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Fwd: has there ever been a FOIA request leading to initiation of criminal prosecution against the requestor?
by coderman 04 Jun '15

04 Jun '15

On 5/29/15, coderman <coderman(a)gmail.com> wrote: > i would like to know if anyone is aware of past incidents where a FOIA > request results in a law enforcement agency initiating (accelerating?) > criminal action against the requesting individual... thanks to everyone for the responses. someone else pointed out FBI "disruption strategies"[0] which may appear to be investigation oriented but in fact are merely denial of service attacks. i created a new FOIA for this category of operation[1] and will see what turns up... best regards, 0. "UNLEASHED AND UNACCOUNTABLE - The FBI’s Unchecked Abuse of Authority" - https://www.aclu.org/sites/default/files/assets/unleashed-and-unaccountable… see page 18, chapter 3, 'Innocent Victims of Aggressive Investigation and Surveillance' 1. "FederalDisruption" - https://www.muckrock.com/foi/united-states-of-america-10/federaldisruption-…

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NSA/FBI monitoring
by yotm 03 Jun '15

03 Jun '15

Hey folks, With the NSA Patriot Act/FBI planes in the news, I recalled an IRL example from 2004 of Minneapolis FBI anti-terrorism division/department monitoring my cell, email and MSN Messenger communications. https://storify.com/flyingmonkeyair/in-which-the-fbi-surveilled-me-while-bu… I mention this because so far all the metadata collection info ruckus has focused on the NSA. There's been so much data released as a result of Snowden that I've lost track. Does anyone recall anything showing the FBI have access to the NSA's data, or does the FBI have it's own interception going on? Thanks for any light shed on this. Cheers, Nigel Parry nigelparry.com nigelparry.net

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Re: Threat Model: Parents
by Softy 03 Jun '15

03 Jun '15

Yes, Yes I am. Let's be more specific. Child: a minor under custodianship of another. Supervision: providing meaningful oversight. No child would rightfully be raised without supervision - you don't let toddlers walk across the street, you don't let 6 year olds watch porn, and you don't let teens go to the local pub (okay, last one is location dependent). Are you committing child-porn when you oversee your 2 year old dressing? Are you censoring their ability to dress themselves by helping them choose (weather, etc) appropriate clothes? Many things in life, while we are growing and becoming mature (a process lasting well into our mid-20s), require oversight. Both for safely and utility. We can pretend otherwise at our and the child's own peril. Go ahead and let your child smoke cigs, watch porn and read reddit; it's your child - do as you feel best - I suspect my child will find yours to be .... socially repugnant. The point is blanket statements like you made are corrosive to the understanding of the discussion. Unfettered support of "the child" in all situations is counterproductive. Don't get going on "Parents don't always know best" ... true, they don't - but as long as Society allows any person in any circumstance to _have_ a child without any sort of parenting training, oversight, counselling, then Society must allow that person the ability to _raise_ their child. For better or ill. > Claiming a child merits access - with or without supervision - can only be > > made by the primary custodians of the child. > > > > Um, I'm sure this is me just having trouble understanding, but are you > saying that a parent has a perfectly legitimate right to spy on and censor > a child's communication? >

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Re: Threat Model: Parents
by Zenaan Harkness 03 Jun '15

03 Jun '15

On 6/3/15, Juan <juan.g71(a)gmail.com> wrote: > On Tue, 2 Jun 2015 14:41:27 -0700 > Softy <softservant(a)gmail.com> wrote: >> If an >> individual fails to adhere to guidelines of their Society, they are >> punished. That is what Society is for. > > This is...too much. In a "too much self irony" kind of way. I had a similar thought, but figured someone would pipe up :D Made my day, Juan. Made my day :)

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Re: Threat Model: Parents
by Softy 02 Jun '15

02 Jun '15

Several responses have stated, and questioned, the children's rights accessing the Internet. Yes, with supervision. What all the responses have missed is the lack of distinction between communication and email. Claiming a child has a right to private extra-familial communications is as divided as the general access to the Internet. With supervision, without any more or less privacy than the child has in non-virtual communications. And, what hasn't been connected to deciding on the level of supervision, the developmental state of the child is highly relevant. Claiming a child merits access - with or without supervision - can only be made by the primary custodians of the child. We wish to ignore this subtlety because we wish to ignore Society's overbearing on all of us. The result in this specific scenario is, regardless of the child, the custodians require and merit a higher degree of technical faculty. To presume it is less than the childs is a mistake. Along with this ability comes the burden of communication: to provide an appropriate example. As with many non-virtual counterparts: many failure. such sad. Why should this medium of bits be different?

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Black Helicopters, and Theatre Tricks
by grarpamp 02 Jun '15

02 Jun '15

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Justice/2015/0602/Who-s-behind-mysterious-flig… https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/2090186-fbi-surveillance-plane-docu… The AP traced at least 50 aircraft back to the FBI, and identified more than 100 flights since late April orbiting both major cities and rural areas. http://tech.slashdot.org/story/15/06/02/0215236/us-airport-screeners-missed…

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Re: Threat Model: Parents
by Gadit Bielman 02 Jun '15

02 Jun '15

The friend I'm trying to help was just someone, nearby-in-the-social-graph on Tumblr, who asked for help with securing communication and stuff. Their specific situation is that they're about 15, autistic and bipolar, and have both a very active and emotionally important online life, and very invasive parents who wouldn't think much before cutting that off if they thought it might help make them "easier to deal with"-like. I don't really know -- I just offered to help. This question was trying as much for specific for them, as general strategies that minors can use -- I'm also thinking of one person from a while ago, whom I knew better and who is thankfully in a much better situation right now, who was using their abusive dad's laptop when available and terrified of the possible and likely consequences if their dad found the thread that they were getting sympathy, advice, and support in. I'm pretty sure I've run into other kids who were concerned about stuff like that. One friend is working at this problem, partially to use, partially just to get a sense of infosec, partially just in case. After I posted the original post here, another friend specifically asked me to summarize what I learned from this thread, 'cause they expect to run into people who need advice. Mostly I'd like to be able to work out something that, if I run into someone in a similar situation, I could say "Here, try this, this, and this. Look for these things -- you can do that like this -- and if you find this then you have to take this other precaution. And if you can, try reading this and this and see if that's applicable to your situation." At least as a start. And I'd like be able to share that like I can share "well here's how you make it harder for Google/The Government/An Identity Thief to get your info...".

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$330 3.3 GHz Spectrum Analyzer
by jim bell 02 Jun '15

02 Jun '15

USB RF Spectrum Analyzer 3.3GHZ | | | | | | | | | | | USB RF Spectrum Analyzer 3.3GHZUS $330.00 New in Business & Industrial, Electrical & Test Equipment, Test Equipment | | | | View on www.ebay.com | Preview by Yahoo | | | | |

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EFF: Cybersecurity and the Tylenol Murders
by grarpamp 02 Jun '15

02 Jun '15

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/05/cybersecurity-and-tylenol-murders When a criminal started lacing Tylenol capsules with cyanide in 1982, Johnson & Johnson quickly sprang into action to ensure consumer safety. ... Looking at the Congressional debate, it's as if the answer for Americans after the Tylenol incident was not to put on tamper-evident seals, or increase the security of the supply chain, but only to require Tylenol to “share” its customer lists with the government and with the folks over at Bayer aspirin. We wouldn’t have stood for such a wrongheaded response in 1982, and we shouldn’t do so now. "Patriot" Act, cockpit doors, Clippled crypto backdoors, surveillance, etc

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Threat Model: Parents
by Gadit Bielman 01 Jun '15

01 Jun '15

Hi. I'm trying to help (probably badly, but..) a friend deal with parents that they expect are spying on them. I know that in general, it's impossible to secure a computer that you can't trust and don't necessarily have administrator privileges to. But their parents are not exactly the NSA -- any spying that's happening is almost definitely some sort of product, plus basic things like maybe looking through their history. (I don't know much about they're situation -- maybe they know more, so well-if-you-know-they-do-this-then-you-could-do-this type advice would still be helpful.) Would antivirus be able to detect spy-on-your-kids products? Would they be able to scan their computer with like Immunet or something, even if they didn't have administrator privileges? Tor would probably help -- unless the monitoring was looking at the RAM or something for website names, which would be way overkill on a commercial product, no? Or (more likely) if it was taking screenshots at regular intervals, which would also break running a VM or something. (Is there any way to detect taking screenshots?) I know probably the best thing would be running TAILS as a LiveCD -- the problem with that is that it's REALLY obvious over-the-shoulder. Um, thoughts about any of those? Any other things about parents as a threat model in general? I know this is pretty far from what is usually discussed on here, but I'm really interested in what you think/it would potentially help a lot of people.

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