Keep Our Service Free-Donate

Tuesday, January 17, 2017

The Explosion of False News & Spy Sites Are a Warning to Each of Us!


 

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.



 

Yours for better living,

Bruce , the Poor Man

Contributors and subscribers enable the Poor Man Survivor to post 150+ free essays annually. It is for this reason they are Heroes and Heroines of New Media. Without your financial support, the free content would disappear for the simple reason that I cannot keep body and soul together on my meager book sales & ecommerce alone.



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


 

 
 
 
Critical Home Defense/Personal Defense, Arm Up System+BONUSES
PM’s Guide to Home Defense Package…
 
 

It is a crazy world out there with plenty of violence and everyone knows you that under most circumstances, police usually arrive after the fact. Your rights to defend yourself are often under attack, even for non-lethal self-defense tools…Includes 2 books and 4 bonus CD/DVD ROMS…dozens of useful DIY self defense manuals.

http://www.bonanza.com/listings/Guide-to-Home-Defense-Arm-Up-System-Defense-W-out-Regulation-Bonuses/370808566

 

{Note:  We also offer a Three Set CD-ROM-only version at a lesser price for those with limited budgets]


Support our efforts by shopping my storefront…


 

 

 

A Smoking Frog Feature, Shallow Planet Production

 

2 comments:

DAR said...

Everywhere you turn, someone [especially our idiot government] is trying to screw with you-makes my stomach turn!

MaryAnn said...

When it comes to privacy most people are jerks-they just don't give a damn.