Tossing aside that Assange didn't actually make this statement: In 1996, the possibility that the NSA was sniffing the Internet was largely considered "tinfoil" even by most tech experts.<p>But anyone who read Bamford knew there was good circumstantial evidence that mass surveillance was occurring -- except back then, the bad word was "ECHELON", not "PRISM".<p>It's important to remember that while Snowden brought this to the masses (and to that we owe him a great debt), long before Snowden, we had Mark Klein, Binney, Cryptome, and James Bamford.<p>The NSA has been under strong suspicions for decades at this point. Back in the 80s, the exposes were about their mass surveillance of telephone calls. This was even in the popular press. There was a particular 60 Minutes episode that described a post worker shocked that she was intercepting a mom talking about her kid's soccer game in English.<p>Having lived through multiple very public NSA scandals over the decades, I think the only effective change will come from the grassroots: strong crypto, secure software, privacy focused. It sure as hell won't come from our lawmakers.
As a Chinese, I really wonder whether the Chinese government is doing the same thing (or maybe several countries' governments are doing this?) I did have a friend who received immediate warning phone call from Ministry of State Security just a few minutes after he posted something controversial about government's ethnic policy. It was 2009 and he was using a campus computer. That's why I never put personal data on campus computers back in China.
Looks like it's a repost of an article from NorthStar newsletter: <a href="http://iahushua.com/WOI/nsanet.html" rel="nofollow">http://iahushua.com/WOI/nsanet.html</a><p>It doesn't list Assange as the author, he only sent it to the newsgroup.
It sounds nuts at the time, now we just think "of course."<p>+1 "told ya so" point for Mr Assange.<p>Gotta love the PCMCIA mentions; brings back memories.
Echelon-like capture of unencrypted information was widely accepted as reality during my time on IRC (2000-2007). The Slovenian Government was actually sloppy enough to let the knowledge out in public [1]. We were provided the technology by the Germans, but it's possible USA just wanted to stay out of he way.<p>[1] <a href="https://www.dnevnik.si/249095/slovenija/249095" rel="nofollow">https://www.dnevnik.si/249095/slovenija/249095</a>
> <i>"A knowledgeable government source claims that
the NSA has concluded agreements with Microsoft, Lotus and Netscape to
permit the introduction of the means to prevent the anonymity of Internet
electronic mail, the use of cryptographic key-escrow, as well as software
industry acceptance of the NSA-developed Digital Signature Standard (DSS)."</i><p>Nice. Microsoft has been collaborating with the NSA to make their spying easier for its own products and services for at least <i>two decades</i> now, something the Snowden docs confirmed in 2013 [1], but we didn't know it went back <i>that far</i> then.<p>But that was the <i>old</i> Microsoft (up until 1-2 years ago). The <i>new</i> Microsoft could never possibly.<p>[1] - <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/11/microsoft-nsa-collaboration-user-data" rel="nofollow">http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/11/microsoft-nsa-c...</a>
Actually, Assange was wrong. A leaked NSA Inspector General's report provides specifics about historical NSA surveillance programs. It's apparent that the agency only scaled up its domestic Internet presence after 9/11.<p><a href="https://www.aclu.org/files/natsec/nsa/20130816/NSA%20IG%20Report.pdf" rel="nofollow">https://www.aclu.org/files/natsec/nsa/20130816/NSA%20IG%20Re...</a><p>Pages 29-34 provide detail on when the agency gained access to Internet content and metadata.
Starting the first paragraph with a 1984 reference and the second one with McCarthy is a great way to look like a boy crying wolf.<p>Even if there is really a wolf. Especially if there's really a wolf — you don't want people to immediately write you off as a conspiracy theorist and alarmist. Even if you believe that you live in a true dystopian society, if your goal is to persuade people, you should try not to sound or look like character from The Lone Gunmen.<p>Sometimes I wonder how many conspiracy theorists are actually right, but when I begin to stuff like this, I can't bring myself to take it seriously, just because of pompous, self-righteous, anti-establishment way it is written.
Key portion from the article:
"Puzzle Palace co-author Wayne Madsen, in an article written for the June 1995 issue of Computer Fraud & Security Bulletin (Elsevier Advanced Technology Publications), wrote that "according to well-placed sources within the Federal Government and the Internet service provider industry, the National Security Agency (NSA) is actively sniffing several key Internet router and gateway hosts."<p>edit: Title is better now; thanks.
Assange is a very intelligent individual. In fact the people posting that Assange's pgp related post warrants laughter now won't get the last laugh (in due time).
> Americans would not have any privacy left<p>> I don't want to see this country ever go across the bridge. I know the capability that is there to make tyranny total in America<p>Isn't he Australian ? I can understand if he was opposed to being spied on by US but if the democratically elected government of US chooses to spy on its own people, isn't it morally presumptuous for Assange to intervene ?
The NSA today certainly has great power, but what evidence do we have that they are abusing it a way comparable to McCarthyism or the CIA in the 60's [1]?<p>1. <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/16/magazine/what-an-uncensored-letter-to-mlk-reveals.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/16/magazine/what-an-uncensore...</a>