Bruce in West Oz
New member
It's not being paranoid when someone really is out to get you!
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>
Crisis: Massive Internet tapping revealed [5/27]
We apologize in advance for this rant, but we firmly believe it is necessary to expose this shocking (if not surprising) story to as many people as possible -- before the circles of power which have created it solidify their positions beyond any chance of being stopped. Have an opinion about this story? Let us know by emailing us at echelon@blm.net.
Today, MOSR will be focusing exclusively on a major story that broke over the weekend and has received remarkably little press considering its terrifying implications.
According to this article on Australian publication The Age, http://www.theage.com.au/daily/990523/news/news3.html an Aussie official has finally come forward to confirm one of the worst fears of Netizens -- that a large majority of Internet traffic, including personal/business communication such as email, is being passively tapped by the AU/UK/USA governments as a result of a secret treaty signed in the late 1940's, and that these communications are constantly screened for items that would be of interest to each country's respectiveintelligence organizations.
This system is called "Echelon," and although many Internet users suspected such a system existed, we had all secretly hoped that it would fall under the same "possible but not probable" banner of our other collective paranoia. Apparently, we were wrong in the worst possible way.
Even worse, with the cold war now (hopefully) over, these systems may be abused for nearly any purpose, provider the abuser has access to those in control of these tapping systems. The implications are terrifying, and could be catastrophic if not addressed -- not only by the governments in whose best self-interest it is to keep these systems in place -- but by every person who uses the Internet and expects to have their rights respected in even the vaguest fashion.
This "Echelon" project threatens what may be the greatest potential of the Internet. By bringing people together in an environment free of physical and even, in a fashion, temporal boundaries, this medium has allowed information to become an even more important part of our lives. Freedom of that information is one and the same with freedom of indviduals. This freedom has the potential to reshape the world we live in by breaking down national borders, bringing together people of entirely different walks of life, and fostering a worldwide effort to shed outdated modes of social, commercial, and governmental operation.
This project makes that freedom laughable and nearly impossible to attain.
Unfortunately, for such an organization to exist in the first place, it must be well-protected and have the support of whoever it is in these countries who is really pulling the strings. Hazarding a guess at who that is has become an increasingly difficult job in recent years. [/quote]
In a similar vein, considering that Internet censorship is now law in Australia, someone went to the trouble of punching an entire dictionary through the government's preferred filtering software.
You can see the results at:
http://www.cmetech.com.au/kiddie_search.html
It's interesting to see all the firearms and shooting references that have been "rejected" by the database.
Bruce
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>
Crisis: Massive Internet tapping revealed [5/27]
We apologize in advance for this rant, but we firmly believe it is necessary to expose this shocking (if not surprising) story to as many people as possible -- before the circles of power which have created it solidify their positions beyond any chance of being stopped. Have an opinion about this story? Let us know by emailing us at echelon@blm.net.
Today, MOSR will be focusing exclusively on a major story that broke over the weekend and has received remarkably little press considering its terrifying implications.
According to this article on Australian publication The Age, http://www.theage.com.au/daily/990523/news/news3.html an Aussie official has finally come forward to confirm one of the worst fears of Netizens -- that a large majority of Internet traffic, including personal/business communication such as email, is being passively tapped by the AU/UK/USA governments as a result of a secret treaty signed in the late 1940's, and that these communications are constantly screened for items that would be of interest to each country's respectiveintelligence organizations.
This system is called "Echelon," and although many Internet users suspected such a system existed, we had all secretly hoped that it would fall under the same "possible but not probable" banner of our other collective paranoia. Apparently, we were wrong in the worst possible way.
Even worse, with the cold war now (hopefully) over, these systems may be abused for nearly any purpose, provider the abuser has access to those in control of these tapping systems. The implications are terrifying, and could be catastrophic if not addressed -- not only by the governments in whose best self-interest it is to keep these systems in place -- but by every person who uses the Internet and expects to have their rights respected in even the vaguest fashion.
This "Echelon" project threatens what may be the greatest potential of the Internet. By bringing people together in an environment free of physical and even, in a fashion, temporal boundaries, this medium has allowed information to become an even more important part of our lives. Freedom of that information is one and the same with freedom of indviduals. This freedom has the potential to reshape the world we live in by breaking down national borders, bringing together people of entirely different walks of life, and fostering a worldwide effort to shed outdated modes of social, commercial, and governmental operation.
This project makes that freedom laughable and nearly impossible to attain.
Unfortunately, for such an organization to exist in the first place, it must be well-protected and have the support of whoever it is in these countries who is really pulling the strings. Hazarding a guess at who that is has become an increasingly difficult job in recent years. [/quote]
In a similar vein, considering that Internet censorship is now law in Australia, someone went to the trouble of punching an entire dictionary through the government's preferred filtering software.
You can see the results at:
http://www.cmetech.com.au/kiddie_search.html
It's interesting to see all the firearms and shooting references that have been "rejected" by the database.
Bruce