I’ll just be waiting for the ‘private emails’ of whoever created this to be leaked all over the internet if this ever succeeds.
Everything. Anything you do will be used against you at some point.
Maybe it will be breathing in public without a mask. That is to say if they find you have not purchased a government approved mask then they may come and kill you for national security reasons for trying to spread disease.
They will just make up something based on the data they have or data they make up.
Quantum computing is currently ‘black magic’ so we can’t draw any conclusions yet.
What we can determine, however, is that there is no exponential growth of doubling every 18 months, in the amount of emails / chat messages that are sent. One person can only type (or think of) so many words per day. At best there will be linear growth, but at some point growth will decline significantly.
So for communication, actual processing power will overtake required processing power eventually.
http://www.dwavesys.com/en/products-services.html
They offer Quantum computers, they dont say a price or specs just a “contact us for more info” other then
This is 2013 slides presentation?! Must be kidding.
“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” - Clarke’s Third Law
To tag onto Phased’s post: http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2013/05/24/google-nasa-computer/2358423/. Note that Lockheed has been using one for two years and is ready to bring it out of the experimental stages into production stages.
You think that chat and email is the only traffic that would need to be monitored to make this an effective program? VOIP, Images, video, audio broadcasts, data generated automatically by “smart appliances”, and any other number of network based technologies that haven’t even been invented yet will all contribute to the data that would ultimately need to be sorted and analyzed. Even if we say that data remains at the exact same volume that it is today, you will find that advances in encryption techniques do cause a rather exponential growth in computing requirements to handle. After all, you can’t analyze what you can’t decipher. 
In the end, it is an individuals responsibility to protect their data. There is no true assurance of privacy on a public network, and governments are far from the only entities potentially viewing and utilizing your data.
Yes, I think we should all be treating these U.S. based services as “espionage services”. They’re like bait in order to get your data.
Just think of these services like Dropbox and Google Drive… WHY would you ever want to store anything there when you know the U.S. government will be data mining it? And people all around the world are heavily using these U.S. based services, which is crazy IMO.
Netflix has complete profile of your viewing habits.
Gmail has all your emails.
Dropbox has all your files.
Adsense has all your web history.
Google has all your search history.
Youtube has all your viewing habits.
Amazon has your book reading habits… including when you read when using Kindle.
VISA/creditcard companies have all your shopping history.
etc. etc.
You start to wonder… why these services are all U.S. based. I often also wonder how they get money to operate, because they’re free! Is it all a big conspiracy in order to get your data? Lure us in with free candy?
Everything is fed into the Prism. What gives me some concern is that only 1/5th of the data mined by Prism is from U.S. internet service… what the heck is the other 4/5??? What are we missing? This is the most immense spy project ever created, to spy on ordinary citizens. This is so much worse than STASI.
Google gets money from ads, that’s the majority of its earnings.
Nothing else you listed is free 
If you’re not paying for it, then you’re not the customer, you’re the product.
at least you are still free to use alternatives.
what gets me personally about the slides is yahoo.
Because japanese people REALLY want privacy more than any other people, they also hate facebook, although more and more people use it today.
they also hated google streetview and those images are abysmal because of that.
point it they really want privacy and yahoo is basically the japanese google.
japanese people use yahoo search, yahoo mail and yahoo auctions instead of ebay
of course there are many many japanese only services which are popular; but yahoo is very much a core aspect.
You keep using words and comparisons that I don’t think you really grasp he meaning or gravity of.
Google along with the other service providers mentioned were not formed for the purpose of doing spying for the government, and the fact that they turn over information when compelled to by a valid warrant, something all companies are required to do by law in many countries, does not suddenly make guilty of espionage. From most reports, Google is one of the companies that actually makes the government dot their I’s and cross their T’s when it comes to data requests before they’ll act. If your definition of espionage service is a service that has ever given information to the government when legally obliged to, I think you’ll find every service is an “espionage service”.
As for the Stasi comparison, let me ask you, what are your actual dealings or encounters with the Stasi? I’m willing to bet about as much as most drunks who declare the bouncers at bars are Nazi’s when they get kicked out for causing problems. Your equivocation also suffers from the fact that the Stasi primarily spied on and intimidated the citizenry within it’s own country, it wasn’t an agency gathering foreign intelligence as it’s primary focus.
As RA pointed out nothing on your list is truly free. In the case of Google, you are the product, but your data provides far more value to them by being sold to advertisers rather than the government; after all, the government pays them nothing for it. As for why these services are based in the U.S., I would say your answer comes down to two words, Silicon Valley. And while they may be based in the U.S., their respective divisions operate under the jurisdiction of the local countries laws.
Your last paragraph comes off as ignorant. It’s not because of what you don’t know, but it’s because of what you insist you do know without actual evidence. You state “everything is fed into prism”, yet unless you are privy to some information that the rest of us don’t have yet, I seriously doubt you know the scope, much less the actual operational procedures and capabilities of the system. You even admit you have no idea of what constitutes 4/5ths of what is being monitored. My guess that the other 4/5ths would include things like cell phone communication, travel details, and other things that aren’t strictly digital based. That is purely speculation on my part though since, as stated, the full details aren’t known.
The real question though is this: do you really trust your government that blindly? You keep talking about how you would make sure that none of your countries data would pass though the evil U.S. infrastructure and instead be safe in the hands of your country. Personally I think that’s just as dangerous, and I can honestly think of no real reason why your government, or its spy agency, Icelandic Intelligence Service, should be seen as any safer than any other on the planet, or did you really believe that your country doesn’t monitor foreign data as well.
How on Earth can you not see the STASI similarities?
I’m not saying this is STASI, but unerringly similar, and even worse than STASI in some regard considering the amount of data they’re amassing at the NSA.
What was STASI? It was a security agency that carried out mass surveillance on citizens in eastern Germany and kept detailed record on each and everyone.
Now, the NSA is a security agency that CARRIES out mass surveillance on its citizens and citizens of other countries and keeps detailed data banks on each and everyone.
The only ignorance here my friend is the blind ignorance, the type the government depends on to keep up the surveillance on everyone else.
I’ve come to the realization and understanding that, if the government can technically do it, then they’re doing it. As this revelation has proved, they are data mining the primary internet services and other services. Now, they’re not doing this just to keep the data in some warehouse vault never to be used… if it was me that was working at NSA and directing the PRISM project, then I’d make sure the data could be used, it is the natural course of action, just as it seems it is the natural course of action for governments to become tyrannical and fascist.
that’s why governments need to be refreshed faster
You should be careful with what you are insinuating. There are MANY germans on this board. I’m born in Berlin myself.
And just what am I insinuating other than someone who is listed as being from Iceland may not have quite the grasp on what it was like to actually live under the Stasi in East Germany? Is my pointing out that the comparison between the Stasi and NSA is not exactly an apples to apples comparison really running the risk of offending German members on the board? I find the ease of which labels such as N@zi (apparently a no-no word on the board), or Stasi, or here in the good old USofA, racist are used far more offensive since their overuse and context of use tends to gloss over the very serious actions and genuine evil of their origins. I say this as the grandson of immigrants from Prussia by the way.
Are you really advocating a “Hitler wore pants” equivalnecy here? You’re not saying “this is the Stasi”, you’re declaring “this is worse than the Stasi”. Similar does not mean equal not worse than, nor even better than. Water and liquid cyanide are very similar. They’re both clear, and wet, and used in industrial settings, but the similarities don’t put them on the same hazard level.
So tell me, how much data exactly is being collected by the NSA (feel free to round to the nearest Terabyte or Petabyte). Here’s an easier one, how much of your data has been collected by the NSA. The answer is, neither you, nor I know. So what evidence do we have. Looking at the Prism slides, I don’t see evidence that everything is being collected en masse. As I’ve mentioned before, the word “request” is a big give away that that they’re not as deeply entrenched as you think. I need not make a request for something that I control; I simply do what I want and believe it or not, Google and the rest don’t tend to care for government intrusion into it’s data centers any more than you do.
I’m aware of what the Stasi was. The Stasi also existed with the complete endorsement and support of the East German and Soviet government. In the case of the NSA, abuses can be and are often called out by other members of the government. Funny thing about a co-equal form of government, none of the branches wants to cede it’s authority to the other branches. In this case it’s the judicial branch and the legislative acting as a check on the executive branch. As for the repeated statement that the NSA keeps tabs on everyone, please present some actual hard evidence to back up your blanket assertion.
The main problem with this is that the “technically can do it” part in regards to collect, analyze, and store everything that comes through the wire aspect. To give an idea of the amount and size of average traffic over the Internet, I’ll refer you to http://www.cisco.com/en/US/solutions/collateral/ns341/ns525/ns537/ns705/ns827/VNI_Hyperconnectivity_WP.html. No matter how you cut it, the amount of data becomes impractical to collect, much less analyze and warehouse, rather quickly. Currently there is more speculation than hard evidence which is usually a good sign that the sky probably isn’t falling.
You can look up what STASI was on wikipedia, you don’t actually have had to lived under them for you to draw up a comparison. Are you not allowed to talk about anything unless you lived it? Surely would put history teachers out of work. The people of east germany got plenty of proof once the berlin wall fell, people were able to visit the stasi archives to see what had been documented about them. Perhaps some day you’ll have that chance.
And regarding internet traffic… they’re only mining the parts that matter, not video sharing, p2p, or downloading which represents roughly 2/3 of all packets on the internet. The bytes that represent emails, social networking etc. are trivial and can be easily digested by the world’s superpower that spends billions for that purpose and employs thousands for that purpose. Do you think those huge NSA houses are empty?
But anyway, don’t let me disturb your patriotic flag saluting.
Sure, if all you’re using the term for is shock value, wikipedia certainly serves your needs just fine I guess. Your comparison boils down to “the Stazi spied on people, so did the NSA, therefore they’re equivalent” which is no different than “Hitler wore pants, my neighbor wears pants, therefore my neighbor is equivalent to Hitler”. You do nothing but cheapen the experience of people who suffered under the actual Stasi by using it in a hyperbolic fashion.
No, you don’t have to live through something to talk about it, but if you’re going to talk about it, you should at least have a firmer grasp on the overall context before attempting to draw historical parallels. You also have to have something a bit more than a lot of conjecture and assumptions about the modern thing you’re trying to compare. If a history teacher doesn’t have those two things as factors in their lessons, then they certainly should be put put of work.
As for evidence of the Stazi, the East Germans already had plenty of it before reunification. The Stazi’s purpose was intimidation to keep the populace in line. It’s actions were fully sanctioned by the East German government. The Stazi was not a secret organization. Your outrage started about your data being spied on, so please don’t feign concern for mine all of a sudden.
As I said before I have no expectations of privacy on a public network. If the government isn’t looking, somebody else probably is. Either way, if you are using the Internet to transmit something that you feel is so vital that it must not be seen, take some initiative, and use the many encryption and secure connection technologies available. Don’t want Google to have your data, run your own mail server and never send anything to anybody with a Gmail address or search with Google. Don’t want ad-sense tracking you, run an ad-blocker and set your browser to block cookies. if you don’t want your international correspondence by mail read, encode your writings with a one time pad. Hell, there could be some money in that if you figured out how to practically apply it to digital transmissions. It’s impossible to crack if done correctly. Securing your data isn’t a 3rd party providers responsibility beyond cursory measures, it’s certainly not the job of any government since if they’re responsible for securing it, they can just as quickly make it unsecure, it’s yours.
That’s not what most of this thread seems to say. If you look at the first slide you posted, you’ll clearly see listed ,among other things on the left under “What You’ll Receive In Collection”, videos and file transfers (which doesn’t seem to rule out p2p in any sort of way). Techniques such as Steganography and technologies like slow scan TV mean that many different forms of information can be hidden in varying types of information packets. All parts potentially matter.
You’ve lost me here. I’m honestly not sure which video you’re referring to. I’ve re-watched the video of the analyst and saw no slides. Either way your point about the ease of processing emails and social network postings as trivial is kind of nullified since I’ve pointed out that the slides do indeed talk about video and file transfers and a lot of other data being part of the collection.
I don’t believe I’ve ever said the NSA buildings were empty, so I don’t know what your argument is there. What I have said is that putting aside the sensationalism and taking a pragmatic view based on what is actually known, not assumed, Collection, classification, and long term storage of every bit of data flowing through U.S. boarders is most likely not feasible due to both storage and computational considerations. What the slides do seem to indicate is that there is not a direct pipe into the servers and that data must still be requested.
That might have had some actual weight when you say it save for the fact that earlier in the thread you seemed to express that you feel your data would be secure if only it could be kept in your country while seemingly missing the point that all governments spy on data. Your country is no more or less trustworthy or resistant to corruption than any other country. If you consider saying all governments spy and that the capabilities of Prism are probably being overestimated as patriotic flag saluting, that’s your right. I’m just waiting for it to dawn on you how many governments other than the U.S. are also looking at your data. Like the second slide points out, packets take the cheapest, not the most direct route. Route costs change all the time so it’s hard to tell where your packets are visiting on the way to their destination. Maybe I’m the one being paranoid though. I mean countries like China or Russia would have no desire or capability of doing the same things, right?
The strange thing to me is that people assume that they have privacy on the internet in the first place…
You’re using a carrier service and accessing and submitting data to servers not owned and controlled by you, what makes you think that your data is safe and private (apart from ‘good-will’)?
Think about the data you submit to most sites you sign up to. Name, location, birthday, email address, password, etc.??? Do you use a different username and password combination for each site you sign up to? Do you know who owns and manages the site? Can you trust them? Are they a rogue living in their mother’s basement who will use your data for all kinds of nasty purposes? Potentially.
Approach the internet with the idea that anything you do can and will be observed by others. This could be extended to all communication methods. It’s a risk we all take when we decide to use it.
As for the issue of governments snooping on your info and communications… well as others have pointed out, it’s nothing new, and it’s not limited to the US. Get up to no good and chances are an intelligence service somewhere will be interested in you, and will start watching your every move.
Apart from the obvious negatives and the fact that none of us like being watched; spying, snooping and all that business has actually prevented quite a lot of bad shyte happening in the past too, and has saved lives. (Admittedly it has also been misused and abused).
At the end of the day, do you think your government is really interested in you and your habits? Do they care if you like your women the same as your coffee? Are they concerned that you bought some fancy lingerie off eBay last night? Probably not. And if your government really turns rogue and starts unfairly using your information against you, thats when it’s time to start kicking arse and stand up against them. In the meantime, welcome to the internet; relax, unless you are one of those aforementioned people that is up to no good, in which case don’t use the internet.
Interestingly, this message was posted through the Great Firewall of China.
Skepticism is all fair and good, but lack of imagination is not. Foxnews has published this article which includes an estimate of the size of the datacenter.
5 zetabytes surpasses annual IP traffic by far.
“Annual global IP traffic will pass the zettabyte threshold by the end of 2015, and will reach 1.4 zettabytes per year by 2017.”
This means they can essentially make hard-copy of all IP packets on the internet, and then some.
I’m all on the stasi side of the argument, but I’d never quote FoxNews on… well… anything.
1,250,000 million disks spread over 5,000 servers, that’s 2,500 disks per server.
Nuff said.