Comments on: NSA Claims That Linux Journal Is A Forum for Radical Extremists? THIS MAY BE FAKE (Updated)

By: arjaybe

arjaybe — Sun, 27 Jul 2014 15:08:05 +0000

@me

Ooh, how manly. Where do you design these “embedded systems?” In your mother’s basement?

BTW, be careful of that freeware. It’s not as free as you think.

rjb

By: Greg Laden

Greg Laden — Sun, 27 Jul 2014 13:37:48 +0000

In reply to me. Well, good for you, me, good for you. You sure showed us. Did you update your virus checker this AM? Of course you did, or you wouldn't have been able to write that email!

By: me

me — Sun, 27 Jul 2014 11:55:06 +0000

Good, its about time they started rounding up some of the sweaty linux loons, bleating about ‘freedom’
I use windows with wow nothing but freeware and open source software, and guess what? It does what I want and guess what else ? I design embedded systems, and quess what else as well and also, I dont need to prove that I know about computers by typing commands into a terminal.

By: Obstreperous Applesauce

Obstreperous Applesauce — Thu, 10 Jul 2014 16:14:27 +0000

Security,
Ok, I think I see where you’re coming from now.

The article is humorous. Personally, I like humorous. It’s not always easy to get people to care about something, and there are a lot of ways to do it. Different strokes… They’re not necessarily mutually exclusive.

By: arjaybe

arjaybe — Thu, 10 Jul 2014 14:41:01 +0000

From those links it does appear as if this is at least partially faked.

rjb

By: security

security — Thu, 10 Jul 2014 08:13:43 +0000

@Obstreperous Applesauce, I am perfectly aware we as average Joe can’t really measure with agencies, but this particular problem could be easily solved with SSL (the problem was to scan the URL address on international network link). The reaction of article authors are in my humble opinion unprofessional. They intentionally try to fire the _emotions_ on people instead of actually provide some kind of professional answer. They are using ‘shouting in the desert’ principle instead of acting proactive and start implementing some security/privacy features. It will not solve whole of the problem (at all), but the message should be ‘we care’ about end-user privacy, so we are doing our best in this direction to put one little tiny stone in the mosaic of privacy and so educate people to make the same step into more private world, you know to have first step of security/privacy is to close windows and lock the door – I am not talking about sophisticated security measures, just the one that is obvious and very easy to implement.

P.S. There is just one (local in my country) magazine that has done this kind of measures and implemented SSL on all services they provide. Did they win no, they show that they care.

By: Obstreperous Applesauce

Obstreperous Applesauce — Wed, 09 Jul 2014 15:28:19 +0000

Anyone who thinks that thwarting the NSA with technological tricks is a simple matter is very naive. For some background, James Bamford has written extensively on the organization. And follow the news. They have their fingers in everything that signals, have more money than God, and aggressively hoover up talent like an army of manic hoarders.

A couple of decades ago they were measuring the computing power of their farms in acres. Now it’s hard to even imagine what. So yeah, in its various forms and incarnations, it looks like the idea, the genie of Total Information Awareness is now permanently out of the bottle.

By: security

security — Wed, 09 Jul 2014 11:57:20 +0000

It is so simple to avoid this kind of problem. If web magazines would REALLY appreciate end-users privacy they would start using SSL on all of the web pages (www, forum, etc)! You know beside the content of web page SSL also encrypts URL address too (except full domain name). SSL should be implement properly, look at ssllabs.com/ssltest/ to get A+ grade.

Can we totally avoid NSA spying? No. But we can make it harder for them (like encrypting web pages with SSL) and make them to spend more money. On massive scale this would have huge effect. But you know it is easier to cry like a baby… solution is simple dumb asses.

By: NSA Code Faked, Desktop Linux is Dead, and Deepin Depths | PHP World

NSA Code Faked, Desktop Linux is Dead, and Deepin Depths | PHP World — Wed, 09 Jul 2014 04:46:53 +0000

[…] three of his Tails Above the Rest series. But after all the coverage, fear, and outrage Greg Laden is reporting that the whole thing could be a fake. The original post offers up this posted evidence of its […]

By: G

Wed, 09 Jul 2014 00:39:27 +0000

Brainstorms @ 12: There is no “opting out”, unless you run a bunch of privacy apps, that will also show you exactly how much cyber-stalking is going on by those entities. Ixquick search “persistent cookies,” “Local stored objects,” and the like, and/or go to EFF.org and look for their documents on the subject.

If you correspond with anyone who uses GMail or call anyone who uses Google Voice, you’re also being intercepted and scraped, and it’s not always obvious when someone is using one of those.

BJD @ 15: “kick down,” baloney, unless you think I’m richer than Mark Zuckerberg.

Brainstorms @16: The fact that their aim is to fatten up their wallets also gives them incentives that NSA does not have. As for “erasing political undesirables,” that’s paranoid conspiracy nonsense promoted by people who think themselves important enough to be considered threats. As for Google & Facebook not doing bad-things with their data, Ixquick-search either of them plus the word “privacy” and read up.

I could post well over fifty links here with specific stories from credible mainstream media and credible tech blogs, going into excruciating detail, but posting links gets these comments stuck in the spam queue so you’ll have to do the search.