Stalking the citizen

[Handley_Page]

"Big Brother is watching You"
is a famous bit of spookery.

But it's happening NOW.
Take a look at Google's latest underhanded bid for information
Like; HERE

 

[Hypoxia]

Privacy in the industrialized world disappeared well over a decade ago. Them wanting privacy need live in caves, fed by mushroom beds. Them expecting privacy are delusional. Them gaining privacy are necessarily outlaws. We must expect to be monitored. Welcome to the NWO, kids.

 

[SamScribble]

Privacy in the industrialized world disappeared well over a decade ago. Them wanting privacy need live in caves, fed by mushroom beds. Them expecting privacy are delusional. Them gaining privacy are necessarily outlaws. We must expect to be monitored. Welcome to the NWO, kids.

The surprising thing is how readily we gave our privacy away.

 

[Zeb_Carter]

The surprising thing is how readily we gave our privacy away.

With most of us, the offer of security v. privacy has security winning. The problem is that security has yet to be delivered. The powers that be, all want to peek into your bedroom, but call for help and it's ages away. Maybe even a death away.

 

[oggbashan]

Tracing me via my mobile?

No way. It's a basic phone usually turned off. I use it if my car needs attention on the road or if I'm going to be late to meet a daughter. It is used perhaps four times a YEAR. The rest of the time it is switched off.

Tracing me via my car? No GPS. No SatNav. No wifi. One of my cars has a dumb computer that only operates when used to diagnose a fault - press a button and listen for a sequence of beeps like morse code. It can only be used when the car is stationary and in Park.

BUT - I am shown on CCTV wherever I go around my town on foot or in my car. My car's registration is scanned when I enter and leave a car park. A local supermarket car park flashes up my registration and tells me the maximum parking time I have available.

Debit card, credit card, store loyalty card? All of them know when and where I spend money or withdraw cash. The store loyalty card knows exactly what I bought.

BUT - if I walk into a small local shop and pay cash?

The shop worker or owner usually greets me by name. That has happened for decades. I was never anonymous. I'm locally well known. That was true for my parents too. Wherever they shopped in their town they would be greeted by name.

My brother lived in a large village. He was the tallest man in the village except eventually for his twin sons who were taller. My sister-in-law was the tallest woman in the village until their daughters grew up. My sister-in-law was then the third tallest woman. Everyone in the village knew them, and because they were so active in village affairs they were noticed. If I was visiting them and they weren't at home I could ask almost any adult villager who would be able to say where my brother and wife were now.

Privacy in a village is almost unknown if you are involved in village affairs. Now our villages and towns are larger but privacy if you use electronic devices is nearly as difficult as living in a village.

 

[NOIRTRASH]

The Feds collect every bit of info that matters, Its been their practice for more than 20 years. Vendors make the files available for a fee. It took me 15 minutes to find a daughter a coworker hadn't seen in 25 years. He knew her birth name and birthday, and that's all it took to locate her master file.The file includes almost everything that matters about you. Plus the file includes all your friends and family.

 

[Tio_Narratore]

People have never had privacy; the mere fact of being where other people are takes away privacy. It's really a matter of what you don't want others to know about you, and, if you don't want it known, you shouldn't expose it in front of others. I know, then the issue becomes one of spying - are others looking at you without your consent - and hiding from the spies. Confusion can sometimes help: multiple public personae can maintain a degree of "compartmentalized" privacy. Many years ago I checked the files held by the FBI on me, and found there were six separate files, and only two of them were cross-referenced. Now I try, once or twice a year, to find myself through online searches, and always find at least three different ones. No matter what, though, I have to accept the possibility that anything about me may become known, and so I always smile and wave to the CCTVs I pass in view of.

 

[NOIRTRASH]

Last year the IRS gave my tax file to a gang of Los Angeles Mexicans, who used the info to open cell phone accounts and steal several expensive phones. The phone company came after me for the money. But I had a notice from the IRS that my file got loose from their custody.

 

[Bramblethorn]

http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmir...-pregnant-before-her-father-did/#4d3ac4f434c6

An angry man went into a Target outside of Minneapolis, demanding to talk to a manager:

“My daughter got this in the mail!” he said. “She’s still in high school, and you’re sending her coupons for baby clothes and cribs? Are you trying to encourage her to get pregnant?”

The manager didn’t have any idea what the man was talking about. He looked at the mailer. Sure enough, it was addressed to the man’s daughter and contained advertisements for maternity clothing, nursery furniture and pictures of smiling infants. The manager apologized and then called a few days later to apologize again.

On the phone, though, the father was somewhat abashed. “I had a talk with my daughter,” he said. “It turns out there’s been some activities in my house I haven’t been completely aware of. She’s due in August. I owe you an apology.”

Data mining can be very powerful. Though it can also be dangerously misleading - for example, I read about one project that aimed to profile terrorist leaders by their cell phone records. People who travel around a lot and phone a variety of unsavoury characters... well, it turns out that pretty much the same pattern applies to journalists. That becomes lethal when somebody has the bright idea of just feeding the data to an armed drone and letting the algorithm do the rest.

Me, I was quite surprised recently when I Googled on my own name and didn't find any identifiable photos of myself in the first three pages. Guess I'm safe from the Terminator's face-recognition so far ;-)

 

[sr71plt]

My irritation is being hit with advertisements to buy stuff because I just bought it on the Internet. I bought it; I'm not planning on buying it again.

 

[Zeb_Carter]

My irritation is being hit with advertisements to buy stuff because I just bought it on the Internet. I bought it; I'm not planning on buying it again.

Amen. And if you create a list of items you might want to purchase in the future...look out. They all show up in you browser pages ad nausea.

 

[Haulover]

It helps to learn how to delete individual cookies.

I agree that it should not be necessary, and it's a PITA. But if you go through your cookies once a month and nuke the ones that look suspicious, it keeps your browsing pretty clean.

ALSO - get the Adware Plus Blocker. It's free, and you almost never see ads while you're browsing.

 

[sr71plt]

I must say that I think most of those (who don't have a good reason to have the interest in what they're doing because of what they're doing--or planning to do) who hyperventilate over the idea that they are being individually stalked electronically are grossly overinflating the interest anyone has in them individually.

 

[jomar]

I must say that I think most of those (who don't have a good reason to have the interest in what they're doing because of what they're doing--or planning to do) who hyperventilate over the idea that they are being individually stalked electronically are grossly overinflating the interest anyone has in them individually.

Yes, big data doesn't care about individual grains of sand.

 

[Handley_Page]

With most of us, the offer of security v. privacy has security winning. The problem is that security has yet to be delivered. The powers that be, all want to peek into your bedroom, but call for help and it's ages away. Maybe even a death away.

How very true.
Whilst I can mentally put up with my Government having all manner of information about me, I resent most bitterly the idea that Google (or whoever) has the effrontery to send me adverts based upon where I've been and which shops I went to.

It helps to learn how to delete individual cookies.

ALSO - get the Adware Plus Blocker. It's free, and you almost never see ads while you're browsing.

I have it and it is damned good. Well worth the effort .
There's another called "NoScript" which is also very good, if stricky.

 

[sr71plt]

Yes, big data doesn't care about individual grains of sand.

Even when I was in the game of triangulating intell on tracking terrorists, I remember that every time I queried NSA on what they had collected on an individual, they never could find anything specific in all that glop they were hoovering into their databanks.

 

[Tio_Narratore]

Even when I was in the game of triangulating intell on tracking terrorists, I remember that every time I queried NSA on what they had collected on an individual, they never could find anything specific in all that glop they were hoovering into their databanks.

I've found that information collection agencies are reluctant to serve as information providing agencies. A query to one of them by an outsider elicits little information, but often does initiate an internal review of the subject.

Beyond that, I've been amazed at the lack of knowledge of other cultures and social systems characteristic of most terrorism analysts I've worked with. Information needs context to become intelligence, and the lack of context has often led to the non-collection of information that actually is of import.

 

[sr71plt]

Beyond that, I've been amazed at the lack of knowledge of other cultures and social systems characteristic of most terrorism analysts I've worked with. Information needs context to become intelligence, and the lack of context has often led to the non-collection of information that actually is of import.

Which is why I lived mostly abroad--with a foreign-national staff, where my job was keeping them happy, couching the questions we wanted answered, and sending what they gathered and prioritized back--along with any insights they wanted to add.

Where were the desks and residences of the terrorism analysts you worked with?

 

[Tio_Narratore]

Which is why I lived mostly abroad--with a foreign-national staff, where my job was keeping them happy, couching the questions we wanted answered, and sending what they gathered and prioritized back--along with any insights they wanted to add.

Where were the desks and residences of the terrorism analysts you worked with?

Obviously I'm not at liberty to divulge that information, but I am working at changing things.

 

[sr71plt]

I retired nineteen years ago and I was somewhat of a whistleblower even before then (Which probably had something to do with how often I was out in the field rather than in Washington).

 

[Tio_Narratore]

I'm not blowing whistles, just trying to get rid of some indirectly dangerous ethnocentric blinders.

 

[sr71plt]

Well, for the record, most of the working-level area staff analysts I have worked with in the intell community have been superbly qualified in their areas.

 

[Tio_Narratore]

Well, for the record, most of the working-level area staff analysts I have worked with in the intell community have been superbly qualified in their areas.

I'd agree most are, but I am dealing with some lower-level analysts lacking field experience; the analyses they pass upward suffer not from what's included. but from what isn't - details they don't see as relevant because they assume everyone's culture and social organization are the same as theirs.

 

[sr71plt]

I do some work with the international affairs department of a major university--one long used as a feeder school into intell and the foreign service. I recruited from this school too over nearly three decades. I'll have to say there is more distraction from preparation in the university now than in decades past. Certain jobs could be filled by BAs in years past. Now they mostly have to have stayed around for an MA for the same level of preparation as before.

Of course, there's more emphasis on technology now than in previous decades too--and that seems to be a natural need. But it also tends to develop the idea that technology can handle everything, but it's an area where human observation, intuition, and judgment is still important. You can't count entirely on data-crunched logic--which probably goes back to your original observation. Logic and what isn't negotiable differ by cultural history and environment.

 

[SamScribble]

I suspect that, among commercial agencies, much of the info collected is either basic or ‘adverse only’.

Since it has now been a few years since, for medical reasons, I was permitted to drive a car, I don’t have a driver’s licence. It’s almost fun to watch some snotty-nosed twit tap away at their keyboard and then, with a deeply furrowed brow, say: ‘According this this, sir, you don’t exist.’ Oh well.