Bonum Certa Men Certa

Latest NSA Scandals: Interception of UK Wired Communications, Blackmail and Demonisation by Spying on Sex Surfing

Obama won't look



Summary: Espionage, warrantless interception, and other illegal activities highlight the need for freedom-respecting software (with ethics built in)

THE CRIMINAL, villainous operations of the NSA just keep getting worse. More so-called 'allies' turn out to have been stabbed in the back. Based on [1,2], we in the UK are under NSA surveillance in a wholesale fashion (no discrimination) and the NSA goes after civil disobedience by means of shaming, e.g. espionage and blackmail [3]. It's like COINTELPRO all over again, but this time it's international and it targets many groups.

US politicians are growingly uncomfortable about it [4] and so are European politicians [5]. Those who were complicit are getting negative publicity [6,7] as there is clear abuse of the law (using anti-terror pretext for corporate purposes [8]) at huge but secret expense to the public [9].

Those who publish the facts receive an award [10], those who repeat propaganda get educated [11], and FOSS developers are working on solutions right about now [12,13,14].

The NSA has helped show why Free software is essential; without it, there is no trust and there is a lot of complicity/collusion. Secrecy is often an indication of misconduct. We need to fight secrecy.

Related/contextual items from the news:



  1. Verizon, BT, Vodafone, Level 3 'let NSA hook into Google, Yahoo! fiber'
    Verizon, BT, Vodafone, Level 3 'let NSA hook into Google, Yahoo! fiber' ● The Register
  2. NYT: NSA May Have Spied on Google, Yahoo Data Centers Via Fiber-Optic Cables
  3. Top-Secret Document Reveals NSA Spied On Porn Habits As Part Of Plan To Discredit 'Radicalizers'
    The National Security Agency has been gathering records of online sexual activity and evidence of visits to pornographic websites as part of a proposed plan to harm the reputations of those whom the agency believes are radicalizing others through incendiary speeches, according to a top-secret NSA document. The document, provided by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, identifies six targets, all Muslims, as “exemplars” of how “personal vulnerabilities” can be learned through electronic surveillance, and then exploited to undermine a target's credibility, reputation and authority.

    The NSA document, dated Oct. 3, 2012, repeatedly refers to the power of charges of hypocrisy to undermine such a messenger. “A previous SIGINT" -- or signals intelligence, the interception of communications -- "assessment report on radicalization indicated that radicalizers appear to be particularly vulnerable in the area of authority when their private and public behaviors are not consistent,” the document argues.


  4. Senators want to stop giving the NSA a big ol’ ‘stamp of approval’ to spy on anyone
    “They who would give up essential liberty, to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.”


  5. Brussels considers options to respond to NSA spying scandal
  6. EU intelligence agencies complicit in NSA snoops, says top US senator


  7. The German BND does the bidding of USA spies
    An inter€­view on the Ger€­man main€­stream TV chan€­nel ARD. The pro€­gramme is called FAKT Magazin:


  8. Korea and Singapore Alleged to Have Assisted NSA in Eavesdropping - See more at: http://www.businesskorea.co.kr/article/2279/help-eavesdropping-korea-and-singapore-alleged-have-assisted-nsa-eavesdropping#sthash.8hwNaK0z.dpuf


  9. New Zealand MP asks if NSA spied on Kim Dotcom
    A cryptic comment in a police report is raising questions about whether the United States' National Security Agency spied on internet tycoon and New Zealand resident Kim Dotcom.


  10. Illuminating The Billion Dollar U.S. Intelligence Budget: Project SpyLighter Documents NSA Surveillance Technology
    Documents released by the U.S. National Security Agency in the last couple of months, following successful Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests as part of a new crowdsourcing project called SpyLighter, reveal the agency purchased products from Packet Forensics and VUPEN Security in 2010 and 2012. The two companies are well known for selling Internet surveillance technology and software exploits to governments and businesses world-wide.


  11. Guardian wins Liberty award for articles about GCHQ and NSA spying


  12. If You Don't Care About The NSA Because You 'Haven't Done Anything Wrong,' You're Wrong
    That's worth keeping in mind any time someone writes off the NSA as not being an issue for them because they've "done nothing wrong." Driving home that point is an excellent short "Op-Doc" in the NY Times by filmmaker Brian Knappenberger, which has brief interviews with a bunch of great people (many of whom you'll hopefully recognize) explaining in very clear terms why you should absolutely care about the NSA. There are many reasons discussed, but a simple one, highlighted by David Sirota, goes back to that quote above. You can claim that you've done nothing wrong all you want. However, if someone really powerful decides they want to railroad you, you'd be surprised at how much it can be made to look like you've "done wrong." And when the NSA (or the FBI) can readily access all sorts of data about your life, their ability to build such a story increases tremendously.


  13. Is open source encryption the answer to NSA snooping?
    The NSA had cracked Internet encryption.

    The NSA was listening in to everything.

    European customers were especially concerned, he says.

    Fortunately, many of the headlines had been unnecessarily alarmist.

    “The earlier types of encryption, with 64 bits or less, the NSA has figured out how to brute force decrypt at least some of that traffic,” he says. “But the more modern, strong encryption, with 128 or 256 encryption units, they can't decrypt that. And it bothers them no end.”


  14. Open router project launched to improve network privacy
    But could the push back against the NSA's comprehensive surveillance with new privacy-enhancing technology be jeopardised by community reluctance for large-scale collaboration?


  15. Brisbane devs design open source router to beat NSA snooping
    Four Brisbane security researchers are fighting back against government surveillance by building a router based on open source components designed to make security and privacy verifiable and more accessible to users.

    The Open Router Project (ORP-1) router would be built on open source hardware and software to allow users to check that the unit was free of vulnerabilities and backdoors.




Recent Techrights' Posts

Over 3 Months Later Brett Wilson LLP Still Unable to Recruit a Media Lawyer?
"Immediate start", but not found... still unfilled
Microsoft is Trying to "Pull a Nokia" on GNU/Linux as Desktop/Laptop Platform
We all remember that rather well, don't we?
Our Three Lawsuits Against Microsofters Are About to Become a Lot More Relevant to GNU/Linux
The Master will easily understand why Garrett has been attacking me since 2012
Slop Is Not Intelligence and It Does Not Enhance Productivity
Like voice dictation, which cannot tell the difference between "sheet" and "shit"
 
PCLinuxOS is Raising Money to Support Development After Fire Incident at the Host
PCLinuxOS has not had announcements lately
Speed of the Site Should be Better Now
The "bot attacks" impact the speed of the sister site too
Getting More From AnalogNowhere
Recently we used many images from AnalogNowhere
Microsoft, Microsofters and 'Secure' Boot Shills Already Storming the LWN Report About Expiring Certificate, Shooting the Messenger
LWN has clearly stuck a nerve
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, July 23, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, July 23, 2025
Disable "Secure" Boot Today (the Only Better Time to Do So Was Yesterday)
Don't trust anything Red Hat tells you about security
Links 23/07/2025: Windows Killed Company After 150+ Years, US Government Mimics Russia's Attacks on the Media
Links for the day
Freedom Generally Wins at the End, History Shows (But It's Constantly Attacked, Too)
At the moment people realise "Linux" (e.g. Android) isn't enough to guarantee any freedoms
“Inhumane” and “Disgusting” Mass Layoff Execution, According to Microsoft Staff
The workers are looking for other places to work
Misinformation is Not Intelligence
It's low-grade plagiarism and it fails to show any signs of intelligence
The Free Software Foundation (FSF) Has a New Slogan for Its 40th Anniversary
The freedoms are what's most important
LLM Slopfarms gbhackers.com, "Cyber Press" and CyberSecurityNews Are Drowning Google News (and Shame on Google for Feeding and Facilitating Them)
All are run by the same people
Links 23/07/2025: Droplets GUI Patent Monopoly Challenge, Nokia Leverages Illegal Patent Court Against Rivals
Links for the day
Gemini Links 23/07/2025: Community in Geminispace and Challenges With Old Computers
Links for the day
Links 23/07/2025: Slop Patents Tackled, Slop Copyright Misuses Tackled by Politicians
Links for the day
Links 23/07/2025: Retreating From Transparency on Jeffrey Epstein, We No Longer Have Press Freedom
Links for the day
Gemini Links 23/07/2025: Piano and Food
Links for the day
New and Old
On Ageism in Tech
EPO Crimes Are Spreading to the British Court System
Society is now paying the price for failing to tackle crimes at the EPO
It's Time to Dump SharePoint and Here's What to Use Instead
Nextcloud, ownCloud, Bookstack, MediaWiki, and MediaGoblin
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, July 22, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, July 22, 2025
Brett Wilson LLP Has Gone Silent
Sometimes silence says more than nothing at all
Slopwatch: LinuxSecurity, Planet Ubuntu, and LinuxTechLab
some slopfarms show no remorse and they don't value their reputation at all
Links 23/07/2025: Book Bans, Storms, and Kangaroo Court for Patents Commits More Unlawful Acts of Overreach
Links for the day
Gemini Links 22/07/2025: Thinkpad and Pinephone
Links for the day
Links 22/07/2025: "Blog Restart" and Microsoft Clobbered by “ToolShell"
Links for the day
Global Warming and Global GAFAM Energy-Wasting
Burn more money (borrowed, loans), then hope the waste will somehow translate into profit?
No Compliance With the European Patent Convention (EPC) at the European Patent Office (EPO)
It's about preventing competition against this autocracy
Blue-Collar Trolls vs White-Collar Trolls
Examples of white-collar trolls
Apple Vision Pro Failed So Badly That Its Sales Are About 2,000 Times Smaller Than iPhone Sales
What's left for Apple to offer other than hype?
To Millions of People "Year of the Linux Desktop" Was Some Time in the 1990s (Bootable GNU/Linux as a Complete Operating System is Over 33 in Age)
In some sense, "year of the Linux desktop" was 33 years ago
Make No Assumptions (or Demands) About the Screen Resolution Used by Other People
There are usability aspects, aside from accessibility aspects
Why Wayland (and XWayland) Won't Solve the Key Problem It Proclaims to be Tackling (the Same Is True for Rust)
The problem isn't Wayland per se but the false promises and efforts to force everybody to move to it whilst insulting or demonising everyone who won't play along
They Don't Tell Us that 'Digitalisation' (Now Sold as "Hey Hi") Just Means Customers Become Unpaid Staff and Are Made Accountable
People are being conditioned to associate technology with something undesirable, at times even unbearable
Diplomatic Immunity Should Not Exist for Anybody
The EPO in its current form gradually 'normalises' the end of European democracy
Brett Wilson LLP Stopped Sending Me Papers When I Showed It had Sent Me Over 5 Kilograms of Legal Papers
A week ago we lodged our third lawsuit
Microsoft Mass Layoffs and Shutdowns Became the New Normal at Microsoft
Microsoft mass layoffs became a topic of everyday media coverage since May
Amazon Web Services (AWS) Has Layoffs and Microsoft Gaming/Entertainment Division Has an Uncertain Future
it's good to see all those horrible things crashing and burning
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, July 21, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, July 21, 2025
FSF "Raised Almost $139,000 During This Summer Campaign"
"Thank you for making a stand against dystopia!"
Gemini Links 22/07/2025: VPS Exploited and Fear of View
Links for the day