The NSA can tap your phone data
One Response to “The NSA can tap your phone data”
Remember, I do this to entertain me, not you.
Uncle Pays the Bills
 |
|
Find Local
|
Categories
- ATF (769)
- Death Match (10)
- Eminent Domain (225)
- In the bag (9)
- Notes to Junior (546)
- Poker (74)
- Recipes (142)
- Shotgun Noob (11)
- The Airing of Grievances (19)
- uncategorized (47,725)
September 11th, 2013 at 1:20 am
People just haven’t been paying attention. Echelon was signed into law by Clinton. (Though it was started under Bush-the-Elder.) It basically gave the NSA liberty to spy on anyone using anything electronic. And the NYTimes said it was a good thing. Necessary.
This is just the same thing 15 years on.
Cell phones. Smart phones. Internet. Email. none are secure out of the box. There are things you can do to secure some points of communication, but not if you use your birthday, or your dog’s name as your password on everything. And somethings like email will never be secure.
And that doesn’t even begin to cover the issue of social engineering. (sometimes known as phishing.)
Part of it is because the people in Washington – particularly the SCOTUS is so out of touch with technology. SCOTUS still basically communicate via hand-written notes sent by sneaker-net. And you expect them to write or enforce laws dealing with technology? Really?
But mostly it is because Americans are complacent. I have a password, therefore it must be secure. Never mind that it is either a word or phrase easily guessed about me, a dictionary word or 2, my favorite sports team, whatever. Its a password, it must be secure. NOT.
Then the folks who love Facebook – and are not worried about privacy – come out with “If you don’t have anything to hide…”
Of course that line of thinking is why the police search every Japanese house regularly. (twice a year or every 2 years – I forget.) Law-abiding citizens have nothing to fear, right?
And so we now live in a state that looks a lot like the old East Germany. The motto of the Stasi was in essence, “know everything.” We even have a wall, though it is only around cash, not around people. I would say you can leave any time you want, but people have been denied the right to leave (give up their citizenship). “All your tax dollars belong to us.” And your cash too.