No. This is about capturing (copying) packets of information as they travel along the wires.Originally Posted by kingfish
The class of program is called a packet sniffer.
On a smaller scale Network Admins use them as diagnostic tools to capture test data.
The aim of an argument or discussion should not be victory, but
progress. -- Joseph Joubert
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Great post Montalk. Couldn't agree more. Look what's happened in Egypt in the last couple of days. The people were dumb enough to vote in Morsi and he started to immediately create an Islamic dictatorship?!? Can you blame them for being angry? They need a secular government I hope a lot more Egyptians can see that.
United States Postal Service, monitoring and recording snail mail.
Are UPS and Fed-X are doing the same thing?
Mr. Pickering was targeted by a longtime surveillance system called mail covers, but that is only a forerunner of a vastly more expansive effort, the Mail Isolation Control and Tracking program, in which Postal Service computers photograph the exterior of every piece of paper mail that is processed in the United States — about 160 billion pieces last year. It is not known how long the government saves the images.
The Mail Isolation Control and Tracking program was created after the anthrax attacks in late 2001 that killed five people, including two postal workers. Highly secret, it seeped into public view last month when the F.B.I. cited it in its investigation of ricin-laced letters sent to President Obama and Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg. It enables the Postal Service to retroactively track mail correspondence at the request of law enforcement. No one disputes that it is sweeping.
“In the past, mail covers were used when you had a reason to suspect someone of a crime,” said Mark D. Rasch, who started a computer crimes unit in the criminal division’s fraud section of the Justice Department and worked on several fraud cases using mail covers. “Now it seems to be ‘Let’s record everyone’s mail so in the future we might go back and see who you were communicating with.’ Essentially you’ve added mail covers on millions of Americans.”
It’s a treasure trove of information,” said James J. Wedick, a former F.B.I. agent who spent 34 years at the agency and who said he used mail covers in a number of investigations, including one that led to the prosecution of several elected officials in California on corruption charges. “Looking at just the outside of letters and other mail, I can see who you bank with, who you communicate with — all kinds of useful information that gives investigators leads that they can then follow up on with a subpoena.”
But, he said: “It can be easily abused because it’s so easy to use and you don’t have to go through a judge to get the information. You just fill out a form.”
For mail cover requests, law enforcement agencies submit a letter to the Postal Service, which can grant or deny a request without judicial review. Law enforcement officials say the Postal Service rarely denies a request.
Read article at New York Times, click here.
Always wondered why my mail was taking so long for delivery!?!?
Here is the preface to the USPS snooping story.....
Leslie James Pickering noticed something odd in his mail last September: a handwritten card, apparently delivered by mistake, with instructions for postal workers to pay special attention to the letters and packages sent to his home.
“Show all mail to supv” — supervisor — “for copying prior to going out on the street,” read the card. It included Mr. Pickering’s name, address and the type of mail that needed to be monitored. The word “confidential” was highlighted in green.
“It was a bit of a shock to see it,” said Mr. Pickering, who with his wife owns a small bookstore in Buffalo. More than a decade ago, he was a spokesman for the Earth Liberation Front, a radical environmental group labeled eco-terrorists by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Postal officials subsequently confirmed they were indeed tracking Mr. Pickering’s mail but told him nothing else.
As the world focuses on the high-tech spying of the National Security Agency, the misplaced card offers a rare glimpse inside the seemingly low-tech but prevalent snooping of the United States Postal Service.
Story Continues
The aim of an argument or discussion should not be victory, but
progress. -- Joseph Joubert
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This is not really new. I mean after all the filmed, filmed the filmer's back in the 60's. We've known this kind of stuff has been going on for a long time.
What really worries me is the complacence and or the real or perceived lack of empowerment of, we, whom are supposed to have power over those we intrust to govern.
Fascism is not a good thing, no matter the mask of deception it might wear. Really the danger is analogous to the old story of the frog in the pot of cold water, someone has turned the heat on underneath, but the frog remains oblivious until it's to late.
One lesson we need to keep in mind of what I think we can see from the history of fascism is that life is brutal (eventually) for those that are not upper percentile of the ruling structure.
I think we are seeing the precursor to just such a state.
LOL I think I'd rather be in a state of flux!
While this was being argued back in the 60's and later, there seemed to be a consensus that mass surveillance was not allowed or necessary and that wiretapping organized crime and foreign espionage were allowed with a search warrant signed by a judge. Somehow, all of that now seems hopelessly old-fashioned and naive. These people need constant reminders that they work for us or they tend to forget.
They work for us and we and them work for the corporate conglomerate.
I wonder witch bunch of the filthy rich rule the world…or maybe it’s those sneaky ET…shoot, it could even be the devil!
We control matter because we control the mind. Reality is inside the skull.
~ George Orwell ‘1984’
One thing I do know, I will always be loath to relinquish my freewill.
Propagandistnot gonna buy into your cosmik debris!
I am for all the people.
Last edited by whoknows; 07-05-2013 at 07:47 PM.
Yes comrade whoknows, but all the people work for us so is your free will just an illusion and freedom to do as one chooses an illusion within an illusion. Not even in your mother’s womb were you ever free and then there is big brother who watches over us and decides what is free in this illusion. Think you caught him with his pants down but remember he made you look…was that not his plan all along. <satire>One thing I do know, I will always be loath to relinquish my freewill.
Propagandist
I am for all the people.
We control matter because we control the mind. Reality is inside the skull.
~ George Orwell ‘1984’
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-0...isa-court.html
Chief Justice Roberts Is Awesome Power Behind FISA Court
By Ezra Klein Jul 2, 2013 1:23 PM CT
The article in part reads, "The 11 FISA judges, chosen from throughout the federal bench for seven-year terms, are all appointed by the chief justice. In fact, every FISA judge currently serving was appointed by Chief Justice John Roberts, who will continue making such appointments until he retires or dies. FISA judges don’t need confirmation -- by Congress or anyone else.
No other part of U.S. law works this way. The chief justice can’t choose the judges who rule on health law, or preside over labor cases, or decide software patents. But when it comes to surveillance, the composition of the bench is entirely in his hands and so, as a result, is the extent to which the National Security Agency and the Federal Bureau of Investigation can spy on citizens."
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