Beck38
06-17-2013, 02:15 PM
An article/opinion piece, if you use usenet, should be on your reading list:
http://www.wired.com/opinion/2013/06/why-i-have-nothing-to-hide-is-the-wrong-way-to-think-about-surveillance/
The upshot is that you may be (or have been) breaking the law some dim (uh for some of us like last week) time in the past, and the surveillance state has a VERY long memory.
In order to keep out of jail/prison/handing over piles of money, many folks have, like many usenet providers, automated systems to handle 'requests' for information/'takedowns'. The telcos (from AT&T to Verizon to Sprint) have automated both metadata and voice data requests (anyone who thinks the feds aren't just getting the data on calls but the actual voice transfers hasn't been paying attention over the past 20+ years), the automated take-down system that first Astraweb fielded (and others quickly copied) is a piker next to that developed again, over the last years by the major telcos.
The usenet community has responded with varying degrees and attempts at 'hiding' their transfers, usually by encryption of either the file-names, data itself, or both, with 'keys' mostly on private sites. Despite this, there continues to be a wide variety of material completely either in the open, or with those keys contained within the data (and easily recovered by such techniques as par(2) processing).
Of course, as the article points out, many have/are breaking the 'law' on a daily (hourly?) basis, and as the surveillance state becomes more efficient, eventually more will be caught up in it. For usenet, it means that we may see more and more 'takedowns' occur, but as of right now, even with the automated systems in place, it's really a hit and miss proposition, probably more miss that hit but depending on one's likes or dislikes.
But as of now, again considering the continued amount of totally 'in the clear' postings, it's much more of a 'miss'.
http://www.wired.com/opinion/2013/06/why-i-have-nothing-to-hide-is-the-wrong-way-to-think-about-surveillance/
The upshot is that you may be (or have been) breaking the law some dim (uh for some of us like last week) time in the past, and the surveillance state has a VERY long memory.
In order to keep out of jail/prison/handing over piles of money, many folks have, like many usenet providers, automated systems to handle 'requests' for information/'takedowns'. The telcos (from AT&T to Verizon to Sprint) have automated both metadata and voice data requests (anyone who thinks the feds aren't just getting the data on calls but the actual voice transfers hasn't been paying attention over the past 20+ years), the automated take-down system that first Astraweb fielded (and others quickly copied) is a piker next to that developed again, over the last years by the major telcos.
The usenet community has responded with varying degrees and attempts at 'hiding' their transfers, usually by encryption of either the file-names, data itself, or both, with 'keys' mostly on private sites. Despite this, there continues to be a wide variety of material completely either in the open, or with those keys contained within the data (and easily recovered by such techniques as par(2) processing).
Of course, as the article points out, many have/are breaking the 'law' on a daily (hourly?) basis, and as the surveillance state becomes more efficient, eventually more will be caught up in it. For usenet, it means that we may see more and more 'takedowns' occur, but as of right now, even with the automated systems in place, it's really a hit and miss proposition, probably more miss that hit but depending on one's likes or dislikes.
But as of now, again considering the continued amount of totally 'in the clear' postings, it's much more of a 'miss'.