xkeyscore

The Ecuadorian Library — Geek Empire — Medium
SF author Bruce Sterling on Assange, Manning and Snowden, and the surveillance geeks at the NSA: "Citizens and rights have nothing to do with elite, covert technologies! The targets of surveillance are oblivious dorks, they’re not even newbies! Even US Senators are decorative objects for the NSA. An American Senator knows as much about PRISM and XKeyScore as a troll-doll on the dashboard knows about internal combustion." Via Mefi
(tags: politics bradley-manning nsa russia spying bruce-sterling xkeyscore julian-assange edward-snowden wikileaks internet prism)
What they mean when the government says “We do not have ‘direct’ access to your info” | Fabius Maximus
They mean "we’re sniffing the traffic, we don’t have root on Google’s servers", alleges Marcus Ranum.
(tags: nsa google spying sniffer marcus-ranum privacy security prism)
Gigantic Pentagram Found in Kazakhstan – Can Be Seen in Google Maps – The Vigilant Citizen – The Vigilant Citizen
Paging Charles Stross…
(tags: kazakhstan maps occult laundry pentagram)
Oversight: Thank you for volunteering, citizen. – YouTube
What David Cameron did next.
(tags: parody surveillance privacy funny oversight internet prism satire)

UFOs, Ghosts and a Rising God
Chris Hallquist’s debunking of the stories of the resurrection of Jesus is now online. It’s a good read. It’s mostly a response to popular apologetics on the subject (Habermas, Craig, McDowell and so on) and an argument that the evidence is worse than that for more modern paranormal events which we justly reject (the ghosts and UFOs of the title).
(tags: history william-lane-craig christianity jesus resurrection apologetics scepticism ufo paranormal chris-hallquist)
Do try not to get your penis stuck in a toaster. A message from the fire brigade | Dave Brown | Comment is free | theguardian.com
"Our #FiftyShadesofRed campaign is designed to remind people we should be attending fires, not tambourines on heads or yet another handcuff incident."
(tags: fire-brigade bdsm sex funny)
Edward Snowden’s not the story. The fate of the internet is | Technology | The Observer
"The fact is that Google, Facebook, Yahoo, Amazon, Apple and Microsoft are all integral components of the US cyber-surveillance system. Nothing, but nothing, that is stored in their "cloud" services can be guaranteed to be safe from surveillance or from illicit downloading by employees of the consultancies employed by the NSA. That means that if you’re thinking of outsourcing your troublesome IT operations to, say, Google or Microsoft, then think again."
(tags: nsa google xkeyscore cloud edward-snowden security internet china)