Whilst many people we encounter might trudge through their own vaguely paranoid dreams that personal privacy is under threat, Jake Appelbaum at this year's Chaos Communication Congress, only a few days ago - sets the record straight for all of us.
You may not be concerned about your own privacy for lots of reasons - perhaps on the basis that if a person has no malicious or criminal intent then they have nothing to fear, which sounds perfectly reasonable doesn't it?
However it's when structures charged with protecting our interests - those which we used to uphold as honourable & trustworthy, at least as far as protecting our personal & national wellbeing, pull out all the stops to trawl every single aspect of the global - by that I mean GLOBAL - population's lives, you should take a moment to consider what this might mean for you and those closest to you.
In this video JA reveals some of the methods, means, tech, rationale as to exactly who these people are who can scrutinise you & me - and all of us, at the flick of a switch - and exactly how they do it.
Are they accountable to anyone? Well, a bit of a grey question, but the answer is predictably 'No'.
Does any of the information they seek or gather 'trickle up' to lawmakers, elected political representatives in our democracies? Again, 'No'.
Appelbaum paints the most accurate picture of who does what to whom, how & why - and it should make you extremely concerned for every aspect of your personal lives - because the information harvested covers just that - ALL OF IT... if they want to access it.
(I particularly liked the 3G network welcome message the British intelligence service left on their 'injected' cellphone node installed in or next to the Ecuadorean Embassy in London after Julian Assange took up residence there.
They'd forgotten to change the server settings so that it displayed a false welcome message from the last place the hardware unit was deployed - a Ugandan cellphone network cheerily announced itself - in the heart of London lol! Not very James Bond on that occasion, but there y'go...)
Whether you're interested in this topic or not, I'd urge everyone to watch it - the information it contains is essential to understand what's going on around us, and which is paid for by our collective tax dollars.
Serious stuff presented in a very matter of fact, understandable way - do pass it on.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vILAlhwUgIU[/youtube]
You may not be concerned about your own privacy for lots of reasons - perhaps on the basis that if a person has no malicious or criminal intent then they have nothing to fear, which sounds perfectly reasonable doesn't it?
However it's when structures charged with protecting our interests - those which we used to uphold as honourable & trustworthy, at least as far as protecting our personal & national wellbeing, pull out all the stops to trawl every single aspect of the global - by that I mean GLOBAL - population's lives, you should take a moment to consider what this might mean for you and those closest to you.
In this video JA reveals some of the methods, means, tech, rationale as to exactly who these people are who can scrutinise you & me - and all of us, at the flick of a switch - and exactly how they do it.
Are they accountable to anyone? Well, a bit of a grey question, but the answer is predictably 'No'.
Does any of the information they seek or gather 'trickle up' to lawmakers, elected political representatives in our democracies? Again, 'No'.
Appelbaum paints the most accurate picture of who does what to whom, how & why - and it should make you extremely concerned for every aspect of your personal lives - because the information harvested covers just that - ALL OF IT... if they want to access it.
(I particularly liked the 3G network welcome message the British intelligence service left on their 'injected' cellphone node installed in or next to the Ecuadorean Embassy in London after Julian Assange took up residence there.
They'd forgotten to change the server settings so that it displayed a false welcome message from the last place the hardware unit was deployed - a Ugandan cellphone network cheerily announced itself - in the heart of London lol! Not very James Bond on that occasion, but there y'go...)
Whether you're interested in this topic or not, I'd urge everyone to watch it - the information it contains is essential to understand what's going on around us, and which is paid for by our collective tax dollars.
Serious stuff presented in a very matter of fact, understandable way - do pass it on.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vILAlhwUgIU[/youtube]