Why I avoid Social Media like the Plague!!

Or why you don't put anything online you don't want someone to know. Doesn't take much to protect yourself. The bank stuff must have had poor security or low strength passwords.

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To breach your bank your bank's site has to be compromised or you reply to one of those fake emails they send out. Or you have absolutely no security.

An iPod mini is smaller than an iPod classic. So more mobile and that is about it. The classic has greater storage, still the only mp3 on the market i find big enough for my music library.

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even this is social media though.......

But I get the point the OP is making, avoid FB YT MS etc, etc....

Social media has its uses. YT is where most of us get our prepping instructables.

I think as with everything, will need to exercise caution but to avoid it totally ? erm...

(Was going to create a new thread but this fitted in here after looking at the list of 'targeted' areas).

Domestic Surveillance National Data Warehouse


nsa.gov1.info/data/





Your Data: If You Have Nothing to Hide, You Have Nothing to Fear


Our value is founded on a unique and deep understanding of risks, vulnerabilities, mitigations, and threats. Domestic Surveillance plays a vital role in our national security by using advanced data mining systems to "connect the dots" to identify suspicious patterns.


Why We Collect Your Data

In the past, domestic law enforcement agencies collected data AFTER a suspect had been identified. This often resulted in lost intelligence and missed opportunities. But what if data could be collected in advance, BEFORE the target was known? What if the mere act of collecting data could result in the identification of new targets?

What if we could build a national data warehouse containing information about every person in the United States? Thanks to secret interpretations of the PATRIOT ACT, top-secret Fourth Amendment exceptions allowed by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, and broad cooperation at the local, state, and federal level, we can!

NSA Utah Data Center - Data warehouse diagram



What Data We Collect

Every day, people leave a digital trail of electronic breadcrumbs as they go about their daily routine. They go to work using electronic fare cards; drive through intersections with traffic cameras; walk down the street past security cameras; surf the internet; pay for purchases with credit/debit cards; text or call their friends; and on and on.
There is no way to predict in advance which crucial piece of data will be the key to revealing a potential plot. The standard operating procedure for the Domestic Surveillance Directorate is to "collect all available information from all available sources all the time, every time, always".
In the spirit of openness and transparency, here is a partial list of current and planned future data collection targets:

•internet searches (ie; here's a collection of searches by Federal Government workers)
•websites visited
•emails sent and received
•social media activity (Facebook, Twitter, etc)
•blogging activity including posts read, written, and commented on - View our patent
•videos watched and/or uploaded online
•photos viewed and/or uploaded online
•mobile phone GPS-location data
•mobile phone apps downloaded
•phone call records - View our patent
•text messages sent and received
•Skype video calls
•online purchases and auction transactions
•credit card/ debit card transactions
•financial information
•legal documents
•travel documents
•health records
•cable television shows watched and recorded
•commuter toll records
•electronic bus and subway passes / Smartpasses
•facial recognition data from surveillance cameras
•educational records
•arrest records
•driver license information




How Your Location Data Helps Us Secure Your Community and The Nation






How We Collect Your Data
For information on how we collect your data, visit our Surveillance Techniques page on this website. For information about our new state-of-the-art Surveillance Data Center, visit our Utah Data Center information page.

us constitution and flag



How We Use Your Data
We treasure the U.S. Constitution and the rights it secures for all the people. In a world in which privacy has become illusory in so many areas of our lives, the Domestic Surveillance Directorate maintains the highest standards of integrity and lawful action. Your private data is safely secured using our custom database software called Cloudbase, which has fine-grained security to control access down to the cell level.


Threat Matrix Processing

Incoming transactional data is analyzed against a continually evolving threat matrix and is assigned an action code. The vast majority of these transactions are routed directly to a permanent static storage state. In fact, for most Americans, your data is never accessed or viewed by anyone within the US Government unless some future event triggers an inquiry. We work closely with our partners in the Intelligence Community to ensure that your stored data is released only as a result of a "national security" request.



Continuity of Government

Our strong commitment to keeping the Nation safe includes an important role in maintaining the Continuity of Government. Since the early 1980s, the federal government has used its secret Main Core database to track dissidents and watchlisted Americans in the event of a national emergency. The roots of the Domestic Surveillance Directorate can, in fact, be traced back to the early days of this program. We are proud to continue this tradition by sharing our data with the modern-day COG program. Learn more about this.


IARPA banner -Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity




Future Uses of Domestic Intelligence Data
In 2006, the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA) was created to invest in high-risk, high-payoff classified programs uniquely designed to provide research and technical capabilities for the Intelligence Community. IARPA-funded researchers are currently studying novel ways of processing and analyzing the explosive growth of domestic data. •The Aladdin program seeks to extract intelligence information from the high volume of videos uploaded to the internet.
•The Babel program is developing agile and robust speech recognition technology that can provide effective search capability for analysts to efficiently process massive amounts of real-world recorded speech.
•The Knowledge Discovery and Dissemination (KDD) program will develop advanced analytic algorithms that can effectively draw inferences across multiple databases to allow the Intelligence Community to create virtual fusion centers enabling analysts to produce actionable intelligence.
• The Socio-cultural Content in Language (SCIL) Program will develop novel algorithms, techniques and technologies to uncover the social actions and characteristics of members of a group (ie; within discussion forums, online comment sections, social media, etc.) by examining the language used in relation to acceptable social and cultural norms.
•The Reynard Program starts from the premise that "real world" characteristics are reflected in "virtual world" behavior. The program seeks to identify behavioral indicators in online virtual worlds and "massively multiplayer online games" that are related to the real world characteristics of the users. Attributes of interest include gender, age, economic status, educational level, occupation, ideology or "world view", and physical geographic location.




The Facts About Our Surveillance Activities
In recent months, numerous Top Secret documents have been leaked to the media relating to surveillance activities carried out by the Intelligence Community. In an effort to increase transparency, a new website called "IC OFF THE RECORD" has been created to provide immediate, ongoing and direct access to these unauthorized leaks.

Intelligence Community (IC) transparency website
Visit the IC OFF THE RECORD website

I think it highlights a huge infringement and excessive probing into our private lives - I was never happy about the increasing amount of data collected on every day people who basically are law abiding - to me this type of invasive probing into our lives is totally wrong.

Do we/Are we allowed any privacy at all now? Are we truly masters of our own destinies any more?

With gov'ts jumping into collecting personal private data on each of us I do become concerned as to where it's heading - what is their ultimate agenda??

(I have other similar posts along these lines that are equally worrying to me - perhaps George Orwell was merely 30 years short of his predictions in his novel 1984.

(Are we becoming drones here only top serve the greater good of the hive?)

(To me those couple of lines that are in bold indicate they are collecting 'other' images predominantly outside the US - that's what it says to me anyway.).
....................................................

NSA Chief Denies (Intentionally) Spying on Americans' Faces


By Brendan Sasso National Journal June 3, 2014


The National Security Agency collects and analyzes images of people's faces as part of its vast surveillance operation, the agency's director confirmed Tuesday.

But Adm. Mike Rogers insisted that the NSA doesn't intentionally target facial images of Americans.

"We use facial recognition as a tool to help us understand these foreign intelligence targets," Rogers said during an event hosted by Bloomberg.

He said the program does not spy on a "unilateral basis against U.S. citizens." But he acknowledged that some Americans' images are inevitably swept up in the collection.

"Clearly, in the digital age, we will encounter U.S. persons in the wilderness, if you will," he said.

He argued that the program complies with strict legal limitations, including on the collection of data on Americans.

"In broad terms, we have to stop what we're doing if we come to the realization that somebody we're monitoring or tracking has a U.S. connection that we were unaware of," he said.

The New York Times, citing documents provided by Edward Snowden, first reported that the NSA harvests millions of facial images.

According to the documents, NSA leaders believe they must expand their surveillance beyond text and audio.

"It's not just the traditional communications we're after: It's taking a full-arsenal approach that digitally exploits the clues a target leaves behind in their regular activities on the net to compile biographic and biometric information," the agency wrote in one of the documents, The Times reported.

Rogers said the NSA does not have access to any vast databases of Americans' facial images, specifically denying that the agency collects pictures from state DMV offices.

During the event, Rogers called Snowden "arrogant," but said the NSA leaker is "probably" not working on behalf of a foreign nation, such as Russia.

It’s Complicated: Facebook’s History of Tracking You

Facebook is launching an aggressive technique to track people across the Web.


by Julia Angwin
ProPublica, June 17, 2014, 12:26 p.m.


For years people have noticed a funny thing about Facebook's ubiquitous Like button. It has been sending data to Facebook tracking the sites you visit. Each time details of the tracking were revealed, Facebook promised that it wasn't using the data for any commercial purposes.




No longer. Last week, Facebook announced it will start using its Like button and similar tools to track people across the Internet for advertising purposes.
Here is the long history of the revelations and Facebook's denials:

Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg introduces the "transformative" Like button…
April 21, 2010 – Facebook introduces the "Like" button in 2010 at its F8 developer conference. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg declares that it will be "the most transformative thing we've ever done for the Web."
He says his goal is to encourage a Web where all products and services use people's real identity. He suggests, in fact, that creating a personally identifiable web experience could be divine: "When you go to heaven, all of your friends are all there and everything is just the way you want it to be," he says. "Together, lets build a world that is that good."


Mark Zuckerberg announces the "Like" button at the annual f8 Conference on Apr. 21, 2010.


Which sends data…
Nov. 30, 2010 – Dutch researcher Arnold Roosendaalpublishes a paper showing that Facebook Like buttons transmit data about users even when the user doesn't click on the button. Facebook later says that Roosendaal found a "bug."

even when users don't click on it…

May 18, 2011 - The Wall Street Journal reports that Facebook Like buttons and other widgets collect data about users even when they don't click them. Facebook's chief technology officer says, "we don't use them for tracking and they're not intended for tracking."

Internet pioneer says log of out Facebook…
Sept. 24, 2011 – Veteran tech blogger Dave Winer writes that " Facebook is scaring me" with its apps like the social reader, which can automatically share stories you read. This "kind of behavior deserves a bad name, like phishing, or spam, or cyber-stalking," he writes. Winer recommends that users log out of Facebook to prevent being tracked on other websites.

Except logging out doesn't work…
Sept. 25, 2011 – Australian blogger Nik Cubrilovic writes that " Logging Out of Facebook is Not Enough." He shows that Facebook is tracking users even when they log out of the site. Facebook responds that it is fixing the issue so people won't be tracked when they are logged out of Facebook.

Facebook says not to worry...
Sept. 27, 2011 – Facebook tells the New York Times that it doesn't use data from Like buttons and other widgets to track users or target advertising to them, and that it deletes or anonymizes the data within 90 days.

Turns out Facebook has patented the technique…
Oct. 1, 2011 – Blogger Michael Arrington digs up a Facebook patent application for "a method … for tracking information about the activities of users of a social networking system while on another domain." The title of his blog post: " Brutal Dishonesty."

But, really, don't worry…
Dec. 7, 2012 – As the Wall Street Journal finds that Facebook Like buttons and other widgets appear on two-thirds of 900 websites surveyed, the company says again it only uses data from unclicked Like buttons for security purposes and to fix bugs in its software.

OK, worry…
June 12, 2014 – Facebook tells Ad Age that it will start tracking users across the Internet using its widgets such as the Like button.
It's a bold move. Twitter and Pinterest, which track people with their Tweet and PinIt buttons, offer users the ability to opt out. And Google has pledged it will not combine data from its ad-tracking network DoubleClick with personally identifiable data without user's opt-in consent. Facebook does not offer an opt-out in its privacy settings.
Instead Facebook asks members to visit an ad industry page, where they can opt out from targeted advertising from Facebook and other companies. The company also says it will let people view and adjust the types of ads they see.
We contacted Facebook to ask them about their tracking habits. They didn't respond.
Read our recent story about how online tracking is getting creepier, and a piece from our archives rounding up the best reporting on Facebook and your privacy.