QUOTE (Tiggs @ May 7 2008, 06:22 AM)
Remote Desktop...is not an NSA backdoor.
There was a big outcry a few years ago over a registry entry called _NSAKEY. Now - that potentially could have been added to help the NSA create a trusted application - whether it is or not, is a matter of debate.
Personally, I can't see that Microsoft would need anything within the EULA over and above the usual "We will release any personal information collected pertaining to you if required to by law" disclaimer.
Tiggs, you made a really good point about the EULA disclaimer. BTW, I didn't mean to imply that Remote Desktop is a backdoor (for MSFT). I just stressed the text for the benefit of any who doubt that their corporate MIS guys can see and copy their files at the workplace. Regarding the NSA key and NSA, FBI, or CIA access. I figure if NSA went to MSFT in 1988 and said "I'm going to make you an offer you can't refuse!" I suspect MSFT complied. As I said above, the U.S. (and AT&T) had the capability to monitor private landline conversations and it is a matter of public record that FBI violated habeous corpus and rules of evidence to monitor phone calls in the 1970's and 1980's. I cannot bring myself to believe that FBI or Treasury was not monitoring phone lines during the 1940's (especially during the war) or during the 1950's McCarthy Era, or during the 1960's during the height of the hippie flower child drug culture. So given that history of abuse, why would anyone even disbelieve that NSA or FBI and CIA has access to computers that are online? All it takes is a classified Executive Directive or finding, buried in a filing cabinet at Justice - (or better yet, Eyes Only and for immediate destruction.)
BTW, this is the 4th Amendment (which is often violated). In fact, to press a claim that "they" violated your rights, you would (obviously) have to take them to federal court. Not many people want to take "them" to federal court.
QUOTE
Amendment IV
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
Since I was at University studying American and World History, I just assumed that if anyone wanted to know my secrets, they would have no trouble getting any dirt they wanted [it's just a matter of expense and how badly "they" wanted it.] Today it may not be as expensive as it was in 1988.
The U.S. government certainly has the technology to intercept cell conversations, landlines, and to screen internet traffic (as does the U.K, the French, and the Germans). I can't see how anything would restrain the government and other nefarious powers from using technology to access next generation digital tv's [which may or may not be able to sense photons through the light emitting diodes], or our current PC and laptops to spy on us. I am not saying that they look into our bedrooms. I am saying that they "could" look into many of our bedrooms, if they so chose. And their capability to spy increases with the introduction of each new technology.
But overall, my view is that this type of spyware is more to provide information to MNCs (Multinational Corporations) about how better to move the masses, force consumption, and keep the masses in line. I do not think the spyware is (as J. Edgar Hoover used to use his information) to blackmail any one of us by threatening to publicize our fantasies or secrets. [Anybody see the movie
Sneakers? Memorable Quote: There are no secrets anymore... (Personally, I don't think there have ever been secrets in human society.)]
BTW, I am not paranoid. Neither am I afraid. Like I said before, this is just the way it is - it's just a fact of life.
These are some of the things we know about:
QUOTE
Sneak and Peak Warrants Although neither federal statutory law nor Rule 41 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure (which governs federal search warrants) expressly authorized sneak and peek search warrants, and although the notice requirement of Rule 41 (under which officers serving a search warrant are required to deliver to the occupants, or leave on the premises, a copy of the warrant and a receipt for articles seized) seemingly prohibited sneak and peek warrants, in the 1980's “the FBI and the DEA ... embarked upon a widespread series of [court-authorized] covert entries in a variety of criminal investigations,”3 and by the end of 1984 had persuaded federal judges and federal magistrates to issue at least 35 sneak and peek warrants.4 There are five reported federal appellate decisions, three in the Ninth Circuit and two in the Second Circuit, involving the validity of searches undertaken pursuant to various sneak and peek warrants issued in the 1980's...
It is obvious that these restrictions on issuing sneak and peek search warrants border on the meaningless, especially in light of the somber reality that search warrants are issued secretly and ex parte, that they are typically issued on the basis of recurring, generalized, boilerplate allegations, and that the judicial officials who issue them tend to be rubber stamps for law enforcement. Take, for example, the “adverse result” requirement. The statutory definition of adverse result is so all-encompassing that it is difficult to imagine many criminal investigations where at least one form of such a result is not going to be arguably applicable; furthermore, to satisfy the requirement the court need not have reasonable cause to believe that there will be an adverse result, only that there “may” be an adverse result. The second requirement, that the warrant prohibit the seizure of tangible property, is drained of significance by the gigantic exception allowing seizure of such property “where the court finds reasonable necessity for the seizure.” It will be a rare case indeed where such necessity, if alleged, will not be determined to exist by the issuing court; and it may be confidently predicted that, with the passage of time, requests for seizure of tangible evidence will become the rule rather than the exception in connection with sneak and peek warrants. The final requirement, that the warrant provide for the giving of notice within a reasonable period, involves merely a question of the wording of a sneak and peek warrant, and the provision
permitting the court (acting ex parte) to extend the period (one or more times) “for good cause shown,” a standard easily met, makes it likely that such extensions will become routine and pro forma.
You posters on the thread can easily find other evidence of federal invasion of your personal effects and private papers... I'm sure the ACLU has reputable records on Patriot Act and Crime Bill and how FBI and the Executive branch goes about "looking into our living rooms and bedrooms" every day.
if he was watching my house and the going on in privacy.
in next door that have recording devices hidden in their bunny slippers when they come calling to the front door to barrow sugar…
you mean they can see me m********* dirty bast****
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