So here is our first take on this NSA/Verizon/FBI phone-records thingy...Actually it is our second or maybe third take, because there's no really good way to blog the double-axel facepalm, eyeroll, and fetal position that was our real initial reaction to the news. We eventually got up and made some coffee, and while we're still NOT HAPPY at this latest evidence that the Obama administration is every bit as happy as the Bush people were to unleash the Homeland Surveillance Apparatus in the name of security, we're also going to try really hard to only freak out as much as we need to. Which is still a pretty good freakout.
Nearly all the futuristic movies where the government is tyrannical and hypercontrolling, there are awesome things like flying cars and really cool mass transit.
Snoop all you want, but only if you get with the goddamn flying cars already.
Oh good grief. No, they do not track you through your Kindle calculating your reading speed based off purely local data. They track the books you're buying through your Amazon account, or of course borrowing from your local library (Oh hai, PATRIOT act!), but tracking you personally obviously they do through the cell phone that's always in your pocket constantly reporting its location and its ID which uniquely identifies your account and hence, you. Don't worry your sweet little brain about your Kindle, my friend ;)
If your message is "don't worry, they're only recording every phone number that you call or that calls you, your location at the time of the call, and the duration of the call", then no that is not OK, or even close to OK.
Grabbing metadata is actually much more problematic than grabbing the content, because the content cannot be machine sifted because it isn't in a machine-intelligible format and the volume is far, far too great to speech-to-text it all plus the quality of speech-to-text, especially on a really low-quality audio format like phones use, is far short of adequate, plus the quality of text search to perform meaningful queries even of accurate transcripts and not be swamped by false hits is just not there.
No, the mass data gathering <a href="http:\/\/articles.washingtonpost.com\/2008-02-11\/news\/36928278_1_nsa-program-surveillance-program-temporary-surveillance-law" target="_blank">was always about metadata</a>, which can be mined, and is being mined, has been being mined since late 2001.
ETA, but BTW, over three years of opearting the LHC, CERN gathered about 200 petabytes of information. That&#039;s the equivalent of capturing about 150 billion minutes of uncompressed 64kbit PCM per year. In other words, well within an order of magnitude of what you&#039;d need to store all US phonecalls compressed.
Their only principle is &quot;we want <em>our</em> guys in charge&quot;. That&#039;s not situational, it&#039;s completely rigid. The rest is just tactics.
I&rsquo;m happy to say that the answer is no. While the harvesting and surveillance of your domestic phone calls were not a part of your original Verizon service contract, the National Security Agency is providing this service entirely free of charge.
2. If I add a phone to my account, will those calls also be monitored?
Once again, the answer is good news. If you want to add a child or any other family member to your Verizon account, their phone calls&mdash;whom they called, when, and the duration of the call&mdash;will all be monitored by the United States government, at no additional cost.
3. Can the National Security Agency help me understand my Verizon bill?
Unfortunately, no. The National Security Agency has tried, but failed, to understand Verizon&rsquo;s bills. Pease call Verizon customer service and follow the series of electronic prompts.
(&quot;<a href="http:\/\/www.newyorker.com\/online\/blogs\/borowitzreport\/2013\/06\/a-letter-to-verizon-customers.html" target="_blank">Letter from Obama</a>&quot;, courtesy of the Borowitz Report)
That is <i>metadata</i>, not the actual data contents themselves. We are talking vastly different quantities of information - multiple orders of magnitude. Like the difference between flow records and full packet captures, but in some ways even more so.
Look up Jack getting dissed by Santa on the youboobz. <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watc..." target="_blank">" rel="nofollow noopener" title="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tp19qiash2U">http://www.youtube.com/watc...
Nearly all the futuristic movies where the government is tyrannical and hypercontrolling, there are awesome things like flying cars and really cool mass transit.
Snoop all you want, but only if you get with the goddamn flying cars already.
True, I mistyped
Oh good grief. No, they do not track you through your Kindle calculating your reading speed based off purely local data. They track the books you&#39;re buying through your Amazon account, or of course borrowing from your local library (Oh hai, PATRIOT act!), but tracking you personally obviously they do through the cell phone that&#39;s always in your pocket constantly reporting its location and its ID which uniquely identifies your account and hence, you. Don&#39;t worry your sweet little brain about your Kindle, my friend ;)
If your message is &quot;don&#039;t worry, they&#039;re only recording every phone number that you call or that calls you, your location at the time of the call, and the duration of the call&quot;, then no that is not OK, or even close to OK.
Grabbing metadata is actually much more problematic than grabbing the content, because the content cannot be machine sifted because it isn&#039;t in a machine-intelligible format and the volume is far, far too great to speech-to-text it all plus the quality of speech-to-text, especially on a really low-quality audio format like phones use, is far short of adequate, plus the quality of text search to perform meaningful queries even of accurate transcripts and not be swamped by false hits is just not there.
No, the mass data gathering <a href="http:\/\/articles.washingtonpost.com\/2008-02-11\/news\/36928278_1_nsa-program-surveillance-program-temporary-surveillance-law" target="_blank">was always about metadata</a>, which can be mined, and is being mined, has been being mined since late 2001.
ETA, but BTW, over three years of opearting the LHC, CERN gathered about 200 petabytes of information. That&#039;s the equivalent of capturing about 150 billion minutes of uncompressed 64kbit PCM per year. In other words, well within an order of magnitude of what you&#039;d need to store all US phonecalls compressed.
Their only principle is &quot;we want <em>our</em> guys in charge&quot;. That&#039;s not situational, it&#039;s completely rigid. The rest is just tactics.
FINALLY!!! A reasonable explanation.
I think Greenwald lives in Brasil these days, no?
I&#039;m sure she was only being ironic.
/Right, NSA?
Hahaha.
Well, what you basically said is NSLs suck and we should try to get rid of them, which is absolutely true.
Oh, so you missed the <em>hilarious</em> shadow cast by the mushroom cloud.
&#039;not to go back to defending it when it&#039;s their guy doing it&quot;
That&#039;s the irritating part with those clowns. Their principles are so situational
1. Will I be charged extra for this service?
I&rsquo;m happy to say that the answer is no. While the harvesting and surveillance of your domestic phone calls were not a part of your original Verizon service contract, the National Security Agency is providing this service entirely free of charge.
2. If I add a phone to my account, will those calls also be monitored?
Once again, the answer is good news. If you want to add a child or any other family member to your Verizon account, their phone calls&mdash;whom they called, when, and the duration of the call&mdash;will all be monitored by the United States government, at no additional cost.
3. Can the National Security Agency help me understand my Verizon bill?
Unfortunately, no. The National Security Agency has tried, but failed, to understand Verizon&rsquo;s bills. Pease call Verizon customer service and follow the series of electronic prompts.
(&quot;<a href="http:\/\/www.newyorker.com\/online\/blogs\/borowitzreport\/2013\/06\/a-letter-to-verizon-customers.html" target="_blank">Letter from Obama</a>&quot;, courtesy of the Borowitz Report)
That is <i>metadata</i>, not the actual data contents themselves. We are talking vastly different quantities of information - multiple orders of magnitude. Like the difference between flow records and full packet captures, but in some ways even more so.
Neigh! (horse for &quot;yes&quot;)