Drones

[Cranky]

I posted this video on a couple of left'ish wing and right'sih wing forums. In both of them, I got "they will keep us safer". What? Right scream about evil big government and big brother, but tell them it's about terrorist and they nod like muppets. In left wing forums, tell them it will keep them safer......and they nod like muppets.

Am I the only one who hates this? Am I the only one who thinks that this is simply more intrusion into our lives for nothing more then the illusion of safety and security?



BC? Dis? Where are you on this? If you guys are okay with this, I'm dialing those aliens to come and abduct me.....

[BadCompany]

Only the logical next step.

Jul 26, 2010 13:59:59 GMT -5 BadCompany said:

Mark Steyn on government video cameras in England:

Your family is being watched

[/color]

I thought this line would appeal to HA...

Henry Porter’s new novel The Dying Light is set mainly in an English market town in Shropshire that feels as claustrophobic as Communist East Germany, a land in which rural coppers badger you for such amorphous offences as “failing to account for your intentions in a designated area.” [/quote]

We live in the Facebook era now, where the next generation (and quite a good number of the previous ones too) don't really care that just about everything about you can be discovered by just about anyone, never mind the government. Phone GPS, Google data mining, "security" cameras... why not drones? Cost-effective and safer for all, no?

Two movie/TV scenes come to mind; one was a Twighlight Zone episode, where "criminals" are branded on the forehead and forced to live in isolation from social contact for the duration of their sentence ("Too see the invisible man"). It was brilliant not only for it's psychological implications, but in it's vision; solitary confinement, facial recognition software, and yes, police drones, it was all visionary. Of course, so was 1984, so maybe the episode really wasn't that original. The second scene was from Tom Cruise's "Minority Report"; after receiving "new" eyes to avoid detection by the government, Cruise is bombarded by advertisements everywhere he goes, based on the purchases made by the previous owner of the eyes. Very Google-ish, wouldn't you say? Is not everything we see on the internet pretty much geared towards what we have previously seen, purchased or googled? People don't realize it, but Google and Facebook and probably every other company like it out there has kept every single search, post or picture you have ever made. The government doesn't need to set up it's own snooping divsion - they simply need one computer geek to hack into the ones that are already there. My sister-in-law works for the Employment Insurance agency (government, obviously), as an investigator, looking for people who are trying to cheat the system. The first-thing she does when a case lands on her desk is google the person and check out their Facebook page. Often she doesn't have to go much further than that.

I don't agree with it, personally, but it's an unstoppable wave. Two tsunami's are at work here, the people's "need" for security (see Maslow) which is easily exploited by the government (always has, always will be) and the need to make more and more money. Some would say the two are connected.

[Disgruntled70sHab]

I've been meaning to reply to this earlier, HA, but I had to walk away from the boards for a couple of days just to recharge the batteries, so to speak.

Odd you'd bring this topic up at this time, HA. I've been receiving correspondences from an UAV company here at work over the past few months. They wanted to talk to me about software upgrades and I even got an invite to the US Embassy in Ottawa for some gala-type function. The problem is, I don't work in that field at all. I kept telling them that I wasn't the person they were looking for. I only recently stopped receiving those correspondences a short while ago.

I'll check in later tonight and get back to you, HA. I just don't have the time at work right now.

Cheers.

[CentreHice]

Governments/corporations/religions have always incited and exploited fear.

Look at Al Gore's bank account.

I agree, BC....it's an unstoppable movement as you've outlined.

[HABsurd]

Not sure if it is relevant but the video of the drone is fake.

[BadCompany]

The video may be fake, but coincidentally enough, on CNN.com right now:

www.cnn.com/2012/05/22/opinion/crump-cellphone-privacy/index.html?hpt=hp_t2

Are the police tracking your calls?"

Addressing a surveillance industry conference in 2009, Sprint's electronic surveillance manager revealed that the company had received so many requests for location data that it set up a website where the police could conveniently access the information from the comfort of their desks. In just a 13-month period, he said, the company had provided law enforcement with 8 million individual location data points.

[Cranky]

May 22, 2012 14:52:51 GMT -5 HABsurd said:

Not sure if it is relevant but the video of the drone is fake.

It doesn't make me feel any better....

www.ocregister.com/opinion/police-355213-drones-court.html

mediamatters.org/blog/201205150008

[Cranky]

May 22, 2012 8:45:00 GMT -5 BadCompany said:

I don't agree with it, personally, but it's an unstoppable wave. Two tsunami's are at work here, the people's "need" for security (see Maslow) which is easily exploited by the government (always has, always will be) and the need to make more and more money. Some would say the two are connected.

It's not inevitable, it's just sold by too many talking heads and vote suckers without opposition. And THAT is the problem.

Side rant but relevant to your discussion about phones.......

We are at the accountants office. Finished up and are going down the elevator. There are five people in the elevator, my wife and I and......three are holding phones in their hands. We walk in the lobby and most of the people people are holding phones in their hands, some talking on them. We walk outside and within eyesight, there are several people sitting around, some smoking, EVERYONE on the phone, talking or texting. We are walking to the car, every second person is holding a phone. So I take my phone out, turn to my wife, ask her for her phone and walk to my car with TWO phones in my hand. THERE! I'm more important then they are.....and I have twice the craving to talk about.....nothing.

I feel so left out. I never knew there was so much to talk or text . At the height of my companies, I fielded maybe a dozen calls a day to do business on three continents. A CEO friend of mine running a multi-billion dollar company with a dozen plants and 15,000 employees made a point that if someone called him, it better be important. We are such dinosaurs!

[CentreHice]

Most people are apathetic about important ssues (like the erosion of privacy) because they're too easily engrossed by their favourite topic: themselves. And technology keeps feeding it because mega-$$ are there to be made.

Too much momentum behind the ME-movement. "I'm important, I'm a star, I'm talented, I have an opinion, I'm meaningful." We, as part of an older generation, sarcastically ask, "How did we ever get along without it? How were our needs met/business conducted without constantly being in touch?"

But I know that had this social media technology existed when we were teenagers, we likely would've jumped all over it, too.

Interesting observation, to me, is that a large part of my age group appears to be just as needy as they were in high school. I mean, when "I hate Monday" is a status update, made with the hope/expectation that "friends" push the Like button and comment on it (and many DO)...well...would it be any wonder if they wake up one day surprised to find out that Big Brother is all over them?

And that's not even counting the quick-fix Twitter world.

[Cranky]

I don't know if our generation would have been so keen to weld themselves to phones. I don't remember getting on a phone for hours to discuss trivia or bowl movements.

Another interesting side story....or maybe not. I want to buy a smart phone to run simple data and engineering apps. It seems to confuse salespeople to no end. "Are you running apps for Facebook? You don't need apps for Facebook. This is a great phone and you can text and talk an entire day on it"

*sigh*

[Disgruntled70sHab]

May 22, 2012 14:58:16 GMT -5 BadCompany said:

The video may be fake, but coincidentally enough, on CNN.com right now:

www.cnn.com/2012/05/22/opinion/crump-cellphone-privacy/index.html?hpt=hp_t2

Are the police tracking your calls?"

Addressing a surveillance industry conference in 2009, Sprint's electronic surveillance manager revealed that the company had received so many requests for location data that it set up a website where the police could conveniently access the information from the comfort of their desks. In just a 13-month period, he said, the company had provided law enforcement with 8 million individual location data points.

Again, not too much time at work.

Cheers.

=============================================================
New WikiLeaks 'spy files' show global surveillance industry
By Alice Ritchie (AFP) – Dec 1, 2011

LONDON — WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange launched the website's new project Thursday, the publication of files it claims shows a global industry that gives dictatorships tools to spy on their citizens.

In parallel to Assange's announcement, Wikileaks' partner Owni.fr released evidence that a French firm helped Moamer Kadhafi's former Libyan regime spy on opposition figures living in exile in Britain.

It had already been revealed that the electronics firm, Amesys, had worked with the Libyan regime -- and French rights groups are attempting to take the group to court -- but Owni's files will prove embarrassing.

They appear to show that a manual provided to Libya to operate a "massive Internet surveillance" set-up known as the Eagle system included the email addresses and pseudonyms of opposition leaders.

One of them, 74-year-old writer Mahmud Al-Naku, campaigned against Kadhafi in exile and has now been named his country's ambassador to London by the victorious new former rebel government.

Another figure on the surveillance list was Atia Lawgali, 60, who has since been named Libya's new minister of culture. Several more Libyan and western figures are on the list, contained in a leaked screenshot.

Kadhafi's regime has been accused of sending agents to harass and even kill opposition figures in exile.

Owni also published the user manual provided to the Libyans to operate their Internet spying system, which it boasts can intercept emails and webmail, VOIP calls, instant messages and search engine requests.

Contacted by AFP, Amesys said that Libya had been under no trade embargo after 2003, and that a number of French and international companies had done business with Kadhafi's government.

"Amesys delivered the Libyan authorities equipment and had no control over the use to which it was put," said the firm, which was bought by the French electronic group Bull in 2010.

The International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) has lodged a legal complaint over Amesys' contract with Libya in a French court, alleging complicity in rights abuses.

The Wikileaks files reveal the activities of about 160 companies in 25 countries which develop technologies to allow the tracking and monitoring of individuals by their mobile phones, email and Internet browsing histories.

"Today we release over 287 files documenting the reality of the international mass surveillance industry -- an industry which now sells equipment to dictators and democracies alike in order to intercept entire populations," Assange told reporters in London.

He said that in the last 10 years it had grown from a covert industry which primarily supplied government intelligence agencies such as the NSA in the United States and Britain's GCHQ, to a huge transnational business.

Assange has been in Britain for the past year fighting extradition to Sweden for questioning on allegations of rape and sexual assault, living under tight bail conditions. His case is due to come up again on Monday.

The documents on the website, wikileaks.org/the-spyfiles.html, include manuals for surveillance products sold to repressive Arab regimes.

They have come to light in part from offices ransacked during uprisings in countries such as Egypt and Libya earlier this year, as well as investigative work by WikiLeaks and its media and campaigning partners.

"These systems that are revealed in these documents show exactly the kind of systems that the Stasi (East Germany's secret police) wished they could have built," said Jacob Appelbaum, a former WikiLeaks spokesman and computer expert at the University of Washington.

"These systems have been sold by Western companies to places for example like Syria, and Libya and Tunisia and Egypt. These systems are used to hunt people down and to murder."

Experts who worked on the release warned that at present the industry was completely unregulated.

"Western governments cannot stand idly by while this technology is still being sold," said Eric King, from the Privacy International campaign group.

It is the first time WikiLeaks has released documents since it announced on October 24 that it had been forced to suspend publishing classified files due to a funding blockade that saw its revenues plunge by 95 percent.

Thursday's announcement had been trailed as the launch of a new secure system to submit documents to the site, but Assange said WikiLeaks was still working on this, saying the threat of surveillance made it extremely difficult.

On the Net:
WikiLeaks spy files: wikileaks.org/the-spyfiles.html

(link) www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5g1hmBkqANZQIpmhu3oY-kKxPgjIQ?docId=CNG.68fcf6470e3486d0144305bd27e4ea93.721

[CentreHice]

May 23, 2012 11:41:47 GMT -5 Cranky said:

I don't know if our generation would have been so keen to weld themselves to phones. I don't remember getting on a phone for hours to discuss trivia or bowl movements.

But these aren't just phones. They're full-service media devices. When I got my iPhone 4S a couple of weeks ago, they said I could actually watch certain TV channels on it. "Siri' will transpose my voice into written texts.

I think our generation would've been all over it as teens...look how we went at 8-track and cassette players for our cars. Were the older people back then saying, "How did we ever entertain ourselves with just a record player in our house, or just a radio in our car?"

If they were, it didn't stop the wave.

[HABsurd]

To follow up on domestic drones. I found the total number surprising.


www.theverge.com/2012/6/13/3083434/public-intelligence-64-aerial-drone-bases-usa

[Habs_fan_in_LA]

Add nuclear tips to the drones in the middle east and they become perfect.