Prism and privacy: What could they know about me?

[JDPriestly]

This article applies in Britain and to some extent here.

When you visit a website, your IP address, type of machine and screen size can easily be ascertained.

The website can also see how you got to the site - by what search term or the last website you were on. Your location can be found by cross-referring your IP address with other data.

. . . .
A user's IP address on a personal computer can change regularly, he says. For this reason, most companies will only use the IP address to get a vague idea of where their visitors are coming from.

In theory internet service providers (ISPs) can "see" everything a user chooses to do online including every website they visit. But BT, one of the biggest British ISPs, says: "In terms of internet usage BT doesn't keep a record of any of our customers' browsing activity as we have no business need for this."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-22853432

The article is quite interesting and describes the data collected on us throughout our internet activities and daily lives. You will know a lot of it, but the article points out the limitations on learning about a person from their internet browsing as well as what can be discovered about us.

[truedelphi]

1. Go iover to the Occupy forum, and read about how

NSA captures the keystrokes on our computers, before the user hits the keys to encrypt the email.

Or hang out at Sibel Edmonds' website, boilingfrogs.com Various intelligence officials have confirmed that the NSA can re-constitute the data any time they want - it is not just a collection of, say, phone numbers that they have collected from following my phone bill.

It is a scarey world out there.

[JDPriestly]

2. Thanks. Young people pull a lot of pranks on the internet.

It's very disturbing to think that the dumb stuff kids say and do in high school and college (an after even) can be collected and used to embarrass them.

[pscot]

9. Bill Gates thinks kids should be tagged at birth

so their electronic emanations can be tracked from the gitgo. I read that on the internet, so I know it's true.

[antiquie]

3. Three Different Prisms? Parliament Seeks Clarity in NSA Scandal

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023344903

http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/merkel-chief-of-staff-testifies-before-parliament-on-nsa-spying-a-913268.html

[JDPriestly]

4. Thanks for bringing that to my attention.

Let's keep articles on this topic that are from the foreign press listed on this group's site so that we can refer to them. There seems to be a lot of confusion around the world regarding just what is going on.

Far more than required for security or criminal investigations, in my amateur opinion. Let's try to provide a resource on this from the foreign point of view here.

Thanks.

[truedelphi]

5. I find these two paragraphs chilling:

The NSA response, meeting participants said, focused primarily on the Prism program that whistleblower Edward Snowden made public -- a tool that allows the NSA to engage in the vast surveillance of electronic communication connections. In the response, the US intelligence agency vehemently denied that the program is used to indiscriminately collect huge quantities of data in Germany. The collection of data, the response said, is subject to court authorization and is primarily used to combat terrorism. Its use is "focused, targeted, judicious and far from sweeping," the one-page response says.

The document sounds reassuring, but so too have many denials issued in recent days. In fact, the NSA response says little about how the monitoring of 500 million data connections each month can be considered focused or targeted. Furthermore, the court the statement refers to, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISA), is secret and, according to US media reports, confirms virtually every surveillance request made by US intelligence.

[antiquie]

6. Mind boggling. nt

[antiquie]

7. World from Berlin: 'Snowden Had No Other Choice'

The Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, the largest newspaper in the populous Ruhr region of North Rhine-Westphalia, writes:

"Snowden is out of the intermediate world of the Moscow airport and has now entered Russia. Russia of all places, a country that is anything but a flawless democracy. A country in which a former intelligence agent rules the country with an iron fist. But to blame the whistleblower for all this would either be malicious or naïve. Snowden had no other choice."

"Go back to the States? The fate of WikiLeaks informant Bradley Manning shows what happens to people there who uncover government misconduct. Not a single country that could claim to be democratically flawless offered Snowden asylum."

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/german-press-review-on-russian-decision-to-give-snowden-asylum-a-914520.html

[JDPriestly]

8. Thank you. That view will become the dominant one outside the US I believe.

The propaganda coup of Russia is the fault, I hate to say but must say, of the Obama administration's overzealous pursuit of whistleblowers. Whistleblowers need to be listened to. If the government wants to keep what the whistleblowers are saying out of the newspapers and out of the range of "enemy" eyes and ears, then they need to have a safe means for employees who see wrongdoing in their own government agency to speak within the agency without fear of reprisal and with the knowledge that they will not only be heard but will be treated with respect and that the problems they identify will be dealt with.

The problem here is not leaking but wrongdoing in our government.

Obama promised to change how things work in D.C. and to institute transparency.

He has not changed how anything works. And he has done all he can to make transparency impossible.

Of course, now the chickens are coming home to roost. The silencing of criticism within the government is precisely what brought down the Soviet Union. Unless we end the silencing of criticism within our government and, in particular, within our intelligence services, we will face the same fate as the Soviet Union. That combined with the rigidity of Republicans in Congress is a recipe for disaster and could spell the end of our constitutional government.

Criticism and the pointing out of weaknesses and flaws in our government at any level should be encouraged.

The problems that Snowden pointed to -- his easy access to far more information than he should have been able to obtain -- could have been turned against us and to the benefit of a person in Snowden's position at the private contractor he was working for who had less of a sense of duty and patriotism than Snowden did.

A less patriotic, less scrupulous employee at Booz Allen could have sold secrets for big bucks to private companies, individuals or even foreign interests including terrorists.

Snowden should not be vilified for coming forward. There should be a special agency or commission that generously reviews complaints and information of the kind Snowden has brought to public attention. The focus should be on improving government, not punishing the people who observe flaws in how our government works.

[antiquie]

10. Snowden's Wake: German Firms Scramble to Boost Data Protection

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/companies-in-germany-scramble-to-strengthen-data-protection-abilities-a-914922.html

http://sync.democraticunderground.com/10023412893

[antiquie]

11. NSA Blowback: German Minister Floats US Company Ban

Justice Minister Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger on Monday called for new EU rules on data protection and a ban on American companies that violate them.

German Interior Minister Hans-Peter Friedrich also raised corporate accountability in July, when he suggested requiring European firms to report any data they hand over to foreign countries. Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger, who is running for reelection in September as part of the pro-business Free Democratic Party, did not further specify which kinds of penalties she would like American companies to face, though it seems unlikely that Europe would completely ban companies like Google, which dominate the online search market, or Facebook from doing business. Both of those companies were implicated in the documents leaked by former intelligence worker Edward Snowden

.

It is the latest development in a German election season that has come to be dominated by online privacy issues. Chancellor Angela Merkel has faced widespread criticism from the opposition for her handling of the NSA scandal and Peer Steinbrück, the Chancellor candidate of the opposition SPD party, recently told German television channel ZDF that Merkel should demand written assurances from the Americans they will respect German laws and interests and not engage in industrial espionage.

In another interview with Die Welt, former German High Court Justice Hans-Jürgen Papier defended the current government in its handling of the privacy debate. The state has a "basic responsibility to protect its citizens from the attacks of foreign powers," he said, but it "can only be responsible for doing things that it has the legal power, and is able, to do." It is increasingly easy, he said, for countries to impinge on the freedoms of the citizens of other countries, and those who are spied on have little recourse to defend themselves. In response, Papier called for a new global agreement on data protection.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/business/german-minister-on-eu-company-ban-for-privacy-violation-a-914824.htmlGerman

[JDPriestly]

12. I believe there will be a new global agreement on data protection, and it may or may not

protect the free internet. The agreement probably won't protect us from surveillance as much as we would like.

[antiquie]

13. I always appreciate

your analyses and opinions (right on, dude).