This really isn't any worse than the other invasions of privacy that have been revealed – but it's much easier to point at it as an egregious and visceral violation of privacy. Even though webcam stills may be the least important (or useful) spying the US and UK have been doing, this may be some of the best fodder for arguments to limit such activities. So thank you, UK, for being so dumb.
> Even though webcam stills may be the least important (or useful) spying the US and UK
Blackmail. Polticial, economic, and spying-related informant-turning blackmail.
The CIA's primary business is getting informants and agents all over the world. Usually via some threat. This is perfect fodder for it.
Using cheating and sex (ie homosexuality in the 50s) against people is one of the most classic examples of recruiting strategies for intelligence agencies.
Charlie Stross features a gay couple in one of his novels, and one of the conditions of their employment for a top secret government office is that they must be explicitly out about their homosexuality - one attends a Pride Parade once a year in order to comply with these regulations.
That's a pretty common requirement for many classified positions in the real world (not having to attend pride parade, but being out about your sexual preferences).
is this true ?! Any evidence? Is there a page on whitehouse.gov with F R Smith - foot fetish (moderate), would like to be a Gimp but never found the right owner.
Yes it's sort of true - the concern here is about being susceptible to blackmail or coercion, which rules out pretty much anyone who has a personal secret which they feel ashamed about or would go to great lengths to keep secret. If you're gay and out, there's no security concern, but if you're in the closet, there is a chance someone could find out and blackmail you into revealing secret information.
This also applies to people with large amounts of debt - which IIRC is one of the most common reasons people are denied clearance. See here for more info (scroll to "Vulnerability to Coercion"): http://www.dhra.mil/perserec/adr/falsification/falsification...
The debt issues has less to do with blackmail, and more to do with having serious financial strains. They're concerned you'll sell information in exchange for money so that you can pay off your debts. It's the same for drug addiction and gambling.
I think there was a guy that was caught spying recently that had a gambling addiction.
Same thing. Image you are Iran. If you have 10 people to pick from to bribe and ask to work for you. Pick the one with largest dept and offer to pay that debt in return for co-operation.
The analogy is pointing out that homosexuality is not a taboo because it's been exploited, it's being exploited because it's a taboo.
Your original statement seemed to suggest that it is still a taboo because those who wish to exploit it want it that way. The cause is not power brokers, it's everyone (or enough of everyone) who makes taboos' shamefulness persist.
It is no accident that socially conservative ideologies are correlated with right-wing / authoritarian politics. It is such an age-old instrument of manipulation and control that I am tempted to believe that it is innate and ingrained into our biology.
It is no accident that socially conservative ideologies are correlated with right-wing / authoritarian politics
Now you are just being silly. The USSR sent homosexuals to the gulags. China considered homosexuality to be a mental illness up 'til 2002, it is only when they started to become capitalist that they relaxed! In the UK it is the right-wing Tories that are bringing in gay marriage.
Attitudes towards homosexuality are simply not correlated with left-right politics.
I'll cite a source for you: "If a man lies with a male as with a women, both of them shall be put to death for their abominable deed; they have forfeited their lives." (Leviticus 20:13 NAB)
Not to get too far afield from the original post, or to start a religious debate where we end up calling each other Hitler, but I've got some good stuff for you:
"But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart." (Matthew 5:28)
"If a man commits adultery with another man’s wife—with the wife of his neighbor—both the adulterer and the adulteress are to be put to death." (Leviticus 20:10 NIV)
"As for your male and female slaves whom you may have: you may buy male and female slaves from among the nations that are around you." (Leviticus 25:44 ESV)
So, um, not a great book to pull random quotes from as a source.
I think the point was that homosexuality has been taboo for a lot longer than the CIA has been around. So while they obviously have found it useful there's no reason to think they needed to work to keep it taboo for so long.
It has been both taboo to the point of the death penalty, and widely and openly practiced all the way through to outright championed (Relevant Futurama quote: "Let us party like the Greeks of old... you know the ones I mean!"), by any number of societies throughout history.
I've always thought it was odd that people got upset about homosexuality and not about adultery. Religiously they are equally bad.
Perhaps it's because it's not really a religious issue (just using that as an excuse).
Biologically people are repelled by homosexuality and attracted to adultery. That affects their state of mind, and they look for a reason for that and catch upon religious arguments.
> I've always thought it was odd that people got upset about homosexuality and not about adultery.
What people get upset about is a cultural variable that is not consistent across times and places. Plenty of times and places, people have gotten at least as upset about adultery as about homosexuality.
Hahaha! It has always amazed me how people indebted to intellectual discussions via the culture of a forum completely disregard all historical context of an ancient peoples. xD
I get that it's the "in" thing now to hate on ancient texts to seem smart but ...
Quoting a writing from the ancient Jewish leader Moses is equivalent to studying the history of the peoples in those times and locations. Please, note that basically ALL nations used an enslavement "banking" system that basically boiled down to: You pay off your credit card by working for the creditor for a few years (or for however many years the owner thought was sufficient).
It has absolutely nothing to do with recent American slavery traditions embedded in deep racism and superiority complexes.
The only similarities are the translation of the word: slave.
The economics of ancient cultures was drastically different from how it has been for all post-1600s Bank of England cultures. :P
Ancient texts are fine. Great fun, so long as they are treated as ancient texts.
I don't think that anybody is distressed by the Code of Hammurabi, but that is because there are not people going around sincerely stating that they believe the Code of Hammurabi to be timeless and perfectly just, and Hammurabi himself to be someone to look to for ethical or moral guidance.
It is only when the historical context of ancient documents is purposely ignored or denied that those ancient documents become the targets of modern criticism.
Says who? Definitely not Jesus himself as quoted in the New Testament (his words, directly quoted):
Matthew 5:17-18
"Think not that I came to destroy the law or the prophets: I came not to destroy, but to fulfil. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass away from the law, till all things be accomplished."
The "law or the prophets" is, of course, everything written in the Old Testament, where different chapters were attributed to the different prophets already in Jesus' time.
He makes it even stronger:
"Ye have heard that it was said, 'Thou shalt not commit adultery': but I say unto you, that every one that looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart" (Matthew 5:27-28)
Verily, read thine Bible, if you believe it's inspired by God. Read it yourself. Don't believe what others interpret.
Or maybe accept that we shouldn't take that book too seriously?
As an atheist from an "orthodox Christian" background (as opposed to protestant, baptist or the catholic church), I cannot really understand why people who call themselves Christians even quote the Bible, and seemingly only awful anachronistic parts, as opposed to the New Tastement.
As another atheist (from a Lutheran background) who has read the bible (it kind of precipitated the whole atheist thing), I totally understand why many Christians believe that the old testament is relevant and believe that their god considers homosexuality to be sinful.
That wasn't what I was taught in my particular brand of Christianity, but having read the book I can totally see where other denominations pick it up. They aren't hallucinating or imagining hateful things in that book, it's all in there, ready to be reinforced or erased and excused, depending on which particular interpretation you take.
I think that reading the bible and coming to the conclusion that the god described in it hates homosexuality (among any number of other things) and that Jesus did not reverse those prejudices is perfectly reasonable. It's also somewhat reasonable (though far less so I think) to take away the idea that the Christian god is genuinely all loving and that Jesus absolved that god of all of it's sins (wasn't he suppose to do that for humanity instead? But it seems like he is most often invoked to absolve the christian god of his sins...).
(That of course isn't to say that I believe the sort of hateful Christianity seen prominently in certain parts of America (and other parts of the world) is acceptable. While I think their interpretation of the Bible is reasonable, I think it is _unreasonable_ for them to believe the Bible is divinely inspired, or that the god they read from those pages is worthy of being worshiped.)
They actually don't quote all of the really awful anachronistic parts, just the parts that align with their world view. It's not like they have a problem with shellfish, after all.
To be more accurate, Jesus' ministry and teaching was a fulfillment of the law (the previous commandments) and the Old Testament, not a replacement. The law is still a valuable resource for Christians in understanding the character and holiness of God, among other things.
"Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them." Jesus speaking in Matthew 5:17
Jesus affirmed the law and called people further into true righteousness, which can never come from following rules, but requires a transformation of the heart that only God can accomplish. That is what He is talking about in the sermon on the mount (Matthew 5).
I see you decided to omit Matthew 5:18. Don't pretend it doesn't exist. They are the actual words of Jesus if you believe that the Bible was inspired by god. See my other comment here for more.
It is the next sentence said by Jesus himself, confirming the law of the prophets: "For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass away from the law, till all things be accomplished."
I don't see heaven and earth passed away, so the laws of the prophets still hold according to Jesus himself. He said that. Written one sentence after the one you quote claiming the opposite. So you decided not to believe what Jesus said. Fine with me. I believe the Bible is written by humans and that the humans invented all the gods.
But anyway we should discuss what GCHQ did with webcam streams of at least millions of people! What is your opinion on that?
You're correct, the law has not passed away. The requirements of it have been fully met (fulfilled) by Christ. By submitting our lives to Christ, his perfect fulfillment of God's law is credited to us, thereby freeing us from the penalty of the law.
This is obviously off topic from the original post, but hopefully it's a valuable conversation. It's actually a really important point that is reiterated throughout the New Testament explicitly and foreshadowed throughout the entire Old Testament.
I think we've probably reached the limit of productive conversation on the topic. You seem intent on clinging to a contradiction that doesn't exist in the text. But it was good to discuss it.
Yeah, the GCHQ thing is jacked up but not surprising. The connectedness and anonymity of the digital world and its increasing integration into our lives makes for some pretty scary scenarios.
> webcam stills may be the least important (or useful) spying the US and UK have been doing
It ties individuals faces to online accounts and computers and possibly addresses. Especially combined with increasing amounts of CCTV it removes further anonymity.
I was also disturbed by the "dissemination of offensive images is a disciplinary offence" statement which implied that was not the case for other images and that it is only a disciplinary offence rather than a criminal one (misconduct in public office if there isn't anything else).
But you can't use that blackmail tool without revealing that you were spying illegally. Revealing that would be worse for the blackmailer than the blackmailee.
Revealing that would be worse for the blackmailer than the blackmailee.
Isn't that a bit optimistic? As things typically work out today, no official would ever be personally identified and held to account in court if something like this "accidentally" leaked. Meanwhile, the subject of the leak could have their life destroyed any number of ways, even if the image that gets leaked was taken out of context or otherwise not an accurate reflection of the person in question.
We've seen far too many cases recently where innocent people have been severely harmed, on rare occasions even literally killed, by some part of the government, and yet remarkably often no-one is ever held responsible. Until the authority for these kinds of actions must be tied to a named individual, and the identity of that named individual can never be concealed from a court, and that named individual faces meaningful consequences for any abuses that happen on their watch unless they can show that their subordinate did not follow a proper direction (in which case responsibility transfers to the identified subordinate), and any ultimate subordinate involved in such an action who can't identify the responsible individual gets no more legal protection than any other citizen who did the same thing, this problem will continue.
Who said you have to reveal that you were spying illegally?
Just saying "we have this on you", this being something that can stop a career of a politician, or break his marriage, for example, will paralyse most people. And of course they make psychological assesments about who are most vulnerable and most likely to respond well to blackmail.
Second, you don't have to reveal anything. It's not like the agency himself has to do the blackmail and declare who they are and what they did. They can delegate that to some associate, who might not even know who is giving him commands. Or they can do it with anonymous messages ("We have this picture of you. You don't know who we are, but vote that on this law").
Well, if a security service decides it needs to blackmail someone, they're hardly going to send them a letter on official letterhead. In this case I imagine they'd pretend to be something like a small hacking group, infiltrating individual webcams arbitrarily/opportunistically. Something like that.
LOL That would only be true if they were willing to break the law (by blackmailing somebody, yet felt the strange need to making a legal accusation.
It's very hard to defend against institutional blackmail. The blackmailer just has to make their demands, that need to be followed "if you known what's good for you". Generally, that will work and no further steps are necessary.
If somebody decides to resist the demand in any way, you simply place some of those pictures of underage kid - perhaps from the project mentioned in this article - and place a "tip" with the local police. Of course, they could always "parallel construction" it. Many options there, because you never actually have to show real evidence in court, or even show up. You just have to get the ball rolling, and the child-porn accusation will do the rest for you.
In fact, it's important to make a big show about it, because coming down hard on the occasional person that questions your demands serves as an excellent way to discourage other from trying.
Anonymous is a loose collective that has already seen headlines in mainstream media, and it's impossible to prove that Anonymous did or did not do something. "Anonymous" takes credit for a lot of things that 4chan had no involvement in, for example.
Simply saying "the hacker collective known as Anonymous has released photos of..." and there's literally no way for the general public to dispute it. Anonymous is a pretty convenient cover for government blackmail.
Its additional. I haven't put thought into which I'd most want them to stop but the combination is worse than either on their own. It also allows the possibility of automated face recognition and social graph tracking in public places via CCTV (if not now then in the future).
Because they only cost $1-2 and people feel like they add value to the device (to use it with Skype, Yahoo!, Google+ Circles, and so on).
There is no evidence right now that the intelligence services can remotely activate webcams on any device of their choosing. They would likely need to first install malware on most devices to accomplish that.
There is, however, evidence that FedGov can remotely activate webcams on some devices of their choosing.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/fbis-searc...
The FBI has been able to covertly activate a computer’s camera — without triggering the light that lets users know it is recording — for several years, and has used that technique mainly in terrorism cases or the most serious criminal investigations, said Marcus Thomas, former assistant director of the FBI’s Operational Technology Division in Quantico...
They would likely need to first install malware on most devices to accomplish that.
They can easily do that, that isn't really in doubt, though of course that's not why things have cameras, as you say, cameras are cheap and quite useful, no need for a grand conspiracy.
I'm sure they wouldn't bother to exploit a machine unless they decide to target you specifically, but if they do decide to, given the resources they have available and the imperfect security on almost every OS, network and hardware you might use, they can easily use your phone or computer to record by installing malware. It's really very straightforward, all they need is a zero day in any of the network connected applications you use, baseband of your phone etc.
William Binney (worked on Stellar Wind) and Edward Snowden have gone on record confirming these capabilities are used routinely - in particular I remember Binney confirming mobiles used as mics, even when turned off. For him this is a matter of fact capability, not at all as dangerous as mapping all our activities at once from metadata and content sweeps on a broad scale - I tend to agree.
This really isn't any worse than the other invasions of privacy that have been revealed
I think you're incorrect on this. The level of intrusion here is much greater. There is a reason why video phones never really replaced voice: they are too revealing. This borders on voyeurism.
Remember the stories of TSA agents joking about what they saw on full body scanners? I don't believe it is credible to think that these types of photos aren't used in a similar fashion here even though it's a different country and agency. And that's actually the least damaging way they could be used.
Whether it's worse or not, it's violating our privacy to an extent where there is barely anything left to be exposed.
I assume they do the same with Skype, Lync etc. I hate the thought of being photographed by these creepy "intelligence officers" every time I'm on a webcam. Probably it also happens when we don't use the webcam.
Sadly, even though it'd rile up their readers, the Daily Mail is unlikely to print it because it does so in a way that goes against the paper's political leanings. They're very selective about which outrages they stir.
This is important because this is perceived as completely different by the public. The idea that someone is watching you through your computer will have a much greater impact than someone scanning your emails.
Exactly. Although really, we should be just as concerned about the other stuff, if not more so. But people get why this is really wrong. Because of the penises and vaginas.
This is the difference between someone reading that you do weird sexual things with your partner and having pictures to prove it. Blackmailing someone with a still webcam image of them engaging in an act would be a lot more effective than with an SMS text description. This is a big deal.
I think that this leak will have the biggest effect. It bothered me enough that I emailed the entire college of computing at my university (I am a junior faculty member) to argue for setting ethical boundaries for big data projects, but, alas, I doubt that I will get a response.
Some insider, the next snowden, should leak the database to the internet. When crying children run to their parents, saying that some posted nude pictures of them, I think, this would an effective wake up call.
ISTR that in the futuristic dystopia depicted in V for Vendetta, there are government spy cameras everywhere, including in people's bedrooms.
And it turns out that's not so futuristic. We're already there. The moment it became technically (Edit: and really, economically) feasible to spy on people's bedrooms, our governments leapt at the chance.
I wonder what Alan Moore would have to say about that. We didn't have to experience a crisis of social, governmental, or financial instability. There was no catalyzing meltdown that lead to this modern embrace of a new "soft" totalitarianism. This is just the latest chapter in a steady progression of increasing surveillance that can be traced back at least to the 1960s.
And it's a cinch that something like 51% of the general public will react just as they have all along: "Well, if it's necessary to keep us safe..."
>We didn't have to experience a crisis of social, governmental, or financial instability.
September 11th and the London train bombings? No argument against how disturbing this all is, but don't feel it's accurate to say this increased surveillance wasn't caused by a crisis. It's all being done in the name of preventing terrorism, significant acts of which have occurred in the last decade both on US and UK soil.
So if anything, it's exactly like you stated, a traumatic event(s) has resulted in government(s) taking unreasonable measures and expanding powers to embrace a new "soft" totalitarianism.
I don't think so. I did once, but I don't anymore.
Huge, bloodthirsty, spectacular acts of terrorism were older than those attacks, and those attacks didn't threaten the stability of the societies or governments in question in the slightest.
The tendency of English-speaking governments to use sweeping, untargeted surveillance to curb political activism or otherwise mold public opinion and behavior is older than those attacks, too. They spied on MLK and peace activists during Vietnam, not because they were threats to security but because they were threats to the spies' own political convictions, more or less.
What has really changed in the last 15 years or so is that its now economically feasible to spy on everyone, all the time, partially because the spied-on voluntarily fund the most expensive part of the equipment (their own webcams, cellphones, cars, laptops, ISP connections, etc). So governments are doing it. Something like 9/11 provides a handy excuse, maybe, but I've come to think it's naive to accept that as the real reason. I believe we would find ourselves in this position with or without 9/11.
The UK was doing weird things with privacy back then too.
Special branch wanted an informer on every street. They infiltrated many political groups and meetings.
Some groups were outlawed - we even prevented news organisations from broadcasting the voices of some people leadingnto their video being dubbed by actors.
The component laws behind the crackdown, at least in the US, were written ahead of time. They'd been on executive-agency-wishlists for years. It might have taken a crisis to justify actually passing these laws. But they were not purpose-crafted programs and laws in response to particular events.
Hey efuquen we pretty much wrote the same thing at the same time. We should be friends.
In all honesty, we need to ask ourselves what we can practically do within the current framework that can push the government towards what we want. Less surveillance and civilian oversight of the intelligence community.
That's a poignant observation that we didn't have to experience a crisis of social, governmental, or financial instability, but we did experience 9/11. 9/11 is the catalyst that pushed a lot of this surveillance over the edge.
If you combine this revelation with this one https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/02/24/jtrig-manipula... then you end up with the exact totalitarianism you speak of. Its the efficacy of the government to target any individual that makes it a totalitarian state even if it doesn't look like that on the outside to most people.
There were and are people in these governments who know that you don't need the worst catastrophes, you simply need "just enough" and people in the right place at that time to suggest these practices be instituted. The rest of these governments gave these agencies the power and permission to do these things.
This is from people actively webchatting, but in general, for passive collection, I'm a lot more worried about my microphone than my camera. Even without tape over the lens, my laptop usually just sees my face or a blank wall, or a closed cover. It's not like I have my webcam aimed and lighted at my bed or shower or whatever, and in general, the level of compromising information from text or audio would be higher (sure, naked photos could be embarrassing, but there's nothing particularly unique about them at the national-security level).
I haven't heard much call for "physically disable microphone" switches, though. If anything things have gotten worse with laptops; at least with desktops it was pretty common to just not have a microphone connected. I suspect 99% of laptops have a decent microphone built in, no indicator light, etc.
afaik laptop webcams are usb, and mics are just two wires.. I always wanted to use the useless bluetooth switch of my laptop to turn-off my cam and mic, it seems pretty trivial
The LED light on the webcam is bypass-able. On many cheap laptops it is controlled in software (at the kernel level), but even on Macs where it is meant to be hardware enforced it can be bypassed:
Disabling the camera LED is a fairly standard feature in malware suites. Even a lot of USB webcams control the LED from software. The LED is just a feel-good feature.
This isn't quite accurate. It can't be easily disabled on most laptops. The way to disable it on Macs is extremely sophisticated, and no malware currently does that, except maybe NSA malware.
You still shouldn't really trust it, but the situation is not how you're making it sound.
my laptop (Asus EEE 1215B) happens to have a physical slider that goes in front of the webcam (it also happens to be a bit loose and the tendency to slide to the "open" position if I pack it in my bags .. hmmmm ...).
The only surefire way to disable your webcam is to place a little square of gaffer or electrical tape over it. Total cost: $0.01 and can be reversed in an instant.
I started doing this after seeing a guy selling widgets for it on Shark Tank. Though, I followed the shark's advice and just used a post it. But as someone whose laptop is pointed at their bed, this seemed like a necessity.
I assume you can disable the microphone with a microphone compatible headphone jack plugged in (and cut the cable off). Though it disables your speakers too.
What I want is a tablet with wireless, USB-host, and no mic/camera/etc. Maybe no speaker, but with a port for a headset for both). With physical tamper-evidence for the case, secure boot, etc. And trustzones.
'For starters, it turns out that 3-11% of Yahoo! webcam traffic involves "undesirable nudity"'
"I am still trying to get my head around the implications that the British government's equivalent of the NSA probably holds the world's largest collection of pornographic videos, that the stash is probably contaminated with seriously illegal material, and their own personnel can in principle be charged and convicted of a strict liability offence if they try to do their job. "
The document estimates that between 3% and 11% of the Yahoo webcam imagery harvested by GCHQ contains "undesirable nudity". Discussing efforts to make the interface "safer to use", it noted that current "naïve" pornography detectors assessed the amount of flesh in any given shot, and so attracted lots of false positives by incorrectly tagging shots of people's faces as pornography.
So, if you have to hide something, show your private parts. Can we conclude this?
Reminds me of this story, the googling of which is now in my search history so I hope you're grateful.
"A US card cloner forced would-be gang members to take part in group sex sessions as part of an initiation ceremony designed to weed out undercover cops, according to a detective."
Statistically speaking, it is now very probable that the GCHQ has collected a huge collection of materials classified as "pornography" (as in, naked people showing themselves on webcams to each other, believing that this is a private session; apparently this is a thing). Again, statistically speaking, a significant percentage of this is likely to be classified as "child pornography" (as in, teenagers doing the above). Therefore, does it follow that GCHQ thinks of the children, and not in a good way?
Riiiight: "Oh don't worry, it's not as if the data was collected with such intent, so it's all right, no problem exists. Also, this data doesn't even exist, so there."
crude, but probably very true. just remember that confessions of a TSA agent blog. I can't imagine it would be any different (if not worse, because the people aren't actually present).
I hope one of the users wasn't Wendi Murdoch, otherwise (the then) UK Prime Minister Tony Blair would have a LOT of answering to do [0].
>> The passionate note surfaced amid the flotsam of a shipwrecked marriage. It was written in broken English by a woman to herself, pouring out her love for a man called Tony. “Oh, shit, oh, shit,” she wrote. “Whatever why I’m so so missing Tony. Because he is so so charming and his clothes are so good. He has such good body and he has really really good legs Butt . . . And he is slim tall and good skin. Pierce blue eyes which I love. Love his eyes. Also I love his power on the stage . . . and what else and what else and what else . . . ”
>> The woman was Wendi Deng Murdoch, the Chinese wife of the Australian media mogul Rupert Murdoch. The note, not revealed until now, could have been one of the few pieces of evidence in their surprise divorce last year, had the case come to trial. “Tony” was the former prime minister of Great Britain, Tony Blair.
Imagine for a moment these two had secret chats over yahoo, Skype, text or email, recorded by GCHQ and passed on to the NSA. Now imagine how much power this would give anyone in possession of the damning evidence while Blair was in power and deng still married. This is why we can't trust the gov. or spy agencies with this sort of widespread surveillance - with it comes tremendous power which is more damaging to our civil society than the threat of terrorism ever will be.
Potentially GCHQ could be sat on one of the largest private collections of indecent images of people underage. The age range is liable to be 14-50, the article says around 7% were of people doing naughty things on camera, even if that tails off at the age extremes that's still a worrying thought.
Keeping a creepy eye on your junk, just in case you're a terrorist.
Technically this means that GCHQ likely have the single largest archive of child porn in the world. It isn't exactly news that people from the ages of 12-17 are using video chat to share erotic images (e.g. SnapChat), and if GCHQ is storing one snap every five minutes, they likely have billions of nudes of people below the age of 18.
There was a comment on reddit that they are immune to these laws. Kind of makes sense? I mean, if the police are investigating child porn, and take the hard drive, they're not really going to be charged with possessing it. That's my take at least.
Wait a sec- is Yahoo Messenger video chat a common means of communication between terrorists?
"Sidney, get on yahoo we have to discuss the subway bombing. Alright. Is your webcam on? Come on we have to use the webcams- so much communication is nonverbal! I just read this story on time.com about the importance of face to face communication- it was really fascinat-- what? Oh alright back to the bombing. But first turn your webcam on."
Well obviously "terrorists" hold up flash cards to their webcam containing all the insidious plots and plans in written form! And think of the children? "Terrorist" probably also routinely show each other child porn!!!
Seriously though, is there any channel of communication that the spooks won't illegally snoop on?
It's okay, the CEO has said only he and another employee can access people's Snaps, right after they admitted they also allow authorities to see them [1]. Just pay no attention to the line of security bugs, and you should "feel" safe (unless you've got anything to hide, of course).
Sharing information about someone out of context is still a great threat. Heck, it happens all the time: a politician digs up a school paper written by an opponent who was a fiery socialist 30 years ago, and tries to paint them with that brush. And it works. So, even with the sex thing, you might not be embarrassed, but the information can and will be presented in a way to maximize your pain. You might not care about people knowing you ate a bunch of dicks, but your opponent is going to cast it, for example, as non-consensual, or will dig up some dirt on the sex partners. Perhaps they are under-age, non-consenting, or willing (with a little inducement) to simply lie about what you did.
Bottom line: information is power, and even lack of shame cannot protect you from the damage it can do in malicious hands.
(BTW your point is well taken. There was an episode of Sherlock where a (presumably young and attractive) female member of the British royal family engaged a prostitute for some lesbian S&M play - and a the gov went to a great deal of expense to cover it up. My thought was, "why bother?" People's imaginations being what they are, the biggest impact would be a small uptick in UK births in 9-10 months.)
I know it's tempting to see the younger generation as a sign of larger cultural shifts, but the Baby Boomers were once a lot like the Millennials, and one day the Millennials will be a lot like the Baby Boomers.
Considering just how much the sexual revolution reversed itself after HIV became well-known, Millennials are positively prudish compared to Boomers and Gen X-ers at the same age.
It's bad enough that my online friends are bombarded with my, frankly, dull snaps. I pity the lubed up agents hoping for fun times faced with episode 78 of "hehehe look how cute my dog is" followed by "Saw this man with a shoe on his head and thought of you".
Man, I think I'm going to turn off that auto-upload backup feature in Google+ now on my android phone. This stuff is so terrible, and for all their handwaving about not being in on it these companies are helpless to do anything about this stuff.
I think every citizen in the Five Eyes network (AUS/NZ/CAN/UK/US) should send letters to their elected official highlighting how concerned we are on the issue of privacy. I'm based in Canada, and I'm already drafting an email to my MP. I just don't think people can sit back at all now.
My name's Roger, and I'm a constituent of your riding. I've had the pleasure of meeting Margaret, and I want to thank you both and your team for the great work you do for the riding.
I'm writing because with each passing day, revelations are getting worse and worse about the surveillance capabilities of security agencies. Just today the Guardian revealed that the GCHQ, our British allies, collect webcam recordings en masse, including sexually explicit material shared between two consenting individuals.
We know the Harper administration is stuck as being part and parcel of Five Eyes, and that the CESC has conducted spying for the NSA, using Canada's good name for nefarious purposes.
I write this in the hope that you are aware of this issue, and to inquire as to what you and your party are doing with this regards, and what active efforts you will be making in the future to shed awareness about this creeping invasion on our privacy. As Canadians, we should be protected under Section 8 of the Charter with regards to reasonable expectation of privacy, but I do not want this to constantly shift because security agencies continually push us down the slippery slope Senator Church so eloquently warned Americans about during the Church Committee:
"If this government ever became a tyrant, if a dictator ever took charge in this country, the technological capacity that the intelligence community has given the government could enable it to impose total tyranny, and there would be no way to fight back because the most careful effort to combine together in resistance to the government, no matter how privately it was done, is within the reach of the government to know. Such is the capability of this technology.
I don't want to see this country ever go across the bridge. I know the capacity that is there to make tyranny total in America, and we must see to it that this agency and all agencies that possess this technology operate within the law and under proper supervision so that we never cross over that abyss. That is the abyss from which there is no return."
Let me know how I can contribute to any efforts with this regards. I hope you are well, and eagerly await any response you have on this topic.
"We know the Harper administration is stuck as being part and parcel of Five Eyes, and that the CESC has conducted spying for the NSA, using Canada's good name for nefarious purposes."
Is it just the CSEC or both CSEC and CSIS? Why are we not hearing more about the NSA-style violations made in Canada? I can't believe that we aren't participating in all this...
I wonder what they are doing with all the d#k pics? Making a database and cross referencing them with d#k pics of known terrorists? To use in conjunction with full body scanners at airports so they can more easily spot a potential terrorist just by looking at their junk? Stranger things have happened.
"if someone (...) could explain why the line has always been "the metadata" when it is obvious that mass interception of content has always been part of the equation i would be grateful.
i would also be grateful if from now on every article relating to the NSA scandal will mention that fact that there is bulk collection of content.
i would also be grateful if from now on every time a public official is questioned or quoted the fact that content is collected in bulk is at the forefront.
every article should contain the fact that these agencies collect nude webcam images in bulk from people who are not suspected of any crime."
No, this is also metadata. They are only taking a screenshot every few minutes, with as aim to get a clear picture of the face of the person operating the computer. Just like an email header contains a From-address in the content that's metadata, a webcam session contains the same metadata in the form of these screenshots of people's faces.
They're not collecting the data, i.e. the moving webcam video + voice. They have no idea what's being said. Just metadata.
subtext: we don't, but GCHQ does and they let us search it.
That's the real insideousness of the whole five eyes thing. If it's illegal in your country, just get another of the eyes to do it. You can truthfully deny that you do it, while still reaping the benefits as if you had done it. Disgusting subversion of controls that are there for good reasons.
it was paced like this to make the nay-sayers claiming "there's no such thing, no bulk collection, just metadata, no proof otherwise" over the past few months lose their face.
"Rather than collecting webcam chats in their entirety, the program saved one image every five minutes from the users' feeds, partly to comply with human rights legislation, and also to avoid overloading GCHQ's servers."
Ummm, "comply with human rights legislation" ... what? Are they implying that they was a human rights watchdog involved that confirmed that their approach was "legal"? Or, is the more likely case that they assume that their activities are legal internally -> ergo we're fine to proceed? That phase in itself is a HUGE red flag to me.
As I'm pretty sure there is no "human rights legislation" that states that indiscriminate capturing of private video streams is bad unless you only capture an image every 5 minutes, it's likely that technical restrictions are the only reason for the intermittancy - they even say how nice it would be if they could capture everything. Oddly, the primary sources we've been shown don't mention any human rights justification.
Just a thought here....these stories get tons of coverage here on HN (and rightly so), but at this point pretty much fall on deaf ears for the rest of our population. Our media is too busy keeping everyone distracted with stories about how a Coke Ad offended 0.000002% of the population and Russia's leaders hate gay people. Nothing against the importance or validity of those stories, but I would hope everyone reading this could agree that this is a bit more of a priority and a far greater threat to everyone's future than those stories. If anyone has any ideas or suggestions on how to push this to the forefront of the mainstream media's agenda again, it would be great to hear them.
As a side note....I am sure many here have shared these stories on their own social media outlets. Not sure about others' circles of friends, but outside of tech circles most people seem pretty disengaged. I think that's because most people feel like they can't do much to change anything, so they don't try.
Addressing that problem...I'm not sure what can be done to get others more engaged and feeling like they have a voice. I highly doubt any Senators or Congressmen are reading HN News on a regular basis...
I'd be happy if there was more discussion from 'coverage here on HN' that took a solution based approach to the news. Not trying to be an apologist, but it seems counterproductive arguing about all/nothing approaches, when it's obvious governments are not going to condone blindspots.
I'm trying to get at how the issue has been in the media for months, and the most recent technological solutions are to put sticky tape over the camera.
I'm surprised there hasn't been at least some protocol/algorithm proposed wherein it's compartmentalized structure is amenable to judicial/democratic process or whatever. Somebody's also gotta come up with something better than VChip/Trusted Computing, and I don't see how media is going to lead to a solution for that issue either.
It's simple: Parliament and the CPS can no longer ignore GCHQ's abuses and the entirely inadequate 'oversight' regime of the Intelligence and Security Committee.
Brooks et al. go on trial for allegedly hacking celebrities' voicemail messages, but Cabinet ministers walk free after approving secret suspicion-less dragnet recording of millions of webcam chats? This precedent can't stand. It's time we demand prison sentences for everyone who knew about this and did nothing to stop it.
Relevant British law is the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act, Part II, Section 32 -- "Authorisation of Intrusive Surveillance":
(2)Neither the Secretary of State nor any senior authorising officer shall grant an authorisation for the carrying out of intrusive surveillance unless he believes—
(a)that the authorisation is necessary on grounds falling within subsection (3); and
(b)that the authorised surveillance is proportionate to what is sought to be achieved by carrying it out.
GCHQ's position was that, "...the general principle applied would be that if the accuracy of the algorithm was such that it was useful to the analyst (ie, [if] the number of spurious results was low, then it was likely to be proportionate)".
But the entire point of requiring 'proportionality' is to exclude activities which are useful, but too intrusive for the benefits gained. GCHQ's reasoning that usefulness implies proportionality is clearly false. Time for a few ministers to see the inside of a courtroom.'
--
Without being an expert on the law (and ~99.999% of the people reading this fall into the same bucket) -- I/we can assume that other clauses exist to 'defang'/'neuter' the clauses cited, the ones which were purportedly violated. And this highlights another BIG issue: a law's true intent is oftentimes indecipherable or outright deceitful.
Groundbreaking precedents have been set due to laws which were passed on false pretenses (for ex., look up the genesis story of "eminent domain") - or simply marketed as something misleading (ex. Sen. Feinstein's "FISA Improvements Act"). To me, that is the greatest form corruption in a democracy -- lawmaking with surreptitious intent.
While bills have to be massive in some circumstances (and interlinking by their very nature) -- a standardized list of simple outcomes of said law should be a requirement, and a bill should be "unit tested" the same way programs are. Actually, behaviorally tested is a better phrase. We need a tool for lawyers/lawmakers to help them express the consequences of a bill in a definitive manner. - Are there such initiatives? (please comment) Shouldn't we start one? Has the idea been floated and shot down (at EFF/Demand Progress/etc), and if so why? IMHO it would be worth the investment given the stakes (understanding the consequences of bills and laws -- even spotting excess/hidden "pork"). . I would love to read a bill as a series of behavioral test assertions, wouldn't you! :)
>>> Hopefully the stated concerns don't apply; countless suits are brought against all suspect parties (esp. high profile targets); and those responsible are served justice to the maximum extent of the law. As the hum of document shredders begins on 10 Downing Street - know that THIS is the opportunity to "make an example out of" the type of people who are responsible for the system as it exists today. It's our turn for a power play.
The bit of law you quote is less relevant to GCHQ and is aimed more at LEAs spying on parents to make sure they live in a school catchment area; or local councils making sure people applying for parking permits actually live in a qualifying house.
Here is the GCHQ bit of RIPA, which makes reference to part of the bit you quoted.
GCHQs mission is to monitor all communications. Thus, to them anything will be proportionate. The over iew and scrutiny failed and failed hard - i have no idea why anyone thought it was acceptable to gather webcam data. (Maybe as a training exercise where the data is then deleted or a proof of concept?)
> The over iew and scrutiny failed and failed hard - i have no idea why anyone thought it was acceptable to gather webcam data.
You know, maybe they're not that concerned with decency when setting up a police state.
In fact, maybe they figured they could use some facial recognition data on their subjects? I bet the NSA doesn't have any on US citizens though. I mean, how could they possibly monitor Americans when it's against the rules?!
I am specifically not talking about the NSA - incompetant to the poi t that a temporary worker for a contractor was anle to steal secret documents.
As for GCHQ oversight: it'd need to be a conspiracy spanning government (all parties); judiciary; etc. i'm not saying it couldn't happen, but the alternative (GCHQ lied; the oversight committees were incompetent) is easier to believe.
Right, and there was no reason to think I thought you were.
> As for GCHQ oversight: it'd need to be a conspiracy spanning government (all parties); judiciary; etc
Yeah, it seems unimaginable that one side of the same coin could be in cahoots with the other! If they tell us GCHQ is being carefully overseen so that it won't do anything naughty, then it must be true! Besides, they're probably only spying on those naughty terrorist foreigners - not Englishmen - so everything is alright!
It's already public knowledge that the GCHQ is saving a copy of every byte passing through England, but hey, they need to do that to fight pedophiles and terrorists, and.. racists, of course!
DanBC has the better comment (currently below this one) - I'm not qualified to respond, but it deserves one. Upvote him.
I just wanted to point out that (from their mobile sites) I couldn't find a single story about this on CNN, FoxNews or MSNBC. (4:36pm CST)
Last time I made a fuss about the media I had Godwin's law and Occam's Razor cited in replies/counters as why bias in the press is purely organic in nature. As this story has 1800+ comments on the Guardian, reached the top of Reddit (before it was removed) and is here at the top of HN, I would say that the fact that there is barely (or 'no') coverage of this story points to an invisible hand. To clarify: I didn't say "reporting" I said "coverage."
To not milk what is the most sensational story of the year is against the very link-baity nature of these companies. While I don't watch cable news - I might be VERY wrong in that arena, but something tells me I'm not. I can't attempt to understand the forces at play, but they are there.
Still no mention on any of the "big three" websites, mobile or desktop (8:20pm CST). . Update: now FoxNews.com has a small link in top stories. http://imgur.com/CwLet0Z (8:31pm CST) Hurray American media, only 9 hours after the fact! Fizzle...
We must make it our business that heads roll. Troll call-in shows of our (US) cable media--ask them why they aren't giving it its weight. Despite it being the GCHQ (not the NSA), this seems like the greatest evidence given to reformists to date of the overreaching post 9-11 mandates. And it's the unspoken duty of journalists to cover important stories and inform the tens of millions that don't check Reddit, HN, the Guardian, (believe it or not, the Drudge Report), etc.
> I just wanted to point out that (from their mobile sites) I couldn't find a single story about this on CNN, FoxNews or MSNBC. (4:36pm CST)
At the time of your post, CNN and MSNBC had it. Fox got it around the time of your post.
You probably missed it because it is common for major news organizations, both inside the US and those outside, to actually maintain separate views of the news for their domestic visitors and their international visitors.
The domestic view assumes that you are interested in mostly domestic news, and only want to see the top international stories. The international view assumes that you are interested mostly in world news, and only want to see the top domestic stories.
Or that the average US citizen (the market for those news corps) doesn't give jack shit about it (not that this is a good thing). Netizens and UK citizens don't factor into the equation for these companies.
That's the simpler explanation, but Occam's Razor is a thin reed to lean on, because simpler doesn't equate to correctness. Let's inspect: "the US market doesn't give jack shit". But how would we know? The media hasn't even tried.
I imagine this would piss me off if I were a Rachael-Maddow-watching soccer mom. Show anchors are hired for their ability to work up their viewers. Taking pics of me in my underwear is a softball. Notice rasz_pl's comment below -- any producer worth a damn sees the potential in this scandal. So why is Brian Williams not leading off with it on the Nightly News as he did with the snoopware-webcam story from over a year ago? Who the fuck can tell me that? Open your fucking eyes man, and start asking your own questions.
As for "this only pertains to UK citizens" - this program wasn't limited to the UK. In many ways, the UK spying on the US is more sensational. Furthermore, the NSA and GCHQ have blurred the lines between jurisdictions. As for "only netizens would care" -- most people use the Internet. Yahoo is an everyman portal. This is an egregious invasion of privacy. Who cares if you're a netizen on this story? The story's content is not to blame either; general viewership can be enraged about esoteric things too (a great ex. the "bridge to nowhere" - just think about it).
The US would care if the baby-boomer/mainstream media tried to cover it, at all.
I am not sure if there is even the hint of a chance that anything will change in the UK. However, the scandal has not died down in some continental EU countries, most prominently Germany, so these revelations might make a difference yet.
It is quite fun to see the press/populace turn on our politicians (here in Germany) with them slowly realizing that they put their unconditional trust into the wrong people.
They most certainly can and will continue to ignore this. They will only pay attention when the apparatus is borne down on them - which won't happen because 99% of the UK population think surveillance is a great thing, and think you're a traitor for even daring think about it.
I have no affiliation with the service, just learned about it this weekend but it seems relevant to understanding and tracking the process of law making.
Under RIPA S.32 the Secretary of State only has to believe that the surveillance is proportional and the reasons that allow for it include national security, prevention of serious crime and UK economic well-being.
S.42 appears to say that the SS(!) must issue a warrant - I wonder if this is a matter of record and whether such warrant can be viewed/verified to any extent.
Why? PRISM is about selected (targeted) collection of data from users that the government has a court order for. Every country in the world does this. This program collects data from traffic passing through the UK regardless of whether the UK government has any reason to suspect the users whose data is collected, let alone present those suspicions to a judge. Yahoo has every reason to be outraged.
I don't think those slides are talking about court order related activities. After all, all companies must comply with court orders, so why would the NSA single out the nine as their "current providers"?
As the companies have repeatedly explained and as the government's declassified documents show, it's because the companies built systems to automatically send new account data to the government for accounts under court-ordered surveillance as new IMs, emails, etc. came in. This contrasts with having an engineer manually send data dumps daily in some format the government has to figure out how to parse.
I don't believe that's true. Much of the controversy centered around the (highly xenophobic) fact that the NSA was unable to guarantee that it wasn't scooping up data belonging to US citizens. If this was only about court ordered surveillence then surely it could have done so?
And second, I specifically remember that all nine companies immediately denied the existence of the program. Then it became too big and it was time to "explain it"? As Bush Jr. would say, fool me once...
You're confusing different programs. PRISM in particular is only court-ordered surveillance of targeted users. That's what companies like Yahoo! participated in without knowing the NSA's code name for it.
Limiting collection to non-Americans applies to bulk collection programs like the email header collection for unencrypted email deliveries crossing national borders and like this program. Those are programs the companies didn't know about and are understandably outraged about.
Now companies are able to release more info about what the government had requested, though it is delayed and limited to giving ranges periods of time instead of absolute numbers.
So up to now I've been operating under the assumption that anything I transmit/receive over low-bandwidth, unencrypted channels such as email, IM, sms, etc. are likely intercepted and stored forever dragnet-style.
I was also guessing that higher bandwidth channels such as voice chat, phone calls, video conversations, etc. were likely intercepted more selectively because of the difficulty of doing something like that en masse (and in the case of phone calls, because of laws (ha)).
I'm starting to think that I've just been grossly naive.
Also, every specific denial by Clapper and his supporters is getting refuted. I'm interested in who will be revealed to be the victim of some compaign using the porn-browsing habits, and what corporation(s) will be revealed to have benefitted and been victimized by economic espionage.
The logical end result of the government's collecting people's calls and texts and web visits and nekkid photos is that the government will later use that data. So I would assume that one of the aces up Snowden's sleeve is documents with the specifics about how all this data was (is) used to blackmail people, including politicians -- although that would probably be something that the CIA actually carries out, whereas the NSA merely grabbed the data that makes it possible.
The way these disclosures keep building in severity, it almost makes it seem like Greenwald et al are preparing us for some truly horrific news. Something along the lines of, "NSA and GCHQ have been using their agencies' resources to alter the outcome of elections."
Even though the outcome won't make a difference for the general population, the individual parties are still competing against one another for who gets the power for this term.
Everyone is going on about covering your webcam, but what if I actually want to use it? I get to decide what is being sent over the network, but I still don't get to decide what the GHCQ/NSA/AIVD see by interception. Another example is Kinect, which must be turned on and uncovered because otherwise it is obviously useless. What are we going to do about that?
I'm very much afraid that the real solution is probably a political one, not a technical one.
> I'm very much afraid that the real solution is probably a political one, not a technical one.
I disagree. You can trust strong enough crypto, at least to some reasonable extent. You definitely can't trust politicians saying "nah, we're not looking at it" (or anything else they might be saying).
> You can trust strong enough crypto, at least to some reasonable extent.
Only crypto where only you and the one you're communicating with have the keys; in other words, not the centralised CA model of SSL, nor "secure" boot, nor any other implementation that relies on trusting some central faceless entity that will say lots about "protecting your security and privacy" while doing the exact opposite.
What the hell is going on in this world? When did everybody loss their minds? How can you even start to ponder if it might be a good idea to record web chats from random internet users, even less actually do it? Mankind, I am disgusted. Seriously disgusted.
The thing is, most people you meet on a daily basis are generally good people (well the ones I meet are). Its the that arseholes seem to aspire to have power and control over everyone else.
This kind of data would be tremendous treasure trove for future historians :-)
Imagine if we had this kind of data on previous periods, we'd be able to infer a lot of how people behaved, what their pastime was, better understand the fashion sense (or lack of it for certain photos apparently)...
More seriously, in a way, I think it's good that this happened because I hope that it will be a wake up call to the public opinion so that we might avoid living in a future with no rights to privacy. I'm really grateful that Snowden made the sacrifices he did to give us those information.
It's amazing to think of the potential of blackmail over politicians these kind of scheme would give...
According to this random stackoverflow response, Yahoo video just uses JPEG 2000 compressed frames. If true then Yahoo chat is probably super easy to pick individual frames from. That's likely why the GCHQ picked it for their project...
If you're only picking frames out at relatively infrequent intervals like GCHQ were, in most video formats it's relatively easy to find keyframes and save those - by definition they're not going to depend on any other frames.
That may or not be paranoid, but it's not really on topic. The users in this case had were actively using their webcams and sending images over the Internet to chat partners.
FBI has already done that for years in US. This is how they "protected us" - by not telling anyone about such bugs for years. How can you then trust anything they say about "cyber security"? They don't care about cyber security, only cyber offense.
i'm sure there are some environments that have strict no mic's requirements, i wonder what they do to disable mic's on the iMac. Perhaps they don't use iMacs or disable sound in the bios?
Only completely ignorant people[1] would have called you paranoid. Any device left to the mercy of such vulnerable software cannot be trusted. Even if societies pushed back against this surveillance machine and there were someday open, transparent modes of government -- even then -- still only fools would mock others who act out of caution and practical wisdom. RATting alone is reason enough, nevermind basic hacks that lead to total compromise. Webcams and mics have been easy targets since they've first existed in the mainstream (mid 90s).
Further, if one's rightly concerned, unplug XBOX One and such devices when they're not in use. Built-in mics are the truly annoying part to counteract.
[1] only the vast majority of people (both computer savvy and illiterate)
I'm in the UK and have been following this story pretty closely and I can't think of a single politician who has spoken about it never mind against it.
I've seen the odd report (and it's very odd when they do report it indeed) on Newsnight where they had some mouthpiece using the "Oh in the wrong hands this would be dangerous but we are the right hands line" alongside the always popular "If you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear" and the fun "We stuck strictly within the framework we where told to".
I know that in the USA the political action has been largely irrelevant and low profile, though it has weakly galvanized politicians who were anti-NSA before the leaks were even public knowledge.
While the documents do not detail efforts as widescale as those against Yahoo users, one presentation discusses with interest the potential and capabilities of the Xbox 360's Kinect camera, saying it generated "fairly normal webcam traffic" and was being evaluated as part of a wider program.
Suddenly, those tinfoil-wearers within the Project Tango thread the other day don't sound so crazy now.
I continue to find it amazing that a "free people" are allowing this kind of thing. No matter what the revelation, the big machine of internet data collection keeps on a 'rollin down the tracks. Web companies harvest it, and government skims what it wants off the top.
It's gotta stop, folks. It's just gotta stop. The scary thing isn't that we continue to create some dystopian nightmare. The scary thing is that this continues on and it doesn't matter; that we give up our privacy and anonymity and become some other species than the one we started off the 21st century being. (I mean that in a social behavioral sense, not that we grow new limbs or something) This would be a profound change for the negative, making us more like a beehive (with the associated single point of failure) that millions of troupes of hominids with the distributed self-optimizing pattern of improvement that model supports.
well if plugging the disabled 3rd party mic somehow leaves the internal one recording, that would imply your soundcard just got upgraded to having the ability for two inputs recording simulataneously. usually cost a premium, such cards :)
Unfortunately, input and output switching is usually implemented in software these days, so an attacker could probably just remotely switch to the internal mic on most laptops.
Facial recognition technology, combined with every camera on earth.
They are laying the foundations for a 24/7 ubiquitous and always-on surveillance and tracking system.
The ultimately goal might be to use very little resources (humans, drones, etc) yet achieve a near-omnipotent level of power and influence.
If they are able to conflate many such methods and systems into one sense of intelligence, then their ability to target their resources effectively is increased significantly.
Their priority isn't necessarily "you" as an individual, but it's "everyone" so they can make sure nothing slips through their net.
Sure, but in this end of the world, machine domination, and terminator like scenario, they still need to convince us to use a webcam and a mic on the computer.
1) They grabbed these images just to test their image recognition.
2) Earlier leaks have already shown that cameras and microphones can be accessed without user knowledge, and earlier defects in products show that the light does not always come on for cameras.
You're imagining that they will ask for consent. They will not. You are equipping yourself with a lot of sensors in a network connected device, and to this they simply say "Thank you". Or would, except they're not going to say anything.
> What's the purpose of founding this kind of spying program? Do they expect to find Al'Quaida' sbire among the average joe?
I would suggest to finally drop the premise implied in these kinds of questions / indignation / etc.: that there's an actual purpose/principle (related in some or other way to the greater good and so on) which these systems are founded upon. I really think that there is no such thing. As cliche as it sounds, I believe it's simply about power (and power breeding more power, and all that.) This is the kind of framework which in some sense is at least meaningful and fruitful for discussion. Any moral ground on their side is a mere facade/veil/pretext (including for some level of self-deception/rationalization, sure), but its existence and use is purely instrumental.
This terrifies me. This is the first revelation that has actually shocked me. It goes even beyond what I considered conspiracy theory. And what terrifies me even more, is my absolutely certainly, as a British citizen, that nothing will change.
Would it matter if there were some other document making such things unlawful? Do you think that if they had the protections of the ECHR but it was called a constitution that GCHQ wouldn't have taken the same actions?
Lawyers may tell you the UK do have a constitution - I've never really understood how that's true however.
This is a networked society fighting against government system designed to be hierarchical and other way round. In my opinion one primary reason for this that the governance model through Democracy is broken. We need to evolve to something other than democracy.
Secure XMPP communications just run over SSL, yeah? There was a report last year that XMPP software often configures SSL really badly. It's been said that NSA largely takes advantage of implementation bugs, not mathematical breakthroughs; the XMPP ecosystem sure gives them the opportunity.
GCHQ is Britain's final stand in staying a player that is relevant globally. It is clear that GCHQ is allowed a lot of leeway because the 'intelligence' gathered keeps the British relevant in the eyes of (mainly) the NSA, which in turn secures the British their seat at many a negotiation table.
What is ironic is that GCHQ is doing all this at the expense of the British people, whose interest they should be serving.
This clearly shows (should show) to anybody, that what is done here breaks not only the law, but destroys the foundations of our (western) democracies.
I think its strange when the Government say they want to protect us from terrorists with the surveillance but in practice they are spying on 300+ german politicians and peoples private web cams.
Now after every demonstration you attend, you can get a casual visit from the police -- after they use software to compare the footage taken from street cameras, with their web camera database.
Can you report back on the results? I'd be very interested in finding out how they respond. I think they have to register a crime and give you a crime number if you ask for one.
I don't want to see your dick, but I don't have a massively funded standing army or insane amounts of money to sway those who do.
Like it or not, this is the reality of our world now: control belongs to paranoid career bureaucrats more interested in preserving their budgets than any measure of civil liberty.
The difference is these countries pride themselves on the freedoms their citizens possess, yet they go behind their backs and surveil everything and anything they can about them, usually using technologies and platforms their own citizens helped devise.
I honestly think it was deliberate. What class of Operating System developer ships their OS releases without 100% CODE COVERAGE? Apple do code coverage testing, surely? I mean, more than the "-warn-dead-code" args that get flung around.
I can't understand how this would have gotten released into the wild if they were doing industry-standard code coverage tests. And .. if they're not doing industrial-strength code-coverage testing on their iOS/OSX release builds, thats the real news here ..
