Et tu, Obama?

 Idiots & Assholes (Politics)
Sep 282010
 

I have never thought of Obama as a messiah figure coming to save us all and transform our country into a shining Utopia, because I’ve learned never to get my hopes up too high when it comes to politicians.  I know plenty of people did think of him that way, though–hope and change ahoy!  But looky here, what’s he up to now?  Why, he wants to give the government unlimited access to our private electronic communications whenever they want  it.  Unfuckingbelievable.  This makes Bush’s wiretapping shenanigans look downright tame! 

WASHINGTON — Federal law enforcement and national security officials are preparing to seek sweeping new regulations for the Internet, arguing that their ability to wiretap criminal and terrorism suspects is “going dark” as people increasingly communicate online instead of by telephone.

Essentially, officials want Congress to require all services that enable communications — including encrypted e-mail transmitters like BlackBerry, social networking Web sites like Facebook and software that allows direct “peer to peer” messaging like Skype — to be technically capable of complying if served with a wiretap order. The mandate would include being able to intercept and unscramble encrypted messages.

The bill, which the Obama administration plans to submit to lawmakers next year, raises fresh questions about how to balance security needs with protecting privacy and fostering innovation. And because security services around the world face the same problem, it could set an example that is copied globally.

via NY Times

Of course, they’re saying it’s to protect us from eeeevil terrorists and all that, but Obama’s well-known for sucking up to the entertainment industry and their absurd copyright demands.  It wouldn’t surprise me in the least if this was somehow connected to that.  Whatever it is, the ends don’t justify the means.

This is the kind of thing that makes me want to retreat back into Apathy Mode and never vote again.  Can we ever produce a President who actually has our best interests at heart?  Is that even possible anymore?

Tag ‘em and track ‘em

 Unfuckingbelievable!
Sep 202010
 

OK, this idea of tagging and tracking children like animals in the wild is seriously scary stuff.  According to a post on the ACLU’s blog:

On Tuesday, preschoolers in Richmond, California showed up for school and were handed jerseys embedded with Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tags.  RFID tags are tiny computer chips that are frequently used to track everything from cattle to commercial products moving through warehouses.  Now the school district is apparently hoping to use these chips to replace manual attendance records, track the children’s movements at school and during field trips, and collect other data like whether the child has eaten or not.

Are parents really this paranoid, or is this the school’s solution to attendance problems?  What’s next, cameras in the bathrooms to monitor frequency and type of their little darlings’ bowel movements?  I can just see this in their Potty Log:  ”9/20/10, 8:34 a.m.:  Timmy Richardson had a poo.  Duration of poo:  3.5 minutes.  Poo has been sent to lab for weight, texture, and color information.  Timmy left bathroom at approximately 8:40 a.m., arriving back in classroom at 8:42 a.m. after a short visit to water fountain.”  Don’t think they haven’t considered this level of detail!  Some smothering, nutjob parent out there would probably LOVE to know this kind of stuff.

Also, apparently the school hasn’t read up on how insecure these RFID tags are.  They’re notoriously insecure, this has been well-documented for several years now.  You can find it on this Google thing everyone always talks about.  And look!  It puts the kids’ privacy at risk more than they probably even bothered to think about.

Without real security, RFID chips could actually make preschoolers more vulnerable to tracking, stalking, and kidnapping. Someone who wants to do children harm could potentially sit in a car across the street and scan the children’s jerseys without teachers, school officials, parents, or children ever knowing that any information has been read.  And if this information can be read, it can be copied easily to a duplicate chip.  A child could be taken off campus while the duplicate chip continues to tell RFID readers that the child is safely at school.

This means that little Timmy’s school schedule and daily routine could suddenly become public information for anyone who might find a use for it.  Creepy.

The long-term effect is that this kind of thing trains kids to expect to be tracked and monitored.  They’ll grow up being used to having Someone knowing everything they do and when they do it.  And that sends shivers down my spine.

Uncle Sam: sniffing your virtual panties

 Geek Streak, General Blatherings, Idiots & Assholes (Politics)
Jun 222006
 

One more reason to avoid MySpace:  the Pentagon wants to get to know you.  Intimately.  No, more than intimately.  They’re going to create an all-encompassing profile on you by trolling social networking sites for your personal details: daily activities, friends & acquaintances, favorite music/books/movies/hangouts, political views, job information, photographs, videos, etc.  Bascially, whatever personal info you’ve put on your MySpace profile.  Then they’ll combine it with personal phone calls & internet usage info they’ve snarfed from telecom companies and ISPs who bend over and do whatever the NSA tells them.  *cough*AT&T*cough*  This will give the government a perfect picture of who you are:  how you think, what you do in your free time, how you behave, what you believe, and who you associate with.  Of course, a lot of this information is available on peoples’ blogs and personal websites, but the social networking aspect of MySpace (and its cohorts Friendster, Facebook, etc.) makes it oh-so-easy for government goons to get a more complete picture of you, because now they will know what kind of people you hang with, and who those people hang with, ad nauseam.  And considering the amazingly personal things that people are putting on MySpace, well…it’s going to get very interesting.

I’ve always thought MySpace pages were trainwrecks of hideous graphics, assholes hawking products, shitty bands wanting free promotion, creepy pedophiles, spambots, and viral marketing douchebags…which is somewhat of a cynical generalization, but pretty accurate from what I’ve seen.  There are a lot of profiles out there created by people who are using MySpace for its intended purpose, but they tend to be buried under a whole lotta crap.  (Kinda like Blogger.com, come to think of it.)  Nevertheless, ALL my friends have profiles on MySpace now, and for a long time I resisted…I’m already on Friendster and LiveJournal, so what’s the point??  But since MySpace has such a massive membership and might help me stay in touch with friends from high school and other places, I caved and created a bare-bones profile which doesn’t say anything personal but points people to my website instead.  Now I’m thinking about nuking ALL my profiles on social networking sites, save for maybe LiveJournal which I can make readable to friends only.  It’s just getting too creepy.

If the assclown-in-chief wants to know about me, he can be satisfied with my blog, dammit!

T-word officially invoked

 Bullshit Detector, Idiots & Assholes (Politics)
May 312006
 

Oh, Christ. It was only a matter of time before one of Bush’s assclown cronies used terrorism as an excuse to monitor your ISP, eh?  “If you don’t let us snoop around yer internet activity, THE TERRORISTS WIN!  If we can’t read yer emails, see yer downloads, and track yer Googles, THE TERRORISTS WIN!”  Yeah, yeah, yeah…fuck you.

Whatever red herring they invoke–terrorism, The Children™, WMDs, freedom, etc.–these evil pricks simply will not rest until they have their all-knowing, all-seeing tentacles wrapped around everything you say and do.  Internet traffic, phone calls, blog postings, travel bookings, book purchases, and countless other things are now under their watchful eyes in the name of safety and freedom.  Oh, if only they’d put this much effort into preserving our freedom…

Please speak loudly and clearly

 Idiots & Assholes (Politics)
May 152006
 

Did you vote for Bush?  Then you voted for the NSA’s ginormous database of phone calls. Yes, you pretty much voted away our privacy.  Gee, thanks.  Sure, they say they’re not eavesdropping, and they say they’re not connecting names and addresses to those calls, but we all know they’re full of shit.  They’re also tracking phone calls made by media folks, just to keep those people in line and make sure they say only what Bush allows them to.  Yay for freedom of speech!

So I hope you red voters are happy with what you’ve brought upon this country, because we’re stuck with it and Bush is blocking all investigations into his illegal spying.  Be careful of what you say and who you say it to, because you’re also saying it to him.

P.S.:  You suck.

Privacy, shmivacy.

 General Blatherings
Feb 022006
 

Oh, this is going to be fun to watch:  AT&T is being sued for giving the government access to its networks and customer data.  According to the lawsuit, AT&T basically allowed Bush and his minions to snoop, sniff, snarf, analyze, and data-mine anything and everything they wanted:  telephone calls, emails, billing, you name it.  And it’s alllll in the name of National Security Safety Well-Being and Stuff™.  Oh, and freedom…can’t forget that!  There’s nothing like violating the privacy of millions of citizens in the name of a Greater Good, whatever that may be.  We’re still not sure what that is yet.  But you can be sure that freedom is in there somewhere, right?

This is going to get very interesting as it unfolds…that is, unless some judge gets cold feet and decides the Constitution can take a flying leap and the government can do whatever the hell it wants with this stuff, which is entirely possible.

Yahoo, AOL, MSN: not your friends.

 Idiots & Assholes (Politics)
Jan 202006
 

So when Prezzie Bush came a-knockin’ and wanted search records from Google, they told him to piss off.  But what did Yahoo, AOL, and MSN do?  They immediately caved and gave him whatever he asked for.  It doesn’t matter if private IP addresses or cookies were turned over (or even available) as well…we’re talking about enabling the government to more easily snoop into its citizens’ business.  Thanks, guys, for proving that you really are evil.

Google me harder, baby!

 Idiots & Assholes (Politics)
Jan 192006
 

The big techie story today is that the government wants to know what you Google.  Not content with snooping into your telephone conversations illegally, our lil’ Bushy-Poo now wants to see what you’re searching for on Google in order to win the war on porn-a-graphy.  Uh-huh.  Good luck.  And, of course, it’s allllll in the name of The Children™, and why would you want children looking at porn, you dirty filthy pervert??  Same shit, different day.  Don’t be surprised when he wants access to your phone records and online purchases next.

Spy Guy

 Idiots & Assholes (Politics)
Dec 192005
 

So Bush admits that he authorized spying on U.S. citizens without court-approved warrants and now everyone’s freaking out.  Why is anyone surprised?  Didn’t anyone see this coming?  His defense, of course, is the standard “If you don’t let us do this or that to your liberties, then the terrrsts have already won.”  Hmmm, I don’t feel safer knowing that Americans are being spied on by their own government.  Maybe it’s best we didn’t know.  I mean, this government has our best interests at heart, right?  You and your children are perfectly safe.  Go back to sleep now.

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