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When it comes to Apple vs. the FBI, you can listen to Donald Trump, or you can listen to someone who knows what he’s talking about. If you’d like to do the latter, take a watch.
As I wrote in a lengthy piece published Friday, this showdown is not theater. The U.S. government has been waiting for a terror incident to set a precedent to destroy all privacy and security efforts underway in America. This is a big part of that effort.
For prior posts on the FBI vs. Apple, see:
As the Apple vs. FBI Debate Rages, Congress Plots to Mandate Encryption Backdoors
Apple Vows to Defend Its Customers as the FBI Launches a War on Privacy and Security
In Liberty,
Michael Krieger
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 08/29/2015 21:54 -0400
Back in February 2013, Thorsten Heins, then-CEO of what was once the iconic “smartphone” brand Blackberry, publicly lied that its Hail Mary iPhone competitor, the Z10, had “record” early sales. He told CNET, that “BlackBerry nearly tripled the sales of its best performance over the first week in the U.K., while it had its best first day ever in Canada. In fact, it was more than 50 percent better than any other launch day in our history in Canada.”
Less than one year later, and less than two years after he was hired, the ruse was up – Blackberry’s US market share has fallen from 50% to 3% in four years – and Thorsten was fired.
Fast forward to Monday morning, when the S&P500 had just hit its first limit down in history, stocks were crashing, countless ETFs were crashing more as ETF pricing models were corrupt and broken, the QQQs were plummeting, and none other than AAPL was set to open at a price of $92 wiping out tens of billions of market cap overnight.
It is then that AAPL CEO Tim Cook may have pulled a page straight out of Thorsten Heins’ playbook when did something nobody expected him to do – he panicked, and emailed CNBC anchor Jim Cramer to do what the AAPL CEO himself admitted the company does not do by providing mid-quarter updates, and assure the CNBC anchor that there is no need to sell AAPL stock.
Submitted by Charles Hugh-Smith of OfTwoMinds blog,
If pouring billions of dollars into outrageous “look at me” buildings isn’t tempting the gods, what is it?
When banks build new gleaming headquarters, that generally marks the top of the bank’s fortunes. There appears to be some sort of hubris in constructing a monumental new headquarters that shouts “we’re rich beyond all conception” that angers the stock market gods.
For this reason, we should ponder the glamorous new headquarters Facebook just completed and Apple’s “spaceship” campus that is under construction. Google’s plans for an ultra-modernist headquarters were recently tabled by the city of Mountain View, but the grandiose plans themselves may count as hubris to the stock market gods.
Here is an interior view of Facebook’s new digs: note that it’s literally dripping with arty decor:
Here is Facebook’s stock chart:
Here is a drone-cam view of Apple’s spaceship campus under construction:
Continue reading “Are Tech Giants’ New Buildings Signs Of The Top?”
“It’s a fundamental misunderstanding of the problem. Why do you think Apple and Google are doing this? It’s because the public is demanding it. People like me: privacy advocates. A public does not want an out-of-control surveillance state. It is the public that is asking for this. Apple and Google didn’t do this because they thought they would make less money. This is a private sector response to government overreach.
Then you make another statement that somehow these companies are not credible because they collect private data. Here’s the difference: Apple and Google don’t have coercive power. District attorneys do, the FBI does, the NSA does, and to me it’s very simple to draw a privacy balance when it comes to law enforcement and privacy: just follow the damn Constitution.
And because the NSA didn’t do that and other law enforcement agencies didn’t do that, you’re seeing a vast public reaction to this. Because the NSA, your colleagues, have essentially violated the Fourth Amendment rights of every American citizen for years by seizing all of our phone records, by collecting our Internet traffic, that is now spilling over to other aspects of law enforcement. And if you want to get this fixed, I suggest you write to NSA: the FBI should tell the NSA, stop violating our rights. And then maybe you might have much more of the public on the side of supporting what law enforcement is asking for.
Then let me just conclude by saying I do agree with law enforcement that we live in a dangerous world. And that’s why our founders put in the Constitution of the United States—that’s why they put in the Fourth Amendment. Because they understand that an Orwellian overreaching federal government is one of the most dangerous things that this world can have. I yield back.”
Rep. Ted Lieu
iMorons unite and buy an idiotic watch for $500 that has to be recharged every 3 hours and does the exact same things as your iPhone. The idiocy of the iGadget addicted iBoobs is immense. Here’s my new Apple Watch that I bought for 99 cents a pound:
Here’s some more creative less expensive options:
So this is what the 92 million people who have “voluntarily” left the labor force have been doing. They’ve been waiting in line for the new iPhone 6. Of course this is a rational thing for an iMoron to do. They couldn’t possibly go online and have the phone delivered to their house in the next two days. They couldn’t saunter into Wal-Mart or any of the other millions of retail outlets that will have these Chinese made, NSA approved, surveillance gadgets, in the next week and whip out that credit card or lease it with nothing down. iMorons must unite. They must broadcast to the world their utter stupidity, materialism, and lack of jobs. The shallowness, vapidity, and utter foolishness of the vast swath of America is breathtaking to behold in all its iGlory. So it goes.
I’m the furthest thing in the world from a technology or security expert, but what I have learned in recent years is that a dedicated, sophisticated and well funded hacker can pretty much own your data no matter how many precautions you take. Nevertheless, the major technology companies on the planet shouldn’t go out of their way to make this as easy as possible.
In the wake of the theft of private images from several prominent celebrities, many people are rightly wondering whether how vulnerable their data is. The answer appears to be “very,” and if you use Apple, the following article from Slate may leave you seething with a sense of anger and betrayal.
David Auerbach wrote the following for Slate. Read it and weep:
In the wake of the theft of the private data and photos of dozens of celebrities, there is at least one major culprit. Not the alleged leakers, though obviously they’re to blame, but the company that has most prominently overstated its security in the first place: Apple.
What is clear is that Apple has had a known security vulnerability in its iCloud service for months and has been careless about protecting its users. Apple patched this vulnerability shortly after the leak, so even if we’re not sure of exactly how the photos got hacked, evidently Apple thinks it might have had something to do with it. Whether or not this particular vulnerability was used to gather some of the photos—Apple is not commenting, as usual, but the ubiquity and popularity of Apple’s products certainly point to the iCloud of being a likely source—its existence is reason enough for users to be deeply upset at their beloved company for not taking security seriously enough. Here are five reasons why you should not trust Apple with your nude photos or, really, with any of your data.
1. The vulnerability is Security 101 stuff.
Up until Monday, Apple had a significant and known brute-force vulnerability in its Find My iPhone service, where you type in your Apple ID and password on your computer in order to locate your iPhone on a map. Most services that use passwords, from Facebook to Google to banks, will lock your account or at least throttle logon attempts after a certain number of failed access tries to prevent a person who is not you from making endless guesses at common passwords. Apple itself will do this in most places—but not through its Find My iPhone service, where hackers are allowed unlimited attempts at guessing passwords. You can endlessly try password after password as quick as you like. Once a correct Apple ID password is confirmed through Find My iPhone, a hacker then has access to your iCloud account.
2. The vulnerability was publicly known since May.
A Russian security group called HackApp released iBrute, a proof-of-concept tool to exploit this vulnerability, on Aug. 30. But don’t blame them, because the celebrity hacking probably took place quite a while before that. The Register publicized the lack of any sort of limit on iCloud logon attempts in May, and Apple did nothing about it, giving hackers plenty of time to bash away at accounts. Even after iBrute was publicly released, Apple didn’t patch the vulnerability until Sept. 1 and did nothing to secure accounts in the meantime.
3. Apple defaults users into the cloud.
Clouds are wispy and ephemeral, the very opposite of secure, so why would you want to store anything in them? No one particularly does: Cloud storage has been forced on users because it suits tech companies, not because it’s what’s best for consumers. But Apple makes it very hard not to store photos in its cloud, nude or otherwise. Camera Roll automatically backs up photos (all photos) to the cloud by default, and Apple makes it difficult for average users to change the default. It’s worked. And it’s too bad, because whatever you store on the cloud has far less legal and security protection than what’s on your own computer. Even deleting photos from your phone doesn’t delete them from the cloud, as security expert Nik Cubrilovic pointed out on Twitter. (The American Civil Liberties Union’s Christopher Soghoian has wisely suggested a “private photo” feature that doesn’t upload certain photos to the cloud.)* Defaulting to the cloud is like checking baggage on an airline: People might look through your stuff, and even steal it. And like the airlines, Apple’s liability is strictly limited by the extremely generous (to Apple) agreement you sign when you purchase any of its products.
4. Apple does not encourage two-factor authentication.
Two-factor authentication, in which physical possession of a particular device (like a phone) is necessary to log in to an account, is one of the most common and effective supplements to the problematic security of regular passwords. Google, Yahoo, Facebook, Twitter, and many other services offer two-factor, though rarely by default. Still, as the Daily Dot writes, “For reasons that defy all logic, Apple makes it extraordinarily difficult to enable two-step verification,” making users wait three days just to turn it on. (In other words, if you had found out about the vulnerability on Aug. 30, you couldn’t have protected yourself until Sept. 2.) Apple barely publicizes its two-factor authentication and has not encouraged users to adopt it. Apple controls the default user experience for its products, and it has the responsibility for that default to be reasonably secure—which it currently is not.
5. Two-factor authentication wouldn’t have worked anyway.
Even if you were a celebrity who had enabled two-factor authentication, it wouldn’t have helped in this case because Apple doesn’t enforce two-factor authentication for iCloud logons even if you have it turned on, as was reported by Ars Technica all the way back in May of 2013. Apple primarily uses two-factor to prevent credit card purchases, not to protect the privacy of your data.
At this point, I want to highlight two previously published articles:
Apple’s Massive Security Flaw: NSA Exploit or an Honest Mistake?
Apple Directors Overrule and Reject Shareholder Proposal to Protect User Privacy
But sure, go ahead and camp out for 19 days for that iPhone 6.
“You’ve got young enlisted guys, 18 to 22 years old,” Snowden said. “They’ve suddenly been thrust into a position of extraordinary responsibility where they now have access to all of your private records. In the course of their daily work they stumble across something that is completely unrelated to their work in any sort of necessary sense. For example, an intimate nude photo of someone in a sexually compromising position. But they’re extremely attractive.
“So what do they do? They turn around in their chair and show their co-worker. The co-worker says: ‘Hey that’s great. Send that to Bill down the way.’ And then Bill sends it to George and George sends it to Tom. And sooner or later this person’s whole life has been seen by all of these other people. It’s never reported. Nobody ever knows about it because the auditing of these systems is incredibly weak. The fact that your private images, records of your private lives, records of your intimate moments have been taken from your private communications stream from the intended recipient and given to the government without any specific authorization without any specific need is itself a violation of your rights. Why is that in a government database?”
“It’s routine enough, depending on the company that you keep, it could be more or less frequent. These are seen as the fringe benefits of surveillance positions.”
Because terrorism…
Full Slate article here.
In Liberty,
Michael Krieger
The ignorant masses are so easy to manipulate. It isn’t even a contest for the Madison Avenue propaganda maggots.
“Even if you’re not doing anything wrong, you’re being watched and recorded. …it’s getting to the point where you don’t have to have done anything wrong, you simply have to eventually fall under suspicion from somebody, even by a wrong call, and then they can use this system to go back in time and scrutinize every decision you’ve ever made, every friend you’ve ever discussed something with, and attack you on that basis, to sort of derive suspicion from an innocent life.” – Edward Snowden
In my previous article Do No Evil Google – Censor & Snitch for the StateI addressed my experience with censorship through direct and indirect means by Google, other media related corporations and the Deep State they choose to protect, promote and perpetuate through propaganda. I found it interesting that websites heavily dependent on Google Adsense revenue who normally publish my articles either didn’t publish it or released it at a time when the least amount of visitors would see it. The almighty dollar usually wins out over truth in our one dimensional degenerate capitalism society, driven by greed, consumerism, gluttony and debt.
In this article I’ll examine how Google, Microsoft, Facebook Verizon and the rest of the internet based mega-corporations have consciously cooperated with the NSA and the rest of the surveillance state to violate the Fourth Amendment rights of every American. Our Founding Fathers had plenty of experience with authoritarian overlords who had no hesitation in kicking in the doors of private citizens to search and seize whatever they desired. The men who formulated the Constitution and Bill of Rights were clear and concise in their language. They laid out the right of all citizens to privacy in one perfectly succinct sentence. The putrid den of vipers in Congress today would use 10,000 sentences to insure this right would be null and void.
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
Media mouthpieces for the Deep State use their platform to lie, misinform and obscure the truth about a basic right owed to all Americans. They claim we have a living Constitution, while they methodically and systematically murder it. The only rights that matter are the rights of the invisible government of rich powerful men who pull the strings in this corporate fascist surveillance state. Justice Potter Stewart illuminated the Fourth Amendment in the 1967 Katz case. He concluded the Fourth Amendment protects people, not places.
A “search” occurs for purposes of the Fourth Amendment when the government violates a person’s “reasonable expectation of privacy.” Katz’s reasonable expectation of privacy thus provided the basis to rule the government’s intrusion, though electronic means rather than physical entry, was a search covered by the Fourth Amendment, and thus necessitated a warrant. Today, our Big Brother government controllers use the Constitution and Fourth Amendment to wipe their asses, while goliath media corporations cooperate to keep the profits flowing.
“Even though we don’t know which companies the NSA has compromised – or by what means – knowing that they could have compromised any of them is enough to make us mistrustful of all of them. This is going to make it hard for large companies like Google and Microsoft to get back the trust they lost. Even if they succeed in limiting government surveillance. Even if they succeed in improving their own internal security. The best they’ll be able to say is: “We have secured ourselves from the NSA, except for the parts that we either don’t know about or can’t talk about.” – Bruce Schneier
The profane alliance between big banks, big corporations, and big government has created the Big Brother surveillance society we are living under today. And 95% of the populace is either willfully ignorant or perfectly happy with a boot stomping on their face forever. We have willingly become hopelessly enslaved while believing we are free. We think we are free to buy whatever clothes, iGadgets, baubles and trinkets we desire, while becoming imprisoned in the chains of credit card debt hawked by Wall Street bankers. We think we are free to pursue higher education, while being saddled with government peddled non-dischargeable student loan debt and few job opportunities. We think we are free to buy/lease whatever new vehicle we choose every three years, while falling into the trap of lifetime monthly payments to the financial elite. We imagine ourselves free to live in a 4,500 sq foot McMansion, 50 feet from another McMansion, while Wall Street creatively lures you into the shackles of an epoch of debt. We believe we live in a country admired for its morality and freedom, while in actuality the world despises us for our hubris, meddling, murdering and hypocrisy.
We assumed we were free to communicate with other citizens, utilizing the amazing technological advances of the past twenty five years, in accordance with the freedoms guaranteed under the Fourth Amendment. American patriot Edward Snowden has revealed how wrong this assumption has proven to be. The puppeteers who control the politicians and government apparatchiks have no interest in allowing citizens privacy, freedom, liberty or free speech. They have a four pronged approach to controlling the masses.
1. Use media propaganda and modern day bread and circuses (toxic processed food, reality TV, sports, movies) to amuse and confuse the government educated, eyes wide shut, populace.
2. Use wars on poverty, drugs, and terror to keep the willfully ignorant masses cowering in fear, begging for more government programs, and pleading for more laws, regulations and statutes, which strip our freedoms, liberties and rights.
3. Highly compensate the intellectuals, media pundits, economists, and thought leaders to promote the agenda of the ruling class. Truth is of no concern. Propaganda, misinformation, outright lies, and spinning a storyline are the techniques of choice to keep the masses bemused, confused and defused.
4. As the Brave New World techniques begin to fail and more people are awakened to the increasing tyranny of an unelected invisible government, Orwellian techniques are instituted. The metadata collection by the NSA, with the cooperation of corporate America, is being done to intimidate those who might voice discontent and provide the controllers with the means to eliminate opposition and freedom of speech.
A population unable or unwilling to think critically doesn’t comprehend the extreme danger to our civil liberties from the unwarranted intrusion into our private lives by a surveillance police state bent on bribing, coercing and silencing dissent, truth and First Amendment rights. Civil libertarian, John Whitehead, captures the essence of our plight.
“Intrinsically, privacy is precious to the extent that it is a component of a liberty. Part of citizenship in a free society is the expectation that one’s personal affairs and physical person are inviolable so long as one remains within the law. A robust concept of freedom includes the freedom from constant and intrusive government surveillance of one’s life. From this perspective, Fourth Amendment violations are objectionable for the simple fact that the government is doing something it has no license to do–that is, invading the privacy of a law-abiding citizen by monitoring their daily activities and laying hands on their person without any evidence of wrongdoing.
Privacy is also instrumental in nature. This aspect of the right highlights the pernicious effects, rather than the inherent illegitimacy, of intrusive, suspicionless surveillance. For example, encroachments on individual privacy undermine democratic institutions by chilling free speech. When citizens–especially those espousing unpopular viewpoints–are aware that the intimate details of their personal lives are pervasively monitored by government, or even that they could be singled out for discriminatory treatment by government officials as a result of their First Amendment expressive activities, they are less likely to freely express their dissident views.” – John W. Whitehead – A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State
Do No Evil, Unless it is Profitable
“I can’t in good conscience allow the US government to destroy privacy, internet freedom and basic liberties for people around the world with this massive surveillance machine they’re secretly building.” – Edward Snowden
It’s amazing how corporate principles, codes of conduct, ethics, and morality can be cast aside by men when their wealth and power is dependent upon casting them aside. Google’s Do No Evil slogan is now a bad joke as they have consistently ignored their own motto by doing business with evil governments, bowing down to the demands of authoritarian surveillance states, and willingly handing over the private information of people to the government. They have done this in order to boost their profits and enrich their executives. The 120 million internet users in China are too big of a market, with vast profit potential, for Google to pass up over a little torture, murder, and repression by the Chinese government. Google bowed to the Chinese government and produced a censored, state-approved version of its search portal, enabling filters that block search terms such as Tibet, Taiwanese independence, Tiananmen Square protests, Falun Gong movement, freedom, democracy, political protest and prevent the engine from finding certain websites banned by the state. It also does not offer its blog or e-mail services in China in order to comply with government restrictions denying free speech. I guess evil is in the eye of the shareholder.
Human rights groups are the only ones who have called out Google for their hypocrisy, censorship of free speech and worshiping at the altar of the almighty yuan. Google is not alone in kowtowing to the authoritarian regime in China, as Yahoo, Microsoft, Facebook and any other internet provider must agree to censorship and turning over private information to the authorities. Microsoft shut down the U.S. hosted, pseudonymous blog of a Chinese journalist, and Yahoo turned over to the Chinese government personal e-mail files of an online dissident who was subsequently sentenced to ten years in prison. These corporate tools of the state care not that China is still one of the most repressive countries on Earth, with tens of thousands jailed dissidents and political prisoners, as well as being a serial abuser of copyright laws.
The Communist Party’s propaganda department has ramped up operations at Office 1106, an organization which trawls cyberspace for subversion. All websites, bloggers and bulletin-board operators must register with the government and Beijing has a special internet police force responsible for shutting down “unacceptable” sites, blocking foreign news sites and jailing people for online postings. The press freedom group Reporters Without Borders described Google’s acquiescence to authoritarianism as “a black day for freedom of expression in China”. They realized this was the first step on a downward path to loss of freedom around the world:
“But they continue to justify themselves by saying their presence has a long-term benefit. Yet the internet in China is becoming more and more isolated from the outside world and freedom of expression there is shrinking.”
The Free Tibet Campaign describes Google’s surrender as an endorsement of censorship and repression. “With this move, Google’s motto ‘do no evil’ is in smithereens,” said the campaign’s spokeswoman Alison Reynolds. “This also further contradicts those political leaders who attempt to convince us that foreign business can change China for the better.” Google Earth does not recognize the word Tibet. These corporations use the predictable spin that it will notify users when access had been restricted and argues that it could play a more useful role in China by participating than by boycotting it. Tell that to the thousands of freedom fighters languishing in gulags. We know Google willingly censors on behalf of governments. Based on the revelations from Edward Snowden, you can be sure Google provides the identities of Chinese citizens who voice dissenting opinions about the Chinese government directly to the Chinese secret police. We are all enemies of the state and subject to surveillance, censorship and ultimately imprisonment. We are living in a modern technological dystopian nightmare, with no hope of awakening.
“The world is not sliding, but galloping into a new transnational dystopia. This development has not been properly recognized outside of national security circles. It has been hidden by secrecy, complexity and scale. The internet, our greatest tool of emancipation, has been transformed into the most dangerous facilitator of totalitarianism we have ever seen. The internet is a threat to human civilization.
These transformations have come about silently, because those who know what is going on work in the global surveillance industry and have no incentives to speak out. Left to its own trajectory, within a few years, global civilization will be a postmodern surveillance dystopia, from which escape for all but the most skilled individuals will be impossible. In fact, we may already be there.
While many writers have considered what the internet means for global civilization, they are wrong. They are wrong because they do not have the sense of perspective that direct experience brings. They are wrong because they have never met the enemy.” – Julian Assange – Cypherpunks: Freedom and the Future of the Internet
Big Google and the Surveillance State
“Big Brother in the form of an increasingly powerful government and in an increasingly powerful private sector will pile the records high with reasons why privacy should give way to national security, to law and order and the like.” – William O. Douglas – Points of Rebellion, 1969
“We have seen segments of our Government, in their attitudes and action, adopt tactics unworthy of a democracy, and occasionally reminiscent of totalitarian regimes. We have seen a consistent pattern in which programs initiated with limited goals, such as preventing criminal violence or identifying foreign spies, were expanded to what witnesses characterized as “vacuum cleaners”, sweeping in information about lawful activities of American citizens. The tendency of intelligence activities to expand beyond their initial scope is a theme which runs through every aspect of our investigative findings. Intelligence collection programs naturally generate ever-increasing demands for new data. And once intelligence has been collected, there are strong pressures to use it against the target.” ― Church Committee -1975
William O. Douglas and Frank Church foresaw the overreach of the surveillance state decades before Edward Snowden nobly sacrificed his future and risked his life to reveal the vast illegal collection of private phone calls, texts, emails, downloads, and every electronic communication of every person in America by a secret government agency operating in the shadows. The Chinese experience was a prelude to how Google, Yahoo, Verizon and the rest of the corporate internet/telecommunication complex would do whatever was demanded by the all-powerful NSA in order to expand their profits and avoid the ire of the Deep State.
Edward Snowden threw a monkey wrench into the well- oiled gears of the cooperative efforts of the NSA, the British NSA – GCHQ, Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, Facebook, Apple, Verizon, etc. to conduct the greatest mass spying program in world history. The denials, finger pointing, obfuscation, and outright lies by government bureaucrats, politicians and corporate executives came fast and furious after Snowden’s revelations. They were caught red handed committing illegal acts, in violation of the Fourth Amendment.
Denial press releases regarding knowledge of this mass spying scheme from Google and Facebook appeared to be written by the same maggot public relations firm, as they were virtually identical.
The reactions of Google and Yahoo were reminiscent of Captain Renault declaring “I’m shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here!” in Casablanca.
“We are outraged at the lengths to which the government seems to have gone to intercept data from our private fiber networks, and it underscores the need for urgent reform.” – Google
“We have strict controls in place to protect the security of our data centers, and we have not given access to our data centers to the NSA or to any other government agency.” – Yahoo
These faux expressions of outrage and surprise have been revealed by Snowden to be disingenuous and insincere. Glenn Greenwald and the Guardian verified the authenticity of a 41-slide NSA PowerPoint presentation, classified as top secret, used to train intelligence operatives on the capabilities of the PRISM program. The presentation claims “collection directly from the servers” of nine major US service providers, including Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, and Apple. The presentation also claims the program is run with the assistance of these companies.
Once they were caught in a lie, Google and the rest of the co-conspirators in this crime tried to backtrack and say they were just obeying their masters at the NSA. In a statement, Google said: “Google cares deeply about the security of our users’ data. We disclose user data to government in accordance with the law, and we review all such requests carefully. From time to time, people allege that we have created a government ‘back door’ into our systems, but Google does not have a back door for the government to access private user data.”
Google is supposed to be the most highly advanced cutting edge tech company on the planet, but somehow their entire system is unencrypted and available to anyone with the means to access it. That sure seems convenient. They have plausible deniability, while allowing the NSA to syphon every piece of electronic communication on its networks. No wonder this NSA diagram had a big smiley face on it.
Detail of an internal “NSA presentation slide” published by the Washington Post. The sketch shows where the public Internet meets the private cloud maintained by Google, and points out — with a smiley face — that the data within the cloud is unencrypted.
The documents released by Snowden forced Google to admit to willingly providing data, names and communications directly to the NSA. Google has a special server drop-box for the NSA where requested and approved files are placed to be taken by the NSA via secure FTP. Some printed records are delivered by hand. How much data passes through this hand-off process isn’t known because the company has refused to reveal that information.
With all the brainpower at Google HQ it is beyond laughable to believe they had no idea the NSA was collecting metadata on such a vast scale. They allowed this to happen with a wink and a nod in order to keep profits flowing. Google, Yahoo and the rest of the captured high tech industry sold out the American people for profits. They were willing participants in the largest crime in U.S. history, and there are no repercussions or prosecutions because their co-conspirators are the very government who would have to prosecute them.
The supposedly legal aspect of this spying program allows the NSA to gather huge amounts of Internet communications by legally compelling U.S. tech companies, including Google, to cooperate with officials and turn over all data that matches secret court approved search queries. This is authorized under Section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act. PRISM operations are overseen by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC). None of this was known prior to Edward Snowden nobly deciding he could not let this go on in good conscience. Neither the government, Google nor the other communications companies would have ever revealed this program. Of course, the non-legal vacuuming of metadata is far worse and has no support whatsoever under the U.S. Constitution.
To give you some perspective on the scale of this criminal enterprise, NSA analysts processed more than 180 million records within a time span of 30 days from Google’s metadata system. The NSA gained access to who sent the message, who received the message, what the message contained and all audio and video sent on this system. The NSA secretly tapped into the private fiber-optic networks that connect Google’s and Yahoo’s worldwide data centers, allowing the spy agency to suck up “at will” bulk metadata and content belonging to users of the companies’ services.
Under a program called MUSCULAR, a joint project with British NSA counterpart the GCHQ, the NSA takes advantage of overseas taps to intercept data flowing within Google’s and Yahoo’s geographically distributed data “clouds,” where multiple copies of user data are stored unencrypted. Google “PREF” cookies, which can help identify a user’s web browser and serve up personalized ads allows NSA to single out an individual’s communications among the sea of Internet data in order to send out software that can hack that person’s computer.
The question is why is our government doing this? Are they doing it for our protection or for our subjugation? The War on Terror is really a cover for corporate fascists to further enrich themselves and gain a stranglehold on the government and financial system. There is little or no threat from terrorists in this country. The few psychopaths out there cannot impact this country in a major way. But, fear can be used by those in power to solidify their control over the masses. Before 9/11 it would have seemed unthinkable for our country to descend into a dystopian society, surrendering privacy, anonymity and individualism.
This bulk collection of private communications is their ace in the hole. Anyone who dares to question authority, resist the establishment or voice a dissenting opinion can be discredited and destroyed with personal information gathered by the NSA. One method for undermining those deemed “radicalizers” by the NSA is to document their online porn habits. The documents released by Snowden reveal NSA plans to blackmail non-conformists, as explained by Glenn Greenwald.
“Among the vulnerabilities listed by the NSA that can be effectively exploited are ‘viewing sexually explicit material online’ and ‘using sexually explicit persuasive language when communicating with inexperienced young girls.’ “
If the Deep State cannot bribe you with cash, they will invade your privacy and use personal communications to bribe you. Censorship can be exercised through many channels. The saddest part thus far is the lack of outrage by the American people. The majority of mouth breathing techno-narcissists in this country have never heard of Edward Snowden. They don’t realize he is the Paul Revere of the next American Revolution. They don’t understand the implications of not standing and fighting during this Fourth Turning. Unless enough people stand up and say NO, we will end up with turnkey tyranny.
“The great fear that I have regarding the outcome for America of these disclosures is that nothing will change. People won’t be willing to take the risks necessary to stand up and fight to change things… And in the months ahead, the years ahead, it’s only going to get worse. The NSA will say that… because of the crisis, the dangers that we face in the world, some new and unpredicted threat, we need more authority, we need more power, and there will be nothing the people can do at that point to oppose it. And it will be turnkey tyranny.” – Edward Snowden
In the final segment of this three part article – Fourth Turning: The People vs Big Brother – I’ll discuss how I think this all fits into the Fourth Turning Crisis we are currently experiencing.
I’m sure our beloved government and their cooperative mega-corporations have your best interest at heart in this matter. We all know that cell phone theft is a scourge on society and must be addressed before the thousands of other crimes being committed in our Orwellian state. Virtually every adult in America owns a cell phone. At least they thought they owned it. We already know the NSA knows everything you say, text, or send on your cell phone. The outrage from the sheeple has been deafeningly non-existent. The sheep trust their keepers as they are herded towards the slaughterhouse.
Now our keepers have quietly developed a scheme with their capitalist cronies at Apple, Google, Samsung, Microsoft, Verizon and the rest of the cell phone oligarchy to kill your cell phone when the shit hits the fan. Everything they do is in the name of safety – spy drones flying overhead, militarization of local police forces, mass surveillance of all electronic communications, trying to revoke the 2nd amendment, and pretending the 4th amendment doesn’t exist.
This kill switch is not to protect you. It is to control you. It puts the government in control of your communications. They know the shit is going to hit the fan in the next few years. They desperately wanted to pass SOPA to control the internet, but have failed thus far. They want to be able to shut down all electronic communication by those they consider enemies of the state who oppose their Orwellian tactics and control.
Know your enemy.
Melissa Melton
The Daily Sheeple
April 16th, 2014
According to a program launched yesterday by CTIA-The Wireless Association®, an international nonprofit that has represented the wireless communication industry since 1984, all phones manufactured in the U.S. after July 2015 will be required to contain a “kill switch” system that can remotely disable and wipe any cell phone’s data.
Although the “Smartphone Anti-Theft Voluntary Commitment” is a voluntary program, apparently all the major players have already happily jumped on board: “Apple, Google, Samsung and Microsoft, along with the five biggest cellular carriers in the United States, are among those that have signed on to a voluntary program announced Tuesday by the industry’s largest trade group,” reported CNN.
And the supposed reasoning — anti-theft — sounds super phony, but just like everything else, it’s all for you and your safety of course:
Advocates say the feature would deter thieves from taking mobile devices by rendering phones useless while allowing people to protect personal information if their phone is lost or stolen. Its proponents include law enforcement officials concerned about the rising problem of smartphone theft. (source)
Yeah, because law enforcement really cares about whether or not your smartphone is stolen…unless it’s law enforcement stealing your phone from you in the first place because you’ve used the camera on it to protect yourself from police state activity by taking incriminating photos and videos of said law enforcement.
Well, now they won’t even have to physically take your phone from you, because apparently with just the push of a button, the phone can be remotely wiped clean of all data.
(On an aside, someone tried to break into my house and it took a whole day for the cops to even bother to show up…like they really give half a crap about whether or not your phone is stolen.)
As with every other trendy new technology advertised as making consumer’s lives just Jetsons-level awesome, there’s an obvious flipside that can be used (abused) for quite the opposite.
By the way, the 2014 CTIA Board of Directors and Officers include the higher ups (Presidents, CEOs and VPs, etc.) from many major communications companies including Ericsson, Verizon Wireless, Blackberry, AT&T, Sprint, Qualcomm, LG Electronics, Samsung, T-Mobile, Motorola, U.S. Cellular, Nokia and Apple.
So it should be no surprise whatsoever that Nokia, Motorola, AT&T, T-Mobile, Verizon, Sprint and U.S. Cellular have all signed on to the kill switch program.
And remember, many of these companies are the same ones that voluntarily joined the NSA Prism program, allowing the government to track all your online communications and populate the government’s databases with your skimmed data.
In this day and age of dwindling privacy ala 1984, you would think there would be a major market for a privacy-respecting telecom, but it takes a lot of money to set up the infrastructure for that kind of thing, and it’s no secret that the U.S. intelligence community via sources like In-Q-Tel (the CIA.’s official venture capital firm) are the real backers incubating all the new technology these days:
Founded in 1999 as a way for the U.S. to keep up with the rapid innovation in science and technology, In-Q-Tel has been an early backer of start-ups later acquired by Google, Oracle, IBM and Lockheed Martin.
“If you want to keep up with Silicon Valley, you need to become part of Silicon Valley. The best way to do that is have a budget because when you have a checkbook, everyone comes to you,” said Jim Rickards, an adviser to the U.S. intelligence community who is familiar with the activities of Arlington, Va.-based IQT.
Given the increasing importance of cyber security and big data, it is a safe bet that the U.S. intelligence community will continue to lean on private-sector development in its behind-the-scenes fight against terrorism and other geopolitical threats. (source)
But as we all know, it was the U.S. military that invented the Internet in the first place, after all.
Delivered by The Daily Sheeple
Contributed by Melissa Melton of The Daily Sheeple.
Melissa Melton is a writer, researcher, and analyst for The Daily Sheeple and a co-creator of Truthstream Media. Wake the flock up!
– See more at: http://www.thedailysheeple.com/kill-switch-included-on-all-cell-phones-made-in-u-s-by-2015_042014#sthash.VrkAaDXH.dpuf
I feel like Dirty Harry the way I’ve been gunning down stinking retailers today. And now I’ve got Ron Johnson, the worst retail CEO in history, laying on the ground with my 44 Magnum pointed at his fat ego inflated head. And I’m itching to pull the trigger.
Ron Johnson has been the CEO of JC Penney since November 2011. In the space of 14 months this douchebag has single-handedly destroyed a retailer that has been around for over 100 years. His stunning incompetence is breathtaking to behold. I worked for a horrible retail CEO at IKEA named Pernille Lopez. She was as dumb as a sack of hammers, but she was unable to destroy IKEA. Johnson arrived at JC Penney with his Apple Ego and $400 million fortune and proceeded to prove that a retard could have done a better job by throwing darts at a list of ideas to improve the company.
It is almost incomprehensible what he has been able to accomplish in one year on the job. Here is a link to their results.
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/j-c-penney-company-inc-213101438.html
Here is the verdict:
Ron Johnson is a disgrace. JC Penney is a public company and its Board of Directors are a disgrace. This asshole should be fired immediately. They are paying this motherfucker millions to drive this company into the ground. It seems his free kids haircuts on Sundays didn’t turn things around. To show you what a fucking ego he has, he didn’t even move to Plano Tx when he took the job. He still lives in San Francisco and commutes several times a week in a corporate jet.
After concluding the worst year ever by a retailer of this size, here is what this rocket scientist had to say:
“We have accomplished so much in the last twelve months. We believe the bold actions taken in 2012 will materially improve the Company`s long-term growth and profitability.”
Delusional doesn’t come close to describing this asshole. The hubris of making a statement like that is appalling. He should be on his fucking knees apologizing to the employees and few remaining customers for the atrocious management and dreadful decisions he has made. But you will hear none of that. He doesn’t give a fuck about the thousands of employees who will lose their jobs when this disaster sinks to the bottom of the retail graveyard. He is responsible for 159,000 employees. Most or all will lose their jobs. This fucker will get a $10 million severance package and fly off to his gated estate in Silicon Valley. I love watching the Wall Street dickheads who have continually come out with positive reports on this dog of a company be proven to be shills and shysters.
You can checkout my previous thoughts about Mr. Johnson here:
May 2012 – http://www.theburningplatform.com/?p=34521
August 2012 – http://www.theburningplatform.com/?p=38725
September 2012 – http://www.theburningplatform.com/?p=40416
November 2012 – http://www.theburningplatform.com/?p=43752
December 2012 – http://www.theburningplatform.com/?p=45560
I’ve decided that my new theme song is from my boys the Black Keys. My predictions make me a Lonely Boy but when I’m right, I gots to dance.
Just when you think Americans can’t act like bigger dumbasses, they top themselves. Not only do these non-thinking dregs believe that Iran is a threat to the United States, but they are willing to wait hours and in some cases days to be the first to get a new iPad. As if they won’t be available tomorrow or next week or for the rest of their freaking lives. How meaningless and pathetic must their lives be that they will worship at the altar of Apple for a lousy touch screen gadget. Such a vast swath of humanity has become so degraded, ignorant, and driven by nothing other than an insatiable appetite for material possessions, that only a collapse of the current economic system will bring people back to their senses. Or they will riot, loot, burn shit and kill each other. It will be a fitting conclusion when these zombies are killing each other with their igadgets.
Some very interesting developments have occurred in the world of Petty Despots, namely Laurent Ghabo of the Ivory Coast and “Baby Doc” Duvalier of Haiti. Larry appears to be defaulting on some loans and has had all his Assets frozen by “Authorities” in Switzerland, while Baby Doc returned to Haiti and then was promptly arrested and then mysteriously released. This is all some very confusing stuff to try to get a handle on.
Now, Ghabo appears to have a few tons of possessible Gold keeping him nominally Rich for the moment despite the fact his other financial assets are frozen. However, it is unclear where Ghabo might go with his pile of Gold where they will allow him to keep it. One suspects wherever he goes, the “authorities” in Switzerland will send a Repo Squad to wherever he turns up and divest him of it in order to pay off some of his outstanding debts. One also suspect whatever country he goes to will cooperate with the Swiss “authorities”, since if they don’t their own financial assets might get frozen also for aiding and abetting a Financial Criminal, as defined by of course, the Swiss “Authorities”.
One of my favorite financial Bloggers, Ambrose Evans-Pritchard often uses the term “Authorities” when talking about the folks in Brussels who run the EMU, World Bank and IMF offices situated there. What I would like to know is why they have “authority” over anything? Have these folks been voted into their offices of authority by anybody anywhere? Why do they get to decide whose assets get Frozen?
At the same time Ghabo is doing a disappearing act from Ivory Coast, Baby Doc Duvalier reappears in Haiti a quarter century after being deposed. Does anyone here suppose Baby Doc did this willingly? He is returning there to Save Haiti all of a sudden? There is a popular uprising among the Quake Vicitms longing for the good old days when a Duvalier was in charge of torturing people? What?
Here is my WAG on Baby Doc. He’s been living “peacefully” in France for the last 25 years, doubtless on tons of Haitian Assets he absconded with, but with all the shit going on in Haiti now, said assets aren’t paying off anymore, and Creditor “Authorities” in Switzerland informed him that if he didn’t get his ass back to Haiti and take control of them he would have whatever assets he stole Frozen. His Job is to get those assets paying off again, which he promises to do with the help of a squad of Halliburton Mercs and perhaps some local Gangstas he might have some family connections to.
Ghabo is in a disputed election with some other despot named Ouattara, who apparently is the Most Favored Puppet by the UN Globalists, who are holding some $3B in IMF “aid’ hostage until Ghabo officially steps down. Ouattara clearly has cut deal with the IMF letting them know he is the BEST Puppet, and will make sure to give them all the cheap cocoa they want to sell at as high a price as they want on the international markets.
To an extent, this is all BAU down in the banana republics, except for the fact that for the most part the system has been in a status quo holding mode for the last 25 years, but now all of a sudden Dictators are changing faster than LLPOH swallows Smokey’s throat yogurt.
This effect isn’t limited to African and Latin American Banana Republics, the Irish are about to depose Brian Cowen, and Belgium which is home to Brussels hasn’t had a functioning Goobermint in close to a year now. Nevertheless, there are “Authorities” in Brussels who will tell whatever Goobermint does take over in Ireland exactly how they should tax their population and spend their money.
Here in the FSofA, we did a Diaper Change of Congress this last election cycle, and in the next one will likely pick a new Puppet to replace Obama, who also will take his orders from “Authorities” on Wall Street, who themselves are of course taking their marching orders from “Authorities” at the BIS in Switzerland, though of course this still goes on behind the curtain. As the FSofA progreesively morphs into Banana Republic status, its only a matter of time before the Swiss “Authorities” at the BIS attempt to take over explicit control by issuing out some new One World Currency, and doling out just as much of it as they think our “assets” are worth here.
Now, in order to keep the Gravy Train going here at the BIS, they gotta have some Protection Racket to “restore order” in all these places, which for the Banana Republics comes in the form of UN “Peacekeepers”. How many UN Peacekeepers are there anyhow? Who is funding all these Peacekeepers? Its not the boys in Brussels or Zurich, but they are calling the shots as far as where the Peacekeepers get deployed here, until they run out of Peacekeepers.
Long as these disturbances are in Banana Republics, Authorities in Brussels and Zurich can get enough Mercs from the countries that they do control to go in and bust some heads and kneecap debtors as necessary. However, once these problems work their way inward to the major countries, its going to become a whole lot harder to round up enough Mercs to do a decent job of controlling these populations. My guess would be that once Spain and/or Italy start to fail as performing assets that the UN Peacekeeping Force will be out of its League.
Meanwhile, as far as the individual Politicians and Banksters go who like Ghabo and Duvalier used their control over the economic wealth of their countries to build personal fortunes, as varying members of our political and bankster class lose control over performing assets, they will also find their personal stolen hoards Frozen by Authorities at the BIS. Try to flee to parts unknown with a Pile of Gold will be about impossible except for the most inner circle.
The Political Turmoil amongst the Petty Despots and Puppets is a sign of the Pigman v Pigman battle in progress. The small time operators are now getting flushed out and what wealth they stole is getting repoed by bigger thieves. As time goes by, bigger ones still will be thrown under the Bus. In the process, still more Political control will be lost, and just as we have failed states in places like Somalia and pretty much Mexico, eventually even the largest Nation States will become failed states.
Another form of the Petty Despot are the Hedge Fund Managers. Like Puppet Dictators, these folks control a variety of assets, just they are diversified Globally rather than being contained in a single country. In order to Perform and get big returns on their investments, these guys have to lever up to beat the band these days, and eventually the risky assets they hold are not going to be backstopped by Da Fed and there will be margin calls. State Bonds, Munis, SOMETHING here is not going to get backstopped at some point. Da Fed may get a Management Change here as Helicopter Ben is Deposed in favor of John Taylor, who might be this generation’s Andrew Mellon. Liquidate Stocks, Liquidate Real Estate, Liquidate Liquidate Liquidate! LOL. All indicators are that the Illuminati are using the SAME Playbook here, and after a massive attempt at inflation they will rapidly deflate the money supply and force liquidation across the board. Creative Destruction will take on a whole new meaning in that crash. lol.
Anyhow, we appear to be entering the beginning part of this end game. There is a LOT of Musical Chairs being played up at the top of some of the Big Name tech companies all at the same time. Steve Jobs taking a”leave of absence” for “health” reasons, Google CEO swapping seats, and practically the entire board of Hewlett Packard is being replaced. Warren Buffett also stepped off the board at That ALL of these changes are happening at the same time is unlikely to be a Coinkidink.
I have a real good Tinfoil Theory to pitch out here as I ponder on all of this stuff. We know for a FACT that the entire RE market has been one big FRAUD for the last decade, right? Is it beyond the realm of possibility that Google is one big FRAUD also, and has been cooking their books since the Dot Com Bubble collapsed? Personally, I have never really bought their revenue model for monetizing the search engine. I could easily see some Bankster creating an SIV specifically for the purpose of buying Ads on Google to inflate their income, with said SIV funded by some kind of Junk Bonds. All these bonds are basically worthless, there are no real companies behind some of the Ads or they are shell companies over in China, whatever. Accounting standards have been so lax over the last decade ANYTHING is possible here.
Similarly, are Apple’s sales numbers of I-phones and I-pads really accurate? Yes I do see quite a few more people using these toys so probably most of the sales numbers are legit, but really if they have say a 10% shortfall in the numbers they would have to sell on the balance sheet to be showing a Profit, it wouldn’t be too hard to create an SIV in say Singapore and have that fund buy up a warehouse full of I-phones and put them on ice. Da Goobermint of China is doing this with the Cars they are producing, they buy them and then stick them in parking lots.
Remember folks, we have been in a Mania period here for a full decade, and based on the Fraud that occurred in the RE market, why would similar frauds not be undertaken in the Tech market for Toys? For the Bankster originating the loans necessary for some Warehouse owner in Singapore to fill up his warehouse with Iphones the take home profit would be enormous. All he has to do is convince some investors/suckers that his Distributor in Singapore is going to bring home big profits by buying up these Iphones and selling them over in Asia. He pockets a tidy profit once he sells the securities, and the warehouse owner pockets money each time he sells a few Iphones, but most of the Iphones just sit in the warehouse. It takes a while, but eventually the Investors are left holding the bag on a warehouse full of Iphones that they can’t sell except for pennies on the dollar.
Think about the possibilities here folks! Imagine if Google is just one big Enron style Financial Fraud of GARGANTUAN proportions! If/WHEN one of these FRAUDS does exist and finally sees the light of day, there is absolutely NOTHING that could stop a massive liquidation attempt in stocks and bonds across the board. Katy Bar the Door! Defrauded Investors would lose EVERYTHING. Hedge Fund Managers jumping from Wall Street Skyscrapers, the WORKS!
This is NOT a Prediction! Its just a Tin Foil Theory fueled by a few Sam Adams. However, if it happens to be correct, you can say you heard it here first off the keyboard of Reverse Engineer. 🙂
RE