FBI turns to broad new wiretap method

By Declan McCullagh
Staff Writer, CNET News.com
Published: January 30, 2007, 4:00 AM PST
Last modified: January 30, 2007, 10:04 PM PST


The FBI appears to have adopted an invasive Internet surveillance technique that collects far more data on innocent Americans than previously has been disclosed.

Instead of recording only what a particular suspect is doing, agents conducting investigations appear to be assembling the activities of thousands of Internet users at a time into massive databases, according to current and former officials. That database can subsequently be queried for names, e-mail addresses or keywords.

The rest can be read here.


If they are serious about their reasons for adopting this method, they are about 5-10 years behind reality. Reality is that there are currently 2 types of criminals: ones that do small illegal activity, taking few precautions on getting caught, and doing minor crimes. The other type of criminal is a career criminal that is extremely up to date with technology and efficient about not getting caught. This method will probably stop the first type of criminal in his tracks, because the small-time criminal is not likely to go out of his way to avoid getting caught on something minor, when the FBI is not likely to target him in the first place. They won't catch the second type of criminal because he'll use compromised computers(likely overseas) remotely to do his crime, so there's no way the FBI can trace the IP all the way back to him. The trade-off is the capture of criminals causing minimal damage, and invading people's privacy in the process. Either the FBI can't figure this out, or they have a different agenda. A different agenda might be using their said reason as a front for political profiling purposes, to decide who is against them and therefore spy on citizens for their advancement of political power, by isolating and undermining those that are against their ideals. Either way, it's morally wrong to retain information on citizens without a court order issuing probable cause of wrongdoing. Contacting your representatives in Congress might be a good idea, to notify them of this situation and state that it's a bad trade-off, and one that the general public absolutely refuses. Until then, I suggest using e-mail/instant messaging services that use encryption techniques to avoid becoming a possible inadvertent target of their madness.

Long Hiatus

For the few visitors to this blog, you probably noticed I haven't updated in months. The cause at first was lack of news, then after a little while I simply forgot about this blog altogther. I'm debating on whether to split into 2 blogs, one for chess and one for political/computer security news. I'm sure chess fans don't want to sift through my other rantings for the chess stuff, and visa versa. I'll try to do some update very soon though.

Update:

After a short deliberation, I decided I'm going to make this blog specific to technology/political news, and open up a chess blog, which will soon appear on the right links. Enjoy!

Microsoft: Your new Big Brother

Microsoft security riles competitors

Source: http://www.networkworld.com/columnists/2006/100906edit.html

I've been following the coming release of Microsoft Vista(November 2006 for business, January 2007 for consumers) rather closely as of late, deciding whether I should go for it or not. This is a clear cut example of Microsoft's true intentions: monopolize the entire PC market, and essentially have every computer out there run Windows so they can have the entire world rely on them like a crutch. They are getting closer and closer to this goal, owning 90% of the total market. Just imagine the type of control they could have with what they put on your computer, if there are no competitors around to keep them in check. The internet will be completely commercialized and tightly controlled by Microsoft strictly adhering to the will of the world governments. Right now, there is a 90%-95% chance I will not be getting Windows Vista when it comes out. I'm going to try to run completely with Linux, and perhaps even a Mac. Linux, with it's massive open source communities and free software, is the biggest stand against this threat Microsoft poses. Programmers willing to work together for little more than pride, is not something Microsoft can just buy out. Many companies(rightly so) run Linux on their servers for security purposes, and it's just something Microsoft can't compete with(even though they claim to). I intend to move to linux fully soon and perhaps help the development however I can. I only hope that Linux will become more accessible to the common crowd and can recieve a respectable share of the market. For now, I plan on learning as much as I can about the Linux operating system, since many companies are going to need Linux operators once Vista is released.

Toiletgate

So I know I'm late with this for all you chess fans.. Mig Greengard's chessninja.com and chessbase.com both have plenty of backround info on what happened about this, if you want more info. Basically, the Topalov team accused Kramnik of going to the bathroom 50+ times a game and possibly cheating. An appeal was submitted and ruled in favor of Topalov, Kramnik refuses to play game 5 and it's officially forfeited in favor of Topalov. This came after Topalov was down 2 points already after 4 games. I find it rather ridiculous myself. I blame all parties involved: FIDE for not creating a flexible enough contract to actually allow themselves to control possible cheating, Topalov for making a big deal out of this after losing 2 games that obviously weren't played well by either party, and Kramnik for not sucking it up and playing anyways to try to keep it a respectable match. The FIDE appeals committee ruled that both player's personal bathrooms be closed and one opened that would be shared by the players. People cite that a personal bathroom might be needed for Kramnik because of the health issues, but let's face it: if he can get through a press conference without rushing to the bathroom 10 times, he can get through a game sharing a bathroom with one other person. The fact that he complained about this doesn't give me any more respect for him. As far as I'm concerned, I'll grudgingly accept the winner of this to be the world champion, though a weak one at that, and hope that FIDE will learn from it's mistakes. I really don't feel like watching the match closely anymore, it's more of a circus these days than a chess match. Counting the forfeited game(which is being appealed by Kramnik, of course, though I think he has a good case to get it overturned), after 9 games the score is 5:4 in favor of Topalov, he came back and won 2 games himself. Grandmaster analysis of each game is provided at chessbase.com and Susan Polgar's Chess Blog.

World Chess Championship part 2

Today (Thursday) is a rest day. Kramnik won game 2 in a more exciting game, and games 3-4 were drawn. So Kramnik is up 3.0-1.0. If this were a 20 game match or so like past matches, Topalov would have plenty of time to catch up. But now, Topalov finds himself down 2 points with 8 games left to go against someone who's traditionally very difficult to beat. Topalov has time, but he needs to be aggressive and try to turn this match around quickly, or what time he has may run out.

Now, about the allegations of cheating. As I understand it, Topalov has been accused of having a chip implanted into his brain and Kramnik was accused of going to the bathroom 50+ times a game during the match. I don't take the chip implant allegation serious at all. He's losing pretty badly right now and obviously making some mistakes. Not only that, I don't believe anyone has the kind of technology to have a computer chip interact directly with the brain. As far as Kramnik is concerned, it seems like a reasonable request to have players somewhat limited to the number of times they go to the bathroom, and have an arbiter accompany them to it.

Anyways.. you can go to the Susan Polgar Chess Blog if you want updates on the World Championship match, no reason for me to analyze anything when you have grandmasters doing the dirty work. We should see some exciting games in the next week from both participants.

2006 World Chess Championship

Going on now currently between Bulgarian Veselin Topalov and Russian Vladimir Kramnik in Elista, Kalmykia, which is a republic of Russia. To be honest, I'm personally rooting for Topalov. His play in San Luis 2005 against the top players in the world was phenomenal. The fact that Kramnik has a dry, boring playing style really isn't the reason I'm rooting against him, it's a little more of the fact that he seems to be a little arrogant. Check out http://www.kramnik.com/ to see what I mean. An expert in the art of living? That seems like a pretty extraordinary statement to me. Anyways, Game 1 Kramnik had white against Topalov. About 3 times it looked like Topalov would have been allowed to draw by repetition, but instead he declined and ended up blundering a pawn late in the game and losing. The game itself was mildly interesting, about as much as you can expect from the Queen's Gambit Accepted. But if I know Topalov, he'll come back fighting and we'll get to see some real chess. I might even do a little of my own commentary and analysis if I feel inclined.

For the official website, visit http://www.worldchess2006.com/.

EU and US deadlocked over passenger data

By Paul Meller, IDG News Service
September 11, 2006


European and U.S. security officials were locked in talks in Brussels Monday to replace a passenger data sharing agreement that was outlawed by a European court in May.

The screening of airline passengers entering the U.S. became standard security procedure after the terrorist attacks on the U.S. five years ago. An agreement was struck with the European Union in 2003 permitting airlines carrying passengers to the U.S. to pass over 34 pieces of European citizens' private data to U.S. immigration officials without breaching strict European data protection laws.

The rest can be read here.


Now let me say first, I really don't consider myself a Democrat nor a Republican. Overall, I tend to lean more liberal, especially on economic and foreign issues, but I can go either way as far as social issues. I do think that the United States is not doing enough to secure good foreign relations with other countries. When the US decided they wanted to go after Iraq for "Weapons of Mass Destruction", they appealed to the United Nations to get support to invade and take them out. The UN did what one would expect and sent troops over to Iraq to see if these accusations proved true. When there was nothing found, the US president made a rash decision to invade Iraq anyways without UN support, and in doing so helped to further cast away relations between the US and the rest of the world.

What does this have to do with the above article? It's an example of the United States' foreign policy that carries on to other issues such as this. If the US had appealed to the UN in the first place when these terror attacks started, we'd have full international support in identifying and taking down these regimes, and our foreign relations would be much better as a result. It would also make issues with the European Union such as this much easier with a way of thinking agreed upon and adopted by all the nations of the world.

Back to my thoughts on the issue. If the EU gave in and agreed to what the US demanded, it would allow the current administration to label any EU citizens that arrive in the US as "possible terrorists". After they've identified these people as such, for whatever reason they deem, they aim to wiretap and intrude on privacy further, until they get just cause to (secretly) apprehend them as prisoners of war, where all their rights are stripped and they're at the discretion of the US Army. The EU has perfect cause to want to uphold their laws in foreign countries as much as is reasonable, and in this case I hope they can come to an agreement which will protect their citizens.

With a new president in 2008, the US will have a chance to clean up their relations with other countries and hopefully decisions like this will be a little more trivial.

First post!

Welcome everyone. My name is Sean and you'll be able to find out more about me in my profile. I decided to set up a blog in order to post my own thoughts about various things, from news and events around the world to politics to chess to computer/internet security. Pretty much anything I feel like talking about. I'm pretty opinionated, you're welcome to agree or disagree, but my goal is to make my blog reflect this. With that being said, I'll go ahead and post some things on here shortly:)