Poor Man Survival
Self Reliance
tools for independent minded people…
ISSN 2161-5543
A
Digest of Urban Survival Resources
The Explosion
of False News & Spy Sites Are a Warning to Each of Us!
Make Note: Warnings of new attacks on your privacy
everyone should read at the bottom of this post.
The
online world, and social networking sites in particular has the potential to
invade your privacy. Couple that with an overbearing, overreaching
out-of-control government which has no respect for your rights or privacy and
Americans have all been put on a virtual leash.
Consider
the fact that Facebook has amassed what may be the world’s largest photo
database, consisting of more than 500 billion pictures. Then combine that
figure with mobile technology like MORIS, the “Mobile
Offender Recognition and Information System.” MORIS is a facial recognition
program used by police. An officer simply snaps a photo of your face and runs
the image through software that hunts for a match in a criminal records
database.
MORIS
can scan your face from up to five feet away, potentially without you being
aware of it. Since you have no “expectation of privacy” in a public location,
the law doesn’t consider this a “search,” and you need not consent to this
intrusion.
It’s
easy to see how this technology could be abused. Let’s say you’re walking down
the street one day while an anti-government protest takes place. A cop armed
with MORIS or a similar program matches your image to your Facebook profile.
Even if you’re not arrested right away, the fact that you appeared near a
public demonstration against the government is filed away for future use.
Big
Brother is watching indeed!
It’s
even possible that software like MORIS can secretly search Facebook’s photo
archives. Facebook might not even know about it, given the “back
doors” intelligence agencies like the NSA have built into it, as documented by
whistleblower Edward Snowden.
Yet,
even if no back doors exist – or have been closed off – the government has its
ways of getting the information it’s looking for. The proof is in a helpful
document Facebook itself publishes, the Global
Government Requests Report. During the first six months of 2016, for
instance, US law enforcement agencies made 59,229 data requests covering 86,735
accounts. More than 80% of the time, Facebook released at least some
information. Nearly 60% of these requests prohibited Facebook from notifying
the account holder of the investigation.
Your
photos are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the privacy invasion
that Facebook and other social networks facilitate.
- Facebook
tracks and archives every post and private message on its network. The
potential for this information to come back to haunt you is almost
unlimited. There are numerous examples of individuals turned down for
employment due to sexually suggestive, politically controversial, or
simply “inappropriate” posts. Some employers even demand access to social
networking accounts as a prerequisite to employment.
- Facebook also
knows a great deal about you based on your “Likes,” the links you click,
and the websites you visit that send information back to it. All this
information is archived and available for marketing purposes – or for
investigation.
- While you can
delete information on Facebook or even remove your account entirely, it’s
not clear if the data is really gone. Some messages and photos may remain
on its servers for “technical
reasons.”
As well, keep in mind that the government may apply for a “data retention”
order to force Facebook and similar companies to preserve data that you
might have thought you deleted.
- Facebook’s
computers continuously analyze the network of friends you create, along
with the messages you send them. This analysis is designed to suggest
content you might like, people you might know, or stuff you might buy. We
know that the NSA closely monitors the network of friends of suspected
terrorists on social media. And not just friends, but friends of those
friends, etc. The more friends you have, the more likely that something
you post, or someone connected to one of your friends, or a friend of one
of your friends, might be deemed suspicious, triggering an investigation.
- Attacks and
malware aimed at social networks occur almost daily. Remember, the more
information you post about yourself, the easier it is for an attacker to
impersonate you and steal your identity – or pretend to be a “friend” and
try to convince you to reveal information you’d prefer to keep
confidential. If investigators don’t want to go through the process of
asking Facebook for information about you, they can simply create a false
profile and then invite you to become a friend. A prospective employer or
private investigator can do the same thing to learn more about you.
It’s
no wonder that when the satirical website The
Onion published a spoof purporting to come
from the CIA, praising Facebook, it rang true:
After years of secretly monitoring the public, we were
astounded so many people would willingly publicize where they lived, their
religious and political views, an alphabetized list of all their friends,
personal email addresses, phone numbers, hundreds of photos of themselves, and
even status updates about what they were doing moment to moment. It is truly a
dream come true for the CIA.
The
bottom line is that if you can live without Facebook or other social media
networking sites, by all means don’t use them. If you do decide to use them,
keep the information you post to a minimum. For instance, the only photo I have
posted on Facebook is more than a decade old. I log on once weekly to answer
messages from my family. I don’t accept “friends” whom I don’t already know
personally. If you use Facebook or other social media sites, I suggest you take
similar precautions.
The Surveillance State Seen through a
'Black Mirror'
If this sounds strangely familiar it is because it is
exactly what our own government has been doing over the last several years.
WARNING NOTES:
After this year’s election, Rep.
Chris Smith [R-NJ] tried to sneak in a bill that would fund & expand
tracking devices, including chip implants for school children and the
elderly. The bill, called Kevin &
Avonte’s Law, awards grants to law enforcement and non-profit groups for the
purpose of placing tracking devices on children with autism or seniors with
Alzheimer’s – for their own protection and the original bill would have
authorized this to be done WITHOUT their consent! Privacy advocates successfully demanded its
removal for now. [There is a firm called
Revolutionary Tracker -212/249-7807 or Revolutionarytracker.com- which offers
this service via a simply communication device based on a GPS personal locator
and an SOS button that can be connected with family members or caregivers which
may bring peace of mind to many families without the Orwellian touch of
government.
Big Brother is growing-thank you Obama
FamilyTreeNow.Com says it is a family ancestry site and
apparently it is more than that. If you
are a member of law enforcement, for example, I would advise going there
immediately and using their OPT OUT provision at the bottom of the page to
delete information about yourself as the information it provides is too
comprehensive-I strongly advise all those who are concerned with privacy to do
the same.
The Surveillance State Seen through a 'Black Mirror'
If this sounds strangely
familiar it is because it is exactly what our own government has been doing
over the last several years.
Court Documents Appear to Confirm the FBI Is Using Best Buy Techs
to Perform Warrantless Searches for It
Obama Expands Surveillance Powers on His Way Out
The Privacy Threat From Always-On Microphones Like the Amazon Echo
WhatsApp Backdoor Allows Snooping on Encrypted Messages
Big Brother Collecting Big Data — and in China, It's All for Sale
American Spies: Modern Surveillance, Why You Should Care, and What to Do About It
Hack Reveals Data Company Cellebrite Works With Everyone From US Cops to Russia
Obama Expands Surveillance Powers on His Way Out
The Privacy Threat From Always-On Microphones Like the Amazon Echo
WhatsApp Backdoor Allows Snooping on Encrypted Messages
Big Brother Collecting Big Data — and in China, It's All for Sale
American Spies: Modern Surveillance, Why You Should Care, and What to Do About It
Hack Reveals Data Company Cellebrite Works With Everyone From US Cops to Russia
Yours for better living,
Bruce , the Poor Man
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Additional
Resources
The Anatomy of a Breakdown
The Prepper’s Blueprint: The Step-By-Step Guide To Help You Through Any Disaster
Prepper’s Home Defense: Security Strategies to Protect Your Family by Any Means Necessary
Contact! A Tactical Manual for Post Collapse Survival
FREE: DYI Personal EMP Defense System
Health
Ranger Store
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2 comments:
Everywhere you turn, someone [especially our idiot government] is trying to screw with you-makes my stomach turn!
When it comes to privacy most people are jerks-they just don't give a damn.
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