It's often asserted in Shadowrun that a variety of groups exist because they haven't "sold out" information to anyone else: spy agencies, fixers, etc. We're told that such a breach of trust would be the destruction of the company if anyone found out about it.

In the wake of the revelation that groups like Bell and Verizon's MCI department have been handing your records over to law enforcement without informing you, are any of you taking action with your phone service?

Nah. I gave up the illusion of privact long ago. The only way to keep anything private is to never tell anyone. If my privider ever decides to give out my information ti'll just save the people they give it to the troubleof subpoenaing it should it ever be needed.

I'm a mostly law abiding person with very little to hide though. If I cared who knew what about me I'd be really pissed. And yeah, I know I'm "eroding the fabric of America" by not caring. And I'm probably "empowering the government towards oppression" while "ushering in a police state ruled be fear" but I really don't care. If it can keep my children safe then more power to them.

Feel free to flame me for that, and I'll happily flame back, but my opinion is that the people who want to hide things are usually (not always) the people that have something to hide. I'm not one of those people.

Hell, line 'em up for pre-emptive finger printing, DNA typing, active RFID chipping, bar coding, dental impressions, and retinal scans while you're at it.



I disagree with you, but TEHO.

May you rot in the deepest pits of hell.

~J

it's certainly true that the people who have things to hide are the people who generally want the ability to hide things. hiding things isn't necessarily bad or law-breaking, though. if i have a fetish for 56k modems dressed in latex bondage gear, that's my business. or, to use an example with less gross factor, if i'm conducting business over the phone, i don't want anyone recording that and harming my business with what they discover from it. i don't trust the gummint (or anyone else) to keep that data safe.

the phone companies didn't build their business on trust, though. they built it on providing a service. if the phone companies had built their empires based on providing secure communications, then they'd be ruined right now.

Wow! I can't beileve I'm so in the minority on this one.

eidelon: TEHO? That's a new one on me.

Makes sense. Thanks!

i'm not all that surprised. you're financially comfortable and you've got a family. a cynic might say that these things obscure your vision of what's truly important; while acknowledging that these things have value, i'm not sure i'd disagree with the cynics.

It depends on your opinion of what is "truly important." To me it's stability and protection of my family. To someone without those concerns it might be protection of the current society's view of what constitutes "human rights." Others may focus on what they believe to be human rights without regard to what culture or creed would have them think.

I worked my ass off and still do in order to achieve and maintain financial comfort. If someone boring their asses off reading transcripts of emails between me and my gaming buddies can help to ensure that my childrens' well being continues then I'm all for it. If it means some peoples' ideas of what is morally or politically "right" don't get upheld, well, nobody ever gets everything they want, so look for your victories elsewhere.

Given that it's all opinion anyway, there aren't a lot of wrong answers to the question of what is really important. There are some, or at least I should say that there are some answers which would, IMO, be wrong.

Well I think it's pretty shitty but what are you gonna do?
Cancel your cell and/or land-line phone service? Doubtful
What about those who don't have the option to switch to the more "trustworthy" provider?

Most of the crap our goverment is doing in the name of "fighting terrorism" is a bunch of shit anyway. Just more excuses to slowly take away what rights we have left. And thanx to "news" orginizations like Fox it's easy to feed the public all sorts of scary stories about what could happen if blah blah blah...

There are talks of actually passing a law or laws stating that anyone who hears "sensitive information" can be prosecuted as a spy!

"What? Someone at the New York Times wrote an article based on "sensitive info" that was leaked to him? Arrest him, he's a spy..."

Belive it or don't but we're not quite there yet, maybe after they settle the whole "border security" and immigration issue...

That's why I've been building a rocket ship with enough room for two of every animal, my family, and a few close friends. We're leaving this rock and we ain't looking... anybody want a ride?

As long as we can stop by Mars-Mart on the way by. I need to pick some stuff up.

Some of us only have phone lines so we can get DSL, where we can send all our information encrypted (oh yeah, and so stupid people can call us. I hope the gov't considers some of them terrorists.)

All responses have been noted.


Would now be a good time to admit I work on the InfoSec team for Verizon, or should I wait till later?

Verizon ..... Yes, we can hear you now.

I may be missing something here but from what I understand what the phone companies allegedly turned over (I understand 3 of the 4 named sued Newsweek for just being flat out wrong) were phone numbers and calling record, not phone conversations. Phone companies have been turning over phone records to Police with a simple request for decades. The Echelon Program (cute little deal where we spy on allies citizens and our allies spy on ours and the Intel agencies share notes) which actually does record conversations has been up and running since the early 90's. The NSA and CIA basically cannot share info with law enforcement. Honestly I'm a lot less worried about the Goverment checking my calling patterns than I am about Google tracking my searches or Visa tracking my purchases, the goverment doesn't send me spam.

Back to SR related stuff, is the Z-O Bank the entity that actually clears all the Credstick/Commlink purchases and transfers? If so do they make any sort of privacy assurances or does any member of the corporate court have access to the records of any SIN for the asking?

I was under the impression the Bells used to do it as a courtesy without requiring a subpoena.

I've done collection work and skip tracing. I know how to hide what I don't want out there.

want to try something? Next time you renew a subscription, but a different first name. Then watch to see what junk mail you get in that name and you know to whom, they sold their list. I did that once with a magazine, sending the name of the cat I had when i was little. Whenever I get something for "Constance Levine" I know who sold them out-'busted."

The government can go for all that. The big deal comes if they arrest someone for it, the law suit to get it thrown out as unconstitutiional.

Actually, this is true: after the story broke, I remember reading in the Globe & Mail about the communications authority in Canada has been able to seize long distance and cell phone records for a very long time, something that we don't really seem to care about much, the article went on to point out.

I currently hold a government clearance for accessing classified materials. That means that theoretically I have at my dispoal information that could cause great harm if it leaks out. I hope the government is tracking everything I do to make sure I don't do something bad with the information.

If data can be used to track terrorists then it can be used to find and capture them. How is that "it really can't?"

Because "it really can't". Tracking is not the same thing as finding, ask a hunter sometime.

Moreover, while mfb might give you "it can track terrorists", I don't. How, exactly, is this going to track terrorists? Seriously?

~J

If you track a bear to it's lair you have found the bear.

I don't know how. Although if a confirmed terrorist's phone records are seized I assume it can give new leads on new terrorists.

Yep, but they are ifs, which means it is possible.

And I believe you proved the bear point for me. It won't always result in finding the bear / terrorist, but it could, which is all I was saying.

Well, I just reread the context, and as it turns out the "it really can't" was not aimed at whether or not it could track irregulars, but whether or not it can "ensure that [your] childrens' well being continues".

For reference, if you want to ensure your childrens' well-being, you'd do better to keep them off the road than to pursue irregulars in any form.

~J

That's assuming it's an either/or situation. Doing both combined is better than doing either one seperately, at least in terms of what I feel is important. In terms of your priorities it's worse.

Here's the deal: you (kage) have a very strong belief that the government should not have too much power. that's cool. It works for you. If you'd rather people suffer then give the government another inch, that's all within your rights as an opinion holder. (I'm not saying that's what you think, but it is the impression you've given me).

I would rather give away some of my freedoms to help ensure my safety. and since the freedom we're discussing right now (privacy) is a myth, I'm not really giving anything up at all. IMO, YMMV, etc.

edit: Obviously tracking terorists (irregulars if you prefer that term) cannot ensure my children's safety. Nothing can ensure it. But there are a lot of things that can help increase the odds that they'll be safe. Tracking terrorists with an eye towards stopping them is one of those things.

Right, but I'm saying that you're being inconsistent in your beliefs by giving away freedom in the wrong order—you give it away when it guarantees you almost no safety (antiterrorism), but not when it gives you a great deal of safety (relinquishing use of the road system).

~J

You said I should keep my children off the road. I do that. Obviously we still drive places.

Almost anything you can point to that is edible has at some time been deemed unhealthy. Do you therefor refuse to eat? Of course not. Likewise, while driving accidents occur more often then terrorist attacks, I tend to do what I can to avoid both. Seat belts, air bags, defensive driving, and open phone records.

i didn't say it can't be used to find terrorists. i said it can't keep your children safe. this information is just as potent a weapon for terrorists as it is against them, and it is being collected and held by institutions which cannot reliably maintain data security.

that is, in fact, the exact incident i had in mind. as i recall, there was a similar incident a few months back.

There are also constant stories about about data theft and loss occuring all the time. Before the VA was Bank of America. Before them was LexisNexis. Before that was ChoicePoint, and so on.

Unfortunately, the world isn't yet at the point of Brin's Earth, and the ubiquity of information is still a liability for the people about whom the information is.

My favorite retort to people who implicitly trust this government is to ask them if they would still maintain that stance if Hillary Clinton was President instead of Bush. Strangely enough, I've never once gotten a straight answer. I wonder why.

SL James: I never said I trust the government. I have my limits, it's just that caring about who sees my phone records is nowhere near them.

mfb: The odds of a terrorist being found by phone records are much better than the odds of a terorist giving a rat's ass about my phone records.

great. your kids will be safe as long as they never leave line-of-sight of your telephone.

Huh? Sometimes you make absolutely no sense.

the information that can be gleaned from these records can help terrorists strike with better accuracy and greater frequency. more terrorist attacks = more chances for your kid to end up on the wrong end of a pile of rubble... unless they play it safe, and always stay someplace where they know the terrorists will never strike. such as the building housing your telephone, since we're both pretty sure that they're not interested in you, personally.

Ah, so phone records will help terrorists plan faster pinpoint attacks but won't help the government. That's an interesting choice of self delusion you've gone with this week.

please point out where i said it won't help the government. reiteration, meatbag: what i said is that it won't keep your kids safe.

/HK-47

Ah yes, the insults begin. mf old chap, it's funny how you turn to those when you've run out of other options.

Reiteration, oh though of little grey matter: I also said it wouldn't keep my children safe, just that it would help. If it stops a single terrorist, then it keeps someone's kid safe.

I gladly give away my figment of privacy if it means even a 0.0001% increase the the chance that a single terrorist strike gets stopped, or even just gets its effects blunted.

Obviously your opinion differs.

I really don't understand why it is you think you have to prove me wrong. Or why you think it's even possible. I'm pretty certain that you can't point to any numbers or facts that would indicate that phone records can't help fight terrorism. In the absence of those facts you're just spouting off.

Very few people with any sort of logical thought processes are convinced of anything because someone wants to spout off about their opinion.

If you want to get me to change my mind, give some facts. If you don't care what I think, then by all means feel free to stop trying to prove something.

it was more a joke about insults than an actual insult. rather than calling you, for instance, a freedom-hating commie (also a joke... mostly), i called you a meatbag, and then closed HK-47 mode. nobody ever gets the really funny ones...

as for proving you wrong, call it the result of frustration towards the millions of people like you who i can't open a dialogue with--people i believe are taking the very short view, who are helping dig the country into a pit it might not be able to dig itself back out of. as of the last poll results, 29% of americans still don't disapprove of Bush. the glass is, to me, roughly one-third more full than it should be. i think we got into the current mess by jumping for immediate gains over long-term considerations, and i don't see that the current administration has changed that. if anything, they've done worse.

Maybe you're idea of "really funny" is skewed?

Please don't get me wrong. I understand your viewpoint. The more power a government is given the more it will want. More power in more hands means more opportunities for abuse. I just don't care.

Governments have always done what governments have wanted to do. Even our own government, supposedly a bastion of democracy, has ignored the vote of the people on something as big as a presidential election. They'll do what they want with or without our acquiescence. If it seems like somthing I can back (like what we're discussing here) then I'll back it. If it seems like something I wouldn't like I'll oppose it. But I don't suffer from the illusion that my support or opposition matters at all to them. In the end they'll get what they want anyway.

I'd love to live on a worldwide hippie commune with love, proseperity, and high speed internet connections for all. But it seems I rarely get what I wish for.

Wait a minute! I've figured it out!

The strong desire to find points of opposition...
The blatant avoidance of all caps by using all lowercase...
The "humor" that people miss out on...

mfb IS emo samurai!!!

Wow. Now there's one for the conspiracy theorists.

governments are made of people, and people can be replaced. sure, you'll have a hard time slimming down the deep-rooted bureaucracy, but replacing the guy in the driver's seat isn't brain surgery. and it's the guy in the driver's seat--and the crew he brought with him--that i blame for steering the US in the direction it's taken for the past 6 years. it's not some nameless, formless "They" that has caused this, it's a select group.

and calling someone a meatbag is always funny. calling someone emo samurai, on the other hand... them's fightin' words.