Use Tor, Get Targeted By the NSA

[ka9yhd]

"Using online anonymity services such as Tor or sending encrypted e-mail and instant messages are grounds for U.S.-based communications to be retained by the National Security Agency, even when they're collected inadvertently, according to a secret government document published Thursday. ...The memos outline procedures NSA analysts must follow to ensure they stay within the mandate of minimizing data collected on U.S. citizens and residents. While the documents make clear that data collection and interception must cease immediately once it's determined a target is within the U.S., they still provide analysts with a fair amount of leeway. And that leeway seems to work to the disadvantage of people who take steps to protect their Internet communications from prying eyes. For instance, a person whose physical location is unknown—which more often than not is the case when someone uses anonymity software from the Tor Project—"will not be treated as a United States person, unless such person can be positively identified as such, or the nature or circumstances of the person's communications give rise to a reasonable belief that such person is a United States person," the secret document stated.'"

http://yro.slashdot.org/story/13/06/21/1443204/use-tor-get-targeted-by-the-nsa

[melodie]

according to a secret government document published Thursday.

If it is a secret document it is not published, and if it is published it is not a secret document. At least not any more if it was intended to be.

Just wondering: do you encrypt your email when you write to people you know?

[djohnston]

The point of the article is that you are damned if you do and damned if you don't. If you don't encrypt transmissions, whether they are emails, instant messages or whatever else, you are subject to spying, and your transmissions are sent in plain text, VoIP, or whatever. If you do encrypt said transmissions, it's a "reason" to suspect you of "unauthorized" activity. The encrypted traffic captured is held forever, or until the NSA can decrypt it to look at the contents.

It's a no-win situation.

[melodie]

It's a no-win situation.

This is also what was presented many years ago about a law about to be decided in UK. You might have seen this text before.

[djohnston]

You might have seen this text before.

I had not read RMS's dissertation before now. But, he is right on point. The situation he describes fits the current one in the U.S. to a tee.

In other news,

Revealed: British intelligence agency secretly accesses the world’s phone calls, Internet traffic

In yet another revelation of widespread spying, we have now learned that the British intelligence agency GCHQ has secretly gained access to the massive network of cables carrying the world’s phone calls and Internet traffic.

Furthermore, we now know that the agency has begun processing the immense amount of personal information provided by the streams, which it then shares with its partner, the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA).

[Slystone]

The way I see it: they have the tools and the means to decipher whatever comes their way, there is no arguing about it I suppose. Now the question is why now do we know that information? It comes right after the revelation of Edward Snowden. The secret is out, and now that people are officially aware of the problem, they can begin to take some steps to address this issue. So of course, someone from the NSA is going to say that encrypting everything is useless. Personally I'm going to cipher whenever I can when I'm sending some kitten photos. I want to share the fun with the NSA and make their life a little better (and make their computers grind a little harder). I don't believe we can keep secrets on Internet anymore.