Comment by wyck | Hacker News Reader

Comment by wyck | Hacker News Reader

Let's pretend I'm the NSA. I don't care right now about what your saying, I just care about who you associate with and where you are hanging out. If those raise my suspicions then I will also track the where/who connections and create a map of activity. Those dots might start to line up and create further interest.

If suspicions are founded as actual threats I will do anyone of the following and probably more.

FISA request

Look into your credit card records and bank transactions

Serve your host/ISP with a request and also get your SSL private keys

Listen in on your cell phone/home phone/sat phone

Use traditional listening devices (these are great btw..)

Find an exploit in something you use (I'm pretty sure I have some zero days lying around).

Listen in on your girlfriend/wife/husband/boyfriend/friends and family.

Create lots of tor exit nodes and track your patterns

Ask some actual spy's/moles for some intel

Use satellites and tracking devices, maybe even some drones

Torture

Wait for you to mess up..people are lazy.

I made this to point out some real tactics that are actually used and why the vast majority of PRISM related posts like these are a bit silly...aka..you're probably not a terrorist. The NSA tracked bin Laden's courier Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti's cell phone which eventually led them to Bin Laden. Does that sound like anything you're doing?

The NSA is not above the law and I generally support Snowden, William Binney, etc .. I just think people need to get grip on reality here. The only people tracking you are ad trackers.

ps. Don't fret too much about the NSA, Google Glass will have citizens spying on each other in no time flat.

Have you even seen the slides leaked by Snowden? They tracking everyone. Of course no one has a problem about using FISA requests. The very problem that started this is that they disregard the constitution and track people regardless of their history.

You must have been living in a cave...

> I made this to point out some real tactics that are actually used and why the vast majority of PRISM related posts like these are a bit silly...aka..you're probably not a terrorist. The NSA tracked bin Laden's courier Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti's cell phone which eventually led them to Bin Laden. Does that sound like anything you're doing?

I find this mindset really weird and alien. Surely people who are not terrorists using security measures is exactly what's needed, so that security measures become normalized and the web's vulnerability to malicious actors is lowered. I agree that the site's focus on the NSA and PRISM is a bit misleading, but that doesn't make the site silly (although other things might).

You completely missed the point. The NSA is tracking everyone. They're building a database of everyone's activities. Nobody knows who the "terrorists" are going to be 20 years from now. The moment you become a suspect, they can bring up everything they've recorded you saying or doing and use it against you.

The NSA is above the law and the rules they follow are set by a secret court appointed by a single man who has his position for life.

Also extremely likely - the NSA/GCHQ/Whoever siphon off all "metadata".

At the next Boston bombing, or whatever, they analyse that metadata for the perpetrator. And the next one. And the next one. And build a profile of what a "terrorist's" communication patterns look like.

And then they single out everyone matching that profile and stick watches on them, or bring them in.

It's Minority Report without the psychics. Google Now for Homeland Security.

> It's Minority Report without the psychics. Google Now for Homeland Security.

Eagle Eye (yet) without an AI.

> It's Minority Report without the psychics.

Wow, that never occurred to me. Analyzing Metadata really is a lot like "pre-crime".

Sure, in a sense all police or intelligence work can be looked at in a way that makes it seem "like pre-crime" - after all, crime prevention does have its merits. But putting every single citizen on the list is something different entirely and really does smack of "psychics".

>Wow, that never occurred to me. Analyzing Metadata really is a lot like "pre-crime".

I thought that's why everybody's freaking out. I mean... that's why I'm freaking out. I haven't even seen the movie.

If you are a suspect I don't care if you encrypt your internet surfing habits because I have a lot of tools at my disposal, that was my simple point.

Threads like this are silly because actual suspects already know this, and average joe is getting a false sense of security.

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