Bitcoin Forum

As if Verizon's top secret court order leak (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=226754.0) wasn't bad enough for the NSA, now PRISM, a top secret mass surveillance project was just revealed. This post is for those who haven't (somehow) heard the news:

http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/audio/video/2013/6/6/1370551886176/Prism-001.jpg

The National Security Agency has obtained direct access to the systems of Google, Facebook, Apple and other US internet giants, according to a top secret document obtained by the Guardian.

The NSA access is part of a previously undisclosed program called PRISM, which allows officials to collect material including search history, the content of emails, file transfers and live chats, the document says.

The PRISM program allows the NSA, the world's largest surveillance organisation, to obtain targeted communications without having to request them from the service providers and without having to obtain individual court orders.

With this program, the NSA is able to reach directly into the servers of the participating companies and obtain both stored communications as well as perform real-time collection on targeted users.

"Fisa was broken because it provided privacy protections to people who were not entitled to them," the presentation claimed. "It took a Fisa court order to collect on foreigners overseas who were communicating with other foreigners overseas simply because the government was collecting off a wire in the United States. There were too many email accounts to be practical to seek Fisas for all."

"It's shocking enough just that the NSA is asking companies to do this," he said. "The NSA is part of the military. The military has been granted unprecedented access to civilian communications.

"This is unprecedented militarisation of domestic communications infrastructure. That's profoundly troubling to anyone who is concerned about that separation."

The Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/06/us-tech-giants-nsa-data

Washington Post: http://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/us-intelligence-mining-data-from-nine-us-internet-companies-in-broad-secret-program/2013/06/06/3a0c0da8-cebf-11e2-8845-d970ccb04497_story.html?hpid=z1

This is bad. I'm not even in the US and I still think that now I'm in danger.  :(

NSA has monitored all data outside the USA already for over a decade... ::) Google "Echelon".

The new thing is that they now are also spying (surprise, surprise!) on their own citizens. Well, actually the real new thing is that someone found out about it, they are probably spying on them already for quite some time.

I hired a foreign national back in the 1990s, and have since that time assumed that the NSA was capturing/recording everything I do electronically because they can get away with recording me with the excuse that any conversation might be with a foreign national.

Man, do I feel unsafe now...

With that said, I'd like to ask Mr Fortress about his opinion. Which is worse ? SOPA ? or PRISM ?

Mark Zuckerberg's Facebook account posted this earlier.

"I want to respond personally to the outrageous press reports about PRISM:

Facebook is not and has never been part of any program to give the US or any other government direct access to our servers. We have never received a blanket request or court order from any government agency asking for information or metadata in bulk, like the one Verizon reportedly received. And if we did, we would fight it aggressively. We hadn't even heard of PRISM before yesterday.

When governments ask Facebook for data, we review each request carefully to make sure they always follow the correct processes and all applicable laws, and then only provide the information if is required by law. We will continue fighting aggressively to keep your information safe and secure.

We strongly encourage all governments to be much more transparent about all programs aimed at keeping the public safe. It's the only way to protect everyone's civil liberties and create the safe and free society we all want over the long term."

The thing is the Verizon court order also has a gag part.

i) Companies are allowed to lie for national security reasons.
ii) The Verizon court order explicitly ordered everyone who knew about it to keep quiet.

It seems you can't trust anyone in the world right now.

At least the mechanics of AKM assault rifle are still trustworthy under any conditions.

What is the most free country in world where internet is unregulated by law? Probably Somalia? Internet there is supplied by foreign mobile carriers so probably they are regulated by french or whatever laws applicable to them.

Software piracy are fully legal and authorized in Iran. But porn and many other good things are blocked there.
Sweden are no more a safe place for data hosting. Now Iceland have taken it's place.
Russia is very bad now because of Putin's developing dementia and resulting laws against many things in internet.

If these trends continiue next 5 to 10 years we are totally fucked. Unless there are independent internet access points launched into space orbit.

Or an independant settlement on an another planet.

http://noize.com.br/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/album_the_dark_side_of_the_moon_hd_by_rafaelbacelar-d562dlk.jpg
PRISM

Thank you Cpt. Obvious!

http://oreshestudioc.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/pinkfloyd.jpg

I can highly recommend the dub tribute (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dub_Side_of_the_Moon) to that album.

No, thank you.

I didn't offer anything.

You recommended listening to the dub tribute of the Pink Floyd's album.

Not bad, at least Us and Them I think, although The Great Gig was kinda butchered.
An interesting one was Money from the Dubber side of the Moon.

It's quite nice.

Good luck NSA I'm behind 7 proxies

Lol so anyways, who needs all that democratic CISPA/SOPA/PIPA bullshit when you can just do what you want anyway. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascism)

Also, this: surprise!, we're in it. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Police_state)

You are so wrong. Faschism is form of collectivism. My source are original pre-war books by Benito Mussolini. Police State are one of properties of society not directly related to form of government or ideology. Communists, monarchists, fascist dictatorships and now democracy have police state too.

America is run by fascists and attempts to carve all its citizens into fascists (unsuccessfully, though we have a few on this forum; see: anyone who says "If you don't like it, then you can get out.")  I'm not sure if you're trying to say I'm using the wrong term (I thought about it for a while and I'm still not sure if it's the word I'm looking for) or saying that America's not fascist, but the police state is drawn from fascism, else you couldn't have it; your citizens wouldn't believe your BS, and there's a whole heap of fascism in this country with democracy as the shell.  Perhaps plutocracy or oligarchy would've worked better.

I think they can from any entity they can get their hands on.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/video/2013/jun/09/nsa-whistleblower-edward-snowden-interview-video (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/video/2013/jun/09/nsa-whistleblower-edward-snowden-interview-video)
I think by what the whistleblower said in this video, they are not limited to anything. He said he could even wiretap Obama if he wanted.

Question is where does this leave Bitcoin?  The NSA made SHA-2 sitting right at the heard of it and having a natural back door build into it.

I think the possible danger to bitcoin from this is that there is a huge upsurge in use of crypto for private communications, resulting in attempts to ban crypto or filter/suppress traffic that appears to be encrypted.

Dub is for kids and musically primitave simpletons

Thats the issue, your using the tool they give you (SHA function), but don't let u see it for a obvious reason. Its like sticking you best piece into the glory-hole. Job gets done, but what else happens (photo taken, measured.....)