Everything We Think, Everything we Say, Everything We Do, Everywhere We've Been ....

[Bassplayer1]

Hello everyone, there really isn't anything further I need to say here - this article says it all. So now, I'm wondering if Google (and perhaps even Facebook!) are storing records of what I'm typing right now and the link I'm about to share ....
www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/mar/28/all-the-data-facebook-google-has-on-you-privacy

[pyrangello]

I did an experiment with my old flip cellphone I use , I put it in the microwave and tried to call it, nope notta , no ring, but when I put my wifes I phone in the microwave and called it , it rang all day long. I've read articles where everything digital in your home is a listening device, that satellites can detect even the way you sleep at night. You know all of the bonus loyal shopping cards you use, all that stuff is data stored, I've read where your credit cards to your drivers license have chips/tracking devices. I suppose you could live in a paranoid state , but there isn't 350 million people tracking 350 million us citizens or any others around the world. The Government was using the internet some 30 years before the regular folks were able too. I've heard numbers like 50-100-300 years ahead of us technology wise and even a thousand years. But at the end of the day does it really matter. To me technology is a blessing for those that have humanity in mind, to conserve and feed people, give them free energy and warmth. Then there are those that have dollars bills floating around that are greed driven that nothing matters to them except zeros in the bank and power. Lonely place to be there, you can't hug either one. My suggestion is enjoy life and have fun unless the world tips upside down !

[Tam]

I'm not the least bit surprised, to be honest. This whole Facebook thing is about as shocking and unpredictable as the sunrise tomorrow morning.

I and many people of my generation know full well that anything that can connect to the internet is bugged. Every house, every phone, every god damn smart TV (which any TV nowadays is) is tapped, and we know it, and we know it's been done both through shady legal loopholes and illegally.

The worst part?

We don't really care. I know I kind of stopped caring. Why should I? It's not like the Big Brother is imminent. He's already watching. He has been for years now. It's not as if a mass protest, if we were arsed to do one, would undo all of the data they have on us. The data that they conveniently buried in page 300 of the Terms of Use, in a vague statement, and only publically admit to when it's already far too late.

They have a profile on all of us. There's thousands of cameras on every street, every intersection, inside every public venue, and on many electronics.

When you know, consciously, that everything you say and do is monitored on a global scale, and has been for at least a decade, it is then that you realize you are screwed. Because your VPN, your encryption, it means nothing. All gold dust. Cryptocurrency? A joke. VPN software? A lot of it is owned by the FBI, and those that aren't ? Well, I guarantee you the NSA could access it as easily as one could guess your generic Facebook password.

There is no real security online anymore. Anonymity can be achieved with a great deal of research and work, but even then, there's no guarantee it is what it claims to be, no matter what they might tell you.

We have accepted that we have been conned, that we have had our privacy robbed from us, and that it's too late to do anything about it.

So we just figure, what the hell?

Let Facebook collect my data. Your ISP does it. Your phone company does it. Your bank does it. The post does it.

Unless you want to live as a hermit in the mountains, without any electronics whatsoever, you're toast. And even then, they still have a profile.

They can still find you.

[ramus]

The answer to you question ..BASSPLAYER1.. is HELL YES they are, there is a place in Utah where they collect and store every piece of communication ever sent. here is their own web site bragging about.

https://nsa.gov1.info/utah-data-center/

Utah Data Center

Background

The Utah Data Center, code-named Bumblehive, is the first Intelligence Community Comprehensive National Cyber-security Initiative (IC CNCI) data center designed to support the Intelligence Community's efforts to monitor, strengthen and protect the nation. Our Utah "massive data repository" is designed to cope with the vast increases in digital data that have accompanied the rise of the global network.

NSA is the executive agent for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) and is the lead agency at the center.

The 1.5 billion-dollar one million square-foot Bluffdale / Camp Williams LEED Silver facility houses a 100,000 sq-ft mission critical Tier III data center. The remaining 900,000 SF is used for technical support and administrative space. Our massive twenty building complex also includes water treatment facilities, chiller plants, electric substation, fire pump house, warehouse, vehicle inspection facility, visitor control center, and sixty diesel-fueled emergency standby generators and fuel facility for a 3-day 100% power backup capability.

Data Storage Capacity

In February 2012, Utah Governor Gary R. Herbert revealed that the Utah Data Center would be the "first facility in the world expected to gather and house a yottabyte". Since then, conflicting media reports have also estimated our storage capacity in terms of zettabytes and exabytes. While the actual capacity is classified for NATIONAL SECURITY REASONS, we can say this: The Utah Data Center was built with future expansion in mind and the ultimate capacity will definitely be "alottabytes"!

Here is another take on the Utah facility :

https://reason.com/reasontv/2016/01/19/nsa-utah-data-center-spying-snowden-spy



For Indigris a Good quote:

Its easier to fool someone than to convince them that they have been fooled.

Not clear who this quote is from some say Mark Twain

[3(C)+me]

FYI

Beware the smart toaster: 18 tips for surviving the surveillance age


We’ve come a long way since the web was just a fun place to share cat gifs – now it’s a place mostly dedicated to finding and selling your personal info. Here’s what you need to know in this new era in the internet, the adage goes, nobody knows you’re a dog. That joke is only 15 years old, but seems as if it is from an entirely different era. Once upon a time the internet was associated with anonymity; today it is synonymous with surveillance. Not only do modern technology companies know full well you’re not a dog (not even an extremely precocious poodle), they know whether you own a dog and what sort of dog it is. And, based on your preferred category of canine, they can go a long way to inferring – and influencing – your political views.

Just over a week ago, the Observer broke a story about how Facebook had failed to protect the personal information of tens of millions of its users. The revelations sparked a #DeleteFacebook movement and some people downloaded their Facebook data before removing themselves from the social network. During this process, many of these users were shocked to see just how much intel about them the internet behemoth had accumulated. If you use Facebook apps on Android, for example – and, even inadvertently, gave it permission – it seems the company has been collecting your call and text data for years.

It’s not me, it’s you! So Facebook protested, in the wake of widespread anger about its data-collection practices. You acquiesced to our opaque privacy policies. You agreed to let us mine and monetise the minutiae of your existence. Why are you so upset?

Facebook’s surprise at our outrage is not unreasonable. For years, technology companies have faced very little scrutiny as they mushroomed in size and power. Finally, however, the tide is turning. We seem to have reached a watershed moment when it comes to public attitudes towards the use of our private information. We are more aware of the implications of our online behaviour than ever before.

Awareness of our digital footprint is one thing, but what are we to do about it? In the wake of the Facebook revelations, it’s clear that we can’t all keep clicking as usual if we value our privacy or our democracy. It’s still relatively early in the internet era and we are all still figuring it out as we go along. However, best practices when it comes to security and online etiquette are starting to emerge. Here’s a guide to some of the new rules of the internet.

1. Download all the information Google has on you

You may well have downloaded your Facebook data already; it has become something of a trend in recent days. Now take a look at what Google has on you. Go to Google’s “Takeout” tool and download your data from the multiple Google products you probably use, such as Gmail, Maps, Search and Drive. You’ll get sent a few enormous files that contain information about everything from the YouTube videos you have watched, your search history, your location history and so on. Once you’ve seen just how much information about you is in the cloud, you may want to go about deleting it. I highly recommend deleting your Google Maps history, for a start, unless you are particularly eager to have a detailed online record of everywhere you have ever been. You may also want to stop Google from tracking your location history. Sign in to Google, open Maps, then click on “timeline” in the menu. At the bottom, there’s an option to manage your location history.

2. Try not to let your smart toaster take down the internet.

These days you can buy a “smart” version of just about anything. There are connected toasters, which let you personalise your toast settings and notify your phone when your breakfast is ready. There are Bluetooth-enabled forks, which vibrate when you are eating too quickly. There are internet-connected umbrellas, which alert you if it looks like it’s going to rain. There are even smart tampons, which let you monitor your flow.

Not only are most of these gadgets unnecessary and expensive, most of them have shoddy security and are a liability. In 2016, for example, hackers created a zombie army of internet-connected devices and used them to take down large parts of the internet, including sites such as Netflix, Facebook, Spotify and the Guardian. So think twice about whether you really need to buy that fancy connected gadget. There’s enough to worry about today without having to wonder if your toaster is plotting against you.


https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/mar/28/beware-the-smart-toaster-18-tips-for-surviving-the-surveillance-age

the comments are interesting and about 1,000 so far.

[Cardillac]

let's just start with our PCs alone: they're all aquariums if one finds any of us interresting enough-

the surveillence system comes/built in with the PC and this has been thrown in our faces on the packaging label:

Intel Inside

Larry

[meeradas]

Intel Inside

Yep. Great observation. Larry is right.

Totally obvious. Hidden in plain sight. That's "how they roll".

[pyrangello]

One more thing , this was 5-8 years ago, my buddy from school is a private detective, known him since 7th grade. So he calls me one day and says you won't believe what I'm doing now, He bought a software package for surveillance using the street corner cameras they use for traffic. He was hired by some husband to see if his wife was messing around with someone else. So here's my buddy the private detective watching his clients wife on his own personal computer at home and has her driving on 6 cameras at one time to wherever she was going. That should blow you away, I know I was.

[meeradas]

Relevant related Info (from 2014, but still worth every second):
dNZrq2iK87k

"Enjoy".

PS: Took me 90 minutes to find that video for y'all...

[Bill Ryan]

One more thing , this was 5-8 years ago, my buddy from school is a private detective, known him since 7th grade. So he calls me one day and says you won't believe what I'm doing now, He bought a software package for surveillance using the street corner cameras they use for traffic. He was hired by some husband to see if his wife was messing around with someone else. So here's my buddy the private detective watching his clients wife on his own personal computer at home and has her driving on 6 cameras at one time to wherever she was going. That should blow you away, I know I was.

This was all in plain view in almost every episode of the TV series '24' over a decade ago, when nerdy tech genius character Chloe O'Brian, usually to a high-drama critical deadline of just a few minutes, would routinely commandeer security cameras (or spy satellites), hack into phones, and decrypt private messages, to track anyone that needed to be followed and caught fast.

Even earlier than that was the excellent 1998 Will Smith and Gene Hackman film, Enemy of the State (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enemy_of_the_State_(film)). (Highly recommended, if anyone's not seen it.)

There's really nothing new here. The scriptwriters back then weren't inventing all this as science fiction.

[Ernie Nemeth]

At work, there was a meeting in the lunch room for the managers and IT guys. While I was up there I saw one tech guy giving the big wig a download for the camera system. Some I have yet to locate myself. So there they were in the meeting making sure the guys on the floor are not goofing off. Six cameras on one page, six on another was what I saw, without me being noticed of course. I am good at that, not being noticed.

My personal area is not directly monitored, being at the very back of the shop floor and surrounded by shelves for my stock parts. I check from time to time just in case they try to sneak one past me. Being an electrician, I would deactivate it - they all have wires because in that steel shelled building transmission is spotty and wireless transmission is not as secure in any case. A quick cut laterally along the tiny cable will disable it, like as not.