Is the gov watching this site?

Don Armstrong, and likely others, can elaborate more on this but pretty well every time you send out anything on the Internet it includes the identification of your specific personal computer (cookies). You can use a thousand different screen names, but it will still be traceable back to your PC.

I'm with the group about not being concerned if they do watch. They just need to be prepared for a great deal of boredom.

Ken S. in WC TN

How many people do you think work for the Gov't or have enough ambition to monitor this crap?
You must think backround checks for guns work too.

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"Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper or your self confidence"
Robert Frost

Well,I don't know about you, but I would sure feel warm & fuzzy & justified after spending years & who knows how many $$$, to finally be told it had all been unconstitutional, when it never should have happened to begin with!!!

OMG!!! Holy S**T!!! I put my name in.. and item #23 came up about an ebook... (a way to make money I once purchased, then before finding out the TOPIC.. -unknown until THIS VERY MOMENT.... had cancelled..

BUT .. they have my name on the purchase list....

It's for selling a P*nis Enlargement Ebook!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :no: :waa:

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"TIMSHEL"
Spoiler ALERT: For those of you who've never read Steinbeck's "East of Eden".... timshel means "thou mayest".

I think it was the police officer that writes for Backwoods Home magazine who told about testifyng as a gun expert in some sort of court case, and the other attorneys tried to make him seem like survivalist nut because he writes for that magazine!

Just wait until folks realize that the same factors that enable touch screen controls can also be used to produce limited resolution video signals. Newer generation monitors will be equipped with video pickups just like they added microphones to them in 98

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"I didn't have time to slay the dragon. It's on my To Do list!"

As long as I wear my tinfoil helmet I'm safe.

Life is like that sometimes. Ask Rosa Parks.

My computer room is inside a Faraday Cage.

Remember, unless the shiny side is out, it won't work.

We are, as a group, an enterprising sort of folk. Has anyone figured out a way to take over some of the screen-watching and tape-listening work and contract out to the government? If 275 million Americans are going to have their every move watched, seems like a potential home business if it can be done over cable modem or DSL.

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes,

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Mark in West Central Ohio

It sounds like you and Snoozy are talking about two different things here. Rosa Parks filed a lawsuit against the government & if she had lost,the worst that would have happened would have been that she would have had to keep sitting at the back of the bus.
Snoozy is talking about people that are charged with major crimes,with very little evidence, or sometimes held without being charged at all, & in some cases not even allowed to have a lawyer.

Cosmoline on da Kalishnakov babe
Up under da hood of da Belarus

MOLON LABE! tee-hee

Regards from Western E. TX.

mc

There is absolutely no security on a public forum (this) over a public medium (the internet). Any moderator can see the IP (Internet Protocol) address from which a post on their forum is made. The administrators not only can do that, but would be required to do it on prooduction of a warrant. From there, it's about a minute's worth of work to find out the ISP (Internet Service Provider) who holds that IP number. Another warrant and the ISP would cough up the user who held that IP number at a particular time and date. Trivial, easy. No security.

So just don't plan anything illegal, immoral or fattening over the internet. The sheer volume of traffic makes it unlikely you'd be caught on a random sweep; but almost certain that SOMEONE would be caught on a random sweep. If it wasn't random (like they were already watching you) then the big bad boogeymen could up their odds to almost 100%. They MAY be able to up their odds anyway - computers are a labour-saving device for churning through large volumes of digital data and processing it automatically, and that's what used to be talked about a lot a while ago - doing it, and automically homing in on "items of interest". Say an electronic communication (this one for instance) mentioned "ammonium nitrate" and "fuel oil" and "diesel" and "bomb" and "kill the president" and "backup sniper" and "BMG" and "cell phone" and "detonator" then in theory it would be possible for computers monitoring internet communication to make sure that the item of interest flashed up before an interested party.

Same would apply if it was "cocaine" or "marijuana" or "heroin" (or any of the many synonyms) and "Gulf of Mexico" and "Coast Guard" and "speedboat" and "dropoff" and "buoy" and "pickup". Whatever hot words they wanted to tell the system to watch for, with it bumping the communication up the list if there were more than one of them in the message.

All this was being talked about as likely a few years ago, then it all went quiet. Does this mean they couldn't do it? SURE it does. Wanta buy a bridge?

I honestly don't know what they're doing and what they've done. What I know is it's possible, if not years ago then tomorrow. I also know they can record things. Encryption is a good thing, in my view, but they can break encryption too. If it's on the internet then they can access it AND RECORD IT. Encryption that was unbreakable five years ago is kid's stuff today.

So - no security. If you need to keep secrets, don't put them on the internet. Me - I try hard not to keep secrets. I'm not clever enough to keep a tissue of lies straight in my head, and I'd trip myself. If I'm going to scheme I'm going to keep the number of conspirators strictly limited - maybe to just one.

If I was going to use the internet for conspiracy I'd use it like a one-time pad. Separate keys on encoded messages, agreed in advance, no pattern and no prediction, send to and read from anonymous email addresses (Yahoo, etc) from internet cafes or libraries in large cities. Always know that they can decode any message, given enough time, and that if they find something after the statute of limitations runs out they'll either extend the limit or just hit you for conspiracy.

Now, this forum is pretty harmless. They're probably watching something like the squirrel with the bell clappers a lot more closely. Well, were. Those key words I listed above may raise our visibility a bit. But as others have said, they are just going to get snowed under by sheer volume and sheer boredom. And if the TSA or the FBI or the BATF are any example, US federal operations are generally not something to be impressed by. Frightened, yes: impressed, no. Almost as bad as Australian operations, although more powerful and more powerfully shielded.

Nothing is likely, anything is possible.

Have a nice day now.

And just hope Weight Watchers doesn't come bust down your door.

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ô¿ô Don Armstrong,Terra Australis

Grandad, tell us a story about the olden days, when you were young and men could walk on the moon.

Well, this site can have a "Members Only" fourm, or a "freinds" forum whereas a "quick google" won't find your post.

How many employees do you all think that the Govnt has to monitor this stuff? I know that they have super-computers & programs that check for certain words & phrases, but they cannot possibly monitor everything that is said on the NET. I'm pretty sure that THIS site would be pretty low on their list of priorites. Of Course, you must consider that everything that you write on the Net is Public.

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Freedom isn't Free

That's why I suggest we get in early on outsourcing some of the monitoring. Most all of us have phone books; that can be our starter database. Point a camera down the road and pick up a scanner that receives 900 MHz cordless phones, and you have your own complete monitoring station.

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Mark in West Central Ohio

I know someone who used to post at another site, not related to homesteading. She was set up by a sting operation and she took the bait out of greed. Has paid dearly for it .... I have also been the target of some requests for illegal activity but have no desire to pursue any avenue that is not only legal but also ethical by my own two eyes. Of course the government is watching this site, especially the Freedom board, I would imagine. I don't mind it one bit.

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Tiny Forest ~ my tiny blog