Get On The NSA’s Watch List For Downloading Tor

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Seriously? Doesn't the NSA have better stuff to do than this?

That means that if you downloaded Tor during 2011, the NSA may have scooped up your computer's IP address and flagged you for further monitoring. The Tor Project is a nonprofit that receives significant funding from the U.S. government.
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lmao, i'm on their watch list oh well, that's fine, that just makes me more inclined to mask my internet behaviors.

brb, spoofing mac address randomly, using public wifi, and using tor, running scriptblocker, #suckitnsa
 
At this point doesn't the NSA have a quasi-unlimited budget and enough hardware to monitor everyone all the time?

Why even bother to pretend there is a watchlist?
 
yes, but if we decide not to be sheeple, we could make their unethical snooping a lot harder, i'm waiting for crazy mcaffee's anti-snooping router....
 
Yakk said:
At this point doesn't the NSA have a quasi-unlimited budget and enough hardware to monitor everyone all the time?

Why even bother to pretend there is a watchlist?
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Because if you pretend there's a somewhat allegedly limited watch "list", the backlash from oversight/public is minimal.
 
Skripka said:
Because if you pretend there's a somewhat allegedly limited watch "list", the backlash from oversight/public is minimal.
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Hehehe, funny to think of a watchlist as a PR exercise, but yes I guess it is indeed.

I think there's a word for this...
 
fixedmy7970 said:
yes, but if we decide not to be sheeple, we could make their unethical snooping a lot harder
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This. I don't really do anything illegal aside from download the occasional... well you know. I only use a VPN service, and TOR... first because I can, and secondly because I want to waste anybodies time that might be trying to snoop on me for NO reason. I certainly don't want to make it easy. If the NSA is that motivated to browse through my porn collection and photos of my family for the last 20 years then whatever, but they will have a hell of a time getting at it though two firewalls and a host of virtual machines and TrueCrypt/BitLocker drives that host the bulk of my "sensitive" data.
 
Yakk said:
Hehehe, funny to think of a watchlist as a PR exercise, but yes I guess it is indeed.

I think there's a word for this...
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They've done it before....and remember back when PRISM et al was only a program targetting foreigners? And people testified in Congress it was so? Well eventually it came out it was targetting people with a warrant...which became targetting some people without a warrant...before finally, "Well, shit we're actually watching everyone".
 
ZenDragon said:
This. I don't really do anything illegal aside from download the occasional... well you know. I only use a VPN service, and TOR... first because I can, and secondly because I want to waste anybodies time that might be trying to snoop on me for NO reason. I certainly don't want to make it easy. If the NSA is that motivated to browse through my porn collection and photos of my family for the last 20 years then whatever, but they will have a hell of a time getting at it though two firewalls and a host of virtual machines and TrueCrypt/BitLocker drives that host the bulk of my "sensitive" data.
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heck yea! when I go to the grocery store, or walmart, for the most part, i don't have to identify myself or declare where I've been previously, why is it, that websites, and the gov can get away with taking this info everytime you go somewhere on the internet? it's unethical to do this to law abiding citizens, ... occasionally, i download illegally too, but nsa can still suck a bit
 
INB4 the inevitable 'we are all moronic sheep with no understanding of the law' comments
 
Yet another stack of paper in a file that I'm sure is bursting at this point. Plenty of juicier reasons they're watching me.
 
What people who use tor should do is write a basic scrip that constantly trolls the internet and makes connections to every website. This would make it impossible for anyone to tell what is a user generated and what is script generated.
 
fixedmy7970 said:
lmao, i'm on their watch list oh well, that's fine, that just makes me more inclined to mask my internet behaviors.

brb, spoofing mac address randomly, using public wifi, and using tor, running scriptblocker, #suckitnsa
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With all that enthusiasm to hide, you are indeed very suspicious. I'd be willing to be money that you're not legit.
 
B00nie said:
With all that enthusiasm to hide, you are indeed very suspicious. I'd be willing to be money that you're not legit.
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Would you believe I work for a nonprofit?

I like to keep our passwords secure. I am a bad person.
 
Krenum said:
Challenge accepted.:cool:
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lol, is anyone else interested in mcaffee's anti-snooping router? from what i understand the nsa, hacks the router, and just listens in on everyone's traffic, or they say fck it and just tap the isp
 
FBI file for filming a protest in Seattle? Check
NSA file for downloading a browser? Check

USA USA!
 
FBI file for trying to guard pathobiology information from the Chinese.

check.
 
Makes me wonder about the old chicken or the egg question. Does a nation exist out of the will of its people, or is it the other way around? The Chinese mentality tends to be the later, which they use to justify all actions of the state... including surveillance.
 
So we did a little sleuthing, and found that the NSA's targeting list corresponds with the list of directory servers used by Tor between December 2010 and February 2012 – including two servers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Tor users connect to the directory servers when they first launch the Tor service.

That means that if you downloaded Tor during 2011, the NSA may have scooped up your computer's IP address and flagged you for further monitoring. The Tor Project is a nonprofit that receives significant funding from the U.S. government.
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I'll give you guys a much better explanation.

That when the IP of an already existing and known target connects to TOR they know about it and can gather information on his activity.

Come on guys, you have to admit this is more likely then the idea that they are adding everyone that connects to TOR to a watch list.

When automated intelligence systems first started showing up, like the ones I was an instructor for in the early to mid 90s, the challenge was how to sort through all the information to get at what really mattered. Now this stuff was all Military Intel, information on tank units and artillery positions and supply convoys and it was before the War on Terror and 9/11. Still this was the challenge and still today we have seen articles that say the same thing. The hardest part is filtering out what isn't really relevant to your mission.

Given this reality doesn't it at least bare consideration that although it is easy and scarier to suggest to people that these reports represent huge vacuum cleaner attempts to get all they can on everyone they can, that it is also just as likely and maybe more likely that things are being misinterpreted and that in fact more discriminant activities are represented by these revelations.

Besides, if this source code is known, then isn't what it's doing clearly known? Why does anyone have to guess what it means? Why does the reporter writing this article say;
That means that if you downloaded Tor during 2011, the NSA may have scooped up your computer's IP address and flagged you for further monitoring.
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Why can't the reporter say "the NSA scooped up your IP and has flagged you on a watch list"? They have the source code for the app, they can't decide what it does? I'm just asking.
 
They've done it before....and remember back when PRISM et al was only a program targetting foreigners? And people testified in Congress it was so? Well eventually it came out it was targetting people with a warrant...which became targetting some people without a warrant...before finally, "Well, shit we're actually watching everyone".
Click to expand...

I have a question. I know you think your statements are accurate, but I'll show you how you have missed the way the media redirects your thinking.

They've done it before....and remember back when PRISM et al was only a program targetting foreigners?
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Because the NSA's mission is foreign collection so yes, this would be mostly true with very few, and legal exceptions. Occasionally a US Person get's involved in foreign intelligence matters and becomes a legit target for collection. A trip to an Al Queda training facility is enough to do it.

Well eventually it came out it was targetting people with a warrant...
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Because someone like I mentioned just above uses US Systems and Networks to communicate and the person himself is a US Person, hence the warrant...The way it's supposed to work.

...which became targetting some people without a warrant..
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And of a warrant is not required to collect on non-US Persons and there are many of these that us US Communications and Networking systems, no surprise, nothing wrong here either.

...before finally, "Well, shit we're actually watching everyone".
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Which is not the truth or reality, but it is what the media is trying to get you to believe, and for you they have succeeded. It's too easy for these writers to mislead you guys because you either don't get it or refuse to try and get it. There is a distinction between a US Person and a non-US Person, a foreigner. And these writers purposely leave out that specific and discerning difference every single time so that their statements are purposefully ambiguous and misleading without seeming so to an ignorant, careless/casual, or already convinced reader.

But a reader who is knowledgeable and cares enough to look for clear statements that discriminate between what would or would not be illegal easily see that the writer is being vague at every critical moment. The writer always stops just short of claiming that something wrong is going on. They have never said, not even once, that the NSA has illegally collected information on a US Person. They do quote other people who will make the claim, but they won't say it themselves. The only writers who will make such a claim are the ones who are themselves writing articles as second hand pieces, commenting on the original story writer's reports. These writers are just proof that the first writers were successful in selling their bullshit to someone else.

Anyway, all I want you guys to do is pay attention and be aware, not everything requires a warrant, not everyone is a target, and gathering information that is incidental to and not actually relevant to your mission is self defeating, not a side benefit.
 
This begs the question of where's the benefit to the media in maligning the NSA? American mainstream medias do not gain tangible benefits in markets abroad from this, and that you would gain in viewership from this move. If anything, the NSA exposé had been indiscriminate in damaging American economic interests. What is the fuel that sustain the fire then?

On the other hand, I don't need to put on a tinfoil hat to state that opponents of the Americentric world order are the ones that stood to gain by spinning the NSA story into yet another "USA is not holier-then-thou" argument. This cuts both ways however. I seriously doubt that the Russians, the Chinese and every other pot would keep up with calling the kettle black unless if they get pushed into it.
 
lcpiper said:
.......

Anyway, all I want you guys to do is pay attention and be aware, not everything requires a warrant, not everyone is a target, and gathering information that is incidental to and not actually relevant to your mission is self defeating, not a side benefit.
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how's that kool aid treating you?
 
I'd laugh if it came out that the NSA developed TOR and TrueCrypt themselves under shell organizations. Would be brilliant .. Develop tools that the enemy (a very small percent) are likely to want and use.
 
This begs the question of where's the benefit to the media in maligning the NSA?
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Have you noticed that some news outlets do, and some don't?

Have you check to see who owns which?

Have you considered that the average American views the NSA as they do most government organizations, just as part of the government and singularly the current President and his administration is responsible for all the government does, good and ill?

A secondary benefit is that when you make your living talking bad about people in the government, fraud, sex, whatever, some folks can get a little paranoid about someone wanting to get back at them for something they have reported.

Take that chick who claimed the FBI was monitoring her web browsing because she had been looking up info about pressure cookers and shit right after the Boston Marathon bombing. Turns out it was a local Terror Task force that had been tipped by her former employer when they found the same search terms on her work computer.
https://news.yahoo.com/-police-and-fbi-deny-alleged-search-of-new-york-home-stemming-from-journalist%E2%80%99s-web-searches--200309173.html

The government always has their opponents, champions of the people, the EFF is in a constant fight and although it's not a bad thing it's reasonable to remember that they will try to make smoke look like fire at every opportunity and sometimes jump to conclusions about things that don't end up turning out the way they thought they were.

Even people in the know, like those NSA employees who quit and went on Sixty Minutes and did specials for Broadcasting Networks didn't know until later on that what they believed was illegal activities had in fact been blessed by the President in a War Powers letter. Who'd a thunk it.

I gota give those guys credit though, they went to the mat to do what they new was right, to protect our freedoms and stop the NSA from doing something illegal. The problem is, it wasn't illegal. The other thing is, these brave stalwart men and women who took great risks are actually representative of the quality of good people we have working at the NSA and other Intelligence Agencies. Not all of them are this good, but when people start ranting against the NSA they sure seem to forget that these great people were also just normal folks in the same Agency. There really are a lot of good people up there but they are easily forgotten when the smear stick comes out.

just some things to think on.
 
I'd laugh if it came out that the NSA developed TOR and TrueCrypt themselves under shell organizations. Would be brilliant .. Develop tools that the enemy (a very small percent) are likely to want and use.
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Oh, you mean like a Honey Pot?
 
Spidey329 said:
I'd laugh if it came out that the NSA developed TOR and TrueCrypt themselves under shell organizations. Would be brilliant .. Develop tools that the enemy (a very small percent) are likely to want and use.
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.. Hit submit. And the advantage is, if they do a good enough job and make them appealing enough, they gain the credibility to attract their targets.
 
Considering most home users do NOT have static IP's, seems almost useless... same as the P2P lawsuits...
 
Considering most home users do NOT have static IP's, seems almost useless... same as the P2P lawsuits...
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Is that most home users in the US or those from Iran and China?
 
You guys have got to get away from this narrow thinking, you approach everything from the view point of your own existence without any cognizance of the larger world and our place in it.

Open up your mind a little, it will help.
 
Spidey329 said:
I'd laugh if it came out that the NSA developed TOR and TrueCrypt themselves under shell organizations. Would be brilliant .. Develop tools that the enemy (a very small percent) are likely to want and use.
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um,

https://www.torproject.org/about/overview

Inception

Tor was originally designed, implemented, and deployed as a third-generation onion routing project of the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory. It was originally developed with the U.S. Navy in mind, for the primary purpose of protecting government communications. Today, it is used every day for a wide variety of purposes by normal people, the military, journalists, law enforcement officers, activists, and many others.
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This is why i laugh when people run to TOR,, you don't think the government has it's fingers in it?

It has already been infiltrated and Government agency made arrests and so on, so why people continue to think TOR is secure is beyond me.

TOR would be the LAST place i would turn to for security.
 
lcpiper said:
Is that most home users in the US or those from Iran and China?
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I would assume both really?

Unless times have changed and with the shortage of IPv4 Addresses i would presume most home connections are not giving people STATIC external IP's? Perhaps an external IP but not static for extended periods.

Here in CR if you don't pay for a static IP, ISP give you a LAN 10.* IP.
 
Okay Icpiper you are wrong on your assumptions.

The NSAs scope of operations was never intended to extend outside of the USA. Under international rules (not that anyone follows them) countries have an internal security network (NSA) and an external security network (DOD and CIA). The NSA charter is to defend the country from threats that are domestic in nature, be those threats citizens or foreign nationals that are on US soil. By this very focused description the NSA was intended to secure a warrant for any and all searches that they undertake. They do not need a warrant to collect information on non US persons, however if collection said information requires going through, or presents a likely opportunity that the data of a US person will be collected a warrant is necessary. Since it is all but a 100% sure thing that information will be collected on US citizens while dragging a massive net across the entire network. Warrants are required. However a problem is created during the process of getting a warrant, a warrant has to be very specific in its scope and objective. So a dragnet on the entire communications system that currently exists is blatantly illegal and unconstitutional. How can the NSA get away with this then? By invoking the ultra vague and generally pointless and bullshit response of "national security." The fact that the NSA had to make up scenarios where the PRISM and similar programs actually succeeded should be proof enough that the entire exercise is bullshit.
 
lcpiper said:
You guys have got to get away from this narrow thinking, you approach everything from the view point of your own existence without any cognizance of the larger world and our place in it.

Open up your mind a little, it will help.
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Have you considered the radical notion that you might actually be wrong?

Or the radical notion that the government is run by people, and is therefore not infallible?

Or the radical notion that centralized authority tends to concentrate corruption?
 
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