REAL WORLD EVENT DISCUSSIONS

The IOE spying on you; and John McAfee on cyber security

POSTED BY: SIGNYM
UPDATED: Sunday, January 1, 2017 18:25
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Friday, December 30, 2016 10:18 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


John McAfee. I rarely listen to Larry King, but once I started listening to this interview with John (starting 5:30) I found it hard to stop. Here are a few notable quotes

(10:12) "Any hacker capable of breaking into something is extraordinarily capable of hiding their tracks. ... There simply is no way to assign a source. ... But I promise you, if it LOOKS like the Russians did it, I can guarantee you, it was not the Russians"

Now, I personally think that the Russians did hack the DNC server. But we hacked German security and private intelligence organizations, and I think there is just so much "information gathering" that goes on- everybody hacks everybody, if they can - that nobody makes much of a fuss about it. At the same time, I don't think the Russians released any emails, I still think it was an inside leak.

(14:33) "In terms of cyberwarfare, we could destroy every country on the planet. ... The unfortunate thing is, it is so easy to do and so cheap to create weaponized software, so can every other country in the world. ... There is not a single country that couldn't bring us down if they so choose. ... we have weaponized software coming out the kazoo. But we have no protection, we have no security"

(17:55) "I'm smart enough to know that when I buy a new telephone some agency of the US government has invaded my privacy by placing spyware on my phone ... I've long since given up on trying to prevent it, I use older technology for communication that's important to me"

(20:06) JM: "I don't have a private conversation with my phone in my pocket, unless my thumb is over the microphone ... I don't let it watch what I'm doing, I keep it in closed paces ...
LK: "You're painting this picture ... that your phone is the enemy of you"
JM: "Of course it is! It's the ultimate spy device. And it was designed to be that ... to allow marketers and salesmen to have access to where you are, who your friends are... The government uses the same ... "

(22:40) "My biggest fear is that Donald Trump will not see the reality of our cyber-situation"





Quote:

The Walls Have Ears: Warrant Granted For Amazon Echo Home Data, Setting Precedent
Alice Salles via TheAntiMedia.org,

Technology has, for the better part of the last decade, changed our lives in significant and groundbreaking ways. But as technology continues to make great strides, helping us change the way we do business and live our lives, it is also employed by bureaucrats looking to keep an eye on everyone.

Thanks to Edward Snowden and others before him, like former U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) intelligence official William Binney, we now know U.S. officials make use of secret courts to gain access to phone records — ignoring due process and, of course, the 4th Amendment to the U.S. constitution. But even though the NSA revelations were widely discussed and privacy advocates have continued to press legislators and officials to justify the illegality of their actions, things seem to have only gotten worse — at least as far as official government policy is concerned.

Instead of reforming the system to make sure officials observe the constitution, laws have been passed to increase the government’s access to technologies used widely by Americans and visitors. The result? The widespread normalization of government spying.

Instead of sweeping outrage, many Americans continue to feel that being spied upon is part of their everyday lives — and that instead of fighting it, they should embrace it as a means to protect the country from external forces.

To nearly half of the population, recent news about a court order regarding a private Amazon Echo may not seem as shocking as it should.
Warrant Issued for Amazon Echo Device, Setting a Precedent

A case involving a murder in Arkansas just helped the public learn that companies like Amazon often retain recordings of people’s conversations through devices like Amazon Echo — and that these recordings are stored in servers that may later be subject to law enforcement investigations. Depending on how the case shapes up, it could set a legal precedent that would open up government access to similar smart devices, and even force companies to keep these recordings in storage for future investigations.

The first warrant naming this specific device was tied to a Bentonville, Arkansas, murder that happened in November 2015. The official document asked the company to release “any recordings between November 21 and November 22, 2015.” The Amazon Echo device in question belongs to James Andrew Bates, the suspect facing a first-degree murder charge associated with the death of his friend, Victor Collins. Collins was allegedly strangled and drowned in Bates’ hot tub.

In the search warrant, police wrote that the “records … retained by Amazon.com … are evidence related to the case under investigation.” Nevertheless, Amazon did not release any data. Instead, the company provided investigators with the suspect’s account details, which include past purchases. Despite Amazon’s decision not to cooperate unless “a valid and binding legal demand properly [is] served,” officials may still be able to recover information from the device’s speakers without the company’s help.

“Even without Amazon’s help,” CNET reported, “police may be able to crack into the Echo” by tapping “into the hardware on the smart speakers, which could ‘potentially include time stamps, audio files or other data.'”


Other smart devices covered by this warrant included Collins and Bates’ phones, a wireless weather monitoring system, a WeMo device used for lighting, a Nest thermostat, and a Honeywell alarm system.

If this case serves as an example of anything, it is that your privacy is not protected, even if companies like Amazon refuse to cooperate with law enforcement under certain circumstances. With or without a warrant, officials will continue to use similar devices against their owners.

Regardless of what law enforcement finds on Bates’ Amazon Echo, evidence gathered by smart devices will continue to be employed by government officials. The only way to protect yourself is to follow good online security practices, which will help to protect your data from future breaches.


http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-12-29/walls-have-ears-warrant-grant
ed-amazon-echo-home-data-setting-precedent


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Friday, December 30, 2016 12:50 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Yes, I know who he is, we have McAfee anti-virus software loaded on all of our work PCs. In addition, he's a noted libertarian.

What I heard from John (I think) is him providing a videoed job application to the Trump Administration.

Most of Silicon Valley ... hmm, conspired is too harsh a word but nothing else comes to mind at the moment ... against Trump: Content providers were hoping to ring-fence China (a notorious dis-respector of copyrights) with the TTIP, others were hoping to take advantage of China's developed - but still cheap -labor market etc. The "information" elites of the global elites mostly had serious BUSINESS reasons to dislike Trump: Google (IP rights), Apple (IP rights and foreign manufacturing), Microsoft (H1B visas), Amazon (antitrust), Facebook (IP rights, antitrust), Flicker (IP rights) ... Some of them went so far as to meet with GOP honchos last March on how to stop Trump:

Quote:

At Secretive Meeting, Tech CEOs And Top Republicans Commiserate, Plot To Stop Trump http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/aei-world-forum-donald-trump_us_56
ddbd38e4b0ffe6f8ea125d



There were a few notable exceptions: Peter Thiel (PayPal, Libertarian) and John McAfee (also Libertarian).

Hubby is not impressed with McAfee software or research. Basically, it works by looking for KNOWN threats (code that has been previously identified), not NEW threats.

But given all that, I think McAfee has an important point to make.

That's why Obama "retaliated" against the "Russian hack" by expelling diplomats instead of initiating cyberwarfare: Our infrastructure is incredibly vulnerable ... nothing has been done about it, even cars can be hacked ... and we would probably lose as much as Russia did if they retaliated in kind.




-----------

"Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor"- William Blake


"If you aren't aware, Texans don't have much concern for the well-being of Yankees or Californians, even Yankee factory workers in Indiana "- SECOND

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Saturday, December 31, 2016 12:45 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Quote:

Over his two terms, Obama has created the most powerful surveillance state the world has ever seen. Although other leaders may have created more oppressive spying regimes, none has come close to constructing one of equivalent size, breadth, cost, and intrusiveness. From 22,300 miles in space, where seven Advanced Orion crafts now orbit; to a 1-million-square-foot building in the Utah desert that stores data intercepted from personal phones, emails, and social media accounts; to taps along the millions of miles of undersea cables that encircle the Earth like yarn, U.S. surveillance has expanded exponentially since Obama’s inauguration on Jan. 20, 2009.

The effort to wire the world — or to achieve “extreme reach,” in the NRO’s parlance — has cost American taxpayers more than $100 billion. Obama has justified the gargantuan expense by arguing that “there are some trade-offs involved” in keeping the country safe. “I think it’s important to recognize that you can’t have 100 percent security and also then have 100 percent privacy and zero inconvenience,” he said in June 2013, shortly after Edward Snowden, a former contractor with the National Security Agency (NSA), revealed widespread government spying on Americans’ phone calls.
http://foreignpolicy.com/2016/09/07/every-move-you-make-obama-nsa-secu
rity-surveillance-spying-intelligence-snowden
/




The first thing to remember is that almost every device in the USA has already been hacked, by the NSA. That very VERY large installation that they built in Utah? It could easily store every text and email and parking receipt and online order and GPS tracking coordinates ... etc ... from every USA citizen for years.


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




The reason why hacking is so easy is because the NSA forbids computers to be sold with strong encryption. Because the NSA wants to be able to hack into anything, your banks, hospital and healthcare providers, online credit-card processors, etc etc are running MICROSOFT, a notoriously insecure OS with built-in backdoors. Anyone who wants to have some semblance of privacy by using anonymizers such as Tor are subject to special attention. FWIW, I use anonymized search engines like Ixquick and Startpage https://www.startpage.com/ because I hate ads following me around everywhere, thanks to google. Also use an australian-based email service fastmail for the same dislike of google ads following me everywhere.

Just as an aside, I'm convinced that the reason why Microsoft was allowed by the Justice Department to get away with egregiously monopolistic behavior in the infamous reversal of Justice Penfield Jackson's stinging findings http://money.cnn.com/2000/04/03/technology/microsoft/?iid=EL was because MS and the Justice Department (as representing the FBI/NSA) had a deal with MS that they would build in backdoors to allow government snooping, and it would be far easier for the government to snoop on PCs if MS had a near-monopoly. See _NSAkey found in MS code. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NSAKEY

That's just to catch you up the our government spooks' interests and capabilities: they want to know everything about you, and they have the technical means to do it, especially with cooperating entities like Google, Facebook, AT&T etc





-----------

"Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor"- William Blake


"If you aren't aware, Texans don't have much concern for the well-being of Yankees or Californians, even Yankee factory workers in Indiana "- SECOND

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Saturday, December 31, 2016 1:02 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Here is the FBI's report on the Russian hacking into the DNC server:

https://www.us-cert.gov/sites/default/files/publications/JAR_16-20296A
_GRIZZLY%20STEPPE-2016-1229.pdf


Scanning it, I don't see anything in it that I haven't posted here already: two SEPARATE hacks into the DNC by what sounds to me like pretty simple spearphishing. (I have heard up to five hacks on the DNC server, but now I can't find that info.)

The evidence for Russia being the hacker is thin. Apparently the tools used to hack the server are available online, so anybody could have done it.

But I think we can assume that everybody is hacking everybody. It's like our embassies: Everybody knows that our embassies are basically CIA outposts, staffed by dual-employees: the cook, chauffeur, gardener, and secretary work for both the State Department AND the CIA. I assume that everyone else's embassies in our nation are the same: staffed by people who are both embassy employees AND covert operatives, whose capacities are limited only by their national spy agency capabilities. I have no doubt that at least SOME of the Russian embassy staff were covert operatives, just as our embassy staff in Russia is.

However, according to Assange and colleagues the DNC server info was leaked by an insider. Assange has made an ironclad promise that he will never reveal his sources so this is a dead end.





-----------

"Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor"- William Blake


"If you aren't aware, Texans don't have much concern for the well-being of Yankees or Californians, even Yankee factory workers in Indiana "- SECOND

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Saturday, December 31, 2016 1:08 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


What you need for REAL internet security is an air-gapped server with (in essence) a Faraday cage around it as well as a power isolator designed to prevent extrinsic wired or wireless signals from intruding. And for god's sake, never put any USB ports on it because sooner or later someone will stick an infected thumb drive in there. That's how Stuxnet infected the Iranian centrifuge controllers.



-----------

"Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor"- William Blake


"If you aren't aware, Texans don't have much concern for the well-being of Yankees or Californians, even Yankee factory workers in Indiana "- SECOND

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Sunday, January 1, 2017 6:25 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


I don't know about your "background" in computers Sigs, but I was into them long before they were "cool". I never got into hacking for any sort of nefarious purposes, but I'm fairly good at making machines do what I want them to do, specifically making machines do things they were never designed to do. It's somewhat of a hobby of mine. Some of the things I've done could have made me quite a bit of money, if they weren't in that "grey area" of legality. That area where nobody is going to take all of your shit in a lawsuit so long as you don't make a dime off of it and people are still paying for Netflix and such.


I don't believe for ONE SINGLE SECOND that it is at all possible to hide your identity from the CIA. Not One.

VPNs are great to get somebody back into chat rooms they've been banned from, or to hide their activities from 99% of other people in the world if they're the paranoid type and "REALLY NEED" to feel anonymous, but the CIA always knows.

Watch "Enemy of the State" with Gene Hackman and Will Smith. If you take nothing else from that movie, remember the words "whatever toys we are given to play with are at least 20 years obsolete compared to what the Government has to play with" or something along those lines.

The CIA knows exactly who hacked the DNC emails and John Podesta. Hell, the CIA might have hacked them. Watch another movie called "Swordfish" starring John Travolta and Hugh Jackman and Hallie Berry.


Assuming it was the CIA, I'm playing right into their hands by saying things like "no matter who hacked the DNC, it wasn't the Russians that made Donna Brazil give debate questions to Hillary, or it wasn't the Russians that made Wolf Blitzer from CNN collude with the Hillary Camp on questions before a rare interview she "bestowed" on us commoners."



I remember when I was called crazy years ago when I said that the government had the technology to record every single phone conversation we ever had. (Even if they never looked at them, they always had them archived if they wanted to go back and investigate any one of us further).

As it turns out, that was TRUE lololololol...

If there was any voter tampering, and/or somebody is manipulating data to make "fake news", the CIA knows EXACTLY who is doing it and from the exact home or underground bunker they're doing it from, anywhere in the world.

If they're not doing it themselves, and they haven't been busted yet, its because Plausable Deniability is one hell of a thing when 30 or so years from now we get some heavily redacted documents released to the public about what was really going on today.


I'm not ANON. I'm not trying to stage any sort of coup or revolution. I honestly don't care anymore. The best of my days are virtually spent. My niece is the only thing I really care about these days, and she's super smart with two amazing parents and a few pretty badass uncles among the rest of her amazing support group. Even if things turn really horrible, I think she'll have a great head start and that big brain of hers on top of her amazing good looks will at least let her weather the very worst of what is to come if SHTF.


I'm WOKE (and I'm only using that word after learning it from the MTV video where they told white guys to stop using it).

I just want ya'all to be WOKE.

At this point, I don't think there's a damn thing any one of us, even collectively could do about things. Chances are the fact that there is enough "proof" out there to legitimatize some of the crazy fringe claims of the last 20 years is on purpose.



Much to the chagrin of the visible Globalists, Brexit happened and Hillary lost.

As much as I want to pour the champaigne and exclaim the Bad Guys are finally retreating, I don't really believe it.


I honestly believe that the Powers that Be have everything on lock down so f-ing tight that they throw us on occasional bone like this.

We're not talking the 1%.

We're talking the 1% of the 1%.

The "Chosen Few".

Perhaps 13 Families? To make all of those sci-fi stories and video games come to life?

I'm "WOKE" lol, for whatever that means.

Maybe it's better I just let you keep dreaming?


I envy the man or woman with 90-100 IQ. The casual whistler. Smart enough to wipe their own asses without Government help, but not smart enough to think outside of the Dome created outside of Truman's Life....

Have no fear though. They have a cure for that.

It's likely in the food we eat at our income level and/or the water we drink in our locality.

Innocuous little things that could one day be explained away to our ever less intelligent offspring as accidental side effects from too many residual particles of common "feel good" pills we've been ingesting over the years.





The TRUE News?

Life is a Chess Game.

We are Black and they are White.

They start with all of the pieces. We start the game off without any Pawns.




Play a game of chess with a 10 or 12 year old without any pawns, even one who is just learning.

Chances are, unless you're a grand master yourself, you're about to get spanked.



You could never appreciate the value of a Pawn until you have to play without one.


The 1% of the 1% of the 1% have about 7 billion of them at their disposal. And at the end of the day, all we are is Dust in the Wind.....





Do Right, Be Right. :)

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