The government is watching? by Bytemite

REAL WORLD EVENT DISCUSSIONS

The government is watching?

POSTED BY: BYTEMITE
UPDATED: Wednesday, June 10, 2009 07:00
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Tuesday, June 9, 2009 4:24 AM

Huh.

I was sending a little note to myself, via e-mail, because that's how I remember things, right? I was compiling a list of completely legal stuff I could do, you know, like ways to speak out in my local community about all the crap that I think is going on.

So I send the e-mail to myself, titled 'civic action,' and I try to continue to browse my e-mail.

And when I do, I received a message: "Please sign-in again. Users are periodically logged out to protect their personal information."

And I'm like, what? No we're not. I keep my e-mail running pretty much near CONSTANTLY, and I have NEVER been logged out automatically.

Was that what I think it was?

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Tuesday, June 9, 2009 4:58 AM

JONGSSTRAW

Quote:
Originally posted by Bytemite:
Huh.

I was sending a little note to myself, via e-mail, because that's how I remember things, right? I was compiling a list of completely legal stuff I could do, you know, like ways to speak out in my local community about all the crap that I think is going on.

So I send the e-mail to myself, titled 'civic action,' and I try to continue to browse my e-mail.

And when I do, I received a message: "Please sign-in again. Users are periodically logged out to protect their personal information."

And I'm like, what? No we're not. I keep my e-mail running pretty much near CONSTANTLY, and I have NEVER been logged out automatically.

Was that what I think it was?

Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you. I would send an immediate donation to Obama's re-election committee just to be safe.

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Tuesday, June 9, 2009 5:08 AM

CITIZEN

Quote:
Originally posted by Bytemite:
Was that what I think it was?

I really rather doubt it.

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Tuesday, June 9, 2009 6:07 AM

FREMDFIRMA

You get that sometimes, especially with large commercial email providers.

What happens is, the filtering/monitoring software (and lets us NOT *pretend* we don't know it's there, and in operation, ok ?) hits a certain "keyword limit" based on trigger-words in the email subject and body, then flags the email in question for priority review by a supervisor.

Due to certain unavoidable technical limitations in how the software works, this often results in dropped packets, causing a temporary loss of connection or connection reset, which is what happened to you.

And most "private" or "anonymous" providers like Anonymiser, are in fact owned outright by the alphabet goons or one of their front companies, since people are damn gullible and thus actually *believe* that claim about anonymous browsing, when in fact all they've done is red-flag their own traffic for more intensive review.

Likewise most social networking sites have at least some connection with the goons and their little pet database - which is why I'll have nothing to do with em, I refuse to hand the bastards a gimme, you know ?

And I wouldn't be so trusting of any commercial firewall or encryption, it's generally an open secret that the alphabet boys have a backdoor within PGP, and all commercial US security software has hard-wired backdoors for em which are in fact, thanks to the DMCA, illegal to close by modifying the software - despite the fact that most hackers know by now how to use em, rendering the product itself all but useless.

About your only option for even a hope of privacy is TOR, but of course, if you use it then they bring up the whole "They have something to hide" bullshit when all you really want is people out of your damn business.
http://www.torproject.org/

I use exclusively foreign providers, typically Finnish or Russian ware, for my security.

http://www.zdnet.com.au/news/security/soa/Kaspersky-Sophos-to-block-UK
-police-hacks/0,130061744,339294221,00.htm
Kaspersky would not put a backdoor in its software to enable the police to bypass its protections, Em added. "If we provided a backdoor, it could be used by malware authors," Em said. "People would be able to drive a coach and horses through our security."

http://www.f-prot.com/

It's a veritable minefield for the uninformed, unfortunately, something most effectively demonstrated with the ZoneAlarm fiasco.

ZA was bought out by a company with connections to our so-called-ally-who-shall-not-be-named, and suddenly folks caught it out spying on them.
http://www.infoworld.com/t/hardware/zonealarm-phones-home-apple-throws
-intel-bone-143
http://www.downloadsquad.com/2006/01/23/zonealarm-spying-on-its-users/

Also unfortunate is that the alphabet goons will use economic sabotage and espionage against companies who question the legality of their actions or refuse to "play ball" with them, which is what happened to both my former internet provider and Qwest.
http://www.fiercetelecom.com/story/nacchio-feds-blacklisted-qwest/2007
-10-15

There's ways to protect yourself, but alas that the DMCA and CALEA legally prevent me from even telling you what they are, which is ridiculous, but nonetheless true.

Not to mention the mere act of doing THAT research will trip red flags anyway, cause how dare someone actually want privacy, oh noes...

If you ain't pissed off, you ain't been payin attention....

-Frem
http://www.eff.org/nsa/faq

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Tuesday, June 9, 2009 6:21 AM

CITIZEN

Quote:
Originally posted by Fremdfirma:
Due to certain unavoidable technical limitations in how the software works, this often results in dropped packets, causing a temporary loss of connection or connection reset, which is what happened to you.

Respectfully frem, that doesn't make any sense. For the email to be read by these automated systems, it has to have already been received on the server, which means there's no issue with packets dropped or otherwise. Packets are a low level communication issue, any message parsing will be happening at a much higher level, so won't be an issue there either.

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Tuesday, June 9, 2009 7:31 AM

BYTEMITE

Funny, how that little thing with Qwest happened two years ago, and that the Dems haven't moved on it, isn't it?

Out of sight, out of mind I guess. Especially since Obama appears to be ALL FOR wire tapping. Hooray for politicians who hide their real agenda during the election campaigns only to show their true stripes when they're in office.

Citizen: don't actually know anything about how the internet sends packets. I'm one of those poeple who could be just fine with the "series of tubes" explanation, you know? Don't have any special programs or protections cause I don't know enough, and I'm not sure how much good it'll do me if someone really wants to find out stuff. Mostly I just try to be very careful with my personal information. Delete old e-mails and the like.

But that log-out event has never happened to me before. Coupled with the title of the last e-mail I sent, I'm paranoid enough about most things that it raised a flag, so I wanted to come here and see what people made of it.

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Tuesday, June 9, 2009 7:45 AM

KWICKO

"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." -- William Casey, Reagan's presidential campaign manager & CIA Director (from first staff meeting in 1981)

Quote:
Originally posted by Jongsstraw:
Quote:
Originally posted by Bytemite:
Huh.

I was sending a little note to myself, via e-mail, because that's how I remember things, right? I was compiling a list of completely legal stuff I could do, you know, like ways to speak out in my local community about all the crap that I think is going on.

So I send the e-mail to myself, titled 'civic action,' and I try to continue to browse my e-mail.

And when I do, I received a message: "Please sign-in again. Users are periodically logged out to protect their personal information."

And I'm like, what? No we're not. I keep my e-mail running pretty much near CONSTANTLY, and I have NEVER been logged out automatically.

Was that what I think it was?

Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you. I would send an immediate donation to Obama's re-election committee just to be safe.

Be sure and send some to Dick Cheney, too - just in case. You wouldn't want to see Dick angry.

Mike

Build a man a fire and he'll be warm for a day...
Set a man on fire and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.

"You're a idiot." -AuRaptor, RWED, May 27, 2009.

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Tuesday, June 9, 2009 7:51 AM

KWICKO

"Is somebody watching?"

Probably, if they feel like it, or if you've set off certain keyword parameters.

I tend to pepper my phone calls and e-mails with things like "bomb", "grenade", "virus", "weapons", "guns", "blow up" and the like.

Why? Simple. If you're going to waste your time spying on Americans for no reason, I'm going to do my best to waste YOUR time and give you no real reason to do anything about it. You can waste your time watching me, but it won't get you anywhere, because I'm not doing anything.

Mike

Build a man a fire and he'll be warm for a day...
Set a man on fire and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.

"You're a idiot." -AuRaptor, RWED, May 27, 2009.

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Tuesday, June 9, 2009 7:51 AM

JONGSSTRAW

Cheney is up in your shit big time. He just goes on and on that one does. Must kinda drive ya a lil' nutzo, huh? Sorry.

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Tuesday, June 9, 2009 9:19 AM

CITIZEN

Quote:
Originally posted by Bytemite:
Citizen: don't actually know anything about how the internet sends packets. I'm one of those poeple who could be just fine with the "series of tubes" explanation, you know? Don't have any special programs or protections cause I don't know enough, and I'm not sure how much good it'll do me if someone really wants to find out stuff. Mostly I just try to be very careful with my personal information. Delete old e-mails and the like.

I'm a Computer Scientist, so the theory and implementation of data transfer is my bread and butter. As it happens though deleting old internet files, old emails etc, isn't as much use as you might imagine, since every routing point between you and where the data was coming from can and does keep a copy and record of that data. ISPs usually keep this data for a finite period. Governments can and do request this information if they have a reason to do so.

Quote:
Originally posted by Bytemite:
But that log-out event has never happened to me before. Coupled with the title of the last e-mail I sent, I'm paranoid enough about most things that it raised a flag, so I wanted to come here and see what people made of it.

Sure. But I get logged out of my email all the time, I'm assuming its web based. Your log on details would be held in a cookie on your machine, those cookies aren't killed until a certain time limit has passed and/or you close your browser window. There are a number of reasons as too why it could have kicked you off, but trust me if the Government was reading your mail there'd be no sign to you they'd be doing it. They'd intercept it at the ISP if anything. If it was done at the mail server, that would be a background process that wouldn't interact with the actual communication of that data at all.

Now if they had tapped your coaxial that might introduce interference on the line (in fact that's how we tell if a line has been tapped), but that won't work with fibre optics and would cause your entire internet connection to drop.

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Tuesday, June 9, 2009 9:36 AM

BYTEMITE

How would you know and/or check for being tapped? Can you tap wireless routers or servers that way?

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Tuesday, June 9, 2009 9:43 AM

PIRATENEWS

John Lee, conspiracy therapist at Hollywood award-winner History Channel-mocked SNL-spoofed PirateNew.org wooHOO!!!!!!

Quote:
Originally posted by Bytemite:

And when I do, I received a message: "Please sign-in again. Users are periodically logged out to protect their personal information."

I get that on FFF. Very suspicious...

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Tuesday, June 9, 2009 9:50 AM

CITIZEN

Quote:
Originally posted by Bytemite:
How would you know and/or check for being tapped? Can you tap wireless routers or servers that way?

If all they're doing is picking up the transmissions that are going out over the airwaves, then there's no real way to find out what they're doing. Most ways of tapping copper increases the impedance of the line.

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Tuesday, June 9, 2009 2:00 PM

FREMDFIRMA

I was goin off the DCS-1000 specs, Citizen.

Anything induction based or resident within the actual framework would be all but undetectable unless you deliberately jammed with it keyword overloading by kicking through hundreds of emails maxed with nothing but keywords - but many of em (thanks to folks doin that) have an upper limit cutoff too, relegating those to the spam filter, which is possibly exploitable by burying a real message in between the keywords.

-F

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Tuesday, June 9, 2009 10:49 PM

CITIZEN

DCS-1000 I'm guessing you're refering to the FBI email capturing software. I'm just saying that I can't think of a single reason why capturing mail would interfere with your own connection. I've not seen the specs so I can't comment further.

It depends how you do the intercept. For coaxial cable, it actually acts like an aerial as electrons pass through the copper, so a simple RF reciever can pickup the data being transmitted. In fact so will another copper wire, which is where telephone cross talk comes from, and why secure data lines have to be a certain physical distance and shielded from open data lines. If you use that technique to listen in on the data transmitted, you'll be adding interference to the line, you'll likely see an increase in dropped packets as more data becomes corrputed during transmission. That won't be an on again off again thing though, all the time they're listening, you'll get interference.

There's other ways, you can insert something straight into the wire, cut it and bridge the gap with your device. That's the only way to tap fibre optic (which is why fibre is more secure). You'll see an increase in latency, and possibly even an extra routing node if the system used is particularly crappy. Any sort of encryption or header security should show that up.

If it's software placed on the routing or mail servers, there's little to no chance of finding out, unless you own all the servers between you and the recipient, and can check them yourself for malicious software. The software will likely slow transmission, but there's no way for you to tell because that will be at a higher than network level, and email is a 'fire and forget' protocol.

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Wednesday, June 10, 2009 7:00 AM

FREMDFIRMA

Ayep, that jibes with what I know of it, which is why interception by most intel-alphabet goons is all but undetectable.

However, they do not cooperate, and besides which, due to certain critical flaws since it was reverse engineered from the Soviet SORM-II monitoring system, DSC-1000 tends to severely impact latency and cause a massive packet drop any time it flags something - something perhaps not widely known, and which the agency using it doesn't seem to much care about, given that interservice rivalry and turf issues ensure they don't have access to better in most regions.

Most tapping these days is by induction or bridged into providers network at the base of it, but there's quite a few units of lower tech and quality which the bastards never bothered to unhook and seem to have all but forgotten about, some of which even date back to the days of dialup and AOL - and they're a right pain in the ass to network techs since they *know* what the problem is, yet for various reasons are unable to address it.

Heh, I got a sixties era phone tap device layin around we found way back when I was workin for that light demo/construction company and we cleared most of a block for a new strip mall - seems to me the goon squads tend not to clean up after themselves so well, since no one but squatters had LIVED on that block for 3-4 years, and the tap was way older than that.

I always found it kind of amusing that folks assume these punks didn't do this crap from their very inception, or that they ever stop, no matter what their official orders are.

-Frem
It cannot be said enough, those who do not learn from history, are doomed to endlessly repeat it

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