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leon trout
Estimated Prophet



Registered: 09/13/12
Posts: 1,089
Loc: The Timbers of Fennario
Last seen: 4 years, 9 days
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DEA Breaks the Law to Enforce the Law, Serious 4th Amendment Violations
#18662580 - 08/05/13 08:55 AM (10 years, 9 months ago) |
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http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/08/05/us-dea-sod-idUSBRE97409R20130805
(Reuters) - A secretive U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration unit is funneling information from intelligence intercepts, wiretaps, informants and a massive database of telephone records to authorities across the nation to help them launch criminal investigations of Americans.
Although these cases rarely involve national security issues, documents reviewed by Reuters show that law enforcement agents have been directed to conceal how such investigations truly begin - not only from defense lawyers but also sometimes from prosecutors and judges.
The undated documents show that federal agents are trained to "recreate" the investigative trail to effectively cover up where the information originated, a practice that some experts say violates a defendant's Constitutional right to a fair trial. If defendants don't know how an investigation began, they cannot know to ask to review potential sources of exculpatory evidence - information that could reveal entrapment, mistakes or biased witnesses.
"I have never heard of anything like this at all," said Nancy Gertner, a Harvard Law School professor who served as a federal judge from 1994 to 2011. Gertner and other legal experts said the program sounds more troubling than recent disclosures that the National Security Agency has been collecting domestic phone records. The NSA effort is geared toward stopping terrorists; the DEA program targets common criminals, primarily drug dealers.
"It is one thing to create special rules for national security," Gertner said. "Ordinary crime is entirely different. It sounds like they are phonying up investigations."
THE SPECIAL OPERATIONS DIVISION
The unit of the DEA that distributes the information is called the Special Operations Division, or SOD. Two dozen partner agencies comprise the unit, including the FBI, CIA, NSA, Internal Revenue Service and the Department of Homeland Security. It was created in 1994 to combat Latin American drug cartels and has grown from several dozen employees to several hundred.
Today, much of the SOD's work is classified, and officials asked that its precise location in Virginia not be revealed. The documents reviewed by Reuters are marked "Law Enforcement Sensitive," a government categorization that is meant to keep them confidential.
"Remember that the utilization of SOD cannot be revealed or discussed in any investigative function," a document presented to agents reads. The document specifically directs agents to omit the SOD's involvement from investigative reports, affidavits, discussions with prosecutors and courtroom testimony. Agents are instructed to then use "normal investigative techniques to recreate the information provided by SOD."
A spokesman with the Department of Justice, which oversees the DEA, declined to comment.
But two senior DEA officials defended the program, and said trying to "recreate" an investigative trail is not only legal but a technique that is used almost daily.
A former federal agent in the northeastern United States who received such tips from SOD described the process. "You'd be told only, ‘Be at a certain truck stop at a certain time and look for a certain vehicle.' And so we'd alert the state police to find an excuse to stop that vehicle, and then have a drug dog search it," the agent said.
"PARALLEL CONSTRUCTION"
After an arrest was made, agents then pretended that their investigation began with the traffic stop, not with the SOD tip, the former agent said. The training document reviewed by Reuters refers to this process as "parallel construction."
The two senior DEA officials, who spoke on behalf of the agency but only on condition of anonymity, said the process is kept secret to protect sources and investigative methods. "Parallel construction is a law enforcement technique we use every day," one official said. "It's decades old, a bedrock concept."
A dozen current or former federal agents interviewed by Reuters confirmed they had used parallel construction during their careers. Most defended the practice; some said they understood why those outside law enforcement might be concerned.
"It's just like laundering money - you work it backwards to make it clean," said Finn Selander, a DEA agent from 1991 to 2008 and now a member of a group called Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, which advocates legalizing and regulating narcotics.
Some defense lawyers and former prosecutors said that using "parallel construction" may be legal to establish probable cause for an arrest. But they said employing the practice as a means of disguising how an investigation began may violate pretrial discovery rules by burying evidence that could prove useful to criminal defendants.
A QUESTION OF CONSTITUTIONALITY
"That's outrageous," said Tampa attorney James Felman, a vice chairman of the criminal justice section of the American Bar Association. "It strikes me as indefensible."
Lawrence Lustberg, a New Jersey defense lawyer, said any systematic government effort to conceal the circumstances under which cases begin "would not only be alarming but pretty blatantly unconstitutional."
Lustberg and others said the government's use of the SOD program skirts established court procedures by which judges privately examine sensitive information, such as an informant's identity or classified evidence, to determine whether the information is relevant to the defense.
"You can't game the system," said former federal prosecutor Henry E. Hockeimer Jr. "You can't create this subterfuge. These are drug crimes, not national security cases. If you don't draw the line here, where do you draw it?"
Some lawyers say there can be legitimate reasons for not revealing sources. Robert Spelke, a former prosecutor who spent seven years as a senior DEA lawyer, said some sources are classified. But he also said there are few reasons why unclassified evidence should be concealed at trial.
"It's a balancing act, and they've doing it this way for years," Spelke said. "Do I think it's a good way to do it? No, because now that I'm a defense lawyer, I see how difficult it is to challenge."
CONCEALING A TIP
One current federal prosecutor learned how agents were using SOD tips after a drug agent misled him, the prosecutor told Reuters. In a Florida drug case he was handling, the prosecutor said, a DEA agent told him the investigation of a U.S. citizen began with a tip from an informant. When the prosecutor pressed for more information, he said, a DEA supervisor intervened and revealed that the tip had actually come through the SOD and from an NSA intercept.
"I was pissed," the prosecutor said. "Lying about where the information came from is a bad start if you're trying to comply with the law because it can lead to all kinds of problems with discovery and candor to the court." The prosecutor never filed charges in the case because he lost confidence in the investigation, he said.
A senior DEA official said he was not aware of the case but said the agent should not have misled the prosecutor. How often such misdirection occurs is unknown, even to the government; the DEA official said the agency does not track what happens with tips after the SOD sends them to agents in the field.
The SOD's role providing information to agents isn't itself a secret. It is briefly mentioned by the DEA in budget documents, albeit without any reference to how that information is used or represented when cases go to court.
The DEA has long publicly touted the SOD's role in multi-jurisdictional and international investigations, connecting agents in separate cities who may be unwittingly investigating the same target and making sure undercover agents don't accidentally try to arrest each other.
SOD'S BIG SUCCESSES
The unit also played a major role in a 2008 DEA sting in Thailand against Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout; he was sentenced in 2011 to 25 years in prison on charges of conspiring to sell weapons to the Colombian rebel group FARC. The SOD also recently coordinated Project Synergy, a crackdown against manufacturers, wholesalers and retailers of synthetic designer drugs that spanned 35 states and resulted in 227 arrests.
Since its inception, the SOD's mandate has expanded to include narco-terrorism, organized crime and gangs. A DEA spokesman declined to comment on the unit's annual budget. A recent LinkedIn posting on the personal page of a senior SOD official estimated it to be $125 million.
Today, the SOD offers at least three services to federal, state and local law enforcement agents: coordinating international investigations such as the Bout case; distributing tips from overseas NSA intercepts, informants, foreign law enforcement partners and domestic wiretaps; and circulating tips from a massive database known as DICE.
The DICE database contains about 1 billion records, the senior DEA officials said. The majority of the records consist of phone log and Internet data gathered legally by the DEA through subpoenas, arrests and search warrants nationwide. Records are kept for about a year and then purged, the DEA officials said.
About 10,000 federal, state and local law enforcement agents have access to the DICE database, records show. They can query it to try to link otherwise disparate clues. Recently, one of the DEA officials said, DICE linked a man who tried to smuggle $100,000 over the U.S. southwest border to a major drug case on the East Coast.
"We use it to connect the dots," the official said.
"AN AMAZING TOOL"
Wiretap tips forwarded by the SOD usually come from foreign governments, U.S. intelligence agencies or court-authorized domestic phone recordings. Because warrantless eavesdropping on Americans is illegal, tips from intelligence agencies are generally not forwarded to the SOD until a caller's citizenship can be verified, according to one senior law enforcement official and one former U.S. military intelligence analyst.
"They do a pretty good job of screening, but it can be a struggle to know for sure whether the person on a wiretap is American," the senior law enforcement official said.
Tips from domestic wiretaps typically occur when agents use information gleaned from a court-ordered wiretap in one case to start a second investigation.
As a practical matter, law enforcement agents said they usually don't worry that SOD's involvement will be exposed in court. That's because most drug-trafficking defendants plead guilty before trial and therefore never request to see the evidence against them. If cases did go to trial, current and former agents said, charges were sometimes dropped to avoid the risk of exposing SOD involvement.
Current and former federal agents said SOD tips aren't always helpful - one estimated their accuracy at 60 percent. But current and former agents said tips have enabled them to catch drug smugglers who might have gotten away.
"It was an amazing tool," said one recently retired federal agent. "Our big fear was that it wouldn't stay secret."
DEA officials said that the SOD process has been reviewed internally. They declined to provide Reuters with a copy of their most recent review.
-------------------- “I read somewhere that 77 per cent of all the mentally ill live in poverty. Actually, I’m more intrigued by the 23 per cent who are apparently doing quite well for themselves.” ~ St. Jerome of Marin
the bus come by & i got on, that's when it all began
Edited by leon trout (08/05/13 03:40 PM)
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redeyesmj
werdo



Registered: 12/04/08
Posts: 4,127
Loc: Middle of kansas
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Re: U.S. directs agents to cover up program used to investigate Americans [Re: leon trout]
#18663719 - 08/05/13 01:49 PM (10 years, 9 months ago) |
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watch what you say on the phone or text's
-------------------- Where am I at?
[/url]  “To be godless is probably the first step to innocence," he said, "to lose the sense of sin and subordination, the false grief for things supposed to be lost." So by innocence you mean not an absence of experience, but an absence of illusions." An absence of need for illusions," he said. "A love of and respect for what is right before your eyes.”― Anne Rice, The Vampire Lestat
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lowbrow
Paddy Time!!!!


Registered: 09/12/08
Posts: 9,820
Last seen: 14 hours, 24 minutes
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Re: U.S. directs agents to cover up program used to investigate Americans [Re: leon trout]
#18663727 - 08/05/13 01:52 PM (10 years, 9 months ago) |
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This might have more comments if there was a more descriptive title on it. It's actually severely fucked up.
It should be called "DEA brakes the law to enforce the law"
-------------------- Amanita86 said: Sui is trying to mod right now. Kinda like a newborn calf tryin ta stand fer the first time ain’t it..
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Lord_McLovin
mad scientist on shrooms


Registered: 04/09/11
Posts: 3,071
Loc: infinite dimensional void
Last seen: 6 years, 4 months
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Re: U.S. directs agents to cover up program used to investigate Americans [Re: leon trout]
#18663733 - 08/05/13 01:54 PM (10 years, 9 months ago) |
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I'm not going to say I told you so.
The title should be: Severe violations of the 4th amendment on a massive scale.
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nooneman


Registered: 04/24/09
Posts: 14,714
Loc: Utah
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Re: U.S. directs agents to cover up program used to investigate Americans [Re: leon trout]
#18663757 - 08/05/13 02:00 PM (10 years, 9 months ago) |
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It just gets worse, and worse. Man, all this NSA shit and now DEA shit, god knows who the fuck else is spying on us. I'm not one for conspiracy theories, but this isn't even a fucking conspiracy theory anymore. What the fuck. People used to be called crazy for suggesting this level of surveillance.
Shit like this makes me want to give up the internet, toss my cell phone, ditch landlines too, conduct transactions in cash. Fuck, what the hell happened to this country. Why are people so okay with this shit?
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Lord_McLovin
mad scientist on shrooms


Registered: 04/09/11
Posts: 3,071
Loc: infinite dimensional void
Last seen: 6 years, 4 months
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Re: U.S. directs agents to cover up program used to investigate Americans [Re: nooneman]
#18663779 - 08/05/13 02:07 PM (10 years, 9 months ago) |
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Why protest? Of course, they've got nothing to hide.
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Rumblefishtwist
Cyber Bully



Registered: 09/27/09
Posts: 1,057
Loc: Universe
Last seen: 4 days, 12 hours
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Re: U.S. directs agents to cover up program used to investigate Americans [Re: Lord_McLovin]
#18663847 - 08/05/13 02:29 PM (10 years, 9 months ago) |
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Watch the nazi's run your town Then go home and check yourself You think we're singing 'bout someone else
But you're plastic people Oh, baby, now You're such a drag
FRANK ZAPPA - PLASTIC PEOPLE
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Mush4Brains
LOOL HACKED!!!

Registered: 07/31/13
Posts: 4,419
Last seen: 9 years, 5 months
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Re: U.S. directs agents to cover up program used to investigate Americans [Re: redeyesmj]
#18664024 - 08/05/13 03:16 PM (10 years, 9 months ago) |
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Quote:
redeyesmj said: watch what you say on the phone or text's
This has been basic knowledge for years.
All I have to say is it appears I was wrong about the extent of some of this surveillance. I honestly thought that this kind of stuff would not be happening in America. I was wrong.
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Lord_McLovin
mad scientist on shrooms


Registered: 04/09/11
Posts: 3,071
Loc: infinite dimensional void
Last seen: 6 years, 4 months
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Re: U.S. directs agents to cover up program used to investigate Americans [Re: Mush4Brains]
#18664121 - 08/05/13 03:39 PM (10 years, 9 months ago) |
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You guys should post this shit on your facebook profile. Let them know what's going on.
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leon trout
Estimated Prophet



Registered: 09/13/12
Posts: 1,089
Loc: The Timbers of Fennario
Last seen: 4 years, 9 days
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Re: U.S. directs agents to cover up program used to investigate Americans [Re: Lord_McLovin]
#18664126 - 08/05/13 03:41 PM (10 years, 9 months ago) |
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Quote:
lowbrow said: This might have more comments if there was a more descriptive title on it...It should be called "DEA brakes the law to enforce the law"
Quote:
Lord_McLovin said: The title should be: Severe violations of the 4th amendment on a massive scale.
done & done...
-------------------- “I read somewhere that 77 per cent of all the mentally ill live in poverty. Actually, I’m more intrigued by the 23 per cent who are apparently doing quite well for themselves.” ~ St. Jerome of Marin
the bus come by & i got on, that's when it all began
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anne halonium
jaguarette



Registered: 05/07/13
Posts: 1,908
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Re: U.S. directs agents to cover up program used to investigate Americans [Re: Lord_McLovin]
#18664134 - 08/05/13 03:43 PM (10 years, 9 months ago) |
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our favorite peeps, turned out to be coniving lawless self serving shitbags?
who would have suspected?.
same filth, different trix, different days. im more shocked peeps didnt suspect as much already.
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AmongUs
Earthling



Registered: 07/22/13
Posts: 23
Loc: Northeast USA
Last seen: 9 years, 10 months
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Re: U.S. directs agents to cover up program used to investigate Americans [Re: anne halonium]
#18664942 - 08/05/13 07:11 PM (10 years, 9 months ago) |
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This makes me think twice about some things I have posted on this forum.
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AbstraKt_I_Am


Registered: 12/21/10
Posts: 1,898
Loc: Abroad.
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Re: U.S. directs agents to cover up program used to investigate Americans [Re: AmongUs]
#18665219 - 08/05/13 08:20 PM (10 years, 9 months ago) |
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Well this means pretty much any form of communication about drugs that isn't in the form a hand written letter can get just about anyone FUCKED.
I bet this is why SR has been up for so long. Seriously you guy's act like that website is untouchable. What a joke, they've probably been waiting just to see how many people use the site they can track for the past year.
Fuck em all to hell
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Lord_McLovin
mad scientist on shrooms


Registered: 04/09/11
Posts: 3,071
Loc: infinite dimensional void
Last seen: 6 years, 4 months
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Re: U.S. directs agents to cover up program used to investigate Americans [Re: AbstraKt_I_Am]
#18666672 - 08/06/13 02:55 AM (10 years, 9 months ago) |
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I don't think SR is affected by this. It's mainly not end-to-end-encrypted communication like phone calls, unencrypted emails, instant messager (with the exception of OTR communication), facebook, skype and so on.
How do you avoid this? If you have a smart phone, use redphone and textsecure. For emails use GnuPG/PGP. For instant messaging use OTR. For video-calling I don't know, but there most likely exists something. Note that both communication ends need to use it. Moreover, encrypt all of your devices and data, so in case they take it, they cannot do anything with it. Truecrypt and dmcrypt can be used for this.
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Lord_McLovin
mad scientist on shrooms


Registered: 04/09/11
Posts: 3,071
Loc: infinite dimensional void
Last seen: 6 years, 4 months
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Re: U.S. directs agents to cover up program used to investigate Americans [Re: Lord_McLovin]
#18667090 - 08/06/13 07:33 AM (10 years, 9 months ago) |
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Nevermind, Abstract...
I just read a article on a very prominent German computer blog saying that Tor might not be safe anymore, because it only works under the assumption that no single organ can watch the entire internet. If the DEA really works together with the NSA on this and they manage to make use of this giant amount of data (improbable, but possible), we're all fucked. If you already are on the radar, things might look even more bleak.
Tor is still a lot safer than browsing normally and the more people use it the more difficult it becomes to make use of the data. Also GnuPG is still safe, as far as we know. If you're worried about your privacy, I still highly recommend the precautionary measures I listed above.
I would say one of the safest communication ways is probably this: Each side has a linux computer (designated purely for this task) with encrypted HD without any access to internet that you take out of a safe every time you use it. You can then use it to write and encrypt your messages using GnuPG encryption and print it on a small, low-tech printer. Send the message via mail or deliver it yourself as they need a warrant for reading it and even if they have one, they cannot make use of it. There's also ways of making sure noone knows that you actually communicated (spy stuff), but this is another story.
This is only for the really, really ones. I do however recommend the simple measures in my previous post to everyone!
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AbstraKt_I_Am


Registered: 12/21/10
Posts: 1,898
Loc: Abroad.
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Re: U.S. directs agents to cover up program used to investigate Americans [Re: Lord_McLovin]
#18667583 - 08/06/13 10:41 AM (10 years, 9 months ago) |
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Quote:
Lord_McLovin said: Nevermind, Abstract...
I just read a article on a very prominent German computer blog saying that Tor might not be safe anymore, because it only works under the assumption that no single organ can watch the entire internet. If the DEA really works together with the NSA on this and they manage to make use of this giant amount of data (improbable, but possible), we're all fucked. If you already are on the radar, things might look even more bleak.
Tor is still a lot safer than browsing normally and the more people use it the more difficult it becomes to make use of the data. Also GnuPG is still safe, as far as we know. If you're worried about your privacy, I still highly recommend the precautionary measures I listed above.
I would say one of the safest communication ways is probably this: Each side has a linux computer (designated purely for this task) with encrypted HD without any access to internet that you take out of a safe every time you use it. You can then use it to write and encrypt your messages using GnuPG encryption and print it on a small, low-tech printer. Send the message via mail or deliver it yourself as they need a warrant for reading it and even if they have one, they cannot make use of it. There's also ways of making sure noone knows that you actually communicated (spy stuff), but this is another story.
This is only for the really, really ones. I do however recommend the simple measures in my previous post to everyone!
Thank you McLovin, the heads up is very appreciated. Im not computer savvy at all. Never used pgp and I tried to learn to encrypt my stuff but couldn't get the hang of it. I dont know if this would be too much of a hassle, but if you get the time and could PM an easy tutorial on encryption and explain what every one else means by "turning scripts off", Well Id be grateful beyond words mate.
Anyhow, good looking out, this is good info for all of us.
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Lord_McLovin
mad scientist on shrooms


Registered: 04/09/11
Posts: 3,071
Loc: infinite dimensional void
Last seen: 6 years, 4 months
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Re: U.S. directs agents to cover up program used to investigate Americans [Re: AbstraKt_I_Am]
#18667714 - 08/06/13 11:19 AM (10 years, 9 months ago) |
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I'm not an expert, but I'm sufficiently paranoid and smart to know some stuff.
Java-Skript: You can turn java-script off in your firefox browser by using the add-on noscript (there's also one for other browsers). Some unwanted information about you and your system can be transmitted using java-script and one should avoid using it if privacy matters. Java script is basically needed to make all these fancy websites look good and some even don't work without it.
GnuPG: The basic idea is like this: Each party has two keys, a private key and a public key. You can give the public key to anyone, but you need to keep the private key for yourself (thus the name). Both keys can be used to both encrypt and decrypt, but you always need the opposite key to decrypt. In practice it works like this: If I want to send you a message, I write it, encrypt it with your public key and send the encrypted message to you. Then you take your private key to decrypt the message. If you want to respond, you take my public key and encrypt your message and send it to me. I can then use my private key to decrypt your message and so on. To get it working you need to do a little reading, but it's simple once you understand the basic concept. It's also possible to sign your messages with your private key, so I could in principle verify that the message is indeed from you. GPG or PGP are really useful and a must have if you don't want anybody but the recipient reading your emails.
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Mush 4 Brains
about tree fiddy


Registered: 12/19/07
Posts: 8,298
Loc: Tacos
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Re: U.S. directs agents to cover up program used to investigate Americans [Re: Mush4Brains]
#18667915 - 08/06/13 12:13 PM (10 years, 9 months ago) |
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Quote:
Mush4Brains said:
Quote:
redeyesmj said: watch what you say on the phone or text's
This has been basic knowledge for years.
All I have to say is it appears I was wrong about the extent of some of this surveillance. I honestly thought that this kind of stuff would not be happening in America. I was wrong.
Why for you steal my name??
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AbstraKt_I_Am


Registered: 12/21/10
Posts: 1,898
Loc: Abroad.
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Re: U.S. directs agents to cover up program used to investigate Americans [Re: Mush 4 Brains]
#18668136 - 08/06/13 12:55 PM (10 years, 9 months ago) |
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Quote:
Mush 4 Brains said:
Quote:
Mush4Brains said:
Quote:
redeyesmj said: watch what you say on the phone or text's
This has been basic knowledge for years.
All I have to say is it appears I was wrong about the extent of some of this surveillance. I honestly thought that this kind of stuff would not be happening in America. I was wrong.
Why for you steal my name??
woah, and hes a newb. He might as well make a new account or pay to change his username if he expects to be welcomed here. Name biting is one of the unspoken top 3 rules here
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Kinko
Stranger



Registered: 01/07/11
Posts: 3,024
Last seen: 8 months, 16 days
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Re: U.S. directs agents to cover up program used to investigate Americans [Re: AbstraKt_I_Am]
#18668154 - 08/06/13 12:59 PM (10 years, 9 months ago) |
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the official bump this thread every 30 minutes.
BUMP
Edited by Kinko (08/06/13 01:57 PM)
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