Don't get too pleased that Sirius wants to be your friend. He will cosy up to anyone that disagrees with me.

The above shows much about your mindset. Until proven otherwise you will always remain Taffy The Welsh Ineffectual Troll

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And you have evidence for all of this? And you say you are not neurotic? Are you sure the bloke behind that newspaper is not watching you? Or the one behind you?

Do you even read the links that get posted here? Its stated pretty clearly that yeah, the GCHQ hacked into webcams of people with suspicious usernames. They even admitted that they were doing that.

Oh OK, so we now have to accept that you know more about national security then the UK's own security services do? Threat levels If any more information that that was given it could compromise the information that we have. There are standard procedures that are carried out by the government and regional administrations depending upon the current threat level, to protect vital national services. CNI

I never claimed that I know more about national security than the intelligence agencies. But I do know a thing about language and how you can use it to frame concepts. Just look at those threat levels and how they are worded.

Low - an attack is unlikely
Moderate - an attack is possible, but not likely
Substantial - an attack is a strong possibility
Severe - an attack is highly likely
Critical - an attack is expected imminently

See how all but the lowest level all actually indicate you should be really scared? Moderate indicates what, in percentage somewhere between 30-50% chance of an attack going to happen? Of course that is nonsense, the actual chance of a terrorist attack on threat level moderate is smaller than you getting hit by a car or being a victim of any number of violent crimes. But if you say that there is a moderate chance of something happening, in people's mind that translates as 'I should be scared because moderate chance still sounds like a very real chance'. And from there it only gets scarier and scarier.

Furthermore, look at the descriptions of each threat level. They are so vague. "An attack is possible, but not likely"? That applies literally ALWAYS. There is ALWAYS a possibility of attack even when its not likely. Which is why the threat level is always 'Moderate' and never low. And than what is with the descriptions of substantial and severe? An attack is a strong possibility? That phrase means absolutely nothing. What is a strong possibility? 2%? 10%? 50%? With the statistical unlikeliness of terrorist attacks a 10% chance of an attack happening between now and 6 months is actually really high. But 10% chance doesn't sound scary at all. So what they have done here is made the descriptions vague so people can fill in the blanks themselves. And knowing people, most of them will start conjuring up the worst kind of scenarios when you say there is a 'strong possibility' of an attack.

So you see, these threat levels are nonsense. They are vague, they sound terrifying all of the time, but they do not give people any meaningful information on how likely an attack really is. All it does is trying to create a scare.

You have already gone on record as saying that in your opinion you think that terrorism is a big load of fuss about nothing, and only a handful of people have died anyway. You went rather quiet when I took you to task on that one. I will repeat what I said previously, that in terms of European politics I am happy to listen to what you have to say, as you have studied it to some depth and I haven't. In terms of anything else you have shown that you are sadly lacking in knowledge.

Yeah, you posted a bunch of pictures in some hopeless appeal to emotion. Which is exactly what should not be done. The US did it and it landed them in Iraq, appealing to peoples emotions only results in them making terrible decisions.

The facts do not lie. In the West, the amount of people that die of terrorism is negligible. Every once in a while there is a major attack, but even if you take those into account still more people die each year in traffic incidents, cancer or hearth failure than of terrorism. And no one makes a big fuss about those things either, even though both heart failure and cancer could potentially be eliminated as a substantial cause of death if we spend the same amount of money on cancer and heart disease research as we spend on the GCHQ for spying on people.

Don't get too pleased that Sirius wants to be your friend. He will cosy up to anyone that disagrees with me.

You're one to speak, it was you who started sending me pm's when I argued against points made by Sirius and with which you disagreed.

An interesting report. Makes one wonder though as to why the rest of the coalition disagree......

Clegg calls for transparency in UK surveillance

"Secrecy is essential for the agencies to conduct their operations but, if blanket secrecy becomes an unthinking default response, then public trust will suffer," said Clegg. "The assumption should always be for openness where possible, secrecy where necessary."

Spot on!

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Very interesting.......

Who is winning 'The Crypto-War?'

However, this one is not only interesting, but makes one wonder just where will it all end?

NSA-GCHQ Cyberspeak - A glossary

...and a quote from another link which says it all really about governments......

"We have enough proof now that governments do have the necessary technology and personnel that can effectively fight cybercrime. They just chose to put it to a different use."

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If this occurs, it won't just be the NSA one will have to worry about....

US should keep control of Net

"A lot of people who have been trying to take this authority away from the United States want to do it for the sole purpose of cracking down on internet freedom and limiting it and having governments protecting their backsides instead of empowering their people," he said."

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I just heard this news...

All other threads were closed.

edit.

http://www.theguardian.com/media/2014/apr/14/guardian-washington-post-pulitzer-nsa-revelations
Guardian and Washington Post win Pulitzer prize for NSA revelations

The Guardian and the Washington Post have been awarded the highest accolade in US journalism, winning the Pulitzer prize for public service for their groundbreaking articles on the National Security Agency’s surveillance activities based on the leaks of Edward Snowden.

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I just heard this news...

All other threads were closed.

edit.

http://www.theguardian.com/media/2014/apr/14/guardian-washington-post-pulitzer-nsa-revelations
Guardian and Washington Post win Pulitzer prize for NSA revelations

The Guardian and the Washington Post have been awarded the highest accolade in US journalism, winning the Pulitzer prize for public service for their groundbreaking articles on the National Security Agency’s surveillance activities based on the leaks of Edward Snowden.

Thank you for bringing it to our attention Lynn :)

I expect there will be a few people who won't be happy about it - but it's difficult to find fault with the journalism. The revelations about the NSA and the subsequent uncovering of the trading of "spying services" between respective governments (which has emerged since) has been a real eye-opener to many of us.

It's a shame that all that data-gathering and surveillance isn't being put to better use...



Or perhaps it is - and we'll have to wait for another Edward Snowden to tell us so.

Ps: I do hope the picture isn't in bad taste - it certainly isn't meant in that way - but it does sort of sum up a few of the questions that have been going around in my head recently.

Nope, the picture is not bad taste, in fact in proves a point...

...Often a picture is better than a thousand words...

As for spying, man has been doing that for centuries, it's only now that technology makes it a lot safer and easier than what it once took.

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Heartbeat reveals loophole for NSA spying

... & I'll bet that they are not the only ones to take advantage of that fact.

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Heartbeat reveals loophole for NSA spying

... & I'll bet that they are not the only ones to take advantage of that fact.

Heartbeat? Surely this is an unusual plot twist for them...

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Life on earth is the global equivalent of not storing things in the fridge.

Hello everyone :) Not entirely sure it fits this thread but it does relate to the NSA... Was curious on what people make of it...

Code breakers, your country needs you

Was thinking of pooping it into Blade's 2048 thread in the cafe, but didn't want to break his concentration. :)

(Edit: Eeeeuw - I'm so sorry - how inelegant. Should read as "popping")

Code breakers, your country needs you

Recruiting and testing through Facebook; the end is near.

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Code breakers, your country needs you

Recruiting and testing through Facebook; the end is near.

So it was the wrong thread then :) (Hi Batter Up)

Unlike Scotch Tape, this just won't fade away...

Vodafone reveals direct government wiretaps

...amazing that in the digital 21st century, analogue laws are being used to mask their wrongdoings!

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This deleting of your posts long after the edit window closes is an abuse of your position.

Please explain to us why you have this perk.

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...

After so much noise from Germany about the actions of NSA and GCHQ, German Considers Turkey to Be Official Target for Spying

For more than a year now, German officials have criticized the US for the NSA's mass spying on Europeans and even Chancellor Angela Merkel. Now, embarrassing revelations show that Germany has inadvertently spied on Hillary Clinton and John Kerry, and has also deliberately targeted Turkey.

Oh dear, after all the fuss she created, wonder how Ms Merkel will answer that?

Interesting

"So you can imagine one part of GCHQ is trying to break Tor, the other part is trying to make sure it's not broken because they're relying on it to do their work. So it's typical within governments, or even within large agencies, that you have two halves of the same coin going after different parts of Tor. Some protect it, some to try to attack it."