Glenn E. says:

I remember better than Adam, how the “internet” started. It was guys connecting their own 16 bit computers over phone lines, to relay something like email and newsgroups posts. And beating the cost of long distance service. But linking to computers still within each other’s regular unlimited service. You paid someone to logon to their system, and send and receive your mail packets, and get updates of selected newsgroups.

Then bigger corporate outfits started getting into this, with Prodigy and CompuServe. Maybe the government put them up to it, to consolidate the access. The problem was, the FBI, CIA, and NSA was finding it difficult to snoop on all this autonomous digital traffic. Much of it being encrypted before leaving each client’s computer. They already knew by increasing the price of postage, people would start using email to communicate. Which is much easier to snoop electronically, than hand written mail.

So they had this idea. Give the world the DARPA net. By declassifying it, for public use. Instead of just allowing access by a small number of colleges and defense corporations. Originally, it was a way of networking think tanks, for faster weapons development. Giving it to the public, completely killed the private and commercial intranets. With the vastly increased bandwidth, and near immediate two way response time. But what wasn’t made known, of course, was that everything that passes thru the new Internet. Also was seen by the government agencies. As long as it’s not encrypted.

But as more users felt the need to use some form of encryption, to protect their email and content. The three letter folk took preemptive steps to get the raw content, before protection. Tapping straight into the ISPs, to negate anonymous routing. And any “privacy” processing your ISP claims to do. At some point, no digital provider (internet or telco) could get an FCC license to operate, unless it agreed to lettng the three letter folk, access to their hardware. Not just when some Judge signs a subpoena to wiretap, but 24/7. And of course, the internet backbones are wired directly into the NSA and Echelon super computers.

None of this is a secret. It just hasn’t been bragged about by the mainstream media. I remember reading that the FBI was asking for access to all the private BBSes, to watch for stolen credit card numbers. Yeah, that old excuse to snoop everyone’s email. Funny how I never heard of anyone being caught. And wouldn’t it be smarter to paper mail the lists? Than use one’s traceable email account? All they might catch would be stupid amateurs.

Glenn E. says:

Found an article about how some college was paid to hack a drone, flying over the US. And it wasn’t GPS jamming. But it WAS DHS paying to try and do it, for a $1,000. What cheap bastards. As if terrorists couldn’t afford anymore than that!

http://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2012/07/02/drone-hackedwith-1000-spoofer/

I bet this doesn’t phase the Pentagon and the unnamed “drone manufacturer” (Raytheon?) from lobbying for drone patrols over the US, one little bit. It’s all about the juicy defense contracts.