The Observation Deck

As predicted over a year ago. Accept your friends, and linked in buddies at your
own peril. The next one you say yes to could get you a free trip to Gitmo.

'Terrorist Facebook' – the new weapon against al-Qa'ida
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/politics/terrorist-facebook-ndash-the-new-weapon-against-alqaida-1774041.html
"Facebook and Google are doing social networking, which is the technology for helping you find out who to talk to and for finding out what your friends know about a person," Professor Carley said. "What social network analysis is about is giving me the whole of the 'Facebook-style' data and saying that I'm going to analyse it..." she said.

No many people have said to me, I have nothing to fear. Well did you ever play "6-Degrees
of Separation from Kevin Bacon"? Most people can get to Kevin Bacon in 4 or less. I would
have to think this means that the governments super computers using their access to facebook and linked in, can connect you with al-Qa'ida in 4 or less as well.

So you do not trust them with your money, your health, or your future. But you trust them
with your entire social network, and information!

.

Privacy is dead. We are indeed our own worst nightmare when it come to keeping private data. The government no longer needs to tap your phone or have a "florist" truck stalk your house. They need only look as far as the internet. We go about twittering, facebooking without ever thinking that we are doing the jobs of government and identity snatchers for them. We freely give up our own privacy.

Jim

One of the reasons is they have made it a game. I was at a lunch last week, with a couple
CEOs that were giddy, over how many "friends" they had. One had 1100, the other poor soul
only 931. "I will catch you!" explained the poor guy with only 931 friends.

I really do not have that big of problem with the government, as my life is pretty mudane.
But when you see the abuse by government groups, civic groups, and commercial enterprises
it gets pretty ugly. Personal information is the new gold, and that is where the nightmare
starts.

It was just about a year ago, Mary Anne Crampton accused the Lakewood Observer of tracking
personal ip addresses. Of course this was an outright lie, but the head of a group that tries
very hard to collect every email address they can lay hands on to make their mailing list
larger, and calling them "members." I sent a note to the visible head of LakewoodAlive and
said, stop or the LO will seek legal remedies. But it does show insight into how she thinks.
If I had the ability I would gather, and it bares out. Sign up for Lakewood Schools Phase III
and you will get the next LakewoodAlive mailing. No document requesting those emails, they
just magically show up, at LA offices, then who knows. Highest bidder?

Yep they make it a game, and then you have lost control forever. What amazed me about
the software I was shown, is it is just a click from "mass email/spam" to credit checks,
personal information on you and your family, and yes even friends that never signed up.

I mean tracking personal information and emails is a far cry from sending home flyers with
every child about LA social events at Rozi's Wine House. But one could see how it can lead
to very serious issues as one passes the list to another, and another and another.

As I mentioned, when the LO was formed we took DL Meckes' dedication to privacy and
married it to The Lakewood Public Library's dedication to keeping your personal information
secure. Of course with Ken gone, and at least one board member thinking that email lists
should be FREE to people running for office, or???? who knows where that stands now.

FWIW

.

Hi,
Mr. OB, I always like how you bring an issue down to the local level.

The last Administration set our civil rights back 50-100 years. The current Administration has done little or nothing to correct. In fact, the Obama administration has been working to protect the actions of the last Administration. Ridge just announced the prior Administration faked terror alerts to manipulate the 2004 election. This sounds like another act of treason to me but no Democrat in office bats an eye.

I agree that Facebook and Linkin offer huge possibilities of invasion of privacy, but honestly, are you safe if you are not on these sites?

Let me just present 1 simple case that would get you in far more trouble with the prior Administration (and I have seen nothing to indicate practices have changed with Obama). Your phone rings, it's Bin Laden aid, he's trying to order parts for his new belt-sized dialysis machine from the Clinic, and he miss-dialed your number. Now, whether you answer it or not, you and everyone that calls you are in a ring of suspicion. Maybe, he calls the Clinic and it happens to be the same circuit your Doctor is on. Maybe, you just took out of the Library or google-searched (oops-I just did) Naomi Wolf for info on her book, "The End of America". Could that do it? Who knows?

Ms. Wolf outlines the steps the current government needs to take to restore our freedoms. I encourage everyone to get this this book read it and then demand restoring our civil liberties be added to the plate of what needs to be done.

PS Saw this article on the founder of Linken http://money.cnn.com/2009/08/24/technology/linkedin_reid_hoffman.fortune/index.htm?section=money_latest He's just trying to make our lives better.

Jim O'Bryan wrote:It was just about a year ago, Mary Anne Crampton accused the Lakewood Observer of tracking personal ip addresses. Of course this was an outright lie,

Well, not exactly. That was true in the past. The new software does collect IP addresses. We don't show them. There are two people who have access to and know how to extract that information. One of them is me. The other is our head programmer.

Donald Farris wrote:Hi,
Mr. OB, I always like how you bring an issue down to the local level.

The last Administration set our civil rights back 50-100 years. The current Administration has done little or nothing to correct. In fact, the Obama administration has been working to protect the actions of the last Administration. Ridge just announced the prior Administration faked terror alerts to manipulate the 2004 election. This sounds like another act of treason to me but no Democrat in office bats an eye.

I agree that Facebook and Linkin offer huge possibilities of invasion of privacy, but honestly, are you safe if you are not on these sites?

Don

When it is happening on a local level, you kind of notice things more. Over a decade ago
I realized that my impact on a global, national, state even county level is very, very small.
But on a local level, you can enact thought, positive energy, and make a difference.

One of the reasons we started the Observer Project was to give everyone a FREE place that
protected a person's right of privacy. Hence no sign in. Protected the information entrusted
to us. Hence the encryption and NEVER making the list public.

What is amazing about the "Linked-In," "Facebook" and "Uverse" way is the straight pipeline
to the NSA. What is also amazing is how they have gotten everyone to buy in, and offer
up their lives, to chat with a "friend." How odd that those young people that oppose so
many things about the government, and so many republicans and libertarians, and so
many democrats that spoke out about the Bush regime, no sit quiet, and feed the machine
they loathed. Spiral Dynamics 101. The same thing being used right here in Lakewood,
to get people to go against their best interest to buy into "their Utopian dream."

Really fascinating to watch, like a train accident in slow motion.

I believe the Donner Party is returning for a main course after an eight year hiatus.


.

Hi,
Mr. OB, you said, "What is amazing about the "Linked-In," "Facebook" and "Uverse" way is the straight pipeline to the NSA. "

Well, sadly, your servers are connected to the same routers as everyone else. And from what I read the Gov't is capturing all traffic and then figuring out what they want to use. If they are capturing it I'm sure they are storing it because they may later decide they want to look at something different.

I understand your point about local organizations.

Perhaps a good time to bring this back to the front....

http://www.eff.org/issues/nsa-spying

The bottom line is that the infrastructure is in place to sniff all the traffic on the tubes and send it wholesale to the man.

People like Jim and DL do what is needed to keep identifying information hidden from the view of bad people. Problem is our civil rights are not being violated on a wholesale level by the run of the mill joe blow politician, or creepy guy sifting through your trash. They are being violated by the government. In the end you can not hide data from the government. If you do not want the government to see what sites you are visiting then do not visit them.

To be fair the government may be collecting all this data. However there is no way they can sift through it all. That is the silly part. Osama is being lost in all the calls to you grandmother.

Sadly Obama has done little to roll back the evilness of the cowboys time in office. God Bless America.

Jim O'Bryan wrote:As predicted over a year ago. Accept your friends, and linked in buddies at your
own peril. The next one you say yes to could get you a free trip to Gitmo.

'Terrorist Facebook' – the new weapon against al-Qa'ida
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/politics/terrorist-facebook-ndash-the-new-weapon-against-alqaida-1774041.html
"Facebook and Google are doing social networking, which is the technology for helping you find out who to talk to and for finding out what your friends know about a person," Professor Carley said. "What social network analysis is about is giving me the whole of the 'Facebook-style' data and saying that I'm going to analyse it..." she said.

So many people have said to me, I have nothing to fear. Well did you ever play "6-Degrees
of Separation from Kevin Bacon"? Most people can get to Kevin Bacon in 4 or less. I would
have to think this means that the governments super computers using their access to facebook and linked in, can connect you with al-Qa'ida in 4 or less as well.

So you do not trust them with your money, your health, or your future. But you trust them
with your entire social network, and information!
.

Hi Jim,

I'm pretty sure I want to stay separated from Kevin Bacon just on general principles of not mixing with stars of pop musicals... He seems cool and all, but just sayin'

Like some of the other posts, I can appreciate the mixed feeling of paranoia on one hand and the "cats out of the bag" on the other. To be real, this capability has been going full bore since DARPA funded the Internet in the late 80's. You'll recall that we trusted government to find a way to connect all of our precious infrastructure with a web of networks impervious (or certainly resilient) to nuclear and or other scary events. We didn't even know they were doing it, but hey it's turned into something pretty cool.

I hope you aren't going to shut down the LO, because this is a social network, fully open to the public. I realize you guys are keeping it private, but I'm sure anything can be traced on the internet.

Some of the other posts also seemed to agree that the new administration hasn't changed much of this. I certainly wouldn't know if they have or haven't. But there have been some questionable behaviors. The snitch site has been shut down (they said they were misunderstood, which is odd because they were very clear about turning in any email that seemed fishy about health care - of course addresses would go with that).

I'm a tad more concerned about the role of ACORN in the US census next year. This para-government group shows up all over the place. In the recovery (stimulas) act, the House bill 3200 health care bill several times (though not mentioned by name). I'm sure they are all just great upstanding citizens. But I also think they have an agenda that serves one side of the equation. Reporting census information is an important job.

I heard the US Post Office is going bankrupt. These postal workers already know our neighborhoods. Why wouldn't we give them the money?

Just a thought on who is scary.

Dustin James wrote:I hope you aren't going to shut down the LO, because this is a social network, fully open to the public. I realize you guys are keeping it private, but I'm sure anything can be traced on the internet.

Some of the other posts also seemed to agree that the new administration hasn't changed much of this. I certainly wouldn't know if they have or haven't. But there have been some questionable behaviors. The snitch site has been shut down (they said they were misunderstood, which is odd because they were very clear about turning in any email that seemed fishy about health care - of course addresses would go with that).

I'm a tad more concerned about the role of ACORN in the US census next year. This para-government group shows up all over the place. In the recovery (stimulas) act, the House bill 3200 health care bill several times (though not mentioned by name). I'm sure they are all just great upstanding citizens. But I also think they have an agenda that serves one side of the equation. Reporting census information is an important job.

I heard the US Post Office is going bankrupt. These postal workers already know our neighborhoods. Why wouldn't we give them the money?

Just a thought on who is scary.

Dustin

I know this sounds crazy, but I have known about the government into everything for
decades. Thank god you and I had the 60s, and 70s to have our serious fun. I expect
that every aspect of our lives is recorded recorded. That said, if the government comes, even by
mistake, I get a trial to defend my self from whatever they try to say I did.

What worries me is the offshoot groups that are collecting it without any oversight. The
government might read every email, but they are not selling those lists to anyone who asks
or even worse, giving them away. Here in Lakewood, join one of twenty groups or sites
and you will get email from all, and they all are obviously not to low, to sell the lists.

In my little mind, security though faux, is far better and fairer than the wealth and power
of a few! You know some people can be trusted with information others...

As for shutting the LO down, the server space is paid for ten years, and backed up
in two cities. We now have over 60 people that can run the process, even from an iphone.
This party is running for a long time!

.

Dustin

I know this sounds crazy, but I have known about the government into everything for
decades. Thank god you and I had the 60s, and 70s to have our serious fun. I expect
that every aspect of our lives is recorded recorded. That said, if the government comes, even by
mistake, I get a trial to defend my self from whatever they try to say I did.

What worries me is the offshoot groups that are collecting it without any oversight. The
government might read every email, but they are not selling those lists to anyone who asks
or even worse, giving them away. Here in Lakewood, join one of twenty groups or sites
and you will get email from all, and they all are obviously not to low, to sell the lists.

In my little mind, security though faux, is far better and fairer than the wealth and power
of a few! You know some people can be trusted with information others...

As for shutting the LO down, the server space is paid for ten years, and backed up
in two cities. We now have over 60 people that can run the process, even from an iphone.
This party is running for a long time!
.

Haha, yes those were the days. It is a new world. As for lists, you are right, it gets to be pretty overwhelming on the spam filters. Direct mail is just as bad. We contribute to animal shelters and things like ASPCA. Because almost all charities job their direct mail out, the lists spread like wildfire. We get on average, something like 6 pieces on animals per day. The direct mailers kick back a small percentage to the charity on the notion that it didn't cost them anything except using their name. So even trying to do the right thing comes with a hidden cost.

The other scam most people don't realize, are the spam freelancers. A cute note, joke, or political rant that ends with "forward this to all your friends" is a dead giveaway. Hidden within the code of that email, is a blind cc. The email gets forwarded and each time a bot is recording and harvesting the new "live" email addresses that are in turn sold. It's economy of scale. One stupid snopes email can hit thousands of unsuspecting readers. If one must pass something on... cut the contents and paste it into a new email. Then delete the part about forwarding it. At least this cuts the robot chain.

Had to throw in the LO part about social networks for shock value. I know you guys aren't shutting down. Just trying to be a blood pressure pill for ya

Not all is bleak... yet

Dustin James wrote:Had to throw in the LO part about social networks for shock value. I know you guys aren't shutting down. Just trying to be a blood pressure pill for ya

Not all is bleak... yet

Dustin

No it is not all bleak.

Last night I gave a talk to a good size crowd over in the Cleveland Heights Library on Lee
Road. The discussion was diffusion of focus. What the various Observers have been started
for is to bring a geographical community together. To have a central point for the
dissemination of news and views in a community. That through all the smoke and mirrors
a clearer more honest picture can appear, and through that a voter, a resident, a politician,
a business, maybe even a person looking for a home can formulate how that impacts their
choice, or views. If it does not represent your views, then you only have yourself to blame.

A central storage area where all can read without registering, so that in our busy days
we all have a place to look, read, maybe post and move on. Unfortunately these places
have to be made secure with funding, and through that comes a long future. Luckily
for Observers, this has worked beyond our wildest dreams, and not only are they growing
but through that growth, comes the security of not fading away like so many projects.

In other cities, that have not become so jaded. The schools are working hand in hand with
Observers, and local colleges to provide extra services and free services to many. City
halls have decided it is far better and easier to dump onto Observers, then pay so much
extra money for flyers and flashy sites of self promotion, non-profits and chambers are
forming bonds with the community paper that allows all to grow and share the wealth of
knowledge, volunteers, and dollars. Of course here in the land of Donner Party II, it is
all about control, hallways and back room dealing. ZERO transparency, they can't take it,
can't answer the questions. Funny the city that gave birth to the concept, now runs in
the other direction. I actually heard of one public official that is drawing two paychecks
for 40 hours of work, say "The views in the paper are stupid, as are the members." Well
this is the same people paying his paycheck, both of them.

One thing we have noticed is that is a heavy burden for most to handle. Open discussion
as opposed to "controlling the message" seems to be the flavor of the day. Maybe it is
the times, but it would seem that many have retreated to the faux world, of spin and
smoke.

Second Life where people can live virtual lives is still growing, and starting to become almost
a second civilization that runs parallel to the real world. The contest for digital "friends"
seems to be more important that maintaining a handful of real friends. That if someone
anyone says anything you do not agree with, it is far easier to hide, and block, then
answer or even read the question.

No I took it as a joke, the board created an Observer that is here for a long long time.

.

[/quote]
the server space is paid for ten years
.[/quote]snicker, snicker. cough.

what facebook quizzes know about you:
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/wh ... ut_you.php