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Post Number: 1
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Botto 82
Group: Members
Posts: 6293
Joined: Jan. 2005
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Posted on: Feb. 02 2016,5:42 pm |
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QUOTE Encryption May Hurt Surveillance, But Internet Of Things Could Open New DoorsUpdated February 2, 20164:43 PM ET Published February 2, 20162:54 PM ET ALINA SELYUKH Twitter FBI Director James Comey is one of the federal officials who has said that the growing use of encryption hurts the ability to track criminals. Tech companies and privacy advocates have been in a stalemate with government officials over how encrypted communication affects the ability of federal investigators to monitor terrorists and other criminals. A new study by Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet and Society convened experts from all sides to put the issue in context. The report concluded that information from some apps and devices like smartphones may be harder for government investigators to intercept because of stronger encryption. But, it said, we are connecting so many more things to the Internet (light bulbs, door locks, watches, toasters) that they could create new surveillance channels. According to the report: QUOTE "The increased availability of encryption technologies certainly impedes government surveillance under certain circumstances, and in this sense, the government is losing some surveillance opportunities. However, we concluded that the combination of technological developments and market forces is likely to fill some of these gaps and, more broadly, to ensure that the government will gain new opportunities to gather critical information from surveillance." The encryption debate has reheated recently following the attacks in Paris and to some extent San Bernardino, Calif., with CIA and FBI officials warning about their investigation channels "going dark" because of the stronger encryption placed on communications tools like WhatsApp or FaceTime. (The distinction is this: With things like emails, Web searches, photos or social network posts, information typically gets encrypted on your phone or laptop and then decrypted and stored on a big corporate data server, where law enforcement officials have the technical and legal ability to get access to the content, for instance, with a subpoena. But with messages that are encrypted end-to-end, data gets encrypted on one device and only gets decrypted when it reaches the recipient's device, making it inaccessible even with a subpoena.) Attorney General Loretta Lynch (right) and FBI Director James Comey, seen at a meeting in Washington, D.C., in November, are among the Obama administration officials meeting Friday with tech industry leaders. The agencies have asked for "back doors" into these technologies, though the Obama administration cooled off its push for related legislation late last year over concerns that such security loopholes would also attract hackers and other governments. But the Harvard report (which was funded by the Hewlett Foundation) argues that "going dark" is a faulty metaphor for the surveillance of the future, thanks to the raft of new technologies that are and likely will remain unencrypted — all the Web-connected home appliances and consumer electronics that sometimes get dubbed the Internet of Things. Some of the ways the data used to be accessed will undoubtedly become unavailable to investigators, says Jonathan Zittrain, a Harvard professor who was one of the authors. "But the overall landscape is getting brighter and brighter as there are so many more paths by which to achieve surveillance," he says. "If you have data flowing or at rest somewhere and it's held by somebody that can be under the jurisdiction of not just one but multiple governments, those governments at some point or another are going to get around to asking for the data," he says. The study team is notable for including technical experts and civil liberties advocates alongside current and former National Security Agency, Defense Department and Justice Department officials. Another chief author was Matthew Olsen, former director of the National Counterterrorism Center and NSA general counsel. Though not all 14 core members had to agree to every word of the report, they had to approve of the thrust of its findings — with the exception of current NSA officials John DeLong and Anne Neuberger, whose jobs prevented them from signing onto the report (and Zittrain says nothing should be inferred about their views). The results of the report are a bit ironic: It tries to close one can of worms (the debate over encryption hurting surveillance) but opens another one (the concerns about privacy in the future of Internet-connected everything). "When you look at it over the long term," says Zittrain, "with the breadth of ways in which stuff that used to be ephemeral is now becoming digital and stored, the opportunities for surveillance are quite bright, possibly even worryingly so."
NPR Article
Some comments:
"It is a question of the source of your freedom. If the government is the source of your freedom, by all means they should have permission to easily see what you are up to. If freedom exists outside of government, and government is only involved to the extent that they are required to respect that, no way do they get to see what you are up to, just in case."
"The refrigerator coldly ignored Harold as it completed its report to Weight Watchers central command."
"My wife was going to download a live wallpaper on the Play Store the other day. The App wanted permissions to access her contacts, camera, microphone, images, and documents... She and I laughed, she clicked no, and proceeded to look for a wallpaper that didn't want permissions to anything. Ever since then, I've wondered how many people clicked yes?"
-------------- Dear future generations: Please accept our apologies. We were rolling drunk on petroleum.
- Kurt Vonnegut
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Post Number: 2
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Post Number: 3
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Rosalind_Swenson
Group: Members
Posts: 1527
Joined: May 2011
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Posted on: Feb. 02 2016,7:28 pm |
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(stardust14 @ Feb. 02 2016,6:59 pm)
QUOTE (Botto 82 @ Feb. 02 2016,5:42 pm)
QUOTE "My wife was going to download a live wallpaper on the Play Store the other day. The App wanted permissions to access her contacts, camera, microphone, images, and documents... She and I laughed, she clicked no, and proceeded to look for a wallpaper that didn't want permissions to anything. Ever since then, I've wondered how many people clicked yes?" Is this actually true? Are things like this happening to internet users? Stardust, this is a list of permissions requested by an Amazon Inc. app. The app is Amazon Underground (for anyone who wants to look themselves at amazon.com .
*Install packages *Access coarse (e.g., Cell-ID, Wi-Fi) location *PowerManager WakeLocks to keep processor from sleeping or screen from dimming *Access information about Wi-Fi networks *Manage the list of accounts in the AccountManager *Allows an application to receive messages via Google Cloud Messaging *PACKAGE_USAGE_STATS *Record audio *Change Wi-Fi connectivity state *Open network sockets *Install an app update *Read the user's contacts data *Access the flashlight *Access the list of accounts in the Accounts Service *Act as an AccountAuthenticator for the AccountManager *Write to external storage *Access fine (e.g., GPS) location *Allows an application to uninstall home screen shortcuts *Access information about networks *Delete packages *Allows installation of home screen shortcuts *Monitor incoming SMS messages, to record or perform processing on them *Send SMS messages *Allows an application to read device settings *Access the vibration feature *REAL_GET_TASKS *Request authtokens from the AccountManager *Required to be able to access the camera device *Read from external storage *Read only access to device state
A LOT of people freaked about some of the permission requests so Amazon added this explanation for some of them.
* Read Contacts permission is used to provide customers access to their phone contacts from the app for the purposes of sending Amazon gift cards. * SMS permission is used to simplify the sign up process for features such as Mobile Carrier Billing and Amazon Mobile Accounts that require phone number verification. * Camera permission is used to enable the Scan It feature, which allows customers to perform product searches by scanning a barcode or pointing their camera at a product they are interested in. * Microphone permission is used to enable the voice search and voice assistant features, and the microphone is left off when these features are not in use. * Location permission is used to enable a convenience store delivery service offered by Amazon in France and Japan only. * Phone status permission is required to support notifications in China. * Storage permission is used to enable the downloading of 3rd party apps from the Amazon Underground App to device storage.
-------------- And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.
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Post Number: 4
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stardust14
Group: Members
Posts: 337
Joined: Nov. 2014
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Posted on: Feb. 02 2016,9:17 pm |
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Not good. But then I'm among the handful of people not using a cellphone. I've noticed ever since I upgraded to Google Chrome the creeps follow me around online with signature pop-ups indicating what sites I've visited. Creepy. Also, since the upgrade, there was difficulty(to say the least) in downloading music. So I suckered for Amazon Music. Lo and behold Amazon music "borrows" all my music from another player and stashes them in their music files.
Tech nerds must be able to escape their evil eye?
Wishing Google's off-shore accounts in the Caribbean are hacked and vanish into Neverland.
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Post Number: 5
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Post Number: 6
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stardust14
Group: Members
Posts: 337
Joined: Nov. 2014
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Posted on: Feb. 03 2016,2:00 am |
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Same thing here with my Gmails. That's sick! And I was checking out some laptop speakers on ebay just before I visited this site. Sure, enough, those same speakers come floating up on ALDF page.
Worst of all now Botto has me worried my toaster is keeping secrets from me. Face palm.
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Post Number: 7
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Self-Banished
Group: Members
Posts: 22543
Joined: Feb. 2006
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Posted on: Feb. 03 2016,5:09 am |
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I was in Target yesterday, there was a sale on Reynolds wrap, the nice stuff too, heavy duty, 36". Just right for your appearal needs.
-------------- Remember boys and girls,
Don’t be a Dick …
Or a “Wayne”
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Post Number: 8
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Post Number: 9
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Self-Banished
Group: Members
Posts: 22543
Joined: Feb. 2006
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Posted on: Feb. 03 2016,6:15 am |
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^^I don't watch a lot of tv.
-------------- Remember boys and girls,
Don’t be a Dick …
Or a “Wayne”
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Post Number: 10
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