[jr2]

Yeah, that is pretty ironic.  Pretty pathetic, too, show a spine. 

[Grizzly]

The problem is that, currently, if any EU country would host some of these men, the US would simply economically sanction these countries to death. However, both Russia and China are either too important to try and economically sanction, or are already economically sanctioned, or are not affected by them nearly as much as, say, The Netherlands is.

[Dragon]

Well, the only other options would be US-unfriendly Arab countries (risky idea for a non-Arab, though they'd probably love to screw with US), North Korea (bad idea, regardless of ethnicity or religion) or complete wilderness (quite useless for a whistleblower, when you think of it). Really, considering the other countries he could've gone to, Russia comes out as pretty good regarding free speech.

[Ghostavo]

I have little sympathy for those who shelter themselves in Russian territory or russian media, as if the Putin guy is this freedom-of-speech go-to-guy.

It's as if they don't give a **** about the innumerous reporters that were put to death by the russian regime the past 15 years by now.

Or take the first three words of that sentence out, probably more true.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/jul/13/reuters-article-dead-man-s-switch

The US government has acted with wild irrationality. The current criticism of Snowden is that he's in Russia. But the reason he's in Russia isn't that he chose to be there. It's because the US blocked him from leaving: first by revoking his passport (with no due process or trial), then by pressuring its allies to deny airspace rights to any plane they thought might be carrying him to asylum (even one carrying the democratically elected president of a sovereign state), then by bullying small countries out of letting him land for re-fueling.

[Bobboau]

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/11/27/nsa-spied-porn-habits/3765279/

basically THE thing that people have been worried about. collecting porn habits to use as blackmail against people they don't like.

[Dragon]

And we're back to Rule 34... In all seriousness though, this is a bit of a concern. Though I don't think there's anything wrong with watching porn online, but many people do, and it's not usually spoken about openly. Especially in highly religious communities, this could be a lot of trouble. Also, why is NSA messing with foreign citizens' data? Isn't that CIA's job?
I imagine this could be put to good use, though. Pedophiles could probably be found using similar methods.

[Nuke]

i used to think like that, then i caught my mom watching german lesbian porn. so ive come to the conclusion that everyone watches porn.

[Nuke]

this is awesome

http://hackaday.com/2013/11/28/scaremail-tries-to-disrupt-nsa-email-surveillance/

troll the nsa!

[Aardwolf]

Yay Bobboau for posting that story And not delayed many months like some of the discussions on these forums (e.g. this thread... people elsewhere were talking about "NSA ruined the Internet" months ago!) The jokes-to-seriousness ratio of the commentary I've seen about this is infuriating 

This is the hard counter to the "if you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear" argument:

• It's legal
• You're not hurting anybody
• It's actually good for you
• You still don't want other people to know about it

. . .

I spent an hour writing stuff between the above list and this bit, but then I got this feeling like I'm creating and disassembling an army of straw men, and the only people who disagree with me are the ones who aren't in the room.




@Dragon: The consumers of child pornography are not your enemy. Having porn available means they will keep it in their pants, in their homes.

[Dragon]

Note, looking at child porn alone shouldn't be taken as an evidence for immediate arrest. However, it should be a cue for closer monitoring and making sure the actually keep it in their pants. As long as there's nothing besides looking at child porn, no worries. But think about it, some people have to make child porn and upload it. And those should be dealt with accordingly. Also, I think that interest in child porn would be a really good basis to deny someone a job that involves extensive contact with children. In matters like that, you can't take chances.

i used to think like that, then i caught my mom watching german lesbian porn. so ive come to the conclusion that everyone watches porn.

Yes, everybody does. Yet, a lot of people seems to be against it, including the same ones railing about the evils of pornography. It'd be nice if they all just stopped trying to fool themselves and other people, but religious communities seems to have a big problem with that.

[Mikes]

Let's not forget the danger of possible components built into the hardware they might be using.  Like hardware keyloggers?

You mean someone playing their own game better than they are?

This asks for another question:

The NSA had their Snowden. How many companies/agencies/organizations pulled off the same stuff, but got away with it because nobody spoke up?

Those super cyber attacks as seen on Live Free or Die Hard or National Geographic's American Blackout, might actually be waiting to happen. If the whole internet has holes in it, that would include power plants, traffic control systems and everything else computerized and networked.

Kinda ironic ... and also the last fig leaf the NSA had left: They can't even say anymore they are doing what they are doing to protect us from the evil terrorists (TM) - the contrary if any of this is true.

[BengalTiger]

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/11/27/nsa-spied-porn-habits/3765279/

basically THE thing that people have been worried about. collecting porn habits to use as blackmail against people they don't like.

If we assume it's only the NSA that managed to drill a hole in the internet, there's the possibility of rogue/corrupted NSA employees, or even of rogue/corrupt politicians who tell the NSA what to do to get secret stuff published.
If someone pays enough they might be able to blackmail their competition/rivals/enemies/ex-wife, knowing what sort of porn sites the person visits.

It's possible the US might one day become the opposite of what it was founded to be.
If the government figures it's cool to have a dictatorship, it could discredit all opponents by publishing the porn sites they visit...

Not to mention millions of hackers who are probably trying to find these exploits for $#!+s and giggles.
If one of them finds and publishes them, and a single person who wants to watch the world burn learns of them, we're in deep $#!+. What happens when Obama's porn habits are exposed?

P.S. What if they are not the only people who hacked the whole internet? What if the others figured out the passwords to power grid or major some bank's admin and maintenance accounts?

[Dragon]

What people need to do is to get over the fact people watch porn. Why do I care what are Obama's preferences? I have my own. Nothing wrong with watching porn as long as there are no children in it. When you think of it, that the fact of watching porn has anything to do with one's credibility is pretty stupid, unless that person stated to have something against porn.

[redsniper]

It's possible the US might one day become the opposite of what it was founded to be.

one day

I've got some bad news for you.

[Aardwolf]

@redsniper: Yeah I was gonna say that, but my first draft looked more like a flame than a useful post...

[BengalTiger]

What people need to do is to get over the fact people watch porn. Why do I care what are Obama's preferences? I have my own. Nothing wrong with watching porn as long as there are no children in it. When you think of it, that the fact of watching porn has anything to do with one's credibility is pretty stupid, unless that person stated to have something against porn.

Replace "porn" with "bank account access", "Iran invasion plans", "nuclear launch codes", "the stuff about stealth tech that China really wants to know about" or whatever else that might be transferred on the internet, on purpose or due to a screw up.
Replace "NSA" with "Anyone who might access this info exploiting the NSA's security holes and use it for personal gain".

I used porn, because it's already published that the NSA is doing it.
I wrote NSA, because so far they're the only people who (officially) know about how exactly their back doors to the internet work.

[Luis Dias]

Again, if you have nothing to hide, what's the big deal? Just bend the **** over, let us rape your privacy and we promise that it will take just a minute or so.

It's not as if we'll ever use it nefariously, come on. Don't you know history? What was the last time any security force ever abused people anyway?