Life Through The PRISM
This has nothing to do with Pink Floyd [an allusion for the ancients among us], this is about contractors pawing through our lives on-line.
First off, realistically, the only ‘direct connection’ the government could have to Google, would be to a secure server on which Google loads the specific data that it has been ordered to deliver. The contractors that now comprise NSA don’t have the resources to contain the data that Google generates. Think of it as trying to unload an oil tanker with a 5-gallon gas can.
Not convinced, how about the resources necessary to keep up with PMS day on Microsoft, when Windows users are all upgrading their machines at the same time.
This isn’t a matter of whether or not the contractors want the access, it is whether they can actually handle what they would get, and they don’t have the resources.
Get real, broadband in the US sucks. We are at the bottom for speed and top for cost. The ‘free market’ is not providing the US with a first world data infrastructure. The contractors can create whatever they want in Utah, but they aren’t going to have the available bandwidth to really do much. The telecoms have been focused on getting more money from their existing system, not spending money to expand it.
That said, I agree with the EFF that a lot of questions need to be answered about PRISM. While we are waiting, PRISM Break has a listing of products that help to preserve your personal privacy to some extent. Pretty Good Privacy/GNU Privacy Guard 128-bit encryption should easily last your lifetime.
June 16, 2013 11 Comments
