that try and discredit such documentaries.




Thanks Bill.

Saw a couple seconds of Hilary Clinton at some rally a few days ago where she goes on about how America is freeing the world, bringing democracy to countries... but those people in those countries have to realise that they have to step up and free their own countries themselves too and not rely on American kindness all of the time.

Pretty amazing the stuff these politicians say, and get away with it too.


----------



## SirRumpole (30 November 2015)

Could dinki di Aussies be a bigger terrorist threat than Islamists ?

Sovereign citizens: Terrorism assessment warns of rising threat from anti-government extremists

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-11-30/australias-sovereign-citizen-terrorism-threat/6981114


----------



## qldfrog (30 November 2015)

luutzu said:


> Thanks Bill.
> 
> Saw a couple seconds of Hilary Clinton at some rally a few days ago where she goes on about how America is freeing the world, bringing democracy to countries... but those people in those countries have to realise that they have to step up and free their own countries themselves too and not rely on American kindness all of the time.
> .



voice of wisdom Luutzu 
you can not bring democracy, a country has to earn it  or it ends in a bad way


----------



## DB008 (3 December 2015)

*Surprise! The NSA Is Still Spying On You​*


> PRISM was never shut down. Somewhere in America a bunch of NSA analysts are PRISMing like Edward Snowden was a fever-dream twinkle in their spyin’ eyes.
> 
> PRISM’s not our only problem. The NSA shut down a bulk email metadata program called Stellarwind in late 2011, years after Bush Administration officials fought about its legality. But instead of not analyzing large amounts of domestic data, the NSA looked for alternate routes to it. Documents obtained by the New York Times earlier this month show that the NSA found other ways to continue to obtain and analyze domestic personal data even after it stopped Stellarwind.
> 
> One way was straight up abandoning a domestic spying rule: Before 2010, NSA analysts were only allowed to do large-scale graph analysis on foreign data. After 2010, NSA analysts could use domestic emails, texts, and other private online conversations in these graphs.






http://gizmodo.com/surprise-the-nsa-is-still-spying-on-you-1745256761​


----------



## DB008 (20 December 2015)

*Secret Code Found in Juniper’s Firewalls Shows Risk of Government Backdoors​*


> ENCRYPTION BACKDOORS HAVE been a hot topic in the last few years””and the controversial issue got even hotter after the terrorist attacks in Paris and San Bernardino, when it dominated media headlines. It even came up during this week’s Republican presidential candidate debate. But despite all the attention focused on backdoors lately, no one noticed that someone had quietly installed backdoors three years ago in a core piece of networking equipment used to protect corporate and government systems around the world.
> 
> On Thursday, tech giant Juniper Networks revealed in a startling announcement that it had found “unauthorized” code embedded in an operating system running on some of its firewalls.
> 
> ...






> “The weakness in the VPN itself that enables passive decryption is only of benefit to a national surveillance agency like the British, the US, the Chinese, or the Israelis,” says Nicholas Weaver, a researcher at the International Computer Science Institute and UC Berkeley. “You need to have wiretaps on the internet for that to be a valuable change to make [in the software].”
> 
> But the backdoors are also a concern because one of them””a hardcoded master password left behind in Juniper’s software by the attackers””will now allow anyone else to take command of Juniper firewalls that administrators have not yet patched, once the attackers have figured out the password by examining Juniper’s code.
> 
> ...




http://www.wired.com/2015/12/juniper-networks-hidden-backdoors-show-the-risk-of-government-backdoors/​


----------



## basilio (24 December 2015)

The aqll encompassing Uncle Sam "No Fly list" is back in the news when a Muslim family with 9 children was prevented from travelling to the US to go to Disneyland. The they were turned back as they were about to board the plane and lost all their air fares.

No explanation has been given for why the family was refused permission to travel. (they had got their visas earlier on)

Since then there has been more comments on the capacity of the No Fly list to be used to punish and intimidate anyone the Government decides to have a go at. The Wiki article is very instructive. Many scary examples of how the system has been abused.

Yep we have a democracy. Just don't criticise the US government or anything it does - particularly if it's true.



> No Fly List
> From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
> 
> The No Fly List is a list, created and maintained by the United States government's Terrorist Screening Center (TSC), of people who are not permitted to board a commercial aircraft for travel in or out of the United States. The list has also been used to divert aircraft, not flying to or from the U.S, away from U.S. airspace. The number of people on the list rises and falls according to threat and intelligence reporting. There were 10,000 names on the list in 2011, 21,000 in 2012, and 47,000 in 2013.



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Fly_List


----------



## DB008 (24 December 2015)

Put your name in, see if you have made the list....

http://www.no-fly-list.com/​


----------



## DB008 (28 December 2015)

*Theresa May wants to see your internet history, so we thought it was only fair to ask for hers​*



> The Home Office has refused to make Theresa May’s internet browsing history public under freedom of information rules, arguing that a request to do so is “vexatious”.
> 
> The Independent requested the Home Secretary’s work browsing history for the last week of October under the Freedom of Information Act.
> 
> ...





http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/theresa-may-wants-to-see-your-internet-history-so-we-thought-it-was-only-fair-to-ask-for-hers-a6785591.html​


----------



## noco (6 January 2016)

Thia is a disgrace on the present and past government to allow this happen.

*truth?

The whole family should be on trial for grand theft,  	 




ON THE ABC 7 30 REPORT LAST NIGHT WHEN MALCOLM TURNBULL WAS EXPLAINING WHY AN INCREASE TO $1 DOLLAR FOR A POSTAGE STAMP WAS NECESSARY HE NEVER MENTIONED ANY THING ABOUT THIS EYE OPENER. 


Australia Post
Recently Australia Post which is totally government owned and has been for 200 years, announced the loss of 900 jobs, being part of a cut back program. 

This is due to the decline in letters beings sent and that’s true as email has further reduced letter writing and in many ways understandably. 

The CEO of Australia Post is Ahmed Fahour who was born in Lebanon and came to Australia in 1970. 

In 2009 he was made Managing Director and CEO of Australia Post. 

His salary package was estimated to be worth $4.8 million last year.   Of this he donated about $2 million to the Islamic Museum of Australia located in Melbourne.

I have a big problem with this fellow’s salary package and so let’s get some perspective here.
The top ten executives in Australia Post combined earn around $20 million each year.
That’s simply immoral and clearly the CEO can afford to give away nearly half his takings to an Islamic Museum as he doesn’t need it, and surprise, surprise ....  it's tax deductable.

The founder and director of the Museum is former Macquarie Bank executive ..., Moustafa Fahour - Ahmed Fahour’s brother. 

Moustafa’s wife, Maysaa, is the chairwoman and Director.
The Fahours’ sister, Samira El Khafir, is Head Chef and manages the restaurant on site. 

How can the CEO of the Post Office earn so much,  especially when the postal service is bleeding money from letter delivery. No employee is worth 5 million a year and especially not from a government owned business.

The top Federal Public Servants in Australia have salaries of between $665,600 and $844,800 so how does the bloke in charge of the Post Office received $4.8 million?  The Prime Minister of Australia earns a modest $507,000 considering the real burdens of office,  while the CEO of the Gold Coast Council earning slightly less and that’s patently out of kilter with the PM’s package. The Mayor of GCCC brings in $225,000 so how on earth can the Post Office justify the massive pay of their CEO?.

Let’s look further.  The head of the US Postal Service with 19 times more staff and 11 times more revenue than Australia Post receives $550,000. 

In France the head of their post office was paid $1.1 million with a staff compliment of 268,000 employees. 

What a country full of mugs are we to sit by and let all this happen??   I would have run the big game of Post Office for a lot less and still done a reasonable job and in fact,  if the best of we seniors applied ourselves we could run the damn Post Office better and accept a normal salary and a free lunch now and again. 

You had better believe it too.

There is an unpleasant and some would say 'sinister' unbalanced agenda in Australia, which in the end preys on the average citizen, we the people.
We are no longer the lucky country and we are no longer wealthy and this particular game of Post Office reveals major fractures and faults on a number fronts in our society and culture. 

Who is running the Country, who is pulling the levers and who is going to win? We the Mugs need to know.
Please pass this on.




*


----------



## luutzu (6 January 2016)

noco said:


> Thia is a disgrace on the present and past government to allow this happen.
> 
> *truth?
> 
> ...




Sounds like the Mug writing that letter already "know" the crimes right?

Pretty sure Australia Post is an Australian gov't owned corporation. That is, it's not a department or a gov't cabinet - simply a company that's owned by all of us Aussies. And just like companies with shareholders, the board of directors represent us through representing the gov't and they are obviously doing a bang up job looking after the dumb mugs interests and not at all their own.

Welcome to capitalism and free market. Communism ain't much better though - Socialism might be


----------



## basilio (7 January 2016)

luutzu said:


> *Sounds like the Mug writing that letter already "know" the crimes right?*
> 
> Pretty sure Australia Post is an Australian gov't owned corporation. That is, it's not a department or a gov't cabinet - simply a company that's owned by all of us Aussies. And just like companies with shareholders, the board of directors represent us through representing the gov't and they are obviously doing a bang up job looking after the dumb mugs interests and not at all their own.
> 
> Welcome to capitalism and free market. Communism ain't much better though - Socialism might be




Isn't it brilliant when you  can instantly know someone is crook because 
1) They are Muslim
2) They make a lot of money
3) They support a Muslim foundation

Well done Noco. Another feather in your cap for mindless anti Muslim ranting.  Was this another special from the Bolt blog ?

___________________________________________________________

By the way I do think the salary package  is excessive - regardless of who was getting it. But the cheap defamatory comment at the beginning is just pure rubbish folks.

The letter was originally published in a Queensland Newspaper as a Letter to the Editor


----------



## Tisme (7 January 2016)

basilio said:


> Well done Noco. Another feather in your cap for mindless anti Muslim ranting.  Was this another special from the Bolt blog ?
> 
> ___________________________________________________________




Close 

http://www.onenation.com.au/current_affairs/the-4-8-million-australia-post-ceo


----------



## basilio (7 January 2016)

Tisme I saw the bulk of the original latter on a Queensland newspaper website as a letter to the Editor. I would guess the One Nation article has taken this letter and added a few more unpleasant innuendos.

Could be the same person of course.!

http://www.qt.com.au/news/how-can-the-ceo-justify-his-salary/2558596/ 

_____________________________________________________________________________

By the way the comments Noco made at the start of the letter are still up *and still totally defamatory.*.


----------



## pixel (7 January 2016)

basilio said:


> Tisme I saw the bulk of the original latter on a Queensland newspaper website as a letter to the Editor. I would guess the One Nation article has taken this letter and added a few more unpleasant innuendos.
> 
> Could be the same person of course.!
> 
> ...




Hi Bas,
don't get too hung-up over that letter. Whether it was indeed penned as "Letter to Editor" of a QLD RW newspaper, or circulated as an incendiary email - it is full of spelling errors, selective and misleading quotes, and unproven innuendo. Normally, I wouldn't even pass comment on fringe opinions like it.

I won't often quote the Herald Sun either, but take a look at this article:
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/au...eum-of-australia/story-fni0fiyv-1226958003540
Assuming that their research was at least done with a modicum of journalistic professionalism, the $2M that noco's source is whining about was *part of a CEO package earned 2-3 years ago!* What does that have to do with $1 postage stamps and the need to rationalise mail delivery? 

As far as comparison with other countries is concerned, I only checked the USA. Although rather low for the size of US Postal Service, $550,000 would be a reasonable base salary for any US ceo. *BUT... *base salaries in the US are not to be confused with take-home pay. CEO contracts usually include a multiple of base in bonus and other entitlements, easily applying a multiplication factor of 8 to 10, in some cases much more. The ceo of a typical US corporation takes home as much pay as up to 500 average workers. You do the sums - or multiplications, as it were...


----------



## luutzu (7 January 2016)

pixel said:


> Hi Bas,
> don't get too hung-up over that letter. Whether it was indeed penned as "Letter to Editor" of a QLD RW newspaper, or circulated as an incendiary email - it is full of spelling errors, selective and misleading quotes, and unproven innuendo. Normally, I wouldn't even pass comment on fringe opinions like it.
> 
> I won't often quote the Herald Sun either, but take a look at this article:
> ...




Wouldn't it be nice if journalists would do at least some research like you did pixel?

Most seems to just copy and paste official media releases. Then there's opinions and commentary taking up the rest.

That fourth estate has long been sold.


----------



## luutzu (7 January 2016)

Old fashion investigative journalist/war correspondent discussing US Death Squads and general imperialism and other bad means to "good" ends, I guess.

To be fair, I'd probably buy off the media too if I ran this kind of show around the world.


----------



## Tisme (8 January 2016)

luutzu said:


> Wouldn't it be nice if journalists would do at least some research like you did pixel?
> 
> Most seems to just copy and paste official media releases. Then there's opinions and commentary taking up the rest.
> 
> That fourth estate has long been sold.




You only have to look at Trove to see that newspaper owners have been in trouble with the law for libel, slur and slander since settlement. Somewhere along the way the courts or the victims seem to have given up trying to keep the situation in check. .. no foul no regrets.


----------



## luutzu (8 January 2016)

Tisme said:


> You only have to look at Trove to see that newspaper owners have been in trouble with the law for libel, slur and slander since settlement. Somewhere along the way the courts or the victims seem to have given up trying to keep the situation in check. .. no foul no regrets.





No foul or regrets for sure - that's their aim to start with right? Journalists with their search for truth and asking tough questions of big and important people live on tv? Taking on the risks and headache while Rupee down the street sells tabloid and gossips and getting all the readers. Not a good way to make a buck. 

Yea, let's not look at Trove. Maybe one day when it rain all month and the internet is off


----------



## DB008 (15 January 2016)

Check out these idiots...



*Apple iPhone ban? New York looks to outlaw sale of encrypted smartphones​*



> A proposed bill in New York seeks to require that all smartphones sold in the state can be decrypted or unlocked and proposes hefty fines for vendors failing to comply.
> 
> The proposed law marks the latest effort by lawmakers to make it easier for law enforcement to access and read encrypted data stored on smartphones.
> 
> ...





http://www.zdnet.com/article/apple-iphone-ban-new-york-looks-to-outlaw-sale-of-encrypted-smartphones/​


----------



## luutzu (16 January 2016)

DB008 said:


> Check out these idiots...
> 
> 
> 
> ...





That's a gimmick BB8.

They're being paid by Apple to propose that stupid law so Apple could sell more iPhones with encryption technologies. Now that terrorist A have iPhone10, terrorist B must also have them too - can't risk having the other line not being encrypted right?

I heard hackers and presumably gov't agencies can all use smart phones as bugs, listening in on their target - even if it's switched off?

Guess who OK'ed that hardware?


----------



## DB008 (17 February 2016)

*February 16, 2016*

*A Message to Our Customers*​




> The United States government has demanded that Apple take an unprecedented step which threatens the security of our customers. We oppose this order, which has implications far beyond the legal case at hand.
> 
> This moment calls for public discussion, and we want our customers and people around the country to understand what is at stake.
> 
> ...








http://www.apple.com/customer-letter/​


----------



## DB008 (20 February 2016)

Surprised?




> *San Bernardino Shooter's iCloud Password Changed While iPhone was in Government Possession​*
> The password for the San Bernardino shooter's iCloud account associated with his iPhone was reset hours after authorities took possession of the device.
> 
> The Justice Department acknowledged in its court filing that the password of Syed Farook's iCloud account had been reset. The filing states, "the owner [San Bernardino County Department of Public Health], in an attempt to gain access to some information in the hours after the attack, was able to reset the password remotely, but that had the effect of eliminating the possibility of an auto-backup."
> ...





Someone's reply on Reddit;



> What is really going on is that the FBI has been trying to get Apple to create backdoors for the encrypted iPhone from day 1. Now that they finally have a terrorist with an iPhone, they can make it a signature issue, and open the floodgates for every iPhone to be decrypted.
> 
> As mentioned in earlier posts, the FBI can certainly unlock the phone themselves, or turn it over to the NSA, and they would if they felt this was a true national security emergency. As described in this *relevant link: To unlock the phone, the first option is to enter a passcode, turn it off, turn it back on and enter a new passcode. If the FBI put interns on the phone round the lock, and it took one minute per attempt, it would take 7 days to have interns try every combination and unlock the phone. But even if the passcode is random, it would only take an average of 3.5 days to unlock the phone. But, the passcode isn't random, so using a 4 digit password PIN dictionary, it would probably take only a 24 hour day. The obvious conclusion is that the FBI isn't even trying to unlock the phone right now, or it would have been unlocked months ago.
> 
> ...





*Relevant Link from above 


> In short, the data is encrypted to 256 AES strength. BUT the disk encryption key is stored in the device's version of a TPM (Secure Enclave), and the TPM is protected by a 4+ digit passcode.
> 
> There exist (we know they exist) platforms that can connect to traces between the TPM and the power circuit, which allows you to bypass the TPM attempt-limit by powering off the device after each failed attempt (so the TPM doesn't "realize" it's being hacked) and bruteforce it relatively quickly that way. So they could just do that. But that requires a full teardown, time, and specialized equipment.
> 
> From that fact, we can see clearly that the FBI is not interested in this one particular isolated case. They are trying to set privacy policy precedent. That's why it's so important (and dangerous). They want to be able to do this on demand, likely remotely, to everyone's phone all the time.




I agree. The private Government internet/ethernet in Canberra has also been hacked (that is old news). Why should any OS manufacture bend over backwards for the US Government to put a backdoor in, when it will also be demanded by other Governments and eventually be leaked into the wild.


----------



## Tisme (23 February 2016)

The govt is about to take away our rights to elect Clive Palmer, Jacqui Lambie, et al. This is because the major parties know what is best for us.

Obviously the will of the people is being exerted.


----------



## DB008 (16 March 2016)

*DOJ threatened to seize iOS source code unless Apple complies with court order in FBI case​*


> The United States Department of Justice (DoJ) has slid a disturbing footnote in its court filing against Apple that could be interpreted as a threat to seize the iOS source code unless Apple complies with a court order in the FBI case.
> 
> The DoJ is demanding that Apple create a special version of iOS with removed security features that would permit the FBI to run brute-force passcode attempts on the San Bernardino shooter’s iPhone 5c.
> 
> ...







> “With Apple’s source code, the FBI could, in theory, create its own version of iOS with the security features stripped out. Stamped with Apple’s electronic signature, the Bureau’s versions of iOS could pass for the real thing,” he added.
> 
> Whether or not the DoJ is trying to intimidate Apple, I do not know. But I know this””that quoted excerpt from DoJ’s court filing has got to send chills down everyone’s spine.




http://www.idownloadblog.com/2016/03/14/dos-threats-seize-ios/​


----------



## DB008 (1 April 2016)

*After only 72 hours the FBI has already started helping other police departments gain access to Iphones being held for evidence .... Go Figure.....​*



> LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) - The FBI has agreed to help an Arkansas prosecutor unlock an iPhone and iPod belonging to two teenagers accused of killing a couple.
> 
> Faulkner County Prosecuting Attorney Cody Hiland said Wednesday that the FBI agreed to the request from his office. The trial for 18-year-old Hunter Drexler was delayed Tuesday so prosecutors could ask for help.
> 
> ...




http://www.htssite.com/2016/03/after-only-72-hours-fbi-has-already-started-helping-other-police-department-gain-access-to-iphone.html​

_Lets just keep this in mind...._



> COINTELPRO (a portmanteau derived from COunter INTELligence PROgram) was a series of covert, and at times illegal,[1][2] projects conducted by the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) aimed at surveilling, infiltrating, discrediting and disrupting domestic political organizations.[3]
> 
> FBI records show that COINTELPRO resources targeted groups and individuals that the FBI deemed subversive,[4] including anti-Vietnam War organizers, activist of the Civil Rights Movement or Black Power movement (e.g. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Black Panther Party), feminist organizations, anti-colonial movements (such as Puerto Rican independence groups like the Young Lords), and a variety of organizations that were part of the broader New Left.
> 
> FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover issued directives governing COINTELPRO, ordering FBI agents to "expose, disrupt, misdirect, discredit, neutralize or otherwise eliminate" the activities of these movements and especially their leaders.[5][6] Under Hoover, the agent in charge of COINTELPRO was William C. Sullivan.[7] Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy personally authorized some of these programs.[8] Kennedy would later learn that he also had been a target of FBI surveillance.[citation needed]




https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/COINTELPRO​


----------



## SirRumpole (1 April 2016)

DB008 said:


> *After only 72 hours the FBI has already started helping other police departments gain access to Iphones being held for evidence .... Go Figure.....​*
> 
> 
> 
> ...




I wonder if Apple will sue for loss of sales if it happens.


----------



## DB008 (1 April 2016)

SirRumpole said:


> I wonder if Apple will sue for loss of sales if it happens.




There is now a known security flaw in their product (it is an older 5c model though). They have a mandate to fix this.


----------



## luutzu (1 April 2016)

SirRumpole said:


> I wonder if Apple will sue for loss of sales if it happens.




Saw an interview with Greenwald where he said the US govt could very quickly and easily hack into any phone. They're just making a big deal out of this iPhone so that Apple would give them the code so they can automate the hacking all at once. Trying to be efficient I guess. Going to court to present your case, get a warrant is a pain.


----------



## SirRumpole (23 April 2016)

Very disturbing.


Trust our government ? Not on your life.


Thought 'death cult' lawmaking ended with Abbott? Think again


http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-04-21/bradley-death-cult-lawmaking-continues/7344290
--


----------



## SirRumpole (8 May 2016)

Online privacy ? No such thing.

Freedom of speech ? No such thing.

Criticise government decisions and you could be sacked.

Free speech fight over what public servants post online

http://www.abc.net.au/radionational...over-what-public-servants-post-online/7387636


----------



## luutzu (8 May 2016)

SirRumpole said:


> Online privacy ? No such thing.
> 
> Freedom of speech ? No such thing.
> 
> ...




Have I ever said I love all our politicians? What wonderful chaps they all are. And public servants... awesome bunch. But no one works harder or keep our country safer than the people at ASIO, AFP and the IT guys at TPG, Optus, Telstra.

Can't wait for 1985.


----------



## DB008 (8 May 2016)

*Panama Papers source breaks silence, explains intentions behind Mossack Fonseca data leak​*


> The highly secretive source behind the Panama Papers, the largest leak of confidential data ever analysed by journalists, has released a detailed manifesto explaining why he decided to blow the whistle.
> 
> Speaking for the first time since leaking more than 11 million documents "John Doe", as the source is known, revealed he was willing to share the data with authorities.
> 
> "In the end, thousands of prosecutions could stem from the Panama Papers, if only law enforcement could access and evaluate the actual documents," he said in a four-page statement shared with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ).




More on link below...

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-05-07/panama-papers-source-breaks-his-silence/7391036​


----------



## SirRumpole (17 May 2016)

Should the use indiscriminate weapons be allowed ?

Australian police authorities buying up sound weapons

http://www.abc.net.au/radionational...ralian-police-buy-up-on-sound-weapons/7419408


----------



## Tisme (17 May 2016)

SirRumpole said:


> Should the use indiscriminate weapons be allowed ?
> 
> Australian police authorities buying up sound weapons
> 
> http://www.abc.net.au/radionational...ralian-police-buy-up-on-sound-weapons/7419408




Like always, if you put a dare out there, people will fulfill it. I wonder at why we would need such a thing, unless they getting ready for the growth in soccer thugs and hooliganism that goes with the sport.


----------



## SirRumpole (17 May 2016)

Tisme said:


> Like always, if you put a dare out there, people will fulfill it. I wonder at why we would need such a thing, unless they getting ready for the growth in soccer thugs and hooliganism that goes with the sport.




Maybe people wouldn't riot if the things played some good music.


----------



## pixel (16 June 2016)

WGL app launch delayed 
http://www.asx.com.au/asx/statistics/displayAnnouncement.do?display=pdf&idsId=01749302

The reason: They must implement provisions that allow "Data Interception and Data Retention".
in other words: Our caring, nosy Gov'mint wants to know what every citizen is saying, looking at, reading - both at the very instant and in the past.

*And NOBODY raises THAT as an election issue?*  :1zhelp:

George Orwell was an Optimist.


----------



## qldfrog (16 June 2016)

Sharing your concern, lambs led to the slaughter if need be, to the shopping mall before
Note the document is password protected


----------



## DB008 (21 August 2016)

Gov = muppetheads


​

*THE NSA LEAK IS REAL, SNOWDEN DOCUMENTS CONFIRM​*


> ON MONDAY, A HACKING group calling itself the “ShadowBrokers” announced an auction for what it claimed were “cyber weapons” made by the NSA. Based on never-before-published documents provided by the whistleblower Edward Snowden, The Intercept can confirm that the arsenal contains authentic NSA software, part of a powerful constellation of tools used to covertly infect computers worldwide.
> 
> The provenance of the code has been a matter of heated debate this week among cybersecurity experts, and while it remains unclear how the software leaked, one thing is now beyond speculation: The malware is covered with the NSA’s virtual fingerprints and clearly originates from the agency.
> 
> ...





https://theintercept.com/2016/08/19/the-nsa-was-hacked-snowden-documents-confirm/​


----------



## Wysiwyg (21 August 2016)

pixel said:


> WGL app launch delayed
> http://www.asx.com.au/asx/statistics/displayAnnouncement.do?display=pdf&idsId=01749302
> 
> The reason: They must implement provisions that allow "Data Interception and Data Retention".
> ...



Then "privacy" is a very misleading word for Wrangle to use!




Privacy | Define Privacy at Dictionary.com
www.dictionary.com/browse/privacy
*freedom from* damaging publicity, public scrutiny, secret surveillance, or unauthorized *disclosure of one's personal data or information, as by a government*, corporation, or individual: Ordinary citizens have a qualifiedright to privacy.


----------



## DB008 (22 August 2016)

*UK surveillance powers have gone ‘further than any other Western democracy’ - MP​*



> Britain has gone “further than any other Western democracy” in its expansion of surveillance powers and its ability to collect bulk data without justifiable reason, a British MP has said.
> 
> Joanna Cherry, a Scottish National Party (SNP) MP, made the comments in reference to the Investigatory Powers (IP) Bill, which has been introduced to extend surveillance and data-gathering laws. It will allow UK intelligence agencies to collect, store and access information about internet users.
> 
> ...






More on link below...

https://www.rt.com/uk/356494-surveillance-powers-security-democracy/​


----------



## DB008 (7 April 2017)

Basically, the NSA/CIA can hack into anything/everything, and also bypass antivirus/malware detection (Microsoft built in security + Kaspersky/Norton).
*
*
*Vault 7: CIA Hacking Tools Revealed*​
*Grasshopper OS/PSP Characterization*​

https://wikileaks.org/ciav7p1/cms/page_14587218.html


----------



## DB008 (24 May 2017)

*Obama intel agency secretly conducted illegal searches
on Americans for years*​
The National Security Agency under former President Barack Obama routinely violated American privacy protections while scouring through overseas intercepts and failed to disclose the extent of the problems until the final days before Donald Trump was elected president last fall, according to once top-secret documents that chronicle some of the most serious constitutional abuses to date by the U.S. intelligence community.

More than 5 percent, or one out of every 20 searches seeking upstream Internet data on Americans inside the NSA’s so-called Section 702 database violated the safeguards Obama and his intelligence chiefs vowed to follow in 2011, according to one classified internal report reviewed by Circa.

The Obama administration self-disclosed the problems at a closed-door hearing Oct. 26 before the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court that set off alarm. Trump was elected less than two weeks later.

The normally supportive court excoriated administration officials, saying the failure to disclose the extent of the violations earlier amounted to a “institutional lack of candor” and that the improper searches constituted a “very serious Fourth Amendment issue,” according to a recently unsealed court document dated April 26, 2017.

The admitted violations undercut one of the primary defenses that the intelligence community and Obama officials have used in recent weeks to justify their snooping into incidental NSA intercepts about Americans.

Circa has reported that there was  a three-fold increase in NSA data searches about Americans and a rise in the unmasking of U.S. person’s identities in intelligence reports after Obama loosened the privacy rules in 2011.

Officials like former National Security Adviser Susan Rice have argued their activities were legals under the so-called minimization rule changes Obama made and that the intelligence agencies were strictly monitored to avoid abuses.

The intelligence court and the NSA’s own internal watchdog found that not to be true.

“Since 2011, NSA’s minimization procedures have prohibited use of U.S.-person identifiers to query the results of upstream Internet collections under Section 702,” the unsealed court ruling declared. “The Oct. 26, 2016 notice informed the court that NSA analysts had been conducting such queries inviolation of that prohibition, with much greater frequency than had been previously disclosed to the Court.”

The American Civil Liberties Union said the newly disclosed violations are some of the most serious to ever be documented and strongly call into question the U.S. intelligence community’s ability to police itself and safeguard American’s privacy as guaranteed by the Constitution’s Fourth Amendment protections against unlawful search and seizure.

“I think what this emphasizes is the shocking lack of oversight of these programs,” said Neema Singh Guliani, the ACLU’s legislative counsel in Washington.


http://circa.com/politics/barack-ob...s-of-illegal-nsa-searches-spying-on-americans​


----------



## Tisme (25 May 2017)

DB008 said:


> *Obama intel agency secretly conducted illegal searches
> on Americans for years*​
> 
> “I think what this emphasizes is the shocking lack of oversight of these programs,” said Neema Singh Guliani, the ACLU’s legislative counsel in Washington.




I think this is a symptom of divided loyalties along racial lines.

The USA and increasingly Australia is no longer a British colonial thinking nation. It does not have the strong individual bonds to the "rule of law" Motherland, instead it is a hotchpotch of people who have family roots in divisive, deceptive and destructive cultures....... there is no long term antecedent pride in a system that has no linkers to their past and the millennial battle for rights to individual freedom.

Of course it could be that the USA govt has been infiltrated with dickheds who don't value personal freedom of association more than the game of catchy.


----------



## DB008 (28 June 2017)

*Advanced CIA firmware has been infecting*
*Wi-Fi routers for years*​Home routers from 10 manufacturers, including Linksys, DLink, and Belkin, can be turned into covert listening posts that allow the Central Intelligence Agency to monitor and manipulate incoming and outgoing traffic and infect connected devices. That's according to secret documents posted Thursday by WikiLeaks.

CherryBlossom, as the implant is code-named, can be especially effective against targets using some D-Link-made DIR-130 and Linksys-manufactured WRT300N models because they can be remotely infected even when they use a strong administrative password. An exploit code-named Tomato can extract their passwords as long as a default feature known as universal plug and play remains on. Routers that are protected by a default or easily-guessed administrative password are, of course, trivial to infect. In all, documents say CherryBlossom runs on 25 router models, although it's likely modifications would allow the implant to run on at least 100 more.






The 175-page CherryBlossom user guide describes a Linux-based operating system that can run on a broad range of routers. Once installed, CherryBlossom turns the device into a "FlyTrap" that beacons a CIA-controlled server known as a "CherryTree." The beacon includes device status and security information that the CherryTree logs to a database. In response, the CherryTree sends the infected device a "Mission" consisting of specific tasks tailored to the target. CIA operators can use a "CherryWeb" browser-based user interface to view Flytrap status and security information, plan new missions, view mission-related data, and perform system administration tasks.

Missions can target connected users based on IPs, e-mail addresses, MAC addresses, chat user names, and VoIP numbers. Mission tasks can include copying all or only some of the traffic; copying e-mail addresses, chat user names, and VoIP numbers; invoking a feature known as "Windex," which redirects a user's browser that attempts to perform a drive-by malware attack; establishing a virtual private network connection that gives access to the local area network; and the proxying of all network connections.

https://arstechnica.com/security/20...rns-home-routers-into-covert-listening-posts/

https://wikileaks.org/vault7/#Cherry Blossom​


----------



## basilio (28 June 2017)

Thanks DB008. Just truly xxxxing terrifying.

It's scary enough having such an invasive spy network in place. But with someone like Trump in power one shudders to think how how this can be used. 

Brings back the old adage. Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.

___________________________

Just went to the Wiki leaks site and saw that they have been releasing a series of papers on the hacking tools used by the CIA around the world. Certainly worth a look.
https://wikileaks.org/


----------



## basilio (28 June 2017)

So I started to read a few more articles in Wiki Leaks. What took my eye was the release of the medical records of Julian Assuage. Certainly shows how much pressure he has been put under with his house confinement and extensive surveillance.

It's interesting to reflect that when Wikileaks started and was releasing a range of documents from various governments and commercial organisations around the world it was seen as "freedom fighters". They were uncovering corruption, political scandals ect.
The turning point for Wikileaks came when the light was turned on US activities in Iraq and in the CIA. Wikileaks immediately became a threat to the covert, completely illegal operations carried out by the CIA.

Everything that has happened  since then has been an attempt to silence him and destroy Wikileaks.  If this is successful there really is very little left to challenge the power  of covert ops wherever they are.

https://wikileaks.org/Medical-Reports.html


----------



## DB008 (2 July 2017)

1) It's all about getting passed the FISA court somehow...

2) Then if they have found evidence against you (illegally) they then have to find something else to charge you with, if the original charge was found to be illegal in court, it gets thrown out. This can be seen when the US Government used stingray.
*

*​*NSA's use of 'traffic shaping' allows unrestrained spying on Americans*​
*By using a "traffic shaping" technique, the National Security Agency sidestepped legal restrictions imposed by lawmakers and the surveillance courts.*​

A new analysis of documents leaked by whistleblower Edward Snowden details a highly classified technique that allows the National Security Agency to "deliberately divert" US internet traffic, normally safeguarded by constitutional protections, overseas in order to conduct unrestrained data collection on Americans.

According to the new analysis, the NSA has clandestine means of "diverting portions of the river of internet traffic that travels on global communications cables," which allows it to bypass protections put into place by Congress to prevent domestic surveillance on Americans.

The new findings, published Thursday, follows a 2014 paper by researchers Axel Arnbak and Sharon Goldberg, published on sister-site CBS News, which theorized that the NSA, whose job it is to produce intelligence from overseas targets, was using a "traffic shaping" technique to route US internet data overseas so that it could be incidentally collected under the authority of a largely unknown executive order.

US citizens are afforded constitutional protections against surveillance or searches of their personal data. Any time the government wants to access an American's data, they must follow the rules of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance (FISA) Court, a Washington DC-based court that authorizes the government's surveillance programs.

But if that same data is collected outside the US, the bulk of the NSA's authority stems from a presidential decree dating back more than three decades.

The so-called Executive Order 12333, signed into law by President Ronald Reagan in 1981, went on to become the bulk of the NSA's authority, expanding the agency's collection capabilities to both foreign and domestic targets. The order is far more permissive than the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, as enacted by Congress, as it falls solely under the watch of the executive branch and is not reviewed by the courts.

A former NSA executive turned whistleblower Bill Binney once described the executive order as a "blank check" for the intelligence agencies to conduct surveillance when other laws fail or don't reach far enough.

Although the new research notes that the agency's ability to carry out the traffic shaping technique is unknown due to the highly classified nature of any surveillance program, the NSA can use its legal powers to "sidestep legal restrictions imposed by Congress and the surveillance courts," said Goldberg, who authored the report.

The government's use of traffic shaping exploits a fundamental principle about internet traffic: Data takes the quickest and most efficient route, which sometimes means bouncing from different countries around the globe, rather than staying within a country's borders.

That allows the NSA to vacuum up data it treats as an overseas communication -- with little regard for whether the data belongs to an American.



More on link below....

http://www.zdnet.com/article/legal-loopholes-unrestrained-nsa-surveillance-on-americans/​


----------



## DB008 (21 March 2018)

​


----------



## Humid (21 March 2018)

StartPage is a good way to backdoor google.
I use DuckDuckGo sometimes too.
Sometimes it’s just who cares


----------



## DB008 (21 March 2018)

Humid said:


> Sometimes




So having no privacy is ok with you?

Can you please give me your PIN number and passwords to your email client too while your at it....


----------



## Humid (21 March 2018)

Well it doesn’t consume me
I use Proton mail....
Russian spy stuff fully encrypted


----------



## DB008 (25 March 2018)

Humid said:


> Well it doesn’t consume me
> I use Proton mail....
> Russian spy stuff fully encrypted




Have heard of Proton Mail. Sounds secure. But, when the NSA does a jv with Intel/AMD - on a physical hardware level - software protection seems irrelevant....

Anyways, Facebook is also siphoning - and also letting NSA/US Gov in on the content too

I just downloaded my Facebook zip file. Wow, they ain't joking. Facebook keeps tabs on everything, Google too. I find this sick. We have zero privacy anymore.


*Facebook scraped call, text message data for years from Android phones*
​This past week, a New Zealand man was looking through the data Facebook had collected from him in an archive he had pulled down from the social networking site. While scanning the information Facebook had stored about his contacts, Dylan McKay discovered something distressing: Facebook also had about two years worth of phone call metadata from his Android phone, including names, phone numbers, and the length of each call made or received.

In response to an email inquiry about this data gathering by Ars, a Facebook spokesperson replied, "The most important part of apps and services that help you make connections is to make it easy to find the people you want to connect with. So, the first time you sign in on your phone to a messaging or social app, it's a widely used practice to begin by uploading your phone contacts."

The spokesperson pointed out that contact uploading is optional and installation of the application explicitly requests permission to access contacts. And users can delete contact data from their profiles using a tool accessible via Web browser.

https://arstechnica.com/information...t-message-data-for-years-from-android-phones/​


----------



## bellenuit (25 March 2018)

DB008 said:


> Have heard of Proton Mail. Sounds secure. But, when the NSA does a jv with Intel/AMD - on a physical hardware level - software protection seems irrelevant....
> 
> Anyways, Facebook is also siphoning - and also letting NSA/US Gov in on the content too
> 
> ...




I read that NZ guy's tweet about his call information being collected. The most worrying thing to him was that the calls were made by his telephone app that is outside of FB and not in any way connected to FB.


----------



## DB008 (25 March 2018)

bellenuit said:


> I read that NZ guy's tweet about his call information being collected. The most worrying thing to him was that the calls were made by his telephone app that is outside of FB and not in any way connected to FB.




Your not wrong bellenuit.

When you click on those 'I accept T & C's' conditions, that's where they get you.


----------



## Tisme (26 March 2018)

If you don't already, you should be running "Purity" on facebook. It shows in popups how even ASF cross links and it blocks them.

The other for search engines like Google is "Ghostery"


----------



## DB008 (28 March 2018)

*ZUCKERBERG HITS USERS WITH THE HARD TRUTH:*
*YOU AGREED TO THIS*​
After embarking on exactly the kind of cringe-inducing apology tour one would expect following the revelation that Cambridge Analytica plundered the data of millions of Facebook users, Mark Zuckerberg has yet another mess on his hands. Over the weekend, Android owners were displeased to discover that Facebook had been scraping their text-message and phone-call metadata, in some cases for years, an operation hidden in the fine print of a user agreement clause until Ars Technica reported. Facebook was quick to defend the practice as entirely aboveboard—small comfort to those who are beginning to realize that, because Facebook is a free service, they and their data are by necessity the products.

In its current iteration, Facebook’s Messenger application requests that those who download it give it permission to access incoming and outgoing call and text logs. But, as users discovered when prompted to download a copy of their personal data before permanently deleting their Facebook accounts, a certain amount of data was covertly siphoned without explicit permissions. Buried inside those data caches was an unsettling amount of specific, detailed information—in some cases, every phone call or text message ever sent or received on their Android device. Dylan McKay, who apparently owns an Android phone, reported that for the period between November 2016 and July 2017, his archives contained “the metadata of every cellular call I’ve ever made, including time and duration” and “metadata about every text message I’ve ever received or sent.” When people like McKay agreed to share their contacts with Facebook, it appears they didn’t know the extent to which they were giving Facebook access to their personal information.

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/201...ard-truth-you-agreed-to-this?utm_source=quora​


----------



## DB008 (26 April 2018)

*ISO blocks NSA's latest IoT encryption systems amid murky tales of backdoors and bullying*​Two new encryption algorithms developed by the NSA have been rejected by an international standards body amid accusations of threatening behavior.

The "Simon" and "Speck" cryptographic tools were designed for secure data to and from the next generation of internet-of-things gizmos and sensors, and were intended to become a global standard.

But the pair of techniques were formally rejected earlier this week by the International Organization of Standards (ISO) amid concerns that they contained a backdoor that would allow US spies to break the encryption. The process was also marred by complaints from encryption experts of threatening behavior from American snoops.

The ISO's meetings are confidential and held behind closed doors, but a number of encryption experts have broken their silence now that the NSA's three-year effort to push has effectively been ended.

"I worked very hard for this in the last year and a half. Now I can finally tell my story," tweeted one of the experts, Dr Tomer Ashur, who was representing the Belgian delegation.

He then pointed to the NSA's "outrageously adversarial" behavior during the process as a main reason why the two standards were rejected.

When some of the design choices made by the NSA were questioned by experts, Ashur states, the g-men's response was to personally attack the questioners, which included himself, Orr Dunkelman and Daniel Bernstein, who represented the Israeli and German delegations respectively.

Ashur further alleged that the NSA had plied the relevant ISO committee with "half-truths and full lies" in response to concerns, and said that if the American delegation had been "more trustworthy, or at least more cooperative, different alliances would have probably been formed."

Instead, he says, "they chose to try to bully their way into the standards which almost worked but eventually backfired."

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/04/25/nsa_iot_encryption/​


----------



## DB008 (10 June 2018)

*How a Hacker Proved Cops Used a
Secret Government Phone Tracker to Find Him
*​The Hacker was found out through the warrantless use of a secretive surveillance technology known as a stingray, which snoops on cell phones. Stingrays, or cell-site simulators, act as false cell phone towers that trick phones into giving up their location. They have become yet another tool in many agencies’ toolbox, and their use has expanded with little oversight—and no public knowledge that they were even being used until the Hacker went on an obsessive quest to find out just how law enforcement tracked him that summer day. When he tugged on that thread, he found out something else: that police might be tracking a lot more than we even know on our phones, often without the warrants that are usually needed for comparable methods of invasive surveillance.

While StingRay is a trademark, _stingray _has since become so ubiquitous in law enforcement and national security circles as to also often act as the catch-all generic term—like Kleenex or Xerox. A stingray acts as a fake cell tower and forces cell phones and other mobile devices using a cell network (like Rigmaiden’s AirCard, which provided his laptop with Internet access) to communicate with it rather than with a bona fide mobile network. Stingrays are big boxes—roughly the size of a laser printer—like something out of a 1950s-era switchboard, with all kinds of knobs and dials and readouts. Stingrays can easily be hidden inside a police surveillance van or another nearby location.

All of our cell phones rely on a network of towers and antennas that relay our signal back to the network and then connect us to the person that we’re communicating with. As we move across a city, mobile networks seamlessly hand off our call from one tower to the next, usually providing an uninterrupted call. But in order for the system to work, the mobile phone provider needs to know where the phone actually is so that it can direct a signal to it. It does so by sending a short message to the phone nearly constantly—in industry terminology this is known as a ping. The message basically is asking the phone: “Are you there?” And your phone responds: “Yes, I’m here.” (Think of it as roughly the mobile phone version of the children’s swimming pool game Marco Polo.) If your phone cannot receive a ping, it cannot receive service. The bottom line is, if your phone can receive service, then the mobile provider (and possibly the cops, too) know where you are.

The Harris Corporation, a longstanding American military contractor, won’t say exactly how stingrays work, or exactly who it’s selling to, but it’s safe to say that it’s selling to lots of federal agencies and, by extension, local law enforcement. The company’s 2017 annual financial report filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission shows that in recent years Harris has increased its sales of surveillance equipment and related tactical radio systems. It works with not only the U.S. military and law enforcement, but also Canada, *Australia*, Poland and Brazil, among other countries. The company has profited over $1.8 billion from fiscal year 2013 through 2017.



More of the article below - a very interesting read....

*https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/06/03/cyrus-farivar-book-excerpt-stingray-218588

*​_Highlighted above is the very interesting part - *Australia*. See those people on TV who go to those hard left/right, rallies/protests in Victoria. I can bet you that they are all been tracked by stingray._




And another article below based on the same stingray....​

*FBI would rather prosecutors drop cases than*
*disclose stingray details*​Not only is the FBI actively attempting to stop the public from knowing about stingrays, it has also forced local law enforcement agencies to stay quiet even in court and during public hearings, too.

An FBI agreement, published for the first time in unredacted form on Tuesday, clearly demonstrates the full extent of the agency’s attempt to quash public disclosure of information about stingrays. The most egregious example of this is language showing that the FBI would rather have a criminal case be dropped to protect secrecy surrounding the stingray.

Relatively little is known about how, exactly, stingrays, known more generically as cell-site simulators, are used by law enforcement agencies nationwide, although new documents have recently been released showing how they have been purchased and used in some limited instances. Worse still, cops have lied to courts about their use. Not only can stingrays be used to determine location by spoofing a cell tower, they can also be used to intercept calls and text messages. Typically, police deploy them without first obtaining a search warrant.

Ars previously published a redacted version of this document in February 2015, which had been acquired by the _Minneapolis Star Tribune_ in December 2014. The fact that these two near-identical documents exist from the same year (2012) provides even more evidence that this language is boilerplate and likely exists in other agreements with other law enforcement agencies nationwide.​ 
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/04/fbi-would-rather-prosecutors-drop-cases-than-disclose-stingray-details/​


----------



## DB008 (14 June 2018)

I'm seriously considering moving from Android to iPhone soon....

Google don't give a rat's about your privacy


*Apple to Close iPhone Security Hole That Police Use*
*to Crack Devices*​
SAN FRANCISCO — Apple has long positioned the iPhone as a secure device that only its owner can open. That has led to battles with law enforcement officials who want to get information off them, including a well-publicized showdown with the F.B.I. in 2016 after Apple refused to help open the locked iPhone of a mass killer.

The F.B.I. eventually paid a third party to get into the phone, circumventing the need for Apple’s help. Since then, law enforcement agencies across the country have increasingly employed that strategy to get into locked iPhones they hope will hold the key to cracking cases.

Now Apple is closing the technological loophole that let authorities hack into iPhones, angering police and other officials and reigniting a debate over whether the government has a right to get into the personal devices that are at the center of modern life.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/13/technology/apple-iphone-police.html


----------



## Tisme (14 June 2018)

DB008 said:


> I'm seriously considering moving from Android to iPhone soon....
> 
> Google don't give a rat's about your privacy
> 
> ...




It might only be 0.7/1000 coppers get caught, but who wants to risk their data on the hope an honest copper is checking your phone out.


----------



## DB008 (15 June 2018)

*Report: Grayshift may have already found a way around USB Restricted Mode in iOS 12*​
In a statement to _9to5Mac_ yesterday, Apple confirmed a new feature called USB Restricted Mode that restricts an iPhone’s Lightning port to charge only if the device hasn’t been unlocked in the last hour. According to a new report from _Vice_, however, security researchers have already been able to workaround the new feature..

USB Restricted Mode was seemingly introduced in response to tools like GrayKey, which connects to a passcode-protected iPhone via Lightning and uses brute-force tactics to gain access. GrayKey and other similar tools are incredibly popular among law enforcement agencies, as well criminals.

In an email obtained by Vice, though, a forensic expert claims that Grayshift has taken steps to “future proof” its technologies and has already defeated Apple’s new USB Restricted Mode:

“Grayshift has gone to great lengths to future proof their technology and stated that they have already defeated this security feature in the beta build. Additionally, the GrayKey has built in future capabilities that will begin to be leveraged as time goes on,” a June email from a forensic expert who planned to meet with Grayshift, and seen by Motherboard, reads.​
Of course, it’s always possible that this security researcher is bluffing, though one would have to question that tactic as it would only push Apple to implement even stricter features to thwart tools like GrayKey.

https://www.aussiestockforums.com/t...r-governments-to-do.26939/page-11#post-985389​


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## Darc Knight (25 June 2018)

All you have to do is walk down your local supermarket aisle and see the abundance of misleading information on products to realise humans can't be trusted and Governmental intervention is needed in most areas otherwise Society would turn to sheet.
I think we need to pay our Pollies more to attract better ones


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## Darc Knight (25 June 2018)

But then again, if you listen to Alan Jones he has all the answers lol. At least it's entertaining, like Clive Palmer


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## basilio (25 June 2018)

Darc Knight said:


> But then again, if you listen to Alan Jones he has all the answers lol. At least it's entertaining, like Clive Palmer




Indeed Alan Jones does have all the answers. Just ask him ! Basically an empty drum banging on with essentially sensationalistic rubbish.


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## Tisme (25 June 2018)

Darc Knight said:


> But then again, if you listen to Alan Jones he has all the answers lol. At least it's entertaining, like Clive Palmer




But Clive has $500miliion which says a lot about those who don't.  Who knows someone here might be Clive.


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## DB008 (26 June 2018)

*The $5 Million Surveillance Car That Hacks iPhones*
*From 500 Meters*​A Cyprus-based surveillance company claims to have built a car full of next-generation snooping kit that can infect Apple and Google phones from as far away as 500 metres. WiSpear, founded by one of Israel’s longtime surveillance market players Tal Dilian, is selling the car for between $3.5 million and $5 million and claims it has plenty of interest already. It’s also inspired concern from the privacy community.

The SpearHead 360 vehicle uses 24 antennas to reach out to target devices. Once a phone has been chosen, the WiSpear automobile has four different ways to force a phone to connect to its Wi-Fi-based interceptors from where it can start snooping on devices (using what are known as man-in-the-middle attacks). Then there are four different kinds of malware for various operating systems, including Apple’s iOS or Google’s Android devices, according to Dilian.

He also claims to have access to a range of publicly-unknown Android and iOS vulnerabilities (known as zero-days), which are required for any successful hacks to work on the Google and Apple operating systems. And he says the car can be used to hack devices simultaneously; if a target is sitting in a coffee shop using a Mac, an Android and a Windows tablet, all could be infected at once.

WiSpear showed off the van at the ISS World and Eurosatory conferences this month. As seen in the video below, police can splurge on a drone and a backpack to go inside the car for even more mobile surveillance. Both can be used to carry out the same attacks, according to Dilian, who noted a single backpack can cost as much as $1.2 million. “This takes customers from detection all the way to full interception,” he told _Forbes_. “I think it’s a game changer.”

More on link below...

https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomas...by-israeli-surveillance-company/#3c3b67c67690​


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## DB008 (4 July 2018)

Oldie but a goodie....


​


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## DB008 (5 July 2018)

Part 1
https://www.pbs.org/video/frontline-united-states-secrets-part-one/

Part 2
https://www.pbs.org/video/frontline-united-states-secrets-privacy-lost/

One of the best documentaries l've seen regarding privacy. 10/10

In Part 2 - around the 40 minute mark - eye opener


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## DB008 (20 August 2018)

*_NSAKEY*​
In computer security and cryptography, *_NSAKEY* was a variable name discovered in Windows NT 4 Service Pack 5 (which had been released unstripped of its symbolic debugging data) in August 1999 by Andrew D. Fernandes of Cryptonym Corporation. That variable contained a 1024-bit public key.

Microsoft's operating systems require all cryptography suites that work with its operating systems to have a digital signature. Since only Microsoft-approved cryptography suites can be installed or used as a component of Windows, it is possible to keep export copies of this operating system (and products with Windows installed) in compliance with the Export Administration Regulations(EAR), which are enforced by the US Department of Commerce Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS).

It was already known that Microsoft used two keys, a primary and a spare, either of which can create valid signatures. Microsoft had failed to remove the debugging symbols in ADVAPI32.DLL, a security and encryption driver, when it released Service Pack 5 for Windows NT 4.0, and Andrew Fernandes, chief scientist with Cryptonym, found the primary key stored in the variable _KEY and the second key was labeled _NSAKEY.[1] Fernandes published his discovery, touching off a flurry of speculation and conspiracy theories, including the possibility that the second key was owned by the United States National Security Agency (the NSA) and allowed the intelligence agency to subvert any Windows user's security.

During a presentation at the Computers, Freedom and Privacy 2000 (CFP2000) conference, Duncan Campbell, senior research fellow at the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), mentioned the _NSAKEY controversy as an example of an outstanding issue related to security and surveillance.[_citation needed_]

In addition, Dr. Nicko van Someren found a third key in Windows 2000, which he doubted had a legitimate purpose, and declared that "It looks more fishy".


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NSAKEY​


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## DB008 (4 September 2018)

*Five-Eyes nations to force encryption backdoors*

*Tech companies get Faustian interception choice.*​The governments of Australia, United States, United Kingdom, Canada and New Zealand have made the strongest statement yet that they intend to force technology providers to provide lawful access to users' encrypted communications.

At the Five Country Ministerial meeting on the Gold Coast last week, security and immigration ministers put forward a range of proposals to combat terrorism and crime, with a particular emphasis on the internet.

As part of that, the countries that share intelligence with each other under the Five-Eyes umbrella agreement, intend to "encourage information and communications technology service providers to voluntarily establish lawful access solutions to their products and services."

Such solutions will apply to products and services operated in the Five-Eyes countries which could legislate to compel their implementation.

"Should governments continue to encounter impediments to lawful access to information necessary to aid the protection of the citizens of our countries, we may pursue technological, enforcement, legislative or other measures to achieve lawful access solutions," the Five-Eyes joint statement on encryption said.

While the five countries are committed to personal and privacy rights that, along with the digital economy and government data, are protected by encryption, lawful access to information for the purpose of investigating threats and prosecuting crime now appears paramount.

While the rhetoric is sharp, the specifics are vague. Governments won't specify any particular interception technology, and will leave it to technology companies to create the solutions required that provide lawful access capability.

Creating so-called backdoors in applications and services to enable communications interception capabilities for law enforcement has persistently been criticised by cryptography and security experts as dangerous for decades now.

Despite the criticism and concerns that backdoors in Western equipment and services could be exploited and abused by totalitarian regimes elsewhere in the world, the Five-Eyes countries have pursued interception capabilities, saying not having these would undermine the rule of law.

https://www.itnews.com.au/news/five-eyes-nations-to-force-encryption-backdoors-511865​


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## DB008 (31 January 2019)

This is a brilliant article. Highly recommend reading it.


*INSIDE THE UAE’S SECRET HACKING TEAM OF AMERICAN MERCENARIES
*​
*Ex-NSA operatives reveal how they helped spy on targets for the Arab monarchy — dissidents, rival leaders and journalists.*​
Two weeks after leaving her position as an intelligence analyst for the U.S. National Security Agency in 2014, Lori Stroud was in the Middle East working as a hacker for an Arab monarchy.

She had joined Project Raven, a clandestine team that included more than a dozen former U.S. intelligence operatives recruited to help the United Arab Emirates engage in surveillance of other governments, militants and human rights activists critical of the monarchy.

Stroud and her team, working from a converted mansion in Abu Dhabi known internally as “the Villa,” would use methods learned from a decade in the U.S intelligence community to help the UAE hack into the phones and computers of its enemies.

Stroud had been recruited by a Maryland cybersecurity contractor to help the Emiratis launch hacking operations, and for three years, she thrived in the job. But in 2016, the Emiratis moved Project Raven to a UAE cybersecurity firm named DarkMatter. Before long, Stroud and other Americans involved in the effort say they saw the mission cross a red line: targeting fellow Americans for surveillance.
​“I am working for a foreign intelligence agency who is targeting U.S. persons,” she told Reuters. “I am officially the bad kind of spy.”

The story of Project Raven reveals how former U.S. government hackers have employed state-of-the-art cyber-espionage tools on behalf of a foreign intelligence service that spies on human rights activists, journalists and political rivals.

Interviews with nine former Raven operatives, along with a review of thousands of pages of project documents and emails, show that surveillance techniques taught by the NSA were central to the UAE’s efforts to monitor opponents. The sources interviewed by Reuters were not Emirati citizens.

The operatives utilized an arsenal of cyber tools, including a cutting-edge espionage platform known as Karma, in which Raven operatives say they hacked into the iPhones of hundreds of activists, political leaders and suspected terrorists. Details of the Karma hack were described in a separate Reuters article today.

An NSA spokesman declined to comment on Raven. An Apple spokeswoman declined to comment. A spokeswoman for UAE’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs declined to comment. The UAE’s Embassy in Washington and a spokesman for its National Media Council did not respond to requests for comment.

The UAE has said it faces a real threat from violent extremist groups and that it is cooperating with the United States on counterterrorism efforts. Former Raven operatives say the project helped the UAE’s National Electronic Security Authority, or NESA, break up an ISIS network within the Emirates. When an ISIS-inspired militant stabbed to death a teacher in Abu Dhabi in 2014, the operatives say, Raven spearheaded the UAE effort to assess if other attacks were imminent.

Various reports have highlighted the ongoing cyber arms race in the Middle East, as the Emirates and other nations attempt to sweep up hacking weapons and personnel faster than their rivals. The Reuters investigation is the first to reveal the existence of Project Raven, providing a rare inside account of state hacking operations usually shrouded in secrecy and denials.

The Raven story also provides new insight into the role former American cyberspies play in foreign hacking operations. Within the U.S. intelligence community, leaving to work as an operative for another country is seen by some as a betrayal. “There’s a moral obligation if you’re a former intelligence officer from becoming effectively a mercenary for a foreign government,” said Bob Anderson, who served as executive assistant director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation until 2015.

While this activity raises ethical dilemmas, U.S. national security lawyers say the laws guiding what American intelligence contractors can do abroad are murky. Though it’s illegal to share classified information, there is no specific law that bars contractors from sharing more general spycraft knowhow, such as how to bait a target with a virus-laden email.

The rules, however, are clear on hacking U.S. networks or stealing the communications of Americans. “It would be very illegal,” said Rhea Siers, former NSA deputy assistant director for policy.
​Lots more on link below.....
https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-spying-raven/​


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## DB008 (6 February 2019)

*How Huawei planned international robot espionage via email*

*It's 1 percent James Bond, 99 percent Mr. Bean.*​Huawei began building its own phone-testing system, xDeviceRobot, in early 2012. The Chinese company hoped to improve the quality of its mobile hardware, which tended to fail far more often than competitors' devices in third-party trials. In May 2012, Huawei China asked T-Mobile if it could license or flat-out buy the company's phone-testing robot, Tappy, which served as a standard for much of the industry. T-Mobile said no.
So, Huawei decided to steal Tappy.

After installing a handful of employees at T-Mobile's headquarters in Bellevue, Washington, federal prosecutors claim Huawei USA and China employees attempted to illegally collect information on Tappy in a year-long espionage campaign that culminated in actual theft. Huawei was found guilty of misappropriating T-Mobile's Tappy intellectual property in a 2014 civil lawsuit, and federal prosecutors in Seattle this week unsealed an indictment that brings new, criminal charges against the Chinese company.

The following activities and email exchanges were compiled from the indictment signed on January 16th, 2019 (unsealed on January 28th). All bolded messages presented below are direct quotes from Huawei emails, as described in the indictment, while the supporting text has been compiled from the document's surrounding information.​
https://www.engadget.com/2019/01/30/huawei-t-mobile-emails-espionage-tappy-robot-steal-2012/​


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## basilio (7 February 2019)

This is how China is moulding/controlling peoples behaviour. Not a theory but on the ground fact.
The technology is there and no doubt available to any government.
I wonder when Western governments decide that this sort of security surveillance is for them ?
Well worth reading.

*Millions are on the move in China, and Big Data is watching*

More than 5 million people in China have now been banned from buying a high-speed rail ticket and 17 million stopped from buying air tickets because they appear on a social credit system black list.
https://www.canberratimes.com.au/wo...and-big-data-is-watching-20190204-p50vlf.html


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## DB008 (6 May 2019)

*Facial recognition system rollout was too rushed,*
*Queensland police report reveals*​
The biggest mass surveillance operation known to have been used by police in Australia was so rushed that it lacked the data to operate effectively, the ABC has learned.

But the Queensland Police Service tried to keep that a secret.

The facial recognition system used in Queensland during the Gold Coast Commonwealth Games also had so few specific targets that it ended up being used for general policing.

Details of the surveillance system's rollout were revealed in an evaluation report conducted by the Queensland Police Service (QPS) after the 2018 event.

The report, obtained by ABC News under Right to Information (RTI), showed none of the 16 high-priority targets requested as part of the operation could be identified.

"Difficulties were experienced in data ingestion into one of the systems with the testing and availability not available until the week Operation Sentinel [the Games security operation] commenced," the report found.

"The inability of not having the legislation passed, both Commonwealth and state, in time for the Commonwealth Games reduced the database from an anticipated 46 million images to approximately eight million."

Halfway through the Games, the technology was opened up to basic policing, which turned up only five identities out of the 268 requested.

"Given the limited requests from within the Games, opportunity to conduct inquiries for the general policing environment was provided to enable better testing of the processes and capabilities," the report stated.

Michael Cope from the Queensland Council for Civil Liberties said it was a clear case of "scope creep".

"It reminds people that all this legislation is always dressed up as trying to get bad people who are coming to murder us — it is not at all," he said

"This just demonstrates that really the main use of this thing is not going to be to find people who might be potentially coming to cause mayhem and to kill people, but it's going to be to catch people who are committing ordinary mundane offences."

While police records were included, images from Queensland's Department of Transport and Main Roads were left out.

The report also found similar issues with millions of national identification images that were not included in the database.

Facial recognition software is also used at airports across the country by Australian Border Force.

Last week, a glitch in the system led to lengthy delays for thousands of travellers.​
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-05...t-facial-recognition-roll-out-rushed/11077350​


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## DB008 (4 June 2019)

*Australian Federal Police raid News Corp journalist Annika Smethurst's home over alleged national security leak*

Police have raided the Canberra home of a News Corp journalist after she reported that the Federal Government was considering spying on Australians.

*Key points:*

Police raid journalist's Canberra home a year after she reported on government spying leaks
Annika Smethurst's story alleged agencies were discussing giving greater surveillance powers to spy agencies
Police allege disclosure of government considerations undermines Australia's national security
According to the Daily Telegraph, the raid related to a story published in April last year in which Annika Smethurst reported that the Home Affairs and Defence departments were considering giving spy agencies greater surveillance powers.

The Australian Federal Police (AFP) confirmed the raid took place earlier today.

"The matter relates to an investigation into the alleged unauthorised disclosure of national security information that was referred to the AFP," the AFP said in a statement.

"Police will allege the unauthorised disclosure of these specific documents undermines Australia's national security.

"No arrests are expected today as a result of this activity."

The story alleged new powers, if adopted, would go to the Australian Signals Directorate (ASD) to secretly access bank records, emails and text messages without leaving a trace.

Smethurst's article included images of letters between the two departments as they discussed the proposals.


http://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-06-04/afp-raid-news-corp-journalist-annika-smethurst-home/11177052​


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## basilio (6 June 2019)

*Duttons rides again. AFP raids ABC to uncover "Threats to National Security"
*
This stinks.

* The AFP media raids aim to suppress the truth. Without it we head into the darkness of oppression *
Richard Flanagan
The Morrison government could not have signalled its turn to the new authoritarianism with any clearer message

Wed 5 Jun 2019 19.20 AEST


Shares
2,751


0:43
ABC's Sydney headquarters raided by Australian federal police – video
In March of this year police union leaders warned that the Australian federal police was losing “its independence and integrity and must be separated from Peter Dutton’s home affairs portfolio”.

According to the Australian Federal Police Association’s president, Angela Smith, there was a widely shared feeling across the AFP that the body had “lost autonomy”. “It’s an embarrassing situation,” Smith was quoted as saying. “We look the least independent police force in Australia.”

In the wake of the AFP’s raids on a leading News Corp journalist Annika Smethurst on Tuesday and the ABC on Wednesday, the position of the AFP has gone from embarrassing to deeply disturbing.

Even Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp, the cheerleaders of the re-election of the Morrison government, seemed in no doubt as to the political purpose of the raid on Smethurst two weeks after a federal election. It was, News Corp said in an official statement, a “dangerous act of intimidation”.

Implicit in News Corp’s statement is that this is not an act of policing, but an act of politics.

What are we to make of two raids in two days as anything other than a symptom of deeply disturbing developments at the heart of our democracy?

Smethurst’s story was over a year old. It was about a plan to allow the National Signals Directorate, for the first time, to directly spy on Australians by “hacking into critical infrastructure”.

In a statement the AFP attempted to justify its raid on Smethurst by arguing the disclosure of “these specific documents undermines Australia’s national security”. But how can our knowing about a possible major change to our freedoms as citizens in any way threaten our national security? The AFP doesn’t tell us because there is no argument they can make, only an unfounded assertion that they can repeat, mantra-like.

If mass surveillance is brought in, how will we know about it? Is national security best served by the inevitable abuses of such a scheme about which we are never told and which would go unpunished? Would national security be enhanced or weakened were Mr Dutton to use such powers for political advantage or to enable political persecution without our knowledge?

And if we cannot know the truth of such fundamental matters, what security as a democracy do we have?

If one raid was “a dangerous act of intimidation” what are we to make of two raids in two days – the second of our national broadcaster – as anything other than a symptom of deeply disturbing developments at the heart of our democracy?
https://www.theguardian.com/austral...ut-it-we-head-into-the-darkness-of-oppression


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## moXJO (6 June 2019)

Turnbull was in at the start of this. Only a few select groups kicked up a stink when the government made noises about the surveillance. Its no secret. There was little in the way of media opposition at the time. Both sides of government had agreed to invasive levels of surveillance on the public. And no one really cared.

I actually made a point of not voting liberal over the issue, but both sides were knee deep.

Get lazy or apathetic about your rights and these are the consequences. You don't pick and choose who or what suffers under one brand of authoritarian rule or another. You either support freedom and rights for all, or none.

As for the troops, this is nothing new. From breaker Morant, to locking German soldiers  in a basement, taking their watches and throwing in a grenade after closing the door. To cutting off heads in Vietnam.
Aussies will push the boundaries. But mistakes will also be made. My fathers unit was in charge of making sure oz soldiers didn't off their commanding officer in Vietnam.
 War zones are not full of rational decisions.  Get stuck long enough in a place where everyone wants you dead. And the stress takes its toll on your mental state. Irrational decision can seem like good ideas if it gets you out of an active area faster. Mental health is largely ignored untill it blows up in everyone's face.

In most instances in Afghanistan the rules were not clearly defined. In others it was a clear lack of leadership. I know it was SAS informants that talked to the media. But that was over a year ago. No one has silenced the media here. But there was no doubt classified information in the cache. I'm not sure in which universe that sensitive material is just left in the public domain. 

Media reporting on media raids will be sensationalized.  Media has been espousing its own brand of authoritarianism and now cries at getting clipped.... Please.
 Leftist media has regularly been destroying independent jornos for years. And they outright vilified those fighting for freedom. But most ignore that as well.  There are a handful of jornos that are truly independent. The rest are propaganda pushers for either side.

We now have oppressive idiots either side both left and right. Freedom is all but dead due to apathy and tribalism. 
Whats that saying?
"Play stupid games, win stupid prizes"


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## qldfrog (6 June 2019)

I could not say it better moXJO


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## basilio (6 June 2019)

moXJO said:


> Leftist media has regularly been destroying independent jornos for years. And they outright vilified those fighting for freedom.




Really ? Could you tell me the independent journos who have been destroyed by leftist media?  Very curious.

( I did agree with much of your earlier comments.)


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## wayneL (7 June 2019)

basilio said:


> Really ? Could you tell me the independent journos who have been destroyed by leftist media?  Very curious.
> 
> ( I did agree with much of your earlier comments.)



Topical at the moment, Baz, in the YouTubosphere.

#adpocolypse...  Look it up,  Komrade.


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## DB008 (13 November 2019)

DB008 said:


> *How a Chinese Tech Firm Became the NSA’s Surveillance Nightmare*
> 
> http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2014/03/how-huawei-became-nsa-nightmare/





*Surveillance cameras being used in Pittsburgh made by*
*Chinese company banned by U.S.*

https://www.wtae.com/article/pittsb...ade-by-chinese-company-banned-by-us/29728358#​


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## DB008 (3 January 2020)

*Chinese hacker group caught bypassing 2FA*

*Chinese state-sponsored group APT20 has been busy hacking government entities and managed service providers.*​
Security researchers say they found evidence that a Chinese government-linked hacking group has been bypassing two-factor authentication (2FA) in a recent wave of attacks.

The attacks have been attributed to a group the cyber-security industry is tracking as APT20, believed to operate on the behest of the Beijing government, Dutch cyber-security firm Fox-IT said in a report published last week.

The group's primary targets were government entities and managed service providers (MSPs). The government entities and MSPs were active in fields like aviation, healthcare, finance, insurance, energy, and even something as niche as gambling and physical locks.​
*RECENT APT20 ACTIVITY*​
The Fox-IT report comes to fill in a gap in the group's history. APT20's hacking goes back to 2011, but researchers lost track of the group's operations in 2016-2017, when they changed their mode of operation.

Fox-IT's report documents what the group has been doing over the past two years and how they've been doing it.

According to researchers, the hackers used web servers as the initial point of entry into a target's systems, with a particular focus on JBoss, an enterprise application platform often found in large corporate and government networks.

APT20 used vulnerabilities to gain access to these servers, install web shells, and then spread laterally through a victim's internal systems.

While on the inside, Fox-IT said the group dumped passwords and looked for administrator accounts, in order to maximize their access. A primary concern was obtaining VPN credentials, so hackers could escalate access to more secure areas of a victim's infrastructure, or use the VPN accounts as more stable backdoors.

Fox-IT said that despite what appears to be a very prodigious hacking activity over the past two years, "overall the actor has been able to stay under the radar."

They did so, researchers explain, by using legitimate tools that were already installed on hacked devices, rather than downloading their own custom-built malware, which could have been detected by local security software.
​
More on link below...


https://www.zdnet.com/article/chinese-hacker-group-caught-bypassing-2fa/
​


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