http://www.globalresearch.ca/spying-on-americans-before-911-nsa-built-back-door-in-all-windows-software-by-1999/5338215

Was George Orwell's '1984' their training manual?

No country can claim its hands are clean.
And we would want answers if a terrorist act took place and we knew nothing about it.
I am against Americas actions against whistle blowers.
But not against the act.
We tend to demand protection but then ask for privacy, in this case I take the protection, content to believe that part of the world confronting us has no respect for either our safety or privacy.

What act Belly ? There was no Act of Congress that approved these actions. They are illegal and the US Govt is not being held accountable.

This means the NSA IS ABLE TO LOOK AT ANY BUSINESS,INDIVIDUAL OR ORGANISATION PRIVATE FILES and use that information against them. You won't see this info on mainstream media because it is controlled by these interest groups.

Govts with absolute power cannot protect us from terrorism. Note this was before 911.With absolute power,our Govts become the terrorists.

What the USA, England, Australia etc are doing is the same as if any Government security officer could enter your house anytime they like and go through all your personnel belongings to see if they can prosecute you for something they find.

Also keep a record of what they find so if something you have is deemed illegal in the future they can say you had one.

There claim to not spying on Australian and American citizens has to be one of the biggest blatant lies of the year.

If you don't believe me put a few words in an email like kill, bomb, plans, president etc (make it sound convincing) and see how long before the federal police turn up at your house on the behest of the American Secret Service.

It surprises me a little that it has taken you so long to "uncover" this one Arjay. It has been common knowledge in the IT industry for many years, and has never been convincingly denied. The same applied to every piece or US software that featured communications in any way, incidentally. The software companies were not allowed to sell their products without government approval, for a start. And the sale outside the US of many programs was frequently forbidden, to prevent the code being apprpriated by unfriendly governments.

And don't for a moment imagine that they have not implemented similar surveillance into Facebook, Twitter etc. They consider them to be essential tools in their constant battle to protect their citizens from harm.

Whether you feel this to be excessive, tolerable, or even inadequate, is an entirely personal view, like the individual's take on death penalty or abortion. Or speed limits. There isn't really a "right" answer - or at least, one that will satisfy everyone.

My own view, for what it is worth, is predominantly one of sadness, in that there is an increasingly onerous price to be paid - with our privacy and freedoms - even for the most basic protections in our technologically-overloaded world.

However, I also take the fairly sanguine position that there is so much information flowing around the system, any surveillance must of necessity be driven by the most abstract of meta-algorithms. If I am right, Philip S' suggestion will not drive the plod to your door, until such time as the behaviour becomes part of a pattern, and includes a number of associated actions or activities.

Fortunately, I am insufficiently paranoid to let all this worry me too much.

If it helps, Arjay and Philip S, here's a reminder of the challenge these people face.

http://techcrunch.com/2010/08/04/schmidt-data/

"we create as much information in two days now as we did from the dawn of man through 2003".

That was in 2010, when we were producing over 2 exabytes of data every day. Today, Twitter users create close to half a billion tweets per day, and Facebook addicts post three-quarters of a million pieces of content... every minute.

>> the NSA IS ABLE TO LOOK AT ANY BUSINESS,INDIVIDUAL OR ORGANISATION PRIVATE FILES and use that information against them.<<

Only if they can find it amongst all the noise.

On reflection, Big Brother had it easy, compared to this lot.

Pericles - That challenge was partially overcome years ago with ECHELON which worked on an upside down pyramid principal.

The more words you used per email that, were targeted words examples bomb, kill, president, obama etc the closer you came to the base of the pyramid and your emails etc would be forwarded to an investigating officer.

Using less targeted words you were safe until you over time progressed up the pyramid. OR unless you were in communication with someone already at the top of the pyramid.

http://www.intelligencesearch.com/ia142.html

Petricles is trying to gloss over the gravity of the situation. Many businesses use Microsoft programs and are unaware of this reality. Suspicions may have existed in the past but now it seems to be a reality. The NSA can use this info to corrupt politicians and CEOs of major corporations.

Microsoft have a huge interest in this not becoming common knowledge or else they'd be totally trashed. For any of us to consider that this should be OK or the norm, we'd have to have rocks in our head.

I agree with Pericles. If you don't want your data to be available for others to look at, don't put in the Window(s). Alternatively, don't attach it to a machine connected to the internet and certainly don't use "cloud" storage.

however, as pericles points out, there is an enormous impedance mismatch between the one generating the data and the ones intercepting it. Personally I reckon its a storm in a teacup.

It's always amused me that it's perfectly acceptable to stand beside people to use a urinal, but a criminal offence to relieve yourself beside the car on the highway. The only difference is that Mrs Grundy has no authority in the men's dunny, but she rules the world outside it. The act of micturation is the same and much more likely to be observed at the urinal.

Our culture creates people who are far too concerned about what others might think and not concerned enough about thinking for themselves. If you're worried that other people might not approve, you probably shouldn't be doing it, either because it's a bad thing, or because you're not adult enough to exercise judgement.

Antiseptic - Quote "Personally I reckon its a storm in a teacup."
Try my experiment posted about and watch the teacup descend upon your house.

put a few words in an email like kill, bomb, plans, president obama etc (make it sound convincing) and see how long before the federal police turn up at your house on the behest of the American Secret Service.

Just ask the Iranians what happened to the centrifuges.

Ask the Iraqi's what happened with there military command and control centers during the war.

Any business that needs the internet can potentially have there whole system compromised.

Phillip S, you've just used those words. Do you think Graham Y should be watching his back?

However, I'll take your advice and I'll avoid communicating with any of my Jihadi mates via email. thanks...

Sheesh, seriously mate, if you're worried about that then see my post above. The NSA collects lots of data about where the data goes and if data goes to or from a suspected terrorist they monitor it. If they come up with a suspect by intelligence gathering they might go back over stored data from whatever period the cached data covers. they don't gather, store and sort evrything, there's simply too much of it, as Pericles' "Elint for Dummies" book says.

A most intriguing experiment, Philip S...

"...see how long before the federal police turn up at your house on the behest of the American Secret Service."

Since you've used those keywords a few times now with an associated threat and it is apparently so easy for the forces of evil to take you by the backdoor, can we safely assume that if we don't hear from you again then you and Arjay are exonerated.

But if we do ever hear from you again then you've disproved the both of you?

I'm not sure which would qualify as a win-win outcome... for the rest of us.

WmTrevor - You show your complete stupidity in the event it arrived at someones desk they would be able to understand the context it was written, unlike yourself.

Please activate brain before applying fingers to keyboard in future so as to save yourself more embarrassment.

Clare Daly of the Irish Parliament absolutely rips into Obama calling him a hypocrite and war criminal. This is worth seeing. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GF5PChW5WDY

Now,there is no doubt that Daly has ruffled some feathers. Organisations like the NSA can use their access to Microsoft to get dirt on people like her and thus silence them. In the wake of 911, we've lost a lot of rights and privacy which cannot be justified.

Microsoft has been sending info "home" since "95" You agree to it when you sign up.
Gates did a deal with Chins to register for updates every pirated copy of windows in China for 20 cents. A cunning way to have 200 million machines going "home" for regular visits.
Your home phone can be switched on remotely anytime they want to listen in. Your TV is in constant contact with the transmitters when in sleep mode just as is your mobile phone, even your web cam can be triggered by some "smartie" wanting to see what you are up to.
Every anti virus program has its own built in malware.
In Canberra at Deakin there is a massive computer housed in an eight story building gathering all that cyber data. For what purpose I don't know maybe its just for fun like building Lego models.

Arjay, if it worries you buy an Apple.

Microsoft is a compendium of apps and routines from 2000 plus developers, ie. “Open” Software. Apple is proprietary software owned, certified and maintained by Apple.

If you think that MS applications are stitched together “seamlessly” you are kidding yourself. There are so many “joins” that very little spyware is needed to crack it. Since the 1980’s you could open the back door, do what you want inside and close the door when you leave.

The only thing that protects the humble “stand alone, internet connected” home PC is that few are interested in looking inside them. That’s not to say that there aren’t plenty of people having fun with downloading stuff that screws your PC but most business PC’s are just workstations to a server. It’s the system administrator’s job to keep the server as secure as possible, not the PC’s.

Below your applications and routines is a seven layer OSI “stack”, below that is the POPS interpretive layer and below that is the “machine code” which speaks your computer chips language and “interprets” the application needs.

Every layer, every driver routine, every individual chip and every application is a potential point of entry. If you really understood just how frail and insecure PC’s were, you would never connect to the internet or would throw yours in the bin.

Add to that the fact that every nation on the planet has been spying and stealing data and intellectual properties, now we have private citizens and corporations doing it.

More to worry you should be the idiot that “modifies” the machine code in the “function specific” chips that drive almost every appliance and transport we use.

Then we might see cars failing, you know like VW, das auto, das recall? Oh sorry, I forgot that we just did that one.

Get over it; accept the reality and stop being so paranoid because the world has already decided it’s out to get you.

Trevor Arjay disappeared some years back. A CIA operative has been using that ID for the last few years to see who they flush out.

Now you will never be sure will you ;)

R0bert

In all seriousness, that won't work, spindoc.

>>Arjay, if it worries you buy an Apple.<<

That is not where the problem lies any longer. Here's what Edward Snowden told us:

“We hack network backbones — like huge Internet routers, basically — that gives us access to the communications of hundreds of thousands of computers without having to hack every single one.”

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/06/23/1218102/-US-NSA-Accused-of-Criminal-Privacy-Violations-in-Dozens-of-Nations-Snowden-Blowback#

There's an awful lot of stable doors being shut right now, but the horse has well and truly bolted. The problem is in the exponential growth of online traffic, and the fact that communications security is the last thing on the mind of your average app developer. Building security retrospectively into the networks is a mammoth - and expensive - task. No-one is likely to tackle it, the backlash would be too great, both from the taxpayer if the governments attempt it, or the majority of users if it is conducted commercially.

And you do appear to have options, even now. Lots of discussion about TOR, for example.

https://www.torproject.org/

What you cannot know for absolute certain, however, is whether TOR is what it claims on the packet, or whether it is a cunning scheme by the US Government to entrap people into using a facility they have already cracked...

Interesting times. Especially for paranoids.

"Now you will never be sure will you ;)"

True, of course, R0bert... but I have never questioned Arjay genuinely believes what he says and (I don't believe this for a second) in conspiracy terms I think, rather than the CIA, it more likely he is a GrahamY sock puppet to increase site traffic.

Even though I never worked in IT I first heard about the NSA trapdoors in 1987 along with various encryption system workarounds.

What sort of incompetent terrorists would broadcast in 'clear' via readable internetworked systems anyway?

Besides, as Pericles says "Interesting times. Especially for paranoids." we should be more concerned with TOR originally being developed for the US Navy and still being 80% funded by the US government.

I now worry that I should be paranoid whenever I make an online purchase and receive a confirmatory email telling me when to receive 'a special delivery' of a 'package' !

Apparently you can rent a bomb online... but it turns out to be hire cars. Most disappointing.

Savvy kids in high school labs can sit down and write simple code that makes your expert 'administrator' look very amateurish indeed. Code bombs and invasive malware are free on the web so long as you know where to look and 'back doors' have 'welcome' signs inviting you in.
If the 'cyber money pool' didn't have so much liquidity in it there wouldn't be so many fiscal sharks circling the "pots of Gold" all seeking out the individual and collective vulnerabilities served up on the golden platter called "code"

More ad hominem from the usual suspects. Bush brings in the patriot act and Obama follows up with Preventative Detention, legalises assassination and brings in the NDAA which gives the Military the power to arrest and suspect and hold them indefinitely with no real trial. The West is all but a fascist state and the etherised masses ask for more subversion.

BTW. Vladmir Putin has issued an arrest warrant for George Soros for using derivatives to attack the Russian Economy. This violates the Basil 2 agreements. Putin is also nationalising Russia's energy supplies and probably the Rothschild banks will be next to go.

The Central Banks are forcing down the gold price by selling off their gold derivatives and are buying up the real stuff.

Obama is balking at attacking Syria. Tarpley thinks they will use a scandal to replace Obama with General Petraeus, perhaps Edward Snowden will be that scandal.

Putin has drawn a line in the sand. Not only has Putin given them S300 missiles they are now getting advanced S400 missiles. Putin has also sent permanent fleet of ships to Tartus. If the lunatic Zionists still want war, it will be a nuclear one because Putin knows if Syria and Iran fall, Russia will be next.

Thanks for this link Arjay:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GF5PChW5WDY

Clare Daily certainly delivered questions of substance. Could you ever imagine one of our politicians calling the Obamas for what they are?

I still remember the sycophantic words “run the bastards over” coming from NSW premier Bob Askin when anti Vietnam war protesters lay in front of LBJ’s motorcade in Sydney. Just a few years after this event the American National Guard shot 5 uni students dead at Kent State University for protesting against the Vietnam war. Fantastic people the Romans…err, I mean Americans.

The US administration has been serving the bankers and the people from well before constitution and now they serve the bankers emissaries exclusively. Their global data bank has you and I sitting in it somewhere because of our rational observations and judgements.

Re Putin, who would have thought that Russia would be the great white hope 30 years ago.
Holding out against the Bilderbergs and the Trilateral commission. Keeping the homogeneity of their culture by not signing UN protocols. Is Russia more of a democracy than the rest of the northern hemisphere? ….Seems so.

Glad to make your day Sonofgloin. Clare Daly certainly ripped into the war mongering conservatives. There is not a polly with the intestinal fortitude here that comes close to Clare Daly.

Ray McGovern Ex-CIA says that Obama fears assassination. Apparently one of Ray's associates confronted Obama on his wars and trashing of the Constitution. Obama's reply," Don't your remember what they did to Martin Luther King Junior ?"

Notice our detractors have fallen silent.

Philip S
You are quite correct I got hacked when I was gathering evidence of the deaths in Iraq (Body Count). I did a reverse whereis, added a small snippet of code and found myself talking to the head of the IT department at MIT who did not deny "code sniffing" back then in 2000.
Remember "The truth will set you free" but so will death. Choose wisely.

"Notice our detractors have fallen silent."

That is the result when people are gobsmacked by your comments, Arjay...

Have you thought of making some money by selling your news about Putin and Soros to RT.com? They don't seem to know anything about the warrant.

It always amuses me with the MS Live Updates where is usually has a thing called "Malicious Software Removal Tool, #89713254710" - so is this:

1. A Tool to remove malicious software [ie bad guy bin Laden type], or

2. A MALICIOUS [by MS] Tool to remove your good guy [GW Bush?] software that you really wanted to use.

Divorce Doctor,
Very droll indeed.
Open the scrip up and have a look at the code. It has nothing to do with malware or virus control except to refer back to W/Defend. What it does do is reconfirm your GA and the "back door" to your machine.
Close down all updates.

I was not looking for a Dennis Nedry geek explanation but simply commenting on the same play on words Bill has used since I started my love-hate relationship with him 25 years ago.

of course that includes his jihad on Netscape that the courts were so interested in

Divorce Doctor
You mean you were once married to 'himself' hence the divorce bit.
Oh Crickey

well Chris, it's better than making 1000 gaffs

I'm outa here - catch ya

WMtrevor cannot find ref to George Soros' arrest warrant on Russia today? Try the Keiser Report on Russia Today Episode 451 30/3/13.Also is listed on dozens of other websites except for the Corp Media.

Thanks Arjay... silly me only looked at the News, Russian Politics, Business sections of RT.com and did a whole site search with the obvious combinations of keywords including Putin, Soros and warrant all with 0 results.

(Did notice google references on some of what I regard as 'chinese whisper' sites for conspiracy rumours, but it seemed such important news I was after something more, well... trustworthy.)

Didn't think to look at the opinion videos... unfortunately I keep getting "error loading media: file not found" messages for Episode 451 of the Keiser Report 29 May 2013.

BTW it doesn't even get a mention in the episode's synopsis.

I promise to give it another try tomorrow.

http://rt.com/shows/the-truthseeker/us-africa-bush-trail-359/ Prof Francis Boyle is an international criminal lawyer specialising is war crimes. He has already convicted George Bush and Dick Cheney of war crimes in a Malaysian court and they have to be careful where they travel.

In this clip Boyle says he's going to get Obama also.

Finally got around to being able to watch the episode, Arjay… and it was as I suspected.

I didn't hear one mention of Putin or George Soros in the entire episode.

Just to prove I did endure watching Keiser's check jacket with its leopard skin trim and vomitus tie, two favourite quotes are: "George Osborne is a pimp. Because he brought in austerity measures that drove down the wages and jobs in this country to the point where now millions of young British teens have had to turn themselves into prostitutes to make ends meet. So George Osborne is the biggest pimp in the history of Britain." and

"The dollar needs a prophylactic to keep it from spreading its deadly financial semen throughout the global economy and impregnating various governments with its uncontrolled and uncalled for progeny of incipient, inflationary crack-babies."

It wasn't without its genuine humour though.

His first guest, Stacy Herbert, made me laugh with her report from economist.com about the downturn in the prostitution business, "Times are tough for Debbie, a prostitute in western England who runs a private flat with other 'mature ladies'. She does two or three jobs a day. A year ago she was doing eight or nine. She has cut her prices:

"If I hadn't, I wouldn't still be open.""!

As of now – and adopting the role of Lee Mack or David Mitchell – I'm prepared to call the claims of Vladimir Putin issuing an international arrest warrant for George Soros as (dramatic pause)… a lie.