Prism and privacy: What could they know about me?

Pretty sobering read.

Oh and the claims that they don't record calls or read emails..
It's a lie.

Gotta be careful out there.

Makes you want to look over your shoulder while on the net. Not that it would help

If you aren't doing anything wrong, you have no need to worry. Except for the enormous costs, infinite data retention and huge bureaucracy required to monitor you doing nothing wrong.

I feel that attempts by officials to console people by telling them that they are probably lost in the system is not really sufficient enough.

If it's important, personal, or private, perhaps it should be considered logical to shoe box it as opposed to basically handing it over to corporate copyright lawyers and anti-social government nerds.

The stats on a website I maintain for a friend tell me the same. The mods here can see where one is from. Google gives me ads based on my searches. My email does the same.

I do not see the big deal.

I can only assume you have not been paying attention.

The mods can see where a person is posting from, but they have no authority to audit your taxes. They have no authority to charge you with pre-emptive crimes, such as ones relating to terrorism. The mods cannot monitor your phone calls. The mods do not have a history of your employment records. The mods cannot take all your data, put it together and find out things about you that even you didn't know.

Data mining is a relatively new science, but is capable of some really interesting insights into a person's activities. All it needs is data to mine.

Do you recall this story?

http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill ... ather-did/

Google gives me nothing, I have AdBlock and NoScripts

I've seen some ads "catered" to me though. They seem to think I'm an anti-communist.

Brenda, those who use Google, Microsoft, and Apple have concerns past revealed IP Addresses and Browser Versions. Microsoft and Apple are operating systems, with substantial amounts of information on those who use their systems (via bug reports, updates, god knows what else). That delves past the internet a bit, and more into your total person. With that list of companies, and access backed by secret court, it shouldn't be hard to imagine easily building profiles on people simply by name or photographs. Entire online personas, passwords, private information, schedules, history, family, friends, everything. That can easily (theoretically; I don't see it as being difficult to do to the "average" internet user) grouped up with your government details. An entire profile, a master index of you.

Yes, people are obnoxious for even putting that stuff out there, and I really feel Facebook is about to die due to an increased understanding of that. But many of these things are basically expected (an easy e-mail address, a way to search the internet, an operating system, online banking, work-related internet use, etc), and unfortunately culturally accepted/demanded standards have landed us with a few companies owning and knowing everything about anything we do with computers. And that handful of companies holds hands and pulls our pants down for the U.S. Government.

I'm just glad that there are things people can do still to skirt, or at least attempt to skirt, this new internet reality (which was already assumed but mind as well be noted as official now). I wonder when they'll phase out the last bit of resistance the users have.

I can only assume you have not been paying attention.

The mods can see where a person is posting from, but they have no authority to audit your taxes. They have no authority to charge you with pre-emptive crimes, such as ones relating to terrorism. The mods cannot monitor your phone calls. The mods do not have a history of your employment records. The mods cannot take all your data, put it together and find out things about you that even you didn't know. The government has all that with one push on a button. Or they should have anyway.
I remember when stores started tracking your buying-behaviour by using your debit card info.

Define 'relatively new'...


I have more issues with a moron who claims giving all the info he has on 4 computers to the Chinese, Russians and Cubans is a good idea. Not with what the government knows about me anyway, because they already DO know how much my phone bill is, who I call and what I buy where.

What the hell is Cuba going to do with a profile of me? I'm not a member of their country. To the average person, China, Russia, or Cuba really shouldn't be a major concern. Most of the information they'd ween from simple civilians wouldn't be nearly as important as it is to Canadian, American, or British authorities monitoring their own people. So of course North Americans are concerned about North American governments spying on North Americans.

It's actually illegal for government departments to share your information among themselves. And that's the way it should be. But it's not illegal for a foreign government to collect that same info, collate it and share it back to your government. End run around the law!

And if stores could collect information on my purchasing habits from my debit card, I would stop using it.

You folks have nothing to worry about! It's just those paranoid, right-wing Tea Baggers who don't trust the government kicking up a fuss again! The government is perfectly trustworthy and all of this concern about the necessary observation of every last communication in the world is needless because it is a reasonable trade-off for security.

See, this is kind of funny.

The stores don't use your debit card information because that would be illegal. But there's no law against a store buying a list of their customers from the banks and then using that list anyway they want.

It's actually illegal for government departments to share your information among themselves. And that's the way it should be. But it's not illegal for a foreign government to collect that same info, collate it and share it back to your government. End run around the law!

And if stores could collect information on my purchasing habits from my debit card, I would stop using it.
LMAO!
They do. Not that they are actively using it, or that someone is going over your stuff (just like the government it is not. It is a machine...)

What makes you think government departments are SHARING your info among themselves or anyone? Just because they collect it, doesn't mean they share it.

I don't really give a crap anyway. The government knows where I was because of the electronic tolls, where my speeding tickets are written, who files my taxes for me and how much I made.
The phone company can track where I was because my phone is on. *shrugs*

Some of us don't feel like giving up.

You can, of course. Gives them a cleaner sample, which was their main concern with this leak anyway. They don't want anyone's habits to change.