On 10/08/13 07:20, Kevin Chadwick wrote:
So has your internet access (ISP) improved too since a while back or
just locally and what resistance did you encounter - pro surveillance?
The UK broadband speeds have shot up and become more of an asset but
they are also becoming far more of a liability too. I am not too
bothered about well secured?? monitoring systems for the good of us all
by authorites that perhaps put as much importance on the security of the
monitoring systems as anyone else? if not more? but I am extremely
concerned about the government now even pushing ISPs to put in layer 7
filters such as TalkTalks homesafe on the cheapest and crappiest
hardware (of the same make as those with backdoors in audio switches,
thankfully firewalled) and possibly providing a cover for the previously
rejected advertising data harvesting systems of the future under the
compelling and so reason scuppering highly questionable method of
stopping kiddy porn.
If only more ISP engineers understood why OpenBSD is so secure or
atleast as much as they traditionally did with the mantra of ISP's
transport packets and that's all for safety reasons.
I didn't want to bring this up before, but it might be an interesting
discussion, even though off-topic. Feel free to ignore this part of the
thread.
After reading Theo's post, I wondered what effect an IX had on what we
now know about NSA surveillance. I don't know anything about it, but I
suspect it won't make any difference.
Some of Snowden's leaked documents detail how the NSA has the private
keys for various US corporations, and they set up various computers on
the backbone links. Basically, the NSA can imperceptibly vacuum up all
data. Scary shit, really.
A few people have suggested they are vacuuming /everything/, not just
"foreigners", while others counter that there's just too much data, and
it's infeasible for them to store it.
I propose that not only is it possible, but quite likely. When google
mysteriously went offline for about 5 minutes a while back, it was said
that Internet traffic dropped by 40%. A shitload of that is going to be
YouTube, which the NSA can easily ignore. I've also heard that
something like 40% of Internet traffic is porn, so they can ignore that,
too. Another big chunk goes to people downloading movies/TV by NetFlix,
torrent or from the cable-type companies themselves. Again, the actual
content can be ignored, but the metadata can be kept. Duplicate data
can be ignored as well. There's no need for the NSA to keep 10,000
copies of the same shit Fox or CNN spews to 10,000 daily visitors. Just
keep the metadata. No need to keep advertisements, cool graphics/CSS
stuff, or HTML. That can all be stripped away.
Whether those "40%" numbers are accurate or not -- and I doubt they are
-- isn't the point. The point is that a metric shitload of content can
be safely ignored. It wouldn't surprise me in the least if it were to
be revealed that all the NSA actually traps is maybe 5% of total
Internet traffic. Not because of a lack of capacity, but a lack of
interest in "crap". Now go look at the two big data centres under
construction. Everyone knows about the Utah data centre, but there's
another, slightly smaller one, under construction on the East coast.
(Sorry, I can't remember exactly where.)
But that's not the scariest thing.
The scariest thing is when a friend of mine talked about how cool his
smartphone is. I replied with the standard stuff: "You're being
watched and recorded" (etc). He said he doesn't care. He just doesn't
care if the government watched the sex vids he shared with some ladies
online, or read his emails. Paraphrasing him, he asked, When was the
last time someone I knew had a government official knock on their door?
Never! And you'll never see it happen in your lifetime, either!
I did reply with a few thought-provoking ideas, but I know damn well he
won't think about it, because he just doesn't care, and no matter what I
say, he never will. (I did ask him, when /will/ it be too much for you,
and will it be too late? He didn't reply.)
I would suggest that most of the general population shares his apathy.
Sure, a few people get riled up for a few minutes, but that goes away
when Miley does something stupid with her ass, a dancing show comes on,
or Michael Bay blows up a lot of stuff on the big screen.
Now we're finding out that the FBI and NSA own a whole lot of Tor
nodes. Some suspect half of them are government controlled, especially
the exit nodes.
More scary? The likes of Bruce Schneier and Glenn Greenwald, both privy
to the compendium of Snowden's documents, are saying things like "We
haven't seen the half of it... It gets worse." I can't wait..
A question for Theo and those in the know: Do these IXs in any way
deter or foil the NSA? Or do they "just" make for better connectivity?
Just curious.
@Kevin Chadwick: About your comment "stopping kiddie porn", read my
sig. I think he said that in 2006.
--
Scott McEachern
https://www.blackstaff.ca
"Beware the Four Horsemen of the Information Apocalypse: terrorists, drug dealers,
kidnappers, and child pornographers. Seems like you can scare any public into allowing
the government to do anything with those four." -- Bruce Schneier
