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MacSumo

macrumors regular
Nov 26, 2013
129
0
People, please understand that you have no right to privacy. All your thoughts, work, money, and labor are belong to government and corporations. All, all, all your thoughts, all your thoughts...
 

Gutwrench

Suspended
Jan 2, 2011
4,603
10,530
Fine, don't post your credit card details.

Now what is your full name, your full address, where do you work, what are the names of your family members.

Remember, if you don't have anything to hide, you should have absolutely ZERO hesitation in posting this information.

Doesn't the IRS already have most of that?

My biggest objection to this is that I don't want "heroes" like Snowden absconding to China and Russia with my personal info. :rolleyes:
 

oneMadRssn

macrumors 603
Sep 8, 2011
5,998
14,065
I find humorous that all these people are up in arms about the NSA and spying. Yet 80% of them have Google accounts. LMMFAO at you fools.

The difference with Google and others is (1) i can opt-out, and (2) they provide me with a direct quid-pro-quo service.

(1) you aren't required to use google. you can use duckduckgo.com and serve your own email. no need for gmail, no need for anything. You don't have to use it; and if you don't use it then they have nothing on you. And even when you do use it, you can opt-out of certain tracking features. Is there an NSA opt-out?

(2) with google, it's a trade: users use google and in exchange get an awesome search engine; or they use gmail and in exchange get 10GB of awesome indexed and well organized email storage. It's a trade: read my emails, but provide me with an excellent service. If gmail sucked, nobody would make this trade. If one day there is another webmail provider that is better, we will all migrate to that; we have a choice. Can I choose to be monitored by another spy agency?
 

ricosuave

macrumors 6502
Mar 27, 2007
387
14
In front of my mac
This entire thread makes me very depressed.

On one hand: you have individuals who are so ignorant and careless with their "I have nothing to hide" argument, and you simply can't get through to them.

On the other extreme: you have the individuals who are using what has been revealed to further their own political agendas, or extremist conspiracy theories... using a little bit of fact to further myth. Which really perplexes me, considering what IS actually going on should be scary enough.

It is exactly BOTH these types that the NSA and entities with similar goals rely on to marginalize the issue, make it seem stupid an irrelevant, and to muddy the conversation. Between the people with their head in the sand, and those who are embellishing to the point where it's outlandish and improbable, the infighting keeps both sides occupied... while people who are on the fence begin to lose interest, and forget about what's really going on.

And so what happens? Absolutely nothing. Surveillance states get their way. And this is how democracy falls. Not with a bang... but with a lot of silly people fighting their trivial little squabbles.
Have an upvote
 

nick_elt

macrumors 68000
Oct 28, 2011
1,578
0
The NSA is looking out for terrorist activity. Good luck to them. If my mundane emails go through them, why should I care? It'll only bore them. What have you people got to hide that's so important to world security?

terrorism is just their excuse. just like wmd was the excuse to go into iraq. if you haven't done anything wrong, why are you not entitled to privacy?
 

gnasher729

Suspended
Nov 25, 2005
17,980
5,565
From what I understand this is still to be determined. It is suppose to be that they need a court order to run surveillance on anyone in the US… from what's been leaked, it seems that they are monitoring outside the US.

Which is illegal, and which is why we should have arrest warrants in the EU against any NSA employee.

----------

If the NSA has manipulated thousands of iPhones this leaves traces. Firmware checksums are changed etc. And some of these devices will randomly make it to engineering support where they're checked and I'm quite sure that it'll be easy to find out that a smartphone's firmware was hacked by applying standard maintenance routine.

No difference between that and one of the millions of phones with a jailbreak. Maybe we even have posts on MacRumors where someone says Apple refused to do some work on a phone because of a jailbreak, when they didn't actually jailbreak their phone.
 

BHP41

macrumors 6502a
Jul 21, 2010
834
2
United States of America
The difference with Google and others is (1) i can opt-out, and (2) they provide me with a direct quid-pro-quo service.

(1) you aren't required to use google. you can use duckduckgo.com and serve your own email. no need for gmail, no need for anything. You don't have to use it; and if you don't use it then they have nothing on you. And even when you do use it, you can opt-out of certain tracking features. Is there an NSA opt-out?

(2) with google, it's a trade: users use google and in exchange get an awesome search engine; or they use gmail and in exchange get 10GB of awesome indexed and well organized email storage. It's a trade: read my emails, but provide me with an excellent service. If gmail sucked, nobody would make this trade. If one day there is another webmail provider that is better, we will all migrate to that; we have a choice. Can I choose to be monitored by another spy agency?

Yea, I guess keeping your ass safe isn't really that important.
 

DesertEagle

macrumors 6502a
Jan 10, 2012
609
8
/home @ 127.0.0.1
My guess is that the NSA got a court-order to force Apple to write this BS, the same way they forced Lavabit to keep quiet about the reason for its sudden shut-down.

So yes, Apple are lying, but we cannot really blame them. I think.
 

jmgregory1

macrumors 68040
First people say it's paranoid that big brother is watching you, people were called nut jobs and conspiracy theorist for even challenging that the government is spying on you. Now that Edward Snowden has come forward with information on NSA spying and now the leak documents of NSA spying on Apple's iPhone, we're still called paranoid because our lives aren't interesting enough for NSA to give a damn about. Wake up please. Yes, people do fear that the government will get big and out of control because we've seen what has happened in other parts of the world and in history.

The thing is, the government is big and out of control. To think otherwise is also foolish, but to worry that the 99%+ of the general population (which of course includes a lot of government employees, military and otherwise) is either interested in what you're doing or wanting to "take over" control of your life is just common paranoia.

People watch too many movies and think there are men in black spying on them and ready willing and able to come get them for no reason. When people give examples of what happened to some poor schmuck put on a no-fly list, it's not put into context of the millions of people who fly each day without incident. Like getting struck by lightning, your chance of being put on a no-fly list is extremely minuscule - statistically insignificant.

The government (federal, state and local) still has a hard time finding real criminals and dead beat dads (as an example) - people who actually have done something wrong - why do you think that all of a sudden the NSA or another agency is going to "figure it all out" and start hauling people away?

----------

terrorism is just their excuse. just like wmd was the excuse to go into iraq. if you haven't done anything wrong, why are you not entitled to privacy?

Entitlement - that is exactly what a lot of people think, that they're entitled to this or that. To have a society run, you have to have enough people participate collectively. There was a time when people (pick your country and time frame, because it's happened all over the world) banded together make society better.

It feels like a lot of people now want to opt out of society, or at least the parts that are tougher to deal with - and simply take advantage of the things they want to take from society (what they're entitled to), like healthcare, education, fire protection, road building and maintenance, garbage collection, etc.

This entitlement without giving back something to society is a slippery slope to a society filled with people who only think of themselves and see others not like them as bad. It's sad that it's come to this for so many people.
 

peterdevries

macrumors 68040
Feb 22, 2008
3,146
1,135
Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Honestly getting sick of all the lying. Clearly one side is lying. I somehow doubt the leaked documents are lies.

I love Apple but come on...

None of the documents indicate the cooperation of Apple or any other producer in these activities. The installation of software or modification could be done through interception at customs offices or elsewhere.

----------

My guess is that the NSA got a court-order to force Apple to write this BS, the same way they forced Lavabit to keep quiet about the reason for its sudden shut-down.

So yes, Apple are lying, but we cannot really blame them. I think.

What a load of nonsense for which you have no proof. If there were a court order, then it would be public, so why don't you go and track it down and back up your claims.

I'm not saying Apple is innocent, but just making up nonsense doesn't bring any value to this whole conversation.
 

DesertEagle

macrumors 6502a
Jan 10, 2012
609
8
/home @ 127.0.0.1
What a load of nonsense for which you have no proof. If there were a court order, then it would be public, so why don't you go and track it down and back up your claims.
Are you sure it would be available to be public, even when it's from the not-so-secret-anymore intelligence court? ;) FYI, this is a special court whose decisions are classified, which is why the Lavabit founder was not even allowed to discuss his case with his attorney, let alone publish the order.

It's true that I have no evidence for my guess, but why would I need that? Since I no longer have any confidence in the U.S. government, I for one do not trust any company within its jurisdiction either wrt. privacy, and neither should you. Unless anyone proves me wrong, I'll think the worst of Apple, Google and Microsoft wrt. the matters at hand. Given my desire for privacy, I have valid reasons to do so, the same way the authorities (esp. the NSA) thinks the worst about you and me for the sake of their own security.

Apple have lied about such matters before. Now, they're lying again.
 
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DesertEagle

macrumors 6502a
Jan 10, 2012
609
8
/home @ 127.0.0.1
I know, it really disgusts me how these people argument. I wonder how they would react if they would be the target of accusations without proof.

If? IF??? The government already treats an entire nation like terrorists by spying on its own citizens, and you're talking about me targeting the government for accusations without proof?

Btw, I was once wrongfully accused with the theft of 2000 dollars. When it turned out that the money had not even disappeared in the first place (technical problems caused the error), my boss didn't even apologize, nor did he inform the police that I was innocent, and he ordered me to shut up about the whole thing. It was a traumatic experience, so I know what it's like. But in this case, I don't feel bad about posting speculations about Apple giving in to such pressure from the government, which includes not only the facilitation of surveillance, but also about covering it up to keep it secret. Apple have formerly demonstrated their inclinations to do both.
 

oneMadRssn

macrumors 603
Sep 8, 2011
5,998
14,065
Yea, I guess keeping your ass safe isn't really that important.

It's not that important. What good is there in my ass being safe when Uncle Sam has a colonoscope up there?

I guess following the constitution isn't really that important.
 

Dorje Sylas

macrumors 6502a
Jun 8, 2011
524
370
Guess we know why Apple has been so hot to patch Jailbreaking into oblivion. I can only imagine how easy it has been for the NSA to do the same things on Android devices.

Did anyone bother to actually read the available details? The primary way the NSA was getting their acess was by first getting PHYSICAL access to the device. Just like any common thief, hacker, or criminal. Just like most Jailbreaks require Physical access to the iPhone. This included interception of the physical unit being shipped to a "person of interest".

However remember those Jailbreaks that didn't exactly require physical access and could be done through a website? Same or similar methods of remote attack or social engineering are most likely what the NSA documention was talking about perusing as a method of "remote" access.

The NSA was the most well organized and funded Jailbreakers.

Personally I find this kind of intrusion and data gathering as well as many of the other things the NSA have gotten up to be reprehensible and unconstitutional... Although to be fair... Americas voted for this. After 9-11 "we" all but screemed at the Government to "make us safe" and "get them towel heads!" We told our congressmen to vote in laws to make it so. We told the president at the time to do whatever he felt like in this regard. "We" put on the blindfold, handed them them bat, and "trusted" them not to whack us in the junk. Well, they almost right away went to whack us in the junk. And it wasn't until someone had the balls to blow the whistle that they were whacking us in the junk, did the average American care.

So... "we" vote for this. Those of us who told you the Patriot Act was a BAD idea and that we would all regret it are vindicated, and we are all regretting it. So the next time the Government asks for permission to have a near blank check to "find the enemy" of the momment, we need to say NO. But we won't. We never have and we never will. It doesn't matter the political party, Republican, Democrat, Libertarian, Green, Independent, Tea, they'll all do it.
 

Jedi Master

macrumors regular
“regret the inconvenience"

Security researcher Jacob Appelbaum dropped a bombshell of sorts earlier this week when he accused American tech companies of placing government-friendly backdoors in their devices. Now Texas-based Dell Computers is offering an apology.

Or to put it more accurately, Dell told an irate customer on Monday that they “regret the inconvenience” caused by selling to the public for years a number of products that the intelligence community has been able to fully compromise in complete silence up until this week.

http://rt.com/usa/dell-appelbaum-30c3-apology-027/

What's new?

I just wonder when we the people will wake/respond.

No surprise here

Qwest is one that comes to mind.

Hey it's only a job right.
 
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Smith288

macrumors 65816
Feb 26, 2008
1,227
968
This entitlement without giving back something to society is a slippery slope to a society filled with people who only think of themselves and see others not like them as bad. It's sad that it's come to this for so many people.

Entitlement is an issue with the U.S. but entitlement to privacy is guaranteed by the bill of rights. But that stupid thing's all "outdated" and stuff... /government
 
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