All Your Phone Calls Are Belong to Us

VoIP is Secure?

I am not saying that VoIP was secure, but the advantages of old technology become less and less as technology advances, especially if they companies make it blatently obvious they are not looking out for their own customer's best interests.

New CALEA legislation will make VoIP just as "tap accessible" as landline...

>the advantages of old technology become less and less as technology advances,

Maintaining privacy becomes more difficult as technology advances.

>best interests.

It's because of the 'best interests' of the public that we've been so readily giving up our rights. Same reason they take my lighter at the airport but let me keep 4 books of matches...

but the advantages of old technology become less and less as technology advances

What advantages are you talking about?

Anyone with a headset and a pair of alligator clips can eavesdrop on you any old time, or if you use a pre-spread spectrum cordless phone a simple radio from any radio shack would do the trick.

Let's not forget putting a drinking glass to the wall of an adjoining room, Bill. Or lip reading. I've been covering this problem since the 4th grade. I should go start a Google Co-op about it.

Not really new this one. It has been going on for years. Look up "Echelon"

Daft thing is the assumption that real terrorists, drug smugglers, etc will speak in open language.

All calls to Northern Ireland were monitored since the 1960s, and they ran a very rough "key word checker" on the calls, no way they can actually listen to all of them. I always made a point of intoducing "Semtex" into calls to muy mother, just so that they would have to listen.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GCHQ

http://www.echelonwatch.org/

Geesh when will people stop paying so much attention to "technology & privacy" and realize that the biggest privacy threat is law and the political system that makes the laws. It has soooooo little to do with technology.

But technology is cool!

BTW Bill, all of your eavesdropping on me is illegal regardless of the technology you might use (or if it is not illegal, and it bothered me enough, I bet I can make you have to prove that, and I bet I can make proving that way too expensive for you).

It's the LAWS that make it legal that you have to worry about. It's the LAWS that eliminate responsibility for archive management, ID protections, etc. that take away our privacy.

DG that paper sounds fascinating but isn't it just a rehash of the same old attack vector pointed to a "new technology"? Another reason I love academia... execute someone else's work on a new technology and viola - peer reviewed publication. These days you could sit around with 80% written and just wait for the technology of the week to show up, add the title and PUBLISH.

The only value I see is in the way their work *demonstrates*, which make sit engineering not research. But the same academics claim that those who demonstrate (teach) are lesser than those who research. More games.

BTW, use your neighbors name, address and phone number when you sign up for "member cards" at the grocery store and discount booze shop (BevMo). That way when you buy cases of condoms and whiskey they won't know it's really you who are the alcoholic sex maniac when they turn over the records to the feds.

Every time you're in even a neighboring city go to every store that you have a 'card' for, and say you "forgot" your's. Sign up for a new one w/ fabricated every thing except zipcode (this must be legit and is really the only # they care about any way). Colllect the new card.

This is esp. valuable in conjunction with Blockbuster. I have learned from experience that less than $10 in fees never goes upstream to collections; and after 6 months they are purged from their records.

Then when the Feds look for you they go, "OK, he bought in Boston one day, then Austin the next" and it throws off the system, lol.

What has been is what will be,
and what has been done is what will be done;
there is nothing new under the sun.

>academics

Research without application is pointless, so it is perfect for pointy heads.

I'm really at a loss right now after reading these latest developments. You just keep asking yourself when they will draw a line.

I'm getting tired of hiding behind this veil of terrorism as well to essentially do whatever they want. The argument that the only data they are collecting is phone numbers is moot. A phone number can be traced back to a name and location within seconds.

The scariest part is that it doesn't seem to stop anywhere. Will all banks be required to send over transaction information on every account? How about ISPs tracing every URL I go to? How about the library tracking every book I check out? Maybe have doctors report what medication I'm on? All of those can somehow be hidden under the veil of "fighting terrorism". When do we stand up and fight for the rights that our military is supposedly in Iraq fighting for right now?

>when they will draw a line

government of the people, by the people, and for the people

They? 'They' are 'us'. ;)

Words from the Gettysburg Address of Abraham Lincoln, often quoted as a definition of democracy.

Results provided by Ask. Google falls down on that search. >>government of the people, by the people, and for the people

No, the "scariest part" is that of all of those outlandish examples you cited, most are already the case.

• The largest bill the US treasury prints is $100, and they seem to wish even that would go away in favor of $20's. What is left has RFID chips that *can* be uniquely numbered (the bills already are..do the math). Seems pitiful a powerful economic force can't have a successful cash currency. Hints at corruption.
• Banks used to report $10k cash transactions, then it went to $9k, and now it is reportedly less than that (shhhh...)
• There are many barriers in place for cash transactions and pseudo cash transactions. They don't want them to be possible?
• The libraries are already asked to keep records and reveal them. And they do.
• There is growing evidence that your medical histories are collected and tracked, and your social security number is being used in some cases to tie your medical data to your credit history in government databases. (thats' a fact I know personally).
• ISPs are already asked to keep data, and the pols are trying to extend the retention period to infinity right now. Some moron in Colorado is behind that one.

So are you going to just sit there and complain about it and watch the nightmare unfold?

I just see everyone talking about it. Silence of the lambs :)

Well, for start everyone here in the US should checkout this page on Communicating with Congress about NSA's Surveillance Programs. It was written by insiders as a guide to effectively having some influence in the conversation going on, before more of your tax payer dollars go towards "the cause". It's brief and direct, with suggested openers like :

The anonymous drafter of this guidance suggests follow ups as well:

and even a response to the terrorism excuse:

Nice work. Thanks to Jim Harper at Privacilla.

It's baaaaack!

Good old Joe would be proud of us.

There's no Edward R. Murrow. Instead we have broadcast journalists that aspire to become famous rather than to inform.

Just because your voice reaches halfway around the world doesn't mean you are wiser than when it reached only to the end of the bar. ~Edward R. Murrow

I'm really at a loss right now after reading these latest developments.

This is not a new development. This program has been in place for decades. The info being given is NOT private and it does not violate the fourth amendment.

This is simply a political tactic to try and block the new CIA chief.

Leahy was shocked to learn about a program that he already knew about along with the rest of Congress. Hehhehehee

I hope they dont have my conversations with that brazillion cybersex person

stupid late night attempt at humor deleted the next day