Patent to ID physical address of Web surfers

[Keith]

National Security Agency gets fix on Internet users

Top secret group applies for patent to ID physical address of Web surfers

Posted: September 25, 2005

1:00 a.m. Eastern

Internet users hoping to protect their privacy by using anti-virus software, Web anonymizers, false identities and disabled cookies on their computer's Web browser have something new to worry about

[M45510G1C]

Those silly old boys at Ft. Meade, when will they just give it up?

"BTW, I learned a lovely new acronym today: "Law Enforcement Agency Key" -- LEAK."

---Charles H. Lindsey

[other one]

I'd tell them if they'd ask......

[nebula]

Yeah . . . yeah . . .

NSA is always the bad guy . . . .

Why doesnt someone just blow up my hometown and get rid of all the evil perpetrators that live here.

[waygate]

I'm pretty sure there is far more to it than they are telling you. They could play with TTL and other switches on the packet. Anyway, I don't like the NSA because I don't like the government knowing about me.

[Leonard]

Just something else for the Bureau of Nosey Statistics.......

[nebula]

The agency has come under fire in the past for spying on American citizens. In the 1970s, the agency was forced to admit that it had used its eavesdropping equipment against Jane Fonda and other anti-Vietnam War activists. The revelation led to a 1978 law banning spying by the agency on U.S. citizens and resident aliens anywhere.

In 2000, following reports revealing the existence of Echelon, a massive data-mining project that filtered electronic and voice communications around the world, then director of the National Security Agency, Air Force Lt. Gen. Michael Hayden, and his boss, CIA Director George Tenet, assured Congress, "We protect the rights of Americans and their privacy. We do not violate them and we never will."

Why are you guys convinced the NSA is the bad guy?

[M45510G1C]

Yeah . . . yeah . . .

NSA is always the bad guy . . . .

Why doesnt someone just blow up my hometown and get rid of all the evil perpetrators that live here.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Hey! thats my hometown too ya know!

Why are you guys convinced the NSA is the bad guy?

That is such a difficult question to answer Neb. (Speaking for myself). If you aren't involved in the cryptography scene its kinda difficult to articulate it as there are issues present that you are unlikely even aware of. In a nutshell, very oversimplified, what it boils down to is that I feel that I have a right (guranteed by the fourth amendment) to store my data in any way I so choose, encrypted, decrypted, compressed, whatever. The NSA is in strong disagreement with that opinion. As evidenced by the following quote:

"Legality? That particular aspect didn't enter into the discussions."

-- Benson K Buffham, Deputy Director NSA when questioned by the Senate Church Committee about domestic monitoring

I deal with computers, they're what I do and I feel that telling me that I cannot store my data however I may choose (in many cases this will cause security compromises) is akin to telling you that you may not store your valuables in a safe because the NSA is unable to see throught the material of which the safe is composed, and you may very well be hiding weapons of mass destruction in there.

We might as well all start living naked and in glass houses.

There are of course many many other issues surrounding crypto and the US gov't's policy regarding it, policies which by and large have been implemented at the behest of the NSA. This is just the most personal.

"The law does not allow me to testify on any aspect of the National Security Agency, even to the Senate Intelligence Committee."

-- General Allen, Director of the NSA, 1975

Quis Custodiet Ipsos Custodes?

[Gerioke]

I guess this would eliminate all of us malcontents who think that the people in power are a bunch of boobs.

Did I say that?

I think I hear someone at the door. Hey who are those guys in the black suits?

[Abigailwc]

This will be very helpful when the World leader will need to know where the christians are hiding.

.... getting closer to the end ....