OT: NSA has access to every version of Windows made

greenspun.com : LUSENET : TimeBomb 2000 (Y2000) : One Thread

http://www.cryptonym.com/hottopics/msft-nsa.html

Basically, this article says that Microsoft built a backdoor into Windows specifically for the NSA. Just another reason to choose Linux.

-- John Ainsworth (ainsje@cstone.net), September 03, 1999

Answers

Are you saying the movie "The Net" was art imitating life?

bummer

-- Mumsie (Shezdremn@aol.com), September 03, 1999.


Told you all so.

If we dodge the Y2K bullet -- I'm going Linux (OS) and AMD (processor).

-- vbProg (vbProg@MicrosoftAndIntelSuck.com), September 03, 1999.


I worked in intelligence for a while (very low level), enough to know that basically, information the government wants to get from you, they can get. Its not hard. You don't have the resources to resist, IMO.

For example, there is a device that if aimed at one of your windows will allow the user to hear everything said in the house. The government protects itself (in certain buildings, anyway) by putting wires carrying the vibrations of music or radio programs in the window. A private citizen can't afford this kind of thing, especially because there are many other methods that can be used instead.

However, I'm not sure people need to be that paranoid right now. We have at least two protections against invasion of privacy for nefarious purposes by the government, barring a major effort of some kind, which could not be covered up at all: 1) anonymity 2) information overload.

Most people just aren't important enough to keep track of or investigate (it costs a lot of money). Most people, regardless of their opinions, just aren't a threat to the PTB, and so their lives are safe from intrusion because the government just doesn't care (280 million people living in the US---you're just one).

If you start making a bomb, or ally with a large group of people, and are one of the leaders, well, maybe then you're a threat. If you make the bomb out of fertilizer, it is probably going to be hard to catch you beforehand--other materials are relatively easy to track. And maybe if you happen to witness something you shouldn't you'd be a target...although a smear campaign would probably be more effective and easier even then.

The other thing is that intelligence collection capabilities are so good that information overload becomes a limiting factor. Its like using a microcope. The analysis works best when focused on a small area. As you focus more closely, your field of view becomes smaller. With a lot of data, it is hard to get to the important facts, and there has to be a preexisting reason to choose one person, out of all the people around, to focus on.

Profiling people (as sellers like Amazon.com do for legitimate purposes of marketing already) would of course be effective if a program of extermination or persecution of certain groups were planned (like Hitler did to the Jews--and he had much less technology). This is effective against groups, though, and not really against individuals. The MO of the government would have to change in a very drastic way to allow this kind of thing to be used against people, because it is so large scale.

Another non-technology intensive method to identify people exists, of course. "The Running Man" and "America's Most Wanted" are examples of this very useful technique. If you can enlist the aid of most of the population against an individual or small group, it could be extremely effective. You would have to have widespread support for what you are doing--in effect, the population would become the governments eyes and ears.

As a Christian, here are some things I keep in mind about this kind of thing:

1) In the book of Daniel, God reveals that He is soveriegn. He controls who leads, even in non-Christian nations.

Dan 4:17 ...the holy ones declare the verdict, so that the living may know that the Most High is sovereign over the kingdoms of men and gives them to anyone he wishes and sets over them the lowliest of men.'

God often gives people the kinds of rulers they want. In America, we see this clearly--the people choose the leaders they want, through either inaction (failing to vote at all) or action (voting for bad leaders because they've been promised something).

2) At some point, those who follow Jesus Christ will be delivered, by God, into the hand of an evil world ruler (and we don't have one yet...). God decides when this is to happen, not any human group or person.

And for Christians, death is not the worst thing. Being unfaithful is the worst thing. Death is our entry into life the way it should be lived, release from this world where we are strangers and aliens, and time to receive our reward for a life lived to the glory of God.

Rev 13:5-10 5 The beast was given a mouth to utter proud words and blasphemies and to exercise his authority for forty-two months. 6 He opened his mouth to blaspheme God, and to slander his name and his dwelling place and those who live in heaven. 7 He was given power to make war against the saints and to conquer them. And he was given authority over every tribe, people, language and nation. 8 All inhabitants of the earth will worship the beast-- all whose names have not been written in the book of life belonging to the Lamb that was slain from the creation of the world. 9 He who has an ear, let him hear. 10 If anyone is to go into captivity, into captivity he will go. If anyone is to be killed with the sword, with the sword he will be killed. This calls for patient endurance and faithfulness on the part of the saints.

Technology good enough to do this has been around for a long, long time, if the aid of most of the rest of the population (who worship the beast) was enlisted against Christians or anyone else who refused to worship the beast. The reason it hasn't happened yet is that it is not God's time for the final act of history to take place, not because the governments of the world aren't technically capable of it.



-- S. Kohl (kohl@hcpd.com), September 09, 1999.


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