How Long Before All TVs Come With Embedded Cameras So Big Bro Can Watch Us-- For Our Own Safety, Of Course?

At one point, a couple decades ago, some of the high-end airlines introduced a privacy feature for first class travelers: enclosed cabins. A flight attendant could stand oh his or her toes and took over the wall, but otherwise you could do whatever you wanted in privacy. Apparently, too many people did and they seem to have abolished them. Now it looks like they're introducing the opposite: tiny cameras that can watch you during the flight. Do you think that's a little intrusive? You're watching a move and "someone" is watching you-- an airline employee? a government entity?

Last month, CNN reported that Singapore admits they have embedded cameras in their newer inflight entertainment systems but claim they're deactivated. "Deactivated?" Why are they there then-- in order to be activated next week or the week after?

The fact that some aircraft seats have built-in cameras is not new knowledge.

Singapore Airlines' inflight entertainment system is manufactured by Panasonic Avionics, a US-based company that supplies IFE for many of the major airlines and French company Thales. Panasonic announced a while back that it's added cameras onto seat backs.

And in 2017, Panasonic Avionics announced a partnership with Tascent-- a biometrics and identity innovation company.

"The companies will combine Tascent's biometric identity devices, software and services with Panasonic Avionic Corporation's in-flight entertainment and communications systems to provide streamlined, easy-to-use identity recognition before departure, during flight and upon arrival," read the corresponding press release.

The idea was seat-back cameras could facilitate onboard immigration, skipping lines when you land. It was also suggested that a seat-back camera could aid payment processing for onboard shopping.

At the 2017 Dubai Airshow, Panasonic Avionics announced the latest incarnation of Emirates' IFE in First Class and Economy-- specifying it featured a camera, plus a microphone and speaker.

In the age of the smartphone, everyone holds a tiny cinema in their hand, so there's certainly an expectation that airlines will have exciting entertainment options-- a screen simply showing movies won't cut it anymore.

But has Emirates ever done anything with its on-board cameras?

"Some of our 777 aircraft have cameras that came pre-installed with the inflight entertainment hardware that we had purchased from the manufacturer (Panasonic)," a spokeperson for the Dubai-based airline told CNN Travel. "It was originally meant for seat-to-seat video calls, however Emirates has never activated it."

This echoes Singapore Airlines' comment on the issue.

"These cameras have been intended by the manufacturers for future developments," the airline says. "These cameras are permanently disabled on our aircraft and cannot be activated on board. We have no plans to enable or develop any features using the cameras."

Meanwhile, American Airlines told CNN Travel that cameras are "a standard feature," but are not activated and the carrier has no plans to use them.

A spokesperson for Aussie carrier Qantas also told CNN Travel that IFE manufacturers include inbuilt cameras as standard-- and said the airline couldn't activate the cameras, even if they wanted to.

"The feature would require software in order to be activated, which Qantas doesn't have and doesn't plan to install."

Air New Zealand and British Airways told CNN Travel there were no cameras on board any of their aircraft.

Two images obtained by CNN Travel of an IFE system on a British Airways airplane depict what looks like a lens of some kind. BA describes it as an infrared environmental sensor rather than a camera.

But are airplane seat cameras a bad idea? Some aviation experts think they could improve the onboard, inflight experience.

Joe Leader, CEO of aviation trade body Airline Passenger Experience Association (APEX) think there's several handy usages for these cameras.

As well as facilitating video chat between passengers, the cameras could look out for passengers becoming unwell or monitor cabins for suspicious behavior.

The cameras could also be used to spot human trafficking or assault-- acting as an extension of the air steward's eyes.

As for the privacy concern, APEX points out the ubiquity of cameras in 21st century society.

"Today, airline passengers are typically tracked outside the aircraft dozens of times on a typical journey through stores, security, roadways, and airports by cameras without any permission," APEX says in a statement.

"In contrast, airlines only want to use cameras in the future with permission when technology has advanced to offer personalized service improvements that passengers desire."

Hacking fears, suggests APEX, are "misplaced."

"The greatest risk to airline passenger privacy breaches come from their own smartphones, tablets, cameras, computers, and smart devices used in private settings, " says APEX.

The concern for some fliers is that even if the existence of these seat-back cameras aren't a secret-- and even if they could facilitate some cool features-- it feels disingenuous that their presence isn't advertised.

When contacted by CNN Travel, Panasonic Avionics stressed that it was committed to the privacy of passengers.

"Panasonic Avionics will never activate any feature or functionality within an IFE system without explicit direction from an airline customer," the company said in a statement to CNN.

"Prior to the use of any camera on a Panasonic Avionics' system that would affect passenger privacy, Panasonic Avionics would work closely with its airline customer to educate passengers about how the system works and to certify compliance with all appropriate privacy laws and regulations, such as [The EU's data privacy regulation] GDPR."

But although Panasonic Avionics and the airlines say the cameras are currently deactivated-- they're not physically covered up and passengers remain worried about hacking.

These systems are expensive and they're not just there so they could be not used. The airlines should stop bullshitting their customers for a change. One consumer advocacy group pointed out that "Air travel is already fraught with ineffective and invasive breaches of our personal privacy. But now the airlines themselves have gone even further with cameras and microphones pointed at passengers as they watch movies, eat snacks, or just sleep. And the implications of in-flight cameras are even bigger than the discomfort of the airline watching you sleep on a red-eye. It’s still unknown to what extent the federal government could be able to acquire that data, without a warrant or probable cause, or process the camera footage through faulty facial recognition programs that misidentify women and people of color."

I'm old enough to remember when flying was a treat. That was a long, long, long time ago. Are you thinking I'm being too alarmist here? If so, take a look at this. "German Chancellor Angela Merkel has introduced a bill that would allow German spy agencies to hack into nearly any computer and conduct espionage on a wide swath of citizens and foreigners. Drawn up by Interior Minister Horst Seehofer, the bill greatly expands the espionage powers of Germany’s intelligence service, the bnd. Although Seehofer has been notorious for opposing the chancellor on many occasions, he seems to have persuaded her to support this latest bill. This time, opposition is coming from Merkel’s coalition ally, the Social Democratic Party (spd). The spd justice minister has expressed outrage at one clause in particular, which would allow spies to collect information on children under 14 years old. The justification for this clause rests on the 2016 case of a 12-year-old who was involved in a plot to bomb a Christmas market.

Many Germans are critical of the bill. “This amounts to a massive extension of intrusive surveillance,” said Sven Herpig, a researcher from the New Responsibility Foundation. Germany’s Left Party also condemned the bill, calling it a “catalogue of Orwellian fantasies.”

In the recent past, however, many similar “fantasies” have become reality.

In 2017, Germany proposed an “unprecedented spate of new surveillance and security laws.” Most of these were passed and are in force today, yet they are rarely discussed.

The biggest concern is currently the government’s State Trojan spyware law. This allows government spyware to be covertly installed on a target’s mobile phone. The spyware can lie dormant for a set period of time, remaining undetected for years, before being activated to collect data on the user’s calls, chats and Internet activity. And this isn’t limited to phones; the spyware can also be used to spy on people through smart devices, like speakers or fridges that can connect to the Internet, greatly infringing upon privacy rights.

Before the State Trojan law was passed, only the federal Criminal Office had the power to employ this method of espionage. Now this power is in the hands of the state itself.

The new law also grants permission for the bnd to use this spyware against foreigners. Both the Criminal Office and bnd have expressed a desire to “cooperate more effectively against ‘transnational’ threats, such as terrorism and organized crime.”

Airlines in Germany are bound to collect and retain the contact details of their passengers, means of booking, payment, and even seat choice, for up to five years. Although presented as an EU requirement, critics have said that this law goes well beyond what is required by Brussels.

Other laws passed in 2017 regulate increased video surveillance of public areas and more detailed research into the background of migrants, both of which came in the aftermath of the 2016 Christmas market terrorist attacks.

Last month, Senators Jeff Merkley (D-OR) and John Kennedy (R-LA) sent a joint letter to Delta, Southwest, Frontier, United, Spirit, American, JetBlue, and Alaska, noting their concern about a possible "serious breach of privacy."

While Americans have an expectation that they are monitored in airports as a necessary security measure, the notion that in-flight cameras may monitor passengers while they sleep, eat, or have private conversations is troubling. Further, in light of data breaches that have impacted many major airlines, we have misgivings that cameras or sensors may not employ the necessary security measures to prevent them from being targeted by cybercriminals

For these reasons, we respectfully request that the following information be provided regarding the cameras on in-flight entertainment systems:

1- Does your airline currently use, or has ever used, cameras or sensors to monitor passengers;

2- If yes, what purpose do the cameras serve and in what circumstances may the cameras be activated;

3- If you have or currently do utilize cameras or sensors to monitor passengers, please provide details on how passengers are informed of this practice;

4- Please provide comprehensive data on the number of cameras and sensors used by your fleet, and the type of information that is collected or recorded, how it is stored, and who within your airline is responsible for the review and safekeeping of this information;

5- Further to the above, please confirm what security measures you have in place to prevent data breaches of this information, or hacking of the cameras themselves; and

6- Are the cameras used in any biometric identity capacity, and if so, under what authority?

We look forward to learning more about these practices and request a response within 30 days.

How to Turn Off Third-Party Data Access to Your Facebook Account

Is Facebook evil by design? (source)

by Gaius Publius

Note: To jump straight to the steps, click here.

Facebook has come under scrutiny lately for its role in passively giving data on 50 million of its users to Cambridge Analytica, a company that uses Facebook-type data to target and change electoral outcomes worldwide. (There's more on the Cambridge Analytica story here and here. Note that Carole Cadwalladr is a co-author of both stories. Her reporting is one of the centers for information about this revelation.)

Cambridge Analytica got that Facebook data, not because Facebook gave it to them, but because Facebook's policy on info-sharing allowed them to harvest it. Here's how that was done (h/t Naked Capitalism; emphasis mine):

On March 17, The Observer of London and The New York Times announced that Cambridge Analytica, the London-based political and corporate consulting group, had harvested private data from the Facebook profiles of more than 50 million users without their consent. The data was collected through a Facebook-based quiz app called thisisyourdigitallife, created by Aleksandr Kogan, a University of Cambridge psychologist who had requested and gained access to information from 270,000 Facebook members after they had agreed to use the app to undergo a personality test, for which they were paid through Kogan’s company, Global Science Research.

But as Christopher Wylie, a twenty-eight-year-old Canadian coder and data scientist and a former employee of Cambridge Analytica, stated in a video interview, the app could also collect all kinds of personal data from users, such as the content that they consulted, the information that they liked, and even the messages that they posted.

In addition, the app provided access to information on the profiles of the friends of each of those users who agreed to take the test, which enabled the collection of data from more than 50 million.

All this data was then shared by Kogan with Cambridge Analytica, which was working with Donald Trump’s election team and which allegedly used this data to target US voters with personalised political messages during the presidential campaign. As Wylie, told The Observer, “we built models to exploit what we knew about them and target their inner demons.”

Forget the Trump factor and consider simply the Cambridge Analytica app and how it operated.

People who agreed and were paid to use it gave up more information to the app than was disclosed to them. Part of what they unknowingly surrendered was information from the profiles of all of their Facebook friends. That's how harvesting the data from 270,000 people became a hack, via the app, of data on 50 million, who gave no approval for this transfer.

Note also that the means by which the original data was acquired was a ruse. The company's interest in its "personality test" — thisisyourdigitallife — was false. All they wanted was the data it extracted.

"Exactly How Facebook's Infrastructure Was Designed to Work"

This is not an aberration; this is how Facebook is designed to work and the source of the great wealth of its founders and investors. These Facebook apps (the games you play, the "tests" you take, and so on) are designed specifically as data transfers, to Facebook itself and to its customers.

When you play a game on Facebook or take part in a "quiz" to see which Roman emperor you most resemble (or whatever), you may think you're taking part in the "fun" of being on Facebook. In reality, you're being used by the app makers, and Facebook is making money selling you and your data to them.

The Electronic Freedom Foundation (EFF) puts it this way (again, my emphasis):

Over the weekend, it became clear that Cambridge Analytica, a data analytics company, got access to more than 50 million Facebook users' data in 2014. The data was overwhelmingly collected, shared, and stored without user consent. The scale of this violation of user privacy reflects how Facebook's terms of service and API [Application Programming Interface] were structured at the time. Make no mistake: this was not a data breach. This was exactly how Facebook's infrastructure was designed to work.

The only way to fix this situation for yourself is to turn off the ability of Facebook's "platform API" to send out your data. That means to anyone. You also have to disable your ability to log into third-party sites using your Facebook account. That so-called "convenience" opens big holes.

Getting Between Zuckerberg and His Money

Below are the latest instructions for doing just that. But before we go there, pause to consider what Facebook is — a company that collects masses of data from billions of users, uses algorithms to analyze that data to get more information about its users, then (a) sells that data to third parties for any use they wish, generally manipulative ones; (b) sells access to its users and their data to third parties via games, apps and other means; and (c) uses that data for its own manipulative purposes if it so wishes.

This is where the money is, this is what Facebook was designed to do, and stopping or regulating it means using the government to get between Facebook's investors and a honking huge pile of money. In these neoliberal times, that's going to be a monster ask.

How To Turn Off Third-Party App Access to Your Data

Now the fix for your own account. You could, of course, just delete your Facebook account, but until Facebook is regulated, they're going to keep the data you've already given them anyway. #DeleteFacebook is a good personal solution to the problem going forward, but it's understandably not for everyone.

For those who choose not to do delete their Facebook account, here's how, as of this writing, to eliminate access to your Facebook data by third-party apps. This comes from the EFF article linked above, but has been modified to reflect changes Facebook has already made since the controversy (what a mild term) erupted.

As the EFF piece warns, "Keep in mind that this disables ALL platform apps (like Farmville, Twitter, or Instagram) and you will not be able to log into sites using your Facebook login."

Step 1. Click the pull-down arrow in the upper right corner of your Facebook page and select Settings. Then click Apps in the column on the left. (Or click here for a shortcut that takes you to the same place.)

Step 2. Remove your Facebook login from all apps currently using it by looking in the large blue box labeled "Logged in with Facebook," clicking on the check box below each app name, then clicking Remove.

Explanation: The first large box below "App Settings" is labeled "Logged in with Facebook". Listed are games, organizations and apps where your Facebook login is already your app login.

My suggestion, don't ever use your Facebook login as a third-party login. Instead create a login that's specific to that organization or app and tie nothing to your Facebook account.

When a game or other web-based app asks you to create an account or "sign in with Facebook or Twitter," you're handing over access to your account data if you choose the easier Facebook (or Twitter) option — just as those who took money from Cambridge Analytica did. Yes, you can limit this access to just certain types of data, but (a) most people don't do that, and (b) who knows if app or the organization behind it is doing just what Cambridge Analytica did?

Step 3. Now remove this permission generally. Under "Apps, Websites and Games" see if the setting is "turned on" or "turned off." If it's turned off, you're done.

If it's turned on, click the Edit button, then click Turn Off. You're done.

Explanation: As Facebook reminds you, if you turn off this setting:

• You won't be able to log into apps or websites using Facebook
• Apps and websites you've logged into with Facebook may delete your accounts and activity
• You won't be able to play some games on Facebook [Gameroom], and [some of] your gaming activity may be deleted
• Your posts, photos and videos on Facebook that apps and websites have published may be deleted
• You won't be able to interact with or share content from other apps and websites on Facebook using social plugins such as the Share and Like buttons

You may miss the use of Share and Like buttons on websites, but that's the price. As of this writing, they don't separate the permissions associated with Share and Like buttons from Facebook's Gameroom and third-party login permissions. You can always go to Facebook itself and Share or Like a web post.

Final Words

Just as the "business model of Wall Street is fraud" (Bernie Sanders), the business model of Facebook is "surveillance." As I said above, the reason third parties offer Facebook games, apps and login options is to harvest, monetize and use the data of people with Facebook accounts.

And the reason Facebook exists at all is to monetize the motherlode of data on its billions of users — or use that data in any other way they wish. Could Facebook itself swing elections? I think they think they can. Have they already tried? Who knows.

Facebook and its ilk are a problem, and as near as I can tell an entirely modern one. This situation does need a solution, but it may never get one until the modern neoliberal regime is overturned.

GP
 

Spies Like Us: A Conversation With John le Carré and Ben MacIntyre

-by Valley Girl

I lived in England for 10 years, a good while back-- 1975- 1986. I was in Cambridge as an academic. And, I lived with a Welshman, a Cambridge don. He was the first person ever from his small town in Wales, Merthyr Tydfil to be accepted to the University of Cambridge. Many Americans I knew, but not in my department, managed to live in Cambridge within the American bubble. Mostly those Americans were a ways up the road at the MRC, Cambridge. We (my Welshman and I) met once a week with some of them for dinner at the Curry Queen for many years. Two of them went on to become Nobel Prize winners-- both worked in Sidney Brenner’s lab at the MRC. One was a kind man, totally dedicated to his science, and not much interested in politics. The other was and still is a total jerk.

I did not live within the American bubble. As the sole American in my department, I was regularly assailed by all and sundry to account for all of the horrible deeds perpetrated by the US of A. Since forever. Tea time and coffee time, every day in the departmental common room were especially tough. Never mind that I mostly agreed with them. And, this was lovely-- I met my Welshman’s one time thesis supervisor the first day I arrived in Cambridge. I walked into the lab of my post-doc supervisor and this man was there. They were discussing the recent suicide of the department chairman. My post-doc supervisor introduced me to his conversant. These were his first words, after he looked me up and down: “Well, with a name like yours, I was expecting a Black Jew.”

My private sanity while living in Cambridge was reading detective and thriller and espionage novels. It’s what I’ve always done to keep sane. I’m sure I put the scare into my interviewer for the private college in California I ended up attending. He asked me what books I had been reading lately. I said- oh I read a lot of Perry Mason books by Erle Stanley Gardner.

And, back to Cambridge. I read John le Carré and Graham Green, and so many others. And, of course, I got to know about Cambridge University and the recruitment of spies like Kim Philby. And, I got to know a lot about the public school system in the UK. I knew one victim of the Brit public school system personally, who remains a dear friend, and was a conversational victim of many who carried their public school ways as a badge of honor. One of their main games was to see how far they could go in insulting me without my twigging to it. Oh, I absolutely knew what they were about.

This above paragraph provides my own knowledge related to the interview I will highlight later.

So, for the moment, fast forward. I regularly read Emptywheel. She’s had several posts discussing the “Steele Dossier.” (Google that.) Oh, and the whole of the dossier is here. In one of Emptywheel’s most recent posts certain names of interest to me are mentioned--  Michael Cohen, Felix Sater-- and also the Trump Tower in Russia deal.

Reading through the EW comments, I read this comment “LeCarre and Ben MacIntyre more or less made the same general observations about the Trump-Russia affair and the factual contents of the Steele Dossier in an interview in the NYT Book Review week before last.”

So, on to the NYT Book Review. The whole of it is fascinating, and prompted a lot of the personal recollections I began with. Do please read the whole thing. And, note that John le Carré, as David Cornwell, was MI6. Steele apparently was MI6. (Note that somewhere in the part not quoted it says he was MI5. Obviously a typo.) But this is the most relevant to Trump and such:

S.L. (author of article and interviewer) Is there something about the British psyche that makes spying, or at least duplicity, an enticing prospect?

B.M. (Ben Macintyre) We Brits are particularly susceptible to the double life, aren’t we? Is it because we are a sort of theatrical, and sort of unfaithful, culture?

J.L.C. (John le Carré) I think it’s because hypocrisy is the national sport. For our class in my era, public school was a deliberately brutalizing process that separated you from your parents, and your parents were parties to that. They integrated you with imperial ambitions and then let you loose into the world with a sense of elitism-- but with your heart frozen.

B.M.  There is no deceiver more effective than a public-school-educated Brit. He could be standing next to you in the bus queue, having a Force 12 nervous breakdown, and you’d never be any the wiser.

J.L.C. When you’ve become that frozen child, but you’re an outwardly functioning, charming chap, there is a lot of wasteland inside you that is waiting to be cultivated.

S.L. David, you’ve spoken about your childhood, your outrageously criminal father, how you were sent to boarding school when you were 5, the lies that permeated everything. How did all this come to play when you were recruited by MI5?

J.L.C. The truth, in my childhood, didn’t really exist. That is to say, we shared the lies. To run the household with no money required a lot of serious lying to the local garage man, the local butcher, the local everybody. And then there was the extra element of class. All my grandparents and all my aunts and uncles were entirely working class-- laborers, builders, that sort of thing. One of them worked up telegraph poles. And so out of that to invent, as my father did, this socially adept, well-spoken, charming chap-- that was an operation of great complicity. And I had to lie about my parental situation while I was at boarding school. I only mention these things because they’re the extremes of what can warp an Englishman.

B.M. What you’ve just described-- is it the root of your fiction? Your ability to think yourself into someone else?



J.L.C. Absolutely. I mean childhood, at my age, is no excuse for anything. But it is a fact that my childhood was aberrant and peculiar and nomadic and absolutely unpredictable. So if I was in boarding school, I didn’t know where I would be spending the holidays. If my father said he was going to come and take me out, it was as likely as not that he wouldn’t show up. I would say to the other boys, I had a wonderful day out, when I had really been sitting in a field somewhere.

The mixture of solitude and uncertainty fertilized the situation enormously. To which you must add the amazing cast of crooked characters who passed through my father’s life. Inevitably I was making up stories to myself, retreating into myself. And then there was the genetic inheritance I got from my father. This was a man who, while still being pursued by the police, or bankrupt, or Christ knows what, who had done prison time, then boldly stands as a parliamentary candidate. He had a huge capacity for invention. He had absolutely no relationship to the truth. He would come talk to me in the morning and I would challenge him, and in the evening he would say, “That’s not what I said to you.”

S.L. Do you see parallels with President Trump’s view of the truth?

J.L.C. Exactly that. He is the most recent model. Before that it was Robert Maxwell. The parallels are extraordinary. My sister, too, we absolutely recognize the same syndrome. There is not a grain of truth there.

S.L. Do you think the Russians really have something on Trump?

B.M. I can tell you what the veterans of the S.I.S. [the British Secret Intelligence Service, or MI6] think, which is yes, kompromat was done on him. Of course, kompromat is done on everyone. So they end up, the theory goes, with this compromising bit of material and then they begin to release parts of it. They set up an ex-MI6 guy, Chris Steele, who is a patsy, effectively, and they feed him some stuff that’s true, and some stuff that isn’t true, and some stuff that is demonstrably wrong. Which means that Trump can then stand up and deny it, while knowing that the essence of it is true. And then he has a stone in his shoe for the rest of his administration.

It’s important to remember that Putin is a K.G.B.-trained officer, and he thinks in the traditional K.G.B. way.

J.L.C. The mentality that is operating in Russia now is absolutely, as far as Putin is concerned, no different to the mentality that drove the most exotic conspiracies during the Cold War. It worked then, it works now. As far as Trump, I would suspect they have it, because they’ve denied it. If they have it and they’ve set Trump up, they’d say, “Oh no, we haven’t got anything.” But to Trump they’re saying, “Aren’t we being kind to you?”

B.M. And today you get this wonderful Russian lawyer woman [Natalia Veselnitskaya, who was in the pre-election meeting at Trump Tower with Donald Trump Jr.] who is straight out of one of our books, a character that is possibly connected to the Russian state. Who knows? They exist somewhere in that foggy, deniable hinterland. It’s called maskirovka-- little masquerade-- where you create so much confusion and uncertainty and mystery that no one knows what the truth is.

J.L.C. For Putin, it’s a kind of little piece of background music to keep things going. The smoking gun might or might not be the documents exchanged about the Trump Tower in Moscow [which Trump is said to have been planning to build]. Then there’s the really seedy stuff in the Caucasus. There are bits of scandal which, if added up, might suggest he went to Russia for money. And that would then fit in with the fact that he isn’t half as, a tenth as rich as he pretends to be.

As for the le Carré comment “Then there’s the really seedy stuff in the Caucasus,” read here at DWT.

Over and out, VG.

Trump, Flynn, Putin, The Golden Showers-- Why Members of Congress Are Demanding Trump Fire Flynn

Friday, two progressive Democrats who served in the military and are especially concerned about National Security issues, Ted Lieu (D-CA) and Ruben Gallego (D-AZ), demanded Trump fire his scandal-plagued National Security Advisor, Michael Flynn. They pointed out in a joint statement that "Flynn sought to undermine the foreign policy of a sitting American President.  And then he lied-- repeatedly and egregiously-- about his actions. Donald Trump should fire Michael Flynn immediately. Flynn communicated with high-ranking Russian officials both before and after a presidential election that, according to our intelligence community, Russia actively worked to influence on behalf of Donald Trump.  When President Obama imposed sanctions on Russia in response to its unprecedented efforts to disrupt our democracy, Flynn made a series of phone calls to the Russian Ambassador, Sergey Kislyak, offering assurances that the incoming administration would lift these measures after Trump was sworn-in. General Flynn then compounded this outrageous misconduct by lying on multiple occasions about the nature of his conversations with Kislyak, claiming that sanctions had never been discussed. Not only did Flynn mislead Congress and the American people, he also apparently deceived Vice President Mike Pence, who made false statements on Flynn’s behalf in an interview with Face the Nation."

The two congressmen concluded by pointing out that "at a minimum, Flynn recklessly violated the sacred principle that America only has one president at a time. But a compelling case can also be made that Flynn violated federal law by collaborating with foreign officials while still a private citizen. The American people deserve competence-- not corruption-- from the leaders entrusted with our national security. They deserve to be told the truth by the men and women who advise the President. And they deserve a full accounting of how and when President Trump’s advisors colluded with a foreign power that sought to alter the outcome of an American election. For all of these reasons, President Trump should fire General Flynn."

OK, fair enough-- and Lieu and Gallego didn't even get into the sordid details which should all come out in investigations and, hopefully a trial. According to a report in the NY Times Thursday, "current and former American officials said that conversation [between Flynn and Putin's man Kislyak]-- which took place the day before the Obama administration imposed sanctions on Russia over accusations that it used cyberattacks to help sway the election in Mr. Trump’s favor-- ranged far beyond the logistics of a post-inauguration phone call. And they said it was only one in a series of contacts between the two men that began before the election..." Flynn is feigning memory loss in regard to what is clearly treason.

Pence's lie on Face The Nation was when he said Flynn and Kislyak "did not discuss anything having to do with the United States’ decision to expel diplomats or impose censure against Russia." But that's exactly what intelligence agency tapes of the conversation-- how dumb is Flynn not to comprehend that all Kislyak conversations are routinely monitored?-- show was talked about. At the very least, Flynn was violating the Logan Act-- and Pence was covering up for him.

Federal officials who have read the transcript of the call were surprised by Mr. Flynn’s comments, since he would have known that American eavesdroppers closely monitor such calls. They were even more surprised that Mr. Trump’s team publicly denied that the topics of conversation included sanctions.

The call is the latest example of how Mr. Trump’s advisers have come under scrutiny from American counterintelligence officials. The F.B.I. is also investigating Mr. Trump’s former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort; Carter Page, a businessman and former foreign policy adviser to the campaign; and Roger Stone, a longtime Republican operative.

Prosecutions in these types of cases are rare, and the law is murky, particularly around people involved in presidential transitions. The officials who had read the transcripts acknowledged that while the conversation warranted investigation, it was unlikely, by itself, to lead to charges against a sitting national security adviser.

But, at the very least, openly engaging in policy discussions with a foreign government during a presidential transition is a remarkable breach of protocol. The norm has been for the president-elect’s team to respect the sitting president, and to limit discussions with foreign governments to pleasantries. Any policy discussions, even with allies, would ordinarily be kept as vague as possible.

“It’s largely shunned, period. But one cannot rule it out with an ally like the U.K.,” said Derek Chollet, who was part of the Obama transition in 2008 and then served in senior roles at the State Department, White House and Pentagon.

“But it’s way out of bounds when the said country is an adversary, and one that has been judged to have meddled in the election,” he added. “It’s just hard to imagine anyone having a substantive discussion with an adversary, particularly if it’s about trying to be reassuring.”

Senators Chris Murphy (D-CT) and Ed Markey (D-MA) put out a similar statement to the one Lieu and Gallego put out: "There is no good way to explain today’s report that Michael Flynn was coordinating sanctions relief for Russia before his boss was inaugurated. Either Donald Trump directed his National Security Adviser to undermine U.S. foreign policy on Russia, or Michael Flynn went rogue and did it on his own. Then he either lied to the Vice President or the Vice President went on television to lie to the American people. Whatever transpired, the President needs to get his White House under control."



As if that weren't bad enough, late yesterday, Jake Tapper reported on CNN, although CNN was careful to point out that there is still no definitive proof that Trump was hiring Russian prostitutes to piss on him, the part of the story that gave the dossier the nickname, the "Golden Showers Dossier." Essentially what CNN is reporting is that intelligence agency intercepts "confirm that some of the conversations described in the dossier took place between the same individuals on the same days and from the same locations as detailed in the dossier." But there are still no publicly available tapes of the hookers pissing on Trump, who claims he's germaphobic and therefore would never allow a Russian hooker or multiple Russian hookers-- virtually all of whom are HIV positive-- to pee on him. CNN reported that "The corroboration, based on intercepted communications, has given US intelligence and law enforcement 'greater confidence' in the credibility of some aspects of the dossier as they continue to actively investigate its contents, these sources say," but everyone is staying mum on how many hookers pissed on Trump and if they pissed on him one at a time or they all pissed on him together at the same time. There are also some people who like being pissed on in the mouth and Trump might-- or, to be fair-- might not be one of those.

Sean Spicer is now writing lines for Melissa McCarthy to use on SNL. When CNN reached out to the regime for comments on the corroborated parts of the dossier he snarled "We continue to be disgusted by CNN's fake news reporting." Spicer later said CNN is reporting this as part of a conspiracy to get peoples' attention off some meeting Trump had with Japan's notoriously fascist prime minister Friday.

No one at the FBI, Department of Justice, CIA or Office of the Director of National Intelligence would comment on CNN's report or on if Americans will ever get to see the tapes of Trump being urinated on by Russian prostitutes in a notoriously bugged suite in the Ritz Carlton in Moscow two blocks from the Kremlin, where even novice travelers know that only officially-sanctioned FSB (formerly the KGB) prostitutes are allowed to ply their trade.

Currently Putin is busy arresting and in at least one case, murdering, everyone who was involved in the sordid episode. CNN reported that they were told by US intelligence officials that "some of the individuals involved in the intercepted communications were known to the US intelligence community as 'heavily involved' in collecting information damaging to Hillary Clinton and helpful to Donald Trump." They claim they don't know if Putin has the tapes of the hookers pissing on Trump and no one knows if the tapes are clear enough to make out definitively and whether or not you can hear what Trump is saying while the prostitutes are urinating on him. FBI and CIA agents refer to Trump's golden showers episode as "the more salacious things" in the dossier. There are rumors that Larry Flynt of Hustler-- not to be confused with Michael Flynn, a hustler-- is trying to buy the tapes from Putin.

Russian Government Hackers Penetrated DNC Network

Why the Russians take an interest in U.S. political candidates. Do the Russians have a horse in the current race?

by Gaius Publius

Before I present the news part of the story, note the following:

• These are competing government-associated hackers. One hacker is associated with military intelligence. The other is associated with what was the KGB. These are competing organizations within the Russian government orbit.

• One hack was in place since last summer. The other was initiated in April. The second could have eventually involved massive data downloads, since the target was the DNC's oppo research.

• The ability of the Russian government to hack their enemies is excellent.

• The article says the Russians "perceive" us as enemies. No, we are enemies, based on our own actions and rhetoric.

• Finally, what does this tell you about Clinton's unprofessionally managed homebrew server? The question hangs in the air. We looked at one law applying to national secrets here. Clearly, the requisite "gross negligence" is present; all that's missing is evidence of a hack. Could that be coming?

Now the story, via the Washington Post and Ellen Nakashima (my emphasis throughout):

Russian government hackers penetrated DNC, stole opposition research on Trump

Russian government hackers penetrated the computer network of the Democratic National Committee and gained access to the entire database of opposition research on GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump, according to committee officials and security experts who responded to the breach.

The intruders so thoroughly compromised the DNC’s system that they also were able to read all email and chat traffic, said DNC officials and the security experts.

The intrusion into the DNC was one of several targeting American political organizations. The networks of presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump were also targeted by Russian spies, as were the computers of some GOP political action committees, U.S. officials said. But details on those cases were not available.

A Russian Embassy spokesman said he had no knowledge of such intrusions.

Some of the hackers had access to the DNC network for about a year, but all were expelled over the past weekend in a major computer cleanup campaign, the committee officials and experts said.

About the skill of the hackers:

The depth of the penetration reflects the skill and determination of the United States’ top cyber adversary as Russia goes after strategic targets, from the White House and State Department to political campaign organizations....

The firm identified two separate hacker groups, both working for the Russian government, that had infiltrated the network, said Dmitri Alperovitch, CrowdStrike co-founder and chief technology officer. The firm had analyzed other breaches by both groups over the last two years.

One group, which CrowdStrike had dubbed Cozy Bear, had gained access last summer and was monitoring the DNC’s email and chat communications, Alperovitch said.

The other, which the firm had named Fancy Bear, broke into the network in late April and targeted the opposition research files. It was this breach that set off the alarm. The hackers stole two files, Henry said. And they had access to the computers of the entire research staff — an average of about several dozen on any given day.

Who are "Cozy Bear" and "Fancy Bear"?

The two groups did not appear to be working together, Alperovitch said. Fancy Bear is believed to work for the GRU, or Russia’s military intelligence service, he said. CrowdStrike is less sure of whom Cozy Bear works for but thinks it might be the Federal Security Service or FSB, the country’s powerful security agency, which was once headed by Putin.

The lack of coordination is not unusual, he said. “There’s an amazing adversarial relationship” among the Russian intelligence agencies, Alperovitch said. “We have seen them steal assets from one another, refuse to collaborate. They’re all vying for power, to sell Putin on how good they are.”

The two crews have “superb operational tradecraft,” he said.

And now for the most disingenuous (propagandistic) part of the article — about the Russian attitude to the U.S.:

“We’re perceived as an adversary of Russia,” [Shawn Henry, president of CrowdStrike] said. “Their job when they wake up every day is to gather intelligence against the policies, practices and strategies of the U.S. government. There are a variety of ways. [Hacking] is one of the more valuable because it gives you a treasure trove of information.” ...

Russia has always been a formidable foe in cyberspace, but in the last two years “there’s been a thousand-fold increase in its espionage campaign against the West,” said Alperovitch, who is also a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council. “They feel under siege.”

Western sanctions, imposed after Russia’s annexation of Crimea in Ukraine, have hurt the economy and led the government to increase its theft of intellectual property to limit the impact of import restrictions, he said. And Russia’s growing isolation has increased the need for intelligence to understand and influence political decisions in other countries, he added.

Notice especially the first sentence — "We're perceived as an adversary of Russia." Perceived? Consider the constant "Putin is the devil" propaganda in the U.S. press and from public officials. Then look at the map at the top. We're not just perceived as an adversary of Russia. We are an adversary of Russia, and we act like it. Why would they not treat us as they do?

Why Is This Being Revealed at All? And Why Now?

Finally, what's the effect of this story appearing now? And why now? There are few clues in the story. To find out why this story is appearing, consider these snippets:

Russian government hackers penetrated the computer network of the Democratic National Committee ... according to committee officials and security experts who responded to the breach. ...

The networks of presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump were also targeted by Russian spies, as were the computers of some GOP political action committees, U.S. officials said. ...

Some of the hackers had access to the DNC network for about a year, but all were expelled over the past weekend in a major computer cleanup campaign, the committee officials and experts said. ...

DNC leaders were tipped to the hack in late April. ...

CrowdStrike is continuing the forensic investigation, DNC lawyer Sussmann said. “But at this time, it appears that no financial information or sensitive employee, donor or voter information was accessed by the Russian attackers,” he said. ...

To reconstruct: The hack was discovered in April. Other political candidates' networks were also targeted. The cleanup was finished "last weekend" (June 11-12). All is now well, according to one of the few DNC officials cited, Michael Sussmann, a "DNC lawyer who is a partner with Perkins Coie in Washington."

So how did this story get released? Unnamed DNC "committee officials and security experts" and unnamed "U.S. officials" are cited above, which leads to the CrowdStrike official commenting officially and to Sussman, DNC lawyer, commenting. But what's the source for this story? Why wasn't it just buried?

The fact it wasn't buried suggests this isn't a friendly leak, one of those "let's pretend we're leaking in order to get our official messages out" leaks. This leak is (a) embarrassing to the DNC, and (b) supports the theory that the Clinton home-brew server was also hacked. It seems likely that someone not named in the story clued the Post (if they were first to receive it), and the Post went digging. I just don't see the DNC volunteering this information.

As to why it was published now, the timing seems unfortunate, especially in light of a spate of these kind of stories, which have started appearing recently. First, from oilprice.com, a pro-industry website, but one which is also solid analytically:

Russia Is Reportedly Set To Release Clinton's Intercepted Emails

Reliable intelligence sources in the West have indicated that warnings had been received that the Russian Government could in the near future release the text of email messages intercepted from U.S. Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s private e-mail server from the time she was U.S. Secretary of State. The release would, the messaging indicated, prove that Secretary Clinton had, in fact, laid open U.S. secrets to foreign interception by putting highly-classified Government reports onto a private server in violation of U.S. law, and that, as suspected, the server had been targeted and hacked by foreign intelligence services.

The reports indicated that the decision as to whether to reveal the intercepts would be made by Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin, and it was possible that the release would, if made, be through a third party, such as Wikileaks.

This has been picked up in mainly right-wing venues, so perhaps it's questionable information, though "Reliable intelligence sources in the West have indicated that warnings had been received" could well be true. Note, however, no attribution as to who sent or who received the warnings.

Note also the mention of Wikileaks. Hot on these heels we also find this story, from Wikileaks head Julian Assange himself, via USuncut. Assange speaks on an ITV interview program.

In a recent interview with ITV, Assange said the whistleblowing website will soon be leaking documents that will provide “enough evidence” for the Department of Justice to indict the presumptive Democratic nominee. ...

Assange hinted that the emails slated for publication contain additional information about the Clinton Foundation. ...

The ITV video, trimmed to just the Clinton comment, is below.

If the video fails to play, you can access it here (start at 4:02).

Not sure what to make of all this. The "DNC got hacked" news is certainly news, and worrisome. The timing is unfortunate. Will another shoe drop? The situation is certainly suggestive.

Last note. I can't imagine living in a country where Trump is president. I don't think I'm in any position to do anything but watch, however. My own preference for nominee (there's still time) is Bernie Sanders. But if Clinton is the nominee, we can only hope the castle the Party is building doesn't crumble around her. Because it sure seems there's a storm coming.

(Just the messenger, and a reluctant one, speaking.)

GP
 

Someone Should Find Something Useful For Trey Gowdy To Investigate

Today, while Trey Gawdy's absurd and failing witch-hunt was playing out on TV-- all eleven gruesome hours of it-- Alan Grayson sent out a message to his supporters that says, in part

"I’m on the House Foreign Affairs Committee. I’ve read every classified document regarding Benghazi. Take it from me: Hillary Clinton did nothing wrong. This is the 'scandal' that never was. So it must be utterly mortifying to her to see the Republicans wasting taxpayer money to conduct this political vendetta against her.

"But there are some people who do deserve a heaping helping of blame. Like the three Democrats in the House today (among 188 of us) who voted for the Benghazi Committee show trial. Trey Gowdy referred to them in his opening statement today, pointing out that they had voted for his anti-Hillary witch-hunt.

"One of those three is my Senate Democratic primary in Florida, Patrick Murphy.

"He ignored warnings at the time, from everyone from Nancy Pelosi on down. He voted with the Republicans to authorize this evil farce. Because that’s what he really is: a Republican.

"And listen to Patrick Murphy’s incredible post hoc rationalization: He was sure that the Benghazi Committee-- run by a former GOP prosecutor-- would exonerate Hillary Clinton."

I don't think anyone who watched the televised hearings can possibly think anyone could be either so stupid or so naive as to think Try Gowdy had any intention of "exonerating" Hillary Clinton. The fact the Murphy-- along with the two other corrupt Blue Dogs who voted to authorize the witch hunt (Kyrsten Sinema and Collin Peterson)-- consistently voted with the Republicans and are always there so that right-wingers like Gowdy can  say, "but it was bipartisan," says a lot more about Murphy's motivations than his claims about vindication and exoneration.

If Congress needs a serious topic to investigate, rather than Gowdy's disgraceful partisan show trial, they should look into how the NSA skirts U.S. law-- the ones that prohibit U.S. intelligence agencies from spying on American citizens-- by paying the British-- the U.K.'s Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), their version of "our" NSA-- to do it. This is from Michael Gurnow's book, The Edward Snowden Affair: Exposing the Politics and Media Behind the NSA Scandal:

The day Snowden was granted asylum, The Guardian celebrated with another exclusive: "NSA pays £100m in secret funding for GCHQ." It proudly proclaims “Secret payments revealed in leaks by Edward Snowden.” The article answers the question left from the June 21 Tempora report of which intelligence agency calls the shots.

Largely because Britain’s comparatively lax surveillance laws are a "selling point," the U.S. government started financially supporting many of GCHQ’s intelligence stations and programs after GCHQ suffered substantial domestic budget cuts. One such British spy project hopes to ultimately "exploit any phone, anywhere, any time." Having poured over 100 million pounds into contracted British intelligence services from 2010-2013, the NSA is allowed to prioritize surveillance affairs at some of Britain’s spy stations. Half the cost of GCHQ’s Cyprus station is paid by U.S. taxpayers. But Washington is not always happy with what it gets for its citizens’ money. Internal, classified documents comment, "GCHQ must pull its weight and be seen to pull its weight" because the U.S. government had "raised a number of issues with regards to meeting NSA’s minimum expectations." This is perhaps because 60 percent of Britain’s filtered data still comes from American intelligence. It is obvious a portion of the nine-figure paycheck, revealed in GCHQ’s "investment portfolios," was for foreign surveillance of U.S. citizens and subsequent data-swapping services. One classified review brags of how GCHQ made "unique contributions" to the NSA investigation of the American citizen behind the failed 2010 Times Square car bomb attack. The plot by Faizal Shahzad was foiled by a T-shirt vendor who noticed that a suspiciously parked car happened to be smoking.

A companion article titled,"GCHQ: inside the top secret world of Britain’s biggest spy agency," appeared the same day. Its focus is largely on the daily life within GCHQ, its history, but also its plans. The report admits, "Of all the highly classified documents about GCHQ revealed by the whistleblower Edward Snowden, this has to be one of the least sensitive." The exposé discusses the nuances of working inside the world’s largest surveillance facility whose annual budget is one billion pounds. (The NSA’s yearly allotment is 17 times greater.) Employees have bake sales, annual in-house sporting events, team vacations and chat using an internal networking site sardonically named "SpySpace," a titular mockup of Facebook’s predecessor, MySpace.

But the article moves to more substantial matters by grabbing the loose thread of cellular phone surveillance that its bookend report left dangling. The British intelligence agency seeks to "[collect] voice and SMS and geo-locating phone" data and "intelligence from all the extra functionality that iPhones and BlackBerrys offer." A classified document recognizes the technological climate and sets the agenda: "Google Apps already has over 30 million users. This is good news. It allows us to exploit the mobile advantage." As with telecommunications providers’ government compliance, on February 8, 2011, it was noted that "Legal assurances [by cell phone manufacturers were] now believed to be good."

In its conclusion-- a review of GCHQ’s contribution to American intelligence-- the report states that the British intelligence agency "had given the NSA 36% of all the raw information the British had intercepted from computers the agency was monitoring. A confidential document declares new technological advances permit the British to "interchange 100% of GCHQ End Point Projects with NSA." Also on August 1, NGB expanded on British communication providers’ roles in government surveillance. It was another joint feature with Süddeutsche Zeitung, which would release "Snowden revealed names of spying telecom companies" the next day.

Together the news sources report that not two but seven major domestic telecoms, alongside their respective code names, provided GCHQ with access to their fiber-optic cables in 2010: Verizon Business ("Dacron"), British Telecommunications ("Remedy"), Vodafone Cable ("Gerontic"), Global Crossing ("Pinnage"), Level 3 ("Little"), Viatel ("Vitreous") and Interoute ("Streetcar"). The British spy agency used Tempora to hack the various data backbones across Europe. GCHQ has 102 "points of presence" over Europe, 15 of which are in Germany.

The British communication companies’ involvement with GCHQ is of particular interest to Germany, because Level 3 owns data centers in Berlin, Hamburg, Dusseldorf, Frankfurt and Munich. Global Crossing and Interoute are also major German communication distributors. For readers familiar with the American surveillance story, Viatel’s response was predictable as well as somewhat laughable: "We do not cooperate with the GCHQ or grant access to our infrastructure or customer data." The company representative continues, "Like all telecommunications providers in Europe, we are obliged to comply with European and national laws including those regarding privacy and data retention. From time to time, we receive inquiries from authorities, [which are] checked by our legal and security departments, and if they are legal, [they] will be processed accordingly." The reports also reveal that the Five Eyes, whose acronym is revealed as "FVEY," operate a "ring of satellite monitoring systems around the globe." The group project is code-named "Echelon."

How about if Sherlock Gowdy turn his investigative talents in that direction instead? And, please, take your little Florida pal, Patrick Murphy, along for the ride. As for keeping Murphy out of the U.S. Senate and sending him back to work with Daddy Murphy and Trump... you can do that right here on the Alan Grayson for Senate contribution page.

Is Microsoft Integrating Windows 10–Style "Spyware" Into Windows 7 & 8?

Edward Snowden's infamous PRISM slide, showing Microsoft's collusion with the NSA starting in 2007.

by Gaius Publius

I mean that headline as a real question. Is Microsoft actually integrating Windows 10–style "spyware" into Windows 7 & 8? We've been looking (here and here) at the issue of whether Windows 10, the new Microsoft operating system ("OS" in tech-speak) is designed as spyware. I've personally concluded that it is, based on a number of reports, such as those detailed at the links above, and based on the giant holes written into their Privacy and License agreements.

After all, it looks like Microsoft is giving themselves the right to inspect your machine, all of its files, all of its peripheral hardware, watch both what you do and how you do it, and share any of what it finds about you and your data with "partners," whatever that means. Also, as quoted in the second of the articles linked above (my emphasis):

Section 7b – or “Updates to the Services or Software, and Changes to These Terms” – of Microsoft’s Services EULA stipulates that it “may automatically check your version of the software and download software update or configuration changes, including those that prevent you from accessing the Services, playing counterfeit games, or using unauthorised hardware peripheral devices.”

Does this mean it can install updates to itself to disable "unauthorized" hardware and software? In my opinion, the fact that it seems that way is concerning enough. How this gets interpreted and implemented by Microsoft, is ... well, all up to Microsoft.

The counter-argument to the Yes answer is that the Privacy agreement language is vague enough to be interpreted narrowly, and therefore less intrusively. The counter-counter-argument is, Why is the language so vague if they don't intend to take advantage of it?

As a result, I'm on the side of "I don't trust them because I don't know that I can." After all, there's that Edward Snowden PRISM slide (above), just in case you need a reminder of which side of the bread Microsoft's butter is on. (Hint: Their own. But feel free to click the links at the top and decide for yourself.)

Are Windows 7 and 8 Being "Updated" to Include Privacy Intrusion Capabilities?

As I said, this is a question that needs answering. There are just way too many reports like this one (emphasis theirs):

New Windows 7 / 8 / 8.1 updates spy on you just like Windows 10

Microsoft is pushing KB3075249 and KB3080149 updates for Windows 7 / 8 / 8.1 users which can spy on you

Windows 10 has been launched and already installed by more than 50 million users worldwide. It is now a known fact that Windows 10 user data is being reported back to Microsoft servers back in Redmond. The jury is still out whether this a good or bad practice but many of Windows 10 Apps like Cortana depend on getting your preferences correct to serve you better.

This being the case, many Windows users who are not happy with Windows 10 spying ways and have preferred to stay on with Windows 7/Windows 8 and Window 8.1 as the case might be. For these Windows 7/8/8.1 users there are a few updates which Microsoft has been pushing through last few days.

Namely, KB3075249 and KB3080149, if installed are known to report your data back to Microsoft servers.

KB3075249 update adds telemetry points to consent.exe in Windows 8.1 and Windows 7. The Microsoft support page gives following description for them :

KB3075249 “Update that adds telemetry points to consent.exe in Windows 8.1 and Windows 7 ” http://support.microsoft.com/kb/3075249

KB3080149 “This update aligns down-level devices on the same UTC binary that’s released in Windows 10. This update would enable all the down-level devices to receive the software updates, design updates, and additional power and performance tuning.” http://support.microsoft.com/kb/3080149

In simple words, both these updates, if downloaded and installed will snoop on you and report back certain data to the Microsoft servers. ...

Here's another, similar report:

The updates in question are KB3075249 and KB3080149. if installed, these updates are known to report your data back to Microsoft servers, without user interaction. KB3075249 Microsoft Update adds telemetry points to ‘consent.exe’ in Windows 7, 8 and 8.1, allowing for remote monitoring of everything that happens within the operating system. KB3080149 ensures that all “down-level devices” receive the same updates and treatment as Windows 10 boxes get.

Several words of caution:

    ▪ So far, these reports come from tech user forums, and are elevated from there to small tech-savvy (and very privacy-concerned) "geek" sites like the above. This does not guarantee their accuracy, nor their inaccuracy.

    ▪ But the number of reports is concerning. A simple web search on "KB3075249 KB3080149 spyware" produces quite a number of hits.

    ▪ Are these all echoes of a single source? It's possible. At this point, the users most concerned are the ones with most to fear — gamers with perhaps pirated software (and hacked hardware?); torrent users and sites; and, frankly, right-wing fear merchants and audiences, who are sometimes too eager to be afraid. One scary report may go through these communities like fire.

But the information in the reports above is pretty specific, and should therefore be subject to independent (i.e., not Microsoft-friendly) analysis. Does update KB3075249 add “telemetry points to consent.exe in Windows 8.1 and Windows 7"? If so, does it allow "remote monitoring of everything that happens within the operating system"? One would think those are answerable questions.

Even "Reasonable" Tech Sites Are Concerned

For an example of "reasonable" (non-fearful) tech analysis of Windows 10, consider this from ArsTechnica, which offers an even-handed exploration of Windows 10's "phone home" behavior:

Windows 10 uses the Internet a lot to support many of its features. The operating system also sports numerous knobs to twiddle that are supposed to disable most of these features and the potentially privacy-compromising connections that go with them.

Unfortunately for privacy advocates, these controls don't appear to be sufficient to completely prevent the operating system from going online and communicating with Microsoft's servers.

For example, even with Cortana and searching the Web from the Start menu disabled, opening Start and typing will send a request to www.bing.com to request a file called threshold.appcache which appears to contain some Cortana information, even though Cortana is disabled. The request for this file appears to contain a random machine ID that persists across reboots.

Some of the traffic is obviously harmless. [...]

Some of the traffic looks harmless but feels like it shouldn't be happening. [...]

Other traffic looks a little more troublesome. [...] 

Details of the deleted portions can be read at the link. The piece closes the list with this (my emphasis):

And finally, some traffic seems quite impenetrable. We configured our test virtual machine to use an HTTP and HTTPS proxy (both as a user-level proxy and a system-wide proxy) so that we could more easily monitor its traffic, but Windows 10 seems to make requests to a content delivery network that bypass the proxy.

The rest of the piece details attempts to get explanations from Microsoft. It ends this way (my emphasis):

We've argued recently that operating systems will continue to make privacy-functionality trade-offs. For many users, perhaps even the majority, these trade-offs will be worthwhile; services such as Cortana (Siri, Google Now), cloud syncing of files, passwords, and settings, and many other modern operating system features are all valuable, and many will feel that the loss of privacy is an acceptable price to pay. But the flip side of this is that disabling these services for those who don't want to use them should really disable them. And it's not at all clear that Windows 10 is doing that right now.

Again, perfectly reasonable. Would ArsTechnica or a similar site examine the Windows 7 and 8 updates listed above? I think too close an exploration of Microsoft might run counter to the financial interests of, frankly, an industry powerhouse, an 800-pound gorilla with a lot of money at stake in its just-released Windows 10. As a result, it may take awhile before this examination takes place. Stay tuned though, just in case it does.

This Brave New Tech-Friendly World

We've already entered the brave new world of what ArsTechnica calls "privacy-functionality trade-offs." Unlike voluntary use of "the cloud," Windows 10 (and 7 and 8?) now make these trade-offs at the level of the operating system, and not voluntarily, unless you volunteer not to use it at all.

How should we respond to that? What seems to be needed is:

(1) Solid exploration of the anti-privacy capabilities, not just of Windows 10, but Windows 7 and 8, as well as the next versions of Apple's iOS and Google's Android OS, as they follow close behind the Microsoft example;  

(2) Solid legal analysis of the new Microsoft Privacy statement and End User License Agreement (EULA);  

(3) A broader philosophical discussion of what commercial use this data can be put to, and the ethics of that use;  

(4) A broader discussion of the political capabilities and use of this data, since multi-billion-dollar tech companies have political objectives, not just commercial ones; and finally

(5) An examination of the role of the Pentagon's NSA in all this; by which I mean, to what degree does the NSA encourage, allow, and/or benefit from this level of high-volume user-profiling and data collection?

Until these examinations occur, we will have questions without answers — and frankly, given that we're talking about the data-hungry and money-mad tech industry, we'd be naïve not keep those questions front and center until they're answered successfully.

Side note: I'm starting to explore a switch to a Linux OS, likely Linux Mint. Linux is mature, easy to use, open source, and I'm told, can do almost everything users need done, with programs users already know, such as Firefox. More on this as it transpires; I may make these explorations public and let readers "look over my shoulder."

GP