You are being watched

[Rommie]

So if it's so easy to avoid detection, what's the point? Seems like security theatre to me.

Pretty much this- I guess what always interests me is the argument that we need this because of terrorist threats, but frankly a lack of information was not a problem on, say, 9/11. Follow-up was.

But then I didn't like this 12 years ago and I don't like it now- I just find it odd that people are suddenly all outraged about it as if they didn't think it was happening.

[SciFi Chick]

But then I didn't like this 12 years ago and I don't like it now- I just find it odd that people are suddenly all outraged about it as if they didn't think it was happening.

Exactly.

[brite]

But then I didn't like this 12 years ago and I don't like it now- I just find it odd that people are suddenly all outraged about it as if they didn't think it was happening.

Hence my comment about "the Radical Right Wing nut hatchery making it all Obama's fault"... suddenly it's news. They pushed through the Patriot Act so fast in 2002, because of 9/11, I get that... we were scared. We created things like the TSA and the NSA to "protect" ourselves from it ever happening again... And re-authorized and MADE the Patriot Act a PERMANENT part of our laws in 2005... and now it's a shocker, that our government is spying on us...




Wait... WHAT???

[Falstaff]

Apparently someone at the board seemed to feel s/he was being watched by me, and did something about it.

[FZR1KG]

Apparently someone at the board seemed to feel s/he was being watched by me, and did something about it.

That would have been me. Check your Pm box.

[Swift]

So if it's so easy to avoid detection, what's the point? Seems like security theatre to me.

That it is security theatre, is one possibility. Another is that it is actually quite useful, for purposes other than the one advertised.

A third is that it is useful for its intended use, looking for organized security threats, such as the 9/11 attacks. But it will not be useful against "lone wolf" attacks, whether they use home-made bombs or guns.

[Swift]

Because the Boston Bombers practiced OPSEC. They didn't chatter about it on their FB page. They apparently did not chat about it on other Islamic related sites. In fact, the Boston Marathon wasn't chosen as a target until about 2 weeks before the event because the bombers had enough explosive to do the job. They originally were planning on a 4th of July event.

No amount of electronic snooping will work if there is no signal out there to pick up.

Would work, except that the NSA should be quite capable of snooping on visitors to Al Qaeda controlled websites. From there they could resolve the owner and geographical location of visiting IPs, and probably get a good guess at who was looking at it.

Wait a second - which way to you want it? You seem to be completely against this kind of snooping, but now you seem to be faulting the NSA for not catching the Bostom bombers.

[FZR1KG]

Wait a second - which way to you want it? You seem to be completely against this kind of snooping, but now you seem to be faulting the NSA for not catching the Bostom bombers.

Which is why I wrote, "I rest my case" to his post.

[FZR1KG]

A third is that it is useful for its intended use, looking for organized security threats, such as the 9/11 attacks. But it will not be useful against "lone wolf" attacks, whether they use home-made bombs or guns.

Pretty much spot on.
Short of mind reading there is not much that can be done for one or two individuals wanting to do attacks.

[Cyborg Girl]

Swift: that is a huge false dichotomy. Of course I don't support this snooping - but that doesn't mean I won't fault the NSA for not even using it to protect people.

[FZR1KG]

GJ,
Do you know how many people look up bombs and bomb making per day?
yes they get flagged but its impossible to treat every case as a serious threat.
If we did that then there would be an even bigger outcry as well as being totally unpractical.

E.g. I've looked up how to make a dirty bomb. Pretty sure you've looked up things that would be flagged.
Why would we look it up?
I did because I like to know how to debate with facts when I come across a nut job that thinks anyone can build one.
That still gets me flagged. Did i have the FBI give me a visit? No.

I think you're assuming because they have data and when a person who does a crime is in that database, that something could have been done to prevent it.
That's not how it works. At least not in a democracy.

There needs to be other checks and flags that must be processed before they can act to get them out from the noise.
Naturally, if these checks were bypassed there would be an outcry because it would be a case of checking all noise in the stream.
There always is an outcry when a government pulls that one out.

Here's my take on it.
Without data they are blind.
With data they have a hope of correlating and filtering out who is likely.
With few cases to go on the filtering system is damned hard to tune and ALL filters need tuning.
The more access they have the faster they can correlate. The less they have the longer it takes and the less reliable it is.

This is pretty standard stuff. It applies in almost every industry.
There is nothing special about the security industry except that they cannot use the tools that would give them the most accurate results.
IOW they are hampered already.

Classic example, profiling. It works. Go talk to Israeli security about it. Its efficient and effective in its goal.
Here we run reverse profiling(TM).
What's reverse profiling?
That's where you have such a big outcry regarding profiling that the security teams are more reluctant to pick a person who fits a profile.
And trust me they know how to profile but just aren't allowed to use it. I've had enough experience dealing with security teams in a professional setting.
Then we get cases like kids and grandmothers being frisked but a suspicious guy of Arab persuasion is skipped because they fear the backlash from the public, from their management and risk their job.
Effectively its making the whole process less efficient than random sampling.

Bottom line is this:
The public don't want security to have any more power, they want less.
The public want the security to be more efficient.
The public cock block any effort to gain efficiency and render it either handicapped or worse than random sampling.
The public complain when anyone does an act of terror because security didn't do their job.
Security can't do their job because, the public has unrealistic expectations based on a few small concessions.

To give you an analogy.
I ask for a SMD soldering iron to make and repair SMD based PCB's.
I'm given an iron used to solder heavy pipes that needs an open flame to heat it or coals to get the temperature up high enough to melt solder.
I can't do my job.
I am blamed for my incompetence.

Likewise in this case. The data is broad. using it is like using that old pre electricity soldering iron on SMD devices.
The right tool is one that can go down to the individual level, like SMD pads.
The public won't allow it because what is done to one SMD pad must be done to all equally.

You want results but won't supply the tools.
From my POV, the general public want the impossible and they are too ignorant to even know they are doing it.
So we get stuck with crap like we have now instead.
Welcome to fucking yourself up the ass 101.

[FZR1KG]

For further clarification.
I'm neither for or against any of these things on a global basis, just as individual case by case situations I swing both ways.
Sometimes for and sometimes against.

I'm just pointing out the obvious.
If you want something to work then give it the tools to do so.
Otherwise, don't bother because it just turns into a cluster fuck like what we have here now.

Making a choice you'll either get your security or your freedoms.
What you have now is a loss of freedoms and no gain in security.
Its stupid.

[Sigma_Orionis]

I just read up on this, and I'm pretty depressed.

Because the Evil Imperialist Infidel Gringo US government snoops on us greasy swarthy furriners? Nope

Because the Evil Imperialist Infidel Gringo US government snoops on its own? nope

Because John Q Public demands total security but refuses to want to know the price of it? nope

I'm depressed because the alleged whistle blower is a sysadmin, damned kid's not even 30, didn't even finish high school, unless he's channeling John von Neumann he doesn't have anywhere the experience or skills I have and yet he was a sysadmin with a top secret security clearance earning 10 times what I make.

Everything else is irrelevant, dammit.

[FZR1KG]

They chose wisely too in hindsight.

[Swift]

I'm depressed because the alleged whistle blower is a sysadmin, damned kid's not even 30, didn't even finish high school, unless he's channeling John von Neumann he doesn't have anywhere the experience or skills I have and yet he was a sysadmin with a top secret security clearance earning 10 times what I make.

Everything else is irrelevant, dammit.

Treason I tell you (what this kid did to SO) and most foul!

[Sigma_Orionis]

They chose wisely too in hindsight.

Why? because they chose a patsy that's easy to catch?

Treason I tell you (what this kid did to SO) and most foul!

Damned straight skippy

[Morrolan]

i used to get all this wonderful stuff from our neighbourhood library back when i was young: books on nerve and other gasses and how to make them, books on Vietcong and other booby traps and how to make them (which one could also mail order via Soldiers of Fortune magazine), the Anarchist's Cook Book, chemistry books on 'household explosives'.

funnnn... until i discovered girls, much more better.

don't need no steenking interwebs for this stuff.

[The Supreme Canuck]

Exactly. With a group of about ten engineers, a machine shop, a lump of uranium, and a book from my shelf, it's possible to build a crude atomic bomb. PRISM does nothing to stop that. What's the use of it, then, other than to appear to be doing something? Security theatre, I say.

[Swift]

Exactly. With a group of about ten engineers, a machine shop, a lump of uranium, and a book from my shelf, it's possible to build a crude atomic bomb.

Actually, I'm doubting that, unless you have a lump of enriched uranium.

[The Supreme Canuck]

Right. The bottleneck isn't the information or the technique, it's obtaining the nuclear material. Which is why securing that material is a good idea which works, and trying to limit access to information is a bad idea and doesn't.

Which is the NSA doing, here?

[FZR1KG]

Right. The bottleneck isn't the information or the technique, it's obtaining the nuclear material. Which is why securing that material is a good idea which works, and trying to limit access to information is a bad idea and doesn't.

Which is the NSA doing, here?

Both.

[The Supreme Canuck]

Really? Because it seems the people guarding nuclear stockpiles and shovelling weapons-grade material into reactors to be burned up are securing fissile material, not the NSA. But let's say you're right, and the NSA is doing both... shouldn't the NSA stop doing the one that is ineffective?

[FZR1KG]

By securing I mean they have radiation detectors in place that can very effectively detect some one trying to smuggle stuff in.

Regarding stopping the other, as I mentioned before, the public needs to decide what they want and what they don't.
They are the ones that can't make up their minds.

I can ask though, what if the TSA just stepped out right now for a year.
No controls at airports, customs at all.
What would happen?

Since the obvious isn't happening, they are acting as a deterrent.
The question is just how much is the right amount and on what scale do we measure success.
compelling arguments can be made for all sides.
Sadly there is no way to know which is correct.

[The Supreme Canuck]

By securing I mean they have radiation detectors in place that can very effectively detect some one trying to smuggle stuff in.

Oh, I see the issue here. The NSA doesn't do that. The NSA does signals intelligence and cryptography. Different government agencies do what you're talking about. I was talking specifically about the NSA and its PRISM program.

Regarding stopping the other, as I mentioned before, the public needs to decide what they want and what they don't.
They are the ones that can't make up their minds.

I think it's pretty clear that they're not okay with PRISM.

I can ask though, what if the TSA just stepped out right now for a year.
No controls at airports, customs at all.
What would happen?

Well, that's separate from the NSA collecting data on all phone and internet users, which is the topic of this thread.

But, fine, let's talk airport security. No one is saying there shouldn't be any, just that certain measures are immoral and ineffective... and possibly illegal.

Since the obvious isn't happening, they are acting as a deterrent.

Certain things, yes. Certain things, no.

The question is just how much is the right amount and on what scale do we measure success.
compelling arguments can be made for all sides.
Sadly there is no way to know which is correct.

Not so. For example, the TSA's "behaviour detection" methods have a 0% rate of success, but still resulted in massive inconvenience (up to and including arrest) for innocent travellers:

Interesting data from the U.S. Government Accountability Office:

"But congressional auditors have questions about other efficiencies as well, like having 3,000 "behavior detection" officers assigned to question passengers. The officers sidetracked 50,000 passengers in 2010, resulting in the arrests of 300 passengers, the GAO found. None turned out to be terrorists.

Yet in the same year, behavior detection teams apparently let at least 16 individuals allegedly involved in six subsequent terror plots slip through eight different airports. GAO said the individuals moved through protected airports on at least 23 different occasions."

I don't believe the second paragraph. We haven't had six terror plots between 2010 and today. And even if we did, how would the auditors know? But I'm sure the first paragraph is correct: the behavioral detection program is 0% effective at preventing terrorism.

(Emphasis added)

Link

Simple: when a tactic is ineffective and results in violations of civil liberties, ditch it. That's the case for the TSA's behaviour detection methods, and that's the case for the NSA's PRISM program.

[FZR1KG]

The problem is showing its ineffective.

e.g. If they foiled a terrorist attempt, would you even know about it?
If I were in charge of the security I'd make sure no one knew how we caught them.
To release that sort of information is to render the technology useless.
IOW, it would be classified.

So how exactly do we show it to be working or not working?

I think it's pretty clear that they're not okay with PRISM

I beg to differ.
Its pretty common knowledge that certain sites give their information away to both private and government agencies.
Facebook for example.
There's a classic case of people that don't care about their privacy to even bother using a different service.
Need I say more?
If they are ignorant that FB sells their information for profit and gives away data to the government then they don't care much about their privacy to check before using a service.
Likewise, anyone that claims they want privacy and think its a high priority but uses facebook and some other online services is behaving hypocritically.


TSC, I think you're believing that people want privacy at a high priority.
I disagree.
I think they don't even know what it means.
I can just picture what privacy means to most people in redneckville where I live: I don'ts want mi ma to finds out I watch porn on the net avery nite.

It won't extend much beyond that.
You're attributing your education, your understanding and your intelligence to the general public and trust me, they ain't that smart.
I don't think I need to remind you that the average I.Q. is 100.
You are a minority, so is GJ, so are the rest of the members of this board.
Never forget that.
Life makes a lot more sense when you understand this.