[Everything Goes]

Fed up with the NSA monitoring your activities? Well Phil Zimmermann who came up with PGP several years ago has been working on making mobile communications more secure.

Quote:

Dubbed Blackphone the handset runs a hardened version of Android called PrivatOS that has been developed by Phil Zimmermann and Jon Callas, formerly of PGP. The mobe can make standard phone calls, but will include Silent Circle's apps to encrypt messages and voice and video chat, plus secure file sharing and anonymized VPN sessions.

Angela Merkel may be interested

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/01...ed_blackphone/

[jabbamk1]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Everything Goes

Angela Merkel may be interested

I'll ask Obama about her opinion on the phone...

[Everything Goes]

Quote:

Originally Posted by jabbamk1

I'll ask Obama about her opinion on the phone...

Yes he will be the first to know

[enapace]

I can't see how this fixes the problem surely the metadata can still be collected from the operators.

[Rodney McKay]

Quote:

Originally Posted by enapace

I can't see how this fixes the problem surely the metadata can still be collected from the operators.

Exactly, the data can simply be intercepted down the line elsewhere, you either need a totally secure system and even then the NSA could physically tap the fibre optics or just don't send data over any network. Carrier Pigeons are good.

[klendathu]

Gimmick nonsense

[johnathome]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rodney McKay

Carrier Pigeons are good.

I've thought about that but the NSA could shoot them down or use a Hawk, and then find out i want to meet my mate at 7 for a beer.

Is nothing secret anymore

[Axtol]

Quote:

Originally Posted by johnathome

I've thought about that but the NSA could shoot them down or use a Hawk, and then find out i want to meet my mate at 7 for a beer.

Is nothing secret anymore

That's not a good way to look at it. The first thing that has to be said to anyone who even thinks of saying "I have nothing to hide" is what makes you confident that a government won't decide something you do is wrong even if you don't think it is wrong? You phone your mate to arrange going for a beer. At some time in the future a government may decide that being gay is now illegal and that gays should be rounded up and jailed. How do they identify these "criminals" and find out other gay people connected with them. Your phone records to your mate are mistaken as being the actions of a gay couple organizing a secret rendezvous. Even if you are gay that's not wrong but if a government decided it was then they have the surveillance capability to track you down and use anything you have ever done against you.

There is a place for organizations like the NSA but first they need regulation and second they need a fundamental change in how they operate. They should selectively target people based on probable cause and get warrants for doing it. Mass surveillance actually endangers national security so every time someone uses tor or a vpn to shield their internet activity they are doing their bit to keep the country safe. I have no illegal activity to hide on letters I send to people but I still mail them in envelopes instead of postcards because I don't want random people reading private mail.

[johnathome]

Totally agree with you, i was just being flippant.

I try to tell other people about their data being intercepted but, to a person, they say 'i don't have anything to hide' or 'i don't do anything illegal'

Governments love it when the population thinks 'i've not done anything wrong so i have nothing to fear.

Dictators and murderous regimes throughout history have abused that mindset of the populace because, they're right they haven't done anything wrong, until the Government decides what they've been doing was wrong after all.

People are, through apathy, letting the creeping big brother state organise and grow more powerful.
By the time people wake up and realise whats been going on it'll be too late and everything you do will be tracked.

Non-violent political activists are already on a domestic terrorist list.

Democracy ain't going the way it should.

[Everything Goes]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Axtol

That's not a good way to look at it. The first thing that has to be said to anyone who even thinks of saying "I have nothing to hide" is what makes you confident that a government won't decide something you do is wrong even if you don't think it is wrong? You phone your mate to arrange going for a beer. At some time in the future a government may decide that being gay is now illegal and that gays should be rounded up and jailed. How do they identify these "criminals" and find out other gay people connected with them. Your phone records to your mate are mistaken as being the actions of a gay couple organizing a secret rendezvous. Even if you are gay that's not wrong but if a government decided it was then they have the surveillance capability to track you down and use anything you have ever done against you.

There is a place for organizations like the NSA but first they need regulation and second they need a fundamental change in how they operate. They should selectively target people based on probable cause and get warrants for doing it. Mass surveillance actually endangers national security so every time someone uses tor or a vpn to shield their internet activity they are doing their bit to keep the country safe. I have no illegal activity to hide on letters I send to people but I still mail them in envelopes instead of postcards because I don't want random people reading private mail.

Indeed they are the tools of tyranny. While the present governments are fairly innocuous it would only take some nut case to be put in charge and it would become a tool to easily seek out people you see as undesirable. Just think how Hitler would have used this

[johnathome]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Everything Goes

Indeed they are the tools of tyranny. While the present governments are fairly innocuous it would only take some nut case to be put in charge and it would become a tool to easily seek out people you see as undesirable. Just think how Hitler would have used this

Look what happened before Edward Snowden broke cover.

Theresa May was trying to pass a bill through parliament to intercept everyones phone and internet data.
We know now she was trying to make it legal and they were doing it anyway.

[nafanny29]

My conversations will put the most diehard sky to sleep!!

[Everything Goes]

First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out-- Because I was not a Socialist.

Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out-- Because I was not a Trade Unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out-- Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me--and there was no one left to speak for me.

(Martin Niemöller)

[swordman]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Axtol

That's not a good way to look at it. The first thing that has to be said to anyone who even thinks of saying "I have nothing to hide" is what makes you confident that a government won't decide something you do is wrong even if you don't think it is wrong? You phone your mate to arrange going for a beer. At some time in the future a government may decide that being gay is now illegal and that gays should be rounded up and jailed. How do they identify these "criminals" and find out other gay people connected with them. Your phone records to your mate are mistaken as being the actions of a gay couple organizing a secret rendezvous. Even if you are gay that's not wrong but if a government decided it was then they have the surveillance capability to track you down and use anything you have ever done against you.

There is a place for organizations like the NSA but first they need regulation and second they need a fundamental change in how they operate. They should selectively target people based on probable cause and get warrants for doing it. Mass surveillance actually endangers national security so every time someone uses tor or a vpn to shield their internet activity they are doing their bit to keep the country safe. I have no illegal activity to hide on letters I send to people but I still mail them in envelopes instead of postcards because I don't want random people reading private mail.

if homosexuality is deemed illegal for some reason I think there will be far more pressing issues than being snooped upon. By the way don't you know that all mail is x rayed to catch people like you? The NSA are also monitoring this post and know who you are.

[Axtol]

Quote:

Originally Posted by swordman

if homosexuality is deemed illegal for some reason I think there will be far more pressing issues than being snooped upon. By the way don't you know that all mail is x rayed to catch people like you? The NSA are also monitoring this post and know who you are.

There will be very pressing issues mainly that because of all that data GCHQ has gathered it will be very easy for them to find out who is doing what. Even "just" metadata can be used to build up a map of someones social connections.

What do you mean "to catch people like you" catch me doing what sending and receiving mail in the post? I wasn't aware that was an offence. The NSA could certainly find out who I am but I can at least not hand it to them on a plate. As I have said I think the way they should work is targeting specific people and using their monitoring abilities on those specific targets. If everyone makes it as difficult as possible for the intelligence agencies to find out who they are this would force them to go back to a system of selecting specific targets and only monitoring them because they just couldn't have a dragnet if we were all privacy conscious.