MetaFilter posts tagged with privacy and BigBrother

"Leaving no trace [of our daily lives] is nearly impossible."

amyms — Sat, 16 Feb 2008 00:14:48 -0800

The Anonymity Experiment. Is it possible to hide in plain sight? Privacy-minded people have long warned of a world in which an individual’s every action leaves a trace, in which corporations and governments can peer at will into your life with a few keystrokes on a computer. Now one of the people in charge of information-gathering for the U.S. government says, essentially, that such a world has arrived.

You were poked by Big Brother.

Reggie Digest — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 21:27:17 -0800

Over the past couple of years, Facebook has become increasingly popular, until it seemed like everyone and their grandma was joining up. A new feature, called Facebook Beacon, lets corporations join the fray. Might this be cause for concern? Previously.

Big Brother is Watching You. On CCTV.

homunculus — Mon, 02 Apr 2007 01:09:39 -0800

George Orwell, Big Brother is watching your house. With CCTV. Perhaps the Surveillance Camera Players could put on a performance there. It looks like Britain really is becoming a surveillance society . [Via Digg.]

You had to live -- did live, from the habit that became instinct and the assumption that every sound you made was overheard.

homunculus — Wed, 21 Feb 2007 00:33:17 -0800

For Your Eyes Only? Allegations that the government is reading your e-mails, with the help of AT&T. The latest episode of NOW did a good piece on the NSA's domestic surveillance program (previously discussed here.) It can be viewed on their website. Meanwhile, Canadian human rights attorney Maureen Webb has written a new book on the scope of government surveillance, and found that the use of sophisticated methods to search for terrorists is not identifying the right suspects.

Your world, delivered to the NSA

homunculus — Sun, 21 Jan 2007 21:59:02 -0800

AT&T Ducks Accountability. Lawsuits, Questions Follow NSA Surveillance Approval.

Harshin' My Mellow

aburd — Sat, 16 Sep 2006 12:09:51 -0800

Drugs at music festivals are nothing new. Sometimes this results in comically bad journalism and sometimes the results are not so funny. At the Wakarusa Music Festival this past year police used new, creepy tools pursue drug dealers on the Festival grounds in an attempt to seperate the drugs from the music.

The next big thing in stalking!

panoptican — Tue, 25 Jul 2006 15:36:28 -0800

You are being followed.

The future, Conan?

jonson — Thu, 22 Jun 2006 22:35:05 -0800

Before I was even aware that such a plan existed, the FAA has put the brakes on a Los Angeles County Sheriff's Office plan to purchase a fleet of 20 camera-equipped unmanned spy drone planes (only $30,000 apiece) to fly over my city and monitor civilian behavior round the clock. Sadly, the plan is not permanently kiboshed, but merely on hold until authorization can be obtained.

Houston Loves You

I Love Tacos — Sat, 18 Feb 2006 02:08:45 -0800

NewsFilter: I know a lot of people are concerned about Big Brother, but my response to that is, if you are not doing anything wrong, why should you worry about it?

Geeks wear tinfoil hats too!

sfts2 — Thu, 12 Jan 2006 19:10:50 -0800

National Information Exchange Model (NIEM) Sometimes, its the unheralded steps, that take you most quickly to your destination. On October 7, 2005, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), and their associated domains announced the first release of the National Information Exchange Model (NIEM) Version 0.1. NIEM "establishes a single standard XML foundation for exchanging information between DHS, DOJ, and supporting domains, such as Justice, Emergency Management, and Intelligence." The release of this specification, and the development of the systems that utilize it may actually be the cataylst for more 'progress' in information mining on the individual than most other, well publicized efforts. NIEM Mission: "To assist in developing a unified strategy, partnerships, and technical implementations for national information sharing — laying the foundation for local, state, tribal, and federal interoperability by joining together communities of interest." When you say it like that, it sounds sort of cool!

So much for #31#

riffola — Tue, 29 Nov 2005 08:48:51 -0800

$110 gets you last 100 calls made by any cellphone. Apparently it is legal.

Click Click

knave — Fri, 29 Apr 2005 18:52:59 -0800

"The number of secret court-authorized wiretaps across the country surged by 19 percent last year, according to court records which also showed that not a single application was denied."

No, He's Not Your Puppy, He's Your Narc

fenriq — Fri, 04 Feb 2005 15:59:47 -0800

Canadian Couple Offers Drug Dog for Hire (Reuters link)
A couple bought a dog trained to sniff drugs for $20,000 and now they will hire it out to sniff around your kid's stuff to see if they've been doing drugs within the last 30 days for a mere $20 a sniff (they also have a sliding scale for businesses that need them).
Where to draw the line between concern and obsession for keeping one's children safe? Some sites are keeping tabs on the infringement of children's rights including privacy. Which begs the question, Do Children Have a Right to Privacy?

Who is watching Big Brother?

UbuRoivas — Mon, 29 Nov 2004 20:30:42 -0800

Who is watching Big Brother? Last week, the Australian Privacy Foundation held its annual Big Brother Awards, with biometric passports winning the prestigious "Orwell" for the most invasive technology (other countries' Big Brother Awards here). Not long before, Privacy International and the Electronic Privacy Information Center released their 7th Annual Survey on the state of privacy in sixty countries, claiming that threats to personal privacy have reached a level that is dangerous to fundamental human rights. Are we edging closer to Room 101?

Your call is important to us

digaman — Sat, 13 Mar 2004 08:51:04 -0800

The DOJ wants to tap your IMs, your email, your VOIP calls, and your Web browsing -- and they want you to pay for it. The Justice Department is seeking to expand its ability to monitor online traffic by forcing broadband providers to make their services "wiretap-friendly," and a petition filed with the FCC this week says you will foot the bill. Get ready for CALEA 2.0. "As a means of espionage, writs of assistance and general warrants are but puny instruments of tyranny and oppression when compared with wire tapping," the prescient Justice Brandeis observed in 1928.

He Sees You When You're Sleeping...

darren — Wed, 10 Dec 2003 11:10:46 -0800

Big Brother Really Exists, And He's Not Who You Think He Is. While most of those in the privacy realm have been focusing on keeping the government from spying on its citizens, the government has made an end-run: Letting the private sector do it for them. ChoicePoint, an Atlanta-based spinoff from credit agency Equifax, now has more than 200 terrabytes of data on us, and as previously noted, they're not always very good at it. Be afraid. Be very afraid.

Big Brother Is Watching You...Idiotically

jonp72 — Thu, 06 Mar 2003 21:23:19 -0800

Nominate the world's stupidest security procedure. UK-based watchdog group, Privacy International, is accepting nominations until March 15th from the general public about the most annoying and invasive security measures with the lowest effectiveness in protecting individual safety. What would you nominate?

Google as Big Brother

boost ventilator — Tue, 18 Feb 2003 12:47:22 -0800

A Google boondoggle? Does Google deserve your nomination for Big Brother of the Year? Nine points from the previously mentioned folks at Google Watch. (via the Disinformation Newsletter)

mathowie — Mon, 01 Nov 1999 09:41:34 -0800

Danger Will Robinson, Real knows what music you listen to! If you've ever used Real Jukebox, check out this article. Apparently, the client uploads your listening and recording choices along with your IDENTITY to RealNetwork's servers. Real knows every CD you've encoded and every file you've played. RealNetworks = Big Brother.