Baaad Dropbox

[Col Deadmarsh]

Hi everyone, haven't been posting in a while - been busy elsewhere.

Did you hear the latest news about Dropbox?

They read the files that users place in the service.

This is a German news article about it.

http://www.hardwareluxx.de/index.php/news/software/browser-und-internet/27882-dropbox-greift-auf-gespeicherte-dokumente-zu.html

In the end the article posts a part of the end user agreement which tells us that the content of user files will be decrypted befor being send to law enforcement agencies.

Hello NSA.

I think it isn't too interesting if you use the Dropbox just for gaming, but this is to those people who use it otherwise.

Is it just me or do other people feel sick too, when looking at the scope of surveilance the average citizen is subjected to these days???

Best regards

Olf

Yeah, it makes me angry as hell. At least you're in Germany. Not nearly as much to worry about vs. over here in "The Land of The Free."

[sburke]

But the turn is still password protected even if you get ahold of the file.

The Guvernment might be able to read SSL/https/AES but not CM PBEM files. I am sure of it.

Really? Then I am in awe of your knowledge of the inner workings of the NSA.

[iMolestCats]

Yeah, it makes me angry as hell.

Not alone in that aspect, many people feel the same way.

[Childress]

Because you have nothing to hide, correct?

Do you have a door for the WC? Why, if even complete foreigners working for the NSA know with whom you conversate, where you move, when, what you buy, what you talk about on the phone.

Oh, and don't ask stupid questions, if your daughter doesn't get a certain job. You shouldn't have bought that book at Amazon, which rendered your family as not trustworthy...

And also don't be afraid of the 1% criminal state workers. Surely never anyone at the NSA will empty your bank account or sell the private data or use it for personal reasons, since only angels are working for the enemies of freedom...

You are correct, it isn't as bad as it seems. It's much worse.

printscreen

[Jack Ration]

Data Mining can only scratch the surface. Take the 9/11 situation. Looking backwards, data mining can find some facts about situations, ie the terrorists getting pilot lessons, their movement, etc. Note - backwards! When you have solid data to start from.

Forecasting/predicting is in another galaxy as far as difficulty goes (try forecasting the stockmarket, a far simpler task). As mentioned previously, the amount of data that could be (probably is) collected is massive. The usual situation is too much data, not enough information.

Data Mining can be useful of course. For instance, consider the tax office. If a cities average claims by plumbers was X, you could search for plumbers who claim 2 time X. Why is plumber A claiming this much? Send to investigation department. Simplistic example but I'm sure you get my drift.

The problem with these "govt are watching you" scams (IMHO) are that they presume the govt is executing these operations at "perfection" levels. LOL! We are talking about the govt! Public Servants worrying about their 401K, the same ones that are running Detroit into the ground.

Like the poster Childress! Maybe change Thought to Political Correctness Police!

[Kuderian]

Call me a paranoid fokker but I recently closed nearly all my American based web services for alternative non US ones,hoping (naively?) this will life harder for snoopers esp. US ones.

Unfortunately I know of no other drop box alternative as easily or widely used by the wargaming community.

[Redwolf]

Call me a paranoid fokker but I recently closed nearly all my American based web services for alternative non US ones,hoping (naively?) this will life harder for snoopers esp. US ones.

Unfortunately I know of no other drop box alternative as easily or widely used by the wargaming community.

A lot of services that are run by companies not in the US still use US infrastructure.

Amazon's EC2 cloud computing platform is hosting a lot of stuff, American and other. Also, your UK or whereever frontend can decide to move from their own datacenters in Belgium or whereever to EC2 in a heartbeat.