[Cialug] Complete C source online - chapter two: The PRISMer of Zenda

Thu Jul 25 14:14:10 CDT 2013

I don't mean to stir any pots, here, but the idea that the government (or even just the NSA) doesn't have enough computers to watch everything that is going on is false.  A person does not need to read every email or listen to every telephone conversation.  All they need to have is the equivalent of an iPad for every 40-or-so people and a decent server for every 5000-or-so (maybe more?) email accounts.  Then you only need one technician to type in a search term.

An iPad has a fairly decent ability to translate your speech into text in real-time, and the vast majority of people do not spend all of their day on the phone.  As a matter of fact, it takes roughly 1.7 people per telephone call to make up an actual phone conversation (keeping in mind all the people talking to machines or themselves), which means you really only need to keep track of 194 million phone conversations at the very most (actually more, considering international calls, but it's going to be far less than 330 million at a time, and not everyone is going to be on the phone all the time).  So consolidating a bunch of iPads into one quad-Xeon server (those sexy Xeons with 6 or 8 cores each and memory controllers that can handle 256GB or more per CPU) and you can fit real-time phone surveillance into one datacenter.  That means you only need 6-12 computer/network technicians, one guy to type in search terms, one big-wig to come up with terms to search for, and a couple hundred people to sift through the search results.  If the indexing algorithms are as good as Google's or Bing's (and you know Google and Microsoft are in bed with the NSA), then you really only have to go through the first two or three pages of results to find what you're looking for (assuming you use the correct search terms!).

As for email, you can just run your indexing algorithm and you're gold.  If you find a couple of email accounts that have terrorist ties (or for those of you [us?] that believe that this happiness is being used to win political campaigns, democratic/republican organizational ties), then you can bust out a billion FPGAs programmed to crack -insert encryption algorithm here- to read anything encrypted.  Otherwise, you can just stick a person trained in the obfuscation lingo used by whatever organization it is you are looking into.

-----------------------

It would take a stupid amount of manpower to watch *everything*, but it would only take a pittance of manpower to watch the one thing you care about...

*** Are you sure they aren't watching that thing? ***

That is the question that those who care about privacy are asking.

-----------------------

-- Matt (N0BOX)

Sent from my ASUS Transformer

-----Original Message-----
From: David Champion <dchamp1337 at gmail.com>
To: Central Iowa Linux Users Group <cialug at cialug.org>
Sent: Thu, 25 Jul 2013 1:48 PM
Subject: Re: [Cialug] Complete C source online - chapter two: The PRISMer of Zenda

This group has always been open for just about any discussion as long as
it's not too far off topic. That has driven a few people away over the
years, but it's also the reason that there have been people on here since
it started in 1997.

That being said, if you choose to go on a political rant, you should expect
to be flamed.

-dc
(past president & co-founder of CIALUG)

On Thu, Jul 25, 2013 at 1:24 PM, Scott Yates <Scott at yatesframe.com> wrote:

> Kenny, thank you for being the voice of reason here.  Extremes on either
> side are not helpful.  I agree that there is a lot to digest in the
> revelations of late.  I do NOT think that working on ideas to keep your own
> data more secure is any kind of waste of time or paranoia.
>
> That being said, the government has shown itself to be untrustworthy, and
> it has NOT been getting better.  Despite what Pete seems to think, there
> does not need to be a room full of analysts personally looking at all your
> emails.  Big data and statistical analysis have been able to generate
> actionable signals for quite some time now.
>
> I don't mean to be argumentative here.  I just want to point out that the
> tone on this list was quite calm and reasonable until Pete's self admitted
> "meltdown".
>
> I am all for reasoned debate, but lets try to keep the tone here civil and
> constructive.
>
>
>
> On Thu, Jul 25, 2013 at 11:04 AM, Kenneth Younger <kyounger at gmail.com
> >wrote:
>
> > Secure computing is very much on topic with regard to this list.
> >
> > The general gist of your profane (on many levels), self-acknowledged rant
> > is "don't worry, no one is going to do anything bad with the data they
> are
> > collecting," and that is just patently false and absurd. Very few
> > constitutional scholars and security experts think there is nothing wrong
> > with what the leaks are revealing about the surveillance the NSA and
> other
> > agencies are doing.
> >
> > I'll remind you that there are simple methods for filtering out topics in
> > an email list. Which is also why we usually reply to the same topic --
> you
> > changed it, meaning those that already had muted the conversation now
> were
> > subjected to it again.
> >
> > -Kenny
> >
> > On Thu, Jul 25, 2013 at 10:41 AM, Pete Trbovich <
> > levitating_rock at linuxquestions.net> wrote:
> >
> > > I've seen all that, read every link there. The point of my little
> > meltdown
> > > is that you're all freaking out over nothing.
> > >
> > > Sorry I haven't been able to rescue this group from turning into
> another
> > > pants-pissing schizophrenic circlejerk. I guess I'll have to find
> > somewhere
> > > else to talk about Linux. Oops, wait, there are no places to talk about
> > > Linux left. This, ladies and gentlemen, is why Usenet banned political
> > > discussion on everything but politics boards. When the world ends, be
> > sure
> > > to come by to collect your $1 million bet from me, and also my right
> nut.
> > > Enjoy your concrete bunker, and be sure to keep your Alex Jones
> > > subscription current.
> > >
> > > - Adios, thanks for all the fish,
> > >   Pete
> > >
> > >
> > > _____________________________________________________________
> > > Thank you for choosing LinuxQuestions.
> > > http://www.linuxquestions.org
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > Cialug mailing list
> > > Cialug at cialug.org
> > > http://cialug.org/mailman/listinfo/cialug
> > >
> > > --
> > > Kenneth Younger III
> > > Founder, Sheer Focus Inc.
> > > e: <http://cialug.org/mailman/listinfo/cialug>kenny at sheerfocus.com
> > > p: (515) 367-0001
> > > t: @kenny <http://twitter.com/kenny>
> > >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Cialug mailing list
> > Cialug at cialug.org
> > http://cialug.org/mailman/listinfo/cialug
> >
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