Posted on 05/03/2011 4:48:05 AM PDT by decimon
WikiLeaks chief Julian Assange has made a lot of enemies, and you can now add Facebook to that list.
In a recent interview with Russia Today, Assange said "Facebook in particular is the most appalling spying machine that has ever been invented."
"Here we have the world's most comprehensive database about people, their relationships, their names, their addresses, their locations, their communications with each other, their relatives, all sitting within the United States, all accessible to U.S. intelligence," the whistle-blowing site's editor continued.
Assange asserted that he believes many major U.S.-based tech companies are actively helping the government spy on people.
"Facebook, Google, Yahoo, all these major U.S. organizations have built-in interfaces for U.S. intelligence," Assange said. "It's not a matter of serving a subpoena. They have an interface that they have developed for us intelligence to use.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
I read yesterday some of the Wikileaks documents had mention of couriers, which may have blown the OBL operation. For certain, given the mass amounts of documentation, there is as much disinformation in the files as information. Nevertheless.....Bradley Manning should be tried for treason and executed. Assange should be assassinated.
Keep your interwebz footprint as small as possible.
I don’t have a fb page under a real or assumed name.
I think people who use that (or the narcissistic Twitter) are nucking futz.
Uh....is that a denial or an acknowledgement?
Good idea. Imagine some stranger asking for your name, the names of your family members and friends, what you do for a living, where you live, where you will be at different times and dates, your political likes and dislikes... You'd likely not give that info to that stranger so why give it to every stranger?
Even if you try to keep your internet footprint as small as possible, you may still have more of a presence than you realize.
I can find a website that has a list of every city I have lived in since the 80s or 90s. Rather than looking through my own records, I used Google to find information about myself for my CV. None of that information is anything I put onto the internet, ever.
I have a FB account, but aside from my name, it has no information on me other than my name, birthday, and email address. Only my name is viewable publically. I have 4 friends on it, and I have yet to actually use it.
If you’re using FR, it can be argued that you are not keeping the smallest internet footprint.
Mike
I think FB is perfect when used the way it was intended to be used... as a means to communicate and share photos with family and friends.
However, FB is NOT the forum to complain about your job or reveal confidential information.
The biggest advice I would tell anyone who joined FB is to restrict all information to just your FB friends and use https instead of http.
Uh....is that a denial or an acknowledgement?
Is that from Facebook? Looks more an acknowledgment.
There at 2 people in the entire world who can connect FD2003 with my RL name.
I am all but sure that connection is not going to be broken.
It IS within the realm of possibility that someone could scour my FR page, my thousands of posts and then do some cross-referencing to get close to who I am.
But it ain’t gonna show up on a search engine.
Anyone ever done a lexis.com search of themselves? It’s shocking the data they have.
Yahoo! News
Julian Assange: Facebook is an 'Appalling Spying Machine'
http://news.yahoo.com/s/pcworld/20110502/tc_pcworld/julianassangefacebookisanappallingspyingmachine_1
Mon May 2, 6:32 pm ET
"Facebook: We fight back when necessary
"Facebook is already facing increasing criticism over privacy issues, and more attention to the topic could harm its reputation even more. Spokesperson Andrew Noyes takes issue with Assange's characterization.
"'We don't respond to pressure, we respond to compulsory legal process,' Noyes told PCWorld in an email. 'There has never been a time we have been pressured to turn over data-we fight every time we believe the legal process is insufficient.'
"Noyes did say that Facebook's policies governing the release of data to government officials are dependent on the laws of that particular country, and that the site 'respects that standard.'"
Don’t you just assume that if you use the internet someone is keeping track of what you do? The age of anonymity is over unless you go Ted Kaczynski. Remember the movie “The Net” with Sandra Bullock? They had all of this information about her that she posted online and it was such an amazing thing and these people that controlled everything were so smart. Today someone would just say, “big deal, you hacked my Facebook account.” Unless you are a spy,a dangerous dissident that is blackmailable, or your credit information is accessible, you shouldn’t need to worry about the Alphabet Agencies surveying your information.
Okay, thanks.
I know that detailed info about me exists in multiple places. But I wouldn't offer that info to someone calling me on the telephone so I certainly wouldn't broadcast that info to the world on Facebook.
Another thing about Facebook is that people reveal personal info that would otherwise be recorded nowhere.
The Internet in general is a two-edged sword: You use it to get your own opinions out there, and as part of the result, people know all about you.
You’re welcome, Dec. I respect your instinctive concern for facts, truth, and verification. ~S
It’s a shame that many others of the U.S. intelligentsia—notably so-called “journalists”, college professors, and politicians—don’t share your concern.
Still, FR isn't Facebook. We don't simply offer to the world our personal info.
It's worse than that. My grandmother's never been on a computer, never had cable TV, satellite TV, and she's had her car for at least 20 years.
I went to one site (name escapes me at the moment) and found everything about her. Age, marital status, address, phone number, estimated wealth, even some hobbies. This is a lady who doesn't even use a debit or credit card. She carries cash and checks. The only thing I could think of that would even show up in a computer is that she uses a rewards card at her local stores. So, all of this other information has to have come from government selling of data (no debt = no private lenders to deal with).
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