Back In The Day…
The “National Security Agency” aka NSA apparently made some internal motivational posters, mostly to encourage employees to keep classified secrets to themselves. But now that we have them thanks to a FOIA request, it’s not just creepy but it teaches us a few things about the NSA, and why we need so called “privacy coins” if what we already know is not enough to paint the picture.
Everyone as "The Enemy"
"The natural flow of technology tends to move in the direction of making surveillance easier, and the ability of computers to track us doubles every eighteen months." - Phil Zimmerman
Images like the above NSA poster illustrate that they have basically gone rogue. They have certain logic however, that aims to explain their actions as righteous. Because you use the internet which by nature sends data around the world, the NSA now seems to think it their mission to make sure there aren't jihadis or their messages hiding in your emails or phone records. At least that's the excuse for spying on you. NSA whistleblowers like Ed Snowden say this makes it harder to find terrorists and NSA veteran and whistleblower William Binney once said the goal of the NSA was “total population control”.
At the same time the media and others will argue about the "right to privacy" and how these spying programs might violate it. This is a euphemism outside of say California where the state constitution recognizes a right to privacy. The thing is the Bill of Rights doesn't list a "right to privacy". The courts etc. look at case law and the 4th amendment and say that we can derive from that a "right to privacy". The problem is that this ignores one basic truth: the 4th amendment calls your "right to privacy" the "right of the people to be secure" from unwarranted violations of your "persons, houses, papers, and effects"(papers and effects = your data).
The idea that you can sacrifice privacy for security is a fallacy as privacy is a security measure. You can't be more secure by opening yourself up to attack.
If you don’t believe me, just ask the NSA what they have to hide and see if they say “That’s a matter of national privacy”.
Secrecy = Security
Obviously the threat of having your sensitive records including banking, business and personal details and associations all recorded and/or tracked is a threat to your security. This is where so called “privacy coins” come in. Coins like UltraNote and Monero anonymize transactions but UltraNote goes a step farther with it’s encrypted messaging and file transfers with optional self destruct. Because it’s all decentralized AND encrypted this makes it extremely difficult to spy on you. Such spying threatens not only the NSA’s security, but your own. Without technology like this, you’re open to the threat of tyrannical government learning details they don’t need to know, and then using it to hunt you because you’re “undesirable” like certain groups were in Nazi Germany.
About metadata:
You may also think this spying applies only to "metadata" and that this is harmless. It isn't.
Metadata tells a lot about the groups people are in and associations they make, just like the “Star of David” pictured above, helped the Nazis distinguish Jews from non-Jews. Monitoring who calls who, when, for how long, allows you to learn identify groups very effectively. If you’re a member of a group of any kind, (as we all are) you should be concerned as this means your security is threatened by this surveillance. If a tyrant or individual with access like Ed Snowden wanted to they could attack groups, suppress them or even bait them like fish though they don't know your names. Even as a herd you can be baited like a fish if someone knows what the herd wants.
Ever been had by "click-bait"? Imagine being baited in a very real way, by individuals tracking you to the point they know what you're after and where you'll be at a given time.
UltraNote & Intense/IntenseVPN
UltraNote has the potential to seriously enable people to communicate securely, easily, and quickly, while securing their finances from unwarranted surveillance. For this reason it not only has potential as a monetary investment, but as an investment in a free and secure society. If you’ve got skills and are interested in working toward these goals, I encourage you to pitch in and work with the UltraNote team. If you haven't yet checked it out, I encourage you to go to UltraNote.org for more information.
IntenseCoin And IntenseVPN
Intense(ITNS) has enormous potential as unlike many cryptocurrencies, Intense will be at the core of a VPN service which they’re developing now. For those that aren’t aware, VPNs are used basically as an encrypted proxy between you and the internet. But with ITNS, it will be decentralized and from what I understand you will be able to earn ITNS by acting as a VPN node. This should drive down the cost of securing your internet access as well as increase the value/utility of ITNS. Because it’s decentralized and paid for with an anonymized cryptocurrency ITNS team’s VPN should be exceptionally secure relative to existing solutions. Existing VPNs promise to not keep records but at the end of the day you’re giving your data to a third party and trusting them. IntenseVPN will change that.
I hope you enjoyed reading and feel free to send a cryptocurrency tip to one of my wallet addresses below.
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