A world without liberties
Thanks to Snowden’s sacrifice, since 2012 people of the world know the truth about the NSA (National Security Agency) global surveillance schemes.
However, I still don’t hear anyone talking about this in the streets…the everyday tech users that we are do not seem to understand, or worse, worry about the consequences: NO privacy is NO freedom of speech.
A clear message to the world by Snowden
- A world-scale, highly sophisticated set of software exists today which is capable of storing snapshots (or sub-copies) of internet.
- Unofficially, FAGMA (Facebook, Apple, Google, Microsoft, Amazon) are data providers to these systems.
- Every single person in the world that owns any kind of internet connected device can be spied on live at the touch of button by operators of these systems.
Why should you care?
If NSA passing naked pictures of people is one concern and paves the road to collective consciousness, than by all means have a look at this video as it will help understanding (with humour) the deal about internet privacy.
Global surveillance justification
World government officials have mentioned “war on terrorism” or “counter terrorism” to justify this data collection madness.
So, is war on private data equal to peace?
Data collection & data analysis
The NSA and affiliated member states have had over 10 years (more than enough) to develop techniques to collect, store, and analyse large amounts of data. Big Data is one of the “techniques” we hear about since the early 2000’s. It helps analysts be much more productive with the interpretation of such large data sets.
Even though governments possess both large data collection and large data analysis tools, it seems that over 30 completed terrorist attacks have been experienced by the western world since 2004. No matter how many undisclosed attacks have failed due to data surveillance, if government officials claim data collection is still useful to fight against terrorism, than maybe their data analysis skills need to improve.
Deaths in Europe in 2016
— Jihadist Terrorism: 142
— Tobacco: 700 000
Still, as stated in the official EUROPEAN UNION TERRORISM SITUATION AND TREND REPORT 2017, the EU claims that even more surveillance actions are to be taken to fight terrorism:
“Never before has the need for information sharing become more evident as it has in the past two years, with its unprecedented number of failed, foiled, but also completed jihadist terrorist attacks across Europe.”
Funny how politicians worry about 142 people per year, and how media coverage supersedes that of tobacco.
How much data in the world
A book published in October 2000 has quantified the world data to 2.2 exabytes. Predictions put the amount of internet traffic at 667 exabytes annually by 2014 (1.8 exabytes daily). Today, over 2.5 exabytes are estimated to be generated daily in the world.
1 exabytes =1 billion gigabytes
A typical hard drive found today in any personal laptop computer is around 500 gigabytes.
NSA Data Center storage capabilities
As per Utah Data Center wikipedia article:
An article by Forbes estimates the storage capacity as between 3 and 12 exabytes in the near term, based on analysis of unclassified blueprints, but mentions Moore’s Law, meaning that advances in technology could be expected to increase the capacity by orders of magnitude in the coming years.
We’re building a dystopia just to make people click on ads
When did this surveillance start
According to this slide (below), the year 2007 registers the NSA first data provider.
What data is collected
With the new european regulation starting in 2018 states, all new cars are to be equipped with eCall. With it, your car is nothing less than a smart car, and just like any smart device, it can be hacked and accessed remotely.
With GPS and smartphone already providing geolocation data, eCall completes the picture with additional data such as the type of vehicle, fuel used, time of accidents, exact location, and the number of passengers involved.
With voice recognition software, all audio or scanned documents are transcribable into searchable text files, making cross-data checks even easier for the users of PRISM and related systems.
Unfortunately, the data collection madness doesn’t stop with internet surveillance. Governments already have ways to monitor phone calls and credit card information.
Combining all these data sets yields very powerful insights about people. It is clear that the NSA and other world “security agencies” have understood it.
Is data working for people security or for mass marketing?
Transparency Reports & Government Information Requests
After Snowden’s revelations, NSA data providers started issuing statements on the importance they give to their customers’ privacy and have all come up with the idea of “transparency” reports, publically available so as to provide a public notion of how many of us are being watched.
Google Way of a Warrant is a short video explaining the process for these requests.
- Facebook Government Information Requests
- Apple Government Information Requests
- Google Government Information Requests
- Microsoft Government Information Requests
- Amazon Government Information Requests
- Twitter Government Information Requests
- Whatsapp Government Information Requests
About freedom of speech
Are we really aware, as regular consumers, citizens of this world, of what we’re actually doing to the world of our children by using all these free online services, or even by purchasing connected devices?
Do we really feel free to speak our minds now that we know that anything we say or write can be taken out of context and used against us?
Today, you might not have any ambitions, but what about tomorrow? Maybe yesterday’s beliefs are no longer yours today, but the “internet snapshots” will forever hold them for you.
Can we continue to rely on connected devices, social networks or on the silicon valley to promote freedom of speech?
