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ScottDLS wrote:None of this stuff is putting secret chips in printers, tv sets, and computers.

-The tracking dots are known to be in printers and they were specifically asked for by the government in models that they buy so they could detect where leaks/unauthorized copies were coming from.

-If you can't mask your IP and cookies from Google or anyone else you're failing Privacy 101.

-Everybody knows about the Stingray cell-tower spoofing. Assume anything you say on an unencrypted commercial wireless device is insecure. Take out your SIM and battery before you embark on any black ops...or prepare to be tracked by Pauley Perrette and Mark Harmon from NCIS. Cote de Pablo will track me

99% of the easy surveillance can be defeated with commercially available tools and logical precautions. If you read Schneier's stuff at EFF and at his blog you can learn a lot. One point that he makes that is excellent is that encryption is just one tool against one particular type of threat. Other boring stuff like locks, safes, keeping your mouth shut, hiding places, etc. all have their uses too. I can have all my data encrypted on my Macbook Pro, but it won't stop the guy from smashing my car window in and grabbing off the seat to sell at the flea market. They won't get my next great American novel, but they'll get my $2200 gadget.

ScottDLS wrote:

philip964 wrote:I had sorta previously figured the government was doing all the things that were covered in the release of vault 7.

What I enjoyed was having it confirmed. That and all the cool names.

I figured people like HP or Intel were installing extra chips for the government into the printers or computers, so the CIA could remotely take over a printer and have it send them any thing that the target printed or typed. Or guide a cruise missile to the target.

I figured that any computer with a US made chip could be activated in a time of war to turn off and not aid the enemy.

When you realize how sophisticated the attack on the Iranian centrifuges was, you can easily realize how much they can do.

But like the breaking of the German code in WW2, you can't in many times use it to its full potential unless it is something really important.

Now we find Best Buy geek squad was helping the FBI by scanning your computer when you brought it in for repairs looking for illegal stuff.

I think for someone who has become a target, you have to assume everything you do is monitored by someone.

I've assumed everything we say here is being monitored, stored and screened for those words we shouldn't type, less we become an interest to someone out there.

I'm not sure they are that blatant. Maybe high end routers and telephone switches. The TV's and printers are more hacks and malware. Now I wouldn't be surprised if the Chinese are doing it. And there really are very few US manufactured chips...at the end of the day for all the talk, nobody really wants a wafer fab in their backyard. TI was going to build one in Richardson 22 years ago, but I think they gave up. Let them pollute the air and water in China...

I know US government is very paranoid about the electronics in defense applications. Those probably built here (for cost plus, of course) by the big defense contractors. I know my company (a "little" defense contractor) decided to stop buying Lenovo (previously IBM) Thinkpads because they are made in China, now we buy NEC.

If you become a target, it will probably be quite difficult to keep your privacy, but I always take some comfort in the fact that there is SO much information out there, that the chances of me being picked out of the petabytes of data are pretty low, especially if I take reasonable precautions.

Instead of depending upon the traditional distorted word test, Google’s “reCaptcha” examines cues every user unwittingly provides: IP addresses and cookies provide evidence that the user is the same friendly human Google remembers from elsewhere on the Web. And Shet says even the tiny movements a user’s mouse makes as it hovers and approaches a checkbox can help reveal an automated bot.

Last week, the city of Oakland, California, released documents revealing that three local jurisdictions applied for a Homeland Security grant to obtain a “state-of-the-art cell phone tracking system” with 4G tracking abilities. Other areas, including Tacoma; Baltimore; Chesterfield, Virginia; Sunrise, Florida; and Michigan's Oakland County are also seeking upgrades.

mojo84 wrote:Then again, if you have nothing to worry about, why worry about about the government monitoring or ID'ing you?