i think the OP is lazy and just wants someone to reassure him that... "NO, the gov. doesn't give a fvck about you unless your attract the idea of posing a serious threat in the first place."
u.s. gov. already has microsoft/apple operating systems stripped down, they hire hackers, everyone knows about this already, nothing new. how do you think they compete with the Russians and China in the first place?
euro nations have been patching redhat and their own linux servers to close as many gaps as possible, and steering away from windows bases OS's.
just install avg internet security and malwarebytes pro and spybot search & destroy, tunnel through basic VPN scrambler for internet access, and surf in incognito mode for browser. least amount of work for quickest secure security.
don't get too fed up with conspiracies. if you're really scared, then get identity protection from 3rd party and your bank. but if you're scared of the gov. spying on you, unless you're doing anything super illegal, i think maybe a visit to a psychologist would be a good idea..
and even if someone publicizes your search history? you think anyone will care? privacy is important, sure, cover your tracks, fill in the holes, but don't be overly paranoid. use basic common sense when surfing, sharing, and making purchases online.
"nsa spies on you" search:
www.dailytech.com
http://www.dailytech.com/searchresults.aspx?keyword=nsa spies on you
It's intriguing, how we sometimes find ourselves confused in our choices of forums for posting a question -- because there is such a severe overlap between forum categories on a particular topic. I made that remark today on the "HTPC" forum, and it is relevant to my point here: barring the concern about Microsoft's OS, you would post the paranoia in the "Politics" forum. So I'll tell you youngsters what I know.
First, I've come to a conclusion that the sense of time and history differs between generations. I found it frustrating to see the chicken-littles and lemmings ooze out of the social-media woodwork and "letters to the editor" when the Snowden "revelation" first hit the news. Some of the younger crowd -- panicked over the lack of privacy on their cellphones and web-searches -- were born when I was reaching middle age.
The NSA was created in 1953 as an outgrowth of the 1947 National Security Act. At a time when "Andy Griffith townships" had no privacy on telephone party-lines, the entire telecommunications industry evolved with connections to NSA "tentacles." As of the late '90s, NSA had some 90,000 employees or operatives, with clearances passed out all over the private sector of the industry.
Maybe you missed the 1993 release of a film featuring Redford, Ackroyd, Poitier, Kingsley: "Sneakers." As fiction, that movie drew on what was known then about NSA's mission and the emerging technology.
In 1997, I established contact with a distant relative in the German city of Koln (Cologne.) We corresponded by e-mail, and he was adamant that I use PGP double-key encryption in my e-mails. I complied, and quickly came aboard to the distinction between being a German citizen, an American citizen, and an American corresponding with a German citizen on the internet.
In 1999, BBC TV produced an expose' on NSA's ECHELON system, essentially driving home the point that NSA could tap any telephone in the modern world. If you have Google Earth installed on your computer, you can locate such places as Menwith Hill, UK or Pine Gap, Australia -- and similar locations in Germany, Japan, and New Zealand. You can zoom in to the point where you can almost see the facets in the construction of the radomes.
Then we get to 2001 and 9/11, and the lies and distortions over the WMDs in 2003. The lemmings all ran in one direction: "Help! The Tewwoist want to kill my lapdog Fluffie!"
Here we are with Snowden. I think his "skills" were vastly over-rated. But it is known fact: his family was already working for the National Security apparatus, and it was his easy passport to direct employment at CIA, followed by the contractor Booz-Allen-Hamilton. He took the job with the NSA contractor with the deliberate intention of compromising the agency.
If you all remember, there was a fourth sequel to the Bourne trilogy released in 2012 -- a year before Snowden's escapade: "The Bourne Legacy." Kurt Vonnegut, in "Breakfast of Champions," once made the observation that people behave like characters in the movies they habitually watched at the local theater. And if you compare Snowden's own "flight and pursuit," it seems to follow loosely the trail of Aaron Cross in the fiction.
Of course Microsoft had a franchise with the government to develop the internet. The Texas oil industry had a franchise with Bush -- or Bush had a franchise with the "strategic minerals industry" -- to develop the war in Iraq. NSA began to overstep the boundaries set for it because that's what the people wanted in the panic over 9/11. Even so, the matching of domestic phone numbers given suspicions about foreign callers seemed like a benign approach to a potentially serious threat -- supposedly tempered by the congressional oversight and the court assigned to make further decisions about how that iterative phone-number-matching turned up results. Whether or not it had yet proven effective may be less relevant to the discussion.
But a phone number is no different on its surface than an address on an envelope sent through USPS: "Oh, God!! Mah preshus bodily fluids are bein' compromised to the mailman!" What is different: It was easy, given the telecommunications industry in concert with NSA, to capture all content in addition to the phone numbers and billing information. USPS doesn't store addresses -- and certainly not the content -- when you post a letter.
I think there's an element of narcissism in the public outcry. You post your drivel on Facebook and everywhere else -- as I post this drivel here -- and then you expect your cell-phone to be secure? Private?
You're not that important. NSA isn't interested in your e-mails; Microsoft isn't either.
And for God's sake! If you worry about that -- if you think the federal gov'mint "wanna take away your preshus bodily fluids" -- tell your friends to get PGP or some similar encryption program.
That computer at Fort Mead can probably break any encryption scheme ever designed. But it's like mailing your tax return to IRS versus filing electronically: If you're going to make it that hard for them, you've little cause to worry. Even a good number of somebodies are really nobodies to the NSA, the CIA, the SPCA, or any other institution.
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