MO: Revealed: Hundreds of words to avoid using online if you don't want the government spying on you

[Popeman38]

I imagine things would be filtered automatically so that the amount of data was reduced as much as possible. I don't think they want anywhere near "every" piece of electronic data.

You do realize that in order to filter something, you must first capture/process that something.

And working in telecom, we are always running into processing power and speed issues. The need for more powerful and faster processing to handle higher traffic demands while staying within the capital restraints in business today is a problem for the companies handling the traffic - trust me. Consumers want bigger and faster with reduced cost. Telecom want bigger and faster with reduced cost. Yet the vendors can't keep up. But somehow the govt has it all figured out? Please. It is nice that some people believe it, including the bad guys. But reality isn't fantasy land...

[Destino]

You do realize that in order to filter something, you must first capture/process that something.

And working in telecom, we are always running into processing power and speed issues. The need for more powerful and faster processing to handle higher traffic demands while staying within the capital restraints in business today is a problem for the companies handling the traffic - trust me. Consumers want bigger and faster with reduced cost. Telecom want bigger and faster with reduced cost. Yet the vendors can't keep up. But somehow the govt has it all figured out? Please. It is nice that some people believe it, including the bad guys. But reality isn't fantasy land...

Would your telecom consider dropping a few billion dollars on solving that problem without giving a damn if it reduced costs or returned a profit? The government would.

I'm not saying I believe any of this but the cost argument isn't persuasive especially for something of this magnitude.

[AsburySkinsFan]

You do realize that in order to filter something, you must first capture/process that something.

And working in telecom, we are always running into processing power and speed issues. The need for more powerful and faster processing to handle higher traffic demands while staying within the capital restraints in business today is a problem for the companies handling the traffic - trust me. Consumers want bigger and faster with reduced cost. Telecom want bigger and faster with reduced cost. Yet the vendors can't keep up. But somehow the govt has it all figured out? Please. It is nice that some people believe it, including the bad guys. But reality isn't fantasy land...

It would seem to me that you think this is all smoke and mirrors...that there is now in Utah a complex which needs enough electricity to power 65,000 homes being built to play World of Warcraft because the electronic spying they openly admit to doing is not possible. Either they're lying about what their capabilities are (mind you that's one hell of an expensive con job) or you don't know what they can and can't do.

I'm reminded of when the government finally showed off the SR-71 Blackbird in the mid 80's, everyone thought it was on the cutting edge...but in reality it had been operational for nearly 20 years.

[Popeman38]

Would your telecom consider dropping a few billion dollars on solving that problem without giving a damn if it reduced costs or returned a profit? The government would.

I'm not saying I believe any of this but the cost argument isn't persuasive especially for something of this magnitude.

But the govt doesn't have access to telecom. It isn't like Iran or Pakistan or China where the govt has access to all access points and can shut down the internet. Verizon owns its backbone. AT&T owns its backbone. Century Link owns its backbone. Without the cooperation of the telecom, the govt can't access these backbones. Hell, the govt BUYS internet access from telecom. If they could do all of these fancy things, why do we have to go light their buildings and PROVIDE them with service? I mean seriously, our govt can't keep an intel analyst from leaking hundreds of thousands of classified documents on the small intranet they actually own (contracted out to a telecom BTW), but they can somehow manage to access, filter and store all traffic on the internet? Just think about the scale for a minute. I don't think some of you truly understand how many bits flow across a single providers circuits every day. Multiply that by about 50, and there you have the volume for the US only. It is literally impossible to do what this article claims, on many different levels.

[Koolblue13]

Yeah, it's unpossible and we should all just drop it.

[Popeman38]

It would seem to me that you think this is all smoke and mirrors...that there is now in Utah a complex which needs enough electricity to power 65,000 homes being built to play World of Warcraft because the electronic spying they openly admit to doing is not possible. Either they're lying about what their capabilities are (mind you that's one hell of an expensive con job) or you don't know what they can and can't do.

Yep, I was only stationed at Ft Meade and working as a SIGINT analyst 3 years leading up to and during the Iraq invasion. I have seen the innerworkings of this agency you guys swear has this ridiculous capability. I know more than the average bear., and more than you know based on web searches and magazine articles. What is described is no more possible than a single human using a straw to drink the contents of the Great Lakes without taking a breath.

And then I ETS'ed and started working for the telecom industry (pure coincidence actually, a head hunter called me and offered a job; originally was gonna go the contractor route but the wife and I decided one contractor was enough and the stability offered outweighed the extra pay; took me a while to adjust considering I knew less than nothing about telecom). Now I have a pretty good handle on the industry, and what is and isn't happening with network traffic and how it is being routed.

---------- Post added May-31st-2012 at 06:31 PM ----------

Yeah, it's unpossible and we should all just drop it.

Can our govt, with the flip of a switch, turn off the internet? If the answer is no, then the govt doesn't have access to every bit flowing across the internet. It isn't a difficult concept.

[Koolblue13]

I wonder if the government or anonymous is closer to being able to shut it down.