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April 07, 2013, 04:07:47 AM |
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Ah okay - I'm not losing any sleep over this, but I'd like to hear your opinion.
First off, I don't really have anything to hide - but as many bitcoiners, I value my privacy.
We've all been presented with the 'verify' my account when logging onto youtube or a google product, I would assume. Like having an sms sent to your cell, and then entering this code on youtube or whatever google-product asks for.
The fact is that I recently did this, and I thought it was odd, because I clearly remember I verified the account a long time ago with my cell. However, I thought they just needed to reverify, perhaps I'd changed cell number after all these years.
Then - just recently - in fact just a couple of minutes ago, I logged in to youtube again - and the screen was there again, asking me to verify. I ignored it, as I don't think that's necessary, as I did it a short while ago.
But here's the thing... Very recently I made a comment on a youtube video from a big news agency about bitcoin. The comment was like any other comment, not containing anything that should raise any flags or eye-brows. Just praising one of the persons being interviewed actually.
Then I remembered a hacker news article recently about a man that was spied on by a governmental agency in the US. He was a person who did white hat hacking, finding security holes in software. He said something to the extent of google telling you without really telling you that your account is being watched. And the way they did it, if I remember correctly is to ask you to reverify your account, by receiving a sms by text and entering the code.
So I'm wondering, is the NSA running some kind of program that flags 'interesting' accounts on youtube/google and collects more information about it, and google notifies us with by asking for reverification ?
I already know that basically by using google - I'm owned, as they target the adds according to my surfing habbits and collect lot's of info about me. For all I know, they may already be compiling databases of bitcoin users, for whatever purpose - perhaps anti-terrorist purposes. Not that they'll find anything worth looking at, as I'm not into nefarious stuff, but it makes me think. Perhaps I should go with duckduckgo.com from now on ? I think I turned off saving my surfing history on google, but I guess they collect it anyway.. Preferrably nobody should collect any of my surfing habits, I think.
What do you think, is the question to reverify the account just coincidental, or does it have anything to do with me commenting on that bitcoin video ? There's nothing else that sticks out as any reason to ask me to re-verify.
Boy - it would be interesting to know exactly what FBI, CIA and NSA are up to with all their surveilance programs. Does anyone actually know how extensive all of this is ?
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