Spying - the Tricks From Privacy Experts

7/29/2019 Spying - the Tricks From Privacy Experts

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How to Keep the NSA at Bay: The TricksFrom Privacy Expertsby Winston Ross Jun 8, 2013 4:45 AM EDT

Do government surveillance disclosures have you fearing UncleSams reach? Winston Ross looks at PGPs, secret phone apps, and

burners like The Wireto cloak your digital trail.

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Its a fairly safe bet that most people are in one of four camps about all this National

Security Agency-spying-on-Americans business: uninformed, apathetic, pissed off, or

paranoid.

Before you know i t , Barack Obama w i l l personal ly be digging thr ough your garbage or h iding in your closet. (NatiHarnik/AP)

For the uninformed, its probably a good time to get up to speed. Before you know it,

Barack Obama will personally be hiding in your closet.

For the apathetic, Dude, WAKE UP: You think because you live in the suburbs and

you work at an insurance company that Big Brother will never come for you? What

about that affair with your office secretary last year? What if her brother gets caught

up in some kind of sting operation and they check his phone records and then herphone records and then police show up at your door asking why you called her 50

times last week, while your wife is sitting in the living room? What if they transpose a

digit or two and mix you up with a suspected terrorist and break down your door in the

middle of the night and shoot your dog? OK never mind, just flip back to The

Bachelor.

For those of you either pissed off or paranoid, its time you understand that there are

plenty of ways to cloak yourself from Uncle Sam especially if theyre not already


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most clever privacy advocates, youre probably fucked).

But wait, you hardly ever use the Internet? Your digital trail is pretty small? Skip on

over to MyShadow if you believe that nonsense. There, you can find out exactly what

kind of a shadow your computer and mobile-phone usage casts. Its pretty scary and

fascinating.

For those of you still understandably freaked out: If you just want to avoid getting

caught up in the dragnet, having your phone/email/search history handed over by

some spineless attorney at Verizon or Google or Facebook, there are ways to hide

from Uncle Sam:

Encrypt yourself. If youre using Facebook and Gmail in the same Pollyannish fashionthat most of us do, you gotta wrap that up. Get to know E2E (end to end) encryption,

says Dan Auerbach, staff technologist at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. It doesnt

mean you have to find some obscure email provider and kiss your (online) social

networks goodbye, but it does mean if you want to have super-secret communication

with certain super-secret people, you both must install software such as OTR to be all

stealthy about it. Which software depends on which operating system and device

youre hoping to cloak, of course, but all that info is a few clicks away. Its very easyto use, Auerbach tells The Daily Beast.

PGP it. A slightly beefier encryption option: PGP, short for pretty good privacy. That

refers to software that can encrypt chat communications, emails, and more. Symantec

offers one kind of PGP software, but there are many more options out there. Just

remember that both sneaky users have to be using it, or its pointless.

Make secret phone calls. Phone calls are a little tougher, Auerbach says. There once

was a cool app called RedPhone that could encrypt phone calls, but its no longer

being maintained. Nowadays, the best bet is probably Silent Circle, which last

October released a surveillance-proof smartphone app that lets people make secure

phone calls and text messages. The company has released a data-transfer version of

the app that lets users send filesphotos, spreadsheets, blueprintsfrom one user to

the next. The user can set a nifty timer that burns whatevers sent from both devices

after five minutes, or however long you want it to be, Bond-style.

Go even deeper. If youre already under the microscope, doing whatever youre trying

to secretly do without detection is going to be pretty difficult. Most of what everyones

in a tizzy about at the moment is the kind of broad, dragnet-style spying where the

government gobbles up huge data banks and mines through them for links and clues.

B t if f li h h t ith il l th d

The goal of all these tactics is tomake it hard for the government to

get you.


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The safest way to use a burner is not for very long, but buying a new cellphone,

laptop, or tablet once a week can get expensive. If you want to hang on to the same

one, advises Nicholas Weaver, a researcher at the International Computer Science

Institute in Berkeley, Calif., just be sure to take it to a crowded place every time you

use it and dont bring any of your other devices with you. If the government matches

up your burner use with a ping from a cellphone tower to your regular phone, yourescrewed.

More on that, from Weaver, here.

Cover your tracks.

If you stay logged into Facebook (like most of us do,) then every single time you visita Web page with a like button on it, that Web page is tattling back to Facebook that

you just went there, Weaver says, which means when the government can just

subpoena Facebook records to figure out where youve been. Logging in and out all

the time is a nuisance, of course. But so is having a SWAT team rip up your

apartment. So at least set up your Web browsers to clear cookies all the time. Thats

a start.

Check out Tails. Its a little piece of software that can live on a thumb drive or DVD,

and it can boot your whole operating system from any computer, anytime. So you can

set it up with all the encryption software you want and its all pre-loaded.

OK, am I cool now? Probably not. If the government wants to get you, theyll get you.

The goal of all these tactics is to make it hard for the government to get you, hard

enough that if they really want to muck around with your life, theyre going to have to

invest in enough resources to sneak past the firewalls.

What you can do is try to make it more expensive for somebody such as the NSA to

monitor you successfully, McCarthy told The Daily Beast. If you keep raising the

price, theyre either going to have to commit to targeting you as an individual or

accept that theyre just not going to get your stuff.

Like The Daily Beast on Facebook and follow us on Twitter for updates all day

long.

Winston Ross is a national correspondent forNewsweek& The Daily Beast, based

in the Pacific Northwest.

For inquiries, please contact The Daily Beast at [email protected].

Google, Facebook Inc, National Security Agency, Technology,

U.S. News

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NEWEST | OLDEST | Top Comments

SparkyVA

3 hours ago

FMHilton6 hours ago

UrFecalFecal1 day ago

Author doesn't know that

1. Encryption is a flag for the Government to look at you closer. For this to work we would

need the vast majority of people using encryption.

2. Those who write encryption software usually leave a trap door (a key that will unencryptany message sent with that software). The Feds and the CIA will pay these software writersbig bucks for these trap doors, and it is (or was) "patriotic" to do so.

3. The best encryption software comes from Israel. Nope I am not Jewish. But their nationhas been under cyber attack for a long time, and they, in self defense have written somemighty good software. Unfortunately because we give Israel Billions in arms for theirdefense, the encryption software trapdoors from there have probably also been given to theCIA already.

That leaves you with the only option of writing your own encryption software, which may getyou a knock on the door.

LIKE REPLY

How about giving up before we start going nuts?

Mostly because:

1. You get social security numbers assigned at birth. First tracking device of your life.

2. Children get fingerprinted at school. Used to be 4th grade, probably kindergarten by now.Another device to track you with.

It flows from there.

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Hey NSA, look at me; pssst, over here. Look, I just want to say I love Obama, Democrats,Progressivism, Marxism, the Frankfurt School, Affirmative Action, preferences for mihorities,Black Privilege, Hate Whites, Christianity, and agree that America should submit to a OneWorld Governance of a small, elite nomenklatura and apparatchiks.

Now, you can give me some privacy as I submit. Go after those horrible Tea PartyConstitutionalists, small government, balanced budget racists and fill-in-the-blanks.

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johnlear

1 day ago

they should watch you for being a "DICK".............., an amusing one...............!

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5/13

Casimcea2 days ago

easton

2 days ago

LIKE REPLY

It is all BS or I should say B$. Once the $ goes teats up in the B$ the gravy train will end.THIS IS the big picture and common denominator. War on terror, drugs, illiteracy,....youname it. IS ALL about the $ in B$. Want to make a campaign contribution to the republic?Buy precious metals.

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Is this a parody? The more information there is the harder it is to process it all. Serial killersare still getting away with their crimes and that with the government devoting all of theirresources to solving murders and I am now supposed to worry about what is on facebook?

I am not apathetic to what the Obama administration is doing, since the Republicans haveshown themselves to be bat guano nuts if he doesn't use every single available legal tool hecan and if there is an attack on the homeland he would be impeached by Republicans, pure

and simple.If Republicans want to they can easily repeal many elements of the Patriot act and Obamawould sign it.

And every day billions of dollars of illegal drugs and other things are bought and sold withthe vast majority going unnoticed and unpunished. And now I am supposed to worry if I amnot doing anything illegal because my phone records are stored somewhere? Oh no, thatmeans they will know I called my Doctor to schedule an appointment and they will dosomething something with that information and my life is therefore over.

5 LIKE REPLY

Ghostly

2 days ago

@easton Ah yes, the perfect smuck for Obama to use to blame the Bostonbombing on. It's the Republicans fault. Sure it is, those dastardly Republicanshaven't been in power since 2006 and those peace loving Muslim Democratseven had two years where they owned the whole game. Did they abolish thePatriot Act, NO! If the Republicans were going to impeach Obama, he would havebeen long gone. Facts are the GOP can impeach all day long but the Senate iscontrolled by Obama's boys and they wouldn't convict him if he were the firstBlack president from Kenya. So long as you keep up your love for the Evil Oneand keep hating the GOP, hopefully the NSA will keep you off their list.

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johnlear

1 day ago

frankly "GHOSTLY", you sound "GHASTLY" and vacuous....!!!!!

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6/13

2 days ago

Mike Bogle

2 days ago

BoothV

2 days ago

To think that any, even just one, of the thousands of government folks who have access tothis vast info pool would use it illegally or unethically is as crazy as presuming that an IRSofficial would go after citizens politics. Oh- maybe not a good comparison.

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SassyNancy

2 days ago

@commonsenser you do realize that the IRS approved 501c "nonprofit" statusfor many tea party and Democratic political groups that WERE NOT organizedexclusively for religious, charitable, scientific, testing for public safety, literary, or

educational purposes, to foster national or internaitonal amateur sportscompetition, to promote the arts, or for the prevention of cruelty to children oranimals (and against the law to do so). And you call this going after citizens'politics?????

1 LIKE REPLY

You can buy pre-paid phones anonymously, i'm sure terrorists have figured that out. Buildinga multi-billion dollar facility to store private information is a new low. It will be used againstcitizens or groups for political advantage at some point, I predict.

1 LIKE REPLY

Well now this was a nice little fear ball, wasn't it?

The second I hear the word "Big Brother" the first thing that comes to my mind is"Impressionable kid."

Now when the LAWS start to change in terms of what is legal for citizens and what isn't then

I'll start to pay attention. But for now, this is just an excuse for people who need an enemy toget their rocks off.

4 LIKE REPLY

dianebarentine

2 days ago

Casimcea

2 days ago

Amen, BoothV. Besides, if anyone had to listen to my phone calls or read myemails, he'd be dead of boredom in half an hour.

2 LIKE REPLY

@B thVIt i ll BS I h ld B$ O th $ t t i th B$ th


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GentlemanAdventurer

2 days ago

$5,000 for not having insurance. Done ObamaCare. I hope you're getting themessage, new laws are passed everyday without our knowledge and Obama isputting out tens of thousands of new regulations daily. Regulations are laws thataren't approved by Congress.

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1) You can't listen to something that was never recorded. I can't look at a photograph thatwas never taken. Not to say it would be difficult for the NSA to record an enormous accountof calls, legal or not, but metadata is not the same as front layer data, for lack of a betterterm.

2) I despise the "if I'm not doing anything wrong, what do I have to worry about?" defense.Most people do. The thing is, the norms of right/wrong change over time. Thirty years ago,

it would be devastating if it came out that you were gay or looked at porn. Nobody carestoday. You had phone sex with your significant other? So what. Privacy IS important and itshould be up to the individual to reveal what he or she wants to the world. But the reality isthat what the vast majority of us are doing on the internet or with our cell phones is legaland, even if revealed, would not ruin or careers or lives. And it doesn't concern the NSA.Do you really, really think the President of the United States cares that some dude in Iowa

called a phone sex line in 2008?

4 LIKE REPLY

satchelljohn29

2 days ago

Themama

2 days ago

@GentlemanAdventurerSecurity of communications is a really simple thing to

accomplish. DON'T USE ANY ELECTRONIC DEVICE. Face to facecommunications convey more information than any device can, and are easier tohide.

" the only thing we have to fear is, NSA"??????????????

Thank you for your post

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@GentlemanAdventurerNo I don't think that the POTUS cares that some dudein Iowa called a phone sex line in 2008. What I do think is that we are on a veryslippery slope, where even innocent communications can be twisted and useagainst us if we annoy the wrong people. The right wing has become so

intolerant and radicalized that they will soon threaten the very fabric of oursociety. The hate mongering can get out of hand. We need to remember thelessons of history, not repeat them.

1 LIKE REPLY

GentlemanAdventurer

2 days ago

@Th @G tl Ad t I ith t l t i


8/13

1 LIKE REPLY

Stella Artois

2 days ago

Ghostly2 days ago

@KathrynRyder

In the original stage of the game it was intended to be used only on people thatwere believed to be suspected of being or affiliated with terrorists. They were toonly go to the lengths we are finding out they are doing when they hadsubstantiated reason to believe the target person was involved. They were not togo out and gather up information of the masses then filter through it all to find asuspect.

That is what the fuss is all about.

1 LIKE REPLY

@KathrynRyderWhen are you fools going to realize its Obama who hates usand wants to destroy us, not George Bush. Bush was forced to act following 911,the Patriot Act was a bipartisan bill. Bush did nothing rouge like Obama,everything he did was approved by Congress which were Democrats. Obamaroutinely pisses on our Military, he's responsible for the death of an Ambassador,the first in 30 years. Despite Obama being in office for five years there is still noevidence he was born in the US. Obama is an admitted Marxist, who despisesthe one thing that has made America great, Capitalism. Obama has violated the

Constitution 46 times. He has violated the Separation of Powers Clause whichwas specifically designed to stop a Dictator, only Lincoln had done this before.Notice how the WMD the democrats said didn't exist are being used by Syria ontheir citizens. Obama made the Patriot act more dangerous than it already was.The NDAA allows him to incarcerate Americans indefinitely without a warrant.Obama has expanded the use of the word Terrorists to include millions ofAmericans who stand up for the Constitution, and at the same time he's removedthe word Muslim from being used in the same sentence as terrorists. SoAmericans are terrorists and Muslims are not. Obama for the first time in history

allowed the Government to throw us in jail for NOT buying government insurance,of course he's given the Muslims a waiver. Obama has killed millions of good jobsin the petroleum industry and forced the price of gasoline to record highs. At thesame time he's increased use of foreign oil reducing our security. There is nological reason for this, except to hurt America. Why would Obama cut back on hotmeals for Marines and at the same time give Egypt $1.5 Billion dollars for theirMilitary. Egypt is our enemy. Why would Obama buy 20 helicopters from Russiaand give them to Afghanistan. Do we not make attack helicopters and don't weneed jobs? WAKE UP! Obama has violated the First Amendment making political

speech illegal and violated Religious Freedom by forcing Christian and Catholicgroups who don't believe in abortion make the abortion pill available for free towomen over 15. Christianity has been purged from the Military, it is now illegal toread the Bible. You people need to find out what's really happening, there was noBush/Cheney fascist State. Only Obama has used the parts of the Patriot Act thatcrushes due process for Americans, Obama has used Drones to kill Americancitizens five times and over 2500 times altogether. Gitmo is still open. It wasObama's FBI who gave guns to drug cartels, it was Obama's FBI, ATF and otherswho patrolled the streets of Boston in Humvee's armed with 50 cal. machine guns

and agents in full battle gear with M-14s aimed at innocent Bostonian s. It'sObama's DHS who has purchased billions of rounds of high caliber bullets usedi il b L E f d h Mili I ' Ob h h d i l l


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shle896

2 days ago

Here's a tip:

1. Don't communicate with terrorists or hate groups.



Not too difficult if you ask me. The only thing that scares me is that all of this newfound faux"outrage" from the bat-sh*t crazy Republicans is that we're going to STOP doing this, whichwould essentially be like tying one hand behind our back.

I've always assumed we did this and I don't see any way around it in the world we currentlylive in. To say otherwise is just being naive or incredibly hypocritical because it wasn't evera "controversy" among the right-wingers when Bush began doing it six years ago. And the

same thing goes for Dems who were so worried about our civil liberties back then, butsuddenly now have no problem with it. There's more than enough hypocrisy to go around.

And we all know that if tomorrow we had another 9/11-like terrorist attack, those very same"outraged" Republicans would be looking to impeach the president for not keeping us safe.Sorry, but you can't have it both ways.

4 LIKE REPLY

Stella Artois

2 days ago

@shle896

Thanks for your tip shel896. I'll keep that in mind, but could you tell me yoursecret for identifying what a terrorist or hate group since I can't profile without therisk of being a racist? Some that operate in those groups don't usually do it with

their true motives being easy to spot, I'm just asking.

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Steve_23

2 days ago

@Stella Artois Always the wise cracker. Never the intelligent post.Typical dichotomy that. . .

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Stella Artois

2 days ago

@Steve_23

You mean like this:

@Stella Artois Always the wise cracker. Never theintelligent post. Typical dichotomy that. ?

Takes one to know one, proven once more.

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10/13

bobareebop

2 days ago

BeadlesAz2 days ago

dianebarentine

2 days ago

Ghostly

2 days ago

2 days ago

@Vladilyich @shle896 Finally, someone who tells the truth, whosee's it from a different angle. WAKE UP, WAKE UP, we are in thecross hairs. It's always this way with a Socialist-Marxist State.Government is responsible for the deaths of more of its own Citizensthan any other Groups. Hitler-ten million dead, Stalin-50 million

murdered, Mao-over 100 million Chinese killed, Amin- one million,Castro- millions. Don't let history repeat itself here.

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@shle896 Excellent post...thanks!

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Shle - perfectly stated.

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If I'm reading correctly, it's the Dems who are mad and the Repubs aren't--at leastthe ones in Congress

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@shle896 Another sitting Duck, blaming the Republicans. If they were going toimpeach Obama, it would have happened one of the first 40 times he's violatedthe Constitution. Why would they impeach Obama knowing the Democrats controlthe Senate and would never convict the First Black President. Bush set this upbut he never expanded the scope of snooping any way close to Obama. Bushwas searching for terrorists, Obama is searching for Americans. Also nobody wasaware of this six years ago. If it had come out Bush would have been impeached.What you nut jobs don't get is Bush for all his faults, loves this Country, Obamahates America and everything it stands for, he wants to TRANSFORM Americainto a Marxist-Communists State. Not one single thing Obama has done hasbenefited Americans, nothing. If anyone benefits from what he's done its Muslimsor Illegal Immigrants, he hasn't even helped Blacks. In 2006 when the Democratstook control of both houses of Congress, unemployment started going up from3.5% to 7% in 2009. For Obama's first two years Democrats controlled all threebranches of government, total 100% control. Did they create jobs no, did they killthe Patriot Act, no, did they close Gitmo, no, did they stop torture, no, did theyEnd either war, no, did they improve the economy, NO, did they make life betterfor us, NO, did they calm the Middle East tension, NO, all they did was pass a6,000 page bill that nobody had read in the dark of night despite opposition fromthe majority of Americans which is increasing healthcare cost to most Americans


11/13

SassyNancy2 days ago

Denise Porter

2 days ago

Shawn Girard

2 days ago

Another tip: Neversayanything, anything, anything to your doctor that you do not wantwritten in your file. It willend up there and now, your file is out there being shared withgovernment employees. HIPPA be damned.

LIKE REPLY

If those of you who are doing something terribly wrong and/or are want-to-be terrorists, bevery afraid..... And we all hope you get caught before you can cause havoc and grief for therest of us and society.

For the rest of us who check up on our kids, make dentist appointments, talk to our mothersor our daughters about our daily normal lives, ask our husbands what they want us to makefor dinner, share the soccer game scores, make lunch dates or dinner dates, look for whatwe want to buy online (and then everybody who sells whatever you looked for send youautomatic ads for that same kind of thing or product -- no security there) and all the rest ofthe nuances of daily life -- who do you think is listening in or reading those emails????? Orbeing paid to do it? Get a life and don't communicate things electronically you don't wantyour mother or your wife or your ??? or the government to know about. Might make us abetter society!

3 LIKE REPLY

Ghostly

2 days ago

@SassyNancy , it should say Stupid Nancy. Police Departments aregovernment entities, do the Police ever arrest innocent people? Do the Policeever kill innocent people? Do the Police ever lie and plant evidence on innocent

people to get a conviction? The answers are obviously YES. The FederalGovernment, CIA, FBI, ATF, NSA, ICE, DHS, Secret Service, Capital Police andthe Military are thousands of times bigger than one local Police Force, so theirchances of making a mistake, covering a crime, covering for another Agent orclearing a crime is thousands of times greater than the local Cops. You don't haveto be a terrorist to be a victim. WAKE UP! Did you know there were two terroristssitting behind you at the soccer game, you must be an accomplice, lets check youout. Not really but it happens everyday.

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Bush already sold most of it, and what they didn't sellout they fu@ked up so bad Obama hasspent the last four plus years cleaning up the mess they left.and might I say with out help .

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Larisa you just sound ignorant. He was caught and is guilty, and Bush was no where around.

Take off your team jersey and realize that partisan loyalty on both sides is just stupidity.Obama would sell everyone of your interests out for less than a nickel. Unless it was an


12/13

Larisa Combs

2 days ago

Kevin Ivey

2 days ago

William Steiner2 days ago

mantlethemagnificent

2 days ago

want the dirt on you. A dumbass venture of exploitation for sure.

1 LIKE REPLY

Yeah, we shouldn't have elected GW. Glad someone is talkin.g some sense here. Smh.

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Ghostly

2 days ago

@Larisa Combs Low information Voter alert!!!

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How about we don't elect folks who trash the Constitution? Oh, and lie about it?

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Should do just the opposite. People need to find ways to use words like bomb, c4, semtex,detonators, explosives, pressure cookers, etc in their text messages, emails, and telephoneconversations. Make the bastiges go on information overload.

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Why would I assume a right to privacy in electronic communications?

The Internet was a government project.

Cell towers and frequencies are regulated by a myriad of government agencies.

My email address is provided by a corporation.

Most of you are literally handing your life's story to Facebook.

If you want to communicate privately write a letter, seal it in an envelope and hand it to apostal worker. Otherwise all of your communications can and likely will be recorded.

2 LIKE REPLY

f


13/13

2 days ago

SteveCorso

2 days ago

GentlemanAdventurer

2 days ago

@mantlethemagnificent

you cannot get a cell phone contract w/o providing your SS#. that should havebeen a red flag from the start

2 LIKE REPLY

Marmee

2 days ago

@wormtownspawn I've never given my SS to my cell phone carrier.I think it's only att that asks for that, for land lines as well. I just saidno. That being said, anyone who thinks tcomputers, hand held or

otherwise, are private are fooling themselves. Though I thinkCorporations mine the data the most.

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wormtownspawn2 days ago

@Marmee @wormtownspawn

verizon requires it as well. can't say if every company does .

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@mantlethemagnificent OK, but what about your credit card receipts? And yourmedical records? Those are fair game as well, it appears. And as far as lettersgo, remember, as the Internet was a government project, so to the mail is afederal service. Mail has been read in the past (Google COINTELPRO)

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@mantlethemagnificent Glad somebody has some basic common sense.Privacy is wonderful and, IMHO, it would be great if we really could use moderntechnology to communicate without worry somebody was monitoring. But weforget that part of "freedom" is the idea of a contract. When you sign up for an

ISP, Facebook, cell phone service, or buy something on the Internet, you havevoluntarily entered into a contract. While so impractical its largely impossible, youcould voluntarily choose not to use these technologies and therefore not provideany personal info to a company or the gov't. Granted, I know only one personwho is truly "off the grid"--my 100 y/o grandfather in an assisted living home. ButI guarantee you nobody is spying in on him!

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Spying - the Tricks From Privacy Experts

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