Re: Spy Agency Mined Vast Data Trove

[Steve Kudlak <chromazine () sbcglobal net>]

Uh let's see I don't know if this is thje place to discuss this. There 
has been enouigh evidence of governmental misbehavior in the past with 
various programs that I wouldn't trust the powers that be to always be 
benevolent to go away if nothing bad is happening.  There is Steve Kurtz 
the artists who got into trouble for growing a microrganism commonly 
gown in high school classes. If one reads the actual transcripts of 
Federal Prosecutions one finds that often they do go through someone's 
life and if they don't find the real big thing they wanted, they will 
try to find some very small thing, something akin to ignoring something 
on a click license or a shrink license. They threaten the defendents a 
lot and often they will get some silly conviction which to them is minor 
to the person who is convicted and has a messed up life is a lot. A lot 
of the motivating factors here, one is that such prosecutions are 
expensive and there is the desire not to go away empty handed.  Now as 
of late they have gotten into so much troubl;e with this they have been 
losing outright in US Federal Court which usually doesn't happen. In 
most cases it has involved the increased descretion given to various 
authorities by the current atmosphere of security is so important that 
if the Bill of Rights is bent or ignored a bit then it's OK.

I am not saying any of this(data mining and sorting thru lots of stuff 
trying to find scary keywords)  should never ever happen but just it is 
sort of naive to assume that if one has nothing to hide and has done 
nothing wrong that one has nothing to fear. It is easy to go through 
someone's life and find things that while not illegal are embarassing 
and use this to threaten them for a variety of purposes.  The story of J 
Edgar Hoover trying to find something to embarass or threaten Martin 
Luther King is well known. Others are known also and then is somewhat of 
a history of abuse of power so I hold the "nothing to hide/nothing to 
fear" concept to be naive. Another point is that if has ever had friends 
who say grew certain vegetables or did other such questionable things 
one obviously knows they don't refer to any of the things they are doing 
by "cleartext names" but use innocent sounding words and phrases, Now 
one curious thing I heard from a friend who is an Arabic translator is 
that some people hope that occassional in Arabic or some other native 
language people will mention something out in the open.

I did have a technical thought or question. Datamining can be used for 
less nefarious purposes and I wonder if anyone knows any good source 
texts if one were teaching a course in the area. Those I read are 
woefully inadequate and I was wonde4ring if this is because those that 
have useful techniques aren't into much disclosure much less full 
disclosure. So if anyone know of any tests or sources for connections 
databases it would be nice to here of them. I was thinking of 
applications in art, science and medicine, like looking through OTC 
purchases to see if there has been a serious  uptick in consumption of 
products that indicate a possible diesese outbreak. I know there was a 
plan to track anti-diarrhea medications because many seriousl diseases 
manifest themselves with that symptom and the condition in itself can be 
dangerous.


Have Fun,
Sends Steve


P.S. It was funny that the head of the TIA project at DARPA at one point 
was someone from the Nixon Admin not necessarily concerned with people's 
privacy or their rights. I suspect it is the overstepping of  boundaries 
by that adninistration that provides the most compelling evidence that 
maybe we want to be careful giving people too much power to look at our 
various dealings,


Leif Ericksen wrote:

> Actually after reading some of the the comments I have to say you all
> missed the point...  *IF* you are not doing *nothing illegal* and have
> nothing to hide no big deal.
>
> "I do not want the Government to see my banking info"
> HUM, did you ever hear of the SSN?  Are you putting massive amounts of
> cash that can not be accounted for into your bank?  BUT wait what is the
> limit it used to be $10,000US that if you moved that much money you had
> to fill out some papers as to why you were moving that money.  So the
> government will know.
>
> Bottom line there will me so much 'noise' if the listen to everything
> they will loose track of legitimate deviant traffic.  The only monitor
> so much of it and then turn off the listening until the system wakes up.
>
> Again, if all you actions are legit they will soon go away and leave you
> alone.  The old joke on the net like 10 years ago was to add lines like
> Death Bomb Kill Destroy, White House, nuclear, waste, President, Give
> names of current or recent past presidents, Bush, Clinton, Regan, Nixon
> Ford, etc.   Those supposedly activated the echelon system.
>
> Also thinking back to a security to a class I had in computer security
> (now I may date myself just a little) Back in 1988 The instructor
> mentioned how the NSA monitors ALL traffic from the US to an overseas
> source, even more so banking traffic.  Well one time a Bank had some
> agents visit them demanding the key to the encryption they used to send
> something over seas.  Well the laugh was on the NSA.  According to this
> instructor, that company said to the NSA all we did us used crypt on the
> VAX.  The NSA agent(s) said thank you and left.
>
> Now maybe I am being monitored at this time and will be for some time
> because of this message.  NO big deal to me.  I intend no harm, at least
> until the government tries to control what I do when I do it and how I
> do it. (I see a day like that coming, I feel it will be of dare I say
> the word on this list???  Biblical proportions)  It is inevitable, in
> general humans are stupid.  Go to the Darwin Awards web page and see for
> yourself.  At times the Darwin principle of the stupid and the weak
> creatures die off and only the strong genes survive does not always
> apply to the human race.  We keep doing stupid things, and one day we
> are going to have a massive fight in the world and blow the whole dang
> thing up.  Then again maybe the alien's that ALL governments seem to
> cover up the existence of will soon get ticked off at us and come and
> destroy our planet (Star Trek anyone?) go so that the human parasite
> will not come out and destroy their worlds. (MY planet! my land, no my
> land, mine, no mine, no mine)
>
> I will admit this...  I live in a state where we have an electronic
> device in our car that is used on the tollway that pays your fees for
> being on the road.  Well, that devices has time stamps for when you
> passed through the booth, and is registered to your car(S) well, if it
> is 3 miles from one booth to the next that would be 3 minutes at 60MPH
> So if you make it from one booth to the next in less that 3 minutes you
> are speeding, but then again you are already because your are supposed
> to go 15MPH through most booths and about 1 mile from the booth you are
> supposed to slow down to 40MPH and I think at .5 miles from the booth
> you are supposed to slow down to 30MPH.  I will admit that I often find
> myself going in excess of 60MPH on the highway. sometimes even over 80
> and that is because I am afraid I am going to get hit by the moron(s)
> doing 90+ For the autobahn drivers or other places where such speeds may
> be the norm.  Our roadways are not really designed for that even more so
> in the winter with snow and ice.
>
>
> --
> Leif
>
> On Tue, 2005-12-27 at 12:11 -0800, Kurt Buff wrote:
>  
>
> > Rodrigo Barbosa wrote:
> >    
> >
> > > On Mon, Dec 26, 2005 at 10:11:45PM -0600, Leif Ericksen wrote:
> > >
> > >      
> > >
> > > > > Really if we have nothing to hide we should not fear them listening to
> > > > > us.  Now if they come in and start forcing a special mark or code word
> > > > > or something special in order to live or buy or sell anything then it is
> > > > > time to revolt.
> > > > >          
> > > Now, that is an interesting view of someone who really is not paying
> > > attention.
> > >
> > > What would you qualify as "something to hide" ? How about my banking
> > > account data ? How about the trade secrets of my company ?
> > >      
> > Interesting line of argument, but really beside the point. You are
> > correct that Leif has taken the wrong line of argument, but you yourself
> > haven't quite got it right.
> >
> > Leif speaks as if the government has a right to monitor our thoughts.
> > Such a stance indicates that we are property of (a|the) government.
> >
> > Just the opposite is true. The just government serves at the pleasure of
> > its citizens, and must not be allowed any more power than what is
> > strictly necessary, if any at all.
> >
> > For the US, the 4th Amendment applies, and all of the history
> > surrounding it - secure in papers and effects, unreasonable
> > search/seizure, etc.
> >
> > The recent NSA actions (and older programs, too, such as Echelon), taken
> > at the behest of Presidential directive, are clearly illegal, and
> > destructive of the relationship between citizens and their government.
> >
> > The 1st Amendment also applies, in that free speech can also be private,
> > with unauthorized others excluded, for whatever reason, and/or
> > anonymous. If government intrudes, it has an unwarranted chilling effect.
> >
> > Kurt
> > _______________________________________________
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