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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsSay hello to men who hate the NSA but love invading the privacy of women
http://www.theverge.com/2014/9/1/6092769/creepsOver the weekend someone released hundreds of revealing photos of celebrities that appear to have been stolen from private storage. In response to this, a bunch of anonymous guys on the internet copied them and posted them all over the town square, because the internet is written in ink and if you are ever a victim once in your life the internet will remind you of it forever.
These men are the detritus of human society for whom the internet provides a warm blanket, so let's remove the warm blanket for a minute.
It's still not clear how the private photos were obtained, but there's a good chance the victims were hacked it's happened before. The last time, a man named Christopher Chaney illegally accessed more than 50 email accounts to steal nude photos and was later rewarded with 10 years in prison. Now, the hunt is on for the latest perpetrator. One theory pegs at least one user of AnonIB for the hack, and 4chan thinks it has already identified the guy who did it. While that's going on, people are looking for other things to blame, like iCloud and victims that didn't use better passwords. In any event, there's a small group of one or more people responsible for this heinous intrusion. But they're not the only ones responsible for it.
Take the members of Reddit, for example. If you're not familiar with Reddit, this is the best way I know how to describe it: it's an "anything goes" online message board where the loudest voices belong to misogynistic trolls who value anonymity over decency. In reality, "anything goes" is a bit of hyperbole, since the site does have two major rules: no child porn, and no posting "personal information." And because Reddit is a special place, its ban on posting personal information will protect you unless you happen to be an attractive woman that lots of people want to see naked.
Snip
http://www.theverge.com/2014/9/1/6092769/creeps
NuclearDem
(16,184 posts)daredtowork
(3,732 posts)I wonder what it would look like if someone posted a wall of naked Redditors (the hackers who posted the nude photos and the porn-trolling pervs who celebrated them), with the ability to up and down vote them. Now that would be awesome poetic justice!
NuclearDem
(16,184 posts)Just about what I expected: a hulking heap of slime with no "manhood" to speak of.
Electric Monk
(13,869 posts)eg http://www.reddit.com/r/TheFappening/comments/2f44n0/new_celeb_leaked_pics_all_in_one_place/
this subreddit has been banned
kcr
(15,315 posts)Hiding nude images of their bodies is blocking the free flow of information. That's censorship. Their consent is of no concern because freedom is more important. So of course, nothing to do with opposing the NSA, you see. Editd to add because nowdays on DU it isn't a given it's sarcasm, sadly.
Blue_Tires
(55,445 posts)Reddit also gave a safe haven to "creepshots" enthusiasts
meow2u3
(24,761 posts)They can dish it out but can't take it.
AngryAmish
(25,704 posts)Iirc, every month something like 100 million people go there.
Some may be concerned about online privacy and some may not.
Response to LiberalArkie (Original post)
Post removed
catbyte
(34,381 posts)That kind of creeps me out. I'm sure you are better than this.
cui bono
(19,926 posts)Your post fits the description of the very men the article in the OP is describing.
Blame the victim then ogle over their pics. Sheesh.
Laelth
(32,017 posts)That applies to all the NSA's secrets and everything else on the internet. Some of us do, in fact, want it to all be free.
-Laelth
antiquie
(4,299 posts)If it's private or secret, don't digitize it.
kcr
(15,315 posts)What it really amounts to is if it's the government doing it it's wrong. But hackers doing it for naked pics, no problemo. Basically what I figured upthread.
It doesn't matter to you that the hackers did this for financial gain? One of them is even whining about not getting enough money.
Laelth
(32,017 posts)I have every reason to believe that justice will be meted out, and it will be severe.
It's the information, itself, that wants to be free, regardless of what people want, or so argued Stewart Brand. I was merely quoting him. He also argued that, on the other hand, information wants to be expensive because it is so valuable. As you note, some hacker (or cracker) is trying to profit from the leaked information because it's perceived to be of great value. This is an old debate within the hacker community.
-Laelth
kcr
(15,315 posts)I think I thought you were including yourself in the "us"
Laelth
(32,017 posts)I admit that I lean toward the "free" side. I think Edward Snowden, for example, did the world a great service by giving us a lot of information for free.
-Laelth
Snowden revealed info about the NSA's breach of privacy. It's not just information for information's own sake. The value of information is important, too. Snowden's revelations were important because of the information he revealed. So the OP is interesting for pointing out the disconnect of some people valuing Snowden's efforts, but being okay with hacking into personal, private information.
Recursion
(56,582 posts)951-Riverside
(7,234 posts)but hey since some random people on the internet like something, I guess that validates the NSA spying on the American people
Maybe we can find a random forum where users hunt animals for sport to justify police officers gunning down unarmed people
Maybe we can find a random forum where people are into bondage to justify the government kidnapping and beating people.
"T.C. Sottek" must think his readers are stupid.
tinrobot
(10,897 posts)It doesn't matter if it is the NSA or a bunch of teenage hackers sifting through the data. It is all part of the same problem - cloud storage is inherently unsafe.
ConservativeDemocrat
(2,720 posts)The NSA's job is to spy on threats to the U.S. and its allies, including people who are recruited to make terrorist attacks in the U.S., ala 9/11. Its job is also to help understand what all national leaders are saying to each other, whether they're allies or not. Some may not like this, but every single major nation has a Signal Intelligence program, and does exactly the same thing. One could argue, and I do, that such intelligence helps prevent misunderstandings, and so lowers the possibility of war.
Unlike that, "hacking" (really just social engineering password resets) into some starlet's private account for prurient purposes has absolutely no excuse.
- C.D. Proud Member of the Reality Based Community
951-Riverside
(7,234 posts)Hey! Everyone else does it PLUS spying on people's activities save lives
Funny thing is you would have been chased out of here if you said that during the Bush administration.
cui bono
(19,926 posts)That's simply not okay.
And I guess as long as 9/11 worked on so many people to make them fearful and complacent - as evidenced by your post - we can expect the fear mongering to continue and the creation of bogeypeople and maybe even another admin that allows such a catastrophic event to happen. It's accomplishing exactly what they want it to, making people fine with giving up their freedom as long as the big ol' govt keeps them safe from terra terra terra!!!
ConservativeDemocrat
(2,720 posts)Done by Speaker Pelosi. Now it's under FISA court supervision, instead of being purely dictated by the Administration under a bizarre interpretation of the war powers act. There are many more reforms as well that were done at the same time.
What I don't support is the idea of getting rid of signal intelligence altogether, no matter how many Orwell posters are used in a laughably inane way to argue for it. We need intelligence programs. They're our eyes and ears to finding out what is dangerous and what is not.
- C.D. Proud Member of the Reality Based Community
Pholus
(4,062 posts)But you also need intelligent people leading the intelligence programs. Since President Obama used NOTHING but retread Bush era appointees we can take as a given we do NOT have intelligent people in those positions, nor is there any reason to believe that they are not simply continuing the PNAC vision for "controlling cyberspace" with the fig leaf of the FISA court, which LONG AFTER 2008 has been rumored to be completely ineffective in supervision. In other words, if 2008 was some kind of panacea, why is this discussion needed six years later?
http://www.ibtimes.com/nsa-fisa-controversy-congress-looks-reform-secret-court-1348875
My evidence that this is a MASSIVE failure in administration policy? Watching the spooks flail around some PR spin in the wake of being caught with their pants down -- ONCE AGAIN! When they needed an excuse it was Snowden's fault that we had insufficient analysts and ignored the satellite images showing troops massing and then had to overcompensate ex post facto with some "surge" of intelligence assets. And all the conservative authoritarians and Tom Clancy fans just ate that shit right up:
http://www.conservativetruth.org/article.php?id=3998
Intelligence work requires critical thinking and targeted data collection. The original "collect it all" strategy was valid in Iraq because it was a limited dataset with a definite threat. Trying to scale it up to watch everyone all the time seeking unspecified general threats might sound good in seen through the lens of DC cocktail party hangovers and it certainly sounds good to any number of beltway bandits' bottom lines but it means we are simply not spending our resources in any intelligent way.
We are not safer through the creation of huge data repositories and the promise of early "anomaly detection" software. What is a certainty is that the probability of our private communications being abused by a future conservative jackass to control or intimidate liberals approaches unity. This entire misguided project was put together to look good on a powerpoint slide and to cover asses, not because it was in any way the best way to protect the country.
The upshot? I want "signals intelligence" but where you cheer the first part and its expensive technology, I pine for the second part in the people running the program.
Glad YOU get to be happy at least.
ConservativeDemocrat
(2,720 posts)It's because some people are addicted to scandals. They want them. They need them. Without them, they might reevaluate why they blame the government for everything bad that has gone wrong in their lives.
The press caters to these people.
Obama though hasn't given people any real scandals. He has a lovely wife, who he most assuredly sleeps with. His foreign policy has been an unbridled success for all but warmongers. And despite GOP opposition, he's even managed to help get the economy back on track.
So what to do if you don't have a real scandal, and you're starved for one? Why make one up, of course!
Republicans have done this with Benghazi. Liberals have done this with the NSA. Both are hilariously absurd. As one British comedian put it, "So let me get this straight. The scandal is that... spies are spying?"
I certainly agree that the NSA could do with some further reform. And I expressly agree with you that they've fallen into a very typical big-data trap of thinking that collection equals analysis. But remember too that they don't have the ability to just willy-nilly go scanning US citizen email without some probable cause - even if it exists in their databases.
And for all the whining, you still have ten thousand times greater chance of getting your rights violated in a typical traffic stop than by any passing NSA scan (of debatable legality) of your email for an Iraqi-terrorist phone number.
- C.D. Proud Member of the Reality Based Community
Pholus
(4,062 posts)Last edited Tue Sep 2, 2014, 07:00 PM - Edit history (1)
If he can't tell the difference between spies spying on enemies or the massive waste fraud and abuse that results from surveilling their own population he's already a lost cause in a democracy.
I take it you'd be more comfortable if that scandal didn't exist? I would too.
But credibility is a hard thing to get back. The NSA flat out lied, dude, to the Congress. That may be okay with you but in the end, but to me that lie will bite the American people in the ass for years to come.
In 2002 I registered for Democratic Underground as a form of protest against Poindexter's Total Information Awareness program combined with Ari Fleischer's "Watch what you say." Like the mythical story about the size of Hancock's signature I wanted to make sure I was on the record.
Anyway, despite all your confidence in this system we are exactly one bad election result and ten minutes of executive orders from going right back to all those power mad fantasies of Dick Cheney. Because our guy preserved and even enhanced the infrastructure to do this worthless, yet to be proven to be beneficial at all, bullshit.
Shame on you for thinking that's okay, just as long as the right guy has his hand on the switch.
ConservativeDemocrat
(2,720 posts)...really means nothing more than "government spending I disagree with".
The rest of your complaints make it clear that you are unaware of what the Democratic Congress did in 2008. I suggest that you read this very closely. This is now in statute, and can't be modified by any further Presidential administration (and Obama gave this his full support at the time as a Senator).
http://www.scribd.com/doc/148767817/Chart-On-Surveillance-Oversight-Prepared-By-Nancy-Pelosi-For-Democratic-house-Members
- C.D. Proud Member of the Realty Based Community
Pholus
(4,062 posts)Last edited Wed Sep 3, 2014, 11:13 PM - Edit history (5)
I've read the 2008 law. Even without creative redefinitions of common words that the NSA is FAMOUS for, you could drive a battleship through the holes.
And now just today, eff is talking about the NSA sharing ICREACH domestically.
You're really telling me this is about foreign intelligence? Bullshit. It's EXACTLY what PNAC said they wanted to do.
Thanks so much for your support of that clusterfuck.
Beltway bandits are expensive. This program is expensive. Now I see bridges crumbling, social programs losing ground and our lead in sciences diminishing fast.
But at least thanks to your darling of a program we can identify nekkid people in webcams with nearly 70% certainty.
All while Putin seems to have managed to outplay our foreign policy teams several times because they had inadequate intelligence.
But did I mention the nekkid people? We know who they are ALMOST 70% of the time!
Simply an awesome mistargeting of our resources. Or, to put it in a way that you like so much: Waste, fraud and abuse. Unless you really going to seriously assert the US would have been at the terra-ists' mercy without those whooshing starship doors in General Alexander's "command center!"
jakeXT
(10,575 posts)People wanted s*** for free, the hacker wrote on 4chan. Sure, I got $120 with my bitcoin address, but when you consider how much time was put into acquiring this stuff (i'm not the hacker, just a collector), and the money (i paid a lot via bitcoin as well to get certain sets when this stuff was being privately traded Friday/Saturday) I really didn't get close to what I was hoping.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/jessica-brown-findlay-sex-video-leaked-downton-abbey-actress-is-latest-celebrity-victim-of-4chan-hacking-9704785.html
ManiacJoe
(10,136 posts)The "collector" seems confused.
jakeXT
(10,575 posts)Number23
(24,544 posts)A million kicks and recs. I love the smell of Grade A hypocrisy getting called exactly what the hell it is
freshwest
(53,661 posts)Pholus
(4,062 posts)Creepily violating the privacy of their significant others....
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LOVEINT
Sniggering over their phone intercepts of US servicepeople.....
http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/10/09/spying.on.americans/index.html?iref=mpstoryview
Trading the dirty pictures they find....
http://www.newsweek.com/snowden-claims-nsa-workers-circulate-sexually-compromising-images-targets-259618?piano_d=1
And generally getting pervy with the webcams....
http://newsfeed.time.com/2014/02/27/the-nsa-is-spying-on-your-webcam-sex/
Knowing their pervy addictions are blackmail material.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/26/nsa-porn-muslims_n_4346128.html