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News Assange accuses Facebook of being a US spying tool

Discussion in 'Article Discussion' started by arcticstoat, 3 May 2011.

  1. arcticstoat

    arcticstoat Minimodder

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  2. Unknownsock

    Unknownsock What's a Dremel?

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    oh god i hate this guy.

    I honestly couldn't care if the US goverment collected info on what pr0n i watch.
     
  3. Mitcian

    Mitcian What's a Dremel?

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    I'm rather torn here between giving a crap what Assange has to say in his latest jibe at 'The Man', and being slightly concerned as I don't see it a huge stretch of the imagination that his accusations may have some truth to them.
     
  4. Modsbywoz

    Modsbywoz Multimodder

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    Guessing he "liked" prostitutes then.
     
  5. Mechh69

    Mechh69 I think we can make that fit

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    WOW I think he's needs a tin foil hat. I guess he thinks all companies that have a HQ in the U.S. or do business in the U.S. just give all their information to the U.S. government? Like the government cares that "Little Genny fell down and bumped her knee" or that someone's cat had 3 kittens vice 4. I seriously doubt any government has time or the equipment to mine that amount of data for the little they would glean from facebook.
     
  6. Furymouse

    Furymouse Like connect 4 in dagger terms

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    Wait a second, Facebook has personal information on it that other people can see? I'm being Facebook stalked by the gub'mint?
     
  7. banks1990

    banks1990 What's a Dremel?

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    ah yes, facebook, google and yahoo are operated by Shadow Broker.
    and US government is currently the highest bidder.
     
    Fizzban likes this.
  8. Tangster

    Tangster Butt-kicking for goodness!

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    We have dismissed these claims.
     
  9. jrs77

    jrs77 Modder

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    I'm telling people for years allready, that all these so called social playtforms are huge databases collecting informations taht can be accessed by national intelligence services.

    Oh, and I don't use any of these services ofc. I'm only using anonymous ways to communicate with other people, like private IRC or teamspeak-servers. Any service where there's friendlists being stored on central servers is a no-go. Hiding IP's by using tools like TOR etc is also being done here.

    The only thing that's being tracked and I can't do without unfortunately is my mobile-phone (simple $50 phone, no smart-crap).

    Yes. I'm paranoid :worried:
     
  10. feathers

    feathers Minimodder

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    In this world the most unthinkable is the most probable.
     
  11. Modsbywoz

    Modsbywoz Multimodder

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    Does it really matter. Unless you have something to hide what's the government going to do?
     
  12. Toploaded

    Toploaded What's a Dremel?

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    The ironic thing is, the more you try and duck out the system like that, the more you will stand out and get noticed. by da man ;)
     
  13. Fizzban

    Fizzban Man of Many Typos

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    Even if it is true it doesn't really matter does it. They are only going to want info on terror suspects or murders/pedos ect.. So in other words it wouldn't affect 99.9 % of us. The likelihood is that it is just a lie though.
     
  14. tad2008

    tad2008 What's a Dremel?

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    +! :eek:)
     
  15. mucgoo

    mucgoo Minimodder

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    would anyone here really complain if the US government used facebook/other online data in tracking down a murder/rapist etc.
     
  16. fodder

    fodder Minimodder

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    Erm, has he ever seen the posts and conversations on facebook?

    Unless they have a scheme for covert sterilisation to preserve some form of intelligence in the human race, I would doubt the effort would be worth the reward.
     
  17. FelixTech

    FelixTech Robot

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    The same argument can be applied to the government installing cameras in your house, or GPS trackers in your body.

    Legal processes like subpoenas and warrants exist for a reason - to protect individuals' privacy in all but exceptional cases. You should be able to assume your privacy is being upheld unless you are notified otherwise.

    Information is a powerful thing, and while it won't necessarily be misused there is no need to make it a possibility. Storing unhashed passwords is perfectly harmless - right up until someone hacks your database.
     
  18. jrs77

    jrs77 Modder

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    Using these sites in certain cases isn't the problem. The problem is, that all the data is allways freely available for them... everyones data, no matter if you're a suspect or not.

    For me the question is this: "Is it acceptable that everyones data is being constantly observed, just to catch a few bad people?"

    My answer to this question is: "NO!, it's not acceptable."

    Furthermore it's not acceptable that all the data (IP-adresses, chatlogs, priv messages, etc) is being stored for more then a very few month (6 month being the absolute maximum that's acceptable!).

    If there's a suspect, then the governement sure has all the rights to track all the communications, but aslong as I'm not a suspect, there shouldn't be tracked anything, don't even talk about stored/recorded permanently.

    The freedom and anonymity of the unguilty masses simply weighs in so much more then the posibility to catch a few bad guilty ones imho.
     
  19. MiNiMaL_FuSS

    MiNiMaL_FuSS ƬӇЄƦЄ ƁЄ ƇƠƜƧ ӇЄƦЄ.

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    it's not a matter of 'what have you got to hide?'

    it's a matter of 'what reason have you got to look?'

    If we went with the, it dosnt matter as long as you have nothing to hide option, then you wouldn't object if a goverment offcial turned up on your doorstep and just felt like a rummage through your house?
     
  20. Sloth

    Sloth #yolo #swag

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    Unless he's got some real proof I'm going to go ahead and say that his fame and power has gone to his head. He says they're giving information away, they say they're not and neither one has a solid way of proving they're right. It comes down to whose word people will believe. I believe that Mr. Assange knows this and is using it to have people buy into his words without proof. Being suspicious goes both ways.

    A fair deal of the trivial information found on a Facebook user's information section has already been gathered by the government through driver's licenses, voter registration, taxes, etc. I've already willingly given up far more information than will be found on Facebook or any online account when applying for a background check as well. The only useful information which Facebook may provide would be incriminating pictures or status updates which would only be of any relevance if the person in question was actually suspected of anything in which case a subpoena isn't exactly hard to get so why setup such an illegitimate channel?
     
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