PRISM: Here’s What You Need to Know

Ixquick was around long before Startpage. Ixquick was originally launched in 1998, Starpage in 2009. It say's sister pages, but I thought Ixquick was the parent company.

As much as I hate to post a Wiki link:
http://https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ixquick

I tried Ixquick over 10 years ago, but it was only so-so at the time, then I used Scroogle, been using Startpage for the last 2-3 years, but didn't realize that Ixquick and Startpage operated differently, so may just have to try Ixquick again to see how the metasearch does.
 
For me the issue I have isn't so much the spying. It's that it was secret. Sure the current supreme court lackeys will twist the law to say different.. But I don't see any reading of the constitution that would allow limitless searching. '

"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."

If the people want to give up this right because of the terrorist war - they need to pass a constitutional amendment to do so. What people don't seem to understand about Obama is that he is not in fact a paragon of liberalism. He is a big government guy - anything that expands the power and reach of the government is a plus for him. So its not surprising that he would ally with the Republicans who likely put this plan into motion..

It's not up to Obama to decide if this is a 'big invasion' of privacy or not. We shouldn't let the president and the congress violate the rule of law because we are 'scared' of the blowback. The whistleblower is a hero in my book..

Unfortunately almost all aspects of our government seem allied against the people nowadays. We have the congress which obviously had some knowledge of this and were complicit. We have the Supreme court which uses legal jargon and blithely ignores the spirit of the law and constitution if it conflicts with the will of the government. And we have the president who is quite willing to lie to protect government expansion.
 
GuyClinch said:
What people don't seem to understand about Obama is that he is not in fact a paragon of liberalism. He is a big government guy - anything that expands the power and reach of the government is a plus for him.
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I don't see a contradiction. Big government and modern liberalism go hand in hand. Not only is Obama a paragon of modern liberalism, but he is also the most liberal President ever to this 41 year-old's mind, making Clinton, Carter, Johnson, and Kennedy look Republican to some extent or other.
 
Deadly Ramon said:
Encrypted (HTTPS) connections: StartPage and Ixquick were the first search engines to use automatic encryption on all connections to prevent snooping. When searches are encrypted, third parties like ISPs and the NSA can’t eavesdrop on Internet connections to see what people are searching for.
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Not strictly true. If the NSA really cared about StartPage I'm sure they could figure out some way to get their RSA private key, in which case HTTPS becomes useless.

The only way to fight that is with something called "Perfect forward secrecy" which was added with SSLv3. Sadly most sites don't use it, however Google does (Google also defaults to HTTPS). Startpage does not use ECDHA (the perfect forward secrecy in SSLv3), it uses normal RSA and is vulnerable to MITM attacks and retroactive decrypting. More info on why this is important here: http://googleonlinesecurity.blogspot.com/2011/11/protecting-data-for-long-term-with.html

Neither Bing nor Yahoo offer HTTPS at all.

Not under U.S. jurisdiction: StartPage and Ixquick are based in the Netherlands, so they are not directly subject to U.S. regulations, warrants, or court orders. They can’t be forced to participate in spying programs like PRISM. The company has never turned over a single bit of user data to any government entity in the 14 years it has been in business, which is not surprising since there is no data in the first place.
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Sure, but search data isn't all that interesting. I'm more worried about spying programs getting emails than search terms. Not that search terms should be fair game, mind you, just that in the realm of data I store in 3rd party hands the list of stuff I've searched for is really, really low on the "keep this private" list.
 
I don't see a contradiction. Big government and modern liberalism go hand in hand. Not only is Obama a paragon of modern liberalism, but he is also the most liberal President ever to this 41 year-old's mind, making Clinton, Carter, Johnson, and Kennedy look Republican to some extent or other.
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Oh certainly I see where you are coming from. It's just that part of being a liberal is supposed to be championing individual human rights - whether its the right to smoke pot, get an abortion, get married if your gay etc. Having every single person tracked by the government and essentially bugged doesn't fit in with the Hippie agenda. Liberals are supposed to be hippies - not facists.
 
Whether you Have Democrats or Republicans in power from now on, these systems are never going away.

They are here to stay. If you are a citizen of the world and use any form of electronic communications then you are being monitored and will be for the rest of your life.

It's too late.
 
GuyClinch said:
Oh certainly I see where you are coming from. It's just that part of being a liberal is supposed to be championing individual human rights - whether its the right to smoke pot, get an abortion, get married if your gay etc. Having every single person tracked by the government and essentially bugged doesn't fit in with the Hippie agenda. Liberals are supposed to be hippies - not facists.
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Of course, there are proponents of activities that even most liberals are (for now) still against, from the legalization of hard drugs (heroin, crack cocaine, methamphetamine, etc.) to alternative deathstyles (like pederasty, incest, coprophilia, etc.) that haven't as many lobbyists as the Orwellian-named Human Rights Campaign, to legalized infanticide post birth (such as what Princeton ethicist Peter Singer advocates), who would argue that all of those are fundamental human rights the suppression of which represents fascism and not "true" liberalism. It's especially funny to think that so many of the hippies of the 60s and 70s who spit in the faces of returning Vietnam veterans and called them "baby killers" were so enthusiastic over the Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton decisions.
 
daglesj said:
Whether you Have Democrats or Republicans in power from now on, these systems are never going away.

They are here to stay. If you are a citizen of the world and use any form of electronic communications then you are being monitored and will be for the rest of your life.

It's too late.
Click to expand...

rofl
 
Deadly Ramon said:
I don't see a contradiction. Big government and modern liberalism go hand in hand. Not only is Obama a paragon of modern liberalism, but he is also the most liberal President ever to this 41 year-old's mind, making Clinton, Carter, Johnson, and Kennedy look Republican to some extent or other.
Click to expand...

What the hell are you talking about? First f you are 41 years old exactly how do you equate big government with liberalism?
 
GuyClinch said:
Oh certainly I see where you are coming from. It's just that part of being a liberal is supposed to be championing individual human rights - whether its the right to smoke pot, get an abortion, get married if your gay etc. Having every single person tracked by the government and essentially bugged doesn't fit in with the Hippie agenda. Liberals are supposed to be hippies - not facists.
Click to expand...

You're talking about classic liberalism, which is most closely identified with the modern-day Libertarian party.

The current Democrat party (and most of the GOP) identify with modern liberalism. Less economic freedoms, trading civil liberties for national security, and a larger police-state. A more accurate word to describe them would be "statists".
 
There is no "Modern Liberalism". Just call a progressive a progressive. They aren't insulted by the term, even though we secretly know they should be :p
 
Well PRISM is great and I'd like to give a big thanks to the people who really made this possible, lazy apathetic American citizens that idly sit by doing what they do best, nothing.
 
PRISM is only the name of one program .. one of how many ? And what they actually do ?

Prism , is just a name.

When members of Congress that are now actually being briefed ... come out looking pale .... ?

Well, it's not looking for. American citizens.

Though to be fair .... there's not much Americans citizens can do about it.
 
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