The NSA has a picture of you

[Amadi]

Re: The NSA has a picture of you

I know...why not just ask for a unicorn?

Been asking every day, not happened yet >.<

[Roknrol]

Re: The NSA has a picture of you

It's difficult to identify what's "wrong" with any of the recent Acts...mainly because...well...where do you start?

People are working from a platform of ignorance, and (after 20 or so years) are finally in a position to be educated. We have people out there that do care about your privacy, and they are willing to work (for cheap or even free) to make sure that your privacy is protected.

Of course, there are problems. The first (and biggest) obstacle is the insistence of the US Government to include backdoors into new hardware and software...backdoors that the US Government has the key to. This adds extra levels of complexity to things that should be simple, and makes things far less secure. But you know...if they don't do it...well...business licenses disappear, suddenly they're violating a dozen different ordinances...back taxes...thousands of strongarm tactics.

Now, if you could get past this part, which I don't expect any time soon, you still have to contend with the uneven playing field. Microsoft has a vested interest in making the US Government happy, and zero interest in making you happy. From their standpoint, you either evolve (upgrade for anywhere from $150-400 and up if you need new hardware) or fuck you (see Windows XP). Macintosh is just as bad if not worse. Linux...well...as usual, it's not ready for prime time. It's close, but people are generally stupid when it comes to things not in the center of their life, and Linux requires a bit of reading and retraining and this means not gonna happen. People need to be educated before they can make that decision, and these recent events are (hopefully) doing just that.

That's about the only silver lining that I can spot....that maybe, just maybe, people will get smarter.

I know...why not just ask for a unicorn?

[Amadi]

Re: The NSA has a picture of you

While I'm not actually aware of any similar efforts from The British Gov around all of this, most of the people I talk to that spend a large amount of time on the internet just seem to accept this, that it's not anonymous (yet plenty of people think it is). It probably wouldn't be too hard to pair say my fb account with all my gaming stuff (amadi, ademadi) but I at least try to keep it separate... and ftr my fb is on maximum anti-peep mode.
This whole thread just makes me think of the big SOPA incident all over again and how 'you darn Americans (your government more than you, no offence) are trying to seize as much of the interwebs as you can for your own dun evil interests', I just think it's funny how much response SOPA got compared to this (which was massive).

*for those that don't know, SOPA -Stop Online Piracy Act- was an act (to my understanding, I haven't actually read it) that gave the USA too much power, allowing the gov to shut down any website on any whim regarding grounds of piracy without protest (hopefully you can see why this was bad). The internet certainly didn't like it and it's a lovely example of a piece of legislation that was never, and should never be passed.

[Roknrol]

Re: The NSA has a picture of you

I don't remember anyone begging for the Patriot Act, although i do remember that every single one of the congressmen that signed it admitted later that they hadn't actually read it.

AFAIC if you don't do your job you should be fired...but the general public is functionally retarded and can't be helped.

[Willow]

Re: The NSA has a picture of you

Makes me wish I was more photogenic.

[Historyforall]

Re: The NSA has a picture of you

Still boogles the mind when people who were begging for the passing of the Patriot Act, calling those against it unAmerican are now upset that it does everything they supported.

Now that it exist instead of fearing the govt is after you it is time to get active and make sure laws are created and passed that prevent its misuse.

The people still have the power they just choose to worry about the distractions placed before them rather than the real issues. The let their "team" do what they want instead of stepping up and saying no.

Every nation spies on every nation there is no innocence and the kicker is there never was.

[Roknrol]

Re: The NSA has a picture of you

There are bigger things to worry about, security-wise, than the NSA. IMO.

The guy at the photomat (or the homeless guy in front of the 7-11) has far less of an ability to lock me up for the rest of my life than the NSA. I'd rather trust ANY random schmuck over ANY government entity. This is the lesson that our Founders wanted us to learn.

That being said, the school should have checked the companies information before settling on the lowest bidder...I guarantee that *someone* had to "approve" the pictures be used after the fact for advertising or whatever. As far as them "retaining" the information, they aren't doing it for any legal reasons (probably), and are doing it because...well...bringing in 100 kids a 2nd time around is probably a big pain in the ass - especially when you (at that point) need to get parents involved. While they may have a "minimum" timeframe that they need to keep the photos, I'm willing to bet that 99% of them get lost to the bit-bucket as soon as 1) space becomes an issue - likely frequently 2) they change computers (again, likely frequently) 3) some idiot accidentally deletes the folder (I've met these kinds of people...this happens a lot, I'm sure) etc etc etc.

I *am* inclined to agree with you that having all of your kids' personal information with their picture is probably an issue and can probably be taken to court.

But the Government? They copy your shit a dozen times, forget where they put half of it, back up the rest of it in triplicate and send it to every "snoop" agency that they do business with (read: All of them). I prefer my (and my kids) chances when dealing with an unscrupulous individual over an unscrupulous government.

Bigger things to worry about? Well yes, on the face of it, being worried about your pictures being snagged from FB isn't really that big of a deal. It's the larger implications that are concerning.

Doc: Well, unfortunately this is where the double-standard comes into play. As Americans, our Government is "allowed" to spy on anyone other than Americans. Also, we're selfish, self-centered douchebags that figure if you had a brain in your head you'd live in the United States, because that's just how retarded we think down here. We don't "worry" about spying on non citizens...after all, non-citizens are the "bad" ones, aren't they?

Yeah...I didn't say it made any sense at all. But if you want us to stop spying on you, you should probably wait until they stop spying on us...nobody's going to listen to you until then anyway

[Hawkfeathers]

Re: The NSA has a picture of you

There was some big to-do in Missouri last year about the DMV's info being accessed somehow. Another thing is Child ID cards - You know, those driver license look-alikes for little kids with all their personal info on them, for parents to show police if something happens? Those don't appear from the sky. The info is stored, sent to a company, stored at the company, printed on a card, sent back to the school and distributed. I once worked for a company that did the printing. If a run had a streak or something, rendering SOME of the cards unusable, they re-did the whole thing, and used any good leftover ones as samples for prospective schools, or just general sales samples. REAL ID cards. Not to mention the people actually operating the printers were brought in daily by the van load from in front of the 7-11, and paid cash.

There are bigger things to worry about, security-wise, than the NSA. IMO.

[Doc_Holliday]

Re: The NSA has a picture of you

What I'm not okay with especially is the fact that the NSA watches my area of Canada today. They act like they have a search warrant on the Constitutional Monarchy Of Canada.

By the way, heres Canadas version of the NSA, they admit that they've probably filmed everybody in the country.

[MaskedOne]

Re: The NSA has a picture of you

On one hand, of all the many, many, many ethical cluster-f***s that the NSA is guilty of, collecting my photo off FaceBook (in some sick alternate universe where I put my photo on FaceBook) doesn't bother me.

Why? I have a driver's license. I presume that the NSA can access DMV records whenever it wants to so they already have my photo.

Unfortunately, a lot of photos are taken with cell phone cameras. Those include hidden data and I don't particularly care for the NSA having even more power to piece together a story of everyone's life whenever they get bored. More than that, I don't feel that they need enhanced abilities to map out everyone's friends and personal connects by copying group photos and comparing every face to official records. It'd be nice to see our intelligence agencies curbed a little. The game of, "How many ways can we completely ignore the because it's fun got old years ago.

[Medusa]

Re: The NSA has a picture of you

I hope it's a good pic of me.

[Roknrol]

Re: The NSA has a picture of you

I'm really not okay with this.

I'm off FB, I don't have twitter, or whatever else kids use these days. But I have here, and Reddit, and a few blogs floating around...and I think someone could figure it out lickity split. And I'm not alright with that.

Well, if it's any consolation there's some good news here (at least for now).

As BDC points out above, historically it was far too difficult to put the pieces together to try to harass one random person or to get one piece of information. Hackers were notorious (back in the day) for dumpster diving to piece together shredded documents so that they could hack networks or determine corporate structures. Of course, today these are very minor issues, since most everything is available online. The only difficult thing to do is to get credentials to get into a given system, and as we're reminded every few months that's not a very difficult thing to do at all.

But the true silver lining here is that most (if not all) of us aren't important enough for anyone to bother. As Danni mentioned, I gave up my personal right to privacy a long time ago when I worked for the NSA. I've never had an expectation of the Government not watching me or tracking my movements. But the guy next door? Yeah, he didn't sign on for that shit.

And I guess my real problem here is this: When i was told that I would be "watched", it was implied (if not outright stated) that it was a process by which they monitor their former staff to attempt to identify turncoats and spies before they...well...release secret information. So ok, by that logic they won't say a damned thing if I'm shooting up heroin in my living room, right?

Well, the Snowden releases say otherwise...and that's where I have a problem. Not because I want to do heroin, but because drug use has approximately zero to do with National Security...so they shouldn't "notice" things that don't directly involve what they're specifically looking for. Of course, we are human beings, and curious, and we *will* notice those things...but there's an ethical responsibility to do your fucking job. As a computer geek it may annoy the crap out of me to clear spyware off of your computer, but I'm not supposed to "notice" the porn in your video's folder because (unless it's pedophile porn or something) it's not my fucking job to be your moral compass. Neither is it the Government's job to identify each and every rule broken, to notify the correct authorities...not their job. Their job is to protect our borders, NOT to restrict our Freedoms.

So yeah...between this and TrueCrypt taking a dump, it's a very dark week for Security and Freedom.

[volcaniclastic]

Re: The NSA has a picture of you

I'm really not okay with this.

I'm off FB, I don't have twitter, or whatever else kids use these days. But I have here, and Reddit, and a few blogs floating around...and I think someone could figure it out lickity split. And I'm not alright with that.

Re: The NSA has a picture of you

Well, it now appears that our beloved National Security Agency is now collecting our photos from online sources, much like pedophiles collect pictures of sub-teenage children from Facebook.

Always wear a fake Duck Dynasty beard when you take selfies.

N.S.A. Collecting Millions of Faces From Web Images

When we're objectified so systemically it seems little of our real selves can be apparent but then like lab rats the
act of testing alters the test material. Myself, when I'm not too busy looking pretty for the camera I try to look as far back and as far forward as possible

[Hawkfeathers]

Re: The NSA has a picture of you

I'm glad I'm old enough to really not care much. I think I've posted this here before, but when I got divorced in 1984, I took out a PO Box, had an unlisted number, etc., to keep my ex away, and it sort of became a game with myself to see how private and hidden I could become. Once 9/11 happened it was all over, and I was becoming a homeowner around that time anyway so I knew things would change.