Posts by Matt Bryant

Leaked docs: NSA 'Follow the money' team slurped BANK records, CREDIT CARD data

Re: AC Re: Hmmmm....

"....So make your own conclusion as to how safe AES is." If they have a hack into the systems then they are probably looking at the data before encryption is applied.

Re: chris lively

"The only surprise here is the statement that the db only had 180 million records....." Gee, could that be because it is a very targeted system and they are not looking at EVERYONE's transcations as the sheeple want to baaah-lieve?

Re: skelband

".....Visa being pretty cagey there." For decades, even before the advent of electronic terminals and swipe cards, VISA was providing info to their own fraud investigators, let alone the FBI and Secret Service. Data on where you had shopped, when, what you bought and how much it cost was chucked into a database long before market trend analysis was a even buzzphrase. VISA did it so they could track fraudulent use of their cards. Just how much data they looked at and on who VISA would probably not like to discuss openly.

One year to go: Can Scotland really declare gov IT independence?

My solution.....

Let the Scots have their resolution, then - at the last minute - just sell it to Larry Ellison!

Re: AC Re: EU

"Since the UK as it was recognised when it joined the EU (or Common Market as was) would effectively cease to exist if Scotland left...." Wrong, Scotland is leaving the UK, the UK is not ceasing to exist.

Re: Spiracle Re: English Independence

"As Wales isn't mentioned in the Act of Union...." Maybe we can make it a condition of the devolution that the Scots have to take Wales as well?

Only half-joking.

Re: John 110 Re: Lot of interesting comments there

".....if Scots felt like valued and equal partners in the "United" Kingdom, then we wouldn't want independence....." It's more a case of the Scottish Nationalists wanting independence for independence's sake DESPITE having been treated as equal partners. After all, in amongst the millions of Scots that have taken up residence and employment in the rUK, we even let a few of your politicians have the PM job (Gordon Brown being the worst, closely followed by born-in-Scotland Tony Blair), so it's not like you can claim you are discriminated against. The majority of the "slights" the Nationalists whine on about happened centuries ago.

".....Oh and I agree with the guy up there that pointed out that power for our data centres will be the least of our worries...." Yeah, but all your (hydor-electric power) bases are belong to us, or at least not to you. Even Scottish Power (which is owned by Spanish utilities company Iberdrola) is regsitered on the UK Stock Exchange as a London-based company, so even after devolution, unless Salmond tries the silliness of nationalisation, electricity generation will not be under your control.

Re: Johnie Thicko

".....So you're OK with the next generation British Nuclear Deterrent sitting a whole lot closer to your front door then?...." Yes, it makes bugger all difference. If there is a period of tension when a nuke strike is likely the subs will be out at sea (probably hiding under the polar icecap). And if there is an accident then it's effects would still be felt in the rUK even if it happened in Scotland. By the way, how many accidents have there been and how many fatalities in RN nuke subs compared to boring old UK power stations?

I'm sure the other ports in the rUK would welcome the added employment. HMNB Portsmouth has been assured continuity for the next forty years by being selected as the base for the two new carriers, I expect Clegg and the Lib Dems would love to deliver some job security to HMNB Devonport, which is the nuke refueling port, and would welcome the abandonment of the plan to move the Trafalgar class attack sub fleet to HMNB Clyde in Scotland. After all, if we're splitting you off completely, why would we keep any rUK forces north of the border? Which would leave the Scots with a large and expensive naval base at Faslane, plus many Army and RAF bases, with no income to run them. Maybe you could hire them out to the Yanks?

Re: ql Re: Nothing magical about next year

"....Regarding replicating GCHQ...." Don't be silly, you will have to sign some form of defence co-operation treaty with the UK as part of the seccession agreement, even if you leave NATO. That means you will be shafted with some lovely little clause where we can carry on monitoring you from Cheltenham. Even if you manage to dodge the treaty clause, your telecoms all go via the UK so we can monitor you until you manage to build your own network and run your own international cables or satellite links. At whcih point MI6 will probably bug all your new systems and cables anyway. It's a bit like when your kids grow up and want a bit of privacy as teenagers, so you put a lock on their door but make sure you keep a spare key.

"....about data centre space...." There should be plenty of data center space in Aberdeen now that the oil is running out and the oil companies will be leaving. All Salmond has to do is keep quibbling for a decade or so and he can have lots of vacant data centers to play with.

Re: John 110 Re: A downside?

Upvoted for pointing out the employment opportunities for the rUK in letting Scotland go. Of course, the jobs only went up north in the first place as a political sop, and I'm sure the Whitehall Civil Service will love to have more rUK staff in their fiefdoms. Maybe this time round Clegg and co will insist giving the jobs to the South West where their voter base is. If Labour ever manage to get themselves electable again they'll want to send the jobs to Wales, probably.

Re: Velv Re: If I were the councils of Carslile or Newcastle

"....reductions in Corporation Tax are one of the major components to attract business to Scotland....." Apart from the massive difference between "in the manifesto" and "in practice", you failed to see that Scotland will be on its knees crawling to get into Europe - as a seperate state it will need to be in Brussels' good books to stay in or have to re-apply. That means the Scots will have to roll over and implement every little crazy tax scheme and every other economic disaster/policy the EU comes up with, including the Euro and the new tax on trading. Businesses that can will be heading south of the border in droves. The good news is that being another one of Brussels' PIIGs / Germany's bitches is that you will get EU some funding, which might replace a fraction of what the Scots will lose from the UK, but you'll have zero capability to dictate terms in the EU because you'll be just another PIIG. Enjoy!

NSA spooks tooled up with zero-day PC security exploits from the FRENCH

Re: Re: AC

As another example, there's the story of some British "contractors" that allegedly went out to Afghanistan (at the behest of some Virginians) to instruct Shah Masoud's mujahadin how to do nasty things to the Taleban. The contractors were equipped in the States with nice winter gear, surplus US frame rucksacks and webbing, and dinky Colt Commandos. They were most upset when they arrived in Pakistan only to have their new gear taken away and substituted by salwaar kameez and lice-infested chapans, their frame rucksacks and webbing replaced by tatty British issue gear from WW2, and their light carbines replaced by the long and almost twice as heavy Heckler & Koch G3s. They were told by the local Virginian this was to help them blend in so as to protect them from Taleban spies and assassins in Afghanistan, the G3 being the most popular rifle with the Northern Alliance (not, please note, the much more common AK-47).

"....Especially when you have to explain where did _ONE_ missile with Zarin come from in a whole Grad salvo...." Well, I can think of three possible explanations.

Firstly, a local Syrian soldier made a mistake and loaded a chem rocket by accident. Since Assad is thought to have dispersed his chem stock out to the field this means they probably have chem rockets mixed in with ordinary munitions, and a soldier in a hurry to load up a launcher might just have grabbed the wrong rocket from the wrong pile.

Secondly, it could be that Assad's generals were testing the water to see what the international response would be to a "small" chemical incident. With the civil war settling into stalemate the generals are probably itching to use whatever advantages they have before Assad has them fired.

Or, thirdly, a rebel crept into the Syrian artillery camp with a chem Grad rocket stuffed down his trousers, secretly loaded it into the launcher without any of Assad's troops noticing (and knowing it would be fired at his own friends and family), then stood back and screamed in faux indignation for the cameras. This last option is very popular with the Assad apologists, but looks pretty stupid compared to the other two much more likely scenarios.

Re: AC

"....an AK with 7.62 mm is superior to the .22 AR-15 and has proven durability in the field." Firstly, it is not .22 AR-15, it is 5.56x45mm NATO.

Secondly, if the 7.62x39mm round in the AK-47 was so fabulous as you claim, please do explain why did the Soviets dumped it for the AK-74 and the 5.45x39mm round?

Thirdly, durability often depends on the soldier carrying the weapon. Whilst the AK-47 has loose tolerances to allow it to work without regular cleaning, it still jams, and many AKs recovered in Iraq and Afghanistan from dead jihadis were found to have malfunctioned because they had not been maintained properly. Whilst there was much press about the M4 jamming in Afghanistan, it was found to be due to overheating from prolonged firing on auto, and that the weapon worked just fine when properly maintained. It also proved much more accurate than the AK-47. So much so that the Taleban started avoiding short-range engagements in favour of long-range machine gun attacks.

And finally, the US Special Forces (including all the sneaky squirrel folk) got to give their input on future rifles during the FN SCAR program, and use of the Russian 7.62x39mm round was floated and rejected as inferior very early on in the project, by the soldiers that knew what counted rather than the armchair pundits.

The AK-47 is popular in Third World countries because it is cheap, easy to come by, and easy to train with, but it is totally out-classed by the M16A4, let alone the M4. If US SF are carrying them it is probably only so they can blend in and take advantage of local logistics.

Re: Khaptain Re: Crock of shit

"....by selling the yanks this kind of solution they have probably created their own PRISM Key which opens a special little backdoor into the NSA....." Unlikely, the US military insists on having access to source code for foreign purchases.

Re: returnmyjedi

".....Shouldn't they be concentrating on getting a monkey to Mars or something....." Stop being mean to the Brazilians, chap, they're not all clueless skiddies. Indeed, I bet the NSA has tasted some of the wares from Brazilian security software companies like Syhunt. Of course, not that I'd want to imply the Brazilians might have their own eavesdropping capability - perish the thought! - as that would just upset the sheeple (so they'd better not read this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agência_Brasileira_de_Inteligência#Wiretapping_Suspensions).

Want to sit in Picard's chair while spying on THE WORLD? We can make it so – ex-NSA man

Re: henri Re: This is the best they can come up with?

"Mr Bryant's intelligence and maturity....." Ah, poor ickle Henri is still sulking from his last debunking. I see it so scarred him he has stopped even trying to post an opinion (no great loss). Maybe it will cheer him to note that the Fwench have been fingered as supplying software to ze nasty NSA (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/09/17/nsa_vupen/) - who knew the Fwenchies could write useful code! Then again, maybe not, as he probably wants to baaaah-lieve that only Ze Man does that nasty eavesdropping, not those cultured Fwenchies, n'est pas?

Re: Destroyed All Braincells Re: This is the best they can come up with?

"....Bryant. I mean brilliant." Oh, sorry, did you think that the matter was "really DOING eeeeeevil"? Truly you are a sad and bitter little man, even if you provide plenty of unintentional amusement.

This is the best they can come up with?

All the sheeple shrieking and bleating "The NSA iz awfulz, dey iz like watching uz, they iz sooooo bad, dey... um... well, dey... er.... DEY COPIED STAR TREK!" LMAO.

Declassified documents show NSA staff abused tapping, misled courts

Re: Boring Bernie To Matt Bryant

"....Yeah, thats not someone saying it was (potentially) illegal at all, is it?...." Dear cretin, please try READING the article, it states they were procedural errors and not deliberate attempts by the NSA to either spy on everyone or get around the FISC. And it also states the errors were identified and procedures tightened to eliminate similar errors in the 2009 review, so they are not happening now. You still fail.

".....Look! They need you MB! It's your duty as a Patriot to explain it to them as clearly as you have to us." Yes, it is very obvious you do need a lot explaining to you.

Re: Blind Bernie Re: Boring Bernie To Matt Bryant

".....Love the denial of reality line as it's clearly you thats screaming the denials not us....." Bernie, did you even read the same news!?!?!? ROFLMAO!

".....take a long look at how the unfolding events concur with our angles and not with yours....." Your line - "the NSA is spying on ALL OF US ALL THE TIME, Snowjob said it's so!" News - "the NSA collects data which is then mined to select targets for analysis." My line - "I'm not surprised the NSA gathers data, I suspected so long before Snowjob, but they are not bothering with paranoid sheeple." Hmmmm, I still think my line is a lot closer to the facts than yours, thanks.

".... I don't think I actually used the word "illegal" either so perhaps some reading comprehension tuition would be appropriate...." Try again. In your post Tuesday 17th September 2013 11:10 GMT you used the word "unlawful" and then said I was wrong to claim it was all "legal", so you most definitely tried to claim it was all illegal. Sorry, I'd add reading comprehension to your list, but what with all the remedial reading and history catch up you have I don't think you'll have the time for another few years.

".....Seems you were entirely wrong...." How? You have not read the article carefully, all it mentions are procedural errors during 2006 and 2009, not that the NSA is deliberately misleading anyone now. It also says the errors were brought to light as part of a review and corrected, so for you to try and claim they are still happening is doubly wrong. Try again, little lambikins.

Re: Bluegreen Re: To Matt Bryant @Bernard M. Orwell

Fellow forum members, please also take the time to assist Bluegreen as he does seem quite incapable of reaching a conclusion by himself. Try not to get too irritated by his obstinate disregard for facts, his unstinting baaaah-life in what he "was told" or "heard", despite him being unable to back up these secondhand conspiracy theories with any proof. Just accept that the are those out there, like Boring Bernie and Bluegreen, for whom reality is just too painful, and they need that web of denial to make it through their sad and bitter lives.

"....especially as I have also pointed out how inevitably commercial the use of monitoring would become.....". Poor little Синийeзеленый, still asking others to fill in the gaps for you? Please note that I not only debunked that in another thread, I also pointed out then that you have zero evidence of even the activity, let alone the subsequent use of any info gathered for commercial ends. Please do try and remember when you have been corrected as it will only be irritating for all involved if I have to keep correcting your same lies repeatedly.

Re: Boring Bernie Re: To Matt Bryant

Firstly, I would like to apologies to Bernie for not being here to help him comprehend the article as I was busy elsewhere. It seems none of the other forum members stepped in to help him with the long words either. Please, in future, can we all take a more proactive approach with helping our "special" contributors. Please do remember that the vacuous nature of their posts does not make them any less welcome and that it is only through correction and explanation that they can hope to get a clue. Thank you all.

".....the FISA courts for their rampant, unaccountable pursuit of unlawful surveillance actions...." Bernie, before you rant any further, please note that there is still nothing that has been judged illegal, or even a legal case raised. There, now that we have returned to thread back to facts rather than wishful bleating, please continue.

"......The POTUS has himself now appeared to have taken a similar stance to my arguments....." Obambi is preaching to the disgruntled elements in his own choir, end of. He may not be standing for another election but the Dummicrats certainly don't want to alienate the sheeple. Please concentrate real hard and spot the bit where he says anything illegal has happened, or what definitive actions he is taking, rather than making empty promises of "investigating" and "assuring the American people", blah, blah, blah. It's sadly not surprising that Obambi got elected in the first place when the sheeple like you are so eager to pull the wool over your own eyes.

You really need to work on actually looking at what is happening, trying to gauge why certain things are said, rather than just leaping to the conclusion that chimes best with what your flock are bleating.

NSA slides reveal: iPhone users are all ZOMBIES

Re: Fazal Majid Re: Android @Version 1.0

".....J Edgar Hoover tried to blackmail Martin Luther King into committing suicide, by threatening to expose MLK's extramarital affairs......" Wrong. The intimidation of King was driven by the Kennedys in the Whitehouse, was due to King's close association with suspected KGB agents Stan Levison and Jack O'Dell, and was not driven by Hoover. All the surveilance on King was ordered and authorized by JFK's brother, Attroney General Robert Kennedy. The Kennedys were driven by quite simple worries about re-election if they were associated with a "Commie" civil rights campaigner, but it's another example of the lefties revisioning of history to protect their martyr JFK's reputation. Hoover's personal animosity towards King was due to King claiming that FBI agents in the South were "too friendly" with the KKK, a grandstanding smear against his beloved FBI that Hoover could not forgive. But Hoover still debunked attempts by people like George Wallace to slander King as a "Communist trainer", and sent FBI agents to protect King from assassination by white supremacists. Try reading more history and watching less movies.

Re: Синийeзеленый Dunce 55 Dan 55 Dan 55 The bottom line *so* far. @ Matt Bryant

Gosh, did you post from Egypt, you're so in de Nile (badumdumtooosh!). Sorry, but it's hard not to treat your childish dribblings with anything other than equally childish humour. Well, that or contempt. ".....Well, since there's no evidence of it, I'll hold you to your standard and say that without evidence, no, they didn't...." Yup, back to you wanting to baaaaah-lieve again.

"....there's a difference between a non-conformist and a criminal....." There certainly is for you Anonyputzers and the like - if they hold the same "moral outlook" as you when committing crimes then they are "non-conformist", not criminals, right?

"....The link works....." No it doesn't, the link seems to be truncated at the part "_nsa_", or at least that is how it appears in Chrome on an iPad, Explorer and Firefox on a WinXP PC and in Explorer on a Win7 laptop, which seem to lose the word wrap in the El Reg page format. Sorry, I really can't bothered to try any other combinations simply because you cannot cut'n'paste properly, but if you need help learning how to cut'n'paste I'm not really sure you should be on a techie website in the first place. But then - like a lot of the other Anonyputzers that post here - you probably just got pointed this way by the other sheeple rather than came for technical reasons.

Just to keep you from whining and crying too much, I took a guess at which thread relating to the NSA on that date would appeal to a paranoid numpty like yourself and I suspect it is the thread tied to the article "Declassified documents show NSA staff abused tapping....". I notice that you and Boring Bernie, another blindly frothing member of the sheeple, were asking for help in understanding the article right at the end of the thread - is that what you are referring to? Sorry I wasn't around to help you with your comprehension. Before you get too spittley, you may want to re-read the bit in the article about how legal experts are considering the documents BEFORE you claim everything was illegal, mmmkay? Yeah, sorry, I refuse to belief you have any form of legal expertise making you qualified to pass judgement yourself, that really would be going beyond the bounds of reality!

".....First you refuse to accept they are doing industrial espionage....." Because they are not doing industrial espionage, they are doing political espionage for economic information, which are very different terms. You have been spoonfed the term industrial espionage because - like the term commercial espionage - it suggests spying for monetary reasons, such as giving the info to politically-friendly US companies so they can gain a commercial advantage. You will want to insist that there is no reason other than monetary gain for such spying, blindly wanting to baaaaah-lieve it is just the nasty big capitalists looking to take advantage of a socialist country, when the reality is the policies and behaviour of the socialist country has a potential impact on the capitalist country too. I do not deny the spying is most probably happening, what I deny is your loonytunes conspiracy theorems as to why it is happening. I know, that's probably far too subtle a difference for you to follow, and I doubt if there have ever been any responsible adults in your household capable of explaining that what you want to baaaah-lieve is just male bovine manure, but it is fun watching you shriek and bleat so blindly. Enjoy! And I do note how you avoid the comment on why Greenwald would be raising that particular story now.

BTW, just to keep you frothing nicely, did you notice how the Obambi-Pootie double-act of good cop and bad cop worked on Assad? Obambi threatened with all those nasty weapons, Pootie steps in and offers what the US wanted all along, and Assad tries to save face (and ground forces) by giving in. Great politics, eh? The fun bit is that I bet you celebrate the fact matters look to be heading for a non-violent solution without being able to admit the double-act needed the threat of all those nasty Septic weapons to keep Assad going the way the US wanted. LMAO!

Re: Синийeзеленый Dunce 55 Dan 55 Dan 55 The bottom line *so* far. @ Matt Bryant

".....No, you are Plump & Bleaty as you well know....." Oh, sorry, you and Dunce seemed so in-tune, I just assumed you were a couple, I should have seen it's just that you both get your spoonfeeding from the same sources. Maybe you're more familiar with a certain young chappie from Argentina (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-24089050)? Sounds like your kind of "liberty-loving" loser, as the BBC points out; ".....The young man lived with his father....." Congrats! You can go on a date with someone that doesn't live in their mom's basement, just their pop's hot tub. Hey, do you think maybe the big, nasty NSA had a hand in tracking down the little twa- sorry, "non-conformist"? Maybe some of your little friend's zombie farm - which I'm sure he was only using for high-minded and morally superior "non-conformism" - was on Petrobas's systems? Maybe Glen Greenwald could tell us if he wasn't running round in a fit of paranoia, throwing accusations Left and right in an attempt to ingratiate himself with the Brazilians to avoid any future Septic extradition request. Oh, what, you hadn't guessed that was why Glenny was suddenly revealing all these allegations of NSA spying in Brazil? Was no-one around to spoonfeed it to you?

"....The link works...." Sorry, but in Chrome, El Reg is not showing the whole link. I also checked in Firefox and the same. Oops, it looks like all your amazing knowledge of "interweb stuff" doesn't extend to cut 'n' paste.

"....Yes, that is true, you are correct. It just seems a great likelihood at the moment. At some point I expect some clear evidence to emerge....." So, we have the classic "you're right but I'm still going to live in denial" schpiel. Oh, sorry, I suppose you prefer to call it "living in hope" rather than denial, because you sooooooo want to baaaaah-lieve? I'll cut you a break - despite your inability to show any evidence to actually support your accusations, I would be surprised if the CIA, NSA and DEA and several other alphabet agencies in the US were not using espionage on their neighbours in Latin America. Thing is, I suspected so long before Glenny and Snowjob got busy trying to turn a dime out of it. Read on and you'll see why.

"..... I note you didn't dispute that your "Vigilance = NSA + GCHQ" admission of conformism...." Because it's not a admission of conformism, it's a statement of reality. Governments don't just spy on others for military information, but also for industrial information that can forecast economic behaviour. If we look at the alleged example of Petrobas, which currently props up the Brazilian economy with subsidised fuel, it is easy to see why the US might be keeping tabs on developments. Should Petrobas get into problems then it will lead to massive problems in the Brazilian economy, which is currently stumbling under the socialist pretensions so common in the region. Like Venezuela, Brazil has funded popularist socilaist programs - sorry, you probably prefer to call them high-minded, egalitarian, liberal reforms - through subsidisation based on oil. In Venezuela's case, they still have plenty of oil but still are seeing massive economic issues. Brazil does not have as big or easily exploited oil reserves. Should those socialist Latin American governments like Brazil slide into economic disarray then it has dramatic implications not just for US foreign policy but also directly for the US economy itself. Any collapse in the region's economies will reduce US exports, affect US companies' (and the US government's) investments in the area, and lead to an increase in migrants looking to flee to the US. Even worse, it could even lead to US involvement in possible Latin American wars. Frankly, I would consider it highly irresponsible of the US government if their agencies were not spying on those Latin American countries in an attempt to gauge the possible future impact on the States. In the same way as I would be actually annoyed if the UK's government were not keeping tabs on what our EU partners are planning (or hiding again, in the case of Greece's economic figures). Not all spying is for nasty, nefarious ends, some of it is just for better planning. Your problem is that you are so ingrained with the desire to baaaaah-lieve "US = evil" that you cannot grasp the realities of the global economy and political behaviour. Truly a sad, sad fail.

Re: Синийeзеленый Re: Dunce 55 Dan 55 Dan 55 The bottom line *so* far. @ Matt Bryant

"Hey Plump & Bleaty...." Sorry, were you bleating to Dunce 55? Seriously, get a room.

"....,perhaps you would care to justify yourself to this gentleman ....." Well I would if you could put in a working link. But then again, what difference would that make, you pop up and deny reality with gusto wherever, so I will assume it is merely a post from an equally paranoid deluded, tinfoil-clad leftie, and dispatch it with the usual laughter. Don't worry, you get the link working and the debunking will commence.

".....And while you're at it, me too (same thread) cos it looks like Petrobras is getting tapped....." Correction - it is being claimed, nothing has been proven at all.

".....which of course is a commercial interest......." That received $2bn in 2009 from the US government, so it would be quite understandable if they might want to check if the money was being misspent even if it wasn't the buckling prop holding up the Brazilian economy (http://www.forbes.com/sites/christopherhelman/2013/09/09/of-course-the-nsa-should-be-spying-on-petrobras/) But, at this point, all we have is Glen Greenwald making a lot of noise and no meat at all. Even the Guardian (http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/09/nsa-spying-brazil-oil-petrobras) admits there is no actual proof of anything other than Petrobas appearing on a slide alleged to be from the NSA. Please do try a lot harder, you're simply making this too easy.

".....conformism...." Always makes me laugh when those that blindly rebleat leftie blather and shrieking points then try and talk about conformism, especially when their bleats have been so thoroughly and regularly debunked.

Re: Dunce 55 Re: Dunce 55 Dan 55 Dan 55 The bottom line *so* far.

"..... See icon......" Unfortunately, and despite many requests, El Reg has not seen fit to issue a Sheeple icon, of which you would be a shining example.

Re: Dunce 55 Re: Dan 55 Dan 55 The bottom line *so* far.

".....The price of freedom is eternal vigilance and all that." Vigilance = NSA + GCHQ. End of.

Re: Dan 55 Re: Dan 55 The bottom line *so* far.

Dan, all you are doing is stretching the limited evidence of IT COULD HAPPEN to say we should all run around like headless chcikens and insist IT IS HAPPENING. You have shown only one definitive case of it happening - Kim Dot Com - and not one single verifiable case otherwise, just capability. I have the capability to go out and murder everyone I meet, are you going to insist that it will happen simply because I have the capability? There is a massive difference between "could happen" and "is verifiably happening" - you, like all conspiracy junkies, have failed to prove the latter. Going by the statistical evidence of FISC warrants, I am more likely to be struck by lightning, win the lottery AND then be murdered than have my communications actually be listened to and analysed by the NSA.

Re: Dan 55 Re: The bottom line *so* far.

"....show that the NSA's surveillance systems are monitoring the communications of American citizens...." They are not monitoring the coms of everyone, they are collecting, which is different. The data is then sifted to provide the eventual coms that are actually listened to and analysed. BIG difference.

".....The DEA has used this information to apprehend drug smugglers, then lied about it in court...." The DEA has been listening to Latin American drug gangs since the eighties at least, if you had to wait for Snowjob to tell you where the fudge have you been? And I'm not surprised the DEA would want to hide the details as doing so makes it harder for the drug gangs to counter them. DUH! Are you telling me you don't approve of drug gangs being caught?

".....The IRS has used this information....." Oh yes, the uber-boogeyman of the IRS, and Mr Schneir's proof of this claim is.... Oh, he doesn't have any!

And then we have the conspiracy junkies and vid pirates fave bleat, Kim Dot Com, which wasn't even a Yank case. So, in all that's one actual case, one possible case, and one unsubstantiated theory - so how many drug smugglers and copyright violators (and tax cheats) were arrested in the States last year WITHOUT the use of PRISM or any of the other NSA toys? The DEA made 30,476 arrests in 2012 (http://www.justice.gov/dea/resource-center/statistics.shtml#arrests), I suggest you consider the fact there is more than just a slight drugs problem and plenty of arrests not involving the NSA info happening, and you have been unable to provide conclusive proof of one instance. The IRS guestimates that about 18% of taxable income is not declared, which suggest there are a lot of people evading US taxs, but you are unable to provide one instance of one being caught through PRISM. The number of copyright infringements in the US involving the Internet probably was counted in the millions last year, yet you have one foreign case (who was of more interest due to his hosting info and apps linked to organised crime and malware groups). Five-plus billion people on the planet and you have less than three cases? LOL!

Re: The bottom line *so* far.

Well, an upvote for at least paying enough attention in the article to make a sane technical judgement, but yo seem to have fallen asleep during the crucial part:

"....if the NSA wants to know everything you see and hear....." Trust me, the vast majority of you are of no interest to anyone.

Storage rage: Like getting a nice steak and being told to only eat 80% of it

Re: Craig Foster

".....you're losing an extra drive or two in each RAID set....." Ah, the memories of trying to explain to a non-technical project manager why, when we specified mirrored boot for redundancy, we needed two disks in a mirrored boot set to hold only one disk's worth of data. That was two hours I will never get back! He was completely horrified when I explained the arrays we planned to use for the main storage used blocks of four disks in RAID5, meaning - as he saw it - "one disk in four is wasted!" I chickened out of telling him about the spare disks in the frames.

I suspect the author actually doesn't have any real issues with vendor recommendations, he just thought this was a zany theme to throw out and let the forum chew over.

Teen buys WikiLeaks server for $33,000 – with dad's eBay account

Hypocrites

So, Dickileaks, a business that makes money out of encouraging others in stealing other peoples' copywrit and trademarked material and leaking it out (via a paywall), and from hyping secrets and conspiracy theories, but objects to others even knowing that they once used a box? And people like to think the only problem with Dickileaks is Assange.

Shop-a-suspect web security system: 'We've helped cops nab 100 suspects'

Re: Graypants Re: Graham Marsden Graham Marsden @Matt Bryant - MAtt 21 Wrong measure.

"Matt, do you really think such childishness adds anything to the (lack of) validity of your arguments?..." Well you sheeple only have yourselves to blame, your childish bleating insisting that Big Bruvva is watching you all the time, despite the evidence to the contrary, is - frankly - getting boring. Like I said, come back with some actual points rather than childish shrieking from under your tinfoil hat and you'll get an adult debunking. Until then it's just laughing and pointing.

"....I'll even let you get the last word in...." Ah, so - as expected - you failed to find anything actually relevant to contribute. Yeah, SL&P.

Re: Graham Marsden Re: Graham Marsden @Matt Bryant - MAtt 21 Wrong measure.

"Oh dear, Matt, resorting to ad hominem attacks again....." Ooh, look, ickle Graypants has learnt some posh words! I wonder where he copied them from? Tell you what, you skip the pointless non-arguments and come back with something worth discussing and we can let you try conversing with the adults, mmmmmkay?

"....There are parts of London (and other cities) where it is virtually impossible to avoid being within range of CCTV cameras yet, astonishingly, crimes *still* happen in those areas!...." Yet the stats show crime has reduced in the areas with cameras, and not in the areas with cameras. Gee, I wonder if even a blinkered sheeple like you could come to a conclusion on that..... Guess not.

"....don't assume....you have the right to decide that we should be happy with it too." Don't worry, I'm not qualified to give psychiatric advice on how to treat paranoid delusions, which is the advice you really need.

Re: Graham Marsden Re: @Matt Bryant - MAtt 21 Wrong measure.

Or could it be that crims are learning to avoid areas with CCTV... Gee, you can't think that, it would really put a massive hole in your bleating. Tell you what, since you have a hard time trying to think like a grown-up, go enjoy this other reason to keep CCTV cams running:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4wT7zM8XgXQ

Re: MAtt 21 Re: Wrong measure.

"We would know if cameras were a successful deterrent because crime would have dropped in areas which had cameras...." It has. Direct comparisons show criminals stopped commiting as many crimes in areas with CCTV and chose areas with less CCTV instead. This was proven waaaaay back as early as 2006, when crime rates in areas with CCTV showed dramatic declines - Berwick reported that burglaries fell by 69 percent; in Northampton overall crime decreased by 57 percent; and in Glasgow, Scotland, crime slumped by 68 percent. Please do try and explain those drops by any other factor.

"....This doesn't seem to be the case...." The Reg is using a very old report and set of stats (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8219022.stm), and it does not refelct either the increase in effectiveness of police use of CCTV (70% of murderers identifed with the help of CCTV even back in the period mentioned). Sorry, it's just another irrellevant "fact" trotted out by the "anit-surveillance" sheeple at every opportunity, with no attempt to set the context or discuss the realities of the matter.

Wrong measure.

".....Previous figures show that CCTV has so far been a spectacularly inefficient way to catch criminals, with one crime in London solved per 1,000 surveillance cameras....." But you'll never know how many criminals were deterred from committing a crimes by the presence of the very same cameras, and deterrence is still the best outcome for all involved.

Amazon cloud goes down in Northern Virginia

Re: Boo-boo?

"All Flickr members were informed over 24 hours ago...." It would seem, with so many jih-nah-lists queuing up to slate Big Cloud, maybe Amazon needs to start a PR exercise to also notify industry journos of downtime so they don't get overly excited in future.

IETF floats plan to PRISM-proof the Internet

IETF floats plan to PRISM-proof the Internet

Hahahahahaaaa! What, seriously? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAA!!!

That earth-shattering NSA crypto-cracking: Have spooks smashed RC4?

Re: Duck Ar5h0le Re: Don Jefe OMG, the laziness!

".....Did it ever occur to you that the gubbermints have enormous libraries of digitized books at their disposal ?....." You obviously did not understand how a book cipher works. You have to have the exact edition of the book. You can have a library of millions of digitised texts, and even if you run the code by checking all the books, if you have the wrong edition of the book you still get back garbage. If the book is a translation of teh original you again get back garbage. The chances of the NSA having every edition of every book on earth in every possible language are simply silly, it would require more storage and computational power than even the PRISM project, many times over. Please try thinking before triping.

"....Mr Occam points to the last option." I suggest you stop talking to Mr Occam and loosen up the tinfoil.

Re: Pottie Re: re: Why would we have known about it?

"...the NSA is is part of the American military...." Not quite. It is part of the Department of Defence and reports to the Director of Nation Intelligence, and has a military officer as head (the Director), but his deputy and the majority of staff are civillians, not enlisted soldiers, and do not hold military ranks. Indeed, the NSA is reputedly the largest recruiter of civillian mathematicians in the World. Legally, they are civil servants, not soldiers.

Re: Don Jefe Re: OMG, the laziness!

"......So, what is wrong with a book cypher?" The first problem is letting people know which book you are using without telling those you don't want to know. That usually means you have to have some other form of secure coms first, such as a pre-arranged list of books for each date that is handed to you. The second is that your book "ages" - you only have so many options for many words in the average book, so you have to change books after a period to defeat statistical pattern analysis. Another problem is you really have to make sure you have identical books - even different editions from the same publisher could have different page layouts and wording. And the last big problem is if the listeners suspect you are using a book cipher and they capture a suspect with only one book in his possession then it's pretty much game over.

The availability of digital downloads of books on the Internet gets round most of the problems, especially as you can carry literally hundreds of e-books in one device or not even download the e-book until required, but does not get round the problem of the secure transfer of the initial list of books.

Re: Otto is a bear re: Why would we have known about it?

"....Having been a liberal activist from the mid-seventies, and being at university during the three day week, I cannot think of any of my many friends of all political colours, and indeed serving military officers, of one who would have welcomed a military coup to solve the countries problems. In fact, I suspect it would have destroyed the country, and divided our military and police forces, as it would today....." Strangely, there were plenty of people that thought a military coup (and resultant civil war) couldn't happen in "moden" Spain in 1936, or even more modern Portugal in 1974, or the series of coups in the late Eighties and collapse into civil war in the Nineties in the much more modern former Yugoslavia. All involved splits in loyalty in the police and in the military. It may not have been welcomed, but if the course of events had led to a coup then it would not have been beyond belief that many serving officers and men would have followed orders in the hope of restoring order and a "better" economic solution.

Headmaster calls cops, tries to dash pupil's uni dreams - over a BLOG

Re: AC Re: Truth or consequences (Their rules DONT apply out of school!)

".....I'm QUITE sure what he did was illegal." You are wrong and seriously need to go read up on the rights of UK schools to exclude pupils for starters. You then also need to understand that the headmaster not only has the duty to protect his school's reputation from slander, he also has the duty to inform prospective universities of an applicant's behaviour. What the head did was completely legal. What Zaloom did was completely stupid. If you're going to play at little rebel then it's always best to learn the rules of the game before dropping your academic life in the toilet.

Re: Pottie Re: @Ted Treen

All that ranting and all you basically said was "I baaaaaah-lieve left means automatically good, right automatically evil." Monumental fail.

Re: Will Godfrey Re: Late to the party

".....How can anyone justify a deliberate attempt to ruin a youngster's life?....." How? Zaloom seems to be the one responsible for ruining his own life by (a) being stupid enough to thumb his nose at those with the power to make him suffer, and (b) being too much of an under-achiever to get the grades he needed anyway, and (c) by indulging in an ego-stroking vent online in the stupid belief that support from his fellow underachieving anarchists will somehow compensate for his own failings. But then the whole idea of taking responsibility for your own actions does seem quite foreign to many of the posters here.

"....The headmaster should not only be removed, but should undergo a medical examination....." Why? He was doing his job - protecting the reputation of his school and warning a uni of a potentially slanderous troublemaker. Going by your previous posts, it seems that you consider Zaloom automatically correct because he shares your failed ideologies. I'm betting you wouldn't be condemning the headmaster so quickly if the head had warned the uni that Zaloom was an EDL member and had a website full of criticism of the school for not implementing Fascist schooling doctrines.

".....He sounds dangerously psychopathic to me." I suspect you had problems of your own at school and blamed them on everyone else but yourself?

US military: 'Help us build the ROBO-WARFIGHTER OF THE FUTURE'

Re: Chris G Re: Skin

".....plus 100Kg of batteries half of which will be needed to power the motors to carry the batteries." Actually it's more likely to be some form of small combustion engine cum generator and probably hydrogen cells. Batteries are simply too heavy and don't provide enough power for long enough. A small stock of batteries for silent operation, but the rest of the time cruising on hydrogen.

Meh, an armoured HUMVEE will be cheaper.

The problem with all these supersuits are they end up too bulky to be used in urban warfare, where we spend a lot of time on "peacekeeping" duties. It's no use having oodles of gadgets if they don't fit through a doorway, in which case you might as well just leave the gadgets in the HUMVEE you used to travel between urban targets, where the armour protects four or more soldiers at once, all with current vehicle tech. Same then goes for non-urban warfare - if you can stay inside the HUMVEE (or Bradley, or Abrams) and kill the enemy from a distance then why dismount? The real onbjective should be to send a better drone to look for the bad guys, no need to even put fleshies in harm's way. I know Spec Ops is seen as a having special needs (LOL!) but the SAS have shown for decades that the most important bit of kit is between the soldier's ears, not in his hands. Without the scale offered by general deployment, supersuits will stay an expensive dream, IMHO.