Scary Halloween thoughts.

Posted on October 31, 2013 by Oleg Volk

This year, same as last, the scariest deeds aren’t being shown on C-SPAN. They are being done on the quiet — so take C-SPAN level of scary and multiply it by some unknown but considerable coefficient to get the idea of how much evil is afoot this Fall.

This entry was posted in civil rights, humor and tagged . Bookmark the permalink.

5 Responses to Scary Halloween thoughts.

  1. Scott_S says:
    October 31, 2013 at 3:19 pm

    Oleg –

    I’ve been a lurker here for quite some time. I think this is a spot on post and wanted to let you know that and how I appreciate your blog. Now for some real scary stuff – think about how much the NSA pumped into that data center in Utah and the amount of fail that it is currently suffering. Now think about it as a fully armed and operational “political dirt” file.

    Scott

    • Lyle says:
      October 31, 2013 at 7:35 pm

      The digital Death Star?

      I’m given to wonder whether this big facility in Utah has anything it, or if it’s like that empty safe that gathers all your attention while the real “goodies” are hidden in plain sight in several other locations.

      • Y. says:
        November 1, 2013 at 2:44 am

        Funny how they had a series of power fuck-ups and outages that destroyed a lot of equipment and delayed opening.

        Could be just disinfo, for I’ve heard that the place was operational way before the official start date.

      • Y. says:
        November 1, 2013 at 2:54 am

        The real goodies can be had from Google and Facebook – influence, friendship maps of most young people.
        Smartphone data and all that.

        Tax haven bank account data too – you can bet NSA has been trying to get that. Some claim it does not even need to collect data on politicians – that their mere ability to have them, easily, allows them to keep bluffing without anyone calling them out.

        However, they could, and as we know their analysts have been fired for spying on SO’s, crushes. The idea that some of the upper managers at NSA is covertly and deniably maintaining a database of dirt on all important political people in the US.

        Hoover did that just with filing cabinets and physical snooping. Doing it digitally is way easier.

        Has NSA not bragged it can turn any smartphone into a bug at will?

        Around here, people on business meetings regularily dump out batteries from cellphones, or leave their phones in a jar outside.

        One of our better politicians has said that any politician who says anything remotely interesting over a phone is a damned moron. (some of our previous gov’t abused phone snooping to target opposition)

        The real gold is being able to query and see all the disparate data at once. That’s why NSA is building that facility – to have copies in place, be able to run lightning fast searches on that.

        Of course they’ll never even look at the data until you start some trouble. Then you might get threatened with some months stuff you did that’s not even immoral, but still a felony because of the legislation overgrowth you have.

  2. Lyle says:
    October 31, 2013 at 7:32 pm

    Most of what we can see is just the dog and pony show for the public, serving as distractions from the really bad stuff. However it doesn’t take much digging to find out what motivates them, and none of it is good.

Comments are closed.